Then Treat released her, and for a moment the world stood still. Her gaze bounced from Savannah’s to Josh’s, and a smile tugged at his lips. Dane put a hand on Hugh’s shoulder, and Rex was grinning like a fool. It was the tears in Hal’s eyes that drew Max’s gaze back to Treat, only he was no longer standing before her.
“Max.” He took her hand in his as he perched on one knee.
She gasped. “Treat?”
“Max, I would be honored if you would let me love you through the rest of your life. Through every insecurity, every argument, and every incredible moment until I take my last breath. And then I’ll be waiting for you on the other side of this crazy life.” He stood and gazed deeply into her eyes. “I love you with all of my heart and soul, Max. I want to make your dreams come true and to see your belly round with our babies, and when we’re old and gray, I want to see you wearing that scarf we bought in Wellfleet and remember making out behind the bushes. Will you marry me, sweetness? Be my wife, and let me be the husband you deserve?”
Savannah grabbed Josh’s arm, and that little movement pulled Max from her stupor.
“You’re sure?” she asked again.
“You are one careful, beautiful woman. Yes, I’m positive.”
Max launched herself into his arms. Her chest ached with the constriction of her muscles, but she didn’t care. He lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and said, “Yes! Yes, yes, yes!”
“I cannot wait to design her gown!” Josh exclaimed.
Treat’s laughter filled the air, mixing with the cheers from his family and Savannah’s giddy squeal. He smiled as he brushed his lips over hers and said, “I adore you, Max Armstrong.” He lowered his mouth to hers, kissing the ache right out of her.
“Looks like we’re gonna have a wedding!” his father said.
“I love you,” she said as Treat lowered her feet to the ground and withdrew a velvet bag out of his pocket.
Looking her in the eye, with a tease in his own, he said, “Max, just to be clear, will you marry me?”
“Absolutely, one hundred percent yes.”
He slid the most gorgeous canary diamond ring on her finger, stealing the remainder of her breath from her lungs.
TREAT HELD MAX’S trembling hand, wanting to never let it go. In all the business dealings he’d ever handled, in all the resorts he’d acquired, he’d never once felt the elation he did at that very moment. It was as if the universe had righted itself, and he and Max were in the perfect place at the perfect time.
Rex pushed past Treat to hug Max, taking a full-body glance at her before pulling her into his arms. That was when Treat finally noticed what Max was wearing. His body reacted instantly to seeing her in such a formfitting, sinfully sexy outfit. Unfortunately, with the way Rex was holding on to her, he assumed her figure had his brother reacting in the exact same way. He tugged him away from Max by his collar.
“Okay, back off. Get your own fiancée.” He loved the feel of that word on his lips. Fiancée.
Savannah pushed between them and wrapped her arms around Treat, whispering, “Finally! I love her!” Then, louder, she said, “She’ll keep you on your toes.” She turned to Max with a wide smile and said, “I’ve wanted a sister for so long,” and then she hugged her.
Treat held Max’s gaze over his sister’s shoulder, and they were passed from sibling to sibling. He couldn’t wait to get Max’s hand back into his own, where it belonged.
Hal embraced Max. “That was my wife’s ring. She and I could not be happier than we are to see it on your finger. Welcome to the family, darlin’.”
Max touched the gorgeous stone. “Thank you for the honor of allowing me to wear it and share in the joy of one day being a Braden.”
He glanced at Hope and said, “It was my wife’s doing.”
Savannah shook her head, but her beaming smile remained.
When congratulations had been doled out and Treat and Max finally came together again, he whispered in her ear, “That outfit is going to make me do dirty things to you right here and now.”
Max smiled and said, “Then it fulfilled its purpose.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
WHILE THEIR FATHER went inside to grab a bottle of champagne and the others inspected the damage to the cars, Treat took advantage of a few quiet moments to make out with his fiancée. They were midkiss when the sound of hooves on pavement called everyone’s attention past the crunched vehicles, where a woman riding a black stallion slowed to a halt at the end of the driveway. She wore a flowing white dress, hiked up and bundled across her thighs. She slipped her cowgirl boots from the shiny stirrups and flipped her long black hair over her shoulder, giving Treat a better look at her face.
