Bad Boy, Big Heart (Heart of the Boy Book 1) Read online

  Bad Boy, Big Heart

  By

  Andrea Downing

  Contemporary Western Romance

  Copyright © 2016 by Andrea Downing

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author except where permitted by law.

  Published by Andrea Downing

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover art by Julie D’Arcy

  Table of Contents

  About Bad Boy, Big Heart

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by Andrea Downing

  About Bad Boy, Big Heart

  When New Yorker K.C. Daniels heads to Wyoming for a summer job, she wants nothing more than to fit in with the staff of the Lazy S Ranch. Yearning to be independent of her mom and dad, and have a taste of the west before she starts her Master's degree, getting involved with a cowboy is the last thing on her mind—especially when she’s greeted with warnings about ‘Bad Boy’ Chay Ridgway.

  High school dropout Chay Ridgway sees summer as his time to be a rodeo star and win a girl in his life, while facing the responsibilities he has for his father. Although working to bring in cash to help his dad, he's never had a problem finding a woman who's happy to be that summer love—until K.C. Daniels appears on the scene.

  As two different worlds collide in a season that will end all too soon, is this going to be another summer romance or a love that will last for years?

  Chapter One

  The pickup jerked and rattled over the rutted road, a tail of dust visible in the side mirror as K.C. Daniels gripped the door. She glanced across at Breezy, last name unknown, not given at the hasty airport meeting—bags snatched up, marched out to the truck, words lost on the Teton wind. Breezy’s monologue continued as her gnarled fingers loosely held the steering wheel. ‘Wizened’ came to K.C.’s mind, though that, perhaps, was too close to ‘witch-like’ for the woman’s kind face.

  “…So, like I said, the Settlers, the owners, they come out maybe once, twice a year—kind of a dumb name for folks who are anything but settled, doncha think? Then again, I don’t suppose they had much choice in the matter…and I don’t know why the hell they took up the ranch ’cause about the last thing they’re interested in is cattle I should think, over there in San Francisco, but…” ‘San Francisco’ was spat out as three words, a strong accent on the ‘Fran’ as if it hadn’t tasted too good in her mouth.

  As Breezy glanced across at K.C., the young woman managed to give her a small smile to show she was still listening.

  “You do know it’s a working cattle ranch and only a guest ranch in the summer?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, it was dang good for me, of course, ’cause when the Roberts sold up I thought I’d be plumb out of a job. Out of a home as well, most likely. Settlers are right nice folks. Good people. Easy going, you might say. Anyway, I doubt you’ll meet them. Barely come out in the summer months, not keen on the tourists, which is why they rent out then. Though not skiers, neither. Just like the idea of owning a ranch, I guess.” She turned to look at K.C.

  K.C. knew she was being sized up. Pondered. And then it was proved.

  “So what’s your story then?”

  “My story? My story is….”

  “City girl. I know that much ’cause when Bob Hastings come in and told me to fetch you at the airport, he gave me your flights to check. New York via Denver. New York, then. What’s that like?”

  “Uh. Well.” K.C. tried to think of some way to sum up New York, then was saved.

  “Big. Dirty, I’d guess. So whatcha doing out here?”

  “Summer job—”

  “Well, I know that much. Oh, hang on, cattle guard.”

  The pickup bounced over the grate, and the last of K.C.’s doubts about coming west to work tumbled away. The view left her speechless. Land. So much land, stretching away toward the mountains. Instead of the squares and spires of a city skyline hiding the streaks of sun and clouds, depriving the city of blue, here was endless blue, the horizon of earth and sky made jagged by the distant peaks as if they held the clouds aloft. An immediate feeling of space gripped her, a boundless world, a sense of freedom. K.C. leaned back in her seat and for the first time relaxed. Three months, just three months she knew would fly by, but at least it would give her a feel for the place, a toehold to which she could come back, if she wanted. She let out a breath and turned to tell Breezy the rest of her ‘story.’

