Forever Cowboy (Montana Brides, Book 5) Read online

  Alex pushed his hat back. “What about your offer to take me home?”

  “That was before you started asking questions about my father.” The smile in his eyes was infectious and Emily felt a heavy weight lift off her shoulders. “You, Alex Green, are a force to be reckoned with, even if you’re not feeling all that great.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment. Are you willing to keep me out of harm’s way and drive me home?”

  “Only if you promise not to ask any more questions about my father.”

  “I won’t have to,” Alex said. “Because you’re going to tell me all about him.”

  “Not in this lifetime, I’m not.”

  “You owe me.” He rubbed his thigh and stretched his leg, clenching his jaw tight. “It took three months to figure out why you left me. And when I found out you wouldn’t speak to me. So I’d say telling me about your father is a small price to pay. Where are you meeting Tess?”

  “In the parking lot. You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe.” He picked up the box Emily had salvaged from a tent and stood up. “At least after today we’ll both know why you don’t want anyone’s help.” He swore and almost toppled sideways.

  Emily grabbed his arm to keep him upright. A lot of good that would have done her. If he’d lost his footing she would have ended up on the ground, buried under a mound of cowboy.

  And that, she decided as they slowly made their way out of the Festival, was the last thing either of them needed.

  ***

  “Tess seemed shocked that you’re taking me home.”

  Emily turned left out of the parking lot and merged with the other vehicles slowly leaving the Festival. “I blame Cody.”

  “You do?”

  Emily held the steering wheel tight. Even though they weren’t moving fast, Alex’s truck was a big black beast with more horsepower than anything she’d ever driven. “My brother’s favorite place in Bozeman is Tess’ café. He probably told her about your bull riding exploits and she was star struck by your brilliance.”

  “Are you trying to puff me up with compliments so that I won’t ask about your father?”

  “Is it working?”

  Alex gave a dry laugh. “No. Let’s start with something easy. Where’s your dad now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t you know?”

  Emily growled. “I should have limited your questions to the top three. We’re going to be here all day if you keep asking stupid questions.”

  “What’s stupid about knowing where your father is?”

  “There you go again, assuming that I even care about him.” Emily lifted one of her hands off the steering wheel and waved it in the air. “I haven’t spoken to him in years. I gave up wondering where he was living long before that.”

  Alex folded his arms across his chest. “Sounds like you’ve got a few issues to sort out.”

  “Issues?” Emily scoffed. “My father didn’t stay around long enough to know anything was wrong. Mom spent more time talking to him after they divorced than when they were married.”

  “Why did your parents get a divorce?”

  Emily’s foot slipped off the accelerator. “Can we stick to easy questions?”

  “I’ve only got another twenty minutes of your undivided attention. I want to make the most of it.”

  Emily wanted to ignore Alex, but he kept staring at her, waiting for her to sift through all of the things that had led to the end of her parents’ marriage. She tried to find the one defining moment when everything had fallen apart. There were too many, so she picked the one that hurt the least.

  “Dad traveled a lot with his business. I guess they grew so far apart that staying together didn’t seem important.”

  Emily could feel Alex’s gaze on her face. She looked straight ahead, concentrating on the road as if crawling along at a snail’s pace needed her undivided attention.

  For as long as she could remember, her dad had never been at home for more than a few weeks at a time. When her parents’ divorced she didn’t think it would have mattered, but it had. There was a big difference between seeing her dad every few weeks and knowing she might never see him again.

  “So why did your mom spend more time with him after they were divorced?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Try me.”

  Emily didn’t dare turn her head to glare at Alex. She needed to concentrate on driving, otherwise she’d plow into the back of the truck in front of her. She let the silence inside the cab settle around them like a heavy blanket, hoping it might smother the questions she could feel buzzing inside his brain.

  Alex stretched his leg out. This was not how she’d imagined spending her Saturday afternoon. By now she usually had her sketchpad in front of her with a big mug of hot chocolate beside her pencils. Saturday afternoon was all about creating ideas for more designs, catching up with the latest trends hitting the catwalks, and if she was lucky, going for a run with Tess.

  “My question isn’t going away.”

  “Neither is this traffic,” Emily muttered. She took a risk and glanced at Alex. He stared straight back. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But it’s not exactly riveting news. Dad was convicted of fraud a couple of years after his marriage broke up. Mom felt some kind of loyalty toward him and used to visit him in prison.”

  Alex stopped rubbing his thigh. “Is that why you won’t let anyone help you buy the library building?”

  Emily thought about her answer. “Some of it. I don’t ever want to owe people more money than I can pay back.”

  “You know that your business won’t grow unless you invest money into it?”

  That’s all Emily had thought about over the last six months. “I know I’m designing clothes that people want. My online sales are ahead of where I thought they’d be and I’ve managed to keep my expenses low by working from home.”

  “That’s not going to give you the exposure you need to be more successful. Unless customers search online for you, they won’t know you exist.”

  “Which is why I want to open a boutique,” Emily added. “Except I can’t afford any of the buildings I like and the ones I can afford aren’t right.”

