Lucky's Story: Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy (Montana Cowboys / Country Music Collection) (3 page)

Much to stew on indeed.

Chapter 4

“Hi,” Hope said to the woman at the front desk. “I left my bag in the barn. I was told it was brought here.”

“Yes,” The tall redhead responded. She didn’t bother to get it though.

“Um, can I have it?” Hope tried for a smile. Up until now, everyone at the ranch had been over the top nice to her.

The woman glared a moment as if thinking about it. “Just a backpack, right?”

“And a jacket.” Hope tilted her head. Was this the sister?
She was tall enough. Her eyes similar.

The woman crossed her arms over the baby bump. “I’m Jan. Jan Johnson. This is my family’s ranch. I’ve known Lucky since I was a kid. He’s had that jacket for years now. You may have found it, you may have stolen it for all I know about the crazy women who come here just to see him, but it belongs to him and it will get returned to its rightful owner.”

“Then give it back to her,” Lucky’s voice boomed behind her. She watched the mouth of Jan Johnson drop open. Hope turned, but he was already gone. She turned back to Jan who still stood gaping.

“So, can I have my bag and jacket, now?” Hope asked politely. More than she felt at the moment.

“I don’t know you.” Jan said. She looked her up and down a moment then reached for the items under the counter. “How is that you get this jacket and I don’t know who you are?”

“Do you keep tabs on everyone’s clothes around here?” Hope felt bolder.

“No,” Jan slid the items across the counter paying special attention to the jacket. “Just surprised to see a gift I gave him so long ago be given away to someone I don’t even know.”

Hope scanned Jan Johnson closer. Her heart began beating faster. Memories
flooded her system as quick as she surveyed the ring on Jan’s finger, the pregnant belly, the possessive look. Her stomach turned. Her heart in her throat she turned and ran out of there without grabbing either her backpack or the jacket. She found the nearest trash can and heaved up everything she’d eaten that day.

“Hey,” Jan’s voice seemed lighter now. “Are you all right?”

One more heave and that was it. Unable to stomach someone losing their stomach, Jan was next.

“I hate this part of pregnancy.” She said as she stood straight again. “Look, I don’t own Lucky. It just hurt my feeling
s a little that he would come to my house, have dinner with my family, and never tell us about you. Okay?”

“You’re not…he’s not…” Hope could feel the world lifting off her shoulders.

“Noooo,” Jan waived her hands in emphasis. “Nothing like that. Buck is my husband and Lucky’s best friend. Granted,
I sent the jacket before Buck and I were married, but the surprise, the hurt...I guess, comes from realizing he is keeping secrets and I don’t know what we did to cause that.”

“Oh,” Hope pressed a hand to her head and massaged her own temple. “We just met. He offered it to me because I was freezing. I was planning to return it to him.”

Jan’s eyebrow shot up and she looked very much like her brothers with that expression.

“Well,” Jan rocked her head in a side to side motion of thought. “He wants you to have it. He would have said otherwise. Maybe he wants to see you again.”

“I’m not sure…” Hope followed the confident woman back into the building.

“Honey, if you’re not sure let me speak on behalf of the fifty women who are roaming this place trying to locate his ass, take the jacket.” And for good measure she added. “You’re a fool if you don’t. Lucky doesn’t share affection easily.”
She must have had another thought as she amended it. “Not real affection. I’m sure these grounds aren’t laden with cowboy chasers for nothing.”

Hope frowned as Jan pushed the items at her with a smile this time.

“Good luck.” Jan waved as Hope left with the backpack and jacket.

It was getting dark and though the sunset lit up the sky in colors and beauty she
came here to admire, she simply couldn’t think beyond the smell permeating faintly from the jacket she had pulled on to block the chill. She had her own damn jacket, for crying out loud, but it wasn’t as large, and it didn’t smell of Lucky. She had to return it. She had to give it back to him and she had to let all that fate crap he suggested go. If there were a ton of women here looking for him, she was going to fall short of his expectations in a matter of time. Why bother? She had a couple weeks to enjoy the ranch. She intended to do so, alone.

Her room was warmed by electricity, not fire like his cabin.
She reluctantly removed the backpack and jacket and started her evening routine. She wasn’t planning to go to dinner. She was going to order room service, read, and maybe do a few job searches. She was going to make a plan for returning that blasted jacket and getting Lucky and his soul searing lips out of her mind.

The knock on the door was right on time. She was ready for dinner.

“You ordered room service?” Lucky balanced the tray in his hands.

Some random delivery person she could handle in a gown and robe. Lucky, on the other hand, standing all six foot whatever two-hundred-whatever looking at her with those eyes and that smile…”I uh…”

“Can I come in?” He looked a bit confused.

“Sure,” she said with her lips. Her brain said, no way. Her body shouted why aren’t you already inside and naked?

He began placing the food on the table. She realized then he had brought food for both of them. “I was glad you decided not to go to dinner. I was so worried you were planning to go, but then Chance said you ordered room service and I just felt the world lift off my shoulders.”

“
Lucky,” she couldn’t look at him.

“Ah,” he said. She heard him
push the chair back and she watched as his large body stood. Disappointment was clear on his face. She could barely describe the way her insides twisted from that expression. “You didn’t plan to see me. You just planned to eat.”

He walked past her to the door. His hand was on the knob when she finally composed herself enough to say, “Stay.”

He didn’t move.

“Look,” she said. “I’ve made some real mistakes in the past.
You don’t know me, and if you did, you probably wouldn’t like me. I…”

“I don’t care.” He said as he turned to look at her. “I promise you. I don’t care. In fact, I don’t want to know. I’m not innocent. I’ve had my share. I don’t care what you did, who with, or for how long. I care that you feel it. You have to. I’ve never been wrong about something like this before.”

