Colton's Cowboy Code
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Melissa Cutler
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HarlequinChapter 1
In Brett Colton’s ears, in his mind, the shrill keening of tornado sirens eclipsed all other sound, despite that he and Outlaw were too far into the backcountry for the sirens to be more than a figment of his imagination—his intuition warning him that this mission was a really stupid plan because there were a hundred ways to die in a storm this angry.
There was no fury in hell or on earth that compared to an Oklahoma thunderstorm when it decided to unleash a twister. The clouds above Tulsa churned, glowing gray green. Golf-ball-sized hail pelted Brett’s Stetson and the back of his oiled leather duster. He folded forward, shielding Outlaw’s neck and mane from the brunt of the hail’s force as best he could, though neither man nor steed were strangers to the elements.
One of these days, Brett’s guardian angels would give him up as a lost cause, but, God willing, it wasn’t going to be today. Not with so much on the line. Not after everything his family had been through in the past month or the sharp edge of disappointment in his father’s and brother’s eyes when Brett had broken it to them about the downed fence and the missing cattle. As if Brett had let the herd loose on purpose. As if he was still the same reckless punk he’d been four months ago.
Then again, maybe Brett hadn’t completely vanquished the recklessness from his blood, because here he was, racing across the rolling plains of the Lucky C ranch’s backcountry, straight toward the deadly funnel forming in the distance. Any minute, a flash flood might come rocketing through, if lightning or a twister didn’t hit down first, but he refused to return to the Lucky C homestead without the half dozen pregnant cows that had escaped.
The downed fence was a mystery that Brett would have to contemplate later. He’d checked that line himself the week before. All he knew was that the ranch that he’d once thought of as a fortress was no longer an impenetrable haven for his family, and the decades of peace and prosperity that the Coltons had enjoyed had been shattered beyond repair.
Brett had followed the tracks of the six stampeding cows southwest, keeping them in sight through the rain and the darkening sky, right up until the clouds had let loose with hail. With zero visibility and the cows’ hoofprints lost in the churned-up ground and melting balls of ice, he was riding with nothing to guide him but the hunch that the cows had headed toward Vulture Ridge, as the stock on the ranch had done so many times over the years. As long as they’d had enough sense to stop at the ridge instead of going over the edge—Lord, please don’t let them have gone over the edge—Brett would find a way to get them back to the Lucky C before the twister touched down.
Outlaw expertly cut around scrub trees and boulders without losing speed until Vulture Ridge came into view.
“Gotcha,” Brett said, though his words were lost in a crash of thunder.
Four of the cows crowded at the edge of the infamous gully, their hind hooves pawing at the muddy, disintegrating ledge and baying, clearly terrified. Brett slowed Outlaw to a trot and instead of closing in on the cows head-on, guided the horse in a wide arc. Then he rode along the ridge and came up on the cows from the side. Outlaw knew the drill, imposing his authority to the cattle, crowding and nudging them away from the edge.
Once they complied, Brett craned his neck to scan the expanse of prairie land for the remaining two cows. One, he spotted immediately, huddled against a boulder, but the other was nowhere to be seen. Fearing what he’d find, Brett turned his focus to the gully below Vulture Ridge that had been carved out by centuries of flash floods. The missing cow’s ear came into view first, tagged with a green tag that meant she was a heifer—a young first-time mom who was probably beyond freaked out at the moment.
He dismounted and got closer to the edge. The heifer was perched on a narrow outcrop of dirt and rock ten feet below the lip of the ridge, lying on her side, propped against the ridge wall, her massive round belly undulating. She was in labor, and the way she was angled, when the calf was born, it would fall the additional ten feet or so into the gully’s basin. That is, if the ledge didn’t crumble and the heifer didn’t fall herself, first.
This time, Brett’s curse was loud enough to be heard over the storm. An older, seasoned cow might have been amenable to Brett’s efforts to get her standing and help her pick her way out of the gully, but he already knew this heifer wasn’t going to make his life easy like that. He was standing next to Outlaw, debating his options, when a thunderclap sounded so loudly that Brett’s teeth rattled. The four cows they’d gathered immediately spooked and took off along the gully ridge.
Brett swung up into the saddle again. Shaking away the water and ice from his face, he set his teeth on his lower lip and whistled in the same tone he used on the livestock around the ranch, the one that often worked—in normal conditions, anyway—as a command for them to stop. These particular cows weren’t interested in commands. If anything, they picked up their pace.
