Second Chance Cowboy

He stepped to her so quickly she didn’t have a chance to react.

His arm encircled her waist. He pulled her to him, his mouth dropping to hers.

The kiss took her even more by surprise. It was filled with passion and yearning and possession.

And when it ended, he pulled back to look in her eyes. “Please give me a second chance.”

She could do nothing more than nod, her heart a thunder in her chest as he slipped her hand into his large one and they walked across the street like that. She knew the others would be watching from the store-front window, speculating, but she didn’t care. His kiss had warmed her all over and his hand felt so good, warm, lightly calloused, strong.

He drove her out to his ranch, touching her cheek or her hand or her arm occasionally on the way as if afraid she might bolt.

BJ Daniels wrote her first book after a career as an award-winning newspaper journalist and author of thirty-seven published short stories. That first book, Odd Man Out, received a 4½ star review from Romantic Times BOOKreviews and went on to be nominated for Best Intrigue for that year. Since then she has won numerous awards, including a career achievement award for romantic suspense and numerous nominations and awards for best book.

Daniels lives in Montana with her husband, Parker, and two springer spaniels, Spot and Jem. When she isn’t writing, she snowboards, camps, boats and plays tennis. Daniels is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, Thriller Writers, Kiss of Death and Romance Writers of America.

To contact her, write to: BJ Daniels, PO Box 1173, Malta, MT 59538, USA or e-mail her at bjdaniels@mtintouch. net. Check out her web page at www.bjdaniels.com.

Second Chance
Cowboy

by

BJ Daniels

MILLS & BOON^®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Many thanks to my good friend Lynn Kinnaman for not

only encouraging me to write this book, but for giving

me the ending and making us both cry.

Chapter One

Friday, 2:43 p.m.

Charlotte Evans was already late for her doctor’s appointment when she looked up and saw a silver SUV blocking the narrow road into town.

The hood of the SUV was up. No sign of the driver.

“Great,” Charlotte muttered as she braked to a stop. She should have taken the main road. But, as was her habit, she preferred taking the shortcut into town even though it was more rugged. Normally it was faster. Less chance of getting behind a tractor or a doddering old farmer in a beatup pickup or cowboys moving a herd of cattle.

She considered turning around. But the barrow pits on both sides of the road were deep and muddy from last night’s rain, the road too narrow and steep here above the creek—and, in her condition, an insane idea. There were enough crazy people in her family as it was.

She waited for a moment, motor running. It was one of those hot July days, the Montana sky wide and blue, only a few clouds dotting the horizon. She had her window down, since her old car didn’t have air-conditioning. The hot summer air was making her sweat. She hated to sweat.

Still no sign of the driver. She beeped her horn.

A hand waved a hello from under the hood.

“Terrific,” Charlotte said under her breath and shut off her engine. How long was this going to take?

It was hard enough living so far from town, let alone getting herself behind the wheel eight months pregnant.

She really didn’t need this. To make matters worse, on the way to Whitehorse she’d started having contractions.

It would be just her luck to have this baby beside the road. Somehow that might be fitting, she thought. She just hoped the driver of the SUV knew how to deliver a baby.

Opening her car door, she maneuvered her ungainly belly from behind the steering wheel and got out. She told herself she would never have gotten pregnant if she’d known even half of the things that were going to happen to her body. If only.

Slamming her car door, she waddled toward the SUV, cursing under her breath.

A head appeared as the driver leaned out from the front of the car. “Sorry, didn’t hear you drive up,” the female driver called. “Had my head stuck under the hood.” The head disappeared again.

Charlotte wondered how things could get worse. She just hoped this woman knew what she was doing under there.

At least if the driver had been a man, there might be a chance he could get the car moved out of the way so she could get to town.

She stopped for a moment as another contraction took her breath away. She remembered her doctor saying something about false labor. She hoped that was what this was. Maybe she should have read even one of the books her mother kept buying her about labor and delivery, Lamaze, breast feeding and child rearing.

The last book really was a kick, since her mother had done such a bang-up job with her three, Charlotte thought uncharitably. Actually, being pregnant had made her wonder how her mother had gone through it three times much less raised three kids alone.

