The Cautious Cowboy: A Single Dad Romance (Cupid Ridge Cowboys Book 2), page 1
THE CAUTIOUS COWBOY
MACIE ST. JAMES
A Cupid Ridge Dude Ranch Novella
Version 1.0419
Copyright © 2023 Stephanie Faris
All rights reserved.
No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.
This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.
Cover Design by Sarah Kil | Sarah Kil Creative Studio | sarahkilcreativestudio.com
Copyediting by Brandi Zelenka | My Notes in the Margin Book Services | mynotesinthemargins.com
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Epilogue
1
A lot was riding on this story time.
Zoey Trotter took a deep breath and looked around the children’s area of the Cupid Ridge Public Library. Her whole life, she’d dreamed of being a teacher, but her family didn’t have the resources to send her to college. With teacher salaries in this town being so low, it didn’t make sense to take out a bunch of student loans to pay for it. It just wasn’t doable.
So here she was, in her second month as a children’s librarian in her hometown. She’d worked in four different daycares, but the closest one was at least ten minutes away. Her old clunker of a sedan didn’t like the drive back and forth, and besides, she’d felt disconnected from her hometown.
It was good to be back.
“Excuse me.”
The voice from behind her had Zoey nearly jumping out of her skin. That was what she got for turning her back to the door.
She turned and immediately rested a hand on the bookcase next to her to steady herself. The man in the doorway was nothing short of gorgeous. The type of gorgeous that a small-town resident didn’t see every day.
Unless, of course, that small town was Cupid Ridge. In Cupid Ridge, there were exactly seven cowboys. All beyond handsome, and all living right there in town.
“May I help you?” Zoey asked, tilting her head slightly.
He looked familiar. He was definitely one of the cowboy-hunks in town, but she couldn’t quite place which one. The brothers of each family looked kind of similar, though, so she couldn’t be blamed for her confusion.
Was this a Knott brother or a Ludington brother? He was one or the other. She’d better keep her mouth shut until she knew exactly which.
“Is this where the story time is happening?”
Again, she assessed the tall, dark-haired guy. He wore a baseball cap and jeans with a T-shirt bearing the name of a popular Florida beach across the chest. Somehow, that didn’t fit the image she had of Cupid Ridge’s cowboy crowd. He wasn’t even wearing cowboy boots, instead showing off what looked like a fairly new pair of sneakers.
Suddenly, she realized she was staring at the guy. Shaking her head to pull herself together, she said, “Yes, this is the place.”
Was he a dad? He’d have to be. Were any of the cowboy brothers married? Her high school classmates Mallorie and Everest were dating two of them, but those relationships were new. There was only one cowboy she knew who had a child, and that was—
“I’m Elijah,” the hunky cowboy said.
He walked toward her, reaching a hand out. Oh, he wanted a handshake. Very professional. That was something she, as a librarian, should embrace, especially if she was going to be hosting events like this.
She smiled and stepped toward him, arm outstretched. “Zoey Trotter.”
She slid her hand into his, and their eyes met. It was in that moment that something happened. A little bit of magic.
After shaking his hand for several seconds, she quickly pulled her gaze away and stepped back. He was married. She remembered the woman she’d seen Elijah Knott with. It had been a while, but it couldn’t have been that long ago. They’d been pushing a baby around in a stroller just a year or two ago, right?
“Isabella is my daughter,” he said. “She’s in here a few times a week.”
Isabella Knott. She ran the name around in her brain for a few seconds. There was an Isabella who came in here from time to time. Adorable little girl and super smart. But she was too old to be this guy’s daughter. She was in third or fourth grade, which meant she couldn’t have been in a baby stroller within the past couple of years.
“She’s in this reading club,” Elijah said.
He glanced back at the door. Had he left his daughter out in the hallway? Out in the main room? Was she bothering Nan, the head librarian?
That wouldn’t go over well. In fact, Zoey would probably be blamed for that, like she was blamed for everything Nan didn’t like around here.
The words Elijah had spoken sunk through to Zoey then. “A reading club? Here at the library?”
The library didn’t have a reading club that she knew of. It sounded like a good idea, though. Maybe she could talk to Nan about starting a reading club. Was that like a book club, but for kids?
That was one thing Zoey needed more than anything. Ideas. Nan was constantly bugging her to come up with ways to get the community excited about the library, even if Nan herself seemed to always look the opposite of excited.