Treat sidled up to Rex, who was standing a few feet away, holding Hope’s reins, and said, “Is that Jade Johnson?”
Rex spun around, practically salivating at the sight of her. “Holy…” He mounted Hope and looked over his shoulder at Jade. When Rex was in high school, he’d had an enormous crush on Jade. But Earl Johnson was the object of their father’s grudge, and Treat had written that crush off as Rex wanting the forbidden fruit. But from the way Rex was looking at her now, Treat had a feeling he was very wrong.
“Jade Johnson was our neighbor,” Savannah explained to Max. “She moved away quite some time ago.”
“Looks like someone got the best of your cars!” Jade hollered.
Rex’s eyes narrowed. He fisted his hands tighter around Hope’s reins. Hugh looked up from where he was crouched by the crunched fender and shot an uncomfortable look at Treat. Treat glanced back at the house, scanning the porch for their father. If he caught them talking to a Johnson, they’d never hear the end of it.
“Nice to see you, Jade,” Hugh said in a low, tethered voice.
“Not quite a Ferrari, is it?” Jade teased their race-car-driving brother. She looked at Rex and said, “Good thing y’all weren’t on horses, huh?”
Rex’s jaw muscles jumped double-time. He climbed off Hope muttering under his breath.
“I think she’s talking to you, Rex,” Max said.
In Rex’s silence, Hugh said, “We’ll be sending this wreck to your neighbor’s garage.” Jimmy Palen owned the best body shop in Weston, and he lived on the other side of the Johnsons’ property.
“Jimmy’ll be glad to hear that.” Jade’s smile promptly disappeared when she glanced at Rex, who was now glowering at her. “See y’all around,” she said with a wave, then galloped down the road.
Once she was out of earshot, Treat smacked Rex’s leg. “What’s with you? You didn’t have to be so rude.”
“I’ll talk to a Johnson when pigs fly.” Rex turned away.
“What was that all about?” Max asked, still touching her engagement ring. She hadn’t stopped since Treat slid it on her finger.
“Hatfields and McCoys,” Savannah teased. “Rex loves her.” She lowered her voice and said, “He just doesn’t know it yet. Braden boys are thick that way.”
“Not this Braden,” Treat said as he swept Max into his arms.
Max whispered, “You’re thick all right, but not in the head.”
Her cheeks flushed, and he said, “Have these clothes turned my sweet girlfriend into my naughty fiancée?”
“It’s what’s under the clothes,” she whispered naughtily.
Heat soared through his veins. “What’s under your clothes?”
Her gaze turned sinful, and she put her finger over her lips. “It’s a secret. I’d take you to my apartment and show you, but we don’t have a vehicle to drive and I’m pretty sure you can’t charter a plane for this.”
He grabbed her hand and headed for Rex and Hope. He lifted Max up in one fell swoop and planted her on the horse, earning the sexiest squeal-giggle he’d ever heard, then climbed on behind her.
“Where are we going?” she asked with a beautiful smile.
“I may not be able to charter a plane, but I can sure as hell hijack a horse.”
He wrapped his arm around her, and she turned, pressing her lips to his. As he deepened the kiss, his siblings cheered them on.
They both came away breathless, and Max said, “Take me away, cowboy.”
With a gentle nudge of his heels, he urged Hope to carry them off to celebrate their engagement properly, and Treat thanked his lucky stars that he’d chartered that plane and gotten his girl.
If this was your first Bradens at Weston novel, please enjoy this preview of Rex and Jade’s love story, Destined for Love.
If you’ve already read the Bradens at Weston, you might enjoy the Braden cousins’ love stories, which can be found here: THE BRADENS
Chapter One
REX BRADEN AWOKE before dawn, just as he had every Sunday morning for the past twenty-six years—since the Sunday after his mother died, when he was eight years old. He didn’t know what had startled him awake on that very first Sunday after she’d passed, but he swore it was her whispering voice that led him down to the barn and had him mounting Hope, the horse his father had bought for his mother when she first became ill. In the years since, Hope had remained strong and healthy; his mother, however, had not been as lucky.
