Table of Contents
Copyright and Disclaimer
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Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Southern Heat
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About the Author
Acknowledgements
A Hot Western Romance
Amanda Heartley
© 2017 Cheeky Books Ltd
Copyright and Disclaimer
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination and have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Cheeky Books Ltd
Copyright © 2017 Amanda Heartley
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of the trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Contents
Copyright and Disclaimer
Want Free Books?
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Southern Heat
Want Free Books?
Please Leave a Review
More from Amanda!
About the Author
Acknowledgements
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Chapter One
Calvin
Goddammit! Every time I talked with that woman I fought with her. It was like we both came into the office with our dukes up. I tried to be nice on most occasions, but I was simply tired of the drama.
“For twelve years I’ve put up with your bullshit, Calvin,” she fumed.
“In a few minutes you’ll hardly ever see me again,” I reminded her.
“After twelve years?” We’d fought this round before; she desperately wanted to control me.
“I’m out, Nadine, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” I was very proud of myself for staying calm.
“You’ve ruined me!” she exclaimed, always the pouting child.
“Sell your shares too, you hate the oil business, anyway,” I coolly reminded her.
“You are a complete and total asshole!” Her eyes roved the room looking for something else to throw, but I’d packed up most of my breakable stuff and hauled it away already.
We were high school sweethearts, but I’d never let the fact that she was the richest girl in El Paso affect me. She was a gutsy little thing, and that was part of the reason why I fell in love with her. I remembered my eighteen-year-old self being awkward and sweaty when she asked me to dance. She was the most beautiful young woman I’d ever met, but she was spoiled, and I intended to spoil her more. I was a cowboy with a Stetson, dusty cowboy boots, and old school values. I grew up on the land and didn’t know much about dinner parties or idle chatter, but I wanted to carry a princess off into the sunset. Little did I know that she wasn’t the right princess.
Shortly after our wedding, I saw that her boldness was just her being used to getting her own way. She soon lost interest in me and found relationships outside our marriage instead. Stupidly, we never discussed kids until after our wedding. I told her I wanted at least one, but it turned out she never wanted any.
Other differences cropped up during our marriage that pointed us firmly toward divorce and after five years, we ended things. Sadly, when her father, Harmon Flatfield, died, half of his company went to her and the other half to me. He never liked our getting divorced, so he married us to his company instead. She’d remarried twice after we went our separate ways. Even though she’d found other husbands to torture, she still really enjoyed taunting me—and her presence alone could do that. I was sure she showed up to work every day just so she could nag me, and I’d endured the situation for as long as I could.
Then one day, everything changed when I visited my grandfather’s ranch. He’d died the previous year and left me the dilapidated old place. After listening to the long grass rustle in the breeze, the birds chirping in the wind, and breathing in the smell of earth and sky, I decided it was time to live my life differently. I was a rancher at heart. I grew up on the ranch, and I’d abandoned it all for a spoiled girl and the grind of the oil rigs that were destroying the very land I stood on.
I went back to work the next week, negotiated to sell my shares in the company to a competitor—which really pissed off my ex-wife—and I walked out with enough money to comfortably kiss my billionaire playboy lifestyle in the city goodbye, forever.
“You can’t do this
!” she threatened. “You can’t just leave!”
“I can, darlin’… and I am so out of here.” I winked and walked out. “See ya, Nadine.”
I wanted to keep it simple, a clean break.
“Calvin!” she roared. “Fuck you!” I heard trailing behind me.
I was finally free. The sound of her crying filled the empty space between us, and for a moment I felt a bit of remorse—but not enough to turn around and go back.
***
That was a year ago, and I thought I’d have regrets, yet after all that time, I was still as much in love with the land, the sky, and the breeze as I’d ever been. I’d worked to rebuild the ranch, rejuvenated the alfalfa production, put my millions away in savings and tried to forget what money had done to me.
I was a solid man now. Lean from hard work, tanned from the Texas sun, and more focused on making a life that mattered than I’d ever been. Some say life on a ranch can be lonely, but it wasn’t for me. I had people around me all the time though I didn’t need anyone. I had the great purple sky and the wide-open spaces for company. My life was simple, quiet, and complete.
