by Ali Olson
“I want to buy the ranch,” Amy said the moment they were through the back door of the empty house.
“What?” Jack asked, sure he hadn’t heard her correctly.
Of all the things he’d guessed she might say once they were alone, this was a complete surprise.
“I want to buy your family’s ranch. I have some cash saved up, plus a loan from my parents. It’s enough to get a mortgage on the place. Tom would get his fair share, and your mom would like to continue living on the ranch and put her portion into helping me turn the place into a rodeo school. With help from Jose and Diego I can get the stock, and Brock and my uncle Joe will gladly help get rodeo hopefuls out here.”
Jack stared at her, uncomprehending. What was she saying?
“I can make your dream a reality, Jack, and I want to do it. I want to live here, on a ranch with horses and family close by. Brock and I can manage the place as long as you’re on the circuit. I’ll still be able to do some writing for magazines I know would love to hear about Texas life. And I’ll be here with the baby when you’re ready to take over. I’m not running again, Jack. If I get on a plane, I want you to be there by my side,” she finished, handing him a stack of papers.
Amy took a deep breath, as if she’d just given a speech she’d been preparing for a long time. Which, it seemed, was pretty accurate.
Jack quickly rifled through the pile of documents. It included an offer for the ranch, a purchase order of rodeo stock and a passport application with his name already filled in.
He didn’t know what to say. Jack looked up at Amy, who was shifting nervously. “Are you really ready for all this?” he asked, gesturing to the papers.
Amy nodded with conviction. “I think all these years I’ve been traveling, I’ve been looking for something. A home, a place to be, something. When I was in Thailand, though, I wasn’t looking for that because I’d already found it here, with you, on your ranch. I was miserable so far from the people, the person, I love. I know what I want now, and this is it,” she said, gesturing toward the documents.
Jack didn’t need to hear any more. He tossed the papers onto the table and pulled Amy into a long, tender kiss that left them both breathless. After, he pressed his forehead against hers, taking in her sweet flowery smell and staring into the endless depths of her eyes. “I love you, Amy McNeal,” he said softly.
Amy sighed and closed her eyes. “No ‘but’ this time?” she asked, as if she couldn’t be sure this was real.
He shook his head while still leaning it against hers so hers shook as well. “No ‘but,’ Ames,” he said softly. “Never again. I have a ring for you back at the ranch. A ring that’s been waiting for you for ten years. Will you marry me?”
Amy let out a long sigh that was all the answer he needed. They shared another deep kiss. “I want to be the woman you deserve,” she told him.
Jack felt his heart go tight with love for her. “You’re everything and more,” he reassured her, giving her a last squeeze before realizing it was probably time to go back out among the other guests.
As they walked back to the wedding together, Amy leaned against Jack. “When do you need to go back to Wyoming?” she asked.
Jack smiled. “I don’t, actually, except for a quick trip to get Benny and my things,” he said.
When she stopped walking and gave him a look of confusion, he explained, “I called and quit this morning. Wyoming isn’t where I want to be. I want to be here in Spring Valley. I always have. Money might be a little tight for a while, but—”
“But we’ll make it work,” she finished for him.
He planted one more kiss on her lips, unable to stop himself. “Let’s dance,” he said with a smile as they threaded through the wedding guests toward the dance floor.
They had so much to celebrate.
Epilogue
Amy watched the paper lantern lift into the sky, the small fire beneath it propelling the entire thing up to join the others, thousands of them looking like so many stars in the darkness. She leaned close to Jack, staying silent until she could no longer see which lantern was theirs. “So, what do you think?” she asked him as she looked across the throng of people celebrating the festival.
Jack gave her a little squeeze. “Way better than Bastille Day in Paris.”
Amy nodded in agreement, her eyes still on the sky as her thoughts drifted to their daughter and son, so far away.
“You’re thinking about Spring Valley, aren’t you?” Jack asked her, his cornflower blue eyes studying her face.
She smiled. He always knew when she was missing home. “Darcy would love this,” she told him, picturing their four-year-old daughter shrieking with delight as the lantern flew away, her blue eyes sparkling just like her father’s were.
“She would,” Jack said, “and we’ll definitely need to bring her and Archer when they’re a little older. For now, I’m sure they’re perfectly content getting spoiled rotten by all three grandparents. Remember how happy Archer was when we did that video call this morning?”
Amy knew he was right, but she was still itching to see them. Archer had only been adopted the year before, and it still felt odd to leave him for a few days, no matter how good of hands he was in. “You don’t think they’re jealous that Jessie got to come?” she asked, putting a hand on the small swell of her belly.