He gave another, different toned whistle command to Outlaw and the horse surged toward the cattle as Brett reached for his lasso. Throwing it in this weather would be a crapshoot at best, but he had to try. He secured the rope in his hands, then drove Outlaw faster, getting in front of the cows and cutting them off.
He waited until they were right up on the beasts to throw the lasso. It caught the neck of the farthest cow, just as it was supposed to, so he cinched it nice and tight and brought all four cows crowded between the lassoed cow and Outlaw’s body.
“Thataway, Outlaw,” he called over the wind and hail, stroking the gelding’s neck. “Thataway.”
They maneuvered the cattle to a cluster of shrubs not too far away from where the fifth cow was still huddled by the boulder. Brett swung off the saddle, then looped the other end of the rope around the neck of a second cow. He tied another rope around the necks of the third and fourth cows and hooked all the ropes into the branches of the sturdiest scrub tree. It wasn’t all that secure, should another thunderclap spook them again, but it was the best he could do for now.
He left Outlaw standing near them, but refused to tie him to the tree, even if it meant Brett getting stranded should the gelding take off. Because what if the horse needed to flee with good reason? What if Brett didn’t make it out of the gully alive? Brett would rather chance getting stranded than put his horse in any unnecessary danger, which was a vital part of the cowboy code he lived by.
Brett threaded his head and an arm through his last bundle of rope from his saddle bag, then stroked Outlaw’s neck and got close to his ear. “You stay with the stock. Keep ’em calm for me until I get back.” For all he knew, Outlaw understood every word. He liked to imagine that bit of magic, anyway.
It wasn’t until he was slogging to the edge of Vulture Ridge that he realized how soaked-to-the-bones he was. The muddy ground sucked at his boots, and his jeans felt as if they weighed twenty pounds. He flapped the tails of his duster around his body, then checked the collar to make sure it was standing on end, but still, bits of hail wormed their way between his collar and his hat to melt against his neck. Sniffing, his eyes downturned and marking each labored step, he put his shoulder to the wind and pressed on.
The heifer was lying on her side still, but didn’t seem to have given birth yet. Her hooves hovered in midair over the gully that was rapidly filling with water. The path she’d slid down was steep, but wouldn’t be impossible for her to traverse back up over the ridge—if he could get her standing again.
He was debating the merits of risking his life for a single livestock, when the heifer brayed, a pained, fearful cry. Then one of her hind legs and her tail lifted. The water sac was visible already.
“Holy day...” Brett muttered.
The calf was coming.
He slid down the mud wall following the same path the heifer had. There wasn’t enough room on the ledge for both of them to fit comfortably. His boot heels cut into the dirt wall as he skirted her body to reach her tail. The calf’s tail was crowning first.
“Damn it. This baby’s not making it easy on you, is it, girl?” Brett wiped his muddy hands on his coat, then pushed the calf’s rump back in. Working by feel, he located the hind legs and positioned them one at a time in the birthing canal.
The heifer brayed and kicked out. If they were at the ranch, Brett would’ve secured her in a head gate and called for help. All he had now was luck, a single rope and his wits, and he was going to need all three to birth the calf before it died.
He took off his coat and draped it over the heifer’s face, hoping the reduction of stimulus from the rain and storm would calm her down. No luck. She kicked harder, and before Brett had gotten back in position near her tail, she tipped over the edge of the outcropping and slid into the rapidly-filling gully.
Brett followed, his rope in his hand. The water was three feet deep and rising. The rain and hail beat down relentlessly as the wind whipped up. Time to get this calf birthed and get the hell out of there before they all lost their lives. The cow, on her side in the gully, strained to keep her head above water. Brett slogged to her backside again, the water and mud caking his legs and seeping into his boots. He wrapped the rope around the calf’s legs once, twice, three times.
He wiggled his boots into the riverbed, bracing himself, then got a firm hold of the rope and pulled, growling with the effort. The calf slid another four or five inches out. Panting, Brett adjusted his grip on the rope, then pulled again. This time, the calf came. Brett fell backward in the water, the calf on his chest.
With a laugh of triumph, Brett cleaned the calf’s nose out with his finger, then tickled its ear to get it breathing. Then a golf-ball-sized piece of hail smacked Brett hard on his cheek, killing his awe over the miracle of helping birth a new life and reminding him of the danger all around them.
He pushed to his feet, bringing the calf up in his arms. He worked to untie the rope from the calf’s hind legs with one eye on the steep side of the gully. The water was above Brett’s knees, sloshing at his groin. He couldn’t get the rope around the mama cow and keep his hold on the wiggling calf, so he’d have to come back down for her.
