Cover photo of Don Allen Fitness Model © Heather-Lynn Portraits, 2014
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Elle James and the other outstanding western authors in the Cowboy 12-Pack Boxed Set for inviting me to be in the set. I’m truly honored to be among your number. Thank you to the talented Heather Almendarez for capturing the amazing image of Don Allen Fitness model for my individual cover on Cupid’s Cowboy. Lastly, thank you to my Troublemakers for your constant support and encouragement. I love you ladies, and thank you for always being there for me.
Authors, if you’re looking for the perfect cover image for your next book, you can find Heather Lynn Portraits and Don Allen Fitness Model here:
www.facebook.com/DonAllenFitness
www.facebook.com/Heather-LynnPortraits
Be sure to check out all of the books in the:
Texas Trouble Series by Becky McGraw
Book #1 – My Kind of Trouble (Cassie & Luke)
Book #2 – The Trouble With Love (Sabrina & Cole)
Book #3 – Double the Trouble (Karlie & Gabe)
Book #4 – Looking for Trouble (Jess & Wade)
Book #5 – Trouble in Dixie (Katie & Tommy)
Book #6 – Asking for Trouble (Jazzie & Beau)
Book #7 – Chasing Trouble (Jenny & Chase)
Book #8 – Here Comes Trouble (Terri & Joel)
Book #9 – Worth the Trouble (Ethan & Roxanne)
Book #10 – Royal Trouble (Wes & Leigh Ann)
Book #11 – Trouble With the Law (Ronnie & Trace)
Book #12 – Borrowing Trouble (Carrie & Dylan)
The Cowboy Way Series by Becky McGraw
Hope for Christmas, a Cowboy Way novella in the anthology Santa Wore Spurs (Cord’s Story)
Just Shoot Me (#1, Cowboy Way), Dean’s Story
Cowgirl Crazy (#2, Cowboy Way), Ryan’s Story
Cupid’s Cowboy (A Cowboy Way novella)
Coming soon – Too Hot to Trot (#3, Cowboy Way), Zack’s Story
Logan’s Lonestar Heroes
Till Death (#1, Logan’s Lonestar Heroes), Dave’s Story
Coming Soon—Twisted Honor (#2, Logan’s Lonestar Heroes), Slade’s Story
Hell Bent (#3, Logan’s Lonestar Heroes), Cade’s Story
Chapter One
‡
IF LEIGH ANDERSON saw another heart taped somewhere in her office, she might just rip someone’s beating heart out and nail it to the wall. She stopped at the front door to rip off the pink-paper hearts, and threw them in the trashcan with disgust. The day of hearts, flowers and fools, a day some people thought should be a national holiday, was just another day to her. She was what one could call a Valentine’s Day Grinch. Love, the theme for the day, was not, and never would be, in the cards for her. She just didn’t believe it existed.
Watching her philandering father and marriage-hopping mother operate for twenty-nine years had convinced her of that. People dabbled in romance to bait unsuspecting fools into the trap of believing they were in love. Those fools paid a steep price for falling into that trap. Fools like her father Leo, who was right now in the throes of a paternity suit that could affect everyone at Hearts Afire Records. If the baby mama was successful in her paternity suit against him, they would all be paying for it for eighteen years.
And that was why Leo had been in a bad mood today, and he’d taken it out on her. Her eyes welled up, and Leigh blamed it on the cutting wind, as she walked toward her car in the lot across the street from the office. She was absolutely not going to cry over getting her ass reamed by him today for not having Wade Lawson’s ten-song debut EP ready for Valentine’s Day like he demanded. Thank god he hadn’t found out she didn’t even have Wade under contract yet, or considering his mood, she’d probably be carrying her walking papers with her out that front door this evening.
Leigh was damned tired of babysitting Wade Lawson, and she definitely wasn’t getting paid enough for the job. She was more than ready to cut him loose, but she’d spent considerable time and effort convincing Leo to take him on at Hearts Afire. Now that her father had drank the Wade-laced Kool-aid she served him, he was drunk on the man, and pressuring her to get him launched so he could take over his career.
