Cowboy Undone Read online

  When she had turned ten, she marked the day by riding a horse for the very first time. Since that moment, riding had always been part of her life.

  When she turned twenty, she made the decision to get her degree in law, a decision she never regretted . . . until now.

  Avery needed a strong dose of confidence, a shot of old-fashioned idealism, and enthusiasm about her future. Perhaps even a dash of magical thinking thrown in for good measure. She would be turning thirty in a few weeks, and had no idea how to mark the day. She was looking to find all her answers here in Wild Cross, specifically on the Circle Starr Ranch, while she licked her wounds and recovered from her legal downfall. She had celebrated her tenth birthday on the ranch, and had wanted to celebrate her twentieth there, but circumstances hadn’t allowed it. She’d attended summer school that year, and couldn’t take the time away from her classes.

  Now that she was turning thirty, and her life had taken an unexpected turn for the worse, she couldn’t think of a better place to be.

  Chuck Starr had always been a positive force for her family, even back during that first visit to his new ranch, when he barely owned a few thousand acres and the ranch house seemed almost unsalvageable. His resolute confidence that he would someday own all the surrounding acres, had seemed impossible to everyone but her dad, who had taken a huge chance on Chuck. He’d lent him a sizable amount of money in those early days, believing in Chuck’s strong acumen for business. Chuck had long since accomplished his initial goal, and he’d also started several companies that now employed over ten thousand employees worldwide. Chuck Starr was a force to be reckoned with and Avery was hoping some of his fierce self-belief might rub off on her.

  When she drove up to the spectacular redwood ranch house, she could hardly believe this was the same ramshackle building she and her parents had visited all those years ago. Sure she’d been here a few other times, but the ranch house had always been in a state of expansion or improvement. She’d never seen it completely finished. This ranch house had to be three or four times the original size, and could easily adorn the cover of any number of home magazines. It sat with the perfect view of the lush mountains to one side and a far-off horizon on the other.

  Before Avery could exit her car and fully take in the spectacular view, Chuck walked out on the front porch, looking like the rugged cowboy she remembered. They hadn’t seen each other in several years, but she’d know that smiling wizened face anywhere. Chuck and her dad were both in their early sixties, and couldn’t be more opposite in style if they had tried. The difference seemed almost comical. Her dad had worked in the city most of his life with suits and ties as his uniform, a pair of perfectly polished Western boots on his feet, and the occasional Western hat on his head.

  Chuck, on the other hand, dressed like a cowboy, and if memory served her right, mostly wore boots that hadn’t seen polish since the leather had been fashioned on a shoemaker’s bench. Today must have been the exception. His boots looked as if they’d been spit-shined.

  Still, except for a few more lines on his ruggedly handsome face, a few more flapjacks around his middle, and a little more sag on those hooded, sparkling green eyes that always reminded her of emeralds, he looked pretty much the same.

  “Well now, aren’t you a sight for these old sore eyes,” Chuck said as he walked across the wooden porch and down the steps to greet her. His face beamed with delight.

  “This place is incredible, Chuck,” Avery told him while gazing back at the endless sky and open grassy land that encircled them. “It’s even more beautiful than I remembered.”

  “It’s home. What’s beautiful is you! I think you were only an ornery teen when I saw you last at your daddy’s house in Phoenix. All grown up now.”

  “I sure am, and I’m in need of a hug from a dear friend.”

  “Come on over here,” Chuck said, his arms outstretched, “and give this old cowboy some lovin’.”

  When they hugged she felt as if she’d come home. She knew all she had to do was wrap her self-doubt around him, and everything would surely work itself out in her favor.

  “It’s been a long time, Chuck. There’s a lot going on,” she told him once they separated, his warmth still lingering around her.

  “Don’t you worry yourself about nothin’. All you have to do is relax and enjoy yourself. You can ride any horse I own, help out if you’re up to it, or take it easy. Up to you, Peanut. No pressure to do anything that doesn’t make you happy. Stay as long as you want. My house is your house.”

