How the Cowboy Was Won

by Lori Wilde

  “So there’s no chance you could lure her away from Ranger?” she said, issuing the one thing she knew Rhett couldn’t resist—a challenge.

  Rhett narrowed his green-brown eyes and flashed Ember a grin that had caused many a young lass to drop her panties and accused, “You’re jealous.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Ember lifted her nose, her shoulders, and her dignity. “Ranger is my best friend in the entire world. I just want to see him happy, and Dawn isn’t the woman who can do that.”

  “How do you know?”

  It was a reasonable enough question, and Ember didn’t have a reasonable answer, so she scrambled for the first thing that popped into her head. “Dawn will only be in Texas for a year, then she’s back to New Zealand.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Some people need long-term relationships to be happy, Rhett, although I’m sure you don’t understand that concept.”

  “Maybe Ranger isn’t one of those people either. Maybe he and Dawn are just fine with a year-long ride.”

  “Trust me, he’s not, although he might not know it yet.” Ember gazed over at Ranger, who had his arm around the back of Dawn’s chair. The hairs on her arms lifted and a cold chill passed through her.

  “Are you?” Rhett asked.

  “Am I what?” Ember frowned as Ranger leaned his head so close to Dawn they were practically touching. Ranger whispered. Dawn giggled. Ember stewed.

  “One of those people?”

  “Look,” she said, “would you at least go ask Dawn to dance?”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “I’ll give you twenty bucks.”

  Rhett snorted. “Twenty bucks? Seriously? Keep your money, Miss Big Spender. I’ll do it just to mess with Ranger.”

  Ember pressed her palms together in front of her heart. “Thank you.”

  “But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “There’s one question that you just gotta ask yourself.” Rhett readjusted his Stetson again, and for a split second looked so wise it surprised Ember.

  “What’s that?”

  “Why do you care so much about who Ranger hooks up with? I mean if you’re just best friends?” With that parting shot, Rhett sauntered off to ask Dawn to dance. Thankfully, not to “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw.” The song on the jukebox had shifted to “Until You Came Along.”

  Ember smiled into her hand.

  Perfect.

  She rubbed her palms together, building up some heat. Now, to get Fiona in front of Ranger and fast-track their romance.

  “You’re trying to fix up Rhett? Seriously?” Ranger hooted when Ember settled into her seat beside him. It was funny as hell to watch her mess with his plan to mess with her.

  “Says who?” Ember blinked, trying to act all who-me innocent.

  “Woman,” Ranger said, “you’re not as devious as you think you are.”

  She tipped her head in that bulldozer tilt she pulled out when she was trying to convince people that her way was the only way. “I merely asked Rhett to dance with Dawn.”

  “You’ve got your work cut out for you with that one.” Ranger nodded as his little brother dipped Dawn low on the dance floor. Dawn let loose with a happy laugh. He would have to warn his research partner about encouraging his brother. Remind her of what he was trying to accomplish with Ember. He couldn’t make Ember jealous if she didn’t view Dawn as a threat.

  “Maybe you underestimate your little brother.”

  “Rhett’s not the type to settle down.”

  “Funny”—Ember cut her eyes at him—“he said the same thing about you.”

  “What do you think about that?” he asked.

  Ember lowered her lashes, allowed her beautiful springy red curls to fall over her face as she reached for her beer mug, hiding her expression from him. Which wasn’t like her. Normally, she was quite bold and didn’t blink an eye when matching someone’s stare.

  Ranger noticed the tension in her shoulders, and he wanted to reach out and brush back her hair so he could get a good look at her face and see what was going on inside her. But she downed the beer like she could find the answer to his question at the bottom of the glass.

  “Sparky.” He softened his voice, felt a heaviness sag to the bottom of his gut. “You all right?”

  She tossed her head. A no in answer to his question? Or was there something weighty on her mind that she was trying to shake off? They knew each other so well. He could sense when something was troubling her. She reached for the pitcher of beer in the middle of the table, but he moved it out of her reach.

  “Em?”

