Cowboy Courage: Includes a bonus novella

by Carolyn Brown

  “Honey, at the commune, as soon as I was old enough to help with babies, they were part of my responsibility. The older girls helped take care of the younger ones while the mothers worked in the kitchen or in the gardens or milked the cows, or did whatever else needed done. I was babysitting by the time I was nine. It was part of our commune education,” Rose explained. “So yes, I’ve been around babies and children enough that I could probably run a day care. If you’re about to ask me if I want children, the answer is yes, and that’s plural. I don’t want to raise a child with no siblings. Even though I had lots of friends in the commune, I missed having a brother or a sister of my very own.”

  “I guess we’ve got that settled.” Hud covered a yawn with his hand. “I’ve always wanted children.”

  “Then let’s go to bed,” she said. “And, honey, it’s late and we’re both tired, so there’ll be no starting a baby tonight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He picked her up like a bag of feed and threw her over his shoulder. “But we can practice. You know what they say about practice making perfect, and I sure want pretty babies.”

  “You’re a rascal.”

  “No, Rascal is a cat. I’m a hero,” he said. “Don’t you read the papers?”

  “Yes, I do, and you’ll always be my hero.”

  * * *

  Hud worried with the box in his coat pocket for two days. He just knew if he didn’t stop messing with it that all the pretty red velvet would be worn off by Valentine’s Day. Finally the day arrived, and he had it all planned. He’d made reservations for a romantic dinner on Lake Worth. The drive would take an hour, so they’d leave early enough to watch the sunset. He planned to ask Rose to marry him at the edge of the water with the stars shining above them.

  He hadn’t told a soul about his plans for fear someone would leak them to Rose. He wanted it to be a total surprise, and he couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he opened the box to reveal an engagement ring with tiny diamonds circling around an emerald, the exact color of Rose’s eyes.

  He finished up the day’s work, took a shower, got dressed in ironed jeans, a white shirt, and his best boots. When he entered the living room, Rose was standing in front of the fireplace. She turned and all the air left his lungs. She was wearing an emerald-green velvet dress that hugged every curve of her body. The hem stopped an inch above her knees, and she had on matching green high heels. She’d left her long light-red hair down to float on her shoulders in big loose curls, and her makeup was perfect.

  “I feel like a country bumpkin compared to you,” he whispered.

  “Welcome to my world.” She crossed the floor and slipped her arms around him. “When I went to school with you, I sure felt that way. You were the handsomest boy I’d ever seen, and now, you’re the sexiest man, and, honey, you sure look fine to me tonight. Where are we going?”

  “That, darlin’, is a surprise.” He gave her a sweet kiss, helped her with her coat, made sure he had the little box in the pocket, and held her hand all the way to the truck.

  “I’ve never had a big Valentine’s Day,” she said. “At the commune we only celebrate Christmas and Easter. Valentine’s is just a commercial holiday, according to their rules and laws.”

  Hud made sure she was in the truck and settled before he leaned in and gave her another kiss. “Confession, here. I’ve never taken a girl out on Valentine’s Day or planned a surprise for her.”

  “Seriously?” she asked.

  He rounded the end of the truck, got behind the wheel, and started the engine. “Very serious,” he said. “How about you? Have you ever been courted properly on Valentine’s Day?”

  “Nope,” she answered.

  The first part of the evening was wonderful. The sun set off to their right in a beautiful array of colors, and then dusk settled around them and the stars began to pop out. But somewhere just south of Bridgeport, there was a loud bang, and the truck veered off to the side.

  Hud brought the vehicle to a stop and then slapped the steering wheel with both hands. “We’ve had a blowout, but don’t worry. It’s not going to ruin our night. I can get it changed in a few minutes.”

  “Can I help? I was trained to change tires when I was in Afghanistan,” she said. “We never knew what might happen when they took me from one place to another to translate for them, so I learned lots of things.”

  “No, darlin’, you sit right there and stay warm.” He smiled.

