by Jennie Marts
Sometimes you find what you need in the most unlikely places…
Charlie Ryan’s cheating fiancé left her with a broken heart and even broker bank account. She’s hit rock bottom, but everything is about to change. Suddenly, she’s inherited a Montana farm named Tucked Away from a grandmother she never knew existed. A fresh start is just what she needs—and no men in her future this time, even if the local vet is as hot as a Montana summer.
Zack Cooper is content with his simple life. Running his veterinary practice and raising his daughter are enough to keep him busy, and he doesn’t need a high-maintenance city girl like his ex who plans to sell her grandma’s ranch and split faster than a setting sun. So why can’t he stop thinking about Charlie and her hot-pink cowboy boots…and the way her eyes say she wants to stay while her lips tease him with plans of leaving?
Just when both start to believe love might be worth the risk…one night will change everything.
Table of Contents
Dedication
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
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Check out Select Contemporary’s newest releases… Deconstructing Lila
Temptation
Some Like it Sizzling
Rules of Protection
Ready to Wed
Wild About Rachel
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jennie Marts. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Entangled Publishing, LLC
2614 South Timberline Road
Suite 109
Fort Collins, CO 80525
Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.
Select Contemporary is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.
Edited by Candace Havens and Allison Collins
Cover design by Kelley York
Cover art by Shutterstock
ISBN 978-1-63375-262-7
Manufactured in the United States of America
First Edition April 2015
This book is dedicated to Todd
The one who filled my life with love and laughter
under the big blue Montana sky
Chapter One
A bead of sweat trickled down her back as she stared into the cold brown eyes of her captor. A gold ring pierced his nostril. He snorted, his breath forming a circle of condensation on the window. She laid on the horn again, hoping this time to scare the beast away. He stood there, unfazed, staring at her and swatting flies away with his tail.
“Nice bull.” Keeping her voice low, she pulled on the handle and gently pushed open the car door a fraction of an inch. The huge black bull, roughly the size of a small pickup truck, pawed at the ground, then put his head down and rammed the side of her bright red rental car.
She let loose a scream of terror and frustration. The car held all of her worldly possessions, packed in a few liquor store boxes and a couple of Louis Vuitton suitcases, her last shred of dignity tucked into one of the side pockets.
Charlie Ryan had spent the last hour trapped in a car that reeked of stale French fries, her silk blouse clinging to her damp back, desperately rethinking her decision to drink that large iced tea. Why had she ignored the sign reading Last services for 200 miles? Who knew that meant gasoline? She thought it meant cell service, and her phone had died hours ago as she’d crossed the never-ending flats of the Midwest, driving toward her new home and the promise of a fresh start.
Nothing was going as planned. Her dreams, once as bright as the pristine Montana sky, had faded like the paint on the large red barn standing sentinel over the Tucker farm. But this was too much. She’d had enough bull in her life, and she was getting out of this car.
Groaning, she looked around in desperation for a way out. An old two-story farmhouse sat at the end of a dusty driveway. The front door, and her means of escape, a mere twenty feet away.
She pulled her black designer pump from her foot and beat it against the window. Its ineffectiveness against her captor equaled its poor choice as driving footwear, evidenced by the large red blister forming on her right heel.
She studied the beast. His shiny coat seemed to glisten in the afternoon sun. Horns protruded two feet off either side of his huge, triangular block of a head, and his neck was thick as a tree trunk. She leaned closer to the window and noticed his horns dotted with red bits that looked like blood, but were probably flecks of the paint that used to be on her rental car door. A large scar extended several inches above and below his left eye. The scar, combined with the way he stamped his foot and shook his enormous head at her, told her this bull meant business.
Turning away from the animal, she tried the ignition once more, hoping the tank had been visited by the services fairies and magically filled with gasoline. What little fumes were left in the tank had sputtered out just as she pulled into the driveway and coasted to a stop in front of the house.
She would have to think about that coincidence later, but for now, the car battery still worked, so she depressed the button to roll the window down a few inches. Hot, dry air, smelling of what she assumed was hay, wafted into the car, and the bull, alerted by the sudden movement, slid his tongue up the window, leaving a shiny trail of saliva filled with bits of grass.
Charlie screamed again as his tongue, finding the opening in the glass, snaked into the car, as if searching for the source of the fast food scent. She continued to shriek as she alternately whacked at the huge tongue with her shoe and tried to roll up the window.
Having rid her car of the offensive appendage, she now heard the blessed sound of an engine and turned to see a blue and white pickup pulling into the driveway. She registered a black cowboy hat and dark hair as the truck rumbled past her in a cloud of dust. The window was wide open, the radio blared guitar-picking country music, and a tan, muscled arm rested against the faded blue paint.