In the gray, predawn hours, the air was still downright cold, which wasn’t unusual for May in Colorado. By afternoon they’d see temps in the low seventies. Rex pulled his Stetson down low on his head and rounded his shoulders forward as he headed into the barn.
The other horses itched to be set free the moment he walked by their stalls, but Rex’s focus on Sunday mornings was solely on Hope.
“How are you, girl?” he asked in a deep, soft voice. He saddled Hope with care, running his hand over her thick coat. Her red coat had faded, now boasting white patches along her jaw and shoulders.
Hope nuzzled her nose into his massive chest with a gentle neigh. Most of his T-shirts had worn spots at his solar plexus from that familiar nudge. Rex had helped his father on the ranch ever since he was a boy, and after graduating from college, he’d returned to the ranch full-time. Now he ran the show—well, as much as anyone could run anything under Hal Braden’s strong will.
“Taking our normal ride, okay, Hope?” He looked into her enormous brown eyes, and not for the first time, he swore he saw his mother’s beautiful face smiling back at him, the face he remembered from before her illness had stolen the color from her skin and the sparkle from her eyes. Rex put his hands on Hope’s strong jaw and kissed her on the soft pad of skin between her nostrils. Then he removed his hat and rested his forehead against the same tender spot, closing his eyes just long enough to sear that image into his mind.
They trotted down the well-worn trail in the dense woods that bordered his family’s five-hundred-acre ranch. Rex had grown up playing in those woods with his five siblings. He knew every dip in the landscape and could ride every trail blindfolded. They rode out to the point where the trail abruptly came to an end at the adjacent property. The line between the Braden ranch and the unoccupied property might be invisible to some. The grass melded together, and the trees looked identical on either side. To Rex, the division was clear. On the Braden side, the land had life and breath, while on the unoccupied side, the land seemed to exude a longing for more.
Hope instinctively knew to turn around at that point, as they’d done so many times before. Today Rex pulled her reins gently, bringing her to a halt. He took a deep breath as the sun began to rise, his chest tightening at the silent three hundred acres of prime ranch land that would remain empty forever. Forty-plus years earlier, his father and Earl Johnson, their neighbor and his father’s childhood friend, had jointly purchased that acreage between the two properties with the hopes of one day turning it over for a profit. After five years of arguing over everything from who would pay to subdivide the property to who they’d sell it to, both Hal and Earl took the hardest stand they could, each refusing to ever sell. The feud still had not resolved. The Hatfields’ and McCoys’ harsh and loyal stance to protect their family honor was mild compared to the loyalty that ran within the Braden veins. The Bradens had been raised to be loyal to their family above all else. Rex felt a pang of guilt as he looked over the property, and not for the first time, he wished he could make it his own.
He gave a gentle kick of his heels and tugged the rein in his right hand, Hope trotted off the path and along the property line toward the creek. Rex’s jaw clenched and his biceps bulged as they descended the steep hill toward the ravine. The water was as still as glass when they finally reached the rocky shoreline. Rex looked up at the sky as the gray gave way to powdery blues and pinks. In all the years since he’d claimed those predawn hours as his own, he’d never seen a soul while he was out riding, and he liked it that way.
They headed south along the water toward Devil’s Bend. The ravine curved at a shockingly sharp angle around the hillside and the water pooled, deepening before the rocky lip just before the creek dropped a dangerous twenty feet into a bed of rocks. He slowed when he heard a splash and scanned the water for the telltale signs of a beaver, but there wasn’t a dam in sight.
Rex took the bend and brusquely drew Hope to a halt. Jade Johnson stood at the water’s edge in a pair of cutoff jean shorts, that ended just above the dip where her hamstrings began. He’d seen her only once in the past several years, and that was weeks ago, when she’d ridden her stallion down the road and stopped at the top of their driveway. Rex raked his eyes down her body and swallowed hard. Her cream-colored T-shirt hugged every inch of her delicious curves, a beautiful contrast to her black-as-night hair, which tumbled almost to her waist. Rex noticed that her hair was the exact same color as her stallion, which was standing nearby with one leg bent at the knee.
