Home for a Cowboy (Windsor, Wyoming Book 1) Read online

  STICK SIDE SERIES

  On the Ice

  The Nature of the Game

  Shots on Goal

  WINDSOR, WYOMING SERIES

  Home for a Cowboy

  LIGHTHOUSE BAY SERIES

  Christmas Lane

  LAKESHORE SERIES

  The Heights

  Other books:

  Elias

  Ballerina Dad

  As Big as the Sky

  The Play of His Life

  Home for a Cowboy

  Copyright © 2020 Amy Aislin

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Beta read by Jill Wexler at LesCourt Author Services

  Edited by Brenda Chin

  Copy editing by Boho Edits

  Proofread by Between the Lines Editing

  Cover art by Designs by Morningstar

  Interior design and formatting by Champagne Book Design

  Title Page

  Titles by Amy Aislin

  Copyright

  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

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Other Books

  WINDSOR, WYOMING, WAS AS FAR from Philly as a person could get. And from Vermont too, which was where Marco Terlizzese had graduated from college just last month. Philly was history and modernization rolled into one big-city package, but also home and family, including a set of parents who didn’t understand why he wanted to work on a ranch so far from home all summer. Vermont was bubbling brooks and fall colors and covered bridges and the Green Mountains. Wyoming had mountains too, but where Vermont had mountains, Wyoming had fucking mountains.

  The Rockies were… They were just… They were… Wow.

  The fifteen-year-old silver Kia his grandfather had sold him four years ago chugged its way higher and higher, past small towns and medium-sized towns and lakes so still they were like silver-topped glass, through miles of scrubby bush, more miles of forested highway, and mountain peaks capped in white—even in June. More than once, Marco was tempted to pull over and explore, but he had somewhere to be. Someone counting on him.

  Eventually, the map Las had hand-drawn and emailed him—along with a word of caution that satellite service sucked in the mountains and that his GPS might fail him—took him to the small town of Windsor, which was not very small at all. It was no Philly. Hell, it was no Casper, Wyoming, which Marco had stopped in about four hours ago for lunch. But it sure wasn’t the small everyone-knows-everyone town he’d been picturing in his head.

  He rolled through what appeared to be downtown Windsor. It was quaint, almost exactly what he’d expected, which . . . points for him. Tucked between feed stores and supply outlets and tool merchants were a cozy mom-and-pop grocer, a couple of pubs, bakeries, restaurants, a post office, a bridal store, a general store, and a real estate office. It was thriving too, the sidewalks teeming with life, pickup trucks parked diagonally against the curb as men and women emerged from stores carrying heavy bags of what Marco could only assume was animal food of some kind.

  It wasn’t a small town, but it appeared just small enough to bump into someone you knew while out buying eggs and milk at the store—as evidenced by the woman in a tan cowboy hat who stepped into the middle of the street to chat with the driver of the pickup in front of him.

  “Seriously?”

  He hit the brakes, coming to a full stop right there in the middle of downtown Windsor, a line of cars stretched behind him. He checked his rearview mirror. The driver behind him rolled down his window and waved at someone across the street.

  Okay then. Waiting it was. He didn’t think honking would go over well.

  He was fiddling with his phone a few minutes later, trying to find a non-existent satellite signal to get his GPS working, when Miss Tan Hat tipped her hat at her friend. Then she turned to Marco, looked right at him, and tipped her hat at him too.

  Frowning through his sunglasses, he waved back.

  Maybe she’d seen the out-of-state plates and was welcoming the newcomer? Or maybe she’d simply noticed his tiny not-at-all-suited-for-ranch-life vehicle and marked him as an out-of-towner.

  Finally, he exited downtown Windsor on the other side . . . and was greeted with cloudless blue skies; rolling hills edged in knee-high yellow grass and heaped with lush, leafy trees; and in the distance, sharply peaked mountaintops. He was in the middle of a painting, had to be. He lowered the window, inhaling. Fresh pine with a faint undertone of cow. His hands loosened on the steering wheel and he sucked in a deep breath, expanding his ribcage. It was like his heart or his soul or his doubt-filled head knew this was where he was meant to be.

  For the next three months, at least, while he figured out what he wanted from life. His communications degree could get him in a lot of places, especially in a junior role—if he had any interest in doing anything with it, that was. That was what happened when a major was chosen at random after a college recruited you for its hockey team.

  Windsor, it turned out, was vast. Much more vast than the little research he’d done into the town had revealed. Tucked into a valley between two mountain ranges in western Wyoming, the town itself—which Marco had just driven through—appeared to be the economic and social center. To get to his destination, to his new summer job, his not-to-scale map took him another twenty minutes outside of town.

  To the Windsor Ranch, which Marco had done extensive research on, wanting to know what kind of place he was going to work for. It had the honor of being the oldest ranch in the state continuously under Windsor family ownership. Currently, it was owned by Whitney Windsor-March and Derek March. Their son, Lassiter, was the guy Marco was nursing a four-year crush on.

