Her Cowboy Billionaire Best Friend's Brother

by Liz Isaacson

  Patsy once again looked like he’d thrown cold water in her face. She marched toward him, her face broadcasting anger. She paused a couple of feet from him. “How—how did you know I’m bored in the job?” she asked. “Not that I’m bored in the job. This place is a zoo most of the time.”

  “They need two people to do what you do by yourself,” he said. “Anyone can see it. Why haven’t you told…whoever your boss is?”

  “Graham,” she supplied. “And I don’t know.”

  “Have Wes do it. I think he’s still consulting with them.”

  Patsy sighed as she looked past him. “He is.” She shook her head and reached up to brush her short bangs off her forehead. They weren’t long enough to tuck or stay back with her other hair, and they just fell back into place. “I’m not going to ask him to say anything.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything either,” Cy said. “Moment of desperation.” He’d had a lot of them lately, and he really needed to school his mouth during those moments.

  She dropped her eyes, and she looked soft and beautiful in that moment. She was organized and knowledgeable, and to an untrained eye, she came across as cold. Cy had thought that the first time he’d met her too.

  “Apology accepted,” she murmured.

  The next thing he knew, her fingers touched his, and he sucked in a breath involuntarily. She heard it, and she lifted her eyes to his. That electricity that pulsed through the sky and then called down thunder now coursed between the two of them.

  As she looked down again, her fingertip ran along the thick rubber band on his wrist. “It helps you focus, right?”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice much lower than normal. He told himself in a very stern mental voice not to clear his throat. Don’t do it, he thought, easily switching it to a prayer. Please don’t let me clear my throat.

  He backed up a step when she met his eye again. His back bumped into the wall behind him, and he stilled.

  “My brother used to wear one,” she said, finally dropping his hand.

  Cy’s fingers immediately started rubbing the area of his wrist around the rubber band where she’d been touching. He shifted to the left a little, his shoulder blade running into a box there.

  A rousing round of laughter erupted from around the corner, but Cy didn’t even look in that direction. He didn’t care what was happening in the dining room. He only wanted this moment to continue.

  “Would you like to go out with me?” he asked, and he was so deep inside the moment, he heard the words echoing outside his head. It took a moment for him to realize they actually had echoed through the house.

  He glanced up at the ceiling as if it held the answer to his confusion. “What’s…?” He heard that piping through the speaker system too, and horror filled him.

  Colton appeared around the corner, taking in Cy and Patsy standing there, facing off. He knocked on the wall a couple of times as pure glee filled his expression. “You might, uh, wanna turn that off before she answers.” His grin was the size of Texas, and he disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared.

  Cy pressed his eyes closed and stepped to the other side of the hall. When he turned and opened his eyes, he saw the box on the wall and the speaker embedded into the wall above it, where Patsy had spoken the announcement for dinner.

  Sneak Peek! Her Cowboy Billionaire Beast Chapter Two

  Patsy Foxhill traded places with Cy Hammond, her pulse pounding dangerously loud in her ears. She hadn’t heard the dinging that always preceded an announcement through the public address system at the lodge. The laughter in the dining room had covered it.

  They’d all heard him ask her to go out with him, though, and Patsy honestly had no idea how to answer him. The truth was, she’d very much like to go out with Cy Hammond. He’d worn a regular pair of slacks to the lodge tonight, and with the bright blue dress shirt and paisley bow tie, he was downright handsome.

  He ducked his head, his black cowboy hat cutting off their connection. Across the hall, she heard the distinct sound of his rubber band slapping against his skin.

  Without obsessing any longer about his question, she twisted back to the wall, leaned forward, and said, “Yes.”

  The word filled the lodge, and she had enough time to turn and face him before a roar in the dining room filled the air.

  Cy’s head jerked up, and Patsy reached to brush at her bangs again. She really needed to stop doing that, because it accomplished nothing, and it revealed her nerves.

  “Patsy?”

