Buch lesen: «Million-Dollar Maverick»

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

January 15

On the ten-year anniversary of the day he lost everything, Nate Crawford got out of bed at 3:15 a.m. He grabbed a quick shower and filled a big thermos with fresh-brewed coffee.

Outside in the yard, his boots crunched on the frozen ground and the predawn air was so cold it seared his lungs when he sucked it in. He had to scrape the rime of ice off his pickup’s windshield, but the stars were bright in the wide Montana sky and the cloudless night cheered him a little. Clear weather meant he should make good time this year. He climbed in behind the wheel and cranked the heater up high.

He left the ranch at a quarter of four. With any luck at all, he would reach his destination before night fell again.

But then, five miles north of Kalispell, he spotted a woman on the far side of the road. She wore a moss-green, quilted coat and skinny jeans tucked into lace-up boots. And she stood by a mud-spattered silver-gray SUV hooked up to a U-Haul trailer. With one hand, she held a red gas can. With the other, she was flagging him down.

Nate grumbled a few discouraging words under his breath. He had a long way to go, and the last thing he needed was to lose time playing Good Samaritan to some woman who couldn’t be bothered to check her fuel gauge.

Not that he was even tempted to drive by and leave her there. A man like Nate had no choice when it came to whether or not to help a stranded woman. For him, doing what needed doing was bred in the bone.

He slowed the pickup. There was no one coming either way, so he swung the wheel, crossed the center line and pulled in behind the U-Haul on the far shoulder.

The woman came running. Her bright-striped wool beanie had three pom-poms, one at the crown and one at the end of each tie. They bounced merrily as she ran. He leaned across the seats and shoved open the door for her. A gust of icy air swirled in.

Framed in the open door, she held up the red gas can. Breathlessly, she asked, “Give a girl a lift to the nearest gas station?” It came out slightly muffled by the thick wool scarf she had wrapped around the bottom half of her face.

Nate was known for his smooth-talking ways, but the cold and his reluctance to stop made him curt. “Get in before all the heat gets out.”

Just like a woman, she chose that moment to hesitate. “You’re not an ax murderer, are you?”

He let out a humorless chuckle. “If I was, would I tell you so?”

She widened her big dark eyes at him. “Now you’ve got me worried.” She said it jokingly.

He had no time for jokes. “Trust your instincts and do it fast. My teeth are starting to chatter.”

She tipped her head to the side, studying him, and then, at last, she shrugged. “All right, cowboy. I’m taking a chance on you.” Grabbing the armrest, she hoisted herself up onto the seat. Once there, she set the gas can on the floor of the cab, shut the door and stuck out her hand. “Callie Kennedy. On my way to a fresh start in the beautiful small town of Rust Creek Falls.”

“Nate Crawford.” He gave her mittened hand a shake. “Shooting Star Ranch. It’s a couple of miles outside of Rust Creek—and didn’t you just drive through Kalispell five miles back?”

Pom-poms danced as she nodded. “I did, yes.”

“I heard they have gas stations in Kalispell. Lots of ’em.”

She gave a low laugh. “I should have stopped for gas, I know.” She started unwinding the heavy scarf from around her face. He watched with more interest than he wanted to feel, perversely hoping he wouldn’t like what he saw. But no. She was as pretty as she was perky. Long wisps of lustrous seal-brown hair escaped the beanie to trail down her flushed cheeks. “I thought I could make it without stopping.” Head bent to the task, she snapped the seat belt closed.

“You were wrong.”

She turned to look at him again and something sparked in those fine eyes. “Do I hear a lecture coming on, Nate?”

“Ma’am,” he said with more of a drawl than was strictly natural to him. “I would not presume.”

She gave him a slow once-over. “Oh, I think you would. You look like a man who presumes on a regular basis.”

He decided she was annoying. “Have I just been insulted?”

She laughed, a full-out laugh that time. It was such a great laugh he forgot how aggravating he found her. “You came to my rescue.” Her eyes were twinkling again. “I would never be so rude as to insult you.”

“Well, all right, then,” he said, feeling suddenly out of balance somehow. He put the pickup in gear, checked for traffic and then eased back onto the road again. For a minute or two, neither of them spoke. Beyond his headlight beams, there was only the dark, twisting ribbon of road. No other headlights cut the night. Above, the sky was endless, swirling with stars, the rugged, black shadows of the mountains poking up into it. When the silence got too thick, he asked, “So, did you hear about the great flood that took out half of Rust Creek Falls last summer?”

“Oh, yeah.” She was nodding. “So scary. So much of Montana was flooded, I heard. It was all over the national news.”

