Last Chance Cowboy

Chapter 3

Carson Chatworth didn’t want to get in his truck and leave without getting that pretty woman’s name. But she wasn’t budging from behind the wheel of her car, and he really was causing a traffic flow problem in the parking lot.

He decided he didn’t care. He’d been in California for approximately seventy-two hours and the traffic here was the worst he’d ever seen. Of course, anything was going to be worse than Gold Valley, Montana, where he’d been born and raised. With a population of only fifteen thousand, the traffic could never be that bad.

He glanced around the grocery store parking lot, thinking there were probably fifteen thousand people here right now, trying to get something to eat.

Taking a deep breath, he strode over to her window and knocked on it. She shook her head like mad, her short blonde hair flying around that beautiful face. “I just want to ask you something,” he said.

“My windows don’t roll down,” she said, and he could barely hear her through the glass.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you want.” She didn’t try to roll them down, which meant she’d lied to him. Had he really been that rude? She’d almost smashed into his truck, and that, plus his dogs, was all he had left from his almost forty years in Montana.

“Fine,” he practically yelled, frustrated at her and hungrier than he’d been in a while. “I have ways of finding out who you are.”

That got her to get out of the car, and she almost hit him with the door as it came flying open violently. “Are you threatening me?” she asked, her blue eyes blazing with fire. “I didn’t hit you. Go away.”

“I just want to know your name.”

“Well, too bad. I have no business with you.”

“I’ll find out.” Why he cared, he wasn’t sure. Maybe because she was the first person to make him feel alive since the sale of the ranch. And if he were being honest with himself, long before that even.

“What are you going to do?”

“I got your license plate number. I’ll make a few phone calls.” He had money, and while he’d never had to throw it around to get what he wanted, he could learn. Oh, yes, if there was one thing Carson Chatworth was doing these days, it was learning all kinds of things he’d never thought he’d have to.

He rounded the front of his truck, catching her muttering, “I hate men like you.” He paused, wanting to go back and explain that he really wasn’t a bad guy. That she stirred something in him, and he simply wanted a way to contact her later. Maybe take her to dinner so they could get to know each other better.

Their eyes met, and something super-charged flowed between them. For him, it was attraction, but for her, he suspected it was being classified as something else entirely. Probably anger.

That pink tint in her cheeks was so sexy, as was that brilliant, blue tank top and the cute little straw hat she wore. Everything about her appealed to him—well, except the glare. He could do without that.

He tipped his hat at her, glanced at her license plate again, and got behind the wheel of his truck. Once he was out of the way, he reached over to the glove box and got out a slip of paper to write down the letters and numbers before he forgot them.

Then he left this grocery store completely. There would be another one not too far away, and Carson needed space to think.

What he really needed was someplace to call home, as he’d been on the road for over two months. Living in hotels and campgrounds was not the life for him, and he’d applied for a couple of jobs in the area, at local ranches and boarding stables. Surely his lifelong ranching skills could get him on somewhere, preferably Last Chance Ranch, which had advertised a cabin to live in as part of the wages.

He got a sandwich and just drove, having nowhere to go until his interview tomorrow. So he’d drive until he got tired of the vibrations of the road beneath him, and then he’d find a hotel.

With something substantial in his stomach, he reflected on the scene in the parking lot. He hadn’t sworn at that blonde woman, or really said anything too bad at all. She’d almost rammed into him, and he was merely checking his vehicle. She’d got out to check too.

Feeling okay with his actions, he rolled down his window and let the warm air blow in. His cowboy hat threatened to get blown away, so he took it off. He cast it a glare, like it was responsible for his father’s drinking habit and his brother’s online poker addiction.

The debts they’d racked up over the years would’ve taken Carson his entire life to pay back, and he supposed he should be thankful that the Lord had provided him a way to get out from under their actions. Get away from them.

And he was grateful for that. But he was also angry and heartbroken that he’d had to sell Cobble Creek Ranch to do it. He’d only known a Montana summer in all of his thirty-eight years of life, and packing everything he owned into the back of this truck and crossing state lines had cost him more than he’d imagined it would.

was But Terry hadn’t called once since Carson had left, and he supposed he should put that in the blessings column too. If he were counting those at the moment, which he wasn’t.

His father hadn’t tried to reach him either, and Carson hoped the two of them were still alive. He didn’t hate his father and his brother; he just didn’t want to be saddled with taking care of his father’s failing health when he did nothing to follow the doctor’s directions. Nor did he want to watch Terry play games online when he could be working to bring home the money they needed.

“Disabled,” fell from his lips, along with a scoff. Terry was not disabled. He just didn’t like working.

