by Claire Adams
“Later,” I promised as he pulled me to his side, wrapping an arm around my waist. “And speaking of the catering company, wow! I think it’s safe to say that this event is a success already. You did an amazing job, my love. The orphanage is going to benefit greatly from this.”
“I’m just glad I could help with something that means so much to you,” he told me, his expression tender.
I melted against him, once again finding it hard to believe how lucky I was. And believe me, it had nothing to do with the money or who Owen was professionally. I loved Owen for Owen and would have loved him for his heart and soul had he been penniless. I was absolutely sure I would love him for the rest of my life.
“Come on, let's get things moving. We've got a schedule to stick to, and we don't want to waste anyone's time. A lot of big names have come out to support this, and we don't want to let 'em down,” he reminded me, tugging on my waist.
I followed him up the steps and onto the stage where the pianist was just finishing up a number. Owen nodded to him, and he stood, exiting the stage as Owen moved to the front of it. As soon as he was in front of the crowd, any trace of nervousness he’d had seemed to vanish. The stage really was a place where he felt truly at home, whether in a small dive bar in front of a dozen people, or on an arena stage in front of a crowd of hundreds of thousands of people.
“Good evening!” he shouted as if he were at a concert. “And thank you all for coming tonight. This is a very special night because we're all here to honor a cause that is very dear to someone who is very dear to me. My amazing girlfriend, Ms. Nalia Dean.
“I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge all the selfless work she's done for this orphanage. Your contributions tonight will continue the progress we have been fortunate enough to make from a humble beginning and hopefully, many other orphanages in the future. I promise you that your generous contributions will make this place a safe, wonderful home for these children for many years to come.
“You're not just building a place, ladies and gentlemen. You're not just stacking bricks and cement on top of one another. No, you're building lives. Beautiful, wonderful lives, full of hope and promise for the future.”
He then looked over at me, motioning for me to join him. I put on a smile as I nervously stepped up next to him, wondering what on earth he was about to do.
“As many of you might know, Nalia is a very talented pianist, and we have been working on her album in the studio for a few months now. Would you like to hear a song from her?”
I blushed as the crowd clapped and whistled. Owen was smiling down at me, nodding in encouragement. He leaned over to whisper some encouraging words in my ear. “Show off, babe.”
Taking a deep breath, I stepped over to the piano and sat down at the keys. I launched into a new song, surprised when Owen came to stand behind me, the mic in his hand. He began to sing the lyrics. We had practiced a few times before, but his voice still brought tears to my eyes. Maybe because he was singing a song we had created together, and he sang from his heart what we created from the heart.
The crowd fell silent as I poured myself into the song. And with the intensity of the music and the performance, coupled with Owen’s sweet voice, my heart was overwhelmed with love for him. His voice trailed off as he finished the lyrics and waited as I finished the last few notes. I simply sat there for a moment, my heart pounding in my ears as silence fell over the entire space.
Then, abruptly, the place erupted with shouts and cheers louder than I could have ever imagined. Smiling bright, I stood and glanced back, intending to prompt Owen to take a bow with me.
But he wasn’t where I had expected to see him. Instead, my eyes fell toward the floor where Owen was behind me on bended knee. In his hand, he held a small, black box. The crowd’s applause died to silence, and Owen looked up at me, smiling with tears rimming his eyes.
“Nalia Dean, no one has ever made me feel the way I do when I am with you, and I don’t ever want to find out what it feels like not to have you by my side. You are the most compassionate, loving person I have ever known, and I am so damn happy to have you in my life. I love you, more than any words could ever express. So, in front of all these witnesses, I’m asking if you will make me the happiest man on the planet. Will you marry me?” He opened the black box, revealing the most exquisite ring I’d ever laid eyes on.
“Owen,” I whispered as my hand covered my mouth in surprise, tears blurring my eyes. “Yes, yes, yes, I will. A million times, yes.”
He smiled and slipped the ring on my finger before rising to gather me in his arms, kissing me and holding me tightly against him. “Thank you,” he whispered. “Thank you so much.”
“For what?” I asked, pulling back to look at him.
“For taking a chance on me. For believing in what we could be. We are going to make a beautiful future together.”
And we did.
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COWBOY BOSS
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or 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 Claire Adams
Chapter One
Pete
Friday
I kicked back in my chair and put my feet up on the porch railing. This was my favorite time of day: right after breakfast, reading the paper I picked up in town after rustling up some breakfast, sipping on a mug of stale coffee with my scrappy old mutt lying next to me. It was going to get hot and sticky later in the afternoon, but right now, the weather was mild with a light breeze. Just the way I liked it, in other words.
“You ever do any work, Pete?”
I looked up to see Lacey standing on the bottom step up to the porch, grinning like the troublemaker she was. She had on the usual — a worn flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, a pair of blue jeans, and her old brown cowboy boots. Her light hair was pulled back and hidden beneath her dusty cowboy hat, nothing but a thick yellow braid sticking out of the back. She was one of the best riders in the county, male or female, and she knew her way around a ranch.
