Claiming the Cowboy (Wild Vista Ranch #10)

Chapter 1

LARK

The sign comes up faster than I expect, and I whoop loud enough to make Laurel swerve.

"Lark, Jesus—"

"Sorry, sorry." I'm hanging halfway out of the passenger window of her SUV like a big happy dog, one hand clamped on the roof, the other catching wind.

The arch over the drive is wood and wrought iron, all curling letters and a longhorn silhouette reading WILD VISTA RANCH.

We rumble under it and the shadow passes over my face, cool and quick, and then we're out into the sun again and I swear I can smell the whole place at once—dust and horse and cedar…and something sweet baking from a kitchen somewhere on the property.

Hill Country air. There’s nothing like it.

A hawk wheels overhead, wings riding the thermals.

"You're gonna eat a bug," Lyla says from the back.

"Worth it."

"Lark." Laurel has a two-fisted grip on the steering wheel, eyes flicking between the gravel drive and her phone propped in the cup holder. "Please get back inside this vehicle before I have to explain to a Texas state trooper why my best friend is a hood ornament."

I slither back in and flop into the seat, boots up on the dash. She slaps my knee without looking, and I put them down.

"Itinerary check," she calls. "Check-in fifteen hundred. Welcome mixer at the Shed at eighteen hundred. Tomorrow, we be ready by oh-eight—"

"Babe." I reach over and cover her phone with my palm. "It's your birthday week. You are allowed to just…exist."

"I exist on a schedule."

"She really does," Lyla confirms, and I glance back.

She's cross-legged in the middle of the back seat, redoing her long black braid, fingers moving like she's not even thinking about it. She’s got horse-girl hands.

Muscle memory. She's been braiding something her whole life—her own hair, a mane, a tail, a friendship bracelet, and my hair when I'd sit still long enough. "She scheduled her divorce."

"I did not schedule my—"

"You had a binder, Laurel,” Lyla says. “That’s probably what won your case."

“No, his blatant cheating with his secretary won me the case.” She rolls her eyes. “And a lot a’ good it did me. I’m still broke."

"Things’ll turn around, love,” I say, patting her thigh. “Still, you have to give props to that binder. It had over twenty tabs!”

She mumbles. "Yes, those tabs were helpful."

I'm already laughing, and then Lyla grins that slow, sleepy grin of hers and lifts her fist and yells.

"Lick!"

"Laugh!" I throw back.

"LOVE!" All three of us cheer at the top of our lungs, and Laurel's white-knuckle grip finally breaks since she's too busy whooping.

We've been yelling that stupid motto at each other since we were eleven years old at a sleep-away camp in East Texas with mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds and a counselor named Brandi who taught us how to paddle a kayak and also how to French-braid.

The real phrase is Live, Laugh, Love. But we all thought our version was the filthiest, funniest thing ever invented, and twenty-some years later, apparently we still do.

It went with our three L theme. The Three Ls. Lark, Laurel, and Lyla. I was the oldest by a year and I’ve never let them forget it.

But look at us now. Laurel, three months divorced from a douchebag, is starting a brand-new job in Hollow Peak, Colorado, in a few months.

Lyla is between stable gigs because her last one shut down when the owners retired.

She’s sleeping on her mom's couch in Wyoming and pretending she’s okay with it. But I know she’ll find something soon.

Then there’s me.

I've been in Montana since March, working the spring rush at a dude ranch outside Bozeman, and before that a kids' equine camp in New Mexico, and before that a llama farm in Oregon.

I have a lot of family in Montana—my parents, three siblings, and a herd of little nieces and nephews.

But I don't really have a home. I have a truck, a duffel bag, and a phone full of friends in twenty different zip codes. It works for me. It’s always worked for me.

This week is for Laurel, though. We’re scraping the last of the ex-husband residue off her.

She’ll be eating barbecue, getting drunk, swimming, horseback riding, hiking, whatever she fucking wants…

as long as she’s laughing so hard while she’s doing it that she forgets what the asshole’s voice sounds like.

That's the assignment. And Lyla and I have been text-scheming about it for a month.

"Oh shit," Laurel breathes, and I turn my head forward again.

The main lodge has come into view at the end of the drive, and—okay, fine.

I see why people come here. It's a big sprawling timber thing with a wraparound porch and stone chimneys and a hitching rail out front.

Beyond it the land just opens, rolls out gold and green and silver-blue all the way to a horizon dotted with live oaks.

A little stream glitters off to the left.

Somewhere a big bell rings. And there are wildflowers growing along the drive in drifts of orange and purple.

It’s beautiful.