The Rust Creek levee had broken on July Fourth, destroying homes and businesses all over the south half of town. Since then, Rust Creek Falls had seen an influx of men and women eager to pitch in with reconstruction. Some in town claimed that a lot of the women had come with more than helping out in mind, that they were hoping to catch themselves a cowboy. Nate couldn’t help thinking that if Callie Kennedy wanted a man, she’d have no trouble finding one—even if she was more annoying than most.

Was she hungry? He wouldn’t mind a plate of steak and eggs. Maybe he ought to ask her if she wanted to stop for breakfast before they got the gas....

But no. He couldn’t do that. It was the fifteenth of January. His job was to get his butt to North Dakota—and to remember all he’d lost. No good-looking, mouthy little brunette with twinkly eyes could be allowed to distract him from his purpose.

He said, “Let me guess. You’re here to help with the rebuilding effort. I gotta tell you, it’s a bad time of year for it. All the work’s pretty much shut down until the weather warms a little.” He sent her a quick glance. She just happened to be looking his way.

For a moment, their gazes held—and then they both turned to stare out at the dark road again. “Actually, I have a job waiting for me. I’m a nurse practitioner. I’ll be partnering up with Emmet DePaulo. You know Emmet?”

Tall and lean, sixty-plus and bighearted to a fault, Emmet ran the Rust Creek Falls Clinic. “I do. Emmet’s a good man.”

She made a soft sound of agreement and then asked, “And what about you, Nate? Where are you going before dawn on a cold Wednesday morning?”

He didn’t want to say, didn’t want to get into it. “I’m on my way to Bismarck,” he replied, hoping she’d leave it at that.

No such luck. “I went through there yesterday. It’s a long way from here. What’s in Bismarck?”

He answered her question with one of his own. “Where you from?”

There was a silence from her side of the cab. He prepared to rebuff her if she asked about Bismarck again.

But then she only said, “I’m from Chicago.”

He grunted. “Talk about a long way from here.”

“That is no lie. I’ve been on the road since two in the morning Monday. Sixteen hundred endless miles, stopping only to eat and when I just had to get some sleep....”

“Can’t wait to get started on your new life, huh?”

She flashed him another glowing smile. “I went through Rust Creek Falls with my parents on our way to Glacier National Park when I was eight. Fell in love with the place and always wanted to live there. Now, at last, it’s really happening. And yeah. You’re right. I can’t wait.”

It was none of his business, but he went ahead and asked anyway, “You honestly have no doubts about making this move?”

“Not a one.” The woman had a greenhorn’s blind enthusiasm.

“You’ll be surprised, Callie. Montana winters are long and cold.” He slid her another quick glance.

She was smiling wider than ever. “You ever been to Chicago, Nate? Gets pretty cold there, too.”

“It’s not the same,” he insisted.

“Well, I guess I’ll see for myself about that.”

He really was annoyed with her now, annoyed enough that he said scornfully, “You won’t last the winter. You’ll be hightailing it back to the Windy City before the snow melts.”

“Is that a challenge, Nate?” The woman did not back down. “I never could resist a challenge.”

Damn, but he was riled now. Out of proportion and for no reason he could understand. Maybe it was because she was slowing him down from getting where he needed to be. Or maybe because he found her way too easy on the eyes—and then there was her perfume. A little sweet, a little tart. Even mixed with the faint smell of gasoline from the red can between her feet, he liked her perfume.

And it wasn’t appropriate for him to like it. It wasn’t appropriate for him to be drawn to some strange woman. Not today.

She was watching him, waiting for him to answer her question, to tell him if his mean-spirited prediction had been a challenge or not.

He decided to keep his mouth shut.

Apparently, she thought that was a good idea because she didn’t say anything more, either. They rode in tense silence the rest of the way to the gas station. She filled up her can, paid cash for it and got in the pickup again.

He drove her straight back to her waiting SUV.

When he pulled in behind the U-Haul, he suggested grudgingly, “Maybe I’d better just follow you back to town, see that you get there safely.”

“No, thanks. I’ll be okay.”

He felt like a complete jerk—probably because he’d been acting like one. “Come on.” He reached for the gas can. “Let me—”

She grabbed the handle before he could take it and put on a stiff smile. “I can do it. Thank you for your help.” And then she leaned on the door, jumped down and hoisted the gas can down, too. “You take care now.” In the glow of light from the cab, he watched her breath turn to fog in the icy air.

