Guardian Cowboy

A lone wolf cowboy comes to the rescue

But can he outwit a deadly stalker?

Sawyer Quincy unexpectedly awakes in a stranger’s bed and is mortified. The rancher wants to get to know Janis Little, but threatening notes, slashed tires and gunshots warn him to stay away. Despite the danger surrounding them both, Sawyer falls hard and means to protect her at all costs. When Janis suddenly disappears, Sawyer puts it all on the line to save her.

CARLA CASSIDY is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author who has written more than one hundred and twenty novels. Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write.

Also available by Carla Cassidy

A Real Cowboy

Cowboy of Interest

Cowboy Under Fire

Cowboy at Arms

Operation Cowboy Daddy

Killer Cowboy

Sheltered by the Cowboy

Colton’s Secret Son

Colton Cowboy Hideout

The Colton Bodyguard

Visit millsandboon.co.uk for more information

Guardian Cowboy

Carla Cassidy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07861-0

GUARDIAN COWBOY

© 2018 Carla Bracale

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Author Bio

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Extract

Chapter 1

“If one of those cowboys from the Humes’s ranch strokes my butt one more time, I’m going to toss a drink over somebody’s head,” Janis Little exclaimed to fellow Watering Hole waitress, Annie Holbrook, as they both reached the polished bar that stretched almost wall-to-wall along the side of the popular nightspot.

Annie grinned at her. “I double-dog dare you,” she said, her dark eyes snapping with mischief. “Stroking butts is the only way those men can convince themselves they have any kind of a romantic relationship with a woman. I triple-dog dare you.”

Janis laughed as the bartender, Tanner Woodson, approached them. “Ladies, talk to me,” he said.

“Three draft beers,” Annie said.

Janis gave him the orders for her tables and he stepped away to prepare the drinks.

“He is so hot,” Annie whispered to Janis.

Tanner was not only new to the town of Bitterroot, Oklahoma, but tonight was only his third night on the job.

So far, as manager of the bar, Janis was impressed with him. He was friendly with the patrons but not overly so. He was quick and efficient, and when he had a moment to rest, he didn’t. Instead he wiped down the bar, cleaned glasses and restocked the lemons and limes and olives that topped the drinks.

“Janis, did you hear what I said?” Annie poked Janis in the rib with her elbow.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” she replied.

“Okay? He’s got the dreamiest blue eyes and that beautiful dark hair, and enough chest muscles to make a girl feel safe if she was in his arms.”

“You’re practically on the verge of drooling,” Janis said dryly.

“You’d drool, too, if you weren’t already hung up on that sexy Holiday Ranch cowboy who can’t hold his drinks.”

“I’m not hung up on anyone,” Janis replied even as she felt her cheeks warm with a blush.

Thankfully, at that moment, Tanner returned with their drinks. The Watering Hole was the place for singles and dating couples to hang out and this evening it was hopping with the usual Saturday night crowd.

There was definitely one of the Holiday Ranch cowboys who made Janis’s heart lift just a little bit whenever she saw him, but those men had yet to arrive for their ritual Saturday night of drinking and blowing off steam.

Right now she was stuck serving the Humes’s ranch men, who seemed to live for the chance to make everyone else’s life miserable. “Here we are,” she said as she reached their table. She’d never met a group of more odious men.

“About time,” Zeke Osmond said and then offered up a smarmy smile. “But I’ll forgive you for taking so long if you give me a little kiss.”

“Sorry, Zeke, I’m not allowed to kiss the customers.”

It took her only a minute to serve the beers to Shep Harmon and Ace Sanders. Lloyd Green, the oldest of them all, got a Scotch on the rocks. As she bent over to place the drink in front of him, Zeke grabbed her butt.

She whirled around to face him, grabbed his beer from her tray and, with a pretend trip, poured every single drop into his lap.

“What the hell!” he shouted and jumped up out of his chair.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she replied.

Lloyd guffawed. “Looks like you done peed your pants, Zeke.” The rest of the men at the table hooted with laughter.

“You did that on purpose.” Zeke’s dark eyes glittered with anger.

“It was an accident,” she replied. “I’ll go get you a bar towel so you can clean yourself up. I’ll be right back.”

As she headed to the bar, she shot a quick glance across the room. Annie grinned at her and flashed a quick thumbs-up sign.

It had been a highly unprofessional thing to do, but she wasn’t sorry. She would do it again in a minute. She was tired of the Humes’s men, and Zeke Osmond in particular, acting like it was their right to touch her body intimately.

