Kurt: Cowboy (Members From Money Book 23)

by Katie Dowe

  “Fishing for compliments?” she teased back.

  “Definitely,” he kissed her on the mouth quickly. “I have to get back to work baby.”

  “So do I. Tessa is threatening to fire me. She claims that all I do is come and look at the nursery every chance I get. I find it very fascinating and keep visioning our daughter lying in her cot.”

  “I need to talk to Tessa and Mother. You are supposed to be on maternity leave.” He said with a growl.

  “Don’t you dare Kurt Murphy!” she laughed as she twisted around to face him. “I have the unique privilege to work and live at the same place and I happen to enjoy my job. When it is time for me to have our baby, Ian is on call and he is only a few miles away.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” he took her hand and they walked out of the nursery and made their way towards the office. “Last winter was brutal and they are predicting that it is going to be over more so this year.”

  “Be careful,” she said soberly as she looked up at him.

  “Always.”

  *****

  But it happened two days before Thanksgiving Day. Kurt had ridden out to look at the fencing near the cabin they had erected last year that had been ravaged by the fire. He had ridden out alone and was riding a different horse they had acquired only a few days earlier. He had broken him in just two days ago and was trying to get a feel of how he does riding long distance. A frown touched his brow as he saw a shadow darting from behind the structure that they had not bothered to erect. “Hey!” he shouted as he ran towards the fence. “Stop!” he looked around and whistled for the horse but he had wandered away. “Dammit!” he ran to find the horse and never saw the root protruding from the ground. His foot caught and held for a moment before toppling him to the ground. He went down hard hitting his head on the root of the tree passing out immediately!

  *****

  It was two hours before the rest of the men noticed that the horse had come back without him on its back. “Hey!” Mack shouted to the rest of the men. “Where is the boss?”

  “Saddle up, the boss is missing!”

  They found him at the root of the bitter oak tree. He was unconscious! Paulie jumped off his horse and got ready to move him. “Don’t!” Jake said sharply. “He might be suffering from a concussion.” He took out his phone and called Ian.

  “He is coming,” Jake hunkered down and looked down at him. “He hit his head on the root and he is bleeding.”

  “Is he okay?” one of the young ranch hands asked looking down at him anxiously.

  “He will be fine. It does not make any sense all of us waiting here. It is late and we should go and look for what the boss had been out here investigating and deal with it.” Mack said in an authoritative voice. “Jake and I will stay until the doc comes.”

  *****

  “He has a slight concussion.” Ian told the women gathered around Kurt’s bed. “He is going to be okay.”

  “Thank God!” Alexis sat on the side of the bed careful not to jostle him. They had brought him back to the ranch and she had almost pass out when she had seen them bringing him in. She brushed back the hair from his beloved face and bent to kiss him on his hair roughened jaw. “Have you told Mack and the others?”

  “I will tell them.” Kathy announced.

  “Thanks darling,” Erica nodded in approval.

  “Do you want to stay the night Tess?” Ian asked his wife uncertainly.

  She looked over at him and smiled gently. “I am ready to go on home darling. Alexis and Mother will let me know what is going on. Besides I will be here in the morning.” She walked over and took her husband’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

  Erica walked over and looked down at her son lying so still in the large king sized bed. “He is never this still,” she murmured softly as she touched his hand briefly. “He was always all over the place wanting to learn everything there was to learn about the business. He was lassoing horses when he was only ten years old.”

  “I bet that had you cowering in fear,” Alexis said as she looked at her mother in law.

  “I wanted to lock him in his room and throw the keys away.” She bent to kiss his strong jaw and stepped back. “Get some rest, darling. You and that baby needs it.”

  “I will.” She waved her away and as soon as she heard the doors closing she undressed and got in next to him pulling the sheets over them. She rested her head on her hand and looked at him. It was strange to see him like this. He was always the strong one, the one always looking out for her and being her anchor. “Hurry and wake up baby,” She whispered as she bent to kiss his lips.

  *****

  “I am going away for a few days.” Jake said softly as he wrapped his arms around Kathy.

  She stiffened and looked up at him. “What?”

  “I have a meeting with my dad. We are going to iron out some business deals and then I am coming right back.”

  “I am coming with you.”

  Jake sighed. He knew she would say something like that. “I am coming back Princess.”

  “It’s not that I don’t trust you but I don’t trust you to go back home and come back here. You might decide to stay.”

  “I have been here for more than a year now Kathy. I am committed to you.”

  “I am still coming with you.” She said stubbornly.

  “You have work.”

  “So do you and besides I am due a vacation. I have not met your parents.”

  He looked down at her and shook his head. “Okay fine.”

  “When do we leave?”

  “As soon as I know your brother is okay.”

  “He is growing on you, isn’t he?”

  “He is the hardest working man I know and I admire him.”

  “He has that effect on people. His men are totally committed to him. You saw their faces when I went out to tell them that he is going to be okay right? And I know tomorrow morning they are going to want an update.”

