Convenient Cowgirl Bride

by Silver James

  She gulped, and as she often did when nervous, rubbed her thumb against the cheap metal of the band on her left ring finger. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Chase didn’t give her the chance.

  “Look, I know I screwed up. Royally. From the beginning. I take responsibility for that. But I also made you a promise. And I asked you to trust me. At the first sign of trouble—perceived trouble—you cut and run. Do you really believe I’m such a bastard that I’d throw women in your face?”

  She hung her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Ah, Savannah.” His voice broke as he gathered her into his arms. Stroking her back, Chase murmured against her hair, “I’m the one who’s sorry, kitten. I’m a jerk. I admit that. I should have introduced you to my family. I should have gotten you a real ring. I should have taken better care of you. I...” He cleared the lump in his throat. “I’m the world’s biggest idiot but I swear I never meant to hurt you.”

  He loosened his arms and dropped to one knee. “I didn’t do this the first time I asked. But you deserve this.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a velvet box. Snapping it open, he removed the rings nestled inside. “I’m asking you for real this time. In front of my family. I love you, Savannah Wolfe Barron. Love you with my whole heart. Will you marry me again? I want you. Now and forever. I want you to have my last name. I want to live with you. Love you. Fight with you. Make up with you. Because I can promise, me being me? I’m always gonna screw up somehow.”

  Everything faded into the distance as she focused on him. His expression said it all—soft, pleading eyes, hesitant smile. She cupped his cheeks, bent to kiss him.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  Chase surged to his feet, grabbed her and swung her in a circle. Then he removed the old ring, slipped it in his pocket, and placed the new engagement ring and wedding band on her finger.

  “I love you, hoss.”

  “Not as much as I love you, kitten.”

  And he did. He loved his inconvenient cowgirl with his whole heart.

  Epilogue

  “You sure about this, cuz?”

  Chase gazed at Tucker a full minute before rolling his eyes. “Seriously? You ask me this now?”

  Tuck clapped him on the back, sloshing the coffee in his cup. “Better now than later.”

  He watched his best friend’s expression morph from teasing to serious. “I’m happy for you, Chase. You know that, right? She’s good for you.”

  “Yeah, I know. She’s... I don’t know how to explain how she makes me feel.”

  “That’s good, because really? Dude, we’re guys. We don’t talk about that stuff.” Tucker shuddered dramatically. “Feelings. Ugh!”

  Laughing, Chase glanced around to see his brothers entering the family great room. A huge Christmas tree filled the corner near the massive fireplace. Miz Beth had outdone herself. For the first time in a long time, Chase was happy to be in Oklahoma to celebrate the holidays with his family, especially since Cyrus had chosen Hawaii and a female companion over being here. For the first time in ages, this felt like home. And he had Savannah to thank for that.

  “Welcome to the ranks, little bro.” Cord wrapped an arm around Chase’s neck and gave him a short, strangling hug.

  “Glad you found her,” Clay added. “And didn’t let her get away.”

  Chance studied him a moment. “It’s good to see you happy, little bro.”

  Looking at Clay, Cord and Chance, Chase realized one face was missing. Cash. His twin. They’d parted on angry words last summer in Cheyenne, and Cash had avoided him since.

  More laughing male voices crowded in. Tucker’s brothers had arrived, stomping in from the kitchen. Barrons and Tates. One big, dysfunctional family where blood always tied them together. His sisters-in-law appeared, laughing at something. He watched as they picked out their husbands in the crowd. Georgie, still looking wan but getting healthier every day, didn’t have to go far. Clay was beside her immediately, tucking her under his arm.

  CJ, his nephew, hit Cord like a mini tornado. Jolie had eyes only for her men—Cord and CJ. By the time she reached them, Cord had his son up on a hip as he reached for his wife and pulled her in for a kiss.

  Cassidy, all sass and hair tossing, sashayed to Chance and rolled up to her tiptoes to kiss him. He held her a moment, then turned her so her back rested against his front, his arms crossed over her chest.

  “Savannah’s almost dressed,” Cass announced to the room at large. She turned to Chase, her eyes twinkling with mischief as the doorbell rang. “You should get that, Chase.”

  Suspicious, Chase prowled to the front door. He opened it and discovered a lavender-haired Liberace in a fur coat standing there with Kade. Kade got his big foot wedged in the door before Chase could slam it shut.

  “No. Not happening!” Chase was adamant. Laughter spilled out from the other room. Almost all of his family was here. But a moment of isolation stabbed through him. He wanted Cash to be here, too, despite everything.

  Kade urged the Liberace impersonator inside and shut the door behind them. “Dude’s not licensed in Oklahoma, but since y’all are already married, doesn’t matter. He’s gonna say the words again.” He glanced around. “Where’s my girl?”