  But then the older woman jammed on the brakes as a horse and rider virtually flew by, in front of them.

  “Oh, damn you, Chay Ridgway!” The effort of rolling down the window took too long. The horseman was gone, riding off toward a herd of cattle in the distance.

  K.C. watched as the rider seemed to slow a bit, approaching the cows. “Who or what was that?”

  “That dang Chay Ridgway.” Breezy cranked the window back up a bit. “Crazy cowboy,” she sputtered under her breath as the pickup started on toward the now-visible ranch buildings. “Let me give you one word of advice, Miss City Girl. One word you most likely won’t pay a blind bit of attention to, but I’m gonna give it to you anyway. And it’s this: don’t, repeat don’t, fall in love with Chay Ridgway.”

  K.C. couldn’t help the escaped giggle.

  “Oh, I know….” A hand came off the wheel, a stop sign of warning toward K.C. “You think you’re different. You think you’re not the falling-in-love type or have some idea you’re tougher than nails. Well, let me tell ya something, sweetheart. I’m seventy-two and I’m in love with Chay Ridgway. There’s not a gal within a hundred miles who doesn’t fall for that man. Head over heels. Seen it happen time and again. Doesn’t matter his reputation has traveled far and wide, probably in all fifty states by now. Every dang girl thinks she’s different, thinks she’s the one gonna change him.” She slammed the steering wheel with the flat of her hand. “What the heck is it with us women? We just go like bees to honey for bad boys. You get a pair of green eyes and a dimpled jaw, and bang!” She shook her head. “Legs open up like a drawbridge welcoming the Titanic….”

  * * *

  The girls’ bunkhouse had a strange smell of horse, leather, and perfume, with the odd clump of straw and dirt tracked in. A cloud of dust flew up from the blanket as K.C. threw her suitcase on a bed, the lower cot in a double aisle of bunk beds with cloth-covered cubbyholes in-between. ‘Summer camp’ went through her mind. Breezy had told her there was one other girl at the moment, a wrangler from Idaho, and K.C. sent out a prayer they’d get on well. She glanced at the other occupied bed, across the aisle from the bunk she had chosen. There was nothing particularly ‘girly’ lying around except the one incriminating bottle of perfume. She picked it up from the shelf and read the label—drug store brand, never heard of it—and placed it back down. That’s fine, that’s good, she wasn’t expecting debutantes as roomies.

  Exhaustion washed over her slowly, seeping into her bones like rain finding crevices to fill. She unzipped the case and started to put things away on the allotted cubby shelve
s, pondering the question of food versus sleep. The very early start in New York had landed her mid-afternoon in Jackson, a time when the ranch hands were busy. It might be nice to take a nap, or it might be even nicer to have a walk around and see the lay of the land. Breezy said she was welcome to grab a bite in the kitchen if hunger struck, but lying down for just a minute might get her better prepared for meeting everyone at dinner….

  Thunk! Her eyes drifted open to sagging springs from the bed above and a dark stain that looked like a map of Australia on the mattress ticking. Thunk! K.C. rolled onto one elbow and peered out to see the back of a girl on that occupied bed, leaning away from her into the far aisle. A long braid of hair hung down onto a checked shirt while indecipherable mumbles and the crook of her neck told K.C. the girl was most likely on a cell phone. When she turned to toss the phone on the bed, K.C. caught her eye.

  “Oh! Sorry. Did I wake you?”

  “Probably time. What time is it, by the way?” K.C. swung out of the bed into the light and checked her wrist. “Shit. Did I miss dinner?”

  The other girl nodded towards a covered plate sitting on the top of one of the cubbies. “Breezy thought you might get hungry. Said to bring in the plate when you’re done.” She maneuvered out of the bunk bed into the aisle near K.C., extending her hand. “Dakota Swayze.”

  “Swayze as in…?”

  “Oh, don’t start please. Yes and no.”

  “Okay. Well. K.C. Daniels.” She gripped Dakota’s hand in one firm shake.