  Patsy spun toward the child’s voice to find Ronnie and Averie standing there. “Yes?” She took a couple of steps toward them. “I’m coming. Did you guys save me any of those meatballs?” She put her arms around each of them and didn’t dare glance over her shoulder to see what Cy was doing.

  In the kitchen, she found trays and pans of food, a lot of it taken already. Averie asked for another roll, and Patsy got it for the seven-year-old. Ronnie wanted pie, but Patsy could tell it wasn’t time yet. “You’ll have to ask Celia,” she said. “Or your mother.”

  “No pie,” Laney said from the other side of the counter. “We’re still eating, bud. Come sit down.”

  With the extra table in the dining area, there was hardly room to move around. Patsy kept her eyes down as she put mashed potatoes and meatballs and gravy on her plate. Celia had made her fancy lemon-garlic peas, and Patsy noticed there were plenty of those left.

  She felt a lot of eyes on her, and trepidation accompanied her as she picked up a red plastic cup of punch and finally allowed herself to look up.

  Sure enough, everyone in the dining room was looking at her. Heat filled her face, and she didn’t know what to say.

  “There’s a seat over here,” Elise said. “I saved for you.” She glanced out into the hallway and back to Patsy.

  Patsy went that way, and thankfully, one of the triplets chose that moment to spill their juice, which caused a commotion and offered the ice-breaker everyone needed to move back to their own conversations and lives.

  Patsy put her plate down, as well as her drink, and took the seat beside Sophia on one side and Todd Christopherson on the other. She glanced at him, hoping he didn’t care about her love life.

  He flashed a grin at her and then turned back to his twins. “Did you hear, Patsy?”

  “Hear what?” she asked.

  “Vi and I are expecting another baby.”

  “You are?” Patsy looked past him to Vi. “That’s so great. Congratulations.” Happiness filled her, and she pushed against the thread of jealousy as it threatened to stitch her lungs too tight.

  “Thanks,” Vi said, reaching for a napkin and using it to wipe Mary’s face. “Hey, let me clean you up. Stop it.” She got the job done, and Patsy went back to her dinner.

  Sophia leaned toward her. “Did you really just say you’d go out with Cy Hammond?”

  Patsy nodded as she cut a meatball in half and scooped up a bite of meat, potatoes, and gravy. Celia’s onion brown gravy was the stuff dreams were made of, and Patsy realized how hungry she was. She couldn’t remember if she’d eaten lunch, and she knew she’d only had a protein shake for breakfast.

  There was always so much to do at the lodge for this evening, and Patsy worked a lot during the holidays when others didn’t. As soon as dinner ended, she’d slip out the front door and head down the canyon to her father’s house. She’d invited him up to the lodge over and over, but he’d never wanted to come.

  Betty was making dinner tonight at the house where they’d grown up, and Patsy had promised to be there in time for dessert. She loved spending time with her nieces, and Joe had started coming back to the land of the living after his divorce had been finalized just after Halloween. He’d bring his son and daughter tonight, and his ex-wife would have them tomorrow.

  “How did this happen?” Sophia asked, her voice still a hiss in Patsy’s ear. “What happens if you fall in love with him? You realize these Hammonds are taking over this lodge, right?
”

  “They are?” Patsy asked. “None of them live here.” She turned toward Sophia and searched her best friend’s and roommate’s eyes. Sophia possessed a bit of a salty streak, and her chocolate-brown eyes held plenty of it right now.

  “They’ve taken three of our friends,” Sophia said as if Patsy didn’t know.

  “He bought half of my dad’s orchard,” Patsy said. She hadn’t told anyone that, even Sophia. The two of them shared a cabin in the corner of the backyard, and they’d grown close in the last three years since they’d been working here at Whiskey Mountain Lodge. “So I met him a few months ago.”

  She glanced around to see if Cy had come in. He hadn’t. A blip of betrayal slid through her veins with every beat of her heart. He’d left her to face the whole crowd—people she knew way better than him—by herself.

