Sassy Cowgirl Kisses
Kathy Fawcett
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
54. Chapter 54
55. Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Other books by Kathy Fawcett
About the Author
© 2021 Kathy Fawcett
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact [email protected]
Cover by Steve Fawcett
Sassy Cowgirl Kisses is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual locations, is purely coincidental.
Chapter 1
“Thirty seven, thirty eight, thirty nine,” Sassy counted off in a rather boisterous voice. Her shouting didn’t bother anybody, since there was no one to hear her. No people, that is.
“Hey, sheep, hold still. I’m almost done.”
She hadn’t yet counted the one closest to her car, she was saving him for last. Number forty boldly met her stare and answered her yell with a loud Maaa of his own. He was the troublemaker; the one that wouldn’t give her the courtesy of averting his eyes when she threw off her day clothes under the clear blue sky and slipped into her pink bikini.
And why not?
The day was warm, the sun was high, and not a single car had come by in the two hours she’d been stranded there. The likelihood of somebody catching her in her altogether was slim to none. And the bikini was a welcome change from the denims and khakis she wore to work at the Wyoming ranch where she was interning for the summer.
“Don’t judge,” she said to number forty as she tied the narrow string around her neck and smoothed on SPF 30—though not in that order. “This whole little interlude is your fault; you came this close to being a lambchop. I might as well soak up some sun while I wait for help.”
Sassy laughed to herself at the irony of the situation. Having recently graduated with a degree in accounting, along with certifications in farm and livestock management, it just made sense that inevitably she’d find herself counting sheep.
When she left earlier to enjoy her day off, Sassy figured she was prepared for anything. Freda, her house mate and co-worker, schooled the Midwest-raised Sassy on the perils of mountain roads before they went their separate ways—Freda, to see her family two hours away, and Sassy to go adventuring.
“Out here, even the main roads are stingy with their gas stations,” Freda cautioned. “The back roads are downright withholding.”
Taking Freda at her word, Sassy made one of her trademark lists before heading out.
Ten gallons of gas in the car.
Twelve bottles of drinking water in a cooler.
One each: a phone charger and a chicken sandwich.
Two running shoes.
This last item may have seemed unnecessary to write down, but she actually showed up for college track once with only one running shoe in her backpack. It was not her finest moment.
Under her miscellaneous column, Sassy wrote beach bag, which was stuffed in her trunk and meticulously packed with a towel, bathing suit, sunscreen and a first-aid kit. Lastly, there was one folding chair for napping in the sun, or just sitting quietly with her camera.
By her calculations, the young accountant figured she had been ready for anything.
Anything, that is, except a herd of sheep in the road as she came around a blind curve. She had no choice but to swerve off into a big rock where her little car remained—tire as flat as a pancake. Sassy could change a tire, her daddy had seen to that, but not when it was jammed tight against a boulder, in a field of prickly sagebrush.
Considering the complete lack of cell phone reception, Sassy was in a pickle.
She was not prepared for the unknown factor, as her fellow accountants called a missing quotient. It was her least favorite part of number crunching, knowing that she couldn’t always see what was ahead. But if accounting didn’t teach her that, life certainly did. This past year, especially.
Not a single car had travelled down the road since Sassy found herself stranded. It was the heat of the afternoon, so eventually she changed into her bathing suit, in full view of the nosey sheep. Rejecting the folding chair, she spread the beach towel up the back window of the car so she could stretch out while she waited.
It was too soon to panic, and too far to jog to town—although she might need to before the day was over.
“Just stay put,” her parents told her, when she was afraid of being separated as a little girl. “Help will find you.” So far, help was taking its sweet time in this laid-back wasteland of a state.
Sassy never thought she’d see the day when the cornfields back home, the claustrophobic growth crowding every road for miles and days, would seem like civilization. Wyoming brought a whole new meaning to the word isolation.
The sheep were no help at all.
“Don’t you guys know a shepherd or something—someone with two legs and a truck?” Sassy looked over to ask the curious sheep.
Maaa maaa, they answered. You were driving too faaast around the corner.
“Thanks for nothing,” she said, but knew they might be right.
Eyes closed, she snoozed in the warmth, taking the time to dial the emergency tow truck number in West Gorge every so often, only to see the call fail to connect. Worst case scenario, Sassy figured, she wouldn’t return to her rental house tonight, or to work in the morning. Then Freda might put two and two together and send out a search party.
