Hard Luck Ranch
A Totally Bound Publication
Hard Luck Ranch
ISBN #
978-1-78430-058-6
©Copyright Nan Comargue 2014
Cover Art by Posh Gosh ©Copyright May 2014
Edited by Sue Meadows
Totally Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Totally Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Totally Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2014 by Totally Bound Publishing,
Newland House, The Point, Weaver Road, Lincoln, LN6 3QN
Warning:
This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has a
heat rating
of
Totally Burning
and a
Sexometer
of
2.
HARD LUCK RANCH
Nan Comargue
When his best friend Wesley orders up a mail order bride, Everett leaves Hard Luck Ranch for good. Or so he thinks…until he realizes that there may be room in their marriage for one more.
Emma came out West to marry a man she’s never met but she’s already fallen in love with Wesley through their letters. Life at his home, Hard Luck Ranch, is far better than she ever imagined with a loving husband and a prosperous farm. The only hiccup in her plans for the future is Wes’ best friend, the local sheriff Everett Montgomery, who may share more than a boyhood with her husband.
Everett is trying to drown his misery over his friend’s marriage with shots at the local saloon and sex with the local madam’s brother, Kenneth. But Ken isn’t Wes, the man Everett has loved since he was old enough to know what love was. While Everett loses himself in his heartache, he stays away from the ranch. But he doesn’t expect Emma to come out to find him—nor does he realize that she’s guessed his secret.
Emma loves her husband dearly and she wants him to be happy, even if it means sharing him with Everett. But will the sexy lawman be willing to accept her as part of the bargain?
Chapter One
Hard Luck Ranch.
The name was supposed to say it all, Emma guessed. Hard Luck for its owner, no doubt, trying to scrabble a living out of a few hundred acres of land. And tough luck for her, who had no choice but to come here.
The path to the ranch was certainly hard enough. The wagon on which she was perched had only a plain wooden board in place of a seat and the entire structure bounced mercilessly over each rocky turn in the road. Several times she’d predicted that she would simply be pitched bodily over the side, but each time she credited the driver’s skilled handling of the lone nag as they managed to stay upright for mile after lonely mile.
Emma held onto her hat, now viciously mangled from the dry wind and sharp eddies of dust that blew into her face every minute or so. She tried to picture her home back in New York State. Her father’s home, truly, and now, more than anything, her stepmother’s.
The image of warmth and genteel comfort would not come.
Perhaps it had never existed. What warmth had been in her life had been in the form of her lovely young mother, now more of a vague sense than an actual memory. She’d died when Emma was three and her father had mourned long and earnestly, leaving Emma to be raised by a succession of governesses.
She’d been neglected, she realized now when she looked back over her last twenty motherless years. But she’d forgiven her father almost before she recognized her right to a grievance. Her mother had been his childhood love. They’d grown up next to each other and been betrothed since they were old enough to be considered of marriageable age. An age Emma herself was now well past, as her stepmother delighted in reminding her.
Emma lifted her chin and with that gesture she nearly lost hold of her precious hat.
Well, she’d shown Mabel, hadn’t she? She managed to get married all on her own—and forever escape from Mabel’s terrible suffocating presence.
“Hold on,” the taciturn driver told her as he made another sharp turn for no reason at all, as far as Emma could see.
She held onto the side of the wagon for dear life.
Yes, she’d gotten herself married. Why was it that the idea that had seemed so good in New York looked so miserable here in Texas?
* * * *
“This is the most stupid idea you’ve ever had, Wes, and no doubt about it.”
Wesley Miller peered at his reflection in the wavery-looking glass and adjusted his string tie once again. It was his best one, with a wide silver clasp, but it—and him—felt woefully inadequate at the moment.
And it didn’t help that his only friend in the world seemed to think the same.
Wes turned away from the mirror. He could hardly make out his own face in the battered glass so what was the point in trying?
“Come on, Ev, give it a rest now,” he said to his friend. “I need to do this.”
“A wife?” Everett Montgomery practically spat the word out. “There are plenty of substitutes for one in town. No need for you to shackle yourself to a strange woman you’ve never met for no reason at all.”
“There is a reason,” Wes said softly, looking around his house.
It was large and so new that the boards were still bright and yellow, not yet faded to the mellow gray color of every other house surrounding the town. But the vast rooms were bare and unsightly, kept only minimally clean by his housekeeper, Dorry Jenkins.
The house needed the tender care of a woman. And so did he.
