Her Cowboy Billionaire Best Friend_A Whittaker Brothers Novel

by Liz Isaacson

  “It just needed more time in the oven.”

  “Teeth brushed,” Bailey announced, and Graham spun around, hoping she hadn’t heard him.

  “Great,” Laney said. “Graham’s driving us to church.”

  Once they were loaded up, Graham wished he owned a truck so he could have Laney’s leg pressed right against his. Her perfume and her presence filled the SUV, but he wanted to hold her hand, feel the warmth of her body, and kiss her at every stop sign.

  As it was, he made small talk about his brothers, asked about her mother, and engaged Bailey in a conversation about a school project she was doing about Martin Luther King for the upcoming holiday.

  The church sat on the corner of Ponderosa and Third, a quaint, old building made of pink brick. Additions had been put on the back and north side for additional classrooms, and a large, field stretched toward a copse of trees. The pastor’s wife held potlucks in the summer on that field, and relay races, and barbeques.

  Graham liked being part of this community, and as he walked into the church, his hand securely in Laney’s, more than a few people looked his way. He didn’t mind. He was used to staring whenever he left the lodge, as it didn’t happen often.

  Usually at church, though, people had gotten used to him being there. No, he didn’t say much, but neither did a whole lot of other cowboys in Coral Canyon.

  “You survived the storm,” a woman said, and Graham turned toward the sound to find Bonnie standing there beaming at him. “Come sit by us. Hello, Laney.” She positively beamed at the pair of them, and Graham almost rolled his eyes.

  Bonnie bounced her baby boy on her hip and gestured. “Come on, come on. Sam will be glad to see you.”

  Graham looked at Laney, who shrugged slightly. So he followed Bonnie into the chapel and down to almost the front. “Really?” he hissed to his friends. “Could we be any more on display?”

  “Scoot over, Sam,” Bonnie said in a voice she couldn’t think was quiet. “Graham and Laney are here with Bailey.”

  Surprise streamed across Sam’s face, but he collected the diaper bag and moved down the bench a bit. Not nearly enough, but another family had already taken up the other half. Graham squeezed himself onto the bench, as did Laney and Bailey.

  Well, he’d gotten his wish of Laney’s leg flush against his, her hand gripping his, but he wasn’t going to kiss her. Not here on the third row where every busybody in town could see. Not in church at all—unless they’d just said “I do,” and she was now his wife.

  Wife.

  The word bounced around inside his head, making it hard to hear the pastor’s sermon. Finally, Graham pulled himself together and managed to hear the last ten minutes of Pastor Landy’s message. The pastor was younger than him, something Graham appreciated, as he felt like the man understood what it was like to live in today’s world.

  Though Graham hadn’t heard the whole thing, he’d gotten the gist of the message—the Savior loved and accepted everyone, even the sinner. They had the same responsibility.

  Graham thought about Mike. It was hard to love and accept him. And forgiving him? Graham had only met the man once, and he hadn’t liked what he’d done to Laney.

  You’re still a work-in-progress, he told himself. The meeting ended, and he spoke with Sam and Bonnie for a few minutes.

  “You three should come to dinner,” Bonnie said, an abnormally huge smile on her face.

  “Oh, we—”

  “Yeah, that would be fun,” Laney interrupted him. She stood and ushered Bailey into the aisle. “We’ll wait for you in the lobby.” With that, she left, and Graham watched her go until she was out of earshot. Then he turned back to Bonnie.

  “I’m forty years old,” he growled. “You’re embarrassing me.”

  Bonnie trilled out a laugh and patted Graham’s arm like he was her son. “You’re doing just fine. She held your hand for the whole meeting.”

  “Stop it,” he said, though a sliver of happiness threaded through him. “She seems to like me, right?”

  Bonnie sobered, though the sparkle in her eyes didn’t go out. “Graham. Of course she likes you. I told you the two of you would be good together.”

  “I know.” Her suggestion had plagued him for weeks, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “Okay, well, now that we’re back to normal life, I don’t get to see her much. So I’ll see you guys later.”

