A Texan For Christmas

Right now he needed to muck some stalls to clear his head and take his mind off the most appealing woman he’d encountered in a long time...maybe ever.

But he doubted even grunt work would help. Because at the end of the day, he’d still come back here where she would be wearing her lacy lingerie...and where they would be spending their nights all alone with only an infant as their chaperone.

Three (#u182ef6d3-ad4e-5b4b-b96b-81d89717f4d5)

“You’re going to get your pretty new boots scuffed.”

Beau turned toward the open end of the stable. His older brother Hayes stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his tattoos peeking from beneath the hems of the sleeves on his biceps.

“I need to break them in,” Beau replied, instinctively glancing down to the shiny steel across the point on the toe.

If anyone knew about coming home, it was Hayes. Beau’s ex-soldier brother had been overseas fighting in Afghanistan and had seen some serious action that had turned Hayes into an entirely different man than the one Beau remembered.

Whatever had happened to his brother had hardened him, but he was back at the ranch with the love of his life and raising a little boy that he’d taken in as his own. He’d found a happy ending. Beau wasn’t so sure that would ever happen for him—or even if he wanted it to.

“So, what? You’re going to try to get back into the ranching life?” Hayes asked as he moved to grab a pitchfork hanging on the inside of the tack room. “Or are we just a stepping stone?”

Beau didn’t know what the hell he was going to do. He knew in less than three weeks he had a movie debut he had to attend, but beyond that, he’d been dodging his new agent’s calls because there was no way Beau was ready to look at another script just yet. His focus was needed elsewhere.

Like on his daughter.

On his future.

“Right now I’m just trying to figure out where the hell to go.” Beau gripped his own pitchfork and glanced to the stall with Doc inside. “Nolan ever come and help?”

Hayes headed toward the other end of the row. “When he can. He stays busy at the hospital, but he’s cut his hours since marrying and having a kid of his own. His priorities have shifted.”

Not just Nolan’s priorities, but also Colt’s and Hayes’s. All three of his brothers had fallen in love and were enjoying their ready-made families.

Beau had been shocked when he’d pulled into the drive and seen his brothers standing on Colt’s sprawling front porch with three ladies he didn’t know and four children. The ranch had apparently exploded into the next generation while he’d been gone.

Beau worked around Nolan’s stallion and put fresh straw in the stall before moving to the next one. For the next hour he and Hayes worked together just like when they’d been kids. Teamwork on the ranch had been important to their father. He’d instilled a set of ethics in his boys that no formal education could match.

Of course they had ranch hands, but there was something about getting back to your roots, Beau knew, that did some sort of reset to your mental health. At this point he needed to try anything to help him figure out what his next move should be.

He actually enjoyed manual labor. Even as a kid and a teen, he’d liked working alongside his father and brothers. But over time, Beau had gotten the urge to see the world, to find out if there was more to life than ranching, and learning how to turn one of the toughest professions into a billion-dollar lifestyle. The idea of being in charge of Pebblebrook once his father retired held no shred of interest to Beau. He knew Colt had always wanted that position so why would Beau even attempt to share it?

“So you all live here on the estate?” Beau asked when he and Hayes had completed their stalls and met in the middle of the barn.

Hayes rested his hand on the top of the pitchfork handle and swiped his other forearm across his damp forehead. “Yeah. I renovated Granddad’s old house back by the fork in the river and the creek. I’ve always loved that place and it just seemed logical when I came back.”

The original farmhouse for Pebblebrook would be the perfect home for Hayes and his family, providing privacy, but still remaining on Elliott land.

When they’d all been boys they’d ventured to the back of the property on their horses or ATVs and used it as a giant getaway or a man cave. They’d had the ultimate fort and pretended to be soldiers or cowboys in the Old West.

Once upon a time the Elliott brothers were all close, inseparable. But now...

Beau was virtually starting over with his own family. That deathbed promise to his former agent was so much more difficult to execute than he’d originally thought. But Hector had made Beau vow he’d go home and mend fences. At the time Beau had agreed, but now he knew saying the words had been the easy part.

