by Pam Crooks
A Cowboy and A Promise
A Blackstone Ranch Romance
Pam Crooks
A Cowboy and A Promise
Copyright© 2019 Pam Crooks
EPUB Edition
The Tule Publishing Group, LLC
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First Publication by Tule Publishing Group 2019
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-949707-28-1
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Dedication
To my longtime friend, Mary Connealy, who encouraged me to go contemporary and write cowboys again.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
New Cowboy Stories
About the Author
Prologue
It was happening again.
Another person Ava Howell loved would soon be taken away from her. Within hours. Death had happened so often in her life, she didn’t think she could survive more of the grief, the pain, the utter loss.
Erin Murphy was part of Ava’s soul. Along with Lucienne Dunn, Erin had helped Ava survive when she once had so little to live for.
On the other side of Erin’s bed, Lucienne blew her nose, grabbed a fresh tissue and dabbed her eyes. She tossed both crumpled tissues into a trash can and cleaned her hands with a quick squirt of sanitizer, then once more twined Erin’s fingers with her own, holding them against her chest.
A portable oxygen machine hummed against the wall; its tubing snaked across the wooden floor and up the side of the bed where it was attached to a mask fitted against Erin’s face.
Tears scraped like sandpaper in Ava’s eyes. She wouldn’t show Erin just how devastating it was going to be that the three of them would never be together again. Best friends since college. Sisters, really. Virtually inseparable.
Until now.
She held her friend’s hand in both of her own. The bedcovers overwhelmed Erin’s thin body, her face pale against the pillow, her strength like a feeble baby bird. The hospice nurse doubted she would make it through the night.
It wasn’t fair someone so young should be defeated by a disease that could ravage a twenty-seven-year-old body with such viciousness. Wasn’t it enough those awful cancer cells had attacked Ava’s mother, too? And Granny Mae after that? When would the dying end? When would she keep the people she loved, needed, wanted in her life forever?
God, it was so unfair.
Erin pulled free from Ava’s grasp and lifted the oxygen mask from her face, like a welder lifting his shield; the straps kept the device snug against her forehead. The nurse made a sound of protest and stepped closer.
“Just a few minutes,” Erin said in a voice barely discernible over the whirr of the oxygen machine. “I need to talk to them.”
“All right. I’ll give you three minutes, no more,” she said. “I’ll step into the hall. I’m timing you, okay?”
Erin nodded and glanced ruefully at Ava, taking her hand again. “Nurse Ratched.”
Ava managed a smile; Lucienne did, too, and the nurse slipped out of the bedroom.
“It’s my ghost town development project,” Erin said without preamble.
As the newest partner in an architectural engineering company here in New York City, Erin had helped design the unique project, located outside of a small town in Texas and so far away from the East Coast, Ava could hardly imagine it.
Of course, it helped that the owner of the ranch was Erin’s aunt, who wanted to help her niece make a name for herself so soon out of grad school. But that was before Erin’s cancer diagnosis and one more strike on the Unfair scoreboard.
“We’ll do whatever needs to be done,” Lucienne said, nodding so vigorously the ends of her pricey-cut dark hair bobbed.
“Just name it,” Ava added.
“Finish it for me,” Erin said, tears welling. “Promise me you will.”
Ava’s heart sank. Anything but that. Refusing was unthinkable, but admitting to Erin that it’d be just about impossible for either of them to leave their own jobs to step into one of Erin’s magnitude was equally unthinkable.
“Absolutely we will,” Ava said instead.
How would she do it? Was it even conceivable? She didn’t know, but she had to try. She’d have to find a way to make it happen.
“We promise,” Lucienne said in a somber voice.
“Thank you.” Erin’s hands tightened over theirs. “Talk to my boss. He’ll fill you both in.”
Ava met Lucienne’s troubled glance. Sure, Erin’s boss would be helpful, but what about Lucienne’s? Or Ava’s?
Carter Ronson, who had hired Ava the summer before she started college and had been hugely influential in her career, would not take the news well.
She swallowed. “How long do you think it will take?”
Erin lifted a thin shoulder. “A few months, maybe.”
She might as well have said years.
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you could do it,” she added.
“We know that, don’t we, Ava?” Lucienne said, giving her a pointed look. “Going to Texas will be exciting.”
Ava managed a tight smile. “I’ve never been to Texas, but hey, I’m game for a little travel and adventure. Anything to get out of the city for a while.”
Erin’s lids drifted closed a moment before she roused. “The ghost town project will look fabulous on your resumés. I know you’ll both do a great job in my place.” She gestured faintly. “There’s a folder on the dresser, one for each of you.” She paused, a little wheezy from her exertion. “Everything to get you started is in there.”
