by Emerson Rose
“Yes,” he says and looks at my mom. “Do you want to tell her the rest?”
“I’m staying in a fancy extended care center nearby. You’re looking at Seattle’s newest end-stage MS patient.”
“You moved to Seattle? I thought you said you’d die before you lived in the wettest state in the country.”
“And you said you hated rich men, but you’re marrying one.”
I look at Alex, and he shrugs. “She’s got you there.”
“You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Yes, I do. Can I put this ring on your finger now?”
“Yeah, put it on, Livy, let me see it on your finger,” my mom says with excitement lacing her voice.
“Have you seen it already?”
“Yes, Alex took me with him to pick it out.” The fact that he included my mother in such an important decision warms my heart even further. I feel the cool metal sliding on my finger and look down at a massive cushion-cut diamond surrounded by tiny aquamarine stones, my birthstone.
After more tears, more hugging, and more kissing, I squeak out, “I love it, thank you.”
He stands taking me with him and holds me against his chest. “Anything for you, anything, you know that. Go hug your mother, I think she’s crying,” he whispers in my ear.
He releases me and nudges me toward her. “Mom, I can’t believe you’re here to stay.” I bend over to hug her frail body lightly, so I don’t hurt her.
“Well, you weren’t coming back to Cali, so I came to you. With a lot of help from Alex, of course.”
I kiss her cheek and straighten up with my hands on the arms of her chair. “I didn’t want to leave you, Mom, and you know it. I asked you to come with us, but you said you were born in California, and you would die there, too.” I cock my head and raise one eyebrow.
“Alex is very convincing.”
I snort. “Yeah, you’re telling me. Now you see what I was dealing with early on.”
“Yep, he’s good at getting his way.”
I straighten up and look behind me at Alex casually leaning his hip against the counter with his hands in his pockets. Faye squawks drawing our attention to her. “I’m going to marry your daddy, sweetheart, is that okay with you?” I round the island to lift her from her high chair and kiss her soft, round cheek. She feeds me a Cheerio, and I laugh.
“I think she approves,” Alex says joining us and kissing his baby girl on her forehead.
“I’m glad,” I say, and he does the same to me.
“You know what?” he asks.
“What?”
“I’m glad you’re going to be my wife instead of my nanny.”
“Yeah, I was a pretty crappy nanny, wasn’t I?” I look at Faye in my arms. “I promise to be a better mommy.”
“And we will give you lots of brothers and sisters so you’ll have someone to play with,” he says.
I shake my head. “There you go again speeding down the track at one hundred miles per hour.”
“I like life fast with you, what can I say?”
“Nothing, you don’t have to say anything. I like life fast with you, too.”
Epilogue
Five Years Later
“One, two, three, six, ten! Ready or not!”
“Corinne, you have to give them more time than that, you skipped numbers,” Alex says packing a stack of folders into his briefcase.
“She’s still learning, babe, and they’re older anyway. Make them work for it.”
He frowns as he watches our daughter race out of the room to find her older sister, Faye, and Faye’s friend, Mia. “She should play by the rules.”
“You’re grumpy this morning, what’s wrong?”
“I have to go out of town tomorrow. You know I hate being away from my family.”
“It’s only for a few days, we’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine, but what about me? I need you with me. I won’t sleep.”
My husband is such a powerful man in front of the world, but in the dining room of our home surrounded by his family, he is a soft, loving husband and daddy who likes to sleep under his own roof at night.
“I packed your sleeping pills, and we will FaceTime every night and morning.”
He slides his briefcase off the table and walks to me. Bending down so we are eye to eye, he says, “It’s not the same, and you know it.” I tap him on the nose, and he kisses me softly until the baby in my arms squirms.”
“I’ll see you later. Are you going to work today?”
We just had our third baby, William, three months ago, and I’ve recently been working my way back up to full-time hours. Life is perfect except for the absence of my mother who died three years ago. If I could have one wish, it would be to have her back so she could spend time with all of her grandchildren.
The shops are thriving, and I still run the original location while Jacob’s husband, Mason, runs my second location, and a quirky, sweet woman named Kiki is in charge of the other. Jacob and Mason married two years ago and live together in the cottage on our property. I love having them so close. They are godfathers to our children, and they are known as Uncle Jacob and Uncle Mason to the children and the staff.
Alex’s practice is thriving, but he has taken a step back to spend more time with us. He only represents a few select clients that he feels passionate about.
“Yes, Greta and Kristine are both here today, they’re taking the kids swimming.”
“Swimming? When you’re not home? I don’t like it.”
I sigh. Never has there been a more overprotective father. “You know Faye and Mia are great swimmers, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And Kristine is a certified lifeguard.”