“A man’s got to stay up on current events,” I said, smiling, too. “There’s coffee inside if you want it.”
She stepped up onto the porch, bent to scratch Riley behind the ear, and took the seat next to me. “I don’t want any of that stale crap you call coffee.”
“Suit yourself.” That meant more for me, anyway.
“You have to be the only twenty-eight-year-old who actually reads the newspaper. My granddaddy doesn’t even read it, and he’s nearly eighty.”
Laughing, I went back to looking at my paper, even though I knew I wasn’t going to get much reading done with her around. “Ain’t nothing wrong with reading the paper. I don’t have time to read anything else with how busy the ranch keeps me.”
She sat back in her chair, stretching her long legs so she could rest her heels on the porch railing, too. “I sure was sorry to see Sandy go.”
“Yep,” I said, dipping my head into a nod. “Me, too.” Sandy was a quarter horse Lacey’d trained from the time she came to the ranch as a gun-shy filly. She'd left a top notch, fearless barrel racer. I tried to keep from getting too attached to the horses we raised and sold here, but Sandy had been a favorite of mine. It had been hard letting her go. But I couldn’t turn down the money she’d fetched. I had to keep this ranch up and running. That sometimes meant making hard choices.
“I’ve got a new one coming in,” I said, looking over at Lacey. She was staring out at the field. It was second thing in the morning, so the horses weren’t out there yet. “I just bought a colt from a rancher outside of Da
llas. He’s spirited, I’m told.” I took a sip of my lukewarm coffee. “I’m driving out there tomorrow, if you want to ride along.”
“Hell no,” she replied, that troublemaking grin on her face again, her brown eyes squinting at me as her eyebrows scrunched down. She had a spray of freckles traveling from one side of her nose to the other, but none on her tanned cheeks and forehead. “I have no interest in running up to Dallas and back again in one day, especially not with all the work that needs doing around here. I’ll help train the new colt once you get him, though.”
“I’d hope to hell so. Why else am I paying you?”
She gave a deep belly laugh and reached to sock me in the arm. She was skinny but solid, so her fists packed a punch. “You’re lucky I like you, Pete Gains, or I’d leave you to make the big bucks at some other ranch.”
She really could make a lot more somewhere else, but we’d known each other since first grade. She’d grown up on this farm, same as I had, and we both knew she wouldn’t feel comfortable anywhere else. Our whole lives had been horses and bailing hay. We didn’t know anything else. Lacey could have, if she’d wanted to, but she stayed home instead of going off to some fancy college upstate. I spent so much time screwing off in school that the ranch was my only option after graduation. Not that I minded. I couldn’t have made it through another four hellishly boring years of school.
I shook my paper to straighten it out and kept on reading while Lacey reached to scratch old Riley behind the ears again. He didn’t even lift his head, but his tail thumped once on the floor, letting her know he appreciated her.
“What do you have planned for today, old man?” she asked.
“I need to go by the feed store.” I thought a moment, staring hard at the paper without reading a word of it. “The lumberyard, too. The fence fell near the rear of the property line.”
She turned to stare out at our view of the farm, the pointy front of the barn and the grassy paddock beyond it. “What time are you leaving for Dallas tomorrow?”
I dropped my boots onto the wood floor of the porch and leaned over onto my knees, the paper hanging down from one hand so it was almost touching the floor. “First thing, probably.” I grinned over at her, meeting her eyes when she turned her head. “Well, after I go by the Texan, of course.” I’d been going there for breakfast as far back as I could remember, riding the distance into town in the back of my daddy’s old pickup. The morning just didn’t feel right without their biscuits and gravy.
“Of course. You have to see what the other old timers are doing before you head out. You have more in common with them than you do men your own age.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I replied, lifting my chin a little.
The smile she gave me reminded me that I shouldn’t take anything she said as a compliment. She’d played the part of the thorn in my ass since we were both knee high to grasshoppers. Not that I didn’t rain on her parade whenever I thought she was getting too big for her Stetson. What else were friends for?
“You’re never gonna find yourself a wife if you keep hanging out with the old timers at the Texan every morning.”
I wrinkled my nose, making like I’d just tasted something I didn’t agree with. “What use do I have for a wife?”
“She could teach you how to dress, for one,” Lacey said dryly, one sandy eyebrow cocked high.
I looked down at myself — long-sleeved chambray shirt, faded jeans, a broken in pair of cowboy boots — and then back up at her. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”
“It ain’t just what you have on,” she said, going on without really answering my question, which was her way. “It’s everything. Acting like you’re about to turn eighty-three instead of twenty-nine. Your ratty clothes. Your messy place looking like a tornado just ran through. Oh, and your hair, too. That needs serious help.”
“Damn, Lacey, tell me how you really feel.” I currently had my terrible haircut tucked under a cowboy hat. I’d worn it the same way since high school. If something was working for you, why change it? And, anyway, I wasn’t interested in finding a girlfriend. Why advertise if you aren’t looking? I didn’t need any more complication in my life than I already had with keeping the ranch up and running and dealing with Lacey’s smart ass.
