Page 3 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

He and Belinda exchanged a look and he knew they were on the same page.

Maybe it was about time his charming ladies’ man of a son took Zeke’s final request—delivered with a deep gravitas at Easter dinner that would have served him well on a stage, as Belinda had told him that very same night while howling with laughter—with the seriousness it deserved.

Maybe that was just the thing that would get Wilder to treat his own life like it was worth living—and loving.

Chapter One

Wilder Carey rolledinto the Wolf Den in Marietta, Montana, with nothing on his mind but whiskey and women.

The ingredients to a perfect Saturday night.

There were other bars around. Better bars, depending on a person’s requirements. There was one over the mountain in Cowboy Point, his actual home, and Wilder knew that the Copper Mine did a booming business even when it wasn’t the sweet, long, dog days of August. The Wolf Den might have been about ten miles down the side of a temperamental mountain, but it catered specifically to troublemakers. Some folks went straight there. Others treated it as their after-hours bad-decision option, coming in to finish off the night with something to talk about the next morning. They trickled in when everything else closed because those other places in pretty, happy Marietta were better suited for a meal, a conversation, maybe even some dancing.

Only the Wolf Den catered to those who already knew exactly what kind of trouble they wanted to get into, saw no point in putting it off, and liked it loud while they got into it.

Tonight it was exactly what Wilder needed.

On a summer night in the mountains, in a northern state with precious little summer to go around, the place was packed. He found his way in and up to the scarred and dented bar, nodding at the surly bartender, who he recognized. And who, more to the point, recognized him—sliding Wilder his preferred whiskey on the rocks without comment. Wilder threw a few bills on the bar top, took his first pull, and felt himself relax as that dark, peat fire arrowed its way down deep and felt a whole lot like a solution.

It had been a hell of a few months.

His seemingly invulnerable and eternal father, Zeke, had told them all he had about a year to live. Wilder had four brothers, all of them as mouthy as they were stubborn, and not one of them had managed to respond much to that announcement, aside from a few clinical questions. Even his stepmother, Belinda, had been uncharacteristically quiet.

To say Wilder had been reeling ever since was not an exaggeration. Especially when his down-to-earth, not remotely spontaneous older brother Harlan had responded to that news by… going out and eloping. It was a good thing his new wife, Kendall, fit him so well or Wilder would have thought his brother had been possessed.

The rest of them were coping the way their father had taught them. By working the land of the family ranch, showing up to Sunday dinner, and otherwise keeping it stoic. Which in Wilder’s case also meant periodically driving down the mountain to cut loose.

Wilder liked working with his hands. And he liked playing with them, too.

He turned to survey the situation in the bar, taking in the classic rock anthem blaring from the jukebox and a set of intense-looking gentlemen he’d bet were truckers involved in a game of pool. He thought he saw a few familiar faces here and there, but the Wolf Den wasn’t a place that encouraged community. Certainly not amongst the locals who might see each other in the grocery store the next day.

If he’d wanted to hang out with his friends, he would have stayed up the mountain in Cowboy Point, where he could expect to see friends, family, folks he went to second grade with, and all manner of familiar faces. And, accordingly, stay on the straight and narrow—or close enough to it, anyway.

Tonight, Wilder intended to let the whiskey take him where it would.

The thing about drinking in Marietta was that there were always tourists. Particularly here at the end of summer, when Montana was still putting on the kind of show that made people from California delusional enough to imagine that because they’d road-tripped up from Yellowstone they could also make it through a winter in Paradise Valley.

Sometimes, in aid of that delusion, they liked to try out a cowboy.

Just to see if it took.

He let his gaze move over the crowd, packed in tight and getting rowdy tonight. There were some bikers in one corner. What looked like everyone who had ever worked in the tattoo shop a few doors down. Some hard-bitten cowboys who he figured were here ahead of the annual Copper Mountain Rodeo coming up in a few weeks, and thinking about the rodeo made him think about his twin brother. Ryder had only moments ago been blowing up his phone, complaining about the bull he’d been riding tonight—at a rodeo a lot farther back east than Wilder ever cared to venture, if he remembered it right—and how close he’d come to getting trampled this time.

I don’t need to hear about your death wish,Wilder had shot back.

His brother liked bad-tempered rank bulls, buckle bunnies, and life on the road, far away from the responsibilities of High Mountain Ranch and his family. He already knew Wilder’s thoughts on his decision to stay away despite their father’s condition.

Wilder had left his phone in his truck so he could be certain to ignore Ryder’s inevitable response. And anyway, he preferred smaller deaths of the pleasurable kind. He didn’t have to run away with the rodeo for that.

There was a pretty blonde in the corner, dancing dramatically to the country song that came on that would have folks in other, more family-friendly joints two-stepping. There was a pack of squeaky-clean, yoga types—carefully cute tattoos, athleisure, and expensive outfits—bunched together in a booth, all laughing too loud while pretending not to look around.

Tourists. Exactly who he was looking for.

He settled in against the bar, picturing a happy little evening of banter and heat, then a wild ride or two in a hotel room with no expectations come morning.

When a female body slid into a tiny space at the bar beside him, he shifted automatically.

Then paused.

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