by A. J. Pine
It might be unlikely, but the odds weren’t enough to kill the dream. Not for her. Neither was the lack of any significant relationship in her mother’s life. Jessa had grown up being shuffled back and forth—summers and Christmas in Topaz Falls with her father and the rest of the year with her college professor mother who didn’t believe in love, secretly watching old romantic classics and movies like Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail with wistful tears stinging in her eyes.
“Don’t worry, Jess,” Luis said in his kind way. “You’ll find someone.”
Big Man snorted.
Before she could backhand him, Luis gave her shoulder a pat. “My boys ain’t married yet,” he reminded her, as if she would ever be able to forget the Cortez brothers. Every woman’s fantasy.
Lance, the oldest, had followed in his father’s footsteps, though rumor had it this would be his last season on the circuit. He trained nonstop and had little time for anything else in his life, considering he left the ranch only about once a month. The thought of him married almost made her laugh. Over the years, he’d built quite the reputation with women, though she had no personal experience. Even with her father being one of his father’s best friends, Lance had said maybe five words to her in all the years she’d known him. He seemed to prefer a woman who’d let him off the hook easily, and God knew there were plenty of them following those cowboys around.
Then there was Levi. Oh, hallelujah, Levi. One of God’s greatest gifts to women. She’d had a fling with him the summer of their sophomore year, but after that he’d left home to train with some big-shot rodeo mentor and rarely came home.
There was a third Cortez brother, but Luis didn’t talk about him. Lucas, the middle child, had been sent to prison for arson when he was seventeen.
“Sure wish I’d see more of Levi,” Luis said wistfully. “He ain’t been home in a long time.”
Her eyebrows lifted with interest. “So, um…” She pretended to examine a broken nail to prove she didn’t care too much. “How is Levi, anyway?”
“That boy needs to get his head out of his ass. He’s reckless. He’s gonna get himself killed out there.”
Jessa doubted that. Levi Cortez was making a name for himself in the rodeo world.
“Lance, now, he’s the only one of my boys who’s got his head on straight,” Luis went on. “He always was a smart kid.”
From what she’d seen, the oldest Cortez brother had never been a kid, but she didn’t say so. After their mom ditched the family, Lance took over a more parental role. Not that she had any right to analyze him. “He’s handsome, too,” she offered, because every time she did happen to run into him, his luscious eyes had completely tied up her tongue. Yes, indeedy, Lance happened to be a looker. Though it was in a much different way than his cocky brother. “He looks the most like you,” she said with a wink.
Luis’s lips puckered in that crotchety, don’t-want-to-smile-but-can’t-help-it grin she loved to see. Her dad used to have one like that, too.
“Anyway…,” the man said, obviously trying to change the subject. “What’re we gonna do with Cam gone? I assume he didn’t leave any money behind for the shelter.”
“Not that I know of.” Apparently, he hadn’t left anything. Not even the toothbrush she’d kept at his house, Cam it.
“You got any other donors yet?”
“Not yet.” She’d been so preoccupied with the most recent love—infatuation—of her life that she hadn’t exactly made time to go trolling for other interested parties. Her dad had a big heart, but he’d always hated to ask for money, so when she’d come to take over, the list of benefactors had been…well…nonexistent. In one year, she’d already used most of what little money he’d left her to purchase supplies and complete the critical repairs. She could live off her savings for a couple more months, and at least keep up with the payroll, but after that things didn’t look too promising. She’d probably have to lay off her night shift guy.
With Cam’s generosity, she hadn’t been too worried. Until now, of course.
“Don’t you worry, Jess. Somethin’ll work out.” Luis’s confidence almost made her believe it. “You’re doin’ okay. You know that? Buzz would be proud.”
She smiled a little. Yes, her father definitely would’ve been proud to see his old place cleaned up. When she’d finished veterinary school and started on her MBA, he’d been so excited. He’d owned the rescue for thirty years but had never taken one business class. Which meant the place never made any money. He’d barely had enough to live on.
