Wanted: Runaway Cowgirl (Kindle Worlds Novella)

by Brynn Paulin

  “I don’t know about that. This is different,” I replied. “At least, you had Jessie back after five weeks. It’s been five years for me, man. I don’t think there’s anything left for us.”

  “Do you want there to be?”

  “I don’t know. We were best friends. I know she was upset about something, but she hurt me. Bad.” That might not be manly to admit, but I’d known Scott longer than I’d known Jorie. If anyone knew what I’d been through with that girl and how I felt about her, it was him.

  “I don’t think I can go there with her again,” I admitted. “If she’s here for a visit, I’ll do my best not to see her before she leaves.”

  God, it would gut me to see her, to see how beautiful she’d become—and I knew she had. There was no way she hadn’t. And if she was here with someone? Fuck… My vision darkened slightly at the thought.

  Scott shook his head. “And if she stays?” he asked. “What if she’s back for good?”

  I shrugged. “We’re strangers now. I’ll do my thing, and she can do hers.”

  And now, I was lying out of my ass. The look he gave me said he damn well knew it, too.

  “Right,” he laughed in disbelief. “Fine, dude. Whatever you say,” he said. “Let me show you that horse. I think she’ll be a great ride for your tourists.”

  He paused and pinned me with a stare. “Just one thing: think long and hard before you write Jorie off. Think about what you really want. I don’t even want to consider what life would be if I hadn’t given Jessie a chance when she came back from Belize.”

  I should have known he wouldn’t let it lie. Problem was: Jorie wrote me off a long time ago.

  When I didn’t reply, we both let the subject drop and headed into the barn where Jessie was brushing one of their horses. Minutes later, I knew Scott was right. About the equine, anyway. Maple was perfect for my ranch. After discussing the sale and when she’d be ready for me, I headed back home to the mile-long to-do list waiting for me.

  Shortly after Jorie had run off, I’d taken over the place. The work never ended or even lightened.

  At the thought, my fist hit the steering wheel of my F-250. I hated that I marked time by her: when we’d met. When I’d begun to see her as a girl and not one of the guys. When we’d dated. When she’d left… I just couldn’t get her out of my head. Once upon a time, we’d believed we were soul mates. Now, I thought she was the demon sent to taunt me.

  I clenched my jaw and forced my focus onto my day. I had a ranch to run. About four and half years ago, my dad had gambled away most of our revenue and stock. Then realizing the straits it was in, he’d taken his life. It had shaken my world and left Ma and me to deal with the aftermath. I don’t know if he thought life insurance would kick in and we’d be able to save things that way or if he’d just taken the cowardly way out, but it hadn’t helped matters. It hadn’t solved any problems. And there had been no life insurance, just a huge disaster.

  I’d had a trust from my grandparents that could have kept the place afloat for a few months, but I hadn’t been allowed to touch it until I graduated high school, even with the extenuating circumstances. After Dad’s death, my ma checked out, and even now, she hadn’t checked back in. She signed the ranch over me when I didn’t want to leave, when I wanted to fight for the place, then she packed up and moved to Wyoming to live with her brother.

  In the matter of weeks, I’d gone from a carefree, eighteen-year-old high school student to a floundering, eighteen-year-old ranch owner who still had homework every night. To this day, I could barely comprehend how we’d gone from the proverbial All-American ranch family to a dysfunctional mess. Thank God, Garrett Mathews, from the Mathews Ranch, had stepped in to help me. He’d listened to my ideas for the Lazy D. He’d helped me get a loan against the equity in my land and guided me through those early days. He and his wife, Emma, had also helped me get the word out about my new “resort” and to hire the needed staff.

  Eighteen years old, pretty much penniless, I’d turned my family ranch into a B&B vacation spot. Without the Mathews, I never would have made it. There was just no way someone in my position could have. Yeah, I’d worked the ranch my entire life, but I was just a kid. Five years later, I still felt like a child king on some days.

  Shaking my head, I parked my truck in front of my house. So many deep thoughts today. I needed to get with the here and now.