As Charlotte waddled the rest of the way up to the front of the SUV, she saw that the woman was teetering on the bumper as she leaned under the hood to work on the engine—wearing a pair of latex gloves, of all things.

“It just quit running,” the woman said, looking up. She was at least fifteen years older than Charlotte, with brown hair and eyes and a look of privilege about her. Charlotte would have hated her on sight except that the woman had a smudge of grease on her cheek and she was almost as pregnant as Charlotte herself.

The woman smiled. “Know anything about cars?”

She’d taken an auto mechanics course last year in high school, but she hadn’t paid any attention. She shook her head with a silent groan. Apparently this could get worse. “Did you call AAA or one of the local garages in town?”

“No cell phone coverage out here.”

“I really need to get to my doctor’s appointment,” Charlotte said. “If we could just move your car over a little, I think I can squeeze mine past. I can drive you into town and you can get someone to come back out with you to work on it.”

“I think I’ve got it fixed. Would you mind getting in and trying to start it while I jiggle this cable?”

Charlotte sighed. Just the thought of trying to climb into the huge SUV—She bent over a little, grimacing as she was hit with another contraction.

The woman was giving her a worried look. “Tell me you aren’t in labor.”

Charlotte held up her hand and breathed through the contraction. It felt so good when it stopped. “False labor.” She hoped.

“How far along are you?” the woman asked, studying her.

“Eight months.” The lie came so naturally. “You?”

“Seven. So how close are your contractions?”

Charlotte shrugged. “Not that close.”

“Your first baby?”

Charlotte nodded and felt the woman looking at her ring finger. “I’m separated from the father.” That was actually kind of true. “I’m older than I look.” Another lie.

“Must be difficult. Having a baby all by yourself.”

She had her mother and her worthless brother, but she didn’t mention that. She knew how pathetic it would sound. Even more pathetic if the woman knew the half of it.

“You can understand why I need to get into town to the doctor,” Charlotte said.

“Yes. We definitely need to see to you. But I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. Just pop behind the wheel and try to start the engine. This should at least allow us to get the car out of the way if nothing else. Neither of us is up to pushing it.”

The woman had a point. Although arguing was second nature to Charlotte, who’d been arguing for years. With her older sister. With her mother. With her brother. With herself.

But she wasn’t up to it right now, and the woman was right. She didn’t want to have to push the SUV out of the way and she doubted she could get past it anyway, as steep and unstable as the edge of the road was.

She opened the door of the pricey SUV and, with great effort, pulled herself up to slide behind the wheel. Her feet were a mile from the gas pedal.

“I need to move the seat forward,” she called as she bent over as best she could to look for a handle.

She felt the cool metal the moment it was jammed against her throat.

The pregnant thirtysomething driver of the SUV held a gun in her hand. It was so incongruous: this obviously wealthy pregnant woman with the expensive clothes, salon haircut and freshly manicured nails beneath latex gloves holding a gun on her.

It made no sense. That was probably why it didn’t register that she was in serious trouble until it was too late.

Chapter Two

Friday, 3:15 p.m.

At the Whitehorse Sewing Circle, the women gathered around the quilting frame were unusually quiet on this hot summer afternoon.

Normally they would have been abuzz with chatter. Instead they were sipping lemonade, eating the dainty little cookies Laci Cavanaugh had sent over, and smiling a lot—while busting at the seams to share the latest gossip the moment Pearl Cavanaugh left.

Pearl, whose mother had started the group too many years ago for most to remember, had a strict rule about gossip.

But Pearl hadn’t been coming for months since her stroke, and the group had taken to gossiping and quilting with a relish. Pearl had been living at the nursing home until recently. Now that she was better and mobile in her wheelchair, Titus had brought her home to stay.

She hadn’t quite gotten the knack of sewing with her left hand, but she tried hard. And there wasn’t anyone in the group who was going to say she couldn’t sew if she wanted to.

To a lot of people Pearl and Titus Cavanaugh were Old Town Whitehorse royalty. Both were feared—if not respected.

“Well, isn’t Pearl looking well,” said Alice Miller the moment Titus had wheeled his wife out the door.

It wasn’t until they heard the crunch of gravel as Titus left with his wife that Helene Merchant gave out a relieved sigh accompanied by a laugh and said, “I thought we were never going to get to visit.”

