Slow Burn Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  “Or I would walk away. Which is exactly what you did to me last night, isn’t it?”

  The betrayal on her face cut him deep. “Yes,” he said, his voice rough. “Not that I realized it then. It took my older brother to knock some sense into me. It turns out maybe I do need family. Which was a distressing revelation, Lane, make no mistake.”

  “Wow. I bet. Though not half as distressing as having the man you love look you in the eye and say he can’t love you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so damned sorry. I held back all this time from letting myself have you because I knew I’d hurt you. But the ridiculous thing about that is it was just a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

  “Damn right it is, Finn Donnelly. You couldn’t hear that from me? You had to go brood your way to a revelation?”

  “I had to get my head out of my ass. And I had to... I had to deal with all my shit.” He shook his head. “I’ve never been able to figure out the magic combination. The thing that makes people finally decide I’m not worth the effort. It scares me. It might seem silly to you, but I can’t shake this feeling that one day I could wake up, and you would be gone.”

  Lane shook her head, her eyes filling with tears, then she closed the space between them, pressing her palm against his cheek. “I’ve walked away from enough. I’m done. I can’t lose anyone else. And you know that’s why I suppressed all of my feelings for you. Because I needed you. But I didn’t want to do the work to become what you needed.” She laughed suddenly. “You know how they put people in medically induced comas when they’re really badly injured?”

  He blinked, not quite sure where she was going with this. But then, with Lane it was almost impossible to know. That was part of what he loved about her. The endless vibrancy, the constant surprises. The rambling. Lord, but he loved that woman’s rambling.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly.

  “That was us. All of our feelings were in a medically induced coma. Or maybe a trauma induced coma? Until we could heal enough to handle it.”

  He laughed, taking her hands, holding both of them and sliding his thumbs over her palms. “Unfortunately, you healed a little faster than I did.”

  “I did. I’m not even going to give you a pass on that.”

  He looked at her, and a sensation filled his chest until he could barely breathe around it. He thought it might take him over completely. And he wasn’t sure if he minded. “I haven’t said this...” He cleared his throat. “When I came home from school and found that my mom was gone. That she’d left me, for real. That she chose her deadbeat boyfriend over me... I never wanted to feel that way again.” He paused for a moment, trying to collect his emotions, to keep them from spilling out.

  “She left all the pictures of us,” he continued, “on the walls, in the photo albums. I broke the picture frames. And then I burned everything. So that I wouldn’t be tempted to ever look back at it.”

  “Finn... Oh Finn.” She wrapped her arms around him, held him close. He braced his hands on her hips, rested his face in the crook of her neck.

  “I never wanted to feel like that again,” he repeated. “I never wanted to be blindsided. I never wanted to need somebody that much. I wanted... I wanted something I could tame. Something I could control. That’s why the ranch has been everything to me for so long. It made me feel like I could reach down and grab hold of the earth. And with you...it’s not about control. The last thing I ever wanted was for you to become everything, Lane Jensen. I could only just barely handle you as a friend. I knew that losing you even if I never touched you would devastate me. That’s scary. To give you this. To want you like this.”

  “You’re kind of preaching to the choir,” she said softly. “I’ve been dealing with a pretty significant amount of fear myself.”

  “I’m out of practice saying this,” he said, drawing the moment out longer.

  “That’s okay.”

  “I love you,” he said. “As a friend. As a lover. As everything in between. And I want... I do want you to be everything. I want to give you everything. I want you to know me, like nobody else does. I want exactly what you said we could be. That whole picture you painted. I want that.”

  “I love you too,” she whispered.

  “I love you,” he said again. “I love you. I love you. I’m already feeling less out of practice.”

  Every time the words came out of his mouth they felt a little bit lighter, and so did he. And it helped that Lane held even tighter to him each and every time.

  That with every press of her body she made a vow not to let him go.

  “I never wanted to get married. And I never wanted to have children. But you’re right. That was when I put a generic, faceless person in that place as my wife. As the mother of my kids. A woman who would only end up leaving me. But when I imagine you there? I want it all. And I know you’ll stay. I know you will. Because I know you.” He stared at her for a heartbeat, watched as a variety of emotions played across her face.

  “I didn’t think...” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t think I would ever want that life. Mostly, I didn’t think I deserved it, so I trained myself not to want it. But I think we both do. I think we deserve all of it. I think we deserve everything. But you’re the only person I could have everything with, Finn.” She clung to him more tightly still, pressing her cheek against his, and he felt a tear fall onto his face, dropping from her eye. “It’s always been you. It really has been.”

  “For me too,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, holding nothing back, pulling her against him completely, with nothing between them.

  He held her like that for a long time, just listening to her breathe. Feeling the softness of her body, of her hair, inhaling that scent that was so uniquely Lane.

  “So,” he said. “Since I love you, do you think you might want to marry me? You were talking about that thing that was like a lover, and like a friend, but was more. And I think the word you might have been looking for was wife.”

