Forever Cowboy (Montana Brides, Book 5) Read online

  She knew she was being impulsive, probably downright foolish wanting to buy the old library. But if there was even the smallest chance she could afford this building, she’d buy it.

  “It’s in the right location and with a bit of remodeling it could look incredible.” Her voice echoed in the empty building. Alex moved across to the burned floor and shook his head.

  Emily wasn’t about to let a little singed wood and smoke stand in the way of her dreams. She could understand how someone could overlook the beauty of the building. But she saw it and it made her excited just thinking about it.

  Alex turned around and she could have sworn he was in pain. “Are you okay?”

  He leaned against his crutch before answering. “I’m fine.”

  For the second time in her life, she didn’t believe him.

  Alex glanced at Nicky. “Before either of you get too excited, you’ll need a structural engineer to take a look. An electrician would be a good move, too. This place is a death trap.”

  Emily sat on the stairs. A death trap sounded expensive to fix. After reinvesting the profit she’d made from each of her apartments, she now owned a mortgage-free home in a great area. It would sell for a healthy profit, but that still left her well short of the library’s asking price. Let alone the cost of taking the building from death trap diva to sassy and spectacular.

  “How much do the owners want for the building?” Alex asked.

  Nicky handed him the contract. “It went up for sale yesterday. There’s a list at the back showing recent commercial sales in the area. Sam’s organized one of his engineers to take a look tomorrow morning.”

  Alex opened the envelope and started flicking through the papers. When he got to the page he was looking for he glanced up. Emily saw the doubt on his face. “Can you afford anywhere close to what they want?”

  She shook her head. “I’m hoping they’re being over optimistic.”

  He kept turning the pages. “How optimistic?”

  “About two hundred thousand dollars worth.”

  Alex didn’t say anything, but his face said it all. He thought she was mad to assume someone would be that desperate to offload the building. Emily probably was, but lots of buildings were sold out of desperation. Especially fire damaged buildings needing lots of repairs.

  “Sounds like you should consider leasing a place.”

  “I’ve been looking for months and nothings come close to what I want. The bank might be able to structure a loan so that I can afford this building.”

  “You still need to be able to make the payments. There can’t be much profit in selling clothes.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Emily muttered. No one understood her need to create, to be different, to make something that made women feel beautiful. And no one, except Nicky, knew just how fast her business had grown. Or how much profit there was in her one of a kind designs.

  She knew she could make her boutique into something special. She just needed time, a truck full of money and an understanding bank manager.

  Alex passed her the contract. “What about asking your mom and dad for help?”

  “I can do this on my own.”

  “You always were stubborn.” The scowl he sent her should have nailed her to the floor. It probably would have if Gracie hadn’t appeared beside him.

  “I need to collect some supplies before I head home. What’s the verdict?”

  Alex took one last look around the building. “It’s too expensive and needs too much money spent on it to make it a good short-term investment. The only way I could see it working was if you separated the building into four workspaces. That way you could sub-let the different areas and help cover the loan payments.”

  “It’s not going to be four workspaces,” Emily said. “And I’m not here for the short-term. This is where I want to be. Forever. I can understand how that must be a foreign concept to you. Long-term commitment wasn’t something that was high on your list of priorities.”

  Alex jammed his hat on his head. His gray eyes glittered beneath the brim. “I’m done here, Gracie. I’ll meet you by the truck.” He tipped his hat in Nicky’s direction. “It was nice seeing you again, ma’am.”

  And then he was gone.

  The silence that filled the old library building was as thick as the black soot covering the walls.

  Emily dropped her head into her hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “It’s not us you need to apologize to,” Nicky said.

  Gracie carefully lowered herself onto the step beside Emily. “What’s going on?”

  Emily lifted her head. She didn’t want to discuss one of the biggest mistakes of her life. Especially when that mistake was Gracie’s half brother. “Alex and I dated for a while. We broke up before you arrived in Montana.”

  “What happened?”

  “You’ll have to ask Alex,” Emily said. “I haven’t seen him in a long time and I guess a lot of stuff bubbled to the surface.”

  Gracie rubbed the side of her tummy and smiled. “Men have a habit of making things bubble. Especially men as stubborn as Alex.” She looked around the building and sighed. “This will make a beautiful boutique. I hope you can make it work.”

  “So do I.” Emily stood up and held a hand out to Gracie. “From all of the huffing and puffing that got you down onto that step, I’d say you could do with a hand getting up.”

  “More like three.” Gracie held onto Emily’s hand as she pulled herself upright. “This baby is so big that sometimes I feel like I’m going to pop.”

  “That’s what you get for falling in love with a tall cowboy.” Nicky laughed.

  “Being five-foot-one doesn’t help much, either,” Gracie said. “I’ll just be glad when the next two and a half months are over and I can see my toes again.”

  Nicky took the keys out of her pocket and headed toward the door. “On that happy note I’d say it was about time we all headed home. Thanks for coming to have a look, Gracie.”

  “I’ve enjoyed myself. Don’t let my brother’s advice put you off buying this building, Emily. He’s a bricks and mortar kind of guy. He’ll come around to seeing the possibilities.”

