Toby swallowed hard and forgot every single thing he’d planned to say to her. He’d practiced it all week and now it was gone. The only thing he could do was speak straight from his heart and hope to hell it made sense. “Lizzy Logan, I love you. I didn’t think you were my type and thank God you weren’t or this day wouldn’t be here. My type wasn’t what I needed to make me happy, and I was drifting in a swirling pool of muddy water. I needed you in my life and although we both fought what our hearts knew long before we did, I’m glad that we are here and that you are going to be my wife for all eternity. I vow to honor, respect, be true to you, and love you, not until my dying day but way past that. And if you die before I do, just sit down on the nearest hay bale and wait. I’ll be along real quick because my heart would break without you in my life.”
“Well, it looks like all I need to do is ask for the rings and bless his marriage.” The preacher removed a white hanky from his pocket and handed it to Allie, who wiped her eyes and passed it off to her mother. Deke snatched it before it made its way back to the preacher.
Ten minutes later, a bright shiny gold band was on Toby’s finger and Lizzy wore the matching one. The marriage license had been witnessed and hugs given. Toby and Lizzy were officially married.
“You have today and tomorrow and I’ll even put the Do Not Disturb sign on your door,” Katy said. “But you will be in church on Sunday morning because the ladies are planning a potluck dinner complete with a wedding cake reception. And all of Toby’s family will be there, just like they were at Blake and Allie’s wedding.”
“Yes, Mama Katy.” Toby grinned.
“I like that title just fine.” She hugged him tightly. “Welcome to our crazy family.”
“Thank you.”
Deke slung open the door. “The honeymoon is going to be short enough. Out everyone.”
When the last vehicle was gone, Toby scooped Lizzy up into his arms and carried her to the master bedroom. He kicked the door shut with his boot and laid her on a brand-new bed that had been delivered that day. A wedding gift from her mother, it was a four-poster made of oak.
“I reckon she knew we’d need something sturdy for a lifetime of hot cowboy nights.” Lizzy laughed.
Toby slowly started to undress her, kissing each inch of bare skin that he uncovered. “And they start right now, Mrs. Dawson.”
“No, darlin’, they started months ago but they’ll go on for the rest of our lives.” She grabbed the top of his shirt and with one fell swoop, undid every pearl snap.
Stranded by the side of the road, Fiona Logan eagerly accepts a ride from the most handsome cowboy she has ever seen. And when they both wind up staying at the same place for the holidays, well, Christmas suddenly gets very cozy…
Please see the next page
for a preview of
Merry Cowboy Christmas,
Coming in Sept. 2017.
Jud Dawson tapped the brakes and slid a few feet before his big black truck came to a stop. The rusted out old bucket of bolts he’d been following on the slick road wasn’t quite so lucky, though. It kept going right through a barbed wire fence. The whole scene played out in the blink of an eye and yet it felt like an eternity for the old truck to come to a complete halt, kissing a big scrub oak tree about fifteen feet from the fence line.
Jud barely scrambled from the cab of his truck to see if the other driver was unhurt when a redheaded woman dressed in tight jeans, boots, and a sweater hopped out of the run-down vehicle, kicked the shit out of her blown-out tire, and tangled both her fists in her hair in anger.
“Are you okay?” he yelled as he ran toward her, phone in hand ready to call 911 if he needed to.
“Hell, no! My truck is a wreck. I’m going to be late to dinner, and I’m so mad I could spit tacks,” she screamed, and shook her fist at the gray skies. “Damn tires only needed to run for another half a mile. Now I’ll have to walk, and I didn’t even bring a decent coat. Since when does Dry Creek get snow in November?”
“I can take you wherever you need to go,” Jud offered.
“No, thank you. It’s not that far and I can walk.” She stopped ranting and shivered. “Do you know where Audrey’s Place is?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am, that is where I was headed. You must be…” He hesitated, trying to remember her name. Faith. Fancy. Something that started with an F or was it a V? If she was headed to Audrey’s, then she had to be the youngest Logan sister, the redheaded one who was married, doing very well, and on her way to giving Midas a run when it came to money. So what the hell was she doing driving a ratty old truck?
“I’m Fiona Logan and thank you. I’ll get my purse. The suitcase and box can wait,” she said.
Evidently she’d decided he wasn’t an ax murderer or a crazy ex-con because she smiled. “Just so you know.” She opened the passenger’s door of the truck and fished around in the glove compartment. “I do carry a weapon and I have a concealed permit and I can take the eyes out of a rattlesnake at twenty yards.”
Damn, but she was cute with that curly red hair, a faint sprinkling of freckles across a pert little nose, and all those curves. “I’m not a rattlesnake, ma’am.” Jud grinned. “And since we’re already here, why don’t we throw your things into the backseat of my truck and take them now? It’ll save a trip back.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” She nodded toward the fence. “Looks like I’ve done some major property damage to the Lucky Penny. My sisters and their husbands own this place. I hope they’re not mad at me for tearing up the fence.”
