Brenda Minton - The Cowboy's Christmas Courtship

The Christmas Challenge

With her mortgaged farm, rebellious brother and two jobs, Layla Silver is struggling to keep afloat for the holidays. But does she need Gage Cooper riding to her rescue? Back in high school, Gage was nobody’s hero. Now he’s an injured bull rider home for Christmas to make amends for his checkered past. And something about the stubborn, beautiful Layla has him wanting more than forgiveness. Can a wandering cowboy turn a Christmas courtship into an everlasting love?

Cooper Creek: Home is where the heart is for this Oklahoma family

“Gage, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“I have a suggestion. Have dinner with me.”

“I don’t know.”

He placed the last decoration on her tree, finding a bare spot. “We’ve become friends and I’d like to take you out.”

“My life is really complicated. And I haven’t been on a date in a long time. It isn’t fair going out with some nice guy when I have all of this going on.”

“Well, that’s how I’m different. If you go to dinner with me, you’re not going with a nice guy.” He winked and then looked in the box. “No angel for the tree?”

Layla shook her head.

“This will have to be a cowboy tree.” He pulled off his hat and placed it atop the tree, wrapping it with lights. “Perfect.”

She had to agree. The tree was perfect.

She looked at Gage, with his perpetual five-o’clock shadow, his hair messy from the hat. Unfortunately for her heart, he was perfect, too.

BRENDA MINTON

started creating stories to entertain herself during hour-long rides on the school bus. In high school she wrote romance novels to entertain her friends. The dream grew and so did her aspirations to become an author. She started with notebooks, handwritten manuscripts and characters that refused to go away until their stories were told. Eventually she put away the pen and paper and got down to business with the computer. The journey took a few years, with some encouragement and rejection along the way—as well as a lot of stubbornness on her part. In 2006 her dream to write for Love Inspired Books came true. Brenda lives in the rural Ozarks with her husband, three kids and an abundance of cats and dogs. She enjoys a chaotic life that she wouldn’t trade for anything—except, on occasion, a beach house in Texas. You can stop by and visit at her website, www.brendaminton.net.

The Cowboy’s

Christmas Courtship

Brenda Minton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given,

and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

—Isaiah 9:6

In memory of Ed Tonellato,

for all of his love and support.

Dedicated to Bonnie, Chloe and Lisa.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

Gage Cooper hit a curve in the road going too fast. His truck slid a little, warning him to slow down. For the first time in a long time, he was in a hurry to get home. Maybe he wasn’t ready to face the music or his well-meaning family, but at least home sounded good.

He thought maybe it was the time of year. It was the end of November, and with the holidays coming, winter edging in, it made Dawson, Oklahoma, inviting to a guy who had been on the road a lot. Maybe it was just time to make things right. When a guy looked death in the face, in the form of a one-ton bull, it made him think about how he’d treated the people in his life.

As if the bull hadn’t been enough, Granny Myrna Cooper had called him last week to let him know what she thought of him. She’d said he was nearly twenty-seven, and he needed to figure out who he was and what he wanted.

What did he want to do with his life, other than ride bulls?

As the eleventh kid in the Cooper clan, that wasn’t so easy a decision. Being second to the last sometimes made him feel like the kid waiting to get picked for a dodgeball team in grade school gym class. The kid that always got picked last. Or second to last.

He topped a hill, George Strait on the radio, his thoughts closing in on the homecoming that would take place in less than five minutes. Suddenly he saw a woman standing on the shoulder of the road as rain poured down. He hit the brakes. The truck slid sideways and came to a shuddering halt as a couple of rangy-looking cows and a calf walked across the paved country road.

The rain-soaked woman brushed hair from her face, and glared at him from where she stood in the ditch. A black-and-white border collie at her side hightailed it toward the cattle. He could ease the truck into first gear and pass on by once the cattle moved out of the road. His attention refocused on the woman standing in the ditch, tiny and pale, big work gloves on small hands.

No, he wasn’t going to drive on by. He was a Cooper. Cooper men weren’t bred to leave a woman in distress. Man, sometimes he wished they were. The woman standing in that ditch had a bucketful of reasons to dislike him. Good reasons, too.

He parked his truck, sighing as he grabbed his jacket and shoved the door open, easing down, careful not to land on his left leg. Rain poured down. It was the kind of rain that chilled a man to the bone.

The cows scattered. The dog nipped at hooves and the woman, Layla Silver, called a command. She held wire cutters. A big chunk of fence had been cut and the barbed wire pulled back. Why didn’t she just run the cattle to the nearest gate?

Gage moved to block the cows from running down the road. Layla ignored him, except to flash him a brief, irritated look. Well deserved. He’d been driving too fast for this road, in this weather.

She moved a little as the dog brought the cattle around.

“Nice driving,” she eventually said.

Gage stood his ground, keeping the cows from slipping past his truck. When the cattle moved, he got in behind them, pushing them back to the ditch, in the direction of the fence. He didn’t respond to Layla’s criticism. He had it coming, and for a lot more than driving so fast.

A heifer tried to break free and turned to run past him.

“Watch that one,” Layla shouted, her long brown hair soaked and rain dripping down her face.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts and moved, helping the dog bring the cow back to the herd. The animals moved through the soggy ditch. Gage eased his right leg first because the brace on his left knee didn’t have a lot of give, not for stomping through grassy ditches or rounding up cattle.

He was two weeks postsurgery. Maybe he should explain that to Layla, not that she would care. She stood back as the cows and the calf went through the break in the fence and then she grabbed the barbed wire and started making repairs, twisting with pliers held in her gloved hands.

“Let me do that.” He reached for the pliers and she looked up, gray eyes big in a pretty face, her mouth twisted into a frown.

“I can do it myself, thank you.” She held tight and fixed the fence as he stood there like the jerk he was.

“Why’d you cut the fence?”

“It was cut by someone other than me. I finished it off so I could go ahead and put them back in, then fix it.”

“Who...”

“If I knew that, I’d put a stop to it. You can go now.”

Yeah, he could, but that would make him a bigger jerk than he’d been years ago. At seventeen he’d been pretty full of himself. A few months short of twenty-seven, he should be making things right. Another fact about a bull headed straight at a guy, it made him want to fix things. His life had flashed before his eyes. Every wrong thing he’d done, and there’d been a lot.