Texas Wild: The Gallaghers of Sweetgrass Springs Book 2 Read online

  Hollywood’s hot playboy stuntman Randall Mackey replaced the adrenaline rush of his career in the SEAL Teams with another life courting danger, but that existence is jeopardized by injury. The sexy bad boy of Sweetgrass Springs returns to the town where his teenage exploits made him a legend, only to find that his buddy’s tomboy little sister has grown up in very interesting ways. If he thinks, however, that gifted horse trainer Rissa Gallagher will simply fall into his arms and help him dodge dealing with a haunting past and a future that looks grim, Mackey might want to think again.

  Rissa Gallagher has been abandoned by everyone in her family except the hard-hearted father who is physically present but cold and critical. She is the last hope for the land that has been in her family for six generations, and though Mackey is pure temptation incarnated in one very sexy package, he can never be more than a fling when the only thing he does better than make love is…leave.

  The TEXAS HEROES contemporary western romance series includes:

  TEXAS SECRETS

  TEXAS LONELY

  TEXAS BAD BOY

  TEXAS REFUGE

  TEXAS STAR

  TEXAS DANGER

  TEXAS ROOTS

  TEXAS WILD

  TEXAS DREAMS

  TEXAS REBEL

  TEXAS BLAZE

  TEXAS CHRISTMAS BRIDE

  TEXAS TIES

  TEXAS TROUBLES

  TEXAS TOGETHER

  TEXAS HOPE

  TEXAS STRONG

  TEXAS SWEET

  TEXAS HEARTTHROB

  TEXAS HEALER

  TEXAS PROTECTOR

  Join Jean’s mailing list and receive a free copy of TEXAS ROOTS, normally $3.99 but yours free when you sign up to receive notices of releases and special deals from Jean.

  Texas Wild

  Texas Heroes: The Gallaghers of Sweetgrass Springs

  Book Two

  Jean Brashear

  Copyright © 2013 Jean Brashear

  Kindle Edition

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  The Legend of Sweetgrass Springs

  Lost and alone and dying, thirsty and days without food, the wounded soldier fell from his half-dead horse only yards from life-giving water. His horse nickered at the scent, and the soldier gathered one last effort to belly his way to the edge of the spring.

  But there he faltered. Bleeding from shoulder and thigh, he felt the darkness close in on him and sorrowed for his men, for the battle he would lose, for the fight he would not finish. In his last seconds of life, he wished for the love he would never find.

  Rest, a lovely, musical voice said.

  He managed to drag his eyes open once more.

  And gazed upon the face of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  And perhaps the saddest. Her eyes were midnight blue and filled with a terrible grief as she lifted a hand toward him.

  I am dying, he thought. I will never know her.

  But the woman smiled and tenderly caressed his face as she cradled his head and brought life-giving water to his lips.

  You will live, she said. Be at peace. Let the spring heal you.

  Around him the air went soft, the water slid down his throat like a blessing. His battered body relaxed, and the pain receded.

  Sleep, she said. I will watch over you.

  He complied, his eyes heavy. His injuries were too severe; he knew he could not live. But though he would not wake up, he was one of the fortunate, to have an angel escort him into the afterlife. Thank you, he managed with his last breath.

  Wake. All is well.

  The soldier opened his eyes, surprised to feel soft grass beneath him, trees whispering overhead. From nearby, he heard the bubbling music of the spring.

  Then he saw her, his angel. Where am I? Is this heaven?

  Her lips curved, but her eyes were again midnight dark with sorrow. You are still of this world.

  Who are you? he asked. Why are you sad?

  She searched his eyes. Will you stay with me?

  I would like nothing more, but I cannot. I must return to my men.

  She turned her face away, and he felt her grief as his own.

  I’ll come back. When the battle is over and I am done, I will come back to you.

  You won’t. A terrible acceptance filled her gaze. I will never have love. Once I was mortal like you, and I was loved, but I turned away from it. From him, my one true love. He was beloved of The Fates, and they cursed me to wait. I cannot leave this place.

  Wait for what?

  It doesn’t matter, she said sadly. You must go. They always go.

  I’ll come back. I’ll set you free. Tell me how, and I’ll do it.

  She stared into him for a long time, then shook her head. There’s only one way.

  What is it? he asked eagerly, rising strong and well again, already searching for his horse to ride away.

  She watched him in silence. Made herself invisible because she knew.

  Where did you go? he called out, searching the clearing, striding to the spring to peer into its depths. When he didn’t see her, with a heavy heart he mounted, but for a moment he lingered. I’ll come back, I promise. You can tell me then. I’m sorry, but my men need me, and I have to go. I will return for you.

  He wouldn’t, she knew. They never did. She’d brought her eternal loneliness on herself, and she was losing hope.

  So she watched him ride away after one last look.

  Only love can set me free, she whispered softly.

  Love strong enough to stay.

