Keeping Kayla: a Cowboy Fairytales spin-off (Triple H Brides Book 4) Read online

  Keeping Kayla

  Triple H Brides

  Lacy Williams

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Sneak peek: Melting Megan

  Also by Lacy Williams

  Chapter 1

  "I don't understand how this could've happened."

  Nate O'Malley kept his back to the irate woman standing in the barn doorway as he unbuckled his horse's saddle. Casual as could be, that was him.

  He could fake it, even if he didn't feel it.

  The Triple H had been short on manpower ever since Dan had been arrested for embezzling ranch funds. He was currently serving the third year in a five-year prison sentence, something that Nate still felt guilty about. He should've known one of his cowboys was in financial trouble and desperate.

  Another of the ranch hands, Chase, had recently won the heart of the local vet and was working half time with her as a vet tech. Which meant now that it was calving season, Nate's job as foreman required him to be out at all hours of the night whenever the cows needed him. He could hire—should hire. He had nobody else to blame for the fact that he'd been awake since four, was cold and cranky, and desperately needed a cup of coffee.

  Well, he had been cranky until she'd shown up. Her temper tantrum was cheering him right up.

  "You said you were going to take care of everything," Kayla Campbell said.

  Just because his back was to her didn't mean he didn't know that she was standing with one hand propped on her hip, as sassy as she'd been at nineteen. He could picture her in his mind's eye, curly blonde hair tossing about her head like some crazy angel's halo. Her hazel eyes would be flashing fire.

  His mouth kicked up in a smile just imagining it.

  He flipped the saddle's leather strap out of its buckle, and the saddle loosened on the horse's back. His shoulder twanged from the cold as he lifted the saddle off the horse and deposited it on a nearby railing.

  "Maybe I didn't want an annulment," he said calmly.

  He heard her swift intake of air. It probably wasn't fair to provoke her, but old habits were hard to break, or so the cliché went. It was true for him, anyway. He liked the lightning that went off in her eyes, the way her lips would pinch in a frown that only he could elicit.

  Besides, he wasn't even sure they were eligible to have the hasty Vegas marriage annulled.

  "We agreed."

  Oh, she was steamed now. He heard the stomp of her feet against the hard-packed dirt as she approached him.

  "You told me what to do,” he said, calm as could be. “I never agreed to it."

  He patted the horse's rump, and it clomped off obediently toward its stall and the fresh grain waiting there. Nate knew the animal must be hungry after a morning of work—he sure was—and he'd follow soon enough to see the horse settled. He just had to deal with his sort-of wife first.

  "You didn't disagree!" She was breathing hard. She reached out and grabbed his arm. She must've meant to spin him around—her temper was that hot—but he was already turning to face her, and the combination of movements threw her a little off-balance. She gripped his arm for balance.

  As soon as she righted herself, she let him go as if he were hot as a branding iron, but not before his heart galloped, not before he felt the zing of her touch all the way down to his toes. A lot had changed in the decade since their annulment that wasn’t, but the way he responded to her touch wasn’t one of them.

  Now that he was face-to-face with her and not picturing her in his head, he saw she was way past mad and more like livid. Tears sparkled in her eyes. Seeing her emotion was like a horse kick to the gut. He couldn't breathe, but maybe that was a good thing, because the words that wanted to spew were dangerous.

  He'd wanted to tell her for a long time, but he'd never imagined it like this. The words stuck in his throat. I want to give this marriage thing a shot.

  Yeah, he could imagine how that would go over. Imagine her laughter. Or maybe she'd think he was crazy. They hadn't seen each other for nine years, hadn't spoken in over a decade.

  When she'd moved back to Taylor Hills eighteen months ago, he'd felt a surge of hope that maybe his plan—his very long-term plan—could work.

  He'd spent ten years working his butt off in hopes she'd notice. He'd given up his birthright and had a broken relationship with his dad to prove it.

  "Don't you have anything to say, Nathan?" She used his full name the same way his dad always had when Nate had been in deep manure. It usually made him want to smile, but his thoughts were too much like a dust dervish to allow for any peaceful feelings right now.

  The real kicker, his biggest secret, was the worst. I think I'm still in love with you.

  She hadn't believed him back then. Why would she believe him now?

  He needed a little more time. As if the decade hadn’t been quite enough. Maybe he’d been fooling himself all along.

  She closed her eyes, and when she re-opened them, where her tears had been, only fire was left. And determination.

  "Never mind." Her shoulders straightened. "I don't know why I bothered coming out here."

  She whirled and started out of the barn. He'd once been thankful for her impulsive decision-making, but right now, he needed a few seconds to gather his thoughts.

  Too late.

  "Kayla, wait!"

  He started after her, but a whicker from Bluebell reminded him that he hadn't put the horse up. She was now wandering back toward him. Or maybe the open barn door.

  He'd been foreman for five years. He was proud of the profits the ranch turned. Five years he’d been responsible for the livestock, for the operations, and for the four cowboys. He couldn't just walk away from that responsibility, even if his personal life was blowing up.