  Emily took one last look around the ground floor before pulling the front door closed. The only possibilities Alex was inclined to see were from the back of a bull. That hadn’t worked two years ago, and it wouldn’t do much good now.

  What she needed was a bank manager with imagination. Someone who could see past her business plan and into what she was trying to achieve. And that, she realized, might be about as difficult as making a cowboy see the possibilities.

  ***

  Emily closed the heavy wooden door of the Bank of Bozeman and headed across the parking lot. She didn’t feel the afternoon heat seep into her bones, or hear the happy chatter of people as they caught a few rays of sunshine.

  She focused on putting one foot in front of the other, making it to her truck before someone recognized her. Before someone asked how her day was going.

  She was so upset that she didn’t know if she could even begin a conversation without breaking down in tears. In one big, bold, ugly stroke of his pen, Jackson Riley had destroyed half a life-time’s worth of dreams. And that didn’t account for the hours of work that had gone into rewriting her business case. None of the long nights and early mornings mattered one iota, because Jackson Riley wouldn’t be signing off on the business loan she’d applied for.

  “You’re going to bang into someone if you don’t watch where you’re going.”

  Emily stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked up into a pair of unsmiling gray eyes. “Sorry.” She dropped her chin to her chest and kept walking, dodging the hand that shot out to stop her.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she said over her shoulder. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her keys. In fifteen minutes she’d be home, surrounded by boxes of beautiful clothes for the boutique she wouldn’t be op
ening.

  “You can’t drive if you’re upset.”

  “I’m not upset.” She clamped her lips tight on the catch in her voice and kept moving.

  “You’re walking too fast. I can’t keep up.”

  “There’s a clue in there somewhere,” she muttered. The last thing she needed was a heart-to-heart discussion that ended in, I told you so.

  The soft thud of Alex’s crutch followed her along the sidewalk and she felt really bad.

  She turned, waiting for him to catch up. It had been nearly two weeks since she’d last seen him and he still looked as though he was in pain. Like somewhere, deep inside his body, there were things going on that would take a lot more than physical therapy to fix.

  His steady gray gaze didn’t leave her face. She couldn’t figure out what it was about him that made her heart race, even after everything he’d done. Sure, he had muscles galore, but then all of the cowboys she knew were the same. And his crooked nose shouldn’t have added to his appeal. But it did.

  He’d ridden on the professional rodeo circuit for years. Every bump, break, and scar gave him something that set him apart from other men. But that wasn’t the only thing that set him apart. She had to remember that Alex Green had more women hanging off his jeans than anyone she knew. Buckle bunnies loved him, or parts of him, and she knew what made their heart rates hammer.

  “I saw you come out of the bank.”

  Emily nodded. She didn’t need the concern she could see on his face or the gentleness in his eyes. She wanted to find a quiet spot in the middle of nowhere and lick her wounds clean.

  “Did you get your loan?”

  She took a deep breath and repeated the words she hadn’t wanted to hear. “I’m too big a liability. The bank manager could see the potential investment return, but my current financial status didn’t give him the reassurance he needed to sign off on a loan.” Emily’s voice sounded about as wooden as her heart felt. Jackson had tried to be kind, but it had hurt even more because of it.

  Alex pushed his hat to the back of his head. “I’m sorry. I know it meant a lot to you.”

  “Nicky warned me it might not happen.” She’d also told her that Alex’s idea about sub-letting part of the building to another tenant made sense. It would give Emily the guaranteed income the bank was looking for and make the loan payments greater than she could do on her own.

  “Did you ask your parents to secure the loan?”

  She shook her head. “I want to do this on my own.”

  “It’s not going to happen unless you have financial backing.”

  “My dad…” She closed her mouth. She’d never told anyone why she wouldn’t ask for help from her family and she wasn’t about to start now.

  “What about your dad?”

  She gripped her keys tight and looked over at her truck. “I really have to go. How’s your leg?”

  “Getting there.”

  Which told her about as much as she’d told him.

  The corner of Alex’s lips twitched. “I was about to head over to Tess’ café and grab a coffee. Do you want to take pity on me and save me from being pounced on by Jessie and Doris?”

  “They’re not that bad.” Emily couldn’t help the laughter in her voice. “Besides, it’s Friday. They go across to the library for Erin’s, Time for a Yarn program.”

  “Sounds like a match made in heaven. Those two could talk the hind legs off a moose.”

  “It’s a craft group. The yarn is like thread or wool.”

  Alex still didn’t look convinced that he’d be safe. “Are you sure they’ll be at the library?”

  “Almost sure.”

  “So you might be interested in coffee? If they’re at the café, you could change the subject so they don’t ask about my failing career.”

  “Then they’d ask about mine,” Emily added. “And by the time I got back to my truck the rest of Bozeman would know that I didn’t get the loan.”

  Alex moved out of the way of a woman pushing a stroller. “The gossip mill sounds like it’s moving faster than the last time I was home.”