  No one had called her Peanut in years, and hearing it now, with everything that had happened at her law firm, made her feel loved. She’d always thought of Chuck as a generous and kind uncle, and now more than ever, she could use a strong dose of both.

  “I thought you needed some legal advice. That’s why I drove up so quickly.”

  Chuck had called her two days ago asking for her help on what he’d termed as a ‘sensitive matter.’ He’d sounded desperate, as if a lot depended on the outcome. He told her he couldn’t discuss it over the phone and that he wanted to see her in person. Avery hadn’t even hesitated. She took care of some pending personal business, packed a suitcase and drove up.

  “I do, but that can wait a few days. Right now, all you gotta do is throw off that city dust, and drink in country.”

  Avery looked around and took in a deep breath. Her surroundings were positively dazzling, and she couldn’t wait to go for a nice long ride. Even though she lived and worked in Phoenix, up until the last couple of years she’d managed to keep up with her riding skills. At least twice a year she’d drive out to a local dude ranch and saddle up for a long weekend. It always brought her inner peace to feel the wind on her face and experience the freedom of a long ride.

  Unfortunately, she’d gotten so overwhelmed with work at her firm that taking time for a ride, or even taking time off for more than a day at a time, had proved to be impossible. She loved her work, but lately she wondered if she possessed the right mindset for some of the more devious office politics that went along with it.

  “Thanks, I will, but with everything that’s been going on with me and my firm, I need to know upfront, before I settle into your warm welcome, if I can even help you. I have a lot of restrictions on me about what I can and can’t do until this whole thing settles. So, now that I’m here, I’d like to know what’s going on. Why can’t the law firm you already employ help you?”

  Avery had been put on a three-month garden leave or suspension from the firm for supposed ‘inappropriate behavior’ with a client’s spouse, which constituted a conflict of interest, a position the senior partners couldn’t tolerate. She had tried to plead her case, but all anyone could tell her was they would look into it. They had walked her out with only her purse; everything else had to stay right there until the matter was settled.

  For the next three months, she had to tread lightly and couldn’t take the chance that anything Chuck wanted played into her employer’s hands and against her.

  “Mostly,” Chuck said, “because I don’t want anything to leak out before I’m ready.”

  “You know your attorneys can’t leak anything. This has to be for other reasons. What’s going on, Chuck?”

  “This goes no further until I say so.”

  “Of course.”

  “I need to break a promise, a promise I always regretted making.”

  “What kind of a promise?”

  “A promise I made to the only woman I ever loved.”

  Avery immediately presumed Chuck had married a woman who’d disappeared when times were tough and who perhaps recently appeared wanting his money, a typical scenario these days.

  “Sounds like you might need a good divorce attorney. I can’t handle the case, Chuck. Not now. Too close to what I’m involved in and I have some restrictions, so--”

  “I’m not married. Never have been. It’s something else.”

  She was getting impatient, and thinking this trip
might have been a mistake.

  “Chuck, are you going to tell me or what?”

  “It’s time my son knew I’m his father.”

  The fact that Chuck had a child didn’t surprise her. Even in his sixties, he was still a handsome man who just happened to be one of the richest men in the country. Combine those two ingredients with his innate charm, and it would be hard to think he didn’t have a child.

  Besides all of that, this was exactly the kind of situation she could sink her teeth into. She popped open the trunk of her car.

  “Want to help me with my bags? I’ll be staying a while.”

  HERDING COWS WHEN they’re caught up in a canyon or hiding in thick brush could be a challenge for any cowboy, but for the Cooper brothers it always seemed like a walk in the park . . . until a bull decided to get caught up in the mix.

  “He’s as ornery as our dad,” Draven Cooper said, as he rode up alongside his older brother, Reese Jr., sitting tall atop his favorite horse, a tobiano paint that Reese had purchased at auction the previous year. “I don’t think he’s going to stay back there in the canyon with the cows much longer.”