  “Graham?” Sam stood, the diaper bag over his shoulder making him into such a dad. “Just be yourself.”

  Graham nodded and made his way toward the lobby, which seemed to swarm with people. Laney stood near her mother, talking, and Graham joined them.

  “Afternoon, ma’am.” He tipped his hat at her mother. “Would you like to join us for lunch today?”

  “What’s Celia making?”

  “Oh, she’s off today.” He leaned down, a smile on his face and pure joy in his heart. “But she left a pizza noodle casserole in the fridge.”

  “I love that stuff,” Bailey said, and Graham chuckled.

  “Me too, kid,” he said. “Me too.”

  Days later, Mother Nature decided Wyoming didn’t have enough snow. Somehow, six feet didn’t satisfy her, and Graham trekked through the falling flakes to the barn to make sure his animals had enough to eat and drink and would stay cozy in the stables. He thought of Laney, and as soon as he made it out of the weather, he texted her to offer his help.

  I’d love that, she responded. I’ll wait for you to come down.

  So while he had reports to read and three phone calls from the general manager of Springside to return, he methodically went through what it took to maintain his animals and then he drove down to Laney’s house.

  He knocked at the same time he opened the door, calling, “Laney? Bailey?”

  “In the kitchen,” Laney called.

  Graham closed the door, hoping he hadn’t let in too much cold. Something didn’t feel quite right in the house, but he found Laney spreading caramel popcorn on a long sheet of waxed paper on the island.

  “Mm, this looks good.” But he didn’t snatch a chunk of the warm treat. He wrapped his arms around Laney and buried his face in the hollow of her neck while she giggled. He couldn’t believe how right it felt to be with her, how easy it was.

  None of his other relationships had been this simple, this carefree, this wonderful, and he wondered if it was too easy.

  “Stop it,” she said. “Bailey’s right over there.”

  But the little girl lay asleep on the couch. Graham kissed Laney and said, “Well, get dressed so we can go get your horses fed. It’s really coming down out there.”

  She did, and they got her farm all taken care of. He liked working with her, liked watching her whisper to the horses and talk to the barn dogs like they were real friends. He enjoyed her strength and drive, and as they walked back to the house, he thought he might be in love with Laney McAllister.

  She opened the back door and entered the house, along with a gust of wind. Graham followed her, glad for the warmth inside.

  But it wasn’t right. It wasn’t warm enough.

  Laney seemed to notice too, because she said, “I need to check the furnace.” She kept her coat and boots on as she went downstairs, and a few minutes later, she came back up wearing a worried look.

  “It’s out,” she said. “The pilot light is out and I can’t get it back on.” She picked up her phone and started dialing.

  “So you’ll just come up to the lodge,” he said.

  She shook her head, pressed her lips together, and said, “Hey, Mom. Can Bailey and I come stay with you tonight? My furnace is out.”

  Chapter 19

  Laney would not cry in front of Graham again. Oh, no, she would not. Her mom said something—Laney’s basic functions of breathing seemed to be working, but nothing else. Just like her stupid furnace—and she said, “Yeah, okay.”

  All she could think about was how much a new furnace would cost. And it was only mid-January and her hay s
upply would have to be supplemented with purchased feed, as she wouldn’t be able to make it stretch to the summer.

  No matter how much she worked, she couldn’t get enough hay in, didn’t have enough money, couldn’t find the strength she normally reached down deep and grasped.

  A sob stuck in her chest, and she took a few steps away from Graham and Bailey, sitting on the couch. She said something into the phone as if she was still on the call, and then she ducked into her bedroom.

  She barely had the wherewithal to close the door before she dropped to her knees and let the phone fall to the floor. Surprisingly, her tears didn’t come. Just pure desperation mixed with quite a large dose of panic.

  Tipping her face toward the ceiling, she asked, “What should I do?”

