Drifter's Darling (Culpepper Cowboys Book 12) Read online

  “You know, when early pioneers were coming through this part of the West on the Oregon Trail and things like that, a lot of them mistook the Laramie Mountains for the Rockies. It gave them quite a shock to think they were almost there only to have to trek all the way across all that high prairie to get to the real Rockies.”

  “Huh.” Evan nodded, smiling at her.

  She didn’t look at all pleased by his short answer. Yep, he owed it to her to do a heck of a lot of talking once they were settled wherever it was she was going to settle them. At least it was nice to think that he was willing to talk now instead of running some more. That would put Elvie in a sweet mood.

  They headed into the lodge, Evan rushing ahead to hold the door for her.

  “Thanks,” Elvie mumbled, crossing into the cozy, tastefully-decorated main lobby of the ski lodge. She paused a few feet inside of the door and turned to face him, looking just a bit nervous. “I, um, hope you don’t mind. I kind of had Sly call ahead to tell them we were coming and that we’d want a cabin.”

  A grin tweaked the corner of Evan’s mouth. Leave it to Elvie to get all of her brothers involved in her efforts to run away with him. Next thing he knew, Arch would probably show up with a gourmet breakfast for them the next morning or something.

  “Okay.” He shrugged.

  Her brow flew up, surprised that he was being so calm about things, evidently. It was true, his attitude toward life now was vastly different than it had been that morning when he’d barged into her office to steal her away. It was amazing what a good, long think could do for a man, though.

  “So, uh, I’ll just go talk to the guy at the front desk to see what they have for us,” Elvie finished up, more than a little perplexed.

  “Works for me. I’ll just wait over here.” He gestured with his thumb to a lounge area with a big TV. A couple of kids who must have been siblings sat flopped on the couches, looking as bored as it was possible to look.

  “It probably won’t take more than a few seconds,” Elvie said, then headed off to the desk.

  Evan watched her go for a moment, appreciating the sway of her hips, the take-charge way she walked, her swinging ponytail. A man could do much worse than a beautiful, intelligent woman like Elvie. It would be the easiest thing in the world to trust her with his worries, let her help him through. Weren’t women supposed to be really good at sorting out emotional messes anyhow?

  He left that question where it was and headed over to the lounge.

  “What’cha guys watching?” he asked the kids amiably. The three of them ranged in age from almost teenager to probably around eight. He kept his distance, not wanting to alarm them with the whole stranger danger thing.

  The almost-teen, a boy, sent a weary look his way. “Just the news. It’s stupid. And I can’t find the remote.”

  Evan did a quick survey of the area, but couldn’t find anything that looked like a remote either. He guessed that the hotel staff had probably done that on purpose to avoid being forced to watch seizure-inducing kids’ shows at top volume.

  “It’s important to know what’s going on in the world.” He floated the idea to them with a shrug.

  “There’s nothing interesting going on,” the middle kid, a girl, said. “Just a bunch of stupid politics stuff and people yelling at nothing.”

  Evan chuckled. “Yeah, it sure is—”

  He stopped cold as the story switched. A picture of his Aunt Kissie with a bag of wax lips superimposed on top of it flashed on the screen.

  “The search continues for the missing Kissie Lips heir,” the female newscaster said. “But now Channel 9 has learned some exclusive new information about the identity of the heir.”

  Evan’s stomach dropped to his feet like a rock plopping in a sour pond as a picture of him from last year’s family Christmas party replaced Aunt Kissie’s on the screen.

  “The missing heir is apparently Kissandra Lipinski’s grand-nephew, Evan Lipinski. Reports have it that Mr. Lipinski has been reported working several odd jobs across Wyoming throughout the summer, including helping out with the regional rodeo circuit and, just recently, aiding the Culpepper family on their ranch.”

  The news report cut to a video of Karlan and Kolby Culpepper out in one of the fields on their ranch. “Evan’s a good worker and a great guy,” Karlan said, looking like he wanted to rip someone’s head off. “He deserves his privacy. The likes of you need to quit—”

  “Mr. Lipinski apparently left Culpepper this morning, heading east toward Laramie,” the newscaster went on when the video suddenly cut off. “We now know his identity and are zeroing in on his whereabouts, but the mystery remains—why would someone run from such an exciting inheritance?”