  Prologue

  Randall Mackey reached for that quiet zone, that place he went when he’d done all the prep he could envision, when the film stunt was as ready as it would ever be. All that was left was for him to actually throw his body out there, off this skeleton of a building where his size twelve feet perched on an eight-inch-wide girder looking down onto…

  Thin air.

  Was it dangerous? Hell, yeah. Why would he bother otherwise?

  Was it more deadly than missions he’d been on in Afghanistan with his fellow SEALs?

  Nobody was shooting at him. Nobody wanted him to die.

  He hadn’t died. But others had.

  And no stunt, however dangerous, however much meant to make audiences cringe in whiplash horror, would ever, for one single second, equal that life he missed like a limb.

  “Ready?” asked the second unit director. “You sure about this, Mackey? Because we could use CGI…”

  “Wouldn’t be the same, and you know it.”

  “All right, then,” the director said. “Quiet. Ten seconds. Roll film.”

  Mackey heard the intake of breath, felt the vigilant stillness around him. Felt the surge in his blood, the welcome buzz of the adrenaline that gave him a reason to get up every day. Three…two…

  Mackey leaped for the girder that was impossibly far away, extending his arms, using his leg muscles as springboards—

  Go…go…go…

  He wrapped his arms around the girder, felt his legs whip forward, his momentum propelling his
feet ahead—

  The cable attached to the harness beneath his shirt jerked him backward with such force that he lost purchase. His body slammed into a pole behind—and abruptly he plunged, his leg slamming into the level below as he grappled for a hold. He halted his fall, the skin on his hands stripped away until they let go—

  He tucked his body and caught himself by the knees on the girder below—

  The cable snapped into his head—

  Hang on hang on hang—

  Fade to black.

  Chapter One

  “Yeah, baby, yeah, baby…” Rissa Gallagher’s tone never wavered as she crooned to the colt. “That’s the way…good boy.”

  The bay, named Coyote by his owner, responded to the click of her tongue and sped up, loping in the round pen where he’d tried to take a bite out of her a little while earlier.

  She kept her touch light on the lead and flicked the flag to keep him moving with her as she turned in a circle. After a few minutes, she slowed him. A few more, and she reduced his speed to a walk.

  She halted, and he followed suit.

  Rissa grinned. “I knew you could be saved.” She approached the colt and started rubbing. “Aren’t you such a big, handsome boy? Such a strong fellow, you’re gonna drive the girls crazy,” she crooned.

  “Funny, Scarlett says those same things about me.”

  Her head whipped around to see Ian McLaren leaning against the fence, one boot propped on the bottom rail, his arms resting on the top.

  “You’re so ga-ga over the city girl, you’d let her call you an idiot and never blink.”

  “Pretty sure she’s done that already.” Ian grinned, then sobered. “Rissa, cut her some slack. She’s your cousin, and she belongs to Sweetgrass now.”

  Rissa rolled her eyes. “She’s turning Ruby’s courthouse into a fancy restaurant and events center no one will ever come to because—hello? It’s in the freaking middle of nowhere.”

  Ian laughed. “You know, you two are more alike than you realize, if you’d ever stop sniping at each other.”

  Rissa looked down at her beat-up jeans, her threadbare shirt, her dusty boots. “She wears yoga pants, and she’s a head shorter. And still snotty.”

  “That she is not. She’s hungry for family, and you’re her only girl cousin here.”

  “She and Pen have more in common.” Rissa’s older sister Penelope was a hotshot lawyer back east. “But Pen only does kamikaze visits every few years, and Jackson might as well be dead, so too bad for City Girl.” Jackson and Pen were twins, both six years older.

  They both went silent at the mention of Jackson’s name. Her big brother had left town without finishing his senior year of high school, seventeen years ago.

  “He had no choice, I know that in my head,” Ian said softly. “Everyone hated him after the wreck that killed Beth Butler, and your dad banished him. He had to go, but—damn. He was my best friend. I felt like I’d lost a limb.”

  An answering pain stabbed into the heart of her, even after all this time. She’d needed her big brother desperately all these years she’d been dealing with her perpetually angry father alone. “Doesn’t matter.” She wouldn’t let it.

  The colt picked up on her tension and started dancing.

  “I can’t talk about this, Ian. This guy is just now starting to really relax with me.” Desperate to get away from the subject, she took the colt and started walking him back to the barn.

  Ian raised horses, too, so he understood. He opened the gate for them, then followed her out, pausing to scratch the head of Captain, her half-blind pit bull rescue. “How about I tell you some good news instead?”

  “What? That Scarlett invented some new pie?”

  “She is the best cook I ever met, and that’s saying something, given that Ruby’s her grandma. But no, it has nothing to do with Scarlett.”

  His tone had her looking over her shoulder at him.

  “Mackey’s hurt. And he’s coming home.”

  “He’s hurt? How bad?”

  “Broke his leg on a stunt that went bad, but it’s pretty much healed. They won’t clear him to return to work yet, though, because he had a concussion. The insurance doctors won’t approve him taking that kind of risk yet.”