  She tilted her head back, tears trailing down her cheeks. “Yes,” she said. “I would really, really like that.”

  “Me too,” he said, leaning in to kiss her.

  “Maybe Robert can be our best man.”

  “No,” he said, wrapping his arm around her waist. He was going to have a hard time letting go of her. Now that he had her back, he wanted to hang on forever. Wanted to touch her forever. “I draw a hard line at a best mouse.”

  He slid his thumb over her cheekbone. “You know my brothers will have to be in our wedding.”

  She laughed. “Oh really? You think they’ll put on tuxes?”

  “Wait. You think I will?”

  “Hmm. I think you would if I asked you to, Finn. But I have to say there’s some appeal in having you marry me in a white T-shirt and jeans. And your hat and boots, of course.”

  “Doesn’t matter to me, as long as you marry me.”

  “Try and stop me. Hey, maybe Violet can be the flower girl.”

  “She’d probably want to wear black and throw dead flowers.”

  “That’s super metal, but possibly not what I want for a wedding.”

  “Your brother has to be the best man,” Finn said. “Since he did kind of introduce us.”

  “Wow. We get to tell Mark.”

  “Something tells me he’ll be okay with it. Since all he’s ever really wanted was for you to be happy.”

  “What a coincidence, that’s what I want for me too.” She kissed him. “That’s what I want for us.”

  “I think we stand a pretty good chance at being happy.”

  “For how long?” she asked, a smile curving her lips.

  “Forever.”

  It was funny to think that just a few weeks ago having his house full, having his brothers there, sharing the ranch, sharing
his life had seemed like the end of everything he’d worked for.

  Now it seemed like a beginning.

  With Lane by his side, with his family around him, his life was full for the first time.

  “Do you want another casserole?” Lane asked.

  That snapped him out of his thoughts. “I thought that was sadness food.”

  “It is,” she said. “I mean, usually. And I made it because I was sad. But now I’m happy and I have casserole. So, maybe we make a new tradition.”

  “I’m going to have anniversary casserole for the rest of my life, aren’t I?”

  She laughed. “Probably.”

  And he did.

  EPILOGUE

  IT WAS LANE’S favorite time of the month. Time to curate a new batch of The Best of Copper Ridge boxes. She liked to prepare them three months at a time. And of course, now that her subscription business had expanded to include other regions in the state of Oregon, plus a Best of Oregon box, she was even busier.

  Luckily, she had a crew of tiny taste-testers always on hand to offer opinions. Though she had quickly learned that her three-year-old son was an unreliable authority on hazelnuts, since he deemed them “yucky.”

  She smiled to herself as she walked to the end of the long driveway that led from the main house of the Laughing Irish ranch down to the highway. She opened the mailbox and took out the mail, leafing through it as she wandered back up to the house.

  There was a small white envelope in the middle of the stack that made her heart stop. She tore it open while she ran up to the house, her heart galloping.

  She remembered that Finn was still out in the field, and veered away from the house toward where she guessed he might be.

  She’d already read it all by the time she found Finn, and tears were tracking down her cheeks. When he saw her, his face contorted.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Is everything okay? Cade? Alana?”

  “They’re fine,” she said. “I just... I just got this letter from the adoption agency. The one...the one.”

  She offered her husband the letter and he took it, holding it gently as he read the contents. She didn’t know why, but for some reason it made her heart stop, watching for his response.

  “He got into Harvard,” Finn said softly.

  “He did,” Lane replied, a fresh tear falling down her cheek. “And he has a great family. He...he thanked me, Finn. For giving him up. I never thought... I mean I was afraid to hope...”

  Finn reached out and pulled her into his arms, holding her tight. “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart,” he said, his voice gruff. “Happy for us.”

  In the past six years their lives together had been wonderful. She loved her husband and her children, and she’d made peace with her past. But she’d still wondered about her firstborn. She thought of him often, especially when Cade was born.

  But he’d written to her now, through the agency. To tell her he was well. That he was going to school. That he was grateful.

  It was all she’d ever wanted to know. All she’d given up hope on ever knowing for sure.

  She looked up at Finn, the love of her life, her best friend, and she felt complete. All the pieces of her heart were right here. Her family, this ranch, this town.

  So many wonderful things, it didn’t leave any room for fear.

  “I love you, you know,” she said.

  “Me too. I pretty much always have. Ever since that time we watched a movie together and I saw you—really saw you—for the first time. But it’s changed too. Every time I see you smile—” he dragged his thumb over her cheek “—every time you cry. When you first made love with me. When you married me. When you had our daughter, when you had our son. And I think...just in the last minute or so, seeing this, it changed again. Got deeper. I think that’s how it always will be.”

  She felt another tear slip down her cheek, and she sniffed. “Same goes, Finn Donnelly. Same goes.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Because if I didn’t have you I’d probably have to room with Robert.”

