The Maverick's Summer Sweetheart

Before he knew it, he’d offered to take Gemma—and Janie—to the Ace in the Hole for an early dinner. His plan was for the three of them to get in and get out before the late-night crowd showed up and the music and dancing started.

He didn’t want to look too closely at the reasons why the idea of Gemma in another man’s arms bothered him. And thinking about her in his own arms... Well, that was equally dangerous territory.

“Okay, okay,” Janie was saying, “so it’s just dinner.” His daughter put so much emphasis on the two words, he half expected them to appear over her head in some kind of dialogue bubble. “You should still try to look nice.”

Lifting a hand, Hank rubbed at the back of his neck, where his too-long hair brushed well below the collar. Sad thing was, he actually had tried to look nice, shaving a second time and trying to get the slight wave in his hair combed back off his forehead. “’Fraid this is as good as it gets, kiddo. But what about you?”

Janie had changed into sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, her typical movie-night apparel, after her quick shower to wash the chlorine from her hair. “That doesn’t look like what you’d want to wear going out to dinner.”

“I, um... I’m not feeling that great.”

“What’s wrong? Was it too many snacks down by the pool? I knew we shouldn’t have had chips and popcorn.”

Not to mention the refills on the sugary soda. Anne was always warning him about indulging Janie’s sweet tooth, but Hank had a hard time resisting—both his daughter as well as his own love of snacks.

Striding toward the hotel phone, he asked, “Should I see if the gift shop has something for an upset stomach?” The tiny space tucked away in the corner of the lobby had the typical tiny travel-sized necessities that guests frequently forgot to pack. Likely the store would have something for a stomachache as well.

“No, Dad, it’s not my stomach. It’s...my head. Probably just too much sun down by the pool.”

“Okay,” Hank drawled, not sure how that could be, considering the pool was mostly enclosed, with only muted sunlight streaming through the wall of windows. Janie tugged on the hem of her shirt as her gaze flitted about the room, a sure sign she was fibbing, but why? She’d been the one so gung ho about this dinner. “If you don’t feel well, I’ll call Gemma’s room and cancel—”

“No!” Janie practically shouted before catching herself. “I mean, it would be rude to cancel so late.” Sinking down onto the sofa, she pulled a pillow into her lap. “I can just rest here and order room service. But you—you should still go.”

This time, as she looked up at him—her sweet face so earnest, so sincere, so eager—Hank knew for a fact she was faking. And the reason why was pretty clear. Janie wasn’t interested in dinner for the three of them. She was trying to finagle a dinner between him and Gemma.

So much for his preteen chaperone.

“Janie...”

Enough warning entered his voice that she at least dropped the wide-eyed expression. “Please, Dad, go! I’ll be fine here. One of my favorite movies is on tonight, and I’ll order something super healthy like what Mom would make for dinner. And you can go and have fun with Gemma.”

Have fun with Gemma...

The image of his future—sitting alone in front of the television—had his denial dying in his throat. Ever since Anne had remarried, Janie—hell, Janie and Anne and half of Rust Creek Falls, it seemed sometimes—had been pushing him to start dating. But his daughter was especially worried about him being by himself. As frequently as he insisted that he was fine, she wasn’t buying it.

Fine isn’t the same as happy, Hank.

The voice echoing through his mind wasn’t his daughter’s, but his mother’s. Penny Harlow had passed away a few years after Hank’s marriage to Anne. Though she had loved her granddaughter and adored her daughter-in-law, Penny had seen then what Hank refused to believe.

You deserve someone who will love you for who you are.

Who he was hadn’t been the problem in his marriage. The issue was who he wasn’t. After five years of marriage, Hank had been forced to face facts. He wasn’t Daniel Stockton, the only man Anne would ever—could ever—love.

And if Hank wanted something more out of life than being “just fine” by himself, then he needed to make some kind of effort. Perhaps he could look at Gemma Chapman as a very, very short-term solution. Going out would make Janie happy, and maybe a few evenings with Gemma would be a way of easing back into the dating scene.

At the end of her vacation, Gemma would go back to the big city, and Hank would go back to the Bar H. And then when he did meet a woman who was more of his type than a gorgeous out-of-towner from New York, he would have already gotten his legs back beneath him. He would hopefully be ready to start dating, and he wouldn’t have to feel so foolish and nervous and jump-out-of-his-skin uncomfortable. Which was everything he felt and more as he stepped out of the suite and headed for dinner with Gemma Chapman.

* * *

Five minutes later and Hank had to admit the evening was off to an inauspicious start. First Janie bailed with what he believed was a phony headache, and now he was starting to wonder if Gemma had given him a fake room number. He’d followed the sequential plaques, but the row of doors ended one shy of the room number Gemma had told him was hers.

