Her Cowboy Billionaire Butler

by Liz Isaacson

  Cy’s thoughts flowed to Mikaela. “Yeah, I understand that.”

  “Maybe I could meet your girlfriend,” Wes said. “You never did set a date for us to get together in Ivory Peaks.”

  “Yeah.” Cy sighed. “Listen, uh, we broke up.”

  Wes exhaled heavily, the end of it sounding like a hiss. “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “You liked her so much. You haven’t brought anyone home since Abbie.”

  And she’d become Cy’s wife. True, that marriage had only lasted ten months, but Cy had loved her. He didn’t bring women home willy nilly, and he kept his relationships out of the family spotlight for a long time after they’d started.

  “Did you end it?” Wes asked.

  Cy didn’t want to have this conversation, so he asked, “What do you think?”

  “I’m sorry, Cy,” Wes said. “I feel this on a deep, personal level.”

  “Did Bree break up with you?” Cy asked.

  “Not yet,” he said. “She…I can’t even say it out loud. I’m thinking of leaving town for a bit. I just need some space.”

  “You need some space?”

  “She doesn’t trust me,” Wes said. “I think she’d be happier if I left town, and I just want her to be happy.”

  Cy pulled in a breath and stood up, realizations streaming through him. “You fell in love with her.”

  “Yeah,” Wes said miserably, not even bothering to deny it. “And it’s been a few days since we had this horrible, horrible conversation, and I just think it’s time for me to move on.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Cy said, feeling more connected to Wes than he had in years.

  “I am too,” Wes said. “I’m going to be forty-eight, Cy. Don’t be like me, okay? Find someone as soon as you can and make them yours.”

  Cy wished finding someone was only so easy. “I tried that once,” Cy said. “I’m a little more cautious now. Maybe that’s what’s going on with Bree?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on with Bree,” Wes said. “I’ll let you know when I’m getting close to Solana Beach.”

  “Okay,” Cy said. “And Wes, call me, okay? I worry about you out there by yourself.”

  “Thanks, Cy,” Wes said, and the call ended.

  Cy stuck his phone in his back pocket and stared out across the parking lot. Beyond that, a row of shops blocked his view of the ocean. With just a hundred-yard walk, he could have his toes in the sand and an unobstructed view of the waves.

  “What do we do?” he asked the empty sky in front of him. “Dear Lord, what do we do? Wes really loved Bree. Why couldn’t that work out for him?” There was no one better than Wes, and Cy wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. “Please help him be happy,” he added. “Bless him to be safe.”

  “Boss,” someone said behind him, and Cy turned. He didn’t care if someone overheard him praying. It wouldn’t be the first time, that was for sure.

  “Yep.” He faced McCall, one of his best mechanics.

  “Boston Bill is here, and you said you wanted to go over his bike with him.”

  A bit of joy blipped through Cy’s bloodstream. “Yes,” he said. “I do.” He loved going through a custom bike with a veteran or someone who’d served his fellow beings in some way. Boston Bill had been in the police department for twenty-seven years before he’d been injured in the line of duty.

  This bike was Cy’s monthly donation to an individual or family who deserved recognition, and he definitely wanted to go over the bike with Boston Bill. As he did, he managed to get a few minutes of relief from his worries about Wes and his misery over Mikaela.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Wes moved his laundry from the washing machine to the dryer and returned to his bedroom to look at the bag he’d started to pack. He stared down into the bag, wondering if he could call Gray next.

  Talking to Cy hadn’t been terrible, but Cy didn’t know Wes as well as Gray and Colton. If he spoke to either of them, they’d know something was off in the first five seconds. It had taken Cy at least five minutes to ask about Bree.

  But Wes didn’t want to deal with anything in Coral Canyon once he left. When he’d left Denver in February, he’d turned his bills and utilities over to Gray, who paid them every month from one of Wes’s accounts that Gray managed.

  He could do the same for the mortgage and bills in Coral Canyon—couldn’t he?

