Cowboy State of Mind (Tarnation, Texas Book 4) Read online

  RHONDA LEE CARVER

  Cowboy State of Mind

  (Book 4, Tarnation Texas)

  2019 Rhonda Lee Carver

  Copyright 2019 Rhonda Lee Carver

  All rights reserved

  Edited by:

  Connor Watkins

  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.

  BLURB

  When life is on the line you learn to live…and never miss a dance.

  Dr. CC Peladora never expected to ask a stranger to father her child, but neither did she think she’d be diagnosed with a chronic disease. With a failed marriage and a busy career, love is the last thing on her priority list, but she wants more than anything to experience motherhood before it’s too late. When she hears through the grapevine that Adam Colt, the sexy, mysterious son of Buzz Colt, must marry to meet the stipulations of his father’s will, she sees an opportunity that won’t come along again. And living like there’s no tomorrow, this is her time to get what she wants…

  Adam just happened to be sitting on a bar stool in a local honky tonk when the spunky woman he’s been fantasizing about for months walks in and turns his world upside down. She offers to give him what he needs, an arranged marriage, for something she wants desperately. A child. No doubt he wants to kiss her, but marry her? And give her a child and then disappear from Tarnation forever? His father’s stained blood might run through Adam’s veins, but a real cowboy would never leave his kin. But in his journey to prove that he’s nothing like Buzz, he finds more than he ever bargained for…and a forgiveness he never expected would come.

  A secret marriage. Vulnerable hearts. Off-the-charts chemistry and small-town romance will have CC and Adam proving that a spirited vet and an alpha cowboy can find love in the most unlikely places.

  Other books in the Tarnation, Texas series:

  Book 1: Hitched

  Book 2: The Cowboy’s Son

  Book 3: Pour me a Drink

  Dedication:

  To Mom

  Acknowledgements:

  During the writing of this book my mother passed away. She’d been suffering with Parkinson’s Disease for many years, but the last six months we saw her health decline significantly. Mom had been in and out of the hospital, her speech deteriorated, and the flickers of memory were getting further and further apart. I knew God was preparing us, and her, for the time we’d all been fearing.

  Thinking of my mom leaving left me feeling alone. Devastated. Broken. I couldn’t stand to see her drift further away into a place of darkness and I wanted her to be whole again. While she was in the hospital several weeks ago with tubes in her throat and arms and wires hooked to her body, I took comfort that soon all her pain would be gone. I could see that she was tired—ready to go home.

  As I write this, we haven’t had Mom’s funeral yet. The pain of grieving is all new to me. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster of emotion. One minute I’m in tears and the next I’m at peace. My brain still hasn’t wrapped around the idea that I’ll never see her in human form again.

  I think a friend put it best, “I’m sorry I’m welcoming you into the Lost Mom’s Club.” This is a club I never wanted membership in, and yet, in time, we all experience the same loss.

  With love, Rhonda Lee Carver

  Dear Readers,

  I hope you love Adam and CC’s story. I’d only be lying if I said it was an easy story to write. However, I think this is one of my favorite couples. I can’t remember writing about body fluids this much ever before. Or having a heroine who could rap. I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but she raps to animals. Read on and find out more. Thanks for reading!

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  Please take a moment to review this book. ??

  LOOK for a bonus read at the end of the book…

  Table of Contents

  Front Matter

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Back Matter

  Chapter 1

  “I WANT YOUR sperm.”

  Adam Colt looked from his full shot glass of Tequila to the scuffed tips of cowgirl boots, up the length of tight-fitting jeans with frayed holes in the thighs, to firm breasts under an off the shoulder blue blouse. Fluttering his gaze upward he met the hazel eyes of CC Peladora who stood close enough that he could see the scattering of freckles over her tanned cheeks. He almost went sliding off the barstool in surprise. Could she be real or a figment of his alcohol induced imagination? He’d been thinking about the beauty long and hard and, suddenly, she appeared, making his head spin. Swallowing against the constriction in his throat, he asked, “What did you say?”

  “I think you heard me,” she said in a soft southern twang.

  “No, I don’t think I did.” He pushed his Stetson further up on his forehead and propped one boot on the leg of the stool beside him. She gave a toss of her hair over one bare shoulder and tilted a flared hip, her pensive gaze searching his face. Over the last few months they’d started working together more at the Grinning Spurs Ranch and gotten to know each other pretty well, maybe even shared a mutual attraction, but neither had acted on the feeling.

  “I want your sperm.”