  Determined, to plow through my tasks, I headed into my office.

  “Hey,” I called to Missy as I passed through the front reception area. Our administrative area were attached to my home, but not actually part of it. I enjoyed my privacy and didn’t want anyone messing around in my space. Normally, Missy wasn’t here, since she was based over at the guest house. I’d hired her when we’d opened, and she saw to cleaning and cooking and everything related to that.

  We had eight, multi-bed “cabins” a short distance from the main house and the primary barns. They were all attached, much like a motel, with a long mess hall running the length of the backside. Each cabin had its own door leading into it. It worked well for rainy days or for those people who paid extra for food delivery to their rooms. Once a week, we hosted an end-of-week party in the hall, to celebrate our guests’ time with us—fun for guests; easy work for the staff.

  “Hey,” she replied. “I was waiting for you.”

  “Yeah?” I asked as I continued into my office. I pulled off my cowboy hat and tossed it onto the table by the door.

  “Did you order the cleaners I asked for? I’m almost out, and I’ll need them tomorrow.”

  “Shit…” I sighed and closed my eyes, running a hand over my face. “No.”

  I needed to hire a manager who could look after all this crap, ordering, reservation, payroll, all the other business junk I couldn’t focus on while I was giving riding lessons, leading expeditions, doing actual ranching and whatnot.

  “Want Max and me to grab enough to tide us over when we run into town later this afternoon?”

  “That would be fucking great.”

  Her arms crossed, her blue eyes dancing. “You’re very sweary today.”

  She was right. My language tended toward clean most of the time. “Bad day.”

  “Really? You’d think it was a great day since Jorie is back in town.”

  “Fuck,” I muttered, rubbing my fingers between my eyes. I wasn’t up for another conversation about her.

  “And there you go again.”

  “You sure you don’t want to take over the ordering?” I asked, changing the subject. Beyond obvious, but whatever.

  She laughed. “If it were just the ordering? Maybe. But we both know the job you’re offering entails a lot more than that.” Her hand rested on her still-flat belly, reminding me of her newly revealed condition. “I’ll stick with what I know and love. You know that other stuff is beyond me and too much stress.”

  “No stressing out the pregnant woman,” Max growled, appearing behind her. I swear he’d been like an overprotective brother since the day he’d discovered her puking from morning sickness.

  “Grand Central Station…” I muttered. Who else was going to traipse through this afternoon? Of course, I shouldn’t be surprised. Where Missy was, Max soon followed. They’d been close friends forever, but unlike me and Jorie, nothing romantic had ever developed between them.

  Jorie. Again. Fuck, I needed a drink. And it wasn’t even noon.

  “What’s going on?” Max asked.

  “Uh, you know, just Nash trying to get me to run this place again.”

  “He just wants your pretty face brightening up the place.”

  “Max…” she muttered.

  He turned to me. “You just need yourself a wife,” Max announced from left field. Where had that come from? “I heard—”

  “Don’t say it,” I interrupted, holding up a hand to stall him. “Just go.”

  “Crabby,” Missy stage-whispered, but they both departed, leaving me to bury myself in paperwork I cou
ldn’t ignore any longer. I really had to get someone out here to help. Maybe tomorrow, I’d place a help-wanted ad. Problem was, I didn’t want just anyone here on the ranch. I had a very specific partner in mind, one I’d always had in mind, but there was no way I’d get that. Even if she was back in town. But who knew how long that would be?

  Chapter Two

  ~ Jorie ~

  “Hey, girl, I heard you were back.”

  I looked up to see Julie Langley, one of my good friends from high school. When I wasn’t hanging with Nash, I’d been with Jules and Missy. Usually, it had been us three girls along with Nash, Max and Dustin though. Now, Julie had a baby in one of those sling things across her front while she pushed a shopping cart. Though she was obviously a new mom, she looked glowing and all put together.