A few of the women laughed with her. Alice Miller, who always sided against gossip, pursed her lips but said nothing. She had tried since Pearl left to keep the women in line, but she was ninety and had given up, saving her energy for quilting.

The problem was, in Old Town Whitehorse there was always something to talk about. Even on a slow day there was always the Evans family.

Old Town was the site of the original Whitehorse. But when the railroad came through five miles to the north, by the Milk River, the town had moved and taken the name with it.

Some of the more hearty homesteaders had stayed in what was now called Old Town. They’d kept the original Whitehorse Cemetery—the name forged in a wrought-iron arch over the entrance—where many of their kin rested for eternity.

The Whitehorse Community Center, the one-room schoolhouse and a few houses were all that was left of the town. Titus Cavanaugh, Pearl’s husband, still performed church services at the center on Sundays and took care of hiring a schoolteacher for the school. He was as close to a mayor as Old Town had.

“Have you heard any more about Violet Evans?” Pamela Chambers asked in a whisper, as if the walls had ears.

“That crazy place she’s in gave her a job,” Helene said. “She’s working at a nurses’ station. The word is they’re going to let her out of the nuthouse and back on the streets. Doctors.”

“It scares me,” Muriel Brown said. “We all know how dangerous she is. Remember the summer all the cats disappeared? Violet always had that look in her eye from the time she was little.”

Even Alice Miller couldn’t argue the point.

“The other daughter—Charlotte? She’s about to have a baby any day,” Corky Mathews said. “How old is she anyway?”

“Eighteen, nineteen at the oldest,” Helene said. “Anyone heard who was responsible for fathering the baby?”

There was a general shake of heads. This had been a popular topic for months. “Could be anyone,” Helene said. “But you know what I heard at the Cut and Curl?”

The women all leaned in. Except for Alice Miller, who sometimes wished her hearing wasn’t as good as it was.

“It was some older man from out of town.” Helene nodded and went back to her stitching.

“Poor Arlene. You have to feel for her,” Muriel said. “Look how her children have turned out. Violet crazy, Charlotte in the family way and Bo, well, is he the most worthless young man you’ve ever seen? I wonder if Arlene will ever come back to the group.”

Looks were exchanged around the table, along with shrugs. Arlene did always have the latest gossip, but with Pearl returning now…

“Eve Bailey’s marrying the sheriff,” Alice Miller threw in, hoping to give the poor Evans family a break.

The conversation turned to weddings and the possibility of more babies. The Whitehorse Sewing Circle was famous for its quilts. For years the circle had made a quilt for every newborn.

“I saw the cutest pattern,” Pamela said, and the afternoon passed in a blur of talk of quilt patterns, material and—always a good standby—food and the latest recipe one of them had tried, as the group stitched away just as it had done for years.

Friday, 6:38 p.m.

ARLENE EVANS STARED at the image in the mirror and felt like crying. She’d changed clothes four times already. If she didn’t make up her mind and quickly, she was going to be late. Why had she accepted a date in the first place? She was too old to date.

When Hank Monroe had asked her out, she’d been so excited and surprised she hadn’t thought about the actual date part. But the reality set in the moment she went to buy something to wear.

For years she hadn’t given a thought to the way she looked. No one else had, either. Floyd, her former husband of too many years to count, had hardly given her a sideways glance. So she’d worn what any working ranch woman wore: an oversize long-sleeved Western shirt, jeans and boots. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn a dress—and she’d bet neither could anyone else in the county.

Her brown hair was long, thick and straight as a stick—the same haircut she’d had in high school, which she trimmed herself when she remembered. Usually her hair was either swept up in a ponytail or thrust under a hat, so she paid little attention to it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn her hair down, let alone curled it.

“Stop acting foolish,” she snapped at her image in the mirror as she snatched up an elastic band and pulled her drooping curls up into a ponytail.

She took off the dress she’d spent too much money on, tears welling in her eyes as she recalled how cute it had looked on the hanger.

“What did you expect?” she asked herself, sounding just like her mother. Her mother, even dead for years, was right. “Can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

Arlene hurriedly washed the makeup she’d experimented with from her face and changed into a shirt, jeans and boots. She was what she was, and this date with Hank Monroe was a one-time shot.