  True to his word, he had the old tire off, thrown in the back, and the spare put on in fifteen minutes. He managed to get a nice big black smudge on his shirt, but he could cover that with his jacket.

  “Now we’re on the way,” he said as he pulled back out onto the road. There had to be one catastrophe, he figured—after all, this was Rose O’Malley and Hudson Baker out on the road, and their relationship had started off with him stepping into a big pan of water and her sitting down in it.

  The traffic jam started north of Boyd, Texas, and by the time they reached the other side of the small down, cars and trucks had come to a dead stop.

  “Must be an accident up ahead,” she said.

  “Maybe they’ll get it cleared out soon.” He cussed himself for not taking the interstate, but he’d thought a little backwoods drive would be so much more romantic.

  They listened to twelve country songs on the radio before traffic started moving again. When they reached the spot that had jammed them up, it wasn’t an accident at all, but work on a bridge had closed down all but one lane.

  “We’ll only be a few minutes late to dinner. I allowed extra time so we could have a slow drive, and where we’re going isn’t far now,” he told her.

  Hud thought it strange that there were only four cars in the restaurant’s parking lot. This was a place that only seated folks with a reservation on Friday and Saturday nights, and it should have been booming on Valentine’s Day. But hey, if there weren’t very many people there, then they’d be served quicker. He helped Rose out of the truck, tucked her arm into his, and patted his coat pocket. Only another hour or so, and he’d drop down on one knee and propose. He knew in his heart that she’d say yes, but he was still as nervous as the only chicken at a coyote convention. He pushed on the door to the restaurant, and it didn’t budge.

  “Look,” she pointed. “There’s a sign that said they had a grease fire in the kitchen and will be closed until repairs are made.”

  “Three for three.” He groaned. “Some romantic evening this is.”

  “Darlin’, we’re all dressed up, and we’re together. That’s romantic to me.” She buried her face in his chest. “Let’s get a burger on the way home and spend the night in bed.”

  “I wanted us to have a special evening,” he complained.

  “You are special enough to make any evening fantastic,” she told him.

  “We could go to an Olive Garden or a RibCrib or somewhere other than a burger joint,” he said.

  “I like burgers and fries,” she said with a shrug. “They’re just about my favorite food. What say you that we hit that Dairy Queen we passed in Boyd, Texas, rent a movie at one of those box things beside the Dollar Store in Bowie, and go home? We can build a fire and cuddle up on the sofa with Rascal and Red, and make our own special, romantic evening. We’ll even break out two beers, put on some music, and dance.”

  “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” he said.

  “Well, thank you, but can we please go get a burger?” she asked. “I’m starving plumb to death.”

  “In that case, we’d better drive back to Boyd and get you a big, old greasy burger, a double order of fries—” he said.

  She butted in. “…and a chocolate milk shake.”

  “You got it, sweetheart.”

  The drive back to Boyd didn’t take long. There were no mishaps along the way, so Hud thought the bad luck was over, but he was dead wrong. At the Dairy Queen he dropped a french fry loaded with ketchup on the front of his shirt, and when Rose
bit into her burger, mustard shot out from the bottom onto her dress.

  “We’re not like other people,” she laughed. “Our destiny for a romantic evening doesn’t include a candlelit dinner with real napkins and violins playing in the corner.”

  “Evidently not.” Hud left a smudge of red on his shirt when he tried to wipe the ketchup away.

  Nothing had gone as he’d planned. Not one solitary, damned thing, but suddenly it didn’t matter. He reached into his pocket, took out the ring box, slid out of the booth, and dropped down on one knee. “Cactus Rose O’Malley, I’m in love with you and have been for the better part of my life. Will you marry me?” He snapped the box open to reveal the ring. “An emerald because your green eyes mesmerize me. Fifty itty-bitty diamonds to represent the first fifty years of our marriage. Please say yes.”

  “Yes!” she squealed without a split second’s hesitation.

  He slipped the ring on her finger and she slid out of the booth, dropped down on both her knees to face him, and said, “I love you, Hud. This is perfect, and when we’re married fifty years, you can take it to the jewelers and have them add fifty more diamonds, because we’re going to be together forever.”

