Her Cowboy Billionaire Birthday Wish

by Liz Isaacson

  Colton took that as his cue to get going too, and he managed to get his plate into the dishwasher and escape the kitchen while the three of them chattered about how much chocolate to put in with the cream, and if they should try powdered milk too.

  “Wow,” Colton said once he made it into the living room. “Who knew so much went into hot chocolate?” He looked up at the tree, the sheer magnificence of it overcoming him. Someone had started putting balls and stars on it, and he stepped over to the boughs. “These stars are cross-stitched.”

  “Crocheted,” Annie said, correcting him gently. “And then starched. They’re actually my mother’s.”

  He turned and looked at her. “I thought you said you hadn’t signed up to decorate the tree.”

  “I haven’t.” She gazed happily at the stars. “We just have all the decorations here, and whoever wants to put them up, can.” She faced him, linking her arm through his. “Should we see what other stuff we can find?”

  “Definitely,” he said. “Tell me about your mother and father. Are they still here? Did you grow up here?” He followed her to the wall separating the kitchen from the living room, where an assortment of boxes had been stacked.

  “My parents live in Crystal Canyon,” she said. “In the same house where I grew up with my two sisters.” She smiled and opened a shoebox. “Oh, here are some more stars. Do you want to put one on?”

  Colton took it from her, suddenly wanting to know everything about her. “Sure. Your sisters, older or younger?” He turned back to the tree and bypassed hanging the ornament at a comfortable level. The teenagers and kids could decorate the bottom fourth of the tree, but this thing needed adornments all the way to the top. He pulled a chair over to it and stepped up, hanging the star as high as he could.

  “One older and one younger,” she said. “I’m right in the middle.”

  “Hey, me too.” He grinned at her and accepted another star. “But I only have brothers. Two older and two younger.”

  “Yes, you told me yesterday while you ate ice cream.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “And you all run the company?”

  “Oh, heavens, no,” Colton said with a light laugh. “Wes is the CEO. Gray is the corporate lawyer. I do the marketing. The twins…well, the twins don’t do much with the family business.” He thought about Cy and Ames, and he finally added, “Ames is a cop in Aurora, just north of Denver. And Cy has kind of done everything. He acts like he doesn’t have a job, but he sure has a lot of motorcycles, and I think he’s on the West Coast somewhere right now, as it’s warm there.”

  “You don’t know where your brother is?”

  “They don’t know where I am,” he said. “Well, Gray and Wes do, but that’s it.”

  “Interesting,” she said. “How can he support himself with no job?”

  Colton got down from the chair and scooted it around the tree a little further before he took another ornament from Annie. “Well, the thing is….” How did he say this? He’d never really had to explain his family financial situation before, because well, he just hadn’t.

  Priscilla had known he was wealthy long before he’d even known her name. Everyone in Denver and the surrounding areas did. Hammond Manufacturing was a massive company, employing over twenty thousand people in the city and its surrounding suburbs. It seemed like he couldn’t go more than a block in any direction without seeing his surname on something.

  “The thing is,” Annie prompted.

  “I’m a Hammond, right?” he asked, as if she knew what that meant. She clearly didn’t. “And well, Hammond Manufacturing is the leading employer in the entire state of Colorado, and my grandfather was the mayor of Denver twice. And well, when we turn twenty-one, we get two billion dollars and the charge to do something with it.” He deliberately took his time finding the perfect bough to hang his starched, white angel on before he looked at Annie.

  She stared at him, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. “Do something with it?” she finally asked.

  “Yeah, you know, invent something or invest in something lucrative. Start our own company. That kind of thing.” He extended his hand, ready for another ornament, but Annie didn’t have one ready.

  She flew into action then, threading a silver hook through the top of a birdcage with a bright red cardinal inside. She handed it to him, asking, “What did you do with your two billion?”

  “I went to school,” he said. “I thinkered with some apps and web development.”

  “Thinkered? I think you mean tinkered.”