She thought about the first time she’d seen him and couldn’t help but smile. He’d called about signing up for her rural Internet dating service. His voice had been deep and soft and had a strange thrilling effect on her.

They’d agreed to meet at a local café so she could get him signed up. She’d been nervous about meeting him because he wasn’t like most of her clients—twenty- to thirtysomething. He was forty-eight—mature, like herself.

The minute she’d walked into the café, she’d spotted him. He’d looked up and their eyes had met.

It sounded ridiculous, she knew, but her heart had begun to pound wildly. Hank Monroe wasn’t handsome, but there was a masculine strength in his features and in the broad shoulders, slim hips and long legs cased in denim. He looked like a man who could wrestle grizzly bears if he had a mind to.

And, her smile growing as she remembered the first time he’d laughed, he’d made her laugh, surprising them both since hers resembled a donkey’s bray.

Hank Monroe had made her feel young and beautiful—all the things she wasn’t.

Which should be a clue.

Her mother again. But it was true. Hank had signed up for her dating service to meet women, not date the owner of the service. Who knows why he’d asked her out? Just being polite, she could only assume, suddenly glad she hadn’t dressed up. No reason to act like this was a real date after all.

As she came out of her bedroom, she found her son Bo sitting on the couch, watching television, a huge bag of potato chips in his lap, his bare feet up on her coffee table.

With a frown, she brushed his feet off the table and took the bag of chips from him even as he protested.

“Hey! What am I supposed to eat for dinner?” he groused.

“There are leftovers in the fridge,” she said, putting a clip on the chips and taking a cloth back to the living room to wipe the smudges from the coffee table.

“Leftovers?” he demanded indignantly.

She turned down the television volume and straightened to look at her twenty-three-year-old son. He’d been her pride and joy. In her eyes he could do no wrong. She shuddered as she recalled when that had changed.

“Where is your sister?” she asked, determined not to get into an argument with him. Not before her date, anyway.

He shrugged.

Arlene realized she hadn’t seen Charlotte since her almost-nineteen-year-old had left for her doctor’s appointment earlier that afternoon. Charlotte’s old blue sedan wasn’t parked out front, and Arlene realized she hadn’t heard Bo and Charlotte arguing for hours.

“She should be back from her doctor’s appointment by now. Did she call?”

Bo’s attention was back on the television. “Nope.”

Arlene frowned, hoping the appointment had gone well. Charlotte had been more irritable than usual before she’d left. Arlene remembered how uncomfortable it was being pregnant the last few months. She wondered if Charlotte wasn’t having second thoughts about keeping the baby. She could only hope.

“Well, when your sister gets home. make sure she eats something besides potato chips and candy bars. Remind her she’s feeding a baby who needs something nutritious to eat.”

For a moment Arlene thought about canceling her date. If she didn’t cook something, she was afraid neither Bo nor Charlotte would eat properly.

“Promise me you’ll eat and make sure Charlotte does.”

Bo rolled his eyes. He’d heard this enough times. For months she’d harped on Charlotte to take care of herself for the baby’s sake. Not that Charlotte had any business being pregnant, Arlene thought as she headed for her car—and her date.

Her date. What had she been thinking? Dating was for people half her age who still had the stamina—and the optimism. She had neither.

She’d made a point of insisting she would meet Hank Monroe at the restaurant. He’d wanted to pick her up at her house, but the last thing she wanted was for him to meet her family. She knew that once he did, it would be the kiss of death, and she just wanted to enjoy this moment in time knowing it couldn’t last anyway.

Why shoot herself in the foot before she even got out of the starting gate?

HANK MONROE LOOKED up as his date came through the restaurant door. He smiled, recalling the first time he’d laid eyes on her. What was it about Arlene that had resonated with his own life? He couldn’t be sure. Something in her soft brown eyes. In the determined set of her shoulders. In her hesitant, shy smile.

And that laugh…

Now, as he watched her tug her shirt down over her slim jeans and saw how uncomfortable she looked as she glanced around the restaurant, he felt his heart go out to her again.

