The Trouble with Cowboy Weddings Read online

  THE TROUBLE WITH COWBOY WEDDINGS

  He stepped onto the same stair so they were practically nose to nose, and he was so fierce in the glow of the porch light, she didn’t know what to do.

  “You don’t owe me anything. Ever. Got it?”

  “That isn’t—”

  “Because if we ever sleep together, Lou, it’s damn well going to be because we both want to.”

  Her breath caught at that, because that seemed to mean there was some possibility for that to ever, ever happen and—

  He leaned in, so close not only did her breath stay stuck in her lungs but she couldn’t manage a coherent thought. His nose touched her cheek and his mouth was so close to hers, she was afraid to move.

  “Your grandma’s spying on us,” he said under his breath.

  “Oh?” She moved her head to look, but Gavin placed his palm on her cheek and kept her head in place.

  “Well, don’t look, dummy.”

  She scowled at him.

  “Going to have to do something you’re not going to like.”

  “What’s th—”

  His mouth touched hers. Light, featherlight. He didn’t deepen it. His hand remained exactly where it was on her cheek, and still it felt like there was a rope around her lungs cinching tighter and tighter until she couldn’t breathe at all.

  Gavin’s mouth was on hers. Soft and sweet, and she could feel the slight hint of whiskers on his chin. His hand was on her cheek, rough and callused.

  It was a nothing kiss. Some people probably even kissed friends like that. But it shook her to her very core, so much so that when he pulled away, having done little more than press his mouth to hers, she could only stare at him. Gaping like a fish.

  His smile was crooked, and he tipped his hat. “See you tomorrow, Lou.”

  Books by Nicole Helm

  Mile High Romances

  Need You Now

  Mess With Me

  Want You More

  A Nice Day for a Cowboy Wedding

  The Trouble With Cowboy Weddings

  Gallagher & Ivy Romances

  So Wrong It Must Be Right

  So Bad It Must Be Good

  The Trouble With Cowboy Weddings

  NICOLE HELM

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  THE TROUBLE WITH COWBOY WEDDINGS

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Nicole Helm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4201-4696-7

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4201-4697-4 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4201-4697-1 (eBook)

  For Traci W.

  Thank you for all the ways you

  share and support my books.

  You’re an author’s dream come true!

  Chapter One

  Gavin Tyler parked his truck in front of the barn that acted as headquarters for Lou’s Blooms.

  He’d done a lot of the rebuilding of the barn himself, and it looked good. The red paint had gone on last month after a rough winter, and a Colorado spring hinted at green around the barn, the peaks of the snow-capped Rockies in the distance.

  Lou’s flower farm was beginning to sprout, and Gavin smiled. Lou didn’t like his help, but she’d been forced to take it over the past year, and that meant he’d had a hand in building something for once.

  It felt good.

  He grabbed the sandwiches he’d brought over and headed for the entrance. The large barn door was open to the cool spring air, and Lou stood over a long table the length of the wall, measuring and cutting ribbon.

  Her good side faced him, which meant her dark blond hair flirted with her chin, though it was tucked behind her ears. Her profile was all sharp angles that reflected her personality better than just about anything else. She wore a long-sleeved T-shirt and baggy jeans, and even though it had been a year since a fire had claimed most of her barn and some of her skin, he wasn’t used to the way her physicality had changed.

  She’d never been überfeminine like her sister, Em, but baggy and hidden away had never been her style either. It was hard to watch his friend retreat into this strange shell she was building for herself, and harder still that no one seemed to be able to pull her back out.

  Still, he tried, because he wasn’t ready to give up on her. Probably never would be. She’d been a constant in his life since she’d moved in with her grandparents on the Fairchild Ranch, the neighboring ranch to the Tylers.

  And since he was a Tyler, he never gave up—not on family, not on friends.

  He forced his feet forward and plastered a pleasant smile on his face. “Hungry?”

  She didn’t even look up. Likely she’d heard his truck approach and knew exactly who was standing in the entrance of her barn. “Whatcha got?”

  “Deb Tyler special. How are the wedding flowers going?”

  “Going.” Lou straightened and stretched, and though she tried to do it surreptitiously, Gavin didn’t miss the way she checked to make certain her bandanna was covering the burned side of her face.

  She’d had a hell of a year, what with her grandfather dying somewhat unexpectedly only a month before the fire. It was more than half of why he put up with the snarly, angry caricature of herself she’d become since the fire.

