Cowboy Charming

by Lacy Williams

  She turned to face the field, aware of the man at her elbow. How could someone like Ethan not have dated? He was handsome, young. She didn't know anything about dairy farming, but it seemed as if he had a strong work ethic.

  On the field, players from each team lined up, bent low and forward. One player jogged back and forth behind the line.

  The crowd didn't go completely silent, but it seemed to hold its breath. She could hear one of the players, standing behind the line, shouting. She couldn't make out the words.

  And then both lines seemed to break at the same moment and rush toward each other. The guy from behind the line somehow had a brown ball in hand and, before she could even register everything that was happening on the field, he threw it to the ground in an empty spot.

  The crowd groaned.

  "Was that bad?" She glanced at Ethan. His blush had tamed somewhat, but he still kept his eyes on the field, not on her.

  "Incomplete pass," Ethan said. "They'll have four downs—it's like four attempts—to get the ball ten or more yards down the field. If they don't make the yards they need, the other team gets the ball."

  "Hmm." She watched as the teams lined up again. The sequence started out the same, with both teams rushing at each other, but this time when she expected the guy behind the line to have the ball, it had disappeared.

  The crowd cheered, and Ethan pointed to a young man sprinting down the field just before he was smashed by another, larger player.

  She leaned close, her shoulder bumping Ethan's. "Much?" she whispered. "Or at all?"

  He shot her a resigned look, one that read, are you happy now? "At all."

  "Why not?"

  #

  Mia's frank question had Ethan stumped. He was getting a little more used to her directness and had—thankfully—stopped blushing so much.

  Had he given up on dating too easily? He'd always believed he was too busy, that any girl he was attracted to would reject him because of his financial and family situation.

  "I've had custody of my brothers since I was nineteen," he said. "Since my stepmother died."

  "Oh. I didn't realize." She bumped his shoulder again, this time a gesture of solidarity. Not that he'd minded the flirtatious way she'd done it before. "That must've been hard for you, taking on all that responsibility at such a young age."

  He looked back to the field, where the home team had fumbled the ball and the visitors were setting up offense. Carol had pushed him to run the dairy, to take care of the family like Dad would've wanted, often manipulating him with guilt and tears.

  "It wasn't that bad," he said. There had been moments—sometimes very few and far between—where he'd felt close to his stepbrothers. Like the time when the boys had been twelve and thirteen, and the three of them had snuck away for a morning of fishing in the creek.

  Those moments had grown much more rare in the last few years. Now...this might be the last time he watched them play, if they couldn't get their grades up. It was a sobering thought.

  When he looked back to Mia, she was considering him with what almost looked like admiration.

  He averted his eyes. Surely he was imagining that. Seeing what he wanted to see.

  "They're going to try a big pass," he said, nodding to the field, hoping to divert her attention.

  "How can you tell?"

  Okay, he wasn't imagining that she'd edged slightly closer. Where there'd been a couple of inches between their legs, now her jean-clad thigh rested next to his.

  "Uhh... See the formation? The way the players are lined up?" He glanced at her, but she just looked more confused. "When they're lined up like that, it usually means they're going to try a long pass."

  Maybe she'd moved closer because she was cold. With the sun going down, the breeze was starting to get chilly. That's why he'd brought the blanket.

  "Do you come to all your stepbrothers' games?"

  He shook his head, trying to clear the fuzz that came from being so close to her. "Just the home games. And I don't always stay until the end. The ladies—the cows—have to be milked twice a day. The first time early in the morning, so it makes for a short night."

  "How early?"

  "I'm usually in the barn by four."

  Her mouth fell open. "But that's still the middle of the night."

  "It's technically morning."

  She shook her head emphatically. "That's...torture!"

  He couldn't help smiling at her emphatic words. "It isn't so bad. You get used to it, after a while." He'd been doing it for so long he couldn't remember anything else.

  "Well, I hope your brothers appreciate what you're sacrificing for them."

  She'd meant it as a joke, meant the lost sleep he'd never get back. He knew she did, and yet, the words penetrated the careful wall he'd built. He always tried not to think about his brothers and the many ways they'd taken advantage.

  What about living your life? The principal's words from earlier in the week echoed in his subconscious and reared their heads at inopportune times. Like now. Did he even have a right to think like that?

  "Wow, look at that frown. I'm sorry I brought it up." Mia leaned into him again, her concerned expression drawing him from his funk.

  "It's okay." He shrugged, tried to shrug it away, like he usually did. Lately, it was harder to lock those thoughts away where they belonged.

  "I guess everybody has difficult family."

  He grabbed on to the subject change with both hands. "You too?"

  The easy smile faded, and he instantly missed it. She glanced around them, as if just registering the crowd on all sides.

  And he realized she was probably worried that what she told him could be overheard and might be spilled to social media or tabloid magazines.

  He might tire of the small town grapevine, but he couldn't imagine feeling under a microscope all the time.

  "It's okay," he said quickly. "You can tell me later." Or not at all. He'd already experienced so much on this date, he couldn't expect a second one.

  She looked slightly relieved. "I'll owe you a favor."

  "Do you speak French?" he joked.

