Spotlight & Giveaway: A Son for the Texas Cowboy by Sinclair Jayne

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Sinclair Jayne’s new release: A Son for the Texas Cowboy

She doesn’t want to forgive. He never forgot

As the oldest brother, Axel Wolf has always worn the yoke of responsibility. Eight years ago when he was on top of the pro bull riding leaderboard, he walked away to return to Last Stand, Texas, to raise his youngest brother and take over the reins of their massive cattle ranch. But his career wasn’t the only thing he left behind.
 
Former barrel racer Cruz Lopez excels at staring down any challenge and winning. She finished nursing school and a physician assistant program on her own. Now debating between two excellent job offers in Texas, Cruz gives into impulse and decides to drive through Last Stand, thinking it will give her closure. Instead fate intervenes and reinserts Axel into her life, and the secret she’s kept is busted wide open.
 
Axel’s determined to seize his second chance with Cruz but their clash of wills only makes them both burn hotter.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from A Son for the Texas Cowboy: 

So wrong.
So unfair.
Cruz made short work of the blocks between the accident and her car. Her steps were quick and angry as she tried to shed the tension that a few minutes in Axel’s presence had kindled. It didn’t help that Axel kept pace with her, after telling his brother tersely to stay, as if he were a dog. Typical. He acted like he was in charge of everything and everyone.
How could she have forgotten that?
And how dare he dismiss her dreams like that? Mock her. She’d given him up to become a doctor. She’d sacrificed everything! It wasn’t her fault that fate had intervened. And no way could she ever be selfish enough to turn her back on a child like her mother had. Twice.
Her gut burned with fury.
She wanted to turn around and slug him, wiping that serious expression off his beautiful mouth. Words—mean words—rolled around in her head and threatened to spill off her tongue. But she wouldn’t let them, not in front of Diego. Anger was not the answer. If it had been, her father and her brother… She shoved the ‘what ifs’ away.
“Stop following me!” she muttered in a low voice.
“Just walking you back to your car.”
“There’s no need.”
Cruz stopped in dismay. Her car was blocked in by a fire truck. One of their hoses was actually running through her window, and since the crew was hosing down the crashed truck as well as the buildings around the truck, she could hardly ask them to move it. A fire investigation SUV was parked at an angle in front of her car and a police car blocked her in from the back.
Damn.
Her fault for parking illegally. She was lucky she’d rolled the windows down to keep the car cooler. She’d heard it wasn’t uncommon for fire crews to break windows of parked cars blocking fire hydrants.
She also had a ticket on her windshield.
“Welcome to Last Stand,” she muttered.
Not.
“I’ll take you to the hospital,” Axel offered.
She turned around, suspicious, trying to read him. Good luck with that.
“No, thank you. We’ll get an Uber,” Cruz said stiffly.
“This is Last Stand,” Axel said flatly. “Not Denver or wherever you really ended up.”
“I was in Denver,” she hissed, furious with him, and even angrier with herself for feeling the need to defend herself. She didn’t. She’d done the right thing.
“Did you bring your horse?” Diego asked. “Can you take us on your horse?”
“Of course not,” Cruz snapped and then immediately regretted it. Diego’s shining face dimmed a little. Axel was turning her into a shrew—no she was letting him unnerve her. They were both adults. Shell’s words about how unlikely it would be for her to run into Axel mocked her.
Grow up.
She could handle this.
“He left his horse back at the ranch.”
Disgusted that he wasn’t going to see a horse, Diego turned to his favorite subject—food. “I’m hungry, Mom. You said that once we got to the house, we’d make lunch and I could go swimming. Can we go now?”
“Yes, sweetie.” She held on to her calm with her fingernails. She was unaffected by Axel. Totally unaffected. “I just need to check on a patient. I promised, and then…”
“The hospital has a cafeteria,” Axel interrupted her. “Good food. I’ll drive you both in my truck. I need to take August anyway.”
“Okay.” Diego immediately took a step to stand next to Axel, as if he’d never heard of stranger danger. He looked up at Axel and grinned. “Do they have grilled cheese?”
“Best in town.” Axel looked down at the little boy, seeming bemused, but then his dark, brooding gaze met hers and hardened.