He’d pulled himself and the calf a good five feet up the gully wall when he heard it, a roar like no other he’d heard before. Not thunder, not a twister. Something otherworldly that got louder, closer. The gully walls vibrated with the force. A flash flood. Had to be.
In full panic mode, Brett hauled himself to the ledge that the cow had originally slid onto. He grabbed his duster from where the cow had tossed it away from her face. He threw it up to the top of the ridge, then hauled himself and the calf the rest of the way up, his fingers and boot toes digging into the muddy wall, pushing the calf up in front of him with his chest. He heaved the calf over the top of the ridge as a wall of water appeared in the gully, bearing down on their location.
Brett scrambled to safety and got on his knees. As fast as he could, he wound the rope back and set the lasso loop down to the mama cow. Maybe he could anchor her there so she wouldn’t get swept away. Maybe the floodwaters weren’t as high and fast as they looked.
The flash flood hit her hard, rolling her under. The rope pulled on him as though he was playing tug-of-war with a whole football team. There was nothing to do but let go. He’d heard too many accounts of ranchers getting swept into floodwater and drowning because they were too stubborn to lose their livestock.
Brett’s legs were shaky and weak with an adrenaline crash as he stood, following with his gaze the glimpse of the cow’s head in the water until she disappeared. The floodwaters gurgled and spit at the edge of the gully wall. He stared at the water, trying not to think of the loss as a failure. After all, he’d saved the calf, five pregnant cows and his own life.
He swung his attention to the boulder where he’d left the other cows and Outlaw. Outlaw was still there, but none of the cows. Damn it.
He pulled his drenched, muddy coat on, then lifted the calf into his arms again and trudged to his horse, his eyes on the storm front that looked to be moving away from them. At least one thing had gone his way today.
Outlaw nuzzled his cheek.
“Thanks for waiting for me,” Brett said. “Happen to see which direction those cows went?”
Could’ve been his imagination, but Outlaw snorted in reply.
He scratched the horse’s neck. “Good. How about you lead me to them so we can call it a day?”
He lifted the calf onto the saddle first, then hoisted himself up, the weight of the water and mud making him feel a good fifty pounds heavier than he had when he’d left the stable. The orphaned calf looked up at him, helpless and trusting. Brett usually didn’t think of the livestock as cute, but this one surely was, with long lashes, a soft buttercream-colored coat and a pink nose. He wrapped his coat around it and held it close.
“We’ll get you home soon and make you up a bottle as soon as we find your mama’s friends. I do believe we’re gonna name you Twister. How does that sound?”
The calf’s tongue came out to lick a pebble of hail from its nose, the cutest thing Brett might’ve ever seen besides his nephew, Seth.
Jack, Brett’s oldest brother, was going to be furious about the loss of the cow. Already, he didn’t trust Brett, and this wasn’t going to help. But Brett was tired of working under his brother like some hired hand, getting his butt chewed for every perceived misstep. He was ready to redeem his reputation and earn his slice of the Colton legacy—and he had just the plan to make it work. All he needed now was to hire a financial whiz to help him crunch the numbers and profit projections he’d need to help Jack see his point of view.
With a whistle and a nudge of Brett’s boots, Outlaw burst into motion back through the storm toward home while Brett’s mind churned, plotting and planning his next move to seize a hold of his bright future once and for all.
* * *
Being a poster girl for the perils of sin had gotten Hannah Grayson nowhere fast. For as much mileage as her family’s church had gotten out of using Hannah’s accidental pregnancy as a cautionary tale, they could have at least provided her with a small stipend to ease the sting of being disowned by her parents, fired from her job and evicted from her apartment, all while battling a nasty case of morning sickness.
From her pocket, she withdrew the help-wanted ads she’d printed from Tulsa World newspaper’s online classifieds. Every lead on the papers but one had been crossed out as a dead end. She’d been counting on her newly minted accounting degree from Tulsa United Online University to help her land on her feet, but every employer she’d met with had taken one look at the now-obvious swell of her belly and decided she wasn’t qualified for the job.
With her meager savings running out, she’d made a deal with herself to explore this one last lead before giving up on accounting in favor of a retail or a fast-food position, but it was a long shot at best.
Tulsa businessman in need of an accountant for a temporary project, discretion a must.
No name or company name given, no phone number or address. Just a generic email address of “oklahoma45678” that could belong to anybody. Including a psychopath. Which was why she’d created a new, generic email address of her own to reply to the ad and had refused to give out even her name to the individual when she agreed to meet him at a window booth in the Armadillo Diner & Pie Company.