  “No, I thinkered,” he said with a grin. “I, uh, worked with some men and women smarter than me, and we worked through the sequencing of all of the human genomes.” Surely she’d heard of that. The Human Genome Project had been one of the biggest achievements in science in decades.

  But Annie looked like he’d spoken another language.

  “I majored in biology in college,” he said.

  “But you’re a marketing director.”

  “Yeah, most of us come back and work at the family company for at least a little while,” he said. “I’ve been there for twelve years.”

  “So you went from sequencing genes to tweeting?”

  Colton laughed, the sound flowing easily out of his lungs and throat. Way easier than it had in years and years. That felt really nice too, and he couldn’t help letting it go on as long as it wanted to. “I guess so,” he said. “I enjoyed the Genome Project, and it opened a lot of doors for medicine, and treating diseases, and all kinds of stuff. Evolution.”

  “And here I thought you were literally a cowboy who writes press releases.”

  “Well, I do that too,” he said, reaching up to adjust his cowboy hat. “And you should know something about me. I don’t—”

  “Mom!” A blast of cold air accompanied the excited shriek from Annie’s daughter. She held up her phone as she ran inside, not bothering with closing the front door behind her. “He did it. He finally asked me out!”

  “Mitchell?” Annie abandoned the box of ornaments and hurried to meet Eden.

  “Yes!” She waved her phone and started jumping up and down as she squealed. Her happiness carried on the air like a strong scent, and Colton couldn’t help smiling as Annie celebrated with her daughter.

  He simply had no idea a woman could be that excited about a date, but as he watched Annie, he had the distinct feeling that she’d probably be very happy with a date from the man she liked too.

  Colton stepped off the chair and went to close the front door, because there was no sense in heating the outdoors. As the door clicked closed and Annie and Eden continued to chatter behind him, he realized he’d turned into his father.

  No sense in heating the outdoors? He shook his head and caught Annie’s eye as he went up the steps. He had no idea what the rest of the day’s activities were, but as soon as Annie had a free moment, he hoped she’d come find him at their cribbage table.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Annie couldn’t have been happier for her daughter. Eden had been flirting with Mitchell Starting through a dating app for the past month. They’d met a couple of times in town, but always with a group of other young single adults.

  “Praise the Lord,” she whispered to herself as she bent to get another box of ornaments. Eden had taken over Colton’s job of hanging the baubles on the tree, and even when Annie glanced up, she couldn’t see where Colton had gone.

  “So what are you going to do?” Annie asked after Eden had detailed how he’d finally called her and asked her to dinner. Eden had even been bold enough to ask him specifically, “Just the two of us?” to which he’d confirmed yes, just the two of them.

  “He said he knows a great place that’s pretty new,” she said. “But he wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “There are a lot of new places that have gone in,” Annie said. “What are you hoping for?”

  “Honestly, I don’t care,” Eden said. Annie hadn’t seen this glow in her daughter’s f
ace in far too long, and she sent up another prayer of gratitude that Eden had gotten this date. Please don’t let him break her heart, she added in her plea to the Lord.

  The front door opened again, and Emily walked in, laden with shopping bags. “Thanks for waiting for me,” she said with plenty of acid in her voice. She kicked the door closed behind her and glared at Eden as she pranced through the living room.

  Annie watched both of her daughters, hoping that one day they could learn to get along. They’d fought like cats and dogs growing up, their teens years especially hard. Everything had been hard for Annie in those years, because Ryan had died when Eden was eleven and Emily fourteen.

  Eden kept her nose in the air, and Emily rolled her eyes just before she stepped through the doorway to take her gifts downstairs.

  “Eden,” Annie said. “How was shopping?”

  “Great,” she said. “We finished today, thank goodness.”

  “I hope you didn’t spend too much.” She hadn’t been able to focus on any of the bags Emily had been carrying.

