Her Cowboy Billionaire Birthday Wish

by Liz Isaacson

  “What is that?” he asked, looking at her plate with plenty of disgust.

  “It’s a black bean patty,” she said, slipping the top of her bun over the nearly black patty on her plate. “And it’s delicious, and you can keep your judgements to yourself, Mister.” She flashed him a playful smile and picked up a potato chip.

  “Are you a vegetarian?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I mean, sometimes.”

  “Sometimes?”

  “I just don’t really like red meat,” she said. “Or hot dogs. I mean, those aren’t even meat.”

  He picked up his hot dog, which he’d drenched in ketchup, mustard, and relish, and took a big bite. His eyes grinned while he chewed, and Bree shook her head.

  “They’re good though,” he said after he’d swallowed.

  “Disagree,” she said, cutting her “burger” in half. She picked up one half and took a bite of it. The black beans had great flavor, and Celia had introduced Bree to the concept of grilling the veggie burger, so it had some charred flavor too.

  “That has to be so dry,” Colton said.

  “Oh, I put on plenty of sauce,” Bree said, not wanting to admit that without the mayo and ketchup mixture she drowned the patty with, he’d be right.

  “Can I try it?” he asked.

  “Sure.” She watched him use a knife and fork to cut off a piece of the half she hadn’t touched yet, and delicately put it in his mouth. He wore a stone mask, that was for sure, and Bree had no idea what he thought until he rolled his head slightly and shrugged.

  “It’s not bad.”

  “Ah-ha.”

  “It’s not good,” he said. “So don’t get too excited.”

  “What are we not getting too excited about?” Annie asked as she sat on the other side of Colton.

  He turned and beamed at her, and Bree could see the fireworks of attraction between the two of them. Sharp jealousy pulled through her, because she wanted a man to look at her the way Colton looked at Annie. She wanted to watch his eyes light up when he saw her, and smile like he’d get to kiss her later, and lean slightly toward her like he wanted to touch her.

  Jay hadn’t done that.

  Bree ducked her head and focused on her potato chips and her potato salad while Colton said something to Annie she couldn’t hear above the others talking at the table.

  She just needed to find another man. Get another date. Then Bree wouldn’t be jealous of Annie, but happy for her.

  She was happy for her. Annie hadn’t had hardly any luck with men in the last few years, and Bree knew what it was like to go home alone, something Annie had been doing for years.

  Yes, she had her daughters, and Bree had Elise. But it was different to have a loving boyfriend or husband, and Bree knew it.

  Everyone knew it.

  She only ate half of her burger, laughed when Colton teased her that she wouldn’t eat the other half because he’d touched it, and then told him, “No, I only ate half, because I have chocolate-dipped crispy treats in my cabin.”

  The interest in Colton’s eyes doubled. “Is that right?” He leaned toward her, ducking his cowboy hat away from Annie. “What does one have to do to get invited down there for a midnight snack?”

  “Maybe check with your girlfriend,” Bree whispered back, smiling at him.

  Colton straightened as if Bree had electrocuted him, the smile falling right off his face. Ah, so he and Annie might be flirting, but they hadn’t quite defined the relationship yet.

  “Did Annie make them?” He turned to her. “Did you make chocolate dipped crispy treats for Bree?”

  Annie blinked at him a couple of times and looked past him to Bree. “No, I think Elise makes those. She and Bree are roommates.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Colton looked back at Bree, who didn’t get what his confusion was about. “You said to ask her.”

  All at once, understanding bloomed in Bree’s mind. And she now knew Colton did think of Annie as his girlfriend. “I meant, you should ask Annie if she’s okay with you coming down to my cabin for a midnight snack.”

  Colton’s face turned red in about five seconds, and he ducked his chin to his chest, trying to hide it. Bree burst out laughing and picked up her plate. “But hey, at least now I know what you think of her.” She walked away as Annie asked, “What do you think of me?”

  Bree couldn’t help giggling, and her good mood got her through helping with the dinner dishes. Then she escaped out into the cold night air, drawing a big lungful of it down into her chest.

  The chill stung, and she didn’t waste any time standing on the back patio. She walked, grateful the paths had been cleared so she and Elise didn’t have to traipse through the snow to get to the lodge and back.

  The minutes passed under the soft light of the moon. Every so often, that light would mute, and Bree watched the clouds chase each other through the sky. It felt like snow would arrive again soon, and Bree determined to check her weather app once she got back to the cabin.

  Inside, the warmth from the furnace caused a sigh to pull through her, and she did get out her phone. But she forgot completely about the weather app and went right into Singles Spark, the dating app where Eden had met a man she’d just gotten a date with.

  Bree forgot about the chocolate dipped crispy treats, and the passage of time as she looked at profile pictures and read bios of the men behind them.

  She was old enough to know that anyone could literally put anything on the Internet, and that included apps. She saw a few men she was attracted to physically. But she wanted more than that. She wanted fun conversations. She wanted deep conversations. She wanted someone who would look at her the way Colton looked at Annie.

  With Annie in her mind, she sent her friend a quick text. I hope I didn’t make anything too awkward for you.