The door opened, and the nurse appeared with a pink basin of water and a small towel. “Time’s up. A quick sponge bath for you, young lady.” Her glance touched on Ava and Lucienne. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”
She set the basin on the nightstand and refitted the mask over Erin’s face. Ava and Lucienne left the room together, taking the folders and closing the door on their way out.
“Where is this ranch, anyway?” Ava muttered, as they stood shoulder to shoulder in the dim hallway, skimming the map Erin had printed from an online site.
“Clear out in the Texas boonies.”
“The Blackstone Ranch.” Ava stifled a groan. “I don’t know the first thing about ranches. Or ghost towns, for that matter.”
“Me, either.” Lucienne nibbled her lower
lip.
Ava closed the folder and tilted her head back against the wall. As if losing Erin wasn’t enough, now she had to contend with this.
She’d been at her job at an established construction management firm less than a year and didn’t have nearly enough vacation time to be gone for several months. Would Carter give her permission to leave? What if he didn’t hold her job until her return? Landing the position was her proudest accomplishment, one she’d trained years for, but did she dare risk losing everything, including a regular paycheck, for Erin?
“We promised her,” Lucienne said softly, as if reading Ava’s mind. “We have to do this for Erin.”
Ava’s stomach churned. “I know.”
A promise was a promise, after all.
But at what cost?
What were they getting themselves into?
Chapter One
Ava pulled off the highway into the first gas station she found. Correction—the only gas station she found. Except for a couple of bars and a handful of diners and small businesses, Paxton Springs, Texas, didn’t have much of anything to choose from.
Surely, there was a main street close by with more to offer than what she could see, but she’d have plenty of time to explore later. For now, her trusty economy car was thirsty. Despite being eight years old, the Toyota handled the long drive from New York City like a champ. Her first car, and a used one at that, had proven to be a worthy investment.
She pulled in next to the closest pump and shut off the air conditioning and engine. She took her credit card and a couple of bills from her billfold, doing a quick recount of the one thousand dollars in cash she’d brought, more than she ever carried in the city—or anywhere else, for that matter. Withdrawing the money had meant a big hit to her savings, but she was determined to make it last while she was in Texas. She hated racking up credit card bills.
She had been born frugal. She was her mother’s daughter, after all.
She climbed out. The midafternoon heat clung to her cooled skin like glue; even the pump warmed her palm. Gas poured into the tank; when she was done, she tucked the receipt and credit card into the back pocket of her khaki shorts and headed into the gas mart to buy a bottle of water.
A teenage boy with golden, waist-length hair held the door open for her. Her quick appraisal followed her murmured thanks. Brooding eyes, baggy pants, black T-shirt emblazoned with a heavy metal band’s artwork on the front. He seemed out of place here in cowboy country, but a million kids his age dressed the same way. She headed to the cooler.
While she waited her turn at the cash register, she eyed the cola and big slice of pizza a sweaty-looking construction worker set on the counter. Maybe she should find a grocery store before she drove out to the Blackstone Ranch. Or maybe buy a slice of pizza to eat on the way. The cashier, dressed in a tank top and jeans, counted back the guy’s change, and Ava’s glance slid toward the window for a quick check on her car.
Her gaze latched onto a black T-shirt next to the passenger side. Long golden hair, too. Her breath caught in instant recognition.
The teenager yanked the door open, reached inside, and grabbed her purse, and full-blown horror rolled through her.
“Hey!” she cried out. “Hey! Stop!”
Her money. Her savings. Oh, God.
She bolted through the door. A glimpse of black and golden disappeared around the back of the station, and she tore off after him, past an ice machine, an oversized trash can, bags of landscaping bark stacked along the front of the gas mart. A big red pickup eased into a parking spot, and she ran past that, too. Someone yelled, then several more people did; she turned into a heavily rutted alley strewn with gravel, and their voices faded behind her.
The T-shirt was too far ahead to give her any hope of catching up with the kid who wore it, but still she kept running. The back side of a bar, an auto repair shop, and who knew what else blurred past her as she ran, arms and legs pumping. The sting of gravel tortured the bottoms of her feet, and her toes squeezed together to keep her flip-flops from flying off, but she kept going…
Until the black disappeared. Chest heaving, she slowed. Her gaze raked down the narrow path between a pair of buildings, one painted pale pink and another a dirty white, but he was nowhere. Sprinting to the end of the alley, which opened to the street, she searched there, too. Up one side and down the other.
He was gone.