The truck pulled to a stop in front of her car, and she sighed with relief. How low had her life sunk that her hero had just arrived in an ancient pickup sporting a decal silhouette of a naked woman wearing high heels and holding a shotgun, an NRA emblem, and a bumper sticker that read Git Er Done?
The door of the truck opened. As one cowboy boot hit the ground, Charlie had a moment of fear, wondering if she was now in more danger being stranded alone in the middle of nowhere with a three-toothed redneck who fully believed in his right to bear arms.
She reached to depress the door locks, then remembered she had locked the doors earlier when the beast had first charged the car. She was now pretty sure a bull couldn’t open a car door with its hoof, but it was a moment of panic, and she wasn’t taking any chances.
The rest of her hero emerged from the truck, and any thoughts of door-opening cows left her head as she took in the sight of this man. He epitomized the term hot cowboy, standing well over six feet tall, wearing faded Wranglers, a sleeveless western shirt, and the aforementioned black
cowboy hat.
He was tan and had the solid muscles of someone who spent his time outdoors working hard instead of indoors working out. He rested one of those muscled arms on the open door of his truck as he appeared to survey the red car containing a sweaty blonde being held captive by a twelve hundred pound bull.
Why is he just standing there? Charlie gave him a small wave. She didn’t think he could hear her and considered doing a mini-charade to describe her predicament. Two words. Movie title. Help me. But, instead found herself pointing to the bull and mouthing, “Help.”
The cowboy broke into a wide grin. Definitely more than three teeth. She found herself smiling back, until he leaned forward and let loose a long stream of tobacco juice into the dirt at his feet.
Oh, gross. She watched him amble toward her and lowered the window a few inches.
He peered in through the window and smiled again as he seemed to take in the disheveled mess she was. Her skirt was a wrinkled disaster and had crept up enough to show a considerable amount of her pale legs.
“Hey there. Looks like you got yourself in a bit of a pickle.”
A pickle? I’m swimmin’ around in the whole jar. She smiled up at him, then watched his eyes do a full inventory of her figure and the fast-food-wrapper-strewn interior of her car. She wasn’t sure if he was checking out her cleavage or trying to discern what the large stain on the front of her blouse was. She couldn’t actually remember if it was ketchup or coffee, and frankly, she didn’t care—she was just so happy to be rescued. Charlie considered burning the blouse if she could ever get out of this blasted car.
“That beast won’t let me get out,” she explained through the crack in the window, as she pointed at the huge black bull, now standing docile as it watched the cowboy lean against her car. “Every time I try to open the door, he rams it with his head.”
The cowboy looked down at the scarred and battered door, let out a low chuckle, then turned and sauntered off into the open door of the barn. He reappeared a few minutes later holding a dented coffee can in one hand and a handful of hay in the other. The can must have held something appetizing. Through a series of yips and haws and shakings of the coffee can, the man lured the bull into the dark recesses of the barn.
Emerging a few minutes later, he crossed the driveway, dusting bits of hay from his hands. “All right, you can come out now. I put Tommy Lee in one of the stables.”
Charlie hit the unlock switch, and he opened the driver’s side door. She pulled the keys from the ignition and dropped them in her Coach bag. Sliding the purse up her shoulder, she swung her legs out and tried to stand while adjusting her wrinkled skirt and blouse.
The pebbles of the driveway dug into her bare feet, and she reached for the door as her knees threatened to buckle. But instead of steel, her hand encountered hard flesh as the cowboy put his arm around her waist to steady her.
“Whoa there.”
“Oh, thanks. I picked the wrong shoes for driving, and I’ve got the worst blister on my heel.”
He pulled her against his hip and led her toward the four steps of the front porch she’d been staring at the last thirty minutes. “Let’s get you inside and find you some water. How long have you been stuck in that car?”
“Almost an hour.” She leaned into him as the blister on her heel caused her to limp up the stairs. Thinking he would smell like a farm, she was surprised by the nice aftershave he wore. The rest of his body was as hard as his bicep, and she suddenly had the mental image of him swooping her into his arms and carrying her up the stairs. Where had that come from? And why did she seem to be sweating more now than when she was in the hot car?
“Why didn’t you just drive away? That old bull would have moved if the car had started toward him.”
“I would have, but my car ran out of gas as I pulled into the driveway.”
The outer screen door creaked as he pulled it open and gestured for her to go in. Hesitating only for a moment, she took a deep breath and stepped into the foyer of not only her new home, but her new life.
She looked around the interior of the farmhouse. A large living room covered the majority of the main floor. An open kitchen sat to the left, and separating the rooms was a long counter and a scarred wooden table surrounded by six mismatched chairs.
The kitchen was a mix of old and new, evidenced by an antique toaster sitting next to a shiny red Kitchenaid mixer. Lace curtains fluttered at the open window above a porcelain sink.