  He took her in his arms and sealed their engagement and their love with a long kiss. Neither of them thought about the other people in the Dairy Queen until they heard applause.

  She hugged him and whispered, “Now, take me home. I love the sound of that word. Home. To the place where I belong with the love of my life.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  They stood up together and there was more applause when he scooped her up and carried her to the truck like a new bride.

  “That was so romantic.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “I can’t wait to tell Aunt Luna all about it.”

  “But first we’re going home, right?”

  She held her hand up to the light on the truck ceiling. The emerald and the diamonds sparkled almost as much as the love in his eyes and the feeling in her heart. “Yes, my cowboy, we’re going home.”

  Don’t miss more about Paxton and Alana, who find a fake engagement feeling all too real in Cowboy Strong.

  Coming in Summer 2020

  Wildflower Ranch

  A Novella

  Carolyn Brown

  Shiloh never knew what it was like to have sisters. But suddenly the father she never knew leaves his ranch to Shiloh and her two half-siblings. The only catch: to fully inherit, they must live together on the ranch for a full year. Shiloh couldn’t be more different from Abby Joy, a former soldier, or Bonnie, a true wild child. But the three soon find they have more in common than they could’ve imagined. When a neighboring rancher catches Shiloh’s eye, she’ll have to decide exactly how much she’s willing to sacrifice for her shot at the ranch.

  Chapter One

  Spring was Waylon’s favorite season, when the wildflowers painted the Palo Duro Canyon with their brilliant colors. That evening, the last rays of sun lit up the red Indian paintbrush, almost the same color as the dress Shiloh was wearing. The centers of the black-eyed Susans reminded him of her dark hair, and the blue bonnets scattered here and there were the color of her eyes.

  “Wildflower Ranch,” he whispered and liked the way it rolled off his tongue. He’d been looking for a brand for his new ranch ever since he bought it. “I like it. Wildflower Ranch,” he said again with a nod, and just like that, he’d named his place.

  Since most of his friends were married, Waylon had been to lots of weddings. Like always, he found a corner where he could watch the people without having to mingle with them. He wasn’t really shy or backward, but though he didn’t like crowds he did like watching people. And he liked to dance some leather off his boots at the Sugar Shack, the local watering hole, on Saturday nights.

  Shiloh breezed in and out of the house, appearing under the porch light to talk to someone for a few minutes, and then disappearing for a little while, only to return again. She looked different from the way she did at Ezra’s funeral not quite three months ago. That day Waylon had stood off to the side as the sisters arrived one by one. Abby Joy was the last one to get there, and she looked like she had just left a military exercise in her camouflage. Shiloh might have come from a rodeo in her western getup, and Bonnie could have been a biker’s woman in black leather and sporting a nose ring and tattoo. At that time he had wondered if Ezra hadn’t been right when he sent all of them away right after they were born.

  But ever since that morning, he hadn’t been able to get Shiloh out of his mind.

  Now there were only two sisters in the running to inherit the Malloy Ranch—Shiloh and Bonnie. When the sisters first came to the canyon, Waylon would have sworn that Shiloh would be the first to leave. Bonnie would follow her within a week, and Abby Joy would be there until they buried her beside old Ezra in the Malloy family cemetery right there on the ranch.

  He’d sure been wrong, because that very evening Abby Joy had married his good friend Cooper and moved off Malloy ranch and over to his place. It wasn’t the first time Waylon had been wrong, and it most likely wouldn’t be the last time, either. He watched the two remaining Malloy sisters out of the corner of his eye. Shiloh was the taller of the two and had long dark brown hair.

  In her cowboy boots and tight jeans at her father’s funeral, she had looked like she was the queen of Texas. Maybe that confidence and sass was what had drawn him to her from the beginning. Not that he’d act on the attraction, not when there was so much at stake for her. Ezra had left a will behind, saying that the three sisters had to live on the Malloy Ranch together for a year. If one of them left, then they received an inheritance, but they could never have the ranch. If none of them left, then they inherited the place jointly. If they all moved off Ezra’s massive spread, then Rusty, his foreman, inherited it.