“Dorry may not be the best cook and dishwasher in the state,” Everett acceded, “but Kimberley down at the Rose is the best fuck money can buy. Will you give up the soiled doves at the Rose once your bride gets here?”
“Sex is for procreation,” Wes said, feeling like a fool.
Those were his late father’s words but those old adages only seemed to work for people like his father—the ones who went to church every Sunday and doled out advice to the less holy, whether they liked it or not.
Wes had grown up with plenty of advice but also plenty of good hard common sense as well. When the oil prospectors wanted to buy up a quarter of his land in exchange for a small fortune in cash, he hadn’t thought twice about it. He knew his father wouldn’t have had any sentimental doubts about making Hard Luck a prosperous concern.
Everett gaped at him. “You can’t be serious, man!”
Wes strode to the front window, the one that overlooked the track up to the house. “Not that it’s any of your concern, Ev, but I intend to do right by this lady—my wife. From her letters, I know that she’s a good girl and I don’t intend to embarrass her by continuing to act as though I was a single man.”
Everett whistled, a low mocking sound. “You’re a better man than me, Wes.”
Wes glanced over his shoulder with a brief smile. “Was there ever any doubt of that?”
Everett walked over to stand by him. The two men were nearly the same height, with Everett the taller by a scant inch. But aside from their heights, they couldn’t have been more different.
Wes had a farmer’s sturdy, stocky frame while Everett was all lean muscle. Wes was dark-haired and brown-eyed while Everett’s hair had never darkened from its childhood tow color and his eyes were a clear gray that usually looked easy-going, even lazy. Most people who met Wes were not surprised to learn that he was a rancher and cattleman but everyone was shocked to learn that the laid back Everett was the town of Desert Rose’s top lawman.
Yet the two men had been friends almost since birth, when Everett’s mother had served as housekeeper to the Millers. Everett’s father had been a ranch hand at Hard Luck until he’d been trampled and killed by a bull. As a result, both men’s connection to the ranch went deep, although Everett’s job made it convenient for him to live in town. Close to the amenities of the Rose Parlor.
“What kind of woman advertises for a husband in a newspaper?” Everett asked suddenly, his eyes narrowed and suspicious.
“A desperate woman,” was Wes’ reply.
“Why is she so desperate?”
“That,” said Wes, “is none of your business.”
A short silence followed. It was the first time either of them had said anything like that to the other.
Everett pushed away from the window frame. “I see,” he said, his voice bland and inexpressive.
But Wes knew that he was hurt. His oldest friend. He was discomfited. Would this be how it was between them forever, just because he was marrying this woman? A wave of sick regret filled his chest.
Everett retrieved his hat from the hook by the door then jammed it on top of his head. “I’d best be going now. I’m sure you’d prefer to welcome your new bride in private.”
“I invited you over,” Wes protested. “I wanted you to be the first one to meet her.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Everett said, his hand at the door.
When he pulled it open, a woman stood framed on the other side.
Everett swallowed. She was beautiful. More than that, she was unique. The hair framing her heart-shaped face was true blue-black, darker than sin. Yet her eyes were a heavenly blue.
Good and evil. Sin and redemption. She seemed to sum it all up in one exquisite package.
Everett’s cock swelled.
Wes had to push him aside. “Emma!” he said, a wide smile lighting up his sunburnt face. “Come on in, sweetheart.”
Emma accepted the hand he stretched out to her. “You must be Wesley.” She looked at the other man inquisitively.
“This is Everett Montgomery,” Wes said quickly, placing a hand on Ev’s arm as if to detain him. “Ev is the sheriff in town.”
Emma smiled at him. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Montgomery.” She paused for a moment. “Sheriff? Is everything all right?”
Wes laughed. “Yes, of course. Ev and I have been friends all our lives. Ev used to live at Hard Luck when he was a boy.”
“Hard Luck,” she repeated the name musingly as she took in the new house and its sparse but tasteful furnishings. “It appears as though your luck has changed, dear Wesley.”
The endearment made Ev raise his eyebrows.
Emma gave a ripple of laughter. “Your friend is surprised at my calling you ‘dear’,” she said. “He doesn’t seem to realize just how close two people can become over the course of a voluminous correspondence.”
Wes nodded. “I tried to tell Ev—”
“Voluminous correspondence,” Everett said. “I didn’t go far in school but I seem to think that means writing letters to each other. To my way of thinking, writing letters are a poor substitute for meeting someone and looking them in the eyes.”