Destined for the Maverick

Nobody can resist Montana Mavericks! From Whitehorn to Thunder Canyon to Rust Creek Falls, the Big Sky cowboys have been roping in readers for decades. Now New York Times bestselling author Allison Leigh kicks off a special anniversary series with Destined for the Maverick, a short and sexy prequel sure to get you in the maverick mood!

Rust Creek Ramblings

Addie McBride might be the most adorable construction worker we’ve ever seen. But there’s something a little suspicious about Rust Creek Falls’ newest handyperson. Rumor has it she used to work in a big-city shopping mall—and that her only building experience is stacking piles of merino wool sweaters. So how in the world did she wind up on Jack Lawson’s construction crew? Brace yourself, dear readers, as our Rust Creek cowboy meets his total opposite—who might just be his perfect match!

And don’t miss Million-Dollar Maverick by Christine Rimmer, the first installment of Montana Mavericks: 20 Years in the Saddle!

Destined for the Maverick

Allison Leigh

Dedication

For Greg

ALLISON LEIGH

There is a saying that you can never be too rich or too thin. Allison doesn’t believe that, but she does believe that you can never have enough books! When her stories find a way into the hearts—and bookshelves—of others, Allison says she feels she’s done something right. Making her home in Arizona with her husband, she enjoys hearing from her readers at Allison@allisonleigh.com or P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Extract

Chapter One

“Montana?” The word was a comment in and of itself simply because it was practically a screech at the top of her coworker’s lungs. So much so that it drew the attention of the trio of teenage girls who were browsing the rack of clearance-priced jeans. “What do you mean you’re moving to Montana?”

Addie McBride managed a calm smile, even though inside she was a mass of bouncing nerves, and continued folding the cap-sleeved T-shirts she was stacking on the table in the front of the store. The Cincinnati, Ohio, mall where Honeyque was located was typically quiet for the middle of the morning in the middle of April. It was also the middle of the school week, and from one corner of her eye, Addie kept an eye on the girls. If it had been a vacation day for students, the clothing store would have been busier, and she’d bet they were cutting classes.

“I mean I’m moving to Montana,” she told Daphne again. Maybe once she started her life there, she would lose the cynicism she’d acquired that made her automatically suspicious of three giggling teenage girls.

Daphne rolled her eyes and continued plying the portable steamer over the dresses she was hanging. “I got that, Addie. The question is why? Honeyque doesn’t have any stores in Montana, much less this. . .what did you call the town? Brown Creek River? Might as well be Timbuktu.”

“Rust Creek Falls,” Addie corrected with a laugh. “Remember that woman I’ve been telling you about? Theone from Bootstraps who went to Montana to help with the recovery efforts after it was flooded out last summer? I saw her on the national news and started following her blog about it,” she prompted.

“The one who moved there and got all hitched up with a cowboy as a result?” Daphne looked disbelieving. “You’re moving because of that? Because you want a man? You had more dates last week than I’ve had in a month! You’re too picky, that’s the problem.”

For most of her life, Addie had been accused of talking too much. And she wished now that she’d just kept her mouth shut. Just because she’d been moved by Lissa Roarke’s blog regarding her experiences in the small Montana town and the dignity of the Rust Creek people who lived there didn’t mean that Addie’s young coworker would share the dream that had tugged Addie into making such a monumental change in her life.

“I’m not picky,” she said. And she wasn’t about to tell Daphne that she did hope to find a man. Yes, she’d had a few dates recently. And they’d been as go-nowhere as always. She just couldn’t find the kind of man who wanted the same old-fashioned things she wanted. Not here in Cincinnati. “I’m moving because I want a change. I’m leaving next week.” And she was crossing her fingers that her fifteen-year-old car, Edith, would stand up to the drive, because even as expensive as gasoline had become, it was still cheaper to drive the long way than to fly.

Daphne went from disbelief to shock. “So soon?”

“I have a week of vacation on the books, so I’m using that as half of my two-week notice. If I make good time, I’ll have a few days to get settled before I start my new job.”

“In retail?”

Again, she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “It’s a, um, a new development there,” she said vaguely. She didn’t want to get into the details of the position she’d been offered, particularly when it was a temporary job. She’d already battled her parents over what they considered a massively foolish decision to give up her position with Honeyque after she’d been working there for five years.

“It’s the job, then,” Daphne deduced. “You’re mad because you didn’t get the store manager promotion here. But come on! You don’t have to go all the way to Montana.”

The teenage trio had migrated from the clearance jeans to the wall racks where jewelry and other accessories were artfully displayed. Addie shifted slightly so she could keep a better eye on them, and deftly flipped a perfectly folded neon-pink tee on the top of the neat pile. The stacks of shirts were all brightly colored, replacing the Easter-egg pastel ones that had been out the week before.

“I’m not leaving because I’m mad,” she told Daphne. She’d put her name in for manager of the store when their present manager had been promoted to a district position, but she hadn’t really expected to get it when there were others with more seniority already waiting in line. “And I’m going all the way to Montana because I want to. I’ve been thinking about this for nearly a year. I wanted a change and this is it.”