In fact, the very reason she was having story time was to justify her modest paycheck. For Nan, it was all about keeping the library’s funding the same from one year to the next. And if Zoey could help with that, it might give her the job security she needed right now.
“Not a reading club here.” Elijah took a deep breath and let it out. Then he turned back toward the door. “It’s just… There are a lot of them. I’m not sure…”
Maybe it was his words. Or it could have been the fact that he’d turned toward the door. But suddenly, Zoey was aware of the noise beyond this very room—a noise that seemed to be increasing.
“Young ladies!”
Nan’s voice filled the building, bouncing off the walls as it always did. Maintaining a quiet environment was very important to her, but she wouldn’t hesitate to get loud when things weren’t going her way.
“This is not the way to behave in a library,” Nan continued. “Where are your parents?”
Elijah had a look of defeat on his face as he turned back to Zoey. Then he said one word that went straight to her heart.
“Sorry.”
With that, he turned and walked through the door, disappearing into the main room. Within a few seconds, the space he’d abandoned was filled with elementary school-aged girls. Third and fourth graders, just like—
Isabella! Yes, she remembered an Isabella who had been hanging out here. That couldn’t be his daughter, though. She’d be too old.
But then, he said his daughter was in a reading club. That meant she was no doubt older than stroller age. And Zoey didn’t think toddlers or kindergarteners had reading clubs. Was his daughter older? Was it a different daughter now?
No, the likelihood was it really had been that long since she’d last seen Elijah and his wife pushing a baby around in a stroller. Which meant it’d been before she’d moved away to join two of her high school friends in an apartment in Virginia City.
Had she really been that out of touch with what was going on in her own community?
She didn’t have long to dwell on all that, though. Girls were everywhere. They filled the tiny children’s area of the library, rushing up to bookshelves and pulling books off like they’d just been set free in an amusement park. She couldn’t blame them. She’d felt that way about books as a kid, too. Still did.
“If everyone could just take a seat on the big red rug,” Zoey said. “There will be plenty of time to pick out books after the reading is over.”
Nobody was listening to her. She counted a dozen girls before another four drifted in. One was Isabella.
Isabella. She liked that name. She could imagine naming her own daughter that someday.
“Hi, Miss Zoey,” Isabella said, waving at her. “These are my friends.”
There was no way Zoey couldn’t smile at that. Just a few of her closest friends, huh?
She had to say, though, she thought it was the coolest thing ever that these girls had a reading club. She would have loved something like tha t at their age. She’d love something like that now, actually. Maybe since her friends were settling down, and she was spending more time in Cupid Ridge, she could form a book club right here at this very library.
An idea came to Zoey as she watched Isabella follow two girls over to the others. They were gathered in front of the fantasy and adventure books.
“Isabella?” Zoey called out. “Could I speak with you a moment?”
Isabella nodded and walked over, a big smile on her face. An ally. That’s what Zoey needed. If nobody would listen to her, they’d definitely listen to their friend.
“Could you gather everyone onto the red carpet?” Zoey asked.
Isabella chewed her lip thoughtfully and glanced over at the group of girls. It seemed she wanted to say something, but she was hesitant.
“What is it?” Zoey prompted.
“It’s just…we’re kind of old for that book.”
Isabella pointed to the picture book on the easel behind Zoey. Yeah, she had a good point. Nan handed her this book that morning when she arrived, claiming it was the perfect book for story time. At that point, Zoey had assumed they’d be welcoming the same moms of preschool age kids who showed up during the week.
But this was a Saturday, and Saturdays attracted older kids, particularly when they all came together like this crowd. The library wasn’t all that busy any time, but there were always girls like Isabella who were regulars.
“We want to read this one.”
At those words, Zoey turned back around from facing the picture book on the easel. Isabella was standing even closer, a big smile on her face. She was holding a much narrower book than the one on the easel. On the cover was a girl and a dragon, and the girl’s hand was on the handle of a sword, which was holstered on her left hip.
Zoey flipped back around again to look at the book on the easel—the one with the big puppy dog and little girl on the cover. Yeah, quite a contrast.
“You’re holding a middle grade book,” Zoey said as she turned back around. “That type of book isn’t really good for story time. Maybe we could find something in between. A chapter book would probably work better.”
But Isabella was shaking her head. Another girl stepped up next to her, arms crossed over her chest as if in solidarity.
“We want to read that one,” the girl said.
A second girl stepped up on the other side of Isabella. “We’re the only ones here,” she said. “There’s no point in reading a book for little kids when we’re much older.”
