Holt inclined his head. "Leastwise, not unless he's too dead to fight for it."
"I don't understand."
"Keep it." He stared down at her and the warm, passionate expression in his black eyes stole her breath clean away. A fire sparked to life deep within her, burning hot and fierce. "Keep it, because wherever you go, wherever you stay, that's where I'll hang my hat."
"Oh, Holt," Cami whispered, and threw herself into his arms, nearly knocking him off his feet.
"Hey, watch it," he groused. "You're crushin' my hat."
"Here." She shoved his Stetson back into his hands. "The only place you'll be hanging this is at the A-OK Corral."
He nodded in satisfaction. "And I've got an extra bed knob for that silly pink one of yours, if you're interested."
Stricken, she bit her lip. "I don't have it any more."
A slow grin spread across his mouth. "You do now. I tied the fool thing to Loco's saddle. And let me tell you, he's none too happy about it." He cupped her face, his gaze growing serious. "I love you, Cami. I love you more than life itself. Will you marry me?"
"You folks staying or leaving?" the conductor demanded, practically dancing at Holt's elbow. "We've got a schedule to keep."
"Do it, Colorado. Marry him, Cami!" the passengers shouted.
"Yes," she said, with a smile that felt a mile wide. "Yes, I'll marry you. Let's go home. All right?"
Holt didn't say a word. He didn't have to. His expression said it all. Then he kissed her.
"We're late! We're late!" shrieked the conductor, throwing his schedule to the ground and stomping on it. "Make up your minds! Are you coming or going?"
Reluctantly Holt released her. "Going." And without further ado he swept Cami into his arms, luggage and all, and carried her from the train. As he strode across the platform, a dozen cars screeched to a halt and neighbors and townsfolk, guests and wranglers alike, poured from the vehicles.
"He got her!" shouted Gabby. "He broke the record and got her!" Cheers erupted.
Cami buried her face in Holt's shirt. She was home at last. Lordy, it felt good.
"I did it, Daddy," she whispered. "I'm finally a cowboy. Just like you."
Epilogue
Seven years later…
WITH SPRING CAME the first wave of guests to the A-OK Corral. Cami sat in her rocker on the porch relaxing, enjoying the view while she waited. Holt sat beside her, his Stetson tipped low over his eyes, enjoying the momentary peace and quiet.
A plume of dust appeared on the horizon, heralding the arrival of a vehicle. A few minutes later, an SUV pulled into the yard and a man in his late thirties climbed from behind the wheel, looking around in bewilderment. He poked his head in the open car window and said something to the woman seated on the passenger side. In the back, Cami could see several wriggling children. The family's youngest member announced his presence with a strident wail.
Cami stood, as did Holt. He pulled her close and gave her a swift kiss, his large hand settling over her modest baby bump. “I still think we should consider naming her Buttercup,” he said.
She laughed. “Aw, get on with you. She’d never forgive us.” Her hand closed over his. Lingered. “Poor thing. Imagine naming her after a cow.”
“Buttercup for this one, and Petunia for the next,” he teased. “Goes well with Camellia, don’t you think?”
“No, I most certainly do not.”
She snatched another kiss, then hitched up her britches and strode over to the car. Behind her the ranch door slammed open and Holt dusted off his sons before gesturing toward their visitors. Footsteps, remarkably similar to the sound made by a herd of elephants, clattered down the porch steps after her. Two black haired urchins arrived breathless at her side.
"Howdy!" she called to the man over the shrieks of their baby. She stuck out her hand. "I'm Colorado Cami, C.C. for short. Where do you folks hail from? Ohio? That's all right." She gave them a mischievous wink. "We won't hold it against you. What do you say, we get you unloaded? My boys here, Flint and Colt, will help you with anything you need. And by the way... Welcome to the A-OK Corral!"