  She laughed, a bubble of absurdity that welled up and escaped her lips. “Who?”

  “The mouse. Your best friend. The one that you liked better than you liked me for a brief moment in time.”

  “Oh, Robert! Yeah, he left a while ago. I think he moved to the woods and met a mouse hottie and had babies. He doesn’t want to room with you.”

  “Well, that settles it. You have to keep me.”

  “I think I can do that.” She cleared her throat. “So, I have to ask, does your love for me get stronger every time we...” She trailed off, eyeing him suggestively.

  He grabbed her hand and started leading her out of the barn—quickly. “You know,” he said, pausing for a moment to pull her against his chest and plant a kiss on her lips, “I think I might need to test that theory.”

  * * * * *

  The Donnelly brothers might be putting down roots in Copper Ridge, but the road to happily ever after is hardly a smooth one.

  Look for Cain’s book, DOWN HOME COWBOY, from Maisey Yates and HQN Books!

  Read on for an exclusive sneak peek...

  Down Home Cowboy

  by Maisey Yates

  CHAPTER ONE

  CAIN DONNELLY WAS sick to death of being alone.

  Or, more specifically, he was sick and tired of going to bed alone. It had been a long time since he’d touched a woman.

  Four years.

  Four years since Kathleen had walked out on him and Violet. And in that time, he had been consumed with trying to salvage what he could of his daughter’s childhood. With trying to make a new life for them, with trying to build something that belonged to the two of them, and didn’t have his ex-wife’s ghost lingering in the shadows.

  That was why they had come to Copper Ridge, Oregon, from Texas just a month earlier. The transition had been rocky so far.

  He lifted his beer bottle to his lips and scanned the room. He didn’t know how he had allowed his younger half brothers to talk him into going out. He had to admit that his daughter made a pretty convenient excuse for his hermitage. Of course, Violet was sixteen now, and she could stay alone for a while.

  Though, if his brother Finn and his new girlfriend, Lane, weren’t at home, he probably would have used the excuse of them being in a new place to avoid going out. Out in the middle of nowhere like the Laughing Irish ranch was, Violet was likely to get scared. Or some other lie.

  But Lane and Finn were at home, and Cain had found himself fresh out of excuses. So he was sitting in the local bar, Ace’s or something. Which was the name of the guy who owned it, he’d been told.

  The place was a strange collision of surf and turf. There were fishing nets, half a boat hung up on the wall and other little pieces of evidence that Copper Ridge was a coastal town before it was anything else. But there were also Western touches that could rival any honky-tonk he had been to in Dallas.

  Including a mechanical bull. Which he had to admit was providing a decent amount of entertainment.

  “Are you going to watch that thing all night?”

  Cain turned to look at his brother Alex, who had been eyeing a pack of blonde chicks in the corner and glanced at Cain just long enough to give him a baleful stare.

  They were too young. All those girls, standing in the corner and scanning the room to see if they could catch the eye of some guy who might buy them another drink. He knew his brothers were up for it. Liam and Alex would happily jump right in the middle of them—in the next thirty seconds, most likely.

  Cain felt too old for all of this. He was supposed to be done. That was the point of getting married. He had liked that. That routine. That certainty.

  He had been so certain about the decision to marry Kathlee
n. She’d been pregnant, and he’d always known that if that happened, he’d be marrying the woman. In many ways he’d been thrilled. To have something in his life that he’d felt long denied.

  Stability. A family.

  He’d become a father at twenty-two, and it had been the proudest day of his life. And for a while, everything had been exactly like he wanted it.

  Obviously it hadn’t been what Kathleen had wanted.

  And this wasn’t what he wanted—this bar, this night. But he was just so damn sick of being alone. Being celibate. Yeah, it was the celibate thing. He didn’t want another relationship. There was no point. Violet was sixteen, and bringing somebody else into their life when it was already hard enough just wasn’t going to happen.

  He had never felt right about bringing a woman home for sex with his daughter in the house. And he had really never felt right about spending the night out while he left her. Not when his wife had left the way she had.

  So, here he was. Contemplating his celibacy in a bar. Looking at a mechanical bull rather than women. It was all depressing and mind-numbing enough to make him reflect.

  On the slow breakdown of his marriage, the day Kathleen had packed up all her stuff and left without telling him what she was planning and where she was going.

  The day she’d surrendered parental rights to their daughter, because she needed a clean break.

  He looked away from the bull-riding spectacle and over toward the bar, where he saw something that most definitely caught his attention.

  There was a petite redhead leaning up against the counter, her ass perfectly showcased by the tight jeans that she was wearing. She shifted, and her hair shimmered beneath the multicolored lights. Then she lifted her arm, brushing all that glossy beauty to one side. Cain was transfixed by the sight of that arm. Pale, freckled, slim. She looked soft.