The Prodigal Cowboy (Mercy Ranch Book 5)

by Brenda Minton

  Brenda Minton

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  Her Hidden Hope

  by Jill Lynn

  Chapter One

  Evan Hawke no longer considered a particular place home, but the city of Westbend, Colorado—where he’d spent his childhood—was fighting him on that idea like a boxer with a mean left hook. Everything about the frozen-in-time Main Street and the mighty silhouette of the Rocky Mountains lining the west shouted Familiar, known, welcome back. Everything inside him shouted Don’t get too attached.

  He stepped inside Herbert’s Hardware store, momentarily forgetting his golden retriever Belay was attached like a bur to his left pant leg—the one that hid the prosthesis below his knee and allowed him to go through life with a semblance of normalcy.

  No doubt Herb preferred no animals inside, and since Belay wasn’t a full-on guide dog, she didn’t count. Some stores didn’t care either way, but Evan didn’t like to push or draw attention. He could walk fine without Belay, had been doing so for years. But he hadn’t known how much he needed the girl until she’d bounded into his world unapologetically after failing her guide-dog training.

  “Come on, Bel.” The day was in the mid-fifties and the sun was out. Even with yesterday’s dump of late spring snow, Belay would be fine waiting for him outside. Evan never had to worry about her bothering anyone. The opposite was more often true—people didn’t leave Belay alone. She was too much sunshine wrapped up in one animal—too hard for passing kids and adults to ignore.

  Back outside, he found a dry patch for her under the awning. The snow was already turning to rivers, rushing like rapids down the street, splashing under car tires. “Lay.” Belay obeyed but kept her head off the ground, perked, waiting to see if he’d change his mind. He tied her leash to the bike rack, just in case. “I’ll be back in a minute. You’ll be all right.”

  Her nose drooped as if she were a beauty queen he’d kicked out of a contest.

  Back inside, warmth caused him to unbutton his lined flannel. Evan snagged a cart and scooted through the aisles until he found the tile he’d be installing at his mom’s house. Herbert’s didn’t have an array of colors or shapes or sizes, but Evan was a simple man, and he’d begun fixing up his mom’s place accordingly. He and his brother Jace had agreed to the plan before he’d started patching what could be patched and repairing what needed to be repaired. As long as it was livable and clean and sellable, they’d be good to go.

  He was far more of an outdoorsman than indoor, but his mom’s house had been sitting for three months after her death, and he and Jace had decided it was time. Time to renovate. Time to sell. Time to bury another part of their mother.

  Deep, dark aching sadness like he’d only experienced once before to that level filled his throat, and the tiles swirled and changed shapes in front of him. He’d made it back to see his mom twice before she passed. At the end, when the doctor had told Evan to get home, that she was failing quickly, he’d done exactly that, but it had been too late to say goodbye.

  It was hard not to regret that now. Hard not to regret a lot of things.

  Jace was busy training to be an EMT. It had taken his brother some time to figure out what he wanted to do after retiring from bull riding, and Evan was just glad he’d picked another low-key profession. Insert eye roll. Not that he could blame his brother for needing the tick-tick of a kicked-up heart rate or the surge of adrenaline.

  They both experienced that same tug.

  Which explained why Evan climbed mountains and led groups of trauma victims past the edge of reason and into uncharted waters. There was something healing about doing what you couldn’t or shouldn’t do.

  What didn’t make sense to anyone else.

  His mom, somehow, had understood that. Another reason he missed her.

  Jace and his wife, Mackenzie, had already done enough getting rid of things and purging, cleaning out Mom’s place. It was Evan’s turn to step up.

  He hefted the boxes he needed into his cart, then added a container of grout and some spacers. Footsteps pitter-pattered down his aisle, and a little boy—toddler aged—stopped next to him.

  “Hi.” He shoved the roll of blue painting tape in his hand up to Evan like he was offering a gift to a king.

  “Hi.” Evan smiled. The kid had chocolate hair that sloped across his forehead and matching eyes filled with curiosity. His golden russet skin made Evan’s barely-able-to-hold-a-tan ruddy complexion pale in comparison.

  “Thanks, but you keep the tape.” Evan raised a palm to encourage the boy to hold on to his find, but the kid thrust the item at him again. Not sure what to do, he flipped his hand over. The boy dropped the tape into his palm and then scooted a few steps down the aisle. Removing a mixing paddle from its hook, he trotted back to Evan and placed that in his hand too. Before he could protest, the boy quickly added knee pads and a foam sponge to his loot.

  Did this kid have a mom or dad nearby? A scan of the aisle didn’t reveal anyone. Should he go up front and tell the person behind the counter? If someone wasn’t looking for the boy now, they surely would be any minute.

  While the tyke occupied himself by destroying any organization on the shelf near his level, Evan stealthily set down the items he’d been gifted and continued filling his cart with the supplies he needed. He wouldn’t leave the store without saying anything, but at the same time, he had work to get back to.