Arlene was tall and rangy like a lot of Montana ranch women. Nothing like his petite, classically pretty ex-wife Bitsy. He tried not to see Arlene through Bitsy’s eyes. Bitsy took everything at face value. She would never have understood what he saw in this woman. But then, Bitsy had never understood him, had she?

Nor would Bitsy appreciate a woman like Arlene Evans. Few people would, he realized. Bitsy had always been comfortable in her skin. Arlene, he suspected, never had.

He rose quickly, his smile broadening, hoping to reassure her. “You look wonderful.” It was true, although he saw she didn’t believe it.

Her cheeks flared. “I didn’t know what to wear.”

“Your choice was perfect.” He pulled out the chair for her and mentally kicked himself. He shouldn’t have picked a fancy restaurant for their first date.

As he took the chair across from her, he watched her try to relax. Something else that didn’t come easy for Arlene. The woman had an energy that was like being close to a live electrical wire.

“I haven’t been on a date in a while,” she said.

He smiled. “Me either. Feels odd, huh?”

“Yes. But…nice.”

It did feel nice. “So tell me how the matchmaking business is going,” he said, leaning toward her.

She brightened and told him she had a half dozen new clients just this week alone. “I still can’t believe it.”

“You had a great idea and you’ve made it happen. You should be very proud of yourself.”

“Knock on wood,” she said, lightly tapping the table.

She didn’t seem the superstitious type. He wondered what had her worried. Or if, like him, she was leery when things seemed to be going too well.

LATER THAT NIGHT, after their date, Hank had that exact feeling as he checked the perimeter of the ranch house, as he always did before he entered the house. Old habits died hard. Other people would have thought it paranoid. For him it was merely prudent and part of his life. The life he’d once chosen and had only recently escaped from.

He’d had a great time tonight. That alone worried him. He’d signed up for the dating service on a whim. Once he’d met Arlene, he hadn’t wanted to meet any other women. He wasn’t even sure he was ready to date. It felt too dangerous. But he’d asked Arlene out. And he couldn’t say he was sorry. Just worried.

There were some things that were inescapable. Guilt. Regret. And his old life. It dwarfed the other two in comparison.

That was the reason he never bothered to lock his house. He knew from experience how easy it was to get into any house, even those with expensive security systems. He had bought the ranch from a corporation that had used the house for conferences.

Because of that, the place was way too large for him. But he’d fallen in love with the view of the Little Rockies and he’d told himself that with all the land surrounding the place he would be as safe here as anywhere.

As he stepped into the house, he found himself whistling. He couldn’t remember a night he’d enjoyed more. Arlene was a fun date—once she relaxed.

They’d had dinner, then gone to the movie—the only one in Whitehorse. A comedy had been showing. That was something else he had in common with Arlene—the way they laughed.

“You bray like a donkey,” Bitsy had told him when they’d first gotten together. “You really need to do something about that.”

He’d quit laughing around her.

During the movie, he’d found himself simply enjoying the sound of Arlene’s laugh. It had felt so good, so natural.

Later, he’d thought about kissing her good-night but had chickened out. Coward. The desire had been there. He’d told himself he was just afraid of scaring her off. Clearly this dating thing was as alien to her as it was to him.

But he knew that he was the one who wanted to take it slow. That was another thing they shared—the feeling that when things were going too well, something was bound to happen to jinx it.

As he passed his office, he saw that the message light on his answering machine was flashing. He preferred an answering machine with small disposable tapes over voice mail. Just as he’d always periodically checked his house and car for listening devices. Even here on the ranch in Montana.

He would have liked to believe he’d dropped off his former associates’ radar. But he’d worked for the agency too long to pretend that was even possible.

Still, as he pushed the play button, he was startled to hear a familiar voice.

“Hank, it’s Cameron. Call me. We need to catch up. It’s been too long.”

He stared down at the machine, shaken. By the unexpected sound of his old friend and former boss’s voice as much as by the calmness of the words—and the underlying threat. Code words. They brought it all back, and for a moment it was as if he’d never left the agency.

He didn’t need to replay the message. He quickly deleted it, knowing it was futile to think that would be the end of it. The words echoed in his head. Code words that informed him there’s been a breach in security. He was in danger.

