The Cowboy Says I Do

by Sinclair Jayne

  “And before I knew you’d taken a job here. I just wanted to make the commitment to you, to us, that we would start a new phase in our lives. And that I would support you in your dreams just as you supported me.”

  “You’re sure you’re ready, even if Bodhi and Bowen don’t quit?”

  “I’m ready,” he said. “I won’t lie and say I won’t miss parts of the rodeo. I will. I love competing. I love the camaraderie, but I’m ready to start something new.” He pulled her into his embrace. “I’m ready for all of it Ash—a home, an art studio for you and a woodworking shop for me and our baby and when you’re ready and if you’ll have me, marriage. We can have it all, Ashni. Everything we’ve ever wanted. Everything.” His voice took on a deep significance.

  *

  “This is going to be the best Ballantyne Bash ever,” Ashni sang out. She’d watched the finals with Beck’s family, but she’d kept her pregnancy a secret. Beck wanted to make the announcement together tonight, and she suspected that he’d probably produce a ring at some point in the evening.

  Her reluctance to get engaged seemed more like a bad dream that had faded in the daylight. Beck loved her. She loved him. Sure, the baby might have inspired him to propose, but after talking to Sky last night and confessing her feelings to Beck this morning, she felt more confident. This was a new step they were both taking. And she’d have some time. Her new job started Monday, and in a week, Beck would leave for the last leg of the tour, giving her a few weeks to be on her own and settle into a new normal. She didn’t want to move onto the ranch without him, and he hadn’t pushed it. A pleasant surprise. She liked the studio, and she’d never had time to live on her own. She’d gone from her parents’ home to a college dorm, to living with Beck in an apartment or his rig.

  Beck went back to the truck to bring in another keg of beer, and she hurried ahead into the log cabin on Plum Tree Hill where they were staging salads and desserts. She had two boxes of rodeo-themed cookies she had ordered from the Copper Mountain Gingerbread and Dessert Company and a large collection of dark and milk chocolate mini cowboy boots from Sage’s.

  She’d begun to put the cookies on a platter when the tall, gorgeous woman with auburn hair she’d seen with Bodhi a few times this week sauntered in and offered to help. Ashni was eager to meet her. Bodhi rarely hung out with the same woman twice. Had someone finally captured his heart?

  “Nico Steel,” she said. “You’ve been having fun with Beck this week,” she observed.

  That was one way of putting it.

  Nico stole a cookie and took a bite then she smiled. “These are delicious.”

  A vaguely familiar blonde walked in.

  “This is Langston,” Nico said. “She’s our competition although it’s all friendly from our end. We’ve become friends when we were roped into helping set up and decorate for the bash, but Beck’s been keeping you under wraps.”

  “I was teaching an art class,” Ash said, hoping she wasn’t staring too hard at Nico. She’d never seen Bodhi take an interest in another woman longer than a one-night stand.

  “Hey, Ashni,” Langston smiled and also grabbed a cookie from the plate Ashni still held. “Good to see you. Last time I think was when you’d just graduated high school and you came for a visit with Beck.”

  “That is a blast from the past,” Ashni said, charmed that both Bodhi and Bowen had dates for the bash for once. Usually they were just about granddad and the ranch when they were home.

  Maybe they too were getting the urge to settle down.

  “What did Beck offer you?” Langston asked startling her out of her musings about Beck’s cousins’ potential romantic lives.

  “What?”

  “Other than the obvious.” Nico laughed.

  “What did you get out of the game?” Langston asked. “Bowen did a favor for me with my ex. Nico’s new in town and Bodhi’s been showing her around and teaching her how to live in the moment. Even though you’ve been together forever, Beck must have dangled something to play the game.”

  “What game?” Ashni felt her blood begin to chill. Bowen, Bodhi and Beck were forever challenging each other, making bets, playing games, keeping score. But what did this week have to do with a game?

  “The Rodeo Bride Game.” Nico rolled her eyes. “It was Bodhi’s idea. And all three boys jumped in boots first. The goal is to encourage his granddad to stay on the ranch instead of sell it.”

  “Sell,” Ashni echoed. Beck hadn’t mentioned his granddad selling the ranch. She’d sat with Ben Ballantyne for two days at the rodeo, and he hadn’t said a thing, the sly fox. He’d just told her to stay strong, and that he’d look out for her. This was going to be bad. Worse than bad.

  Ashni put the plate of cookies down on the counter very slowly, trying to suck in some air.

  “So they are playing a game,” she questioned forcing calm in her voice when she wanted to scream. “What are the rules?”

  “First one to get engaged, but it’s got to be public in front of their granddad and moms and somehow dramatic or memorable. Granddad and moms are the judges,” Langston said. “Surely, Beck told you all this.”

