Cowboy's Vow to Protect Read online

  Riding bulls was the greatest danger he’d faced

  Until he met her

  When Flint McCay finds Madison Taylor hiding in the barn at Holiday Ranch, he knows she’s in trouble. He just doesn’t know what kind. It’s clear that she’s been hurt—and that she’s terrified of opening up to any man. As the cowboy slowly bonds with Maddy, he learns that a powerful man will stop at nothing to destroy her—but Flint will do anything to save her.

  “I know exactly what I want. I want you to kiss me long and hard.”

  Madison knew by the glaze of his eyes and his sudden intake of breath that he was going to do it, and it was going to be amazing.

  Flint’s mouth took hers in a kiss that seared her to her soul. His hands tangled first in her long hair and then slid down her back to her waist. He tugged her closer to him as she opened her mouth to invite him in.

  Their tongues danced together in a fiery swirl that half stole her breath away. Her hands rose to his broad shoulders and she gripped them tightly as a deep want rushed through her.

  She didn’t want just any man...she wanted this man. Her desire for him had nothing to do with her gratefulness. It had nothing to do with his protecting her.

  * * *

  Be sure to check out the previous books in this exciting miniseries:

  Cowboys of Holiday Ranch

  Where sun, earth and hard work turn men into rugged cowboys...and irresistible heroes!

  * * *

  If you’re on Twitter, tell us what you think of Harlequin Romantic Suspense! #harlequinromsuspense

  Dear Reader,

  Having just come home from the Romance Writers of America conference in New York City where I was celebrated for my 150th book with Harlequin, I’m happy that I’m just as excited about this book as I was with the publication of my very first.

  Flint McCay is at a crossroads in his life as a cowboy on the Holiday Ranch. He knows the time is quickly approaching when he will have to stop being a cowboy. When that time comes he’ll move into the cabin he built in the woods and spend the rest of his life alone.

  And then he finds Madison Taylor hiding out in the barn and his life is turned upside down. Madison has secrets, and unless she learns to trust Flint, they are secrets that just might get her killed.

  I really hope you enjoy their story and, as always, keep reading!

  Carla Cassidy

  COWBOY’S VOW

  TO PROTECT

  Carla Cassidy

  Carla Cassidy is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author who has written over 150 novels for Harlequin. In 1995, she won Best Silhouette Romance from RT Book Reviews for Anything for Danny. In 1998, she won a Career Achievement Award for Best Innovative Series from RT Book Reviews. Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write.

  Books by Carla Cassidy

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Cowboys of Holiday Ranch

  A Real Cowboy

  Cowboy of Interest

  Cowboy Under Fire

  Cowboy at Arms

  Operation Cowboy Daddy

  Killer Cowboy

  Sheltered by the Cowboy

  Guardian Cowboy

  Cowboy Defender

  Cowboy’s Vow to Protect

  Colton 911

  Colton 911: Target in Jeopardy

  The Coltons of Red Ridge

  The Colton Cowboy

  The Coltons of Shadow Creek

  Colton’s Secret Son

  Visit the Author Profile page at

  Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from His Soldier Under Siege by Regan Black

  Chapter 1

  All of the cowboys from the Holiday Ranch surrounded him. Their fists pummeled him. He tried to defend himself but there were too many of them. Each blow shot pain through him. His ribs screamed in protest and his aching knees finally buckled beneath him. When he fell to the ground they viciously kicked at him. His mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood, even though most of the blows were to his body and not to his face or head.

  Help! The plea screamed over and over again in his head, but there was no help coming. In complete defeat, he curled up into a fetal ball on the lush green grass and prayed for it to stop.

  Flint McCay came awake suddenly. Pain...it racked his body and for several long moments he didn’t move. He stared out the nearby window where the first light of dawn cast slivers of light.

  The dream had been so strange. There was absolutely no way the other men on the Holiday Ranch would ever beat him up. They were his brothers. It was a brotherhood forged in painful childhoods and in second chances and them all growing up together here on this ranch.

  He winced as he changed positions. No, his pain wasn’t from his fellow cowboys. It was from years of his own choices and a recent diagnosis that had unsettled him.

  He groaned as he finally moved to a sitting position on the side of the twin-size bed. When Cass Holiday had hired a dozen young runaway boys to work at the ranch, she’d made sure they each had their own rooms in the building the men referred to as the cowboy motel.

  Each man had a private room with an adjoining bathroom. The rooms were small, holding only a twin bed and a chest of drawers. It was to the bathroom Flint now headed, hoping a long, hot shower would loosen up tight muscles and ease some of his pain.

  Years of bull-riding had taken its toll on him. There wasn’t a bone in his body that hadn’t been broken or sprained over the years. Now he had a trunk full of trophies, shiny belt buckles and ribbons to show for his success, and a body that at the age of thirty-four felt more like that of a ninety-year-old.