  Life had never quite beaten her so badly. She didn’t want to take Bailey and go into town, because it was a twenty-minute drive out to the ranch. And that was an hour each way, something she had to do twice every day. She didn’t have time for that.

  But she wouldn’t move back into the lodge with Graham, especially since there was no one else there anymore. Their relationship seemed too intimate for that, and it simply didn’t feel right.

  The cabin came into her mind. It had heat, a huge fireplace, a small kitchen, and was located much more conveniently.

  With this new idea lifting her spirits, she thanked the Lord for His help and got to her feet. Several seconds passed before she felt like she could face this new challenge, before she could return to the living room and set things in motion.

  Graham would help her pack a cooler and whatever she needed from her pantry. If she asked him, he’d probably go to the grocery store for her. Or at least send Celia. That amended thought brought a tiny smile to her face, but when she stepped into the living room, Bailey sat on the couch alone.

  “Where’s Graham?” Laney asked.

  Bailey didn’t even look up from her tablet. “I don’t know.”

  Annoyance flowed through Laney now, and that horrible anxiety that was never far from the surface these days. For months now, if Laney were being honest. Hadn’t she been praying for a miracle for months?

  “Did he leave?”

  “His phone rang.”

  Laney strode toward Bailey, ready to rip that tablet from her hands. “Can you put that thing down?”

  Bailey lowered the tablet at the sharp tone in Laney’s voice. She pressed her eyes closed for a moment and tried to calm down, tried to think.

  “Okay,” she said with a long sigh. “We can’t stay here. The furnace is out. We’re going to the cabin, so go pack a bag.”

  Bailey blinked at her, her childlike innocence endearing. “How long will we be there?”

  “I don’t know, honestly.” Laney was toying with the idea of staying indefinitely. She couldn’t afford a new furnace until the fall at the earliest, and they didn’t need this huge homestead to be happy.

  She looked out the back windows, expecting to see Graham on the deck, but he wasn’t there. “Go on.” She could do this herself. She’d done plenty of hard things over the years. “I’m going to pack up some food.”

  Her heart wailed that Graham had abandoned her right when she needed him most. That’s not true, she told herself as she loaded milk, eggs, and butter into a cooler. But he didn’t return, and when she opened the garage to put the cooler in the back of her truck, his SUV didn’t sit in the driveway.

  She pulled out her phone and sent him a text. Where did you go?

  She’d never known Graham to have his phone more than six inches from him, but he didn’t answer immediately. Laney went back in the house and packed a bag with enough to keep her going for over a week. The cabin didn’t have a washer or dryer, but she could go to the Laundromat.

  She hauled out dog food, toiletries, two boxes of food, and her and Bailey’s bags. By the time she was ready to go, the house was definitely chilly, darkness was falling, and Graham still hadn’t answered.

  Laney pressed against the tears and reached her hand toward Bailey. “Come on, bug. Call the dogs and let’s go.”

  Graham answered hours later with only a few words: Work emergency. Call you later.

  Laney had to accept it, the same way she’d accepted Mike’s decision to leave her and their toddler on a ranch much too big for them to take care of by themselves. But she’d done it for years now, and she would keep doing the best she could.

  She knew Graham worked a lot. He was the CEO of a very large energy company that had faced its share of controversy over the years. She couldn’t expect him to spend Thursday evenings doing her chores—or any evening really.

  But by the time she’d finally loaded everything she’d packed into the cabin, she was exhausted mentally, physically, and spiritually. She helped Bailey get ready for bed, and then she crawled into a hot bath, utterly spent.

  And finally, the tears came and she let them fall into the bathwater, where at least they were hidden.

  Graham did not call her later that night, nor the next day, nor over the weekend. Laney had sent him a few texts that also went unanswered, and she felt like someone had reached into her chest and ripped out her heart.

  Half of her still believed he’d show up on Sunday morning, wearing those delicious church clothes with his cowboy hat, and ask her to go to church with him. He didn’t, but he did finally send a message that said, I had to leave town. Text me what Pastor Landy says?