  Adam laughed and scanned the crowded honky tonk looking for his dumbass brothers. Since they were kids they played tricks on one another, each trying to get one up on the funny scale. This would definitely be a trick he could see one of them playing on him. Somehow one of them figured out Adam had been watching CC a little too closely. “Which one of them put you up to this?”

  “Which one? I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  He didn’t see one sliver of humor in her expression. What the hell? She couldn’t be serious…could she?

  �
�Give me that.” She emptied his glass in one gulp, squinting and squirming from the Tequila burn before she climbed over his foot and slid onto the available stool.

  “What can I get you, CC?” The twenty-something bartender gave her a wide grin.

  “How about a Coke with extra grenadine.”

  “Anything for you, darlin’.”

  “Thanks, Trevor.”

  “How about you, Adam? Want another?”

  “Sure.”

  Once the bartender went to make their drinks, Adam shifted his gaze back on CC who munched on a pretzel stick. Her tongue swept out across her bottom lip, triggering something deep in his gut.

  “How many of these have you already drank?” Adam tapped the rim of the empty glass.

  “That was my first.” There was a hint of a smile on her pink, pillowy lips that made her eyes sparkle. No denying she was beautiful, but there was more to her—way more—than a pretty face. She could hold her own on a ranch as well as any man, if not better than some. He admired how she cared for animals, from horses to livestock to a stray dog they found on the property a while back, they were all equal. A few nights ago, he came out to the barn and found her sleeping next to the stall of a Tennessee Walker who hurt his hind leg. Lucky horse. What Adam wouldn’t give to have that same attention targeted his direction.

  Trevor set their drinks down and went to help a bearded man at the end of the bar. Adam knocked back the Tequila, feeling it burn into his gut, taking some of the tension off. “Is this the new millennial way of asking me to have sex with you? Just so you know, you didn’t have to be so creative in getting my attention. You had it from the second I saw your boots.” He chuckled, but when she didn’t crack a smile, he swiped a hand down his jaw. The liquor had settled into his bloodstream, making his pulse slow.

  “This has nothing to do with sex.”

  “No?” He lifted a brow, trying to wrap his brain around what was happening. He’d come into the bar to dust off the day’s work and the last thing he’d expected was to see CC.

  “No.” She sipped her Coke through the straw then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

  Damn, he was a bit disappointed.

  Since he and his brothers had arrived in Tarnation he’d had his eyes, and wandering thoughts, on the woman sitting next to him. From her long hair that was neither black or red but somewhere in between to her bright eyes that seemed to change color with her mood and the way she used her hands when she talked, each part of her grabbed his attention. She was an enigma, a breath of fresh air. Adam would be in utter denial if he didn’t admit he’d noticed, at least a hundred times, how voluptuous her curves were, especially in those snug jeans that tested a cowboy’s sanity. Fact was, CC made him feel like he was on the back of a bronco on an eight second ride of his life. Hell, he’d faced bodacious bulls in the arena and had felt braver than he did when near CC. Not that he found her intimidating, but she did something to his body—especially his heart—that made him plum crazy.

  He’d kept all this to himself while his brothers, Ash and Brennan, made fools of themselves fighting like boys and following her around the ranch like a calf after his momma’s teat. Hell, if Adam thought for a moment that either one of them wanted her, truly wanted her, he’d have wished them luck and forgotten about her. One thing a Colt never did was pick from another man’s flower garden, so to speak.

  Without a doubt, neither Ash nor Brennan truly liked CC—at least not in the same way Adam liked her. Ash had been a changed man when he found out he was a daddy. He settled into parenthood pretty damn well considering anyone who knew him would have bet their life’s savings that he didn’t have an ounce of nurturing in his six foot four, two hundred-pound, noncommittal body. Again, he’d proved everyone wrong when he announced recently that he would be marrying Lexi, the neighbor who seemed to mean more to Ash than he would admit.

  Brennan’s crush on CC had seemed to diminish as well as he spent more and more time away from the ranch doing God knows what, or who. Hell, Adam wished him well. He wished all his brothers happiness.

  CC’s lips wrapped around the straw as she slurped up the Coke. He noticed a dark freckle at the corner of her mouth. Lighter ones were sprinkled over her pert nose and on her shoulders. She blinked and her long, thick lashes brushed the tops of her flushed, honey-colored cheeks. Her slender fingers entwined in the mass of her wavy, unruly hair as she flipped the ends over one shoulder. The light caught the diamond stud flickering an array of color from her ear lobe. When she swiveled on the stool to check out the dance floor the neon sign flashing from across the room cast a blue tone to her skin. She tapped her boot to the rhythm of the country song, humming the tune, then brought her chin toward him, smiling. Confidently meeting his gaze. Several heartbeats passed until she finally said, “I know about Buzz’s stipulations for you and your brothers.”

