Page 1 of The Cowboy Comes Home

Chapter One

Tucker Culhane satlooking at his phone. Not engrossed in doomscrolling as so many around him were, but as if he could will it to ring just because he wanted it to.

Be honest, Culhane, you need it to.

But even if it did ring, what were the chances it would be the one person he wanted to talk to?

Slim, he admitted. Face it, Jackson Thorpe hadn’t just left behind this crazy business, he’d left Hollywood and everything connected to it behind. He didn’t blame the guy who was like a brother to him. He’d been through hell. And now…well, now he was happier than Tucker had ever seen him since Leah had been killed. As was little Jeremy. And he knew that unlike many, Jackson would pay a much higher price than walking away from the hottest show on TV for the sake of his son.

And heading for that little Texas town where Jackson’s widowed sister had lived for years had obviously paid off, for both of them. Hell, from what he’d last heard, for all of them. Jackson was engaged, his sister had found a new love…while he was still sitting here in the ruins of what had once been a career beyond any he could have built by himself.

The career his best friend had helped him build. The favor he’d done by getting Jackson hired onto the wrangling crew had ended up being the best thing he could have done for his own stunt career. Who would have ever guessed that the delivery man he’d met shortly after he’d moved to L.A. would turn out to be not only his best friend but also the door to a better livelihood than he ever would have hoped for, once his first one had been destroyed.

He wanted to punch in Jackson’s phone number, but he didn’t. He’d been bugging him too much. At first it had been to find out when he was coming back. After a couple of months—and some tirades launched by the most arrogant ofStonewall’s producers, Felix Swiff—he began to think maybe what Jackson had told them wasn’t just a bargaining tactic. That maybe he really wasn’t coming back. That maybeStonewallreally was done for, because although they’d been limping along, the modern-day western was lost without the star who had made it work.

And now, six months later, he knew for sure that Jackson wasn’t coming back. He also knew that if he did call, Jackson would answer and help if he could. Because he was that kind of friend. Problem was, Tucker didn’t know exactly what kind of help he needed. He only knew he felt like he was spinning his wheels here.

He set the phone down on the kitchen counter of his small apartment. It wasn’t that he was broke. No, Jackson had seen to that. While he could do and had done most of his own stunts, when he got to a status where he had some pull, he’d insisted that Tucker be his stand-in for any stunt that the insurance company threatened to cancel coverage over. So he was financially fine now, and since he’d never been reckless with money—spending years dirt poor would do that to you—he was set for a comfortable while.

No, money wasn’t the issue. In fact, he wasn’t really sure what was. He only knew he’d been lugging around this crazy kind of ache inside for a couple of months now. And he’d tried everything he was willing to try to ease it, which meant booze. But it was getting to be a habit. Again. He could almost feel himself teetering on the edge of falling back into his wilder days. The days when the aches from his injury flared up, and he’d turned to the only medication he was willing to take. The days when he’d been drunk far too often, days when he’d had to face the precision work he did with a fierce hangover.

It was Jackson who had put an end to that. Jackson who had told him he would have that demand for him as his sole stand-in put into his contract, but only if Tucker quit the drinking. When he’d finally stopped, because that was too amazing a deal to pass up, he’d realized he’d gotten past the worst of the pain. Not that it didn’t still flare up now and then, but never as bad as it had been, and nothing a few over-the-counter pain relievers couldn’t dampen enough for him to function. In the end, lack of energy had lingered a lot longer than the pain had.

Much later he’d risked a beer or two, and found he had no trouble stopping. But that was his limit, and he stuck to it, always wary.

He supposed that readiness to turn to alcohol stemmed from his fear of the drugs, given his addict mother had OD’d. So drugs were number two on the “don’t try that” list. He’d seen the damage done, and too much more of it here in L.A. That was why, by comparison, alcohol had seemed a better course.

As for number one on that list, he’d go through a twelve-pack of beer in one go—which wouldn’t happen because he’d pass out before he finished—before he’d try for that again. Romance just wasn’t in the cards for him, and he’d given up looking for it in any hand he was dealt. He’d had more than enough of women who wanted to hook up with him simply because of the industry he worked in, or worse, because he was a friend of Jackson’s. It had been a bit heady in the beginning, but once he saw how shallow it—and they—were, the interest in casual hookups faded. He’d finally had to admit he didn’t much like the women he kept running into here.

Give me a smart, feisty Texas girl any day.

The irony of it almost made him laugh out loud. Here he was, born and bred in Amarillo but stuck in L.A., while Jackson, born and bred in the suburbs of L.A., was living his best life in Texas. It was almost—

The phone in his hand rang. Startled, he picked it up again.

Jackson.

He blinked, wondering if somehow he’d known. Then, hastily, he answered.

“Hey, I was just thinking about you.”

“How sweet,” Jackson drawled, and he sounded as native Texan as Tucker’s own father had.

Tucker laughed, and it felt like the first time in days. He jokingly told his best friend where to go and what to do when he got there, and Jackson laughed in turn. And that quickly they were back to the old, familiar banter.

“Hey, tough guy, I think you need to get on a plane,” Jackson said after the routine of finding out he, Jeremy, and now Nic and her family were fine.

Tucker blinked. “A plane? To where?”

“Here,” Jackson said. “You might as well take advantage of the downtime. You need to meet Nic. And her family. And Jeremy’s pony, and his new dog. And my sister’s new love.”

“That’s a lot of ands,” he joked.

“It’s a lot of people a lot happier than you remember,” Jackson said.

“That alone would be worth the trip,” Tucker agreed.

“So get yourself back here. And make it in time for the Last Stand Independence Day rodeo. It’s on Wednesday this year, so Nic says the whole week is a party. Jeremy wants to go, and you’re the expert.”

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