Chasing Trouble in Texas Read online

  They’ve got each other—and a whole lot of trouble.

  Austin Jameson’s life is complicated enough. With twin girls he adores and a ranch he’s dedicated to, the widower and cowboy is more than busy. But when his former flame arrives in his hometown, his world is thrown off balance.

  Former child star McCall Dalton wants to run away—from her image and the scandal that has engulfed her. Brokenhearted and humiliated, she’s come back home to Texas to escape.

  Austin doesn’t find peace and McCall doesn’t get refuge—instead they rediscover every delicious inch of one another. Before long, their budding romance must face a custody battle with Austin’s in-laws and yet another scandal. Determined not to let each other go a second time, they set out to prove that it’s true what they say: love really does conquer all.

  Praise for USA TODAY

  bestselling author Delores Fossen

  “Delores Fossen has another winner in this return to Coldwater, Texas!”

  —Harlequin Junkie on A Coldwater Christmas

  “This story took me for a wild Texan style emotional, entertaining, captivating, and most of all delightful ride.”

  —Books & Spoons on Sweet Summer Sunset

  “The plot delivers just the right amount of emotional punch and happily ever after.”

  —Publishers Weekly on Lone Star Christmas

  “Clear off space on your keeper shelf, Fossen has arrived.”

  —New York Times bestselling author Lori Wilde

  “A marvelous Christmas romance novel, a fantastic family saga, and a deliciously desirous addition to the beloved series!”

  —Books & Spoons on Lone Star Christmas

  “An amazing, breathtaking and vastly entertaining family saga, filled with twists and unexpected turns. Cowboy fiction at its best.”

  —Books & Spoons on The Last Rodeo

  “Romantic Suspense fans are going to love this book.”

  —Harlequin Junkie on Safety Breach

  “Delores Fossen takes you on a wild Texas ride with a hot cowboy.”

  —New York Times bestselling author B.J. Daniels

  Also available from Delores Fossen

  and HQN

  Lone Star Ridge

  Tangled Up in Texas

  That Night in Texas (ebook novella)

  Chasing Trouble in Texas

  Coldwater Texas

  Lone Star Christmas

  Lone Star Midnight (ebook novella)

  Hot Texas Sunrise

  Texas at Dusk (ebook novella)

  Sweet Summer Sunset

  A Coldwater Christmas

  Wrangler’s Creek

  Lone Star Cowboy (ebook novella)

  Those Texas Nights

  One Good Cowboy (ebook novella)

  No Getting Over a Cowboy

  Just Like a Cowboy (ebook novella)

  Branded as Trouble

  Cowboy Dreaming (ebook novella)

  Texas-Sized Trouble

  Cowboy Heartbreaker (ebook novella)

  Lone Star Blues

  Cowboy Blues (ebook novella)

  The Last Rodeo

  The McCord Brothers

  What Happens on the Ranch (ebook novella)

  Texas on My Mind

  Cowboy Trouble (ebook novella)

  Lone Star Nights

  Cowboy Underneath It All (ebook novella)

  Blame It on the Cowboy

  To see the complete list of titles available from Delores Fossen, please visit www.deloresfossen.com.

  Delores Fossen

  Chasing Trouble in Texas

  Table of Contents

  Chasing Trouble in Texas

  That Night in Texas

  Excerpt from Wild Nights in Texas by Delores Fossen

  Chasing Trouble in Texas

  Contents

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  CHAPTER ONE

  IN HINDSIGHT, Austin Jameson realized he should have taken off the pink tutu and matching tiara and ditched the disturbing-looking stuffed bunny before he answered the door. After all, he was a cowboy with a hardworking reputation that didn’t involve such things.

  Live and learn.

  He’d just been in such a hurry to make sure the knocking wouldn’t wake up his twin girls that he’d forgotten about the “costume” that the twins had talked him into wearing for their bedtime story. But Austin remembered it when he faced the visitor at his door.