  The news report shifted to another camera angle, and the newscaster went on with a different story, another one about the antics of the big political candidates. Evan swallowed, glanced over his shoulder to Elvie at the lodge’s front desk. He looked back to the kids. They had all perked up and were staring at him.

  “You’re that guy,” the youngest one, another girl, said.

  “You’re the Kissie Lips guy,” the older girl said. A second later, she started to giggle.

  “I saw your picture on the TV,” the younger girl said, as if Evan hadn’t been standing right there with her watching. She squinted at him. “You’re bigger in person.”

  “So why are you running away from an inheritance?” the boy asked, looking pleased with himself for using such a big word.

  A twist of dread gripped Evan’s stomach. Yeah, how did you explain to children the lifelong humiliation of Kissie Lips and the haunting memory of a beloved great-aunt who had gone from funny hippie lady who read him bedtime stories to cold businesswoman because of a pile of money?

  “Well.” He shifted uncomfortably, trying to figure out the best argument for kids. “How would you like all your friends teasing you about big wax lips all the time?”

  His argument worked. All three of the kids gave him horrified looks. “I’d hate it,” the boy said.

  “So would I. So don’t tell anyone you saw me, okay?”

  The kids nodded and said, “Okay.”

  Evan glanced over his shoulder again. Elvie was just finishing things up with the concierge. She had a set of keys in her hand and was saying a few last words to the concierge with a smile before turning to head across the room.

  A flash of alarm prompted Evan to tell the kids, “Especially don’t say anything to her, okay?”

  “Is she your girlfriend?” the younger girl asked, smiling.

  Evan leaned closer. “I’m trying to make her much more than my girlfriend.”

  “Are you going to propose to her at the ski lodge?” the older girl asked, stars in her eyes.

  “Yeah, so shh.”

  “What’s going on over here?” Elvie asked with a smile as she joined them.

  The two girls giggled and blushed. The boy rolled his eyes and sighed, then flopped back onto the couch.

  “Nothing,” Evan answered her. “Just making some new friends.”

  “We don’t know who he is,” the younger girl blurted.

  “Duh, Cindy, you aren’t supposed to say that,” the boy hissed.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Cindy apologized to Evan.

  Evan could feel his face heating up. He turned to Elvie, and sure enough, she wore a curious look. He tried to smile and took her hand.

  “So, did you get us a cabin?”

  She arched a brow at him. “Yeah. They already had one set up for us.”

  “Great, let’s go.” He ushered her out of the lounge and away from the kids before they could say anything more.

  “So really, what was that all about?” Elvie asked as they headed outside and turned to walk along a winding path through tall pine trees with signs that pointed them on to “the cottages.”

  Evan had to swallow his instinct to say ‘nothing.’ He shrugged. “There was another news report on about the missing Kissie Lips heir. They sh
owed my picture.”

  He expected her to grill him about his great-aunt and the will, but instead she growled in frustration. “Andy! It has to be Andy. He’s the only one sneaky enough to go to the press with your actual name. So much about client confidentiality.”

  That was a point he hadn’t considered. It made sense…in a way that made him want to wring that weasely little lawyer’s neck. “Nothing can be done about it now.”

  Elvie huffed impatiently and steered him down a fork in the path with a sign for number 35 on a post to one side. “I guess not.”

  She was silent for a few more seconds. Her angry scowl dissolved back into a smile. “You know, you were pretty cute with those kids.”

  Some of the upset and tension in Evan’s gut smoothed out. “You think so?”

  Her smile grew even warmer. “Do you want to have kids?”

  “Oh yeah. I love kids. I’ve always wanted a family.”

  “Good.” She squeezed his hand and winked at him.

