Contents
Title Page
Series Guide
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Epilogue
About Amity
A Cowboy SEAL’s Bride
Amity Lassiter
Copyright © 2017 Amity Lassiter
ISBN: 978-0-9939240-7-1
Editor: Keriann McKenna
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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HEARTS OF THREE RIVERS
THE BAYLORS
Runaway Heart (Dane & Ren)
Homecoming Heart (Noah & Emma)
Secondhand Heart (Finn & Lily)
THE MONTGOMERYS
Secret Heart (Nate & Layla)
Lawful Heart (Banks & Norah)
Guarded Heart (COMING 2019)
HEARTS OF HEROES
A Cowboy SEAL’s Bride (Lane & Miranda)
—ONE—
Turning in the drive of Lone Oak felt more like coming home than the time Lane Sutton’s boots had hit American soil after his first tour in Iraq. Rumbling past the gate, he glanced at Kit, sitting at full attention in the passenger seat, and reached out to ruffle the German Shepherd’s furry ears.
“You’re gonna love it, I promise.”
The dog panted in response.
“The pond’ll cool you off.”
The July sun was merciless, but for Lane heat was relative. Still, he couldn’t wait to crack open one of the beers in the cooler on the back of his truck and sit on the front porch of his new spread. He’d barely believed it when the lawyer had called to tell him Lone Oak was his; but it made sense. Granddad clearly remembered the summers Lane had spent here as a boy as fondly as he did himself. It had been a long time since he’d spent more than a passing four day furlough with his grandfather, Jack Sutton, but it had always been Lane’s dream to own the ranch. Granted, all the horses had been sold off when Jack’s health started to decline, but the lawyer promised the grounds had been well kept up. It wouldn’t be long before he’d bring life back to the ranch; he’d already started a list.
He was so caught up in that list when he rounded the final curve in the drive, he barely noticed the little red Jeep sitting out front. The shapely, blue-jean clad ass poking up amongst the flower beds caught his attention, though. The owner of the ass, and presumably the Jeep, straightened, drawing her wrist across her brow. Based on the shape of the fitted red plaid shirt she wore and the long auburn ponytail that swung down her back when she did so, he knew exactly who that owner was.
She turned when he put the truck in park and killed the engine, opening his door. He slid off the seat but didn’t round the door just yet, allowing himself a moment to drink in the wonder of this grown up version of his childhood love. She planted her hands on her shapely hips and leveled her gaze at him, up to her knees in wave petunias.
“What the hell are you doing here, Lane Sutton?”
Miranda Davenport had been just a girl the last time he’d been here; all freckles, knobby knees, and braces. And it might have been the hot August summer, but he’d loved her. Fiercely. And here she stood, something else entirely. A woman; the kind of woman who dipped and curved in all the right places, with a sweet heart-shaped face, framed in soft waves by her fiery hair and a mere dusting of freckles still visible across the bridge of her nose. She had a smudge of dirt on her left cheek and a rip in the knee of her jeans that brought back a flood of feelings he had left undisturbed for a long time now.
While he’d been standing gawking, Kit snuck out the door past him, bounding straight for Miranda. The dog looked menacing, but she was the most awkward mishmash of fluff and gangly legs he’d ever met. She went straight past the woman and right into the flower beds, as he’d expected.
“Kit!” Lane lurched forward around the door of his pickup and after the dog, because he knew what came next, and he wasn’t interested in raising the ire of this particular redhead, considering how seriously she seemed to be taking this gardening thing.
Before he could get there, though, the dog had unearthed at least a foot’s length of flowers from the well-tended topsoil and was paddling black dirt right toward Miranda with her over-sized puppy paws. Lane caught sight of Miranda’s wide eyes and open mouth as his fingers closed around Kit’s collar, dragging her out of the flowers.
“Sorry, sorry. Kit, come on.” It was a waste of breath to chastise the dog; she never seemed to hear him anyway—except when it counted the most, which was why he kept the lunkhead around in the first place. Over the last decade, he’d learned how to meticulously trim the fat from his life; women, friends outside of his unit, all of it extraneous emotional baggage. It made his line of work that much easier to manage. The pup had been his first frivolous allowance since discharge, and in the dark quiet of some of his most endless nights, he was glad for the company.
“It’s okay,” Miranda said graciously, brushing soil off the thighs of her jeans.
“She’s still young, and she can’t resist that soft earth,” he explained, tugging Kit up the steps onto the covered porch of the house where he’d spent most of his childhood summers. “She was going to make a bed. It’s cool on her belly.”
He only knew because the dog had done the same thing at his mother’s house the first time they’d visited—and she’d been as displeased then as Miranda looked now.
“That is going to be a problem. Your granddad was adamant that I keep up the flower beds.”
“So I’m assuming you’re the caretaker the lawyer mentioned?”
“And you’re…the buyer the lawyer mentioned?” She narrowed her eyes, propping her fists on her hips again.
“Inheritant, I guess. You want to come in?”