She refused to stop looking. Damn it, she needed that money and no scrawny kid was going to keep her from it. She turned right, kept going down the sidewalk, then right again past a vacant lot toward the pink building. An ice cream shop. She burst inside and found it virtually empty except for another teen, this one far more clean-cut, leaning against the counter, engrossed in his smartphone.
He glanced up. “Can I help you?”
“Anyone in a black T-shirt and long, golden hair come in here just now?”
“No, ma’am. No one has in the last half hour, except you.”
“Thanks.”
She ran out again, headed next door, a co-op of some sort, and jiggled the knob, but the place was locked up tight.
She panted a frustrated curse. Bending, she yanked off each of her flip-flops and brushed bits of gravel off the soles of her feet. Slower this time, she headed back to the alley. She’d come full circle with no sign of the kid.
Tears stung her eyes. Surely, this Podunk town had a police station so she could report the robbery, which would only make her late in getting out to the Blackstone Ranch, and then she had to call Lucienne, who would loan her another thousand dollars that would take Ava forever to pay back, and then there was all of her private information that had been stolen, inevitably making her life miserable, but that was not the point of this whole fiasco…
She still gripped the bottle of water in her fist. She inhaled, then exhaled, to clear her brain. At least she had enough cash to pay for the water; she yanked the lid off, tilted her head back, and guzzled half of it. The cold liquid swam down her throat; she screwed the lid back on and skimmed the bottle across her sweaty forehead.
She couldn’t waste any more time standing here, feeling sorry for herself, so she sprinted back down the alley, toward the gas station. If nothing else, she was able to find her way back without a miss, thanks to that big red pickup still parked in the stall, which was about the only thing she could remember when she took off after the purse snatcher.
She kept running, her mind keeping pace with her feet. Did they have cops here in Paxton Springs? A sheriff’s office? The cashier would know who to call, and she raced toward the glass-front doors, ignoring the small crowd that had gathered near the entrance.
A black T-shirt stopped her cold.
There was the teen, sitting on the oil-stained pavement next to the gas pump. The same one she’d used to fill her tank. He sat with his knees pulled up and his head hanging down. Her purse lay on the hood of her car, as plain as day, and what the hell was going on?
“Hey, you!” She changed course, headed right for him. “What were you doing, stealing my purse?” She resisted the urge to smack him with it. He appeared sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. Medium height and thin-framed with clothes that could use a good laundering. “Who do you think you are, taking something that doesn’t belong to you?”
“It’s all there, ma’am.” A male voice, smooth as leather and gentled with a drawl, startled her. “He didn’t have time to do much of anything but run.”
Her gaze jerked upward to the tall cowboy, slanted with one hip against her car, muscled arms crossed casually over his chest. The brim of his fawn-colored Stetson shadowed his aviator sunglasses; a red bandanna circled his neck.
Clearly, he’d been waiting for her. A slow heat curled through her belly, a warmth that had nothing to do with the Texas sun and everything to do with the raw virility of this man.
“You found him?” she asked unnecessarily. Obviously, he had, with far more skill than she’d managed. “How? I mean—”
A faint smile softened his hard mouth. She could feel him watching her behind the shaded lenses, and her breath quickened. Her composure sank, too, like a rock in quicksand.
She was rarely without her composure. It had taken her a long time to know how to gain it and hang on to it. Few had the power or skill to shake it.
When before had a man succeeded?
Never.
She didn’t know what this one was thinking, but he was slowly weakening her defenses, and Ava needed all the control she could get. It was how she’d survived growing up, mostly alone, for the majority of her childhood.
Control. Composure. Focus.
“Go on. Check your purse. You’ll feel better,” he murmured.
Her shoulders squared. Maybe he was amused that her money meant so much to her. Was it that obvious? He wouldn’t know she’d lived on more pennies than dollars throughout her lifetime, that she’d been thrown out into the world too soon, forced to scrimp and save for the most basic of necessities.
Something she was determined to change.
“Thank you. I will.”
She took a quick step back and snatched her purse off the hood. There was her billfold, still unzipped and lying wide open like she’d left it when she went to buy water, intending to return the credit card and receipt to their places after she was done. But a quick riffle through the bills showed the cowboy was right.
All one thousand dollars were there.
She schooled her features to show a calm she didn’t feel. She refused to let the cowboy know she was relieved. She wouldn’t let him see a shred of weakness or vulnerability about her.
Growing up, she’d been both for too long, and she wasn’t going to be either anymore.
Especially not in front of this big, strong, hunky cowboy.
He reached out a long leg and nudged the kid with the scuffed toe of his boot.