She had planned to change all of that. They’d planned it together. While she worked her way through business school, they’d talked on the phone twice a week, discussing how they could expand the place. Then, a month before she finished school, her father had a heart attack. He’d been out on a hike with Luis. Maybe that was why the man felt the need to take care of her, check in on her, help her fix things up around the house.
Familiar tears burned. She’d never blame Luis, though. That was exactly the way her dad would’ve chosen to go. Out on the side of a mountain, doing something he loved.
“We’ll find a way, Jess.” Pure determination turned the man’s face statuelike, making him look as pensive as his eldest son. “All we need is some inspiration.” Which he always insisted you couldn’t find while stuck indoors. “I’m headin’ up the mountain tomorrow. You wanna come?”
She brushed a grateful pat across the man’s gnarled hand. “I can’t, Luis. Thank you.”
As much as she’d like to spend the day on the mountain, drowning her sorrows about Cam and the rescue’s current financial situation in the fresh mountain air, she had things to do. This breakup had to be the dawn of a new era for her. She was tired of being passed over like yesterday’s pastries. To hell with relationships. With romance. She didn’t have time for it anyway. She had walls to paint and supplies to purchase and animals to rescue. Which meant she also had generous donors to find.
She shot a quick glance down at her attire. Might be a good idea to invest in herself first. Typically, she used her Visa only for emergencies, but this could be considered disaster prevention, right? She needed a new wardrobe. Something more professional. How could she schmooze potential stakeholders looking like she’d just come from a half-price sale at the New Life Secondhand Store?
“You sure you don’t want to come?” Luis prompted.
“I’d love to but I have to go shopping.” Right after their book club meeting, she’d enlist her friends to help her reinvent herself so she could reinvent her nonprofit.
By the time she was done, the Helping Paws Animal Rescue and Shelter would be everything her father dreamed it would be.
It would keep the memory of his love alive.
Chapter Two
Easy, now, Wild Willy.” Raising his hands in stick-’em-up surrender, Lance eased closer to the barn stall, where his favorite training bull was backed against the wall, snorting and pawing at the ground like he was seeing red. Fuck. Sweat soaked the bull’s brown coat and for some reason those horns looked even more lethal in the dim light.
On a normal day, he didn’t enjoy standing eye-to-eye with one of his bovine athletes—especially before he’d finished his coffee—but this mean bastard had given him no choice.
Just as the coffeepot had started to hiss, Tucker, the stable manager and training wrangler, had come barreling into Lance’s kitchen hollerin’ about how Wild Willy had gone ape shit in the field. Seemed his favorite cow was flirting with another bull. In the process of proving his manhood by charging Ball Buster, Wild Willy had stepped in a hole and come out of the debacle with a limp. Which meant Lance had the pleasure of assessing the injury to see if they had to call out the vet.
“All over a woman,” he muttered. Last he’d checked, he was a bull rider, but some days he felt more like he was stuck on an episode of The Bachelor.
“Trust me, fella,” he said, easing closer to Wild Willy, who’d calmed some and was now
chawing on a bundle of hay. “She’s not worth it.” Relationships in general weren’t worth it. “You’re better off alone.” Why put in all of that effort when almost every relationship ended with two people walking in opposite directions? Or two cows, in this case. “All right, Wild Willy. Let’s get a look at that hind leg.” Keeping a safe distance on the outside of the pen, he tested the bull with a sweep of his hand down its flank, which only riled it up again. The dumbass jolted away, slamming its rear end into the wall.
Shiiiiit. Whipping a bandanna out of his back pocket, Lance mopped sweat from his forehead. “You’re not gonna make this easy on me, are you?” he asked, backing off to give Wild Willy some space.
The bull tossed its head and snorted a confirmation.
“Don’t forget who feeds you. I own you.” And he needed this big guy right now. Only a few weeks until World Finals, and he had a hell of a lot of work to do to get ready. This season had pretty much sucked. Only one title and a whole lot of back talkin’ from fans about how he should’ve retired two years ago.