“Pleased to meet you, Fiona Logan. And your sisters will be so glad you aren’t hurt that they won’t care about a few feet of fence. And I’m Jud Dawson, cousin to your new brothers-in-law, but you already know that. Turns out, I’m staying at Audrey’s. Your mama didn’t want me to live in the travel trailer with winter coming on.” Jud removed an expensive, monogrammed suitcase from the passenger seat. It looked as out of place in that old vehicle as a cowboy at an opera.
“Maybe if I don’t have to ask them to come out here and get my stuff they won’t make me fix the fence,” she answered.
The stories he’d heard did not match up with a truck that looked like it was ready to cross the bridge into that great junkyard in the sky. The suitcase was one of those fancy four-wheeled jobs, but there was no way it would travel across the rough ground, so Jud hefted it up on his broad shoulder.
“What did you pack in this thing? Rocks?” he asked.
“Everything I could. What wouldn’t fit in there is in the box.”
“Lot to bring home for a four-day holiday,” he said.
She ignored his remark with a shrug and a shiver.
He whipped off his Sherpa-lined leather coat and handed it to her. “You’re freezing. Get inside the truck and warm up. This won’t take but a minute.”
The box was only slightly lighter than that monster suitcase. As he was walking away from her vehicle, he heard a hiss and turned back to see steam escaping from under the hood. Either the steel fence post had punctured the radiator or barbed wire had ripped away hoses and belts.
He shoved the box in the backseat beside the suitcase and slammed the door, circled around the front of the truck, and crawled inside. “Looks like you’ve made your last voyage in that thing.” He started the engine and eased down on the gas. Ice and gravel crunched under the truck’s tires as they eased on ahead.
“I was hoping that it would get me all the way home.”
A little shorter than either of her sisters, she was definitely built with curves in all the right places. He started the engine, eased forward on the slippery road, and stole a glance toward her. She sat ramrod straight in the seat in a no-nonsense, take-control posture, but her dark green eyes and the way she kept biting at her lower lip said that Fiona Logan wasn’t real sure of herself that Thanksgiving.
Her obvious insecurity didn’t jibe with the stories he’d been told about the third Logan sister, either. It was shaping
up to be an interesting day.
“So what are you doing out on these roads today?” she asked.
“I was sent on an errand. It appears that giblet gravy cannot be made until there is a can of evaporated milk in the house, and since Thanksgiving dinner can’t be put upon the table unless there is giblet gravy, then someone had to go for milk,” he drawled.
She nodded and looked even more nervous when the old brothel known as Audrey’s Place came into view.
Fiona cut her eyes around at the cowboy. So this was Jud, the cowboy in the Dawson family that everyone said was the lucky one. His blond hair was a little shaggy, hanging down to the collar of his pearl snap shirt in the back. An errant strand or two peeked out from under his black cowboy hat and inched down his forehead toward his dark chocolate brown eyes. His face would make a sculptor swoon with all those perfect planes and contours, and the way his muscles bulged under his shirt when he’d picked up her suitcase and box could turn a holy woman into a hooker.
She was glad that he’d been close by when that damn tire decided to blow out. But sitting with him in the truck, traveling at a snail’s pace? The air in the cab of the black, club-cab truck was way too thin. She inhaled deeply and let it out slowly and was glad it was only half a mile to her home because his coat around her shoulders suddenly made her hotter than blue blazes.
That he didn’t seem to be in a hurry was fine with her. She needed a few minutes to get a grip on her hormones and her racing heart before she arrived. It couldn’t be Jud Dawson with those sexy eyes and dreamy body causing her to sweat in the middle of a damn blizzard. It was the fact that she was back in Dry Creek, starting all over from scratch. But she’d had two choices when the groceries and rent played out at the same time. She could either go home or go homeless, and the former, even though she’d have to eat all of her pride, was better than living in a cardboard box and eating from Dumpsters.
He parked beside another big fancy truck, and she sat there, staring at the house, unable to open the door. She wanted to go into the house and surprise her family, so why couldn’t she make herself open the damn door? Lights shining out through the windows threw rays of yellow onto the snow-covered yard and beckoned her to come on inside where there was comfort and unconditional love. But first, she needed something, anything, to calm her shaky nerves. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap and waited.
“You going to get out or sit here and watch it snow all day?” the cowboy asked.
She frowned, a smartass remark on her lips. But that little voice inside her head reminded her that Jud had helped her out. She swung the truck door open, stepped out into the blowing snow, and grabbed the suitcase from the backseat. It thumped along like a miniature snowplow all the way to the porch where she tugged it up the three steps with both hands. She parked it beside the door and reached for the cold handle, but she could not turn it.
“Go on inside and I’ll bring the suitcase and the box,” Jud said.
Every step took her a foot closer to the porch and he was right behind her, box in hand, with two cans of milk sitting on the top of the cardboard box.
With the driving force of a north wind behind them, the snowflakes felt more like hard sleet pellets when they hit her face, so she walked a little faster—until she reached the porch and opened the storm door.
This was it! She’d made a full circle. Left home to go to college right out of high school. Got a fantastic job with the law firm in Houston when she graduated. Married the son of the firm’s senior partner a year later. He divorced her last year and made sure her name was ruined when it came to getting another job. She’d worked at a coffee shop until a week ago when the whole business closed down. And now she was back home, right where she said she would never, ever return to, not even if she had to stand on a street corner to make a living.