She smiled at the image of a helicopter flying overhead, spotting her lounging in a pink bikini on her rear window. Her eyes quickly closed behind her sunglasses as she nodded off in the sun. It had been a tiring week of early days at West Ranch. Before long, Sassy found herself dreaming of being rescued by a gleaming tow truck, driven by a shining knight. She could almost hear the engine. It sounded so real as it got closer and closer.
Wha…?
Opening her eyes, Sassy realized she wasn’t dreaming. The truck was real and coming around the corner—fast. When it screeched to a hard stop, right next to twice-lucky number forty, a tall young man slowly got out and stood in the road.
Wasting no time, she sat up and blinked several times, clearing the sleep from her eyes so she could quickly assess her rescue vehicle, and more importantly, its driver.
Chapter 2
“Dad, I’m almost home. An hour at the outside, unless I run into traffic on Mount Gander Road—ha ha. Can’t wait to see you all.”
Ash West was parked on the side of the highway, shouting into his phone over the rumble of his truck engine, as his dad’s number went to voicemail. Not surprising; Ash was in a part of Wyoming where cell reception was scant—one reason he was calling with an update while his phone still showed bars.
He’d left the freeway a few hours before, and was about to turn off the two-lane highway and onto the semi-paved Mount Gander Road, which would lead into West Gorge. With the red clay bluffs on one side, and boulders the size of houses sitting in a sagebrush field on the other side, cell reception would only get worse before it got better.
Sometimes, if the wind wasn’t blowing; if birds weren’t perched on the wire and he tapped his boots together three times while making a wish, a call would go through. But he didn’t want Ridge worrying about him, so played it safe.
Ash smiled and put his phone in the center console, then put his truck into drive once again. It had been a long few days of driving, and he was so close to home. He was sick of fast food and tired of his own company. Ash had a houseful of family waiting to see him, and no doubt, a refrigerator full of his favorite foods. BBQ pork sandwiches from Red’s and Liu’s famous spring rolls.
Maybe even a chocolate cake from Cindy’s Diner—a man could dream.
Driving along, the windows were down on his truck so he could smell the wildflowers and the pine trees. The sweet air had been washed clean in last night’s rain. He was following the mountain range to West Gorge, Wyoming.
Thunk. Thunk.
Every time the truck hit a rock or bump, the boxes in the back would come down hard. They were stuffed with four years of textbooks, Michigan State University sweatshirts and a diploma with the ink still drying.
His honors cords were in there somewhere.
The mountain peaks, Ash noticed, drew closer and became more pronounced as the sun moved high in the sky, then started to dip. A creek alongside the road widened, flowing steadily with icy water that had been snow on the mountain tops just days before. The road went from flat to gentle swells, to up-and-down hills and curves that gave zero visibility as to what was on the other side or around a bend.
“A ribbon of a highway,” Ash said out loud to stay alert. It was a line from an old song Granny used to sing, warble really, called This Land is Your Land.
As I was walking that ribbon of a highway,
I saw above me an endless skyway,
I saw below me a golden valley,
This land was made for you and me.
Since he was a boy, he thought of that song every time he travelled down a road with the hills and swells; a road that reminded him of ribbon candy on a Christmas tree.
Ash hadn’t passed a car in a long time—Mt. Gander Road, he knew, was mostly known by locals and rarely travelled. It didn’t show up on every map. That’s why it was surprising to come around a bend and see a car half on and half off the road.
“Whooooaaa,” he said in surprise, breaking hard. Ash could have swerved around the car, but not the herd of wooly sheep stretched leisurely across both lanes. It appeared they forgot which way they were heading. Sheep, Ash knew, were not that bright.
Ash was even more surprised to see a girl sunbathing and sleeping on the back of the car, wearing a tiny pink swimsuit. As he put the truck in park, she jerked awake, and quickly jumped off. Placing her hand on the car door as if about to hop in, she eyed him warily. It was then he noticed that her front bumper was firmly planted in a rock. A boulder almost as big as her car.
“Hey,” Ash said as he stepped out onto the road. Casually, he lifted his arms in the air for a stretch.
