“Have you ever thought about leaving?” he asked, looking down at the beer in his hands.
She considered it for a moment. “If I left, everything would change, Jeremy. We’d have to move. Start over. Megan would have to change schools. My mother would never want to leave her home. She’s lived here forever.” She looked over at her mother and her daughter.
She was struck by how much her daughter looked like her. The same unruly blond hair, the same blue eyes, even the way she looked around at the world, like she was just waiting for the next thing to happen. Would she grow up and make the same mistakes?
Blake shook her head at the thought. Something had to change. Somehow she needed to save her daughter from this world of fires and death while at the same time teach her how strong they could be. Perhaps she could even show her that there were good men out there, men who had hearts of gold and could look past the imperfections in a person and just love them for who and what they were.
She could teach her how to live a healthy life, one centered on family, hope and trust.
“I talked to the captain in Missoula today.” Jeremy took a draw from his beer.
She tensed. “When do you have to go back to work?”
“In a couple of days. But that’s not why I called him.” Jeremy reached over and took her hand. “He said that there is a job there for you in the city if you want it. It would be a little different, definitely busier than the sheriff’s department, but the pay would be higher. I could help you get your mother set up, and there are fantastic schools for Megan. She’d have her choice. She could even go to the same school as Penny if she wanted to.”
Blake’s body tingled with excitement. Was this something she really wanted? She looked at Jeremy, searching his eyes. He had to love her if he was helping her to build a new future. Didn’t he?
“If you don’t want to move, I can come to Butte. My parents’ lawyer has read Robert’s will. According to the terms, Tiffany gets nothing. Everything goes to my parents.”
“Tiffany gets nothing?”
Jeremy shook his head. “I think that may have been part of the reason she had wanted him to lose everything...why she had been behind Todd’s buyout.”
“Can your parents afford to pay off the tax lien?”
Jeremy shrugged. “I think so, but if you wanted, we could pay it. We could become miners...if you wanted to stay in Butte. I would do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
It was noble that Jeremy was taking steps to stop Tartarus Environmental Investments from getting their hands on his brother’s land, but he had told her he never wanted to mine. He was willing to compromise who he was for her, but she didn’t want him to. Not like this.
“We can’t stay here, Jeremy.”
“Are you saying you want to move to Missoula with me?”
She couldn’t help the feeling of love that filled her, but was love enough of a reason to leave her home? To build a new life? Falling in love was a risk...
But there was nothing that she wanted more than to follow her heart.
“I...I think I’ll take the job.” Her body tensed. “And, if it’s okay, I want my mom to go with us. She drives me crazy sometimes, but she’s my best friend. I don’t know what I’d do without her.”
“I thought you might say that. If you want, we can look for a house—one with plenty of space.” Jeremy smiled as he set down his glass. “But first, I have something for you.”
He reached in his pocket. “I know this is fast, and I have no idea what you are going to say, but I’ve been thinking... I want to do this right. I’ve loved you since we were kids. I know things haven’t always gone as we’ve wanted them to, but I love you and I always will.” He got down on his knee in front of her. “The other night, after the fire, I went back and took a branch of the tree. It took me a few hours, but I carved this for you.” He opened his hand. In his palm was a ring made of wood.
Her heartbeat thundered in her ears, making it almost impossible to hear him as he spoke.
“You told me that you always thought of that tree as a metaphor for you and your life. I don’t know if you meant it as a good thing or a bad thing, or both, but as I thought about it, all I could think about was how beautiful it was. A tree lives its entire life supporting the lives around it, the grass at its feet and the leaves on its branches. You are just like the tree, loving and supporting those around you. I love that about you. And when you look at this ring, I want you to see that even when we get burnt by life, you can always have a new beginning.”
He took her trembling hand and slipped it on her ring finger. It fit perfectly. “If you want, this ring can be a symbol of our promise to create a new future...a life with each other.”
“I...I...” she whispered, moving her hand right and left as she looked at the ring’s swirling pattern.
He reached up and cupped her face. “I love you.”
Tears filled her eyes, but she tried to blink them back. “I love you, too.” She got down on her knees and buried her face into his neck. She let her tears fall.
For once it felt good to be measured by time. Their love wouldn’t last seconds or minutes or hours. No. Their love would last a lifetime.
* * * * *
Every cowboy has a wild side—
all it takes is the right woman to unleash it...
Keep reading for a sneak peek of
BLAME IT ON THE COWBOY,
part of USA TODAY bestselling author
Delores Fossen’s miniseries
THE McCORD BROTHERS.
