Her Cowboy Groom

Shaking her head at the self-pity that was threatening to consume her whole, she headed out onto the porch and the heat of the day. She stopped short when she saw her car parked in the graveled area between the house and the barn. Part of her sorrow gave way to guilt. While she was sleeping the morning away, Owen had already gotten her tires fixed and brought her car back to the ranch. She scanned the area but didn’t see him. No doubt he was already out riding on the back forty somewhere, doing whatever ranchers did every day.

Despite still feeling shaky, she descended the steps and started walking. The day was quite warm, but she didn’t care. Though she spent most of her time indoors working, there was something therapeutic about getting out in the sunshine under a wide blue sky. It almost made her believe things weren’t so bad.

But they were.

She walked the length of the driveway and back. When she approached the house, Roscoe and Cletus, the Brodys’ two lovable basset hounds, came ambling around the corner of the porch.

“Hey, guys,” she said as she sank onto the front steps and proceeded to scratch them both under their chins. “You’re just as handsome as ever.”

“Why, thank you.”

She jumped at the sound of Owen’s voice. The dogs jumped, too, probably because she had. She glanced up to where Owen stood at the corner of the porch. “You made me scare the dogs.”

“Sorry. But I was taught to thank someone when they pay me a compliment.”

She shook her head. “Nice to see your ego is still intact.”

“Ouch.”

She laughed a little at his mock affront, something she wouldn’t have thought possible that morning. She ought to thank him for that moment of reprieve, but she didn’t want to focus on why she’d thought she might never laugh or even smile again. Instead, she nodded toward her car. “Thanks for getting the tires fixed so quickly. How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m perfectly capable of paying my own bills.”

“I’m sure you are. Still, I don’t think fixing a couple of flats is going to send me to the poorhouse.” With that he tapped the brim of his cowboy hat and headed toward the barn.

As he walked away, she noticed how nice he looked in those worn jeans. No wonder he didn’t have trouble finding women.

Oh, my God! She was looking at Owen’s butt. Owen, as in Chloe’s little brother Owen. The kid who’d once waited on her and Chloe outside Chloe’s room and doused them with a supersoaker, the guy who had earned the nickname Horndog Brody.

She jerked her gaze away, suddenly wondering if she was mentally deficient. First she nearly married a guy who was already married. And now, little more than a day after she found out she’d nearly become an unwitting bigamist, she was ogling her best friend’s brother’s ass.

Unsettled, she went back inside, but instantly felt at a loss for what to do. She was normally hawking wedding gowns, veils and tiaras, everything to make a bride feel like a princess on her special day. Now the idea of even stepping foot into her store made her stomach turn. She knew she’d have to find a way to get past that. She had too much invested in the shop, and she couldn’t leave Katrina in the lurch for too long.

Her heart stuttered when she realized her own fairy-tale gown still hung in the back of the shop. After weeks of admiring it every day, she knew she never wanted to see it again. She grabbed her phone and called Katrina.

“Hey, sweetie,” Katrina answered. “How are you doing?”

It was a miracle Linnea had remembered to even call Katrina the day before to let her know she was going out of town for a few days. In fact, she’d been an hour out of Dallas before it dawned on her.

“I’m out of bed, which is more than I thought I’d accomplish today. How are things going there?”

“Fine. Don’t worry about the shop, okay?”

“Listen, I need you to do something for me.”

“Name it.”

“Sell my dress.”

“What?”

“My dress. I don’t want it to be there when I get back. Mark it at a price that moves it fast.”

Katrina hesitated before responding, “Are you sure? You love that dress.”

“I loved Michael, too, and look what that got me.” She realized how sharp her response had been as soon as it left her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s a reminder of what a fool I am.”

“You’re not a fool. I was standing on the outside and didn’t see any red flags, either.”

Linnea knew that should make her feel better, but it didn’t. “Has he called there looking for me?”

“A few times, but don’t worry about that. I took care of it.”