  Maybe she shouldn’t have said yes to his dinner invitation so quickly. Patsy didn’t normally let her hormones dictate what she did, and she certainly didn’t date men like Cy Hammond.

  “Have you been talking to him since he bought the orchard?” Sophia asked.

  “Sophia, I’m not going to fall in love with him.”

  Sophia shrugged one shoulder and said, “You might.”

  Patsy didn’t argue further, because she didn’t need to get into her personal insecurities at the Whittaker family dinner on Christmas Eve.

  The truth was, Sophia was right. She might very well fall in love with Cy Hammond, but Sophia didn’t need to worry about one of the Hammond brothers “taking” her from the lodge.

  Even if she fell for him, no one she ever dated had ever fallen in love with her. Her last boyfriend hadn’t even noticed when she’d cut off ten inches of her hair.

  Cy noticed your hair at the orchards, she thought, and Patsy really hated that she remembered that from months ago.

  She finished eating and started cleaning up, picking up dishes children had left behind. About the time the ice cream came out of the freezer and the Everett sisters brought their guitars out of the master bedroom, Patsy slipped into her coat and out the door to go to her father’s.

  “Oh,” she said when she encountered a cowboy on the front steps. “It’s cold out here, Cy. What are you doing?”

  He looked up at her. “Thinking.” He stood up and shuffled a couple of steps back. “Sorry about that in there.”

  Patsy’s annoyance flared. “Which part?”

  Cy blinked and cocked his head, the same way her father’s dog did when she talked to him in a high-pitched voice. “I…don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you come eat?” she asked. “You threw me to the wolves.” She hitched her purse higher on her shoulder, unable to stay for much longer. “I have to go. I’m late.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “My father’s,” she said as she walked away.

  “You didn’t have to use the intercom to say yes,” he called after her.

  Patsy had half a mind to spin around and march back to him to really give him a piece of her mind. Instead, she turned and walked backward as she said, “I take it back, then. I don’t want to go out with you.”

  She waved and continued to her car, surprised Cy didn’t say anything else. She got behind the wheel, her heart pounding. She had no idea what had just happened in the last hour. She’d asked him a very personal question, which he’d answered. He’d made an innocent mistake pressing the public address system, but he had asked her out.

  She liked that he’d asked her out, but she had zero confidence in her ability to hold a man’s attention for longer than a few minutes. And now she’d taken back her acceptance.

  A sigh filled the car, and she looked into her own eyes in the rear-view mirror. She hardly recognized herself, and that only added another layer of unrest to her already weary soul.

  “Help me get through tonight,” she whispered as she fitted the key into the ignition. As she backed out of her parking space and headed for the exit, she added, “And what just happened with Cy Hammond? Can You give me a little more direction there, please? Would that be so hard?”

  It obviously was, because Patsy’s mind ran around and around the long-haired Hammond brother all the way to her father’s house, which sat in the middle of thirty acres of apple trees.

  Joe’s Hummer sat closest to the garage, which meant he’d been here the longest. His children were eight and five, and he was probably exhausted. He didn’t have them very often, because literally the day after his his wife had filed for divorce, Joe had lost his job. He’d picked up a new one driving the new bus around town, and since it was a new system, he worked a lot.

  He seemed to like it though, and the last Patsy had heard, his boss liked him and had told him he was a smart guy who had management potential.

  His ex-wife, Kathy, still lived in town, but she’d moved to a house across the street from her parents, and the kids spent a lot of time over there. Patsy actually missed her. No one had ever talked about what happened to the extended family in a divorce, and Patsy felt like she’d lost a friend she’d known for fifteen years.

  Betty’s minivan was parked behind Joe’s truck, and it looked like it had been driven through a mud field to get to their father’s. It probably had been. Betty and Cory lived on a farm on a muddy piece of land off a dirt road about halfway to Dog Valley. They had four teenage girls, and Patsy sat in her car for a few extra minutes, trying to gear herself up to go inside.

  It would be loud, she knew, and she’d just come from somewhere with the same pulsing energy she’d find behind the front door.