  “We didn’t, Mom. Don’t worry.” She jumped down from the chair, apparently done with the decorating. She picked up her phone from where she’d set it on the side table, and she collapsed onto the couch and started texting.

  “Maybe you should go see if you can help Em,” Annie suggested, not sure how to parent adult children.

  Eden didn’t even look up from her device. She didn’t respond either, and awkwardness descended into the huge living room, stuffing the silence all the way to the top of the two-story ceiling.

  The front door opened again, and this time, Andrew entered, carrying his sleeping daughter. Annie left the ornaments where they lay and went toward him. “How is she?”

  “Good,” he said. “No issues with the teeth.” He stepped out of the way as Becca and Lily came inside, followed lastly by Beau.

  “She’s wearing a retainer, just to protect the roof of her mouth,” Becca said, smoothing her daughter’s hair off her forehead. “Let’s take her upstairs so she can sleep.”

  Annie smiled fondly at the little girl as everyone started moving through the house. “I think Laney has all the littles down at her house.”

  “Yeah, she’s going to keep them until dinner,” Becca said. She turned back to Annie and grabbed her in a tight hug. “Thank you, Annie. You knew exactly what to do, and I appreciate it.”

  Annie hugged Becca, warmth moving through her. “You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.”

  “Let’s go practice our hot chocolate,” Lily said. “While Charlie is down at Laney’s.”

  “Practice hot chocolate?” Beau asked, following her. “Why do we need to do that?”

  Annie couldn’t help smiling to herself, and she cast one more look at Eden texting on the couch, and she went upstairs too. Colton sat at the table they’d set up to play cribbage, but he didn’t have the game out. He didn’t have his phone out.

  He sat leaned over, with his head cradled in his hands, as if he were asleep. She made sure Becca and Andrew had gone down the hall and there were no prying eyes, and then she put her hand on his back. “Colton?”

  “Hmm?”

  His back was strong and sturdy, and Annie’s hormones fired. “The recliners in the theater room are super comfortable.”

  “But Gulliver’s Travels,” he whispered.

  “Come on.” She got him up and down two flights of stairs to the basement. Only Averie and Ronnie seemed to be around the lodge today, and Annie had missed the memo of going down to Laney and Graham’s farmhouse. Not that she minded. She wouldn’t have gone even if she had known.

  Neither of the six-year-olds cared that Colton and Annie slipped into the back row of recliners, and Annie nudged Colton all the way to the corner, where a two-seater loveseat sat. She really wanted to sit in that with him, and she settled a little too close to him to be friendly, and she took his hand in hers.

  “You’re right,” he whispered. “This is so much better.” He put up his leg rest, and Annie cuddled into him more, wondering if they would get their kiss in the theater room after all. She really, really wanted it—the same way Eden had wanted a date with Mitchell.

  Her nerves accelerated, and she had no idea how to tip her head back and kiss him. His breathing stayed as even as calm water, and she hoped he hadn’t fallen asleep again. The music in the movie annoyed her, and she focused on the picture playing on the wall for a few seconds.

  “This is a really dumb movie,” Colton whispered.

  Annie turned toward him to find him taking off his cowboy hat and setting it on the armrest on his left. “No kidding. I’m just not sure where else to go.”

  “I thought you said this place had activities all day.” He grinned down at her and ran his free hand through his hair. The light from the movie caught on his silver hair, and Annie found him so, so handsome.

  “They do,” she said, returning his smile. “But there’s plenty of downtime too.”

  “Obviously.” He reached for his hat. “Maybe if I cover my face, I can fall asleep again.”

  “Before you do that,” Annie said, pushing herself up and putting her right hand on his chest. She didn’t want to blurt out that he needed to kiss her first, and Colton hadn’t participated in the Human Genome Project and run the marketing for the largest employer in Colorado by not connecting the dots.

  And this time, he dropped his cowboy hat and used that hand to cradle her face. He studied her for a long moment, and Annie couldn’t tell what he was thinking because of the flickering lights.