“Well, maybe I’m not ready to retire,” he said to the bull. Hell, he was only thirty. He could still go out on top. Even with his joints creaking the way they did. He’d ignored pain before, especially when he had somethin’ to prove. This wouldn’t be the first time.
But it might be the last.
No. Couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t think about how everything he’d worked for his whole life would likely end after this competition. What would he have after it was over?
Instead of dwelling on that fun question, he faced the bull. He’d rather face a lethal bull than uncertainty any day. “Steady now.” He ripped the bull’s halter off a nearby nail in the wall. “Don’t make me get the tranquilizer—”
“Lance?” A woman’s voice echoed from outside the stall. Not just any woman, Naomi Sullivan, the ranch’s bookkeeper and all around caretaker of the whole lot of them. “Are you in there?” she called again. And she didn’t sound calm.
Raising a finger to Wild Willy’s snout, Lance tried to match the crazy in the bull’s eyes. “This is not over.” He tossed down the halter and stepped outside into the early morning sunlight. The sky was still pink. It cast a bluish haze over the hand-hewn log buildings that made up the Cortez Family Ranch. Smoke still puttered out of the main house’s chimney from the fire he’d started in the woodstove last night. That’s how early it was. Too damn early for another crisis, but from the looks of Naomi’s bedraggled reddish hair and wide green eyes, something had her panties all bunched up.
Naomi had been a family friend forever. The sister they’d never had. So he could tell when she was stressed. And now would be one of those times. “What’s up?” he asked, thinking of nothing but the steaming hot coffee waiting in his kitchen.
“Sorry to bother you.” She was heaving like she’d run all the way up the hill from her house. She lived with them on the ranch. After her husband had taken off and left her with a baby girl ten years ago, Lance had offered her a job and invited her to move into the guesthouse on the property. Not that she was a charity case. She was damn good with numbers. Always had been. However, she did tend to run high in the drama department.
He gave her a smile to simmer her down. “You’re not bothering me. Everything all right?”
She looked around as though torn. “I’m worried about your dad. I haven’t seen him since yesterday.” In addition to doing the books for the ranch, she kept an eye on his father, which had become a heroic task as of late. As if she hadn’t already proven herself a saint, the woman had offered to cook and clean for Luis. She was the one who made sure he took his blood pressure meds.
“He said he was going for a hike and wouldn’t need dinner,” Naomi went on. “But when I brought over his breakfast this morning, he wasn’t around.”
Of course he wasn’t. Because lately his dear old dad had taken to wandering off without bothering to tell anyone where he was going. If he wasn’t volunteering at that animal shelter in town, he was somewhere out on the mountain, head in the clouds as he relived better days.
Naomi wrung her hands in front of her small waist. “I noticed his backpack was gone. Along with his sleeping bag.” She reached into her pocket and held up a prescription bottle. “But he left his medication behind.”
Which meant a thousand things could’ve happened to him out there. He could’ve gotten disoriented. Could’ve passed out. Could’ve lost his balance and fallen off a cliff. He was sixty-seven years old, for shit’s sake. A fact Lance had to keep reminding him of over and over. He didn’t belong out on that mountain alone.
“I’m worried about him.” Naomi was on the verge of tears now, and if there was one thing he hated more than having to act like his father’s babysitter, it was a woman crying. “Should we call out search and rescue?”
Hell no. He didn’t say it, but he wasn’t about to call out search and rescue. They’d called those guys six times in the past year, all because Luis Cortez had taken to wandering off alone somewhere on the three thousand acres they owned. God only knew how much of the taxpayers’ money they’d already wasted. Not to mention he didn’t want to put any lives at risk for a man who was probably just out for an extended stroll.
Lance laid a hand on Naomi’s shoulder and steered her back toward her house. Looked like his training would have to wait. Again. “I’m sure Dad’s fine. Probably just wanted a night under the stars.” That’s what he usually said when Lance dragged him back home from one of his impromptu camping trips. A new layer of sweat burned his forehead. If the man kept wandering away he swore he would implant a GPS chip into his father’s arm so he could start tracking the old coot.
