The Hero of Hope Springs

by Maisey Yates

  Forever.

  * * *

  Read on for a sparkling excerpt of New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates’s new release,

  The Last Christmas Cowboy

  The next instalment in her Gold Valley series!

  This Christmas, cowgirl Rose Daniels is determined to play matchmaker to ensure her beloved sister will meet someone under the mistletoe. She enlists the reluctant help of family friend Logan Heath, but his insistence that she doesn’t understand chemistry is exasperating. Until they share one electrifying moment that shows her exactly what chemistry is all about, and it becomes outrageously, irresistibly intriguing...

  Logan hates the holidays. They are a painful reminder of the family he lost and a time of year he always wants to spend on his own. But Rose refuses to let him. Logan’s worked for years to keep his attraction to her under wraps—she’s his best friend’s youngest sister and she couldn’t be more off-limits. He’s the last cowboy that innocent Rose should ever kiss, but this Christmas, will Logan become the only cowboy she’ll ever want?

  Keep reading to get a glimpse of

  The Last Christmas Cowboy

  The Last Christmas Cowboy

  by Maisey Yates

  CHAPTER ONE

  ROSE DANIELS WAS happy with her life. She had the best job in the entire world, working on Hope Springs Ranch, spending her days outdoors riding horses and wrangling cattle. She loved it. The idea of having an office job made her want to crawl out of her skin, and the thought of sitting still was even less appealing than that.

  Sure, her primary coworker was hardheaded and a bit of a pain, but Logan was also like a brother to her, a good friend and a decent enough horseman.

  Her brother Ryder was the boss, and he could be a whole challenge, but ultimately, he was the one who had raised her after the death of their parents, and she loved him with all of her heart. Working on the ranch allowed her to be close to her family, another bonus of the whole situation.

  And over the last couple of years, she had watched her sister Pansy find the love of her life, followed by her brother Ryder, with his best friend Sammy.

  It had her thinking a lot, though, about her sister Iris.

  Rose was the youngest of the Daniels children, and after the death of their parents, it was Iris who had taken on the maternal role for Rose.

  She’d always been there for Rose, for the whole family. Cooking, cleaning, offering support. She’d combed Rose’s hair for school, helped choose her clothes. Had walked Rose through buying her first bra and all the other ills of puberty.

  And Iris was still living at the ranch, cooking for all of them, caring for them all.

  Rose had to wonder if it was why Iris didn’t seem to care at all for herself. If it was why Iris was alone.

  Rose didn’t like to see Iris alone. She had been so young and helpless when her parents had died. She hadn’t been able to take care of anyone. They’d all cared for her. She wasn’t a child anymore, though. That early feeling of helplessness had formed her. Shaped her. And now...now she wanted to fix things. It was who she was. It was the way she’d found a place on the family ranch. The way she’d made herself matter. Whether it was a calf with an ankle injury or a person with a wound in their heart, Rose wanted to see that it was put to rights.

  And now she was considering Iris. Who, were they in Regency times, would be considered a spinster. Not even just close to being on the shelf. Not even simply past her initial first blush.

  Granted, it was not the Regency period, and it wasn’t really fair to judge anything by those standards. But, Iris was a traditional sort of woman, and Rose imagined that her sister must want to be in love and married.

  “Rose, get your head out of the clouds and your feet back in the mud. We’ve got work to do.”

  She glanced over at Logan, who was standing there looking taciturn, his tan cowboy hat pulled down low over his eyes. He was wearing a matching work jacket and gloves, and seeing him appropriately dressed made her skin prickle with goose bumps, more aware of the chill in the air than she’d been a moment before. She’d run out with nothing but a T-shirt and a denim button-up that she left open.

  She was adapting slowly to the change in weather, resenting it. She preferred to be outside in the sunshine. And she liked the crisp, clear fall weather, that often saw her removing outer layers as the day wore on. But they were beginning to turn the corner into outright winter weather, here in mid-November, and she was not prepared.

  “I’m just thinking,” she said.

  “That’s what concerns me,” he said, a smile tipping his mouth upward. “When you think, things seem to happen. And somebody has to clean up the mess.”

  “Nobody asked you to do it,” she said. “Anyway, I seem to recall a time, though it was several years ago, when you got to thinking that jumping your bike off that rise down by the north pasture was a good idea, and you ran into the barbed wire fence, and I cleaned up that mess.”

  “I was a teenager.”

  “Yes, and I was seven. I still remember it.”

  Something flickered in his blue eyes, but he didn’t say anything more. Instead, he turned back to the fence that he was repairing, and she picked up a wire cutter and joined him on the line.

  “I want to help Iris find someone,” she mused.

  “Rose...”

  “Hear me out. She’s alone. It’s going to be Christmas. I hate the thought of that.”

  “She’s always alone. Seems to me at this point it’s a choice. And you should respect it.”

  Rose shook her head. “Nobody wants to be alone.”

  “You are also alone,” he pointed out.