  “Up here.” Savannah’s voice floated down from the landing at the top of the stairs, arcing over the foyer.

  Chase couldn’t breathe. Her black hair fell in thick waves around her face, over her shoulders and down her back. Brown eyes shining, her face glowing with happiness, she stepped down. She wore a long skirt that looked like lace, only...it wasn’t. The cream-colored crocheted skirt brushed the toes of her boots. She lifted it to descend, and Chase saw that her Western boots were the color of red dirt. A matching leather belt cinched her hips and he recognized the heavy silver buckle—her All-Around Cowgirl Championship buckle. A silk blouse the color of the Oklahoma sky caressed her curves and his fingers itched to mold the material to her skin.

  “Beautiful.” That’s what his mouth said, but his brain? His brain was shouting, MINE!

  He met her at the bottom step and took her hand. Together, they returned to the great room. With family gathered around, Liberace read the words that would renew their vows. Chase took them to heart this time. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. Until death did them part. His inconvenient cowgirl was now the most important person in his life. He looked around the room, his gaze connecting with each of his brothers and their wives. Chase understood now, understood where his big brothers found the strength to stand up for themselves and the women they loved.

  Movement near the arch leading to the kitchen caught his attention. Whoever stood there didn’t come into the family room, but Chase knew who it was, knew the shape of that shadow as well as he did his own. Cash had come home, after all. Chase sent a look and a barely perceptible nod that direction. No one else saw, but his twin would.

  “You may now kiss your bride.”

  Chase gathered Savannah into his arms and she tipped up on her toes as he lowered his head to kiss her. “I love you.” They spoke simultaneously, their words and breath mingling. And he realized some things the moment she melted into his arms for the kiss that sealed their lives. He did need a wife, so long as it was this woman. And blood wasn’t what tied a family together. It was love.

  * * * * *

  Pick up all the RED DIRT ROYALTY novels from Silver James!

  These Oklahoma millionaires work hard and play harder.

  COWGIRLS DON’T CRY

  THE COWGIRL’S LITTLE SECRET

  THE BOSS AND HIS COWGIRL

  CONVENIENT COWGIRL BRIDE

  Available now from Harlequin Desire!

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  His Illegitimate Heir

  by Sarah M. Anderson

  One

  “You ready for this?” Jamal asked from the front seat of the limo.

  Zeb Richards felt a smile pull at the corner of his mouth. “I was born ready.”

  It wasn’t an exaggeration. Finally, after all these years, Zeb was coming home to claim what was rightfully his. The Beaumont Brewery had—until very recently—been owned and operated by the Beaumont family. There were a hundred twenty-five years of family history in this building—history that Zeb had been deprived of.

  He was a Beaumont by blood. Hardwick Beaumont was Zeb’s father.

  But he was illegitimate. As far as he knew, outside of the payoff money Hardwick had given his mother, Emily, shortly after Zeb’s birth, no one in the Beaumont family had ever acknowledged his existence.

  He was tired of being ignored. More than that, he was tired of being denied his rightful place in the Beaumont family.

  So he was finally taking what was rightfully his. After years of careful planning and sheer luck, the Beaumont Brewery now belonged to him.

  Jamal snorted, which made Zeb look at him. Jamal Hitchens was Zeb’s right-hand man, filling out the roles of chauffeur and bodyguard—plus, he baked a damn fine chocolate chip cookie. Jamal had worked for Zeb ever since he’d blown out his knees his senior year as linebacker at the University of Georgia, but the two of them went back much farther than that.

  “You sure about this?” Jamal asked. “I still think I should go in with you.”

  Zeb shook his head. “No offense, but you’d just scare the hell out of them. I want my new employees intimidated, not terrified.”

  Jamal met Zeb’s gaze in the rearview mirror and an unspoken understanding passed between the two men. Zeb could pull off intimidating all by himself.

  With a sigh of resignation, Jamal parked in front of the corporate headquarters and came around to open Zeb’s door. Starting right now, Zeb was a Beaumont in every way that counted.

  Jamal looked around as Zeb stood and straightened the cuffs on his bespoke suit. “Last chance for backup.”

  “You’re not nervous, are you?” Zeb wasn’t. There was such a sense of rightness about this that he couldn’t be nervous, so he simply wasn’t.

  Jamal gave him a look. “You realize you’re not going to be hailed as a hero, right? You didn’t exactly get this company in a way that most people might call ethical.”

  Zeb notched an eyebrow at his oldest friend. With Jamal at his back, Zeb had gone from being the son of a hairdresser to being the sole owner of ZOLA, a private equity firm that he’d founded. He’d made his millions without a single offer of assistance from the Beaumonts.

