Coming Home to the Cowboy Read online

  Coming Home to the Cowboy

  A Redemption Ranch Romance

  Megan Ryder

  Coming Home to the Cowboy

  Copyright © 2019 Megan Ryder

  EPUB Edition

  The Tule Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  First Publication by Tule Publishing 2019

  Cover design by Lee Hyat

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-951190-31-6

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Please Leave a Review

  The Redemption Ranch series

  Excerpt from A Cowboy’s Salvation

  More Books by Megan Ryder

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chase Summers leaned against the tunnel wall leading out to the arena, thumbs hooked in the loops of his comfortable old jeans, wearing his lucky flannel shirt under the competitor’s vest with his sponsors’ badges decorating the lapels. He barely heard the dull roar of the crowd or the pounding country rock music as he focused on his ride. People milled about—other cowboys waiting for their rides, watching the competition, or those who had finished and were seeing who had made the next round with them. The sports medicine team pushed past Chase and ran to the arena to help one of the riders who had just gotten thrown and was slow to get up. Chase didn’t go look. He couldn’t afford the distraction, not this close to his ride. Couldn’t let the risks mess with his head, not yet. He’d check the status later on the injury list.

  It’d been a bad season so far. Bull riding was one of the most dangerous sports there was. Yeah, people complained about football. Two men lining up to attack each other in the pursuit of a ball. Not that he didn’t love football or respect the game, but those men weighed a couple hundred pounds. Try putting a guy who weighed a couple hundred pounds, maybe, against a fifteen-hundred to two-thousand-pound bull who didn’t play by any rules except to kick the shit out of you. Then see who had it rougher.

  Despite the dangers, he’d ride the bull any day. The rush, the adrenaline, and the reward were intense. But this season there seemed to be more injuries than usual; more of the top guys were out for extended periods. The number one rider had been kicked in the face just two weeks ago and needed major reconstruction, leaving the field open for someone like Chase to catch up.

  He took a deep breath, letting the smell of dirt, bull, and rawhide permeate his lungs, then he let it out slowly, expelling the thoughts of injuries like a bad odor. The scents reminded him of the ranch, the only home he’d ever known, the home he never thought he’d actually have and wouldn’t have except for the generosity of his mentor and foster father, Douglas Rawlings.

  J.D. McIntyre strode up next to him, his chaps and jeans coated in dirt from his fall in the ring and clapped him on the shoulder. “You up next? Who did you draw?”

  “Oleander,” Chase replied, nodding to his sometime traveling companion and fellow hell-raiser.

  J.D. snorted. “Better you than me. That bull looks sweet and docile but turns into a righteous demon in the chute.”

  Chase shrugged and checked his gloves. “He’s worth the points. I’ll need them for the lead.”

  J.D. shook his head. “Well, someone had to draw him. If anyone can, it’d be you. Go beat the Brazilian and bring home the trophy. I’m out of the running for now. Damned Quick Draw tossed me in 2.8 seconds.”

  Chase grunted. Quick Draw was living up to his name again. But J.D. was his only other real competition outside of Antonio Pereira. Antonio was ranked number three overall, but he hadn’t gotten as high-point a bull as Chase or J.D. If Chase could ride Oleander, he could take the competition from Antonio and gain serious ground in the overall rankings.

  The announcer called his name to the chute.

  “See you on the other side.” He nodded to J.D. and strode to the ride-chute where Oleander was already being led.

  Oleander was a beast of a bull, docile as most of those creatures were outside of the arena, calm, almost amiable. He was mostly white with a few splashes of black to break up the albino quality. He settled quietly in the chute, no banging against the metal walls, no fighting the handlers. Chase eyed the bull, who steadfastly ignored him as if he were bored with the proceedings, but Chase knew better.

  Chase climbed the metal fencing next to the bull and handed the rope to the handler. He grabbed the opposite fence across from the bull, making sure to get a good grip, then he set his boot solidly on Oleander’s back, letting the bull know he was there. He waited a few seconds, pausing to the let the bull do his customary buck, an introduction from Oleander, a preliminary howdy-do. He then slid his legs around the bull, keeping his toes pointed forward to ensure his spurs stayed away from its flanks. He warmed up the rope, checked the slack, then rubbed the rope to get the rosin sticky and hot on his glove. He punched the rosin rope away and warmed the handle to improve his grip. Then he positioned the bull rope for the ride.

  Through this, Oleander stayed fairly docile, almost asleep, but Chase wasn’t fooled. No bull was assigned the high round of any tournament if he wasn’t a tough contender, and Oleander was one of the toughest. Several competitors swore this damned beast used psychological warfare against many of the riders. No one had ever ridden him successfully; Chase was fixing to be the first.