Little did I know, all that space was about to get much smaller as I watched the thirty-foot moving van pull up the dusty trail to Roanoke’s ranch, a mile down the road. I knew Paul Roanoke was moving to Florida with his wife—they were getting older and wanted to be near their children—and there’d been a lot of gossip about who may have bought the old place.
The rumor of an elderly man and his young daughter was the one most often believed and my curiosity had spiked hearing that theory. A single woman about my age moving so close? She could be a dowdy old troll, or a daddy’s girl, though—who knew.
It was more excitement than we usually got around here, and I was fascinated to find out. When I finally saw the new proprietors rumble down the road, I wanted to get a look for myself and as I watched the moving van kick up dust, I figured, I’d know soon enough.
Chapter Two
Lainey
On the long, hot, sunbaked drive from New York to Texas, I wasn’t sure what was driving me crazier—the tedious hours in the car, or the fact that my dad had traded our posh New York City penthouse for a ranch in El Paso, Texas. Who the hell does that? I fumed.
We’d stopped speaking to each other a few miles back. I wasn’t going to be the first one to give, and neither was he. With every mile we drove farther away from New York, it felt like another part of my soul got ripped away. I didn’t want to live on a ranch in Texas and my only saving grace was that I’d planned to attend grad school at NYU in the fall. I only had to endure a summer on the ranch although my dad still tried to convince me to stay and make a life in Texas. I was sure he’d gone bat shit crazy.
I’d already put off grad school for a year while I created an elaborate bucket list for Mom who’d been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer when I was twenty. As soon as I got my BA, I made traveling to the Andes, hiking Mt. Fuji, and eating gelato on every continent with her, a life goal. My mom had a few goals of her own she wanted us to accomplish together, so we did.
I’d been so impressed that we’d ticked every item off her bucket list, that I hadn’t seen the signs, and before I knew it, she was gone. Her dying wish was that Dad and I fill his bucket list together, but there was only one thing on it—buy a ranch in Texas.
Voila, we turned into the driveway of a mammoth-sized farmhouse in the middle of Nowhere, USA. I guess it’s true what they say—everything’s bigger in Texas. I knew I was being a brat for hating it, but it wasn’t on any of my lists anywhere… ever.
“Oh my God,” was all I could choke out.
It was hard for him to hide his astonishment “It’s much bigger than it seemed on the internet,” he ogled.
“What are we going to do with all that space, Dad?” I asked, sounding lost.
“I know this isn’t what you want, sweetheart,” he confessed.
He looked sad and alone. I hadn’t even really thought about Dad. I’d been too busy worrying about my own feelings, and my grief over losing my mother, I hadn’t thought about him losing his wife. He hated Manhattan because it was everything she was. He was a country boy who’d fallen for a beautiful city girl thirty years earlier. The love story was legendary and yet, as I stared into his hazy blue eyes, I saw a man just as lost as I was.
“Who knows… I might fall in love with cows, and dirt, and…” I started to feel nauseous.
“You’re too much like your mother, honey, but I appreciate you trying.” I really loved my dad.
“It’ll be a crazy adventure, that’s for sure. Shall we go see the place?” I asked, hoping to change gears—I didn’t need to cry anymore.
“I can’t believe you bought a house without even flying out here to see it first,” I playfully scolded.
“We Skyped a few times, and they showed me around. It looked perfect.” He seemed to be doubting his own judgment at that moment.
“There isn’t a family of cannibals waiting in the barn with chainsaws is there?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Oh, Lord. I hope not,” Dad said, a bit rattled as he took a set of keys out of a FedEx envelope and fumbled with the ancient lock.
“Watch out for children with glaring white hair and vacant stares,” I teased as he jimmied the wrong key into the hole.
As I terrorized my father, I saw a tractor in the distance and it seemed to be coming toward us, which got me worried. Maybe I’d freaked myself out watching old horror movies, but I was genuinely concerned as the tractor inched closer and closer to our house. I wanted to nudge my dad along, but thankfully he found the right key and the rusty door swung open on creaky hinges.
