Counting on a Cowboy

by Debra Clopton

  Acclaim for Debra Clopton

  “Clopton introduces an engaging cast of characters who are warm, welcoming, and feel like family . . . An appealing choice for readers of Janette Oke and Robin Lee Hatcher.”

  — Library Journal review of Betting on Hope

  “Clopton’s novel is filled with humor, romance and a great sense of reality. The writing is moving and masterful. Each character comes alive through her words. They are diverse but fun characters who depict real life.”

  — Romantic Times review of Betting on Hope

  “Amusing secondary characters and an intriguing side plot mix with humor to balance an occasionally clichéd plot that is light on faith.”

  — Publishers Weekly review of Betting on Hope

  Other Books by Debra Clopton

  FOUR OF HEARTS RANCH ROMANCE NOVELS

  Betting on Hope

  Counting on a Cowboy

  Kissed by a Cowboy (Available February 2016)

  Her Unforgettable Cowboy

  Her Homecoming Cowboy

  Her Lone Star Cowboy

  Her Rodeo Cowboy

  Her Forever Cowboy

  His Cowgirl Bride

  The Trouble with Lacy Brown

  NOVELLAS BY DEBRA CLOPTON

  A Cowboy for Katie found in Four Weddings and a Kiss

  An Ever After Summer found in A Bride for All Seasons

  An August Bride: A Year of Weddings Novella

  Copyright © 2015 by Debra Clopton

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Christian Publishing, Inc.

  Thomas Nelson titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

  Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-1-4016-9052-6 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Clopton, Debra.

  Counting on a cowboy / Debra Clopton.

  pages ; cm. — (A four of hearts ranch romance ; 2)

  ISBN 978-1-4016-9051-9 (softcover)

  I. Title.

  PS3603.L67C67 2015

  813'.6—dc23

  2015006796

  15 16 17 18 19 20 RRD 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Always to my family—those with me now and those who’ve gone before me . . . but are forever and always in my heart.

  CONTENTS

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  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  1

  “Wake up, Abby,” Abby Knightley demanded of herself through a huge yawn. Sitting straighter, she gripped the steering wheel of her car as if her life depended on it—and it did.

  Abby’s stomach knotted at the thought . . . her firsthand knowledge of just how truly life could change in the blink of an eye. She knew getting behind the wheel was always life or death. She’d suffered great loss—she pushed the memories away, unable and unwilling to go there. She blinked back the sting of tears and berated herself for driving while tired. For putting herself in this situation.

  She almost pulled over to the side of the deserted road to sleep. But thankfully her GPS reported that her destination, the small Texas town of Wishing Springs, was only about five miles ahead. She could make that . . . just a little farther. And that was the only reason she was still driving . . .

  Her eyes blurred and she eased her foot off the gas pedal as the worry gripped her further. She should have stayed in Houston after being delayed so late. But she hadn’t wanted to. She’d feared that if she didn’t leave right then, there might have been another delay tomorrow. And then another one. With so many friends and family trying to talk her out of moving—like today, Abby might not have ever summoned up the determination to leave again if she hadn’t finally gotten in her car and driven off.

  Of course the fact that she’d sold her home and had a moving company haul her belongings off to storage was a pretty good sign she was going somewhere. But Wishing Springs, Texas?

  “That hole in the wall,” her friends called it in horror.

  Abby cringed thinking about their response to her decision to make a new life for herself.

  Her head bobbed and she yanked it up, realizing her eyes had closed. She shot them open, shook herself, and—too late—saw the hulking, huge, black cow—or was it a buffalo in the middle of the road?

  “Holy Toledo!” Abby shrieked, yanking the wheel with all her strength, only to realize she was now heading straight toward a cowboy standing in her high beams.

  Time slowed as she hit the brakes. He stood like a Western movie legend come to life. His brows dipped, his jaw tensed, his eyes connected with hers through the windshield as time stopped in that split second it took her to register the danger.

  She cranked down hard on the wheel as flashbacks of another wreck crashed over her.

  She managed to swerve, sending her car careening into the ditch, across the rough ground, then through the barbed wire fence.

  On impact with the fence post, the car’s air bags exploded—smacking Abby like a hard right hook to the face.

  Stars filled the sudden, brief blackness.

  Face throbbing, Abby fought off passing out—had she missed him?

  Had she run him down? Dazed, with icy fingers of fear clutching her heart, Abby struggled with her seatbelt and almost had it off when her door flew open.

  “Are you okay?” the very much alive cowboy asked, his voice gruff.

  “Yes. Are you? Did I hit you?” Relief surged through her so strong she barely felt the pain of her face from the impact of the air bag. No sooner had the relief hit her, then anger, then the familiar panic sent her clawing to get out of this car.