“Tanner, can I get a clean towel?” she asked the bartender.

He reached down to a shelf under the bar and handed one to her. “Was that an accidentally-on-purpose move?” His blue eyes twinkled knowingly.

“I plead the fifth,” she replied with a laugh.

She returned to the table and handed Zeke the towel. He was still standing, cursing and raving about her spilling the drink on purpose.

“Sit down and shut up already,” Lloyd growled at him. “You’re starting to give me a damned headache.”

Zeke obeyed, settling back into his chair with the towel in his lap and a glare at Janis. She ignored him and moved on to check on her other patrons.

At seven thirty the band began to play and people hit the wooden dance floor. The Croakin’ Frogs, a local band, played every Saturday night. The rest of the nights the jukebox kept peoples’ toes tapping.

It was just before eight when the men from the Holiday Ranch arrived. Although about a dozen worked on the ranch, only six came in the door, and one in particular made Janis’s heart beat just a little bit faster.

Sawyer Quincy. He had ginger-colored hair and copper-hued eyes. His shoulders were broad enough to carry a woman into happily-ever-after and his jeans rode a little low on his slim hips. She’d had a silly crush on him for years.

The men greeted people as they wove their way through the crowded bar and settled in at one of the large booths in her section. As usual, Sawyer took the position in the corner of the booth where, before the night was over, he would slump down in a beer-induced unconsciousness. That man definitely shouldn’t be drinking.

She approached the booth with her usual smile and her order pad ready.

“Ah, if it isn’t our favorite waitress,” Sawyer said. Although his smile made her feel like they shared something special, that was just the warmth he offered everyone with his gorgeous grins.

“And if it isn’t my favorite group of men to wait on,” she replied.

The Watering Hole served the usual bar fare like deep-fried pickles and mozzarella sticks, but the menu also offered up a variety of burgers and sandwiches. Within minutes, Janis had their drink and food orders and was headed to the kitchen to turn in her ticket.

She then served their drinks and returned to the kitchen to pick up their food.

“Busy night,” Charlie Williams, the head cook, said to her.

“Saturday nights are always busy,” she replied. “Maybe it would cut down on traffic if you didn’t serve your famous pulled pork every Saturday.”

“But then I wouldn’t be worshipped as the barbecue king of Bitterroot,” he joked and then sobered. “Still, tonight it seems like everyone in the place wants to eat.” He looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Rusty, don’t burn those fries.” Charlie rolled his eyes at Janis and disappeared from the pass-through window.

As she waited, her gaze went across the room to Sawyer. He was laughing at something somebody had said. Even though right now she was too far away to actually hear him, she knew his laughter sounded like a deep, sexy melody.

She released a sigh. It was a silly crush because it was obvious Sawyer didn’t look at her that way. She was Janis the waitress, just like Larry the mailman or Betty the bank clerk. He didn’t really see her beyond her working role here in the bar.

“Janis, order up,” Charlie called.

She grabbed one of the bigger food trays, loaded it with the cowboys’ orders, and then went back to the booth to serve them.

The rest of the night passed like they all did. She served drinks and food, made lively chatter when necessary and pocketed the tips to add to the stash she hoped would one day be enough for a down payment on a nice little house.

For more years than she could count, she’d been living in the bar’s back room. When Gary Runyon, the owner of the bar, had offered her not only a job but the opportunity to live rent-free in the bar’s back room, she’d been thrilled. Before that, she’d been bunking with friends whenever possible and far too often sleeping in her car.

But she was soon going to be thirty years old and, while she loved what she did, she definitely wanted to make some changes in her life.

It was almost one in the morning when the place began to empty out, although the official closing time was two. As she approached the booth with the men from the Holiday Ranch, she saw that Sawyer was in his usual slumped position and totally out to the world.

She handed Flint McCay the tab for the table and shook her head ruefully. “I don’t know why that man drinks.”

“He’s definitely a lightweight,” Clay Madison said, his blond hair gleaming in the light overhead.

“And if I remember right, it’s your turn to take him home,” Mac McBride said to Clay.

“No way, I took him in my truck last Saturday night,” Clay protested.

“Well, I’m pretty sure it isn’t my turn,” Mac replied with a huff.

As the men argued about who would take the passed-out cowboy home and put him to bed, a plan quickly formulated in Janis’s head.

You can’t do that, a little voice whispered. It would be too wicked. It’s a totally crazy idea.