  “I’m twenty-three,” she said. “I have no designs on being anything but alone for quite some time. This is not about me. I want nothing more than to see the people I love most settled and happy.”

  “Iris is happy,” he said.

  “What if she isn’t?”

  “Then she will do something to fix it. Or she won’t. But either way, it’s none of your business.”

  She made an exasperated sound. “It’s not about whether or not it’s my business. And anyway, that’s not true. We are family. In a way that few other people ever will be. We... We had to raise each other.”

  “Pretty sure Ryder did most of that.”

  “I know,” she said.

  She had been six years old when her parents had died. She barely remembered them now. She remembered not understanding. For a very long time. She had grieved when she’d been given the news, because she had known that dead was terrible. But forever was something that she hadn’t been able to wrap her mind around. And there was a point where it felt like they would surely come back. They had to.

  But of course she had started to realize that the way her brother’s mouth was set, always turning down, meant something bad. That he didn’t go away to college like he had planned to.

  When she was seven she had asked Logan, while she was bandaging his hands up. She’d been feeling proud because she knew where the first aid kit was. Knew how to help with his cuts. And she hadn’t been scared of the blood.

  She’d felt helpful and she’d felt strong, like she mattered.

  “When are they coming back?”

  He had just looked at her with those blue eyes, and she had seen fear in them. Fear that hadn’t been there after he’d cut himself up. It was the fear that got to her.

  He hadn’t spoken for a moment.

  “They aren’t,” he’d said finally.

  “How come? They love us.”

  “Of course they do, Rosie,” he’d said.

  Logan was the only person who had ever called her that. She’d thought it was for little kids and had been annoyed by it until that moment in the barn, when she’d been bandaging his arm and he’d used that low, husky voice that had
made her feel soothed in spite of the sharp, dark hurts inside her heart.

  “Then why are they staying away?”

  “They didn’t choose to. But dying is forever.”

  “Forever is a long time,” she’d said.

  “I know, that’s the thing. It’s forever.”

  She hadn’t cried. Even then she had known there was no point in crying. Because forever was forever, whether she cried or not. She understood it then.

  And Logan had been there for it. Like he was there for everything. Dishing out advice and giving support. The problem was, he still did it, like she was seven years old.

  “I wasn’t actually asking your opinion,” she said archly.

  “That’s fine. You don’t need to ask for it to get it.”

  “You’re so annoying,” she said.

  “And you insist on talking to me.”

  “We are fixing a fence. If we didn’t talk it would be boring.”

  “Then don’t complain when I make it interesting by giving you my opinions.”

  “You are a man who thinks a bit highly of himself,” she said. But she wasn’t actually mad at him. She could never really be mad at Logan. Not after everything.

  “I think highly of myself because no one else will.”

  He winked, and she had to suppress a silly grin that tried to spread over her face, and when she didn’t allow it to, her cheeks prickled slightly.

  It was strange.

  She chose to ignore it.

  “Who do you think would make a good match for Iris?”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Not me.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course not you. You’re basically our brother. But there must be somebody else. Somebody who is calm and steady. Not a cowboy. Not for Iris. Iris needs somebody who likes to be indoors. Likes to read. She likes to talk about books and TV. And she loves to bake. She likes yarn.”

  “So,” Logan said slowly, “you should get her a cat.”

  “I know,” she carried on as if he hadn’t spoken of cats. “Elliott Johns. He would be perfect.”

  Logan’s eyebrows lowered, and went flat. “The water filtration guy?”

  “Yes. I mean, he knows everybody in town because of his job. And he must have a good reputation or people wouldn’t keep using him. So, somebody with a job like that is pretty safe, I would think. Plus, he’s sort of soft-spoken and good at making conversation.”

  “I thought you wanted to get Iris some excitement.”

  “I do. But the right kind of excitement. The kind that suits her.”

  “Would you ever in a million years have thought that Pansy’s kind of excitement would be a cowboy ex-convict?”

  “Pansy is an anomaly. And she doesn’t count.”

  “Okay. Well, good to know that you just get to decide who you think you know.”

  “Pull the stick out of your rear, Logan.”

  “Look, matchmaker, you meddle in people’s lives on your own time. It’s fence fixing time.”

  “Fine. But tonight when we go to the bar, I’m going to put feelers out.”

  “God save us all from your feelers,” he said.

  “I’ll be successful. You can bet.”

  * * *

  LOGAN ALREADY NEEDED another drink, and they’d only been at the Gold Valley Saloon for twenty minutes.

  This time of a year was a bitch anyway. His slow slide into seasonal grinchhood began in November and continued all through December. He didn’t do Christmas. Not at all.

  Not since his mother had died.

  So he was already prone to irritation as it was. And Rose was being particularly Rose.

  There was no stopping Rose Daniels when she was on a tear and Logan knew that better than anybody. She was a frenetic lightning storm wrapped in skin. And she drove him crazy.

  In all the ways that could apply.

  Much to his endless chagrin.

