Untamed Cowboy

In Gold Valley, Oregon, love might be hiding in plain sight…

Some things are too perfect to mess with. Bennett Dodge’s relationship with Kaylee Capshaw is one of them. They work together at their veterinary clinic and have been best friends for years. When Bennett’s world is rocked by the appearance of a son he didn’t know he had, he needs Kaylee more than ever. And he doesn’t want anything else to change. But then Kaylee kisses him, and nothing will ever be the same…

Kaylee’s done her best to keep her feelings for the man she’s loved since high school hidden away, but one unguarded moment changes everything, and now there’s no more denying the chemistry that burns between them. But the explosion of desire changes all the rules, and what’s left could destroy their bond—or bring them to a love that’s deeper than she ever imagined…

Also includes a bonus Gold Valley novella, Mail Order Cowboy!

Also By Maisey Yates

Welcome to Gold Valley, Oregon, where the cowboys are tough to tame, until they meet the women who can lasso their hearts:

Cowboy Christmas Blues (ebook novella)

Smooth-Talking Cowboy

Mail Order Cowboy (ebook novella)

Untamed Cowboy

In Copper Ridge, Oregon, lasting love with a cowboy is only a happily-ever-after away. Don’t miss any of Maisey Yates’s Copper Ridge tales, available now!

Shoulda Been a Cowboy (prequel novella)

Part Time Cowboy

Brokedown Cowboy

Bad News Cowboy

A Copper Ridge Christmas (ebook novella)

The Cowboy Way

Hometown Heartbreaker (ebook novella)

One Night Charmer

Tough Luck Hero

Last Chance Rebel

Slow Burn Cowboy

Down Home Cowboy

Wild Ride Cowboy

Christmastime Cowboy

Take Me, Cowboy

Hold Me, Cowboy

Seduce Me, Cowboy

Claim Me, Cowboy

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

UNTAMED COWBOY

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08346-1

UNTAMED COWBOY

© 2018 Maisey Yates

Untamed Cowboy © 2018 Maisey Yates Mail Order Cowboy © 2018 Maisey Yates

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates

“Yates’ new Gold Valley series begins with a sassy, romantic and sexy story about two characters whose chemistry is off the charts.”

—RT Book Reviews on Smooth-Talking Cowboy (Top Pick)

“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy [Yates’s] small-town romance.”

—Booklist on Part Time Cowboy

“Passionate, energetic and jam-packed with personality.”

—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on Part Time Cowboy

“[A] story with emotional depth, intense heartache and love that is hard fought for and eventually won.... This is a book readers will be telling their friends about.”

—RT Book Reviews on Brokedown Cowboy

“Yates’s thrilling seventh Copper Ridge contemporary proves that friendship can evolve into scintillating romance.... This is a surefire winner not to be missed.”

—Publishers Weekly on Slow Burn Cowboy (starred review)

“This fast-paced, sensual novel will leave readers believing in the healing power of love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Down Home Cowboy

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dear Reader

Untamed Cowboy

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

Mail Order Cowboy

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

Dear Reader,

I’m so happy to welcome you back to the town of Gold Valley for another story about hot cowboys and true love.

It’s true that the best-laid plans often go awry. But that doesn’t stop us from trying to make them anyway.

That’s exactly what Bennett Dodge, the hero in Untamed Cowboy, is doing. But his relationship with the woman he thought would be perfect for him has dissolved, and now she’s fallen in love with someone else. And to top it all off, when he gets home one night, he finds a fifteen-year-old surprise waiting on his front porch.

About the only thing in his life that has remained the same is his friendship with Kaylee Capshaw. But with one kiss, that’s about to change, too.

I loved writing Bennett and Kaylee’s relationship. They were first introduced in Christmastime Cowboy, a book that’s part of the Copper Ridge series, and I knew immediately that I was going to have to write their story. And even though Bennett was with another woman then, I knew that ultimately Kaylee was the right one for him.

Bennett just has to realize that the plans he had for his life weren’t the best thing for him. And what he really needed was right within reach all along.

Happy reading!

Maisey

Untamed Cowboy

Maisey Yates

Haven, this book is for you. In the past nine years you’ve gotten a lot of them, but that’s how it should be. You’re the one who taught me that friendship is the perfect foundation for true love.