  He put the horse away.

  By the time his boots hit the gravel drive, she was gone, leaving only a cloud of red dust along the road.

  He stood blinking in the harsh winter sunlight. He'd planned to eat something—his grumbling stomach reminded him that the granola bar he’d eaten at four a.m. had long worn off—and maybe catch a combat nap, but not now.

  Kayla didn't live far. As the crow flew, her place was only a quarter mile away. After he checked in with the boss, Matt Hale, at the ranch house, he took off.

  He didn't have a plan, but he was going.

  He wasn't going to let Kayla get away a second time.

  Kayla Campbell swiped at a stray tear as she turned her truck down the rutted dirt road toward home.

  It was stupid to cry. Tears had never changed anything, a lesson she'd learned early in life.

  She'd hoped that when she faced off with Nate, he'd tell her it was all a big joke. They weren't still married. The county courthouse had just misplaced their certificate of annulment—or whatever it would be—and she could go on with her life.

  Ha.

  It was all big joke after all. Her life was one big, cosmic joke. And the punch line was always on her.

  It wasn't fair. Guys like Nate O'Malley walked around with everything handed to them. Born with a silver spoon in their mouths. It didn't help that he was movie-star handsome with blond curls that peeped beneath his hat and warm chocolate eyes that made you feel like you were the most important thing in his world—

  She shook herself out of that dangerous thought.

  Pe
ople like Nate were given jobs just because they knew someone who knew someone.

  While she'd had to claw her way out of poverty with her bare hands. She was still too close to losing everything, too close to the poverty that always felt like it was sniping at her heels like a rabid dog.

  She slapped the steering wheel of her fifteen-year-old truck, but it didn't do anything other than make her palm sting.

  Her thoughts went to Miles, the young boy she'd discovered in her barn four days ago. According to the social worker who'd picked him up, he was an orphan. He'd been living with an uncle who'd passed away, and then he’d been shifted into a group home. He'd run away, spent almost a week in her barn without her noticing, creeping in after her bedtime.

  He was crafty, sneaky...and lonely. She'd seen herself in him. She'd long ago left behind the lost little orphan girl. But her memories remained.

  She'd hoped to get an emergency foster placement. Maybe even something long-term. And then the social worker had called and asked about Kayla's husband. Kayla'd thought the stupid Vegas spur-of-the-moment wedding had been annulled years ago, but apparently, she'd been wrong.

  The social worker would never place Miles with her now.

  Her eyes smarted again, and she blinked furiously.

  She wouldn't give up. Miles deserved better, just like she and Sarah had.

  She almost missed it because of her misty eyes.

  There'd been a slew of late-winter rains, and the ditch beside the road that led to her ranch had filled with water, mud, and debris. At one point, the ditch had widened where her neighbor’s farm pond had overflowed. Barbed wire fence stretched across the water, but part of the fence was submerged and tangled with a felled tree. She saw movement. Was that an animal?

  She slowed her truck, blinking away the moisture in her eyes and squinting. Were her eyes playing tricks on her?

  There...yes. The animal was struggling, a black head above the water, but barely.

  A dog. One in perilous danger.

  She jammed the brakes, threw the truck into park, and jumped out. She shed her light coat and tossed it in the truck bed. Cold wind bit her skin through the sweatshirt and T-shirt both.

  She slogged through the ankle-deep ditch further back and lost precious seconds when her sweatshirt caught on the barbed wire when she ducked beneath the fence.

  She ran around the muddy edge of the pond, her boots squishing against moist, dead winter grass and sinking into the red mud. She spent another ten seconds pulling the boots off at the water's edge and wading along the fence line toward the dog. Its thrashing had grown weaker. In the time it had taken her to circle around, the dog had swum farther away.

  She had no choice but to keep going. Maybe once she got to the dog, she could climb through the knot of protruding tree roots.

  "Easy, boy."

  She didn't know if the animal was a male or female, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

  Mud and moss sucked at her feet with each step. Icy water covered her ankles first, then her calves, thighs, hips. This was deeper than it had looked from the pond's edge.

  If the dog had been trapped for long, it might be hypothermic. She was already starting to shiver, and she’d been in the pond less than a minute.

  When the icy water reached her chest, she started to worry. How could she drag a scared dog out of this if she could hardly keep her own head above water?

  She brushed away the fears and rushed forward, shocked when her foot suddenly didn’t find ground to stand on. She flailed, panicked, and barely kept her head above water as she reached to grab the nearest thing she could see. Thank goodness she missed—a barb from the wire fence wouldn’t have helped a bit.

  The water lapped at her chin and mouth. She stifled a gasp.

  "I'm coming, fella." She hoped the dog couldn't hear the note of desperation in her voice. She didn't have a good relationship with deep water, another thing her childhood had taken from her.

  Now that she was close, she could see the dog had a crude rope around its neck. The rope was tangled in the roots of the horizontal tree, and the dog seemed to be tangled up too, unable to get its feet on anything solid.

