Free Cowboy of Her Heart by Honor James

COWBOY OF HER HEART
     
    Cowboy for the
Holidays, 1
     
    Honor James
     
    Copyright © 2014
     
     
    Chapter
One
     
    February fourteenth. Valentine’s
Day.   A day everyone in the world
celebrated with candy hearts with idiotic sayings, chocolates that were too
sickly sweet, and roses of every color in the rainbow.   No one was original anymore. No one put any
damn thought into the day, the celebration of loving someone, or showing those
people just how much they were appreciated.
    No, too many just saw it as an opportunity to
smooth talk, wine and dine, and basically earn Brownie points for the
year.   Disgusting and exactly what was
wrong with society today.
    Shaking his head at the crap that Herman,
local handyman and owner of the best damned hardware store in the county, was
putting in his front window.   Paper hearts in white, pink, and red.   Paper roses and a sticker
of a box of chocolates that claimed 4 All
Time XOXO.   Gag.
    The holiday, like too many of them, had become
commercialized.   The big corporations saw
it as yet another opportunity to part idiots from their money and sell them an
ideal that was pure crap.   The worst part
was that people fell for the slick advertisements and promos of stuff to
purchase to show her you care .
    If he were ever suckered into a long-term
relationship with a woman, there was no fucking way he’d be sucked into that
Bermuda Triangle of lies and deceptions.   Birthdays and Christmas were really the only reason to give presents and
go above and beyond for the one you cared about.   Any other holiday, as promoted by corporate
America, was bogus and useless.
    Not saying he wouldn’t show this woman,
fictional though she currently was, how he felt.   But he’d do it every day of their life
together.   She would know he appreciated
her and cared for her every single day.   The idea that one day out of all others was more important because of some
dead Saint that got his own holiday was just plain idiotic.
    Not that he dared to say anything to Herman
about it.   Herman was what he and many of
the other local ranchers called a romantic.   The man was crazy in love with his wife, which was truly sweet in a
slightly gut-turning way, and did special little things for her all the
time.   But, apparently, he went way above
and beyond every Valentine’s Day.
    According to the story, the two had met on a
Valentine’s Day many, many years ago.   No
one actually asked how many because he’d just give you this glare that made you
feel you were about two seconds from becoming another spot of something on his
worn, boot-scuffed floor.   They’d argued,
hated each other on sight and then ended up running into one another over and
over again every day for a month.
    Both had thought the other was stalking
them.   But in the end, they’d gotten
stuck inside a broom closet with a swollen doorframe and, when they’d come out,
they’d been civil to one another.   They’d
begun to date, and then they fell in love, got married and had six
children.   They were now the proud
grandparents of five with two more on the way, and great-grandparents of one.
    So, to celebrate their first Valentine’s Day,
when fate had first thrown them together, they always went back to the same
place they first met: Munich, Germany, of all places.   They ate, drank and did other things he tried
not to consider.   It was a little too
close to imagining what your parents did behind closed doors or when you
weren’t home.   Gross.
    “Sorry about that, Grant, but since I’m out of
here in two days I just had to get them up.”
    Shaking his head, he offered what he hoped was
an understanding smile and shrug.   “It’s
all right. I know you and the missus have plans to head off for your annual
trip.   I’m in no rush.   I have to be in town for a meeting with my
accountant later anyway.   He’s got
something coming up in April so he wants all my tax stuff super early so he can
get it and