A Cowboy To Keep: A Contemporary Western Romance Collection

by Hebby Roman

  As she started back for the kitchen, she heard him mutter, “Yeah. You know what Garbo really did say?”

  “What?”

  “Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It seemed to K.C. that Chay’s thirtieth birthday had turned into some kind of national holiday. The Cowboy Bar was so packed with well-wishers, she couldn’t see how there would be any room for dancing. Yet when the band struck up, as patrons cleared back toward the walls and bar, the dance floor appeared and couples moved out. K.C. wasn’t drinking, but the smell of spilled beer and perfume was enough to intoxicate her.

  Chay hadn’t yet arrived, which worried her despite the fact this wasn’t a formal party. He had told her on the phone he would meet her here after running some ranch errands. As everyone knew, Saturday night was spent at Cowboy Bar and today was Chay Ridgway’s birthday.

  “Wanna dance?” It was Billy Stavros, the new hand they all called ‘the Greek’.

  K.C. smiled and went out onto the floor with him. It was a two-step, and as she faced Billy, she spotted Chay swing open the saloon doors, Lisa tagging behind. She felt the blood chill in her veins as she tried to look away and take Billy’s hands.

  Billy Stavros was not the kind of dance partner to make anyone jealous. Somewhat chubby, he was an awkward companion and no one’s idea of a cowboy. She tried to smile to reassure him, but taking his hand, she could feel the damp of his anxiety. She grinned and took her hands back for a moment and wiped them on her jeans before she let Billy grip them again. She could feel Chay’s eyes on her. Was he smirking? Where was Lisa?

  Suddenly, Chay tapped Billy on the back and nodded toward the bar. “The birthday boy gets first pick, Stavros.”

  Billy faltered before giving K.C. a quiet thanks and leaving.

  Chay held up his hands waiting for K.C. to step forward. “Are we dancing?”

  K.C. inhaled a breath and stepped into Chay’s arms, a current running through her like fire through dry brush. All she wanted in that moment was to rest her head against him, feel the hard breadth of his chest. He smelled of leather and green grass, barn and horse as he did here in Wyoming, and she supposed if they could just stand there and not move at all, she’d be happy.

  “You’re quiet.” He led her as he always did, their two bodies moving as was meant, in rhythm, in step.

  “I thought you came with Lisa.”

  “No, we just happened to arrive at the same time.” He glanced toward the bar. “I think she’s set her sights on someone else now, thank goodness.”

  K.C. glanced up to see if he was sincere, and smiled.

  Chay’s mouth puckered with a brief guffaw. “Well. You didn’t really think I was…maybe it’s not nice to say. She was a bit young for an ancient thirty year old, wasn’t she?”

  Something between a snort and a laugh came out as K.C. queried that with her eyebrows.

  “Anyway, I don’t think anyone could take your place. You’re a lifetime habit, K.C.”

  The music stopped but Chay held both her hands.

  K.C. lost herself in the green depth of Chay’s eyes and smiled.

  “Do you think there’s hope for us?”

  “There’s always hope, Chay.”

  Chay laughed and pulled her a bit closer. “Do you think we can start again?”

  “No.”

  “No?” He tilted his head in question.

  “No. There’s too much between us to want to start again. I want to pick up right where we left off.”

  He seemed to consider this for a moment before asking, “You gonna wish me happy birthday?”

  “Is it your birthday?” she teased. “I forgot.”

  Chay’s deep tenor laugh rang out and everyone stopped to look at the couple. As he bent and pulled K.C. back into his arms, his kiss starting gentle but going deeper, going on, all the feeling of having lost each other and regained each other flowing through them, between them, all the patrons watching or so it seemed, someone on the sideline shouted out, “Oh, not again! Get a room, Ridgway, will ya?”

  Chay stood back and glanced over his shoulder. “Good idea. Dang good idea.”

