Cowboy Love on Hold [Love: The Cowboy Way 1] Read Free Page A

staring and forced himself to look away, turning to the window and gazing out over the landscape he knew like the back of his hand. The land bordered his on the northern side of the valley five miles away. Wade’s family ranch looked much the same as Brandon’s—high, dusty ridges dotted with Ponderosa pines, tall aspens, and mighty oaks, with a single track winding through the land and disappearing into the foothills of the mountain.
    “Okay, you boys make yourselves comfortable, and I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
    Kimber left the room, and Wade strolled over to sprawl out in one of the chairs, gesturing that Brandon should take the one opposite. He took a pull on his beer, grateful for a distraction as Wade stared at him silently, his gray eyes unreadable. The years had been kind to him. His dark hair had no gray in it at all, and his broad frame was larger and firmer than Brandon remembered. There was a small scar on his chin that Brandon didn’t remember ever seeing before, but he looked like the same old Wade, except that he seemed a lot more confident than he used to be.
    The seconds ticked on, and Brandon had no choice but to hold Wade’s gaze, so he raised his eyebrows, inviting his friend to say whatever it was he had on his mind.
    “You need any help…making arrangements for your mom, I mean?”
    Okay, so Wade’s no braver than I am. Brandon let out the breath he’d been holding, strangely relieved that they were only talking about his mom. Considering what he could have said, like— why did you ruin our friendship by trying to seduce me? —his mother’s death was safe ground.
    “There’s not much left to do now but lay her to rest. You’ll come won’t you…you and Kimber, I mean?”
    “Of course, Buddy. I’m just sorry there wasn’t more we could do to help. You should have let us know sooner.”
    “I didn’t know you were still living in the area. This is the first time I’ve been back since I left in ’93.”
    When he signed a second contract at the age of thirty, he promised his mother that he wouldn’t do more than the eight years. She died two months before he would have retired, while he was on his last ever assignment in Afghanistan, and his Detachment Commander had yanked him out of a reconnaissance mission to give him the news. With so little time left to serve and much needed to be done to sort out his mother’s affairs, the army had given him an early discharge, although he could be recalled to duty any time until his retirement date in May.
    Wade’s eyes turned a steely gray, and he dropped his gaze to focus on his thumb worrying at the label on his beer bottle. “So what are you gonna do with your mom’s place? Are you moving back to Chelwood permanently?”
    “I thought I might.” Brandon watched as a nerve began to tick in Wade’s jaw. “I think it’s about time I settled down somewhere.”
    Wade met his gaze. “Settling down is overrated.”
    Brandon couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. The only people who felt that way were those who had so much going for them, they could afford to nitpick. Nobody except his mother knew that, two years after he signed up, he enrolled as Special Ops, eventually joining a Paramilitary Special Operations unit. From that day on, he’d been told to protect the ones he loved by staying away from them, so he stopped coming home to visit. On the rare occasions he got to see his mother, they would meet at a safe house and spend a day just catching up. She would save up every scrap of gossip and news she’d heard since the last time she saw him and damn near talk his leg off. But he loved her and didn’t mind hearing about what was going on at home—until the day his mom told him that his best friend and ex-girlfriend were living together and said what a scandal it was because they weren’t married and all. Brandon had snapped at her, saying he never understood why some wanted to stick their noses into other people’s