Meg Maxwell - Charm School For Cowboys

He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he wouldn’t feel about his twin brother any more or better or differently than he felt about CJ, who was his brother, period. But Jake felt the call to see the man, to meet him, to know something about this twin brother he’d shared a womb with for nine months. That meant something too; it all meant something, every part of Jake’s birth story—from Sarah Mack’s pregnancy at sixteen years of age to how Jake felt right now. He had to find his twin and connect with him, even in the slightest way—a letter, an email, hell, even a text. Connection. That’s all he wanted. If they met and got to know each other and formed a relationship, even better.

Though, of course, CJ might not think so of that last part. He glanced out the window and could just make out CJ’s tall, strong silhouette on Shadow, their black gelding, as he checked on grass levels in a far pasture where they’d be moving the sheep. Yes, CJ was a player and a flirt and hadn’t been careful with people’s feelings, women’s feelings, but Jake wondered if the combination of the death of their parents and Jake’s discovery of his biological twin had done a number on the then seventeen-year-old. For the past five years, CJ had broken up with every young woman he dated, from one date to a few months, even if he’d really seemed to like her. Was he leaving them before they could leave him? Hurt him? Break his heart? Maybe. Jake wasn’t sure. CJ had a fun-loving exterior, and it was hard to tell just how deep he truly ran, even if Jake had seen his brother’s body shaking with sobs over their parents’ deaths, the day it happened and several times after. CJ felt; Jake knew that.

Jake stared at his cell phone, sitting on top of a glossy brochure for LoneStar Ranch, a breeding operation in town. Just call Carson Ford and tell him to get the search for your twin started, he told himself. It could be just a first step, seeing if the man could be found. But even that seemed a breach of trust. If he was going to look for his twin, he should let CJ know, not start a big inquiry on the down low as though he was sneaking behind his brother’s back.

He’d talk to CJ about it tomorrow.

And who knew if Carson Ford would even be able to find his twin? The private investigator had easily found Jake, at his birth mother’s request, because he’d left his contact info for his file at the adoption agency. Because, then again, the case had been personal to Carson then and it would be personal this time too. Jake sat back and smiled at the story Carson had finally told him about how he’d come to be involved in looking for him.

Apparently, Carson’s father, a widowed banker in Blue Gulch, had gone to a fortune-teller who’d told him that his second great love would be a green-eyed hairstylist named Sarah. Carson had thought his father was nuts for believing in that “malarkey.” But his father had believed, and so Carson had gone on the hunt with the fortune-teller’s daughter, Olivia Mack, to prove his father wrong—and because Olivia had been sure the mystery woman was her own estranged aunt. Only thing Carson had done was prove his father and the fortune-teller right: Sarah Mack and Edmund Ford had fallen deeply in love. And so had Carson and Olivia—when neither of them was looking for love. There was going to be a big double wedding in the fall, to which Jake was invited and would attend. And considering that Olivia ran the Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen food truck, where Emma sometimes helped out, he had no doubt his new cook would be invited too.

The thought of Emma Hurley brought her pretty face to mind, her big blue eyes and the long lashes. He sure wished she was going to the dance.

Would he feel ready for a relationship, for love and marriage and all that, if he found his twin and settled that part of his life? Maybe. Then again, he still felt a bitter sting anytime he thought of his ex, how she’d bailed on him when he’d wanted to wait, for CJ’s sake, to dig through his past. He’d realized as the days and months and years had gone by that he’d stopped trusting, stopped expecting anything from anyone.

So, no, this buck would not be asking anyone to dance tonight. And especially not the only woman he wanted to dance with.

* * *

Parking in the center of town at 10:00 a.m. was a breeze; Emma found a spot right in front of the apricot-colored Victorian that housed Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen. She loved Blue Gulch. Though the town bordered Oak Creek, where she’d grown up, she hadn’t spent much time with her Blue Gulch relatives. Her father had had some long-ago falling-out with his uncle and his wife, Essie Hurley, and according to what her dad had said over the years, he’d tried to tell his uncle and Essie how to run the restaurant, then had gloated when it ran into financially slow patches. The relationship had quickly soured, and Emma had grown up barely knowing Essie or her cousins, who Essie had raised after their parents had died in an accident. But the past weeks that Emma had been in town, living in the Victorian, sneezing up a storm over the puppies despite her allergy medication, had been absolutely wonderful. Emma’s dad drove people away with his bossy, controlling way, and right here she had all this family—kind, welcoming, and with a love of cooking in common.

“How’s the new boss treating you?” Essie asked, giving Emma a hug in the big country kitchen. Seventy-six-year-old Essie had had a health scare last year, and though she’d cut back on too much time on her feet, her granddaughters had had special chairs made just for her that could reach varying heights, from the worktable to the ovens, to the counters, so she could sit and make her famed sauces and soups and amazing entrées.

“I came downstairs at four thirty this morning to start breakfast, and guess what?” Emma said, tying on her Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen apron. “The whole crew—Hank, Grizzle, Golden and CJ, he’s Jake’s brother, were all in the kitchen cooking already—everything from eggs to bacon and pancakes with blueberries. They’d felt terrible when they heard I’d come to the ranch looking for Joshua—Tex—only to hear that he’d died in a riding accident. They’re a really nice group of cowboys.”

“Wait. Grizzle was cooking?” Annabel Hurley Montgomery asked with a grin. She was dredging chicken wings in flour, and Emma went over to take on the prep.

“You know Grizzle?” Emma asked.

“Sure do,” Annabel said. “He used to work at a farm nearby and would come in for lunch every day. When I was thirteen, Georgia and I were picking herbs in the fields out back when we saw that the stray dog that was always hanging around in the river had gotten caught in a current. Georgia and I almost drowned trying to save it and we made so much noise that some people came running. Grizzle jumped right in and saved that dog. But the dog was so scared she bit him. Blood was running down his arms but he held on tight and brought that dog to the riverbank.”

“Aww,” Emma said, her huge platter of wings ready for the fryer. She grabbed another platter and started on another batch, flour and egg wash under her nails. “Was the dog all right? Was Grizzle all right?”

Annabel nodded. “Both were fine. That dog had taken off the minute its feet hit land, but that night it laid down right on the front porch of Grizzle’s house. Grizzle adopted her and named her River. She never bit again. When River was dying and it was time to let her go, Grizzle invited me and my sisters to the little funeral he had in his yard, since we were the ones who brought them together. Remember how we sobbed?” she said to Georgia.

Annabel’s older sister, Georgia Hurley Slater, who baked for the restaurant, smiled. “River turned out to be the sweetest dog ever.”