The Cowboy's Unexpected Love - MacFarland Ranch Book 1 (ebook)

The Cowboy’s Unexpected Love is the first book in the new, sweet n steamy, western romance series from USA Today Bestselling author SJ McCoy.

The MacFarland Ranch series takes us back to Paradise Valley, Montana, where the winters are cold and hard, and the cowboys are hot and harder.

Wade MacFarland is one of life’s good guys. He built and runs a guest lodge on the family ranch. His marriage to his high school sweetheart ended in bitter divorce years ago, his only consolation being that they didn’t have kids. He’s not looking for love anymore, but he’d be happy if it found him.

What he doesn’t expect is to find love sitting in a ditch on the side of the highway – in a wedding dress.
Sierra Hartford is running from her wedding – and running for her life. The life that she’s never been in charge of. She’s the heiress to Hartford Enterprises, and with her father and brother dead, she’s a billionaire in her own right.

Running from someone who plans to kill her lands her in the arms of a kind, sexy cowboy who makes her want a whole new life. And if simply staying alive wasn’t enough to deal with, Sierra’s also about to become the adoptive mom to two small children. She’s never met them, but she’s determined to give them a good life.

She might be falling hard for Wade, but he’s divorced because he didn’t want children.

He didn’t expect her to come into his life, how can she expect him to accept the children?

Pick up your copy of this sweet and steamy romance and you’ll laugh and cry with Wade and Sierra as they discover that unexpected love can be the very best kind.

Chapter One


“Thanks for switching with me. For offering to drive home,” said Wade.

His brother, Ford, glanced at him then returned his focus to the road. “That’s okay. The second I saw Josie corner you, I thought you’d need a drink.”

Wade blew out a sigh and turned to look out at the mountains. They glowed in the last rays of evening sun under a sky streaked with crimson and gold. “My days of hitting the bottle over her are a long way behind me.”

“I noticed. I should have had one myself when I realized you weren’t drinking. Want to talk about it?”

He let out a short laugh. “There’s nothing to say. At least, nothing new.”

Ford turned the truck off the highway and pointed it south, down East River Road. “She’s determined. I’ll give her that.”

“Yeah. She was determined that we’d get married, and we did. She was determined to have kids, and she did.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

Wade took his hat off and leaned back against the headrest. “Which part?”

“Not wanting to have kids.”

“No. I don’t. We got married too young.” He shot his brother a rueful smile. “You were right about that. If I regret anything, it’s marrying her in the first place. Having kids would have made things worse, for everyone. I regret that we didn’t make a clean break when it was obvious that we wanted different things in life. I regret a lot of things, but not having kids with her isn’t one of them.”

“Good. So, you’re not thinking about giving in to her, are you? Getting back together?”

“Hell, no! I don’t know how many times I’ll have to tell her before it sinks in, but there’s no way on Earth I’d ever get back with her. Even if she didn’t have Harland’s kids. There’s nothing there. I have no feelings for her anymore.”

“None at all?”

“Maybe a touch of resentment for what she did. She still claims she never cheated, but she sure moved on quickly with Harland when we separated.”

The way Ford’s jaw tightened reminded Wade that his brother had his own opinion on whether Josie had cheated on him. Thankfully, he didn’t bring it up. Instead, he punched Wade’s arm. “How about when we get back to the ranch, we hit the bourbon? We can drink to our future as the old bachelor brothers of MacFarland Ranch.”

“I’ll happily put a hurting on a bottle of bourbon with you. But …” He smiled through pursed lips. “I’m not ready to throw in the towel and commit to dying a lonely old man just yet.”

Ford laughed. “What are you, a glutton for punishment? Are you saying that you’d get married again?”

Wade shrugged. “I don’t know why we’re on this deep and meaningful track this evening, but while we are, then yeah. You know me. I’m soft, I guess.”

Ford snorted. “You’re a damned romantic is what you are.”

Wade shrugged again. “I guess I am. See, if the right woman came along, and I’m not saying she ever will, just that if she did, I’d want to marry her. Make her my wife.” He grabbed onto the door handle when the truck swerved.

“What the hell?” Ford was pointing through the windshield.

Wade peered out, wondering if he was imagining things. An SUV was off the side of the road. Its wheels on the passenger side were down in the drainage ditch. Standing next to the vehicle was a woman – a woman in a wedding dress.

Ford laughed beside him when the woman slapped the side of the SUV and then gave the tire a few good kicks. “Be careful what you wish for, huh?”