  Her long lashes swept upward as she finally made eye contact, her blue-eyed stare hitting him with a hard one-two punch. The pulse at the hollow of her throat throbbed, moving as swift as a flood-swollen river.

  Ranger felt his pulse jump and sprint, felt his muscles tighten. “What is it?”

  She shook her head again, but did not blink or look away. That was his brave Ember.

  “Let me guess, you’re afraid you’ve lost your matchmaking mojo,” he said, trying to lighten things up.

  That got the reaction he was going for. She grinned and sent him a sliding-door look, open and accessible. Letting down her guard for him, letting him in. “Not a chance. One way or another, I’m gonna find you the perfect wife.”

  “Ember . . .”

  There were a million things he wanted to say to her. How much he admired and respected her. How much he wanted to deepen their relationship, go to the next level. How he prayed she felt the same way.

  But it was too soon. She wasn’t ready to hear it. He could tell because she was still frantically trying to match make him with all the wrong people, avoiding what was so blatantly clear to him.

  They belonged together.

  She had to get there of her own accord. In her own time. He couldn’t rush her. Until then, Ranger could wait. Good thing he was a patient man. Months of being bedridden could do that to a fella.

  “Yes?” Her voice went up on a hopeful note.

  “I—”

  Dawn plunked down in the chair to his left, breathless and glowing. “Your brother is an amazing dancer.”

  “Not too shabby yourself.” Rhett sauntered over to the table.

  Dawn giggled, her face aglow.

  “So . . .” Rhett pulled up a chair from a nearby table and squeezed in between Ranger and Dawn. “Tell me all about yourself.”

  Ember leaned back in her chair to whisper something to Rhett behind Ranger’s back. He didn’t have to see what she was doing to guess that she gave Rhett a secret thumbs-up. He knew his Sparky.

  Egged on by Ember, Rhett slung his arm around Dawn’s shoulder and signaled a nearby server. “Could we get another pitcher and an extra mug over here? I’ve found my spot for the evening.”

  “Should we order food?” Chriss Anne asked as she and Palmer came back to the table and sat down across from them.

  Dawn patted her flat belly. “Let’s have a feed.”

  “Nachos,” Rhett told the server.

  “Artichoke dip,” Fiona said, settling into her chair between Palmer and Chriss Anne.

  “Potato skins,” Zeke added from the far side of Dawn.

  “Fish tacos,” Dawn said.

  “What do you want?” Ranger asked Ember.

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  “Two orders of hot wings.” Ranger grinned, ordering for them both. “Extra spicy.”

  “Who’s paying for all this?” asked the server. “Or is it separate checks?”

  “I am,” said Rhett, the show-off. There was a reason his little brother was always broke despite the money he made bull riding. He loved grand gestures.

  There was a chorus of, “Thank you, Rhett.”

  Rhett preened, puffing out his chest and passing his credit card to the server. “Start a tab.”

  Dawn leaned forward to catch Ranger’s eye. “You weren’t kidding when you told
me Cupid is the wop-wops.”

  “Huh?” said everyone.

  Ranger grinned at the confused faces at the table. “Wop-wops is Kiwi for the middle of nowhere.”

  “We call it the sticks,” Fiona said.

  “Boondocks,” Palmer supplied.

  “Tulies,” Chriss Anne added.

  Zeke started with, “Bumfu—”

  “Be nice,” Ranger interrupted.

  Zeke finished with, “Bumfuzzle, Egypt.”

  “I could listen to you talk all night.” Chriss Anne sighed to Dawn. “I love the way you basically ignore the vowel ‘e.’”

  “Me too,” Palmer said. “Killer accent.”

  “I don’t have an accent.” Dawn laughed. “You do.”

  “Honey,” Zeke drawled, “you’re the foreigner. You have the accent.”

  Dawn met Ranger’s gaze. “Your friends are choice.”

  “Choice?” Fiona seemed completely lost.

  “It means ‘awesome’ in Kiwi,” Ranger translated.

  Fiona’s face unfolded in a bright smile. “Why, you’re pretty choice yourself, Dawn.”

