Betting On The Maverick (Montana Mavericks: What Happened At The Wedding 3)

by Cindy Kirk

  Once the ring was on her finger, they kissed again, a warm, wonderful kiss that carried the promise of a future as wide open as the Montana sky. When it ended, Brad stepped back and held out his arms.

  Then, under the full moon with the snow falling gently all around them, Margot and Brad danced.

  Epilogue

  “What do you think of this plan?” Brad spread the blueprints of the equestrian center on the coffee table in the parlor.

  Margot smiled at her fiancé’s enthusiasm.

  “Look.” He pointed. “This one has six stalls, a wash rack and tack room. The indoor arena has a fifteen-foot headroom, minimum.”

  “I do believe you’re as excited about finding the perfect plan as I am.”

  Brad grinned sheepishly. “I like the idea of having several stalls for boarding as well as the facilities so you can teach year-round.”

  “Want to keep me busy, huh?”

  “Not too busy.” Brad leaned over and nuzzled her neck.

  “I’ll never be too busy for this,” she agreed, reveling in the closeness.

  It had been a week since she’d accepted his proposal. They’d spent the days planning their future together. Brad had been stunned when she told him that she didn’t plan to continue competing. But he understood when she told him she didn’t want to spend so much time on the road. She wanted to spend it with him on the Leap of Faith.

  Besides, her business was on the verge of exploding. Sierra’s much improved performance at NILE had caused the parents of other barrel racers from the area to contact Margot about lessons.

  When Brad finally realized she was serious, he’d immediately gotten on board with planning what she’d need in order to help the business grow. Because of the climate in Montana, an indoor arena was a necessity. Adding an equestrian center to the ranch seemed to make sense.

  Considering that some students might not want to transport their horse back and forth, while others might want their horse to stay and be trained, making sure the structure had enough extra stalls to accommodate a growing business had become a priority.

  Margot tried to focus on the plans before her. But it wasn’t easy. Not with a sexy cowboy sitting on the sofa beside her. Brad’s hair was still damp from the shower and he’d splashed on some of her favorite cologne.

  Focus, Margot told herself, focus.

  “I think we should go with the optional stall package that includes the heavy-duty galvanized stall fronts, chew protection, rubber stall mats and Dutch door turnouts.” Margot cocked her head. “What do you think?”

  Brad’s slow grin did funny things to her insides. “I love it when you talk horsey. It’s so sexy.”

  “I’m being serious.” She laughed. “Or at least I’m trying.”

  “I’m serious, too. You are the most beautiful fiancée in Rust Creek Falls.”

  “I believe I’m the only fiancée in town right now.” She tapped his nose with the tip of her one finger. “What are you going to say when I’m your wife?”

  He paused, considered, grinned. “Hallelujah.”

  From the moment Brad had slipped the brilliant diamond on her finger, Margot had known he was eager to make her his wife. But he hadn’t pushed for them to firm up plans for the wedding. The date of the nuptials had been left up to her. She could take as long as she wanted to decide.

  It was too bad the townsfolk of Rust Creek Falls hadn’t gotten that message. Or, if they had, they’d chosen to ignore it.

  “Natalie asked me again if we’ve set a wedding date.”

  “She asked me, too,” Brad admitted.

  “What did you tell her?” Margot kept her voice just as casual as his.

  “I told her we were waiting to see if Boyd would come back.” He took her hand and held it loosely in his. “I’m having the Gazette run another article about your dad and mentioning the reward we’re offering for any information on Boyd’s whereabouts and what happened that night he left.”

  “Thank you.” Margot brushed a kiss across his cheek. “For everything. Including being so patient.”

  “If I had my choice, I’d have married you yesterday. But, like I said, I’m okay with waiting, if that’s what you want.”

  Margot’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “The pastor waylaid me on Sunday and asked when we wanted to reserve the church.”

  “Don’t let anyone pressure you.” His fingers tipped her face up and he kissed her gently on the lips. “This is your decision, not anyone else’s.”

  Swamped with love, Margot wrapped her arms around her fiancé and rested her head against his broad chest. “You are everything to me. You’re my friend, my confidant, my biggest supporter and the man I love with my whole heart.”

  “One day soon you’ll be my bride.” He gave a contented sigh. “I’m a lucky man.”

  Margot had never wanted a big wedding. Small and intimate was more her speed. Though she had to admit she’d always imagined her dad walking her down the aisle on her big day. But how could she put her and Brad’s life on hold for something she was starting to believe might never happen?

  She tipped her head back and stared up into Brad’s incredible green eyes. “Two words—Las Vegas.”

  Momentary disappointment clouded his gaze. “You found the tickets.”

  She pushed herself upright. “What tickets?”

  “The rodeo finals. The tickets were your birthday gift.”

