Brody, p.1
Brody, page 1
BRODY
THE DAWSONS OF MONTANA
BOOK 1
JAN SCARBROUGH
SADDLE HORSE PRESS, LLC
Brody: The Dawsons of Montano
* * *
First published in 2015. This edition published in 2023.
Copyright © 2015 by Jan Scarbrough
Digital ISBN: 978-0-9898730-4-8
Print ISBN: 978-1-7343714-9-9
Edited By: Karen Block
Cover Design By: The Killion Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used, including but not limited to, the training of or use by artificial intelligence, or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.
No Generative AI was used in the conceptualization, creation, or drafting of this work.
This edition is published by agreement with Saddle Horse Press LLC, PO Box 221543, Louisville, KY 40252.
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Brody: The Dawsons of Montana
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Excerpt from Mercer
Also by Jan Scarbrough
The Bluegrass Reunion Series Returns!
About the Author
Thank You
BRODY: THE DAWSONS OF MONTANA
When champion bull rider Brody Caldera learns his stepfather has suffered a serious accident, he heads home to the ranch he’d left behind years before. Maybe the clean Montana air of the Six Buckles Ranch, near Yellowstone Park, will help him forget his cheating ex-girlfriend. But returning will also force him to confront another woman, the one he deserted when she needed him most.
Ten years ago, Brody had chosen bucking bulls over booties and bottles, leaving ranch worker Stef Chambers to raise their daughter alone. She’s done her best to cowboy up for the sake of her daughter and build a good life for them. She can’t let Brody’s return change that. Damn the man for breaking her heart once. It won’t happen again. But Stef’s hero-worshipping ten-year-old is enamored by the famous cowboy, and Stef’s best intentions are side-tracked from day one.
Is Brody ready to be the man Stef needs, or is he just taking her for a ride? Brody has troubles of his own, dealing with his injured stepfather and a stepbrother enraged that the family cattle ranch is now a dude ranch. Is he ready to settle down and trade bull riding for a bride?
CHAPTER ONE
Two o’clock a.m.
May 2017
Chicago, Illinois
He was home.
Brody Caldera’s heart quickened as he turned the key to the door of his high-rise apartment on North Sheridan Road. When his girlfriend Lori Ann helped him pick it out soon after they met two years ago, she’d loved the apartment’s million-dollar view of Lake Michigan. The location was trendy and close to downtown and her job at an up-and-coming ad agency. The apartment was to-die-for, and she said she’d be very happy living there alone between Brody’s business trips.
Yeah, Lori Ann was spoiled, all right. He gave her anything and everything she wanted. But why not? He could afford it. What else did he have to spend his money on but the woman he loved? Since the day he met her at a promotional event for his professional bull riders’ organization, he’d been head-over-heels in love with her. And she with him. They were a perfect match for each other. He was athletic, craved excitement, and took chances. She was sweet and calm, a great grounding rock for him. There was just something right about them together. And one day they’d get married and make beautiful blond babies together. Maybe sooner than she thought.
Even after all this time, he adored her. Still bought her clothes and jewelry. Still had hot sex with her. That’s why he’d caught an early plane home. He wanted to surprise her this morning and kiss her awake. And give her the ring he carried in his pocket.
His adrenalin surged just like it did when he was about to climb down on the back of a seventeen-hundred-pound bull. Brody slowly turned the doorknob, so he wouldn’t make noise and wake Lori Ann. She wasn’t expecting him.
What the hell?
Every light in the place was on. He blinked his eyes against the glare reflected off the bank of windows that faced the lake.
Cocking his head to the side, Brody stood at the threshold and surveyed the strange sight in the fashionable, black-and-white living room Lori Ann had decorated. It didn’t look like their peaceful living space with everything neat and in its place. It looked like a scene from a college frat party. Not that he would know firsthand, of course. He’d never gone to college and never been to a frat party, but he’d listened to a lot of stories.
Furniture was shoved back against the walls. Empty glasses and plates littered the glass table tops. Cigarette butts filled several ash trays. He’d never had an ash tray in the apartment in his whole time living there.
Lori Ann didn’t smoke. And folks didn’t smoke in Montana where he came from. He’d learned his lesson the hard way. He’d tried it once out behind the barn. His stepfather had caught him and tanned his hide. His mom had given him the what-for too. Told him smoking interfered with drawing in the clean mountain air. It made riding and roping harder work with lungs full of crap. They were right.
Tightening his jaw, Brody took a step inside, dropped his duffle bag by the entrance, and shut the door behind him. He turned slowly, absorbing the dead silence of the place and drawing in a pungent scent of skunk.
He’d smelled it before on the streets of Chicago as he biked. He’d smelled it on sidewalks in the Loop and on the L.
Brody walked over to the glass coffee table and looked down at the ashtrays, which weren’t filled with only cigarette butts, but the damp, wrinkled nubs of paper-wrapped joints.