Who was the liar now? She narrowed her eyes at him. I’m on to you, she mouthed, although she had no clue what game he was playing.
His scrutiny dropped to her mouth, and her entire body tingled.
“C’mon, Mom. Let’s go.”
Two minutes with Axel and suddenly Diego was the boss? She needed to shut that down, fast. Her son was just seven. He’d eat her alive by the time he was ten if she didn’t stand up to him. And she was about to tell him…but they were off. The two of them. Axel fluidly walked away from her while Diego half-ran, half-walked beside him, stretching his strides, and trying to imitate Axel’s fluid movements with a hint of that swagger that had always damn near killed her.
She couldn’t really blame Diego. He’d been disturbingly obsessed by cowboys years before she was ready to make the move back to Texas. And Axel, with his black jeans, silky black western-style shirt, with the white piping and mother of pearl snaps, his Stetson and shiny black cowboy boots exuded iconic, movie-star American cowboy like a dark, rich cologne. And it was effortless. Real.
“Thrown over for a grilled cheese sandwich,” she muttered.
So much for chivalry, she thought, watching the back of them. Wasn’t that the whole story of her childhood—watching those she loved walk away? Except she didn’t love Axel—not anymore. And she’d been the one to walk away that time. She wished she’d ran.
And never listened to Shell.
Axel veered off with her son and entered a cute little restaurant where a group of people huddled together in front of the large open windows. Their eyes were wide with shock and worry. More were out on the patio, talking softly. Some celebration had come to an abrupt and unexpected end. A lot of people had attended whatever party had been going on, and Cruz felt a pang of regret. She’d always wanted to be part of a strong community where she knew people, where she could build a life and belong.
But not in Last Stand, she vowed, ignoring the picturesque main street, the way so many people had come out to help after the accident, and the fact that her closest friend and Diego’s closest friend were going to live here. She hurried to catch up, just as Axel emerged holding three paper plates loaded with multi-layered cake. Diego also balanced a plate with a huge piece, which he steadied with his tongue.
“Manners,” she reminded him. “You weren’t raised by wolves.”
Axel’s look seared her, and she groaned internally at the pun.
“Cake,” she continued. “Yes, that’s a perfectly balanced snack right before lunch,” she said.
“I always did prefer dessert first.” His gaze never left her face, and she felt exposed. She’d forgotten how intensely he used to look at her—like she was the only woman in the world.
Axel speared his plastic fork into the moist, fluffy layers and held the bite out to her.
“Remember?”
Cruz squeaked and nearly jumped out of her skin. What was he doing? Flirting with her? Axel had used to call her dessert, and he would often delay meals so that he could enjoy her. Why was he reminding her about that now, in the middle of the day, on a small-town Texas street, while her son happily gorged himself on the birthday cake of a person he didn’t even know?
“Have some birthday cake.” Axel’s voice rumbled with sin and lit a smoldering fire deep inside of her. “You know you want it.”
The bite of cake nearly touched her lips, and Axel’s attention was now fixated there. A challenge lit his eyes. He didn’t think she’d do it. Something fierce and long dormant rose up like a flame inside of her and answered him.
“I do love dessert.” She parted her lips, slowly closed them over the cake and let the flavors melt in her mouth. She closed her eyes, sighed and then looked straight at him. She traced her tongue over her lips to capture every last crumb and then swallowed. “Cake was always my second favorite,” she taunted right back.
The flare in his eyes and the slight tick in his jaw was her first hit.
Score!
She hadn’t come to Last Stand to play games, but Axel was, and she didn’t like to lose.
“My rig’s here.” Axel jerked his thumb at his brother to climb in the back and he held open the front passenger door for Cruz.
“Really, I can get in the back,” she said quickly but his posture was as formidable as the Rockies. “Your brother…”
“Can sit in the back. You’re sharing the cake with me. August has his own.”
That was the dumbest reason ever, especially since Axel had three pieces. She gestured to them.
“Bringing a piece to Graham, the doctor. He was at the party, too. He’s going to have his hands full at the hospital.”
August was already easing himself in the back, deep in conversation with Diego who was solicitously helping August to buckle up since he was operating—or barely operating—with one arm.