“Hey,” she shrugged, her voice still gravelly from her interrupted nap.
“Can I help you?” Ash gestured to her car.
“You can call me a tow truck,” she said, obviously in a bind.
“Okay, you’re a tow truck,” Ash said, without receiving the laugh he would have gotten back at school, where all the girls thought he was just the funniest thing ever.
“Wow, okay,” she said, not impressed.
“Naw, I’m sorry,” Ash attempted. “I’m just punchy from driving too long.”
The girl nodded again, but remained by her car with the door opened. She wanted a quick escape from the idiot comedian on the desolate road, Ash realized.
“I’ll try my phone, but the reception here isn’t the best.”
“No fooling.”
She wasn’t cutting him any slack, and why should she? The girl, he could see, was more stunning than any of the Michigan beauties he’d left behind, with her golden hair and long tanned legs. And she was in a predicament—probably waiting for help for a long time.
“If the call doesn’t go through, I’ll give you a lift into town.”
Which would be mighty nice for me, he thought.
Judging by the girl’s face, she didn’t agree.
Reaching into his truck, Ash retrieved his phone and pulled it out slowly, so as not to startle her. But his hands were suddenly sweaty, making the phone as precarious as a slippery fish—it flipped and flopped in his hands until it smashed onto the road.
The beautiful girl smiled indulgently. Her hair moved around her neck and shoulders in thick buttery waves as the breeze kicked up. She reached up to pull a tendril from her eyes and Ash felt his legs go weak. He couldn’t imagine who she was or why she was in West Gorge. He doubted she’d tell him if he asked.
So he didn’t.
“Got the phone,” Ash said nervously, “now let’s see… I have the number for Tig’s Tow here somewhere… hey, it’s ringing!”
A few minutes later, he hung up and told the girl that Tig and her tow truck would be there soon, and he’d wait with her.
“There’s no need for that,” she said as she exhaled with relief. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m not leaving you alone,” he said. “I’ll stay right here in my truck, then follow you into town and make sure you’re okay.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said again, looking happier than when he’d arrived.
“Well it is,” Ash said, “because that’s where I’m heading. To West Gorge.”
The girl took this in and nodded again.
“I just don’t want you to think I’m all alone.”
Ash was anxious to go—he hadn’t been home since Christmas, and could hardly wait to walk into the ranch house and see his family. If she had somebody, he wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving. But looking through her back windshield, the car was empty.
“You can clearly see,” the girl said with mischief in her voice and a twinkle in her clear eyes, “that I have forty of my closest friends with me.” She gestured towards the herd of sheep, now so at home on the road that Ash thought they might set up camp and stay for a while.
“Well, Bo Peep,” Ash said with a laugh, “I stand corrected. But I think we need to help move your friends off the road, or Tig won’t be able to get her truck to your car.”
“And neither of us will get to West Gorge,” she said.
“True. Looks like you have three choices, Bo,” he said, making a show of holding up his fingers and counting them off. “One, you can stand there and watch me try my hand at shepherding for the first time, or two, you can help me.”
“What’s my third choice?” she asked.
“Sit in your car and lock the door tight, just in case I’m a raving lunatic.�
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The girl smiled, and her entire face lit up like a Christmas tree, Ash thought.
“I choose number one—I’ll stand here and watch you work.”
Chapter 3
Riding in Tig’s truck back to town, Sassy looked out the window and privately recalled the boy’s face. Seeing how Tig was using the speaker in her truck to talk to her mechanic, pleasantries were not required.
Her mysterious shepherd was gorgeous—and a gentleman, Sassy had to admit. Even while trying to keep the flock from loitering in the middle of the road. He didn’t leer at her in her bathing suit, or stare while she added a layer of clothes.
She liked the way he turned his tanned face away, but not before flashing a hint of a smile. He was amused by the predicament, she could see, but also bashful. It was refreshing and slightly disarming. She might have felt comfortable enough to ride in his truck, and may have if he’d asked a second time.
Freda talked about cowboys as if they all adhered to a code of honor, but Sassy wasn’t willing to accept this as the gospel truth.
“That’s a broad paint brush,” she told her roommate skeptically. However, this young cowboy could very well be one of the good ones.
Sassy Cowgirl Kisses: A Sweet Romance (A West Brothers Romance Book 5) Page 1