Something about the tone of Katrina’s voice sounded as though more was going on. “What do you mean, you took care of it?”

“Well, he came by, demanding to know where you were. I may have told him to leave, and if he came back I was going to call the cops and report him for stalking.”

Linnea’s mouth dropped open. “You didn’t?”

“I did, and I’d do it again. I might be small, but I will mess up anyone who hurts my friends.”

Despite everything, Linnea smiled. “Have I told you lately that you’re awesome?”

“No, and you should do that more often.”

“You’re right. I’ll make a note of that.”

Katrina laughed, and it lifted Linnea’s spirits some. They plummeted, however, when after she ended the call, she pulled up all the pre-wedding photos stored in her phone and started deleting them. With each one, it felt more and more as though the past six months of her life had been a waste. Despite what she’d told Katrina, she paused on the main photo of her gorgeous wedding gown. Yes, it was just a dress, but it had embodied her happiness, all her hopes and dreams for the future. Michael had robbed her of all that with his lies.

She hesitated with her finger over the last photo of the dress. As soon as she hit the Delete button, everything she’d planned for with such excitement would be well and truly gone. Fresh tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks as she hit the button.

Chapter Three

Owen was still in a foul mood when he reached the house. He was covered in mud literally from head to toe, thanks to a calf that had given him the slip. And because Linnea was visiting, he was going to have to wear the mud all the way through the house, probably dropping globs from the back door to the bathroom.

He took his boots off outside the back door and stepped into the house. As he passed from the mudroom into the kitchen, he nearly collided with Linnea. He reached out on instinct but managed to catch himself before he actually touched her.

Linnea took a step back and eyed him. “What on earth?”

“Another glamorous day in the life of a rancher.” As if to punctuate his words, a blob of mud dropped off his arm onto the floor.

She motioned him back into the appropriately named mudroom. “Take off those clothes, and I’ll put them in the wash.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Trying to get me out of my clothes?”

She rolled her eyes, and that’s when he saw that her eyes were red as though she’d been crying again. He didn’t know what had happened, but he didn’t like seeing her so upset. He dated around, yeah, but he tried not to make any woman cry.

“Don’t be such a twit,” she said as she ushered him out of the kitchen. “Just dump those muddy things in there, and then I’ll turn my back as you head through the house.”

He turned around and retraced his steps. “Getting bossed around by a woman. It’s like Chloe never left.”

“I suppose if I wasn’t here, you’d just track mud through the house like an animal.”

He unzipped his jeans and shoved them down his legs. “No, I’d strip like I’m doing now and walk through the house stark naked.”

“Oh.”

He laughed a little at her startled reaction. When he was down to his boxers, he headed for the kitchen. “Hide your eyes.”

“The coast is clear.”

When he stepped into the kitchen, he smiled at how rigidly she stood with her back to him. “No peeking.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t want to burn my corneas.”

“I’m that hot, huh?”

“Oh, good grief. Will you just get out of here?”

This time, he chuckled where she could hear him before heading to the bathroom.

* * *

LINNEA DIDN’T DARE turn around until she heard the water in the shower start running. She relaxed and headed for the mudroom, wondering why Owen’s teasing had unnerved her so much. He’d always been a flirt, but he and Garrett had been more like brothers to her than anything else. They were actually the closest thing she’d ever had to brothers. But when she’d listened as he dropped his filthy clothes on the floor and walked into the kitchen behind her, she’d had to fight the urge to peek.

She shook her head, chalking it up to how mixed up she’d felt since Danielle Benson dropped her information bomb right in the middle of Linnea’s life.

When she picked up the dirty jeans and shirt, they felt as if they had ten pounds of mud caked onto them. What did he do, mud-wrestle a cow? She added the once white socks to the pile and was strangely grateful not to find a pair of underwear. At least she hadn’t been standing in the same room with her best friend’s buck-naked brother.

Unless he went commando.

Oh, good grief, why had that image popped into her head? She didn’t need to think about whether or not Owen Brody wore underwear every time she looked at him.