But maybe it would prove a point with Sawyer. Maybe it would be exactly what he needed.

“Why don’t you all carry him into the back room and put him in my bed?” she said before she could second-guess herself.

“For real?” Clay’s blue eyes stared at her in surprise.

“For real,” she replied. “I’d sure like to make him see that he’s got a problem with his drinking. Maybe if he thinks he flirted with me all night and then wound up in my bed, he’ll think twice about drinking himself into a stupor again.”

“It’s a great idea,” Flint replied.

“A totally awesome idea,” Clay agreed with a laugh.

Minutes later, the men had settled their tab and Sawyer had been carried into the back room Janis called home. The big, tall, cowboy didn’t even blink an eye as they laid him in the middle of her lavender sheets.

Clay tossed Sawyer’s brown hat onto one of the wooden posts of the four-poster bed.

“I’ll see to it that he gets home in the morning,” she said. “And this will be our little secret, at least for a day or two.”

“Absolutely,” Clay replied, his blue eyes sparkling with humor. “We won’t say a word until you tell him the truth.”

As they walked out into the bar area, regret instantly filled the back of her throat. Who did she think she was? Who was she to teach Sawyer Quincy any kind of a lesson?

Still, she hated the way the others made fun of him. From everything she’d heard, and from her own experience, she knew he was a terrific guy.

She suspected he had some kind of allergy to something in beer. There was nothing else to explain the fact that after two or three beers he completely passed out to the world.

Now it was too late to halt what she’d already put in motion. All the men had left and Sawyer was in her bed.

It was just after two when she locked up the bar for the night and returned to her room to discover that he hadn’t moved an inch.

It was a vision out of her wildest fantasies...only, in her fantasies, he was always conscious and gazing at her with adoring eyes.

She grabbed a nightgown out of one of her dresser drawers and headed into the small bathroom for a quick shower.

When she re-entered the bedroom, she knew exactly what she was going to do. It was definitely wicked—it was totally naughty—but she hoped to prove a point and, in doing so, she had to make it all look as real as possible.

She stood next to the bed and stared down at him. He had rugged features. His face was suntanned from the outside work he did and yet the fine lines that feathered outward from the corners of his eyes were definitely laugh lines. His eyelashes were thick and long, and a hint of whiskers darkened his lower, strong jaw.

Her gaze swept across his broad shoulders beneath his brown-plaid, button-up shirt. “In for a penny,” she whispered to herself and then leaned over to unbutton his shirt.

She had it unfastened and had managed to maneuver one of his arms out of the sleeve when he mumbled something unintelligible.

She froze, her heart thumping madly. He immediately quieted again. She waited a minute and then drew in a deep breath and rolled him over to get the other arm out of the shirt.

She eyed the buttons on his jeans. Dare she? She had to. The only way this would really work was if he was out of his jeans.

Carefully, she unfastened them, thankful to see that he was wearing black briefs or boxers beneath. As she started to work the jeans down his body, he raised his hips to aid her.

“Thanks, Clay,” he muttered.

She got the jeans down to his ankles and realized she hadn’t taken off his boots. She tugged them off, along with his socks, and then dropped his jeans to the floor. She took out his wallet and placed it on the nightstand.

Lordy, lordy... A fully dressed Sawyer was sexy, but a nearly naked Sawyer wearing only a pair of black boxers and stretched out on her lavender sheets nearly stopped her heart.

She turned out the overhead light, leaving only the illumination from a night-light plugged into an outlet next to the bed. She fully admitted that she’d lost her ever-lovin’ mind. But now she was fully committed to being temporarily insane.

Carefully, she crawled into bed, not touching him in any way. He smelled good, like minty soap, a woodsy cologne and a hint of beer.

Even though she wasn’t touching him, his body heat warmed her in a delicious way and she fought the impulse to lean into him.

As she closed her eyes, she wished this was for real. She wished Sawyer Quincy was in her bed because he wanted to be, because he had chosen to be with her out of all the women in Bitterroot.

* * *

Consciousness came to Sawyer in bits and pieces. The first thing he noticed was that the sheets smelled like flowers. With his eyes still closed, he frowned, wondering how flowers had gotten into his bed.

Of course it wouldn’t be the first time he’d awakened after a Saturday night of drinking to find something strange in his bed. The other men were real jokesters and in the past he’d awakened to discover he was sharing the bed with a salami sandwich, a dead fish, a prickly tumbleweed and his saddle, just to name a few.