  More than that, he had proven that he was better than they were. He’d outmaneuvered and outflanked them and taken their precious brewery away from them.

  But taking over the family business was something he had to do himself. “Your concern is duly noted. I’ll text you if I need backup. Otherwise, you’ll be viewing the properties?”

  They needed a place to live now that they would be based in Denver. ZOLA, Zeb’s company, was still headquartered in New York—a hedge just in case his ownership of the Beaumont Brewery backfired. But buying a house here would signal to everyone that Zeb Richards wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  Jamal realized he wasn’t going to win this fight. Zeb could tell by the way he straightened his shoulders. “Right, boss. Finest money can buy?”

  “Always.” It didn’t really matter what the house looked like or how many bathrooms it had. All that mattered was that it was better than anyone else’s. Specifically, better than any of the other Beaumonts’. “But make sure it’s got a nice kitchen.”

  Jamal smirked at that bone of friendship Zeb threw him. “Good luck.”

  Zeb slid a sideways glance at Jamal. “Good luck happens when you work for it.” And Zeb? He always worked for it.

  With a sense of purpose, he strode into the corporate headquarters of the Beaumont Brewery. He hadn’t called to announce his impending arrival, because he wanted to see what the employees looked like when they weren’t ready to be inspected by their new CEO.

  However, he was fully aware that he was an unfamiliar African American man walking into a building as if he owned it—which he did. Surely the employees knew that Zebadiah Richards was their new boss. But how many of them would recognize him?

  True to form, he got plenty of double takes as he walked through the building. One woman put her hand on her phone as he passed, as if she was going to call security. But then someone else whispered something over the edge of her cubicle wall and the woman’s eyes got very wide. Zeb notched an eyebrow at her and she pulled her hand away from her phone like it had burned her.

  Silence trailed in his wake as he made his way toward the executive office. Zeb fought hard to keep a smile off his face. So they did know who he was. He appreciated employees who were up-to-date on their corporate leadership. If they recognized him, then they had also probably read the rumors about him.

  Zebadiah Richards and his private equity firm bought failing companies, restructured them and sold them for profit. ZOLA had made him rich—and earned him a reputation for ruthlessness.

  He would need that reputation here. Contrary to some of the rumors, he was not actually heartless. And he understood that the employees at this brewery had undergone the ouster of not one but two CEOs in less than a year. From his reports on the company’s filings, he understood that most people still missed Chadwick Beaumont, the last Beaumont to run the brewery.

  Zeb had not gotten Chadwick removed—but he had taken advantage of the turmoil that the sale of the brewery to the conglomerate AllBev had caused. And when Chadwick’s temporary replacement, Ethan Logan, had failed to turn the company around fast enough, Zeb had agitated for AllBev to sell the company.

  To him, of course.

  But what that really meant was that he now owned a company full of employees who were scared and desperate. Employee turnover was at an all-time high. A significant percentage of top-level management had followed Chadwick Beaumon
t to his new company, Percheron Drafts. Many others had taken early retirement.

  The employees who had survived this long were holding on by the skin of their teeth and probably had nothing left to lose. Which made them dangerous. He’d seen it before in other failing companies. Change was a constant in his world but most people hated it and if they fought against it hard enough, they could doom an entire company. When that happened, Zeb shrugged and broke the business up to be sold for its base parts. Normally, he didn’t care if that happened—so long as he made a profit, he was happy.

  But like he told Jamal, he was here to stay. He was a Beaumont and this was his brewery. He cared about this place and its history because it was his history, acknowledged or not. Not that he’d wanted anyone to know that this was personal—he’d kept his quest to take what was rightfully his quiet for years. That way, no one could preempt his strikes or lock him out.

  But now that he was here, he had the overwhelming urge to shout, “Look at me!” He was done being ignored by the Beaumonts and he was done pretending he wasn’t one of them.

  Whispers of his arrival must have made it to the executive suite because when he rounded the corner, a plump older woman sitting behind a desk in front of what he assumed was the CEO’s office stood and swallowed nervously. “Mr. Richards,” she said in a crackly voice. “We weren’t expecting you today.”

  Zeb nodded his head in acknowledgment. He didn’t explain his sudden appearance and he didn’t try to reassure her. “And you are?”

  “Delores Hahn,” she said. “I’m the executive assistant to the—to you.” Her hands twisted nervously in front of her before she caught herself and stilled them. “Welcome to the Beaumont Brewery.”

  Zeb almost grinned in sympathy. His assistant was in a tough spot, but she was putting on a good face. “Thank you.”

  Delores cleared her throat. “Would you like a tour of the facilities?” Her voice was still a bit shaky, but she was holding it together. Zeb decided he liked Delores.