  Me? Not so much. Gran had sent me out for groceries, bright and early, so here I was, looking a little ragged from no sleep and not expecting to run into anyone I knew. I should know better. This was Mason.

  I smiled, though, taking in the changes in my friend. Her honey-blonde hair that used to hang straight down to her rear was cut to just below her shoulders and filled with natural curls. She’d sprung some pretty rocking curves, too. A big ol’ rock sat on her ring finger. So different, yet the same.

  “Hey,” I replied. My hand went self-consciously to my hair that I’d yanked back into a messy ponytail. “Um, yeah, I’m visiting Gran. I didn’t think people would already know.”

  Jules waved her hand, blowing out a breath between her nearly closed lips. “You know Ms. Magnolia. She started telling people you were back yesterday at her prayer meeting, and you know how fast that word spreads. Did you really think you could come back to Mason without everyone finding out?”

  “I wasn’t even here yet,” I laughed. “It was almost two when I rolled in this morning.”

  So much for wanting to stay on the DL. It wouldn’t be long before all my old friends knew I was back—not that I was hiding from them or anything. Not from most of them. Only from one of them, if truth be told. Okay, not even from him. No matter how angry and hurt I was by what he’d done that night, I still longed for my best friend to the deepest part of me. We were soul mates, at least I’d always thought so. Was it possible for that to be one-sided?

  Jules laughed at the news Gran had told everyone I was here before it even happened. “Ah…Magnolia. That’s just like her, isn’t it?”

  Was it? Yeah, I guessed it was. I swear my grandmother had been one of the forerunners in the “self-fulfilling-prophecy” movement. Visualize it as if you already have it, she’d always told me. Want to make the team? Believe you’re already on it. Want an A in that class? Believe you’ve already got it and your mind will do the work to achieve it. How many times had I rolled my eyes at statements like that? Seemed Magnolia was still at it—and it appeared to be working for her, too! Gran always got what she wanted.

  “Yeah, it’s just like her,” I agreed. Jules and I stood there in the produce department, chatting for a bit until her baby started fussing.

  “Guess I better get moving before Sadie throws a full-blown fit,” Jules said. “Don’t you be a stranger. I expect to hear from you while you’re here, and don’t you dare try to skip out without seeing me, or I’ll kick you a—um, butt.”

  “I promise,” I vowed, giving her an awkward hug around the baby and remembering just how much I’d missed all my friends here in Mason. I’d had tunnel focus when I’d run, but the truth was, I’d left behind so much more than Nash when I’d fled in humiliation.

  I’d just turned to head over to the bakery for bagels when a shrill scream of excitement froze me in my steps.

  “Oh my God! Jorie Holland? Oh my gosh, it is you!”

  I turned to face Missy—yes, the infamous Missy from that fateful night and the third girl of our group. I’d come to terms with her innocence in the whole drunken conversation between the guys. Just because they’d brought her up, I had no reason to hold resentment against her. She’d had nothing to do with Nash’s assholery.

  I smiled at her. “Hey, Missy. Long time no see.”

  “No shit,” she laughed as she crushed me in a hug. “You’re back. Where the hell have you been?”

  I shrugged. “Up north. I’m back for a while. Came to see Gran.”

  She nodded. “Good. I know she’s missed you. Talks about you to my mom a lot. You went to school in Michigan, yeah? Ma always talks about how smart you are and how great it is about you going to university there, but gah! the cold up in the frozen north. I’d rather go to community college here and see the sun.”

  I laughed as Missy rambled on, practically running her words together with how fast she talked. She’d always been like that, speaking a mile a minute and filled with bubbly glee.

  “Yeah, I did miss the sun,” I agreed. “The snow was…interesting…until I had to drive in it the first time.” I shuddered. Even after five years, I’d never really adjusted. “Thankfully, with my degree, I don’t need to live where it snows if I don’t want to.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s it in?”

  “Hospitality,” I said, but she stared at me with knitted brows. “You know, managing hotels, restaurants, catering, events… Stuff like that.”

  “You don’t say,” she said thoughtfully. “And you don’t have a job yet?”