  * * *

  Their boots left at the door, their clothes dropped away in shifting pieces, first his shirt, then hers, next her bra so their chests could brush each other. She relished the feel of his skin against her, satisfying in the brief embrace, the so-longed-for sensation of his skin on hers, his body next to her.

  He stood back and his belt hit the floor with a metallic thud before he stepped out of his jeans, his stare still consuming her, sweeping over her bare breasts with a desire at once gratifying and frightening. K.C. pushed her own jeans down, in inches, not to tantalize but rather to keep her sight on his beauty, the strong chest with its indentations of muscle, the smoothness of it, the semi-circles around the very slight protrusions of his pecs, the narrowing to his hips. She glanced up and caught his half-smile, the angle of his head with his ambiguous question. Was she admiring him? Was she teasing him? ‘Get on!’ it said.

  She stepped out of the discarded Levis and wound her arms around him and he responded by bending into her and rubbing his head in the crux of her shoulder before beginning to kiss her along the line of her neck and under her chin. The tight embrace let her feel the firmness of his desire and she pushed back, sliding her hands down his chest until her fingers hooked into his pants and his hands covered hers to push the remaining item down. K.C. drew her own hands back to do likewise with her panties before Chay lifted her. She encircled her legs about him for a kiss that didn’t seem to end, could not end as he held her and, as one, they came down upon his bed.

  Her eyes were closed and her neck arched as his lips moved around her, his hands light of touch despite the callouses she knew so well. Chay nuzzled into her neck and K.C. felt the bite of passion that would leave its mark. With one hand on his chest, she pushed him to his back so she could straddle him, her silken hair a curtain, as she moved to taste him and, holding his face between her hands, drink him in with another kiss before he reversed their positions once more.

  Now his full length was upon her as she had longed for it to be these many months. It was the weight with which she had slept so soundly in New York, the weight she had missed so long. Their feet entwined, the toes kissing, as he raised himself up to stare at her before easing himself in to become one. Arc’ed over her, his lips brushed down the slopes of her breasts and back to her earlobes before he lowered himself down, nestling into the fabric of her hair upon the pillow.

  K.C. clasped him to her. “I love the feel of you inside,” she whispered. “It’s like an emptiness being filled, being completed.” She ran her hands down his back, over the mounds of his glutes and back up again before her fingers twisted into his shaggy hair and brought his mouth to hers. She could hear his ragged breathing, the breath of desire that matched her own. She let his body move with its yearning, her own body beginning to match its cadence, the tempo slow at first but increasing in stroke as she drifted out to where her mind held nothing but Chay, before her body lifted and flew as one with his.

  In the quiet that followed, as she lay in Chay’s arms, his soft breathing brushing her cheek, she listened to the susurration of the trees, the single meadowlark singing his song, and K.C. knew she was exactly where she was meant to be.

  * * *

  Chay slammed into the office, the screen door slapping back against the wall to announce his arrival. But it wasn’t K.C. who looked up from the grand oak desk, it was Breezy.

  “Isn’t she back yet?” he asked without introduction.

  “Well, good morning to you, too, Chay; lovely to see you again. ‘How are you, Breezy?’ Well, I’m fine, Chay, just fine.”

  Chay put a hand to his head and stared at the old girl, a sheepish grin on his face as he realized his bad manners. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry; it’s just I was so excited about the prospect of her having a job locally, a j
ob she wants—”

  “Well. It’s not the job she wants, of course, working on a newspaper, but I guess it would keep her here with income. I don’t know what else to tell ya.”

  “She should be back by now.” Chay paced a few uneasy steps before coming back to face Breezy.

  “Well, she did say she might be stopping at the Chapel of the Transfiguration,” Breezy offered.

  “What? Isn’t that out of the way?”

  “She said she’d never been and wanted to stop. Chay, you can phone her. Remember that dang new invention, the mobile phone? Try using it.”

  “I did! She’s not picking up.”

