Cowboy Roped In: Contemporary Western Romance (Wild Creek Cowboys Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Mary Leo

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Books by Mary Leo

  Praise for Mary Leo

  "Leo writes wonderful, relatable characters in small-town settings with stories that are fun and entertaining to read." —RT Book Reviews

  "...laugh-out-loud funny moments." —RT Book Reviews

  Cowboy Roped In

  Copyright © 2018 Mary Leo

  Published by Pryde Multimedia, LLC

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or used fictitiously. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Names, characters, places, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Dedication

  For my fabulous readers . . .

  From the bottom of my heart . . .

  Thank you!

  Prologue

  The sun bathed his face with warmth as he sped up the seemingly endless ribbon of country road, feeling the deep rumble of the engine charging his body with its powerful force. It was during moments like these, alone on his black Harley, that nourished his soul and reminded him that his life had meaning. Nothing else mattered except these moments, these treasured minutes when the road spread out before him in an infinite ribbon of potential destinations. He fantasized about taking long trips to unknown parts of the country, breathing in small towns and open roads that led to nowhere . . . to somewhere.

  The first time he’d seen her, he’d passed right by as she ran along the side of the road, long chocolate-colored hair wild in the wind, white dress billowing out behind her, a bright pink sweater buttoned up tight against the wind, arms bent and moving with the rhythm of her body, her focus straight ahead. He didn’t pay much attention to her that first time, thinking she was merely on her way to somewhere he couldn’t see.

  The second time he saw her, he realized she wasn’t wearing shoes, so he slowed his bike as he passed, trying to get her attention, but she never looked his way. She just kept running, moving forward until she disappeared into the thick trees that lined both sides of the serpentine road.

  The third time he saw her it was raining, hard. He slowed to her speed and realized she was running over stones and twigs and broken glass. Her clothes were stuck to her body from the rain, her bare feet were bleeding, her hair plastered against her head and down her back, a pink scarf tucked in around her neck. He called out to her a couple times, and when she finally turned his way, he saw bruises and cuts on her cheeks and forehead. Bright red blood bubbled on her cut and swollen bottom lip. Her blood mixed with the falling rain and trickled in a thin line down her chin.

  He shivered.

  She stopped running and a slow grin brightened her battered face, as if she recognized him, but he knew they’d never met. Still, he couldn’t help but feel as though he knew her and had known her his entire life. That she’d always been part of him despite the fact that he didn’t know her name or where she came from or where she was going.

  He slowly passed her, then turned his bike around and headed back to her. He wanted to help her, ask her what had happened and get her some help, but as soon as he headed back he realized that once again she had disappeared. This time a car with a noisy muffler had taken her away. He tried his best to catch up, but the faster he went the further away the car drifted until it completely vanished along the ribbon of road, leaving only the memory of her smile to taunt him.

  One

  It wasn’t as if Chase Cooper didn’t appreciate the fact that his family ranch would never have financial problems again. He did. He just didn’t appreciate where that money was coming from . . . fracking . . . a method of pulling natural gas out of the ground that potentially destroyed the very ground it was extracted from.

  So far, his brother Reese . . . make that his half-brother Reese . . . had been amenable to keeping this new enterprise to a minimum of destruction. But the arguments surrounding that decision had cracked their already strained relationship right down to its very core. Not that Chase minded being the outcast of the family, not really. He’d never been one for too much talk and contact in the first place. Especially since his motorcycle accident five years ago that had nearly killed him, and left him half the man he was before that awful morning.

  He still walked with a slight limp, and his right arm had lost thirty percent of its movement, but that wasn’t what held him back. Not really. No, the terror had to do with a staggering fear that his arm might be getting worse. That he’d reached his physical peak, and now his arm was losing strength and no matter how hard he worked, he couldn’t stop the continual deterioration. His doctor had warned him of the possibility, but he couldn’t and wouldn’t accept the prospect, no matter the evidence to the contrary. That fact weighed heavy on him and acted as a barrier between himself, his family and everyone else who tried to understand what he felt . . . as if any of them could. That hit-and-run driver had not only left him for dead, but he or she had also changed Chase’s entire existence and he hated that person for what they’d done.

  Lately, he sometimes wondered if everyone would have been better off if those kids hadn’t found him, had merely ridden by on their bikes that morning without noticing him lying on the side of the road. He knew that was an awful way to think, but he couldn’t help himself. His anger and bitterness stained everything he said and did, and try as he might, he couldn’t seem to step out of his own misery.

  Still, he tried his best not to alienate the rest of his siblings or his mom, a woman who had gone above and beyond throughout his recovery. As he gazed at her now, he knew it would have killed her if he’d died on that road. For that reason alone, he was glad to be sucking in air.