“By the time we’ve given them all their gifts, I’m not sure they’ll even remember we were gone for any reason other than to buy them stuff. It’s a good thing the rodeo school is doing so well or we might need a second mortgage on the ranch to pay for this trip.”
Amy knocked him playfully with her shoulder. “Those are business expenses. I’m going to write a great article series on how to haggle.”
They stood silently as another hundred lanterns joined the rest, then Jack asked, “Should we get back to the hotel?”
Amy nodded. “My feet are exhausted. Just one last thing,” she said, diving into the crowd.
She was back a minute later with at least a dozen more paper lanterns piled in a big stack. “Now we can have our own little festival in Spring Valley,” she explained.
Jack gave her a wide grin. “The kids will love them,” he said.
Amy agreed. “Everyone will have a great time lighting them off. That, or someone will burn the house down. Either way, it’ll be a good story. And we have insurance that covers paper lanterns lit on fire, right?”
Jack laughed and shook his head at his wife’s silly sense of humor. “I love you, Amy McNeal-Stuart,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.
They kissed, and the noise and crowds of the festival faded away as they held each other.
* * * * *
If you loved this book, look for the previous book in Ali Olson’s SPRING VALLEY, TEXAS series:
THE BULL RIDER’S TWIN TROUBLE
And more, available now at Harlequin.com!
Keep reading for an excerpt from REUNITED WITH THE BULL RIDER by Christine Wenger.
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Reunited with the Bull Rider
by Christine Wenger
Chapter One
“Callie Wainright, what the hell are you doing in my home?”
Callie jumped at the low and lethal voice. She spun around and found herself toe-to-toe with Reed Beaumont.
Reed. Seeing him so unexpectedly, so near, she couldn’t swallow. They’d gone to school together since they were first graders in Beaumont, Oklahoma, up until the summer after senior year of high school when things got too serious too fast. Then they’d parted ways.
Callie had thought she could handle seeing Reed again if they ever met face-to-face for any length of time, but she couldn’t find her voice.
He was the middle brother of the bull-riding Beaumonts. The Professional Bull Riders’ announcers called them the Beaumont Big Guns, and they were breaking records with every ride.
Big brother Luke was solid and responsible and a recent bridegroom. Younger brother Jesse was footloose with a devil-may-care attitude. Reed was a healthy mix of the two. There wasn’t a soul in the town that was named after their founding ancestor, Ezra Beaumont, who didn’t follow their careers, including Callie.
“R-Reed.” She swallowed hard. “Reed. Hello. It’s been a long time.”
She looked into his eyes for several beats of her heart. She remembered them as mostly calm and comforting, but the blue pools were turbulent, just like that sunny day that had changed the direction of both their lives.
Callie’s normally poised and businesslike manner was nowhere to be found, and she was afraid that her suddenly weak knees would give out.
“Why you are in my father’s study and sitting in his chair? What are you doing at the Beaumont Ranch?” His voice was cold and icy; obviously he’d never forgiven her. In spite of all their wonderful plans for the future, Callie had backed out at the last minute. She’d stayed home to take care of her mother and gone to community college. She had been supposed to go on the road with him, but she hadn’t able to.
Not when her family had needed her—and they still needed her.
She’d had obligations in Beaumont back then. She still had the same obligations, only now she had a mortgage and she was working hard to pay for it.
“In answer to your question, I’m working here for a while.”
Recently, Luke had hired her for the job of her dreams. When he was in town last year, restoring the ranch after Hurricane Daphne, he’d heard of her work as an executive helper, along with her top-notch business, Personable Assistance.
Yes. She was now sitting in Big Dan Beaumont’s office on an overstuffed brown leather executive chair on the historic Beaumont Ranch. Several patriarchs had sat behind the great oak Stickley desk.
The ranch was the pride of little Beaumont. As a tourist attraction, it brought much-needed dollars to various shops, restaurants and cafés in the area.
The Beaumonts needed her and she needed them. When word got around town that she’d been hired at the ranch, Callie’s Personable Assistance would skyrocket. Maybe she’d even have to hire some help.
She pointed to the crutches he was leaning on. “Bull-riding accident, Reed?” she asked to fill the silence.
“Yeah. But how about elaborating on my question—what are you doing here?”
“I’m a personal assistant. I was hired to get everything organized,” she said. “And to digitize the ranch’s records.”
When Luke had shown her what he’d wanted her to do, Callie had noticed that the Beaumonts’ record keeping was an outright train wreck. All income and expenditures needed to be organized and entered on a spreadsheet.
She was good at that.