  “She must be driving, dummy. Have a seat and wait patiently. Would you like a coffee?”

  “Yes, thanks.” Chay began to sit on a chair in front of the desk, but before his butt touched down, he popped up once more. “No! I have a better idea.” And he was out the door.

  Breezy’s, “Well, nice to see you, too, son” followed him down the steps.

  He knew he should be back at the ranch seeing to things, but Jarrod was there working on the bunkhouse and he had checked his herd first thing this morning. Having made up his mind, he was anxious for K.C. to return so they could settle things once and for all. The Chapel of the Transfiguration seemed like the perfect place for what he had in mind.

  Driving out through the national park, Chay felt relaxed, good in his own skin, being where he belonged, being who he was. He loved this time of year, early September when the tourists were thinning out and the countryside was preparing for the long winter ahead. The grey of the road blended in, a swathe through the high plain, dry grasses either side pulling back and turning a pale yellow harbinger of the autumn, the smell of sage, fresh and invigorating. In the distance, the valley floor met the jagged peaks of the mountains, a hazy blue-grey against the brighter tones of the sky with its brushstrokes of white.

  As he pulled into the lot at the Chapel, only the pickup with its inscribed ‘Lazy S Ranch’ on the side was there. Chay hoped this meant she’d be alone inside. What he would say, and how he would say it, changed several times in his mind as he walked past the fencing where once, according to his father, one hundred or more horses would be tethered on a Sunday. Inside the vestibule, the rose windows always amused him: ‘Oh Ye Ice and Snow, Bless ye the Lord.’ The meaning, or whatever prompted that, Chay figured, was lost through the generations.

  He stole into the chapel and almost didn’t spot K.C. at first. Sitting in the front row, she was just gazing out the window at the mountains beyond the Cross that was framed there. As Chay slipped into the hand-hewn log pew behind her, she didn’t turn around but jumped as he placed his hand on her shoulder.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered.

  “Came to find you, of course.” He let the silence speak for a moment, before adding, “You didn’t pick up when I rang. Is everything all right?”

  “I didn’t get the job, and I was driving, so…. I’m not sure what to do next.”

  “I have a job for you. Well, I know you’ll want another job but this may tide you over.” Chay tried to fold himself onto his knees and crawl around to face her but the residual pain from his injury brought out a loud “Owwwww.”

  “What are you doing?” K.C. twisted back to look at him and found him on his knees, his face an awful grimace. “What are you doing?” she repeated. When she saw Chay reach into his pocket, she laughed. “Are you trying to propose?”

  Chay opened a small jewelry box, hands shaking, uncertain of her answer now he had made up his mind. “This was my grandmother’s.” He tried to smile but the pain was winning. Despite this, he inched his way around to face her in front, holding out the ring like some penitent’s offering. He had to clear his throat before getting out a croaky, “K.C., will you marry me?”

  K.C. looked from the glimmering sapphire and diamond ring to Chay, back again, and giggled. She had to blink back tears several times before she could squeak out a “yes, of course, I’ll marry you, silly man,” as he slipped the ring on her finger.

  When it proved too big for her, he glided it on to the middle finger as a temporary measure, and grinned.

  Her gaze travelled from the ring to Chay and back once more as he rose up like the Tin Man and shook out his sore leg. He offered her his hand and gave her a quick kiss to seal the deal. Then he blew out a tired sigh.

  “K.C., are you ready to go home now? Because I am.”

  “You were supposed to say that at my parents’ house, and you were going to be fresh and original if I recall correctly.”

  “Okay, how’s this for ‘fresh and original’: ‘K.C., there’s a nice new Queen-size bed waiting for us at my ranch, and I’d love to share it with you ’til death do us part’.” When he received no reply, he continued with, “Or how about, ‘marry me and be mine, and let’s get at it?’”

  K.C. shook her head.

  “All right, how about just a plain old, ‘let’s get hitched, babe, ’cause I’ve a mighty hunger for your love.’”

