Her Cowboy Billionaire Boss: A Whittaker Brothers Novel (Christmas in Coral Canyon Book 2)

by Liz Isaacson

  He’d thought about flying to various destinations surrounding Elko, but he couldn’t imagine just running into his beautiful Meg in a city the size of Salt Lake or Vegas. They were huge, and it would take a miracle.

  Of course, he’d been praying for one of those for twelve solid days, but so far, no luck. He really needed to start making his own luck, and hiring a private detective was one way to do that. And really, he didn’t need Graham’s blessing. Eli had his own bank account with plenty of zeroes.

  “Do you have any mutual friends?” Laney asked. “Maybe one of them has heard from her.”

  Eli held his head in his hands as he thought about his life since meeting Meg. She spent most of her time with Stockton, and sometimes they went and did things together, the three of them. He had plenty of business associates, but did he have friends in the places he’d worked?

  Bora Bora felt like it had happened eons ago, in another lifetime. And he hadn’t left anyone behind there of consequence. He didn’t think Meg had either. Before that, they’d been at a resort in Miami, and before that, he’d met and hired Meg in California, two days before he left the state permanently.

  “She likes warm climates,” he said, the thought just now dawning on him. She’d said she hadn’t been in California for very long, and she was willing to relocate. Honestly, that single requirement had set her above the rest of the applicants, all of whom had wanted to stay in the Golden State.

  He’d hired her because of that, not because of her qualifications or because Stockton liked her more than the others. So it was true, what she’d said. He’d always looked at her and seen her as only someone that dealt with Stockton.

  He groaned and said, “I wish I could turn off my brain.” The things he’d been thinking hadn’t been all that nice. Problem was, most of the damaging thoughts were about him, and how he’d messed up all this time, and what he should’ve done. None of them were helpful, but Eli didn’t know how to stop blaming himself.

  Just like with Caroline.

  He exploded out of his chair and said, “I have to go. Laney.” He nodded at her, realizing that he was practically barking. “Thank you for the lovely dinner. Can Stockton stay the night?”

  Just like when Caroline had died, Eli could hardly stand to look at his son. His eyes were too much like hers. Now, the sight of Stockton reminded Eli of what he’d lost, and why.

  “Of course.”

  “Eli,” Beau said, but Eli just shook his head.

  “Come on,” Graham said, standing too. “I’ll walk you out.” He didn’t say anything to Eli on the short walk down the hall. Eli ducked into the TV room and pressed a kiss to his son’s head. “I’m going home, bud,” he said. “Laney said you could stay here for the night, and she’ll take you to school in the morning.”

  “Okay,” Stockton said. He’d been acting strange since Meg’s departure too, and Eli couldn’t blame him. It seemed like they were both a shell of what they’d once been with her in their lives. Without her, everything felt dark, and Eli had never been so lost.

  Not even when Caroline died.

  “You’ll think of something else,” Graham said. “I really don’t think a PI is the way to go.”

  “How did you get Laney back?” Eli asked.

  Graham drew in a breath and then pushed it out. “I made changes, Eli. I changed what had to be changed, and then I went and talked to her.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, I made some big changes.” Graham shrugged. “It worked out okay, I think.”

  More than okay, from what Eli could see. “I’d do that, Graham. If I knew where she was.” Couldn’t he see that Eli had to hire someone to find her? The world was a big place, and she could be anywhere. She’d cleaned out her bank account and hadn’t used her credit card since withdrawing a few hundred dollars in cash at a couple of banks in town on New Year’s Day.

  And if Graham knew Eli had asked a buddy to look into that….

  “You’ll find her,” Graham said.

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. But I have faith you will.”

  Eli left, Graham’s faith meaning a whole lot of nothing to him. Eli had been to church twice now, asking anyone who’d look at him if they’d seen or talked to Meg recently. No one had.

  As he drove back up to the huge, empty lodge, he finally decided to practice the faith his parents had taught him growing up.

  He sat in the SUV and bent his head. “Lord,” he started aloud. “I need to find Meg Palmer. Please. Help me find her.”