  Then he lowered his mouth to hers, and Annie pulled in a breath through her nose as she kissed him back.

  She expected him to kiss her quickly and settle down for his nap. After all, she’d seen the fear in his face earlier, under proper lighting here in the theater. But he kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her, truly taking his time. She hoped he liked kissing her and wasn’t trying to decide if she was worth his time.

  Because she sure did like kissing him, and when their connection finally broke, she giggled and laid her head against his chest. He released her hand and put his arm around her shoulders, and Annie had never been happier to be in the strong arms of this sexy cowboy.

  “What are you girls doing?” Annie asked as she sat next to Bree and Eden, who hadn’t moved from the couch in the living room. Someone had been decorating the tree while she’d been downstairs in the theater room, kissing Colton.

  She wiped the smile from her face, because she wasn’t eighteen years old, and she didn’t want to provide any explanations to either woman in front of her.

  “She’s helping me get set up with my dating profile.” Bree glanced up at Annie, and she’d obviously seen something, because she didn’t look back at her phone. “Where have you been?”

  “Oh, I watched the movie with Averie and Ronnie.” She nodded to Bree’s phone. “You’re ready to jump into the pool again?”

  “Heavens, no.” Bree looked down and started tapping on her phone. “I just want to lurk. Eden said she lurked for months before she even swiped on someone.”

  Annie had hesitated on the online dating app for a few reasons, one of them that one could never really be sure who was behind the screen. She’d heard that Bree’s latest boyfriend had broken up with her with the news that he hadn’t been using his real name. So why she’d want to use an app—where anyone could use any name—Annie wasn’t sure. But she wasn’t Bree’s mother—or even old enough to be Bree’s mother—and she only wanted the best for her friend.

  “Okay, well, I’m going to go help get dinner on the table.” Annie got up and left the two of them there. She entered the kitchen, where Celia had a pair of grill pans on the stovetop, hot dogs covering half of one and burgers covering the rest of the surface.

  “Indoor barbecue,” Annie said. “Do you need help with lettuce and tomatoes?”

  “Yes,” Celia said. “Condiments. Stir those onions, if you could. And I have the buns re
ady to go in the oven, but we won’t do that until five minutes out.”

  Annie surveyed the work Celia had done. Down the counter a ways, Finn stood with a knife and an avocado in his hand. Annie thought they were the sweetest couple, and she smiled at Finn when he looked up from underneath his cowboy hat.

  “There’s bacon in the oven too,” he said. “I bet it’s done.”

  “I’ll start there.” Annie got to work, and before she knew it, she and Finn had plates and bowls of toppings for the hamburgers and hot dogs, as well as a big bowl of green salad and a bowl of potato salad, on the counter facing the half of the kitchen with the giant dining table.

  “Call ‘em, Patsy,” Celia said when Patsy poked her head into the kitchen. A moment later, her voice came over the intercom, and everyone started gathering in the kitchen. She didn’t see Bree or Colton, and she worked against the jealousy surging against her voice box. She wasn’t even sure why those emotions existed. Colton liked her; she knew that. They’d just spent several minutes downstairs kissing, for crying out loud.

  So it seemed very strange that she felt like crying out loud when Colton and Bree appeared in the kitchen together, side-by-side, laughing about something. In Annie’s mind, she could see the two of them as a couple, and that was the biggest problem. She wanted to only see herself with a man, but she could see Colton and Bree together, and that bothered her a whole lot.

  She pushed the feelings away and caught Colton’s eyes. He gave her that sexy smile, and she hadn’t seen him flash that at Bree. In fact, when she said something to him, his smile changed to an entirely different one, and all of Annie’s fears withered away.

  At least for now.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bree sat beside Colton after she got her food, as she felt a kinship with the cowboy. He didn’t have anyone to sit by anyway, and she didn’t want him to feel out of place. Annie stayed in the kitchen and worked with the kids until they’d all gotten the hamburgers or hot dogs they wanted.