She took the clothes into the laundry room and washed some of the mud out in the utility sink, thinking the whole time that perhaps she needed to shove her head under the cold stream of water, too.

She waited until she heard the shower turn off before starting the washing machine, then returned to the kitchen. A few minutes later, Owen walked back into the kitchen, this time clean and fully clothed. His dark hair was still wet, and something about that look caused a funny little flutter inside her.

She turned her gaze back to the countertop in front of her, wishing she could speed time up until she felt normal again, when her heart didn’t feel as if it’d been stomped and when she wasn’t having strange thoughts about Owen, whom she’d known since he was fourteen. Granted, he was twice that now, had grown into a man’s body, but she still shouldn’t even notice things like that. Especially when she’d been about to marry another man she’d loved very much. Probably part of her did still love Michael even if she hated him, too. You weren’t supposed to be able to just turn love off and on like a light switch, right?

She mentally shook her head. This was probably just some sort of coping mechanism, her subconscious trying to find someone to make her feel good in the aftermath of being so horribly wronged by the man who had claimed he loved her.

“What are you doing?” Owen’s voice pulled her from her rambling self-diagnosis.

“Cooking dinner.”

“You don’t have to do that. The chili wasn’t that bad, was it?”

“No, it was fine. I just...needed something to do.”

Owen leaned a hip against the opposite end of the counter. “You okay?”

He sounded hesitant, as though he wasn’t used to asking people about their feelings. He was a guy. Of course he wasn’t making a habit of in-depth conversations about feelings.

“Fine. Just wanted something to occupy my mind.” She was saved from having to explain any further when Garrett walked in.

“It smells great in here. Hasn’t smelled this good since Chloe left.”

Linnea shifted her gaze to Owen and Chloe’s big brother. “I doubt that. I had a bowl of the chili. It was actually quite tasty.”

“Why, thank you,” Owen said, drawing her gaze back to him.

“You made the chili?”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t sound so surprised. I’m good at more than riding a horse.”

“That’s not what I hear from the girls you’ve dated,” Garrett said.

Owen slugged his brother in the arm. “Since when do you even talk to girls? You have longer conversations with the cattle.”

Linnea managed to smile at the same brotherly poking at each other that she’d witnessed from the moment she’d met Chloe’s family. It was a small comfort that some things didn’t change. But then, some things did.

She tore her gaze away, ostensibly to refocus on the food preparation. But it was really to blink new tears into submission. She was so sick of crying, of how it made her feel even worse. She wanted to be the person again who could laugh at Owen and Garrett’s antics, who could move through her day without feeling as though her emotions were riding a seesaw.

When she heard Chloe and Wyatt arrive, followed shortly thereafter by Chloe’s dad, she forcibly shoved away her sadness. There was time enough later for it to leak out when she was alone.

Chloe came over and gave her a one-armed hug. “You shouldn’t have done this,” she said so no one else could hear her.

“I needed to. A gal can only cry so much before she feels like her head is going to pop off.” Not that she didn’t expect more tears to visit her later that night, or in the days ahead, no matter that she wanted to be done with them.

“Okay, then. What can I do to help?”

“Start pouring drinks.”

A few minutes later, they all sat down to the dinner she’d prepared, lasagna with salads and garlic bread.

“This is great, Lin,” Chloe said.

“Yeah, way better than when Wyatt tried to cook for us when he was staying here,” Owen added.

“Oh, the frozen chicken episode,” Linnea said as she glanced across the table at Wyatt. “Heard all about that.”

Wyatt shook his head. “Y’all are never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Nope.” Garrett’s single-word answer set everyone to laughing.

Everyone but Linnea, although she managed a smile so it wasn’t so obvious. She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d cooked the meal to have something to do, and in appreciation for the Brodys letting her crash in their home for a few days. But as she saw the loving looks and small touches that passed between Chloe and Wyatt, Linnea would swear her heart was bleeding. She doubted anyone else even noticed those little evidences of a young couple in love, but she’d been no different only a couple of days before. It hurt to think about how all those adoring gazes and thrilling touches were gone forever.

