Her Twins' Cowboy Dad

A cowboy committed to bachelorhood

…until these little Montana Twins change everything

Thanks to his dysfunctional family, cowboy-to-the-bone Colt Hardin insists marriage and fatherhood aren’t for him. But then his uncle dies, leaving Colt the ranch he’s always wanted—and the herd to his late cousin’s mischievous twin toddlers. Now Colt must find a solution with their pretty mother, Jane Marshall. Can these little cherubs show Jane and Colt what a family can truly be?

PATRICIA JOHNS writes from Alberta, Canada. She has her Hon. BA in English literature and currently writes for Harlequin’s Love Inspired and Heartwarming lines. You can find her at patriciajohnsromance.com.

Also by Patricia Johns

Montana Twins

Her Cowboy’s Twin Blessings

Her Twins’ Cowboy Dad

Comfort Creek Lawmen

Deputy Daddy

The Lawman’s Runaway Bride

The Deputy’s Unexpected Family

His Unexpected Family

The Rancher’s City Girl

A Firefighter’s Promise

The Lawman’s Surprise Family

A Baxter’s Redemption

The Runaway Bride

A Boy’s Christmas Wish

Her Lawman Protector

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Her Twins’ Cowboy Dad

Patricia Johns

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09629-4

HER TWINS’ COWBOY DAD

© 2019 Patricia Johns

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Was this what other people felt like when they had a family?

The door to the foyer opened and Jane appeared, her gaze landing on Colt with a look of surprise. She was beautiful standing there.

“Micha took off on me,” Colt whispered. “I wasn’t quick enough.”

“She does do that,” Jane whispered back, and she put one twin toddler down on the pew between them before reaching for the other. “Were you being a stinker, Michal Ann?”

Micha looked at her mother innocently as Jane scooped the toddler into her lap.

“I think you were,” Jane whispered, but there was a smile tickling the corners of her lips. “Be nice to him, Micha. He’s not used to this.”

Jane looked over at him and smiled, and he felt that sense of camaraderie again. It felt good coming from her. It wasn’t about pleasing a group or fitting in... It was just a moment between the two of them. Of all the people who had known him for years, Jane probably understood him best.

And that was dangerous ground...

Dear Reader,

Is marriage only a piece of paper? A lot of people argue that, especially if they’ve been hurt. But I believe that marriage is a whole lot more than just a legal arrangement. There’s something about those vows... Before you get married, you love each other deeply and you’d lay down your life for that other person. But after the vows, it’s like a circle closes. It isn’t only about emotion, but something deeper. Some people believe that marriage is a sacrament, and I understand that! Marriage is challenging. It’s beautiful. It’s holy. It deepens and develops us.

In this book, I wanted to look at marriage—not just the wedding day—and what it means to me. I hope you enjoy this story, and if you’d like to connect with me, you can find me online at PatriciaJohnsRomance.com. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter.

Patricia

The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.

—Proverbs 21:1

To my husband, whom I love more every day. The years together only make it sweeter.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Dear Reader

Bible Verse

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Colt Hardin stood by a window on the second floor of an office building in downtown Creekside, Montana, cowboy hat under one arm, trying to calm his thoughts as he looked out over the street. The building itself was only three stories, but it was the highest one in that little ranching town. A few pickup trucks slowed to a stop at the streetlight, windows rolled down to let in the warm July breeze. One of the trucks had an old dog in the back, trotting back and forth along the truck bed. The light changed to green, and the trucks rolled forward again. Colt preferred trails and fields, horseback or the rattling old ranch truck. Town was just too busy for his liking.

Colt tapped his hat against his thigh, attempting to quiet that jitter inside him. Uncle Beau passed away a few days ago, and he had been called to the lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. If Uncle Beau hadn’t changed anything, Colt was inheriting it all.

Old Beau had been a complicated guy in life—a good rancher and a neighbor who could be counted on when weather went bad or times got tough. He was gruff, stubborn, often narrow-minded, but with a sensitive side that had surprised Colt more than once. But as kind as he could be to a neighbor, he was unmovable when it came to family. Once his mind was made up about someone, there was no changing it, and that character flaw had torn apart the family. It was only because those relationships were in tatters that Colt was set to inherit everything.