Daphne propped one hand on her trim hip and held the steamer wand out with the other, sending wispy tendrils of vapor out into the air. “But why?” She was twenty-one. Five years younger than Addie and still in college. Working at Honeyque was only a part-time job for her until she finished and moved on to bigger and better things.

Addie had been just the same, once.

Only “bigger and better” never came along. Or, more to the point, Addie was afraid that it might have come, and she had somehow missed noticing.

She was reasonably intelligent. She wasn’t going to win any beauty contests, but she didn’t think she was exactly doggy kibble, either. All in all, she was pretty average and yet, of all her friends, she was the last remaining singleton. No marriage. No near misses. No nibbles on the line, period, despite the dates. She’d come to believe that she hadn’t found her future in her hometown of Cincinnati, because her future wasn’t in Cincinnati.

Maybe, like her favorite blogger, her future was in Rust Creek Falls, Montana.

“I’m moving because I need a change,” she told Daphne again, hiding a sigh because she’d just seen two of the teenage shoppers slip several chains from the display into their pockets. “Call security,” she instructed her coworker.

“Call the men in the little white coats,” Daphne countered, “because you’re the one who’s gone out of her mind.”

“Maybe I’m heeding the call to my destiny!”

“Just hope it’s not like a moth’s destiny,” Daphne muttered, setting down her steamer wand to pick up the phone. “They can’t keep from incinerating themselves by flying into the light.”

Addie tossed up her hands in frustration. She’d had too many similar reactions from her own family. “Say what you want. Rust Creek Falls is waiting for me. And I am not going to disappoint her!”

Chapter Two

“Sounds like you need a good mechanic.”

Addie nearly jumped out of her skin at the deep-voiced comment. She looked up from the mysterious innards grinding away in discordant cacophony beneath Edith’s hood and felt her knees wobble a little bit.

She could have blamed that wobble on the fact that she’d just finished driving a couple thousand miles only the night before, and with every mile, not only had her car engine become more unwilling, but doubts had crept in that she was making the gigantic mistake everyone back in Cincinnati had predicted.

Or she could blame that wobble on Tall-Dark-and-Macho standing two feet away, who’d just thumbed up the brim of his black cowboy hat and was giving her a decidedly interested look out of his dark brown eyes.

Maybe her head was so full of handsome, knee-wobble-worthy cowboys from Lissa Roarke’s blog that travel exhaustion had conjured one right out of her imagination.

“Might want to give that thing a rest before you throw a rod or something,” the man prompted.

She jumped a little and went around to reach inside the car and shut off the engine.

The silence that filled the early Sunday morning felt blessed. She straightened and eyed him across the top of the car. The sunrise was behind him and brilliant color streamed over the horizon, bathing him in a red and gold aura. It was as if God was reaching down and wrapping him in a ribbon for her.

“You just moving in?”

She realized she was still gawking, probably with drool working down her chin, and she quickly moved around to close the hood of the car. “Yes, to both,” she said, surreptitiously swiping at her chin. Just in case. Mercifully, her fingertip came away dry and she cast him a sideways look. He was still six feet of mouthwatering cowboy from Stetson to dusty cowboy boots, so maybe she was still a little sane. “How could you tell?” she added wryly, because her car engine had been screaming and there were packing boxes crammed inside on the seats, easily visible through the car windows.

His smile was a little crooked, but his teeth were strong, white and perfectly straight. “I’m quick that way,” he drawled. He thumbed back his hat an inch more, revealing a suntanned forehead and hair nearly as dark as the hat. “Saw the Ohio license plate. You drove all the way from there?”

She nodded and waved her hand over the now silent car. “From Cincinnati. Which is why Edith here protests so much.”

“You named your car Edith?”

His obvious amusement ought to have made her cringe, but just looking at him seemed to cause a bouquet of excited bubbles to bloom inside her chest. She hadn’t thought she was quite so man-hungry as to imagine every one she met as the father of her babies, but she had a sudden vision of those black-brown eyes staring up from a toddler’s face. “What can I say? I’ve had her ten years,” she defended lightly. “Sixteen-year-old girls tend to name their cars. The habit stuck.”

He looked even more amused. She’d never seen such dark eyes sparkle, but his did.

Just as their babies’ would.

She shook off the thought.

“None of the sixteen-year-old girls I knew ever had their own cars,” he was saying. “Neither did the guys.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Jack. Jack Lawson.”

Add breathless to wobbly. And quite possibly insane. “Addie McBride.” She set her hand against his, and his palm was as warm as the sunrise. Warm and callused. Large enough to engulf her fingers in a decidedly lingering handshake. She barely managed not to rub her hand against her thigh to stop the tingling when she finally drew back. He had faint laugh lines radiating from the corners of his dark brown eyes, and she was guessing he was probably only a few years older than she was.