That day couldn’t come soon enough for Leigh. It was one she would definitely celebrate. Hell, she’d throw a week-long party with Jose Cuervo as the guest of honor.
But tonight she had to go to a press party with Wade Lawson to make sure he didn’t get drunk and shoot his mouth off, which he was prone to doing. Leigh definitely wasn’t looking forward to it, because she knew it meant another night of playing dodge-the-weasel with Wade, a game she’d been playing with him for six months.
But it was her own fault for trying to save the bastard from himself, to salvage his reputation and her father’s investment in him.
The spur-of-the-moment decision to announce herself as his girlfriend in a press release after she’d bailed him out of jail for trespassing seemed like a good idea at the time. Not only did it give legs to the blatant lie in her damage-control press release that the arrest was a huge misunderstanding, it gave her an opportunity to keep a closer eye on him to make sure it didn’t happen again. It being getting caught with his pants down around his ankles in another man’s bed with his dick in that man’s wife. He was lucky the husband hadn’t put lead in his ass like he threatened to do. The hefty payoff she’d made the man to keep his mouth shut had thankfully worked.
Leigh almost wished he’d shot the bastard though. She’d been tempted to do it a few times herself lately, and it would have solved her present problem. Because of her lie, Leigh now had to be Wade’s arm-candy at every event, pretend to be in a committed relationship with him, and run interference between him and the women he preyed on. It was sickening and a full-time job in itself.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, Wade knew he now had her over a barrel, and was using it to pressure her for sex. He knew she hadn’t told Leo about the payoff to the husband, because she’d sworn she’d cut his balls off if he told her father. He also figured out that she hadn’t told Leo he wasn’t under contract with Hearts Afire yet when Leo invited him out for drinks to celebrate the contract.
She’d dodged him long enough. It was time for a showdown.
If Wade tried his crap again tonight, Leigh was going to tell him it was never going to happen, that she couldn’t get drunk enough to want to get naked with him. She was also going to tell him it was time to shit or get off the pot and sign the contract, or she was pulling the plug on his debut album altogether, regardless of whether Leo fired her when he figured out how much money she’d invested in him without a contract.
Leigh wished she’d have just left the bastard on that barstool in the dive bar in Dallas where she found him. They’d all have been a lot better off, and she wouldn’t be on the verge of losing her job when her father found out what she’d done.
The only reason she hadn’t passed on Wade was because she’d been desperate to find a new artist to develop to prove her father wrong. After all her hard work with Sarah Carpenter to get them up on that stage last year to accept her award for new artist of the year, her father hadn’t thanked her. Leo had jerked the reins of Sarah’s career right out of Leigh’s hands and told her to find another artist to develop. Unless you’re a one-trick pony, in which case I don’t need you.
Those words had created a driving force inside of Leigh to meet her father’s challenge. Proving him wrong had become her sole focus. The night she met Wade Lawson, Leigh had been looking at new artists for months and not a one had impressed her. The only thing that impressed her about Wade was his ability to whip a crowd of women into a frenzy by shaking his ass, even though his voice was less than impressive.
Because of his sex appeal, she thought she could sell him to Leo, and she’d done that. Now that she knew what an immature prick he was, she wished she hadn’t done such a good sales job. The smug bastard and her father were closer than she and Leo
, drinking buddies, so there was nothing she could do, except turn the tables on Wade and hope he didn’t call her bluff and tell Leo.
Cold wind snaked down her collar and Leigh shivered, realizing just then she had stopped walking halfway across the almost empty parking. Glancing at her watch she cursed and walk-ran to her car. If she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late for her appointment with destiny. One way or another, come hell or high water, tonight was going to be her waterloo with Wade Lawson.
*
JASE SMITH COULDN’T figure out why anyone would agree to do what he was about to do to a woman, especially him. His mother had raised him better than to intentionally crush a woman on Valentine’s Day. From a moral standpoint, the fact he was getting paid to do it made it much worse, but he needed the damned money too badly to turn it down. His tips at the restaurant sucked, and his singing gigs lately had been non-existent. His stall cleaning jobs at the barns where he worked barely covered his daily living expenses. Jase was saving for another trip to Nashville, and this money would go a long way to helping him get there.
