by Joanna Wayne
“I still don’t see how she got Lucy to go with her so quietly.”
“I think it helped that she’d met her before, and Michele told her she was taking her to me. As soon as they left the grounds, she drugged her and kept her that way for days. She’d rented an isolated mountain cabin in northern Georgia and made certain not to meet anyone in the area.”
“So there was method to her madness,” Linney said.
“Right. Basically, she just kept Lucy in the house until she’d brainwashed her into believing I’d been killed like her father and that Michele would be her new mother.”
“Lucy was barely four,” Linney said. “I can see how that could happen.”
“Young children are naive and easily influenced,” Alonsa agreed. “Thankfully, Michele did seem to love Lucy in her own way and apparently took good care of her.”
Linney hugged her arms around her chest. “Still, she has to be a very sick woman.”
“That’s been verified. She has a lifelong history of hospitalizations for mental and emotional problems.”
“Todd really knew how to pick them, didn’t he? Other than you, of course.”
“I’m convinced I never really knew Todd, but he was a good father. That’s what I want to concentrate on now and what I want the children to remember about him.”
“You, my dear, are a saint.”
“No. Just a mom. You’ll find out about that yourself in a little less than six months.”
“I can’t wait. And Cutter is already buying toys. The latest purchase is a rocking horse.”
“Every cowboy needs a horse,” Alonsa said.
“Speaking of cowboys and horses, I wouldn’t be surprised if you went out and found both outside your door right now.”
“You know I don’t have horses yet.” Nonetheless the noise coming through the open window did sound like a truck stopping in front of her house.
“I bet that’s Hawk,” Brandon called from the kitchen.
“Yippee,” Lucy yelled.
Both kids and Carne bounded past them in their rush to get out the front door. Alonsa was close behind them.
Hawk stood next to a horse trailer parked at the end of the drive, looking every inch the exciting hunk he was. Four horses, two of them ponies, peered through the slats.
Hawk tipped his Stetson. “Howdy, ma’am. I have a delivery to make to a gorgeous rancher with two boisterous kids.”
“What in the world?” She walked toward him while the kids pretty much mauled him. He hugged them right back.
“Are those horses for us?” Lucy asked, pure wonder in her high-pitched voice.
“Yeah. Are those for us?” Brandon echoed.
“As long as your mother lets them stay.”
What was Hawk thinking? “I can’t,” she stammered. “I mean, I don’t have any help yet, and I know less than nothing about taking care of animals.”
“Then aren’t you lucky you have me?”
“But I don’t have you all the time. You have a job with Cutter.”
Linney joined them and coaxed Lucy and Brandon over for a closer look at the horses. She was in on this, though Alonsa didn’t see how she could have gone along with it, knowing Alonsa wasn’t equipped to start raising horses yet.
“Can we take a walk?” Hawk asked.
“I have the kids.”
“No, you don’t,” Linney said. “I have them.”
This was definitely a setup. Hawk put his arm around Alonsa’s shoulders and led her to the tire swing.
“You should have asked me first,” she said.
He pulled her into his arms. “Just settle down. I’m about to make you an offer I hope you can’t refuse.”
“Then it better include some wranglers.”
“Honey, you won’t need but one, that is as long as you say yes.”
“To the horses?”
“To marrying me.”
Her head began to spin. She loved Hawk like crazy but she was treading lightly, giving him time to get used to the whole idea of commitment and taking on not only a wife but two kids.
He looked perplexed. “You will say yes, won’t you?”
Marry Hawk? Sleep in his strong arms every night for the rest of her life? Love him and have him love her back?
In a New York minute, except…“Are you sure you’re ready for all of this?” She waved her arm to indicate the house, land and kids.
“I love you, Alonsa, more than I ever thought it possible to love another human being, and I want it all. You. The kids. A new lifestyle.”
Happiness spilled from her heart, until she heard the last of his words. She wasn’t asking him to change his lifestyle. She loved him just the way he was. “What kind of lifestyle change?”
“I’ve been a warrior long enough. I’ve already told Cutter that I’d like to get back to ranching. I have enough money saved to get us started with a small herd, and we can see where it goes from there.”
He kissed her then, slow and wet and totally intoxicating.
“Are you ready to take a chance on a cowboy, Alonsa?”
“Yes. Oh, Hawk. Yes! As long as the cowboy is you. I love you so very much.”
But taking a chance on Hawk Taylor wasn’t taking a chance at all.
It was a sure thing.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4316-7
BRAVO, TANGO, COWBOY
Copyright © 2009 by Jo Ann Vest
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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