Cowboys Forgive (Cowboys of Nirvana Book 8) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter

  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

  Back Matter

  Bonus – Penn’s Fortune (Chapter One)

  RHONDA LEE CARVER

  Cowboys Forgive

  (#8, Cowboys of Nirvana)

  2017 Rhonda Lee Carver

  Copyright 2017 Rhonda Lee Carver

  All rights reserved

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission from the author, Rhonda Lee Carver—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages written in a review. For information, please contact Rhonda Lee Carver @ [email protected].

  This work is fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue in this work are from the author’s imagination and creation. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, dead or alive, is completely coincidental.

  This book is for your personal pleasure. Ebooks are not transferrable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work. If you have enjoyed this book and wish to share with another reader(s) please purchase another copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, purchase a copy. Thank you for appreciating the hard work the author invested into this book.

  This book contains material that isn’t suitable for anyone under the age of 17.

  To read more books by Rhonda Lee Carver check out the list of her books at the end of this book.

  Stock Photo

  BigStock Photos

  DEDICATION

  To my street team members

  Cheryl M., Dianne K., Heidi R., Christine L., Pauline F., Beverly B., Roxanne L.

  To my family and friends for their support!

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter

  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

  Back Matter

  Bonus – Penn’s Fortune (Chapter One)

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Jessa! Jessa! Jessa!” The crowd cheered.

  “Hey! How y’all doing tonight?” She received whistles, claps and screams in response. Pushing back her signature rhinestone cowgirl hat, she took a seat on the stool under the spotlight and positioned her guitar.

  “I love you, Jessa!”

  “I love you too!” She looked out into the ocean of smiling faces and her heart did a triple loop like always. Being on stage never got old—tiring, yes, but never old.

  Thrumming her fingers down the strings of her 12-String Acoustic, the crowd roared, vibrating the stage. A teenager in the front row jumped up and down, swiping at her streaming tears, then swaying back and forth as if she might faint. Several fans stretched their arms out, trying to touch Jessa, but beefy security blocked their attempts.

  “Who’s ready for a slow tune? You might all know this next one as my latest number one hit, but how many of you knew this is a tribute to all those rough and tough, good-looking fellows known as cowboys? Who’s gonna help me sing Cowboys Forgive?”

  More screams. More swaying. The roof on the fairgrounds stadium rocked.

  “He stole my heart back in the day and gave it away…” The crowd sung along to the popular tune.

  Finishing the last set and waving goodbye to the applauding crowd, Jessa Garvey slipped off the stage and handed her guitar to her manager, Wade Comer, who stood just out of sight behind the red curtain. Her bodyguard, Bruno, stepped from the shadows and crossed his arms over his chest, showing off thick arms in his black T-shirt. She’d hired him, or rather, Wade had, last year when a fan had snuck past security and made it into her dressing room. Jessa wouldn’t have minded, but the man had been stark naked with her name tattooed across his chest. He’d asked her to marry him just as security had rushed in, taking the nudist down to the floor in a windstorm of limbs and…well, other unmentionables. She still wasn’t quite used to having Bruno following her everywhere, always watching. He didn’t talk much and she could count on one hand how many words he’d said to her since he was employed. Wade believed Bruno’s silence made him better at his job. He’d worked in Secret Service before he took the position with her, but she wished he’d left his uptight attitude back at the White House.

  Her cowgirl boots clicked on the worn planks of the wood flooring as she headed the opposite direction to the back of the building where a car waited for her. Her boots were certainly made for walking…at least for a break that was well-earned. She’d given this careful consideration and realized she wasn’t leaving the Wyoming fairgrounds until she saw one cowboy on the back of a bull. On the road eleven months out of the year, she missed seeing worn Wranglers and dusty boots.

  “Where are you headed?” Wade bellowed, following close behind her. The tone of his voice didn’t go unnoticed. After several years together, his gruff attitude didn’t bother her as much as it had at first. Most of the time she brushed him off or stuck earphones in to sound him out. In his defense, he was the reason why she’d made it famous—also the reason why she’d been on the road non-stop for five years. He’d found her singing in a backwoods bar in Texas when she was only twenty-five and living off beans and rice. A year after signing him on, her life did a complete tailspin. Before she realized it, everybody knew her name and she couldn’t go anywhere without fans asking for her autograph.

  Success came with sacrifice.

  She’d dedicated herself to her fans.

  But she was growing tired.

  Last month at a venue in Chicago, she’d lost her voice and the doctor had prescribed rest. She’d relaxed a few days, but she’d had places to be, music to sing. There was always somewhere that required her presence. She’d lost count of how many different venues she’d sung at in the past year. Life was blurring.

  It was time for a break. Not one night. Not one week. A vacation to recharge her internal battery. So, after going around and around with Wade, they’d compromised. She would finish the month’s scheduled concerts, and then she would be free, so to speak.