CHAPTER ONE

KAYLEE CAPSHAW NEEDED a new life. Which was why she was steadfastly avoiding the sound of her phone vibrating in her purse while the man across from her at the beautifully appointed dinner table continued to talk, oblivious to the internal war raging inside of her.

Do not look at your phone.

The stern internal admonishment didn’t help. Everything in her was still seized up with adrenaline and anxiety over the fact that she had texts she wasn’t looking at.

Not because of her job. Any and all veterinary emergencies were being covered by her new assistant at the clinic, Laura, so that she could have this date with Michael, the perfectly nice man she was now blanking while she warred within herself to not look down at her phone.

No. It wasn’t work texts she was itching to look at.

But what if it was Bennett?

Laura knew that she wasn’t supposed to interrupt Kaylee tonight, because Kaylee was on a date, but she had conveniently not told Bennett. Because she didn’t want to talk to Bennett about her dating anyone.

Mostly because she didn’t want to hear if Bennett was dating anyone. If the woman lasted, Kaylee would inevitably know all about her. So there was no reason—in her mind—to rush into all of that.

She wasn’t going to look at her phone.

“Going over the statistical data for the last quarter was really very interesting. It’s fascinating how the holidays inform consumers.”

Kaylee blinked. “What?”

“Sorry. I’m probably boring you. The corporate side of retail at Christmas is probably only interesting to people who work in the industry.”

“Not at all,” she said. Except, she wasn’t interested. But she was trying to be. “How exactly did you get involved in this job living here?”

“Well, I can do most of it online. Otherwise, I travel to Portland, which is where the corporate office is.” Michael worked for a world-famous brand of sports gear, and he did something with the sales. Or data.

Her immediate attraction to him had been his dachshund, Clarence, who she had seen for a tooth abscess a couple of weeks earlier. Then, on a follow-up visit, he had asked if Kaylee would like to go out, and she had honestly not been able to think of one good reason she shouldn’t. Except for Bennett Dodge. Her best friend since junior high, and the obsessive focus of her hormones since she’d discovered what men and women did together in the dark.

Which meant she absolutely needed to go out with Michael.

Bennett couldn’t be the excuse. Not anymore.

She had fallen into a terrible rut over the last couple of years while she and Bennett had gotten their clinic up and running. Work and her social life revolved around him. Social gatherings were all linked to him and to his family.

She’d lived in Gold Valley since junior high, and the friendships she’d made here had mostly faded since then. She’d made friends when she’d gone to school for veterinary medicine, but she and Bennett had gone together, and those friends were mostly mutual friends.

If they ever came to town to visit, it included Bennett. If she took a trip to visit them, it often included Bennett.

The man was up in absolutely everything and the effects of it had been magnified recently as her world had narrowed thanks to their mutually demanding work schedule.

That amount of intense, focused time with him never failed to put her in a somewhat pathetic emotional space.

Hence the very necessary date.

Then, her phone started vibrating because it was ringing, and she couldn’t ignore that. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Excuse me.”

It was Bennett. Her heart slammed into her throat. She should not answer it. She really shouldn’t. She thought that even while she was pressing the green accept button.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Calving drama. I have a breech one. I need some help.”

Bennett sounded clipped and stressed. And he didn’t stress easily. He delivered countless calves over the course of the season, but a breech birth was never good. If the rancher didn’t call him in time, there was rarely anything that could be done.

And if Bennett needed some assistance then the situation was probably extreme.

“Where are you?” she asked, darting a quick look over to Michael and feeling like a terrible human for being marginally relieved by this interruption.

“Out of town at Dave Miller’s place. Follow the driveway out back behind the house.”

“See you soon.” She hung up the phone and looked down at her half-finished dinner. “I am so sorry,” she said, forcing herself to look at Michael’s face. “There’s a veterinary emergency. I have to go.”

She stood up, collecting her purse and her jacket. “I really am sorry. I tried to cover everything. But my partner... It’s a barnyard thing. He needs help.”

