Cowboy Edition EBook

by Maree, Kay

  “No, my son, you’re wrong,” Mrs. Elua spoke with such force that the walls quivered.

  Wolf looked at her, shaking his head.

  “Something to say my son?” she questioned him.

  “Yes, mother. Eka will be back and she will be with me.”

  “The elders and her father won’t have it. She left and has been tarnished by a white man. Can you not see, my son, the damage of their ways. The violence, Wolf.”

  “I can see it and I felt it too. Each and every time he laid his hands on her, mother, I felt her pain.” Tears rolled down his cheeks at the memories. Eka sobbed next to him. Wolf tried to pull himself up in the bed further as his leg was heavy in a cast and his ribs screamed in burning pain, but he needed to reach Eka. To pull her into him, to kiss her sadness away. To reassure her that he had her and it was going to be ok.

  “We will not have it. I will be calling a meeting with the elders.”

  “Be still, mother.” Wolf’s voice was aspirated.

  His mother looked at her son while stepping toward him. Her hands shaking as they reached for his face, cupping either side, she pulled his eyes to meet hers.

  “She’s my nigohilvi, (evermore) Unitsi (mother).

  “Hanvdaquusso (can you remember) what she put you through, my son?” Tears fell from her eyes. She was scared for her son. She had nearly lost him, and she was still haunted by what her only son had gone through at the hands of a woman who he had loved more than breathing.

  “She’s my nvdo iga ehi (sun), nothing else matters. When she’s with me and the thing that wrecks you is always worth fighting for,” Wolf said, bringing his hands up to meet his mothers.

  “You taught me to love, mother, so love is what I am doing.”

  Mrs. Elua shook her head, her mouth opened to speak but Wolf cut her off.

  “Please understand,” he asked of her.

  “But, Wolf…”

  He shook his head at her, pressing a finger to her lips.

  “No, mother. Please. Please hear me on this, I will not shift. I am the moon and she is my sun. The distance that you all as a tribe placed on us was unfair and cruel. The banishment was too much. If you had allowed her to come back, then she wouldn’t have had to endure such violent acts from a devil. I found her when she needed me the most. I picked her up and saved her just as she saved me. Mother, you see, it’s written in the stars. The moon and the sun, if you try to stop this then we will run like lovers into the sky and be as one amongst the stars.”

  Wolf’s mother stepped back from her son, dropping his hands from her face. “My son, you need to rest. You’re not thinking right. It’s the bang to your head. We all will leave, and you will rest. We will speak of this with your father.”

  Taking Eka’s hand, he looked over to Lucy who had a smile on her face.

  “Yes, mother, I will rest, I will do that with Eka on my ranch.” Eka’s eyes moved from the wall above the bed down to Wolf’s as he looked up to her.

  “I did it, my love,” he spoke as she closed her eyes.

  “Near killed you too.” Benny’s voice broke into the room. “And I won’t be having a piece of dirt on your ranch either, fool,” he spoke loud and clear.

  “So, Lucy, I see that it’s all been settled. Jimmy got to the solicitor in time.?” He questioned as Lucy pulled a file from her bag. “He sure did. All yours and Eka’s, Wolf. Congratulations.” She stood and placed the file on the blankets over Wolf’s lap. Benny stood beside his mate. “I will not take what you worked hard for, my friend.” His voice was genuine and solid.

  “You will because we worked hard for it,” Wolf said.

  “Errrr-mmmm,” his mother cleared her throat.

  “Someone, please tell me what is going on here.”

  Wolf looked from Benny, who held his hands up in front of him. “You’re on ya own. I ant going against your Mumma.” He laughed and backed away. Eka just smiled, unsure of what was going on, and Lucy laughed, walking over toward her oldest friend.

  “Well your son just bought Golanv Asgoli (Raven Heads) ranch.”

  Wolf’s mother’s mouth fell open, her eyes screamed happiness for her son. Finally, all the hard work and near-death falls had paid off. It was bittersweet though, and she knew that. Wolf could take Eka back with him and be as one without their permission as it was not on reservation land. He had bought over the river.

  “Oh, and mother, I asked Eka to marry me and she said yes.” Benny dropped a ring box into Wolf’s hand, and he pulled a beautiful Alexandrite and Diamond. set in a white gold band ring out of the box. Wolf took his love's hand in his and slipped the ring onto her finger. Their lips met in a kiss that silenced the whole room. You could feel the embrace washing away all the scars from a past that they never wanted to relive again. They were making new memories, and these will last a lifetime inside the faith of two lovers that were destined to be more than just a love story. They were going to be a song of the gods and sung inside the heavens for years to come.

  Shocked gasps and clapping hands echoed inside the room as Wolf’s mother fell to the chair behind her, catching her body as her eyes spilled with what Wolf was hoping was happy tears. Eka’s mother fell into her daughter, wrapping her inside her arms and holding her tight. Eka let go and everything she had been holding back and living through exploded inside the embrace of her mother. Finally, Eka was home inside her mother’s arms.