“What if he’s hurt?” Naomi asked, grabbing his arm like she needed support. “Oh God, Lance. I should’ve checked on him last night. After everything he’s done for me, I hate to think of him out there alone.”
“Hey.” He stopped and turned her to face him. She seemed to worry about everything. Everyone. And he knew the weight of that burden. She didn’t need it. She had a daughter to raise. Much as she mothered him, he took it upon himself to protect her, to make sure she didn’t have to worry.
“He’s fine. Don’t forget, he does this all the time.” His father was worse than an untrained Labrador the way he got distracted and roamed away. “I don’t want you to worry, got that? I’ll take care of it.” The same way he always did.
“How do you even know where to look?”
“I don’t. But Jessa might.” She spent more time with Luis than pretty much anyone. If it was any other woman, he’d worry she was on a gold-digging expedition, but Jessa didn’t exactly scream temptress.
Naomi’s face brightened. “Great idea. Jessa will know how to find him.”
“Sure she will.” He prodded her up the porch steps. “Now you go on in and take care of Gracie. Tell her we can do a riding lesson this afternoon, if she’s up for it.” Naomi’s ten-year-old was currently the only female he chose to spend time with and that was just fine with him.
Naomi shook her head with a wide smile. “If she wants to? Are you kidding? You should hear her bragging to all of her friends about how she has the most handsome riding instructor in the whole wide world. She actually told them all you look like Ryder from Tangled. You should’ve heard the squealing.” She trotted up the steps to her modest guesthouse and turned back to him with a smirk on her face. “Me? I’d take Gerard Butler. No offense.”
“None taken.” They’d determined long ago that they’d be a bad fit. Course, he’d be a bad fit with pretty much anyone.
“See you later.” Naomi waved him off. “Tell Jessa I said hey. And be nice to her, Lance. I saw her at book club…”
He happened to know that book club was a fancy way of saying wine and chocolate club, but whatever.
“She got dumped again.”
Shiiiiit. Wasn’t this his lucky day? “As long as she’s not crying,” he muttered, heading down the road. Boots pounding
the packed dirt, he passed the main house, passed that steaming hot cup of coffee waiting in his kitchen, and kept right on movin’ until he’d reached his truck, cursing the whole way.
* * *
This couldn’t be right. Jessa turned to get a profile view of her body. Hello! When she saw that the label on the bra said Bold Lift, she’d had no idea what it meant. In a matter of two minutes, she’d somehow gained at least two cup sizes. She gawked at herself in the mirror. Wow. Those babies were really out there. When she looked down at her toes, her chin practically hit her cleavage. Not to mention the straps were already digging into her skin. Why did satin and lace feel so itchy compared to cotton?
Turning her back on the spectacle in the mirror, she gazed longingly at an old cotton bra hanging on the knob of her closet door. But no. No. It was time for her to kick it up a notch. She had a lot to offer and she was about to show it to the world.
When she’d called her mother last night to inform her that she’d lost her main donor (carefully omitting the fact that he’d also happened to be her boyfriend), the woman had gotten right down to business. “You’ll only appear as professional as you feel,” she’d said. Then she’d advised her on how to build a wardrobe that would help her “dress for success.”
Jessa had written everything down.
Expensive undergarments. Check! Even though the bra squeezed her tighter than a corset, she’d wear it. Along with the new thong she’d bought to match. Because smart, stylish women apparently wore uncomfortable undergarments.
Carefully avoiding a glance at the backside of her body, she backed out of her bedroom and into the small bathroom. When it came to how she looked in a thong, she subscribed to the ignorance-is-bliss mentality.
After doing her makeup the way she’d learned on Pinterest last night, she dashed to the closet to select one of the new outfits she’d bought. Today was a big day. She’d set up meetings at the local real estate office, the bank, and the town chamber to see about developing some partnerships with businesses in town. Not that any of them had seemed particularly excited to talk to her, but she’d change their minds. Which meant she had to look her best.
