Free Accidental Cowgirl by Maggie McGinnis Page B

I never save him. Never. What does that say about me?”
    Jess picked up a twig and started breaking it into little pieces, tossing them into the water one by one. “It says that you’re killing yourself with guilt, that’s what. Kyla, you have to stop blaming yourself. You had no way of knowing what Wes was up to. He was a master manipulator. This was the work of someone who bilked a whole herd of people out of millions of dollars. As much as it hurts to admit, you were just one of many who fell for it. He had serious skills. You have got to stop blaming yourself.”
    Jess squeezed her shoulder. “You can’t turn back time, honey. Your grandparents saw you lose everything, too. They fell for Wes’s spiel just as hard as you did. Would they have met him without you introducing them? Probably not. You’re right. But could they have met someone just like him and had the same thing happen? You never know.”
    “No, they never would have invested that kind of money with a stranger. No way. Theydid it because I trusted Wes, and they trusted me.” Kyla shook her head. “This is why I have nightmares.”

Chapter 8
    Decker finished his teleconference with the California office, then sat back in his dad’s big black office chair. It was a good thing he had a partner and a sharpshooter intern out in L.A., or he’d never have been able to come out to Montana for the summer. So far they were holding down the fort just fine, as long as he was only a phone call away. Couldn’t last forever, though.
    He swiveled his chair around to look out the huge bay window behind him. This side of the house faced the barn and paddocks, and the guest cabins beyond. The ranch’s land stretched farther than he could possibly see, and the view from any room in the house could be on a drugstore postcard.
    Lodge , he corrected himself. Now that they were a ranch with paying guests, the house had to be called a lodge.
    He stood up and strolled toward the window, hands in his pockets. He looked out at the stables, at the fresh boards he and Cole had nailed up earlier in the spring. The paddock fences had all gotten a new coat of whitewash, and for the first time in anyone’s memory, the water pump in the stable had gone a full month without breaking. Maybe because they’d actually fixed it with the right parts for the first time in twenty years.
    He shook his head. Decker Senior had been famous for his “solutions.” He’d thought nothing of blowing a few thousand dollars in Vegas every month, but spend a dollar forty-nine for a float valve? No way. They could use a toy silo and a piece of rope. That’d work just fine.
    As he stared out the window, he was hit with a longing that was almost painful. This had been his home. He’d loved every acre. Loved every beast that had kept him busy from dawn to dusk. Had planned to live here, marry here, raise kids here. Die here. But everything had changed the day Emily had died.
    She had been his father’s favorite, hands down. No matter what trouble she got into, Decker Senior would find a way to make light of it. While Decker and Cole were forbidden from entering their father’s office, Emily had spent hours curled up on the big leather chair in the corner, keeping her dad company. While Decker and Cole had been put to work practically once they could walk, Emily had done only the chores she cared to do, when she cared to do them.Most of the time, Decker and Cole had ended up finishing them for her.
    Despite that, Emily had a magnetic light that had drawn them all to her. More than simply the gift of being the little girl in a family of men, she’d had a way of collecting people around her and surrounding them with giggly warmth. When Decker and Cole should have been pissed to have to handle her chores as well as their own, they pretty much just finished them for her while she played in the hayloft, tossing pebbles down onto their heads.
    Unfortunately for all of them, the one thing Emily had