  "Mais oui."

  Chapter Four

  Gideon ran through the Excel spreadsheet once more. He'd been scrolling up and down the screen, staring at columns of numbers for hours, and his head was pounding.

  He was trained for combat, could speak six languages, and could build a bomb. But he was no accountant.

  Leaning back from where he'd been hunched over the laptop keyboard at the dining room table, he realized evening was falling. He'd been so focused on the computer that he'd missed the entire afternoon.

  But after two days of meticulously combing through bank statements and the monthly accounting ledgers, he'd finally found the discrepancy.

  Three months ago, while he and Alessandra had been in Glorvaird, there'd been a ten-thousand-dollar withdrawal from the bank. Since then, multiple transactions for expenses had been adjusted, increasing the expense amounts by different amounts, from a hundred dollars to several hundred at a time.

  If the adjustments had been a one-time error, or maybe had occurred twice, he could've chalked it up to a mistake. But the mysterious bank withdrawal and the adjustments to numerous expenditures meant someone was trying to cover their tracks. Someone had stolen from the Triple H.

  They'd almost gotten away with it too, since the difference between the bank balance and the transaction register was almost non-existent now. If he hadn't noticed it last week, he could've missed it entirely. That might've opened the door for the thief to steal more from his family.

  Had the person done it simply because Gideon had been distracted by his new relationship with Alessandra? Because he was traveling part-time with his fiancée?

  He didn't want to consider it, but other than his brother and sister, Nate was the only person on the ranch who had access to the bank account. As the foreman, he had to be able to make purchases to run the Triple H. Gideon hated to th
ink that a man he trusted so deeply would do something like this.

  But there was also the fact that something had happened between his sister and a hand named Trey. When Gideon and Alessandra had declared their love for each other and decided to make a go of things, it had seemed as if Trey and Carrie had been beginning a relationship. Sometime while Gideon and Alessandra had been in Glorvaird, Trey and Carrie had cooled things off. Gideon didn't know why, and neither the ranch hand nor Carrie was talking. Was there any chance Trey had either conned his sister out of the money or had somehow used her to facilitate the transaction?

  With Gideon's brother Matt overseas, that left hands Dan, Brian and Chase as the other suspects. Could any of them have pulled this off?

  Until this point, everyone on the Triple H had felt like family. Been trusted as such.

  Gideon rubbed his forehead, but it didn't ease the pounding behind his eyes.

  "Gideon?" Alessandra said his name, and he looked up, blinking.

  She came up behind him, and he blanked the screen, more out of habit than wanting to keep it from her. Her arms came around his shoulders, her cheek pressed into his. "Isn't it about time for a break?"

  He nodded, enjoying the rasp of his beard against her cheek, but he couldn't shake the disappointment and anger that weighted him down.

  She bussed his cheek with a kiss. "Find something?"

  She must've felt him tense up, because she put a few inches between them, no longer teasing and flirty, though she still held on to his shoulders. "You did," she whispered.

  "Part of it. I'm waiting on the bank to provide photocopies of the transaction. The manager thought he could pull digital copies of the surveillance cameras, too. I won't know for sure which one of the guys it was until then."

  She fell silent. Emotion radiated off of her, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet but brimming with hurt. "One of the guys? I can't believe any of the cowboys would do that to you."

  He was almost one hundred percent sure it was Nate. Nate was the only one with bank access, though the other hands could access the ranch's computer at any time.

  He knew Alessandra had found peace and solace here when she'd been on the run from the assassins who'd tried to kill her. The cowboys had been a big part of that. And he felt just the same about the guys. They'd been together a long time. Dan had come to them most recently, and he'd been on the payroll for five years. It wasn't a pleasant feeling to think that someone you counted as family had stabbed you in the back.

  He rubbed his fists into his eye sockets but didn't quite dislodge her hands from his shoulders. "Are we making a mistake here?"

  She went perfectly still, and he regretted the words as soon as he'd said them. But just because he regretted them didn't mean the thought hadn't been rolling around his head since he'd first discovered there might be a theft.

  She let go of him and took several steps away from his chair. She wrapped her arms around her middle in a pose that reminded him of when he'd rejected their relationship—when he'd thought they'd be better off going their separate ways.

  This time, the diamond engagement ring sparkled from her left hand.

  "What, exactly, do you mean by that?" Her voice was low and even, but he could hear the undertone of hurt.

  He stood up, bad knee cracking as he straightened to his full height.

  How could he explain this in a way that wouldn't hurt her more? "When someone commits a crime, there's usually this conflagration of three things." He used his index finger to draw a triangle in the air in front of himself. "Need," he ticked off the first side of the triangle. "Rationalization." Ticked the second. "And opportunity." He glanced at her, but it was clear from her puzzled expression that she didn't see where he was going with this. "Me being gone for months at a time opened a door. Whoever did this took advantage."

  She nodded slowly, her mouth a flat line that he hated. "Opportunity. I get it. So you think if you'd been here, this wouldn't have happened?"

  He shrugged, looked away.