  “My birthday isn’t until December third.”

  “Which just happens to be the first day of the finals,” he said with exaggerated patience.

  “I get the feeling we’re talking about two different things.” Margot put her hand to her spinning head. “What are you talking about?”

  “A birthday trip to Vegas.” Her words appeared to finally register and a big grin spread over his face. “You want to get married there.”

  “In December my dad will have been gone six months. I’m not willing to continue putting my life—our lives—on hold. I want to be your wife.” As she spoke, Margot’s excitement began to build. “We could do a destination wedding. Any family that wanted to make the trip could attend. Hopefully Leila could fly in and be my maid of honor.”

  Admiration filled his gaze. “You have it all thought out.”

  “I’m a determined woman and I’ve got my eye on the prize.”

  “The rodeo tickets?”

  “No, you goof, on you.” She grinned. “But the tickets are a great wedding gift.”

  “Birthday.”

  “The rodeo finals can be our honeymoon.” Margot’s gaze met his and her lips curved upward. “You can be my birthday gift.”

  “I like the idea of a December wedding.” Brad smiled and looped an arm around her shoulder. “Plus getting married in Vegas seems fitting.”

  “Because you’ve already purchased tickets to the finals?”

  He grinned. “Because one crazy bet led to the biggest jackpot of all.”

  As his lips closed over hers, Margot firmly agreed.

  * * * * *

  Don’t miss the next installment of the new

  Harlequin Special Edition continuity

  MONTANA MAVERICKS:

  WHAT HAPPENED AT THE WEDDING?

  Kristen Dalton shared a passionate kiss with her

  perfect cowboy on July Fourth—and then he

  disappeared! Now he’s back in town. Little does

  she know Ryan Roarke isn’t really a cowboy at all!

  But for her, he just might become one...

  Look for

  THE MAVERICK’S HOLIDAY MASQUERADE

  by Caro Carson

  Available soon, wherever

  Harlequin books and ebooks are sold.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from EVERGRE
EN SPRINGS by RaeAnne Thayne.

  SPECIAL EXCERPT FROM

  This Christmas, Cole Barrett isn’t expecting

  a miracle. He’s just trying to help his children

  grieve the loss of their mother. But when beautiful

  Devin Shaw bursts into their world, will Cole find

  a second-chance family under the mistletoe?

  Read on for a sneak preview of

  EVERGREEN SPRINGS,

  the latest book in New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne’s stunning series

  HAVEN POINT.

  http://www.harlequin.com/harlequinexperience

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  Evergreen Springs

  RaeAnne Thayne

  DEVIN CONCENTRATED, NIBBLING on her bottom lip as she tried to work the needles that seemed unwieldy and awkward, no matter how she tried.

  After her third time tangling the yarn into a total mess, Devin sighed and admitted defeat. Again. Every time they happened to be assigned to work together, Greta took a moment to try teaching her to knit. And every time, she came up short.

  “People who find knitting at all relaxing have to be crazy. I think I must have some kind of mental block. It’s just not coming.”

  “You’re not trying hard enough,” Greta insisted.

  “I am! I swear I am.”

  “Even my eight-year-old granddaughter can do it,” she said sternly. “Once you get past the initial learning curve, this is something you’ll love the rest of your life.”

  “I think it’s funny.” Callie Bennett, one of the other nurses and also one of Devin’s good friends, smirked as she observed her pitiful attempts over the top of her magazine.

  “Oh, yes. Hilarious,” Devin said drily.

  “It is! You’re a physician who can set a fractured radius, suture a screaming six-year-old’s finger and deliver a baby, all with your eyes closed.”

  “Not quite,” Devin assured her. “I open my eyes at the end of childbirth so I can see to cut the umbilical cord.”

  Callie chuckled. “Seriously, you’re one of the best doctors at this hospital. I love working with you and wish you worked here permanently. You’re cool under pressure and always seem to know just how to deal with every situation. But I hate to break it to you, hon, you’re all thumbs when it comes to knitting, no matter how hard you try.”

  “I’m going to get the hang of this tonight,” she insisted. “If Greta’s eight-year-old granddaughter can do it, so can I.”

  She picked up the needles again and concentrated under the watchful eye of the charge nurse until she’d successfully finished the first row of what she hoped would eventually be a scarf.

  “Not bad,” Greta said. “Now, just do that about four hundred more times and you might have enough for a decent-sized scarf.”

  Devin groaned. Already, she was wishing she had stuck to reading the latest medical journals to pass the time instead of trying to knit yet again.

  “I’ve got to go back to my office and finish the schedule for next month,” Greta said. “Keep going and remember—ten rows a day keeps the psychiatrist away.”

  Devin laughed but didn’t look up from the stitches.

  “How do you always pick the slowest nights to fill in?” Callie asked after Greta left the nurses’ station.