Axel handed her the cake, then grabbed her waist and boosted her in.
She could have got into the truck herself. Why did he keep touching her?
Cruz took another bite of the cake and moaned as the flavors of dark chocolate, orange, and vanilla teased her tongue. Keeping her expression innocent, she held out a bite for him.
“Hungry?” It was more of a challenge than a question.
“Starved.”
She braced herself for him to take the bite.
Instead he leaned forward, his head and hat blocking out the sun. His lips grazed her mouth—just a whisper, but she felt the contact zing around her body like a shorted-out wire. Her body tingled and her breath stalled. His tongue traced her full bottom lip.
He levered back a little and she stared at him, feeling uncomfortably like prey in a trap, but also uncomfortably aroused.
“Delicious.”
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Welcome to Last Stand, Cruz.”

A couple of hours later Axel pulled up in front of the property Cruz had indicated, not bothering to hide his scowl. It wasn’t that the neighborhood was bad. Last Stand might have its share of families struggling with poverty and a host of other problems, but mostly folks knew one another, and the town wasn’t awash in crime. It was more that Cruz deserved to be someplace better than this. Much better. And he hated that this house and the small apartment behind it were owned and managed—if neglect and indifference qualified as managing—by Bill Clemmens.
Clemmens didn’t take care of his wife, family, cattle, horses, or rental properties. But he always wanted more than he had. And he wanted to take it from other folks who’d earned it through hard work. The Wolf and Clemmens families had never gotten along. They shared a southern boundary that the Clemmens had long disputed, and even losing in court hadn’t stopped the breaks in the fence, or the Wolf cattle and longhorns simply “wandering” onto the Clemmens’s property.
Axel was also still riled up about his last conversation with his brother while they’d been at the hospital. August had refused medical help. And he’d point-blank told Axel that he thought Diego was his son and that Cruz had hidden him away from Axel and the family. August also said he doubted she had a husband.
August had always been a genius at pissing him off.
But Axel didn’t buy his brother’s theory. Cruz had always been honest, to the point of being blunt. People always knew where they stood with her.
She would have told him she was in the family way. She wouldn’t have broken up with him. And she’d never try to trick a man into marriage by passing off another man’s child on him.
But August had made him think.
And that’s what really had triggered him.
What if the kid was his?
What if he was a dad?
He’d never wanted that, but Cruz had cracked open that door just a little once before…then she’d slammed it shut. And now, August had let in another sliver of light.
Hope?
Is that what he was feeling?
He didn’t know.
But he was strangely reluctant to ask, not that he could say anything with the kid in the back seat talking a mile a minute…which made it unlikely the boy was his. It surprised him that the thought made his chest hurt a little bit. And damn August for making him think.
And Cruz, for making him feel.
Axel kept the truck and the air-conditioning running. Diego poked his head out the window.
“That’s it?” He sounded happier than Axel felt. “It’s a house. Wow! Cool.”
Axel couldn’t believe the kid was happy about living in this dump, with its lack of shade, dead and half-dug-up grass and peeling paint. It looked far too small for two families to share. But then, his family ranch house was massive and thanks to August interfering and tossing his money around, totally remodeled. And empty.
“The pool must be in the back.” Diego popped out of the truck, but he squelched in mud. When he pulled his foot back, his orange flip-flop remained stuck.
“Oh, no,” Cruz murmured. “Maybe a sprinkler pipe broke or the pool is leaking.”
Axel wouldn’t be surprised.
“Poor Shell and Rand. They just got married and rented this house for six months so they’d have time to find a home to buy.”
Six months here? Axel would rather burn it down and build a new home with his bare hands.
Cruz unbuckled her seat belt, calling out to Diego to wait a minute.
Axel climbed out too, keeping clear of the mud and grass. He rounded the truck to open the door for her, clearly startling her. What the hell was wrong? He’d always opened doors for her. She’d been independent as hell, but she’d loved it when he’d done small, courteous things. She’d always slid across the seat toward him, making sure to kiss him, and do a full body brush when she climbed in or out of his truck. It had made him hard as hell and he’d loved every damn second.
Who the hell did she marry that he didn’t open doors for her? Buy her and his child a house? Take care of her? And why had she left him to marry such a deadbeat anyway? A thought had him stilling right as he reached her door and swung it open.
