by Myla Jackson
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s someone who’d like to talk to you before you get away.” The deputy stepped back and Angus took his place.
He tried to open her door. “Gwen, we need to talk.”
“I’m done talking.” Despite her efforts to hold back, the tears slipped from her eyes. “Thank you for getting Wayne off my back. But I’m afraid I can’t see you anymore.”
“If this is about my mother’s threat to sell the ranch, let me explain.”
“You don’t have to explain anything. You needed a wife. I was stupid enough to think you needed me. Well, I don’t need you. And I won’t let Dalton be a pawn in your bid to keep the ranch.”
“Gwen, you don’t understand.”
“Oh, I understand all too well.” Gwen shifted into gear and took off, leaving Angus standing on the side of the road in the flashing lights of the sheriff’s cruiser.
Tears blinded her and she nearly missed her turn.
Sirens sounded again and she debated ignoring them and continuing on her course to Grant and Mona’s. But the rule follower in her made her slow to a stop.
She slid her window down. “You’re supposed to be a representative of the law. What reason do you have to pull me over this time?” she shouted.
The deputy stood to the side of her door. “Please step out of the vehicle.”
“I’m not fuckin’ believing this.” She climbed out of the vehicle and glared at the deputy. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please hold out your hand.”
“Why?” she asked, doing as she was told.
He snapped a handcuff on to her wrist. “Ma’am, I’m afraid I can’t let you leave the county until you talk to my friend Angus McFarlan.” The deputy held out the other end of the handcuffs.
Angus appeared and snapped the cuff on his own wrist. “Thanks, Dusty. I owe you one.”
“Just don’t tell the boss. He frowns on me arresting people for crimes of the heart.” Dusty pointed a finger at Gwen. “Give the man a chance. He’s one of the good guys.” The deputy then climbed into his cruiser and drove away.
“He left!” Gwen tried to point her finger at the disappearing cruiser, but the movement brought Angus’s hand with hers. “How are we supposed to get this thing off?”
“I guess we could follow him around on his shift until we catch up. But, first, I’d like to set a few things straight.”
“Don’t bother.” Gwen turned to her car and waved a hand toward the interior. “You’ll have to crawl across the console. I’m not.”
Angus sighed. “I’ll get in, but you’re going to listen.”
“Whatever.” She waited for him to brush past her, his body touching her, sending a shock of electrical charges through her. He climbed across the driver’s seat, in the process pulling her into the vehicle, sitting on the horn and knocking the shift out of gear. By the time Angus settled in the passenger seat, Gwen could swear she had a few bruises.
She shut her door and, with Angus’s help, shifted into gear and drove to the hardware store.
“My mother’s ultimatum had nothing to do with my feelings for you.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because you don’t want to give me a chance. You’re afraid to let yourself love me.”
“I’m not afraid of loving you, because it’s not going to happen. Once burned and all that…”
“Then tell me why you bought me at the auction, if deep down inside you didn’t harbor some kind of hope that there was something still there?”
Her chest tightened and her gut twisted. “Dalton needed a role model.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. He needs a man to teach him how to play sports.”
“You could have chosen any cowboy that night. But you chose me.” He smiled. “And paid a lot of money for the privilege.” His hand curled around hers, their cuffs clanking, metal on metal.
Gwen drifted to a halt at a stop sign, her eyes blurring again. She wanted to hate him for exposing her for the fraud she was, but he’d lied too. “You only went along with my dates because you needed a wife to appease your mother.”
He shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”
“What other reason did you have? It’s been seven years.”
“I know. And I will forever regret that I didn’t come after you. I thought you’d be better off without me and the ranch and all my responsibilities slowing you down.”
“What if I wanted to be slowed down? You didn’t even give me the choice.” She shoved his hand away, but it only went so far before the chain binding them brought it up short. “You didn’t come after me.”
“I was hurt that you didn’t tell me goodbye. I thought you had used me for a summer fling before going back to school. Even so, I was going to follow you to College Station the week after you left, but my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. I couldn’t leave her. Not when my father had died six months earlier, one brother was away at school and the other had left a year earlier and had yet to return for more than a day.”
Gwen bit her bottom lip. “You had to stay and help your mother.”
“By the time she made it through surgery and chemo, it was over a year. I looked for you in College Station, but you’d moved and left no forwarding address. I realize now I should have kept looking. I didn’t know you’d kept in touch with Mona.”
“All that time.” Gwen sat with her foot on the brake, her gaze staring out as if looking into the past.
“When you showed up at the Ugly Stick, I wasn’t sure I wanted to start over with you. It hurt too much to lose you the first time. I loved you so very much and I still do.”
“How can I believe you?” Gwen shook her head. “Of course you were happy I fell into your arms. If some poor girl hadn’t come along, you stood to lose everything you’d worked so hard for. Land that has been in your family for over a hundred years, the breeding program you built from the ground up. Everything.”
“I don’t care about those things.”
“Don’t fill me full of more lies. You love those things.”
A horn honked behind them.
Gwen realized she was still sitting at a stop sign and another vehicle had pulled up behind them. She pressed her foot to the accelerator and drove to a church parking lot and shifted into Park.