Beau’s marriage to his aunt had shown him that marriage was difficult...and, it turned out, so was keeping any kind of functional relationship with a man’s kids. Josh was an only child—it shouldn’t have been that complicated. And Colt didn’t have his own father in his life, so Beau had been the closest he’d had to a dad. That wasn’t a sweet sentiment, either, because Beau was the main reason he’d been steering clear of getting married and starting a family of his own.

A patter of little shoes came up the stairs, and Colt glanced over as two redheaded toddlers in matching floral-print dresses emerged into the hallway and immediately scampered in opposite directions. A slim woman with dark hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head appeared behind them and jogged after the squealing toddler who dashed down the hall, while the other little girl headed in his direction. The woman wore a pink sundress that fluttered behind her in a wave, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she’d catch both children.

The little girls had flaming-red curls that bounced at the sides of their heads in matching pigtails... Some distant relative of Beau Marshall, perhaps? The Marshalls were known for their fiery red hair. Colt was related to Beau through Beau’s wife’s side of the family, so his hair was a dark brown that women made a point of telling him shone auburn in the sunlight.

The woman scooped up the giggling girl and came back down the hall, a bag bouncing against one hip and the toddler secured on the other.

“Michal, come back here...” the woman called to the toddler who’d dashed in his direction, and the tiny girl looked up at Colt for a moment, round brown gaze meeting his soberly. She took a step to the side to head around him and he matched her, eyeing her with a small smile. He could see the mischief in that little face.

“Could you just head her off?” the woman asked, hoisting the other toddler a little higher in her arms as she approached. “She’s quick.”

“I’ll try,” he said. The toddler swerved past him and he shot an arm out, scooping the youngster up as she let out a surprised squeak. She was as light as a barn cat, and those little legs gave a couple of kicks as he spun her around to face her mother, then handed her over.

“Thanks.” The woman’s face broke into a smile as she gathered the second toddler in her arms. “I thought it was hard to carry around two car seats. I had no idea how bad it would be once they were walking.”

“I can only imagine,” he said with a short laugh. “Michael—that’s an odd name for a girl.”

“I liked it.” She gave him a tired smile. “It’s Biblical. David’s first wife.”

“Oh, right.” Yeah, he vaguely remembered that. Not Michael, but Michal.

She looked over at the lawyer’s office door, then down at a scrap of paper in one hand that she could just see past the toddler. Colt noticed the building address written in cursive, followed by the office number.

“Are you here to see Mr. Davis?” Colt asked.

She nodded. “You, too?”

“Yeah. I’m Colt Hardin. And you are...?”

The color drained from her face and she licked her lips. Did she recognize his name? “Jane Marshall. Pleasure.”

“So you’re...a relative of Beau’s?” he asked, and his stomach sank. There weren’t too many Marshalls left—at least not in name. It seemed like every Marshall family had girl after girl, and after they married and took their husbands’ names there was yet another branch of the family tree without the Marshall name. Beau had complained about it to no end.

“My husband was Josh Marshall,” she replied. “He died, but Beau Marshall was his father.”

Josh—his cousin. Colt’s heart stuttered, then hammered to catch up. So this was the wife—but he didn’t even know that Josh had had kids. None of the family had ever seen pictures of his wife—Josh had only announced his marriage and then gone silent. This woman was slim, with dark hair and pale skin. She was pretty, but rumpled. Her pink sundress tugged up at one hip where she held Michal, and the other toddler was pulling at a loose thread at her shoulder.

“You’re Josh’s wife?” Colt repeated. His voice sounded choked in his own ears.

She nodded. “I am. And you’re his cousin. Josh told me about you.”

That was almost more than he could say. When Josh took off for the city, he’d cut contact with all of them except for an email once every few years with some pertinent information, like when he joined the army and when he got married. And the army had told them when Josh was killed... So Colt had heard absolutely nothing about her besides the fact that she’d married into the family.

“What was your name, again?” he asked.

“Jane Marshall,” she replied. “This is Susanna and Michal, or Suzie and Micha for short.”

“They have the Marshall look,” he said. The fiery red hair that hung in curls around those identical, chubby faces, for one. “But Josh died, what, three years ago?”

“They are Marshalls,” she replied, her tone hardening just a touch. “Josh never got to meet them. He...” She swallowed. “He died before they were born.”

