Catching the Cowboy_A Royal Brothers Novel

by Liz Isaacson

  “All right.” Dylan returned. “Let’s get over to the guest house. I almost have the side-by-side packed up.”

  “So we’re not taking this out to the far reaches of the ranch?”

  Dylan secured her duffle to the rack on the back of the ATV and slung his leg over the seat and scooted as far forward as he could. “When I go myself, I take it. But I can usually take everything I need in a backpack. There’s two of us, and we’re going for about three times as long as I usually do, so.” He shrugged and chin-nodded to the microscopic space behind him. “Climb on. This is a short ride, and then we won’t have to cram.”

  Oh, but Hazel liked cramming herself behind his body, squeezing in tight between him and the duffle bag, and wrapping her arms around his waist and holding on tight. He smelled like fresh air and masculine, spicy cologne, both scents that urged her to inch closer and breathe deeper.

  She liked it too much but couldn’t bring herself to ease back or loosen her grip. The wind grabbed her hair and spread it behind her as he turned around and headed toward the big homestead. She laughed at the exhilaration coursing through her veins, thrilled at the chance to spend the next five days with this man who had intrigued her since the moment she’d caught him twirling and whistling with a baby in his arms.

  Chapter Five

  Dylan pulled up to the back of the guest house, parking almost alongside the hammock where he’d taken many naps. “So I’ve got my bag already on the side-by-side.” He indicated the much larger all-terrain vehicle, this one with a front row of two bucket seats and a back row bench seat that could seat three more really skinny adults. It had a narrow trunk area, where he’d already put his packs.

  He lifted her duffle and set it on top of his stuff, using a bungee cord to keep it tied down. “The food’s in the house. Felicity went all out.” He grinned at Hazel, his heart doing a weird skipping beat in his chest. He’d never been more thankful for skin and shirts that kept his feelings hidden.

  He went up the steps and into the house, where Felicity was packing chocolate chip cookies into zipper bags. “Hey,” he said. “You’re still here.” Dylan thought she’d be long gone by now. Stepping to the side, he added, “This is Hazel Brewster, from Texas Parks and Wildlife. Hazel, this is Felicity, the owner of the ranch.”

  “You must be Dwayne’s wife,” Hazel said, moving past Dylan—and giving him a dose of that iced peach tea perfume—to shake Felicity’s hand. The two women smiled at each other, and Felicity returned her attention to the food.

  “All right, Dylan,” she said with a long exhale. “Sandwiches for today are in the cooler. Everything you need to make dinner and breakfast.” She pointed to a huge blue cooler on the floor. “You took the hot plate out already, and I’ve got bread, cookies, and drink mix in this box.” She placed the zipper bag of cookies on top of what looked like a month’s supply of bread.

  “We’ll be fine,” he told her, just like he had been for the past two days. But Felicity had always doted on him specifically, claiming he reminded her so much of her father. Dylan and Felicity had spent lots of time together right after she’d married Dwayne, sharing stories of their dads. Hers had been a gentleman, a gem in the heart of Texas. His had been…less than that. Somehow the grief they each carried because of their fathers, though they were light years different, had united them.

  She turned toward him, a motherly look on her face though she was only a few years older than Dylan. “I know you will. You’ve just never gone for so long.” She leaned over to hug him, and Dylan watched as Hazel took in the exchange, a small smile on her pretty mouth.

  “You’ve got a radio?” Felicity asked. “Battery packs? Fuel for the generator?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dylan said, clearing the emotion out of his voice. It sure was nice to have someone fuss over him. He hadn’t had that in years, as Shane had done the best he could to keep the family together after their father’s secrets and lies had come out. But he wasn’t a mother, and Dylan had been starved for such attention for a long time.

  “Radio in when you get there,” she said.

  “You want to grab that end of the cooler, Hazel?” he said, his tongue tripping over her name. Hazel. Hazel. He wanted to say it to the stars, whisper it in her ear while he drew in a deep breath of whatever minted lemon lotion she’d used that day, touch his lips to hers and murmur her name into her mouth before really claiming it.

