The Little Maverick Matchmaker (Montana Mavericks: The Lonelyhearts Ranch Book 3)

by Stella Bagwell

  “Well, hello, Dillon and Drew,” she said warmly. “I’m Josselyn Weaver.”

  She shook Dillon’s hand and then turned to Drew. “I’m the new school librarian at Rust Creek Falls Elementary,” she informed him.

  Drew extended his hand, and for a moment their palms touched and her small delicate fingers wrapped around his. He wasn’t sure why the brief contact registered in his brain, but it did. And he couldn’t let go of her hand fast enough.

  “Nice to meet you, Miss Weaver,” Drew politely replied. “Dillon is in the second grade this year and new to town. So I thought it would be good for him to attend the picnic today and see some of his teachers and friends.”

  “For sure,” Josselyn said with another broad smile for Dillon. “Do you like to read, Dillon?”

  Drew was shocked to see his son was already completely charmed by the new librarian. His mouth had fallen open, while twinkling stars were lighting up his brown eyes.

  “Oh, yeah!” he exclaimed. “I love to read. Well, I mean—I do if I can’t play video games or watch TV. I have lots and lots of books, though.”

  Drew cast a skeptical glance at his son. As best as he could remember, the shelves on the walls in Dillon’s bedroom might be holding two or three children’s books and a few comics. If Dillon was reading other things while Drew was working at the clinic, he didn’t know about it.

  “My son does read,” Drew told her, “but I think the ‘lots and lots’ is stretching it a bit.”

  Josselyn laughed and Drew decided the sound was like the happy ring of sleigh bells on a snowy morning. He wished he could hear it again.

  “That’s okay,” she assured him. “The fact that he reads even one book is encouraging. And it’s my job to find stories that make children want to read more.”

  “I read the funnies in the newspaper with my gramps,” Dillon spoke up. “He says I’m a good reader.”

  “Well now, that’s great to hear,” she told him. “Then I’ll be seeing you whenever you visit the library.”

  “Oh, you bet! You’ll be seeing me plenty.” He grinned at Josselyn, then looked proudly up at Drew. “My dad helps women get babies.”

  It was a good thing Drew wasn’t drinking punch. Otherwise, he would have spewed a mouthful all over the woman.

  Josselyn Weaver turned a bemused look on Drew and for no reason at all, he found himself studying the green color of her eyes. Like a first leaf in spring, he decided. “Uh—pardon my son. He means that I...deliver babies. I’m a doctor. An ob-gyn.”

  Her gaze carefully slipped over his face, as though she was trying to decide for herself if he was actually a doctor. A woman’s doctor, at that.

  “I see. Do you work here in Rust Creek Falls?”

  “For now. I’m here on a temporary basis. The clinic is expecting another doctor to join the staff after the first of the year. He’s away right now. Doing Peace Corps work.”

  “And you’re filling in until he gets here. That’s nice.”

  She might call it nice, but for Drew this whole move to Rust Creek Falls had been an upheaval. He’d never been a person who cared for change. Thunder Canyon, where he’d been born and raised, where he’d lived with Evelyn and worked at the local clinic, was home to him. It was where he felt comfortable and hidden from the rest of the world. But this cheerful woman didn’t need to hear about his gloomy thoughts.

  “I hope that my being here is helping the community,” he said, then glanced down at Dillon. The boy was closely watching the exchange between his dad and Josselyn Weaver. Drew could only imagine what was going on in the fertile imagination of his son’s mind. “And Dillon is enjoying the change.”

  “That’s good. I don’t imagine he’s had any trouble making friends.”

  “No. He’s never been remotely close to being shy.”

  Dillon’s gaze vacillated between the two adults before he finally settled his attention on Josselyn.

  “Are you married?” the boy asked bluntly.

  The woman’s cheeks turned beet red and it was all Drew could do to keep from groaning out loud.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Weaver. My son definitely needs more lessons in manners. You see, he, uh, is on a search to find his dad a girlfriend,” Drew attempted to explain.

  “No! Not a girlfriend,” Dillon immediately corrected. “I’m gonna find him a wife!”

