Big Sky Cowboy Read online

  Stories of family and romance beneath the Big Sky!

  If he kissed her again, every sensible thought she possessed would flee.

  “Colby.” His name was spoken on a ragged breath.

  “It’s not fair,” he said in a voice that sounded rougher.

  Was it possible that she’d made him feel as if the earth had rocked? That’s how she’d felt. “What isn’t?”

  Featherlight, he kissed one corner and then the other of her mouth. “How wonderful you taste.”

  “I have to go inside.” She gestured over her shoulder.

  “Why?”

  A quiet challenge stretched between them.

  “Because I don’t know what I want,” Tessa said honestly.

  With reluctance, he released her. Before she turned, he touched her chin, forced her eyes to meet his.

  “I do,” he whispered. “I want you.”

  JENNIFER MIKELS

  Big Sky Cowboy

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Jennifer Mikels for her contribution to the Montana Mavericks series.

  JENNIFER MIKELS

  is from Chicago, Illinois, but now resides in Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband, two sons and a shepherd collie. She enjoys reading, sports, antiques, yard sales and long walks. Though she’s done technical writing and public relations, she loves writing romances and happy endings.

  For Karen Taylor Richman.

  Thank you again.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Prologue

  Centuries ago she’d have been called a witch. Colby Holmes remained undecided about Tessa Madison’s psychic abilities or if she was loony or not, but she didn’t look the way he’d imagined—a bohemian type with frizzy hair, too much makeup, too many bracelets and beads. No, that wasn’t how she looked at all.

  “Man, it’s hot, ain’t it, Colby?”

  With effort he dragged his gaze away from the raven-haired woman and nodded at the teenager, a sixteen-year-old who loved rodeo and often displayed a hint of hero worship. “Real hot.”

  Heat, a sultry warmth that belonged in the tropics instead of Big Sky country, had made Montana temperatures soar. The unseasonably warm July air carried no breeze. Even while he stood still, doing nothing, sweat dampened the back of his shirt.

  Yet she looked cool. So damn cool, Colby mused. She wore some gauzy-looking, pale blue dress that skirted her ankles. He eyed the sandaled heels, the toenails painted a frosty-looking pink color. The sheen on her bare arms.

  Petite, she had an easy stride that slightly swayed the subtle curve of her hips. Shiny black hair curtained an oval-shaped face as if protecting the fairness of her skin. She appeared fragile—delicate features, small hands, slim body.

  He’d heard she lived alone, had no relatives near. Independent, he assumed. And he’d heard talk. Some people wanted her gone from town. But here she was. He admired people who knew how to hang tough.

  He’d been told she was twenty-four, had moved to town two months ago. She’d opened her store in a Victorian that was painted a crisp white with dark green trim and shutters. Called Mystic Treasures, it was right around the corner from Main Street and other businesses. It catered to people who were lured to the mystical world of palmistry and astrological readings and believed in extrasensory perception and premonitions.

  Colby braced a shoulder against an upright near the arched, flowered trellis the bride and groom had stood beneath moments ago. Along with moonlight, the malibu lights strung along the back of the ranch house fell on the guests gathering around Sylvia and Larry Hardy.

  For another moment, Colby watched Tessa Madison inch her way around the buffet table, which was draped with a white linen tablecloth and filled with serving dishes. He gave no conscious thought to his actions. When he moved near to reach for a plate from the stack, she faced him. Her delicate fingers cradled a piece of bacon wrapped around something green. With her other hand, she reached for the plate, handed it to him. “Do you want one?”

  Instead of taking the plate right away, he stared at her hand, thin-fingered, the nails tipped with clear polish. “Thanks.” It was dumb, but he wanted to stare at her eyes. Haunting eyes. Gray, fringed by long, dark lashes, they held a smile as they met his. “I’m Colby Holmes.”

  Her smile widened. “I know,” she announced in a tone that conveyed he hadn’t needed to tell her.

  She knows? Colby watched her turn away, stroll across the grass. What does that mean? Nothing. It’s nothing.

  “Colby.” At the sound of his father’s voice, he swung around. Strands of gray weaved through brown hair the same color as Colby’s. More than once, Colby had been told that he looked like his father when Bud Holmes had been younger, trimmer. “Are you listening to me?”

  “No, I didn’t catch what you said, Dad.” I was drooling over the town’s resident eccentric.

  “So will you bring the car around?”

  “Right.” He began working his way toward the cars.

  “The heat wilted the bridal bouquet,” a woman standing near the flowered trellis complained to another woman.

  “Tessa told Sylvia to have silk flowers,” her companion responded. “But Sylvia’s cousin works at the florist’s and would have boycotted the wedding if Sylvia hadn’t ordered flowers from her.”

  “I listened to Tessa when she told me to see my sister in Oregon. It’s good that I did. She went into labor five minutes after I arrived.”

  Colby frowned. He’d reached a point where he’d try anything to get normalcy back into his family’s lives. No one was getting answers about his aunt’s murder. When Chelsea Kearns, the forensic expert in town, had suggested he take a less traditional route and talk to the woman only a handful of people had known was psychic, he’d reluctantly considered the notion.