  Felicity nudged him with her elbow, and Dylan shook himself out of the insane fantasies playing through his mind. Hazel stood partially stooped over, her end of the cooler lifted in the air, while she stared at him expectantly.

  “I’ll follow you with this box,” Felicity said.

  Dylan flew into motion, grabbing the remaining handle on the cooler and hoisting it up. He and Hazel put it on the floor in the back row, and Felicity placed the box on the bench seat. He took a quick inventory of things, making sure he wasn’t leaving something important behind. They had enough food to feed themselves for two weeks instead of one, extra blankets, fuel, their personal belongings in bags, the radio and battery pack, which sat in the holsters up front….

  “I think that’s everything,” he said, looking back and forth between Hazel and Felicity.

  “All right.” Felicity gave him another quick hug. “Good luck out there.” She turned and walked back into the guest house, leaving Dylan to gesture to the passenger seat.

  Hazel took her spot in the front next to him and pulled her seatbelt across her body. “What are the chances of me driving this thing?”

  Dylan paused in his own buckling up and lifted his eyes to hers. His vision tunneled to just her beautiful, pixie face, those liquid gold eyes drinking him in as thirstily as he did her. “Y’all want to drive?” he managed to push out through his too-narrow throat. This woman did things to him he’d never experienced before and had no idea how to make sense of.

  “Yeah, kinda.” She lifted one shoulder in a shrug, the emerald green fabric bunching and then smoothing. With her tanned complexion and dark hair, the shirt added another layer of beauty to her that had Dylan barely able to keep his composure.

  “Well, come on over here and drive then.” He stepped out of the side-by-side and started around the front as she giggled and slid across from one bucket seat to the other. With them both buckled into their new seats, she started the vehicle and flashed him a grin the size of the entire state of Texas.

  Part of him thought it would be perfectly natural for him to reach across the tiny space between them and take her hand in his. But he didn’t know how, and he barely knew more than her name, so he kept his hands on his own side of the vehicle.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  The side-by-side already pointed north, so he said, “Thatta way. I’ll tell you where to go.” He directed her across the field and onto the dirt paths between their hay fields. He narrated the things they passed, talking about the ranch in general, until they arrived at the cabin farthest from civilization.

  “Here we are.” He grinned at her. “You’re a great driver.” In fact, it was one of the sexiest things Dylan had ever seen. Hazel was unlike any other woman he’d ever met, both as a teenager and as an adult. He’d dated a few women from town, but none of them wore hiking boots, jeans, and cowgirl hats. None of them listened to him talk about abandoned peach orchards, crops, horses, and fence lines the way Hazel did. Not only had she listened, she’d asked questions, seemed genuinely interested, and mentioned a few things about another ranch she’d been on.

  “So,” he said as they took their bags inside. “Where are you from?”

  “Alabama,” she said, making her accent thicker. “Can’t you tell?” She gave him that flirty smile that was starting to grow on him.

  “I knew y’all wasn’t from Texas.” He moved toward the two doors to the left of the front door. “So there’s two bedrooms here. You can pick which one you want. They have the same beds in them. Bathroom there.” He indicated the door in the
middle. “Lots of places to sit.” He glanced around at the couches.

  “No TV, no radio, no WiFi,” he said. “But I’ll get the generator going, and we’ll plug in the fridge and be able to use a hotplate for the week.”

  “There’s running water?” She opened the bathroom door and peeked in. “Oh, there is.”

  “Yeah, there was a well here,” he said. “So it’s all well water. That’s why Felicity sent the tablets and the drink mix. I usually drink bottled water when I come out here.”

  “How often do you come out here?”

  “Oh, every few days. I might stay for one night, or two.” He wanted to tell her he’d live out here if he could, if he didn’t think he’d be too lonely, if he really could survive on protein bars and bottled water.