  He had known pretty little Rose Daniels since she was a child.

  His mother had been best friends with her parents, and after they’d died he had moved in with the family, and essentially become part of it.

  But there was something about Rose. She got under his skin, and made it itch. And that itch had transformed into something wholly inappropriate after she had gone from girl to woman, which had happened seemingly overnight. She had gone to bed, seventeen and a pain in his ass. And woken up eighteen—still a pain in his ass—and recognizably far too pretty for his own good.

  No. Rose wasn’t like a sister to him. But the feelings he had for her were deep, special, forged in fire.

  He had known that long before he had ever found her beautiful. He would be her protector. When she was seven years old, looking at him with eyes that were far too serious and asking when their parents were going to come back, because death was a concept that was simply too big for her to grasp, he had vowed it then. And he kept it now.

  But sometimes the kid needed protection from her damn self.

  He had turned protecting her from him into an art form.

  It was her harebrained schemes that he couldn’t quite manage.

  The woman had a habit of grating on him. And tonight, she was going to test every single one of his nerves, he had a feeling. More than a feeling.

  He could think of nothing that Iris would like less than to have her younger sister trying to find her a pity date. Because whether Rose realized that’s what she was doing, she was. He recognized it. Well, because he saw what Rose recognized in Iris. He did. She spent most of her nights at home baking and knitting. When she did go out, it was with the whole family.

  At this point, it wasn’t like he did a whole lot else.

  Not since his libido had transformed into something spiky and untrustworthy. Yeah. Sometimes he went out of town and found a woman. But he didn’t like hooking up here.

  Iris hadn’t come out with them tonight, and from the looks of things, Ryder and Sammy were going to have to call it an early evening. Which would leave them with West and Pansy. He was fine with that, he liked the man that Pansy was engaged to. They were going to have a Christmas wedding, which was likely half of what had Rose so amped up about romance, and seeing her sister happy.

  He got Rose a bottle of her favorite beer, and went back to the table. He had snuck her beer a time or two starting when she was about nineteen. Ryder would be angry if he knew. He had been a stickler for minding the rules. But, Logan had figured it was a rite of passage. And since all Rose really wanted to do was have a beer out on the back porch, he had never seen the harm in it. As a result, he had a pretty good idea of what she enjoyed.

  “He’s here,” Rose whispered.

  “Who?” He sat down at the table next to her, and passed her the beer.

  “Elliott.”

  “Rose, what did I say?”

  “When have I ever listened to you?”

  “Well, you should listen to me. You should listen to me now.”

  “What are you saying exactly?” she asked, her tone far too sweet.

  “To leave well enough alone.”

  “What are you two whispering about down there?” Pansy asked.

  Rose’s older sister was looking at them keenly.

  “Nothing,” Logan said.

  “Logan doesn’t approve of me,” Rose said.

  “Well,” Pansy said. “I should think that would be a goal of yours.”

  “Yes. I don’t really care about whether or not I am meeting with anyone’s approval. It has to be said.”

  That wasn’t strictly true, and he knew it. Rose wasn’t really a rebel, so much as she was...exuberant. She acted before she thought, and spoke even sooner than she acted.

  “I’m exhausted,” Sammy said. “Even thou
gh I really do want to stay and hear about what all Logan disapproves of.”

  Sammy was five months pregnant, and Logan knew that her desire to be in the middle of the fray often lost out over her current level of energy. He was happy for Ryder, that his friend was able to get over some of the trauma of his past, and begin to make a new life for himself. A new family. It had been completely obvious to him that Ryder had been in love with Sammy for the last decade and a half. His friend had denied it, but Logan had known.

  And, it had turned out he was right.

  That made him feel slightly uncomfortable, given that he was currently judging Rose for trying to get involved in people’s love life. But he had not gotten involved in Ryder’s. Not without his asking for input.

  Anyway, in some ways he felt extra connected to Sammy. The two of them were the odd ones out. They weren’t genetically related to the Daniels clan, but had found themselves a part of Hope Springs Ranch, bonded together by the tragedies of life. For Logan, it had been the loss of his mother. For Sammy, the fact that her parents had been absolutely terrible. Her mother was still alive, but she wasn’t part of Sammy’s life.

  For all the good they’d done raising her, she might as well have lost them.

  “See you tomorrow,” Logan said.

  “Bye,” Rose said.

  “We’ll hang out for a while,” Pansy said.

  Though, he could tell the by the way West was looking at his fiancée he was hoping to make it an early night, for pretty obvious reasons.

  Logan’s stomach tightened up. Because that would mean being alone with Rose. And he didn’t like that. Not one bit. He’d already played with fire when it came to late nights and a little bit of beer with her. And she had no idea how close she’d come to being burned.

  No. He’d never burn her. He wouldn’t. Never once had he thought seriously about acting on any of the feelings that he’d experienced for her over the last couple of years. But he’d been in situations where they had been closer to the surface than he wanted them.

  And he wasn’t about to put himself back there again.