  “So what did Beck offer you?” Langston asked again.

  “Marriage,” Ash said, her throat dust dry.

  “You don’t have to spew the party line for us. We’re all in on it.”

  “I wasn’t,” Ash admitted, but somehow it all made horrible sense. Beck’s dogged persistence. Not for her. For the game. For the ranch.

  “Hey, Ashni.” Beck entered the kitchen, a huge smile plastered on his stupid, deceptive face.

  “Beck, you jerk.” Langston turned to him. “Didn’t you tell her this was a game?” she demanded. “I thought since you guys have been together forever that she’d be in on it. Bowen assured me that all the women were in on the rules.” Langston crossed her arms and glared.

  “The Rodeo Bride Game.” Ashni faced him. “That makes so much more sense than you suddenly deciding it was time to quit the tour and settle down. I’m out.” She pushed past him. “You lose.”

  *

  Beck stared at the open doorway where Ash had just disappeared. He heard the front door slam. He felt like everything was in slow motion and he had to move. Fast.

  No. No. No. This could not be happening. She could not be running out on him again.

  Beck sped out the door just as Bodhi headed in.

  “Hey, have you seen Nico? It’s showtime.”

  Beck shoved Bodhi out of his way and ran out into the night.

  It was beautiful and macabre at once. The barn was ablaze with lights and a country band played inside. More than a few couples danced. Others were lined up at the various food trucks. Several bonfires were set up waiting to be lit. The stars blazed overhead. The fiddle player launched into a dreamy solo that made his heart ache. Everywhere people were laughing, talking, enjoying life. He heard his granddad laugh. But no Ash.

  Would she run? Hide? Cry to Sky? Slash his tires? He didn’t know. A week ago he would have said he knew her as well as he knew himself, but this was a new Ash. Stronger. Mysterious. Sexy and so appealing and part of his heart that he didn’t want to live a day without her. But she still didn’t trust him, and she was still running.

  All the damn games over the years. The challenges. The bets. The dares. When are you boys going to grow up? He’d heard it from the moms. From Ash. From Granddad. And now this. The biggest game—the one with the most potential to hurt—only he hadn’t been playing. Why couldn’t she see that?

  You never once backed down from a Ballantyne challenge.

  He kept walking down Plum Hill until the party was far behind him. He looked out over the valley below. This used to be his favorite place growing up. Plum Tree Hill. The barn. The view. He’d felt like a king as he’d eat his fill of the ripe fruit in the summer and dream. He’d made love to Ashni the first time in the hayloft with the valley and the future spread out rich and verdant below them.

  “Showti
me,” he heard Ash mock behind him. Relief coursed through him. She hadn’t run away. She was confronting him. He could work with that.

  “Don’t you want to watch Bodhi and Bowen make fools of themselves with their big ta-daaaa! We’re getting married?”

  He didn’t bother to turn around. He closed his eyes. “You don’t trust me.”

  “You don’t talk to me,” she parried.

  He winced. It was true. But since she’d stopped running and was up in his face, he could give her the answers she needed even when it was hard.

  “Why the game, Beck?”

  “Bodhi’s game. I thought it was stupid, but yes, for a moment I got caught up in the competition.” He faced her. “But for me, it was real. My proposal was sincere. Our marriage when it happens will be forever. I tried to propose to you at your apartment, not in front of anyone. Just us. I ceded the field. You are everything to me, Ash. Baby or no baby. Ranch or no ranch.”

  She blew out a long breath. Then nothing. Silence. Finally. “Why?”

  “You mean more to me than a future on the ranch or working with my cousins or the tour. I couldn’t turn that into a game.”

  “Why a Rodeo Bride Game?” She came up behind him, and he could feel the brush of her body against his. Her arms slipped around his waist, and she rested her cheek against his back. “You were the only one in a relationship. It makes no sense for Bodhi to come up with that.”

  “We were worried about Granddad. He’d said he was thinking about selling the ranch, and it seemed so out of character. He’s Mr. Marietta. He’s still on so many ranching committees. The rodeo committee. He knows everyone. Still works every day. He has always taught us to love the land, to be stewards of the land, and we were worried that he was ill and not telling us. Or needed money, and he wouldn’t ask. Or maybe that he was tired of being alone and running the ranch so he’d let the moms finally talk him into selling and moving to an assisted living facility near them in Denver.”

  He felt Ashni’s fingers tighten on his. But he couldn’t move his fingers to hold on to her.

  “Keep talking.”

  “Bodhi thought that if one of us got engaged, Granddad would feel like the future of the ranch was assured.”

  “And Rodeo Brides was his answer?”

