Merry christmas cowboy a.., p.1
Merry Christmas Cowboy: a Novel, page 1
Praise for the novels of Maisey Yates
“Yates brings her signature heat and vivid western details to another appealing story in the excellent Gold Valley series... Fans of Kate Pearce should enjoy this.”
—Booklist on Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch
“[A] surefire winner not to be missed.”
—Publishers Weekly on Slow Burn Cowboy (starred review)
“This fast-paced, sensual novel will leave readers believing in the healing power of love.”
—Publishers Weekly on Down Home Cowboy
“Yates’ new Gold Valley series begins with a sassy, romantic and sexy story about two characters whose chemistry is off the charts.”
—RT Book Reviews on Smooth-Talking Cowboy (Top Pick)
“Multidimensional and genuine characters are the highlight of this alluring novel, and sensual love scenes complete it. Yates’s fans…will savor this delectable story.”
—Publishers Weekly on Unbroken Cowboy (starred review)
“Fast-paced and intensely emotional.... This is one of the most heartfelt installments in this series, and Yates’s fans will love it.”
—Publishers Weekly on Cowboy to the Core (starred review)
MAISEY YATES
Merry Christmas Cowboy
Table of Contents
MERRY CHRISTMAS COWBOY
HER COWBOY PRINCE CHARMING
To my readers who have been there from the beginning,
this second generation story is for you.
MERRY CHRISTMAS COWBOY
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
WOLF GARRETT SHOULD be happy for his older brother. He knew that.
It wasn’t that he didn’t feel a sense of happiness for Sawyer, and his newfound status in life as a husband and father. It was just that he couldn’t say he enjoyed being around it much. He loved his niece. June was adorable. But the problem with all of it was that it highlighted the fact that when it came right down to it, Sawyer was sort of the main character at Garrett’s Watch. He lived in the main house, he had his wife and his child, and his happiness was... Well, it was impossible to escape.
Wolf did his best not to wonder about what life he would be living now if things had gone differently. If Breanna had lived. The thing was, it didn’t matter. Because there was no amount of what-ifs that would bring a tragically deceased teenage girl back from the dead. And there were no magical remedies for a heart that had broken a long time ago. They said that time healed all wounds.
The one thing he knew for sure was that sixteen years wasn’t enough time.
He had stopped waiting for that magical moment a long time ago.
And all of this was a lot more maudlin than he ever cared to get but the fact of the matter was, it reinforced the idea that he needed a change of scenery. At least for a while.
“I had a talk with our cousin the other day,” he said, looking around the dinner table.
It was a night when the family got together to have dinner. They didn’t do it every night, but truth be told, his new sister-in-law was a wonderful cook, and any time the offer of her making dinner was on the table, he took it.
“Which one?” Elsie asked.
Sawyer and Wolf weren’t the chatting type, but even still they tried to keep lines of communication open with the cousins who lived in Copper Ridge. But they hadn’t been to visit in years. Elsie seemed to keep tabs on them all with greater frequency, but she hadn’t been to visit, either.
“Connor. Had a conversation about the goings-on in Copper Ridge at their operation. They’re expanding. They need some help.”
“Really?”
“Their spread isn’t anywhere near as big as ours, but with Eli’s responsibilities as sheriff, he’s only able to work on the ranch part-time.”
“Well, if you want to do that...”
Wolf knew that Sawyer had no real reason to take issue with it. They had a full staff of workers at Garrett’s Watch, and the help was more than enough. Their family up in Copper Ridge, Oregon, just a couple hours north and toward the coast, had a whole different type of spread. A few hundred acres, and a smaller herd of cattle. They specialized in beef they sold at farmers markets and local grocery stores. Whereas Garrett’s Watch, part of the broader fifty-thousand acres that made up Four Corners Ranch, joint owned by the Garrett family, the King family, the Sullivan family and the McCloud family, ran massive operations. Beef, horses, hazelnuts, essentially a whole lot of things, making use of as much of the land as possible. It had been in their family for generations.
Of course, the fact was, the oldest sibling in each of those families was always the one making most of the decisions.
And when it came to Garrett’s Watch...
Well, Wolf and Sawyer were both take-charge kind of men, and while Wolf had a generally easy relationship with his brother, Sawyer seemed to feel like whatever his word was would be the law, and that was that.
Difficult sometimes, because Wolf felt very much the same.
“Good. I was thinking I’d leave tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” his sister-in-law, Evelyn, asked.
“Yeah,” he said, looking up from his mashed potatoes. “I was thinking.”
“Oh,” Evelyn said.
