by B. J Daniels
The deer’s ears twitched as if it had heard something. Its head came up and the young buck looked right at Poppy. Big brown eyes blinked. The deer turned back to the water and took another drink before disappearing back into the pines.
“I wondered where you’d gotten off to,” Will said as he came up behind her and put his arms around her, pulling her close.
“Did you see the deer?” she asked.
“Hmm,” he said as he nuzzled her neck.
Poppy leaned back against him. “It’s so beautiful here. I can never thank you enough for saving this old house.”
“I couldn’t let it be torn down. Too many memories of you and that creek.” He chuckled. She could feel the sound reverberating against her back, his words going straight to her heart. “I remember the first time I saw you wading in it,” he said quietly as if seeing the twelve-year-old girl she’d been. “It was before we even met. I’d heard that someone was living in this house, but you were the last person I expected to see.
“It had been one of those clear, sunny early-summer days when the creek was still running ice cold,” he continued. “But there you were, this wraith of a girl. You had your jeans rolled up to your knees. I remember your hair. It looked like fire in the sunlight. You had it pulled up off your neck in a ponytail. But it was the expression on your face that intrigued me.” He chuckled. “All those freckles and those eyes of yours. I’d never seen a color green like that before.”
“What expression was that?” she asked.
“That intense determination of yours. You were going to cross that creek even though the current was strong and the water was freezing.”
She turned a little to look back at him in surprise. “You never told me this.”
“With good reason. I could see that you were headed right for a deep hole. I thought about warning you, but decided to just let you go under in that cold water and see how you liked it.”
“You were all boy at fifteen.”
He laughed. “Wasn’t I, though. I wanted to see what you’d do. I figured you’d cry and half drown and I’d have to save your life.”
She smiled and turned back to the window, seeing that day through his eyes. “Of course that fifteen-year-old thought you’d have to save me.”
“I waited. You took another step and then another and down you went and, sure enough, you were swept up in the current. I started to race after you, but darned if you didn’t save yourself. And instead of crying, you came out of that freezing water fighting mad.”
She remembered that day. Being from the Midwest, she’d never known water that cold. It had sucked away her breath, numbed her entire body and given her an ice cream headache.
“Once you got your footing again at the edge of the other side of the creek, though, you started laughing. I couldn’t believe it. I stood in the pines and watched you, completely enchanted. You hadn’t seen me. You had your face turned up to the sun and you laughed as if that was the best adventure ever.”
They both grew silent for a few moments.
“That laugh of yours,” he said. “It was music to my ears. Still is.” He kissed her neck, nibbling at her earlobe and making her shiver with a need that only intensified with each day they shared together as a married couple. “Your laugh hasn’t changed. I fell in love with that freckle-faced soaking-wet girl that day.”
She turned in his arms and smiled up at him. “Took you long enough to admit it.”
He chuckled. “You do realize that the moment I saw you again all those old feelings came rushing back. True, they were all tangled up with that last day we were together and the guilt and regret I felt for hurting you—and losing you since I thought I would never see you again.”
Poppy squinted her eyes suspiciously at him. “Is that what you were thinking when you saw me that day standing in the kitchen of the guest ranch after all those years?”
“That and ‘I sure hope this woman can cook.’”
Poppy swatted playfully at him. “Admit it, it was my cooking that got to you.”
“Oh, your cooking could steal any man’s heart, but for this cowboy? It’s those freckles.” He laughed and swung her up into his arms before she could swat him again.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded as he carried her toward their bedroom.
“I’m going to make love to you, woman.”
“Now that is music to my ears,” she said and smiled at her husband, the cowboy she’d fallen for at twelve, the man who’d made her dreams come true.
And in that moment, she saw the future so clearly that she felt she could almost reach out and touch it. Her belly swollen with child and Will fussing over her. In a blink of the eye, she saw more children. They filled up this large old log cabin with a cacophony of joyful sounds and had the run of the ranch. She saw Will teaching each of them how to ride, so young that their fat little legs were barely long enough to fit over the saddle.
In another blink, there were the two of them sitting out on the porch overlooking the creek, their hair streaked with gray, their faces wrinkled from laughter and the Montana weather. Their gazes soft with everything they’d shared.
She saw them, the two of them sitting out there watching deer come down to the creek for a drink. And Will reaching over to take her hand as the evening sun dipped behind the mountains.
“Oh, the memories,” he whispered. “Oh, the memories.”
* * *
Poppy’s Oatmeal Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze
In a bowl, put 1½ cups hot water. Add 1 cup oatmeal. Set aside.
In mixing bowl, cream ½ cup butter, 1 cup brown sugar and 1 cup granulated sugar.
Add two eggs, mix. Add 1½ cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
Add oats and water mixture.
Pour into a 9x13-inch greased cake pan.
Bake at 350°F for 30 to 35 minutes.
Brown sugar glaze:
Boil ½ cup butter, 1½ cups brown sugar and 4 tablespoons evaporated milk for 1 minute.
Serve over warm cake with ice cream or whipped cream.
Easy Coconut Pie
Mix together:
2 cups canned evaporated milk
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs, beaten
½ cup flour
6 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup coconut
Pour into greased 10-inch pie plate. Bake at 350°F for 50 to 55 minutes or until a knife blade inserted in the center comes out clean. This pie makes its own crust.
Serve warm.
