Always a Cowboy Read online

  “Any chance Slater caught it on camera? I’m talking about the fist bump.”

  “Hell, no. He’d never risk his life. Between the two of them, they could certainly take him. Grace would help. He’d be toast.”

  “You do realize you have an eclectic family, right?”

  She’d lightened up, if her laugh was any indication.

  “They’re an interesting bunch. Let me help you with the tent, and then I’ll saddle Starburst.”

  He thought she’d put up a fight, insist she wanted to camp out again, but maybe despite her comfort with the outdoors, her experience the night before had made an impression. Sure, he and his brothers had camped out many, many times, but they’d brought their rifles, knew how to store food to avoid attracting unwanted guests, and they’d grown up knowing you had to keep your eyes open. Practice and familiarity counted for a lot.

  She said without equivocation, “I can handle the tent. Go get your horse.”

  If he forced the tent issue, he had a feeling he’d be in trouble.

  * * *

  IT WAS NICE to slip into the house unnoticed and bolt straight to her bathroom for a shower. As she stripped off her clothes, she registered soreness, partly from horseback riding and partly from...well, uninhibited sex. On the positive side, the shampoo and conditioner might make her hair manageable again. And she needed a chance to think about the night before.

  She already had an offer from a private college for a teaching position once she completed her graduate degree, assistant professor, not associate or full, but she was still in her twenties; there was plenty of time to advance in the academic ranks. She’d gotten a teaching certificate as part of her undergrad program.

  As she’d pointed out to Beth, what would she do in Mustang Creek?

  She’d put a lot of time into figuring out her future. Drake was totally mucking that up.

  She did hope this wasn’t a problem with trust on her part. Previous men in her life, notably her erstwhile fiancé, had proven to be jerks, but Drake wasn’t, and intellectually she understood that. In her heart...she just wanted to make sure she was independent, confident, solid on her own.

  It was her problem to solve.

  The hair was indeed a challenge, but she won the battle, wielding conditioner and a hairbrush. Because she was self-conscious, she decided mascara was in order. It was closer to lunch than to breakfast, and she found the entire family in the dining room, chatting and having Sunday brunch.

  She walked in, and all conversation paused but slowly resumed as she took her seat That was followed by cheerful hellos from everyone present.

  “I’m a little late,” she said apologetically.

  “Yep, you are.” Drake, the king of the three-word sentence, rose with his empty plate in hand. “Listen, I’m running behind. Gotta go.”

  But he didn’t leave the dining room right away. Instead, he leaned over and kissed her in front of his entire family, just a light brush of his lips on hers. “See you later.”

  Luce was speechless. Everyone else was grinning. He used his elbow to open the door and disappeared into the kitchen. Grace jabbed Slater in the ribs. “Admit I called that one.”

  Blythe interjected, “I think I called it.”

  “Saw it coming from the start,” Harry said serenely. “Luce, can I pass you some biscuits and gravy?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “WANT TO FLY-FISH the Bliss?” Slater propped himself against the doorway. “Where’s Ryder, anyway? Isn’t this his job?”

  Drake wiped his forehead. “Believe it or not, he went to the movies with Red. Some sort of John Wayne marathon at the theater downtown. Red’s been talking them up to the kid. They were both so excited I told them just to go. Ryder called Grace to ask if it was okay, and then they lit out of here.”

  “So you’re voluntarily mucking out stalls?”

  “I am, but fishing sounds better. Feel free to pitch in and, after that, yes to the Bliss. You’re done filming for this afternoon?”

  Slater picked up a shovel from the wall rack. “I’m not a slave driver. It’s Sunday, after all. I’m going to bet half my crew is watching John Wayne, along with Ryder and Red, and the other half is at Bad Billy’s. I gave everyone the day off.”

  It was true that there wasn’t a lot to do in Mustang Creek, and that had always been okay with Drake. Plenty to do on the ranch and there were mountains practically in his backyard. He did go skiing now and then, but fly-fishing was more his kind of thing. They’d all gone with their father as boys and those afternoons were among his fondest memories. Being with his dad. The quiet, the sunshine, the gleaming water. The thrill of getting a hit on your line...