Michael looked... Well, he looked understanding. And Kaylee almost wished that he wouldn’t. That he would be mad, so she would have an excuse to storm off and never have dinner with him again. That he would be unreasonable in some fashion so that she could call the date experiment a loss and go back to making no attempts at a romantic life whatsoever.

But he didn’t. “Of course,” he said. “You can’t let something happen to an animal just because you’re on a dinner date.”

“I really can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She reached into her purse and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill. She put it on the table and offered an apologetic smile before turning and leaving. Before he didn’t accept her contribution to the dinner.

She was not going to make him pay for the entire meal on top of everything.

“Have a good evening,” the hostess said as Kaylee walked toward the front door of the restaurant. “Please dine with us again soon.”

Kaylee muttered something and headed outside, stumbling a little bit when her kitten heel caught in a crack in the sidewalk. That was the highest heel she ever wore, since she was nearly six feet tall in flats, and towering over one’s date was not the best first impression.

But she was used to cowgirl boots, and not these spindly, fiddly things that hung up on every imperfection. They were impractical. And how any woman walked around in stilettos was beyond her.

The breeze kicked up, reminding her that March could not be counted on for warm spring weather, as the wind stung her bare legs. The cost of wearing a dress. Which also had her feeling pretty stupid right about now.

She always felt weird in dresses, owing that to her stick figure and excessive height. She’d had to be tough from an early age. With parents who ultimately ended up ignoring her existence, she’d had to be self-sufficient.

It had suited her to be a tomboy because spending time outdoors, running around barefoot and climbing trees, far away from the fight scenes her parents continually staged in their house, was better than sitting at home.

Better to pretend she didn’t like lace and frills, since her bedroom consisted of a twin mattress on the floor and a threadbare afghan.

She’d had a friend when she was little, way before they’d moved to Gold Valley, who’d had the prettiest princess room on earth. Lace bedding, a canopy. Pink walls with flower stencils. She’d been so envious of it. She’d felt nearly sick with it.

But she’d just said she hated girly things. And never invited that friend over ever.

And hey, she’d been built for it. Broad shoulders and stuff.

Sadly, she wasn’t built for pretty dresses.

But she needed strength more anyway.

She was thankful she had driven her own truck, which was parked not far down the street against the curb. First date rule for her. Drive your own vehicle. In case you had to make a hasty getaway.

And apparently she had needed to make a hasty getaway, just not because Michael was a weirdo or anything.

No, he had been distressingly nice.

She mused on that as she got into the driver’s seat and started up the engine. She pulled away from the curb and headed out of town. Yes, he had been perfectly nice. Really, there had been nothing wrong with him. And she was a professional at finding things wrong with the men she went on dates with. A professional at finding excuses for why a second date couldn’t possibly happen.

She was ashamed to realize now that she was hoping he would consider this an excuse not to make a second date with her.

That she had taken a phone call in the middle of dinner, and then had run off.

A lot of people had trouble dating. But often it was for deep reasons they had trouble identifying.

Kaylee knew exactly why she had trouble dating.

She was in love with her best friend. Bennett Dodge. And he was not in love with her.

She gritted her teeth.

She wasn’t in love with Bennett. No. She wouldn’t allow that. She had lustful feelings for Bennett, and she cared deeply about him. But she wasn’t in love with him. She refused to let it be that. Not anymore.

That thought carried her over the gravel drive that led to the ranch, back behind the house, just as Bennett had instructed. The doors to the barn were flung open, the lights on inside, and she recognized Bennett’s truck parked right outside.

She killed the engine and got out, moving into the barn as quickly as possible.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Dave Miller was standing there, his arms crossed over his chest, standing back against the wall. Bennett had his hand on the cow’s back. He turned to look at her, the overhead light in the barn seeming to shine a halo around his cowboy hat. That chiseled face that she knew so well but never failed to make her stomach go tight. He stroked the cow, his large capable hands drawing her attention, as well as the muscles in his forearm. He was wearing a tight T-shirt that showed off the play of those muscles to perfection, his large biceps, and the scars on his skin from various on-the-job injuries, and he had a stethoscope draped over his shoulders. Something about that combination—rough-and-ready cowboy meshed with concerned veterinarian—was her very particular catnip.