They made a good point. Zoey reached out and took the book. The crowd of girls was now gathered in a clump in front of her. Half of them were standing on the very red rug she’d asked them to sit on earlier.
She was getting closer to succeeding at crowd control. And then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the baseball cap-wearing cowboy.
He was leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest. There was a slight smile on his face. Was he enjoying this? Did it appear that she didn’t know what she was doing?
“Okay.” Zoey nodded and stepped back, closer to the easel. She had planned to sit on a chair, but that was when she assumed the group would be much younger. It seemed more natural to stand with older kids. “If everyone will have a seat, we’ll get started.”
The hardest part about all of this would be to shut out the guy in the doorway. The one with the intense gray eyes and smile that tugged at her heart.
Yeah, it would be tough to concentrate with him in her peripheral vision. But she had to make it work somehow.
2
Her name was Zoey. That was what she’d said. Elijah Knott had no memory of a woman named Zoey, and in a small town like Cupid Ridge, that was saying something.
She would be a few years younger than him, he was estimating, so maybe his youngest sister’s age. He’d have to ask Everest about her when he got a chance. In fact, he’d love to step out and make a quick call to get the scoop on this mesmerizing redhead. If he hadn’t sworn off dating until his daughter was much older, he’d do exactly that.
“Sadie looked around, desperate for a way out,” Zoey read. “She was truly trapped.”
Zoey stood at the front of the room, one leg crossed over the other. She had on a calf-length skirt that was light and flowy. The pink t-shirt she wore with it matched the pink in the pattern on the skirt.
It was the perfect look for spring. She was the perfect look for spring, with her cheery disposition. Everything about her was just…refreshing.
He felt the air shift behind him, and suddenly, he was aware of someone standing back there. He glanced off to his left, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw it was the woman from the circulation desk. If Zoey was sunshine and flowers, this woman was storm clouds and rain. There was just something unsettling about her. She seemed to have a permanent scowl.
He pushed away from the doorjamb and moved into the room, stepping over to the side to give her plenty of space to be nosy. It was easy to shut out the sour look on her face. All he had to do was focus on Zoey. He was deeply invested in the story she was telling. That much was clear. She was animated and energetic, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
More importantly, the girls were enjoying every second of it. He couldn’t see their faces, but the fidgeting he usually saw when his daughter tried to sit still for more than five minutes was gone. They all sat, stock-still, seeming to hang on her every word.
“The vine!” Zoey said, looking out across the group as she read.
She only glanced down at the page every now and then and somehow managed to grab a sentence or two and remember it long enough to stare straight out at the audience. She could do this professionally.
Oh, right. She was doing this professionally.
“It was her only hope.” Zoey reached up, her right hand grasping for a vine, as though she were the one grabbing for a lifeline. “She wrapped her fingers around it, closed her eyes, and jumped, flying through the air and hoping her feet would land on solid ground on the other side.”
With that, Zoey snapped the book shut, smiling and holding it to her chest as she smiled at the girls. They could’ve heard a pin drop, it was so quiet as everyone waited for what would happen next.
“I might have to read the rest of that myself,” Zoey said with a smile.
“Another chapter!” one of the girls called out.
This was where Elijah had to jump in. He wasn’t sure how long story time normally lasted, but these girls would push her to read the whole book if he didn’t intervene.
“We actually have to be going,” Elijah told the girls. Groans all around. He knew he’d have to handle that, too. “Okay, if you don’t want to have lunch at the diner, I suppose you can stay here and read.”
Girls started jumping up, pushing themselves to their feet. He had to smile at how predictable they were.
“Did you want to pick out a book first?” Zoey asked.
Before the question was even out, the girls were flooding to the same bookshelf. Elijah took a glance at the sign above the area where they were now crowded.
It was the fantasy section. He shouldn’t have been surprised. They had been on a horror kick. A while back, he’d been a little concerned, especially when Zoey got creeped out and had to sleep with her lamp on for several nights. He was relieved when they shifted to fantasy, if only because she’d be able to sleep in a dark room again.
“May I speak with you a moment, Miss Trotter?” the woman with the scowl asked.
He’d almost forgotten about the sourpuss, shutting her out altogether. The look on Zoey’s face as she handed the book to one of the girls and walked toward them said it all. In fact, when she glanced over at him, he saw it wasn’t just her stiffened posture and slow gait. There was actual fear in her eyes.