He cracked open an eyelid to the early morning sun drifting through a window...not his window. He’d never seen that window before with its frilly white curtains. Where in the hell was he? With both eyes wide open, the next thing he noted was that he was in a four-poster bed with purple sheets. His hat hung on one of the posters, as if it belonged there.

He turned over and nearly jumped out of the bed. A woman...in the bed...with him... Who was she? She faced away from him and all he could see was short, thick, dark hair and creamy bare shoulders beneath hot-pink spaghetti straps.

His shock forced a loud gasp from his throat. He remained frozen in surprise as the woman rolled over, shoved the hair away from her face and gave him a sleepy, sexy smile.

“Good morning, lover,” she said.

Lover... Janis? His brain short-circuited. Hell’s bells, what had he done last night?

“Uh...good morning,” he managed to reply.

He tensed as she snuggled up against him. Of their own volition, his arms went around her. Her silky nightgown was a poor barrier, as he could feel not only the heat of her breasts against him but also the hint of taut nipples.

“Last night was the most wonderful night of my life,” she murmured into the hollow of his neck. “You’re the best, Sawyer. You made my whole body sing with pleasure.”

“Yeah, uh, likewise.” As hard as he tried, he couldn’t remember what had happened between them that had gotten them here in her bed. The last thing he did remember was her serving him a third beer.

His impulse was to grab his boots and britches and run like hell out the door. However, his mother had raised him better than that. But he definitely didn’t want to hang around and chat long enough for her to realize he had no memory of making her sing with pleasure. He’d always liked Janis and the last thing he’d want to do was to hurt her feelings.

Despite his shock at the position he found himself in, his body began to respond to her closeness. Thankfully, at that moment, she rolled away from him and sat up. “How about I fix you a nice, big breakfast? You more than earned it after last night.”

Had her eyes always been that inviting shade of caramel? Had her dark eyelashes always been so long? He’d never noticed before now. He quickly averted his gaze and looked around the room. There wasn’t much to look at and certainly no kitchen anywhere in sight.

“You seem to be missing some important things...like a stove and a refrigerator.” He frantically continued to search his mind for any memory from the night before.

He usually just passed out when he drank, but he had suffered a couple of blackouts in the past. Once he’d found himself sleeping in the pasture next to the pond after the other men had insisted they’d put him in his own bed. Another time he’d planted himself in Mac’s room and had sung all the country-western songs he’d ever known. The next day he’d had no memory of it.

“I have all the equipment I need just outside that door,” she said. He knew she was referring to the bar’s kitchen.

She scooted off the bed and Sawyer averted his gaze once again, but not before he caught a glimpse of long, shapely, bare legs beneath her hot-pink nightie.

“I’ll be right back and we can talk about breakfast.” She disappeared through a door he assumed led to a bathroom.

The minute the door closed behind her, he leaped out of bed. He searched frantically on the floor for his jeans and shirt. When he found them, he dressed as quickly as possible. No matter what had happened between them the night before, he wasn’t comfortable being nearly naked in her bed.

He needed to get out...to get away and process the night he couldn’t remember. How did this change things? What were the consequences? It was obvious she was thrilled with whatever had occurred.

You’re the best, Sawyer. You made my whole body sing with pleasure.

Her words echoed in his brain as he pulled on his boots. At least she’d been pleased with his performance, he thought with a touch of pride.

The pride didn’t last long. In truth, he was ashamed. He grabbed his wallet off the nightstand and opened it, frowning as he saw the condom he carried still in place. Oh, crap, they hadn’t even had protected sex.

His mama would be rolling around in her grave knowing that he’d gotten drunk and taken some random woman to bed.

Only, Janis wasn’t exactly random. He’d always found her pleasant and pretty. He’d just never thought of her that way before. Geez, what had he done?

He grabbed his cell phone out of his jeans’ pocket and dialed the number for Clay. Clay had a reputation as a womanizer. He’d know what to do in this situation.

He released a sigh of relief as Clay answered.

“Come get me,” Sawyer said without preamble.

Clay laughed. “What’s the matter, bro? Having a rough morning after?”

“Just come and pick me up behind the bar.”

Sawyer had just pocketed his cell phone when Janis stepped out of the bathroom. He swallowed hard. He’d thought she was in there getting dressed, but the only thing she had done was pull a short, silky robe over the sexy nightie.

“Oh, you’re already dressed,” she said. “So I guess you don’t want breakfast in bed.”

“Uh, no, but thanks anyway. I just called Clay to come and get me. I need to get back to the ranch.”