“Your point is?”
“William won’t be in the water, and the girls will be with a lifeguard. They’re safe, and I have to get back to work.”
“You don’t have to do any such thing. You can stay here and be a full-time mother if you want to.” He knows I love my job, and he would never ask me to give it up. He’s just upset about going to New York for his case.
“I love you, Alex. Go to work.”
The kids come racing through the room, and Corinne grabs onto her daddy’s pant leg. “Home base!” she screams making William cry.
“Wait a minute, weren’t you the one counting and searching?” Alex asks when Faye and Mia race in on Corinne’s heels.
“She doesn’t know how to play, Daddy. Tell her she’s doing it wrong,” Faye demands.
“Corinne, your sister is right. You need to abide by the rules, or those playing won’t know what to expect or how to win. If you can’t do that, you will have to find another game. Or,” he sets his briefcase down on the floor and throws his hands over his head. “The tag monster is going to get you and tickle you until you scream for mercy!”
All three girls scream and run out of the room followed by the biggest kid of them all, my husband, Alex Wolfe.
The End
Page ahead to begin Bonus Book One of the Whiskey Hill Ranch Series – The Cowboy’s Virgin
Bonus Book One
The Cowboy’s Virgin
By
Emerson Rose
COPYRIGHT 2017 PRISM HEART PRESS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COVER DESIGN: LM Book Creations
EDITING: Maria Alexander
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Created with Vellum
For cowboy’s everywhere and the women who love them.
“A man isn’t born a cowboy, he becomes one.”
-John Chisholm
Description
Beau Hill is the one person on this Earth I was raised to loathe.
His sparkling blue eyes, dimpled smile, and dusty Stetson may work like Kryptonite on every other girl in these parts, but they don’t work on me. A studious, virginal veterinary scholar like myself would never be caught dead falling for the charms and graces of the town’s most notorious horse-riding, cattle-roping Casanova.
Not to mention our families hate each other, an iron-clad feud that goes back over a hundred years…
But when a twister rips through the Deardon Rose Ranch, destroying my family’s century old farm, we’re left with nothing but the clothes on our backs.
Desperately trying to save my family’s legacy, I’m left with no choice but to approach the one man who can help: the man with more money than God and every reason to slam the screen door in my face.
So imagine my shock when he says yes…
He’ll help.
But I have to live with him.
I have to work for him.
But falling for him? That was never a stipulation. It can’t happen. I won’t allow it. And if he thinks he’s got so much as a chance at taking my V-card, he’s got another thing coming.
Only when I tell him that, there’s a wicked glint in his indigo gaze that offers a wordless, “Challenge accepted.”
1
We don’t have tornados in Montana.
Charlotte
My home is gone. The ranch I grew up on, the place where all of my childhood memories were made... disintegrated in a matter of seconds. That’s what my mom is trying to tell me on the phone, but I’m pretty sure I checked out as soon as she said everything is gone.
I can’t focus, I’m unglued, traumatized, lost in la la land, but she’s still talking.
“Charlotte… Charlotte, are you listening to me? I know you’re busy, what with it being the last semester of school, but we really need you to come home. I don’t know where we’re going to go, there’s no house, no barn, the animals are all gone…” She’s crying, sobbing into the phone, and I can’t make words come out of my mouth.
I want to ask if everyone is okay, I assume they are. I think she would have lead with that kind of information. I want to ask her to send me pictures of the ranch and whether or not the insurance plan will cover everything but I can’t.
“Mom…” My voice croaks past a lump forming in my throat. Hot tears well in my eyes threatening to spill onto the term paper I just took off the printer. Bowing my head they fall and ruin the fresh ink, smudging and smearing the words into circles that spread out and soak the fibers of the page.
“Can you come? Do you have enough money for a plane ticket?” she asks in a shaky voice. Where is my dad? Why isn’t he handling things and making these kind of phone calls? Where is my stupid good for nothing brother, Jake Jr., or my sister Stella?
I don’t have enough money to eat dinner, let alone buy a plane ticket from Iowa to Montana. I’m a broke college student living on Ramon noodles and fruit snacks. But since it sounds like nobody else is stepping up I’ll have to figure something out.
“Yes.” There. Audible, understandable, communication, the initial shock is wearing off.
“Oh, thank God in heaven. I’m so glad Charlotte, you have no idea… you just can’t imagine.”
She’s right. I don’t, I can’t and I don’t want to. I can feel bile rising up in my throat and a burning in my chest. My body is begging to release some of the insane anxiety this news is causing me, via vomit.