Available in October 2016
only from HQN Books!
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Blame It on the Cowboy
by Delores Fossen
LIARS AND CLOWNS. Logan had seen both tonight. The liar was a woman who he thought loved him. Helene. And the clown, well... Logan wasn’t sure he could process that image just yet.
Maybe after lots of booze though.
He hadn’t been drunk since his twenty-first birthday, nearly thirteen years ago. But he was about to remedy that now. He motioned for the bartender to set him up another pair of Glenlivet shots.
His phone buzzed again, indicating another call had just gone to
voice mail. One of his siblings no doubt wanting to make sure he was all right. He wasn’t. But talking to them about it wouldn’t help, and Logan didn’t want anyone he knew to see or hear him like this.
It was possible there’d be some slurring involved. Puking, too.
He’d never been sure what to call Helene. His longtime girlfriend? Girlfriend seemed too high school. So, he’d toyed with thinking of her as his future fiancée. Or in social situations she was his business associate who often ran his marketing campaigns. But tonight Logan wasn’t calling her any of those things. As far as he was concerned, he never wanted to think of her, her name or what to call her again.
Too bad that image of her was stuck in his head, but that was where he was hoping generous amounts of single-malt scotch would help.
Even though Riley, Claire, Lucky and Cassie wouldn’t breathe a word about this, it would still get around town. Lucky wasn’t sure how, but gossip seemed to defy the time-space continuum in Spring Hill. People would soon know, if they didn’t already, and those same people wouldn’t look at him the same again. It would hurt business.
Hell. It hurt him.
That was why he was here in this hotel bar in San Antonio. It was only thirty miles from Spring Hill, but tonight he hoped it’d be far enough away that no one he knew would see him get drunk. Then he could stagger to his room and then puke in peace. Not that he was looking forward to the puking part, but it would give him something else to think about other than her.
It was his first time in this hotel, though he stayed in San Antonio often on business. Logan hadn’t wanted to risk running into anyone he knew, and he certainly wouldn’t at this trendy “boutique” place. Not with a name like the Purple Cactus and its vegan restaurant.
If the staff found out he was a cattle broker, he might be booted out. Or forced to eat tofu. That was the reason Logan had used cash when he checked in. No sense risking someone recognizing his name from his credit card.
The clerk had seemed to doubt him when Logan had told him that his ID and credit cards had been stolen and that was why he couldn’t produce anything with his name on it. Of course, when Logan had slipped the guy an extra hundred-dollar bill, it had caused that doubt to disappear.
“Drinking your troubles away?” a woman asked.
“Trying.”
Though he wasn’t drunk enough that he couldn’t see what was waiting for him at the end of this. A hangover, a missed 8:00 a.m. meeting, his family worried about him—the puking—and it wouldn’t fix anything other than to give him a couple hours of mind-numbing solace.
At the moment though, mind-numbing solace, even if it was temporary, seemed like a good trade-off.
“Me, too,” she said. “Drinking my troubles away.”
Judging from the sultry tone in her voice, Logan first thought she might be a prostitute, but then he got a look at her.
Nope. Not a pro.
Or if she was, she’d done nothing to market herself as such. No low-cut dress to show her cleavage. She had on a T-shirt with cartoon turtles on the front, a baggy white skirt and flip-flops. It looked as if she’d grabbed the first items of clothing she could find off a very cluttered floor of her very cluttered apartment.
Logan wasn’t into clutter.
And he’d thought Helene wasn’t, either. He’d been wrong about that, too. That antique desk of hers had been plenty cluttered with a clown’s bare ass.
“Mind if I join you?” Miss Turtle-Shirt said. “I’m having sort of a private going-away party.”
She waited until Logan mumbled “suit yourself,” and she slid onto the purple barstool next to him.
She smelled like limes.
Her hair was varying shades of pink and looked as if it’d been cut with a weed whacker. It was already messy, but apparently it wasn’t messy enough for her because she dragged her hand through it, pushing it away from her face.
“Tequila, top-shelf. Four shots and a bowl of lime slices,” she told the bartender.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only person in San Antonio with plans to get drunk tonight. And it explained the lime scent. These clearly weren’t her first shots of the night.
“Do me a favor though,” she said to Logan after he downed his next drink. “Don’t ask my name, or anything personal about me, and I’ll do the same for you.”
Logan had probably never agreed to anything so fast in all his life. For one thing, he really didn’t want to spend time talking with this woman, and he especially didn’t want to talk about what’d happened.
