Accidental Cowgirl

by Maggie McGinnis

  Accidental Cowgirl is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2013 by Maggie McGinnis

  Author photograph © 2013 Geoffrey McLoughlin

  Excerpt from After the Kiss by Lauren Layne copyright © 2013 by Lauren Layne

  Excerpt from Slow Summer Burn by Elisabeth Barrett copyright © 2013 by Elisabeth Barrett

  Excerpt from Claimed by Stacey Kennedy copyright © 2013 by Stacey Kennedy

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-54875-7

  Cover photograph: George Kerrigan

  This book contains excerpts from the forthcoming books After the Kiss by Lauren Layne, Slow Summer Burn by Elisabeth Barrett, and Claimed by Stacey Kennedy. These excerpts have been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming editions.

  www.readloveswept.com

  v3.1

  To my sweeties—big, small, and in between

  You are my everything

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from After the Kiss

  Excerpt from Slow Summer Burn

  Excerpt from Claimed

  Chapter 1

  “Roadkill? Again?” Kyla braked to steer around the third animal in as many miles, but this time, the ancient rental car jolted the other way, yanking her hands right off the wheel as it beelined for the carcass.

  “Eww! No! Bad car!” She stomped on the brake pedal with both feet, but instead of slowing down, the car jerked back to the right with an ominous clunking sound that grew louder as she death-gripped the wheel. For a long half-mile she thought she might be the next body to litter this deserted Montana highway, but finally she managed to muscle the car to a stop in the breakdown lane. A loud hiss preceded another thump, and as the car leaned suddenly to the right, steam billowed from the hood. She looked in the rearview mirror, fully expecting to see pieces of metal strewn in a path behind her, but the highway was empty.

  She whacked the wheel. “Seriously, car? You couldn’t think of a more original way to die?”

  Kyla looked out the open driver’s-side window, where the shimmering August sun was heading toward the horizon. Perfect. It was about to be dark, she was still probably an hour south of the rent-a-ranch, and now her lemon of a rental car had imploded.

  Never take the last car on the lot, she could almost hear Gramps chiding her. There’s a reason it’s still sitting there. She sighed, wishing he had added, And also, never agree to marry a man who’s planning to steal millions of dollars, send it to the Caymans, and set you up to take the fall.

  For a moment, she pictured the seedy hotel she’d spotted as the plane landed at the tiny airport. Even with hourly rates and a neon sign missing half its letters, it was looking better right now than this barren landscape. Too bad it was now two hours behind her and she had no way of knowing what was between here and the dude ranch her two best friends had booked for the next two weeks.

  She dug her phone and AAA card out of her carry-on, but the phone’s empty bars just taunted her. Uh-oh. No signal. Prickles spiked the crown of her head, creeping downward toward her ears as she looked at the empty landscape. She tried to force her shoulders to relax as she exhaled again.

  It was okay. She could handle this. It was just a little case of Dead Car. On a deserted highway. In freakin’ God’s Country, Montana, which was only about twenty-five hundred miles from her tiny Boston apartment. No problem.

  She pushed the door open and stepped out gingerly to check the car, hoping maybe there was a way to milk it to the next town if she drove really, really slowly. The steam was clearing, but as she came around the rear, she saw that the back tire was so deflated the rim was practically touching the gravel shoulder of the road. She looked down at her silk blouse, pencil skirt, and heeled sandals. She was still dressed for court, not for doing a tire change on a dusty highway.

  She took a deep breath and pulled on the trunk latch, trying to keep the panic at bay. So she was alone. So it was getting dark. She wasn’t helpless. She knew how to change a tire. She didn’t need any big, strapping AAA mechanic, right?

  She opened the trunk and sighed as she viewed the contents. Her friend Hayley had promised big skies, fun, and cowboys. Kyla looked back at the setting sun, then up at the pink clouds. Big skies? Check. Too bad they were getting darker by the minute. Fun? Not yet. Cowboys? One with a lug wrench would be really handy right about now.

  Once she had Gramps’s old army duffels lined up on the grass, she reached into the trunk and pulled on the loop that should have revealed the spare. Instead, all she found in the wheel well was a pile of fluff that looked suspiciously like a mouse nest. She shuddered and closed the hatch before a set of twitchy whiskers could appear.

  Kyla walked around to the right side of the car to take another look at the tire, wondering how far she could get on just the rim. No way was she going to sit out here on this highway all night long with no way to get hold of anyone. How long would Hayley and Jess wait before they got worried and came looking for her?

  She grimaced. When she’d called from the airport, they’d been headed out on a twilight trail ride. They wouldn’t get back to the ranch and find her missing until after dark.

  Kyla muscled the duffels back into the trunk and slammed it shut, taking in one of the deep breaths her PTSD therapist was always advising. At least this time, she wasn’t trapped inside her car at the bottom of a ravine. At least this time, she could still walk. At least this time, her fiancé—ex-fiancé, that is—was in jail, rather than emptying her bank accounts while she lay unconscious in the hospital. So really, she was ahead of the game, right?