“Gonna have to oil that,” I heard him mumble.
As soon as we entered, my heart fell a little deeper into my chest. It was massive, and not as dusty or decrepit as I thought it might have been, but it was tacky. Faded checked furniture, gauzy lace curtains, ancient hurricane lights. Kitsch, tack, and every kind of country-o-rama I could think of screamed out at me. Dated, old, backwoods, country—I wanted to throw up. And what was up with all the big stars everywhere, and all the stuff that said ‘TEXAS’ on it?
“Just needs a little paint here and there,” Dad said with relief.
I rolled my eyes. “Dad, it needs a blowtorch. Why did you buy the place furnished?” I was being serious.
“Urban style isn’t really chic in these parts. Good ol’ country folk like things at a slower pace, more simple and timeless,” he said.
“Ma and Pa Kettle. I get it, but isn’t it too much, even for you, Dad?” He looked lost in thought, his eyes scanning the house as he walked toward the staircase. “Three days ago, you had taste,” I muttered under my breath, then I heard a loud rumbling motor approach. “Shit… I mean… shoot, Dad!” I freaked.
He poked his head down from the stairway, cocking it slightly when he heard the loud rumbling come to a halt right at the door.
“Who do you think it is?” I asked, shaking.
“Probably just the neighbors,” he scoffed, heading toward the door.
“Don’t open it!” I screamed, frightening my father more than I should have.
“Oh, really, Lainey,” he said as he answered the robust knock that followed.
When he opened the door, I nearly fell over. Standing before my father at around six and a half feet, and wearing a tall, dusty, cowboy hat was one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever seen. He looked a little weather-worn from being outside in the sun, yet had a face chiseled by the gods. I tried not to drool.
“Howdy,” he said as he tipped his hat.
Really, we’d either fallen into the Twilight Zone or an alternate universe, because no one said “howdy”. Not in real life? Did they?
“I’m Calvin Granger. I run the ranch on the north side of your property. I saw your moving van and wanted to come over for a quick hello.” Oh, my God, he sounded like a gravel-voiced angel with a Texas drawl. I couldn’
t remember a man ever having this kind of visceral effect on me. I was like a giddy little school girl with butterflies in my stomach. All I thought about was envisioning his rough, stubbled face caressing my cheek. Oh my god, and what would that stubble feel like if it grazed across my nether region, I wondered?
“Hi, I’m Hal Campbell, and this is my daughter, Lainey,” my dad responded cordially.
Don’t sound dumb—get your game face on, Lainey.
“I’m Lainey.” I rolled my eyes at myself. Idiot.
“Nice to meet you both,” the dashing Calvin Granger replied. “We’re having a BBQ tonight. It’s going to be a beautiful evening, and I thought you two might want to join us after you’ve had some time to settle in. Most of the folks from around these parts will be there. It would be nice for you to get to know some of the locals.” He seemed to be pitching us a reason to join him, as if he wasn’t the most heavenly person on the planet already.
“We’d be glad to,” my dad chimed in eagerly, almost too quickly—possibly believing he’d found the perfect reason to keep me here.
“Great! Starts around six-thirty. See you then,” Calvin said, tipping his hat again.
Chapter Three
Calvin
I didn’t know what drew me to the Roanoke Ranch that day. I guess I had to meet the new neighbors—my curiosity got the best of me since I’d heard they’d bought the place, sight unseen. An elderly man and his single daughter—the hero in me thought that neither seemed able to run such a large ranch on their own. They were city folk, and city folk were delicate.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find when I knocked on their door, but it definitely wasn’t what I found. Lainey Campbell was absolutely one of the most stunning women I’d ever met. I thought my ex-wife was beautiful—once—but this woman was so well put together, from her perfectly windswept hair to the lavender toenail polish on her tanned feet. Every curve of her body was so sexy. It had been a long time since my wife and I divorced and while I’d had a few women from time to time, but none had gripped me so immediately.
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