  He felt like he believed God could help him, but nothing happened. Eli went inside and down to the office, the only place that felt like Meg hadn’t abandoned. She didn’t spend much time in his office, so it had become a safe haven for him.

  He opened his laptop and a moment later, a bleep! alerted him that he’d gotten some sort of message. But not on the computer. On his phone.

  He tapped on the conversation bubble to find a Rhett Ahlred wanted to connect with him. “Rhett Ahlred.” The name rolled off Eli’s tongue and bounced around inside his mind. He almost declined, but then his memory jogged.

  Rhett was a friend of Caroline’s. They’d grown up together in Chula Vista, and he couldn’t accept the message fast enough.

  It read: Hey, it’s Rhett Ahlred from California. We met a few times through Caroline. Heard someone talking today, and it reminded me of you. Just wanted to say hello.

  “Just wanted to say hello?” That didn’t sound right. In fact, those were the kind of messages women got from creepy guys. If this Rhett told Eli he really liked his eyes, he was out.

  I remember you, Eli typed out. The man looked like California had treated him well. With nothing else to say, he hit send.

  Sorry about Caroline, Rhett said.

  Eli’s stomach clenched. He definitely didn’t need a trip down memory lane with someone he hardly knew. Thank you. His mother had taught him to be polite, and he’d do it once.

  I heard someone use the name Stockton, Rhett said. Didn’t you and Caroline have a son named Stockton?

  Eli’s internal organs rioted, seemingly moving around and rearranging themselves into painful places.

  Yes. He hit send, his pulse bobbing from his temples to the back of his throat. It couldn’t be the same Stockton. The name wasn’t all that unique.

  Yeah, I thought so.

  That was it? Eli needed more information, and he thought the best way to get it was to simply ask. Who was talking about Stockton?

  Oh, just a friend of my girlfriend’s. A woman named Meg.

  Eli dropped his phone, those last three letters burned into his retinas. Time slowed to a stop, and his mind stretched the words into long strands of sound.

  A woman named Meg.

  Everything rushed forward, and Eli stooped to pick up his phone, knocking his forehead against the desk. “Meg?” he dictated out loud as he typed. “Is there a way I can call you? She was my nanny, and I need to get in touch with her.”

  Rhett didn’t answer, and Eli thought he’d just committed the equivalent of saying Rhett’s eyes were beautiful.

  Several minutes passed, and Eli paced the floor in the office, trying not to notice the coffee stain put there when she’d accidentally tripped bringing him a tray. But his stupid eyes gravitated to it over and over, reminding him of the sparks that had shot through his whole system when he’d touched her to help her stand.

  Finally, another bleep! came from his phone, and Eli yanked it into eye range. It was just a number, and Eli couldn’t dial it fast enough.

  “Hey,” he said when Rhett answered. “I hope this isn’t weird. My son’s just been dying to talk to Meg again, and I was wondering if you had a number for her.”

  “Nope,” Rhett said. “But let me have you talk to my girlfriend, Tia.”

  Eli got off the airplane, officially back in California for the first time since he’d buried his wife here. He stepped to the side, breathing suddenly so difficult.<
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  He’d endured a full five minutes of questioning from Tia, who’d finally been convinced that Eli knew Meg and that he wasn’t some creep. She’d kept in touch with him for a few days, and then finally said that they’d be at Pacific Beach on Friday after work.

  Eli had promptly booked plane tickets for Friday morning, and now he was actually in the state he’d vowed never to visit again.

  He’d begged Tia not to tell Meg anything, that he wanted to surprise her, that they’d been dating when she left, and he was trying to get her back. Tia, thankfully, was a romantic, and had been sending Eli tips all morning about the Meg she knew and what kind of flowers to show up with.

  Eli knew Meg loved peonies, but as it wasn’t exactly peony season, he’d have to make do with red roses.

  He made it through the airport to the car rental. He’d been willing to come to the state to go on vacation with Meg and Stockton, and he wondered what she’d done with those tickets. As he stepped outside to get his car, he took a moment to think about Caroline.