  Emily remembered the last time he’d been home because she’d been the center of more than one tall tale. “Facebook.” She sighed. “They’re running social media classes at the library. Doris and Jessie have found their calling.”

  “Maybe I’ll skip the coffee.”

  “Could be wise.” Emily hesitated before walking away. “You’ve made me feel better. Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” He smiled, and Emily felt something quiver near her heart. “Don’t let what happened at the bank get you down. Other buildings are being put on the market all the time.”

  But none of them had the history or the character of the old library building. They also didn’t have the leaky roof, soft cabling and plumbing that had been installed when Noah rode in the Ark. And if you added fire damage to the total package, you ended up with trouble.

  Maybe Alex was right. She’d have to be crazy to consider owning the building. It was probably just as well the bank had turned her down. She could have ended up over her head in debt and bankrupt, just like her birth father.

  Or maybe not.

  ***

  “You know I’m not much of a betting man,” Trent said with a smile in his voice. “But I can’t turn down someone who’s looking in the face of defeat. I’ll raise you by a dollar.”

  Alex glanced at his friend, then down at the cards in front of him. “I’m going to call and raise you by another buck.”

  Sam rubbed his jaw. “You guys are going to clean me out. Here’s my buck fifty, and I’ll call.”

  Trent turned his cards over. “Ace high flush.”

  “It’s a queen’s high flush from me,” Alex said as he flipped his cards into the center of the table. “Congratulations, hot shot. Another round to the daddy-to-be.”

  “Nothing like cleaning out the pot to make a man feel proud,” Trent said as he scooped the poker chips into a pile in front of him.

  Every second week, the same group of guys got together for Friday night poker, trading the in-between Fridays for babysitting duties while their partners went out. Only this week, four of the families were on vacation, so Alex, Sam, and Trent were on their own.

  For the last few years, Alex hadn’t been in town much. But now that he was home he planned on making up for lost time. “Gracie’s looking fit to burst with all of that baby inside her. You sure she’ll be all right in town?”

  Trent had married Alex’s half-sister, Gracie, in a Vegas spur-of-the-moment, tell-the-bride-later kind of way over a year ago.

  “She’ll be okay with Nicky and Emily,” Trent said half-seriously. “I’ve given Gracie strict instructions to call me if she needs anything. I’ve got my cell phone, so she can’t go wrong.”

  “Wanna bet,” Sam yelled from the kitchen. “Don’t you remember those costumes Emily chose for Nicky’s bachelorette party? She nearly gave me a heart attack.” He came back to the table with two large plates of pizza balanced in his hands. “You’d have to be mad to let them run wild at Joe’s Bar.”

  Alex hadn’t heard about the bachelorette party, or the late night rendezvous at Joe’s. “What costumes?”

  “Think short, see-through fabric, with lots of silver buckles and not much else,” Sam sighed. “It’s just as well I married Nicky when I did. Otherwise, I’d be chasing off half the men in Montana. Who wants a beer?”

  “Make mine a cola,” Trent said.

  “Worried about a late night run into the hospital?” Alex asked.

  “Am I that obvious?”

  “Only sometimes,” Alex said. “Better make mine a cola, too. Doc Johnson’s got me on enough pills to put a horse to sleep.”

  “How’s the leg?” Sam asked.

  “Better than last month, but that’s not saying much.”

  Trent reached across for a slice of pizza. “When do you think you’ll be riding again?”

  “The rate I’m going it co
uld be next year.” Alex had given up on the June deadline for a clean bill of health. All he knew was that his leg hurt like hell whenever he rode his horse. And Thunder was no match for the bulls that would eat him alive if he got within an inch of their hides.

  He reached for the Cola Sam held out to him. “How’s Emily’s hunt for the perfect clothing boutique going?”

  Sam shrugged his shoulders. “Nicky’s still helping her look, but they haven’t found anything. It’s a pity the old library didn’t work out.”

  “What did the engineer say?”

  “Structurally, it’s as solid as a rock. The fire damage can easily be repaired. The plumbing and wiring will be a pain to replace, but it’s fairly straight forward.”

  “Why won’t she ask anyone in her family for a loan?” Alex asked. “You own a construction company, for Pete’s sake.”

  Sam sat at the table and popped the cap off his beer. “I asked Nicky the same thing, but she’s not talking. It’s a pity the bank couldn’t loan Emily the money. Her online business is creating profit margins that would make most people sit up and take notice.”

  Trent shook his head. “Seems to me that the two property tycoons in the room aren’t using their brains. Emily needs a silent partner. Someone to help spread the cost of the loan, but still give her the freedom to create her own business.”

  Alex reached for his drink. “I can’t see that happening. Last time I saw her she wanted to do everything herself.”

  “True,” Trent said. “But that’s the Scotson stubbornness speaking. Maybe there’s a different way of looking at the problem.” He turned to Sam. “Last week you told me that Nicky was thinking about setting up her own consultancy office in town.”

  “Probably because she’s sick of working down the corridor from her husband.” Alex smiled at the resigned look on Sam’s face.

  “She keeps telling me that I’m interfering in her work.”

  “Let me guess,” Trent said. “You’re making helpful suggestions?”