  Rhett leaned in closer to Dawn. “More like USDA prime, if you ask me.”

  Dawn beamed.

  Dammit. His little brother was messing with his plan to use Dawn to make Ember jealous. He needed to get her away from Rhett.

  Ranger pushed back his chair and held his hand out to Dawn. “Would you like to dance?”

  “My!” Dawn exclaimed, pressing a palm to her chest. “I feel like the belle of the ball.”

  She sank her hand into Ranger’s, and he led her out on the dance floor. He tried to be cool, but he couldn’t help casting a surreptitious glance over his shoulder to see if Ember was watching.

  But no. She was huddled with Fiona, leaning across the table, engrossed in conversation, paying absolutely no attention to him and Dawn.

  Leaving Ranger surprised, and wondering if his best friend did not harbor deeper feelings for him, as he did for her.

  Chapter 13

  “Time did not compose her.”

  —Jane Austen, Emma

  Mumbling a lame excuse about having to get up early to greet the camels when they arrived the next day, Ember left the party early.

  Ranger didn’t even talk her out of it, except to point out she hadn’t eaten a thing. How could she eat hot wings when a rock the size of the famed Cupid stalagmite in the local caverns sat in her stomach? She could take watching Ranger and Dawn dance and coo and laugh it up for only so long.

  Her instinct had been to cut in and claim her friend, but she’d managed to quell her boldness. How petty would that have been?

  Dawn was so disgustingly perky. Everything she said came with an exclamation mark. Really, seriously, who was that animated?

  Aimlessly, Ember drove out to Lake Cupid, which was really not much more than a pond. She parked in the gravel lot and walked out across the sand and down to the water. A local fisherman who worked at the feed store was gathering up his rod and reel and string of sun perch. “Evenin’,” he greeted her with a friendly nod.

  Ember was so caught up in her ruminations about Ranger and Dawn, she barely nodded back, and it was only after the fisherman climbed into his pickup she realized how rude she must have seemed.

  She clambered onto the concrete picnic table overlooking the water. She and Ranger used to come to swim when they were teenagers and itching to get away from their families. They’d bicycle the sixteen miles from the ranch, swim, share a picnic lunch, and cycle back. They’d talk for hours about everything and nothing. Gabbing, then lapsing into comfortable silences, then bursting forth with fresh conversation.

  Sitting cross-legged on the table, she took her cell phone from her pocket, looked to see if Ranger had texted her.

  He had not.

  But why would he? He was at Chantilly’s having fun.

  With Dawn.

  If she could have dredged up one flicker of kindness, a single sweet word of kinship for the golden goddess from New Zealand, it might have salvaged Ember’s sinking opinion of herself. Ashamed of her petty jealousy, and pissed off for her inability to change her way of thinking, Ember sat glumly watching the sun kiss the horizon, staring at the mossy green water.

  In two months she would be thirty-three, and yet she felt as inept and clueless about life as she had at twelve and sitting on a bench outside the principal’s office in trouble for starting a food fight in the school cafeteria.

  She’d gotten the same message then as she’d gotten from Trey. Be a good girl, toe the line, don’t be yourself, and you’ll be loved.

  And if not?

  She would end up sitting on a picnic table by herself disappointed because she had no idea how to turn herself into the person everyone wanted her to be.

  Well, everyone except Ranger.

  She smiled softly as the sky drew darker. He’d always egged her on to be more of who she was, not less. He’d been in on that food fight too, which Ember had started to distract him from the news that his stepmother’s cancer had returned, and she wasn’t going to beat it this time.

  But now Ranger was with Dawn.

  Dammit.

  She should be happy for him. She wanted to be happy for him. What was wrong with her?

  Ember gave herself a strong shake. Wake up. Get over yourself. Be the kind of friend to him that he was to her. Even if she had to fake her way through it, she wouldn’t let Ranger know how upset she was about Dawn.

  As far as Ranger knew, she loved, loved, loved Dawn.

  Fake it till you make it, right.

