Her Cowboy Billionaire Bad Boy

by Liz Isaacson

  “Shh, baby,” she cooed at the girl. “Shh, mama’s here.” She scooped the baby into her arms, glad the nursery was located at the front of the house, not the back.

  “Nine-one-one, state your emergency,” a woman said into Elise’s ear.

  “There’s a man on my property,” Elise said, pulling back on her emotions. This was why she didn’t like living alone. Those fears and unreasonable imaginations usually came at night, and Gray made sure she wasn’t alone at night.

  “Do you know him?” the woman asked.

  “No,” Elise said, ducking into the corner with Jane in her arms. The little girl had quieted, thankfully. “I called my husband, and he hadn’t hired anyone who was supposed to stop by today. My dog is barking like he’s never barked before, and I’m in the house alone with my nine-month-old baby daughter.”

  “Has he tried to get in the house?”

  “I don’t know,” Elise said. “I locked the back door and ran into my baby’s room.” It was then that she realized Hutch had stopped barking. “My dog is being quiet now,” she whispered into the phone. “He’s so friendly. If that guy came in, Hutch might think he was a friend.” Or the man had injured her dog.

  Elise started weeping silently, because she didn’t need to alert anyone of her whereabouts.

  “I have police on the way, ma’am,” the woman said. “Your address is up the hill, so they’re about fifteen minutes away.”

  A sob worked its way up her throat, and Elise couldn’t confirm. She barely weighed a hundred and ten pounds, and she couldn’t protect Jane from a grown man. Even fourteen-year-old Hunter could overpower Elise.

  She let the tears stream down her face, and the woman on the other end of the line said, “Tell me your daughter’s name, ma’am. What does she look like?”

  Elise looked down at Jane cradled in her arms. “Jane,” she whispered. “Her name is Jane Beverly Hammond. She just barely started growing in some white-blonde hair after being bald for months. She has these beautiful blue eyes, but they’re much darker than mine, because her father has dark brown eyes. She has the shape of his nose, and wow, she’s as headstrong as he is.” She half-laughed and half-cried, and the operator giggled with her.

  The doorbell rang, and Hutch started barking again. His voice came closer and then passed by, and Elise got back to her feet. “Someone rang the doorbell,” she said. “Is that the cops?”

  “No, ma’am,” the operator said. “They’re still nine minutes away from your property.”

  Gray had installed security cameras on all the entrances to the house, and Elise put the woman on speaker and balanced Jane in one arm while she frantically tried to tap and swipe to get to the Eyewitness app.

  It recorded any movement and ten seconds afterward.

  “It’s my husband’s brother,” Elise said, pure relief filling her. She watched as Ames rang the doorbell and then opened the front door.

  “Elise?” he called, and she spun toward the door.

  “I don’t think we need the cops to come,” she said.

  “They’re on their way, ma’am. They’ll want to check the property.”

  “Ames is a cop himself,” Elise said.

  “I’m still going to send them,” she said.

  Elise didn’t want to argue. She stepped over to Jane’s door and cracked it.

  “Elise,” Ames called again, and he appeared at the end of the hallway. She waved the phone at him, and he turned toward her, Hutch coming down the hall right at Ames’s heels.

  He squeezed through the door and closed it behind him. “Are you okay? Gray called and said there was someone here.”

  “There was,” Elise said. “We have the Eyewitness app. I saw someone in the back yard. We can see who it was.”

  He looked at her phone. “You called nine-one-one?”

  “Yes,” Elise said, her face cracking as the salty tears dried. “There was someone here, and Hutch was going crazy.”

  “Yeah, I heard him,” Ames said. “He’s not hurt.” Ames scanned her. “You and baby Jane are okay.”

  “Did you see anyone around?” she asked. “Any vehicles?”

  “No,” Ames said. “But I wasn’t really looking. Gray just said you needed help as fast as possible, and I was at Wyatt’s house just up the road.”

  “Thank you, Ames,” Elise said. He was here now, and if there was someone in the house, as least there was someone here who could protect her. She tapped on the back door camera, and there were three recent recordings.