Someone had been smoking marijuana. And by the looks of the debris, a lot of it.
So that explained why Lori Ann had been acting strange for six months. He’d overlooked red flags because he’d wanted to. But now he couldn’t. The tightening of his gut told him he’d been a fool.
A damn fool.
A pair of man’s, black leather loafers kicked off by the black leather sofa told him the same thing.
Brody strode toward his bedroom, the one he shared with Lori Ann, and turned on the light switch beside the door. The overhead chandelier illuminated the king-size bed beneath it.
The spectacle rocked him. Another man had enjoyed the fruits of his labor.
Brody planted his legs wide for balance, anger rolling through the length of his slim, muscular body. So, this is what betrayal feels like.
He reached the side of the bed in two strides and grasped the edge of the red satin sheet covering Lori Ann and another body. He tore the covering off her with a quick snap of his wrist.
“Who’s he?” he asked between clenched teeth.
Lori Ann sat bolt upright pulling the red satin sheet back over her breasts.
“Brody! What are you doing here?”
“Seems you’ve been taking me for a ride,” he said in his quiet cowboy way.
Lori Ann stared at him wide-eyed. He might not look like a cowboy with his frayed blue jeans, Chicago Cubs T-shirt, tennis shoes, and ball cap, but his jaw was set with the same cowboy determination that made him a champion bull rider and the same instinct that made him competitive from the time he was seventeen.
And that instinct was kicking him right in the seat of his pants.
The other man turned over onto his back and mumbled something about turning off the lights.
“I can explain.” Lori Ann’s voice had a frantic tone to it.
“Nothin’ to explain. I get it.” Brody didn’t need a picture drawn for him. “Be out of here by the time I get back.”
He turned on his heel and headed for the door.
“Wait!” she shrieked, ripping the sheet off the bed and leaving her bed partner buck naked sprawled out in the king-size bed. Running after him, dragging the sheet, Lori Ann caught up to Brody in the living room and grabbed him by his right arm.
Brody stopped and looked down at her. Her blond hair was disheveled. He’d seen her naked many times. Why was she hiding now behind the sheet? Shame? As if seeing her for the first time, he noticed the unhealthy pastiness of her porcelain skin and the selfish pout of her full lips.
His sister, Mercer, had warned him about Lori Ann a long time ago. He hadn’t listened then. But he was listening now.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going home.” The idea suddenly formed in his dazed brain.
“But this is your home.”
“I’m going home to Montana.”
Lori Ann dramatically dropped the red sheet and clutched at his T-shirt. “You can’t leave me!”
“Looks like I’m about to.”
Brody unclasped her hands, one finger at a time, picked up his canvas duffle bag, and opened the door. “I’ll send my lawyer for my clothes and pers
“But what about me?”
“I suppose you need to get yourself another sugar daddy. Looks like there’s a candidate in my bed.”
That other candidate stood barefoot in the doorway of the bedroom—his trousers hastily jerked up around his hips. “Hey, man,” he muttered. “It’s all cool.”
“Sure is. You can have her now.”
Brody glared at the idiot and turned quickly. He left his apartment before he did something stupid like knock the bastard’s lights out. He may have been played for a fool, but that was no reason to let his temper lead him into something he’d regret later.
Hiking the duffle bag over his shoulder, Brody strode down the hallway, his hands shaking worse than when he was getting ready to ride a rank bull with eighty thousand dollars on the line.
At the elevator, he punched the button for his ride down and out of a life he realized he’d been hanging on for far too long. Better to go back to the folks he used to know. Honest, decent, hardworking folks who were what they seemed to be. Not lying opportunists like his ex-girlfriend.
His cell phone buzzed just as the elevator door opened. Thinking the text was from Lori Ann, he almost didn’t remove his phone from its belt clip holster. But he did. The text was from Mercer.
Mom needs you. Dad’s had an accident. He’s in the hospital. Brody come home.
CHAPTER TWO
Six Buckles Guest Ranch
The lodge’s fly-fishing shop
Near Yellowstone in Montana
With Jim Dawson’s booming voice and ready laughter silenced for the moment, it was hard for Stephanie Chambers to do her job, but she knew the ranch’s guests must be served.
Life goes on.
Mr. Dawson had told her that a year ago when her father died, and she could hardly contain her grief. There was no time for tears, he’d said. No time to feel sorry for herself. She had a daughter to care for who was grieving too.
When she was a child, her dad had told her the same thing. “There’s no cryin’ on horseback, Stef, honey. Get back up on that horse. You ain’t gonna quit. I won’t let you.”
Words of wisdom from two important men in her life. Stef had always tried to live by those words—to cowboy up as people in the West said.