  “And is that K.C. for…?”

  “Don’t ask!”

  Dakota nodded in compliance. “So you’re the summer office help, the meet and greet for the guests we don’t really want but have to put up with?”

  “Uh. I guess that’s a fair description. And you’re the wrangler for those very same guests I guess you don’t want?”

  “The very one.” She started to unbutton her shirt. “Listen up. I’m showering horse off me and getting fluffed to hit the Horse and Wagon tonight. Wanna come? You can bolt your supper and wash up, and we’ll head out. All the boys will be there. Last night before the season starts. It’ll be a madhouse and chaos, but you’ll meet everyone you missed at supper and have fun.” She didn’t give K.C. a chance to respond before turning, yanking the shirt off, and stepping out of her jeans. “Well, come on. What are you waiting for?”

  “I….All right! But I think I’d better shower, too.”

  The bathroom was nearly freezing as the late May night settled in, blackening the unshaded but mottled windows that had begun to fog up. K.C. wondered if the ‘boys’ ever peeked in or played any kind of practical jokes on the girls. Anyone could walk in while they were both showering. Stripped off, and trying not to be too modest in front of the unconcerned Dakota, she pulled aside the plastic curtain of her shower cubicle and reached in to turn on the water. Dakota hummed away in the next stall, the sweet smell of shampoo drifting out on the steam as it hit the cold air. Was this what she had signed up for? The water didn’t seem to get very hot, and K.C. slipped in gingerly to lather up. Three months of cold showers, a sagging bed, and trying to fit in. “City Girl,” Breezy had called her. She couldn’t escape that, couldn’t try to be something she was not, yet she so wanted to be accepted, wanted to be like them and liked by them, wanted a life different to the one her parents had planned for her.

  Dakota wasn’t putting on finery but a clean pair of jeans and a blouse with bling, fancy boots, and make-up, which highlighted her dark brown eyes and full lips. K.C. thought she was stunning. And at her lanky height, get her out of her chaps and her dirty jeans and she’d fit in anywhere. But would K.C. fit in here?

  * * *

  Dakota’s truck bumped back over the same potholes K.C. had traveled a few short hours earlier. Night filled the vehicle’s windows with a mystery as to what was out there and couldn’t be seen. Cattle? Coyotes? Buffalo were said to be in the area, but were they on the ranch? Moose? Elk? Antelope?

  As if reading her thoughts, Dakota said, “You have to be careful driving at night. There are elk all over the place out on the road into town. Moose, too, sometime. Chay caught a bear in his headlights once, said it scared the bejesus out of him.” She snorted a guffaw as if that was a joke.

  There was that name: Chay. “Chay?” K.C. played the innocent, as if Breezy hadn’t warned her. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “Ha! Chay? Chay’s nobody’s boyfriend. Chay’s a law unto himself. Don’t get mixed up with Chay. He’s a love’emand leave’emtype.” Her glance met K.C.’s. “Oh, come on, Breezy must’ve warned you. Breezy warns everyone; she’s protective of Chayas if she wants him for herself but, of course, that’s not the case. She just doesn’t want anyone getting hurt.”

  “He must have built up a reputation.”

  Dakota shrugged. “Who knows the truth of the matter? People come and go here. Kids work for a while then go back to college or whatever. I’ve been taking a year off before going back to school. Only Chay seems to have been around a while. He’s now top hand; Bob thinks the world of him—”

  “Bob Hastings?”

  “None other.” There was silence for a moment before she switched on the windshield wipers to clear some mist.

  It was a metronome to K.C.’s thoughts. “I can’t wait for tomorrow,” she said half to herself. “To start work.” She turned to Dakota and caught her quizzical look. “Well, it’s so different here. So different to where I come from,” she answered the unasked question. “So beautiful.”

  “I guess. Idaho is pretty much the same. I can’t wait to get back. Get back to school and get on with my life.”