  The first showed a man coming toward the deck from the tree line, just as she’d seen him. “See?” Elise said, tilting the phone toward Ames. “That guy was there.”

  The recording continued, and the bearded man wearing a ball cap came right up on the deck and all the way to the sliding glass door. Elise tucked Jane tighter into her arms as Ames took the phone from her. He frowned as he kept watching, but Elise couldn’t see the footage.

  As she laid in bed that night, all she’d be able to see was that man striding right up to her house, with just her and her baby inside.

  The doorbell rang again, and Ames tapped again and again. “It’s the police,” he said. He took her phone with him as he left the bedroom, and he closed the door behind him, which was a signal for Elise to simply stay where she was.

  She swayed with Jane, smoothing down her daughter’s wispy hair. She didn’t want to hide behind closed doors, so she cracked the door and listened to the voices coming from the foyer. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, and she inched out into the hallway. At the end of that, she turned left and went into the huge, arched walkway that led to the foyer.

  “I called the police,” Elise said as an answer to one of the police officer’s questions. “There was a man on my property.”

  “I showed them the recording,” Ames said.

  “Ma’am,” the male officer said, stepping around Ames. “I’m Officer Burke. We know who that man is. He’s David Mills, and he lives down at the mouth of the canyon. He has some mental disabilities, and he’s probably lost.”

  “Mental disabilities?”

  “His parents are getting older,” Officer Burke said. “I’m sure he just wandered off. He’s no threat to anyone. He gets panicked when he gets lost, and since this neighborhood is new, he probably just got confused.”

  “Okay,” Elise said, foolishness filling her. “Are you going to try to find him?”

  “He went west from the back deck,” the woman on the other side of Ames said. “Fifteen minutes ago now, Burke.”

  He cocked his head as the radio on his shoulder beeped. “Unit seventeen-A, we just got a call from Loretta Mills. She said her son is missing again.”

  “I can help,” Ames said, turning toward Officer Burke. Panic built inside Elise again, and she shook her head. Ames saw her, and thankfully, Officer Burke said, “We’ve got it, sir. But thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Elise said as Ames came to stand beside her. The officers left, and Elise started to come down from her adrenaline high. That allowed room for her to start to feel like she’d overreacted, especially when she reached up and felt the dry tears on her face.

  “Sorry, Ames,” she said. “Really, I am.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Ames said. “I was literally three minutes down the road.”

  “Gray will be on his way back.” Elise handed Jane to Ames, who grinned at his niece, and she moved into the kitchen. The corn chowder still sat on the stove, the flame underneath it. It would be scorched, and Elise felt the keen sense of failure ripping through her.

  Her tears came again, and she worked hard against them as she picked up the spoon to see how bad the chowder was. The bottom definitely had a film on it, but she kept stirring and stirring, because she couldn’t face Ames.

  He followed her into the kitchen and opened the fridge, saying, “What does your momma have in here for you, huh? Applesauce? I bet that’s for you, right, Janey?” He bent to get one of the squeez
able tubes of applesauce, and he took Jane over to the table, where he sat down and settled the baby on his lap.

  He chuckled a couple of times while Elise struggled against her emotions. The back door opened, and Gray called, “Elise?”

  She pressed her eyes closed and took a quick breath. “Right here,” she said, putting on the happiest face she could. Her husband came into the kitchen, frantic concern in his eyes. He looked from her to Ames at the table and back to her. “Baby.”

  Elise couldn’t hold the tears back as Gray stepped over to her and gathered her into his strong embrace. “I’m fine,” she said, but she knew he’d seen the tears before she’d pressed her face into his chest.

  “Of course you are,” he whispered in her ear. He held her tightly, stroking her hair every so often, while Hunter said something to Ames.

  Elise stepped back and ducked her head so she could wipe her face easier. “I made corn chowder,” she said, forcing her voice into something chipper and excited. “How was the fishing?”