  If he was honest with himself, Las was seventy-five percent of the reason Marco was here. An invitation to work at the Windsor Ranch wasn’t what he’d expected when he’d asked Las out on a date a couple of months ago on a cold April night. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected exactly, so Las’s rejection hadn’t come as a surprise so much as taken the wind out of Marco’s sails. But a firm no thank-you followed by a job offer? It was out of left field but so what? After all of thirty seconds of weighing the pros and cons—the cons consisting mostly of having no idea what he’d do on a ranch, the pros consisting entirely of Las . . . okay, almost entirely. Th
e rest was made up of nonexistent plans for after graduation—he’d agreed.

  Maybe it’d turn out to be the stupidest decision he’d ever made given he’d never been on a ranch. Or near horses. Or cows. Or any large mammal, really.

  But spending the summer with Las? Getting to know him better than their quick encounters at the small, outdoor coffee shop—the Coffee Cart—that Marco had worked at on campus had permitted? Maybe becoming something more than friends?

  Sign him up.

  Didn’t hurt that this gig paid well and included room and board.

  He had a feeling he’d entered Windsor Ranch land when he started seeing the cows he could smell. Huge fields—pastures?—with men and women on horseback. Then the cows were behind him and ahead of him to his left, up on a hill, was his first glimpse of Windsor Ranch House: a wide, wooden building with arched glass front doors, peaked windows, and a wraparound porch. Making a left, he passed under the ranch’s gate. Square and made of wood, two old-fashioned sconces decorated each of the two vertical posts, and an iron sign hanging from the top proclaimed this to be Windsor Ranch, est. 1879.

  Marco had a huge Italian family, but he didn’t know his family history past his grandparents. Had no idea who his great-grandparents had been or how they’d lived. Hell, he didn’t know which past relative had first emigrated to the United States. It wasn’t something that was talked about in his family. And here Las was, with so much history he could probably write a book on it.

  They came from two different worlds. City boy and country royalty.

  The driveway wound through meadows and fields and a small pond. A cowboy on horseback tipped his hat at him. Marco lifted a hand in a casual wave, then rested it on the windowsill. The air was cool; he suspected it was typical for mid-June in this part of the country.

  The guest house came into view again as he crested the final hill, the driveway opening up into a large circular parking lot with spots along the sides. Marco backed into one on the right, turned off the car, and stepped out.

  It was quiet. Glen Hill, Vermont, where he’d attended college, had been quiet too, but not like this. There was always noise on campus, even at night. Music from someone’s dorm room, students chatting as they had a smoke outside, banging pots from the dorm kitchen, cars driving into the adjacent student parking lot, heavy footsteps trodding down the hallway.

  He didn’t think he’d ever heard silence like the silence of Windsor, Wyoming. Gentle wind leafing through trees. The distant sound of a mooing cow. Some kind of insect loudly buzzing. Far below was the road that had brought him here, and beyond that, on the other side, yet more cows dotting the rolling landscape.

  “What are you smiling at?”

  He whipped around . . . and there was Las, all six feet of him, outfitted in blue jeans, black cowboy boots, and a blue-checked shirt rolled to the elbows. A green jewel glinted on his belt.

  Marco sucked in a breath and patted his hair down. No doubt it was now a shoulder-length mess, frizzed and teased by the wind. He took Las in, head to toe, including the chocolate-colored cowboy hat that covered hair that was nearly black. Marco had once accused him of not looking like a cowboy; on campus, Las had been smoothly casual, not a hint of his roots in sight. But here? In this environment, with the boots and the hat and the shirt? Marco didn’t know how he’d ever mistaken him for anything else.

  “When you asked me to come work here for the summer,” Marco said, hands on his hips, “you didn’t tell me you were Wyoming royalty.”

  Las cocked his head. “Huh?”

  “Lassiter Windsor-March of the Windsor Ranch in Windsor, Wyoming.”

  “Oh.” Las stepped off the front stoop and headed for him, gracefully confident. “My family has a long history in this area.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Stopping a foot away, it was Las’s turn to take Marco in. Marco knew how he looked after a three-day drive across the country: his loosest, most comfortable old jeans; a long-sleeved T-shirt; running shoes; and hair that needed a comb. Not his best first impression, though infinitely better than the ratty sweatpants he’d been wearing when he’d asked Las out in April.

  Las’s smile was as quiet as the ranch. He stuck his hands in his back pockets like he didn’t know what to do with them. “It’s good to see you, Marco.”

  Marco couldn’t help the bubble of warmth that spread through him at Las’s words, uttered with such soft sincerity. “You too.” Las’s eyes, as dark as his hair, pierced him with fierce intensity, and he fidgeted. “Am I okay parked here?”