No. She would have told him.
Impossible.
She wouldn’t have married someone else if she had been pregnant with his kid.
No way.
But she had left him over seven years ago. How old was the kid? He thrust the dart of suspicion away. Damn August. Cruz had been his for over two years. Despite what she’d said at the end, their relationship had not been casual.
“What’s wrong?” Cruz asked, sliding out of the truck and keeping a careful distance between them.
That was the smart thing to do, but it pissed him off.
“I would think that’s pretty obvious.”
“I’ll find the water main and shut it off. Maybe I can find the leak. Do you know a good plumber in town?”
Axel and his ranch hands had most of the skills the ranch needed. Cruz walked toward the street, looking for the metal lid that protected the water main to the house. She bent down.
She looked damn fine in her jeans, and his mouth dried. He dragged his gaze away from her rounded ass.
“Do you have any tools in your truck?” For a moment, her smile flashed, nearly blinding him. “Dumb question for a cowboy, huh?”
Then her light dimmed a little as if she remembered the years and the space between them.
Glad for a chance to quit looking at her like a starving man, he grabbed his tools. Diego had stopped stomping in the grass making water squirt everywhere and ran over to watch. Axel lifted the metal cover and turned off the water to the house.
“Thank you. Let’s hope it’s just a break in the sprinkler system,” Cruz said, standing up.
She retrieved the key from the lock box.
“Our apartment’s in the back, Diego, but I better check the main house since Shell and her new husband and Ryan won’t be back for two weeks.”
“Hang on,” Axel warned as he returned his tools to his truck. The spring had been fairly wet and a lawn that dead clearly didn’t have a sprinkler system. One more way Bill didn’t take care of people, things or his business.
Cruz unlocked the front door to the house and jumped back as water poured out in a smelly gush.
“Wow! Oh, wow!” Diego danced across the lawn and jumped up on the tailgate of the truck to watch. “Look, there’s Ryan’s baseball glove.”
And that was only the beginning of what spilled out onto the dead lawn.
Cruz slumped a little, nibbling on her bottom lip—a sure sign she was nervous and trying to hold herself together. He wished he hadn’t remembered that detail. She wasn’t his responsibility anymore. She’d picked another man, and had a child soon after telling him she didn’t ever want a family.
So why was he still here?
“Playing the hero,” August had mocked him. “Should have worn your white hat,” his brother had said when Axel had left him at the hospital after exacting a promise to get his injuries checked. He’d told August that he would be back with a change of clothes and to take him home if he could.
Cruz took a second key from the lock box, squared her shoulders and opened the latch on the gate.
“Is that where we’re gonna live? I want to see.” Diego jumped off the truck like it was all a big adventure.
Axel followed grimly. It was clear the flooding extended to the backyard. The pool overflowed and the water was dirty. He was pretty sure he saw something swimming in it.
“Your friends rented this place. Did they see it first?”
“Just online,” Cruz said. “A moving crew moved them in since they were busy with the wedding and now they’re taking a trip to Disneyland and all around California. They chose this house because of the studio. Shell is an OB nurse, but also an artist. She wanted to work part-time and start her own graphics business. The studio was going to be her office, since we’re only here temporarily.”
“How long?”
“Stop sounding like an interrogator,” she snapped.
The backyard was a mud pit, and Cruz stood well to the side when she opened the studio apartment.
Water flowed out of the back studio as well, but not as much—probably because a side door to the studio had buckled off the hinges so the water had spilled outside before it could gather.
“How long?” He tried to modify his tone, though obviously not successfully, since her body stiffened in irritation. “And what exactly is your job, if you aren’t a doctor?”
“I was a nurse,” she sniped and glared at him, which was probably better than looking at the detritus of her life spilling out into the mud. “Now I’m a surgical physician’s assistant, or at least I will be on Monday. I have a temporary locums contract for six to eight weeks, but I already have two interviews lined up—one in San Antonio and the other in Austin—in the next couple of weeks. Happy now?”
Her tone said ‘so there,’ as if proving she wouldn’t interrupt his life all to hell by her presence in Last Stand.
Too late for that.