  Not at all, Annie said almost instantly. If anything, you got Colton to say I was his girlfriend. So thanks!

  Bree smiled and shook her head. She didn’t know Colton Hammond super well yet, but she hadn’t pegged him for the type of guy to show up somewhere and have a girlfriend two days later. But Annie was quite the catch, and he’d be smart not to let her get away.

  So you like him, then?

  Yes, I like him, Annie said.

  Never one to gossip much, Bree left it at that, and Annie didn’t add any more to the conversation. She got up when she realized how dark the house was and flipped on the lights in the kitchen and the hall leading down to the two bedrooms.

  Elise often stayed at the lodge later than Bree, and she decided to take a shower to warm up her feet. She’d just finished putting on her pajamas when she heard voices in the house.

  Two voices.

  A male and a female. Bree went down the hall, recognizing them both. But it wasn’t until she entered the kitchen that she realized Elise had brought Colton to the cabin with her.

  “Well, well, well,” she said, nudging Colton with her shoulder as she sat beside him at the kitchen table. “You got Elise to give you the good stuff.”

  He put the last bite of a chocolate covered crispy treat in his mouth and just grinned at her before chewing it.

  “He has a real weak spot for sugar,” Elise said as she turned back to the sink from where she stood in the kitchen. She brought over three mugs and set them on the table. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please,” Bree said, because she knew Elise brewed some of the best coffee on the planet.

  “Not for me,” Colton said. “I can’t sleep if I drink coffee this late at night.”

  “It’s seven-thirty,” Bree said. “What time do you go to bed?”

  He looked at her with coolness in his gaze. “Early enough not to drink coffee at seven-thirty.” His eyes turned into lasers. “And thanks for embarrassing me at dinner.”

  “Oh, I didn’t embarrass you.”

  “About what?” Elise asked. “I was late, because this guy came to the lodge looking for a room, and I had to hunt down Patsy and then stay with them whi
le she explained there was no room for him.”

  “You guys didn’t turn me away,” Colton said.

  “You didn’t smell like vodka,” Elise said with a pointed look.

  Bree giggled again, glad for the friends she had in her life. Thank you for making sure I’m not alone, she prayed, a measure of gratitude for the people the Lord had put in her life seeping through her.

  “And anyway, you did get the last room,” Elise said. “So we weren’t lying.”

  “What if he doesn’t have somewhere to stay?” Colton asked.

  “It’s not snowing,” Bree pointed out. “He’ll make it down the canyon just fine. There are plenty of places down there.”

  “Especially now that we’re growing so much,” Elise added.

  “The town is growing?” Colton asked.

  “Like crazy,” Bree said. “Has been for a couple of years now. Maybe longer. We have about ten thousand more people here now than we did when Liam came, and that was what? Three years ago?”

  “I moved here three years ago,” Elise said, pouring coffee into Bree’s mug and then her own. “The clinic had just opened.”

  “Yep, Liam did that.” Bree picked up her coffee mug and her spoon and started stirring in sugar and cream, until her coffee was just how she liked it.

  Her phone made an odd noise, drawing the attention of all three of them. “What was that?” Elise asked. “I’ve never heard your phone make that noise before.”

  “Neither have I.” Bree swiped open the screen and looked at the solid white heart in her notification bar at the top of the phone. “What is that?” She pulled down and tapped on it, and Singles Spark opened up.

  “Oh...dear.”

  “What?” Elise peered over the top of the phone as Colton tried to see the screen too.

  “Someone wants to make a love connection,” he said. “Who’s Cayden Jackman?”

  “I have no idea,” Bree said, almost dropping her phone. A love connection? That couldn’t be true. Could it?

  “It’s not called that,” Elise said, saving her. “It just means he swiped right on you, Bree. He’s interested. If you swipe right on his profile too, then the two of you can chat.”

  “I don’t want to chat,” she said, her voice a bit higher than normal. She tapped on his name, and his profile opened up, complete with emojis and a picture of him.

  “You don’t?” Elise’s voice held plenty of curiosity and surprise. “Why’d you join the dating app then?”

  Bree looked up from the handsome, chiseled face of Cayden Jackman. He wore a tan cowboy hat and had other pictures of himself riding a horse, a four-wheeler, and a roller coaster. What she was supposed to get from those, she wasn’t sure.

  “He doesn’t seem like my type,” she said.

  “What’s your type?” Colton asked. “And that still doesn’t explain why you joined a dating app if you don’t want to chat with men.”

  She looked from him to Elise, both of them expecting an answer. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t meet many available men here, and I thought it sounded like a good idea when Eden told me about it.” Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  “So swipe right,” Colton said, peering down at her phone. “He looks nice enough.”

  Bree looked at Cayden again, trying to decide what to do. In the end, she didn’t want to swipe right. She wasn’t sure she was really ready to start another relationship—even just a chatting one—with someone else.

  What if Cayden Jackman wasn’t this guy’s real name? What if he had lied about who he was and what he liked to do?

  Bree hated the thoughts in her head, but they didn’t flee just because she wanted them to.

  “So what happened with you and Annie at dinner?” Elise asked, lifting her coffee cup to her lips. She’d just saved Bree, and Bree knew it.