  They reached the small front porch of a much, much bigger “cottage.” It was more like a small house to Evan’s eyes. It looked like a rustic log cabin on the outside, but as soon as Elvie fit the key in the door and pushed it open, Evan’s jaw dropped. The cottage was probably the most luxurious thing he’d ever seen. It had all the latest electronics and appliances scattered around a huge living room with a loft. He could see straight into the kitchen as well, and was mightily impressed. Best of all, off to one side, in an enclosed, almost greenhouse-looking room, was a gigantic hot tub.

  “Wow.” It was the only reaction he could manage.

  “Yeah.” Elvie cringed. “Sly booked us into the cottage equivalent of the penthouse suite. It’s a little decadent.”

  “I’ll say.” They walked further into the room. Evan tossed his backpack and the shopping bags on an oversized, leather sofa. “You said ‘ski lodge’ and I was picturing something more like a dorm.”

  “Nope. Not at Sly’s resort.” She walked from the main room into the kitchen, glanced around, then headed on to the glass-walled room with the hot tub. “Oh look! It’s starting to snow.”

  Evan followed her to the hot tub room, turning to look around, through the windows. The ceiling was glass too. It was like being in a little Jacuzzi bubble with fantastic views in all directions. Sure enough, big, fat blobs of snow had started falling from the sky, just starting to stick on the ground outside of the room.

  “I bet this place has a pretty view,” he said.

  “Oh, it does,” Elvie assured him. She lifted the cover of the hot tub, and the sharp scent of chlorine filled the air. “It faces west too, so you get the full effect of the sunset through the trees. The glass is tinted too, so you can sit in the hot tub and look out, but no one standing outside can see in.”

  It was a tiny detail, but it brought all sorts of mischief to Evan’s mind. “I see. Hmm.”

  He put on his best flirty smile, reaching for Elvie and drawing her into his arms. Now was the time for a good, long kiss, now that they were alone in a cottage in the woods behind tinted glass.

  “I guess the snow will keep people from barging their way up here and interrupting anything.” He settled his arms around her, letting one hand drop to her backside, and pulling her flush against him.

  “You’re right.” She tilted her head back, her lips soft and beckoning. “And I know exactly what we can do, now that we’ve got all this privacy.”

  “Oh yeah?” His blood began to pump to all the places he wanted it to go. He bent closer and placed a light, prelude-to-naughtiness kiss on Elvie’s lips.

  She hummed and returned the kiss, then held herself back. With a fluttering of her long, luscious eyelashes and a quick nibble on her lip, she glanced up at him, mischief in her eyes, and said, “All right, Kissie Lips, spill it.”

  9

  She felt him tense in spite of her best efforts to be funny and keep things light. And sure, that meant he grabbed her backside tighter for a moment, but after that he stepped back and turned away.

  Whoops. Maybe that was a little too much pressure. Elvie did the best thing she could think of to lighten the mood again. She twisted to the hot tub and started unhooking the cover.

  “I’m not saying you have to tell me the whole story,” she went on, focusing on the tub. “But I would like to know. And I think you’d like to tell me.”

  “It’s not that,” he said. He ran a hand through his hair, face pinched. “I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon, and I’ve decided that if there’s ever going to be anything between us—and I most certainly hope there’s going to be something huge between us,” he added with a sheepish grin that had Elvie tingling down to her toes, “then I need to tell you all the reasons this inheritance scares the bejeebers out of me.”

  As much as she wanted to run and hug him—or jump up and down in a happy dance—Elvie kept her cool and finished peeling back the cover on the hot tub. “I’m so honored you would want to share with me.”

  Evan’s smile widened. “Of course I want to share with you. I want to share a lot of things with you. That’s what committed relationships are all about.”

  She tossed the cover aside and sauntered back to him, taking his hand and squeezing it. “As much as I want to gloat and say ‘I know,’ if I’m being honest, no guy has ever been so considerate of me that way before.”

  Evan’s expression hardened. “Andy?”

  She shrugged. “Remember what I said about him caring more about his career and his image than me? That includes never really telling me what he was thinking or feeling. If he was thinking or feeling anything. This whole being a part of someone else’s emotional life is new to me.”