  “Only if you make the call,” he muttered to himself, wondering if he really wanted to continue his quest to visit every state in the country. Living out of a bag wasn’t exactly an amazing experience, especially now that he’d been stationary for a few months.

  He sank onto the bed and ran his hands through his hair. He felt more stressed about this decision than any he’d ever made behind the desk at HMC.

  “Why couldn’t—?” He cut off the question, because he’d learned long ago not to delve into “Why me?” types of questions. But he really wanted to know how he’d fallen in love with a woman who didn’t love him back. He wanted the Lord to tell him that everything would be okay. That the next person to ring his doorbell would be Bree, and she’d tell him how sorry she was, and that of course she loved him too.

  No one rang the doorbell, just like the only people who’d been texting or calling him shared his last name.

  Wes didn’t even know how to classify his feelings, because he’d literally never been this upset before. Unhappy didn’t seem strong enough, and misery didn’t go deep enough. The closest thing he’d been able to come up with as he knelt beside his bed last night, begging God for a release, was heartbroken.

  And he’d gotten no release.

  He knew he wouldn’t get one in Coral Canyon. Not while he worked at the same lodge as Bree and could run into her at any moment. He hadn’t signed a contract with Graham, and he could leave any time. The right thing to do would be to give two weeks’ notice and then leave town. But Wes wasn’t sure he could even make it through another hour in the same town as Bree. Looking at the same mountains. Talking to all the same people she did.

  “You have to go,” he told himself, and he reached for his phone again. He wasn’t sure if he was going to call Colton or Gray until he started tapping and swiping. Gray’s name came up, and the call started ringing.

  “Uncle Wes,” Hunter answered, and Wes felt a smile move across his face. He was glad he could still smile, and he started to relax.

  “Hunter,” he said. “What’s goin’ on?”

  “My dad left his phone in the truck,” he said. “He just ran in to get the Chinese food.”

  “I didn’t think your dad was ever detached from his phone.” Wes chuckled, and that felt good too.

  “He’s usually not,” Hunter said. “He’s just been on the phone all day, and it’s almost dead.”

  So Gray wouldn’t want to talk. “Rough day for him?” He rarely ordered food either, and both of those were giveaways for Wes.

  “Yeah, I guess there’s some problem at work. He didn’t say much about it. He never does.”

  “That’s true,” Wes said, though Gray would unload on him. He just didn’t want Hunter to ever know that sometimes Gray’s life was hard. “Well, tell him I called, but it’s nothing big. So if he doesn’t want to call until later, that’s fine.”

  “All right,” Hunter said, his western drawl more pronounced than Wes had ever heard it. He’d spent the entire summer on the farm, and Wes could just see his nephew as the littlest Hammond cowboy. The thought brought a beam of joy to his life, and it was moments like these that allowed his shattered heart to keep beating for another day.

  A week later, Wes had carried his last bag up the stairs to the second level at the lodge. He’d had the hard conversation with Graham, and the man had been nothing but kind and amazing. He’d asked if he could still call him and they could continue their business consulting, and Wes had agreed to that.

  He’d made the embarrassing phone call to Gray, and then Colton. Only one of them had
the power to show up on the front porch with four boxes of pizza and Wes’s favorite soda—root beer—and Colton had done just that.

  Surprisingly, Wes hadn’t had to defend himself. Colton had told him once not to hurt Bree, and Wes had expected his brother to question him mercilessly about what had happened and why Wes was leaving town and the whole nine yards.

  Instead, he’d plunked down on the couch, sans plate, and ate his way through a pizza while they watched King Kong.

  Colt had hardly said a word, and when he’d finally gotten up to leave, he’d clasped Wes in a hug and said, “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

  But he did have to go. Wes was dying here, a little more each day. He hadn’t spoken to Bree in ten days, but he didn’t want to leave town without at least talking to her. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe he needed to be filleted alive again. Maybe he just wanted to make sure things between them were completely over.