  Thankfully, the shower helped and he dressed and headed around the building for the dining room in the back. Most of the cowboys were already there, filling plates from the buffet line Cord Cully, a.k.a. Cookie, prepared for them each and every morning. He also fed the cowboys at lunchtime and dinner.

  “Good morning, Flint,” Mac McBride greeted him as Flint fell into the line behind him.

  “Back at you,” Flint replied.

  He filled his plate with bacon and scrambled eggs, with biscuits and gravy and added a spoonful of fruit salad. He carried it over to one of the picnic tables where Mac sat with Jerod Steen, Clay Madison and Dusty Crawford.

  Flint slid into the seat next to Dusty, who had recently welcomed a baby boy into his life with his wife, Tricia. “How’s that kid?” he asked Dusty.

  Dusty beamed. “Growing like a weed. How’s the cabin coming along?”

  Several months ago Flint had bought a couple of acres of heavily wooded land with a clearing perfect for a small house. The cowboys had all pitched in to help him build a cozy, two-bedroom cabin. It was the place he’d live in when he stopped being one of Cassie’s cowboys. And whether he liked it or not that time was quickly approaching.

  “The furniture was delivered last week and all I have left is to finish putting up a porch and do some trim work,” Flint replied.

  “It sure is a sweet location
with all the trees and that little brook that runs through the backyard,” Mac said.

  “Yeah, I got lucky in grabbing it before somebody else did,” Flint said.

  “Do you need some help getting the porch up?” Jerod asked. “You know some of us wouldn’t mind coming out to lend you a hand.”

  “No, thanks. I think I can handle it.” The last thing he wanted his friends and fellow cowboys to know about was his weakness...his chronic pain. Besides, he’d accepted enough of their help in getting the place up.

  Cowboys didn’t complain, and at least for now Flint was still a cowboy. He didn’t want to think about what happened when he stopped being a cowboy because the thought scared the hell out of him.

  Breakfast continued with talk about the hot months of summer and the lack of rain. They all discussed cattle and chores and whatever else popped into their minds.

  “Flint, when are you going to find some nice woman to settle down with?” Dusty asked as they were finishing the meal. “You’ve got that great cabin, now all you need is somebody to share it with.”

  “That cabin isn’t meant to be shared. Women are just too...too complex for me,” Flint replied. “I prefer the company of you all when I’m relaxing in the evenings. Besides, what are you doing picking on me? What about Jerod and Mac? They’re both single.”

  “Hey, don’t get me in the middle of this,” Mac protested with a laugh.

  “Me, neither,” Jerod added.

  There followed a rowdy debate between the single men and the committed ones, then with breakfast over they all left the dining room to head out for their morning chores.

  Thank goodness Flint had it fairly easy this morning. Sawyer Quincy, the newest foreman and one of Flint’s “brothers,” had delegated him to cleaning up the barn.

  The morning was already hot and without a breath of a breeze. August in Bitterroot, Oklahoma, could be brutal. In the barn it would even be hotter. He’d need to remember to hydrate himself throughout the day.

  He opened the large barn door and walked in. The barn hadn’t been cleaned up since the winter, when hay bales had been pulled out to take to the cattle and horses in the pastures.

  Loose hay covered the floor, and bales were helter-skelter around the space. Flint grabbed a rake and began to work on gathering the golden strands into a pile.

  As he worked he whistled an old country-western tune that Mac often strummed on his guitar when they gathered in the evenings in the rec room. Those times were when Flint felt the most satisfied, when in the company of men who shared his past, believed in the same core values as he and with whom he had so much in common. And he was going to miss those times when he stopped working on the ranch.

  He consciously willed his thoughts away from thinking about his future because the unknown was too daunting to consider. He’d think about that when he absolutely, positively had to. Right now he just wanted to enjoy the smell of the hay and the knowledge that in a few hours he’d share lunch with the men and later that night a few of them would gather in the rec room for more laughs and music provided by Mac and his guitar.

  Within an hour he had the hay on the floor swept into neat, small piles that he then bound with twine. He’d just grabbed the hay hook off the wall when he froze. He’d heard...a noise. It hadn’t sounded like the faint rustle of a mouse, although there were certainly mice and other small varmints in the barn.

  He waited a minute and listened, but heard nothing more so he got back to work. The hay bales weighed about seventy pounds apiece. He began to straighten the stacks, using the hay hook when he needed to lift and carry them from one place to another.

  He rounded one corner of the stacks of hay bales and gasped in stunned shock. She was nestled in a little cubbyhole provided by the hay. Her long, dark hair hung in damp ringlets around her heart-shaped face, and her huge blue eyes stared at him both in horror and in fear.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she said as she hurriedly rose to her feet.