  Since then, Tessa Madison’s so-called powers had become the talk of the town. According to people who believed in clairvoyants, she could help him.

  He gave himself a mental kick. He must be nuts to think about going to see her. He didn’t believe she had any supernatural power. No one could see what wasn’t visible.

  Chapter One

  “He’s coming in.”

  The he was Colby Holmes. Tessa swung a look away from her store assistant to the man at the shop entrance. She’d had a premonition about him, one she’d wanted to ignore. She let her gaze move up long legs encased in snug, worn-looking jeans. Briefly she glanced at the ornate rodeo buckle, took in the broad shoulders in the blue chambray shirt, the well-defined muscles in sinewy arms beneath the rolled-up sleeves. An ex-rodeo champion who fluttered the hearts of most women under the age of forty, he tipped back his square-crowned, beige Stetson.

  She studied the strong face with the high cheekbones, the sharply drawn jaw. In his late twenties, lean of hip, rugged-looking, he bore a few lines at the corners of brown eyes. A summer tan emphasized just how dark those deep-set eyes were.

  “He’s so sexy,” Marla said under her breath. Single, in her late twenties, with straw-colored blond hair that hung to her mid back, Marla was a born romantic, convinced love was just around the corner despite a breakup a week ago from her childhood sweetheart. Freethinking, she possessed the right mind-set for working at the shop with its New Age merchandise. She’d become indispensable to Tessa. More important, in two months, she’d become a loyal friend.

  Marla
wandered over to her twin sister, Regina, who’d come in for a numerology book. The only other customer was octogenarian Margaret Hansen.

  Tessa laid a deck of tarot cards on the display counter. The top card was the Queen of Cups. Tessa groaned. It usually signified romance. Well, she had expected him, hadn’t she? The moment his fingers had brushed hers when she’d handed him the plate yesterday, she’d felt the warning jolt and a quick breathless sensation. But premonitions weren’t written in stone. She’d stay clear of him and block any future contact.

  Prepared, she looked up. She knew what he wanted, and she didn’t want any part of it. He didn’t look too friendly, she decided. In the newspaper, he’d always worn a wide smile, the smile of a champion. At the moment, he bore a less than congenial expression, his mouth set in a tight line. Well-schooled at masking her uneasiness behind a breezy demeanor, she flashed a bright smile. “Hi, again. Did you enjoy the wedding?”

  “Did you?” He stopped beside a table where she’d set out a Ouija board.

  “Yes, I did. Sylvia’s a friend.” Except for Marla, her twin sister, Regina, and several customers, Sylvia was one of the few friends Tessa had made since arriving in town. “There was such a positive karma there.” His frown deepened, as she’d hoped it would. She needed to discourage him quickly.

  “Was there?”

  “Yes, but your aura is disturbing.” For extra effect, she wrinkled her nose. “Greenish. You should come in for a psychic reading.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  Of course, he would. This was not a whimsical man. “Oh, you’re not of that mind.”

  For a moment he said nothing. He didn’t need to. His eyes narrowed, and he looked at her as if she was crazy. “No, I’m not.”

  “Too bad. You definitely need to cleanse your subconscious of cosmic disturbances. If you change your mind come see me.” Before he could respond, she turned away. Skirting the counter, she resisted an urge to roll a shoulder against the tension bunching her muscles. On more than one occasion, she’d dissuaded a man with a glimpse of Tessa, the space cadet.

  Since Chelsea Kearns had revealed Tessa’s psychic power, she had been backpedaling, trying to keep a low profile. Tessa wanted so badly to stay in Rumor, to be a part of the community. Different scared some people. Like Leone Burton, she mused. A member of the town council, a pillar of society, the woman was influential, and she didn’t like Tessa.

  Earlier, Leone had stormed in. Gray-haired with ramrod-straight posture, she’d declared war on Tessa’s store. She’d see Tessa gone from town, she said. She wouldn’t allow some fortune-teller to play parlor games with the good people of Rumor.

  Tessa wished she could go back to bed, start the day over. She entered the storeroom, paused beside crates of unopened merchandise and reached for the crowbar on top of the worn-looking oak desk.

  In the doorway, Regina, still holding the book on numerology she’d been thumbing through, peered at her. “He wants your help, Tessa.”

  Tessa pried at one of the metal clips that clamped the top of a crate. “Are you going to the antiques sale tonight, Regina?” she asked instead of responding.

  Marla suddenly appeared. “You should help him. Everyone likes him, Tessa.”

  Regina was just as eager to play Colby Holmes’s advocate. “Tell her more about him,” she urged. “You want to know, don’t you, Tessa?”

  “He used the rodeo winnings he’d saved over years to buy a small ranch and trains horses now. Quarter horses.”

  They were wrong. She didn’t want to know too much about him. She’d felt more than a connection with his nearness. Sensation had swarmed in on her.

  She’d dodged it then, planned to keep it at bay. That was sensible. Though he might view her as foolish with an absurd lifestyle, Tessa weighed situations, always considered the consequences of her actions. Avoiding him and his problem was the right decision.

  “Tessa, he’s coming back here,” Marla said in an excited whisper with a glance over her shoulder.