The End
~ ~ ~
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LOVE, TEXAS
By Ginger Chambers
Published by Ginger Chambers
Copyright © 2005, 2013
Originally published as a Harlequin American Romance
Special Author’s Edition 2013
All rights reserved.
License Notes:
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for lending, delete it from your device and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events have no existence outside the imagination of the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cassie Edwards left small town Love, Texas, as fast as she could after turning 18, vowing never to return. It wasn’t easy growing up the daughter of the town kook! She turned her back on everyone and everything in Love, including her mother, to make a successful life for herself as a businesswoman in Houston.
Only her job forces her back. She must negotiate the sale of a piece of ranchland owned by the Taylors, an influential town-and-ranch family. The sale should be quick and easy because the ranch is in dire need of money. But was anything ever easy where love and Love, Texas, was concerned?
Hard-working rancher Will Taylor had too much to worry about to get involved with Cassie. Feuding uncles, lost leases, mounting debts--the world seemed to rest on his shoulders. From barely remembering her at first, he soon couldn’t forget her. How could he, when the lovely Cassie was just down the hall?
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CHAPTER ONE
LOVE, TEXAS, HAD grown. Homes in the small Central Texas community now stretched well past the water tower on the east, numerous new businesses had sprouted among the old, and trees along Main Street that Cassie remembered as puny saplings were now tall enough to menace utility wires.
It was only at the Four Corners, the intersection where Pecan Avenue cut Main, that nothing seemed to have changed at all. Swanson's Garage still sported the same old-style gasoline pumps under the same rickety canopy. The Salon of Beauty featured the same eye popping candy-pink front door and green-and-white striped window awnings. The overlarge plate-glass windows at Handy Grocery & Hardware were still plastered with the same garish advertising banners. And considering the number of pickup trucks and cars crowded into the parking lot on the remaining corner, Reva's Café continued to claim top prize as the town's favorite eating spot.
The traffic light switched to green and the car ahead pulled away, but before Cassie could follow suit, a cold prickling sensation spread throughout her body, quickening her heart, constricting her breathing. Filling her with alarm. With fear. With dread.
Only her tight grasp on the steering wheel enabled her to pull her car off the road, out of the way of traffic. She felt oddly detached. As if time was somehow twisting in on itself and the ten years she'd been away from Love had never happened! She was again her miserable young self, desperate for escape, but unable to leave until she turned eighteen...
No! That wasn't true! she told herself, fighting for control. Those ten years had passed. She had escaped. In reality, she was twenty-eight, assured of herself, with a job she loved and a wonderful apartment in Houston. She wasn't the young Cassie Edwards. The Cassie Edwards everyone in Love thought they knew so well. And looked down on.<
br />
As her panic subsided, Cassie forced herself to again examine her surroundings. And this time she saw differences. The old rusted-out wrecker, long an eyesore at Swanson's, had been hauled away, the overgrown weeds around it paved over for extra parking. A regulation sidewalk now led to the Salon's front door instead of the old, irregular stepping blocks. Handy's also had a different—
A horn tooted behind her, alerting her to the fact that her car was blocking the entrance to the café parking lot. Instinctively, her eyes flew to the rearview mirror, checking to see if she recognized the driver. With relief, she didn't, and after an apologetic little wave, she pulled back onto Main Street to continue her journey.
She didn't let herself think about what had just happened until a few blocks later when Main reverted to state highway, signaling that the town proper had been left behind. Naturally, she'd felt trepidation about a return to Love, where, despite the tender connotation of its name, she had felt so little...love. But she hadn't expected the past to still hold such sway over her, to affect her to the point where she had to battle for control. Pointed looks, uncomfortable silences, strained conversations…yes. But not such a deeply emotional—
She brought that line of thought to an abrupt end. She'd come here to do a job, to negotiate a land deal, as she'd successfully negotiated other land deals across the state. Love was no different. Get here, gather the needed signatures, and then get out…fast! That was the plan she'd constructed in Houston, and that was the plan she was determined to follow.