  “Elise,” Hunter said, stepping next to his dad. His face held such brightness and hope. “I caught the biggest trout ever. And it just came in so easy, like he’d just been at the bottom for a long time, and once he got hooked, he decided to just come on up.” He grinned like he’d won the lottery and not caught a fish—something he’d literally done hundreds of times before.

  Elise fed off his enthusiasm, and she grabbed onto him and hugged him too. “That’s so great, Hunt,” she said. “I’m so sorry to cut your fishing trip short.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Hunter said, and he’d outgrown her in the past year and a half. It was no wonder the boy had a girlfriend and that other girls kept putting notes in his locker or texting him.

  “Sweetheart, this tastes….” Gray looked at her. “I’m going to call for something. Chinese?”

  Elise stepped away from Hunter and nodded. Gray didn’t particularly like Chinese food, but Elise loved it, and she loved him even more for his concern for her.

  “Ames?” Gray said, moving around the other side of the island in the kitchen. “Wanna fill me in while we run down to town?”

  “Sure thing.” Ames stood up and handed a very saucy Jane to Gray, who grinned at his daughter. One of Elise’s favorite things to do was watching Gray interact with his little girl, and Elise hugged herself, because she didn’t want to be alone in the house.

  “Hunt, bring in the fish and get them cleaned up, all right?” Gray looked at his son, and Hunter nodded. He ducked back into the mudroom and then out to the garage while Gray cleaned up Jane. “Baby, I’m going to take Jane and Ames with me. Hunter will be here, and Hutch, and all the doors are locked. Okay?”

  Elise pressed her lips together and nodded. “Okay.”

  Gray stopped in front of her and pressed a kiss to her temple. “I love you.”

  “Love you too,” she said, and she caught Ames watching them. He ducked his head and cleared his throat before he turned and followed Hunter into the garage. Elise knew he and Sophia were seeing each other, and she wondered how the relationship was going. She’d been so busy with her own little family that she hadn’t kept in touch with Sophia as much as she’d like.

  As Gray left and Hunter came in, Elise decided she could call Sophia and invite her to lunch on her next day off. And Bree too, if she could come, as well as Patsy and Annie. They’d all been such great friends in the past, and just because they all had busy lives didn’t mean they shouldn’t try to maintain that now.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ames laughed at what his mother had said, the sound filling the cab of his truck. He’d parked up at the lodge and stayed in the truck, because his mom had been talking for at least the last thirty minutes.

  Apparently, there had been some shenanigans at the farm this summer. The man Gray hired to tend to it while he and Elise were in Coral Canyon had brought a couple of dogs with him this summer, and they weren’t nearly as trained as the ones Ames had been working with the past several weeks.

  “I have to go, Mom,” he said as he caught sight of Sophia coming down the sidewalk toward him. She carried a baby on her hip, and he recognized it as Marcy and Wyatt’s youngest, Harrison.

  He got out of the car, the sight of her with that baby warming Ames’s heart. He’d spent some time with her at the Walker’s chalet in the mountains in the past couple of weeks, and now that August had arrived, Ames was starting to feel desperate. He couldn’t wait until evening to see her, and he’d asked Wyatt and Marcy if he could come hang out in the afternoons once or twice a week.

  They’d said yes, as long as his presence didn’t interfere with Sophia’s job with the boys. It hadn’t. In fact, Ames had brought balloons and activities for Warren and Cole, and he’d entertained them while Sophia sat in the shade with the baby.

  “Why do you have him today?” Ames asked as he approached her. He swept his arm around her and the baby and kissed her.

  Sophia kissed him back and giggled when she broke the kiss. “Harrison came to stay with me last night, didn’t you, baby?”

  He’d been meeting with a real estate agent, so Ames hadn’t seen Sophia last night. “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “Warren is really sick, and Marcy didn’t want Harrison around it. I offered to bring him home with me.”

  “You’re a saint,” Ames said.

  “They’ve got Warren on an antibiotic now, and Wyatt’s coming to get him,” she said. They walked over to her car, and Sophia handed Ames the little boy so she could bend down to get his car seat out of her back seat. When she turned back to him, she grinned. “You look good with a baby in your arms.”