  She glanced toward the sunset, trying to estimate how much daylight she had left. Unfortunately, she was used to gauging time by where the sun was in relation to the Prudential building, not an actual horizon. It looked like there was nothing but rolling prairie between her and the mountains in the distance.

  She kicked off her heels and hoisted herself up on the trunk to see if she could get a better view from up higher. “Damn, damn, double damn,” she muttered as she looked around. The view was stunning,
and if circumstances were different, she’d be awed by the darkening grass rippling toward the jagged Rockies.

  As it was, she tried not to think about just how many animals emerged out here at dusk, hoping for a human-sized snack. She clambered up the back windshield to the roof, hoping against hope that she’d see something useful from that vantage point, but no. Still just grass.

  Kyla looked up at the purpling sky and decided to try out her very rusty praying skills. “If I promise to be really, really good this entire vacation, could you please just send someone to help me, like maybe one of those cowboys in the brochure?” Right. Like those existed outside of a Madison Avenue studio shoot.

  As she circled slowly on the roof, a low hum made her jump. She peered back toward where she’d come as the hum slowly grew louder. She thought she could see a dust cloud coming her way. Oh, happy day. She was saved.

  As a rusty blue truck crested the rise behind her, she waved crazily from the roof of the car. There really was no way the driver could miss her, but she wasn’t taking any chances. The sun was hitting the windshield just right, and she couldn’t tell who was behind the wheel, but she caught her breath when she saw a blue light flashing as the truck pulled up behind her car.

  Kyla’s chest constricted as she froze, watching the blue light spin. Visions of Wes’s arrest catapulted through her brain in painful slow motion, followed by flashes of the days she’d spent in an airless interrogation room. It had been like a made-for-TV movie with the acrid-smelling coffee, the blazing lights, and even the good cop–bad cop routine.

  She forced herself to puff out little rhythmic breaths as she heard the truck door creak. She needed to calm down. She was in Montana, for God’s sake. Wes was in jail. She’d been found innocent. They weren’t after her anymore. She didn’t need to be afraid. Maybe, just maybe, she was about to be rescued by a handsome Western lawman.

  The driver’s-side door opened fully and a wizened old man eased himself out of the truck. He was dressed in wrinkled khaki pants and a leaf-print golf shirt that looked like it might be more at home in Florida than Montana. Her lawman fantasy quickly fizzled.

  As he shut the door, he shook his head. “Lady, what in tarnation you doin’ on top o’ your car? Did you see a bear?”

  “Bear?!” Her voice came out in an eep! “No. No bear. I have a flat tire.”

  “So you got on top o’ your car?” His hands stayed near his gun belt while he studied her, but she couldn’t tell whether he had a gun.

  Was this how cops dressed in Montana? Where was his uniform? “I don’t have a spare. I was just trying to see if I could see something besides … grass from up here.”

  “And do you see anything besides grass?” He strode up to the driver’s side of her rental car, eyeing it suspiciously.

  “Besides the Rockies on the other side of it? No, not really.”

  “Huh.” He looked at her quizzically. “How ’bout you come down from there and we’ll check out that tire?”

  “Oh, thank you. I’m so relieved you came along.” Kyla slid gingerly down the windshield on her rear end, then scooted down the hood, wincing at the dirt she was probably collecting on her backside. As she jumped off the bumper, her right leg buckled and she lost her balance, swaying for a long moment.

  The old cop’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You been drinking, young lady?”

  “No.” She adjusted her skirt nervously. “Absolutely not. I just lost my balance.” She pointed to her right thigh. “I broke my leg last year. It’s still a little unsteady.”

  He raised his eyebrows and smirked as he shook his head slowly. “Uh-huh.” He crossed his arms and widened his stance. “Let’s just check and see.” He walked by her and stood about ten feet in front of the car. “Step over here and put both feet on the white line.”

  Seriously? He was going to make her do a sobriety test? For tripping? She stepped warily to the front of the car and put her feet on the line as best she could.

  “You know the drill,” he growled.

  “Actually, sir, I don’t. I’ve never actually been pulled over … for anything.”

  He lifted his eyebrows in disbelief, shaking his head. He pointed at the white line. “Walk twenty steps thataway, then back. Try to stay on the line.”

  Welcome to Big Sky Country, Kyla thought as she took a deep breath and set out down the white line. She was still uncoordinated on a good day, so acing a sobriety test after three hours of sleep, a trial, and a full day’s travel was likely to be a challenge.

  “Where you from?” the cop asked.

  “Boston.”

  “When’d you leave?”

  “This morning.” Was he just making idle conversation? Or had she somehow aroused his powers of suspicion?

  The cop scratched his head. “Where’d you change planes?”

  Apparently suspicion. “Philly. Why?”