  “Mackey’s never been back, not since high school. Why’s he coming here?”

  “Because this is home.”

  “He wasn’t born here like the rest of us. He could live anywhere.” Maisie, her barn cat mama, twined at her ankles, and she bent to rub beneath the cat’s chin the way she loved.

  Mackey had only lived in Sweetgrass for a few years. How come it couldn’t be Jackson who felt the pull?

  “It’s only a visit. He’s got a hot career out there in Lalaland. But he needs his friends.”

  “We were never friends.” She’d had the most horrifying crush on him, but she’d only been twelve when all of them had left. Mackey had been a god, so far out of her reach.

  She was twenty-nine, not a kid anymore—but he’d seen so much of the world. He hung out with stars now after leaving the SEALs, Hollywood’s hottest stuntman these days. “Is his head okay?”

  “He won’t talk about it.” Ian hesitated. “I was wondering…he could stay with us, but with Dad living at the ranch and Scarlett staying over, plus I hope there will be wedding plans soon…”

  “You still haven’t asked her to marry you? What’s up with that, Romeo?”

  “Of course I have. We’re together already. It’s only the wedding that…” Ian pulled off his hat and scratched his head. “She’s had a lot of changes thrown at her in a short amount of time, and she’s putting everything into making Ruby’s courthouse work.”

  “You could make it quick and clean. Just take a weekend trip to Vegas.”

  “No. She suggested that, but…” He shrugged. “That’s not the wedding she deserves. So I’m waiting. Being patient.”

  “You are too patient, Ian—you always have been. If Jackson and Mackey had been more like you, the Four Horsemen wouldn’t have gotten into half the trouble.”

  “Wouldn’t have had near the fun, either.” His one dimple popped as he grinned.

  They had been legends, Jackson, Ian, David Butler and Randall Mackey. The first three had grown up together and gotten in their share of scrapes, but it hadn’t been until Mackey, with all his travels with his oil company dad under his belt, had arrived that the four of them had become the crew everyone in Sweetgrass called The Four Horsemen, as in Apocalypse. It wasn’t until high school sports had started occupying their attention that they’d turned to more positive pursuits, and there they’d excelled at every sport.

  But when it came to causing trouble or getting into mischief…Mackey had always been the driving force. That wild Mackey boy, everyone called him.

  Then the reason for Ian’s visit clicked. “Tell me you’re not asking for him to stay here.”

  “I thought maybe you could put him to work.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “You think he’d take orders from me? Anyway, you know what happens when Mackey has too much idle time.”

  She had to laugh. “I do, indeed—and I suspect that because I was young, I didn’t hear the half of it.”

  “Nobody knew everything we got into.” Ian’s tone was wistful.

  Ian had done a lot to try to help Rissa reason with her dad, and heaven knows how often he’d pitched in around her ranch, though he had plenty of work on his own. If he needed her to give Mackey a roof over his head, it was the least she could do.

  “How can I say no to you?” She softened her complaint with a smile.

  “Like I tell Scarlett, things work out better if you don’t.”

  She snorted. “I can only imagine how well she listens.” The expression on his face made her shake her head. “You are so goofy in love you are sickening.”

  He reached over and ruffled her hair as he always had. “You should try it sometime.”

  “Yeah, right. Not f
or me, my friend.” Not that she wouldn’t sometimes give her eyeteeth for someone to turn to in the night. Someone to share her day with.

  But no one in her life stayed, except her bad-tempered father. She was better off with her horses. They might come and go, but they never let her down.

  “All right. I’ll put Mackey up. For you,” she clarified. “And against my better judgment.”

  Ian wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Thanks, Rissa. You’re the best.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She closed the gate behind them and followed him to his truck.

  His Australian shepherd Blue stuck his head out of the window, looking hopeful.

  “There’s the fella I wanted to see,” she said, scratching behind his ears and sending him into a doggy swoon.

  When she stopped, Blue whimpered and butted her hands with his head, begging for more. She grinned and complied, making kissy noises just to see him go a little crazier.

  “I swear my dog loves you more than me,” Ian grumbled. “Is there an animal on the planet who doesn’t?”

  Only the people variety, she thought. “What can I say? I’m human catnip.”

  “What you are is awesome.”

  She smiled and waved as he put the truck in gear and drove off. No, that would be you, my friend. If she ever met a man half as good as Ian—one who didn’t feel like her brother, that is—she’d count herself lucky.

  Here in Sweetgrass, though?

  Yeah, right.

  She straightened her shoulders and went back to work.

  Mackey had driven in from California in a two-day endurance contest instead of flying, and his headache was the size of North America.

  Weren’t the headaches supposed to stop? A side effect of the concussion, yeah, but was this going to continue for-freaking-ever?

  The bright Texas sun didn’t help, especially not driving across the vastness of far west Texas, where cacti outnumbered the people by, oh, a billion to one?

  He’d missed it, though, this big sky, this larger-than-life state. He’d been back a few times, doing stunt work on some of the many films made in the Lone Star State.