  The sound of conversations were all around them and throughout the crowd were spates of laughter, along with shouts and squeals from playing children. Yet the short space between Drew and Josselyn Weaver felt thick with silence.

  “Oh. Well, that’s a serious search,” she said, her dubious gaze landing on Drew’s face.

  Mortified at the whole situation, Drew grabbed Dillon by the hand. “Uh—we have to be going. It’s been nice meeting you, Miss Weaver.”

  Before she could say more, Drew quickly urged his son away from the pretty librarian.

  Dillon instantly complained, “Dad, why are you leaving Miss Weaver? She was really nice! And pretty, too! And she liked talking to us. I could tell!”

  His expression grim, Drew stared straight ahead as he hurried his son through the crowd. “I think we’ve done enough picnicking for one day, son. We’re going home.”

  “Why are we going home?” Dillon stubbornly demanded. “We haven’t talked to everybody yet.”

  “We didn’t come to the picnic to talk to everybody,” Drew said, trying to keep the thread of anger in his voice from unraveling completely. “And we certainly didn’t come to pick out girlfriends or wives, or any such thing as that.”

  “Aw, Dad, you’re messing up bad,” Dillon grumbled. “You’re letting a good one get away.”

  The comment had Drew glancing down at his son. What could a seven-year-old boy know about women? Apparently quite a bit, Drew thought. Josselyn Weaver was beautiful and intelligent and sweet. The kind of woman a man searched for in a lifelong mate. But Drew wasn’t searching for a mate. Short-or long-term. And the quicker Dillon got that through his head, the better.

  “We’re not on a fishing trip, Dillon.”

  “That’s right,” Dillon said sullenly. “Gramps takes me fishing. Not you.”

  Gramps. Yes, in one short month Dillon and his great-grandfather had formed a strong bond between them. And Drew was glad Old Gene had taken such an interest in Dillon. He was pleased that his son had found a solid male figure to connect with while they were here in Rust Creek Falls. Yet Drew couldn’t help but be envious of the close connection. It was something he’d never had with his son. And to make matters worse, Drew had no one to blame for the distance between them except himself.

  A stronger man wouldn’t have allowed the death of his wife to cripple him to the point that he needed help just making it through the day, much less taking care of a baby. A man of deeper character would have never buried himself in his work and allowed his son to be raised by others.

  Drew didn’t know whether moving to this little mountain town had opened his eyes or if the fact that Dillon seemed to be growing up at a rapid rate was making him look at his life differently. But either way, Drew realized he wanted to make a change. One that would bring him closer to his son.

  Chapter Two

  That evening on Sunshine Farm in her cozy little cabin, Josselyn sat cross-legged on the couch and stared blankly at the TV perched in one corner of the living room. After a very long day at the town picnic, she’d thought she would unwind by watching one of her favorite programs, but so far her mind refused to latch onto the plot. The characters could’ve been speaking in a foreign language for the past thirty minutes and she would’ve never noticed.

  Josselyn aimed the remote at the TV and pressed the off button. She was wasting her time, she thought. Ever since the school picnic had ended and she’d driven home, she hadn’t been able to think about anything except
Drew Strickland and his adorable son.

  When the two of them had first approached her, she’d guessed the mother had been somewhere in the crowd visiting with friends. But then Dillon had made that comment about finding his father a wife and blown her assumption to pieces.

  So where was Dillon’s mother? she wondered for the umpteenth time. Even if the boy’s parents were divorced, the mother should’ve found the fortitude to put her differences with her ex aside and attended the school picnic with her son.

  With a sigh of frustration, she tossed aside the remote and left the couch. Darn it! Why couldn’t she quit thinking about the dad and son?

  Probably because the dad was drop-dead delicious, she thought as she gazed out the window at the shadowy patch of lawn in front of her cabin. Even now, hours after their impromptu meeting at the park, his image was still burned in her brain. Tall, long-legged and lean, Drew Strickland was a genuine Doctor Dreamy. Dark brown hair, cut in a short, ruffled style, had framed a face dominated by brown eyes and a pair of firm lips that were bracketed by the most gorgeous dimples she’d ever seen on a man.