  Two weeks away from the studio, the stage, and the public eye sounded like paradise. Her vocal chords would certainly thank her. She could catch up on writing her music. Sleep late. Eat ice cream.

  “Are you going to answer me?” Wade sighed.

  “I’m going out to watch the rodeo.”

  Just as she’d suspected, he’d have something to say. “You can’t go out there alone. You’ll have everybody and their brother on your tail. Take Bruno with you at least.”

  She glanced at her bodyguard who was five feet behind them. His brawny, bulldozer-like physique could part any crowd. “You don’t think being followed around by Hulk’s twin might grab some attention?”

  “You’re paying him for a reason. Drawing attention to him means people won’t be as likely to mess with
you.”

  Jessa didn’t want to be followed around by her manager or bodyguard. She understood there were times she needed each of them, but today she just wanted to enjoy the rodeo like she used to before things got complicated in her life.

  “You can’t do this! It’ll be like a mob out there. Can you at least think of your well-being?” Wade groaned.

  “I am thinking of my well-being. I want to have some fun.” She continued on, glancing further down the hallway to the exit. She spotted the security crew of three men, each dressed in yellow shirts and red caps, standing around in a semi-circle, monitoring the metal double doors.

  “I have an idea,” she said with a wink and a smile.

  “What are you doing?” Wade asked.

  “Watch and see.” She approached the crew. “Hi, fellows.”

  Heads came up, one of them did a double-take and turned pale. His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Obviously they didn’t expect to see her in this area of the building. “H-hi?” he muttered.

  “How are y’all doing?”

  “Great” and “Amazing” were said in muttered unison.

  “I’m Tom. .” One of the men took a step out of the circle. “Is there a problem, Miss Garvey?” He glanced from Wade to Bruno, then back to Jessa. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

  “Yes, you can indeed help. I have a proposition.”

  The two men in back continued to stare, mouths agape.

  “Okay,” Tom answered.

  She slipped off her cowgirl hat, fluffing her cascading curls that the stylist had spent over an hour styling before the show. “I’ll trade you my hat for yours.” She winked, which usually worked in her favor, except it never seemed to work on Wade who was now eyeing her in frustration. She knew when his bushy brows crunched together that he’d reached a level of impatience. He reminded her of a bald Albert Einstein and it was hard not to laugh.

  “Sure.” Without hesitation, Tom dragged his worn cap from his head. Blonde curls bounced alive. He couldn’t be a day older than twenty and as cute as a button.

  Jessa made the trade and pulled the cap down on her mass of blonde hair, securing it lower on her forehead to shade her eyes. “Now, how do I look?”

  “Normal,” Bruno said. On occasion, he did have something to say.

  “Thanks. Normal is exactly what I’m shooting for.” She gave the bodyguard a smile and swore his cheeks turned two shades of red. So, he did have human emotions?

  Wade made a sound that was somewhere between a growl and a discontented moan. “You just gave him a hat worth hundreds. He’ll turn right around and sell it on EBay.”

  “Well, then. Hmm.” She tapped the toe of her boot. “To be fair, how about you throw in those sunglasses, Tom?” Jessa asked.

  “These?” He pulled out the glasses from his shirt pocket. “These aren’t worth as much as the cap.”

  She took the mirrored sunglasses and slid them onto her face. “These are pretty cool. Thank you. By the way, if you sell that hat, you make sure you don’t take less than three-hundred, you hear? Hand me a pen, Wade.” She held out her hand, waiting.

  “What?” The manager groaned.

  “A pen? Come on. We’ve kept these gentlemen long enough.” She didn’t even look at Wade to see if he was scowling. The heat of his stare was on her back.

  Signing her autograph on the inside of the brim, she handed the hat back over. “There you are. Now it’s worth more.”

  “Th-thank you, Miss Garvey.” Tom looked back at the crew, his smile spreading from ear to ear. “I’ll never get rid of this.”

  “One more thing, Wade. I need cash.”

  He blinked and rubbed his palm over his sweaty forehead. Finally, he dipped into his pocket and pulled out a twenty.

  “Seriously? This proves you haven’t been in the real world for far too long. If you haven’t noticed, it’s not the sixties when you could buy a bottle of pop for a nickel.” She looked at Bruno who was actually smiling. The man was on a roll.

  Wade shrugged and brought out another twenty and handed both over to Jessa. “Behave yourself.”

  With a shudder of excitement, Jessa kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, pops. I’ll be good and home by curfew. I won’t kiss any boys, unless they look like Luke Bryan and then I can’t promise there won’t be any tongue action,” she teased.

  His round cheeks reddened and he didn’t even crack a hint of a smile. “Cute. Real cute.”

  She opened the door and stepped out into the bright Wyoming sunlight, breathing in the mixture of straw, leather, and funnel cakes, something else she planned to get while she was at it. She hadn’t had one in…dang, she couldn’t remember the last time.

  “An hour, Jessa. You hear me?”

