Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch (Gold Valley #13)(3)

It was the quiet moments that seemed to bring the fear. The still moments. The golden hour, when the sun lit up the world around him and everything looked new. And there would be a moment. A breath. Where peace rested in his soul.

And right on its heels came the hounds of hell.

The arena had stopped it. The pounding of hooves, the danger.

It was just that it had followed him to the arena now so he’d figured he’d take his chances here.

Maybe that had been a mistake.

Too late now.

He drove through town, trying to get a look at how it might seem if he were an outsider. If he was someone who hadn’t grown up here. The brick facades were the kind of thing tourists lost their shit over. But he lost the ability to see them a long time ago.

For him... For him, Gold Valley had just represented everything he lost.

He’d been running when he’d left.

He’d run for a long time. And he’d achieved a hell of a lot.

But whatever he thought he’d feel when he got here... He didn’t.

And so he was trying to see everything with new eyes, like he was a new man, because he felt just so damned much like the old one. And he wasn’t the biggest fan.

Hope Springs always put him in this kind of mood.

So he shrugged it off and started mentally going over the timeline that he had in place for getting his ranch going. His first five horses were coming at the new year.

It was a new challenge. And it reinvigorated him. That was the problem. The rodeo had gotten stale. He’d want everything twice. You didn’t get better than that. He’d done it twice in a row, and he didn’t want to get to the point where he wasn’t winning anymore.

He’d peaked. Basically.

So now he had to go find somewhere else to do that.

That was something, anyway.

It was one reason he’d backed his cousin Iris when she had decided to open her bakery.

He knew all about needing a change.

Maybe that meant he actually was still running.

None of it mattered now, though.

He hadn’t had enough to drink tonight because he’d needed to get his ass home, but he was going to open some whiskey the minute he got in the door.

The place was out about ten miles from town, a nice flat parcel of property with the mountains behind it. The house itself was a big, white farmhouse with a green metal roof. Different to the rustic place at Hope Springs, but he liked it. The driveway was gravel, long and winding, with tall, dense trees on either side of the road.

But when he came through the trees into the clearing where the house was, there was a surprise waiting for him in front of the house.

An old, beat-up pickup was parked there, and he could see a lone figure leaning up against the hood. He parked the truck and got out, making his way over to the figure.

In the darkness, he couldn’t quite make it out, but he had a feeling he knew who it was. Early and unannounced.

Entirely in keeping with what he knew of his friend.

“Cal?”

And two wide, brown eyes looked up at him from beneath the brim of a white cowboy hat, long, glossy brown hair shifting with the motion. “Jake. I’m really glad to see you. Because... I don’t just need a job. I need a husband.”





CHAPTER TWO


CALLIE CARSON WASN’T known for her shy and retiring demeanor.

But she was a woman of her word, and always had been.

She’d been raised to follow the Code of the West, and she took it seriously. Applying it equally and fairly across all situations and circumstances. She believed in truth and justice, and that made this entire situation a whole big mess.

Because it required her to lie.

Required that she take something as sacred and important as marriage—not that it was anything she’d ever wanted for herself, but still, she respected the institution—and turn it into a tool that she could use to get what she wanted.

She wasn’t thrilled about subterfuge. Not remotely. But there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot she could do. Her father hadn’t left her with any good choices.

Her father, who she’d always felt was on her side. He’d raised her as one of his sons, had begged her mother to let him do that after her sister had died. Pale and weak from an illness that had ravaged her from birth.

Let me have her. Let me make her strong.

And he had.

But then... Then this had happened and he’d apparently hit his limit with his belief in her, and Callie wasn’t sure she could ever get over that.

Her dad was her best friend. Her ally.

But when she’d fallen off that horse fourteen weeks ago, more had shattered than just her arm. Jake had left, and even if it wasn’t related, she’d been broken and he’d been gone.

And then there was her dad.

Her dad, who’d been her constant support, her biggest champion through all of her endeavors in the rodeo, calming all of her mother’s fears, had turned into a near stranger.

He’d put his foot down, said that there would be no discussion of her going out for saddle bronc. And the fight had been...epic. But he’d raised her to be who she was. She stood her ground, and fought for what she believed in.

And in the end it came down to the insurance. To money.

She’d wanted to do it aboveboard. She’d wanted to do the right things, but he’d made it impossible.