Her Cowboy Hero. Carolyne Aarsen
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Second-Chance Cowboy
Montana rodeo star Tanner Fortier is a good man. A man Keira Bannister never stopped loving. But when he shows up at Refuge Ranch looking to have his late brother’s saddle repaired in time for the championships, he’s the last person Keira wants to see. For years, she’s kept hidden the real reason for breaking their engagement—and Tanner’s heart. But now, with him at the ranch, she’s tempted to reveal the truth—one that could destroy him. But she knows that to have a future with the man of her dreams, she has to settle the past…
Refuge Ranch: Where a Montana family comes home to love.
“Give me your hand.”
As he knelt in front of her, carefully bandaging her cut, Keira caught the familiar scent of his aftershave. The light shone on his hair, bringing out a faint sheen of gold in the brown, and Keira had to stop herself from reaching up and smoothing it away from his face. The way she always used to.
Just then he looked up, and their eyes met. Held.
His expression softened. She couldn’t look away, and for a moment it was as if all the years between them had been erased.
She needed a moment to try to get her bearings.
She needed help. Somehow her tangled emotions had to find the peace and equilibrium she had managed to attain before this man had dropped back into her life.
But, looking down at Tanner, one question remained: Was that even possible now?
CAROLYNE AARSEN
and her husband, Richard, live on a small ranch in northern Alberta, where they have raised four children and numerous foster children, and are still raising cattle. Carolyne crafts her stories in an office with a large west-facing window, through which she can watch the changing seasons while struggling to make her words obey.
Her Cowboy Hero
Carolyne Aarsen
Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.
—Isaiah 43:18
To my kids. Thanks for the blessing you are to us.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Dear Reader
Questions for Discussion
It had been many months and many miles since he’d driven this road to Refuge Ranch. A lot of memories and a lot of pain.
Tanner Fortier’s foot hit the brakes as he stopped his truck at the top of the hill, a cloud of snow swirling around his vehicle. From this vantage point he looked across the basin cradling Refuge Ranch to the mountains beyond; their gray, forbidding surfaces softened by the winter snowpack, a hard white against the endless blue of the Montana sky.
He shivered a moment, the chill of winter easing into the cab of his pickup. The side windows hadn’t completely cleared of frost since Bozeman.
Tanner stacked his gloved hands on the steering wheel, reinforcing his defenses before descending into the valley and the Bannister Ranch. He hadn’t come willingly. He would have preferred to go directly to the Circle C Ranch. Though he hadn’t been away from his childhood home as long as from the Bannister ranch, he would have liked to spend some time there, catch his breath before coming here.
He rolled his shoulder, tensing against the pain that knifed through it, a souvenir from a rank saddle bronc who had spun in when Tanner expected him to spin out. Tanner had lost his seat but, as if to add insult to injury, had also received a well-placed kick that had dislocated his shoulder and put him out of the money for that particular rodeo and had ruined his saddle.
Monty Bannister had been the one who made that saddle, and Tanner wanted Monty to be the one to fix it. Hence his trip here first. The sooner the saddle was fixed, the sooner Tanner could head out on the road again.
The fact that Keira Bannister, his old girlfriend and fiancée, was back living at Refuge Ranch was something he’d have to deal with.
Tanner sent up a quick prayer for strength, put his truck in gear and headed down the road. He wouldn’t be long. Just a quick chat with Monty Bannister, drop off his saddle, say hello to his stepmother, who was staying at the Bannister ranch to help Ellen recuperate, and then head back to his father’s ranch a few miles down the road.
Correction, stepmother’s ranch. The thought could still gall him even after all these years. In spite of working alongside his father since he was a little boy, everything changed when his father died unexpectedly of a heart attack five years ago. When the will was read after the funeral, Tanner found out the ranch had been willed to his stepmother in its entirety. And a couple of months later, Alice had made it clear that she preferred that her natural son, David, take over the ranch. Not Tanner.
In spite of all of that, it was still his childhood home. Tanner had figured on staying at the Circle C for the few days it took for his saddle to be repaired and then heading back to his garage in Sheridan, then off to his buddy’s ranch near Vegas to get ready for the National Finals Rodeo. The super bowl of rodeos. The big one.
The rodeo that would, hopefully, help him let go of the burden that had been haunting him the past two years.
He cut