Vicki Thompson - I Cross My Heart

New York Times bestselling author VICKI LEWIS THOMPSON’s love affair with cowboys started with the Lone Ranger, continued through Maverick and took a turn south of the border with Zorro. She views cowboys as the Western version of knights in shining armor—rugged men who value honor, honesty and hard work. Fortunately for her, she lives in the Arizona desert, where broad-shouldered, lean-hipped cowboys abound. Blessed with such an abundance of inspiration, she only hopes that she can do them justice. Visit her website, www.vickilewisthompson.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Edward Knabusch and Edwin Shoemaker,

who invented the first wooden recliner in 1928

and made an upholstered version dubbed the

La-Z-Boy in 1929. This story wouldn’t be the same

without that invention, so thanks, guys!

June 18, 1982, Last Chance Ranch

From the Diary of Eleanor Chance

A BABY APPEARED ON OUR doorstep today. Not literally, but as good as. Nicholas Jonathan O’Leary, five months old, arrived in a taxi with his own personal lawyer as a temporary nanny.

Apparently fourteen months ago, my son, Jonathan, conceived this child with that flighty Nicole O’Leary, one of the women he attached himself to during what I call his yee-haw phase. She was only in town for a couple of months, and after she left, Jonathan didn’t hear from her. Until this baby showed up.

According to the lawyer, Nicole had wanted Nicholas’s existence to be kept secret while she was alive, but she’d arranged for him to be brought here in the event of her death. Good thing she made those provisions, considering she’d taken up skydiving! Who does that kind of thing when they have an infant to care for? I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but, honestly! She had Shinola for brains, if you ask me.

Jonathan, of course, is shocked by her death and the baby he’d had no clue about. He also feels guilty for having unprotected sex with her. But Archie and I don’t really blame him. He wasn’t himself after his no-good wife, Diana, left him and their toddler, Jack, two years ago. Archie and I made sure that Jack was cared for during those months when Jonathan battled a sense of failure by painting the town.

Then, thank the good Lord, he met Sarah, and they had the loveliest Christmas wedding this past December. Sarah is everything Jonathan’s ex-wife was not. She’s a nurturing and loving presence in our lives and little Jack finally has a mother.

We’ve all been anticipating the birth of Jack’s baby brother, Gabriel, due in four months, and now…well, Sarah says Jack will have two little brothers, Nick and Gabe. That tells you what my new daughter-in-law is made of. The angels smiled on us when she agreed to marry our son.

So, before you know it, Archie and I will have three grandchildren! Archie is over the moon about that. Jonathan will inherit the Last Chance Ranch when we’re gone, and the odds are good that one of those boys will take over from Jonathan someday. Maybe they’ll even share ownership. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Archie feels very sentimental about keeping the ranch in the family. Today, in the midst of the hullabaloo about Nicholas arriving, Archie coined a name for Jonathan’s boys, each with a different mother. He calls them the Sons of Chance. I think that’s sweet.

Present Day

WHEN IT CAME TO MENTAL health, Nash Bledsoe vastly preferred shoveling shit to lying on a therapist’s couch. His newly minted ex-wife, Lindsay, felt differently and had told him numerous times he needed a shrink. But his final divorce papers had arrived from Sacramento late yesterday afternoon, and Lindsay no longer had any say-so about how he dealt with his emotions.

Now that they were officially divorced, he’d never again have to hear Lindsay quote her favorite self-help guru, Bethany Grace: Happiness Is a Choice. He shuddered. God, how he’d come to hate that phrase.

Well, damn it, today he chose to be mad as hell. And mucking out stalls was both productive and therapeutic. He wouldn’t deny that he had plenty of issues, but fortunately the Last Chance barn had plenty of stalls.

“Better slow down before you hurt yourself, son.”

Nash glanced up in midshovel. Emmett Sterling, the Last Chance’s foreman, leaned in the doorway of the stall and chewed absently on a piece of straw. The guy looked more like a veteran cowboy than anyone Nash knew. Although he was past sixty, he had the lean body of a man much younger. His graying mustache gave him an Old West look that suited him.

“The exercise feels good,” Nash said.

“I expect it does. Heard about the divorce papers arriving.”

“Yep. I’m officially a free man.” He didn’t pretend to be surprised that Emmett knew. His mail was delivered to the bunkhouse, and his buddy Luke Griffin had been there when he’d opened the thick envelope.

Luke had worked at the Sacramento riding stables owned by Nash and Lindsay, but he’d lost his taste for the job when Nash had left. So Nash had put in a good word for him here at the Last Chance and Luke had hired on a couple months after Nash had. Last night Luke had joined him in polishing off a bottle of Wild Turkey, and several of the other hands had produced some twelve-packs and turned it into a party.

The divorce papers hadn’t been a surprise. Lindsay had filed almost a year ago, and Nash had spent some time and money trying to get a fair shake. Turned out to have been a waste, and seeing the settlement spelled out in black and white had brought back all his suppressed rage. He tossed the shovelful of manure into the wheelbarrow and went back for more.

“I remember being as angry as you are right now. It’ll pass,” Emmett said.

Nash dumped more manure into the wheelbarrow. “Especially if I keep shoveling.” He’d forgotten that Emmett’s wife had divorced him twenty-some years ago. Now Emmett was seeing Pam Mulholland, who owned a bed-and-breakfast on the main road into town.

Pam was part of the Chance family through her late sister, Nicole O’Leary, mother of Nick Chance. A wealthy divorcée with no children, Pam had moved to the Jackson Hole area to be near her nephew. And she’d soon fallen head over heels for Emmett Sterling.

But Emmett was dragging his feet about marrying her because she was loaded and Emmett was not. Nash could relate. Lindsay’s money had been a ticking time bomb—one he’d foolishly deemed unimportant when he’d asked her to share his life.

“I hate to interfere with your plan to work until you drop,” Emmett said, “but one of the hands spotted a column of smoke over at the Triple G. I need someone to check it out, and I’m afraid you’re nominated.”

“Glad to.” Nash was grateful to have a job and was committed to doing anything the foreman asked of him. He laid the shovel across the load in the wheelbarrow. “Just leave me some stalls to muck out, okay?”

“That can be arranged.”

Emmett and Nash walked out of the barn, their booted feet making hollow sounds on the wooden floor. “It’s bad enough that Hank Grace had to drink himself to death,” Emmett said. “I hate to think of someone trespassing and starting a fire because nobody’s around to stop them.”

“Nobody’s there?”

“Far as I know. Hank sold off the animals months ago. From what I heard, he abandoned the place and checked himself into a hospital in Jackson. Died there a week ago. Don’t know what’s supposed to happen with the property.”