“Mom, is that Bear?” Diego’s eyes rounded and for the first time he sounded subdued, as if he was finally aware of the seriousness of the problem.
All three of them looked at the giant, very sodden black stuffed bear that now blocked the doorway of the studio.
Cruz couldn’t answer for a moment. Then she sucked in a breath and jerked her shoulders back. “It figures that the one time movers arrive early and pile everything inside instead of putting it in the garage, there’s a flood,” she mused, and he saw her effort to smile.
“What are we going to do, Mom?” Diego asked, his thin voice quavering just a little.
Cruz bit down hard on her lip.
“First we are going to give him a bath,” she said, her tone aiming for cheerful and determined, and his admiration rose. “And then, well, this is Texas, and Texas has a lot of sun. And since we’re going to become Texans, we’re going to be even tougher and better problem solvers than before.”
“Okay.” Diego squatted down by his bear and began to stroke it as if to comfort the drowned stuffed animal. “How long does it take to become Texans?” A fat tear dropped on the bear. Then another.
“Oh, sweetie.” Cruz also bent down and hugged the child, stroking his head while a few more tears fell.
Axel pushed down the impulse to pull them both into his arms.
Not mine.
Not his woman.
Not his child.
Not his problem.
“You become a Texan the minute you drive across the state line intending to stay,” Axel shocked himself by speaking up.
“Really? I’m already a Texan?” Diego asked, his blue eyes swimming under water. Blue, not black like Cruz’s. His gut churned and doubt flickered again.
“Why not? We can run your bear through the carwash a couple of times, and I have a power washer on the ranch.”
“You have a ranch? A real ranch?” Diego’s awe was tangible. “So you are a real cowboy.”
“And a Texan my whole life. Your mom is right. We need to start problem solving.”
Diego stood up. “Okay.” He looked ready for action. If only August had listened to him like that. Aurik had, except when it had mattered the most.
Cruz also stood, her arms crossed, her gaze narrowed. Nope. She wasn’t going to fall in with any plan he concocted.
“Think you can get your bear into the back of my truck?”
“Yes, sir.” Diego struggled to lift the large, unwieldy sodden animal.
Cruz went to help.
“I can do it,” Diego said, his face set in determined lines. He half-lifted and half-dragged the bear toward the gate. “I’m gonna be a Texan.”
“That’s helpful,” Cruz said. “Now it will get even filthier.”
“I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“Thanks for the ride, here, Axel, but I’m sure you have plenty to do. My car will be freed up soon, no doubt, and we can hose off the bear, although I have a lot more pressing things to do than wash a massive stuffed animal,” she said looking into the small studio that would work fine for an office but as a home for two people for two months, not really.
Cruz deserved better.
“Call the landlord,” Axel said thinking of all the work that needed to get done, but realizing that expecting Bill Clemmens to step up and hire a crew to help her and then pay for the damage, was highly unlikely. He’d also have to hire a plumber and then a restoration crew to dry out the house and repair the damage—it would likely take until the next millennium…if he did it at all.
“He’s on the list,” Cruz said. “But first, I’ll move the boxes and furniture from the studio and empty out what I can from Shell’s house.”
“So, you’re going to put all your belongings on the curb?”
Most everything would have to be thrown away. What a way to start off in a new town. Or in a new marriage.
Not his problem.
“Yup,” Cruz said, looking at her sandals and then, with a shrug, entering the studio.
He followed her in.
“Really, Axel, I’ve got this.” She turned around and blocked him, splaying both hands on his chest as if that would stop him if he really wanted to get through. “This is not your problem,” she said, unconsciously echoing his thoughts. “And it’s not that big of a deal—most of our stuff is still in storage anyway. This isn’t a permanent stop for us.”
That felt like a slap.
“I need to find a storage unit, get my car, start loading it up, then find a hotel or a short-term rental. I’ll need to tell Shell, but I hate to ruin their honeymoon. Oh, and I’ll call the landlord. And find a laundromat.” She spoke under her breath, as if making a list.
Axel was already texting his foreman to send at least two hands to the house immediately. They’d be there within thirty minutes.
Cruz grabbed two boxes that were on top of the galley kitchen counter so they weren’t wet and carried them past him, as if he wasn’t there.