“Not your problem anymore,” Carson said, and he was at least right about that. But the loneliness he’d experienced since leaving behind everything and everyone he’d ever known had hit him hard. Maybe that was why the woman in the parking lot had lit such a reaction in him.

Tired of driving already, he pulled off the highway and used his phone to find a hotel. Calls, texts, and mapping were about all he used his device for, but it was the best one money could buy.

He’d managed to get the family lawyer on his side and together, they’d split the money from the sale of the ranch so that Carson got fifty-one percent, with the other forty-nine being split between Terry and their father.

Didn’t matter. Carson had become a billionaire overnight, and while the number was less in Terry’s bank account, there were still nine zeroes at the end. Well, there had been when Carson had left the state of Montana. Who knew what his brother had spent in the past ten weeks.

Another problem Carson didn’t have to deal with anymore. His money was safe, protected where neither his father nor his brother could ever access it. He’d bought a new truck, and a new hat, and packed Ted and Tony into the back before driving away.

“Time to stop driving away,” he told himself as he went inside to see if this hotel would let him have dogs. The dog waste bags on a pole in the middle of the front lawn was encouraging, and sure enough, they gave him a room for the night no problem.

Now he just had to survive another lonely night before his interview. Yes, his two black labs were great company, but they didn’t speak English. They couldn’t give advice. He did steal comfort from their loyalty and devotion to him, but what he really wanted was a friend.

He wanted to know who that blonde woman was, and how he might be able to see her again. Because if she would just listen to him, he could explain that he hadn’t meant anything by asking her if she’d hit his truck. If they could just talk, then maybe he could ask her out. Maybe he wouldn’t have to be alone forever.

* * *

The next day, he skipped his morning prayers like he’d been doing for months. God had never seemed to hear him in Montana while he pleaded for a solution to their financial problems that would allow him to keep the ranch he’d grown up working. No, every solution required the sale of their generational land, their herd, crops, all of it.

Not wanting to dwell on the negative, he didn’t kneel down as soon as he rolled out of bed. And he’d been happier—at least he thought he was. He worked now, thought things through, and went with what his gut told him. He used to think that was God, leading and guiding his life, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Maybe God had abandoned him the way his mother had, all those years ago. She’d been the one to teach him how to fold his arms, how to say a prayer, how to look on the sunny side of life. But apparently, even she had a limit, and she’d left his dad and Cobble Creek Ranch when Carson was only twelve years old.

“Two interviews today, guys,” he told Ted and Tony, brothers from a litter he’d bred on the ranch. “Let’s hope we get one of them, okay? Then we can find a real house to live in.” He straightened his hat and grabbed his duffel bag before heading out to the truck with the dogs.

Last Chance Ranch sat a few minutes up a canyon, the ranch on a bluff that overlooked the valley and bordered the Angeles National Forest. It was beautiful land, and he passed a couple of parked cars for sale at the intersection where he turned to go up to the ranch.

A few minutes later, he arrived at the front gate to the ranch, which was being guarded by a legless robot. It looked like it might be a mailbox, but it was in serious need of repair. He eased his truck by it, noticing instantly that this place was in the process of getting cleaned up.

And whoever was doing it, was doing a great job. And they need help, he thought as he passed a couple of roads on his left and nothing but farmland on his right. His heart took courage at the familiar sight of a ranch, and he liked the aura of this place immediately.

And they need helpHe pulled into the driveway of the homestead, as a woman named Scarlett Adams had instructed him, and he said to the dogs, “Okay, so I’m going in. You stay here. I’ll be back,” before facing the house.

His nerves fired on all cylinders as he walked up the sidewalk, noticing the grass had been freshly cut but that the flowerbeds were bare. The scent of cattle and sunshine hung in the air, and there was no better balm to Carson’s soul than that.

After knocking on the door, he only had to wait a few seconds for a redhead to open the door. She was pretty, like the blonde, and yet his heart didn’t flounce around in his chest like a fish out of water the way it had at the sight of the other woman.

“Hello,” he said, smiling at her. “I’m Carson Chatworth.” He extended his hand for her to shake, which she did.

“Come on in,” she said, falling back and turning as she walked. “I’m Scarlett Adams. I’ve got my associates with me today.” She pointed to a cowboy sitting at the kitchen table, which had been turned to face the door. “Hudson Flannigan. And Adele Woodruff.”

Carson almost fell down at the sight of Adele Woodruff—the woman who’d almost hit his truck in the parking lot yesterday. Well, now he knew her name, and he hadn’t even had to make any phone calls or toss any money around.

Adele Woodruff