  “The buildings are only expensive if you do it on your own. How do you think I managed to buy my first investment property?”

  “I didn’t know you had any until a few weeks ago.”

  Alex shifted in his seat. “I don’t like talking about what I own.”

  “Why not?” Alex sat still for so long that Emily didn’t think he was going to answer.

  “When I started earning big prize money there were a lot of folks hanging around, pretending to be more than they were. By the time I met you, I’d realized my mistake. So I didn’t tell you what I earned and what I had. It kept things simple.”

  Emily thought about the six months she’d dated Alex. It had gone so fast. She’d juggled her assignments at college with weekend rodeos and travel between arenas. There wasn’t a lot of time left to imagine what he owned. Not that it would have mattered anyway.

  “I’m going to be honest with you…” Alex cleared his throat.

  Emily had a feeling that his idea of honesty would come with something she hadn’t been expecting.

  “You need Sam and I. There’s no way a bank will lend you money unless you take the help we’re offering.”

  “I don’t like asking for help.” Emily’s voice was so quiet that she didn’t think he’d heard her.

  “You don’t have to ask. All you have to say is yes.”

  She’d said yes to her father four years earlier and regretted it. The money he’d given her was supposed to help her start her own business. The only thing it did was put him in prison for a second time. “What if it doesn’t work out? What if it’s all a mistake and the building’s worse than we think it is? What if no one wants to buy my clothes?”

  “There are a lot of what-ifs in there. What if it does work out? What if ev
eryone hears about your boutique and comes from all over the place to buy your clothes?”

  “Then it would have been a good business decision. It’s just…” How did she tell Alex that she didn’t know how to trust him? Or how to trust herself. She’d paid back most of the money her father had stolen from his business partner’s family. But the loss of their retirement savings had come at a price that even she couldn’t have imagined.

  Emily took a deep breath and tried to focus on the decision she had to make. If she didn’t accept Sam and Alex’s help, she wouldn’t be moving into her dream building. If she said yes, she’d have to swallow her pride and believe it would work out for the best.

  “You’ll need to turn right in about two hundred yards,” Alex said.

  Emily slowed down and checked her rear view mirror. “Tell me about your ranch.”

  “It’s not on Main Street and doesn’t have more than a dozen books filling its shelves.”

  “Very funny,” she muttered.

  “Not funny enough, it seems.”

  Alex scowled across the cab and Emily ignored him. “I thought you would have worked on your dad’s ranch, not bought your own.”

  “Dad’s doing okay without me. When he’s not running his rodeo weekends, he’s raising some of the best bucking bulls in the country. Jacob found the Circle C Ranch when he was looking for land for one of his clients. As soon as I saw it I knew it was for me. Take the first gravel driveway past the red letterbox on the side of the road.”

  “You mean the red barrel painted like a bull?”

  “Gracie’s idea of a joke. The first time she came out here she missed the turnoff and ended up miles from anywhere.”

  Emily didn’t say much as they bumped their way along the dirt driveway. Acres of green grass, split by wire fences, swayed in the afternoon light. Alex’s ranch spread out around them, cocooned against the base of the Bridger Mountains.

  The home they were driving toward didn’t look like the type of house a World Bull Riding Champion would buy. It looked too normal. Too much like a family home built for a man who wanted to put down roots and make a future.

  “What do you think?”

  Emily could hear the smile in Alex’s voice. He knew he’d surprised her. “It’s lovely.”

  The two-story home sat tall and proud in the middle of one of the prettiest views Emily had ever seen. Wildflowers grew everywhere. She could almost smell the sweet scent that would fill Alex’s home each evening.

  “Keep following the driveway. I want to show you the barn.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?” Emily nudged the truck forward, forgetting about Alex’s odd request when she saw what was in front of them. The old timber barn had mellowed to a soft golden brown. Siding, warped and twisted with age, had been tacked tightly against a frame that would have withstood more winter storms than Emily could imagine.

  “It was built in 1843. The original homestead was destroyed in the fires that swept through Montana in 1910. For some reason the barn survived.”

  Emily stopped the truck and opened her door. The middle of the barn rose three stories from the ground. Connected on each side were long, rectangular rooms that anchored the building to the land. She gazed at a large window at the top of the barn, wondering if it belonged to a room or simply let in light. The view of the Gallatin Valley from that height would be amazing.

  Alex closed his door and stood beside her. “The left side used to be the tack room. When I remodeled the barn, it became my garage. The corrals are long gone, but we tried to keep some of the original character. Welcome to my home.”

  Emily looked over her shoulder. “Who lives in the house behind us?”

  “My foreman and ranch hands. It sweetened the deal for Mac and the guys he employed.”

  Emily watched Alex limp toward two huge doors in the center of the building. Halfway across the yard he turned and smiled. “Are you going to stand there all day with your mouth open or come inside?”

  Emily snapped her jaw shut and stomped toward him. “Since when does living in a drafty old barn fit with the image you’ve been cultivating?”