  “I think I’m just starting my life.”

  Darkness gave way to scattered lights, and the scattered lights met bright lights, and those in turn found neon. You couldn’t miss the ‘Horse and Wagon’—it was the brightest building on the block. A wonder that the noise and music that flowed past its swinging saloon doors didn’t scare the animals right out of Wyoming.

  K.C. shoved the door of the truck shut and pulled her denim jacket closed. She flicked her hair back off her face and tried to breathe deeply, as much to gain confidence as to fill her lungs with fresh air. Following Dakota into the bar, the sickly-sweet, yeasty smell of spilt beer and something like spicy nachos hit her, the music now an assault on her ears. She scanned around trying to be inconspicuous in the throng while taking in the faces. A group of cowboys, obvious from their dusty boots and their Stetson-topped heads, were laughing and being rowdy at the bar.

  “What’s your poison? I’ll get the first round if you like, you can get the second.”

  K.C. thought fast. “Uh, rum and coke?”

  Dakota grimaced. “How’bout Jack and Coke?”

  K.C. shrugged. “Sounds fine.” She didn’t want to cling to Dakota, who inched into a space at the bar, so she moved across to a corner by the side of the live band just as they stopped for a break. Down the bar from where Dakota was waving to get the bartender’s attention, the cowboy cluster laughed at something the tallest one had in his hands. K.C. craned around to try to make it out. Then he held it up, spinning the wheels of a skateboard.

  “You can’t…dare you…in boots…Chay…ridiculous…need hills…drink…” Snippets of their words were punctuated by laughter and noise from other patrons. The tall one was laughing hard now and turned, holding up the skateboard. His gaze met K.C.’s as he stopped for a second and stared at her before leaning back on the bar. The conversation continued in more muted voices as Dakota blocked her view, handing her the drink.

  “Shall I introduce you?” She took a sip of her beer, moving a little to the side and peering at K.C. over the top of her glass. “They don’t bite, you know.”

  K.C. looked at the group and opened her mouth to respond just as the tall cowboy dropped the skateboard to the floor, and the crowd around him broke up a bit.

  “Okay, everyone, stand back.” His voice had resonance, a masculine tenor that hushed just
about everyone in the room. He stepped onto the skateboard, onlookers now laughing and shouting, “Go! Go! Go! Go!” Heeled western boots and all, he pushed off, jumped while trying to turn around, lost his hat, missed the board, tripped, and slipped on a wet patch. Ending up on his backside at K.C.’s feet, he looked right into her eyes.

  “Hello, Gorgeous.”

  Chapter Two

  Chay Ridgway folded himself back to sitting, suddenly wondering if, when he turned, that vision would still be there. He glanced over his shoulder and a somewhat questioning smile met his glance, but it was Dakota who spoke first.

  “Maybe that knocked some sense into you, jackass.”

  He bent into a squat and, from there, stood, turning to look down onto the petite figure beside Dakota. “Who’s your friend, Dakota? She have a name or am I unconscious and dreaming?”

  Dakota sighed. “Really, Chay, you’re so cheesy sometimes. Chay meet K.C., our new office girl.”

  “Oh, and is that K.C. like the initials or K.C. like ‘had a locomotive?’”

  Her gaze was direct but wary. “K.C. the initials.”

  “And that would stand for…something City?”

  “That would stand for…my given name. But only my parents use it.”

  “Hmmm.” Chay bent to pick up the skateboard. “A mystery woman. My guess is Katherine or Kate. Not ‘plain Kate’ for sure, definitely ‘bonny Kate,’ certainly not ‘Kate the cursed,’ definitely ‘the prettiest Kate in Christendom’….” He bent down again and sent the skateboard scooting toward his pals.

  “Oh, Lord, Chay. What the hell are you talking about now?” Dakota knocked back her beer.

  “He’s quoting Shakespeare—The Taming of the Shrew. Wow. Memorized, no less. Pretty good.” K.C. nodded her approval.