Surrender: A Bitter Creek Novel

by Joan Johnston

  “We’re going to have the most romantic night a couple ever had.” Brian walked the two of them to the bed and pulled down the covers. “In you go.”

  Once Taylor was settled in bed, Brian joined her. He pulled her snugly into his arms, spooning her so his arms surrounded her just below her breasts, and pulled the covers up over both of them.

  “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Brian whispered in her ear. “I love you, Tag.”

  Taylor could feel Brian’s arousal, hard and hot against her backside. It was their wedding night. How could she not make love with her new husband, whose obvious desire was pressed provocatively against her?

  I’m so tired. Exhausted. I just can’t…

  She closed her eyes, just to rest them a moment.

  Taylor wasn’t sure what woke her. Maybe the ticking of the heater. Maybe the rustle of a pine against the windowpane. Maybe one of the babies had kicked her. It was pitch-black in the bedroom. Brian must have turned out the light after she’d fallen asleep. To her astonishment, she didn’t feel scared. She realized Brian’s arms surrounded her, making her feel safe—and loved.

  She was feeling proud of herself, and happy, when it suddenly dawned on her that she’d fallen asleep on her wedding night! Without making love to her husband!

  Taylor groaned.

  “Sweetheart? Anything wrong? You okay?”

  Now she’d woken Brian from a sound sleep. She fought back tears of frustration. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

  Brian’s arms tightened around her. In a husky, sleepy voice he asked, “Did you have a nice nap?”

  “Nap? It’s the middle of the night, Brian.”

  “Yes, it is. The middle of our wedding night.”

  Taylor drew in a sharp breath. Oh, what a good man she’d married. What a kind, considerate, wonderful man. She turned toward her husband and pressed one hand against his loving heart, and the other against his very aroused body. She leaned her lips close to his ear and whispered, “So it is.”

  This book is dedicated

  to the wildland firefighters

  who have lost their lives

  in the line of duty

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a great many people thanks for helping me craft this novel. First and foremost, I want to thank my editor, Shauna Summers, who always urges me to find the heart of the book and, once I get something down on paper, helps me make it better.

  I’m eternally grateful for the support I receive from Gina Wachtel, and I’m indebted to Lynn Andreozzi for the amazing covers she designs for my books. I also want to thank the marketing and publicity folks at Dell for getting my books on the shelves and keeping them there.

  My King’s Brats series is set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. With all the nearby national parks, and its views of the Grand Tetons, Jackson is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Lucky for me, I needed to do research in Jackson Hole to write this book, and therefore had a chance to interact with some of the nicest, friendliest people you’ll ever meet.

  Jackson Hole Battalion Chief Fire Marshal Kathy Clay not only provided me with the information I needed to write about firefighters in the town of Jackson, she also connected me with both male and female smoke jumpers, who filled me in on this dangerous but necessary work. In a gesture of true friendliness to an out-of-towner, Kathy loaned me her pepper spray, so I wouldn’t get caught unawares by a grizzly while I hiked in Grand Teton National Park.

  I’m eternally grateful to Leslie Gomez-Williams, with the U.S. Forest Service, and Noel (Chip) Gerdin, also with the U.S. Forest Service, both former smoke jumpers, for explaining the joys and dangers of jumping out of a plane to fight a raging forest fire. Both recommended Jumping Fire, by Murry A. Taylor, as the definitive book about smoke jumping. I found it both fascinating and enthralling.

  Thanks also to Zachary Scott, a shop supervisor and technical administrator for the Twin Otter, for generously providing technical advice about the airplane.

  Kudos to Nancy November Sloane, Rebel Marketing, for the amazing work she does on my newsletter and website.

  I want to thank Kathleen Sullivan for being my beta reader and helping me to keep this book consistent with the previous books in the King’s Brats series.

  As always, hugs to my sister Joyce, for her willingness to be called at all hours as an expert resource for questions about spelling, grammar, and punctuation.

  Dear Faithful Reader,

  I’m already hard at work on the next book in the King’s Brats series, Sullivan’s Promise, which tells Victoria’s story. Vick meets her match in Ryan Sullivan, a rancher who doesn’t think much of her efforts to reclaim wilderness habitat for the very predators killing his cattle. Sullivan’s Promise also features Matt Grayhawk and his one true love, Jennifer Hart, and concludes Aiden and Leah’s romance. An excerpt from Sullivan’s Promise is provided at the end of this book.

  I’ve completed audio recordings (I did the reading!) for the first three books in my Bitter Creek series, The Cowboy, The Texan, and The Loner. They’re now available from Audible. Enjoy!

  Several of my backlist Western novels are now available with gorgeous new covers. Look for Maverick Heart, Comanche Woman, and Sweetwater Seduction wherever books are sold.

  I appreciate hearing your comments and suggestions. You can reach me through my website, joanjohnston.com, at Facebook.com/joanjohnstonauthor, or on Twitter @joanjohnston. I look forward to hearing from you!