ARLENE EVANS WOKE smiling. That alone shocked her. Normally the blare of Bo’s music down the hall or the sound of Charlotte clamoring around in the kitchen started her day off wrong.

But this morning, after her date with Hank Monroe, nothing could ruin her good mood. They’d had a nice dinner. He’d been easy to talk to. The movie had been enjoyable. They’d stood out in the moonlight and talked afterward.

She been afraid he’d kiss her. And afraid he wouldn’t. He didn’t. But he’d asked her out again. She felt like a schoolgirl.

Just the thought seemed…foolish. She was too old to be having these feelings. Especially the ones Hank Monroe had sparked with just the brush of his fingers when they’d both reached for the popcorn at the same time. Or when he’d put his arm around her. Or touched her back with the palm of his hand as they’d left the theater. Desire after all these years of feeling nothing?

She rose and dressed, wrapped in the memory of the night before and the prospect of another date tonight. He’d also invited her to the county fair this coming weekend—his first county fair, he’d said.

She hadn’t told him, but she planned to enter in the baking division and almost always took blue ribbons. It was the one thing she excelled in, and normally she would be a nervous wreck worrying that she might not win this year. That she’d lost her touch.

But Hank Monroe had taken her mind off the fair this year.

Which, she reminded herself sternly, wasn’t good. Baking lasted. Men didn’t. “Stick to what you’re good at,” her mother had always said. “It’s little enough.”

Arlene felt her smile slip. She was making too much of one date with the man. Getting her hopes up was always a mistake.

She’d learned that the hard way, she thought, remembering high school dates that never showed while she waited by the window and her mother berated her for opening herself up to that kind of humiliation.

By the time Arlene reached the kitchen, she was no longer smiling. She yelled down the hall for Bo to turn down the music. He didn’t. She started to tell Charlotte to go down the hall and tell him when she noticed her daughter wasn’t lying on the couch, where she usually was this time of the morning. Nor was the television on or the kitchen counter a mess from where Charlotte had made herself a snack before breakfast.

More puzzled than worried, Arlene walked down the hall to her daughter’s bedroom and pushed open the door. The bed was just as it had been when Arlene made it the previous morning.

Charlotte hadn’t come home last night.

Stepping across the hall, she opened her son’s bedroom door. The room was bedlam—just the way he apparently liked it. He’d barred her from cleaning it, which she should have been grateful for. Instead the room was an embarrassment, a reflection on her.

“What if someone comes by and sees this mess?” she’d demanded time after time.

“No one comes by,” he’d said.

“Well, if anyone did, they’d think I was a terrible mother.”

Bo had laughed at that.

“Have you seen your sister?” she mouthed now over the horrible music blasting from his stereo.

He was sprawled on his bed, frowning at her and motioning for her to go away and close the door.

She reached over and grabbed the cord on the stereo and pulled hard. The music stopped, filling the room with an abrupt deafening silence.

“What?” he demanded.

“Your sister. She didn’t come home last night.”

“So?”

“She’s eight months pregnant.”

“I noticed. But I’m not my sister’s keeper.” He reached to plug the stereo back in, but she still held the cord and jerked it back out of his grasp.

“I want you to clean your room.”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind.

“I’m serious, Bo.”

He mugged a face at her.

“I also want you to get a job.”

He let out a surprised laugh. “I have a job. I help you with your Internet dating service.”

“No, you don’t.” She tossed him the end of the cord and closed the door behind her, telling herself she shouldn’t be worried about Charlotte.

Actually, this was just like her daughter. Charlotte had been cranky yesterday and late for her doctor’s appointment. Arlene had tried to talk to her again about putting the baby up for adoption. Charlotte hadn’t come home just to punish her.

Arlene told herself she wasn’t going to rise to Charlotte’s bait. Not this time. But she worried about the baby. That poor, innocent baby was going to need a mother—and soon.

The phone rang. “Hello.” She just assumed it would be Charlotte making ultimatums before she came home.

“Arlene?”

Just the sound of Hank Monroe’s deep voice buoyed her spirits instantly. “Hank,” she said a little breathlessly.

“Is everything all right?”

“Fine,” she said too cheerfully, hoping he didn’t hear the slight catch in her throat.