Ben, p.1
Ben, page 1
BEN
THE DAWSONS OF MONTANA
BOOK 4
JAN SCARBROUGH
SADDLE HORSE PRESS, LLC
First published in 2022. This edition published in 2023.
Copyright © 2022 by Jan Scarbrough
Digital ISBN: 978-1-7343714-3-7
Print ISBN: 979-8-9893503-2-2
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
Introduction
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
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Excerpt from Liz
Also by Jan Scarbrough
The Bluegrass Reunion Series Returns!
About the Author
Thank You
INTRODUCTION
Ben Dawson is a loner with a chip on his shoulder as big as the blue Montana skies he rides under every day. His widowed father’s marriage had been too quick, his stepbrother is a pain, and his stepmother turned his mother’s family ranch into a dude ranch. Ben has only returned to Six Buckles Guest Ranch to keep a promise to his late father, to watch over the ranch and his stepmother. He’s not there to get involved in a relationship, especially with a girl he knew back in high school.
Leigh Weston just wants to do her job as an event planner at Six Buckles and stay far away from entanglements. No good has ever come from them. Her father cheated on her mother, just like her ex-husband cheated on her. Her reunion with Ben leads to more than she expected, but she’s not ready to risk her heart. She exacts a promise from him that their relationship will be strictly hands-off. But when she needs a fake date to an event, Ben looks like the perfect choice. He understands the boundaries she’s set, right?
But even fake dates can ignite real romances. Are some promises worth breaking if it leads to a second chance at love?
CHAPTER ONE
September 2017
Brody and Stephanie’s Wedding
Six Buckles Guest Ranch
Leigh Weston surveyed the buffet table and moved a couple of dirty plates from the edge to the separate dish cart. So far, the reception was going gangbusters. Her staff made sure the liquor flowed freely and the tables were loaded with food. She’d pulled off another successful wedding. A perfect night to remember for the bride and groom.
Weddings and romance had always fascinated her. That’s why her own divorce made her choice of occupation somewhat of an anomaly. Every day the paradox amused her. Leigh had never found a life partner, and she probably never would, but being an important part of the happily-ever-after of others was satisfying.
As she watched the dance floor, she noticed Ben Dawson headed her way. She’d known Ben in school. He had been dark, mysterious, and aloof back then and all her girlfriends would have killed for a date with him. Including her. Now, dressed all in black from his jeans to his shirt and black-tooled boots and with his brooding good looks, he remained the rugged cowboy of her memories. He stopped at the self-serve punch bowl and ladled fruit juice and ginger ale into a glass cup.
“I can get you something stronger, if you like,” she said.
He eyed her, perhaps realizing he knew her. “No thanks.”
Coming over, he stood beside her quietly, drank his punch, and watched the dance crowd. Leigh swayed slightly to the music. She didn’t know what to say to him. It had been years since she last saw him.
He glanced down at her then placed his empty cup in the dish cart. “You put all this together?”
“Yes. It’s my job, and I love it.”
“I love my job too.” He hooked his thumbs in his belt. There was a self-satisfied gleam in his eyes. “I’m a cowboy. The real kind. Not like the make-believe ones that visit here.” The sarcasm was heavy in his voice.
Stef had told her Ben worked on a big cattle ranch up north. From the way he talked, she could tell he didn’t think much of the dude ranch Six Buckles Ranch had become.
“That’s a tough life.”
“Yup.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Leigh bit her lower lip. She looked up at him. “Do you remember me? From high school? I was Leigh Smith then.”
“Yup. You were a cheerleader or something.”
“That’s right.”
“One of the popular girls.”
She chuckled, a laugh as raw as an open wound. “You could say that.” How time had changed her life. She’d failed at one relationship after another before her marriage. Then after her divorce, she’d finally quit trying to find love.
More silence between them. The music swelled with the beat of another fast dance. The groom twirled the bride in his arms.
Then there he was. Her ex. Bill Weston. He fast danced with a leggy blonde. A sudden feeling of heaviness swept through Leigh’s body. Her muscles went numb. She felt dizzy. She’d never wanted to see that man again. But there he was, big as life, spoiling the whole evening for her.
“I didn’t know he was dating again.”
“Who?”
Leigh covered her mouth with her palm as she fought back the shock of saying her thoughts out loud. “My cheating ex-husband.”
Her face flushed. She didn’t want to make a fool of herself. Too late now.
The music switched to a slow tempo. Bill and Blondie plastered their bodies together. Leigh turned away. Why did it matter to her? Bill lived in the community. Belonged to the town council and wanted to be mayor. Seeing him with another woman was bound to happen eventually. It wasn’t as if he’d been faithful during their marriage. The only difference now was he felt free to flaunt his girlfriends in public.