  “And me,” Evan added, sneaking forward to kiss her lightly. He clammed up again. “Which is why it’s so hard.”

  She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but she could see that he needed to concentrate to say what he needed to say. So instead of pressing things, she walked around to the hot tub controls and turned it on. The water was already warm-ish, but she turned the heat up a few degrees and got the jets going.

  Evan raised his eyebrows at the suddenly bubbling water beside him, but launched into everything he needed to say. “I think I mentioned that my great-aunt Kissie—well, her given name was Cassandra and we called her Cassie, but she changed it—I mentioned that we were close when I was growing up.”

  “Yeah, you did.” Elvie leaned against the hot tub and started pulling her boots off.

  “She never married. She had plenty of boyfriends, though. She was a hippie and used to pester my dad by saying she believed in free-love.” Evan chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t know if she actually did or not or if she was just trying to tease my dad. They were close growing up, but Pop was always much simpler and more conservative than she was. She used to roll into town every now and then with her long hippie skirts and her headbands and flower power and fringed vests. She always brought me treats…if organic, co-op made honey-sesame candy and hemp sweaters can be called treats.”

  “I think I like Aunt Kissie already.” Elvie beamed and tossed her boots to the side of the room. She went to work on the buttons of her cardigan next.

  “I loved her,” Evan went on, a wistful look in his eyes. “Even though I didn’t understand half the things she said. We had a special bond.” His expression dropped to grief.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Elvie said, setting her cardigan aside.

  Evan shook his head. “It wasn’t that. Yes, I’m sad that she passed away, but the real loss came about with the whole Kissie Lips debacle.”

  Elvie frowned. “How so?”

  “It was exactly like you said in the truck. Money changes people. It changed Aunt Kissie.” He sighed and leaned his butt against the hot tub, arms crossed. “She inherited the wax lips empire from one of her friends. At first she thought it was a big joke. Like, a really big joke. She made light of it and teased me by chasing me around with those wax lips o
n, trying to kiss me.”

  “I don’t know, that sounds sort of cute,” Elvie said.

  Evan sent her a flat stare. “I was seventeen at the time. Being chased around by a hippie great-aunt wearing wax lips wasn’t cute.”

  “Oh, come on.” Elvie giggled.

  “In public. At my prom,” Evan continued.

  “Oh boy.”

  Evan smirked. “I could have dealt with that, but it was once she actually took possession of the business, saw what the profits were and what it could do, that she really changed.”

  Elvie winced. “So the money went to her head?”

  “Yeah,” Evan sighed. “Suddenly she was buying me expensive electronic toys and imported, gourmet chocolate instead of the kitschy things she used to get. She bought a mansion and a couple of fancy cars. And then she had a falling out with my parents.”

  “I’m really sorry about that.” His story was getting visibly painful for him, so she gave him a little mental space by turning and dipping her hand in the hot tub to test the water temperature. It was good, so she reached for the hem of her shirt and tugged it out of her jeans.

  “It was shocking to lose someone who had been such a big presence in my life to something as annoying as money,” Evan went on. “I was still being teased by kids at school, but by then there were a ton of arguments at home. We used to be a big, happy family, but that all went away.”

  “And you blame the Kissie Lips?”

  “Yeah.” He hung his head as he admitted it. “My brother and sister inherited Aunt Kissie’s cars and her house and some jewelry and things,” he went on. “I could have handled that. But inheriting the company? Having the reason why everything fell apart drop into my lap? First of all, I’ll never stop being teased about being ‘Lips’ Lipinski now. Second, I watched that company and its money turn my aunt into someone else and tear my family apart. I don’t want the same thing to happen to me. I don’t want to change like that, to— Whoa!”

  He raised his head and exclaimed as Elvie pulled her shirt off over her head. Like the red-blooded man he was, his gaze zipped straight to her boobs, even though she was wearing a decidedly sensible, flesh-toned bra. “What?” she asked with a teasing twitch of her mouth, reaching for the fly of her jeans and pushing them down over her hips. “It’s a hot tub. I didn’t bring a bathing suit. What do you expect me to do?”