Her Unforgettable Cowboy

Rowdy, Morgan’s younger brother, ran the ranch’s cattle operation and they were sorting the steers for the mugging together. “My boots almost had blowouts when Dad told me what he’d done.”

“You think you had a blowout,” Morgan growled.

Rowdy, who always looked as if he was ready for a good time, with lips that turned up at the edges and eyes shot with mischief, looked as concerned as Morgan had ever seen him. “So how did it go? The boys about talked my ear off at lunch. They’re impressed, just in case you didn’t know that.”

“Thanks, I picked up on that all by myself when their jaws started dragging in the dirt. And Wes and Joseph started showing off their muscles.”

Rowdy’s lips twitched. “Should make for a good show tonight. But how are you?”

Morgan rested a boot on the bottom rung of the arena and studied the steers closely. “How do you think? I don’t have a choice but to deal with it.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing.” Rowdy hiked a shoulder. “You don’t date, Morg. You act like you’re married to the school. You have unfinished business and it’s time to finish it, one way or the other.”

Morgan grunted and kept his mouth shut.

“Would you look at that?” Rowdy whistled over the bellowing of cattle. “Pest is lookin’ good.”

Morgan turned to see Jolie hopping from her Jeep.

“Yeah,” he snapped. “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

Rowdy chuckled, crossed his arms and leaned back against the corral to watch Jolie. Morgan shot him a glare, not fond of that glint in his brother’s eyes.

“I thought you said you were all right,” Rowdy said.

“I’m not in the mood, Rowdy.”

“Touché. Don’t get me wrong, I’m on your side. You got a real raw deal, but maybe that was all she had to give you at the time. Like I said, this could be a good thing.”

“Maybe I don’t want to discuss this right now.”

Rowdy chuckled. “Like I said, touché. Got to go get myself a hug.” Pushing off the fence, he strode toward Jolie, who had stopped to talk to their dad. Tucker, the eldest of the McDermott boys, was the county sheriff. He’d been talking with Nana, and now they all headed Jolie’s way.

Morgan scrubbed his scratchy jaw—it had been a long night delivering a new foal, he hadn’t had much sleep and this morning he’d missed church. He was not in the mood for this.

“Hey, pest,” Rowdy drawled, using his pet name for Jolie. “You’re looking good, but a little on the thin side. You not eating out there, making all that money having your picture taken in that yellow banana of yours?”

“Rowdy!” Jolie exclaimed. Rowdy laid an arm across her shoulders and hugged her as if she was his long-lost friend.

“Jolie.” Tucker greeted her with a hug, too.

Morgan almost got lockjaw, grinding his molars watching, his dad grinning as though he’d just reunited the family.

Ten thousand acres of West Texas ranch lands suddenly didn’t feel big enough. This “reunion” was enough to make a man ride off into the sunset and never look back.

“Hey, Morgan.” Chet, one of the top hands, called from the cattle pens on the far side of the barn. “Got a sec?”

A couple of years younger than he was, Chet had grown up on the ranch as a foster kid and had stayed on. Like the other fifteen cowboys who worked for the ranch, he knew Morgan’s history with Jolie...and Celia. There had been no teasing so far, and that fact alone told him they all thought he was on shaky ground now that Jolie was back.

It was embarrassing.

“I hear you fainted yesterday,” his dad said as Morgan hit the fast track across the corral toward Chet.

He’d had Jolie’s fainting spell on his mind since it had happened. Something was up with her, and he figured the last place she needed to be was running up and down this arena trying to throw a yearling on its back with her bare hands. Of course she lived in a world where she took her life in her hands every time she got into that kayak of hers and plowed through raging white water and over ridiculous waterfalls that weren’t meant for humans to fall over, much less charge over on purpose.

And to think he’d been the one to introduce her to it. Little had he known she would fall for it and become one of the best. When he’d taken her kayaking as a kid, it had been slow, easy river runs, nothing life-threatening—

He stopped his thoughts in their tracks.

Jolie wasn’t his concern anymore—hadn’t been since the day she’d walked away, choosing kayaking over him.

“What’s up?” he growled, reaching Chet.

Nudging his Stetson off his forehead, Chet met Morgan’s look with frank brown eyes. “Thought the love and admiration was about to start piling up knee-deep to a giraffe over there,” he drawled sarcastically, then pointed at one of the steers. “This ’un here’s got a bad leg. Thought you’d want to pull it from the event.”

That was no-nonsense Chet. Said what he wanted and moved on. Morgan almost grinned. Chet wasn’t one to get in another person’s business—giving him his support by saying what he just had meant a lot to Morgan.

Morgan studied the limping steer. “Yeah, take him out.”

“Will do, boss.” Chet nodded to one of the other cowboys working the gate to open it up. He and Morgan flanked the steer to send him through the gate, and one of the other cowboys herded him toward a separate pen.

“Time to get ready for some fun.”

Chet nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

Watching him head off to gather the men, Morgan knew Chet had his back. That was more than he could say about his own family. Although maybe his brothers’ affection for Jolie could come in handy. She might not want to tell him about the fainting episode, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t tell Rowdy or Tucker. Regardless, Morgan was determined to find out what was going on, whether Jolie wanted him to or not.

Chapter Five

The familiar scent of dirt and cattle filled the air as Jolie tried hard not to watch Morgan. It was an almost-impossible feat—the man had gotten only better-looking in the past six years. His black hair curled out from under his hat, just whispering against his blue button-down. The color made his eyes look darker than ever. And he was in his element as he strode back and forth inside the arena with Rowdy and the other cowboys getting everything set up for the mugging.

“I got trampled by a cow one time. That’s why I’m afraid to go out there,” Sammy was saying to Jolie. He’d been shadowing her since she’d arrived at the arena. Something about the kid spoke to her, and she wondered why he’d gravitated toward her. She couldn’t help thinking that it was the fear eating him up that had drawn him to her. Maybe on a subconscious level he recognized a kindred spirit of sorts.

Because she had fear eating her up, too.

And it irritated the dickens out of her. So much so that despite almost no sleep, she’d dragged herself out of bed and made it to church on just one cup of coffee. Her night had been awful, to say the least—just plain terrible.

It had started with thoughts of Morgan—specifically, the feel of his arms around her and the beat of his heart in her ear. Those sensations kept her awake half the night. When she’d finally fallen asleep, the nightmares arrived. Why, oh, why had she thought coming home would help ease them?

They hadn’t eased one iota.

Instead, they’d come as hard as ever, if not more so. Always the same, she was trapped in a raging vortex, upside down and fighting to make it to the surface. Always ensnared and struggling for her life.

Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning she’d given up trying to sleep and lay covered in sweat, tangled in sheets and worn-out. In the month since the accident, this had become the norm. Usually she turned to her Bible, searching for comfort and peace. Even though peace had been elusive, she knew God and only God had brought her up out of that watery grave.

A person would think that if she knew God had yanked her out of that murky water, there would be no reason to be full of fear from her toes to her roots—but she was. And she didn’t know what to do about it.

“You’re scared?” According to Morgan, Sammy was prone to exaggerations so she wasn’t sure what to make of his remark about being trampled, but she certainly recognized fear when she saw it. And it was like a flashing red beacon in his eyes.