Miranda hesitated. Ten years ago, she would have smiled that cheeky smile, said something flirty, and slipped her hand in his. They’d been inseparable in those days. But he’d mucked that up, majorly, so he couldn’t blame her for pausing. Still, if they were going to be neighbors, it would be nice to make a peace treaty.
Finally, she shifted.
“Sure.”
“Great.” Lane gave Kit a hand signal to sit—the odds were 50/50 she’d obey, and he was half surprised when she held the pose while he grabbed his cooler from the back of the truck. He nodded to Kit and pointed up the front steps of the house and she bounded up ahead of him. Miranda took stride beside him.
Holding in a breath, he pushed the door open. Kit went on ahead of them, investigating, but Lane had a pretty good idea of what would be inside. Everything, from the folded quilt on the back of the old checkered couch, to the cast iron pan waiting on the propane stovetop in the corner, to the spicy smell of tobacco, reminded him of the summers he’d spent here with his grandfather. The only thing missing was the old man himself. The absence made his chest ache more than he expected.
He let out his breath in one long, low exhale.
“The lawyer said it was going as-is, so I didn’t think it was my place to change anything,” Miranda said from behind him.
“No,” Lane said, letting his eyes sweep over the things that had been a permanent fixture of his childhood. “I’m glad you didn’t.”
“So this is what it looked like the day he left for the hospital.”
<
br /> Lane had been in the middle of the desert when he’d gotten the news, and Granddad had been gone and buried before he could get home. There weren’t many things in his life he regretted, but not spending a whole summer at Lone Oak in ten years ranked high on his list.
“I should have been here.”
The look on Miranda’s face said the same thing he was thinking—You should have been here for the last ten years.
“Well, you’re here now.”
He nodded, setting his cooler on the table and lifting the top.
“You want a beer?”
“Sure.”
“And sit out front?”
She raised a brow. “As long as you promise to keep that beast out of my flowers.”
“I promise to try.”
Laughing, they filed out and settled onto the bench on the covered porch, just far enough away to be appropriate. The familiar ease of spending most of their childhood summers as next-door neighbors wasn’t too far away even though it had been a decade. Lane had his first beer in this very spot—five years too early, and granddad had made him promise not to tell his mom. But a man should have a cold beer at the end of a hot day’s work, he’d said. The memory brought a smile to Lane’s lips as he lifted the cold bottle. He’d been craving this one since he’d set out for Three Rivers.
Kit paced to the top of the steps and looked over her shoulder at Lane, practically begging permission to get into the flowers. He shook his head and, like a disappointed child, the dog grumbled and then lowered her body to the unstained planks, resting her chin on her paws with an exaggerated sigh.
“She’s got quite a personality,” Miranda said with a chuckle as she lifted her beer to her lips. Lane couldn’t stop himself from watching, fixating on that pretty pink mouth. It had been a hell of a long time, but he could still remember how sweet her kisses tasted.
“She’s like what I think it would be like to have a giant toddler. All the time. But I can’t imagine life without her.”
“I can see how she would be like that, yes.” Pausing, Miranda’s eyes stayed fixed on the dog. “We do have to figure out something with the flower beds, though.”
Lane chuckled and shook his head, letting a companionable silence settle between them. While it wasn’t the same without his grandfather, being at Lone Oak clearly did his soul good because all the buzzing that had occupied his brain and the not-quite-right rattling around in his heart for the last three weeks was dissipating.
“He knew you were doing something important, Lane.”
Miranda’s words surprised him, like she was reading his thoughts. Jack had been so proud when his grandson enlisted, but Lane always felt like every training exercise or course he got sent away to complete was just another lame excuse not to visit. It wasn’t even that far to visit; he wished he’d made more of an effort, and now it was too late.
“You’ve been a good friend to him, haven’t you?” He glanced over and caught her gaze. She’d been watching him with soft, sorry eyes. It was clear he’d missed some important things that she’d been around to witness.
“That’s what neighbors are for. Besides, I might have needed a friend of my own.”
“That so?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded slowly. She was still the Miranda he’d always known, just a little wiser, a little more cautious; all that much more appealing. It was the first time since he’d joined his unit that Lane had been thinking about adding things to his life; Kit, Lone Oak…Miranda.
There had been other women in his life; some of them he couldn’t bring a face or a name or even a hair color to mind; but if he let it wander, he could still remember what her naked body looked like in the moonlight in the front seat of his truck the last summer he’d spent here. Six weeks later, he’d blown their easy friendship all to hell. Two summers later, he’d come back on a furlough and found her engaged to someone else. He’d steered clear. Until now. It would be easy to dive right into Miranda Davenport and drown.
“Well, now I’ll be your neighbor…and your friend, if you’ll have me.”
“You’re going to stick around?” she asked, raising a brow. He supposed his absence for the last decade probably made her think he didn’t want to be here at all, when in reality, this was the only place he wanted to be.
“Nowhere else I’d rather be. I’m done working for a while. Figured I’d get a couple horses, play at ranching. Some of my best memories were made right out front here.”