“You know I love you, Pete,” she said, shooting her pointy grin over at me as her giggling started up again.
“I’d hate to see how you’d treat me if you hated me.” But I was laughing, too. I couldn’t help it.
“You’re too damned silly for a wife right now, anyway. Even if you did stop hanging out with the old timers. Who would want to put up with your ass?”
Now it was my turn to reach over and shove her, so hard she nearly pitched out of her chair and onto the floor next to Riley.
“Pete!” she hollered, struggling to keep her balance, her arms going around in wild circles.
Before she could regain her feet, I sprang from my seat, jumped down the porch steps, and ran off around the side of the house towards the barn. I’d always been faster than her — on my feet, at least, as no one could beat her on a horse — but I could hardly run with how much I was laughing.
She didn’t come after me, just screamed from where she stood on the porch in between laughing herself. “You better keep running, boy! Don’t let me catch you!”
I slowed down right outside of the barn, not wanting to spook the horses. Since I was over there, I figured I might as well see about feeding and watering them. I’d been putting off hiring someone to take care of them full time for a few months. Between Lacey and me, we were doing okay. But the new colt was going to take up a lot more of her time. And, I had the rest of the ranch to worry about. As much as I didn’t want to put out the money, I was going to have to deal with finding someone sooner rather than later.
Chapter Two
Emma
Friday
I brought the skillet of eggs to the table, serving Daddy before I sat down myself.
“Looks good, Emma,” he said. His clear blue eyes met mine for a long second, his thin lips pressed into a calm line. We’d been communicating this way — with heavy, meaningful glances — for years, starting right after Mama died.
I nodded once, then put a biscuit and a few slices of bacon on his plate before Kasey could take all of it.
Kasey reached for the bacon, taking all but a slice of it, the way she always did. The girl could put away some pork. “What?” she asked when I shot her a look. “I’m a growing girl.”
She flipped her shiny brown hair over her shoulder with one hand while she poked at her eggs with a fork. She liked them sunny side up, but Daddy preferred eggs fried all the way through, so that was how I made them. I had my own brand new place a few miles up the road, but Kasey struggled to boil water without burning it, and I knew Daddy appreciated a home-cooked meal whenever he could get it.
When I was in high school, the three of us used to switch off nights, and Kasey’s nights were always something we had to suffer through. The girl couldn’t cook to save her life. But, damn, could she eat. The only thing she ever showed up with at a potluck was her appetite.
I served myself last with the rest of the eggs, the remaining strip of bacon, and a piping hot biscuit that I broke open and slathered with butter and jam.
“What are you going to do now that you’ve finally finished college?” Kasey asked, mouth half full of biscuit. Everyone had missed my big breakfasts while I was off getting my degree in agriculture in Austin. “Did you decide on a job yet?”
I waited until I’d chewed through my own mouthful of biscuit before I answered. “I need to find something.”
“Do you know what you want to do?” she asked. She was dressed for work in a pair of tight black shorts, red company t-shirt with Murdock’s on 6th Street! printed on the front, and comfortable tennis shoes. She had a full face of makeup on, too, with extra sparkling color on her eyelids and bright red lipstick to match her shirt. She drove all t
he way out to Austin every day for work, but she managed to make pretty decent money in tips. It was nice when I was in school over there. I saw her all the time.
“I’d like to be outside working with animals if I can.”
Daddy was listening to all this as he slowly ate his breakfast, his light eyes traveling from one side of the table to the other. “There’s plenty of work like that around Round Rock,” he said and left it at that.
I nodded to show I agreed with him and then filled my mouth with a bite of cooling eggs. I was going to start looking on Monday. Graduation was only last week. I needed a little down time before I jumped right into the next part of my life.
“I can’t believe you moved all the way back to Round Rock after spending the last four years in Austin!” Kasey said. She flipped her hair again. She’d cut it since the last time I saw her, donating more than twelve inches. But she wasn’t used to it. She kept batting it away from her face. It was cute on her, though. She had it curled this morning, adding extra wave to what had come naturally from Mama. I got Daddy’s hair — bone straight and shiny, with a little tint of red at the bottom, but mostly solid brown.
“I like it here,” I said, simply.
“No place is better than Austin.” She pointed her wide green eyes at me. They were a shade or two lighter than mine. “You should come up with me this weekend. I’m staying over at Amanda’s apartment tomorrow night. She has room for you too. We could party on Sixth Street to celebrate your graduation!”
The last thing I wanted was to go out drinking with Kasey and her wild friends. They got up to all kinds of trouble that I just wasn’t interested in. Even at school, I left the partying mostly alone. Not that I didn’t have fun. It was just that my idea of fun didn’t often match with Kasey’s.
“I have some things to do around the house,” I said. “And after all the excitement of graduation last week, I just want to relax before I start looking for jobs on Monday.”