Her Cowboy Billionaire Bad Boy

by Liz Isaacson

  “Perfectly okay,” the doctor said.

  “What if there’s another complication?” Ames asked, glancing at Bree. “Some other issue that wouldn’t make the baby’s heartbeat change?”

  “We can order an ultrasound to be sure, if you’d like.” Dr. Banks looked from Ames to Bree.

  “Yes, please,” Bree said.

  She nodded to Phil, who made a note in her chart. “Let’s look at this shoulder.” She moved the bed to sit Bree upright more, and Ames backed up as the doctor moved to the left side. Her fingers felt like needles, and Bree was panting by the time the doctor said, “Yes, I think that’s separated. We’ll need an x-ray of that too, so we can see the extent of the damage.”

  “Do separated shoulders heal on their own?” Ames asked. “Or is this something she’ll have to have surgery for?”

  “We won’t know that until we see the x-ray,” Dr. Banks said. “So we’ll get both of those done, and then we’ll know more. We can keep giving you the pain meds, Bree, if it gets to be too much for you.”

  She nodded, and the doctor started to leave.

  Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait long to be taken for the x-ray, and Ames was able to go with her. She did wait in the room for the ultrasound for another ten minutes, during which Ames sent a bunch of texts to his family string.

  “They’ll all know,” he said.

  The door opened, and a man walked in. “Bree Hammond?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “I’m Doctor Rock, and I’ll be doing your ultrasound.” He shook her hand, and then Ames’s, and he got down to business. Bree had not had her ultrasound yet, so this was actually semi-exciting for her, and she wished Wes were with her.

  “Let’s see,” the doctor said. “I understand you had a little spill, and you want to make sure everything’s okay in here.” He started the ultrasound, and the baby’s heartbeat filled the room with its special, echoy sound that was unlike any other.

  “Oh, wow,” Ames said, his voice made mostly of air. “Is that…that’s the baby?” He came to stand beside Bree so he could see the screen too.

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “Everything looks good. I don’t see anything here…or here….” He pressed harder on her left side. “I don’t see any bleeding or any trauma. I can tell what the gender is. Do you want to know?” Dr. Rock looked at her, and Bree hesitated.

  She did want to know, but she wanted Wes at her side.

  The door opened, and a nurse said, “She’s right here.”

  Wes entered the room, and everything in the world got better. “Baby,” he said, and Ames melted out of the way, and Wes took his spot. He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her. “You’re okay? Really okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Bree said, closing her eyes and basking in the warmth of her husband’s touch, and breathing in the smoky, leathery, spicy scent of him. “He just asked me if I want to know the gender of the baby.”

  Wes spun around and looked at the screen, but Dr. Banks had taken the instruments off Bree’s belly. “Yeah, we want to know that.”

  “Where’s Mikey?” Bree asked.

  “Gray kept him,” Wes said.

  “Okay, continuing,” Dr. Banks said. “Everything looks good here, guys.”

  The baby’s heartbeat came back to life, and Wes reached over and squeezed Bree’s hand. “I love you.”

  “And you two are having a little boy,” Dr. Banks said.

  Bree grinned, and when Wes turned toward her, a look of wonder on his face, Bree fell in love with him all over again.

  The ultrasound ended, and Wes stood to embrace Ames. “Thank you, Ames. Thank you so much.”

  “Yes, thank you, Ames,” Bree said as she tried to get up off the table. She’d forgotten about her shoulder, and she cried out as another wave of pain kept her on the table.

  “Anytime,” Ames said. “I’ll head out now. Let me know if you need anything.” He made a hasty exit, and Wes turned to help her up.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said. “We took Hutch up on a trail, and there was no service.”

  “It’s fine,” Bree said. “I was kind of freaking out, and Ames was so calm.”

  “He is good under pressure,” Wes agreed. A smile slid across his face. “Another baby boy, Bree.”

  She smiled too, because she loved Wes’s excitement over the baby. “We better start thinking of names. I have a feeling it’s going to take a while for us to find one we both agree on.” Michael had taken forever for them to decide on, and that was such a normal name.

  He laughed and kissed her, and she knew he’d take good care of her…and let her name their baby whatever she wanted.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sophia looked up as someone knocked on her front door. She abandoned her bowl of cold cereal and stood up as Ames said, “It’s just me,” and came into the cabin.

  “I’m ready,” she said, putting her half-eaten bowl of cereal in the sink and turning to meet him. He grinned at her from the living room, and he had to know what that grin did to a woman.

  “Eating cold cereal again?” he asked, plenty of tease in his voice.

  “Yes,” she said. “I made breakfast burritos at the lodge, but they didn’t sound good for some reason.”

  “That’s because you love those sugary flakes you hide in the cupboard above the fridge.” He took her into his arms and held her close. She hadn’t seen him since Cy’s wedding, and she wondered if he’d kiss her before they went up to Ruff Rescue.

  She liked holding him too, but she didn’t stay in the embrace for long. “We don’t want to be late.”

  “No, we don’t,” he said. “What time do we have to be back?”

  “Whenever,” she said. “Julianne is ordering pizza tonight, because it’s a guest’s birthday and they specifically requested it. That means I don’t have to cook.”