“He never told us—” he said.

“Yes, he did. He told his father I was pregnant,” she cut him off. “Beau contacted me once after they were born.”

“Really.” Beau had never mentioned it to him, and they’d worked together daily for twenty years. Beau had complained often enough about his ungrateful son.

So there had been granddaughters that Beau had never made reference to. That was just like the man—keep Colt working like a horse and never tell him anything that might interfere with his dedication to the ranch. Because Josh wasn’t any help at all having left for the city, and Colt had been the one to shoulder the responsibility of keeping this ranch running all these years. Beau’s health had only been getting worse, and he’d been handing off more and more of the daily running of the place until Colt was doing just about everything. Beau had promised Colt ten years ago that he’d leave him the ranch, keep it in the family. In fact, that was what pushed Josh away to begin with, when Beau told him that if he wasn’t going to take ranching seriously, he’d cut him out of the will. Not a single acre would go to Josh, Beau had vowed, but now that Josh’s widow was here for the reading of the will, he had to wonder if Beau had been stringing him along all these years.

Anything was possible with Beau.

The office door opened and Steve Davis, a portly older gentlemen, poked his head out. Colt knew the lawyer relatively well. There weren’t too many lawyers in Creekside, and he attended the same church that Colt did. Steve had been at the funeral.

“Colt, again, I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Thank you.” Colt stepped forward and shook Steve’s hand. “I appreciate it.”

“And you must be Jane?” Steve asked turning to the woman beside him.

“Yes, that’s me.” She hitched a toddler higher on her hip. “I hope bringing the girls with me wasn’t a problem.”

“No, of course not,” Steve said. “Let’s go into my office.”

Colt stood back as Jane passed into the office first. Micha stared at him with those big brown eyes as she passed, while Suzie seemed more interested in trying to squirm out of her mother’s arms. He stepped into the office after Jane, then pulled the door shut behind him. Jane took a seat in front of Steve’s wide desk and dug in her shoulder bag, emerging with a ziplock bag of crackers.

Colt eased into the seat next to her, and he watched as she doled out crackers into the toddlers’ hands. They sat down on the floor, two crackers each, and set to munching on them.

“You were the only people mentioned in Beau Marshall’s will,” Steve began. “Colt, you were named, as well as his grandchildren. After Josh’s death, Beau updated his will so that their mother would be conservator of their inheritance if he were to die while they were still minors.”

“He knew about them,” Colt said woodenly.

“Yes,” Steve confirmed. “He did. He spoke to me about them after they were born.”

“Josh told him about my pregnancy,” Jane said. “Josh died when I was about six months pregnant and he was deployed. Anyway, I emailed Beau with a couple of pictures once they were born. I think Josh would have wanted that.”

“Did anyone else know?” Colt asked, still trying to make sense of all of this in his head. How much had his uncle been hiding from him?

“Not that I know of,” Steve replied. “Beau was a man who kept his own counsel. I think you know that.” Steve opened a file folder and looked between Colt and Jane.

“A conservator—what does that mean?” Jane asked.

“It means that you will be able to manage your daughters’ inheritance as you see fit and split the remainder of it between them when they turn eighteen.”

“Oh...”

“Let’s get started, shall we?” Steve said.

Colt looked over at Jane, and she glanced toward him at the same time. She looked nervous—her lips were pale and she was fidgeting with that plastic bag of crackers. He knew what Beau had promised him, but he also knew exactly how far Beau could be trusted. Somehow, after Josh left because of this will and all the pain the family went through surrounding it, Colt hadn’t considered the idea that Beau might change the will completely. But it was possible.

“To Colt Hardin, my nephew, I leave the ranch,” Steve read, his voice calm and quiet, and Colt felt a wave of relief. “I leave him all of the land, the buildings and the debt that has accrued over the years. Of anyone, Colt will be able to make something of it. I’m pleased to keep this ranch in the family.”

The ranch. Thank You, God. He knew the land was mortgaged to the hilt, but if everything just continued as it was, he could work his way out of debt. The ranch was his. Uncle Beau had done as he’d promised, and Colt could go on running this ranch like he’d hoped.

Steve turned toward Jane. “And to my grandchildren, the children of my only son, Joshua Marshall, I leave the herd to be split between them equally.”