He leaned back against Doc’s stall and stared blankly.

“Hey.” Hayes studied Beau before slapping a large hand over his shoulder. “It’s going to take some time. Nolan is hurt, but he’s not pissed. Me? I’m just glad you’re here, though I wonder if you’ll stay. So I guess that makes me cautious. But Colt, well, he’s pissed and hurt, so that’s the one you need to be careful with.”

Beau snorted and shook his head. “Yeah, we’ve already had words.”

Like when Colt swung by earlier to talk, but ended up going off because of the new nanny. Colt claimed Beau was still a wild child and a player, hiring a nanny looking like that. Beau had prayed Scarlett hadn’t heard Colt’s accusations. She was a professional and he didn’t want her disrespected or made to feel unwelcome. Not that his brother was disrespecting Scarlett. No, he was aiming that all at Beau.

Even if the choice had been his, Beau sure as hell wouldn’t have chosen a woman who looked like Scarlett to spend twenty-four hours a day with inside that small cabin. Even he wasn’t that much of a masochist.

Beau had no idea what had originally brought Colt over to see him, but he had a feeling their morning talk wasn’t the last of their heated debates.

“You’d think my twin would be the most understanding,” Beau muttered.

“Not when he’s the one who held this place together once Dad couldn’t,” Hayes retorted. “I was overseas, Nolan was married to his surgery schedule and you were gone. Colt’s always wanted this life. Ranching was it for him, so I guess the fact you wanted nothing to do with it only made the hurt worse. Especially when you rarely called or came back to visit.”

Beau knew coming back would rip his heart open, but he’d had no clue his brother would just continually pour salt into the wound. But he had nobody to blame but himself. He was man enough to take it, though. He would push through the hard times and reconnect with his family. If losing Hector had taught him anything, it was that time was fleeting.

“I can’t make up for the past,” Beau started. “And I can’t guarantee I’ll stay forever. I just needed somewhere to bring Madelyn, and home seemed like the most logical place. I don’t care how I’m treated, just as long as she’s loved. I can work on Colt and hopefully mend that relationship.”

“Maybe you should start with seeing Dad if you want to try to make amends with anyone.”

The heavy dose of guilt he’d been carrying around for some time grew weightier at Hayes’s statement. His older brother was absolutely right, yet fear had kept Beau from reaching out to his father since he’d been home.

“Will he even know me?” Beau asked, almost afraid of the answer.

Hayes shrugged. “Maybe not, but what matters is that you’re there.”

Beau swallowed the lump of emotions. Everything he’d heard over the past year was that their father barely knew anything anymore. The Alzheimer’s had trapped him inside his mind. He and Beau may have had major differences in the past, but Grant Elliott was still his father and Beau respected the hell out of that man...though he hadn’t done a great job of showing it over the years.

His father had been a second-generation rancher and took pride in his work. He’d wanted his sons to follow in that same path of devotion. Beau, though, had been a rebellious teen with wandering feet and a chip on his shoulder. Pebblebrook hadn’t been enough to contain him and he’d moved away. On his own for the first time, he’d wanted to experience everything that had been denied him back home, and ended up in trouble. Then he was discovered and dubbed “a natural” after a ridiculous commercial he wanted to forget.

Beau threw himself into the acting scene hard. His career had seemed to skyrocket overnight.

At first he’d been on a path to destruction, then a path to stardom. And through it all, he hadn’t even thought of coming home. He’d been too wrapped up in himself. No excuses.

Then one day he’d realized how much time had passed. He had come home but the cold welcome he’d received had sent him straight back to LA.

But this time was different. This time he was going to stay, at least through the holidays, no matter how difficult it might be.

“I’ll go see him,” Beau promised, finally meeting Hayes’s eyes. “I’m just not ready.”

“Always making excuses.”

Beau and Hayes turned to the sound of Colt’s angry voice. Just what he needed, another round with his pissed brother.

* * *

Colt glanced to the pitchfork in Beau’s hand. “Are you practicing for a part or actually attempting to help?”