  “What were you thinking?” she demanded, pushing him back so she could escape the confines of the car. Surprise froze his expression as he backed up. She glared at him. “I could have killed you! Just what were you doing standing in the dark out here in the middle of nowhere? Have you gone crazy?”

  He blinked in obvious surprise at her attitude, then a slow grin built until it caused a deep dimple to appear beside lips that suddenly had her gaze glued.

  “Now calm down,” he said in
an easy drawl that caused her pulse to skitter unexpectedly. “I’m okay and you’re okay, so no need to be upset. I was trying to herd that escaped steer off the road before someone came along and had an accident. I’m sure sorry I didn’t get him in before you got here.”

  “It’s dark. I didn’t see you. I could have hit you.” Her stomach lurched at the close call and her hands shook as she grasped her hips.

  Concern etched his features. “But you didn’t. Come on now, breathe before you go and give yourself a stroke or something. My truck’s down there.” He pointed into the distance.

  Abby spotted headlights pointing out into the pasture. “Way down there,” she accused. “I can barely see them.”

  “Look, the steer started out down there, and then bolted. I ran after him on foot—big mistake. I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt because of it.”

  “Well, I could have been,” she retorted, not able to let being upset go as easily as he seemed to think she should. She knew, understood, what could have happened all too clearly. Her mind filled with the sound of screeching tires, she closed her eyes and fought the memory off. Heard the screams—her screams—

  “Hey,” he said kindly, his hand, gentle and warm, wrapped around her arm, causing her to jump. “We’re all okay. That’s all that matters.”

  She met his eyes and blinked, remembering where she was. “I, I just wasn’t expecting something like this.”

  “You’re whiter than a sheet. You may need to sit down. You have a few cuts on your face still bleeding a little bit. I’m sure it all hurts pretty good too.”

  “Blood?” Abby yelped. Her heart dropped to her knees and she swayed. She might have fallen if his strong hands hadn’t closed more securely around her arms, holding her up.

  “Hang on, breathe,” he said, easing her back into the car’s seat. He wasted no time pushing her head forward between her knees. “Come on now, this will pass. How are you doing down there?”

  She sucked in a couple of shallow breaths. “I’m f-i-i-i-ne,” she said, drawing the word out, trying to sit up, but he resisted, holding her firmly. “Really, I am. As long as I don’t see it,” she called, trying to sit up again. This time he let her. She carefully made sure to keep her eyes off the mirrors. “Is it bad? Is it going to drip? I can’t see it drip.” Flashbacks surged and she focused on him as he crouched in front of her. She hated the panic she could hear in her voice and the panic of threatening memories clashing inside of her. Memory of her loss . . . of Landon.

  Unable to go there, she focused hard on the cowboy’s blue eyes sparkling in the light of the interior car lights. Familiar eyes, she suddenly realized. “It’s not bad. Not much more than a scratch, but let’s get rid of it before it—” He halted as a drop of blood landed on his wrist and in the glow from the inside car light she saw the dark red stain spread out on his tanned skin.

  She gasped. “Not good—”

  Then everything went black.

  Bo Monahan caught the woman as she went limp. “Whoa,” he said—as if that would stop her from falling out in a dead faint. It was just a small amount of blood from a cut at the corner of her full bottom lip. Just a drop on his wrist. He got a little queasy around a lot of blood, but this wasn’t as big as a dime.

  She’d slumped forward into his arms—he’d automatically swung her up and now held her. Her feet dangled over one arm and her head lolled against his chest. Her dark hair tickled his jaw. Suddenly at a loss, relief surged through him when he saw lights coming down the lane leading up to the ranch.

  Jarrod was on the way.

  Bo had just found the escaped steer about five minutes before and called his brother for backup while he ran in pursuit. This poor gal had just happened to come around the corner a few moments too soon. The ornery bovine had bolted right in front of her car and all Bo could do was watch.

  “Wake up, pretty lady,” he urged. A slight September breeze was blowing, but despite it not yet being cold in Texas this time of year, her cheek had an icy chill—her face pale in the bit of light reaching them from inside the car. She had a Sarah Evans face—one of those faces that was beautiful, but give her a baseball cap and she became the girl-next-door type. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off of her. Though he sure wished she’d open her eyes and let him know she was okay.

  Seconds later Jarrod’s headlights flooded over them, blinding him as hers had done. Jarrod, his older brother, stormed out of the truck, stalking through the glaring beams.

  “You didn’t say anything about an accident. Have you called 911?” He stared at the woman in Bo’s arms.

  “No time. It just happened. That blame steer was in the road and this lady had to swerve to miss it. She was shaky, but fine after the accident. This isn’t from the wreck. She saw a drop of blood from that small cut on her face and she fainted.”