  Happy reading,

  By Joan Johnston

  Bitter Creek Novels

  The Cowboy

  The Texan

  The Loner

  The Price

  The Rivals

  The Next Mrs. Blackthorne

  A Stranger’s Game

  Shattered

  Invincible

  Sisters of the Lone Star Series

  Frontier Woman

  Comanche Woman

  Texas Woman

  Captive Hearts Series

  Captive

  After the Kiss

  The Bodyguard

  The Bridegroom

  Mail-Order Brides Series

  Texas Bride

  Wyoming Bride

  Montana Bride

  Blackthorne’s Bride

  King’s Brats Series

  Sinful

  Shameless

  Surrender

  Connected Books

  The Barefoot Bride

  Outlaw’s Bride

  Sweetwater Seduction

  The Inheritance

  Maverick Heart

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOAN JOHNSTON is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than sixty historical and contemporary romance novels. She received a master of arts degree in theater from the University of Illinois and graduated with honors from the University of Texas School of Law at Austin. She is currently a full-time writer living in Colorado.

  joanjohnston.com

  Facebook.com/JoanJohnstonAuthor

  @JoanJohnston

  Victoria and Ryan’s story heats up in the next installment of New York Times bestselling author Joan Johnston’s sizzling contemporary Western romance series, where power, money, and rivalries rule—and love is the best revenge.

  A Bitter Creek Novel

  Available from Dell

  Continue reading for a special sneak peek

  “WHAT THE HELL are you doing here?” The image of a naked woman appeared in Ryan Sullivan’s mind, her golden curls spilling across his pillow, her lithe body arched in ecstasy beneath him. He had to look again to see the same woman standing on his back porch fully clothed in belted Levi’s, cowboy boots, and a starched white button-down shirt, open at the throat, the sleeves folded up to reveal slender forearms. Her striking blue eyes, which
had been closed in that moment of extremis, looked wounded in the bright light of day. He realized she hadn’t answered him, so he said, “I asked you a question.”

  Her chin lifted, and he saw a spark of the vibrant woman who’d attracted him when he’d first spotted her in the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

  She looked him in the eye and said, “I made a mistake.”

  “Which mistake are we talking about here? The one where you lied about being on the pill? Or the one where you wanted me to give up parental rights to my son?”

  “I didn’t lie. I was on the pill. I don’t know why I got pregnant. And I only asked you to give up your parental rights because I wanted the child to be adopted by a loving family.”

  “Let me stop you right there. Cody isn’t the child or a child. He’s my child, since you gave up your right to have anything to do with him the day he was born.”

  She flinched, as well she should. He couldn’t imagine any woman caring so little about her child that she would give him up to anyone—even his own father—and walk away without a second thought.

  She met his gaze again, and he saw tears welling in her eyes. He hardened his heart. He didn’t care what she wanted now. She’d had her chance to be a mother, and she’d thrown it away like trash. He wasn’t going to let her back into Cody’s life now. His son was a happy, healthy, six-month-old boy. He was doing fine without a mother. He had a doting father, a grandmother, an uncle, and a teenage aunt to give him all the love he needed.

  “I know what I did was wrong,” she said in a voice that sounded like a rusty gate. “You can’t say anything to me—or about me—that I haven’t said to myself a thousand times over the past six months. I made a mistake, Ryan. I never should have walked away. It was the dumbest, most idiotic, shameful thing I’ve ever done in my life. But I’m here now, and I want to see my son.”

  “He’s my son,” Sullivan shot back.

  “I have visitation rights.”

  Sullivan remembered how surprised his lawyer had been when Victoria Grayhawk said she didn’t want visitation rights, because she didn’t plan to be a part of the child’s life. It was her lawyer who’d insisted on writing in a clause allowing her to see their son “One weekend per month, from 5 P.M. on Friday to 5 P.M. on Sunday.”

  Sullivan remembered how she’d pursed her lips and shaken her head when her lawyer said, “You might change your mind.” Sullivan had been tired of fighting and had agreed to her lawyer’s terms, certain he would never see her again. They’d both signed the legal document, which was approved by a family court judge, making Ryan Andrew Sullivan the primary custodial parent and giving Victoria Alexandra Grayhawk visiting privileges one weekend a month.

  For the past six months, he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her. Now, here she was at the back door of his Montana ranch house on a Friday afternoon demanding to see his son.

  “You can’t see Cody. You can’t hold him. You can’t have him for the weekend. Get the hell off my doorstep. Get the hell off my property. Go away and don’t come back.”

  “He’s my son, too! You can’t deny me the right to be a mother to him.”

  The flash of fire in her eyes reminded him of the look she’d given him at the bar, when he’d asked if she’d come back to his room at the Wort Hotel. The one that had turned him hard as a rock. The one that had made it impossible to swallow. The one that had caused him to capture her nape and touch his mouth to hers. He felt a frisson of feeling skitter down his spine at the memory of that kiss.

  He knotted his fists and forced the feeling down. “You’re the one who walked away,” he said in a voice made harsh by vivid memories he thought he’d put behind him. “You said you didn’t want to be a mother. It’s not something I’m ever likely to forget hearing.”