  They were just now headed out of a particularly rugged patch of land that Reese Jr. knew was always difficult. Some of their cows would wander away from the herd during the winter months and get caught up in a canyon with thick underbrush. Food and water were plentiful, so the cows would keep going deeper into the canyon until late spring, when they’d meander out for the tender young grass near the river. The ones that wandered out were easy to gather, especially with the help of Clint and Duke, but some of the dumber ones stayed behind. And if there was a bull that got caught up in the mix, things could get ugly, fast.

  “Our dad or the bull?” Reese asked, teasing his youngest brother. Draven had been away in the military for more years than he’d been actively cowboying, and his dally skills were woefully underdeveloped, meaning he could no sooner anchor his rope around his saddle horn to capture that bull than he could wrestle it down with his bare hands. Hunter and Chase, the middle brothers, had been coddling Draven on this entire drive, but Reese would have none of it. Instead, he found himself teasing Draven every chance he got, probably due to the bit of jealousy he had for Draven’s ability to always fly under the radar whenever it came to ranch work.

  “The bull,” Draven said. “Our dad seems to be taking it slow this morning. He says he’s fine, but I’m not too sure he’s telling the truth.”

  “I asked him not to come, but in pure dad fashion, he refused to stay home. Said he hasn’t missed a roundup since he started riding, and wasn’t about to miss one now. Plus, ever since Chuck Starr came by the ranch with another offer on our land, Dad can’t seem to settle. The man gets under his skin and Dad can’t scratch him out.”

  “What kind of an offer?”

  “Almost one and half times what the land’s worth.”

  Draven gazed over at Reese Jr. “Seems a little over the top, if you ask me. Like there’s something up that Chuck’s not saying and neither is Dad. Chuck’s a shrewd businessman. Why do you think he’s so desperate to get the rest of our land?”

  Reese Jr. shrugged, not having given Chuck’s rise in price much thought until that moment. “Probably knows he can turn it ’round and put a bunch of houses on our land for all those families he’s bringing in to work in his oil business. Plus, you know he’s always envied our pastures.”

  Draven seemed skeptical, his forehead furrowing under his tan-colored hat that sat low on his head, thick black hair curling out along the edges, his amber eyes tapering against the morning sun. Maybe it was his military training or simply a sixth sense, but Draven rarely took anything at face value anymore. Most times, Reese Jr. and his brothers would ignore his cynicism and chalk it up to Draven’s inbuilt paranoia. However, this time, Reese Jr. thought there might be something to it.

  Draven shook his head a couple times, not really buying Reese’s answer. “Maybe, but I’m thinking there’s something more to it. Either way, you should have insisted Dad stay home.”

  Reese chuckled. “Since when has that ever been effective?”

  “Mom could do it.”

  “Not this time. She tried, I heard her, but Dad wasn’t listening.”

  As they approached the river, suddenly, as if on cue, Reese heard loud bellowing and the thunder of heavy hooves as the bull came charging out of the canyon, heading straight for them.

  “Look out!” Reese’s brother Chase yelled.

  Acting on instinct, the two brothers hightailed it for the river, Reese thinking the bull would be hesitant to follow them in.

  Wrong.

  The bull came charging in as if the water was of no concern. Within what seemed like a heartbeat, the bull was no more than a few feet behind them, splashing up close, snorting out his anger in loud puffs of threatening bursts. Then the very next moment, silence. Reese and Draven pulled up their horses and turned to see that the bull must have entered the water on an angle and had apparently found a deep hole that caught him completely by surprise. For a moment, the bull was entirely submerged.

  “Should we do something?” Draven asked, while holding his lasso in one hand, as if he was going to attempt to throw it around the submerged bull.

  “Give it a minute,” Reese told him, hoping the bull would pop up. “And be ready to run again. No telling what he’ll do next.”

