In a Cowboy's Arms. Rebecca Winters

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      Chapter One

      “Zane? I’m glad you called me back!”

      Zane Lawson was the brother-in-law of Sadie Corkin’s late mother, Eileen, and uncle of Sadie’s half brother. The recently retired navy SEAL had just gone through a painful divorce, yet Sadie could always count on him.

      “You sound upset,” Zane said. “What’s wrong?”

      She picked up the Vienna sausage two-year-old Ryan had thrown to the floor and put it in the sink. Her half brother, who had clear blue eyes like his mother, thought he was a big boy and didn’t like sitting in the high chair, but today she hadn’t given him a choice.

      “I got a call from the ranch a little while ago. My father died at the hospital in White Lodge earlier this morning.”

      Quiet followed for a moment while he digested the news. “His liver?”

      “Yes.”

      “I thought he had years left.”

      “I did, too. But Millie said the way he drank, it was a miracle that diseased organ of his held up this long.” Daniel Corkin’s alcohol addiction had caught up with him at a young age, but the impact of the news was still catching up to Sadie. It had been eight years since she’d last seen him. She felt numb inside.

      “With news like this, you shouldn’t be alone. I’ll drive right over.”

      “What would I do without you?”

      “That goes both ways. Have you made any plans yet?”

      She’d already talked to Mac and Millie Henson, the foreman and housekeeper on the Montana ranch who’d virtually raised Sadie after her parents’ bitter divorce.

      “We’ve decided to hold the graveside service at the Corkin family plot on Saturday. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.” She had a lot of decisions to make in the next five days. “I’ll have to fly there on Friday.”

      “Rest assured I’ll go to Montana with you so I can help take care of Ryan. See you in a couple of minutes.”

      “Thank you. Just let yourself in,” she said before hanging up. No two-year-old could have a more devoted uncle than Zane.

      Ryan had never got to meet his father, Tim Lawson. Tim had owned the software store where Sadie had been hired after she’d moved to San Francisco to be with her mother, Eileen, eight years ago.

      Sometimes her mom dropped by the store to go to lunch with her and that’s how Eileen had met Tim. It must have been fate because the two had fallen in love and married soon after. But Tim had died in a car accident while Sadie’s mother was still expecting their baby. Tragically, Eileen had passed away during the delivery from cardiac arrest brought on by arrhythmia. Age and stress had been a factor.

      Sadie suffered from the same condition as her mother. In fact, just before she’d left the ranch, she’d been advised to give up barrel racing and had been put on medication. If she ever married, getting pregnant would be a huge consideration no matter the efficacy of today’s drugs.

      Sadie had continued to work in sales for Tim’s store even after new management had taken over. Since Eileen’s death, however, and taking on fulltime duties as a mother to Ryan, she worked for the store from home.

      Tim’s younger brother, Zane, had been a tower of strength, and the two of them had bonded in their grief over Tim and Eileen’s deaths.

      Zane knew the whole painful history of the Corkin family, starting with Sadie’s great-grandfather Peter Corkin from Farfields, England. Due to depressed times in his own country, he’d traveled to Montana in 1920 to raise Herefords on a ranch he’d named after the town he’d left behind. СКАЧАТЬ