  “Maddy, what are you doing here?” he asked in stunned surprise. Maddy Taylor...he knew her from the grocery store where she occasionally checked him out when he shopped there, but he hadn’t seen her for the past couple of months. What in the heck was she doing in the middle of the hay in the Holiday barn?

  Tears welled up in her eyes. “Please, please don’t tell anyone you saw me.” Her trembling fingers plucked a strand of the hay out of her long hair. “Don’t tell anyone I was here.”

  “But what’s going on?” Shock still fluttered through him at her very presence in the hot barn. How long had she been here and of all places, why was she here? “What are you doing here?”

  “I... I was trying to leave town. I have to...to go anyplace but here. My car broke down and...and this was the closest place to walk to...and I just needed some time to figure out what I’m going to do.” The words bubbled out of her and her entire body shook like a frightened puppy.

  Flint frowned, trying to make sense of what she’d just told him. “When your car broke down why didn’t you just try to catch a ride back to your trailer?” He knew she lived in a mobile home park on the wrong side of Bitterroot.

  Her eyes widened. “I... I can’t ever go back there again.”

  “Why? Why do you have to leave town?” Bitterroot was a big pond of gossipmongers, but he hadn’t heard anything about Maddy in recent days. What in the heck was going on with her?

  “Please...don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. I... I can’t tell anyone.” Her eyes took on a frightened haunting. “I’m sorry for being here. I’ll just get my things and leave.” She turned and grabbed the handle of a medium-size, beat-up suitcase that had been half-hidden in the hay.

  “Wait...where are you going to go from here?” Flint asked. She had always been thin, but at the moment she looked positively frail. She said she couldn’t or wouldn’t go back to her trailer. “Where are you going, Maddy? Somebody else’s barn? We’re having some of the hottest days of the summer right now.”

  “I... I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”

  Flint took a couple of steps back from her and she walked out of her little hidey-hole with the suitcase in her hand. She was clad in a long blue, sleeveless dress that was wrinkled and damp with perspiration.

  “How long have you been in here?” he asked, appalled as he thought of the hot nights and even hotter days.

  “Just since last night. My car broke down and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to stay in the car so this was the closest place to walk to. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother anyone. I just need some time to get the car fixed.” She started for the barn door.

  Flint watched her go, but before she could get all the way to the door he stopped her by calling her name. She turned to look at him. A simmering fear shone from her eyes.

  “I have a place you can stay,” he said. “It’s a cabin in the woods about fifteen miles from here.” He couldn’t let her...he couldn’t let any woman walk out of here with no place to go on such a miserably hot day, especially since he had a place to offer her.

  “A...a cabin in the woods?”

  He nodded. “Nobody is staying in it right now.”

  “Who knows about it?”

  The question surprised him. “Just a couple of the cowboys here on the ranch. Why?”

  “I don’t want anyone to find me.” Her eyes once again welled up with tears. “I don’t want anyone from town to know where I am.”

  “Nobody will know you’re there,” he assured her.

  “Then, yes, please. I don’t want to take advantage of your kindness, but if I could just stay there for a day or two until I can sort out my car issues, I’d really appreciate it.”

  “Then let’s get you out of this hot barn. I’ll go and get my truck and I’ll pull it up to the door. I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”

  He l
eft the barn and headed for the vehicle shed in the distance. Thoughts whirled around in his head at a dizzying speed. Why was she hiding out? What had happened to her? It was obvious she was afraid of something or somebody.

  Was it possible she had embezzled money from the grocery store and was making her getaway when her car had died? Was she a criminal or a victim of something?

  And more important, what was he getting himself involved in by offering her the use of his cabin?

  * * *

  Madison sat in the passenger seat and shot a surreptitious glance to the man who was driving. Around his brown cowboy hat, his shaggy blond hair shone in the sunshine drifting in through the window. He had a strong jawline and a slightly crooked nose and yet that didn’t detract from his rugged handsomeness.

  Flint McCay. She didn’t know much about him, although her heart had certainly fluttered a bit whenever she’d check him out at the grocery store.

  He was definitely something of a legend around these parts. He was a champion bull-rider who had successfully ridden some of the biggest and meanest bulls in the rodeos. She also knew he was well liked around town.

  She’d never heard anything bad about him, but she knew that didn’t mean anything. A man could wear a wonderful facade that drew people to him, but that same man could turn into a horrible monster when there was nobody else around.

  Right now she hoped Flint was her savior. She hoped he really was taking her to a cabin in the woods where she could cool off and take a moment to breathe...to think. And she needed to think to figure out how she was going to get out of town as quickly as possible.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?” Flint’s question broke the silence of the ride.

  “There’s nothing going on,” she lied. “I had just decided to move away from Bitterroot and in the process my car broke down.”

  He cast her a quick glance, his green eyes filled with skepticism. “If it’s as simple as that, then why are you so worried about people knowing where you are?”