  She stepped to the bedroom at the back of the house. “I’ll set up in here.” But she didn’t go in. Only tossed her duffle bag inside and closed the door again. She faced the rest of the cabin and tucked her hands in her back pockets. “This place is really nice for a cabin on the edge of a ranch.”

  Dylan copied her by placing his bag just inside the room where he’d be sleeping. “Thanks. I’ve done a lot of work on it.”

  “Oh yeah?” Her eyes scanned the ceiling, the curtains, the small kitchen in the corner.

  “Yeah.” Pride tiptoed through him. “I resanded the floors and stained them. They were a mess before.”

  “They’re beautiful.” Hazel actually crouched down and ran her fingers along the wood he’d spent hours taming and then beautifying.

  “I bought some curtains and hung those. I put on all the couch covers.” Dylan shrugged and told himself to stop talking. She didn’t need to listen to him brag about sprucing up a cabin no one came to but him.

  He hooked his thumb over his shoulder and said, “I’ll go get the generator going.”

  “I’ll come.” She shadowed him as he filled the generator with fuel and gave the pull a might tug to get it running. It sputtered and didn’t start. His heart did the same, stuttering in his chest. Without a refrigerator or a hotplate, they’d be eating plain bread and cookies for a week.

  The engine finally caught on the fourth pull, and relief cascaded through Dylan with the power of a waterfall. “Phew.” He swiped his hat off and wiped his hand across his forehead. A nervous chuckle took the remaining anxiety with him, and he met Hazel’s gaze again.

  That same narrowing feeling happened again. There was no generator. No sun beating through the window at his back. No worries, cares, or problems. Just her, and him, and this moment.

  She reached up and brushed her fingers through the hair above his right ear, sending shockwaves through his whole body. Instead of blushing and dropping her hand, then muttering something and running away, Hazel trailed her hand down his arm and settled her weight on her back foot.

  Her hand dropped back to her side, and still she hadn’t acted awkwardly. She had more confidence than anyone Dylan had ever known, and he felt miles out of his league. He cleared his throat. “Okay, so now we have power. Or we should. Let’s go find out.”

  In the kitchen, he plugged in the refrigerator, glad when the hum of it started to fill the room. He grinned. “It’s like magic.”

  “Magic,” she repeated, plugging in the hotplate and twisting the dial. “Everything works here.” She switched it off again.

  “Great, let’s get everything in then.” They brought in all the food and began unpacking it onto the counter and into the fridge.

  “So Shane’s your older brother,” Hazel said. “Is Austin older or younger than you?”

  The fact that she’d remembered their names when he’d spoken them only a couple of times amazed him. “Austin’s younger than me.”

  “Ah, the middle child.” She shot him a smile as she put a huge jar of peanut butter next to the loaves of bread.

  “Yep.” And Dylan had hated it, for the most part. “Sometimes my mom would call me Shane, then Austin, then Shane again before getting my name right.” And that was the truth. He knew now that she hadn’t done it on purpose, but he’d felt overlooked for most of his life.

  “Being the oldest isn’t all that fun either,” she said. “Especially when you’ve got four brothers that come after you.”

  Dylan finished putting the lunch meat and cheese in the fridge. “Wow, four younger brothers. No sisters?”

  “None. So guess who spent her whole life babysitting?” Hazel’s eyebrows went up and a flickering fire entered her eyes.

  “Hey, at least everything you do is probably the best, the most, the absolutely right thing to do.”

  She tipped her head back and rewarded him with that delightful laugh he’d wanted to be privy to. “Right,” she said with joy and sarcasm in her voice. “I think my mother would disagree about that.”

  Dylan liked this back and forth, this banter, this conversation. “Are they all still in Alabama?”

  “Yeah. My family owns a carpet cleaning business in Birmingham. Marshall, the oldest brother went to school and got a business management degree. Evan became an accountant and does a bunch of that for the company. Gideon is the foreman of five crews. Shawn is the mechanic for our vans and machinery. My mom runs the office, answers phones, does payroll, billing, all of that administrative stuff.”

  “And you’re a mammologist.”