  “Oh, nothin’,” Colton said, his face already turning red again. “I’m going to head back to the lodge. Thanks for the sweets, you guys.” He grinned at them, tipped his hat all proper like cowboys do, and headed out the front door.

  Elise sighed as the knob clicked into place. “It’s too bad he feels like my brother,” she said. “If I saw his picture on a dating app, I’d definitely swipe right.”

  “He and Annie have a thing,” Bree said without really thinking.

  “They do?” Elise asked.

  Bree looked down at Cayden Jackman again. “Yeah,” she said, already distracted. “I teased him about it at dinner.” She looked up again, determined not to look at this silly app again that night. “I didn’t really realize it until he turned the color of a beet.”

  “You mean like he did just now?” Elise laughed. “But good for them. Annie needs someone like him in her life.” And Elise meant it, because Elise was the nicest person on the planet.

  “Yeah, I’m happy for her,” Bree said, telling herself she really was. She just wanted a Colton Hammond for herself.

  Could it be Cayden Jackman?

  She’d never know if she never swiped right....

  Chapter Eighteen

  Colton had eaten breakfast—stuffed French toast with homemade peach preserves—and had just committed to going snowmobiling with Annie and several others when his phone rang.

  Wes’s name sat on the screen, and Colton felt his whole day changing right in front of him. He glanced at Annie, apologies already forming in his mind.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to take this. I could be a minute.”

  “It’s fine,” she said, though she already wore a pair of snow pants and highly waterproof boots. She smiled him out of the mudroom, where he answered the call.

  “Wes, hey,” he said. “Is this a long call or a short call?”

  “Long,” Wes said. “We have a huge problem here, Colton, and it affects you.”

  He sighed, wondering why business couldn’t wait until he was back in town. Or at least until the holidays had ended.

  “Okay, give me two minutes.” He covered the receiver of the phone and stepped back into the mudroom. Annie helped one of the Whittaker kids—maybe Stockton? Colton couldn’t remember all of their names—step into a different pair of boots and start to feel around the toe to see where his foot hit.

  “These are going to work, Stocky.”

  “Annie,” Colton said, causing her to turn. “I’m not going to make it snowmobiling.” He held up his phone. “Family emergency.”

  Alarm crossed her face, and Colton wished he’d phrased it differently. There was probably no emergency, at least not a medical one.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s a long conversation,” he said, and that definitely meant things weren’t all right. Annie didn’t get the Hammond vernacular though, and she simply nodded.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll catch up with you later then. Let me know if you need anything.” She didn’t look terribly upset that he wouldn’t be going with her, and Colton was glad for that.

  He left the mudroom, glad he hadn’t chosen any boots or pants yet. “All right, Wes,” he said, heading for the basement bedroom where he could have some privacy. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Jill, Kent, and Laura want to take over HMC.”

  Colton’s step faltered, right there on the stairs. He’d been wrong; this was a true family emergency. “What? They just came out and said that?”

  “Laura is a piece of work,” Wes said, and that was putting it mildly. Colton put up with his cousins, because they had Hammond blood. Otherwise, he’d probably have stopped thinking about them and talking to them years ago.

  “But she’s over research and development.”

  “It’s another prod to get me to run for governor,” Wes said. “She didn’t say that. Wouldn’t admit to it, actually. But she did recently just finish her Ph.D. in corporate finance, and she knows what she’s doing.”

  Colton continued down the stairs, trying to hear what Wes was really saying. “Have you spoken to Gray?”

  �
��Yeah, he’s working with both of us. You know, contracts and legal crap I don’t care about. He cares, and he knows what he’s doing.” Wes sighed, and Colton could picture him at the huge windows that overlooked the city and the huge Rocky Mountains in the distance. His oldest brother sounded tired. Beyond tired.

  “You know,” Colton said, heading for his bedroom now. “Maybe this isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s time for you to be done there. Do something else.”

  “What?” Wes asked. “What else am I going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” Colton said. “It’s not like you have to work.”

  “Yes,” Wes said quietly. “I do.”

  Colton knew what his brother meant. It didn’t seem to be in the Hammond genes to sit idly around and do nothing. Even Cy and Ames, while Colton didn’t understand their brand of “investing,” didn’t just do nothing. Cy had started a custom motorcycle shop when he’d inherited his money, and Ames had bought custom cars before he went into the police academy. They both worked like dogs too, because all of the boys had been raised to work. Be industrious. Do something with their lives.

  “We’re meeting next week,” he said. “Closed doors. No staff in the building.”

  “And you want me there.” Colton unlocked his door with the keycard and went inside. He wasn’t asking his brother if Wes needed him there. Wes didn’t need Colton, and they both knew it.

  “Yes,” Wes said. “I want you here. I think they want your job too.”

  “Why would they want my job?” Colton sank onto the bed. “Not that I want my job, but Kent knows machines, and Jill knows how to drive everyone insane. They don’t know social media marketing, or even regular marketing.”

  “Let’s table that for a second,” Wes said. “You don’t want your job?”

  Colton couldn’t believe he’d said that out loud. “I mean...I could take it or leave it. I’ve been thinking it might be time for a change for me too.”