Wade cocked an eyebrow at him.

“You just said you wanted to find a woman you could marry and boom, the next minute there’s a bride on the side of the road.”

Wade laughed. “Yeah. I don’t think that was my doing.”

Ford brought the truck to a stop behind the SUV and looked over at him before he got out. “Maybe not, but you can deal with her. You know how well I do with emotional women.”

~ ~ ~

Sierra looked up at the big sky – Montana! She could hardly believe she was here. She shouldn’t be. She was supposed to be at her wedding reception right now. Instead, here she was underneath the famed Big Sky, which was streaked with quickly fading red and gold. The artist in her wanted to appreciate the beautiful sunset, but she had a few more pressing things on her mind.

She pulled her phone out of the little clutch bag that sat on the passenger seat. Thank goodness she’d had the presence of mind to at least make sure she had that with her when she’d fled. Then again, she wouldn’t have gotten far without it.

She hit the speed dial for Cassidy’s number and held her breath as she waited. Please pick up. Please pick up. Please – Shoot!

“Hi, you’ve reached Cassidy Remington …”

Sierra cursed as she ended the call. She’d already left a message and she had no doubt that the second Cass heard it she’d call back. She probably sounded hysterical – heck, she felt hysterical.

She’d thought this day couldn’t get any worse, but it just kept on giving. It was supposed to be the happiest day of her life ... She looked down at the phone in her hand, and the tears started to fall again. She should have been cried out by now. She’d spent the last, who knew how many hours, on the road crying.

She shouldn’t have been driving, she knew that much. But she had no choice. She’d had to get out of there. Had to leave the plush hotel where her friends were no doubt wondering what had happened to her. Perhaps it was all just a nightmare, and she’d wake up soon. It’d be the morning of her wedding day and the last several hours would never have happened. She sniffed and wiped her face on the now grubby, and far from white, satin handkerchief. No such luck. She was definitely living a nightmare, but it was a very real one. There’d be no waking up from it.

She put the SUV in neutral and opened the door. She might as well have one more try at pushing it out of the ditch. It was futile, and she knew it, but she had to do something. Cassidy wasn’t answering. The fading sunset warned that it would get dark soon, and she had no clue what she was going to do. She was in the middle of nowhere, Montana and … she shuddered at the sound of a screech that tore through the air. A bird? What if it was a wolf? They had those in Montana. She let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob. Maybe a wolf would come and eat her; that would be a fitting end to this nightmare of a day.

She gave up trying to push the stupid SUV. There was no way she was going to get it out of the ditch. Maybe if she hadn’t swerved to avoid the deer that had jumped out in front of her, it would be lying here in the road waiting for a wolf to come and eat it instead of her. No. Even with the mess she was in, she was glad she hadn’t hit the deer, glad that it had bounced on its merry way not even looking back at her as she ran off the road. She was happy that the deer got to go on with its life; it probably had a brighter future ahead of it than she did. It would go on to have babies, raise its children – shoot! She couldn’t die out here, eaten by a wolf or otherwise. She was going to have children to raise soon, too – even if she didn’t get to have babies.

She slammed the door shut and slapped the stupid vehicle in frustration. “You were supposed to be the safest vehicle on the road.” That’s what the man at the rental desk in the hotel had told her. She gave the tire a kick and then another for good measure. She knew it was unreasonable to take it out on the poor SUV, but at least expressing her anger felt better than sitting there sobbing and feeling helpless.

Movement on the road behind her made her stop kicking and look. A huge pickup truck was pulling up behind the SUV. Uh-oh. Maybe she was going to die out here after all. Did serial killers drive pickup trucks?

Oh my! If serial killers looked like this guy … Had there ever been a cowboy serial killer? He got out of the driver’s side and tipped his hat before starting toward her. He was big, muscly, handsome as the devil himself. Dark and broody good looks had never been her thing, nor had cowboys, but she could be persuaded to reconsider for this guy.

She jumped nervously and tore her gaze away from him at the sound of the passenger door closing. And what the heck? Maybe she was dreaming after all, but rather than a nightmare, this was a girl’s cowboy fantasy come true. Cowboy number two was just as tall and built as the first, but he was much fairer. Where the first one looked dark and broody, this one looked open and friendly. And then he smiled – and she’d swear that the sun came back out, even though it had just set behind the rugged mountains that towered above them.