  The sun had already set, but the porch light made it easy for Austin to see the tall lanky guy in a white Stetson and jeans, complete with a giant’s-eye-size rodeo buckle. The light also made it easy to see the big truck and horse trailer parked all the way at the end of his driveway. It wasn’t surprising that Austin hadn’t heard the truck what with the voices—and yes, hopping around—he’d come up with to make the otherwise dull story, The Fairy Princess’s Magic Rabbit, a hit with his girls.

  The man who’d no doubt driven that truck had his right hand lifted in midknock. He looked dumbfounded, too, and that’s when Austin got that hindsight and remembered what he was wearing.

  Austin supposed he could take off the tutu and tiara and offer some kind of explanation to dispel any rumors about him going off the deep end, but his dignity had already been shot to hell and back. Besides, this guy—this stranger—wasn’t anyone he felt the need to impress.

  However, Austin couldn’t say that about his visitor.

  Obviously, this guy had come to impress, or something, since he was holding on to the reins of a Shetland pony that was standing by the porch steps. The pony was draped with a flower garland and was wearing a straw hat and yellow cardboard sunglasses. Austin wasn’t sure what to make of that get-up. Judging from the expression on the Shetland’s face, it didn’t know what to make of it, either.

  Apparently, the pony had had its dignity shot to hell, too.

  “Uh, I must have the wrong house,” the guy said, shaking his head and backing away.

  “Yeah,” Austin agreed.

  And he wondered why the guy hadn’t checked that little detail before getting the pony out of the trailer. It wasn’t as if Austin’s ranch was on the beaten path. Heck, neither was his nearby hometown of Lone Star Ridge. People who usually made it out this far knew where they were going.

  “I was looking for Austin Jameson,” his visitor added a moment later.

  Austin gave the guy another once-over. He still didn’t recognize the pony whisperer, but since Austin raised horses, he had done business with a lot of people in the six years that he’d owned his ranch. Sometimes, folks brought him horses that needed adoption, but he didn’t think that was the case here.

  “I’m Austin Jameson,” he said. “And you are?”

  The confusion vanished from the guy’s f
ace, replaced by what Austin was certain was a flare of anger in his eyes. “You’re the guy McCall left me for?”

  Now, Austin was the one who was confused. He only knew one person named McCall, and she hadn’t left any guy for him. In fact, he hadn’t seen McCall in years. This idiot had to be talking about someone else. “McCall Dalton?”

  “That’s the one,” he snapped, jabbing a finger at Austin’s chest.

  Again, Austin regretted the tutu and tiara because it obviously gave this lunatic the impression that he couldn’t kick ass. He. Could.

  “Who the hell are you?” Austin snarled. He tossed the bunny in the foyer and stepped out on the porch so he could close the door behind him. He didn’t want his girls, Avery and Gracie, hearing any of this.

  “I’m Cody Joe Lozano.” The guy spat it out as if that was something Austin should have already known. He hadn’t known, but it did sound kind of familiar. “And you’re gonna tell me where McCall is.”

  “Lower your voice,” Austin warned him, and he tried to get a whiff of the guy’s breath. No scent of alcohol, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t drunk. Or high. “My kids are asleep.”

  “Kids?” he snarled. “You’re married?”

  “I’m a widower, not that it’s any of your business. Why would you think I’d know where McCall is?”

  “Because you were her boyfriend,” he said without hesitation.

  As explanations went, it was more than a little thin.

  “I saw you two on TV, on the reruns of Little Cowgirls,” Cody Joe added with the curl of his lips.

  Again, it was thin on the explanation. “So did thousands of people,” Austin pointed out.

  Hell, Austin hoped he wasn’t dealing with one of those “fans” of the reality show Little Cowgirls, which had indeed starred McCall and her sisters, the three of them triplets and therefore even more intriguing. It had been a while, years, but every now and then such a fan would come around. And yeah, Austin had been her boyfriend.

  Sort of.

  McCall’s very brief, occasional TV boyfriend, anyway.

  But Little Cowgirls had been canceled eighteen years ago when McCall was fifteen. She’d left Lone Star Ridge after high school graduation, and Austin could count on one hand how many times he’d seen her since then.