  They'd talked before, at length, about his protective tendencies, especially where his sister was concerned. His fears that Carrie and her daughter Scarlett could be hurt or in danger while he was gone overseas were part of the struggle he'd had when he'd wrestled with being with Alessandra in the first place.

  He thought he'd overcome the need to be here, on the Triple H. But this situation had brought those fears right back. He couldn't help feeling that if he'd been on the premises, this wouldn't have happened.

  Alessandra uncrossed her arms, paced several steps toward him with arms akimbo. "You weren't on a top secret mission, Gideon. Whoever did this could have picked up the phone and gotten you on your cell at any time. If they were in trouble, they should've asked you for help. Not taken the cash and tried to cover it up. This is not your fault."

  He looked at her, forced himself to let go of the stress and guilt and betrayal he'd felt all afternoon, and really looked at the fiery princess, riled up on his behalf. He reached for her, and she came into his arms easily.

  He could let go of his tension—some of it at least—but he still couldn't help feeling that this was at least partly his fault. His responsibility. And he'd been gone.

  But holding Alessandra close, burying his face in her hair... He couldn't imagine pushing her away a second time, especially not when they were supposed to be celebrating their engagement. She was his. She'd agreed to be his wife.

  He couldn't let her go, but he also had a responsibility to his family and to the Triple H.

  What was he supposed to do now?

  #

  "What is that smell?" Robbie asked from his slouched seat at the small kitchen table.

  Ethan knew what the smell was. Skunk.

  He moved past the boys at the cramped kitchen table in their single-wide and headed for the back door. He only had to crack it to see their golden Labrador, Peanut, sitting at attention just outside, wanting to come in.

  And just cracking the door let in more of the awful stink.

  He shut the door quickly.

  "Did you let Peanut out?" he asked the boy, turning back to the table.

  Sam didn't look up from the comic book he had spread across the other end of the table. "I did a while ago."

  The boys had an open bag of potato chips and Oreos between them on the tabletop. With both of them and their football bulk slouched there, there was only room left at the very corner.

  Ethan was having a hard time picturing Princess Mia seated there.

  And an even harder time imagining his brothers behaving politely while she tutored them.

  Was this tutoring session just asking for trouble?

  When he'd made the teasing comment at the football game last weekend, he'd never expected her to agree to help. He'd even tried to dissuade her, but it seemed once she'd set her mind on it, he wouldn't be able to talk her out of it.

  He'd planned to stick close and make sure his brothers showed the proper respect, but with their golden lab smelling up the entire trailer just by sitting on the back porch, he didn't see how he could do that. He could lock Peanut in the dairy barn, but that'd cause him no end of trouble in the morning when the cows revolted against the smell.

  "Did you check the back gate?" Ethan pressed Sam. The gate had a faulty latch, and if it didn't get closed tightly, it came open. Now it appeared the dog had gotten out and found a disaster. His brothers' irresponsibility was nothing new, but this timing was the worst.

  He could just picture the princess holding a handkerchief over her nose and mouth and trying not to gag as she helped his brothers.

  This was a disaster.

  A knock sounded at the front door. Crap.

  He threw an encompassing glance at them. "Behave. I mean it. Remember, you playing football depends on your grades."

  They'd been argumentative and defensive about the incident with their teacher and the subsequent detention. And he'd spoken to them at-length over the past days about wh
at it would mean for their college careers if they didn't get football scholarships, and if they didn't get these grades up.

  But now Robbie made a face, as if mimicking Ethan. Sam snorted softly.

  Ethan suppressed a sigh. What could he do but open the front door?

  It was only a matter of steps in their fifteen-by-seventy-two foot trailer. He'd tried not to think about the disparity between what Mia was used to and what she'd find here. He didn't want to be ashamed of his circumstances, not when he'd fought tooth and nail to provide for his family.

  But that didn't stop heat from burning his face as he pulled open the door.

  "Hey," he greeted her. One of her security goons was on the step just behind her. At least with someone burly like that on the premises, his stepbrothers weren't likely to get in real trouble.

  "I've got a small problem. You can probably smell it."

  Her nose scrunched, obscuring her freckles and creating an adorable crinkle between her eyes. "What is it?"

  "Skunk. My stepbrothers... My dog got out of the yard and apparently met up with one. Let me introduce you to the boys, then I'll disappear out back to give her a bath. I didn't mean to leave you on your own."

  She reached out and touched his forearm, stopping his rushed words. "No worries. Can I come in?"

  His face went even hotter as he moved to let her pass. He made quick work of the introductions in the kitchen and then left Mia and her bodyguard inside with his stepbrothers and walked out the back door. He was a little afraid to read in her expression what she really thought of the tiny trailer.

  Peanut lay on the edge of the small back deck, her chin on her front paws. When he walked over to her, she looked up at him with morose eyes.

  "You're a mess, girl," he said with a sigh.

  And then he left the porch behind, casting one last look at the trailer. "And so am I. C'mon."

  A half hour later, he wasn't sure who'd gotten the bigger bath, him or Peanut. After a tomato juice rinse and two shampoos, she smelled moderately better. Of course, she'd shaken excess shampoo and water all over him numerous times, when his reflexes hadn't been fast enough to stop her.