“If you feel the need to call me something, go with Julia,” she added.
The name definitely wasn’t a fit. He was expecting something more like Apple or Sunshine. Still, he didn’t care what she called herself. Didn’t care what her real name was, either, and he cared even less after his next shot of Glenlivet.
“So, you’re a cowboy, huh?” she asked.
The mind-numbing hadn’t kicked in yet, but the orneriness had. “That’s personal.”
She shrugged. “Not really. You’re wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and jeans. It was more of an observation than a question.”
“The clothes could be fashion statements,” he pointed out.
Julia shook her head, downed the first shot of tequila, sucked on a lime slice. Made a face and shuddered. “You’re not the kind of man to make fashion statements.”
If he hadn’t had a little buzz going on, he might have been insulted by that. “Unlike you?”
She glanced down at her clothes as if seeing them for the first time. Or maybe she was just trying to focus because the tequila had already gone to her head. “This was the first thing I grabbed off my floor.”
Bingo. If that was her first grab, there was no telling how bad things were beneath it.
Julia tossed back her second shot. “Have you ever found out something that changed your whole life?” she asked.
“Yeah.” About four hours ago.
“Me, too. Without giving specifics, because that would be personal, did it make you feel as if fate were taking a leak on your head?”
“Five leaks,” he grumbled. Logan finished off his next shot.
Julia made a sound of agreement. “I would compare yours with mine, and I’d win, but I don’t want to go there. Instead, let’s play a drinking game.”
“Let’s not,” he argued. “And in a fate-pissing comparison, I don’t think you’d win.”
Julia made a sound of disagreement. Had another shot. Grimaced and shuddered again. “So, the game is a word association,” she continued as if he’d agreed. “I say a word, you say the first thing that comes to mind. We take turns until we’re too drunk to understand what the other one is saying.”
Until she’d added that last part, Logan had been about to get up and move to a different spot. But hell, he was getting drunk anyway, and at least this way he’d have some company. Company he’d never see again. Company he might not even be able to speak to if the slurring went up a notch.
“Dream?” she threw out there.
“Family.” That earned him a sound of approval from her, and she motioned for him to take his turn. “Surprise?”
“Crappy,” Julia said without hesitation.
Now it was Logan who made a grunt of approval. Surprises could indeed be crap-related. The one he’d gotten tonight certainly had been.
Her: “Tattoos?”
Him: “None.” Then, “You?”
Her: “Two.” Then, “Bucket list?”
Him: “That’s two words.” The orneriness was still there despite the buzz.
Her: “Just bucket, then?”
Too late. Logan’s fuzzy mind was already fixed on the bucket list. He had one all right. Or rather he’d had one. A life with Helene that included all the trimming
s, and this stupid game was a reminder that the Glenlivet wasn’t working nearly fast enough. So, he had another shot.
Julia had one as well. “Sex?” she said.
Logan shook his head. “I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
When she didn’t respond, Logan looked at her. Their eyes met. Eyes that were already slightly unfocused.
Julia took the paper sleeve with her room key from her pocket. Except there were two keys, and she slid one Logan’s way.
“It’s not the game,” she explained. “I’m offering you sex with me. No names. No strings attached. Just one night, and we’ll never tell another soul about it.”
She finished off her last tequila shot, shuddered and stood. “Are you game?”
No way, and Logan would have probably said that to her if she hadn’t leaned in and kissed him.
Maybe it was the weird combination of her tequila and his scotch, or maybe it was because he was already drunker than he thought, but Logan felt himself moving right into that kiss.
* * *
LOGAN DREAMED, AND it wasn’t about the great sex he’d just had. It was another dream that wasn’t so pleasant. The night of his parents’ car accident. Some dreams were a mishmash of reality and stuff that didn’t make sense. But this dream always got it right.
Not a good thing.
It was like being trapped on a well-oiled hamster wheel, seeing the same thing come up over and over again and not being able to do a thing to stop it.
The dream rain felt and sounded so real. Just like that night. It was coming down so hard that the moment his truck wipers swished it away, the drops covered the windshield again. That was why it’d taken him so long to see the lights, and Logan was practically right on the scene of the wreck before he could fully brake. He went into a skid, costing him precious seconds. If he’d had those seconds, he could have called the ambulance sooner.
He could have saved them.
But he hadn’t then. And he didn’t now in the dream.
Logan chased away the images, and with his head still groggy, he did what he always did after the nightmare. He rewrote it. He got to his parents and stopped them from dying.
Dust Up with the Detective Page 17