  Just as Reese finished his sentence, the bull floated to the surface, picked up its head out of the water, and began gasping for air, spitting out water through its nostrils. Reese and Draven stared in amazement as the bull got all turned around, finally found its footing again, and continued to cough and spit out water as it stumbled back to the safety of the cows in the canyon.

  “I think you can put your rope away,” Reese told Draven as the two brothers shared a good laugh while watching the mighty bull retreat, still coughing and spitting up river water.

  It was at that exact moment when Reese spotted the woman about ten yards away who had obviously been watching the whole thing, now laughing while holding onto the reins of her black horse. She sat easy in the saddle, wore brown chaps, a white shirt, and a light-colored hat covered what had to be the reddest hair Reese had ever seen. Her hair fell down her back in waves of thick curls and caught so much sunlight Reese thought it must be on fire.

  “Is she real?” Reese asked his brother, just to make sure he wasn’t imagining the beauty on the black horse.

  Draven gained control over his laughter and glanced in the direction of Reese’s chin nod.

  “Unless we’re both suffering from heat stroke, I think so. But where’d she come from?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure going to find out.”

  And just as Reese was about to take off after the woman, their brother Hunter came riding up on his chestnut-colored workhorse from somewhere along the line of the main herd. He was riding so fast his hat flew off his head, revealing not only sun-bleached hair, but a tortured look on his otherwise normally placid face. Hunter, out of the four brothers, rarely triggered.

  A sinking sick feeling jabbed at Reese’s stomach.

  “What the . . .?” Draven said.

  Reese realized that Hunter was yelling something, but couldn’t make it out until he was almost on them.

  “It’s Dad,” Hunter yelled over the thundering sound of hooves hitting the earth. “He’s collapsed.”

  TWO

  After two full weeks away from her law firm, relaxing into ranch life on the Circle Starr—after Chuck’s continued insistence that he’d decided to put his legal matter on the back burner for now—Avery was finally settling into a groove.

  But today was different.

  This morning, over muffins and coffee, Chuck had asked her to attend a memorial luncheon that afternoon for an old nemesis of his, Reese Harrington Cooper Sr., and personally deliver his condolences to the widow, Catherine. Chuck wouldn’t go into the details, but he assured Avery that his presence at
the memorial would cause a dust-up that he would rather avoid.

  “If it’s possible, I’d like you to place this letter into her hands only,” Chuck said while taking a seat across from Avery at the breakfast table, holding a letter-size envelope in his right hand. His voice had a severity to it she’d never heard before.

  Up until that moment, Avery had rarely seen Chuck due to what he’d said were ranch commitments and business meetings for his oil company. She’d essentially lived at the ranch house alone except for the house manager, who spent eight hours a day cleaning, cooking and generally taking care of anything that came her way. Chuck typically came home around midnight, ate a cold plate Kaya would prepare at dinner, and except for one or two late mornings, was gone before Avery sat down for breakfast. Today seemed to be one of the exceptions.

  “I’ll see what I can do, but you should know I’m not too keen on attending a memorial service. Just not something I’m very good at.”

  “That’s fine. Normally, I would attend myself. Just not sure that would be a good idea. It’s important that Cathy gets this letter. I’m counting on you to make sure it happens.”

  Avery’s radar immediately triggered.

  “I’ll do my best, but why all the urgency? Why not just drop it in the mail?” She wondered if there was more to the letter than mere words of sympathy.

  Avery knew when a person was withholding details from working with her clients and from cross-examining witnesses in a courtroom. Chuck’s demeanor spoke volumes. He was hiding something, and he intended to keep on hiding it, despite their lifelong friendship.

  He casually slid the envelope to her across the white table. It stopped just short of hitting her plate. “I only want to make sure she gets it is all. She’ll have a lot going on today and I don’t want my letter to get lost. It’s important to me.”