  The doctor ought to be carrying a warning hazard to all women who came within ten feet of him, she thought with a wistful sigh. And if that wasn’t bad enough, his son had been so cute and endearing she’d wanted to snatch him up in a tight bear hug.

  So Dr. Drew Strickland has enough sex appeal to rob a woman of her breath. And his son is the kind of kid that touches the very middle of your heart. That doesn’t mean you have any business thinking about them. They’re both heart trouble walking on two legs. You need to forget them and get on with your life.

  Yes, getting on with her life was the very reason she’d moved to Rust Creek Falls in the first place, Josselyn reminded herself. She hadn’t studied long and hard to acquire a master’s in library science just to get herself mixed up with a lost cause. One that would end up dealing her far more misery than happiness.

  A few weeks ago, Josselyn had been living in Laramie, Wyoming, in an apartment not far from her parents, Velma and Walt Weaver. Her two older brothers, Lloyd and Cameron, both worked on a prominent cattle ranch outside the city, while her younger sister, Patti, was still living with their parents as she finished up her last year of college. The Weavers had always been a tight-knit group, and none of them except for her mother had understood Josselyn’s need to move and start a life away from the place where she’d been born and raised. If her father and siblings had it their way, she’d still be there, making the same rounds with the same group of people she’d known since kindergarten.

  Earning her diploma had opened a whole new world to Josselyn, where fresh faces and exciting opportunities waited around each corner. Ignoring her family’s argument to remain near Laramie, she’d begun searching for jobs in neighboring Montana. Once she’d landed the library position at Rust Creek Falls Elementary, she’d turned her focus to finding a place to live. Somewhere far away from concrete and busy streets.

  The moment she’d spotted an article somewhere about Sunshine Farm located near Rust Creek Falls, she’d been instantly intrigued. The piece had been about Amy Wainwright and how the woman had visited the farm to attend the wedding of a friend and eventually ended up finding her own true love, prompting the journalist to dub the farm the Lonelyhearts Ranch.

  The story of Amy’s happy ending had perfectly fit Josselyn’s sunny attitude about life. Sunshine Farm was a place where loving couples chose to take their wedding vows, plus it had a guesthouse for folks who wanted to forget the past and make a fresh start. Josselyn wasn’t running from a heartbreaking past. Nor was she planning a wedding for herself. She didn’t even have a boyfriend, much less a fiancé. All the same, Sunshine Farm, or the Lonelyhearts Ranch, whichever name a person chose to call it, was the perfect home for her.

  Thoughtfully, she turned away from the window and plucked up a white shawl from the back of a chair. After being in a crowd of people all afternoon, the quietness of her cabin should have been soothing. Instead, it was allowing her to think far too much.

  With the shawl wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the evening chill, she went outside and walked across a grassy slope, past a big yellow barn and on toward the main house of Sunshine Farm.

  A porch light illuminated a door at the back of the house. After rapping her knuckles lightly on the door frame, Josselyn let herself in and found Eva Stockton at the counter putting a snack of homemade cookies and mugs of coffee onto a wooden tray.

  The room was warm and Josselyn caught the faint, lingering scents of grilled beef and green peppers. With Eva cooking hearty meals every night for her husband, Luke, it came as no surprise that the kitchen was one of the first rooms the man had remodeled in the old farmhouse.

  “Oh, hi, Josselyn,” the pretty blonde said cheerfully. “You’re just in time to join us in the living room. The cookies are chocolate chip with macadamia nuts. They’re rather good, even if I did make them.”

  Since Eva worked at Daisy’s Donut Shop in town and was considered one of the best cooks around, Josselyn had no doubt the cookies were scrumptious. “Please don’t tempt me, Eva. A person can’t eat just one of your desserts. And I stuffed myself at the school picnic today.”

  “Well, if you’d like coffee just help yourself,” Eva offered.

  “Actually, I thought I’d check in on Mikayla,” Josselyn said. “Is she in her room?”

  “I think so. And I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you. With little Hazel still in NICU, she can’t help but be a bit mopey.”

  Josselyn gave Eva an understanding nod. “Having a premature baby can’t be easy. I’ll take her some coffee and see if I can cheer her up a bit.”