  When the little boy took a step into the main, larger aisle along the back of the store, a woman called out. “Sawyer! There you are. Remember you can’t leave Mommy. You have to stay right by me in the store.” There was something so familiar about the woman’s voice...or maybe Evan just recognized that concerned mom/stressed wobble he’d heard her stifle. But she had managed to keep herself calm and not rage at the kid for disappearing. Evan respected that. His mom had been calm too. She’d had a lot to deal with, especially with Dad, but she’d always been good to her sons.

  Dad, on the other hand, had been pretty worthless before getting himself killed in a bar brawl. Perhaps that was one of the reasons it wasn’t easy for Evan to come home. Jaded memories like that didn’t leave a kid when you asked nicely and said please. They stuck around for the long haul. Made it hard to remember that he and Jace had made something of themselves that their dad didn’t deserve one ounce of credit for.

  The boy, sensing he was about to be caught, made a break for it down the aisle Evan still occupied. Should he get out of the way? Block?

  Instinct had him slowly easing his cart so that it fit the whole space. The toddler had to pause to devise a new escape plan, and it gave his mom enough time to catch up to him. She swung him up into her arms.

  “Sawyer, you have to stay by Mommy.” Her eyes flashed to Evan’s. “Thanks for the assist.” Shock registered in her slacked jaw, and all five foot three inches of her froze. A whole truckload of Evan’s past rammed into him in the form of the lithe woman with waterfall black hair and honey-brown skin, compliments of her Filipino American heritage.

  “Addie.” Her name croaked out of him.

  “I didn’t know you were in town.”

  They said the exact same thing at the exact same time.

  “Hi.” The boy—Sawyer—obviously hadn’t had any lessons about uncomfortable situations, because he squirmed to be let down while greeting Evan once again. Or maybe the little tyke knew just what he was doing cracking the ice that had quickly formed.

  “Hi.” Evan’s response seemed to placate him, because he lifted his hand to wave, then studied his own little fingers.

  She put him down on the ground, and he snatched up
the blue tape, holding it in Addie’s direction. “I want tape, Mommy. Bue tape.”

  “You can get your bue tape, but I need you to stay in this aisle for me, okay?”

  “Okay, Mommy.” Sawyer began stacking and knocking over the items he’d previously removed from the bins and hooks.

  “So you’re...visiting?” Addie’s question was burdened with so much more than the innocent words, and Evan didn’t blame her. The same curiosity pressed down on him.

  “Yeah. I live in Chattanooga, Tennessee.” Though most of the time his apartment was empty while he traveled and led groups across the U.S. “I’m back because my mom died.” That probably wasn’t the best way to make that kind of announcement, but his brain was nowhere near working condition right now. Addie had always had that effect on him. He’d been hooked on her from the first time they’d met after the rodeo one night. He’d been dating Maisy Tilly at the time, but after one conversation with Addie, he’d broken up with Maisy.

  He still didn’t think Maisy had forgiven him for that.

  “I heard that. I’m so sorry, Evan.”

  “Thanks. I miss her.” Again with the randomness coming from his mouth. Evan wasn’t usually the most sensitive or emotional of creatures, but walking smack into his past messed with his vocal cords. And his ability to think, process or move, it seemed, because he was still glued to the same position he’d been in when they’d recognized each other. He peeled his hand from the cart and dropped it to his side, begging the limb to act as if it knew how to function in social situations. “I’m getting her house ready to sell. Jace and Mackenzie—my brother and his wife—did a bunch of the purging work already. And now I’m just here for the final touches.” How many things could Evan spit out that Addie didn’t care to know about him? “What about you?” He managed to stem the onslaught of useless info by changing the direction of the conversation.

  “I live here now.” Why did that shock him so much? It almost...hurt. What a strange reaction. “I’m reopening the bed-and-breakfast.”

  During the summers in high school, Addie had lived at Little Red Hen Bed & Breakfast with her mom’s cousin Alice and her husband, Benji, whom she affectionately referred to as Tita and Tito.

  But after that last summer, when she’d met Evan and things had gone so incredibly wrong so fast...Evan wasn’t sure she’d ever return.

  “Benji and Alice were always good to you.”

  Moisture pooled in those eyes that were a bottomless, dark well of things that had been and were no more. They pulled him in and latched on tight.

  “They were. That’s why I’m reopening the place. Because it’s what they wanted and what I wanted, and I just had to...” She shrugged. “I had to make that happen.”

  “Is that what your supplies are for?” She’d left her cart at the end of the aisle when she’d stopped to capture Sawyer, but it was filled with home-improvement supplies.

  Sawyer handed Addie a random assortment of his finds, and she absentmindedly accepted. “Yeah. Tita and Tito sold the B & B about two years ago. Tito had already been sick for a while at that point, and after he passed, Tita didn’t last long. It was as if her heart didn’t have a reason to keep pumping without him. The new owners started fixing up the bed-and-breakfast, but they didn’t get far before running out of money and defaulting on the loan. So I’m finishing the projects they started and trying to freshen things up before I hopefully reopen in time for Old Westbend Weekend.” She winced. “I’ve actually already taken some reservations for that weekend, so I don’t really have a choice. It has to get done.”

  Two and a half weeks. Wow. Evan didn’t know exactly what Addie was up against, but he could imagine it would take some elbow grease.

  “I assume you’ll have help.”