  “So we can go to dinner,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said, and she saw the whole day and night with Ames flow before her eyes. She picked up her purse and turned toward the door, but Ames blocked it. The man had sobered in the two seconds she’d turned her back on him, and he wore a brooding look that was as sexy as it was concerning.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I just want to make sure we’re okay,” he said. “Last time I saw you, you drove away upset with me. We’ve texted since, but I just want to make sure you know I didn’t mean to upset you, and I won’t say things I don’t absolutely mean.”

  Sophia sure did like it when he simply said what was on his mind. He didn’t play games with her, and she appreciated that.

  She’d had plenty of time to think about Ames in the past two days. No, she had not liked him using words like “potentially” and “I think I could.” She didn’t want to get her hopes up that he would stay in town when he only thought there was the potential of it happening. At the same time, she really wanted to explore a real, long-term relationship with him.

  She thought she’d been clear enough on that point, but she decided to be as bold as he was. “Thank you,” she said. “I would appreciate that. In that same spirit, maybe I should explain why what you said upset me.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I really like you, Ames. I don’t want this to be a summer fling. I want the potential of a real, long-term relationship with you.” She nodded like that was that, and just by her saying it she could make it so.

  “Is that true?” he asked.

  “Ames,” she said, a vein of exasperation pulling through her. “Of course that’s true. You were there when we kissed the other night, right?”

  He ducked his head, the brim of his cowboy hat hiding his face. “I was there.”

  “Then you seriously cannot have doubts that I like you.”

  He glanced up, and a sparkle resided in his eyes. “Long-term, though?”

  “Yes,” she said boldly. “I’m not interested in the same thing we did last time. I’m really not.” She couldn’t believe she was having thi
s conversation, but it felt like something crucial that needed to happen. “If that’s what we’re doing, I’d rather you just go up to the dog rescue alone.”

  She felt sure she’d cry the rest of the day if he went to Ruff Rescue alone, but she’d rather know now than later.

  “I don’t want to go to the dog rescue alone.”

  “You know what you’re saying, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Say it using regular words,” she said.

  He chuckled and shook his head, and though she heard a bit of annoyance in the sound, it was mostly happy. He looked away from her and then back into her eyes. “I’m thinking long-term with you too, Sophia. I just don’t know exactly what that looks like, or where it puts me in the end.”

  “You don’t have to know exactly,” she said. “I just need to know we’re on the same page.”

  “I think we are,” Ames said, taking a step forward and slipping his fingers between hers, oh-so-slowly and so deliberately. His touch brought something to life inside her that laid dormant when he wasn’t around, and she couldn’t ignore that.

  She didn’t know exactly what would happen with them either, but she wanted to find out. Her heart might get beaten up and bruised and broken, but if she could spend more time with Ames, the risk was worth the reward.

  “We better go,” she said as he took another step toward her. “We’ll be late.”

  “I think we’ll be fine,” he said.

  “You hate being late.”

  “I’ll drive fast,” he said, leaning down.

  She giggled, because the man never drove over the speed limit. She reached up as his cowboy hat bumped into her forehead. She slid her hands up the sides of his face, noticing the way his eyes closed in bliss.

  She felt powerful in that moment, as she could make this handsome, strong man soften and sigh with her touch. Hers.

  It seemed impossible, but the evidence of it was right before her eyes. She ran her thumb over his eyebrow and pushed his cowboy hat off his head so she could kiss him. She had to tip up onto her toes to get to his height, even with his head bowed, and he steadied her with both hands on her waist.

  She touched her mouth to his, and Ames’s grip on her body tightened. She slid her fingers around to the back of his neck and enjoyed this slow, sweet kiss. He let her set the pace and dictate the direction of the kiss, and she pulled away when what she really wanted to do was keep kissing him.

  “We really will be late,” she said, ducking her head so she didn’t have to look him in the eye.

  “Let’s go then,” he said, moving out of her personal space and taking her hand again. Things between them turned light and casual once they climbed in the truck and started down the canyon to Dog Valley.

  “You’ve never really said much about your family,” he said. “And mine is a circus you can’t look away from.” He glanced at her, but Sophia kept her gaze out the windshield. How did she start this story?

  “It’s complicated,” she said.

  “Start with something easy,” he said. “Siblings?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I have two older brothers. Ryan and Keith.”

  “Parents?”

  “Divorced,” she said, all of the members of her family flashing through her mind like a bad slide show. “My dad was in the military when I was growing up. We moved all over the place, sometimes year after year.” She was aware that her voice had slipped into somewhat of a monotone, and she pushed out her breath in a long exhale. “We’re all spread out now,” she said. “I don’t talk to any of them all that much. It was like once I graduated and my dad retired from the Army, we just…fell apart.”

  “I’m sorry,” Ames said.

  “It’s been fifteen years,” she said.

  “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t still hurt.”

  He was right, and Sophia knew it. Her throat closed, and it was just as well, because she didn’t know what to say. She’d gotten along the best with her father growing up, but he’d thought she had sided with her mom in the divorce, and while he hadn’t cut her out of his life completely, he never initiated a conversation.