Angus captured her cheek with his unencumbered hand. “The ranch and the horses are things I can live without.”
“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have to if I went along with your plans.”
“Gwen, will you listen?” He chuckled. “I’m selling my herd to Jackson.”
“You’re what?” She stared at him, her heart thumping hard against her ribs. “Selling the horses you love?”
“I don’t love my horses. I love you. I’m negotiating with Jackson Gray Wolf to purchase my breeding stock. Gwen, I’m selling out and moving to Dallas. I talked to my boss at the firm. They have an office they can put my name on. All I have to do is tell them when.”
His words whirled around her but didn’t want to stick. “But your mother’s ultimatum.”
“She can sell the damned ranch. I don’t care about it. I care about you and Dalton. I have a feeling he and I are going to be great buds. If you let me become part of your life.”
“But the ranch…” Gwen stared at Angus, her mouth hanging slack, “…how can you walk away from your family heritage?”
“Easy. If staying means losing you, I’d walk away from a hundred family ranches.”
Her heart soared and she leaned across the console and caught his face between her palms. “You mean it?”
Angus grinned. “Every word.”
She kissed him hard, her free hand circling the back of his neck to hold him closer, deepening their contact. When at last she broke free and sat back, breathing hard, she laughed out loud, feeling lighter, younger and more carefree than she’d felt in seven years.
“So, is
there room in your and Dalton’s lives for a cowboy without a ranch?” He held out his hands.
She laid hers in his. “Damn right there is. But if it’s all the same to you, I don’t want you to give up the ranch and the horses. They’re a part of what makes you so special.”
He winked. “I can be special without them.”
“Dalton has such high hopes of you teaching him how to ride. And he wants his own pony and puppy. I can’t keep a dog in Dallas. But I could commute a couple days a week.”
“I could too. And I’ve always wanted to design and build my own house on the property.”
“So does that mean I get the rest of my eight dates?” Gwen asked.
“That and so much more.” Angus pulled her across the console and into his lap, kissing her soundly.
After several minutes, Gwen glanced up and noticed several cars pulling into the parking lot, their passengers glaring at them.
“Uh, sweetheart. It’s Sunday.”
Gwen laughed. “You think we’ll go to hell for making out in the church parking lot?”
“If we are, let’s make it good.” Angus covered her mouth with his and gave the old ladies a good show.
Gwen laughed into his mouth and clung to him, promising herself she’d never let him go again.
Epilogue
Colin hit the last number and held his breath while the phone rang four times. He’d chosen to call using the phone at Molly’s, knowing Brody wouldn’t answer if he called from home.
On the fourth ring, someone picked up. “Hello.”
“Brody McFarlan?” he asked.
“Yeah, who is this?”
His gut tightened. “Colin.”
“What do you want?” His tone was flat, unemotional and a little annoyed.
Colin had rehearsed the entire conversation about how their mother had given them an ultimatum and demanded all three of them get their lives together, but with his brother’s cranky tone, he didn’t think he’d get halfway through his spiel before Brody hung up.
Instead, Colin said, “Mom’s sick, maybe dying. You need to come home.”
If you enjoyed this book, try the other books in the
Ugly Stick Saloon Series
Boots & Chaps (#1)
Boots & Sex Ed (#2)
Boots & Leather (#3)
Boots & Promises (#4)
Boots & Bareback (#5)
Boots & Dirty Tricks (#6)
Boots & Lace (#7)
Boots & Roses (#8)
Boots & Buckles (#9)
Boots & the Wishes (#10)
Boots & Twisters (#11)
Boots & the Bachelor (#12)
Boots & the Rogue (#13)
Boots & the Heartbreaker (#14)
Boots & Wings (#15)
BOOTS & the ROGUE
Ugly Stick Saloon Series Book #14
by Elle James
New York Times Bestselling Author
writing as
Myla Jackson
Chapter One
“Mom? Angus? I’m home!” Brody McFarlan pushed through the front door of the Rafter M Ranch main house. Stepping into the old colonial home was like stepping back into his childhood.
Nothing much had changed, other than a slightly different color of paint on the wall and maybe a new easy chair he hadn’t noticed the last time he was there over a year ago.
“Mom?” he called out again, his heart bunching in his chest. Angus’s and Colin’s trucks weren’t out front, and Brody hadn’t driven around behind the house to see if his brothers had parked out by the barn. Damn. Had he arrived too late?
Pushing past the exhaustion of driving over twenty-five hours straight, he ran through the house, checking in his mother’s bedroom and the kitchen. He was headed for the back door leading off the kitchen when it slammed open and a little boy of about five burst through, followed by a small golden retriever puppy with huge paws, yapping at his heels.
“You can’t catch me!” the little boy shouted over his shoulder and barreled through the kitchen, slamming into Brody’s legs.
The puppy sat back on his haunches in an attempt to stop, skidded across the wooden floor and bumped into the back of the little boy’s knees, knocking him over.
Brody staggered backward, wondering if he’d wandered into the wrong house.