  “Kinda late to be arriving way out here all by your lonesome. Surprised you didn’t pick an earlier flight.”

  She turned around, gingerly trying to maintain her balance. “I had a commitment this morning.” In court, where I had to testify one last time against the man I thought I was going to marry. He’s enjoying a new six-by-ten cell and orange jumpsuit right now, but all the money he stole is still somewhere in the Caymans.

  “Look like you’re dressed for court.”

  She jolted. “No offense, sir, but why are you so curious?”

  “It’s my job.” He looked her up and down again. “So where ya headed? That newfangled spa up by Donovan’s Lake?”

  There was a spa here? A spa?! And Hayley had still chosen a dude-ranch vacation, knowing Kyla was deathly afraid of horses? The Whisper Creek Ranch website must have been very, very convincing.

  “I’m heading to Carefree. Am I close?” She got back to her car and stood ramrod-straight. “There. See? Totally sober.”

  “I’m not convinced,” the officer mumbled. “Carefree’s another hour north, give or take. That’s if I decide you’re sober enough to drive there. Otherwise, you get a free ride in my cruiser.”

  “Cruiser?” She felt her eyebrows hike upward as she glanced quickly at his truck.

  “Cruiser,” he deadpanned.

  Prickles took hold at the top of her head again, moving steadily downward. She was alone on a deserted highway, a woman in a suit and bare feet with a flat tire and no spare. Cripes, she was a serial killer’s dream.

  Maybe one posing as a cop, for instance.

  “Do you … have a badge?”

  He reached into his inside pocket and flipped open a badge holder that looked as official as all the others she’d seen this past year. Her shoulders relaxed a tiny bit as she stepped forward to look more closely, then tensed back up when he slapped it shut. She stepped back quickly, trying not to think about how easy it probably was to get one online.

  “Do you have a Breathalyzer? That would prove I haven’t been drinking, right?” If she kept him talking, maybe she could stall until another car came along?

  He stepped directly in front of her and put his hands out to the side. “Hands out like mine. Do exactly what I say.”

  Kyla paused. Putting her hands up left her whole midsection exposed. What was he going to do if she complied? If she didn’t?

  “You having trouble following my very simple instructions?” His eyebrows smushed together like a big, furry caterpillar.

  Kyla shook her head and put her hands out to her sides like a T, backing up as subtly as she could.

  “Okay, touch your left finger to your nose. No, other finger. No, nose.” Kyla did her best to comply, but he was trying to trick her by placing his right finger on his earlobe. She prayed desperately for the sound of another vehicle, any vehicle. This guy couldn’t be for real.

  He shook his head. “You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me, young lady. Let’s see fifty jumping jacks. Go.”

  “In my bare feet?” She’d avoid mentioning her still-healing femur, just
in case he was trying to gauge her ability to outrun him.

  “You think those shoes would be better?” He lifted his eyebrows toward the heels she’d kicked off.

  Kyla shook her head. “Guess not.”

  Fine. She’d do the jumping jacks and pretend she was compliant, but that was it. She put her hands at her sides, feet together, and started jumping, trying not to show how much it hurt. If he tried to make her do one more thing, she was making a run for the car. She should be able to get the window up before he could catch her.

  And then what, Kyla? Where do you think you’re going to go on three wheels?

  “You thinkin’ about makin’ a run for it?” he growled.

  “No, sir,” she huffed. At least not until you look the other way.

  He reached his right hand to his gun belt. “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Oh, holy hell. Did he have a gun after all?

  Chapter 2

  “Cole! How many on the guest list this week?” Decker leaned back in his office chair, spinning it around to look out the picture window behind him. He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back, glad to be done with his L.A. work for the day. Low clouds cruised around the bright blue sky, framing the northern Rockies in the distance. He sighed, realizing just how much he’d missed the stunning Montana landscape.

  “We’re down to seven, looks like.” Cole peeked his head in the doorway, shuffling pieces of paper. His dark brown hair, perpetually in need of a haircut, poked out from beneath his ball cap. Later today he’d switch back to the customary Stetson the guests expected from ranch-owning brothers. “Two gals from Ohio, a couple from North Dakota, and three ladies from Boston.”

  “What happened to the bachelor party crew?”

  “Groom broke his leg doing something stupid. They canceled.”

  Decker spun back around to face the desk. “Did Ma enforce the cancellation policy?”

  Cole shook his head. “I don’t know. She knows we have to if we’re gonna stay afloat here.”

  “I bet she didn’t.” Decker frowned.

  “Ahem.” Both Cole and Decker jumped as Ma bustled through the doorway in her typical jeans and flannel shirt, flipping mail onto Decker’s desk. “Not only did I enforce the policy, I told that moron if he was too stupid to know better than to drink and get on a dirt bike, then I didn’t want him on my ranch anyway.” Ma shook her head. “I got no tolerance for drinkin’.”