  “We going or what?”

  He turned to see Mace carrying their fly rods and a tackle box, hip waders draped over his arm.

  Drake gestured around him. “Get busy mucking. Two more stalls and we can go. Showbiz is on board with helping, as you can see. How about you?”

  His younger brother muttered a word he’d never say in front of his mother or Harry, but he obligingly set everything down. “I’ll do the straw and feed. I’m not touching Heck, though. Slater can brush his own damn horse.”

  They’d worked together so many times the work was done in minutes, and then they all piled into Slater’s truck. Mace was in the back, and he patted a cooler on the seat next to him. “I told Harry we’d be bringing back trout. Don’t make me do all the work because you both suck at fishing.”

  “Yeah, right,” Slater said sarcastically.

  “After the storm last night, a successful haul might be a neat trick,” Drake observed. “River’s going to be high and muddy. I thought I’d end up somewhere around the south pole the wind was blowing so hard.”

  He shouldn’t have said it, because—predictably—Mace jumped on it. “I’m sure you clung to Luce for comfort, Romeo.”

  There were two ways to react to that sort of comment, and he chose the high road. “I did, as a matter of fact.”

  Both of his brothers laughed. As they turned onto the county highway, Slater asked, “So, is it pretty serious or just a fling?”

  “I agreed to go to California with her.” He really hadn’t meant to let the proverbial cat out of the bag. Luckily, his brothers wouldn’t tell if he asked them not to, and he did. “That happens to be top secret information, by the way. Mom and Harry are running the show too much as it is. If they get wind of this, I’ll know it was one of you two.”

  Slater shook his head. “Not necessarily. You’d better hope Luce doesn’t tell Grace. They seem to like each other and they aren’t too far apart in age. I get the impression they talk.”

  Mace was his usual cheery self. “They probably complain about the two of you. I know I would.”

  “We could just drown him in the river,” Drake suggested caustically.

  “That’s a plan,” Slater agreed. “Think we’d get caught?”

  “Hmm. Spence is a smart lawman. He might catch on.”

  “Yeah. We’d have to be clever about it.”

  “Thanks to Spence I’m saved? Good to know.” Mace took it in stride. He might be a wiseass, but he did have a sense of humor. “I’ll thank him later. Why do I get the feeling I’m going to be the last holdout Carson bachelor?”

  “Because no one would ever want to marry you?” Drake muttered. Apparently, he viewed that as a logical observation.

  “I’m choosing not to take offense at that.”

  “If you two start arguing again, I’m going to park the truck and walk the rest of the way, and you can follow,” Slater said. “Then you guys get stuck with bringing the gear.” He was probably only half-kidding. He’d been the peacemaker for a long time.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m not going to waste an afternoon off. The river
looks high, but there’s not too much runoff.” Drake, looking out the window, was happy to see the water running clear. The Bliss had to be one of the most beautiful rivers in the world. Crystal-bright and rippling gently, it had a variety of trout and also grayling. “We did need that rain. No significant runoff.”

  Slater parked in a flat grassy area they’d used before, then it was waders on and flies tied. As he waded into the water, Drake felt a twinge of nostalgia and sorrow that the fourth of their party was long absent and would never join them again.

  Mace echoed his thoughts. “This always reminds me of Dad.”

  “I know.” Drake flicked his pole. “For me, that’s good and bad. I like to remember him, but missing him is still painful.”

  Slater, a few feet away, water swirling around his thighs, murmured, “Try having your wife expecting his grandchild. I grieve for him, and for the fact that my children won’t know their grandfather.”

  At this stage of his life, Drake could only imagine that feeling. He was distracted from his melancholy mood a moment later, when he got a clean strike and the battle was on. Fly-fishing was truly a sport. It wasn’t just hauling them in once they took the hook; it was wearing them out enough so you could net the fish.