  When the rope was situated to his satisfaction, he took the final piece of wrap and slid up Oleander’s back, put his feet toward the shoulder of the bull, and nodded.

  The chute opened with a clang, and they were off.

  Oleander came alive in a whirlwind of motion, shoulders and back arching then colliding with the ground, a move designed to jar the rider’s teeth. At the same time, the bull’s back end came up, and twisted to throw Chase off-balance and hopefully off his back completely, but Chase was prepared and moved with the bull. Chase kept his legs clasped around the bull’s body, shifting and moving as the bull flung his body about in a ferocious attempt to dislodge the human interloper from his back. All the while, Chase waited to hear the blessed bell indicating that he had successfully made the eight seconds needed to beat the behemoth between his legs.

  But all he heard was the sound of grunts and snorts, and he saw bull snot flying around them. Then, finally, the sound of victory. The bell sounded and Chase made his move to dismount, but the bull made one unexpected sideways turn and a blunted horn came straight for Chase’s head.

  Blinding pain.

  Darkness.

  *

  Clawing pain hammered at his head, radiating throughout his body, but he fought the nausea and darkness to open his eyes. He expected to hear the roar of the crowd, the music thumping in the stadium. Feel the dirt they brought in for the arena. Instead, he heard only a beeping sound and saw a soft light that somehow still managed to stab his retinas.

  He wasn’t in the sports medicine room. This was a hospital.

  He let out a groan as reality came crashing down on him, much like the body of that damned bull had.

  A shadow shifted and moved from beside the bed and slowly revealed itself in the light spilling in from the hallway. His older brother, West Morgan, leaned over him, looking haggard and worn with more than a day’s growth of dark stubble. Lines of exhaustion were carved into his weathered face. West wasn’t his blood brother, but that had never mattered to the three teens who had found themselves on the Rawlings Ranch where the foster system had deposited them after they were deemed high-risk youth. But they had created their own odd sort of family, staying together and building bonds tighter than blood with the man who had saved them, who had been more of a father than their own sperm donors.

  West laid a hand on his shoulder. “Stay still. I’ll get a nurse.”

  Chase struggled to speak, but West had alread
y pressed a button, and it was amazing how fast help rushed into the room. Judging by the way the young brunette checked out his brother, maybe he wasn’t so surprised. Chase closed his eyes and let her check his vitals, answering her brief questions with a raspy voice raw from disuse. His mouth tasted like dirt from the ring. With one last lingering glance at West, she left the room. West pulled up a chair and held up a cup with cold water and ice chips for Chase to sip. The cool water both burned and soothed his sore throat.

  Chase let his head fall back against the pillows and tried to catalog his injuries, but the pain throbbed in every part of his body, making it difficult to locate the worst of the damage.

  “How long?” he croaked.

  West stared at him as if memorizing his face, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “Three days. You have broken ribs, a punctured lung, bruised kidneys, and a concussion.”

  Chase tried to laugh but groaned again from the sharp, stabbing pain that knifed him in the chest. “Damn, that hurts.”

  West jumped up from the chair and started to pace the small hospital room. “Goddamn it, Chase. You had to have surgery to repair your lung and release the air or something. This isn’t a laughing matter. Jesus, you could have been killed.”

  The door opened, and the hallway light spilled in around a woman. Tara Rawlings, West’s fiancée, let out a small cry and raced to the bed, petting Chase’s face gently. “Chase, you’re awake. We’ve all been praying, and West hasn’t left your side once for the past three days. Thank God you’re okay.”

  “That remains to be seen,” West growled from the foot of the bed. Tara shot him a look then continued to pamper Chase.

  “How are you feeling? Do you need anything?”

  “I hope that bull knocked some sense into you.” West came around the other side of the bed and leaned over the metal railing. “You almost died. I never want to get that phone call again, never want to make that long drive not knowing if my brother is going to be alive when I get here. Do you know how that feels?”

  Chase stared up at what appeared to be tears in West’s eyes and tried not to think about what could make his brother cry. “West, man, it’s fine. I’m going to be okay. A few weeks’ recovery and I’ll be back in the saddle. This was sheer dumb luck that my spur got caught in the rope. It won’t happen again.”

  West gripped the metal bar so tightly his knuckles went white. Tara reached across the bed and rubbed his shoulder, making soothing noises. “What if it’s not? What if the next time you’re not so lucky? And honestly, I don’t think you were that lucky this time.”

  Chase sank against the pillow and let his eyes fall closed. Luck rarely played a role in his life—unless it was bad luck, and right now, this was the worst. Just as he was on top of the world, fucking Oleander had to take him out, leaving him on the sidelines when he could have gained some ground on the circuit. Luck wasn’t for guys like him, no matter how charmed people thought he was.