  No matter what, his conscious wouldn’t allow him to just load up and drive away, Coral Canyon and Bree Richards in his rear-view mirror.

  He knew she didn’t work at the employment office on Saturdays, so his only choice was to drive up the canyon one more time and face her at the lodge. Or rather, her cabin. To him, though, they were the same thing.

  The drive passed quickly, and Wes found the turn-off easily. He kneaded the steering wheel as he inched along the road, and eventually a cabin appeared in front of him. Bree’s sedan sat there, and Wes remembered the first time he’d seen that car in the parking lot outside the employment office.

  He parked behind her, noting there wasn’t another car in the driveway. Maybe he’d get to talk to Bree alone. And dang it, his stupid romantic heart actually thought he’d get to kiss her good-bye.

  Gathering his every last nerve and every ounce of bravery he possessed, he got out of the truck and headed for the front porch. There was no doorbell, which Wes thought fit the mountain landscape perfectly.

  There were so many trails he and Bree hadn’t explored yet, and he doubted his decision to leave. Would she see him as a coward? Someone who ran away when things got hard? Wes didn’t want to be that person. He wanted to fight for the relationship he’d wanted for nine months now.

  He took a step back, but Bree opened the door in that moment, and Wes froze.

  “Oh.” Bree’s hand fluttered up to her neck, and she rubbed along her jaw.

  Wes’s heart pounded in his chest. Violently. “Hey, Bree.” His voice creaked, almost a growl in his throat. He cleared it away, determined to be strong in a situation that made him feel weak. “I came to let you know that I’m leaving Wyoming. I have ten states still to see, and I think we’d both be happier if we didn’t have to tiptoe around each other.”

  Bree started nodding about halfway through, her beautiful eyes filling with tears.

  “I’m so sorry,” Wes said, his own emotions conspiring against him. He employed his training as CEO and shoved them down, down, down, so they wouldn’t show in his face or his voice. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  “Wes.” She shook her head, her tears falling onto her cheeks, where she wiped them away.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said. “I didn’t want to be another man in your past that you reflect on and feel badly about yourself.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “So please don’t do that, okay?”

  “Nothing about this is your fault,” Bree said.

  Didn’t feel like it to Wes, so he shrugged. “I want to leave the door open. If you feel like we might be able to have a future together, all you have to do is text me. You don’t even have to call. I know calling is hard sometimes.” He took a deep breath. “I love you, Bree. Honestly, I do. If you feel any inkling at all that you’d like to see me again, please let me know.”

  She openly cried in front of him now, and Wes couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t look at her and know he was the cause of those tears. “I’m sorry,” he said one final time before he turned and walked back to his truck, Bree as silent as ever.

  Wes hated the silence in that moment, and as soon as he reached the asphalt, he turned on the radio as loud as he could. Anything to get his thoughts to quiet, to dull them into something he couldn’t think about for too long.

  His phone rang, which was connected to the Bluetooth in the truck. The ringtone wailed in the truck, nearly deafening Wes. He jabbed at the radio screen to get the call connected, and he immediately turned down the volume before he said, “Hey,” to Colt.

  “You’ll come back for Christmas, right?” his brother asked.

  “Not to the lodge,” Wes said. Unless Bree texted him. Then anything was possible. He loathed himself for the hope that still existed inside him, but his mother had taught him that if he had hope, he could do anything. He could endure anything. But sometimes hope hurt. It created unrealistic situations where his fantasies had room to grow. And fantasies were definitely dangerous.

  “To our place,” Colton said. “We’ll have a big thing at my house. I’ve already invited Gray and Mom and Dad. He said he’s going to talk to them and see if they’ll make the drive.”

  “There’s no way Grams will make that drive,” Wes said.

  “Maybe she’d fly.”

  “She can’t even get out of bed by herself,” Wes said. “If you want to do a Christmas thing, why don’t we go back to Ivory Peaks? Last year was really fun. Christmas and New Year’s at the farm.”