“You’ll freeze if you don’t go inside,” Jud said. “And this milk will have to be thawed before it can be used.”
She looked over her shoulder. His warm smile melted a few snowflakes but didn’t do jack shit when it came to easing her nerves.
“Please open the door…please. This damn box is heavy.” He chuckled.
What was so damn funny? Matter of fact, what could be humorous right now in anyone’s world? There was a freaking blizzard going on in Texas. That should wipe the smile off anyone’s face. She wanted to weep because she’d made it home. She quickly gave thanks that the old bald tires had gotten her that close and there was someone who’d brought her the rest of the way. But there was still enough anger over the way fate had treated her that she’d like to kick a few more tires. She brushed away a single tear and inhaled deeply as raw emotions raced through her body, leaving her with still another case of jitters. Finally, she slung the door open into the foyer.
“Fiona!! Oh. My. God! Allie! Mama! Fiona is home,” Lizzy squealed, and turned into a bright red blur as she ran from the kitchen. Fiona’s eyes barely had time to focus when she was engulfed in a hug that came close to knocking her square on her butt. And then her mother and Allie were both there and it became a big group hug that kept them all steady and on their feet.
“Surprise,” she said weakly.
Jud stood inside the door, that wickedly sexy smile on his face as if he was Santa Claus and had just shimmied down the chimney with a big bag of toys. He sat the box on the floor and then effortlessly pulled the suitcase in from the porch.
“Jud, where’s the milk?” A tall dark-haired cowboy carrying a pink bundle stepped from the kitchen out into the foyer.
“Right here along with the store keys.” He headed to the kitchen with both in his hand.
Sweet Jesus!
He’d told her that he lived at Audrey’s and that he was Jud Dawson. But it didn’t sink in until that moment that she would be sharing a house with him.
Carolyn Brown is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling romance author and RITA® finalist who has published more than seventy-five books. Presently writing both women’s fiction and cowboy romance, Brown has also written historical single title, historical series, contemporary single title, and contemporary series. She lives in southern Oklahoma with her husband, a former English teacher, who is not allowed to read her books until they are published. They have three children and enough grandchildren to keep them young.
You can learn more at:
CarolynLBrown.com
Also by Carolyn Brown
Lucky Penny Ranch series
Wild Cowboy Ways
ACCLAIM FOR
CAROLYN BROWN’S NOVELS
WILD COWBOY WAYS
“With an irresistibly charismatic cowboy at the center of this story, Brown’s latest is a sexy, fun read…The genuine, electric chemistry between Allie and Blake jumps off the page.”
―RT Book Reviews
“A breath-taking romance filled with soul-sizzling passion and a heart-stealing plot. A five-star hit!”
—Romancing the Book
“A perfect read.”
—Once Upon an Alpha
ONE HOT COWBOY WEDDING
“Funny, frank, and full of heart.”
—USA Today’s “Happy Ever After” blog
“Sizzling hot and absolutely delectable.”
—RomanceJunkies.com
BILLION DOLLAR COWBOY
“Witty dialogue and hilarious banter…Carolyn Brown delivers yet another steamy cowboy romance.”
—NightOwlReviews.com
LONG, HOT TEXAS SUMMER
“Brown always gives the reader emotion, eternal love, and all the excitement you can handle.”
—FreshFiction.com
THE COWBOY’S MAIL ORDER BRIDE
“Brown’s latest story is easy to get swept up in. While the romance is hot, there is an old-world feel to it that will bring out the romantic in every reader, leaving them swooning and wishing they had their very own cowboy.”
—RT Book Reviews
“I love a good Carolyn Brown book and this o
ne is no miss. It’s a hit. The writing is crisp and full of emotion. The characters are charismatic and have issues, which make them easy to relate to.”
—NightOwlReviews.com
Fall in Love with Forever Romance
DUKE OF SIN
By Elizabeth Hoyt
Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery, is the man London whispers about in boudoirs and back alleys. A notorious rake and blackmailer, Montgomery has returned from exile, intent on seeking revenge on those who have wronged him. But what he finds in his own bedroom may lay waste to all his plans.
NACHO FIGUERAS PRESENTS: HIGH SEASON
By Jessica Whitman
World-renowned polo player and global face of Ralph Lauren, Nacho Figueras dives into the world of scandal and seduction with the first book in the Polo Season series, all set in the glamorous, treacherous world of high-stakes polo competition. It’s the perfect beach-reading for fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Jill Shalvis.
HOT COWBOY NIGHTS
By Carolyn Brown
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Carolyn Brown brings us back to the Lucky Penny Ranch for some HOT COWBOY NIGHTS. Toby Dawson never was and never will be the settling-down type. But what harm could there be in agreeing to be Lizzy Logan’s pretend boyfriend? They’ll put on a show so all of Dry Creek knows Lizzy’s over her ex, then be done. Yet the more Toby gets to know Lizzy—really know her—the harder it is for him to keep his hands off her in private.
Hot Cowboy Nights Page 28