Her Twins' Cowboy Dad. Patricia Johns

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       Chapter One

      Colt Hardin stood by a window on the second floor of an office building in downtown Creekside, Montana, cowboy hat under one arm, trying to calm his thoughts as he looked out over the street. The building itself was only three stories, but it was the highest one in that little ranching town. A few pickup trucks slowed to a stop at the streetlight, windows rolled down to let in the warm July breeze. One of the trucks had an old dog in the back, trotting back and forth along the truck bed. The light changed to green, and the trucks rolled forward again. Colt preferred trails and fields, horseback or the rattling old ranch truck. Town was just too busy for his liking.

      Colt tapped his hat against his thigh, attempting to quiet that jitter inside him. Uncle Beau passed away a few days ago, and he had been called to the lawyer’s office for the reading of the will. If Uncle Beau hadn’t changed anything, Colt was inheriting it all.

      Old Beau had been a complicated guy in life—a good rancher and a neighbor who could be counted on when weather went bad or times got tough. He was gruff, stubborn, often narrow-minded, but with a sensitive side that had surprised Colt more than once. But as kind as he could be to a neighbor, he was unmovable when it came to family. Once his mind was made up about someone, there was no changing it, and that character flaw had torn apart the family. It was only because those relationships were in tatters that Colt was set to inherit everything.

      Beau’s marriage to his aunt had shown him that marriage was difficult...and, it turned out, so was keeping any kind of functional relationship with a man’s kids. Josh was an only child—it shouldn’t have been that complicated. And Colt didn’t have his own father in his life, so Beau had been the closest he’d had to a dad. That wasn’t a sweet sentiment, either, because Beau was the main reason he’d been steering clear of getting married and starting a family of his own.

      A patter of little shoes came up the stairs, and Colt glanced over as two redheaded toddlers in matching floral-print dresses emerged into the hallway and immediately scampered in opposite directions. A slim woman with dark hair pulled into a messy bun at the back of her head appeared behind them and jogged after the squealing toddler who dashed down the hall, while the other little girl headed in his direction. The woman wore a pink sundress that fluttered behind her in a wave, and he couldn’t help but wonder how she’d catch both СКАЧАТЬ