  “You sure that’s all that’s wrong?” Jarrod pulled out his cell phone. “I better call 911. Have them send out an ambulance just in case.”

  “She didn’t hit anything other than those two fence posts. The air bag deployed and probably busted her lip. But call anyway.”

  “No,” she groaned, and moved in his arms. Her lashes fluttered, and then Bo found himself looking into soft blue eyes.

  “Well, hello again,” he said. “Glad you’re coming back to us.” He smiled to reassure her, though he was far from happy that one of their steers had caused this. She could have been hurt bad if she’d hit the nearly two-thousand-pound animal at the speed she was traveling.

  “I’m fine,” she said, her eyes starting to focus. She studied him. “You’re Bo Monahan.”

  He’d never had a problem with ladies knowing who he was—until after his new sister-in-law had put Wishing Springs on the map. Maggie was an advice columnist in the Houston area and there had been a TV special done on her and his brother Tru. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d written a crazy article on single men in his small town and since then, women had been showing up in Wishing Springs in packs.

  Like day trips to see the “cowboys.” Made him feel like the newest animal in the zoo.

  And he wasn’t especially fond of feeling like he was on display.

  Until that had all started, Bo had enjoyed it when a woman approached him and already knew his name. These days not so much.

  Jarrod hiked an eyebrow at him, telegraphing their shared reaction. The only difference was Jarrod ran the ranch cattle operation and upkeep while Bo ran the ranch’s custom-made stirrup business. Because the stirrups could benefit from the publicity, Bo had been idiot enough to agree to be interviewed on the show.

  So now he was recognized and looked for by all the day-trippers here and sometimes when he went out of town for any reason. He was a little touchy on the subject these days.

  Jarrod, on the other hand, had flat out refused to be on camera—the cattle business got plenty of publicity without showing him. The stirrup business needed all the free publicity it could get and so there you go—Bo had been on the program.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he answered though his thoughts rambled. “That’s me. How are you feeling?”

  “Fine,” she said, disgust in her voice. “I passed out, didn’t I? I hate when I do that.”

  “I can sure see where it would get to be bothersome.”

  “Real bothersome.” Her fingers began drumming against his chest as she seemed to think hard about something. He realized he wasn’t finding the feel of her in his arms bothersome at all. Matter of fact, he didn’t mind that she knew who he was.

  “It just takes a drop. Do you know how hard it is to avoid seeing a drop of blood? It’s tough.” Her brows suddenly dipped and her gaze dropped to his chest and her hand lifted. She gasped. “You’re holding me.”

  Taken off guard by her only just realizing that, he laughed and so did Jarrod. A complete look of horror flared red across her face.

  “Well, you don’t have to look so horrified. I’m not as bad as all that.”

  “That dep
ends on who you ask,” Jarrod drawled. “How about we take you to the ranch, ma’am, and get you something to drink while you get your wits about you.”

  “No. No, I couldn’t. I have a room in town at the Sweet Dreams Motel.”

  She wiggled in his arms and he knew he should put her down but found the thought unappealing so instead he said, “And it will be there after you’ve had some sweet tea and are steady on your feet.” Bo wondered if her eyes were as soft a blue as they looked in the dim light.

  “But—”

  “No buts, ma’am,” Jarrod said. “Bo.”

  “Might as well not argue with my big brother. He’s pretty used to getting his way when he spells it out. And I happen to agree with him. I’ll take you up to the house and let you get steady while I get that blood off your face. Unless you want us to take you to the hospital.”

  “No, really, I’m fine. It was just the blood. My face isn’t throbbing any longer either. You can put me down now.”

  Jarrod moved to the front of her car and voiced what Bo had also figured. “I don’t think your car is drivable.”

  With Bo close beside her, she moved to stand beside Jarrod. “Oh my word,” she gasped. “My car.”

  “Looks like this is going to need hauling in all right.” Bo bent to look at the metal fence stake sticking out of the radiator.

  “Yeah, I’d agree. I’ll go round up the steer before it causes any more trouble. You’ve got this, don’t you, Bo?”

  Bo didn’t miss the mild humor in his brother’s question. Jarrod could read him like headlines on a newspaper and had already picked up on his interest and curiosity toward Abby. “Yeah, got it.”

  “I’ll see you later, ma’am. If you need anything let us know. And don’t worry about any of this—we’ll take care of all of it.”

  “Thank you, and please call me Abby.”

  He tipped his hat. “Abby, you take care.”

  Looking less pale, she watched Jarrod walk to his truck and take out a rope then head into the shadows for the steer.

  “Will he get the cow by himself? Do you need to help him?”

  “Nah, Jarrod’s a pro. He’ll have that troublemaker caught in a flick of his wrist. Let’s get you to the house and that lip of yours doctored. Might need an ice pack for your face too.”