  “Will you be coming to dinner tonight?” his mom wanted to know as they stood in the newly restored barn on the Cooper Ranch, while Chase readied his horse for a long morning ride. The crisp fall weather enticed Chase to get out there each morning, though later than usual. During the summer, this part of Arizona could get swelteringly hot, so he tried to have his ride done before seven, but now that November was just around the corner, he liked to wait until well after seven, sometimes even closer to nine before he saddled up Midnight Shadow. After all, he rarely had any ranch work that pressed him anymore.

  His family now employed an entire team of ranch hand
s to clean the stalls, groom the horses they still boarded, mend the fences, move the cattle and do just about everything else on the Cooper Ranch. He and his siblings didn’t need to do any physical work unless they wanted to, but lately, despite all the help, Chase had done more ranch work than he’d done in years. It kept his mind off what was happening to his body. Thing was, it had been getting harder and harder for Chase to lift anything, or even push a broom. This morning he’d abdicated his normal routine in the horse barn to the ranch hands.

  All he wanted to do now was check on a neighbor who hadn’t been feeling too good, and hadn’t been in town for the past week. It wasn’t as though Chase did much socializing, almost none if truth be told, but this old cowboy lived out by himself, and didn’t have a phone that Chase knew of.

  Chase liked to keep in touch with the old fart, despite his downright cantankerous disposition.

  Besides, Chase owed him.

  The matriarch of the Cooper family—a fiery woman who barely crested five feet four inches tall, couldn’t weigh more than she did as a teen, and who always wore loose-fitting jeans and a pressed shirt, with a sun-ravaged face that still bore a youthful beauty other women her age envied—struggled to keep her family together. Ever since her oldest son, Reese Jr., discovered his biological father was Chuck Starr, the sworn enemy of the Cooper family, she’d had an uphill battle trying to keep the family peace, especially between Chase and Reese Jr. Despite their mom’s best efforts, Chase had no desire to rekindle any kind of relationship with Reese. Maybe someday they would come to terms, but from where Chase stood, someday seemed like a long way off.

  “Will Reese and Avery be there?” Chase asked, already knowing the answer. Avery was Reese’s fiancée and as far as Chase knew, the two of them attended every Sunday family dinner. Chase hadn’t been to dinner with his entire family in several months because of it. Hell, he hadn’t been to dinner with anyone, not even a woman–any woman–in so long he wondered if he still knew how to act.

  Aside from a brief affair with one of his caregivers about eighteen months into his rehabilitation, Chase hadn’t had a real connection to a woman ever since his accident. It had taken him a solid three years just to walk on his own again, and another year to actually gain unhindered mobility. It had only been in the past year or so that he’d even considered bringing a woman into his life. And now that his body was once again revolting, he didn’t know if being intimate with a woman or having her share in his life—if anyone could actually call what he had a life—was in his future. He certainly would welcome a relationship if he could be whole again. But the way it stood now, with his thirtieth birthday solidly in his rearview mirror, he had nothing to offer. So why on earth would any reasonable woman give him a second glance?

  His mom gave Midnight Shadow some loving, and the gelding nuzzled his affection right back at her while Chase made his coat glisten with a mane brush. Midnight Shadow had been Chase’s favorite ever since Lovely Isabella, a black quarter horse mare, gave birth to him on Chase’s twenty-first birthday. That was over eight years ago.

  “Not this Sunday,” his mom said as Clint and Duke, two Blue Merle border collies that most of the family referred to as sheepdogs, sniffed the surrounding territory for any stray critters that may have entered their space. Ever since Chase’s dad had passed, the two dogs followed his mom around twenty-four-seven. “He and Avery will be in Phoenix, along with Pamela, for a court date on Monday morning.”

  Avery’s mom, Pamela, had been falsely diagnosed and institutionalized for almost twenty years. Chuck Starr and Avery’s dad had been directly involved in the deception, which had helped make Chuck a very rich man. Avery and her mom were fighting to get back most of Chuck’s land, land that had originally belonged to her mom. Chase appreciated the struggle his brother and Avery were going through, but he still couldn’t tolerate being in the same room as Reese. Not after Reese had almost signed over the entire Cooper ranch to Chuck Starr, a man Reese Sr. had despised . . . and with good reason.

  Chase understood his mom’s youthful indiscretion for having hooked up with Chuck and gotten pregnant, but he couldn’t accept Reese’s initial determination to partner with a devil like Chuck Starr after their dad had continually warned him of Chuck’s destructive intentions. Just because Chuck had turned out to be Reese Jr.’s biological father didn’t mean he deserved any recognition. Reese had initially seen it a different way, and because of his failure to recognize the truth from the get-go, the brothers’ already strained relationship had cracked into a million irretrievable pieces.