“Mine too,” Miranda smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. Slowly, she got to her feet, taking one last pull of her beer. “Anyway, I gotta run into town before they roll up the sidewalks. This was nice.”
“It was. Stop by anytime.”
“Will do,” she replied. “You need anything, you let me know.”
Lane watched the swish of her hips as she strode down the steps and to her Jeep and thought she might be just what he needed.
—TWO—
She didn’t have to go to town, but she’d put in her time being polite to her new neighbor and now she needed some time for self-preservation. Turning in the drive of her own home, Miranda sat in the car a moment, forcing back hot tears. While she missed Jack’s company desperately, a small part of her had hung onto a kernel of hope that when he passed, she might get the easy ticket to her dreams. The sensible part of her brain knew that Jack wouldn’t have left Lone Oak to her, and it would have been a tough pill to swallow no matter who had shown up today…but it was Lane Sutton. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she should have known. He’d spent every summer at Lone Oak since they were in kindergarten…until ten years ago.
She’d made a mistake then. It was so far back now that there was no way she could undo it, but she still felt guilty. The scene played out as clear in her mind as if it had been yesterday. She’d always wanted to leave Three Rivers, and he had wanted nothing more than to be there, so when she was only 18 and Lane 22 and he’d gotten down on one knee to ask her to marry him, she knew hitching herself to that wagon, no matter how much she loved him, meant she’d never leave town. And she’d said no.
He never said as much, but she knew she’d hurt him. He didn’t come back the next summer, and Jack told her he’d enlisted in the Navy, which was admirable, but a sure sign that he wasn’t intending to come back anytime soon. Two summers later, she’d tried to piece herself back together by dating and accepting the proposal of Harvey Winn, and of course that had been the summer Lane had come back again for a visit. She wasn’t an idiot—she knew how it looked—she’d turned down his proposal because she didn’t want to stay in Three Rivers, but then agreed to marry a son of one of the most prominent, well-rooted farming families in the area. I don’t want you, her actions had said, but they couldn’t have been further from the truth. Her heart had leapt when he’d sauntered into Hinkley’s, more rugged and grown than she’d ever known him to be. But it was too late even then to right her wrongs.
It had been five years ago now that she’d broken off the engagement with Harvey, who had wanted nothing more than to start a brood of a family and settle down—something they’d tried, unsuccessfully, almost from the beginning to do. Her parents had passed and other things in life seemed more important than keeping up the facade of loving Harvey and pretending that she could give him what he wanted most.
She was broken. Physically—there would be no babies. And emotionally—she didn’t know why she couldn’t let herself settle into something good, but she’d resolved not to try again. She wasn’t designed to hurt people, but somehow, that was what kept happening. And she’d found a new calling. The big house her parents had left her was lonely, so she shared it with respite and short term foster children when the need arose.
It gave her purpose, but she wanted to do more. She filled some of the corners of her heart with visits to Jack, and that’s where she’d come up with the idea for the camp. Specifically for at-risk youth, on a ranch, where they could find confidence, self-esteem,
and acceptance. Jack himself had been the one to say Lone Oak would be perfect for it. And that’s when that tiny seed of hope had planted itself. And then Lane had come along and killed it without even knowing it.
Finally, Miranda let herself out of the Jeep and went into the house, flicking on lights as she moved through the living room into the kitchen. The house was empty, had been for a couple of weeks, and looked like it would be for at least a few more. It was unusual not to have a kid around, but things had gotten slow and her contact with child services, Myrna Pierce, had promised her there would be something soon. She didn’t hope for more kids—it meant something was failing or tiring somewhere else, and as someone who had been fortunate to grow up in a completely functional and loving family, she didn’t wish the opposite for anyone—but the work gave her life direction. Otherwise, she was just a part time receptionist for the town, and an avid hobby gardener. When she had someone to cook for, drive to appointments, interact with, then she had something worth doing. And she felt like it was an ode to her parents and the beautiful home they’d left to her when she could fill it again with the laughter of children.
If she’d been a different person, the house might have been filled with the laughter of her own children. Children she’d made with Lane, because that would definitely have been the plan. But she was exactly who she was and there was nothing else she could do about it.
That hadn’t stopped her body from an almost visceral reaction when she’d seen him hanging out the door of his pick up today, though. He was bigger than he used to be; he’d muscled up but he also seemed taller, smarter, even more grown up than he was the summer he’d come home to find her engaged to someone else—the last time she’d seen him. He’d always had a few years on her but it seemed tremendous now. His clean cut ashy blonde hair and light eyes still said country boy loud and clear, but everything else, from the way he carried himself to the lift of his chin shouted military. She’d always been a sucker for a man in uniform, and to know it was this particular man in uniform…well, that made him much more irresistible. So much of the last few years were devoted to the kids Myrna brought her that she hadn’t dated, nevermind done more. And now she couldn’t stop thinking about how, even young and inexperienced, Lane had been attentive, intuitive, and thorough. But she had to. She had no right to crash through his life like a bull in a china shop again.
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