  Still, it required a certain amount of patience. Patience he wouldn’t have thought he had, but . . .

  Well, he’d found some. For her anyway.

  She studied him from across the room. She kept her distance these days. Physically, emotionally. He would never have presumed she’d told him everything in her life, but he knew a lot about Lou Fairchild.

  Including the fact that she wasn’t herself, and something needed to change.

  Gavin raised his eyebrows when she continued to stare at him without speaking. “Everything okay?”

  “Gav . . .”

  He waited. She rarely shortened his name these days. One of those soft things that had been burned to ash, like her barn and parts of her body.

  “I need . . .”

  She trailed off, but he waited. And waited. And waited. She held out her hand for the sandwich his mother had made her. He smiled and shook his head.

  She grunted irritably. “Grandma isn’t budging. She even called . . .” Lou pulled a face. “My father.”

  “Your father the deadbeat?” Gavin didn’t know all the details, but he did know Lou and her sister Em had been moved to their grandparents’ care as kids because their father had neglected them.

  “Between losing Grandpa and . . .” Lou swallowed and pointed to her face. “. . . this,” she finally finished. “I don’t know who she is anymore.”

  Which sounded all too familiar to Gavin, but he didn’t think he should point that out to her in the moment. “I could talk to her again. Assure her I’d take over as manager and we could work whatever protective clauses she wanted into a contract.” He tried not to let himself hope for that. He had a place on the Tyler Ranch. It was a good place, a solid place. A place within his family’s ranch. Blood rights and the like.

  But he hated being second fiddle to his older brother Shane, no matter how much he loved him. He wanted to be in charge of something too. Have something that was his, not just the odd cattle drive but a whole spread. Just him. Running the Fairchild Ranch on the land not used for Lou’s floral business, well, it would be something like a dream come true.

  “I’ve asked her to sell. I’ve asked her to hire you or anyone. I’ve asked her for every reasonable alternative, and she insists only a Fairchild or a man married to a Fairchild can take over the ranch. So if Em and I aren’t going to go find ourselves some husbands, she’s going to make my father come here. He’d run it to the ground, Gavin. Into the damn ground.”

  “What did Em say about that?”

  Lou pressed her lips together and turned away from him. He wasn’t sure he’d ever understand why she’d decided she had to be solitary and strong when she had so many people who wanted to help her.

  “You have to tell her,” Gavin said, trying for the same mix of firm and gentle his mother often employed to get her way.

  “I can’t tell her. Our father is . . . I can’t tell her Grandma’s contacting him.”

  “Lou.”

  “I can’t tell her. I’m her older sister. I’ve protected her this long and what’s more . . . She’s got nothing to do with the ranch. She loves running the bakery in town. Cattle and flowers aren’t her problem. I’ve had a hard enough time convincing her of that. I’m not going to add another layer. She’s separate.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “It’s true enough. And it’s final.” She turned back to face him. “Sandwich.” She held out her hand, a demand she didn’t expect him to refuse.

  He was starting to think she needed a little refusal in her life. He held on to the sandwich his mother had made for her. “What if I had an idea?”

  Everything about her expression went wary. For the past year, she’d been accepting his help because he hadn’t given her a choice. She complained bitterly, and withdrew from asking him for any favors—not that she’d ever been keen on asking for help.

  Still, he helped, and because he’d been there when her grandmother had refused to hire Gavin as ranch overseer, and had seen Lou’s own stubbornness dug into Mrs. Fairchild’s face, he’d mulled over this problem for a few weeks.

  He had a solution. One he knew she’d refuse and hate, but maybe if things were this bad . . . Hell, it was worth a shot. What was there to lose?

  Your dignity?

  He shoved that thought away and grinned at her.

  “I hate your ideas,” she said.

  “And you’ll undoubtedly hate this one, but I don’t see you coming up with better.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine, what is it?”

  “You could marry me.”

  She laughed, and it was nearly foreign for as little as he’d heard that sound from her lately. “Yeah, sure, Gav. We’ll get married. Have, what, eight kids? Maybe ten. I always wanted to be a brood mare.”

  He didn’t laugh along with her, nor did he let himself get bent out of shape. He focused on being calm. “I’m not joking.”

  “Then you should have gotten your head checked when that horse bucked you.”