  Waylon had always thought that deep down Ezra wanted Rusty to have the place anyway. He’d just brought the sisters together to satisfy his own conscience for sending them away at birth because they weren’t sons.

  Waylon was a patient man. He didn’t mind sitting back in the shadows of the wide porch and waiting for another look at Shiloh in that dress that hugged her curves. When she came back again, he sat up a little straighter so he could get a better view of her. The full moon lit her eyes up that evening like beautiful sapphires. His pulse jacked up a few notches and his heart threw in an extra fast beat. He could only imagine what kissing her or holding her in his arms would feel like—but he sure liked the picture in his head when he did.

  The reception had started in the house and then poured out onto the porch and yard. That’s where Shiloh was headed right then. She met up with Bonnie, and the two of them talked with their hands, gesturing toward the house and then back at the piano under a big scrub oak.

  Maybe they were trying to figure out how to get the piano back inside. Waylon would be glad to help them with that, just to be near Shiloh for a little while. The chairs that had been arranged in two rows for the wedding were now scattered here and there, and Shiloh picked up one with each hand and carried them from the yard to the porch.

  “Need some help?” Waylon asked when she was close enough that the porch light lit up her beautiful eyes. Ezra Malloy’s three daughters hadn’t gotten a physical thing from him, except the color of his eyes, and even then they were all three slightly different shades of blue.

  “Hey, what are you doing hiding back here?” Bonnie, the youngest Malloy sister, pulled up a chair and sat down beside him.

  “Just watching the people,” Waylon answered. “You look right pretty tonight, Bonnie. When I first saw you at Ezra’s funeral, you looked like maybe you were into motorcycles.”

  “I might have been, but they cost way too much money for me to own one. My boyfriend had one back in Harlan.” Bonnie sighed. “If I’d known Abby Joy was going to wear combat boots, I would have worn my comfortable lace-up biker boots.” She kicked off her shoes. “He bought me the jacket and boots, and then we bro
ke up. He didn’t want me to come out here to Texas when Ezra died. He said I was too wild to live on a ranch. I’m proving him wrong.” She stopped, as if waiting for him to say something, but she hadn’t asked a question. After a few seconds she went on, “Have you ever been a groomsman before? This was my first time ever to be a bridesmaid.”

  “No,” he answered. “I’ve been to a lot of weddings, but I’m not usually one for big crowds.”

  Shiloh pushed the front door open and motioned to her sister. “Bonnie, come on. Abby Joy is getting ready to throw the bouquet.”

  Bonnie got up, but Waylon stayed in his chair. Shiloh’s high-heeled shoes made a clicking noise on the wooden porch as she crossed it, and she crooked a finger at Waylon. “You too, cowboy. Cooper is about to take Abby Joy’s garter off, and he’s calling for all single men.”

  “Oh, no!” Waylon held up both palms. “I don’t want that thing.”

  “I’m not catching that bouquet either. I’m superstitious, and I refuse to be the next bride in the canyon,” Bonnie said. “I’m going to own a ranch in nine months. I sure don’t have time for romance.”

  “You’ll own the Malloy ranch over my dead body.” Shiloh did a head wiggle. “The best you’ll ever do is share it with me.”

  “Wanna bet?” Bonnie stopped at the door.

  Shiloh stuck out her hand. “Twenty bucks?”

  “How about a hundred and a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon?” Bonnie asked.

  “Deal!” Shiloh shook with her.

  Waylon didn’t have a doubt in his mind that Bonnie would be forking over money and bourbon. Next to Abby Joy, he’d never met a woman as determined as Shiloh—or as sassy for that matter.

  Shiloh surprised him when she grabbed his hand and tugged. “Come on. You can put your hands in your pockets, but you’re one of the wedding party. It wouldn’t be right for you not to be in on the garter toss.”