It was still pitch-dark out. At the edge of the cleared spot behind her, a big, dirty For Sale sign had been nailed on a fence post. Beyond the fence, new-growth ponderosa pines stood black and thick. Farther out in the darkness, perched on a high ridge and silhouetted against the sky, loomed the black outline of a house so enormous it looked like a castle. Built by a very rich man named Nathaniel Bledsoe two decades ago, the house had always been considered a monstrosity by folks in the Rust Creek Falls Valley. From the first, they called the place Bledsoe’s Folly. When Bledsoe died, it went up for sale.

But nobody ever bought it. It stood vacant to this day.

Who was to say vagrants hadn’t taken up residence? And anyone could be lurking in the close-growing pines.

He didn’t like the idea of leaving her there alone. “I mean it, Callie. I’ll wait until you’re on your way.”

Unsmiling now, she gazed at him steadily, her soft chin hitched high. “I will last the winter.” The words had steel underpinnings. “I’m making myself a new life here. You watch me.”

He should say something easy and agreeable. He knew it. But somehow, she’d gotten under his skin. So he just made it worse. “Two hundred dollars says you’ll be gone before June first.”

She tipped her head to the side then, studying him. “Money doesn’t thrill me, Nate.”

“If not money, then what?”

One sleek eyebrow lifted and vanished into that bright wool hat. “Let me think it over.”

“Think fast,” he muttered, perversely driven to continue being a complete ass. “I haven’t got all day.”

She laughed then, a low, amused sound that seemed to race along his nerve endings. “Nate Crawford, you’ve got an attitude—and Rust Creek Falls is a small town. I have a feeling I won’t have any trouble tracking you down. I’ll be in touch.” She grabbed the outer handle of the door. “Drive safe now.” And then she pushed it shut and turned for her SUV.

He waited as he’d said he would, watching over her until she was back in her vehicle and on her way. In the glare of his headlights, she poured the gas in her tank. It only took a minute and, every second of that time, the good boy his mama had raised ached to get out and do it for her. But he knew she’d refuse him if he tried.

In no time, she had the cap back on the tank, the gas can stowed in the rear of the SUV, and she was getting in behind the wheel. Her headlights flared to life, and the engine started right up.

When she rolled out onto the road again, she tapped the horn once in salute. He waited for the red taillights of the U-Haul to vanish around the next curve before turning his truck around and heading for Bismarck again. As he drove back through Kalispell, he was shaking his head, dead certain that pretty Callie Kennedy would be long gone from Rust Creek come June.

Ten and a half hours later he rolled into a truck stop just west of Dickinson, North Dakota, to gas up. In the diner there, he had a burger with fries and a large Dr Pepper. And then he wandered through the attached convenience store, stretching his legs a little before getting back on the road for the final hour and a half of driving that would take him into Bismarck and his first stop there, a certain florist on Eighth Street.

Turned out he’d made good time after all, even with the delay caused by giving mouthy Nurse Callie a helping hand. This year, he would make it to the florist before they closed. And that meant he wouldn’t have to settle for supermarket flowers. The thought pleased him in a grim sort of way.

Before heading out the door, he stopped at the register to buy a PayDay candy bar.

The clerk offered, “Powerball ticket? Jackpot’s four hundred and eighty million now.”

Nate never played the lottery. He was not a reckless man, not even when it came to something as inexpensive as a lottery ticket. Long shots weren’t his style. But then he thought of pretty Callie Kennedy with her pom-pom hat, her gas can and her twinkly eyes.

Money doesn’t thrill me, Nate.

Would four hundred and eighty million thrill her?

He chuckled under his breath and nodded. “Sure. Give me ten dollars’ worth.”

The clerk punched out a ticket with five rows of numbers on it. Nate gave it no more than a cursory glance as she put it in his hand.

He had no idea what he’d just done, felt not so much as a shiver of intuition that one of those rows of numbers was about to change his life forever.

Chapter One

At seven in the morning on the first day of June, Callie Kennedy knocked on the front door of Nate Crawford’s big house on South Pine Street.

Nate hadn’t shared two words with her since that cold day last January. But he’d seen her around town. He’d also kept tabs on her, though he would never have admitted that. Word around town was that she was not only a pure pleasure to look at, she was also a fine nurse with a whole lot of heart. Folks had only good things to say about Nurse Callie.

He pulled the door wide. “Well, well. Nurse Callie Kennedy,” he drawled. Then he hooked his fingers in the belt loops of his Wranglers. “You’re up good and early.”

She gave him one of those thousand-watt smiles of hers. “Hello, Nate. Beautiful day, isn’t it?”

