DEAR BLUE JEAN COWBOY: A Curvy Girl Romance (SINCERELY YOURS Book 11)

by Lana Dash

  DEAR BLUE JEAN COWBOY

  SINCERELY YOURS SERIES

  LANA DASH

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Epilogue

  Also By Lana Dash

  About the Author

  DEAR BLUE JEAN COWBOY is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2021 by LANA DASH

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without express written permission from the author/publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  1

  DIANA

  The paint on the welcome sign for the small town of Centennial Springs is faded but still looks the same as it did the last time I was here ten years ago. I didn't want to stay away from my hometown, but the memories here were still too painful to face—until now.

  I need something to distract me. I start pushing the buttons on the radio, searching for something to keep me from turning this car around and heading back to the airport. I stop when I hear the familiar opening notes of my latest single, currently number sixth on the charts, playing in the speakers. Excitement courses through me, just as it always does when I hear my songs being played.

  I’ve spent the better part of the last decade touring the country, sleeping in my van, and playing in dive bars for little to no money. All in the hopes of finding my break and making it big in the country music industry.

  Everything changed for me two years ago when a demo of one of my songs crossed paths with a music producer for a popular television show called Nashville Nights. They played it during the emotional ending to the season finale, and overnight the song took off. I had music industry representatives banging down my door, looking to sign me.

  My star rose higher and higher with no sign of slowing down. It became easier to avoid coming home to visit when my family could see my success, from making music videos to world tours to award ceremonies. But when my sister got pregnant, and I missed every moment of the pregnancy and the birth, my mother wouldn't allow any of my excuses to keep me away from meeting my little nephew. So here I am, back in Centennial Springs, and everything somehow looks the same and slightly different at the same time.

  The main street through town has more shops than I remember. New businesses mixed in with the old as I make my way through town. I slow down to let a young woman cross the street with two little girls, each one holding on to her hands. I pass a new bakery called Sugar Gravel and chuckle at the name. The sign for Mirabelle’s Café is lit up, and my stomach rumbles for a home-cooked meal that I haven't had in years. The scent of smoked meat is in the air has me turning into one of the empty parking spots in front of the café.

  I look down at my phone and see that I have a little time before my parents expect me at their house. I put on my sunglasses and give myself the once-over in the mirror. I'm hoping to get in and out without too many people recognizing me, but even if I weren't famous, my arrival would likely get back to my mother that I stopped here first. Maybe if Mirabelle isn't out of her peach cobbler, I can say I stopped to pick some up for dinner tonight.

  The aroma of comfort food hits me the moment I walk in the door. The lunch rush for the day is gone, so there aren't many people.

  "Diana Morrison, is that you?" Mirabelle calls out across the café.

  I look around, and everyone still eating has stopped and is staring at me. There's no sense in trying to hide who I am, so I lift my sunglasses and rest them on top of my head.

  “How have you been, Mirabelle?”

  “I’m doing well, honey.” She walks over and scoops me into her arms for a hug. “We are all so proud of you with all your songs playing on the radio.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Have you stopped to see your mother yet?”

  “I was hoping to surprise her with one of your peach cobblers.”

  Mirabelle beams. “I think we can send you home with one.”

  I take a few more minutes to sit at the counter and chat with Mirabelle. She catches me up on all the local gossip in town, including the new rumor circulating about Delilah Ford having to resign from the Centennial Springs Festival committee after some questions were raised about misuse of festival funds used to pay for her new pool.

  “I bet there was a real power struggle within the committee over who was going to take over the leadership position.”

  “There was, but Mayor Dickerson decided that the committee needed some new blood and put Dani Montgomery in charge.”

  The moment I hear the Montgomery name, I freeze. Just the mention of his last name triggers a memory from my past, and it's like I'm back there again.

  The smell of the wildflowers I'm holding in my bouquet. The smile on my face as he watches me walk down the aisle of the small country church towards him. The sound of my father yelling for the ceremony to stop. My mother's tight grip on my arm as she yanks me away from him.

  Rhett Montgomery.

  "Diana?" Mirabelle's voice cuts through the memory, and I'm suddenly back in the café. "Are you okay?"

  I shake my head, trying to erase the memory I’ve spent years trying to suppress to keep me from being dragged down under by it.

  “I’m fine, just a bit tired from all the traveling.”

  “Of course,” Mirabelle walks behind the counter and bags up a peach cobbler for me to take home.

  I try to pay her, but she waves off my money like it will burn her or something. When she isn't looking, I drop the cash into the tip jar.

  We say our goodbyes, and I promise to stop back in again before I leave.