  “It’s those bloody vagrants again.” Jake bit off a sigh. “We are going to have to do something about them.”

  *****

  He woke up early the next morning with a throbbing headache and stiffness in his joints. It was his groan that woke her and Alexis jumped up immediately. “Baby?” she whispered as he opened his eyes and looked up at her.

  “Hey,” he moaned softly as he tried to move.

  “Ian left me some pain killers to give to you.” She moved off the bed and went to get some orange juice from the kitchen and fed him the pills and juice. “You remember what happened?”

  He closed his eyes briefly and then nodded. “I saw someone sneaking around and I tried to find my horse that’s when I tripped and fell. I have been meaning to get rid of that tree for years. I suppose now I will have to.”

  Alexis brushed back his hair from his face. “I am just glad you are okay.”

  “I have something to tell you,” he gripped her hand and put it to his chest.

  “What is it?”

  He told her about his heart murmur. She stared at him aghast. “Why would you keep something like that from me?”

  “I did not want to add to what you were already facing. I am sorry.”

  “You should be, Kurt. I am in this through thick and thin. In sickness and health remember?”

  “I know baby.” He said tenderly. “I promise never to keep anything from you again.”

  “You had better not.”

  *****

  Alexis gripped her husband’s hand tightly as she made the last push. She had been in labor for the past twelve hours. The baby had been delayed somewhat by several days and Ian had instructed her to come in. It was the week before Christmas and the ranch was blazing with lights and a huge tree towered towards the ceiling of the living room.

  “The head is crowning Alexis. One more push.” Ian instructed her.

  “You can do it baby,” her husband told her as he held her hand.

  She made the push and dropped back against his chest
wearily. She smiled as she heard her daughter’s first cry and felt the tears as Vanessa was brought over to them wrapped in a pink blanket.

  “I told you,” Kurt whispered as the nurse placed their daughter into Alexis’ arms. “She looks just like you.”

  Alexis stared down at the little girl with the creamy complexion and rich dark brown eyes. She had stopped crying and was staring up at them as if she recognized who they were. Her dark brown curls lay flat on her scalp. “She has your nose.”

  “Hi, my little princess,” he whispered as he looked down at his beautiful daughter. They both looked up as a camera clicked.

  “A perfect photo app,” Kathy said tearfully as she came into the room with Tessa and Erica. “I hear my niece is here and she is perfect.”

  Alexis handed the baby back to the nurse to get her cleaned up.

  “We are going to leave you to get some rest Alexis.” Tessa told her as she leaned in to kiss her cheek. “Thank you.” She touched her brother’s hand lightly and they left the room.

  Kurt stepped out of the way as they cleaned her up and changed her clothes. He climbed onto the bed next to her and pulled her into his arms. “Tired?”

  “Pleasantly so.” She snuggled into his arms. “She is beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Like her mother.”

  *****

  “What are you doing home so early?” Alexis looked up in surprise as her husband came into the living room. It was Christmas Eve and there were presents heaped beneath the tree. It was also going to be their first wedding anniversary and he was planning on handing her his gift personally. It was a large inset diamond surrounded by milky pearls. It was a combination of an anniversary gift and thank you for his daughter and for being in his life.

  “I gave the men the night off,” he had taken off his boots and his jacket. He stooped down and looked at his daughter, her dark brown eyes so like her mother’s staring up at him. She was dress in a warm pink and white all in one suit and her chubby legs and arms moved frequently. “She is going to be a raving beauty.” He looked up as she came to join him on the carpet. “Have I told you how much I am absolutely in love with you?”

  “Every day but I like to hear it.” She snuggled closer to him and rest her head on his broad shoulder. “My own family. I give thanks every single day for this blessing.”

  “So do I baby,” he whispered, his blue eyes glistening with tears. It was something he was never going to take for granted!

  The end... but wait:

  Surrogate For The Billionaire

  Can she carry his baby?

  A complete and heartfelt romance, brought to you by Tyra Small of the respected BWWM Club.

  Being a CEO and owner of a large company, Bryce doesn't have time for dating.

  So when his urges tell him he wants a child to one day take over his empire, he decides to do what he does best:

  Throw money at the situation.

  When he places an ad for a surrogate mother, he expects a purely business relationship that will end in the child he wants.

  What he gets instead is Lateisha, a beautiful and smart woman who could just be the girl he's willing to make time for.

  Spending more and more time together, soon feelings start to grow and these feelings are revealed.

  But with Lateisha convinced she's not ready for a child of her own, and outside forces doing what they can to ensure the two don't fall into a real relationship, can this business agreement realistically turn into the family that dreams are made of?

  Or will the two cut ties and part ways once their contract is up?

  Find out in this emotional yet sexy romance by Tyra Small of BWWM Club.