At the back of the room, an open door revealed a set of stairs leading to the upper level. The hardwood floors were scattered with rag-tied rugs, and a light blue afghan lay spread across the back of an overstuffed sofa.
The house had an inviting feel, so different from her small apartment in New York. Driving out to the middle of nowhere, she’d worried she would feel completely out of place, but instead, she was surprised at the sense of peace she felt as she walked through the front door. The air held the faint scent of cinnamon and apples, and she relaxed, feeling as if she’d just come home.
Except her home had never held a tall, dark, and handsome hottie of a cowboy. Her would-be hero pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and guided her into it, gently pulling the purse from her shoulder and setting it on the table. “I’ll get you some water. I’m Cash, by the way. I run this place, and I’m assuming you’re…lost?”
She sighed and fidgeted with the zipper of her bag. If only he knew how true that statement was. “No, evidently I’m right where I am supposed to belong now. Is your name really Cash? As in legal tender?”
“It says so on my birth certificate. But it’s as in Johnny Cash, you know, the man in black. My parents were big fans.” He took a glass from the cupboard and turned on the tap. “What do you mean this is where you belong now?”
“Well, a grandmother I never knew existed left me this farm in her will, but she said I would only get it if I moved here and lived on it for the summer. I’m Charlie Ryan.”
He turned from the sink, one dark eyebrow raised and leaving the glass he’d been filling only half-full. “You’re Gigi’s grandbaby? That Charlie?”
“Well, I don’t know any Gigi, but some lawyer called me about three weeks ago and told me I had a grandmother named Geraldine Tucker and that she’d left me a farm in Montana called Tucked Away.”
“Everyone around these parts knows Geraldine Tucker as Gigi.” He set the glass on the table, and she watched him give her body another roving once-over with his eyes. Subtlety was obviously not one of his strong points. “I guess I was expecting Gigi’s grandbaby Charlie to be a little less…female.”
She took a large drink of the blessedly cool water, too tired to bother caring about the man’s obvious eyeballing of her curves. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
He settled his hip against the counter and rubbed the back of his neck while he seemed to process this new information. “So, where are you from?”
“New York City,” Charlie said, with obvious pride in her voice.
“New York City?” he replied, in an accent reminiscent of old salsa commercials. “And you dropped your whole life and moved to Broken Falls, Montana? Just like that?”
There isn’t much of a life left there anymore. However, she didn’t want to explain that to this man she’d just met. She mused on how a single instant’s decision to come home early one afternoon could change everything you thought about your life. “Yep. Sometimes life works that way. Just like that.”
“So, where’s your dad? We were kinda surprised he didn’t turn up for Gigi’s funeral.”
She wasn’t surprised at all. He hadn’t turned up for anything in her life. “I have no idea where or even who he is. I was raised by my mom and have lived my whole life on the East Coast. I never knew my dad or even that I had a grandmother in Montana. I had to look at a map to even be sure where Montana was.”
“Well, she’s always known about you. Gigi’s been searching for you since you were born but only found you a short time a
go. She’s been getting this place ready for her grandbaby ever since. We were all kinda hoping you two would’ve had a chance to meet each other.”
“I didn’t know about her until after she was gone.” She was surprised by the lump that had formed in her throat for a woman she’d never known, but who, it seemed, had been searching for her for years.
Charlie took a deep breath and noticed the faint scent of peaches in the air. Her hair stirred, as if a breeze had brushed past her, and she shivered. She had the oddest impression of feeling as though she was all at once loved and in the right place and time.
“You all right? Was there a mouse or something?” He looked at the floor below her chair.
“A mouse?” she shrieked, lifting her feet and temporarily forgetting about the odd sensation of warmth and comfort. “Where? In the house? Did you see one?”
He chuckled. “No, you just looked funny for a second there. Your face went really pale. City-girl like you, I thought you must’ve seen a mouse or a spider.”
She eased her feet back onto the floor and laughed at herself. “No, I just got spooked. It was nothing.”
“Old houses will do that to you. But you still might see a mouse or two,” he said, and grinned as she picked up her feet again. “We’ve got an old mother cat around here who usually keeps them out of the house. ’Bout the only thing she’s good for is mousing and having kittens. I think she’s due to drop a litter here pretty soon.”
What was she doing here? As an author, she was used to looking at a pile of manuscripts, not a pile of baby animals. And what would she do if she found them anyway? She’d lived in apartments her whole life and had never had so much as a goldfish for a pet.
Cash was looking at her expectantly. She realized he had just asked her a question, and she’d completely missed it in her musing over the prospect of finding kittens. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear what you said.”
He chuckled again and seemed to be amused by her. “I asked you how long you were plannin’ on stayin’.”
“Oh, um, I’m not really sure.” She bit her lip and toyed with the floral print placemat on the table in front of her. “For a while, I guess. The terms of the will said I needed to live here for the entire summer, but we’ll see how it goes.”