Color drained abruptly from Leigh’s face. She was upset. The pretty girl he’d admired from afar during high school, the girl he had wanted to know better before all his classmates started teasing him over his father knocking up and marrying a thirty-year-old divorcee right after his mother died, needed rescuing. Ben had punished that disrespect a few times with his fists until either the taunts ended or he became immune. Maybe it was time to finally address that hurt.
“The only way to beat your demons is to show you don’t care.” He should know. He had practiced this philosophy since he was thirteen. Now he had a chance to pass on his wisdom. “Ma’am, would you like to dance?”
His long fingers wrapped around her smaller hand. She nodded and stumbled beside him into the crowd next to her ex-husband.
Ben rested his hand on the curve of her back and pulled her into his arms. She was his height and slender with dark reddish-brown hair tumbling like a heavy mane, twinkling hazel eyes, and inviting lips. They glided together as if they belonged. The feminine grace of her body, her sheer presence, shook his composure. She glanced up at him, and he glimpsed the surprise in her eyes. Did she feel these unfamiliar sensations too?
Ben squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled her scent of vanilla, her sweetness, and warmth. Suddenly, he wanted her with every fiber of his being. He had the overpowering urge to tilt her head and find her mouth. Wouldn’t that cause everyone to drop their punch cups. Ole Ben, the consummate loner, finally finding love. Who knew? Apparently, he was as normal as the next guy. They’d be chatting about this night around the dinner table for months. Nope. Wasn’t going to happen. Not on the dance floor. Not with everyone watching.
Someone bumped him from behind. His eyes flew open.
“Sorry, bro.”
Ben hated it when Brody, the bridegroom, called him “bro.” Brody was no more his brother now than when they fought down by the corral as kids. The boy had always been an arrogant son-of-a-B. Always looking for ways to weasel his way into Ben’s father’s affections, to cut out him, the real son. One stupid comment from him would set Ben’s hair on fire and then fists would fly. Brody’s support for his mother’s scheme to turn the ranch into a successful enterprise when it had failed as a cattle ranch didn’t soften the animosity he still felt towards his stepbrother either. Sometimes he itched to give Brody a good pummeling again. As soon as night followed day, that day was coming. Another reason to avoid too much family contact. It was a good thing he had a real job on a real cattle ranch and was expected back at work on Monday.
Ben surveyed the newlyweds and his chest burned. Brody and Stef looked so happy, so in love. Regret washed through him. His adult life until now had been spent at one outfit after another, living in bunkhous
With Leigh in his arms, with her head on his shoulder, Ben hummed as the music and the magic of the night swirled around him.
Until that moment, he hadn’t realized how alone he was.
Ben pulled Leigh into his arms right beside her ex. She glanced up and him, then folded into his embrace, feeling the thump of his heart, hearing him hum to the tune of the music.
She gave herself up to the experience of being held in a man’s close embrace again. It felt so good, like that empty place within her was finally filled. Hiding her face against his shoulder, she pretended they were lovers and had a future together. A little of the numbness she’d lived with since Bill’s betrayal had made her the talk of the town two years ago softened around the edges. Maybe there was a chance she could love again.
Leigh gave herself a little shake. Who was she kidding? That was simply a pipe dream. She knew she didn’t do happily-ever-afters.
CHAPTER TWO
Six Buckles Guest Ranch
Saturday, June 8, 2019
“Surprise!”
Bennett Dawson stopped in mid-stride, a sudden coldness hitting the core of his belly. Lights flickered on around him as the dark room brightened, illuminating the lodge of the Six Buckles Guest Ranch. Family members and staff sprang from behind worn leather sofas and upholstered chairs, appeared out of doorways, and converged on him blowing high-pitched party horns. They shouted Happy Birthday, Ben!
He now noticed a Happy Birthday banner hanging across the trophy antlers and moose head above the log mantle of the stone fireplace. Black and gold balloons decorated the dining tables.
A tentative smile spread across his face as the surprise party sunk in. Criminy. He hated birthday parties, especially his own. They hadn’t been the same since his mother’s death when he was thirteen. He’d realized some time ago he hadn’t been truly happy since his early childhood. If he was the sensitive type, he’d feel pretty sad about that. Fortunately, he didn’t suffer from an excess of emotion. He cowboyed up, finding living day to day worked well for him.
His stepbrother Brody clapped him on his back. “Happy Birthday, bro.”
“Thanks, I guess.”
His niece Livy and his stepsister Ashleigh surrounded him tooting horns.
He raised his hand to halt the noise. “Okay, okay. Enough is enough.”