  Benny cheered as Lucy clapped, and Jimmy walked in. “What’s all the commotion in here?” he said through a laugh as Wolf lay back and closed his eyes. Taking in a healing breath, he thanked the great spirits for all he had and for keeping him on this side of the living so he could love his beautiful, unique wish that was her name, Miss Eka Peno.

  ~*~

  Eight weeks later…

  Wolf Thunder-Horse sat on the front porch of his parents’ house at the reservation with his leg propped on a folding chair and looked out at them at the darkening sky. Wishing for the rain to come as they needed it for the pasture. A dry autumn breeze drifted through the eaves, rattling the wind chimes, sending out a melodic sound through the air around him. He’d been home for two months. A doctor ordered bed rest after his leg had been busted up like a cheap 2X4, and his lung had seeped air like a leaky balloon. Don’t even get him started on the way his ribs all broke like cheap china and his brain took a beating like Rocky had gone ten rounds with it.

  As glad as he was not to be wheeling himself around in a chair for the rest of his life, it stung his pride that his family was forced to take care of him at the family home on the reservation. He didn’t want to be there; he wanted to be on his ranch with Eka alone to heal and explore each other in the walls of their own home. Where they could fall back in sync and fall back into the pleasure that they both could give each other. It was suffocating the way their slow stares could consume all the air around them. With just one touch, the earth shook. They were made for each other, Eka and Wolf. They made the dark cry when it was skin on skin until the sunrise; they set the world on fire.

  His mom was happy to have him home in any capacity, happier yet he was done with life on the road. He was still shuffling around on crutches with a brace on his leg. Eka was with him, and she was helping him with his physical therapy exercises every day. It hurt him more than he let on.

  He felt useless.

  He couldn’t stand by himself. He wanted to be alone with Eka in his teepee on his ranch and help Benny and his father build his log cabin, the one he had always promised Eka he would build her. He begged Eka and his mother to let him move over the river, but his mother refused and claimed she didn’t trust him not to do too much, too soon. Eka joined her on this. Annoyed, Wolf still argued daily with them over it. Eight weeks had changed a lot inside the dynamics of the family and Eka’s also. The elders accepted Eka back. When Wolf’s leg is healed and in the summer on the 24th moon he and Eka will become man and wife and will be joined in a fire dance to
celebrate their union. Their love was one of the greatest stories of their history. They blazed a trail down their own path. Rewrote history with their own journey and made way for others to freely fall in love to become something great.

  Helping with the chores was out, too. When he went asking the boys on the reservation if they needed a hand, he was always meet with what the elders had said. ‘No, there would be plenty of time for chores and helping when your healed.’

  So, Wolf spent a lot of time sitting around, mostly wondering what the hell he was gonna do now that his rodeo career was history. Sure, he had known at the end of this season he’d have to scale back and compete locally only on weekends while he got his ranch up and running and was building his home. So, it’d come as a complete shock when his doctor had warned him if he started riding bulls or broncs again, he could end up in a wheelchair permanently. Not a chance he was willing to take.

  He wanted to build a family with Eka so he wouldn’t do anything to take that away.

  He’d seen just how scared she was at the thought of losing him. He watched it every night since the accident in the way her body fought through the nightmares as the memories attacked her mind in the dark hours. He knew Cody Smith always walked through her mind at night, causing her body to react in pain, jolting as she whimpered. All Wolf could do was hold her and whisper in her ear to pull her back to him. Remind her to stay with him. It’s just a bad dream. Stay my love, my beautiful Eka. He would chant over and over, night after night, as violence took her down to a place Wolf couldn’t each.

  Wolf caught a glimpse of Eka as she stepped out into the sunshine from the stables. She shaded her eyes with her hand. Wolf’s heart stopped as he looked at her. She still took his breath away.

  He hobbled over to her and pulled her against him. He kissed her, not like he wanted to devour her, but with pureness. Gentleness. With his heart and soul wide open. Like he was giving them a memory to reflect on for the next sixty years when they looked back on this moment. She drank him in and filled him back up, sharing, drowning in everything they freely gave to each other. She buried her face in his shirt, inhaling the warm, intimate scent of him.

  “I missed you so much,” she whispered into his lips. Still, to this day, she missed all the time they had lost and hated herself for it.

  “You had to see, my love, what it was like and I knew you would return. It hurt like hell, but your love was an earthquake underneath my skin and I knew I would have you. I knew that if I gave it time, you would be all of mine.”

  “I wanted to die when you got hurt. I begged Cody to kill me so I could be waiting for you.” Her voice cracked over the words. Wolf’s heart clenched inside his chest,

  “I am glad you stayed.”