  Chapter Two

  Chase studied the gently sloping hills as he and West barreled down the highway, the silence in the cab a quiet comfort after the bustle of the hospital. Chase winced as the truck hit a bump in the road, the jolt sending pain shooting through his body, reminding him that a bull had used him as a punching bag just a couple of weeks ago. Healing was going to take a lot longer than he would like to acknowledge, and he’d be stuck recovering at the ranch while dealing with Tara mothering him and West acting like his father the whole time.

  It had been hard enough avoiding West and his concern in the hospital, but there he could pretend to be asleep or flirt with nurses to have people around to run interference. But now, stuck in a truck cab with his brother for miles on end . . . well, Chase had no recourse but to deal with him.

  Yet, West had kept his peace, instead talking about plans for the ranch, Tara’s expansion into the dude ranch—or guest ranch as she preferred to call it—and West’s breeding operation for the cattle. Or they listened to music quietly while Chase let the painkillers drag him into a healing doze. They chose to drive, worried about the change in altitude in flight and the lingering effects of the pneumothorax from his punctured lung. And, apparently, West wasn’t going to let him hang out in a hotel room for the next several weeks, not that Chase was keen on spending the money for that.

  Chase leaned back on the headrest and closed his eyes. It would be nice to recover at home. Have some nice home cooking, maybe some nursing from a couple of local girls, though he hadn’t been too interested in anyone the last time he’d been home. Which was a good thing; there would be no clinging women wailing about his injuries and looking to sink their claws into him while he was down and out.

  Without opening his eyes, he sighed. “I like your new truck, brother. But you could have sprung for the fancy entertainment package. I hear they have Wi-Fi now, and you can even play games and DVDs.”

  West snorted. “If I had known I’d be dragging your sorry ass home after you almost died, maybe I would have done that. How many more times do you plan on doing this? Should I invest in a new truck for your lazy ass?”

  Chase grinned. “I didn’t exactly plan this little road trip, but I sure would like to see a movie. Your music taste sucks.”

  West flicked off the country music station. “That’s easily handled. Seriously, Chase. How many times am I going to have to do this?”

  He shouldn’t have complained about the music. Chase opened his eyes and glared at his brother. “You act like you’ve had to do this every couple of months. Sorry to pull you from shoveling shit, but I never asked you to come.”

  West slammed his fist into the dashboard; Chase half expected to see a crack and was impressed when it didn’t appear. “Dammit, Chase. That’s not the point. You never call when you get hurt. How many times have you had a concussion just this year? Or broken a bone?”

  “Do you want me to call you every time I get a boo-boo? Jesus, West. I’m a grown man. I can take care of myself.” Chase lounged in the passenger seat, trying to get as comfortable as his bruises would allow, and scowled at the relentless grasslands passing by.

  “Hell yes, I expect you to call me. I’m your fucking brother.” West gripped the steering wheel tight, his knuckles almost white with tension.

  “God, you’re acting like an old woman. I’ve taken care of myself for years. I’m a big boy. Besides, there are plenty of women who are more than happy to take care of me when I need some TLC.”

  Chase saw West’s gaze reflected in the passenger window. His stare was steady, not angry or even hurt. “You don’t have to be alone, you know. You have a family that gives a shit about you, God knows why.” The last was muttered under his breath almost like a curse as West focused on the blacktop.

  Chase often wondered the same thing. His whole life had been a pattern of people walking out on him, one foster family after another, only in rare cases keeping him around for more than a few months. If he lasted a whole school year with one family, it was a fucking miracle. If he’d owned a suitcase as a kid, he’d never unpack. Only Douglas had kept him around, despite Chase testing him at every turn with attitude, language, and the crazy antics he pulled. Through it all, Douglas had his back and so had West. Clearly, West still had his back.

  Chase scrubbed his hand over his face. “Ignore me. I’m tired and I have a headache. I’m just being an asshole.”

  West grinned. “Well, at least that concussion didn’t change your personality.”

  Chase snorted. “As if a little concussion could do that.”

  West gave him a sideways glance. “Four could. When were you going to tell me that the medical staff was going to bench you if you got another one?”

  Chase sighed. This whole debate over concussions and head injuries had bled over from football into bull riding, and it was making him crazy. He was so close to the prize, to the big money he had worked so hard for, the money that could go a long way to helping them with the upcoming tax bill on the ranch and turning things around. This was his part in the effort, and he didn’t need a little headache to keep him down, not when he had a chance to gain some ground. He sucked in a breath, and the pain stabbed him in his chest.