  He won in the end, a nice rainbow trout. He turned to his brothers. “The score is currently me one, you two zero. I don’t know what Harry’s backup plan is, and I’m sure she has one, but I’m having trout for dinner.”

  “Whoa, don’t get too smug, brother of mine.” Mace’s pole had suddenly bowed.

  “Try landing that fish,” Drake told him. “Let it run.”

  His brother was playing it expertly, giving line and taking it back. “The day I need fishing advice from you is the day hell freezes over.”

  “Seems to me I’m the only one who’s actually caught a fish so far.” Drake cast again, working the line with what he considered his lucky fly.

  At the end of it all, everyone was having trout for dinner and Slater had caught the most fish. Go figure.

  “I’m just lucky,” he said when they got back in the truck. “Beautiful wife, wonderful daughter, and let’s not forget I’m a better fisherman.”

  Mace rubbed his jaw. “If he’s better at anything, it’s at being conceited. I’ve always thought that. How about you, Drake?”

  “Yeah, he’s full of himself, all right.” He stowed away the poles.

  “You two are poor losers.”

  “You get to clean them, remember that.”

  “Yeah, Harry’s Law.” Slater rolled his eyes. “She’ll bake a double-layer chocolate cake and make coconut frosting from scratch, but she won’t clean a fish.”

  “So clean it and remember she cooked the fish.”

  “Thanks.” Slater slanted him a derisive look. “It seems to me we’ll all be cleaning fish, correct?”

  Mace gestured expansively. “Hey, I’m starting to feel blessed ’cause I caught the least, so I won’t—”

  “No, no,” Drake interjected. “You don’t get a free pass for that.”

  Slater backed him up. “We’ll make it a family affair. One for all and all for one. We’re the Three Carsoneers, aren’t we?”

  Drake and Mace booed. “Jeez, that’s feeble,” Mace said.

  “The fish are all in the same cooler,” Slater added. “You can’t tell which measly few are yours.”

  Mace grumbled, “Fine. But if you’re going to brag the whole time, Slate, you might want to keep in mind that I know stories about you in college that I doubt Grace has heard. Like the one when your buddies bet—”

  “Okay, no more bragging,” Slater interrupted in mock terror.

  “Thought you might feel that way.” Mace grinned and so did Drake, listening to the lighthearted banter. All three of them worked so much they rarely had a chance to spend time together. As kids, they’d often gone riding, fishing and camping as a trio. There were a lot of arguments, but those usually blew over as fast as that storm the night before.

  The storm.

  Luce, soaking wet and clinging to him, and the very different kind of storm that followed. He hadn’t asked and he wasn’t going to, but he wondered if her betraying jerk of a former fiancé had been her only lover. She wasn’t shy by any means; however, he had the feeling that she’d been shocked by the intensity of her sexual response.

  He shouldn’t have kissed her in front of everyone, but their evolving relationship was hardly a secret. Hell, their first kiss was going to be in a movie!

  Time to broach an important subject. “I want to surprise Luce. I’m thinking we should build a cabin up on the ridge. Do you two agree? Nothing fancy. A bedroom or maybe two, small kitchen, but we’d have to bring in coolers for food. We’ll need a camp shower, and we could set up a wood-burning stove for heat. If we wanted to, we could put in a generator for electricity. We could run that off a small propane tank. Glorified camping.”

  His brothers jumped in with both feet. Slater said with conviction, “River-stone fireplace that burns wood. Grace would love that. Two bedrooms—I have children, remember?—and a nice deck.”

  “An outdoor grill for cooking.” Mace was part of the project. “A good one with a burner on the side. Put it on the covered deck, so if the weather’s bad, you can still cook. We’ll need to improve the horse enclosure, too.”

  Slater said, “I agree with that. Plus a fire pit for sitting around. When we’re ready to build, we should get the logs from the property and have the mill strip them for us instead of buying lumber. For the floors, we could use some of the siding from the bunkhouse we remodeled for the winery.”

