Page 1 of Lost and Found Cowboy
Chapter One
Family meant everything to Mack Lassiter, which is why he’d just driven fifteen hours to make it back to Colorado for his brother’s wedding, but if he didn’t get a move on, he was going to miss the whole thing.
It had been less than a year since he’d found out he had three half-brothers and a grandfather running a ranch in the mountains of Colorado, and it meant a lot that they’d included him in the wedding party. Which is why he’d driven all night and most of the day, pounding coffee and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, to get back from the ranch he’d been working in Texas, determined to be there for Chevy’s wedding. He’d only just found his brothers—he wasn’t about to lose them.
Although he may have already lost the woman he’d also found in this small town of Woodland Hills, Colorado—the one who had filled his thoughts the past seven months he’d been toiling away in Texas. She’d stopped texting him—or maybe he had stopped texting her—days spent working a ranch are long and demanding and tended to blend together.
Fresh out of the shower, he scrubbed his hair dry with a towel then pulled on the new pair of jeans that had been left on the bed for him next to a black garment bag bearing his name. Being thenew guy in town, and to this family, he was thankful he’d at least get to feel like himself in jeans and his own cowboy boots instead of dressed up in a fancy tux, which he’d never worn in his life.
His brother had told him the wedding would be held on their family’s ranch and would be a more casual affair, but Mack was a little confused when he unzipped the garment bag, expecting to find a blue men’s shirt with a silver vest and navy tie, and instead pulled out a small formal gray dress.
Hmmm. He glanced down at the garment bag again. The tag clearly readMack Lassiter.
His brothers were famous for playing pranks on each other—and a small frisson of pride filled his chest to think they now considered him close enough to prank—but there was no way anyone expected him to wear this tiny dress.
It obviously wasn’t meant for him.
Beyond the fact that the style of the light gray dress, with its high neckline and matching jacket, looked like something his former neighbor lady—who had to have been ninety, if she was a day—would wear to church, the thing was miniscule. There was no way it would fit any part of his well over six-foot frame.
The door of the bedroom flew open, and Lorna Williams, the single mom he’d been thinking about, and the sister of the bride, burst into the room. He wasn’t sure if she’d taken her maiden name of Gibbs back, but Chevy had told him that her divorce from the no-good snake who’d run out on her while she’d been pregnant, had gone through while he was gone.
And it was no wonder he couldn’t get this woman out of his mind.
She looked gorgeous in a silvery-blue dress that clung to her tall, curvy frame in all the right places. Her blonde hair was pulled up in some kind of fancy twist, but a few wisps had come loose and the sight of them resting softly against her bare neck sent his pulse racing like the lead car on the track at Daytona.He’d never seen her in high heels, and the strappy, silver sandals she had on made her legs look even longer.
“Ford, we’ve got a problem, and I need your help,” she blurted, then froze as she must have realized that, although Mack was standing in his bedroom, he wasnothis oldest brother, Ford.
“Wow. I mean…hi.” He shook his head and tried to clear his suddenly dry throat. “I mean, hey Lorna.” He fumbled for the right words to say to the woman he’d thought about every day since he’d been gone. The same woman who’d deposited him firmly in the ‘friend zone’ before he’d left. “You look…stunning.”
Still frozen, she stared at him, her eyes wide. Her mouth opened to speak, then closed again, then opened once more. “Mack,” her voice came out in a whisper. “What are you doing here?”
His brow furrowed. Surely, she didn’t think he’d miss seeing his brother get married. “I’m here for Chevy’s wedding.”
“I wasn’t sure. I mean, I didn’t know if you were really coming. I hadn’t heard from you…” Her voice trailed off then her stance changed as she pushed her shoulders back and the set of her mouth tightened. Her gaze shifted to the dress he was holding up, and her eyes narrowed. “Nice dress. Does it belong to your date?”
“Mydate?” His glance flicked to the dress then back to Lorna as he shook his head at the absurdity of the idea that he would bring a date to this event when she was the only woman he couldn’t seem to get out of his mind. It also seemed crazy, judging by the style of the dress, that she thought he would be dating a woman old enough to be his grandmother. “No, this was in the garment bag labeled with my name. There must have been a mix-up.” He dropped the dress and grabbed the new white T-shirt that had also been on the bed. “What do you need help with?”
“What?” she asked, her gaze locked on his chest as he pulled the shirt on. She shook her head, as if to clear it, then waved away his question. “Oh, it’s nothing. Never mind.” Her expression hardened again as she turned to go. “I’ll find Ford.”
“You’ve already found me,” he said, taking a step towards her. “And you know I care about Chevy and Leni. You said there was a problem. I’d like to help, if I can.”
She turned back to him. He wasn’t sure what was causing all the animosity, but there were definitely waves of iciness in the glare she directed at him. The temperature outside was already warm for late spring, but it was downright chilly in this room.
She held his gaze, and he could practically see her mind weighing the options of accepting his offer to help versus continuing to search for Ford.
Her shoulders fell, then once it seemed her mind was made up, her words came out in a panicky rush. “The guy who was bringing the convertible that was supposed to drive Leni out to the meadow where the wedding is set up just called, and he can’t come. He said either his kid or his cow was sick. Not that it matters. I mean, of course, I don’t want his kid to be sick.Orhis cow. But, once he said he wasn’t coming, I couldn’t really hear anything over the blood rushing in my ears.”
Okay. This didn’t seem like a total emergency and definitely didn’t warrant the frantic tone of Lorna’s voice. “Can’t she just walk out to the meadow?”
Lorna raised an eyebrow in an expression that smacked of pure ‘you’re an idiot’ vibes. “Not in the heels she’s wearingordragging that gorgeous dress.”
“Got it,” he said, thoroughly chastised. “So, we need a new way to get her from the house to the meadow?”
Lorna nodded. “Correct.”
“Well, I can drive her,” he offered, although his truck was covered in highway dust and bug guts from the drive from Texas.
Lorna shook her head. “She wouldn’t fit. Well,shewould fit, but the dress wouldn’t. It’s got a long train and needs lots of open space around it. The convertible was perfect.”