He was wearing blue jeans and a blue plaid cotton shirt, neither of which had ever seen a designer’s shelf. But the jeans were worn and fit his lean hips and long legs as if they’d been tailor-made and the shirt—well, she didn’t let her eyes linger too long on the way the cotton molded around his wide shoulders, because her knees were still troubled with that whole wobbly-feeling thing.

Talk about blessed. The man was. Seriously.

“I took a day longer to get here than I planned,” she babbled, “trying to give Edith a bit of a break. Got in so late last night I didn’t have the energy to unload.” She’d only gotten as far as throwing an afghan over the bare mattress in the studio-sized duplex she’d rented before crashing. “Thought I’d see if she sounded any better this morning.” She grinned, even though she had no business doing so when she was facing the unknown expense of car repairs. “As you obviously heard, no such luck.”

He casually propped his left hand on the hood of her car. He wasn’t wearing any jewelry to speak of. No wedding ring—not that that meant anything, of course—she reminded herself sternly.

“I don’t know about that, but Rust Creek Falls is feeling pretty lucky ’bout now.” His sparkling eyes were trained on her face, and the way he was leaning his hand on her car also had him angling closer to her. “What did our little town do right to lure you here?”

More bubble bouquets grew and in that moment, she knew right down to her bone marrow that coming to Rust Creek Falls had been the right decision.

Bless you and your blog, Lissa Roarke.

“I’m here to, um, to work on the Community Center construction project,” she said a little breathlessly. She was five-five in the flat-soled tennis shoes she was wearing with her jeans and hot-pink T-shirt, and she tilted her head back to look up at him. It felt as if her smile was about ready to split her face in two. “I start tomorrow.”

His eyebrows shot up and he gave her an assessing once-over. He shifted a little. Maybe an inch. Two. But not toward her. Then she realized his eyes were no longer smiling and a few of the bubbles inside her popped. “You’re one of Arthur Swinton’s finds?”

Nevertheless, optimism and that golden aura made her push onward. “Yes. Mr. Swinton hired me. About two weeks ago.”

Arthur Swinton was the money behind the intergenerational project. And if it weren’t for the employment bonus he’d offered for people willing to move to Rust Creek Falls and work on the construction project, she’d never have been able to afford to come to Montana in the first place. The bonus had paid for her gas and the deposit on her duplex, and if she was careful, it would carry her over for a small while when the two-month job ended until she found a more permanent one.

That was the argument she’d given her family back in Cincinnati, and she was sticking to it.

“I read about Mr. Swinton’s offer in an online blog,” she told Jack, aware that she was speaking a little too quickly, a little too freely, yet unable to stop. “Lissa Roarke? She worked with that nonprofit organization, Bootstraps, and came to Rust Creek Falls to help out after the flood here last year.”

She could tell the details weren’t necessary by the way he nodded. “I know who she is.”

“It seemed like an ideal opportunity,” she pushed on. “So, are you a Rust Creek Falls native?”

His nod was even briefer and she could sense his withdrawal. “You did commercial construction in Cincinnati?”

She kept her smile in place, though her mouth went dry. She’d helped her dad build an extension on their garage, she knew the difference between a miter and a chop saw, and was an avid devotee to all television do-it-yourself shows. She was also well aware that didn’t make her an expert in anything. So she sidestepped.A little.

Okay. A lot.

The same way she’d sidestepped when she had her phone interview. “More, uh, more residential. Mr. Swinton needed a handyman.” She laughed overbrightly. “Handyperson, I guess I should say.”

Jack’s gaze turned even more assessing. As if he could see right through to the truth of the matter. That, in her enthusiasm to move to Rust Creek Falls, she might have exaggerated her experience a teensy bit. And she hadn’t corrected Mr. Swinton’s assumption that she had plenty of on-the-job experience.

The man had told her they were in need of general construction laborers, and specifically, he was looking for a woman. She’d guessed, by Mr. Swinton’s eagerness to make her fit his requirements, there hadn’t been too many females who’d applied.

Anxious to move the topic away from her employment and back onto more interesting matters—namely the good-looking, seemingly eligible and for a few seconds there, seemingly interested, guy standing before her—she jerked her head at the small house behind her. “So, do you live in the neighborhood, Jack?” There were three other houses on the street, looking sleepy and quiet at seven in the morning on a Sunday. He could have come from any of them.

“I’ve got a house a little ways outside town,” he said, revealing pretty much nothing, but dashing that hope all the same and leaving her wondering, instead, what he was doing there at that hour at all.

He moved his hand from the dusty car and pushed his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans. She determinedly kept her gaze from following the motion too closely. The man knew how to wear jeans.

“Keith’s gas station down on the corner is where you’ll want to take your car,” he said abruptly. “Keith’s a mechanic. He’s my cousin, but anyone around here will tell you he’s fair.” Then he settled his cowboy hat more squarely on his head, nodded and went over to one of the trucks parked on the street, same as her own car. It was black beneath the dust covering it, and had a rack in the back loaded with ladders. He climbed behind the wheel. “Hope you’ll enjoy Rust Creek Falls,” he said. Polite. Friendly.

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