“You know us, Ben,” Brody’s wife Stef said. “This family loves a good party.”
Ben clenched his jaw and folded his arms across his chest. He didn’t like a fuss being made over him, partially because he was naturally shy but mostly because he’d felt like an outsider ever since his mother died and his father married Liz and his days of being the only child ended.
“We wanted to do something special for you, Ben.” Liz came forward and placed a cool hand on his sleeve. “You’ve done such a good job taking over from Hank.”
Hank’s leaving to take a job at the Ghost Mountain Ranch in Gallatin Canyon had left a void someone needed to fill. The ranch needed a wrangler. Someone good with horses. So, this year he’d quit his job up north. This land was his too, no matter that cattle didn’t graze its pastures any longer.
Ben’s breath faltered. He gazed at his stepmother’s hand upon his sleeve. “You look eerily like your father,” she said sadly, as if memories clouded her vision.
Four years after their marriage, when Jim and Liz struggled to make ends meet on the cattle ranch, his father had given into his wife’s pleading. They’d taken the ranch that had been in the family of Ben’s mother Bonnie, the Bennett Ranch, changed its name, and turned it into a place for city slickers, not cattle. In his heart, Ben still thought of it as the Bennett Ranch. Being head wrangler now had given him a chance to make sure his forty-nine percent of the ranch was protected.
Ben drew a deep breath. Over the last few months, he’d come to terms that his mother’s ranch would never graze cattle again. That’s why he wanted out. He wanted to be his own boss, run his own ranch where cattle grazed like the old days. If only he could ask Liz to buy him out, then he could start anew somewhere else. He’d need money to purchase a new property and cattle to stock it. Selling his share of the Six Buckles was the only logical way he could think to get it.
Ben caught Liz’s gaze. Did she know what he was thinking?
The caring look in her eyes reminded him of his own mother. He ducked his head, unwilling to connect with her. Granted, Liz hadn’t tried to take his mom’s place. Ben thanked her silently for that kind of understanding. But she hadn’t felt like a friend either. She had been his dad’s new young wife. His father marrying so soon after the loss of his wife to cancer had always felt like a betrayal of his mother and abandonment of her memory and importance in the family.
Ben had never been able to talk to Jim Dawson about how he felt. It wasn’t the cowboy way. He’d bottled up all those emotions, stuffed them down as deep as they would go, and simply left home when he was old enough.
Now it was too late. His father was gone. So was the Bennett family’s way of life here at the ranch.
But Ben couldn’t leave. He couldn’t ask for a buy-out.
The day after his father’s death and before the funeral when Liz had given him the key to the old Bennett homestead that wasn’t used by the dude ranch, he’d found an envelope addressed to him on the kitchen table. From his father. He’d opened it.
Ben, I’ve learned I have a blockage in my heart. I’ve scheduled surgery next week. If something should happen to me and you find this letter, I want you to take care of the ranch for Liz. She’ll have plenty of help, but you know the ranch better than anyone. Promise me, son, to do what I may not be able to do. Keep the ranch going. It’s your heritage, no matter what.
He remembered how grief swam in his eyes that day when he gave up his own dream to honor his father’s wish. How isolated he’d felt. Liz didn’t know about the posthumous promise he’d made his father. She didn’t really know why he had later agreed to take Hank’s place, and he had no intention of telling her either.
Smiling, Liz squeezed his arm. “Come over and blow out your candles. Everyone is hungry for cake.” She ushered him toward one of the dining tables. He went willingly. What else could he do without making a scene? “Leigh made your favorite chocolate cake.”
For the first time, Ben noticed Leigh Weston standing behind a dining table holding the wand of a long-reach butane lighter. For the life of him, he didn’t know why he hadn’t followed up with her after Brody and Stef’s wedding, why he’d gone back to work as if their instant attraction hadn’t mattered. Just some perverted wish to remain miserable his whole life, he guessed.
Leigh lit every one of the thirty-five candles on the sheet cake. The top raged like a wildfire.
“Make a wish!” thirteen-year-old Livy urged. “Blow ’em all out at once!”
“Better hurry,” Brody said, “before the table catches on fire.”
“Funny,” Ben grumbled watching Leigh look up and smile at him. “This party is your doing, isn’t it?”
She cocked her head and grinned again. “Could be.”
He drew closer to Leigh, feeling a sudden blush warm his face. Criminy. The woman did that to him every time he saw her. It was one reason he avoided her like the proverbial plague. She’d done such a great job with Brody and Stef’s wedding and then his half-sister Mercer’s wedding to Drake, that she’d become a family friend. Then Liz went and hired Leigh to work the summer here at the dude ranch. Event planner or something like that.