Poppy’s Guest Ranch Brownies
½ cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
⅔ cup flour
⅔ cup nuts, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 squares chocolate, melted, or ⅓ cup cocoa
½ teaspoon salt
Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Add flour, salt, vanilla, chocolate and nuts.
Bake in 8-inch square pan at 325°F for 20 to 25 minutes. Don’t overbake.
Garrett Sterling has a second chance at love with the woman he could never forget.
Can he keep both of them alive long enough to see if their relationship has a future?
Read on for a sneak preview of Luck of the Draw,
the second book in the Sterling’s Montana series
by New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author B.J. Daniels.
New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author B.J. Daniels starts her Sterling’s Ranch series off with a bang in these suspenseful stories of romance and revenge. Watch for the first three books in this series!
Stroke of Luck
Luck of the Draw
Just Hi
s Luck
“Super read by an excellent writer. Recommended!”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller on Renegade’s Pride
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Luck of the Draw
by B.J. Daniels
CHAPTER ONE
GARRETT STERLING BROUGHT his horse up short as something across the deep ravine caught his eye. A fierce wind swayed the towering pines against the mountainside as he dug out his binoculars. He could smell the rain in the air. Dark clouds had gathered over the top of Whitefish Mountain. If he didn’t turn back soon, he would get caught in the summer thunderstorm. Not that he minded it all that much, except the construction crew working at the guest ranch would be anxious for the weekend and their paychecks. Most in these parts didn’t buy into auto deposit.
Even as the wind threatened to send his Stetson flying and he felt the first few drops of rain dampen his long-sleeved Western shirt, he couldn’t help being curious about what he’d glimpsed. He’d seen something moving through the trees on the other side of the ravine.
He raised the binoculars to his eyes, waiting for them to focus. “What the hell?” When he’d caught movement, he’d been expecting elk or maybe a deer. If he was lucky, a bear. He hadn’t seen a grizzly in this area in a long time, but it was always a good idea to know if one was around.
But what had caught his eye was human. He was too startled to breathe for a moment. A large man moved through the pines. He wasn’t alone. He had hold of a woman’s wrist in what appeared to be a death grip and was dragging her behind him. She seemed to be struggling to stay on her feet. It was what he saw in the man’s other hand that had stolen his breath. A gun.
Garrett couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Surely, he was wrong. Through the binoculars, he tried to keep track of the two. But he kept losing them as they moved through the thick pines. His pulse pounded as he considered what to do.
His options were limited. He was too far away to intervene and he had a steep ravine between him and the man with the gun. Nor could he call for help—as if help could arrive in time. There was no cell phone coverage this far back in the mountains outside of Whitefish, Montana.
Through the binoculars, he saw the woman burst out of the trees and realized that she’d managed to break away from the man. For a moment, Garrett thought she was going to get away. But the man was larger and faster and was on her quickly, catching her and jerking her around to face him. He hit her with the gun, then put the barrel to her head as he jerked her to him.
“No!” Garrett cried, the sound lost in the wind and crackle of thunder in the distance. Dropping the binoculars onto his saddle, he drew his sidearm from the holster at his hip and fired a shot into the air. It echoed across the wide ravine, startling his horse.
As he struggled to holster the pistol again and grab the binoculars, a shot from across the ravine filled the air, echoing back at him. And then another and another and another. Four shots, all in quick succession. He winced at each one as he hurriedly grabbed up the binoculars again and lifted them to his eyes. His hands shook as he tried to locate the spot on the mountainside across the ravine where he’d last seen the two people.
With dread, he saw what appeared to be a leg on the ground, sticking out of the tall grass, where the two had been only moments ago. He quickly looked around for the man. In the dense trees, he caught the blur of someone running back in the direction where he’d originally spotted the two.
He focused again on what he could see of the body on the ground. The leg hadn’t moved.
In the distance, he heard the faint sound of a car engine roaring to life. He swung the binoculars to the end of the ridgeline and saw a dark blue SUV speeding away. It was too far away to get more than that. It quickly disappeared in the trees.
Garrett swore. At moments like this, he wished he had cell phone coverage on the mountain. But his father had always argued that being off the grid was the appeal of Sterling’s Montana Guest Ranch. No cell phones, no TV, no internet. Nothing but remote, wild country.
Reining his horse around, he took off down the trail back to the guest ranch lodge. It had begun to rain by the time he leaped off his horse and hurried inside.
He used the landline to call Sheriff Sid Anderson.
“I just witnessed a murder,” he said when the sheriff came on the line. He quickly told him what he’d witnessed, including giving him what information he could about the SUV that he’d seen roaring away.
“You fired a shot into the air?” the sheriff asked. “So the killer saw you?”
He hadn’t thought of that. “From across the ravine. I don’t think the killer is concerned about me.”
“Let’s hope not,” Sid said. “You think you can take me to the body?”
“Meet me where Red Meadow Road connects with the forest service property and I’ll take you to the spot.”
“Twenty minutes. I’ll be there. But be careful,” the sheriff warned. “The killer might not have gone far. Or he might be on the way to your guest ranch.”
Don’t miss
Luck of the Draw by B.J. Daniels,
available June 2019 wherever
Harlequin® books and ebooks are sold.
www.Harlequin.com
Copyright © 2019 by Barbara Heinlein
ISBN-13: 9781488098925
Stroke of Luck
Copyright © 2019 by Barbara Heinlein
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