“Is there a problem?” She’d said oh in that way women said it when there was definitely a problem.
“No,” she said. “It’s just... Well, June turns six months old tomorrow and I was thinking...”
“He doesn’t need to be here for June’s half birthday,” Sawyer said, speaking of his daughter.
Yet again, Wolf actually had to marvel at his brother’s situation. He’d had an accidental pregnancy with a woman who was basically a bar hookup, and had ended up single parenting. Then he’d gone in search of a wife, and had found one through an ad he’d placed online.
Now they were in love, with Evelyn raising June as her own.
Good for him. Really. Good for him.
That was Sawyer, though. Whether he realized it or not. Through sheer force of will, the man was always bound and determined to make better a bad situation. And he never failed at it.
Wolf did not have the same touch.
Darker, more intense than his older brother, Wolf certainly had his own manner of success with women. They loved the bad boy. And Wolf was happy to accommodate. Sawyer on the other hand was basically Captain America.
And good for him. Just wasn’t Wolf’s skillset.
“Well, I’m making cake. That’s all. I’m just going to throw that out there.”
“I’ll be here,” Elsie said. His youngest sister was always quick to try and shine by comparison.
Little termite.
Granted, he didn’t mind. Mostly because he didn’t worry all that much about looking good. That wasn’t his problem. If people didn’t like what he did, they could deal with it. Or not. Wasn’t any skin off his nose.
His mother hadn’t liked dealing with him, so she’d left. As far as he was concerned, that said it all. If he couldn’t keep his own mother around, there wasn’t much point trying it with someone else.
An old wound made his heart feel dull.
Breanna had understood him.
When you found something like that, you knew how special it was. He also knew well enough to know you didn’t find it again.
“Elsie, are you trying to start a brawl?” Hunter McCloud, part of the neighboring family, and Sawyer’s best friend, who often joined them for dinner, said.
“Me? No. I don’t try to start brawls. If I want one, I’ll have one.” It was epically funny, coming from Elsie, who was a pint-size horse girl with more mouth than brawn, that was for sure.
“You’d start a brawl and then we’d have to go finish it,” Hunter said.
Elsie shrugged. “No one would make you. Your knight-in-shining-armor complex is your problem.”
Hunter smiled, slow and mean at Elsie. “Best believe I’m no one’s knight in shining armor. I just like a bar fight.”
Elsie huffed. “Either way, more cake for me.”
“Hey, none of us have been to see them in...ever.”
It was true. He’d never been up to their ranch. They had come down to Four Corners a time or two over the years, but it had been at least ten years since he’d seen any of them.
“Well,” Sawyer said, “have fun in Copper Ridge, I guess.”
“I’m sure I can make some fun.” That was part of his goal. A little bit of new scenery. Some new women. Wolf wasn’t the kind of guy to do relati
But somewhere new? Yeah, that sounded even better.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Elsie said.
“Squirt, if I lived my life that way, I wouldn’t do a damn thing.”
He looked across the table at his brother, who was now doting on June.
And his heart gave another strange, aching thud.
Yeah. Some time away was exactly what he needed.
* * *
VIOLET DONNELLY HUMMED a tune as she took a tray full of cookies from the oven. It joined the cakes, mini pies and quiches already sitting on the counter at her stepmother’s bakery.
She had been a little worried at first about the logistics of splitting her time between her new post as innkeeper at the bed-and-breakfast on the Garrett ranch, and her work at the bakery, but so far everything was working really well. She had a lovely room to stay in, and she got to arrange breakfasts for the guests, and she was still able to do shifts at the place she loved most.
It was strange to think that only six years ago, Copper Ridge hadn’t felt like home at all.
She’d been an angry teenager, uprooted from her home in Texas, contending with all sorts of hurt after being abandoned by her mother.
And then she’d met Alison. Alison, who had taught her how to bake. Alison, who had given her purpose and focus. Who had made her feel well and truly cared about. For no reason other than that she did. Because she wasn’t a family member, she wasn’t obligated to care about her.
Of course, then Alison had met Violet’s father...
But actually, it had been the very best thing to ever happen to Violet. They were her parents. And she loved them absolutely.
Of course, now she had a passel of tiny half siblings, which was a little bit weird, considering that Violet was twenty-two. But her dad had been a fairly young father, and Alison was a bit younger than him still. So it was perfectly reasonable.
She sighed with relief looking at all of the baked goods. It turned out great. She wasn’t overtaxing herself.
She had been so worried about letting Alison down. She knew that she needed a lot of help at the bakery, what with how much work the little kids were. But Violet had really wanted to take that opportunity that had become available at the bed-and-breakfast.