  Irritation simmered through him. “I was not bucked, and that is so incredibly beside the point.” He pushed out a breath. He wasn’t calm in most areas of his life. In fact, he was known around Gracely as the Tyler with the short temper. But he’d hold his temper for Lou. “Your grandma wants you taken care of, and maybe she’s . . . Look, maybe she’s still reeling over your grandpa, or whatever it is, but if we get married, it won’t take too long to get all the land and business moved into your name, and then we’ll get divorced.”

  She shook her head, taking a few steps away from him. “You can’t . . . I can’t . . .”

  “What are friends for?”

  “Not marriages that are legally real and emotionally fabricated!”

  “You’re putting a lot of limits on friendship. Remember the time I wrecked my truck so you could blame me for the dent in your grandfather’s? That was a much, much larger sacrifice than marriage.”

  “My ass.”

  “I loved that truck,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. But she wasn’t swayed and she didn’t smile. “What would we have to do for it to work?” he asked gently.

  “Lose our minds.”

  “Lou, come on. It’s the easiest solution you’ve got. Why not take it?”

  “Maybe I’m tired of you cleaning up my messes, Gavin.”

  “Have I ever complained?” Not once. He’d clean up a million of her messes without one complaint. “I’m going to bring Em in if you don’t agree. I’ll tell her about your grandmother contacting your father.”

  The steps she’d retreated she immediately retraced, violence all over her expression. “I’ll kill you first.”

  “You really think she’s not going to find out? That your grandma won’t tell her, or that you’ll be able to keep it bottled up? Lou, come on. Be reasonable.”

  Lou whirled away and slapped her hands on the long worktable. Then she simply stood there, her ragged breathing the only sound in the barn.

  He wanted to ease this for her, but if he told her that, with the bald emotion coursing through him, she’d only shut down further. Unfortunately, when it came to Lou, sometimes retreat was the only viable option.

  He didn’t touch her, though that was what he wanted to do. Instead, he slid the sandwich in front of her. “Think about it.”

  “No.”

  “Fine. Lose the ranch and your life’s work.” He had to focus to make sure his voice was even and casual and didn’t include the hint of temper that was beginning to light. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  With that, he forced himself to leave the barn and head back to the Tyler Ranch, where he’d take orders from his mother and older brother and feel about as useful as a legless horse.

  * * *

  You could marry me.

  The words haunted Lou for two days. Two long, obnoxious, frustrating days. Worse, so much worse, Gavin didn’t show. She spent two days waiting for his usual daily check-in, so she could give him a piece of her mind, and he didn’t come.

  She was furious with him. If only that fury didn’t feel a lot like wanting to cry. But she didn’t cry. No, she’d learned young not to show that kind of weakness.

  She looked down at the pictures she’d arranged on her inspiration board. She had to admit she didn’t care for the bride’s taste, but that was part of the fun of doing wedding flowers. The challenge of making something she could be proud of that a picky bride would like too.

  This one was certainly going to be a challenge. She’d had to close the door against the chill of an early spring afternoon, so when it slid open with a quiet screech of metal against metal, she glanced up.

  Her sister slid inside the space she’d opened, then closed the door behind her. “Jeez, it’s freezing in here. You need to talk to Gavin about getting some sort of heating system.”

  The mention of Gavin killed the smile at seeing her sister. Gavin was her closest friend aside from Em, but having to take help from him over and over again this year had made that relationship far more complicated. She didn’t like feeling beholden to him, worse when he never tried to make her feel so.

  “He might be handy, but I don’t think he’s heating system handy. Besides, the flowers need the cool temperatures.”

  Em walked over and put her hand on top of Lou’s. “You’re ice.”

  “I’m used to it,” she replied. “So, what brings you out? Has your nagging-Lou quota run low?”

  “Desperately low,” Em returned, straight-faced, as she plopped herself on the stool Lou rarely used. She preferred to stand when she worked.

  Em pulled her coat collar closer around her face. “So, give me the Grandma update.”

  “Handled.”

  “Give me the Grandma update,” Em repeated firmly.

  “There is no update because I’m handling this.” She looked at Em, trying to perfect a big-sister, don’t-you-dare-question-me glare.

  “This isn’t a you problem, Lou. Grandma making unreasonable demands is our problem. We’re in this together. Always.”

  It was nice Em thought so, but Lou didn’t want this bleeding over into her sister’s life. “I’m going to handle it. The flower farm and keeping it is my problem. Don’t you have the same bridezilla I do? You should be working on your cake design. She’ll have you change it five more times.”

  “I’m not letting you change the subject to work. I came over to discuss a few ideas I’ve come up with to deal with Grandma’s current bout of insanity.”