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” The apology had been thought and verbalized several times already, but somehow now, it took a burden Eli had been carrying for far too long.

  The sunshine in California seemed to smile down on him, and he pressed his eyes closed and found peace flowing through him.

  With Caroline almost fully cleansed from his mind, he grabbed lunch. Food was a good way to pass the hours. Then he bought flowers. Check. He tried to keep his mind off the time, or what he was about to do.

  He kept a prayer in his heart, silently pleading with God to give Meg an extra dose of forgiveness that day, to make her hours at work easy so she’d be in a better mood once he came face-to-face with her.

  Finally—finally—Tia sent a text that said, Leaving the office now. Thirty minutes, lover boy!

  Eli felt like he might be sick. But he got himself behind the wheel of the car and drove to Pacific Beach. He was ten minutes early, so he saw Meg when she unfolded herself from a dark blue vehicle, stretched her back, and looked out over the ocean.

  Even from thirty yards away, she took his breath right from his lungs. Simply stole it. She wore a huge pair of sunglasses and a tiny pair of shorts, and Eli didn’t think he’d be able to unseat himself and walk down the beach.

  He certainly wasn’t wearing beach attire, and he hadn’t seen a single person in California wearing cowboy boots or a cowboy hat. He currently donned both.

  She still wore her hair in an A-line, and Eli wasn’t sure why he’d thought she’d look different. Only that he hadn’t expected her to be quite so…Meg.

  But she was. She was his Meg.

  She smiled at her friends and collected a canvas bag from the trunk. The three of them walked through the sand and laid out blankets before settling down, their faces into the sunset.

  Eli almost didn’t want to disturb the peace she’d obviously found. But Meg got up again, launching him into action.

  He practically tumbled from the car and slammed the door much too hard, drawing Meg’s attention.

  Don’t stop, he told his feet. Please don’t stop.

  She’d slowed her pace, only going as far as where the sand met the sidewalk. She shaded her eyes, and Eli kept himself moving, moving, moving toward her.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” he said, stopping within reach of her and adjusting his hat nervously. She said nothing, and Eli’s carefully practiced speech flew from his mind, leaving him silent and staring just like she was.

  Chapter Eighteen

  A cowboy on the beach. It was both of Meg’s biggest fantasies rolled into one heavenly vision.

  And not just any cowboy.

  Her cowboy.

  “What are you doing here?” came out of her mouth.

  “I’ve been trying to find you.”

  “How did you find me?” Meg had done everything to make sure she could start fresh in her life, and there Eli stood. If he’d paid someone…. Her blood boiled though the sun wasn’t that hot. “Did you hire someone to find me?” She folded her arms across her body and watched the guilt flicker across his face.

  “No.”

  “You’re not a good liar, Eli.”

  “I didn’t, I swear. I wanted to, but—but Graham said not to. He said to have faith. So I did that, and the next thing I know, there’s this guy messaging me, talking about the name Stockton, and a woman named Meg, and it was you.” He wore hope in his expression now, that same insane hope Meg felt filtering through her body.

  “What guy?” she asked, aware that her friends had stopped talking and were listening to every word being said.

  “His name’s Rhett, and—a”

  Meg spun back to the blankets where June and Tia lay. “Tia. What did you tell Rhett?”

  The woman got up, a gigantic smile on her face as she came through the sand. “I didn’t tell him anything.” She linked her arm through Meg’s and faced Eli. “Who’s this gorgeous cowboy?”

  Meg rolled her eyes. “Tia, you have a boyfriend.”

  “Sort of,” Tia said, not taking her eyes off Eli. And dang, if that didn’t make Meg angry. Tia could not have Eli. Eli was hers.

  She startled at the way her mind still wanted to claim him, still wanted to be his.

  “Rhett was a friend of Caroline’s,” Eli said, drawing Meg’s attention right back to his. “He remembered the name Stockton and thought of us.” He cleared his throat. “Of me and Caroline, and he reached out to me. After a few messages, it came out that he’d met a woman named Meg who used to be a nanny for Stockton.” A smile touched his lips, there one moment and gone the next. “And it was you. I had faith I’d find you, and I did.”