Even as she gave a confirming nod to herself, she reflexively thought of her mother, which set off another flutter of panic. Only this time her anxiety was less; she'd known all along that she would have to see her. She couldn't be in town and not stop by. But the visit would be brief, and it would be the last thing she'd do before she returned to Houston.
The saving grace of the entire undertaking was that her boss, James T. "Jimmy" Michaels, had insisted that she stay outside of town on the Taylor ranch. He'd even booked one of the guestrooms the family advertised in a small vacation guide he'd unearthed. Leave it to Jimmy to ferret out every pertinent bit of information concerning a deal he was interested in. On the hunt, few things escaped his notice.
Though she'd grown up in Love, Cassie had never been to the Taylor ranch, but she remembered the Taylors. Both sets of Taylors. The ones in the country and the ones in town. She'd had little interaction with either branch, just as she'd had little interaction with the rest of the populace. At least, she corrected herself, not interaction of a positive nature. It was hard to grow up the daughter of the town kook.
Cassie discarded the thought and instead concentrated on finding the turnoff to the Taylor ranch. She knew it was about seven miles beyond the town's western limit, where gently rolling limestone hills took the place of flatter land. Once she spotted it, she slowed to make the turn, then continued along the two-lane blacktop until she reached a single set of railroad tracks. Rolling up onto them, she stopped. From that vantage, she looked back at the roughly one-hundred-yards-deep and five-hundred-yards-long strip of fenced-off land that lay between the tracks and the highway. This was the reason she'd made the trip. Though separated from the main acreage by the railroad right-of-way, it was still a part of the Taylor ranch. How would the family react when she presented them with Jimmy's proposal to buy it?
Like most ranchers, the ranch Taylors could use the money. Jimmy's research showed that they were in debt to the bank and, after a series of setbacks, in arrears to other creditors as well. It had reached the point that toward the end of last year they'd opened their home to strangers. The town Taylors, on the other hand, had no particular financial need. But Jimmy's research, as well as her own personal knowledge, gave her other avenues of approach.
The car bumped off the tracks to parallel another line of tightly strung barbed wire. The fence ran on for well over a mile, with occasional groupings of Black Angus cattle dotting the pasture. Finally, the wire was replaced by a decorative fencing of carefully-stacked limestone rocks, which in turn led to a wide metal gate that proudly proclaimed the name of the ranch in black wrought iron: Circle Bar-T. Cassie swung into the drive.
Beyond the gate, a graded driveway led a distance to a two-story white frame house with a wraparound porch, where greenery and flowers softened the rugged land surrounding it. A windmill stood off to one side, its blades curiously still in the breeze. Tucked in close beside the windmill was a thriving vegetable garden. To the rear of the house, a variety of weathered outbuildings revealed the working heart of the ranch. In all, it was a setting sure to please any visitor who hungered for a bucolic western vacation.
Cassie hopped out, swung the gate open, then steered her way up the drive, going over in her mind yet again how she would approach the family. She'd wait until after dinner that evening, while they were all still gathered around the table. Then she'd tell them who she represented and what Jimmy—
"Hey!"
Someone—a man—shouted.
Cassie looked but couldn't see him, not until activity at the windmill caught her attention. A slim jeans-clad man in a long-sleeved shirt and a bone-colored hat was climbing down the metal frame. Once he reached the ground, he headed straight toward her.
Cassie stamped on the brakes, spraying gravel in all directions. She hadn't been going that fast, but the brakes locked, the tires slid, and... Tell that to the man striding purposefully toward her! His body language hadn't seemed pleased before. Now he was even less pleased.
In Houston her first instinct would be to slam the car into reverse and get the heck out of there. Strangers couldn't be trusted, particularly hostile strangers. But she quashed the impulse. First, because she wasn't in Houston, and, second, as he drew nearer, she realized this man was no stranger.