  When Las had rejected his invitation to take him out, he’d cited something about them graduating soon and going separate ways. Marco could’ve talked his way through that one, but Las’s tacked on I don’t really date had stumped him. Despite the rejection, Marco’s crush hadn’t abated one bit, and seeing Las for the first time since the end of the semester filled his belly with swooping butterflies.

  “For now,” Las said. “While we get you settled with HR. Then we’ll drive to the staff cabins—there’s a separate parking lot for staff there—and I’ll give you a tour, introduce you to people you need to know.”

  “You? You’re my tour guide?” He’d expected someone in HR or maybe whoever he’d be reporting to.

  Las shrugged. “I volunteered.”

  Jesus. Marco’s heart was going to bounce out of his chest if Las kept saying nice things.

  Lassiter Windsor-March did not consider himself Wyoming royalty. Sure, his maternal great-great-grandfather had founded the town and established the ranch. And yes, the ranch was the biggest economic provider in Windsor—it employed locals, donated money and goods to the town, and contributed to the tourism industry. But this was ranching in Wyoming—it was often harsh, always competitive, ever-evolving, and sometimes, unrewarding as fuck.

  Not right now, though. Right now, he had Marco at his side as Las led him through the guest lodge to the Human Resources office at the back of a side hallway. And man, he looked good. Windswept was Las’s new favorite look on him. Not that he’d seen many others.

  There was Coffee Cart Marco, with his hair tied at the nape of his neck, loose strands falling about his face as he served coffee and tea and the odd croissant. Then there was College Student Marco, which Las had rarely seen despite them attending a small school—they hardly ever bumped into each other on campus. College Student Marco left his brown, shoulder-length hair untied to frame his handsome face. Finally, there was Pizza Night Marco. Pizza Night Marco had been at Mama Jean’s—Glen Hill’s only pizza joint—with his friends the night in April that Las had been stood up. Pizza Night Marco had looked immensely comfortable in sweatpants and a hoodie branded with their college hockey team’s logo, and Las had been so envious of the casual attire when he himself had been dressed to impress. When he’d spotted Marco entering the restaurant with his friends, Las had given his no-show a bare additional three minutes to make an appearance—after the thirty Las had already waited. If there was anywhere Las didn’t want to be, it was on a date, and a blind one at that. It was the first and last time he let a friend set him up.

  Pizza Night Marco wore his hair loose like College Student Marco, but Pizza Night Marco’s had a kink in it, like it’d been tied back at some point, and was tangled and wavy instead of glossy and straight.

  Sexily rumpled Pizza Night Marco had walked Las home and asked him out on a date. Las should’ve said no and left it at that; instead he’d turned Marco down and then spontaneously invited the guy he couldn’t stop looking at while he lined up at the Coffee Cart every Thursday—the day of Marco’s weekly shift—to work on his family’s ranch as seasonal staff for the entire summer.

  Three months of big, burly Marco, with his quiet smiles and his kind eyes and his wonderful hair and his gold skin that would only get more golden in the high Wyoming sun while Las tried not to act on the impulse to jump his bones. Las didn’t date and he certainly wasn’t into casual sex—he wasn’t interested in a t
emporary fling; he wanted something lasting. A commitment.

  And that meant Marco was off-limits.

  Did Marco still want to date him?

  No, no. Thing one to add to his list of Things Not to Think About While Marco Is Here. Marco was temporary. Here and gone once his three-month seasonal contract was up.

  Las had dealt with enough temporary to last a lifetime. Marco wouldn’t be one of them. Friends? Yes. Anything else? Not unless Marco stayed.

  Nobody ever stayed.

  Not the seasonal workers Las used to befriend as a kid, before he knew better. Not his high school friends, most of whom had left the state for college and hadn’t come back. Not Ben, his childhood best friend turned high school sweetheart that Las had followed to college in Vermont, who’d broken up with him via phone when Ben had decided to stay permanently in England where he was spending the first semester of their junior year on a student exchange program.

  They’d had plans for the future, all of which had involved returning home after graduation, finding a little apartment together in town until they had enough saved up for their own house, and working on the ranch together until Las’s parents decided to retire, upon which time Las and Ben would take over—Las taking on his mom’s managerial role on the business side and Ben replacing Las’s dad as head of marketing for both the guest and business sides—and none of which involved a semester abroad and never coming back.

  After almost two years, the hurt of that phone call was more of an echo rather than the piercing stab that had knifed his chest when Ben had told him he was staying overseas. Still, as much time as he’d had to get over the loss of his boyfriend—and he had—there were moments when he missed his best friend.

  Marco’s head was on a swivel, taking in everything at once. “This place is…”

  Las tensed, awaiting the verdict, and tried looking at his family ranch from the perspective of a city transplant. Exposed beams, cozy furniture on a maroon rug set next to a stone fireplace, black-and-white images on the walls depicting the history of the ranch, bright lighting, a check-in desk tucked into a recessed alcove. It wasn’t the glass and chrome five-star hotels of major cities, but neither was it the total rustic experience some expected of a ranch in the heart of cowboy country.