“Ma’am.” He touched the front of his hat with two fingers and came striding toward her. All she could do was stare. From the top of his hat, her gaze slid down over him. He was breathtaking. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, muscular thighs encased in workworn jeans. Wow! She looked back up at his face. The lines around his eyes crinkled as he smiled. He had a dimple in one cheek that made him look friendly, approachable. She glanced back at the other man, the darker one. He smiled, too, he was possibly, technically, just as handsome, but the warmth wasn’t there.

He had the same straight nose, high cheek bones and strong, square jawline. She looked back at the fairer one for comparison. They must be brothers. They looked too much alike to …

“Are you all right?”

Shoot. She really needed to pull herself together. After the shock of what she’d seen and heard this afternoon and then spending the last several hours alone in her head on the road, she seemed to have lost the ability to interact with reality. The friendly cowboy was still smiling at her, but he was starting to look worried now. He shot a glance at the other one.

She let out a laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. She was supposed to be at her wedding reception – sipping champagne at the St. Regis in Park City, Utah with trust fund kids and hedge fund managers. Instead, here she was, by the side of the road in who knew where, Montana with a couple of cowboys.

Those cowboys were starting to look a little wary. Who could blame them? It wasn’t every day you ran across a bride by the side of road – kicking her vehicle, no less. That thought made her laugh again; they must have seen that, and they really must think she was a crazy. Oops. And laughing the way she kept doing probably wasn’t helping any.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and pulled herself together. She had an entire lifetime’s worth of training in how to appear calm and gracious in the face of adversity, no matter how far from calm she might feel.

She smiled at them both, but then focused her attention on the fairer of the two. “I’m sorry. I promise I’m not as crazy as I look.”

There went that smile again. It warmed her insides and made her relax a little. How could that be?

“You don’t look crazy.” His eyes were so kind. “You do look as though you might be having a tough day, though.” He jerked his head at the SUV which was, of course, still stuck in the ditch.

At least he didn’t comment on her wedding dress. She knew she’d have to explain, but she’d stick with her more pressing predicament to start with. “I had the choice between going off the road or hitting a deer.” She lifted one shoulder. “I chose the ditch.”

The darker one chuckled. “You’re lucky that you got to choose. More often than not you hit ‘em before you know what happened.”

She laughed again. She couldn’t help it. “Well, if you call this lucky, then I’ll take it. I thought luck wasn’t on my side today, but maybe I just wasn’t seeing the blessing through the disguise.”

They both gave her sympathetic looks. Yeah. They were decent men, good guys. They had to be. No serial killer could ever muster the kind of compassion that she saw in their eyes.

“We should be able to haul you out of there.” The friendly one walked around to inspect the way the SUV was sitting in the ditch. “Do you have a spare?”

She stared at him until she figured it out. “Oh, a spare tire? I don’t know. I should. They all come with one, don’t they?”

She didn’t miss the look they exchanged. They thought she was stupid, she could tell.

“It’s not mine,” she explained. “I only rented it this afternoon. I had to get out of there!” She closed her eyes, trying to keep the stupid tears from falling. Shoot. Crazy, stupid, whatever they thought of her, they were right. She was.

Her eyes flew open when a hand came down on her shoulder. It felt warm, reassuring, and it spread a glow all through her. She looked up into a pair of kind, green eyes and her breath caught in her chest. “Hey. It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. We’ll get your car out of the ditch, and we’ll get you on your way. Where are you headed?”

She drew in a big, shaky breath. “I … I don’t even know. As you can probably tell by the dress, I didn’t exactly plan to be here. I just started driving and when I realized where I was, I remembered that I have a friend here in Montana. I thought I’d maybe land on her tonight and then figure out what I’m going to do tomorrow.”

His hand was still on her shoulder; it felt like reassurance, like he was lending her strength to lean on. “Where does your friend live? Have you spoken to her?”

“According to the GPS, her house is only about five miles farther down this road. But I can’t get hold of her.”

The darker cowboy stepped forward. “What’s your friend’s name?”

“Cassidy. Cassidy Lane. Oh wait, no. Cassidy Remington now. She got married.” Sierra’s eyes welled with tears again. Of course, Cassidy had gotten married. To a wonderful man by all accounts. She now had a cowboy all of her own. Unlike Sierra, who hadn’t even made it to the altar. At least, she’d found out before she walked down the aisle that the man she was about to marry wasn’t her own. She shuddered at the images that flashed through her mind – the graphic details of …

“You’re a friend of Cassidy’s?” The cowboy’s question dragged her back to the present.