Callie gestured to the pile of mail sliding from the desk to the floor like an avalanche. There were opened and unopened sympathy cards and mass cards in memory of Valerie Lynn Beaumont, Big Dan’s wife. Valerie Lynn had died over three years ago.
“I’ll send thank-you cards to what needs to be answered,” she told Luke. “Like the mass cards or monetary gifts.”
There was more mail in the three feed sacks leaning on the right wall. Luke had pulled them out of his pickup, hoisted all three on his shoulder and deposited them, explaining that it was fan mail from the Professional Bull Riders’ office for Reed, Jesse and himself.
Callie remembered telling Luke, “I’ll answer all the fan mail with an autographed picture of whomever the mail is addressed to. And then there’s email that comes via your outdated websites. I’ll answer that, too, and get your them into this century.”
Reed cleared his throat. “Who hired you?”
“Your brother Luke.”
“But Luke’s on his honeymoon,” he said coolly.
“I know. He hired me before he left for Hawaii with Amber. I think that it was Amber—or should I call her Sheriff Beaumont?—who suggested me.” She stood and rubbed her forehead. “What’s the problem, Reed? Do you think I broke into this office because I was just dying to answer fan mail for you and your brothers?”
“Guess not.” Reed aimed his crutches in the direction of a brown leather wingback chair and flopped down with a grunt. He stretched out his right leg.
“So, Callie. Tell me. What have you been doing these past ten years?”
* * *
CALLIE LOOKED AS beautiful as always, Reed thought. His fingers itched to bury his fingers in her mass of blond curls like he’d done before. Her eyes had always reminded him of the spring-green grass along the Beaumont River on the eastern side of the ranch.
Today, Callie had on a pair of jeans that she’d been born to wear, jeans that enhanced her curves. He liked her long-sleeved shirt; the pink-and-blue plaid looked soft enough to touch. And she wore cowboy boots. Callie always wore boots. She said that it made her look taller than her five-foot-five-inch frame.
“I’ve been living my life, Reed. Going to school and working.”
“You look great.” And she did. But even more than looks, Callie was a good person inside and out. He’d developed a deep respect for her back when they were in grammar school together, and finally found the nerve to ask her out on a “real” date in senior year. What had followed was three months of romance and a summer full of heat that they generated themselves.
Callie had been his first, and he was hers.
He’d liked the fact that she always volunteered to help someone in need, but she would never ask for anything for herself. He’d missed her, missed their long walks and longer talks. He should have called her, but he couldn’t, not after the way they’d parted.
“Thanks. You look great, too.” She glanced at his injured leg. “Well, except for the obvious.” She sighed. “I always tune into the PBR, but I must have missed the news about your leg.”
“It’s my knee. Torn meniscus. I might not need surgery if I take it easy on the leg and keep it up.”
“Let me get you another chair so you can stretch out.”
Before he could tell her not to bother, she pulled over the other seat.
With a groan, he put his leg up and tried to get comfortable. “Thanks, but you never answered my question. How’ve you been?”
Callie didn’t say much, but he knew she had a habit of changing the subject when she didn’t want to answer a question. Like now.
“Good. This place needs organizing. There are still...things...from my mother’s...um, death, like cards and all. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to go through everything, least of all my father. After Hurricane Daphne hit, we just dried out whatever papers looked important and tossed the rest.”
Silence.
Callie cleared her throat. “Big Dan is still in rehab, isn’t he?”
She asked that question probably to break the silence this time. She had that habit, too. She knew the answer already. Beaumont was a small town. But Callie cared about people, so her question was genuine. All his feelings for her came rushing back like a tidal wave. Was she dating someone? Was she glad to see him? “Yeah. Alcohol rehab. My father’s been there for seven months, but it seems like he’s been fighting his demons forever.” Truthfully, he was worried about his dad. He’d had several setbacks, but they’d be worth it if he learned something from them. Reed wasn’t sure that his dad realized that he could actually get a sentence of incarceration if he was found guilty of violating his probation.
“I understand about Big Dan. And you know, Reed, I can’t believe I’m here, either. I came to the ranch on the usual visits we had every two years in school during history class. Your beautiful mother gave us the tour. I’ve always loved the ranch.”
A pang of sorrow hit his heart, as it always did whenever he thought of his mother, and he took a deep breath. “Mom loved to share the Beaumont history. And remember how I had to take the tour, too? Sometimes I gave it!”
She laughed.
“Callie, I’m sorry I reacted so weirdly. I just didn’t expect to see you, but I’m glad I did. So you’ve been okay?”
“I’ve been fine.” She nodded.
“According to the town grapevine, I know you’ve never gotten married, but are you dating anyone these days? Weren’t you engaged once?”