  Tessa straightened to see him standing in the door way. Flattening a palm against the doorjamb, he looked as if he planned to stay there. “We need to talk.”

  She never expected him to be so obstinate. “I told you—”

  He stepped around Marla and bridged the distance in a few strides. “I know what you said.”

  Head bent, Tessa yanked at the lid on one crate. She stared at the dusty toes of his boots when he stopped inches from her. With the crowbar, she fiercely yanked at the metal clips that clamped the top of a crate.

  “Give me that,” he said, closing a hand over the crowbar.

  Her hand wasn’t quite steady. She looked up, saw that Marla and Regina had disappeared, left her alone with him. “A reflexologist would help you. I sense you’re tense.” Actually she was the tense one.

  With more force than necessary, he worked at the lid, then flipped the final clip on the crate. “My state of mind isn’t why I’m here.”

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” Perhaps he wouldn’t ask her to help if she treated him as a customer, if he thought her too odd. “If you want a reading, I can do your astrological chart. You’re a Taurus.

  Stubborn, steadfast, persistent.”

  His frown deepening, he set the crowbar on an adjacent crate. “A Taurus? How do you know what…”

  “You were born in May. So that’s your birth sign. It’s the bull,” she said and stepped out of the storeroom. She waited until he stood beside her, then gestured toward palm-size crystals in various colors displayed in the store window. “Or we have several healing crystals, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  As she’d expected, he stared at her again as if she was short a full deck. “Healing crystals?”

  “They’ll help when your shoulder aches.”

  “When my—” His dark eyes slitted. “Is that knowledge about my shoulder supposed to impress me?” She didn’t miss the cynicism lacing his voice. “Everyone knows I had a dislocated shoulder.”

  Tessa was accustomed to mistrust, but for some reason, she wanted to prove to him she wasn’t a liar or a fake. “Yes, that’s true.” The act wasn’t working. He wouldn’t go away no matter how difficult she seemed to be. Tessa went with the truth, hoping it might throw him off guard, confuse him even more. “Like me, they probably read all of that about you in the newspaper.”

  A hint of an amused smile tugged up the corners of his mouth.

  She’d heard he was well-liked. In fact, she couldn’t recall anyone saying anything uncomplimentary about him.

  “You’re a bit of a local hero, Mr. Holmes. One newspaper article was a biographical piece.” She knew more. People talked about him. Responsible. Practical. He was so sensible he’d retired from rodeo. Another man might have foolishly kept competing even though an injury had made him less capable. He was generous with his time and money. He would come to a friend’s or neighbor’s aid without being asked. But socially he’d become a loner since a broken engagement to a young woman from a neighboring Montana town.

  He moved closer to a counter. A fan on it fluttered sun-streaked strands of his brown hair away from his forehead. “What’s this for?” he asked, drawing her away from her thoughts.

  She pivoted to see him gesturing at the display of scented candles. She couldn’t resist a tease at his expense. “Light.”

  Straight, dark brows bunched with his scowl.

  “Some people buy them for romance,” she said to lighten the moment.

  “Or séances?”

  Tessa went on. “Other people find tarot cards and Ouija boards and dowsing rods interesting.”

  “All things to help tell the future.”

  “If that’s what a customer wants. I don’t use crystal balls or tea leaves or tarot cards.”

  “I heard differently. I heard you can read crystals to predict the future. Something about different crystals meaning different things.”

  Why would he have bothered to learn about
that? “Crystal clairvoyants cast five crystals. The pattern in which they fall tells the future.”

  “But you don’t do that?” He stopped beside shelves where she’d displayed ginger jars containing herbs, decks of tarot cards, astrological charts and the colored crystals.

  “I can, but I don’t predict.”

  He pivoted toward another wall of shelves displaying tea leaf cups, runes, Celtic crosses and candles. “You told Sylvia not to have real flowers.”

  She couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, I did.”

  He kept staring at the high ceiling as if something important was written on it. Hanging from a beam, a giant brilliant blue sphere rotated in slow motion in a corner of the room. “Isn’t that predicting?”

  “I never told her they would wilt.”

  “This building must be a devil to keep cool,” he said suddenly.

  Tessa nearly laughed at the so serious, practical observation. “Not usually.” The cost of heating or cooling the old building had seemed inconsequential to her. She’d fallen in love with the Victorian. It had carried a positive aura with its warm, homey feel. At the time, she’d needed to keep negativity out of her life. She doubted this man would understand such whimsical thinking. “It has been miserably hot,” she finally added.

  “Global warming.” A crackly voice cut in. Tessa smiled at Margaret Hansen, one of her best customers but a legendary eavesdropper. The elderly lady had a penchant for hot-pink fingernail polish. Today it matched the artificial pink rose stuck in her snow-white hair. “Can I see that one?” she asked, pointing to an astrological chart under a glass display.

  The store occupied the first floor of the Victorian. Tessa had replaced one of the side windows with a huge, octagonal-shaped one. On sunny days, light poured into the room. Italian lights outlined display shelves. In the middle of the room near the checkout counter was a black wrought-iron spiral staircase that led to a loft and shelves of books about astral projection, channeling, I Ching, even herb cooking.