  “Ironic since he’s never dated the same woman twice as far as I know.”

  “But even with the game, you didn’t swoop in, tell me about it and ask me to play?”

  “No.” Beck was adamant. “I know Bodhi and Bowen told the other women about the games, but you and I had problems, real problems that a quick conversation couldn’t fix.”

  “I got lost somewhere,” she said. “Just as I think you got lost.”

  “I was never lost, Ash.” Beck covered her hands with his where they rested on the bucking bronc buckle he’d won today. “You are always my home.”

  He felt her lips press against his back, and he turned around to face her, ignoring the view he’d always coveted. “I just left them to play. But I am worried about Granddad, and he put me off each time I tried to talk to him. And Bodhi and I fought. He went too far, and I punched him.”

  Ash tilted her head.

  “But Three Tree Ranch and your granddad and cousins and Marietta are you, Beck. They define you. What you’ve always wanted in life.”

  He shook his head. “I define myself. And you define me as well. The life we make together will define me. I’ll miss this if it’s gone. Won’t lie about that.”

  Ashni’s eyes narrowed in calculation. They loved each other. What else was there to solve?

  “Now that sounds more like my Beck,” Ashni said musingly.

  “I wanted to be yours from the first time I saw you. I never stopped wanting to be yours, but I can’t marry a woman who doesn’t trust me.”

  “I know.”

  “I can’t marry a woman who thinks the worst of me and won’t come to me with her concerns or problems or fears.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “Good thing I’m not that woman anymore. Or I’m slowly trying to shed that passive role. I panicked in the kitchen, but once I got outside, I realized that you don’t have a deceptive bone in your body. And also I’m tired of running. So I turned around, but you’d already hoofed it halfway back to the farmhouse, just like I tried to find you at the steak dinner afterward to apologize but ran into Sky who set me straight.

  “This morning after you and I sorted through everything, I felt confident again. I was even thinking you’d propose tonight, and I’d say yes because I was confident in us again, but the game explanation threw me. It’s like you and your cousins and the two women were all on a team, and I felt left out again, like I did that night you were talking to Bodhi about other women.”

  “I could never leave you out. You’re a part of me,” he admitted.

  “For reals?” She widened her eyes and crossed them.

  “Of course!” How could she joke at a time like this? His eyes burned looking at her. She was like a living flame—her dress a bright red and her yellow scarf draped around her graceful neck and trailed down her back. She looked like a goddess out of a Greek myth.

  “You are mine, Beck Ballantyne.” She pulled away enough to gaze up into his face. “Let’s never shut each other out again.”

  “Never.” He kissed the top of her head loving how her hair was so silky against his lips.

  “So…” She looked up at him, the sparkle back in her eyes. “Do you want to really piss Bodhi off and go win this thing?”

  “What?” He coughed out a laugh.

  “It would serve him right. You got a ring, right?”

  “I do,” Bodhi admitted.

  “So that’s a yes? You agree to be my husband?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “Let’s go win the Rodeo Bride Game.” She linked fingers with him, and she tugged on him until side by side they walked back up Plum Hill toward the party and his family and their future.

  The End

  Want more? Check out Cruz and Axel’s story in A Son for the Texas Cowboy!

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  If you enjoyed The Cowboy Says I Do, you’ll love the next books in the…

  Montana Rodeo Brides series

  Book 1: The Cowboy Says I Do

  View the series here!

  Book 2: The Cowboy’s Challenge

  Coming September 2021!

  Book 3: Breaking the Cowboy’s Rules

  Coming January 2022!

  More books by Sinclair Jayne

  The Texas Wolf Brothers series

  Book 1: A Son for the Texas Cowboy

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  Book 2: A Bride for the Texas Cowboy

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  Book 3: A Baby for the Texas Cowboy

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  The Wilder Brothers series

  Book 1: Seducing the Bachelor

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  Book 2: Want Me, Cowboy

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  Book 3: The Christmas Challenge

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  Book 4: Cowboy Takes All

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  About the Author

  Sinclair Sawhney is a former journalist and middle school teacher who holds a BA in Political Science and K-8 teaching certificate from the University of California, Irvine and a MS in Education with an emphasis in teaching writing from the University of Washington. She has worked as Senior Editor with Tule Publishing for over seven years.

  Writing as Sinclair Jayn
e she’s published fifteen short contemporary romances with Tule Publishing with another four books being released in 2021. Married for over twenty-four years, she has two children, and when she isn’t writing or editing, she and her husband, Deepak, are hosting wine tastings of their pinot noir and pinot noir rose at their vineyard Roshni, which is a Hindi word for light-filled, located in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Shaandaar!

  Visit Sinclair’s website at sinclairjayne.com

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