Sometimes her fierce independence just didn’t make sense to him. He grabbed two boxes that had been stacked on the floor. The bottom one was fairly soaked and fell apart as he lifted.
He stood there, only the top box in his arms, and looked at the litter of lacy bras and underthings—all sopping wet.
Cruz shoved at him. “I told you, I’ve got this.”
Her face was bright red.
He didn’t recognize any of the lingerie, which made sense because it had been a long time, but that meant she’d bought the colorful, lacy items with someone else in mind. It shouldn’t burn. But it did.
“I can help you gather those up, and we can put them in another box. They should come clean in the laundry,” he said, just to piss her off.
It worked.
“Don’t you dare.”
He shocked himself by laughing.
“That is not funny!” She was bright red. Embarrassed. It amazed him that something as basic as underwear—although sexy and pretty—would embarrass her.
“It kind of is,” he said.
“Such a man.”
“That I am,” he agreed. She looked at him a little helplessly, as if she didn’t quite know what to do with him. That had never been a problem in the past.
“You don’t have to do this.” He jerked his head at the boxes and scattered furniture. “I’ve got two ranch hands coming with a trailer. They can knock this task out in an hour.”
“Axel, why? I’m sure your hands have plenty to do.”
“They do. I pay them to work and today they’re working here.”
“Axel.”
“Just let it go, Cruz. Accept the help graciously. Say thank you, Axel.”
“Axel…” She was still in protest mode.
Diego dodged around them and came into the now crowded space. “I can’t lift bear. He’s too fat with water. Ew! Mom!” He picked up one of her purple lacy thongs and waved it in front of her like a flag. “Your underwear is showing.”
She snatched it.
Axel laughed. “Now admit it,” he whispered as he walked past her with the other two boxes that were just damp. He’d stack those at the curb for Ben and Devin to load into the trailer. “It’s funny.”
What he found next in the studio did not amuse him.
It was a high-topped bistro-style table that he’d made for her, by hand, using oak from a felled tree at his ranch and piece of Brazilian heartwood he’d been saving. It had been a Valentine’s present for her. He’d made her two matching chairs for her birthday the same year. The chairs’ legs were swollen and water stained and the table had tipped over so that one part of the jigsaw heart he’d inlaid in the table top was distorted—and ruined.
Pretty damn symbolic.
But she’d kept the table. Even as a married woman. She’d sat at it with her husband and eaten a meal she’d prepared for another man.
“Oh,” Cruz breathed when he brought out the table, barely resisting the urge to drag it out by the base. The hand-written message in Sharpie on the bottom was still clear.
Your heart will forever be my unsolved puzzle.
That hadn’t been erased by time or the flood.
What an idiot he’d been in retrospect. And definitely not a poet. What had her husband made of that? Had Cruz even remembered it was there?
Had she noticed that he’d seen it? Axel felt completely exposed.
“No. Not my table.”
The pain in her voice made it worse.
The two stool chairs that he had made and hand-painted for her were in even worse shape.
“Most of what’s in there might as well go to the junk pile,” he said, hating the memories she was stirring up, hating the return of the feelings he’d kept tamped down for so long that he’d practically forgotten he had any.
This was her fault. For leaving and so easily making a life without him.
His fault, for still caring.
And August’s fault, for overpaying for a building and buying it out from under Bill Clemmens’s nose, and calling his damned winery—with its grapes planted on a century-and-a-half-old cattle ranch—Verflucht to begin with.
“No way are you going to throw my table away. It’s a piece of art.”
It was a damaged piece of foolishness.
A broken dream.
“It can be saved,” she insisted.
“Why’d you keep it?” he demanded.
“You made it,” she said, as if that were obvious.
“Years ago. Might as well throw it away, now.”
“You have no right.” Cruz chased after him. “I mean it, Axel.” She made a weird sound as she skidded in the mud, but it didn’t slow her down much. She kept after him.
“I love that table. It can be saved.”
Her passion only pissed him off further.
“Why bother?” He whirled on her, holding the table between them like a shield. “You can just toss it away. Buy a new one today.”
Her breaths came in sexy little puffs.
“That table is special.” She glared at him. “It holds a lot of memories.”