There had been a few innkeepers there over the years.
While it was still Sadie Garrett’s baby, she had less to do with the continual guest care of the place than she had in the beginning. She couldn’t live there, and her own children took up quite a lot of time, plus she had gotten back into doing therapy. She had come to Copper Ridge looking for something new, but as she had explained it to Violet, once she had found Eli, and gotten settled, she didn’t feel like she had to run from every piece of her previous life.
The bed-and-breakfast was an important piece of the Garrett ranch, but it was just a piece.
Violet had been living at home, well past the time when she should’ve moved out. But her dad had a fairly large house on the ranch he shared with Violet’s uncles, a huge converted barn, and even with the small kids, there was more than enough space for Violet. And given that she worked at the family business... It hadn’t really made any sense for her to leave. The bed-and-breakfast was absolutely the perfect opportunity for her to get a little bit more independence, while making sure that she could still help with everything.
She had turned the sign at the bakery to Closed about ten minutes before, and she hummed as she packed away the baked goods into the Tupperware she used to transport, and then walked out the front door. The bell jingled behind her, and she took a moment to look up and down the streets. It was mid-October, with the leaves all around starting to turn. It wasn’t quite time for Christmas decorations to be set up on Main Street, but it would happen soon.
She loved that time of year in Copper Ridge. When the deep cranberry-colored buildings across the street were strung with white lights and pine boughs, creating a rich cascade of seasonal color often reefed in fog that came rolling in off the ocean that was just behind the main street.
She couldn’t imagine not living by the sea, not now.
She loved it.
She and her dad had lived hours from the coast in Texas, and she had never really considered living in a place quite so different. But that had been one of the things that she had immediately loved about Copper Ridge.
One of the only things.
She frowned as she shifted her hold on the baked goods, wishing she could stuff her hands into her pockets, because the wind coming in off the waves was freezing, and walked toward her car. She had been an entire pain in the ass for her dad when they’d first moved here. She’d just been so wounded, and she had been bound and determined to make her dad feel every inch of the pain that she was experiencing.
She could still remember her big act of rebellion. Seventeen and sneaking out of her house. And her dad had caught her drunk, making out with some boy. It was all horrifying in hindsight. And honestly didn’t bear thinking about. She’d changed since then. Her entire goal in life had shifted. Because shouldn’t she be more grateful for the parent who had stuck it out? For the parent who had been there for her? And then, she should reserve even more gratitude for Alison, who had chosen to be in Violet’s life.
Who never made her feel second to the biological children she’d had with Violet’s dad.
She was so lucky to have them. And doing the right thing for them mattered.
It mattered a lot.
But she had a new guest arriving at the bed-and-breakfast today. And he would be there by four thirty, so she had to hurry up, and stop musing.
She considered stopping at the coffeehouse to get a drink, but Asher would probably ask her for a date again, and she just wasn’t interested. He was nice. But she just wasn’t... She wasn’t in a space where she could focus on a relationship right now.
That’s what you always say.
It was true, though.
And as much as she didn’t have aspirations of dying a virgin, she wasn’t in a hurry to change her status either. She wanted to carve out a space for herself at the bed-and-breakfast; she wanted some time to take online classes so that she could get a degree in hospitality. Because she was enjoying this. She was enjoying this life.
It was funny that she’d ended up like this, though. She had been very nearly rebellious. Just the once. But had her dad not interrupted her that night in the barn, it was very likely she wouldn’t be a virgin right now.
She had to wonder, if she had gotten it out of the way back then, would sex feel like less of a big deal now? Would she have no problem at all balancing a love life and her goals if she’d...just started earlier?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t know.
Her dad coming for her that night had set her on a whole different path, and she’d changed. She didn’t really want to put a foot out of line. That had dictated most of her actions in the years since.
Now that she was twenty-two it wasn’t like her dad was going to come after her if she was out making out with some boy. It wasn’t a rebellion anymore.
But it was definitely...definitely outside of her experience.
Anyway. She didn’t want to go on a date with a man she had to...talk herself into going out with. In her opinion, that kind of thing should be blindingly obvious. You should be unable to deny the attraction between yourself and the person who wanted to date you.
In theory, she figured.
Maybe that was another problem with waiting so long. She’d had too many years to build it all up into a fantasy. Now she couldn’t imagine having less than that fantasy.
She drove on the winding road that led out of town to the Garrett family ranch. The bed-and-breakfast was a beautiful Victorian that had recently been painted, all deep green and glorious berry colors, honoring the Victorian origins of the home, which had been ordered from a catalog back in the late eighteen hundreds.