Replacing the classified ad in her purse, she paused at the window of the Fluff and Fold to check herself in the window reflection. Wisps of her pencil-straight black hair lifted in the wind that had hung around Tulsa since the previous week’s storm. She smoothed them into place and used the pad of her thumb to sharpen the line of her light pink lip gloss on her bottom lip.
The gray slacks were a clearance-rack find from a couple months earlier, when they’d been a loose fit. Now, the waist sat below the swell of her belly, which she’d covered with a form-fitting pale pink blouse. She could have de-emphasized the evidence of her pregnancy with another outfit, but all that had done in the past was delay the inevitable disinterest from the prospective employers that came when she disclosed the truth, and wasted everyone’s time. Better to put her condition out in the open right up front, before a single word was exchanged.
With her eyes on her reflection, she stood tall and proud, rubbing a hand over her belly. “Something’s going to work out, little guy. Or girl. If this opportunity isn’t it, then we’ll keep trying. I’m not going to let you down.”
She squared her shoulders and strode toward the diner door, harnessing her pride and owning her power. She was a terrific accountant and a good person. That had to count for something. Maybe Mr. Anonymous Businessman would be the first person to see her for the workplace asset she could be.
Inside the Armadillo, the smell of old, burned coffee and cooking eggs rushed up on Hannah, making her stomach lurch. She ground to a stop in the waiting area. Hands on her hips, she raised her face to the ceiling and breathed through her mouth as the wave of nausea passed. When she’d selected the diner as a meeting place, she’d been hoping for a free meal, not the possibility of the diner smells triggering her morning sickness.
“You okay, darlin’?”
Hannah lowered her gaze to see a middle-aged waitress eyeing her with concern from behind blue-tinted eyelashes, tapping a laminated menu against her palm.
“I think so. Food smells, you know?” She rubbed her baby bump and offered a smile to Janice, or so the waitress’s name tag read.
“Oh, I know. Try working here while pregnant, with the omelets in the morning and the liver-platter special at dinner. I spent the first half of each of my pregnancies serving the food, then running to the can. How far along are you?”
The mention of eggs and liver had Hannah raising her face to the ceiling again. “Nineteen weeks.”
“Ah. Well, the worst of it should be about over. You want a table near the air vent, I bet.”
After another fortifying breath through her mouth, Hannah lowered her face and smiled at Janice. “Actually, I’m meeting someone here. Job interview.”
Her curiosity about Mr. Anonymous’s identity had her shifting her gaze from Janice to the row of window booths. There was only one man at a booth by the window. Brett Colton, and he was standing up next to the table, his napkin in his hand, nailing her with a gaze of utter shock.
Gasping, Hannah wrenched her face away. Crap on a cracker. This can’t be happening.
Janice’s voice floated over the air as though from a great distance. “Well, bless your heart, looking for work in your condition. What does your baby daddy have to say about that?”
Her baby daddy was about to say a whole lot because, judging by his expression, he’d heard the whole exchange with Janice and was really good at doing fast math in his head.
“Excuse me,” Hannah muttered. Then she pivoted in place and marched back out the door.
She paced the sidewalk in front of the diner, garnering her courage because she knew with 100 percent certainty that Brett was going to follow her out and demand the answers he deserved. Over the past few months, she’d played this moment in her head a dozen different ways, but it never looked anything like this. She never planned to leave him in the dark about the baby. All she’d wanted to do was hold off on telling him until she had a job and a permanent place to stay.
“Anna, wasn’t it?” The growl of Brett Colton’s sexy-as-sin voice had her freezing in her tracks. She squeezed her eyes closed as mortification set in that the father of her child didn’t even remember her name correctly. Then again, what did she expect from Tulsa’s most notorious playboy? She bet he seduced a different girl every night of the week, or so the rumors would have her believe.
She fluttered her eyes open and caught sight of her reflection in the Fluff and Fold window again, surprised at the sight of a meek girl hanging her head, dread and guilt etched in her features. What happened to the proud, confident woman she’d been only a few minutes earlier? She’d done nothing wrong and broken no rules. There was no official timetable on telling a man you were pregnant with his child.
Clinging to that truth, she straightened up, smoothed her features, and then spun to face Brett. “It’s Hannah, actually.”
He winced at that, and then those soulful green eyes turned sheepish—a reaction that Hannah found absurdly comforting. “Sorry. Hannah.” He closed and opened his mouth, his eyes flitting from her belly to her face, as though he was in the same clueless state of communication as she was. “I, uh...you’re, um...nineteen weeks. That’s about when we, uh...”