As we pull up and park, the owner, Lucinda Davis, is waiting for us on the porch as if she's been watching for our dust cloud.

She's short, like me, and all curves in a floral shirt with the sleeves rolled up. She’s got long black hair in a braid thicker than Lyla's, and the second Laurel gets out of the driver's seat, Lucinda puts a sweating glass of lemonade in her hand.

"Y'all look parched," she says. "Drink, drink, drink."

"Ma'am, I—"

"Drink, honey."

Laurel drinks and her eyes close. "Oh my god, this is amazing."

"I use mint from our cabin’s garden out back." Lucinda beams and shoves a second glass at me. “My husband will be along with the last glass for you, hon,” she says to Lyla.

Lucinda has warm brown eyes and lipstick on her front tooth and I already love her. "You must be the three here for the girls’ trip. Which of you has the birthday?"

"Her." Lyla and I point in unison.

"You come here, you." Lucinda pulls Laurel in for a hug like they've known each other for forty years, and Laurel—type-A and itinerary-wielding—just melts into it.

Over Lucinda's shoulder she makes wide eyes at me, pretending she wants help, but I just smile back.

She needs this kind of mom energy, and I want her to soak it in.

A man steps out of the lodge behind her.

He’s tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, and lean in that jeans-and-a-tucked-in-shirt way, eyes so blue and so crinkled at the corners I want to ask him to tell me a bedtime story.

He tips his hat to us, which should not still make me sigh internally at thirty-four, but it does.

"Carl Davis," he says, handing Lyla her own glass of lemonade. "Welcome to Wild Vista. My wife's already fixin' to adopt y'all, so I apologize in advance."

"She can have me," Laurel says into Lucinda's shoulder, muffled.

Over by the corral, two cowboys cut across the yard with their heads down under their hats, one in a faded blue shirt and one in something plaid, both of them long-legged and dusty and walking with that rolling bowlegged gait that I have a hard time looking away from.

Lyla elbows me in the ribs. "You're gonna be insufferable this week, aren't you."

"I'm already insufferable."

"Oh geez…we’re entering advanced insufferable territory."

"Baby, you have no idea."

She snorts.

Lucinda is herding us toward the check-in desk inside, still talking, the cold lemonade glass dripping in my hand, and it really is delicious. It would be even better spiked with whiskey…but that’ll come later.

Under the clean, sharp aroma of the mint, I can still smell the horses, and something metallic and hot drifting in from across the property.

Forge smoke.

Our cabin is the third one down a little cedar-lined path, set back just enough to feel private, with a porch big enough for three rocking chairs and a view that makes Laurel set down her rolling suitcase and just stare.

The vistas really do sweep. That's the only word. Sweep…with wide swaths of gold grass, dark oaks, that milky far-off blue where the sky meets the hills.

"I could cry," she says, calm and factual.

"I’m sorry," I say, "but that’s not on the itinerary for today."

She shoves me playfully.

Inside there are three twin beds with quilts that must be handmade, a little kitchenette, a bathroom that is blessedly larger than any bathroom I've had in a ranch cabin in my entire working life, and a ceiling fan lazily turning.

Lyla claims the bed closest to the bathroom because she drinks more than a horse. Laurel takes the one by the window since she loves the views. And I drop my duffel on the remaining one because I couldn’t care less. I unzip my bag.

That's it. I’m done unpacking.

Laurel has her suitcase opened flat on her bed and she's lining up four little zippered toiletry pouches in a neat row. Pink, blue, green, and clear. Each labeled. She glances at me. "Don't start."

"Laurel, my darling, my love, my best girl—"

"Lark Riggs, I swear to god."

"What's in the green one?"

"Hair stuff."

"The blue one?"

"Face stuff."

"And the pink?"

"Body stuff."

"The clear?"

She huffs out a breath. "Emergency items.”

"Emergency?"

"It has Advil, Imodium, a sewing kit, a spare phone charger, a pocketknife, electrolyte packets, and those little hand warmers you crack and—"

I cross the room and kiss her forehead with a loud smack. "I love you so much. I'd die for you. Please never change."

She shakes her head. "I don’t plan on it."

I try to catch Lyla’s eye as she reclines on her bed. It takes a moment, but finally, she notices and nods.

Then I grab my hat off the bedpost, tug it down low, and walk toward the door. "I'm gonna go wander. Stretch my legs. Poke around."

Laurel raises her head, alarmed. "Wait, what?"

“I’ll be back later.”

Laurel narrows her eyes. She’s an attorney's daughter and she was born narrowing her eyes. But then she looks down at her little clear Emergency pouch and gets distracted.