  Suitable for over 18s strictly, as contain scenes of a hot and sexual nature. ;)

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 1

  Lateisha Aaron handed the woman in her car waiting outside of the drive through window her bag. Her greasy bag filled with nasty food. She didn’t think it was nasty before, when she started working here several months ago after graduation, she used to eat this food. Seeing it every day for the last three months made her want to vomit at the idea of ingesting it. Not that she was turned off from all fast food, she loved Wendy’s, but anything from the place she worked made her stomach turn. Tugging at the hair net covering her tight black curls, Lateisha moved back to the fryer to prepare the next bag for the next customer at the window. Frowning, she dumped the fries into a cardboard cup and placed them into a paper bag. Lateisha snorted, she never thought she would end up serving fast food after obtaining her Bachelor’s degree. Sighing, she passed the bag through the window and moved towards the back again. Her mother told her to go into nursing because ‘every time she checks the paper someone is looking for a nurse’. Well then why the hell didn’t anyone hire her? Biding her time at this craphole until she could find something more suitable, something she would actually enjoy, was making her crazy. It wasn’t like she wasn’t offered jobs. But who wants to clean bedpans for the elderly for three years before they get to actually do some real nursing? Her friend Becky, who she met in nursing school, found a job at the local hospital in the ER. Becky assured her that dumping bedpans was part of the job and every nurse, new or seasoned, had to do it, but Lateisha just couldn’t stand the idea. Instead, she was flipping nasty burgers and frying greasy fries. Bedpans didn’t look too bad some days, especially when she had to clean the fryers.

  With a shiver of revulsion, Lateisha realized tonight was her night and almost quit on the spot, but she needed the money. She glanced at the clock, ten more minutes to her lunch break. The idea of taking a minute to sit and regroup in the break room seemed great right about now. Working six days a week in fast food was grueling and exhausting. The ten minutes flew by and Lateisha practically ran to the break room. Snatching her lunch bag from the fridge, she reclined in one of the four chairs surrounding a small round table in the corner of the small room. She pulled her phone from her purse to text Becky and realized she had an email with new job listings from the career website she had uploaded her resume to recently. She opened the email and scrolled through the jobs, vetoing each in her head as she went; too far, not enough pay, etc. Her eyes fell on an ad that seemed peculiar on a career website; Surrogate Wanted. Lateisha laughed out loud. Who listed an ad for a surrogate on a job website? Deciding to look it over anyway, just for shits and giggles, Lateisha opened the ad.

  Surrogate wanted. Must be over 18, preferably single with no children, non smoker with a clean bill of health. I’m offering $30,000 to carry a baby for me. I will pay all doctor bills and living expenses, etc during the time you are pregnant. If you are interested please contact me by email at bhenderson@hencorp.com.

  Lateisha laughed aloud again. Was this guy for real? It was a lot of money. Dollar signs in her eyes, Lateisha contemplated emailing him to see if he was for real or not. Could be a serial killer looking to get young women to meet him places so he could kidnap them. Then again, HenCorp was a big company, and to use their name and email in the ad to lure someone in to kill them would be stupid. Why was she even thinking about this? It was ridiculous. She didn’t want kids, never had, but maybe that’s what this guy wants. Changing her mind and keeping the baby would never happen since she didn’t want any of her own kids. This was a crazy idea. Was she really considering carrying a baby for a stranger? But thirty thousand dollars… This would take a lot of consideration. Closing her email, Lateisha ate her lunch, all the while chewing on the idea of being a surrogate.

  *****

  Bryce Henderson scratched his head. Why wasn’t he getting any interest in the ad he put up online? Sighing, he turned back to his computer, reading over the contract he received that morning for the newest company his business
acquired. His business was a loose term of course, since after graduate school he inherited the position of owner from his father, who was more than willing to retire and move to the clichéd Florida with his new thirty-something wife and their two dogs. How his father pulled that one off he’d never know, but when Bryce’s mother died five years ago his dad became a shell of a man. Any woman who could pull him out of that funk, even if she was only a few years older than his twenty-eight years, was welcome in his family. He just hoped his father knew what he was doing.

  Cracking his neck from side to side to work out the stiffness of a full days work, Bryce closed the contract document, making a note to read it further later and sign, and opened his email again in the hopes of finding a response to his ad. Bryce wanted to have a child to pass his business to, to play catch with and watch grow up, but he didn’t have time to date and he was almost thirty. The surrogacy idea came to him late one night when he was still in the office, well past everyone else. Bryce glanced out of the window from his sixteenth floor office and looked down at the city below. It was a Friday night, but there he was, working. He knew he could have been out there, at a bar or a club, meeting a woman who would become Mrs. Bryce Henderson II, but he just didn’t have the energy for it. But he wanted a child. That he knew for certain. Suddenly the idea of surrogacy made a lot of sense. The night before he saw a news story about a woman, who was a surrogate to two children for the same couple, it was quite the story. Why couldn’t he do that and skip all of the nonsense of dating? He spoke to his lawyer the next day and put the wheels in motion, but he still needed a woman willing to use her own egg and carry the child to term. That was the part proving to be tricky. The ad was on the website for over a week and he hadn’t heard a peep of interest. Sure, it was asking a lot, but he knew there was a selfless woman out there who would do this for him eventually.