  She didn’t bother to acknowledge Wade as she disappeared into the crowd, hiding behind sunglasses and cap.

  Everybody and their brother and sister had shown up at the popular annual event. There was nothing that compared to the rodeo…and the cowboys. Growing up on a ranch in Texas, men in worn Wranglers and dusty boots were the norm. This was more like a sense of ‘home’ than she’d felt in years. There were so many things she missed. Her life back on the ranch as a little girl who loved riding horses, singing to the livestock, and feeding the chickens was long gone…and so was her innocence. She’d been stepped on enough to hide her trust behind a steel wall.

  Moving through the crowd, no one stopped her and asked for an autograph. No one screamed her name or tore open their shirt to reveal a tattoo. In fact, she was elbowed and pushed just like everyone else.

  “Hey there, little lady. You wanna test your luck at throwing darts? You can win one of these cuties to warm your bed.” The man behind the counter held up a stuffed monkey. “Five darts for five bucks.”

  She stepped up to the booth, slapped down the money, then rubbed her hands together. “Let’s do this.”

  Aiming, she tossed the first dart, popping one balloon…then hit the target for the next four. The man handed over her prize, shaking his head. “You have some arm, sweetheart.”

  “You should see me with a shotgun.”

  She started to step away when she noticed a little girl with her arms crossed and her bottom lip puckered.

  “I didn’t win, mommy!”

  “Honey, it’s okay. How about we grab an ice cream cone?” the girl’s mother said.

  Jessa looked down at the monkey and shrugged, then stepped over to the little girl.. “Hi there.”

  The mom looked a little flustered. “Sorry. She’s normally not like this, but she lost her dog last week and I thought the rodeo would cheer her up,” she whispered.

  Jessa bent on one knee to the child’s eye level who was almost in tears. “My new friend here is looking for a forever home. Do you happen to know someone who would take him for me?”

  Some of the brightness came back to her blue eyes and she drew her bottom lip back in. “I can take him for you. Do you mean it?”

  Handing over the stuffed monkey, Jessa enjoyed seeing the smile in the child’s expression. She barely heard the girl’s excited “thank you” because a group of women dressed in midriff shirts and Daisy Dukes had gathered around. Their giggles and high-pitched squeals of delight made Jessa’s ears ring. Standing and slowly backing away, Jessa was ready to take off into a run until she realized they weren’t fan-girling over her.

  “Oh. My. Gawd! It’s him! It’s him!” one of the women screeched. “He’s going to sign my stomach and I’ll never shower again!”

  “Forget my stomach. He can sign any part of me he wants!” another muttered.

  Curious who the ladies salivated over, Jessa did a wide circle around the cluster and stood on tiptoes to get a glimpse of black Stetson and dark-as-night hair brushing a collar. And that was all. At five-four, she wasn’t quite tall enough to see over heads. A bump came at her side as she was rudely jostled by the women who were excited to meet the cowboy.

  Moving away from the horde
before she was stomped on, she headed in the direction of the Shake ‘em Shack and grabbed an ice-cold lemonade and a funnel cake with extra powdered sugar, then took a quiet spot in the back of the stables to enjoy herself. Sliding off her glasses and hooking them on the neck of her shirt, she bit into the delicious, warm treat, savoring the taste, remembering how, as a child, she visited the fairgrounds every summer and filled up on carnival food until she could barely walk. Then hung out with her 4-H friends by the pig stalls until nightfall when the parade started.

  Those were the days.

  Munching and dropping crumbs for a nearby bird, she didn’t see the cowboy come around the corner until he was upon her. He bumped her arm, sending the plate out of her hand and the cake went flying. Lemonade squirted up and splashed over her hand as she crushed the plastic cup. “Hey…look what you did!” she squealed, ready to let loose on the person who dared barrel right into her. But her words got stuck somewhere between numb tongue and heavy heartbeat as she tiptoed her gaze upward on a brawny chest, scruffy layer of beard covering a broad chin, to a pair of eyes that compared to the color of blue Playdoh.

  “Sorry, ma’am.” He dipped his hat.

  “Uh…” Why couldn’t she get her mouth to work?

  “Looks like I destroyed your funnel cake and drink.”

  “I-I didn’t think I would be bothered here outside of the crowd.”

  “Those were my thoughts exactly. It’s a little wild out there.” His thick, rich baritone voice played her veins like a violin.

  “Hey, where’d he go? I thought I saw him come this direction,” a female’s voice reached Jessa’s ears.

  Before she could wrap her brain around what was happening, Cowboy pulled off his hat and pressed his lips against hers. She gasped in alarm, but the feeling was quickly exchanged for something deep. Something primal. The stranger tasted good and his soft lips evoked a need Jessa didn’t think existed. Her arms hung at her sides and her knees weakened as the kiss continued, his tongue rolling along her bottom lip causing tingles to spread down her neck and lodge in her chest.