  When her phone chimed and the curtains on the front window fluttered, Patsy knew she’d been spotted. Betty probably wanted to know why she was sitting in her car when she could be inside with the family.

  Patsy sighed as she got out of the car and hurried to the safety of the covered front porch. The hail had stopped, thankfully, but the sky looked like it could easily start to dump more. She opened the door to the wall of noise she’d been expecting, but it actually made her smile.

  “I knew that was you,” Betty said from her spot next to the window. She stood taller than Patsy, and she’d never had her blonde hair cut above her shoulders. In fact, when Patsy had shown up to their father’s for dinner one week and Betty had seen her hair, she’d been downright dumbfounded at what had “possessed” Patsy to cut her hair so short.

  Betty had curves Patsy didn’t, due to carrying and giving birth to four children, but her eyes were just as bright blue, and her skin freckled in the summer, just like Patsy’s.

  “Who else would it be?” Patsy worked hard not to roll her eyes. She stepped around the couch while she unzipped her coat. She tossed it on the back of the couch and hugged her sister. Betty was a dozen years older than Patsy, and she’d met and married Cory when she was only twenty-four, and their first child had come along only a year later.

  “Aunt Patsy,” Laura said, coming around the corner from the dining room, where all of the noise came from. She wore the hugest smile, and she hugged Patsy too. She was seventeen, and trim, with beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes. Apparently, she had a lot of boys interested in her, and Betty had “lost so much sleep” worrying about her eldest daughter. Patsy knew Betty liked the drama of literally everything, and she’d actually been encouraging her girls to have boyfriends since the time they turned thirteen.

  “I’ll tell Gramps we can have pie now.” Laura stepped back, her smile still in place. “And I wanted to show you that new program I coded. Do you think you have time to see it?”

  “Sorry I held you up,” Patsy said, refusing to look at her sister. “I’m sure I have time to see it. I can’t wait.”

  “You didn’t hold us up,” Laura said. “Gramps wants to eat pie twenty-four-seven.” She laughed as she went back into the kitchen and dining area that was one big room. Her father also had another set of couches back here, with the television and his beloved record player. He spent almost all of his time in this one room that
served different purposes, and Patsy tried to tell how he was feeling just by looking.

  He sported a lot of color in his face today, and he was grinning at Betty’s youngest daughter, Jessica, while she acted out something. Everyone else shouted at her, and Patsy had no idea how Jess would even be able to tell if someone got it right.

  She detoured over to her father and bent down to hug him. “Merry Christmas, Daddy.” She took in a deep draw of his distinct smell, which was the perpetual scent of apples and leather, a unique blend that he’d accomplished early in his life from his mutual love of two things: horseback riding and growing apple trees.

  “Hello, darling,” he said, his voice raspy. He should probably be on his oxygen, but Patsy couldn’t even see the tank out here. He’d probably left it in the bedroom, as if the grandkids didn’t know he had it.

  “Yes!” Jess squealed, and she pointed at Wendy. “It was a monkey riding a bike.”

  The noise lessened after that, and Joe said, “Aunt Patsy’s here, so we can have pie.” He grinned at her, and his five-year-old daughter slid off his knee and ran to Patsy.

  She giggled as she scooped Angie into her arms. “Howdy, partner,” she said to the girl. Patsy had been taking Angie to ride ponies since she was old enough to walk, and they had a standing date every September for the western festival in Dog Valley. They wandered around and ate candied apples, threw horseshoes, and once, they’d gotten one of those black and white old west photos taken.

  Betty had followed her into the kitchen, and Patsy turned to watch her sister and her oldest daughter slice the pies, get out quarts of ice cream, and lay spoons next to the bowls. “Okay,” Betty said, always confident in the leadership role. Patsy had a word for her sister that wasn’t all that nice, but Betty really could be bossy sometimes.

  She supposed with four girls, she had to be.

  “We’re ready for dessert,” she said. “Dad, what do you want?” She glared Jess back a few steps, and even Joe held his spot in the living room on the couch.