He rocked back on his heels, not sure if she meant with him or her husband.
“And it’s mine.”
“It’s destroyed.”
Like them.
Why had she kept it, when she’d thrown him away?
“It can be repaired,” she insisted.
He didn’t want to read anything into that. He didn’t want to hope. He didn’t want to be here, but he couldn’t make himself leave.
He wanted to hurl the table across the yard—rejecting Cruz, their past and the hold she still apparently had over him. Instead he stalked around to the front of the house, cursing under his breath.
Diego was pressed up against his huge bear ignoring the stink, the stains and the sodden fabric.
“Can my bear be saved?” Diego asked.
Axel didn’t want to lie. He planned to run his truck through a car wash a couple of times with the bear in the back and see what happened. “We’ll give it our best try,” he said, lifting the bear into the back of the truck.
“It was a present from my dad,” Diego confided, walking back to the house and trying to match his steps to Axel’s. “He’s dead.”
Axel faltered. His heart squeezed, and he jammed his hands in his pockets. His own insensitivity astonished and shamed him. He’d been feeling jealous of a dead man. He’d been acting self-righteous and as if he was the wounded one, when Cruz had lost her husband and Diego his father.
He knew all too well what that was like—how the grieving never ended. It just went on and on, changing form and intensity but never fading completely.
“We’ll get Bear fixed up,” he promised Cruz’s child. It was the least he could do.
She’d had her reasons for replacing him so quickly. And he didn’t have the right to punish or question her about her choices. She’d been right all along. She wasn’t his business anymore.
Two hours later, the studio and the house were empty. One load had already been taken to a landfill—after they’d taken pictures of the ruined items—and another load had been trucked to one of his barns. The hands had returned, and they nearly had all the remaining salvageable items loaded in the trailer.
“Bring all the clothes to the workroom,” Axel said. “We’ll run them through the wash a couple of times.”
“With some color-safe bleach.” One of his youngest hands, Ben, wrinkled his nose. “Good luck with that boss.”
He broke off as Cruz hurried out of the house. Bill Clemmens had finally arrived.
“I swear he has a drone spying on anyone he needs to work with, waiting until everything is done before swooping in to grab the credit, right Devin?” Ben nudged the younger, blond ranch hand who was still staring at Cruz in a bit of a daze.
Axel couldn’t blame him, not really when she bounded out, long legs in skinny jeans and wearing a white T-shirt that hugged her slim curves and made him imagine he could see the darker outline of her perfect, sweet nipples.
“Hey. Eyes up,” he warned softly and Devin flushed a dull red and ducked his head. “Sorry, boss.”
Axel wasn’t exactly innocent of staring today so he kept his mouth shut.
Bill climbed out of his battered truck, jacked up his pants and spit on the ground. He watched Cruz, like a hunter would prey, as she sauntered toward him, with her sexy, athletic walk.
Ah hell no.
“Bill,” he said coldly, heading Bill off before Cruz joined him.
“Axel.” Bill was even less enthused to see him. “What are you and your boys doing here?”
“Doing your job.”
Bill shoved his hat back and then jammed it low on his head again, his expression mean.
“No one asked you to do that,” he said. “Seems like breaking and entering to me.”
“Good afternoon, Mr. Clemmens.” Cruz glared at Axel before stepping in front of him, clearly trying to de-escalate the situation. Bill and he rarely parted without Bill threatening some sort of action—usually legal.
But he let her play her hand. By the way she flicked her loose and messy braid over her shoulder where it slapped against his chest, he could tell she wanted him to back off.
Too. Damn. Bad.
Bill Clemmens was not to be trusted. He, his father and his grandfather had contested boundaries, water rights and pretty much anything else they could concoct. They’d taken the Wolf family to court for damaged property, from cattle that “wandered” onto their land. The man didn’t maintain his fences, and he wasn’t above trying to rustle cattle. Bill Clemmens was bad news as a neighbor and probably even worse as a landlord.
To her credit, Cruz held on to her temper while Bill passed the blame, made excuses, drew things out and kept dropping his eyes to her chest. Eventually he made a vague promise about getting the insurance company out ‘pronto,’ and then getting some contractor bids.
He’d refused to be pinned down to a timetable for repairs.