  I shook my head. “It isn’t that I can’t get someone to hire me. I’ve just been dragging my feet—post-graduation fatigue, I guess. It’s worked out though. Since I hadn’t gotten a job yet, I was able to come down here when Gran needed me.”

  “Yeah, maybe, it’s fate,” she agreed, still seeming deep in her head. “You know, I’m working over at the Lazy D. You should totally come out and see how it’s changed.”

  “You are?” I couldn’t hide my surprise. Ranching hardly seemed Missy’s thing. Despite growing up in Mason like me, ranching had never been her think. She’d always vowed to run away to the big city someday. Funny, I’d always wanted to work on the Lazy D. What a role reversal.

  “Yeah. Cooking, cleaning… Stuff like that.” She raised her eyebrow making it obvious she was echoing me. I chuckled. “So…” she went on. “Come out and see it?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea…” Actually, I was pretty sure it was a horrible idea.

  “Just…” Missy shook her head, redirecting her argument. There was no way she, and everyone else I knew here, didn’t know something had happened between Nash and me. As secretive as we’d been, it was sure to get out, from Gran if not from Nash himself. “Just think about it, okay. Let me give you my number, and you can give me a call when you decided to visit.”

  Reluctantly, I agreed. Missy had been my friend, too. Even if I never set foot on the Lazy D, the two of us could reconnect.

  After we parted, I finished my shopping and ran into no less than eight more people I knew from my Mason-past. Definitely a bad day to not look my best.

  At least none of them were Nash.

  * * * *

  “So when do you think you’re coming back here?” Ryder asked. I wasn’t sure why. I mean, I’d just arrived less than twelve hours ago.

  I noticed he didn’t ask when I was coming home.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. Gran seemed okay, though I hadn’t seen her so far today. I’d come home to a note that said Doctor and nothing else. That had annoyed and worried me. Didn’t she think I’d want to be there with her or realize it was important that I know what was going on so I could give her the best care possible—or get someone in here who could if it was beyond my abilities? I didn’t think her illness was to that point yet. When we’d sat together at the kitchen table last night, she’d seemed exactly like the Gran I knew.

  Truly, that had been a huge relief. I’d been so worried about what I’d find when I got here. I wasn’t ready for that. Gran had been my “mom” for over sixteen years. She was my closest family. And in my head, she was way too young to be dying. She was only in her mid-sixties.r />
  “Okay, let me know if something changes. I’m still coming out for vacation.”

  “You are?”

  “Of course. I want to see Gran. See the place you’ve been homesick for.”

  “I haven’t been homesick.”

  “Riiiight… Tell that story to someone else.”

  I sighed. It was true, but… “Maybe I was homesick, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to be here. I love Mason, but it’s hard. Knowing what happened. Then there’s everyone I left behind because I couldn’t face them.”

  “It’s not like you were the one who was a douche canoe.”

  I snorted at the phrase Ryder loved so much. I swore he said it just to make me laugh.

  “Jorie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want you far away, but… Well, I think maybe you should think about finding a job down there. Especially, if you’re going to be there awhile with Gran. You’ll need something besides caring for her, or you’ll go crazy. I know your heart wasn’t in it up here, and I bet you could find something amazing down there in Texas. Maybe not in Mason, but Austin’s not far away, right? Or maybe, Fredericksburg?”

  “I don’t know if I should…”

  “Trust me. I’ve seen heartbreak and the aftermath in a couple of my friends. I’m smart enough to figure it out on my own, but having witnessed it, I know how it is.”

  “You’re one of the smartest people I know, stupid.” He’d graduated Magna Cum Laude and could write his own ticket after graduating college.

  “Just think about it, genius.”

  “I will.” Even as we continued to talk for a few minutes, my heart lightened with the idea of a job down here. If I got something in Austin, I’d be close to Gran and could visit often, but I’d be far enough away to avoid certain people…or a certain person and the rumors surrounding the two of us. Yeah, a job in Austin would be great.