He knew very well why she’d come. It wasn’t to talk about the weather. Still, he leaned on the door frame and played along. “Mighty nice. Not a cloud in the sky.”

“Happy June first.” She beamed even wider, reminding him of a sunbeam in a yellow cotton dress with a soft yellow sweater thrown across her shoulders and yellow canvas shoes on her slim little feet.

“Let me guess....” He wrinkled his brow as though deep in thought. “Wait. I know. You’re here to collect on that bet I made you.”

“Nate.” Her long lashes swept down. “You remembered.” And then she looked up again. “I love your new house.”

“Thank you.”

“That’s some front door.”

“Thanks. I had it specially made. Indonesian mahogany.” It had leaded glass in the top and sidelights you could open to let in a summer breeze.

“Very nice.” She looked at him from under impossibly thick, dark lashes. “And the porch wraps all the way around to the back?”

“That’s right, opens out onto a redwood deck.” And they might as well get on with it. “Come on in.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

He stepped out of the doorway and bowed her in ahead of him. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.” She waited for him to take the lead and then followed him through the central foyer, past the curving staircase, to the kitchen at the back. He gestured at the breakfast area. She took a seat, bracing an elbow on the table and watching him fiddle with his new pod-style coffeemaker.

“I’ve got about a hundred different flavors for this thing....”

The morning light spilled in the window, making her skin glow and bringing out auburn gleams in her long dark hair. “Got one with hazelnut?”

“Right here.” He popped the pod in the top and turned the thing on. Thirty seconds later, he was serving her the steaming cup. “Cream and sugar?”

“I want it all. How many bedrooms?”

He got her the milk and the sugar bowl. “Three to five, depending.”

“On what?”

“I have an office down here in the front that could be a bedroom. The master also has a good-sized sitting room with double doors to make a separate space. That sitting room could be a bedroom, too.” He got a cup for himself and sat opposite her. “Not a lot of bedrooms, really, but all the rooms are nice and big.”

“More than enough for a man living alone, I’d say.”

He wasn’t sure he liked the way she’d said that. Was she goading him? “What? A single man is only allowed so many rooms?”

She laughed. “Oh, come on, Nate. I’m not here to pick a fight.”

He regarded her warily. “Promise?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She stirred milk and sugar into her cup. “I heard a rumor you’re planning on leaving town.”

“Who told you that?”

“You know, I don’t recall offhand.” She sipped. “This is very good.”

“You’re welcome,” he said gruffly.

She sipped again. “It’s odd, really. Three months ago, you moved from the ranch into town, and now people say that you’re leaving altogether.”

“What people?” He kept his expression neutral, though his gut twisted. How much did she know?

No more than anyone else, he decided. To account for his new, improved lifestyle, he’d started telling folks that he’d had some luck with his investments. But as for the real source of his sudden wealth, even his family didn’t know. Only the Kalispell lawyer he’d hired had the real story—which was exactly how Nate wanted it.

“You know how it is here in town,” she said as though she’d been living in Rust Creek Falls all her life. “Everybody’s interested in what everyone else is doing.”

“No kidding,” he muttered wryly.

“Several folks have mentioned to me that you’re leaving.”

Why not just admit it? “I’m looking for a change, that’s all. My brothers can handle things at the ranch, so my bowing out hasn’t caused any problems there. At first, I thought moving to town would be change enough.”

“But it’s not?”

He glanced out the sunny window, where a blue jay flew down and landed on the deck rail and then instantly took flight again. “Maybe I need an even bigger change.” He swung his gaze to her again, found her bright eyes waiting. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll be heading back the way you came, making myself a whole new start in Chicago. I’m just not sure yet. I don’t know what the next step for me should be.”

She studied his face with what seemed to be honest interest. “You, living in Chicago? I don’t know, Nate. I’m just not seeing that.”

He thought, You don’t know me well enough to tell me where I might want to live. But he didn’t say it. She’d seemed sincere just now. And she was entitled to her opinion.

She wasn’t through, either. “I heard you ran for mayor last year—and lost to Collin Traub. They say you’re bitter about that because of the generations-long feud between the Traubs and your family, that it really hurt your pride when the town chose bad-boy Collin over an upstanding citizen like you. They say it’s personal between you and Collin, that there’s always been bad blood between the two of you, that the two of you once got into a knock-down-drag-out over a woman named Cindy Sellers.”

“Wow, Callie. You said a mouthful.” He actually chuckled.

And she laughed, too. “It’s only what I’ve heard.”

“Just because people love to gossip doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about.”

“So none of it’s true, then?”