“I need to get the calf out as quickly as possible, and I need to do it at the right moment. Too quickly and we’re likely to crush baby’s ribs.” She had a feeling he said that part for the benefit of the nervous-looking rancher standing off to the side.

Dave Miller was relatively new to town, moving up from California a couple of years ago with fantasies of rural living. A small ranch for his and his wife’s retirement had grown to a medium-sized one over the past year or so. And while the older man had a reputation for taking great care of his animals, he wasn’t experienced at this.

“Where do you want me?” she asked, moving over to where Bennett was standing.

“I’m going to need you to suction the hell out of this thing as soon as I get her out.” He appraised her. “Where were you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You’re wearing a dress.”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t at home.”

He frowned. “Were you out?”

This was not the time for Bennett to go overly concerned big brother on her. It wasn’t charming on a normal day, but it was even less charming when she’d just abandoned her date to help deliver a calf. “If I wasn’t at home I was out. Better put your hand up the cow, Bennett,” she said, feeling testy.

Bennett did just that, checking to see that the cow was dilated enough for him to extract the calf. Delivering a breech animal like this was tricky business. They were going to have to pull the baby out, likely with the aid of a chain or a winch, but not too soon, which would injure the mother. And not too quickly, which would injure them both.

But if they went too slow, the baby cow would end up completely cut off from its oxygen supply. If that happened it was likely to never recover.

“Ready,” he said. “I need chains.”

She spotted the chains lying on the ground, picked them up and handed them over. He grunted and pulled, producing the first hint of the calf’s hooves. Then he lashed the chain around them. He began to pull, his muscles straining against the fabric of his black T-shirt, flexing as he tugged hard.

She had been a vet long enough that she was inured to things like this, from a gross-out perspective. But still, checking a guy out in the midst of all of this was probably a little imbalanced. Of course, that was the nature of how things were with Bennett.

They’d met when she’d moved to Gold Valley at thirteen—all long limbs, anger and adolescent awkwardness. And somehow, they’d fit. He’d lost his mother when he was young, and his family was limping along. Her own home life was hard, and she’d been desperate for escape from her parents’ neglect and drunken rages at each other.

She never had him over. She didn’t want to be at her house. She never wanted him, or any other friend, to see the way her family lived.

To see her sad mattress on the floor and her peeling nightstand.

Instead, they’d spent time at the Dodge ranch. His family had become hers, in many ways. They weren’t perfect, but there was more love in their broken pieces than Kaylee’s home had ever had.

He taught her to ride horses, let her play with the barn cats and the dogs that lived on the ranch. Together, the two of them saved a baby squirrel that had fallen out of his nest, nursing him back to health slowly in a little shoebox.

Kaylee had blossomed because of Bennett. Had discovered her love of animals. And had discovered she had the power to fix some of the broken things in the world.

The two of them had decided to become veterinarians together after they’d successfully saved the squirrel. And Bennett had never wavered.

He was a constant. A sure and steady port in the storm of life.

And when her feelings for him had started to shift and turn into more, she’d done her best to push them down because he was her whole world, and she didn’t want to risk that by introducing anything as volatile as romance.

She’d seen how that went. Her parents’ marriage was a reminder of just how badly all that could sour. It wasn’t enough to make her swear off men, but it was enough to make her want to keep her relationship with Bennett as it was.

But that didn’t stop the attraction.

If it were as simple as deciding not to want him, she would have done it a long time ago. And if it were as simple as being with another man, that would have worked back in high school when she had committed to finding herself a prom date and losing her virginity so she could get over Bennett Dodge already.

It had not worked. And the sex had been disappointing.

So here she was, fixating on his muscles while he helped an animal give birth.

Maybe there wasn’t a direct line between those two things, but sometimes it felt like it. If all other men could just...not be so disappointing in comparison to Bennett Dodge, things would be much easier.

She looked away from him, making herself useful. Gathering syringes, and anything she would need to clear the calf of mucus that might be blocking its airway. Bennett hadn’t said anything, likely for Dave’s benefit, but she had a feeling he was worried about the health of the heifer. That was why he needed her to see to the calf as quickly as possible, because he was afraid he would be giving treatment to its mother.