  Who knew? Maybe one day she’d actually believe it herself.

  Convinced that she would be able to keep her selfishness under control, Ember switched on her key-ring flashlight and wandered back to her car.

  Just as she buckled her seat belt, her cell phone rang, playing her special ringtone for Ranger. A snippet of Queen’s “You’re My Best Friend.”

  Grinning, Ember hit Accept, breathed, “Hey there, good-looking.”

  Only to hear Dawn say, “You do realize Ranger’s birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks. You and I need to get together to plan his party.”

  The following morning, after her conversation with Dawn about what to do for Ranger’s birthday, Ember was the first to arrive on the film set.

  She had intended that it would be just the two of them for his birthday celebration as it usually was—maybe a trip to San Antonio to his favorite Mexican food restaurant and a stroll along the River Walk. Although last year she had thrown him a small party as his send-off to New Zealand.

  But Dawn had blown a hole in her plans, and now Ember had to scramble to help Dawn host some big shindig. Ranger hated a big deal being made over his birthday, but Ember couldn’t convince Dawn she was right and a subdued celebration was what he wanted.

  The day was sunny and moderate, the small mountains rising up from the desert floor cast cooling shadows. The sky’s interplay of orange, purple, yellow, and blue accentuated the barren beauty.

  She paused in the silence of that moment, took a deep breath, smiled wistfully.

  Growing up, she hadn’t much appreciated the quiet solitude of the desert, but after almost a decade in San Antonio, and passing her thirtieth birthday, she had begun to see the appeal.

  Ember loved living in Marfa, and she loved being a real estate agent. Matching people with their perfect-for-them homes. She loved matchmaking too for the same reason. She liked finding those diamonds in the rough, polishing them up and helping others discover the connections they’d missed.

  Happiness rushed over her warm as the late spring morning breeze. She was so glad to be back home. Although part of her kept whispering she needed to return to the city where the action was. This past year away from San Antonio was starting to feel like a permanent shift, and it surprised her.

  And if she couldn’t have her own happily-ever-after, maybe at least she could help others find theirs. Ranger in part
icular.

  If only he would cooperate and be more open with the women she threw in his path.

  He’s open with Dawn.

  Ember swatted her hand beside her ear as if waving away an annoying fly, chasing off that thought. Dawn wasn’t right for him. Those two were too much alike with their heads in the stars. Ranger needed someone who could bring him down to earth and keep him grounded. Someone like Fiona.

  But was Fiona too boring for Ranger? Too placid? Perhaps he needed someone fierier. Someone passionate and proactive.

  Someone like you?

  No.

  Why not?

  Why not? There was the whole best friend thing. That’s why not. She couldn’t think about him in any other context.

  Why not?

  “Shut up, Ember,” she scolded herself out loud and took a sip from her coffee thermos. Made a face. One thing she missed about city living, a Starbucks on every corner. Her coffee-making skills left a lot to be desired.

  On top of the mountain in front of her, a one-ton pickup truck appeared, hauling a long black trailer behind it down the steep road.

  Oh goodie, the camels were here!

  She’d been around camels before when Duke kept them at the Silver Feather, but she didn’t know how easy it was going to be to film with them. While mostly even-tempered, camels could kick and spit when they were agitated. Being dragged across Texas in the confines of a small trailer in the desert heat could easily constitute as being agitated.

  The windshield of the truck caught the eastern sun and glinted light back into her eyes. Ember squinted, pulled her sunglasses from her purse, and put them on, watched the truck progress toward the fort.

  Some of the crew drove up to her from around the other side of the mountain, arriving from Cupid—Zeke Tremont among them.

  Zeke got out of his weathered old Ford pickup and sauntered over, his gaze following Ember’s, and sank his broad hands on his hips. “We’re in for some fun.”

  “Are you being facetious?” she asked.

  “Huh?” Zeke lifted his cowboy hat to scratch his head.

  “Never mind.”

  “You know almost as many big words as Ranger.” Zeke grinned, good-natured and self-effacing. He was such a nice guy.