  Wes knew the hesitation on Colton’s end of the line had everything to do with his wife, as it should. Annie was a Coral Canyon native; her parents lived nearby; her two daughters lived in town. Her friends gathered at the lodge for the holidays every year, and if Colton wanted to come to Ivory Peaks, that would mean they couldn’t go to the lodge.

  “Talk to Annie,” Wes said. “I don’t think you’ll get Grams and Mom and Dad to Coral Canyon.”

  “I’ll talk to them,” Colton said. “You just focus on your bucket list.”

  Wes scoffed. “I don’t really care about the bucket list. I should’ve put get married and have kids on my bucket list.” He sighed miserably, hearing the ticking of a clock in the back of his mind.

  His birthday was in three weeks, and the dreams he’d started to have where he and Bree had another romantic adventure together as he turned another year closer to fifty now tormented him.

  “Wes, she’s going to come around.”

  “Colt,” Wes said, suddenly beyond annoyed. “I know you’re really good friends with her. Really, I do. But you didn’t see her. You haven’t gotten to know her the same way I have. She’s not going to tell me about her family. Period. And that’s fine for you and her, because you don’t have to have unconditional trust with Bree.”

  “Wes—”

  “No,” Wes said, almost shouting, though he was also already regretting his raised voice. He drew in a big breath. “Think for a minute if you found out Annie had been keeping a secret from you. A great, big secret that could and would change everything between you. And the reason she didn’t tell you was because she doesn’t trust you. So now you’ve got a wife who doesn’t trust you. Now what, Colt?”

  “I don’t know, Wes,” Colton said very quietly.

  “Exactly,” Wes said. “You don’t know. So please don’t tell me she’s going to come around.” Wes could see the last evening he’d been with Bree; he heard himself tell her he was in love with her; felt how great it had been to say it. To finally tell her.

  He heard himself tell her she could trust him, and he’d watched her refuse to do that. Absolutely, positively refuse.

  When he’d sat there, at that candlelit table for two—by himself—totally in love with Bree and honestly willing to do anything to be with her, Wes had found something he couldn’t live with.

  He would not pledge himself to a woman who couldn’t be completely honest with him.

  The hours passed as the miles rolled beneath his tires. He left Wyoming and entered Idaho, pulling over at a gas station to
fill up on the other side of the Tetons. Coeur d’Alene looked beautiful, with rivers and lakes and plenty of places to stay. He found a five-star hotel where he could get room service, any channel on the television he wanted, a spa, and a door hanger that would keep everyone away.

  He booked five nights, figuring he could find something fun and rejuvenating to do in the mountains and lakes in the area.

  “Nine states to go,” he said to himself, because there was no one else to talk to.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bree paced in her cabin, feeling like a caged tiger. Wes had left hours ago, and Bree had called Lionel to get him to run the riding groups that day. She’d normally never do that, because she already felt guilty for being gone in the mornings during the week.

  But Lionel had done a great job this summer, and he could handle the late September crowd at the lodge that weekend.

  Bree was tired of dealing with people. No, that wasn’t right. She was tired of dealing with herself.

  The darkness inside her crept up and out of the box where she normally kept it. It had been doing that for days and days now, since her birthday. She didn’t need to go down the hall to her bedroom and look in her top dresser drawer at the birthday card she’d put with the others.

  She could still see her mother’s handwriting, and Bree’s chest collapsed as she thought about going another day without speaking to her mom.

  “Do I have to do this?” she asked, her voice high-pitched and squeaky. And for maybe the first time since Bronson’s death, Bree felt an overwhelming sense that yes, she needed to do this. In fact, she should’ve dealt with all of these issues and feelings a long time ago.

  She craved peace, and she knew she’d only get it one way. Still, hours passed before Bree finally took her phone into her bedroom, closed and locked the door, and navigated to the contact that said Mom.

  She stared at it for a long, long time, finally tapping to open a call. She held the phone to her ear, her hand shaking and her stomach rioting against her, though she hadn’t eaten anything that day.