  “That old barn door would make a fantastic dining room table.” Mace looked thoughtful. “I could refinish it.”

  “And we could use the chairs up in the attic,” Slater suggested. “Those are antiques from our grandmother, and I’ve always felt bad that they’ve just gathered dust for years. Hadleigh Galloway could reupholster them.”

  This was quickly spiraling out of control. “I was thinking simple,” Drake said in protest. “Did I even mention a dining area? What kind of home-improvement TV shows do you have time to watch? All I want is a small rustic cabin, not something that could be featured in a magazine.”

  “Be quiet.” Slater frowned at him. “We need a place to eat. So we’re doing a dining room. It would be great to have a place to go for weekends. Yup, it’s a brilliant idea. Can’t believe I didn’t come up with it.”

  Mace said, “He’s full of himself again. I’m so telling Grace that story.”

  Drake shrugged. “Go for it, I say.”

  * * *

  THE WILD HORSES had moved.

  Luce had made a diagram of where they usually grazed, and they weren’t there. Interesting. Smoke had decided on different territory.

  They were closer to the ranch again, which she suspected would not make Drake happy. For her purposes, it was easier, since she wouldn’t have to walk for hours.

  There was a beautiful new foal.

  Pure Smoke. He was gray, with that same black mane, and she was riveted. The mother was one of Drake’s stolen mares, and Luce snapped pictures on her phone and took more with the high-tech camera her father had given her for Christmas.

  Wonderstruck, she allowed herself to dream that by the time the colt had matured, she might be skilled enough to train and ride him.

  Of course, the little one could be a filly, but she had a feeling she’d guessed correctly.

  Would she even be here when the foal was grown?

  Not wanting to pursue the prospect of either going or staying, she shifted her attention back to the magic of the moment.

  She felt a sudden thrill. She’d come to Wyoming in the hope of having experiences like this. She was learning so much and her ambitious approach to this project made mo
re and more sense—to her and, she thought, to Drake Carson, too. Whether he was ready to admit it or not.

  Drake. Before her arrival here, before that first meeting, she’d never imagined what he might come to mean to her.

  She texted him the picture. He might be annoyed—this was the stallion’s handiwork, after all—but she suspected otherwise.

  When she got back to the house, she went straight to her room, fired up her computer and downloaded the pictures. She emailed one to Beth and one to her mother. She was in the middle of putting her notes into a more logical order when Blythe knocked on her open door and stuck her head in. “I know you’re working, but care to run into town with me? I want to order a special gift for your parents’ anniversary and your opinion would be invaluable.”

  Her gift would be showing up for the surprise dinner party Beth was hosting for them. She hadn’t told Drake about it, although he was her designated date—designated by her, anyway. He’d agreed to California for a weekend; might as well meet her whole family at once, like ripping off a bandage. If she knew Beth, the party would be casual and fun, cocktails by the pool, and her mother’s favorite caterer would do the food. Lots of children everywhere, since most of Luce’s cousins were older than she was and had growing families.

  “I’d love to go.” She saved the file. “Let me change. It’ll only take a minute.”

  “Sweetie, you’re fine in jeans. Where we’re going, the business owner will be dressed the same as you are. You’ll like her, too. I know you met her husband, Spence Hogan. Melody makes the most artistic pieces in this entire state. When she got married, she moved to Spence’s ranch and turned her own house into a studio. No specific hours—you have to call ahead or drop in and hope she’s there. You aren’t allergic to cats, are you? Ralph, Waldo and Emerson are usually there, too. I have no idea how she wrangles them back and forth with a little one to boot, but she manages it.”

  “Her cats are named that?” Luce went to grab her purse. “That’s clever!”

  “She’s an artist, what can I say?” Blythe laughed. “I love her free spirit. She’s beautiful, too, but I don’t think she realizes it, just like you. She’s a jeans kind of girl. What you have on right now is perfectly okay.”