  They started for the door, K.C. shaking her head again, holding back a laugh.

  “‘Come to my house and’…noooo…. ‘Be my wife, come home with me, so I can plow a…?’ No, that won’t work either. What about, ‘Marry me, and be my love, lay on your back and look at the stars above?’”

  K.C. snickered.

  “Oh, I got it: ‘Let’s ride off into the sunset!’”

  Chay was still making up his ‘fresh and original’ lines as she yanked her car door shut and drove for home.

  Thank you for reading City Boy, Country Heart by Amazon Best-selling and award-winning author Andrea Downing! If you’d like to read more of Andrea’s books, you can find them here on Amazon and at her website

  Blue Sage

  By Kristy McCaffrey

  Contemporary Western Romance

  Copyright © 2017 by K. McCaffrey LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Edited by Mimi The Grammar Chick

  About Blue Sage

  Braden Delaney has taken over the family cattle business after the death of his father, but faced with difficult financial decisions, he contemplates selling a portion of the massive Delaney ranch holdings known as Whisper Rock, a place of unusual occurrences. Archaeologist Audrey Driggs arrives in the remote wilderness of Northern Arizona searching for clues to a life-altering experience from her childhood. Together, they’ll uncover a long-lost secret.

  Chapter One

  Northern Arizona

  September

  The damned calf was stuck in the brambles again.

  Braden Delaney swung down from his horse, his spurs jangling, and approached the mewling youngster. The calf thrashed in a mess of bushes beneath a stately juniper tree with shredded, red-colored bark. It reminded Braden of pulled-pork barbecue. It was on the menu tonight if Lewis, wrangler and cook during roundups, had been telling the truth this morning before the five of them had headed out.

  It was late in the day and Braden’s stomach rumbled in response.

  He’d take care of this problem and then head back to base camp—three airstream trailers and a horse trailer with a built-in bunk for Braden.

  Braden knocked the brim of his Stetson up a notch and went to work prying the animal from the tangled jumble of branches. His gloved hands made fast work of the situation, and before long he’d set the calf on all fours. The animal took off at a lope, headed toward a band of larger cows, one of whom was likely his mama.

  “You’re welcome,” Braden uttered under his breath.

  It was the third
rescue he’d performed on the calf in the past two days. The contrary little beast had a knack for wandering and getting into untenable predicaments. He should just usher it to the makeshift corral a few miles to the southeast, but Braden wasn’t quite ready to bring in this cluster of cattle, and he didn’t want to separate the calf from its mother.

  Billy Lasco, his range foreman, would be up in a few days with two large semi-trucks to collect the cattle they’d gathered and transport them to the Delaney Ranch fifty miles to the south. Braden would guide the wayward calf and his mama into camp then. His current plan was to simply flush the cows and steers hiding out in the rocky hillside into the open plain below.

  As he returned to his horse, a scream and a crash spun him around.

  Had a steer just rolled down the slope? Braden circled, searching for an injured critter.

  But it was no animal.

  A woman lay on her back, grimacing.

  Braden moved quickly to her side. “Are you all right, miss?”

  She pushed to sit, leaves and sticks in her brown hair, askew in a haphazard ponytail. She wore trail pants, hiking boots and an ivory t-shirt. His eyes jerked back to the shirt, not sure he’d read correctly the word printed on it. Yep, he had. BOOBIES covered the spot where those very things resided, round and nicely shaped. Then he saw the image above the word—two birds with blue feet. Blue-footed boobies. Despite the dire situation, a smile tugged at his mouth.

  She winced as she shifted onto her bottom.

  Braden sidestepped rocky bits of rubble and knelt beside her. “Did you fall?” He glanced upward at the ridge casting a shadow over them. It had to be at least twenty feet high.

  The woman frowned as she plucked offending items of debris from her hair. Her eyes suddenly locked on him, as if she hadn’t been aware of him until just that moment.