“Like what? Like trying to sleep with me?” Hope was nervous. “I’m attracted to you, Lucky, but who isn’t?”

She did feel it. So strong in her bones that he was hers and she was his from the first time he opened his mouth. His touch, simple and innocent had her tangled in knots she never felt with men she’d had relationships with in the past. It scared her.

“I’m not trying to sleep with you, Hope.” He shook his head. “I mean I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not all that I’m after. I want you.”

“You can’t know that.” She paced back and forth.

“But I do.” He rolled one shoulder and sighed. “Just have dinner with me. Talk to me. If you can look me in the eye and deny me at the end of this evening, I’ll leave you alone. I promise.”

“We’re just talking,” she said. She wrapped the
robe tighter and tied the belt as if that helped to hide the fact her body was already reacting to him in ways her brain could barely control.

“I didn’t order chocolate cake.” She said as she sat down.

“I did,” he said as he moved to sit across from her. “It has a raspberry sauce. Chance makes it special once a month. I love it and have to fight at least six women who work here for it. If you won’t eat your slice, I will.”

Hope looked at the Hulk of a man across from her. He was so damn overwhelming, so gorgeous with long eyelashes, and that short blonde hair with natural sun highlights. “We’ll see.”

“Why did you come up here?” he asked. “Montana, a dude ranch, not a lot of women vacation here alone.”

“
Honestly,” she took a bite of food, made a yum sound because it was amazing. Everything she’d eaten since arriving had been just amazing. “I saw a huge semi driving down the road and it had this scene on the side of it and the word Montana at the top. I thought to myself with that much sky, that much space, I could really find myself.”

“How’s it working out?” he asked sincerely.

“Well, I got lost the first day,” she said. Then looked up at him. He was listening, really listening to her. “I was praying, I was asking for a clear path and I didn’t mean between which fork I was facing moments later. I was asking for a sign, I mean I have been so…lost lately. I barely know the person I left in California. I was a park ranger there, in a small town in the high desert. It’s kinda why my ego was crushed about getting lost. I can’t go back to that job…you don’t want to hear about why.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

“I think you should know. I mean you seem to think that fate has brought us together. You kissed me and…yeah, that was pretty good, but…”

“Just pretty good?” he asked.

She laughed. “Okay pretty amazing.”

“Go on,” he winked at her. Stole her breath
for a moment.

“
I was involved with another park ranger there, my boss. He was married, though he swore he was getting a divorce. He was actually having another baby. When his wife found out, she wrote a note to him, her children, and my parents. She was driving to deliver the note to my parents telling them what a slut their daughter was when her car drove straight through the red light, she swerved…I didn’t know…you know? I mean I thought…”

“It’s not your fault.” He said so certain of it. Maybe he should have been there when everyone, including her parents had declared otherwise.

She sniffed, wiped a tear of sadness, remorse, and anger. “The worst part of it is her life, her unborn child, gone; her living son, motherless, and I didn’t even love him. I mean…I was just thinking…I’m not getting any younger and my family was pressuring me to get married, but to who? You know. I realized all too late that I was working double time, saving, not for my future, but so I could stay hidden and oblivious to his real life.”

“That’s why you said you would go to dinner?”

She paused. “I’m not going to be a dirty little secret.”

“Never,” he shook his head no. “I would never hide you from anyone.”

“But…”

“I didn’t want to you to go to dinner unprepared. If you want to go face that
wild and unruly clan, put some clothes on, or at least some shoes. We’ll go right now.”

“I don’t want to go.” She admitted.

“Me either,” he agreed. “So you came out here to get away from your past. That stuff happen recently?”

“Over a
year ago. I escaped first to a women’s retreat, a Christian based retreat for women who needed to …get back on the path.”

“You
seem to have a lot of paths popping up in your life.” He stacked the dishes and pushed her slice of cake in front of her and pulled his towards himself. “I’d take the one less traveled.”

“Which is…”

“Me.”

“I hear you’ve traveled quite a bit.”
She’d shared her deep dark demon and he didn’t even flinch.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’ve been around. Easy enough to do in my youth. I thought I had someone special in my life once. She broke my heart,
or so I thought, but in reality, she was never meant for me. There was always something off about it…I wasn’t in love with her, not the way she wanted me to be. It was more of a…security blanket I guess. I always had her to fall back on, but then one day I didn’t and I was pissed. Not because she moved on, but because I had nothing to fall back on. Then I realized I didn’t need a safety net. I got over it. She did, too. So did her husband, he was…”

“Your best friend. I guess that explains why she was so upset.” Hope shook her head. “I don’t know if I can do this, Lucky. It’s weird.”

“No stranger than Jack and Bethany. They got married after knowing each other a few hours in Las Vegas. No stranger than Heath and Chance, they got married, she ran away, and now you’re making all those sounds because she’s back and running the dining facility like it’s a four star eatery. Certainly it’s no stranger than Rafe and Layla. She was pretending to be the mother of her twin sister’s kids because she was afraid of telling them the truth that their mom was dead. Trust me when I tell you, nothing about meeting you, nothing about your past, will make me feel any different.”

So maybe they grew them gorgeous and attracted to crazy
women in Montana. It made more sense that all the handsome came with a price.

“Well maybe you’ll change your mind when I tell you that I have recommitted myself to a virginal state. I’m not having sex again until I’m married.”
Take that Lucky.

He bit his lower lip. Her heart skipped a beat. Her thighs tightened against the urgent need her body signaled.

“You do realize I just said no sex, right?”