  Her head quirked, questioning. She was married, wasn’t she? The Addie he knew wouldn’t just hook up with someone. Granted, they were a bad example of that, but he’d always known her heart was much more conservative than they’d acted back then. They’d been teenagers—young and in love and stupid and careless. A winning combination. “I mean your husband. He must have some remodeling skills.” Especially if they’d taken on a project of this magnitude.

  “Actually, I’m divorced.” The wounding that flashed on her face cut into his chest with a dull butter knife.

  Over the years, despite how things had ended, he’d always held a soft spot in his heart for Addie. He’d hoped and prayed for good things for her—especially once he’d gotten over his anger at God and started talking to Him again. But in all his wondering of what had become of her, he’d never imagined this. Never imagined she’d be broken and bruised at twenty-six years old.

  His sympathies flared, and that Don’t get attached/don’t get involved mantra he’d been following since he’d arrived in town shot into the red zone. Addie was a once upon a time. A representation of what used to be. He was here for his mom...to get her place ready to sell, to honor her life somehow—whenever he figured out a way to do that—and to keep his existence as it was. With ten degrees of separation and a world to explore.

  Addie, though she tugged on his heartstrings, didn’t have anything to do with any of those.

  * * *

  Evan’s face registered with all that Addie Ricci felt over her situation—concern, disappointment, surprise.

  She had never planned to end up here. Divorced. Raising a child on her own. A decade of guilt and so much shame strapped to her back as a constant companion. And yet, the school bus of life had driven up, swung open the door and dumped her out on her rear end.

  “I’m fixing things up on my own.” The confession, as always, sent fear pulsing through her. What was she thinking? What was she doing taking on a project like this by herself? Believing she could run the B & B when she had no business training? She’d only stayed with Tito and Tita over three summers. Her mom’s older cousin and her husband had loved on Addie like she was a daughter. They’d always talked about her growing up to run the B & B someday. That dream had been planted in Addie from a young age. But with Tito’s sickness, things hadn’t gone as planned.

  They’d left Addie a small inheritance, and she’d saved it. The minute there’d been even a whisper of the B & B coming back on the market, Addie had launched her plan into action. She’d used the money for her down payment, and here she was, completely out of her league and determined beyond logic.

  Those summers in Colorado had been the best of her life. Addie had loved the small town of Westbend and the opportunity to explore at will. Helping out with guests, answering phones, taking reservations, serving breakfast. Even cleaning rooms had been fun because it had all been a novelty to her.

  That last summer in Westbend, she’d been less of a help, no doubt, because she’d been completely infatuated with the boy in front of her. Evan Hawke had been all sorts of temptation. Lean and muscular—he’d been riding bulls at the time, which had only added to his appeal. A bit of a risk taker, but when she’d gotten to know him, completely kind down to the marrow of his bones.

  She’d loved him fiercely.

  In the last ten years, Evan had changed from a boy into a man. Especially with that close-trimmed chestnut beard. His face, his shoulders, his build had all become more defined. The surge of attraction and interest Addie had experienced as a teenager stirred inside her even though Evan was the most off-limits of all the guys in the world.

  “The last time I saw you...” The last time Addie had seen Evan, he’d been laid out in a hospital bed, frightened and lost, enduring excruciating pain. The night Addie had convinced Tita and Tito to let her sleep in the chair next to his hospital bed so that his mom could get some rest had been agonizing. When all of the busyness of the doctors and medical staff and family and friends had faded, Evan had been left with only the agony from his amputation. He’d writhed and cried out, and she hadn’t been able to do anything to make it b
etter except beg the nurses for more medication for him.

  Evan rubbed a hand over his whiskered chin, the emotion she experienced at the memories seeming to surface for him too. “Yeah. That was the worst week of my life. And you stayed with me through it.”

  “Of course.” Addie had always known that Evan had been distracted the day of his accident because of her. Staying beside him, supporting him—she hadn’t wanted to be anywhere else. And when she’d had to go home to Michigan while Evan was still recovering and in shock...that had ripped a gaping hole in her chest.

  The man in front of her now made that time and those memories seem as if they’d only existed in her imagination. His pants and shoe hid the results of the amputation that had taken his foot and lower portion of his leg so well that if she hadn’t been present after his accident, she would never know a prosthesis hid beneath.

  But of course it had all happened.

  Including the aftermath. Their actions and his accident had contributed to a chain of events that Addie would never have imagined possible.

  “And then you had to go home.” Questions brimmed in his eyes, a shade of brown that reminded her of her favorite coconut latte.

  “Yes, I did.” And things had spiraled out of control so quickly. Her parents had found out what she and Evan had been up to, and they’d cut off their relationship. Not with a trimmer, but with a sharp shovel, chopping straight at the root.

  “But look at you now.” She motioned to him. “All grown up and put together. Successful from what I hear.” Just a few minutes in Evan’s presence and she could sense his quiet self-assurance. He seemed at peace with himself in a way that Addie had been striving for since that time.

  Reinstating the B & B was part of her attempt to reclaim her confidence, her life. To start over and leave the sins of her past behind. And yet one had just walked into the same store as her as a blatant reminder.