The lawyer’s words hung in the air, and Colt felt like his breath had been knocked out of his chest. Beau had left Colt the land, but he’d given his toddler granddaughters the cattle? How on earth was he supposed to run a floundering ranch when he didn’t own the actual animals? Beau had kept his promise, all right. Colt had the land. But without that herd, without the income at market time, Colt could lose it all.

* * *

Jane stared at the lawyer as the moment seemed to slow down and stretch out in front of her. She’d had no idea what Josh’s dad had left to her girls, but the fact that he’d named them in his will had felt like an answer to prayer when she’d gotten the call. Jane didn’t know what she’d been hoping for, besides some family connection for her daughters. She had some death benefits from the military, but most of that had been soaked up in paying off debt. Josh had been a spender—when he got home, he didn’t want to worry about “bills and stuff.” He just wanted to enjoy the American Dream. So now she was proudly debt free, but very little was left over besides the monthly payments that came to her. And twins were expensive to raise. She had to find a way to provide for her daughters because her job with a maid service had just ended. But cattle?

“What does that mean, exactly?” Jane asked hesitantly. “He gave my daughters cows?”

The lawyer nodded. “Yes.”

“How many cows are in the herd, exactly?” she asked.

The lawyer smiled indulgently. “Currently, it consists of four hundred and eighty cows.”

“What am I supposed to do with them?” she asked feebly.

Micha put a sodden cracker into Jane’s hand, and she instinctively closed her fingers around it.

“That’s where you have some decisions to make,” Mr. Davis replied. “You have a few options. Once the paperwork is finalized, of course.”

“Of course...” she breathed. “But what options?”

“You could sell the herd back to Colt here, for one,” Mr. Davis replied. “Or you could move the herd to another ranch, if you own one.”

“I don’t,” she murmured.

“Or you could work out some other deal with Colt.”

Jane looked over at Colt, but his expression was granite. He was staring at a spot on the carpet between his boots. Right now, she didn’t even know where she was going to stay. She was homeless with two little girls and nothing but the hope of an inheritance to sustain her. She could feel the tears rising up inside her.

“First things first, though,” Mr. Davis said cheerily. “It’s going to take a week before all of this becomes finalized. Then you can both talk to your banks and decide upon a course of action.”

“The inheritance is for my girls, though,” Jane said. “You said I’m allowed to sell the cattle?”

“Beau has his will set up in such a way that you, as their mother, can manage their inheritance—the cattle or the money gotten from the sale of them—until they are eighteen. At which point, whatever is left will be divided between them. He wanted to make sure that you could provide for them in their formative years.”

“Okay...” That was particularly kind of her late father-in-law. Jane didn’t want to deprive her girls of their rightful inheritance from their grandfather, but she did need to care for the girls in the meantime. At least there was some ability for her to do that.

“Why did he do this?” Colt broke in.

“That’s a good question,” Jane agreed. “We’re going to have cattle and nowhere to put them, and Colt is going to have a ranch and no cattle!”

“I think that’s the point, isn’t it?” Mr. Davis asked. “An earlier version of the will had the cattle going to Josh, not the girls. Beau was hoping that when he passed on, Josh might...come home.”

“And we’d work together,” Colt concluded.

“Yes,” Mr. Davis said with a nod. “That was his hope.”

Colt grunted, and Jane glanced over at him again. If this had been a plan to reunite the cousins, it was too late for that.

“So why leave the cattle to my daughters after my husband died?” Jane asked.

“The ranch was remortgaged,” Mr. Davis said. “There was a lot of debt, and he didn’t want to cut his grandchildren out of his will. He didn’t have any cash to leave to them, and quite honestly, he was hoping that after a few years, he’d have built up a little more wealth, gotten past the rough patch. Then he could have reworked his will again. He didn’t get the chance, unfortunately. This was his worst-case scenario, I’m afraid, but he still hoped that his granddaughters would have a connection with the family again.”

“He wanted my girls to know their family,” she breathed.

“That’s what he told me.” Mr. Davis smiled gently. “But that’s no pressure on you, okay? We all have a certain number of years in our lifetimes in order to make up for our mistakes. Beau ran out of time, as sad as that is. But that doesn’t mean that you owe him anything.”