  “It was only because of you. The way you came to me when I needed you the most.”

  “My love. My beautiful Eka, I will always pull you from the dark. For I am your moon and my love, you’re my sun.”

  Eka brought her hand up to trace the features of Wolf’s face as the sun danced over his skin.

  Wolf kissed the inside of her wrist. “This is where I tell you, I love you. Eka Peno, I love you more than the river loves the mountains.” Eka’s eyes filled with tears and she nodded. “I love you, Wolf Thunder-Horse. You make me the luckiest, happiest woman in the world.”

  “Ditto, my love. I’ll spend every waking hour making sure our life together fulfills your every desire. I will cherish you more than the stars orb the moon and the clouds kiss good morning to the sun.”

  “Evermore.” Eka kissed his lips falling into his body, the sun kissing their skin reminding them that they are a true story of how love really does conquer all.

  “Evermore, my Eka” Wolf whispered as the wind kicked up around them, sending small leaves and the smell of the coming rain around them.

  Deliriously happy, Eka asked her very own Cowboy, “Is this where we ride off into the sunset, cowboy?”

  Wolf kissed her. Long. And hard.

  “I’ll have to raincheck the ride for now, but we can walk.”

  Taking Eka’s hand in his, Wolf walked with his love at his side into the rain clouds as the sun set in behind them, lighting Eka up like an angel. A gift from heaven to a wayward cowboy who needed her to ground him. The warm drops of early autumn’s rain washed the past from them and promised them a future worth singing about.

  Aleisha Maree

  Aleisha Maree knew she was going to write... well, since forever.

  As soon as she could read, she wanted to be that escape for others.

  Words pulled her in and held her tight in a world that captivated your soul and took you on a journey.

  She crafts sensual, sexy, tantalizing stories that weave together her love for darkness, pure passion and most of all human emotions which dance on the cusp of your soul.

  She's from the South Island of New Zealand born and raised in a tiny but extraordinary village called Wakefield which holds so much more than her heart.

  She now lives in the North Island of New Zealand in another village called Wharepapa South with her husband and 6 kids on a dairy farm.

  When she's not consumed by those beautiful humans, she's knee-deep in writing, working on another work of art to captivate your soul and mind. To take you to the edge and back again.

  She's a dark soul and introvert who loves nature and water, is insanely in love with coffee and reading.

  She can always be found with her family with a book in her handbag and the wind in her hair.

  Just keep an eye out for all the loud crazy kids, and she will be like right there!

  Connect with the author

  Email - Aleishamareeauthor@gmail.com

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  LET ME BE YOUR WHISKEY

  LAUREN FIRMINGER

  LET ME BE YOUR WHISKEY

  Copyright © 2020 Lauren Firminger All rights reserved. Published by Lauren Firminger

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including photo copying, recording, electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, and incident are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for you personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the authors work.

  Editing by Emma Mack of www.ultraeditingco.com

  Wyatt

  Three Months Earlier.

  Hearing a knock on my door, I stumbled over to open it up. Seeing my brother on the other side of it, I rest my head against the frame. Truth was, I needed it to hold me up after getting off work and drinking until I passed out. Since Ava had left, that was all I had done. I hadn’t seen my brother in weeks or my newborn niece
for that matter. Not since the night she was born.

  “Brother.”

  “So, you are still alive, good to know.” He moved into my house and looked around. He couldn’t hide the disgust on his face.

  “Please, come right in.” Walking back to sit down in my chair, I looked up at him. The disgust had disappeared and was replaced with disapproval. He looked so much like our father. Toby and I were chalk and cheese. He wanted to be a police officer growing up and did whatever he could to make it happen. He met the love of his life and despite the rocky times, he married her, and they had baby Lily. Even if I did think that it was gonna end before she got here, they kept fighting to make it work.

  Me, I got a job on a local ranch straight out of school. When that went under, I tried to find something else to do but nothing gave me the same feeling that the ranch had. It wasn’t until a few months ago, someone had brought the ranch that I had been working at and approached me about helping out with it. I had to admit, it came at the perfect time because my savings were starting to run out. Unfortunately though, when something starts going right, it is only a matter of time before I dropped the ball on something else. Apparently, I was spending so much time at the Anderson’s place that I didn’t make time for my relationship. When I wasn’t at the ranch, I was with my brother and sister in law getting ready for Lily. Toby had to work so he asked me to come and stay as the due date got closer so that someone he trusted was there if Kelsea went into labor. I got home at the crack of dawn, just in time to shower and go again, but when I walked into the house, I knew something was wrong. Ava wasn’t there and neither were her things. Looking around for some kind of sign, I found a note. She had left me and was moving to Tennessee. Just like that. No warning, nothing. Just gone in the middle of the night. That was two weeks and I don’t know how many bottles of bourbon ago.