  “I actually went to beauty school first.” Hazel’s expression became hooded, and Dylan sensed more to that story. He wondered when he could push for it.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked. “Hair and nails and makeup and that kind of stuff?”

  “Just hair,” she said. “I do a few ladies in town now, but I used to have a salon in my house.”

  Dylan finished unpacking the cooler and leaned against the counter to face her fully. “Why’d you stop?”

  She swallowed, the first sign of nerves from her Dylan had seen. “It’s a long story.” She flashed a falsely bright smile. “I’ll tell it later. Short version is, I went back to school to finish my wildlife management degree and I got a job with Texas Parks. So this is what I do now.”

  “That was a really short version,” Dylan said, surprised at the quality of teasing and flirtation in his voice.

  “What about you?” She slid the now-empty box into the corner of the counter. “Cowboy forever and all of that?”

  “Something like that,” Dylan said, realizing he had several long stories of his own.

  “So what brought you to Grape Seed Ranch?” she asked. “All three of you? Seems like you’d have a ranch or farm of your own to tend.”

  “It would seem that way,” he said. “It’s a long story.” He grinned at her and folded his arms, hoping the sparkly feeling dancing through him showed in his eyes.

  She slapped at his bicep. “I see how it is.”

  “It’s a long week,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll tell it by Friday, but only if you tell me yours.”

  He watched her wrestle with something in her mind, and then she finally nodded. “Yeah, all right. By Friday.”

  Chapter Six

  Hazel threw down the five dice, making a big show of spreading her arms wide as they clattered around on the table before coming to a stop.

  “I can’t believe it.” Dylan threw his pencil down in disgust as Hazel’s eyes skitted from die to die.

  She burst out laughing. “Yahtzee!” It was the only score she didn’t have on her card, and honestly, she couldn’t believe it either. But all five dice had three black dots on them.

  “On the last roll.” Dylan shook his head, his handsome face the picture of perfection with that straight smile and gleaming, white teeth.

  Hazel giggled as she wrote in the score and totaled her sheet. “Okay, mister. The score to beat is two hundred and ninety-eight points.” She sat back, proud of herself for the score, but for making casual touches of her hand against his during the game, her flirtation game en-pointe this afternoon.

  He collected the dice with an exaggerated sigh. “I d
on’t see how I can beat that,” he said. “I’d need a Yahtzee for sure.” And he hadn’t gotten one yet.

  They’d unpacked and made turkey and cheese sandwiches for lunch. There had been barbeque chips—Dylan’s favorite, she’d learned—and cheese puffs, along with those delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies.

  He’d taken her for a ride along the fenceline, and they’d seen no breaks, no damage, nothing. They checked the herd and found nothing out of sorts there either.

  So, back in the cabin, Dylan had produced a stack of board games, card games, puzzles, and coloring books. “This is what we do without electricity,” he said.

  “Does it get dark out here?”

  “Super dark,” he’d said. “But with it almost being May, it won’t get dark until about eight, and we’ve got candles.”

  The thought of sitting beside him on one of the long couches in the cabin, maybe curling into his chest, with candlelight as a background had Hazel thinking all kinds of romantic thoughts.

  He tossed the dice, bringing her back to the game at hand. “Twos,” she said, pointing to the three he’d rolled. She didn’t like it when someone touched her dice during the game, so she didn’t touch his.

  He slid the twos together and picked up the remaining dice. “Wouldn’t this be wild if I got it?”

  Their eyes met, and that same charge that had been flowing between them all day kicked in again. She smiled at him, no flirt this time. He returned it, and Hazel wondered if she really could have a genuine relationship with a man.

  After Peter, she’d vowed she’d never even try again. But six years had gone by, and Dylan didn’t seem like a heartbreaker….

  They never do, she told herself as he rattled the dice in his red cup. He threw them out and they rolled—one two and one six.

  “Only one more,” he said.

  “One more roll too.” She leaned away from the table as if she didn’t care if she won or not. She didn’t really. But she kinda did.