Jase couldn’t help but wonder though, what kind of man could be so heartless as to break up with a woman he dated by singing telegram, on a day that was meant to celebrate women, not crush them. A man with more money than balls evidently. Instead of manning up and doing his own dirty work, Wade Lawson had taken the coward’s way out, hiring Jase to do the deed. That conclusion led Jase to wonder what kind of woman would date such a nutless wonder. Leigh Anderson at three-twenty-six Maple Drive must be a desperate woman to have hitched her wagon to that guy, which made Jase feel even worse about doing this. But feel bad or not, he’d agreed to do this. He just needed to find his own balls and get this over with.
If he didn’t freeze them off first, that is just what he was going to do.
Yesterday, it had been nearly sixty degrees in Dallas, but this morning it was barely forty. The uniform for his singing messenger persona, Cupid’s Cowboy, the Tune in a Bucket version of the NYC Naked Cowboy, required a pretty skimpy costume. He had it on under his long duster coat, but he’d have to take the coat off when he found the address. He wasn’t looking forward to that any more than he was delivering this message.
What the hell had his life come to?
Since he’d started this starving artist journey seven years ago, right out of college, Jase had vowed to do whatever it took to make his dream come true. Maybe one day he’d be able to laugh at this, count it as just one of those things he had to do to survive, but today he wasn’t laughing. He was freezing his ass off, because the heater in his old truck wasn’t working, and he couldn’t afford to get it fixed.
His father and Aunt Belle, hell everyone in his life, thought it was time for him to just give it up and get a regular job, but Jase wasn’t nearly there yet. He knew he was good enough to make it in the music business. He just needed to find someone else who believed that too. Someone who had the connections to help him. His new agent may be just that person. The man seemed to be working for him at least, unlike his last three agents.
Last week Glen Parsons sent his demo to Twang Records and they’d actually called him back. Friday night, their representative was coming to The Barn to hear him play at open mic night. Jase tried damned hard not to let that get his hopes up, because he knew from experience that didn’t mean he’d be signed, but he couldn’t stop the small bud of optimism that sprouted in his chest. That little ray of hope helped him hold onto his determination that even if they didn’t sign him, he wasn’t giving up.
There were a lot of country singers who never made it to the big stage, but the ones who did had one thing in common. They didn’t give up.
If it didn’t work out with Twang, Jase would make that trip to Nashville before the end of the year. With his mama getting worse though, he didn’t know how that would ever work out. He refused to suggest to his dad that they put her in an Alzheimer’s care facility. That would be too much like a home in his mind, which amounted to putting his mother out to pasture like a used up horse. No, unless he got a contract that gave him enough money to pay for nursing help at home for her, he wasn’t going anywhere. Her insurance paid for a nurse to come in once a week, but with his dad still working to keep her insurance, and Jase working three jobs, that wasn’t nearly enough.
Jase huffed out a breath. He was just exhausted, that’s why he was feeling edgy, and worrying about shit he couldn’t change. Fifteen hours of uninterrupted sleep would help tremendously, instead of the three hours a night he got most of the time. Miraculously, after this gig he would have time to do just that.
After he played on Friday night, he was off for two beautiful days, the weekend no less, and he was going to do nothing but veg out in front of his television and catnap, while he dreamed of getting the call from Glen Parsons. If the call didn’t come, he would just keep on doing what he’d been doing until that day came, because one thing he was not going to do was become an accountant. That degree his mother insisted he get could stay on the shelf for good. Jase was never going to let himself be trapped behind a desk with his mind numbed by numbers. He would go bat shit crazy.
Glancing at the scrap of paper in his hand again, Jase tapped on the brakes of his old pickup to ease along the curb and read mailboxes. This was his second circuit through the ritzy neighborhood, and he still couldn’t find the address. Either the address didn’t exist, or Julie, the booker at Tune In A Bucket Singing Telegrams, needed to learn to write better.