He admitted, “It’s true, for the most part.” Strangely, today, he was finding her candor charming—then again, today he wasn’t on his way to North Dakota to keep his annual appointment with all that he had lost.

She asked, “What parts did I get wrong?”

He should tell her to mind her own business. But she was so damn pretty and she really did seem interested. “Well, the mayor’s race?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m over that. And it’s a long story about me and Collin and Cindy, one I don’t have the energy to get into right now—and your cup’s already empty.”

“It was really good.” She smiled at him coaxingly.

He took the hint. “More?”

“Yes, please.”

Each pod made six cups. All he had to do was put her mug under the spigot and push the brew button. “You’ve collected a lot of information about me. Should I be flattered you’re so interested?” He gave her back her full cup.

She doctored it up with more sugar and milk. “I think about that day last winter now and then....”

He slid into his seat again. “I’ll just bet you do.” Especially today, when it’s time to collect.

Her big eyes were kind of dreamy now. “I wonder about you, Nate. I wonder why you had to get to Bismarck, and I keep thinking there’s a lot going on under the surface with you. I love this town more every day that I live here, but sometimes people in a small town can get locked in to their ideas about each other. What I think about you is that you want...more out of life. You just don’t know how to get it.”

He grunted. “Got me all figured out, don’t you?”

“It’s just an opinion.”

“Yeah, and that and five bucks will get you half a dozen cinnamon buns over at the doughnut shop.”

She shrugged, her gaze a little too steady for his peace of mind. Then she asked, “So, what about Bismarck?”

He was never telling her about Bismarck. And, as much as he enjoyed looking at her with all that shiny hair and that beautiful smile, it was time to get down to business. “Excuse me.” He rose and turned for the door to the foyer, leaving her sitting there, no doubt staring after him.

In his study at the front of the house, he opened the safe built into his fine wide mahogany desk and took out what she’d come for. Then he locked up the safe again and rejoined her in the kitchen.

“Here you go.” He set the two crisp one-hundred-dollar bills on the table in front of her. “I get it. You like it here. You’ve made some friends. They all say you’re an excellent nurse, kind and caring to your patients. You’re staying. I was wrong about you.”

“Yes, you were.” She sat very straight, those soft lips just hinting at a smile now. “I like a man who can admit when he’s wrong.” She glanced down at the bills and then back up at him. “And I thought I told you way back in January that money doesn’t do much for me.”

Okay. Now he could start to get annoyed with her again. “Then what do you want?”

She turned her coffee mug, slim fingers light and coaxing on the rim. “I’ve been staying in one of the trailers they brought in for newcomers, over on Sawmill Street.”

“I know,” he admitted, though he hadn’t planned to. Her pupils widened slightly in surprise. It pleased him that he’d succeeded in surprising her. “Maybe I think about you now and then, too.”

She gazed at him steadily for a moment. And then there it was, that hint of a smile again. “I’m tired of that trailer.”

“I can understand that.”

“But as I’m sure you know, housing is still kind of scarce around here.” So many homes had been damaged in the flood the year before, and they weren’t all rebuilt yet. “I really like the look of the empty house next door to you. And I heard a rumor you might own that one, too.”

The woman had nerve, no doubt about it. “You want me to give you a house just for sticking out a Montana winter?”

Her smile got wider. “Not give it to me, Nate. Sell it to me.”

Sell it to her....

The former owners of both houses had chosen not to rebuild after the flood, so Nate got them cheap. He’d been a long way from rich at the time. His plan then had been to fix the houses up slowly, starting with the smaller one next door. He’d figured he would put money in them when he had it to spare, getting his brothers to lend a hand with the work.

But after his big win, he found he could afford to renovate them both without having to drag it out. With everyone believing his cover story of a windfall on the stock market, he’d told himself it was safe to go for it. He could fix them up and do it right.

He should have been more cautious, probably. Not spent so much on the finishes, not redone both houses. Or at least, if he had to go all out, he should have had his lawyer advise him, maybe put them under the control of the trust he’d established to make sure he would remain an anonymous winner.

Callie kept after him. “Oh, come on, Nate. You can’t live in two houses at once, can you? I’m guessing you fixed that other one up with the intention of selling it, anyway.”

He thought again that she was one aggravating woman. But she did have a point: he’d bought both houses with the idea that he would eventually turn them around. And really, she didn’t seem the least bit suspicious about where his money might have come from. She just wanted to get out of the trailer park. He needed to stop being paranoid when there was absolutely nothing to be worried about. “Finish your coffee.”

“And then what?”

“I’ll give you a tour of the other house.”