“I need a place for me and my son to live,” Cruz said. Axel had the urge to plant his fist between Bill’s eyes at the way they lit with lustful interest. “So, sooner’s better than later.”
“I’ll get you fixed up, little lady.” Then he walked back to his truck.
Sounded like more of a threat than a promise, and Axel relaxed a little because Cruz was nobody’s dummy.
“Loathsome man,” Cruz muttered, carrying the last load to the trailer.
“I told you. But you wanted to handle it your way.”
“I’m all grown up—” She held her arms wide, cocked her hip and made a face at him. “And I don’t need a big hunk of man making decisions for me.” She plunked the box down.
“Is that the last of it?” Devin asked him.
“Yes,” Cruz said. “Thank you so much, Devin and Ben, for your help today. I’d like to pay you,” she said, reaching into her wallet.
“Ma’am.” Devin turned bright red and then he and Ben climbed in the ranch truck. “Boss.”
“Wait, I haven’t given you the address of the storage place.” Cruz grabbed her phone from her back pocket. “I left a voice mail, but they haven’t called me back yet.”
“We have the address, ma’am.” Devin slammed the door, giving Axel one last look before he and Ben took off back to the ranch.
“How could they know? Oh. There’s probably just the one storage facility in town. But I don’t have a unit number yet.”
Because he’d canceled her request. There’d been no point—he had room to store her things. And he’d take better care of drying them out. But if he told her that, she’d be pissed, and ask him why again, and he wasn’t prepared to answer. Because he didn’t know.
She blew out a breath and then she moistened her lip. “Thank you for your help, Axel,” she said quickly. “I know I seemed ungrateful. It’s just…been a challenging day, and I need to figure out living accommodations for me and Diego since my orientation is Monday. So, I’ve got lots on my plate. But I was rude, and I do appreciate your help,” she said quickly. “You don’t need to give us a ride back to town. It’s not far. Diego and I can walk. Mr. Clemmens mentioned that he had another property that is…”
“A dump,” Axel completed.
“Furnished, is what he said.” She put her hands on her hips. “You don’t need to—” she waved her hand at him “—take over or help or whatever manly thing you’re doing because we have a history.”
He’d been heavy-handed because he’d been jealous.
And something else he didn’t want to examine too closely with her so near. But he was the one who needed to apologize. Not her.
“I’m sorry about your husband, Cruz. It must be so difficult for you and your son.”
“What?” Cruz blew out a harsh breath, and her thumb spun the filigree gold band that was loose on her finger.
Even though the man was dead, it pissed Axel off that her husband hadn’t even bought Cruz a diamond. Axel had bought her an oval diamond in a platinum setting with small diamonds circling the stone and then others inlaid in the band. He’d wanted something that was enduring and elegant and could be seen across the room.
He’d been an arrogant ass.
No surprise there.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said. “But I was never married.”
Axel couldn’t quite seem to absorb the words. She’d never married. The spurt of happiness at that statement was totally uncalled for. And then another question slammed into his brain.
“But…”
“Please, Axel.” Cruz looked at him, her dark eyes serious. “Can we please not talk about this now? I’m…” She broke off and looked around the damaged yard and the damaged house.
It was the first time he could remember she’d ever expressed any vulnerability—or fear, nerves, sorrow or exhaustion.
“The ring was my grandmother’s. It’s really the only family heirloom I have, and with Diego, it just made it…you know…easier to avoid a lot of…”
“Let’s get your car,” he said abruptly, his mind in turmoil.

Excerpt. ©Sinclair Jayne. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

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Meet the Author:

Sinclair has loved reading romance novels since she discovered Barbara Cartland historical romances when she was in sixth grade. By seventh grade, she was haunting the library shelves looking to fall in love over and over again with the heroes born from the imaginations of her favorite authors. After teaching writing classes and workshops to adults and teens for many years in Seattle and Portland, she returned to her first love of reading romances and became an editor for Tule Publishing last year. Sinclair lives in Oregon’s wine country where she and her family own a small vineyard of Pinot Noir and where she dreams of being able to write at a desk like Jane Austen instead of in parking lots waiting for her kids to finish one of their 12,000 extracurricular activities.

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