Jade hadn’t seen him yet. He knew he should back Hope up and leave before she had the chance. But she was so goddamned beautiful that he was mesmerized, his body reacting in ways that had him cursing under his breath. Jade Johnson was Earl Johnson’s feisty daughter. She was off-limits—always had been and always would be. But that didn’t stop his pulse from racing, or the crotch of his jeans from tightening against his growing desire. Fifteen years he’d forced himself not to think about her, and now, as her shoulders lifted and fell with each breath, he couldn’t stop himself from wondering what it might feel like to tangle his fingers in her thick mane of hair, or how her breasts would feel pressed against his bare chest. He felt the tantalizing stir of the forbidden wrestling with his deep-seated loyalty to his father—and he was powerless to stop himself from being the prick of a man that usually resulted from the conflicting emotions.
JADE JOHNSON KNEW she shouldn’t have ridden Flame down the ravine, but she’d woken up from a restless, steamy dream before the sun came up, and she needed a release for the sexual urges she’d been repressing for way too long. Goddamned Weston, Colorado. How the hell was a thirty-one-year-old woman supposed to have any sort of relationship with a man in a town when everybody knew one another’s business? She’d thought she had life all figured out; after she graduated from veterinary school in Oklahoma, she’d completed her certifications for veterinarian acupuncture while also studying equine shiatsu, and then she’d taken on full-time hours at the large animal practice where she’d worked a limited schedule while completing school. She’d dated the owner’s son, Kane Law, and when she opened her own practice a year later, she thought she and Kane would move toward having a future together. How could she have known that her success would be a threat to him—or that he’d become so possessive that she’d have to end the relationship? Coming back home had been her only option after he refused to stop harassing her, and now that she’d been back for a few months, she was thinking that maybe returning to the small town had been a mistake. She’d gotten her Colorado license easily enough, but instead of building a real practice again, she’d been working on more of an as-needed basis, traveling to neighboring farms to help with their animals without any long-term commitment, while she figured out where she wanted to put down roots and try
again.
She heaved a heavy rock into the water with a grunt, pissed off that she’d taken this chance with Flame by coming down the steep hill. She knew better, but Flame was a sturdy Arabian stallion, and at fifteen hands high, he had the most powerful hindquarters she’d ever seen. Flame’s reaction time to commands and his ability to spin, turn, or sprint forward was quicker than any horse she’d ever mounted. His short back, strong bones, and incredibly muscled loins made him appear indestructible. When Flame stumbled, Jade’s heart had nearly skipped a beat. He’d quickly regained his footing, but the rhythm of his gait had changed, and when she’d dismounted, he was favoring his right front leg. Now she was stuck with no way to get him home without hurting him further.
Damn it. She bent over and hoisted another heavy rock into her arms to heave more of her frustration into the water. Her hair fell like a curtain over her face, and she used one dusty hand to push it back over her shoulder, then picked up the rock and—shit. She dropped the rock and narrowed her eyes at the sight of Rex Braden sitting atop that mare of his.
The nerve of him, staring at me like I’m a piece of meat. Even if he was every girl’s dream of a cowboy come true in his tight-fitting jeans, which curved oh so lusciously over his thighs, defining a significant bulge behind the zipper. She ran her eyes up his too-tight dark shirt and silently cursed at herself for involuntarily licking her lips in response. She tried to tear her eyes from his tanned face, peppered with stubble so sexy that she wanted to reach out and touch his chiseled jaw, but her eyes would not obey.
“What’re you looking at?” she spat at the son of the man who had caused her father years of turmoil. When she’d first come back to town, she’d hoped maybe things had changed. She’d ridden by the Braden’s ranch while she was out with Flame one afternoon. Rex and his family were out front, commiserating over an accident that had just happened in their driveway, resulting in two mangled cars. She’d tried to see if they needed help, to break the ice of the feud that had gone on since before she was born, but while his brother Hugh had at least spoken to her, Rex had just narrowed those smoldering dark eyes of his and clenched that ever-jumping jaw. She’d be damned if she’d accept that treatment from anyone, especially Rex Braden. Despite her best efforts to forget his handsome face, for years he’d been the only man she’d conjured up in the darkest hours of the nights, when loneliness settled in and her body craved human touch. It was always his face that pulled her over the edge as she came apart beneath the sheets.
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