Jase would like to call and tell her that, but since today was the busiest day of the year for her, she probably wouldn’t answer the phone. If he wanted to get this over with though, he was going to have to try since the address she’d given him didn’t seem to exist. Stopping at the curb, Jase pulled out his cell phone and dialed. While the phone rang, he scanned the addresses one more time. His eyes snagged on a mailbox that looked like a tack had come loose on one of the numbers, making the six in the address a nine.
That’s why he hadn’t been able to find it.
Hanging up the phone, he pulled his truck up to the curb. He slid out of his coat, before he got out of the truck, and had to grind his teeth to keep them from chattering, as he leaned back in to get his guitar and the dozen black roses the asshole had ordered with the telegram. Jase hoped Leigh Anderson knew she was better off without the scumbag who was doing this to her.
Don’t kill the messenger, he prayed, as he slammed the truck door. A shiver racked him, and he took a deep breath. Exhaling a puff of steam, he started across the yard toward the front porch. With every step he got closer, the tension at the base of his neck ratcheted up. You never knew with Texas women if they had a gun, and considering the message he was about to deliver, Jase might well end up with lead in his tighty-whities as he ran back toward the truck. The embroidered heart on his ass would be a perfect target for her to aim, and his worn out cowboy boots definitely weren’t made for running on this slick grass.
Next door, a neighbor lady walked toward him down the driveway and Jase knew exactly when she really saw him when she stumbled, then stopped to gawk. He was sure it wasn’t every day a half-naked cowboy strolled across one of these perfectly manicured lawns carrying a guitar and black roses. Heat edged up his neck as he passed her, but he didn’t make eye contact. Jase made it to the front stoop, and sucked in another breath, before he rang the buzzer and stepped back to wait. A few minutes passed, and his hopes rose that Leigh Anderson wasn’t home. If that was the case, he was off the hook. Julie could send someone else out to do this tomorrow. Jase wouldn’t have the money, but he’d have something more important to him. His dignity.
The door knob jiggled and his heart bounced in his chest then sank to his toes when the door opened the width of the security chain and a woman peeked out, her nose as read as her bloodshot eyes. It looked like she already knew what he was there to do, so had gotten started on her crying jag early. Either that, or she was sick. He took another step back, because he d
efinitely didn’t need to get sick before Friday if that was the cause.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he said tipping his hat. “I’m Cupid’s Cowboy from Tune In a Bucket Singing Telegrams and I have a singing telegram for you,” he drawled, adding a grin he didn’t feel. What Jase didn’t add to his spiel was a Happy Valentine’s Day, because he knew hers wasn’t going to be happy at all in about thirty seconds.
Jase loved Valentine’s Day and its meaning, always had. When he had a girlfriend, which hadn’t been in several years due to his crazy life, he always went all out to make it special. Just like his father had always done for his mother. Women loved the day of hearts and flowers, and it was a man’s responsibility to make it special. Wade Lawson must really hate Leigh Anderson, he thought, or the bastard’s heart was as black as the roses in Jase’s hand.
With a heavy sigh, the woman rolled her eyes then stepped back. Jase held his breath, because he thought for a second she would close the door in his face, but again he wasn’t that lucky. The chain rattled, the door swung wider and in the doorway stood one of the saddest-looking, but most beautiful women he’d ever seen in his life. Mussed, curly golden hair covered her bare shoulders, and her red nose just made her cuter. Wade Lawson was an idiot is what he was, Jase thought, barely containing the whistle on his lips.
She put a hand on her curvy hip, and he saw the Kleenex wad in her fist. Because he couldn’t stop them, his eyes locked onto the hard dime-sized points of her obviously unrestricted full breasts that rose and fell with her agitated breaths. He could almost see them through the paper-thin cropped football-type t-shirt she wore. His gaze slid down to the waistband of the low-riding boy shorts, then streaked down her long, long legs to her pink-tipped toes.
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