  Chase ran the brush over Midnight Shadow’s right rear flank. The horse took a step back, blew out some air, then righted itself again, as if trying to caution Chase about accepting a dinner invitation.

  “Anyone else going to be there that I should know about?” he asked. He knew his mom liked to invite family friends to dinner, and Chase wasn’t in the mood to be cordial to anyone other than his siblings.

  She tilted her head and Chase could tell she hadn’t liked the question. “Just our family. From what I hear, you’ve been avoiding most of them, even your sister who’s tried to reach out to you for weeks. She said you won’t answer any of her text messages with more than a one-word response.”

  “She sent you as the go-between? Is that it? Isn’t it time she handled her own problems?”

  “Not when you’re the problem, Chase. She’s your sister. She loves you. Why do you want to ignore her, and your brothers for that matter? We have a roundup scheduled in a couple weeks. You’re going to have to deal with them, so why not get a head start?”

  “We have enough ranch hands now, thanks to Reese’s partnership with Montel Oil and Gas. They certainly won’t be needing me. Matter of fact, Reese doesn’t need any of us to do anything on his ranch.”

  His mom caught the dig and was quick to counter it. “This ranch belongs to everyone in the family, Chase. That part hasn’t changed.”

  He stopped brushing and stared at her. “Maybe on paper, but in reality, you and I both know that’s not true. Reese runs this place, always did when Dad was alive and always will now that Dad is gone.”

  He switched the brush to his right hand and tried to take a long sweep along Midnight Shadow’s strong back. Within moments the brush slipped away from his grasp and tumbled to the ground. He couldn’t wrap his fingers around it, couldn’t secure a firm grip. Just a few months ago he could hold the brush without much of an issue, but in the last couple of weeks he could barely pick it up at all. He’d been putting off seeing his doctor in Flagstaff, knowing that the news couldn’t be good.

  His mom quickly went to retrieve the brush.

  “Please don’t,” he snapped. “I can get it.”

  But when he stretched out his right arm, he found he couldn’t quite do what his mind demanded. He immediately switched arms and swiped up the brush before his mom could reach it.

  “Are you okay, son?” she asked as she straightened out her body to face him once again, giving him a look that he’d seen many times before. That deep, dark concerned look he didn’t want or need at the moment. “That arm giving you trouble? Have you gone to the doctor?”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” he stated, not wanting to alarm her about his deteriorating condition. He intended to handle this on his own. His mom was just beginning to get her life back together after his dad’s sudden death a little less than six months ago. She didn’t need to be saddled with any of his chronic problems. “Don’t worry so much. Everything’s fine. Tell you what. I could use some of your home cooking. Is six o’clock still the time? And do you want me to bring anything?”

  A warmhearted smile lit up her face as she reached out and gently rubbed his arm with affection. “Six o’clock is perfect, Chase. And if you want to bring a couple bottles of red wine, feel free. My stash is getting low. The women in my book club seem to like wine better than they like tea or coffee, and even though someone usually brings a bottle, it’s never enough.”
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br />   “You got it. I’ll bring three bottles of red, and one white for good measure.”

  “Great,” she said. “See you then.”

  They hugged and Chase watched as she and the two family dogs walked out of the barn, knowing perfectly well he was eventually going to have to tell her about the physical problems he was having with his right arm . . . just not today.

  RUTHIEANN DOLAN had known from the moment she and her five-year-old son, Jayden, drove into Wild Creek that this visit might be the second worst decision she’d made in her entire life. Still, she felt as if she had no choice in the matter. She had to do it. Had to clean out her dad’s house and prepare to get rid of it and his land, even if it meant tearing down the house to its foundation in order to block out the memories that still plagued her. Growing up in Wild Creek hadn’t been very pleasant, and leaving it had been even more unpleasant. It was the act of leaving that had compelled her to return on this bright sunny day.

  Hand-in-hand, RuthieAnn and Jayden attempted to walk into her dad’s recently deserted house. She could still smell the stale beer and cigarette smoke that seemed to permeate the walls and floorboards of the dilapidated mess of a building.

  “Sorry it smells so bad in here, baby,” she told her young son, who stood wide-eyed in the open doorway, hesitating to take another step inside. Her dad had always been somewhat of a hoarder, but apparently, that trait had grown into a full-blown addiction. There wasn’t even a clear path in. Stacks of old newspapers, magazines, discarded empty bottles, beer cans, along with plastic and glass containers littered every inch of the place. Unwanted clothes, several sets of broken wooden speakers, rolled up rugs, torn up filthy chairs and sofas that stood on their ends made it next to impossible to walk inside. She had no idea how her father had maneuvered in the place—if he’d maneuvered it at all. The possibility loomed that he lived out in the old barn, or in his truck. She couldn’t be sure, but seeing this filthy mess up close disturbed her and caused her son to physically shake.