  "How'd you get in this mess, huh?" she asked, trying to inject a note of calm in her voice. She should've brought something—shears or wire cutters, not that she had either of those in her truck.

  She got close enough to touch the dog, but it was panicked and hit her with its front paws. The pressure dunked her beneath the water, submerging her into the inky iciness. The wire bent beneath her hand, but she held on and managed to drag herself back above the surface.

  She might've shouted or gurgled, she didn't know which, only that a sound of true panic had escaped.

  The dog whined, a similar sound of distress. She could hear its labored breathing above the sounds of their splashing.

  She managed to get her arm—the one that wasn't clutching the wire strand for dear life—around its middle. She hugged the dog as close to her as she could, but the frightened animal still thrashed, making it hard for her to tell which direction was up.

  This was a disaster, a dangerous one. If she’d been smart, she would've called someone for help, but it was too late now. She was afraid to leave the dog, afraid it wouldn't make it if she abandoned it.

  But she was also afraid for her own life. Full body shivers wracked her, and her strength was quickly draining as she clung to both the wire and the dog.

  "Kayla!"

  She turned at the shout. That was Nate's voice.

  She nearly cried, her relief was so deep, but she managed to swallow the hot knot that rose in her throat. Even with his presence, she'd need her wits to get out of this mess.

  "I'm coming to you," he called out. His voice was near, but she couldn't move adequately to see where he was coming from.

  Apparently, he'd approached from the closer side, the tree side. Within moments, he was lying flat on his belly on the felled tree, reaching through the mess of roots toward her.

  His hand clasped hers on the wire, heat enclosing her frigid digits.

  "You're freezing."

  "Water's c-cold." Her teeth chattered, and she got a mouthful of mud just forcing the words out.

  "And this guy's tangled up."

  How funny that he assumed the same sex for the dog that she had. Wouldn't they both be surprised if he turned out to be a she?

  She might be tipping over into hypothermia herself with the way her thoughts had started whirling.

  "Don't let go," she breathed.

  He squeezed her hand. "I won't."

  He grunted as he stretched out, his other hand fighting through roots to where the rope was tangled.

  The dog gave a mighty kick, which landed against her gut. Kayla's breath was thumped out of her lungs. She sank lower in the water, her grip slipping on the wire. Her hands were so cold.

  "Water's d-deeper th-than I th-thought."

  Maybe a little bit of her panic was seeping through in her words, because Nate stopped what he was doing and grabbed her hand with both of his. "You still can't swim?"

  He'd once teased her about never taking lessons. She'd been too embarrassed to take them as an adult.

  She was eye-level with his frown, saw the way his jaw firmed with determination.

  This time, instead of trying to untangle the dog's rope, he reached for the animal's head with one hand—he still hadn't let go of her—and started working his hand between the rope and the dog's fur. Smart. If they couldn't untangle the rope, they could untangle the dog.

  It was probably only the work of a few moments, but time seemed to slow as he pulled the entire collar off over the dog's head.

  The dog must have sensed how close it was to freedom, because it gave a renewed surge of kicking, this time against her legs. The wire was biting into Kayla's hand now, and even with Nate's grip on her, she started to slip, sinking into the water.

  And then Nate had somehow lifted the dog from her arm,
using some kind of superhuman strength.

  She couldn't feel her legs anymore but kicked anyway as she started to slip.

  And then Nate leaned back down to her. He clasped both hands around her upper arms. With her arms in his grip, he fell onto his backside and with his momentum, pulled her out of the water. She slid against his muscled body, then slid off and landed in the cold mud on his opposite side. Dry land, sort of.

  The chilly air bit her wet skin and set her teeth chattering.

  "C'mon, we've got to get you warm." He pushed to his feet, mud smeared across his face and clothes. He helped her up and steadied her when her legs wobbled.

  "I'm n-not l-leaving the d-dog."

  He gave her one long look, followed her gaze to the lab who seemed to be recovering as it lay in the mud, sides heaving. The poor thing probably didn't have much strength left. Out of the water, Kayla could see its black fur was matted with burrs, and ribs were showing through the once-glossy coat.

  "Fine." Nate picked up the dog, cradling it like a small child. The animal didn't struggle.

  Kayla hobbled behind him toward the road, detouring quickly and avoiding his scowl as she retrieved her boots from the field.

  He didn't let her get in her own truck, the pushy man.

  That was fine, because as she collapsed into the passenger seat of his, the dog across her feet, she couldn't control her shaking limbs. No way could she have driven anywhere.

  He cranked the heat, and warmth seeped through her chilled skin.

  "Take this off." He pulled off her sweatshirt. Luckily she was wearing a T-shirt beneath. He wrapped a blanket that smelled suspiciously like horses around her shoulders.

  "M-my house—"

  "I know where it is." He gave her one last look before he threw the truck into gear.

  Chapter 2

  Nate still had adrenaline rushing through his system and was working hard to keep a rein on his temper as he pulled up to Kayla's run-down farmhouse. What had she been thinking to go into a dangerous situation like that? And into the water, when she couldn't swim? She could've drowned.