Puking on the floor is not an option, I’d die of embarrassment and my family needs me right now. I cover my mouth and shoot out of my seat bolting for the nearest bathroom. I’ve spent countless hours in the university library studying over the past four years and I know where every bathroom, broom closet, storage room and hiding spot is located.
I smash the door to the bathroom open and then bang the closest stall door open, too. Dropping to my knees on the cool tile floor, I literally hug the toilet and lose what’s left of the small lunch I ate two hours ago. A thin sheen of sweat covers my body and my head is pounding like the heavy base of a techno track.
I gasp and spit the bitterness into the bowl and grip its sides, waiting for the end. There’s no food left, but my body is still purging the news that my dreams of becoming a veterinarian on my family ranch are over.
Four years of slaving over books and studying until my eyes bleed - for nothing. A freak natural disaster has stolen it away in one foul sweep. Montana doesn’t usually have tornadoes. Especially not the kind we experience here in Iowa, the F4 and F5’s that uproot hundred-year-old trees and suck ten-ton tractors into the sky like play things.
We have downpours and wind sheers, but I think I’ve only heard about four or five tornadoes in Montana in my whole life. It’s like the state of Iowa decided to share its popular weather phenomenon with my home state, in my absence.
A shadow moves to block the fluorescent lighting of the small bathroom, “You okay?” I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my red and black flannel plaid shirt and turn my head to the side, not looking at whoever was speaking to me.
“Yeah, must be the flu, I’m good.”
“You dropped this,” the stranger’s soft voice says. A delicate hand comes into view holding my phone. She opens her pale fingers offering it to me and I snatch it up. My mom, she’s probably freaking out. I mumble a quick thanks and punch the redial button hard and wait, not for long of course, she picks up on the first ring.
“Charlotte? Are you okay?” she asks, in a full blown panic mode that only my mother knows how to do.
“Yes, sorry I dropped my phone… and then the battery died. I had to find a charger before I could call you back.” I’m always surprised at how easily a lie develops in my mind and tumbles out of my mouth without effort.
“Oh, thank the good Lord you’re okay, I was worried.”
“Don’t worry, Mom. Everything is going to be all right. I’ll catch a flight tomorrow and we will get this all straightened out.”
Lies. There they are again. Nothing is going to be all right ever again. I’ve suspected that our family ranch hasn’t been doing well these past four years that I’ve been gone. My parents owe a lot of money and I was almost ready to help them. Two months, that’s all I need to graduate with honors from Iowa State University and take the veterinarian license exam.
It had been my dream to be the Rose Deardon Ranch’s veterinarian since I could stand and stroke the scratchy fur of a baby goat in the barn down the trail from our house.
I loved animals before I loved people. I understood them and they seemed to understand me. When I gazed into the eye of a beautiful, powerful, Palomino I could see it reading my mind. My favorite miniature fainting goat knew to crawl into my lap and give me warmth and comfort when I was sad or angry.
And the peculiar ability to communicate went both ways. I felt when a horse was in pain or discouraged or depressed. I knew how to get the best out of our animals with a trusted touch or a smile. Dad accused my mom of having an affair with the horse whisperer, when he first saw m
e calm a wild mare that was found wandering on our land.
It was like I could speak telepathically to animals and they to me, like a gift from Mother Nature. I loved that gift enough to make a career out of it and now that bitch has ruined my dream by turning my home into dust. Dust in the wind.
2
Reunited and it feels so good.
Beau
In all my life I’ve never seen storms like the ones pummeling the plains of Montana this spring. I’ve witnessed some bad weather, yes. But the selective bitch of a tornado that cut a path through the ranches of Eastern Montana two days ago was horrific.
She dropped down out of the sky, with no warning, a mile from Whiskey Hill Ranch and zig zagged her way across the state sucking up everything in her path, like a Hoover vacuum.
Thank God I was one of the lucky ones. She picked off a couple outbuildings and a chunk of roof from a small house on the property, but other than that my family ranch was spared the destruction that the surrounding ranches suffered.
When I drove out to see if any of the neighboring ranches needed help, my stomach turned when I saw, or didn’t see, the Rose Deardon Ranch.
I sat in my pickup and gawked at the absence of their big house on the hill, that’s been standing there for over a hundred years. The giant patch of Ponderosa Pine trees that lined one side of their yard, gone. The White Ash trees on the north side to break the bitter winter winds, gone. There was not one scrap, stick, animal or living, breathing thing left of that ranch.
I said a prayer that the Deardons themselves got to safety before the twister scattered their life’s work across the plains of Montana. If it were any other family I would have driven down their road and searched for survivors. But it wasn’t any other family; it was the Deardons, my family’s nemesis. The Hill/Deardon family feud has been going on for a century and I was forbidden from stepping foot on their land, even in life or death situations.