Long, Tall Texans_ Boone (Long, Tall Texans #35) - Diana Palmer Page 0,81

the drawbacks. He probably shouldn’t have been looking for a bride in the high-rent districts of big cities, he decided. He should have been looking closer to home. If there had been anyone closer to home to look at.

He’d had a brief encounter with a pretty young woman in Georgia, during a visit with Connor Sinclair, a multimillionaire who had a lake house there. The woman’s name was Emma, and her zany sense of humor had interested him at once. It was one of the few times he’d been paying attention to what a woman said instead of how she looked. Emma was Connor’s personal assistant, but there was more than business there, or he missed his guess. Connor had separated Cort from Emma with surgical precision and made sure there were no more opportunities for him to get to know her. Not too many months later, he heard from his brother Cash Grier, who was a police chief in South Texas, that Connor had married Emma and they had a son. He’d actually thought about going back to North Georgia and courting her, despite her testy boss. That was no longer possible. He balanced Emma against the girls with diamonds in their eyes and greedy hands who’d filed through his life. He’d felt suddenly empty. Alone. The ranch had always been the core of his existence, but it was no longer enough. He was in a rut. He needed to get out.

So Cort had decided that he needed a holiday. He’d called a fourth cousin in Catelow, Wyoming—Bart Riddle—and invited himself to help work around the ranch incognito. He explained the situation to his amused cousin, who told him to come on up. If he wanted to ruin his health digging postholes and chasing cattle, welcome.

He also had another cousin in Carne County, Wyoming—Cody Banks, who was the local sheriff—but Banks lived in town and didn’t own a ranch. Cort wanted to get his hands busy. But he had plans to visit with Cody while he was in town.

Bart met him at the airport, an amused smile in his dark eyes as they shook hands. “You own one of the biggest ranches in Texas and you want to come up here and be a cowboy?” Bart asked.

“It’s like this,” Cort explained on the way out of the airport. “I’m tired of being a walking, talking dollar sign to women.”

“Oh, if only I had that problem,” Bart sighed. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I’m older than you, no pinup boy, I budget like a madman and I’m not housebroken.” He chuckled. “I guess I’ll live alone with a houseful of dogs and cats until I die.”

Cort glanced at him, his suitcase and suit bag in one hand and a carry-on bag in another. “What happened to that local veterinarian you were going around with?”

He made a face. “She moved to Arizona. With her new husband,” he added.

“Sorry.”

Bart shrugged. “Fortunes of war,” he said. “I’m giving up on women. Well, not all of them,” he added. “I have one who’s just a friend. Kind of like a baby sister.” He smiled. “She’s a writer.”

“We have a lot of writers back home,” Cort mused. “Hopefuls. Not a published one in the bunch,”

“This one is very published. Her latest book actually landed on the USA TODAY bestseller list.”

“Not bad. How about the New York Times list?”

He shook his head. “But it’s early days yet. She has the talent.”

“What does she write?”

“Romance novels.”

Cort made a face. “Drippy, oozy, sugary stuff.”

“Not exactly.” They reached Bart’s big black pickup truck. “Climb aboard. I think it’ll get us home. Halfway, anyway.”

Cort made a face. “What do you do with this thing, herd cattle?” he asked, noting the dents and scratches.

“It goes all sorts of places. I have another one that looks a little better, but it’s in the shop. Had a slight malfunction.”

Cort stowed his gear in the boot and climbed in beside his cousin and closed the door. He reached for the seat belt. “What sort of malfunction?”

“It accidentally got slammed in the passenger door with a tire tool.”

Cort blinked and stared at his cousin, who flushed. “It what?”

Bart’s lips made a thin line as he cranked the truck, put it in gear and peeled out of the airport parking lot. “That’s a long story.”

“I’ll wait with breathless abandon to hear it,” Cort replied with a chuckle.

* * *

HE LOOKED OUT the window at the passing scenery. Wyoming was a lot