She stepped out of the car to await Will Taylor's arrival. She'd had a thing for him once when she first noticed boys. He'd been older, eighteen to her twelve. Trim and athletic with thick blond hair and eyes the same blue as the Texas sky, he was handsome in the way that made a girl's heart quicken if he so much as looked at her. And he was smart—always winning prizes in school. And nice—nice to everyone. But even if he had noticed her in the same way that she'd noticed him back then, there'd been a gulf between them far wider than the difference in their ages. She was the daughter of Bonnie Edwards. And that was enough.
Little about Will Taylor had changed in the intervening years. When he halted in front of her and removed his work-stained hat, she saw that he still had the same thick blond hair, the same blue eyes, the same clean-cut features. He was nearing his mid thirties now, but the wear of time and experience had only increased his handsomeness, lending him a rugged maturity that he hadn't had before.
Cassie's heart sped up, even as she tried to steady it.
"You forgot somethin', ma'am," he drawled in a husky baritone, his relaxed manner at odds with the taut line of his mouth. "You didn't close the gate. In these parts if you open a gate, you need to close it." His eyes made a quick assessment of her person. "You the visitor we're expectin' today? We thought you were a man."
Cassie sought to lighten the moment with a small attempt at humor. "Well, obviously I'm not, but I am the visitor."
Her attempt fell flat.
"Just remember to close the gates," he reiterated, his tone level. "And another thing, don't drive so fast in here—" He indicated the fenced area around them that included the drive, the house, the windmill, and a measured amount of land on either side. "Barbed wire does a pretty good job of keepin' the larger livestock out. But we have smaller animals around that could get hurt. So you need to be careful."
The reality of her "speeding" was debatable, but Cassie already knew the hard-and-fast rule about gates. She'd just forgotten.
"All right," she agreed.
Will Taylor continued to look at her. Was he starting to remember her, too? He hadn't up to now. But then she'd changed far more than he had during her yea
rs away. The dark brown, almost black, hair she used to wear hanging straight to her waist was now short and layered, feathering her face. She wore makeup and nice clothes where before, as a teenager, she had done neither. Back then, if she could have faded into the walls whenever she was forced to be with people, she would have. The biggest difference in her today, though, was the way she carried herself, the way she presented herself. She had confidence now. In herself, in her abilities. She—
"After you close the gate, go knock on the front door," he said, his words breaking into her thoughts. "My mom's expectin' you." Then, giving a short nod, he stuffed his hat back on his head and started back to the windmill.
Cassie stared after him. Not exactly an auspicious beginning. But it was a beginning.
She walked to the gate, secured it as instructed, and returned to her car. Then accelerating slowly forward, she parked beside a well-used blue pickup to the right side of the house, mounted the two steps onto the wide front porch, and knocked on the screen door frame.
The pungent odor of cooking tomatoes tickled Cassie's nose as she waited. When there was no response, she knocked again, only harder. She peered through the screen and even called out. But the inside of the house remained silent.
Two old-fashioned rocking chairs and several well-used ladder-back chairs waited for occupants on the porch. A partially completed jigsaw puzzle was laid out on a table. There was no sign of life until a gray cat with a snowy-white blaze on its chest and equally white-tipped paws glided silently around the curve of the porch. The cat stopped in front of the first rocker, made a graceful leap onto the seat cushion, settled, and then looked up at her with jewel-like eyes.
"Do you know where Mrs. Taylor is?" Cassie asked.
The cat blinked and turned its head, unconcerned.
Cassie tried the door again. Still nothing.
Vexed, she released a breath and weighed her options. She could cross to the windmill and ask Will for help. Which, if he was already back up on top, would entail him coming down again—an occurrence she doubted would go over very well. Or, her better option, she could begin a search on her own. If, afterward, she still couldn't find the woman, she'd sit in the rocking chair next to the cat and wait. Mrs. Taylor had to turn up sometime.
Love Me Some Cowboy Page 69