  “I told you, I made a mistake!”

  “You sure as hell did!”

  “I have legal rights,” she protested.

  “Good luck with that. Where were you planning to keep Cody for the weekend? You can’t take him out of state without my permission, and I won’t give it. Do you have a home here in Montana?”

  “I’ve bought a cabin.”

  “Where?”

  “On the edge of your property.”

  “Not the Wingate place,” he said, horrified at the thought of having her so close.

  “I think that was the old man’s name.”

  Sullivan had been planning to buy that log cabin on the edge of Glacier National Park, and the five hundred acres that surrounded it, for himself. He’d just been waiting for old man Wingate to lower his price, since he didn’t think there was anyone else willing to buy a place so deep in the woods. Now the mother of his child was going to be living right on the edge of his property, day in and day out.

  “What happened to your grand plans to save grizzlies and wolves from extinction,” he said with a sneer.

  “I’m still working to save endangered species.”

  “I thought you had to travel to do your job. After all, that was the excuse you gave for not wanting to be a mother.” That and the fact that she was only twenty-two when she’d gotten pregnant. He was nobody she knew, just a guy she’d met in a bar. It had been good sex, she told him (great sex as far as he was concerned, though he hadn’t bothered to contradict her), but that had been the extent of it. The pregnancy was merely an unforeseen, entirely unexpected, consequence.

  At twenty-five, he hadn’t exactly been ready for parenthood, either, but he’d known he could never give his child up to someone else to raise.

  “I still have to travel,” she said defensively. “But I plan to be here at least one weekend a month to see my son.”

  “He’s not yours. He’s mine,” Sullivan said. “And don’t you forget it.”

  His gut clenched with fear for his son. He could probably put off the Grayhawk woman for a while, by bringing in social services to check out the living conditions in that old cabin in the woods. But eventually, she was going to get Cody one weekend a month. His son would be scared if he went off alone with some stranger. Which meant Sullivan was going to have to let that damned woman into his home to spend time with his son, before she took him away and kept him by herself.

  Not to mention making sure she knew how and what to feed Cody, and how to change a diaper and what his bedtime ritual was and how he sometimes woke up at night and was scared of the dark—for no reason that Sullivan had ever been able to determine.

  He studied the somber look on Victoria Alexandra Grayhawk’s face, so different from the bubbly smile and laughing eyes that had caught his attention at the bar. The air had shimmered with tension when he was still half a room away from her. It was as though she were tugging him toward her with an invisible rope, from which there was no escape. He felt the same attraction now and fought against it.

  She wasn’t the woman he’d imagined she was when he’d taken her to bed. That woman spoke of noble ideals and goals which, even though they ran counter to his personal feelings, had still resonated with him. She wanted to save wolves and grizzlies from extinction—the same wolves and grizzlies that killed his cattle every year. She hadn’t changed her tune, even when she’d found out they were on opposite sides of the fence. She’d simply cozened him with kisses to convince him to take a look at her point of view.

  He’d been willing to sacrifice every cow on his ranch to feed hungry bears and wolves by the time she got done with him. He was well and truly lost, ready—if she just said the word—to tie the knot and take her home with him to Montana.

  Except, when he’d woken up the next morning, she’d been gone. And he’d never gotten her last name. She’d simply called herself “Lexie.” He’d only been in town for a two-day cattlemen’s meeting, and when he asked about a “Lexie” in the bar the next evening, no one knew a woman of her description by that name. Nor had t
here been anyone in the lobby when they’d entered the hotel who might have known her. It was only later he discovered her first name was Victoria, and that folks in Jackson called her Vick. It was one more transgression to add to the growing list.

  “Lexie” had been more careful than he was, asking enough questions to find out his full name, and that he lived on a ranch in Montana. She’d come looking for him when she found out she was pregnant, and that whole sorry legal mess had started.

  He wondered if he would be so mad at Lexie now, if he hadn’t felt so foolish for wanting more time with her, when she’d apparently forgotten all about him once the sun hit the morning sky.

  “Rye? Who’s at the door?”

  “No one, Mom.” That’s what Lexie was and always would be to him and his son.

  He could hear his mother—who was nosy, but in a good way—crossing the mudroom to see for herself who’d come to visit.

  The sudden intense look of longing on Lexie’s face told him something was amiss. Then he heard the screen door screech behind him and turned to see his mother stepping onto the back porch with Cody in her arms.

  Cody leaned over and thrust out both arms, but it wasn’t Sullivan he was reaching for. As he’d turned to watch his mother’s approach, Lexie had held out her arms to the child, her face lit with joy. He realized with a sudden pang that it was her smile he saw reflected on his son’s face each morning when he greeted his child—the same bow on the upper lip, the same fullness of the lower one, and the wide, inviting mouth.

  Her arms reached for the baby, who was grinning toothlessly back at her.

  Sullivan saw what was going to happen and intercepted the child before his mother—this stranger—could touch him.