She pressed enter on the computer keyboard and looked up at the customer on the other side of the counter and smiled. “Okay, Mr. Reynolds. You’re all set for tomorrow morning. I reserved a float trip for you and your wife with Bud, one of our most experienced guides.”
“Are you sure he knows the river?”
Stef nodded. “Bud grew up in the valley, Mr. Reynolds. Knows the waters like the back of his hand.”
It was true. Bud was a great fly-fishing guide. When her father was alive, he’d managed the outfitters for the ranch and trained all the crew himself. Bud had been his star pupil. There’d been no personnel turnover since his death. These young guys knew how to give a tourist a fun but safe trip. Maybe catching a blue-ribbon, eight-pound rainbow trout wasn’t in the cards for most of these first timers, but it wouldn’t be because their fishing guides lacked experience.
Stef sold a pair of lightweight roll-up pants and a long-sleeved, button-front shirt to Mrs. Reynolds. Both husband and wife bought certified UPF 50+ hats for sun protection. When they had paid and left the shop, Stef paused and drew a deep breath. With the outfitting store empty of customers, she had time for a break.
The lodge was scary quiet with Mercer and Liz at the hospital with Jim. They usually kept her company in the morning while the guests were gearing up for their day’s activities.
Mercer hadn’t called as she’d promised. It was almost as if time was on hold, waiting for a miracle. When the phone didn’t ring, Stef tried hard not to imagine the worse. But the worse couldn’t happen. If Jim died, what would she do? Where would she go with her daughter Livy?
Taking her morning cup of coffee with her to the front porch, Stef set the stoneware mug on the railing and looked out over the creek-fed lake. She never tired of the view from the porch. The Six Buckles Ranch, named for Jim’s six championship belt buckles won during his rodeo days, had developed into a beautiful dude ranch. She’d been a fool to stay away from home so long.
When she’d gotten pregnant with Olivia, her daddy had sent her away to live with his sister in Dallas. “It’s far enough from home for a fresh start,” he’d said.
With Aunt Imelda’s help, Stef made that fresh start. She’d given birth to her baby and started college. By the time Livy was five, Stef had graduated and was employed as an administrative assistant. Life had been good with her aunt—working and raising her daughter—that is until Dad got sick two years ago.
Stef’s chest tightened, as it always did when she grieved for her father. Sixty-five was too young to die of heart failure. She hated to think what Mercer and Liz were going through at this moment.
Picking up her mug, Stef cupped it in her hands and savored the aroma of good, strong coffee. It was a typically crisp early spring morning, and the hot coffee mug felt good in her grasp. Overhead white cirrus clouds danced against the blue of the big sky of Montana.
Behind the log lodge, the centerpiece of the guest ranch, foothills met the distant mountains behind the creek that fed the lake. A few miles away, over the hills, the Yellowstone River meandered through the long valley.
Spring had finally come to the area. The grass was turning green and the weather changed every five minutes. Jim Dawson’s ranch had been a working cattle ranch until hard times forced him to turn it into a dude ranch. The guest part of it had been his wife Liz’s idea one winter when they’d had trouble making ends meet. Jim had agreed, and against his son Bennett’s objections, turned over the family’s ranch to Liz.
Liz’s first managerial hire had been Stef’s daddy, a cowhand with a serious fly-fishing hobby. Sam Chambers had a mind for business. He’d simply needed a chance to prove it. Thanks to him, the hunting and fishing part of the dude ranch was one of its most successful attractions.
Stef smiled at a memory of her daddy trying to teach his granddaughter Olivia to fish in the ranch lake.
“Oh, Pop, are we goin’ to put him back?”
“No, honey, we’re gonna eat him for dinner.”
“But he needs to go back with his brothers and sisters!”
Daddy had rolled his eyes at the small child’s objection, but he’d been as patient with Livy as he’d been with Stef growing up. It had been hard for her daddy to raise a daughter alone, but he’d been successful at that too. That’s why Stef knew, when she faced the same situation, she could handle it. She was Sam’s kid, wasn’t she?
Almost as if she’d conjured up her daughter, Livy appeared at the opposite end of the porch and scampered toward her mom wagging a calico kitten in her hands. A black and white border collie followed at her heels.
“Look, Mom. Sissy’s kittens came out of hiding.”
Livy held up the four-week-old kitten. Putting down her coffee mug, Stef took the kitten from her daughter and cuddled it. “She’s so cute.”
“How do you know it’s a girl?”
“Most calico cats are girls.”
“The others are orange and gray. And Ranger doesn’t even bother them.” Livy patted the head of her constant companion, a rangy border collie.
Livy loved animals. You had to love them out here living as close to them as people did. Years ago, during summer trips to the ranch to visit her grandfather, Livy had learned how to ride. Because she liked to ride, she hadn’t been upset to leave her Dallas classmates to move home to Montana where Stef was homeschooling her.
Stef handed the kitten to Livy. “Take her back to her mama, honey.”
