Home For a Cowboy Christmas(64)

He watched her intently as she slowly opened the velvet box and saw the ring within. Dwight slid awkwardly and slowly from the sofa to one knee. “I love you with every fiber of my being. I can’t imagine a single minute without you. I want you in my life. Through the hard times, through the good, and everything in between. You’ve brought joy and happiness to my life that I hadn’t known was missing. The only thing I want this Christmas, and all the holidays to come, is you. Will you be my wife, Emmy?”

A tear slipped down her cheek as she got on her knees before him. “I love you so much my heart could burst. Yes, Dwight Reynolds, I’ll marry you.”

He pulled her against him with his good arm and kissed her. Whatever the future held, he knew they would face it together.





Read on for a Bonus Short Story by Donna Grant!

WISH UPON A COWBOY





Chapter 1


December 23

Wyoming

“Turn around when possible,” said the nasally female voice from the GPS.

Cady wanted to hit something. Hard. “There’s no damn place to turn around!” she yelled at the voice.

“Turn around in two hundred yards.”

“Turn around?” Cady asked in exasperation. “There’s nothing but snow. For days!”

She was panicking. It was the last thing she should do, but Cady couldn’t seem to stop the emotion now. It had overtaken her like a tsunami.

And swallowed her whole.

“It was that left turn ten miles back. I knew I should’ve taken it,” she grumbled.

Cady shook her head and leaned forward as she gripped the steering wheel tightly, in hopes that another street would somehow materialize. Though, she wasn’t even sure she was on a road. The GPS had been spotty, at best. It had gone in and out several times. During one of those instances, she had made a decision regarding which direction to go. Obviously, she’d chosen wrong.

“I just need to turn around. There has to be someplace to do that. Right?” she asked herself in a small voice. “A road? A driveway? A rest stop?”

The car crept along. Cady didn’t want to miss her chance to turn around, and there was no way in hell she would attempt to back up—even in a straight line. She knew her limits. Backing up more than a few feet out of a parking space and parallel parking were no-nos.

And if she were honest, some drive-thrus. Whoever had designed the narrow drive-thrus that a Hot Wheels car could barely maneuver in should be shot. She had scraped her wheels too many times. Of course, the answer to that was to stop going to drive-thrus, but that was easier said than done when she led such a fast-paced life.

“I just want to go home,” she whispered as emotion welled.

A second later, she let out a shriek as the steering wheel jerked to the left, and the back end of the car fishtailed. Cady took her foot off the accelerator and turned the wheel in the direction of the spin. That should’ve been enough for her to get control. Except she hit another patch of ice, causing the car to spin wildly. In the next instant, the seat belt jerked her back, and her head snapped forward as the car went nose-first into a snowbank.

Cady sat there for several minutes, trying to get her bearings. She gingerly touched her throbbing forehead. Luckily, there was no blood, but she would have a raging headache soon. She drew in a shaky breath and shivered. That was when she realized that the engine had stalled. Cady tried the ignition, but it wouldn’t engage.

She reached for her cell phone she had put in the cupholder, but it was gone. Flustered and terrified, she hastily unbuckled the seat belt and began searching for it. Several panicked moments later, she found it lodged beneath the passenger seat. She had to contort herself just to get it out since it was wedged.

“Finally,” she said with a sigh as she sank back into the driver’s seat with her phone.

Now, all she had to do was call someone to come and get her. She glanced at the time on the phone. She was still way ahead of schedule for the airport. That meant she could still make her flight. That would be the only good thing to come out of the day.

She searched through her contacts for AAA and pressed call. Nothing happened. She jerked the phone away and looked at the bars to find none. Just as she was about to let her anxiety get the better of her, she remembered that 911 calls always go through. The smile on her face vanished when her phone went dead.

“Noooooooo,” she said, tears threatening.

She couldn’t charge her phone because the car was dead, and of course, she had to forget her portable charger at home. Cady rested her forehead on the steering wheel and released the tears she had been holding in for days. With the floodgates open, she couldn’t stop crying.

When the tears finally subsided, she sat up. As she sniffed and wiped her eyes, she spotted a few flurries in the air.

“Perfect,” she stated sarcastically.

She loathed snow. She detested the cold. This was the last place in the world she wanted to be, but she hadn’t had a choice. Now, she was stuck in a snowbank, freezing her ass off. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

“When I get back, I’m quitting. No more will I continue being David’s whipping girl. I’ve proven myself over the last five years, but what does he do? He sends me to this godforsaken place right before Christmas just to get a signature because he’s going to Tahiti. That’s it. I’m done.”