A young couple emerged at the end of the hallway, and Hank quickly stepped back, feeling like some kind of stalker lurking outside of their room. But the twentysomethings didn’t even notice him. With their arms wrapped around each other, they were in their own love-filled world as the guy bent to murmur something into the laughing girl’s ear. As they made their way toward the lobby, stopping every few feet to kiss beneath the glowing lights of the old-fashioned sconces, Hank wondered why they’d even bothered to leave the room...and if he’d ever been that young.

It certainly didn’t feel that way now. By the time he’d been old enough to drink, he’d already been running the family ranch, having taken over following his father’s stroke. At a time when many of his friends were off at college or finding themselves by trying out different part-time jobs, Hank’s steps had carried him over the well-worn trails that had been carved out by generations of Harlows before him.

For nearly a decade, Hank had done little more than work, eat and sleep, his patterns following that of his cattle as spring calving gave way to fall roundup in the same way that the sun rose and the sun set, and the next thing he’d known, his early twenties were gone and he was pushing thirty.

He’d never minded the long hours, the extreme weather, the backbreaking and sometimes heartbreaking life on the ranch. At the time, he’d believed he was working toward something—50 percent ownership of the Rolling Hills spread, the equal share his father had once owned with Hank’s uncle.

But the years of long-term care for his father had taken their toll. A proud man, his father had sold some of his shares to his brother to pay for the in-home assistance he required. After his father’s passing, Hank had tried to buy back those shares only to be told by his uncle that they weren’t for sale.

Hank had mourned the loss of his father, but he had seen that coming as his father’s health had slowly deteriorated. The blow his uncle had landed had blindsided Hank, leaving him reeling as his world was pulled out from beneath him.

Doesn’t matter how hard you work or what you think you have to offer. Rolling Hills will never be yours.

So Hank had done what he never thought he would—he sold his uncle what was left of his holdings in the family ranch and walked away. His mother, who had tired of ranch life, had moved with him to Bozeman and settled into a small active adult community. That was about the time when he met Anne, and for a while he’d believed life could be different. After they married, he took his share of the money from selling the ranch and moved to Rust Creek Falls. He bought the Bar H, Janie was born and the three of them were a family.

But just like Rolling Hills, no matter how hard he worked, no matter how much he thought he had to offer, that family wasn’t his either. And since the divorce, he’d fallen back into the long hours, pushing himself the way he had when he was in his teens, and ignoring the aches and pains that were his body’s way of reminding him that he wasn’t a kid anymore.

Ah, hell, one thing he knew for sure was that he was too old for the way his heart was pounding in his chest and his palms were sweating at the thought of seeing Gemma Chapman again. This was a mistake, no doubt about it.

Turning around at the dead end in the hallway, Hank heard the squeak of wheels and spotted a hotel employee pushing a dinner cart his way.

“Excuse me,” he said to the young woman. “I’m looking for one of your guests.”

The tiny woman’s shoulders straightened as she tightened her grip on the handle. “I’m sorry, sir, but it’s against hotel policy to divulge any of our guests’ room numbers.”

Yep, no doubt about it. He was definitely giving off some kind of stalker vibe.

“Sorry—what I meant was that I’m looking for suite 103.”

Somehow, knowing Gemma’s room number didn’t seem to help his cause. The woman drew the cart closer to her as if she thought he was going to abscond with it. He glanced down at the white linen-covered cart decked out with a fancy champagne bottle, two paper-thin crystal flutes, glistening oysters on a bed of ice and a decadent heart-shaped arrangement of chocolate-covered strawberries.

Even if he hadn’t been a cattle rancher, Hank would always consider himself a meat and potatoes kind of guy. Just the idea of swallowing the slimy shellfish had his stomach turning. And if he ever actually tried... Well, he was pretty sure something equally disgusting would come back up.

“Suite 103?” she echoed. “The honeymoon suite?”

“The honey—what?”

The word caught in Hank’s throat as he once again locked in on the over-the-top romantic spread on the cart. This time, though, he caught sight of something he’d missed. A square envelope propped against the ice bucket. The word congratulations was written in bright red script across the front. Along with the names of the happy couple...

Gemma and Chad.

Who the hell is Chad?

Even as the question ricocheted around Hank’s head, the answer was obvious.

“Yes, sir,” the server acknowledged. “Suite 103 is the honeymoon suite. Perhaps you’ve made a mistake.”

There was no perhaps about it. Hank didn’t know what Gemma Chapman’s game was, but he wasn’t up for playing the fool.

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