  “I don’t want to wait another ten years to see you.”

  I lift the paper bag with the cobbler inside and take a sniff of the sugary peach goodness.

  "Don't worry. I'll be back for more of this," I tell her as I go.

  Outside, a crowd has formed. Many of the onlookers have their cell phones out and are holding them up to snap pictures. I stop and pose for a few photos with a group of girls declaring that they are my number one fans.

  By the time I make my way to my rental, my phone is ringing in my purse. I already know it's my mother calling to find out why I stopped. I don't bother picking up. She will have plenty of time to lecture me when I get there. I type out a quick text letting her know I'm on my way.

  I can already tell this is going to be a long trip.

  2

  RHETT

  News of Diana’s arrival back in town spreads like wildfire. Although that’s not surprising, she’s the biggest thing to come out of Centennial Springs since Scotty Dawson got recruited to play football at Ohio State.

  I was told by four different people while shopping at three different stores that they saw her stop at Mirabelle's Café before heading to her folk's house. She's been gone for so long that I was starting to wonder if she was ever going to come back, but after her sister, Nora, had her baby, I knew it was only a matter of time.

&n
bsp; After she left town, I spent most of my time running my family's ranch and trying to forget her. But just when I thought that I'd moved past my heartbreak of losing her, Diana hit it big, and suddenly she was everywhere. Kind of hard when your ex becomes a top country music star.

  Everyone and their mother wanted to tell me everything they'd heard, hoping to get me to spill what I know. I guess my only solace with seeing her smiling face on magazine covers and listening to her voice on the radio was that she was very private about her private life. From what I heard from all the gossipy hens in town, no one could confirm that Diana had a relationship with anyone famous or otherwise.

  "There you are!" My younger sister Dani calls out when I pull to a stop in front of the little cabin I built on my family's ranch. "I need to talk to you about times for you to come into town and help with the festival."

  She’s sitting on the front steps with a thick binder on her lap that is so packed with papers it looks like it could burst if even another single sheet is added.

  “Hello to you too,” I say as I get out and start unloading the bags from the bed of the truck.

  “Yes, hello. How are you? Whatever. I need the times you are available.”

  Well, I guess the niceties are over.

  "I'm not sure how much time I can afford to give you." I walk an arm full of bags past her and into the house as she follows me inside. "There is a lot to do around here, and with Beau focusing more on his honey bees, I'm the one who has to pick up the slack."

  I don’t mention that I want to minimize the risk of running into Diana if at all possible.

  “You promised you’d help build the sound stage for the performances.”

  "I'm not sure a small-town talent show is going to draw the crowd you think that would warrant a sound stage," I say as I start to put the groceries away. "Can't you just use the Gazebo in town's square like every other year?"

  “Rhett, I don’t think you understand the pressure I’m under here. This is the first year that Delilah Ford isn’t in charge of the Centennial Springs Summer Festival. This year has to be the best year ever so—”

  “So you can rub in Delilah’s face and be the town hero?”

  "Actually," she says, drawing out each syllable. "I was going to say for the town to raise money for a good cause. But if the festival is a huge success and if it shows up Delilah, then that would just be a bonus."

  “Glad to see you have your priorities straight.” I chuckle.

  “Did you, um,” Dani starts to mumble under her breath, but I cut her off, already knowing what she’s about to say.

  “I already heard. And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay, but Beau called and said that we should check on you.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, but even I can hear the uneasiness in my voice. “It’s been a long time since that all went down between us.”

  “You tried to get married.”

  "Yes, thank you," I grumble. "As I said, it was a long time ago. We've both moved on, and I'd like to avoid any unnecessary drama while she's here."

  “I just think that you should—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “If you could just—”

  “What did I just say?”

  “That you don’t want to talk about it.”

  “And what are you doing?”

  “Still talking about it.”

  Out of all my siblings, besides Beau, Dani is the one I'm closest with, but sometimes I forget the years between us. So often, she acts beyond her age, but then there are moments like right now where her youngest child personality rears its ugly head. She gets an idea, and she won't let it go until she gets what she wants.

  "I have to get some work done in the barn, so in less, you want to stick around and help out, you better get back to planning the festival."

  I can see the struggle in Dani’s eyes. She wants to push me to talk to Diana about performing at the festival but thinks better of it—for the moment.

  I wait until I hear the sound of her tires moving down the dirt drive before I walk over to the closet and pull out the shoebox off the top shelf. I haven't pulled this thing out in years. It still brings back too many painful memories that I don't like to think about.