“Yes. Do you know her?”

“We do. And you can’t get ahold of her?”

Sierra sniffed. “No. Her phone just goes to voicemail.”

The two men exchanged another look. “I can call her husband, Shane.”

“You know them?”

“We do. Hang on.” She watched, feeling a little bereft when he took his hand off her shoulder and pulled his phone out of his back pocket.

“Shane? … Yeah. It’s Wade.”

Wade? Hmm. It was a nice name. It suited him.

“Where are you guys? … Oh. I see …”

That didn’t sound too hopeful.

“Ford and I just ran into a friend of Cassidy’s …” He put his hand over the phone and looked at her expectantly. She stared back at him, wondering what he wanted.

“What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Oh! Right. Sierra. Sierra Hartford.” She watched him repeat her name into his phone, then his expression changed, and he held it away from his ear before turning and holding it out to her. “Cassidy wants to talk to you.”

Her heart pounded as she took it from him. “Cass?”

“Sierra! What are you doing in Montana? I would have sworn this weekend was your wedding. Tell me when it is? I only turned down the invitation because I couldn’t get out of this conference. But I must have had the dates confused. If you can still fit us in, I’d love to come! I won’t pretend that I like Jared, but I’d love to be there for you.”

“Oh. No. You didn’t have the dates confused.”

“Damn, girl. So, you’re calling me on your wedding day? I’m honored. Wait … why are you in Montana? Shit. What’s going on, Sierra?”

“You were right about Jared.”

“What happened?”

No way was she going to tell the whole sordid story. Not over the phone and not standing here by the side of the road with two big, handsome cowboys watching over her. “I’ll tell you about it when I see you. For now, let’s just say that I came to my senses just in time.”

“What, and you called it off and decided to take a vacation instead?”

Sierra couldn’t hold in a bitter laugh. “Not quite. When I said just in time, I mean literally just in time. I ran out of there, rented a car and started driving.”

She should have known what to expect from Cassidy. She laughed. “Good for you! I’m proud of you. What happens now?”

“Well, that’s the part I don’t have figured out. See, I got on I-15 and just drove for hours. Then I realized that I’d have to stop before I hit Canada. I don’t have my passport. Then I remembered that you live up here now. I was on my way to your house. I forgot about your conference. And then I managed to land my rental in a ditch.” She looked at the two cowboys. “Then I ran into some friends of yours and they said they’d call Shane, since I hadn’t been able to get hold of you.”

“Damn, girl. I’m so sorry I’m not there. But you’re okay with Wade and Ford.”

Sierra looked at the two men again. “Apparently.”

Cassidy chuckled. “They’ll take good care of you.”

“They offered to get my car out of the ditch.”

“Yeah. And then they can take you back to their place.”

“Cass!”

Cassidy laughed. “Our place is all locked up. Those MacFarland boys have plenty of room. They have a guest ranch. They’ll be able to put you up. We’ll be back on Monday. I’d come right now if I could, but I have a meeting tomorrow that I can’t miss. Say you’ll stay till Monday?”

“I …” Sierra looked at the two men – the MacFarland boys, apparently. Cassidy was out of her mind. She couldn’t just ask complete strangers if she could stay with them for the weekend.

“Sierra?”

“What?”

“Give the phone back to Wade, and trust your Auntie Cassie to sort this out for you, would ya? You’ll have a place to stay and some time and space to get your head on straight. I’d come straight back for you if I could. But I’ll be there on Monday. They’re good guys. They own a guest ranch. It’s not like I’m suggesting that you should stay in their house or anything. Trust me?”

Sierra looked at Wade and then at Ford. They were friends of a friend. Not strangers. And it wasn’t as though she had any other options.

“Trust me, okay?” Cassidy said again. “I’ll talk to them, get you set up with a place to stay, and I’ll be there on Monday.”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you then, then.”

“You will. Relax. You’ll be fine. You did the right thing, you know.”

“That’s about the only thing I’m certain of right now.”

“I’d say it’s the only thing you need to know. You’ll be fine. I promise. Let me talk to Wade and get you set up. I’ll turn my phone back on and you can call me any time you need, okay?”

“Thanks, Cassidy.”

“Hey, that’s what friends are for. Talk soon. You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Sierra handed the phone back to Wade. She was glad Cassid