  He cut a glance at Tia, who still gawked at him like he was a side of beef and she hadn’t eaten in a month. “Can we talk privately?”

  “Oh, of course.” Tia unhooked her arm and turned to go back to the blanket. “But you forgot the roses, cowboy.” She giggled as she went, and Eli’s whole face turned bright red.

  “Roses?” Meg asked, stepping onto the sidewalk. When he fell into step beside her, she tried not to be so giddy. Tried, and failed.

  “It’s a long story,” Eli said. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “How do you know there’s going to be a later?”

  “Meg.” He paused and put his hand lightly on her arm. “Meg, I love you. I’m miserable without you, and I see you. I see you in my life for years to come. I see you at my side. I see you as Stockton’s mom. I see you as my wife, my best friend, my everything.” He swallowed, his nervous tell that made Meg’s heart melt. “I can’t live without you, Meg. Please, please come back to the lodge.”

  Meg liked the pretty things he had to say. She’d been waiting to hear them for a very long time, and she didn’t sense any falseness in his tone or his expression. Eli really was a bad liar, and he wasn’t lying right now.

  “I can’t come back,” she said anyway.

  Eli’s whole countenance fell.

  “I’ve just started a job here, and I really like it, Eli. I have friends, real friends.” Her enthusiasm for her new life entered her own ears, and she heard how much she did like those things.

  “You had friends in Wyoming.”

  “A few, yes, but this is different.” Meg started walking again, and when Eli slipped his hand into hers, she accepted it. Squeezed his fingers. “I don’t want to be Stockton’s nanny and your employee. I won’t,” she said simply.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that the only way I’m coming back to Wyoming is if we’re married.”

  Eli remained silent for a few steps. Five, six, seven. “I have a few things to tell you first.”

  She’d heard him use this serious voice before, and she didn’t like it. “All right.”

  “It’s about Caroline.” He didn’t look at Meg, but kept his eyes glued to the ocean on his left. “She died in a car accident.” He paused long enough that Meg wondered if he’d go on.

 
“I know that, Eli.”

  “Yes, well.” He looked at his boots, then back to the ocean. “She wasn’t supposed to be driving. She’d been sick, you see, and she was taking these pills that made her drowsy. But I was—I was—” He cleared his throat again, and then again, and Meg’s heart started tumbling through her chest.

  “Eli,” she said, stepping in front of him and putting both hands on his shoulders. She waited, giving him a moment to find himself and then look at her. When he did, she said, “It’s me, Meg. There’s nothing you can’t tell me that I won’t understand.” While that might not be entirely true, it seemed to help him relax.

  He nodded, swallowed, and said, “I was selfish. I didn’t want to go to the store and get whatever it was we needed. I can’t even remember now. But it was late at night, and it was something Stockton needed. So I—” He coughed and tried again. “I asked her to go. Said I was sick to my stomach, which I was. But I should’ve…she shouldn’t have been driving.” Tears welled in his eyes, but they didn’t fall. “I killed my wife.”

  “No.” Meg shook her head and slid her hands up his neck to cradle his face. “No, Eli, you didn’t. Things happen. Things we don’t understand.”

  “It should’ve been me in the accident.”

  “You don’t know that. You probably would’ve taken ten times as long to find the item in the store.” She didn’t mean it to be funny, but a smile burst onto Eli’s face, and a half-sob, half-laugh came from his mouth.

  “Yeah, probably.”

  He really was hopeless in a grocery store, and Meg wrapped her arms around him. He was so solid, and so strong, and yet in that moment, she felt like the rock he needed to anchor himself too. And it felt really good to be that person.

  “I came to California,” he said. “I didn’t think I could do it, but I did. And I remember why Caroline and I lived here. It’s beautiful.”

  Meg pulled away from him, understanding of all he’d done to find her shooting through her. “We were supposed to come to Disneyland together,” she said.

  “Do you still have the tickets?”

  “Yeah.”