The weight in her chest and the lump in her throat grew throughout the rest of dinner, to the point where she thought she might have to excuse herself. But somehow she managed to make it all the way through dessert. When she started to gather the dishes, Wayne stopped her.

“No, dear. You’ve done enough for tonight.”

By the time Chloe and Wyatt left a few minutes later, Linnea felt as if a bear were sitting on her chest. She slipped out the front door while the guys cleaned up the kitchen. The night air was still warm as she stepped out under a wide, starry sky. But none of that offered her any comfort as she walked toward the fence near the barn.

She leaned her arms against the top rail and looked up at the sky in time to see a shooting star. Without even thinking, she made a wish for the pain inside her to go away, to maybe even someday be happy again.

A sob broke free and she laid her head atop her arms and cried yet again, as if her body could produce an endless supply of tears. Linnea didn’t know how long she cried, but the worst was over when she heard a door close. She wiped the last of her tears from her cheeks, glad for the darkness should whoever had stepped outside come close.

She stared out across the darkened field as the sound of footsteps approached. Somehow she knew it was Owen before he came to stand beside her, propping his own arms on the fence.

“You overdosed on Brodys, didn’t you?”

She laughed the merest bit at that. “How did you know?”

“Keen sense of observation. It’s a gift.”

She glanced his way and lifted an eyebrow. “Is there any talent you won’t claim?”

“Ballet. Never got the hang of it.”

She laughed for real this time, drawing a smile from Owen that lit an ember of warmth in her heart. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For trying to make me feel better.”

His gaze met hers. “How am I doing?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Okay.” She’d like to say that all the pain was gone, but she knew that wasn’t going away overnight, no matter how funny and nice Owen was to her. “I’m sorry if I’m a downer to be around now.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. I just don’t like to see you sad. It’s so unlike you.”

“I guess heartache catches up to all of us at some point.”

“Yeah.”

Something about the way Owen stared out across the field, as if his thoughts were somewhere else, made her wonder what he was thinking about. Maybe he was remembering losing his mom when he was a child. She couldn’t imagine how horrible that had been, even though she knew the story well of how his mother had been killed by a hit-and-run driver.

Linnea experienced the most unexpected sense of connection with him in that moment. She took a deep breath and stared out into the expanse of darkness as well. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim light enough that she could now pick out a few cows in the distance. She took a slow, deep breath.

“I still can’t believe I almost married someone who is already married.” She saw Owen shift toward her out of the corner of her eye.

“How did you find out?”

“His wife showed up at the shop. Surprise!”

“God, Linnea, I’m sorry. Who the hell does that?”

“Obviously the guy I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Says a lot about my judgment, doesn’t it?”

“Sounds to me more like he’s a bastard in need of a good ass kicking.”

“I thought about it, but that means I’d have to see his lying face again. Decided it wasn’t worth it.”

Owen was quiet for a while, but she could feel the anger coming off him. Oddly, it made her feel better.

“I know it sucks, but I’m glad you found out before you married him.”

“Me, too.” And she realized it was true. Though she was shredded inside, it would have been so much worse to find out the truth after she’d gone through with the wedding. What a nightmare that would have been.

They stood there, side by side, in silence for several minutes before Owen stepped away from the fence. “I’ll stop invading your space.”

“If anyone is invading anyone’s space, it’s me.”

“Let that go. You know you might as well be part of the family.”

“Thanks, again.”

He nodded. “No problem. And if you decide Michael needs a good beat-down to make you feel better, just let me know. That can be arranged.”

“He’s not worth your time, either.”

“I don’t know. Might make me feel better.”

She smiled at Owen. “I’m sure you can find something more fun to do.”

He made a sound that seemed to say he wasn’t sure about that, and though she truly didn’t want him to go beat up Michael, she appreciated the thought.