  Alex raised his eyebrows. “You mean the one that involves lots of fast cars and fast women?”

  Heat scorched Emily’s cheeks. “I guess I deserved that.”

  “I guess you did.” Alex pulled open the monster front door and turned left.

  Emily quickly glanced around before following Alex. The entranceway opened into a large living room. Rich timber floors and white painted walls gave the inside of his home a bright, contemporary feel. Not quite the drafty old barn she’d been expecting.

  He opened a door at the end of a corridor. “I gave up fast women a long time ago. But the cars…they stayed with me.”

  Emily’s eyes opened wide. Everything inside the garage sparkled under the fluorescent lights. From the paintwork on the three sports cars, to the white floors, it was a sight to behold. “I don’t know much about cars, but I’d say this isn’t your average garage?”

  “Maybe not,” Alex said with a good dose of pride thrown into his voice. “Jacob looked after my Mustang, Camaro and Shelby until we’d finished the garage. It didn’t feel like home until I knew they were here. But I didn’t bring you inside to see my cars. Come with me.”

  Emily followed Alex back down the corridor and into the living room. His limp had gotten worse. “You need your pills.”

  “I’m getting there.”

  A rock-face fireplace sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by big comfy sofas and cushions in a rainbow of colors. Large windows brought the spectacular view of the Bridger Range inside. He’d converted the old barn into a beautiful home. Emily couldn’t help but feel a certain amount of admiration for what he’d achieved.

  “I can’t stay too long,” she said.

  Alex disappeared through a wide doorway to the right of the fireplace. She heard cupboard doors opening and the faucet running. She walked into the kitchen and stared at Alex.

  He was standing in front of a big white sink set into a dark granite bench and cherry wood cabinets. The kitchen, dining and family room were bigger than her entire home. Bigger than anything she’d ever owned. No expense had been spared in creating an area that could easily become the center of his life. And maybe hers if she’d listened to what he’d said two years earlier.

  He finished the glass of water and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I wanted to show you what you can do with an old building. The library doesn’t need as much work as my home did, and that’s a good thing.”

  Emily looked around and started seeing some of the clever things he’d done with the barn. A wrought iron wagon wheel had been suspended from the ceiling above the dining table. Half-melted candles, wide and squat, sat on each spoke, ready to light the area below in a soft glow.

  On another wall, he’d mounted three gold buckles in separate frames. They were surrounded by photos of the rodeo; bull riders, bulls, and rodeo clowns.

  He pointed toward the wall beside the back door. “I found the coat hooks in the tack room and brought them in here. I didn’t want a mud room, so we made storage cupboards out of some original timber and put them along the wall.”

  Everywhere Emily looked she saw something that made her smile. Something that made her wonder if she could do the same thing with the library building. “It must have taken a long time to finish.” And cost a fortune, she thought. Barn conversions like this one didn’t happen all the time and they definitely came with a big price tag.

  “About six months. We built a separate shell inside the barn walls and had to get it closed in and waterproof before winter hit. I couldn’t do much while I was riding, but between rodeos I helped the construction crew. You could create something like this for your boutique.”

  He was dangling a carrot the size of Easter Bunny in front of her nose. She thought about the old library building. The staircase, the stained glass windows, and the pressed tin ceiling were scr
eaming out for someone to restore them. She knew she could bring them back to life and make her boutique into something special.

  “If I wanted to share the building and remodeling costs with you and Sam, what would I need to do?”

  “We’d ask a lawyer, probably Adam at Osborne and Sons, to draw up a partnership agreement. Then we’d make an offer on the property. After it was accepted, we’d start on the remodeling plans.”

  “What do you mean, we’d start work on the remodeling plans? You were only helping to finance everything, not help with the design.” Emily didn’t trust the blush that put color in Alex’s cheeks. Even if he did know a thing or two about remodeling, he wouldn’t be working beside her.

  “It makes sense. You need someone who knows their way around a construction site and I need something to keep me busy. Gracie thought it was a great idea.”

  “Oh, really? And does Gracie know how much that leg of yours still hurts? Or how sneaky you are at hiding the pain?”

  “I’m not sneaky.”

  “Of course not,” she scoffed. “If I hadn’t come looking for you, you’d still be sitting in the middle of an empty field watching the cows chew grass.”

  Alex leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I come with my money. Take it or leave it.”

  She felt a low growl hum in the back of her throat. Alex Green was so annoying that she didn’t think she could work in the same room as him. Not without giving herself ulcers and premature wrinkles from scowling all day.

  But this was business and she needed help. There was no way she could finance the project on her own so she did the only thing she could do.

  She walked toward him and held out her hand. At least one of them could be civilized and mature and everything else that he wasn’t. “I don’t like what I’m about to do, but I’m not walking away from opening my own boutique. You’ve got yourself a business partner.”

  He shook her hand and grinned. “You won’t regret it.”

  As soon as their hands touched she felt a simple truth squeeze her heart. She already did.

  CHAPTER FIVE