  Her mother had gotten as far from the military base as she could, and she lived in California now. At least she had the last time Sophia had checked with her. She got the feeling that her mother had given all she could, for many long years. Almost thirty years of marriage to Sophia’s father. Thirty years of raising children alone. Thirty years of being responsible for every little thing, down to paying every bill, cleaning every toilet, and managing every schedule.

  In California, she’d been living a life Sophia suspected she’d always wanted—and that didn’t include her, Keith, or Ryan.

  Something pinched in her chest, and when she breathed in, it actually hurt so much she gasped.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Sort of,” she said. She didn’t try to cover over her feelings with a smile, because it wouldn’t have worked anyway.

  “You can tell me about them, if you want,” he said.

  Sophia shook her head. “Maybe another time, okay? I want today to be fun.”

  “They’re not fun?”

  “Not at all,” she said.

  “Is this why you stay at the lodge during the holidays?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And Ames, it’s why I don’t want to leave Coral Canyon. I moved all the time, and I never truly had a place to belong. Then my family dissolved right when I needed them to rally around me, and it’s just been me for the past fifteen years. I’ve had to rely on myself for everything, and when I came here—I didn’t. I’m part of that lodge family, and it feels good. It feels right. I belong there.” She looked at him then, desperate to make him understand.

  He nodded, one hand lazily draped over the wheel as he drove. “I understand better now.”

  “I didn’t tell you last time, because we weren’t serious.”

  He glanced at her. “Thanks for telling me now.”

  She nodded, and she needed the spotlight off of her. “Okay, you have to tell me something you didn’t last time.”

  “Oh, is that how this works?”

  “Yes,” she said, deciding on the spot. “That’s how this works. So let’s see…I want to know why you’re not married.”

  He looked at her despite the fact that he was driving. “I’ve never asked anyone to marry me.”

  “Have you been in love before?”

  He finally put his attention back on the highway. “No,” he said, his voice very low.

  “I find that so hard to believe,” she said. “You’re good-looking. You’re rich. You’re smart and hard-working. You can literally do anything. You’re—”

  “I cannot literally do anything,” he said, shaking his head.

  “Seems that way,” she said. “Cop, cowboy, carpenter. That’s a lot.”

  “You’re a cook and a nanny. Oh, and a dog foster mom.”

  She smiled, because she did miss having a foster dog. She toyed with the idea of getting one today if there was one under thirty pounds. Realistically though, she didn’t have time to foster right now, not with Marcy and Wyatt in town. She’d have to wait until the fall when they returned to Three Rivers.

  He cleared his throat, and Sophia tensed. “I never really dated much,” Ames said. “So despite the good looks and the money, I’ve never fallen in love.”

  “So you never tried to find someone to marry,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “And now you’re trying?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “Why’s that?” she asked. “What changed?”

  He shrugged one boxy shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe seeing Colt and Wes find wives and settle into families. Somehow, in my head, I thought we’d all just be brothers forever.”

  “You’re still brothers,” she said, not quite getting what he was saying.

  “It’s different now,” he said. “Yeah, we’re still family, but they have people that are
more important to them than I am. Not that I need to be the most important, but…yeah. And they’re so happy. I was watching Wes one day last year, and I just thought, I want that. I want a woman who makes me smile in the morning and makes me laugh at lunchtime and makes me want to be the absolute best man I can be, just so she’ll stay with me.” He glanced at her, and Sophia gaped back at him.

  “Wow, Ames. I didn’t know you felt like that.”

  “I didn’t either,” he said. “I always thought I was fine by myself. And the truth is, Sophia, I was fine by myself. I still am, most of the time. I don’t really care what other people think of me, and I don’t need their approval or validation.”

  “Mm, yeah, I can see that about you.” She called that confidence, and it contributed to his bad boy persona that he wore so well.

  “Then I see Gray with Elise, and my heart tells me I want that kind of close friendship, that bonding love, that companionship. I see Wes holding his son, and my heart screams at me that I want a family too.” He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “So I decided to try.”

  “You’ve dated a lot lately, then?” she asked, trying not to let the jealousy rear up inside her.

  “Not as much as you’d think,” he said. “In Colorado, the Hammond name is everywhere. It was hard to get a date with a woman who didn’t have an ulterior motive for saying yes.”

  “I see.”

  “And I was a cop, and no one wanted to date a cop.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Is that why you quit?”

  “No,” he said, but it came out as a bark, and Sophia thought it had definitely contributed to his decision to leave the Littleton Police Department. After all, he’d used that as a reason why he didn’t want to relocate to Coral Canyon. He’d worked for years to move up the ranks in Littleton, and he didn’t want to start over somewhere else.

  Of course, then she’d found out he’d already quit that job before he’d come to stay with Cy in Coral Canyon. Before the kiss on the hillside above the lodge. Before the three-week relationship between them that had ended as abruptly as it had started.

  When she’d learned that he’d already quit before his visit in the fall, it felt like part of her heart had been surgically removed with a butter knife. And then, when she’d seen him in Three Rivers and knew he’d left Colorado?