“Yes. I know. It’s yours,” she blurted. And cue her turn to wince. So much for breaking the news to him gently.
The sheepishness vanished from his face, along with the color. “That’s impossible.”
She schooled her features to mask a sudden flare of irritation. “Really? Ya think?” Okay, so maybe she hadn’t done that terrific a job concealing her feelings.
“We used protection, so how is that possible?”
She’d asked herself that same question a million times. “Yes, we did. We used protection that you supplied, in fact. So maybe you should be the one explaining to me how it happened.”
His eyes narrowed. “Moving on. You’re going to have to work pretty hard to convince me of the reason you kept this from me. When were you planning on telling me, anyway? Or did you?”
The accusation dripping from his words got her back up. “So you didn’t remember my name correctly, yet you expected me to remember yours and know where to find you? Narcissistic much?”
His mouth fell open at that and the color returned to his face in full force. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I...”
He looked so abashed and sincerely apologetic that all the fight rushed out of her. “That wasn’t fair of me. I’m sorry. The truth is, I did remember your name and I fully planned to tell you. I was looking to get my life in order first.”
The ranching community of Tulsa was an everybody’s in everybody’s business kind of town, and Hannah couldn’t bear for her baby to be born under a cloud of suspicion and rumors that his or her mother was a gold digger, getting pregnant on purpose to get at the Colton fortune. It would be bad enough for her baby having its mama’s reputation run through the mud in the church community.
His mouth screwed up as though he didn’t buy what she was selling. “By answering a sketchy classified ad for temporary work? I’ve been in your car and to your apartment. Your life is the opposite of screwed up. Try again.”
She smoothed a hand over her stomach out of habit. If he wanted to hear the whole pathetic story, then who was she to deny him?
“That’s the truth, whether you believe it or not. When my parents found out I was pregnant, they relieved me of the burden of being their daughter, which included firing me from managing the feed-supply store they own. And, because I’d sunk all my money into getting my accounting degree, I had nothing in savings. So I sold my car to pay my doctor bills, which then got me evicted from my apartment.
“I’m trying to get my life back on track, but nothing I’ve tried is working. I can’t just snap my fingers and fix my life. All I wanted to do is land on my feet before coming to you. A job. And a place to live.” She’d wanted to tell him truthfully that she was doing fine and didn’t need his financial support or—God forbid—a mercy proposal of marriage. She’d seen enough of her parents’ own unhappy marriage to know that wasn’t the life she wanted for her or her child.
“The only trouble is,” she continued, “who’s going to hire a pregnant lady for any kind of real job, with health insurance and maternity leave? Nobody, as it turns out, because I’ve looked. I’ve scoured this whole darn city looking for work that would help my baby—” Emotion tightened her throat. She was exhausted and nauseous and so tired of being judged unfairly. She swallowed and took a breath. “I’ve been looking for work that would help my baby have a good life.”
Grimacing, he wrenched his face to the street, his hands on his hips, his eyes distant.
Hannah did a whole bunch more swallowing, reining in her hormone-fueled emotional fireworks as she studied his profile. He really was a stunning specimen of a man—his face perfection with those masculine cheekbones and that fit cowboy’s body that had brought her so much wicked pleasure that night. He kept his light brown hair disheveled just so, adding a rakish quality to his charm. No wonder he turned the head of every woman in Tulsa when he walked down the street.
He deserved better than to find out he was going to be a father on the side of the road outside a Laundromat, not with a woman he loved, but with a virtual stranger.
When she was sure she could speak calmly, she said, “I’m not trying to get at your family’s money, Brett.”
He jerked his face in her direction, his face a stone mask now. Gone was any trace of the smile he’d wooed her with nineteen weeks ago at the Tulsa club where she’d decided to let her hair down after her college graduation.
“You still need to pay your bill, hon,” called a female voice.
Hannah and Brett both turned to see Janice standing at the Armadillo’s door, waving a slip of paper.
“I’ll be right there,” Brett called to Janice, his voice tight with harnessed emotion. To Hannah, he added, “I need to take care of this, and then we’re going to go somewhere private to talk.”
Hannah nodded, even as her stomach ached, empty. She’d been counting on the interviewer’s promise in his email to buy her breakfast. She wrapped her arms around her ribs and battled a fresh round of pathetic tears. “I’ll wait here.”
He huffed, his hardened, distant expression not really seeing her when he looked her way and took her arm. “I don’t think so. You’re coming inside with me while I pay the bill. I don’t want you disappearing on me before I get some answers. I don’t even know your last name.” He swept his hand in front of him. “After you.”