  Picking up the tray, Eva shot her a grateful smile as she started out of the kitchen. “I knew the first moment I met you that you were going to be a perfect boarder here at Sunshine Farm.”

  Josselyn laughed lightly. “How could you have known that?”

  “Something about the kind twinkle in your eyes,” she tossed over her shoulder.

  With Eva gone, Josselyn helped herself to the coffee. Once she’d placed two mugs on a tray, she decided to add a couple of cookies, just in case Mikayla might be hungry for a treat.

  Carefully, she carried the lot upstairs and knocked on the door to Mikayla Brown’s room. After a moment, the door swung open and Josselyn gave the other woman a cheerful smile.

  “Room service,” she announced. “Coffee and cookies. Want some company?”

  With a lopsided smile, the pretty brunette gestured for Josselyn to enter the room. “You’re too sweet. How did you guess I needed a pick-me-up?”

  Josselyn put on her cheeriest smile and hoped it would rub off on her friend. “I didn’t. I’m really just being selfish. I needed a little company.”

  She carried the tray over to the far wall of the room, where a rocking chair and a stuffed armchair sat at an angle to each other in front of a tall-paned window. Situated between the chairs, a low wooden table held a small old-fashioned lamp with a glass globe.

  Josselyn placed the tray next to the lamp. When she straightened, Mikayla was there to give her a brief hug.

  “Thank you for coming,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “I only got home from the hospital an hour ago and I’m already wishing I was back there. I need something to take my mind off Hazel.”

  “Then we both needed company,” Josselyn said. “Which chair do you want?”

  “I’ll take the armchair,” Mikayla told her. “Being in the rocker makes my arms ache to hold my baby. I’ve decided I’m not going to sit in it until she comes home from the hospital.”

  Josselyn eased into the wooden rocking chair with a red cushion tied to the seat. “I understand why you want to stay at the hospital to be near your baby, but you do need to rest, Mikayla. You need to recuperate, too, so you’ll be feeling your best whenever Hazel does get t
o come home.”

  “That’s what the nurses keep telling me. That I need to give my body a chance to bounce back from giving birth. But it’s very hard to leave my daughter. Even long enough to get a night’s sleep.”

  Josselyn could hear the desperate longing in Mikayla’s voice, and though she didn’t yet know what it was like to have a child of her own, she could very well imagine how torn her friend was feeling.

  “Do you have any idea when Hazel might be released from the hospital?” Josselyn asked.

  Taking a seat in the armchair, Mikayla took one of the mugs and a cookie from the tray. “Thank God, she’s doing really well. Her doctor says she might get to come home at the beginning of next week. I’m afraid if I start counting the days I’ll jinx things. But I’m so excited.”

  Mikayla had come to Sunshine Farm seven months pregnant and single, after she’d discovered the father of her child having sex with his paralegal right in his office. However, since then, Mikayla’s life had taken several drastic turns. Only last month, she’d met wealthy businessman Jensen Jones and the two had fallen in love. Then unexpectedly she’d gone into premature labor.

  Josselyn picked up the remaining coffee mug and took a cautious sip. “That’s wonderful news, Mikayla. And it sounds like we’ll be hearing wedding bells pretty soon, too.”

  Mikayla sighed. “As soon as we can have Hazel safely with us at the ceremony. Jensen and I are waiting to see how things go with the baby before we set a definite date for our wedding. But we’re hoping we don’t have to wait too long. For now, he’s searching high and low for the perfect house for the three of us to move into.” Her smile full of love, she added, “Jensen wants me and our baby to have the best.”

  “Of course he does. And I’m so happy for you, Mikayla. You and Jensen and little Hazel are going to have a wonderful life together. And you certainly deserve it.”

  “Well, things were going pretty awful there for a while,” she admitted, then, smiling wistfully, she glanced toward the lace-covered window. “But coming here to Sunshine Farm has changed all that. I’m beginning to see why folks are starting to call it the Lonelyhearts Ranch. Something about people finding love in Rust Creek Falls has spilled over onto this place.” She slanted Josselyn a sly glance. “So are you going to be next on the wedding planner’s list?”