  Fuck! Those words made Adam’s gut twist, although he’d known from the start there was a possibility people in Tarnation would hear through the grapevine that Buzz Colt demanded that his five sons marry within six months if they wanted to keep their homesteads. He glanced down the shiny, pockmarked bar where Trevor was uncapping a beer bottle and flirting his way into a big tip from a very responsive woman. The only other person at the bar, the bearded man who’d drank a few, had eyes, and attention, only for his Bud Light. Thankfully, no one listened to Adam and CC’s conversation. Gliding his gaze back to the woman who had his undivided attention, he asked, “How did you hear?” There was no use in denying the truth or pretending she hadn’t heard right. The thing he’d learned about CC Peladora, she was smart as a whip and as quick as one too. She’d smell his BS a mile away if he attempted to pull any over on her.

  “Tarnation is a small town, Adam. You and your brothers have been here for almost four months now. Word gets around as fast as a prostitute in a one-woman town. Not that it wasn’t already suspicious that Baxter and Abriella married like they had a fire under their asses but now Ash and Lexi.” She dipped her fingers into her glass, took out the cherry and popped it into her mouth.

  Adam quivered.

  “They love each other,” he said with a tight voice. “Just like Baxter and Abriella do. Come on, you don’t believe love at first sight?”

  “No, you come on.” She touched his bicep setting off a trio of fireworks within him. Her fingers were long and slim, her nails cut short and left natural. “Are you going to deny what I already know?” She removed her hand and slurped up the last of the Coke, then swiped the back of her fingers over her cherry red lips. He wondered if she wore lip tint. What would she taste like? If he had his way he’d find out by the end of the night.

  “I’m not denying anything. Buzz had stipulations.”

  “He was a sly son of a gun, wasn’t he?” She clicked her tongue.

  “You could say that.”

  “Good thing the lady folk of Tarnation can’t seem to resist a Colt.” One corner of her lips played with a smile.

  “Yeah, good thing.” He flagged Trevor to bring him a beer.

  “I always knew Buzz had a creative mind, but this is downright mind blowing,” she said after Trevor was gone.

  “And asking a man in a bar for his sperm isn’t?” He eased against the back rest.

  “I’m always up for a little mind blowing.”

  Yeah, she was enjoying tormenting him.

  “I guess since Buzz didn’t have trouble finding one unsuspecting woman after another to marry he thought his sons wouldn’t either.” Adam knew his words sounded bitter, but he really didn’t give a damn. Buzz had used his last bit of influence to reach from the grave and implant puppet strings into his sons’ backs.

  “There’s one thing you might need to understand about us small-town women. We might be a little crazy, but we’re beautiful crazy.” Her smile made the hairs on his arms lift. “We know a good thing when we see it, and we’re not afraid to go after it. That’s why I’m volunteering for the position.”


  Swiping off his hat and hooking it on his knee, he rubbed his forehead hoping to relieve some of the tension. Had he missed something? “Volunteering for what exactly?”

  “As your wife. In return, I want your sperm.”

  “Now come on. Don’t mince your words, sweetheart. What’s truly on your mind?” He took a long swig of the beer, feeling the cold liquid straight into his gut.

  “I want a baby.”

  He laughed. “This is a joke, right?” He scanned the crowd again, looking for the little shit who somehow convinced CC to proposition Adam. That’s the only thing that made sense. When he looked back at her the seriousness in her expression sobered him.

  “I wouldn’t kid you about marriage or a baby.” Something dark flashed through her eyes, but whatever it was disappeared as fast as he saw it. “You need a wife and I need a baby—or rather, I want a baby. It’s a win-win situation.”

  In all his life he couldn’t remember a better, or more provocative, proposal. Things southbound came to attention because the journey to her getting pregnant meant he’d finally get to touch CC in a way that he’d fantasized about for four long months. Yet, there were a couple things that hammered him back into reality. One, as much as he liked her, thought she was sexy, he didn’t want to marry her…or anyone that he just met. Two, becoming a father wasn’t for him. Not yet anyway. A child deserved stability.

  Unfortunately, time was ticking and eventually he’d have to face the conjugal music. He was one-fifth responsible for completing Buzz’s stipulations. Run the ranch together and get married before six months came to an end. Up until now, he hadn’t been doing too well on the latter angle. Not that he’d been putting in much effort.