After he said good-night, she faced the field again. It took a few minutes to realize it, but her heart felt lighter than it had when Owen came outside. She glanced back at the house. Even though she wasn’t really hot on the male half of the species at the moment, she had to say the Brody men were the exceptions. Especially the youngest of them.

* * *

WHEN OWEN STEPPED INSIDE, he glanced back through the window to see that Linnea was still standing at the fence staring off into the night. He hoped she wasn’t crying again, because the ass she’d been engaged to wasn’t worth her tears.

“She okay?” Garrett asked as he walked into the living room from the kitchen.

Owen turned to face his brother. “Been crying.”

“I heard her last night.”

“Did Chloe tell you what happened?”

Garrett shook his head. “No. All I know is what you said, that the wedding had been called off.”

“The jerk was already married.”

Garrett’s forehead wrinkled. “Lots of people have been married before. Did he not tell her?”

“No, he wasn’t married before. He’s still married. His wife showed up at Lin’s shop and dropped the bomb.”

Garrett cursed as Owen had when he heard the reason Linnea’s wedding was off.

“Good thing he’s nowhere near me right now.” Owen might not be everyone’s first pick as the most reliable, steady guy around, but you didn’t mess with his family. And Linnea had become a part of the family the first time she spent a spring break at the ranch with Chloe. He’d defend her the same as he would his sister.

Even after he went to bed, he couldn’t calm down enough to sleep. He hated that Linnea had shed one tear over Michael, that he’d given her cause for tears. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t figure out why someone would do what Michael had done. That was seriously messed up.

He fell asleep at some point after he heard Linnea come back inside, but when he woke up the next morning, the same pissed-off feeling was still clinging to him. He hated seeing injustices go unpunished, had ever since he was a little kid mourning the loss of his mother.

No, he didn’t want to think about that, especially not in the mood he was in. Instead, he shoved the quilt off his legs and got out of bed, dressed and headed out to the barn before the sun was fully up for the day. He wanted to use the time to work with the horse he’d bought to train.

After he’d worked with the big gray for about half an hour, the pent-up anger eased. He’d still likely punch Michael if he ever saw him, but working with the horse had soothed the savage beast a bit.

“Time to get to work,” his dad said as he and Garrett walked past the corral toward the barn.

Owen stopped and stared at their retreating backs, wondering what the hell his dad thought he was doing. Killing time? It was no use trying to explain that he was working, though. And a part of him understood why his dad and brother didn’t think his interest in training horses would last. After all, he hadn’t stuck with anything else over the years.

But this was different. All the rest he’d done because he was bored, wanting to try something different, unable to settle. But from the moment he’d realized he was more interested in what it took to make a good rodeo horse than actually riding in rodeo events, it was as if a fire had started within him. As if horse training might actually be his thing, his way to make his own mark on the family legacy. Garrett, as the oldest, was his father’s protégé on the ranch and seemed to be cut from the same cloth as their dad. Chloe’s domain had ventured into medicine even though she still pitched in plenty around the ranch when she could. Owen was ready to be known for something other than the family party boy. He just had to prove to his family that he was serious about it.

Until he could do that, he saddled up for another day tending to the cattle herd and checking fencing. As he rode out of the barn, he noticed Linnea sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee. She waved when she saw him, and he smiled as he tapped the brim of his hat with his index finger. He hadn’t heard her cry herself to sleep the night before, and that made him happy. An odd sense of pride filled him that maybe he’d had a small part to do with that. He just hoped that another day of hanging around the house alone didn’t give her too much time to fall back into that pit of sadness she’d been in. She needed to stay busy, and the perfect idea for how to help her stay out of her funk popped into his head. His smile grew as he followed his dad and brother out through the pasture for another day of work.

* * *

AS LINNEA HUNG UP on the last phone call she needed to make to completely cancel her wedding, she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or empty. She did know that she should go back to Dallas, return to her life and her business. She’d been hiding out at the Brodys’ ranch for the better part of a week, and she suspected they’d like to have their man cave back.