  “Do I?” Ames looked at the little boy, and he didn’t look anything like Ames. Marcy was blonde and blue-eyed, and Wyatt had the lightest features of the Walker brothers, and their children definitely had light features and hair.

  Everything about Ames was dark, and he absorbed Sophia’s lighter features. She still had brown eyes, and lighter brown hair, and he wondered what their children would look like. He’d fallen fast for her, and he was one breath away from being completely gone. At least he thought he was. He’d never been in love before, but the things he felt for Sophia sure felt like love.

  “Yes,” Sophia said, taking the baby from him. “How do I look with a baby in my arms?”

  Ames soaked her in, fighting to keep his foothold on the path he was on. The problem was, he felt like the Earth was shaking and he was about to go over the edge of the cliff. “Amazing,” he said, his mouth suddenly too dry.

  She cocked her hip and smiled, then turned as an enormous truck entered the parking lot. She gave Harrison to Wyatt, and they chatted for a few seconds. Then she came back to Ames and tucked herself into his side. “So,” she said. “What are we doing on my day off?”

  “Whatever you want,” he said. “We only have a few Wednesdays left. So you tell me.”

  Sophia flinched, and Ames wondered what he’d said. “Is that true?”

  “Is what true?”

  “We only have a few Wednesdays left?” She pulled away from him, and his heart dropped to his boots. “What does that mean, Ames?”

  “I mean, it’s August,” he said, his voice weak. “Summer’s almost over.”

  Sophia backed up a couple of steps, and Ames felt her retreating from him physically and emotionally and spiritually. “What are your plans for when September comes?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “When are you going to figure it out?”

  Ames clenched his teeth and looked away. This was not a conversation he’d wanted to have today. He really did just want Sophia to have the perfect day. She worked so much, and so hard, and he wanted to give her a comfortable place to be.

  “I’m trying,” he said.

  “Are you?”

  Ames returned his attention to her, wishing that her eyes weren’t shooting lasers quite so strongly. “You don’t want me to say things that I don’t know. No potent
ial or thinking, remember?”

  Sophia took a breath and blew it out in a way that suggested her annoyance with him. “It would be nice if you told me what you were thinking. Even just a little bit.”

  Ames gazed steadily at her. “Now you want me to tell you what I’m thinking?”

  “I always want to know what you’re thinking. You just never say. You’re like this walled-off city.”

  “I am not,” Ames said. “I’ve told you all kinds of things.”

  “But not what you’re thinking about where you’ll live, and what will happen to us once you make that decision.” She shook her head. “I feel like we’re living on borrowed time, and I hate it.” She folded her arms, but he saw the tremble in her hands. “I hate that you have me on this string, and you can decide to pull, and I’ll lose everything.”

  “Sophia,” he said. “I’m not going to do that.”

  “You aren’t? What assurance do I have of that?” Her eyes blazed that fire, but her chin shook. “This whole thing has just been ridiculous.”

  “Do you really think that?” he demanded. “And I’m not the only one who doesn’t talk.”

  “I talk to you.”

  “Have you called your mother? Your brothers? Any of them?”

  Sophia opened her mouth, the flames in her expression dimming. She closed her mouth again and looked away.

  “I’m going to take that as a no,” Ames said. “Let’s just say that we get engaged and then plan a wedding. Are you going to talk to them then? Are we ever going to visit them? I don’t understand how you just don’t talk to them.”

  “Not everyone’s family is as perfect as yours.”

  “Come on,” Ames said, well-aware that his voice carried plenty of disgust and bite. “My family isn’t perfect, and you know it. But at least we act like adults and talk to each other.”

  “You don’t talk to me!”

  “You want me to talk to you?” Ames had so much he could say. “I met with a real estate agent last night. That’s what I was doing. I didn’t want to tell you until things were more solid, but that’s the truth.” His chest heaved, and he couldn’t quite get a proper breath.