  “I have no idea. Just lucky, I guess.”

  It wasn’t exactly true. Her nights weren’t always quiet. The past few times she had substituted for the regular emergency department doctors at Lake Haven Hospital had been low-key like this one, but that definitely wasn’t always the case. A month earlier, she worked the night of the first snowfall and had been on her feet all night, between car accidents, snow shovel injuries and a couple of teenagers who had taken a snowmobile through a barbed-wire fence.

  Like so much of medicine, emergency medicine was all a roll of the dice.

  Devin loved her regular practice as a family physician in partnership with Russell Warrick, who had been her own doctor when she was a kid. She loved having a day-to-day relationship with her patients and the idea that she could treat an entire family from cradle to grave.

  Even so, she didn’t mind filling in at the emergency department when the three rotating emergency medicine physicians in the small hospital needed an extra hand. The challenge and variety of it exercised her brain and sharpened her reflexes—except tonight, when the only thing sharp seemed to be these knitting needles that had become her nemesis.

  She was on her twelfth row when she heard a commotion out in the reception area.

  “We need a doctor here, right now.”

  “Can you tell me what’s going on?” Devin heard the receptionist ask in a calm voice.

  Devin didn’t wait around to hear the answer. She and Callie both sprang into action. Though the emergency department usually followed triage protocol, with prospective patients screened by one of the certified nurse assistants first to determine level of urgency, that seemed superfluous when the newcomers were the only patients here. By default, they automatically moved to the front of the line, since there wasn’t one.

  She walked through the doorway to the reception desk and her initial impression was of a big, tough-looking man, a very pregnant woman in one of the hospital wheelchairs and a couple of scared-looking kids.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Are you a doctor?” the man demanded. “I know how emergency rooms work. You tell your story to a hundred different people before you finally see somebody who can actually help you. I don’t want to go through that.”

  She gave a well-practiced smile. “I’m Dr. Shaw, the attending physician here tonight. What seems to be the problem?”

  “Devin? Is that you?”

  The pregnant woman looked up and met her gaze and Devin immediately recognized her. “Tricia! Hello.”

  Tricia Barrett had been a friend in high school, though she hadn’t seen her in years. Barrett had been her maiden name, anyway. Devin couldn’t remember the last name of the man she married.

  “Hi,” Tricia said, her features pale and her arms tight on the armrests of the wheelchair. “I would say it’s great to see you again, but, well, not really, under these circumstances. No offense.”

  Devin stepped closer to her and gave her a calming smile. “None taken. Believe me, I get it. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

  Tricia shifted in the wheelchair. “Nothing. Someone is overreacting.”

  “She slipped on a patch of ice about an hour ago and hurt her ankle.” The man with her overrode her objections. “I’m not sure it’s broken but she needs an X-ray.”

  At first she thought he might be Tricia’s husband but on closer inspection, she recognized him, only because she’d seen him around town here and there over the past few years.

  Cole Barrett, Tricia’s older brother, was a rather hard man to overlook—six feet two inches of gorgeousness, with vivid blue eyes, sinfully long eyelashes and sun-streaked brown hair usually hidden by a cowboy hat.

  He had been wild back in the day, if she remembered correctly, and still hadn’t l
ost that edgy, bad-boy outlaw vibe.

  In a small community like Haven Point, most people knew each other—or at least knew of each other. She hadn’t met the man but she knew he lived in the mountains above town and that he had inherited a sprawling, successful ranch from his grandparents.

  If memory served, he had once been some kind of hotshot rodeo cowboy.

  With that afternoon shadow and his wavy brown hair a little disordered, he looked as if he had just climbed either off a horse or out of some lucky woman’s bed. Not that it was any of her business. Disreputable cowboys were definitely not her type.

  Devin dismissed the man from her mind and focused instead on her patient, where her attention should have been in the first place.

  “Have you been able to put weight on your ankle?”

  “No, but I haven’t really tried. This is all so silly,” Tricia insisted. “I’m sure it’s not broken.”

  She winced suddenly, her face losing another shade or two of color, and pressed a hand to her abdomen.

  Devin didn’t miss the gesture and her attention sharpened. “How long have you been having contractions?”

  “I’m sure they’re only Braxton Hicks.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Thirty-four weeks. With twins, if you couldn’t tell by the basketball here.”

  Her brother frowned. “You’re having contractions? Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because you’re already freaking out over a stupid sprained ankle. I didn’t want to send you into total panic mode.”

  “What’s happening?” the girl said. “What are contractions?”

  “It’s something a woman’s body does when she’s almost ready to have a baby,” Tricia explained.

  “Are you having the babies tonight?” she asked, big blue eyes wide. “I thought they weren’t supposed to be here until after Christmas.”