  Leave town? she messaged back. Where are you?

  Energy Summit in New York. I’ll explain it all later.

  Of course he couldn’t be bothered to provide proper explanations when she needed them. He’d always done everything on his timetable, and bitterness accompanied Laney as she readied herself for church.

  By the time the pastor started speaking, Laney wanted to leave. She was used to sitting by herself, but not used to people staring at her, unasked questions in their eyes. Where’s Graham this week? Did you two break up already?

  She hadn’t kept tabs on his church attendance. She had a crush, not an obsession. But it seemed like everyone with two eyes knew he wasn’t there, and especially not with her. As Pastor Landy spoke about charity and loving everyone—a repeated topic for him already in this new year—Laney managed to talk herself out of being mad and feeling abandoned.

  After all, if her job required her to jet off to New York, she’d have gone. Well, maybe. Depending on how much it cost.

  The bitterness had moved from her heart into her stomach, and it didn’t seem fair that God had blessed others with so much money and her so little. She didn’t need grandeur, pomp, or recognition. She just wanted to keep the ranch that had been in the Boyd family for four generations.

  She closed her eyes as a headache started to pound in her forehead. Please help me, Lord, she prayed. Help me to be grateful for what I have and find a way to get what I need.

  She didn’t feel like she was being greedy for wanting a furnace that worked when it was ten below zero outside. A sense of calmness came over her, and she knew things would work out all right. She’d felt this way before—once when Graham had left Coral Canyon and they’d fallen out of touch.

  And once when Mike had declared he couldn’t stay in Wyoming for another day, packed a bag, and left that night.

  She’d been in turmoil during both of those times and received the comfort she needed, the strength to pick herself up and try for another day.

  “That’s all you need,” she whispered to herself.

  “What, Momma?”

  “Nothing, Bay.” She tucked her daughter into her side and breathed in the soft, peach scent of her hair. “Nothing.”

  But she just needed to get through one day at a time.

  The next day, she called a furnace repairman, who confirmed that the entire unit needed to be replaced. She did her chores, and worked with Bailey on her math, and made it through the day.

  Cabin life wasn’t fun, and she busied herself by texting Graham, hoping whatever
meeting he was in would be boring enough to get him to respond.

  The sting when he didn’t was too much for her to bear along with everything else, so she kept her phone in her pocket the following evening. And the next night too.

  Thursday came again, a whole week since she’d seen Graham, heard his voice, or had any real conversation with him at all.

  She juggled Bailey, homework, pets, animals, the ranch, making dinner, and housework as best as she could. Every day that passed was another day she’d made it through. By the weekend, Bailey had come down with something and Laney was up all night and all day with her while she ran a fever and threw up anything she ate.

  Laney got up on Sunday morning, still tired and beyond frustrated. How long would the Lord let this go on? She couldn’t think about Graham for another minute, and yet, he was always there, taking up space and energy in her mind.

  She couldn’t fix the furnace, but it lingered in her brain too, taunting her, reminding her how much of a failure she was.

  Bailey seemed better, but not well enough to go to church, and that was just fine with Laney. She wasn’t fit to leave the cabin anyway.

  “This isn’t a life,” she said to her reflection. She wore a pair of yoga pants and an oversized sweatshirt, the dark circles under her eyes almost a complement to the grungy clothes. “This is a terrible way to live.”

  Sadness enveloped her, and the very thought of having to do another round of feeding that night made her head swim and tears prick her eyes.

  “I can’t do this.” She twisted away from her reflection and went to find her phone. She could solve some of her problems with a few texts and phone calls, and she was tired of feeling sorry for herself, tired of being so dang tired, and unwilling to live in this depressive turmoil for one more day.

  “Hey, Jake,” she said when the man answered. “You still lookin’ for work?” She couldn’t afford to pay him, not really, but she’d figure it out. She’d go to the bank tomorrow and get whatever loan she needed to pay a hired hand and get her furnace fixed. It was just money. She could make more once calf season came and she had beef and cattle to sell.