A female voice called from outside, “Dalton! Don’t run in the house!” Seconds later, a gorgeous auburn-haired woman pushed through the door and stopped, her eyes rounded. “Oh, sorry. Can I help you?”
Brody stared at the boy and dog. “Do these belong to you?”
The woman laughed. “As a matter of fact, they do.” She tilted her head and stared hard at him. “You look familiar.”
“I’m sorry I can’t say the same.”
Her eyes rounded and she grinned. “You must be Brody.” She leaned out the door. “Angus, sweetheart, come see who’s here.”
Heavy footsteps clunked against the wood planks of the deck outside and Brody’s brother Angus filled the door behind the woman. He looped his arm around her waist and nuzzled her neck before he glanced up. “Who’s here?”
When his gaze met Brody’s he broke out in a huge smile. “Brody!”
The boy at Brody’s feet stood and gathered the wiggling puppy in his arms. “Are you my Uncle Brody?”
“Well, actually—” the woman started but was cut off by more footsteps clomping against the deck.
“Angus! Gwen! Did you see which way Dalton and Shotgun went?” Brody’s mother, Maggie McFarlan, burst through the door, her cheeks red, hair windblown and eyes sparkling. Far from the image Brody had in mind of a woman on the verge of death. “Oh, there he is. Thank goodness. I thought he might have gotten into the pen with the bull again.” She glanced up and smiled. “Hello, Brody, it’s good to see you.” Then she blinked and the color drained from her face. “Brody?”
Brody nodded. “Hey, Mom.”
Her eyes glistened with tears and she took a step toward him, then another and flung her arms around him, nearly tripping over the little boy at his feet. “Oh, Brody, I’ve missed you so much.”
Brody hugged his mother long and hard. He had to swallow several times to loosen his constricted vocal cords. “I missed you too.”
When he had a grip on his emotions, he held her at arm’s length, scanning her face. “How are you? What does the doctor say? Why are you outside running around? Shouldn’t you be in bed or in an easy chair resting?”
She frowned up at him and laughed. “What are you talking about? I’m fine.”
More footsteps pounded across the deck outside the kitchen. “Hey, who left the door open on the chicken coop? There are chickens everywhere. I could use a hand getting them all back in the—” Colin, Brody’s younger brother, banged through the door and came to a dead standstill.
Brody glared at him over his mother’s head. “I drove twenty-five hours straight to get here.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” His mother cupped his cheek. “You must be exhausted.”
“I am,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Why didn’t you take the usual three days?” she asked.
“Tell her.” Brody’s glare deepened.
Colin had the decency to blush. “Uh, could I get some help rounding up the chickens?”
Their mother frowned, her gaze shooting between Colin and Brody. “What’s going on?”
Brody’s anger simmered. “Colin called me exactly twenty-five hours ago to tell me you were sick, maybe dying. I dropped everything and came as fast as I could.”
The little boy tugged on Brody’s sleeve. “Are you my Uncle Brody?”
Brody looked down at the boy and back up to his mother and Angus. “Who are these people?”
Everyone talked at once until the cacophony of voices sounded like fans at a boxing match.
His head aching, his eyes burning from lack of sleep, Brody raised his hand and shouted, “Quiet!”
As if someone had turned the sound off
on the radio, the kitchen got dead silent. Then the puppy in the boy’s arms barked.
Angus took the dog from the boy and leaned in to hug Brody. “Hey, bro, glad you finally made it home. I’d like you to meet my girl, Gwen, and her boy, Dalton. The dog’s name is Shotgun because he’s fast out the barrel and scatters everywhere at once.”
Gwen held out her hand. “Hello, Brody. Angus has told me so much about you. Well, about you as a boy growing up on the ranch. Nice to meet you.”
Brody took her hand and shook it, his gaze going to Angus. “Your girl? Why didn’t I know about this?”
“I’m sorry,” his mother said. “It all happened so fast and I haven’t talked to you in several weeks.”
“You’d have known, if you’d been here,” Colin said.
The silence stretched again.
“Well, now you are. Have a seat. Angus will make coffee, won’t you, dear?” his mother said.
“What the h—” Brody glanced at the boy, and changed his expletive, “—heck is going on here?”
“Is Uncle Brody always mad?” Dalton asked, backing into Angus’s legs, his eyes wide.
“No, Uncle Brody isn’t always mad. Only for the last eight years,” Colin said.
Angus shot him a killer look. “Mom, why don’t you take Gwen and Dalton out and show them how to lead the chickens into the pen with a bucket of feed?”
“Oh boy!” Dalton ran for the door.
Mrs. McFarlan hooked Gwen’s arm. “Come on, the boys need a little brotherly bonding time.”
Colin snorted.
Their mother pointed at Colin and Brody. “Play nice and remember what I said.” She shifted her gaze to include Angus and then stepped out the door.
Gwen shot a questioning glance at Angus and hustled Dalton out in front of her.
Once the women and the little boy were out of the house, Brody glared at his brothers. “What the hell is going on?”
“Sit.” Angus pointed to the table.
Neither Colin nor Brody made a move to comply with his order.