  I open the lid and look over the remnants of mine and Diana’s relationship that I couldn’t stand to get rid of after it was over. The rodeo buckle I won when I was first trying to catch her attention. The movie ticket stubs from our first date. Her lucky scrunchie she gave to me when I competed on the rodeo circuit. A small leather notebook that she used to write song ideas in. And a faded photo of the two of us sitting in my truck on the night we planned to run away together and get married.

  I can still remember that everything about that moment when we took the picture. I was so happy, but I had no idea that my happiness would be so short-lived.

  We were so naïve back then to think that we could get away with our plan to forge our parents' signatures on the consent forms and marry in secret. I wanted to make it big on the rodeo circuit, and Diana was going to write and sell her songs. We had our lives planned out.

  I stare down at our young smiling faces.

  We couldn’t have known then how differently our lives would turn out.

  3

  DIANA

  I haven't even been here a whole twenty-four hours, and I'm already looking for an escape hatch to get out of my parents' house.

  They made it about a whole ten seconds after me walking in the door yesterday to lay on the guilt thick about stopping at Mirabelle’s and not coming straight to the house.

  “What will people think?” Mom asks me, but I have enough sense to know that this is a rhetorical question and not to answer.

  “Really, Diana,” Dad chides. “You know how people talk in this town.”

  "They'll think I'm such a terrible mother that my own daughter doesn't come to visit her first," Mom continues.

  “Whoa, Mom,” Nora whispers as she carries in my new nephew swaddled in a blue crocheted blanket. “Way to make everything we do come down to your mothering skills. Can we let Diana take a breath before you lay into her?”

  “Thank you," I mouth to my sister before saying out loud, "Is that my little nephew Devin?"

  My parents backed off as best they could for the rest of the night, but I knew it was only a matter of time before the subject of my absence was brought up again, and my mother would make it all about her.

  Nora anticipated this being a possible issue and picked me up early the following morning to save me from the Spanish Inquisition over the breakfast table. She distracted them with the sweet scent of Devin's head as I got dressed, and we ran out of the house, giving them vague plans of where we were going and when we'd be back.

  “You know what Mom’s going to say when we get back,” I chuckle.

  Nora rolls her eyes and clears her throat to impersonate our mom. “When you girls were young, I never left you with a babysitter, not even my mother, until you were five years old.”

  “Is there anything we can do right?” I ask.

  "My only accomplishment in her eyes is Devin, but god forbid the day he acts out in the slightest. I'll never hear the end of it." She snaps her fingers. "Oh, and Carl. For some reason, my husband hasn't disappointed her yet, but there is still plenty of time for that."

  “At least you got married.”

  I regret saying the words out loud the moment they leave my lips. The bright pink elephant that's been following me around the moment I crossed the town line appears, and it's eager to hash out the past.

  “Forget I said that,” I say.

  “You should probably know that he still lives in town. He works on his family’s ranch.”

  “I know.”

  Nora doesn’t say anything else. She knows what talking about him does to me. She was there to pick up the pieces of my heart when the happiest day of my life was taken away from me.

  "Let's go get
some coffee at the bakery, and maybe we can check out the Farmer's Market afterward."

  I nod, not trusting my voice as I push down the memories of the past in my mind. I've been running for so long that I thought that coming back here, I'd be able to handle it, but the torrent of emotions that are hitting me feel like it's going to take me under.

  RHETT

  I want to say I don't know Dani managed to convince me to build the sound stage for the festival, but as the youngest child in the family, all she had to do was complain to our parents, and now here we are.

  “I’ve drawn out a map of the town center, so you can get an idea of where everything is going to be on the day.” Dani hands me a sheet from her binder.

  I look it over, half expecting it to be a crudely drawn map, but it's surprisingly detailed. It looks like she wants the sound stage near the gazebo. I turn to look in the direction of the gazebo but freeze when I see Diana sitting on the steps with her sister, Nora.

  It feels like time slows, and the noise from the town all around me is turned down. All I can focus on is Diana. She looks even better in person than in the photos of the gossip magazines.

  We were only seventeen the last time I laid eyes on her in person. She's a woman now, with curves and a confidence that the Diana I once knew didn't have. My body reacts to her in a way that it hasn't for a woman in a long time. My heartbeat increases at the sight of her tongue dipping out and licking her bottom lip. I watch, unable to take my eyes off her, as she smiles at something Nora says.

  “That’s her,” I hear Dani whisper behind me.

  It's as if suddenly, all my senses have returned to normal, and I flinch at the barrage of sounds around me.

  “We need to go.” I turn towards my sister.