  The last Austin had heard, McCall was a counselor of some kind and was living in Dallas, but he wasn’t about to tell this idiot that. Austin didn’t want Cody Joe going to look for her.

  “Where’s McCall?” Cody Joe demanded, jabbing his finger at Austin again.

  “Get that finger away from my chest and get off my porch. Take your pony with you. And for Pete’s sake, get the stupid-assed hat and glasses off him. You’re humiliating him.”

  Cody Joe looked back at the Shetland, and it was as if that one glimpse drained the fight from his body. “McCall likes horses.” His breath was now a weary sigh.

  Well, she had when she’d lived in Lone Star Ridge, and it was possible that she’d wanted a pony when she was a kid. But Austin didn’t think she would appreciate this particular gift from this particular guy.

  Cody Joe swatted at a mosquito buzzing around his head and used his forearm to swipe sweat off his forehead. It might have been nearly eight-thirty, but the June temps were still in the high eighties.

  “I’ve got to find her,” Cody Joe went on, his voice more of a whine now. “I’ve got to tell her how sorry I am. I still want her to marry me.” He fished around in his jeans pocket and came up with an engagement ring, one with a diamond so big and sparkly that it could have triggered a seizure.

  Austin was torn between just kicking this moron off his porch and trying to get to the bottom of this. If Cody Joe was some kind of crazed stalker, then he needed to call the sheriff, who just happened to be his brother.

  “Are you saying you were engaged to McCall?” Austin asked.

  Cody Joe shook his head, leaned against the porch railing and groaned, the sound of a man in misery. “I was this close to getting her to say yes.” He held up a small measured space between his thumb and index finger. “But I messed things up, bad. Miss Watermelon just looked so good in that red bikini bottom and watermelon-seed pasties, and I lost my head.”

  Austin didn’t bother to get more details on that story. He got the picture.

  While Cody Joe kept up his “pit of despair” mutterings and sank down onto the porch, Austin texted his brother, Sheriff Leyton Jameson, to come out to his place and bring a breathalyzer. And some handcuffs in case Cody Joe objected to a sobriety test. He added for Leyton to keep this quiet. No way did Austin want this getting around when he had so much at stake.

  Hell. His whole life was at stake.

  Anything that hinted at trouble could come back to bite him in the ass, and Cody Joe had trouble written all over him. So did the pony.

  “Help me find McCall,” Cody Joe grumbled on. “I know she came back here to her hometown ’cause I heard Boo talking to her on the phone.”

  Again, Austin didn’t ask for clarification, not even to figure out who the heck Boo was. He’d never heard anyone including a toddler whine this much, and since he was the father of two three-year-old girls, he was more than qualified to ID an excessive whiner.

  The Shetland started eating the petunias—after it pissed on the walkway. Austin ignored that and used his phone to do a search on Cody Joe Lozano in case the guy was an escaped mental patient.

  But no. It was worse.

  Cody Joe was a stinkin’-rich champion bull rider who’d been dubbed Hot Steel Buns. That meant he was likely sane and was just an ass. In Austin’s experience, whining, heartbroken, cheating asses could be more unpredictable and dangerous than an actual mental patient. Especially when the ass had an obsession with the woman he’d cheated on.

  While he continued to search, Austin spotted a tweet about Cody Joe and Miss Watermelon, but before he could get much past the picture of the blonde with Dolly Parton breasts and, yes indeed, watermelon-seed pasties, he heard the rustling at the side of his house. His first thought—a really bad one—was that either Avery or Gracie had woken up and come out through the back door. He definitely didn’t want his girls to see or hear any of this.

  But it wasn’t Avery or Gracie.

  It was a brunette who was using the flashlight on her phone to navigate the yard. She was dressed more like the fairy princess who’d been in that lame story he’d just read to his kids. Her long white shimmering dress hugged her breasts and billowed out over her hips like the top of a soft-serve ice cream cone. She also had a tiara, one a heck of a lot better than his, and a satin sash angled over her chest that proclaimed her Miss Watermelon Runner-Up.

  “Austin,” she murmured.

  If the bunny from The Fairy Princess’s Magic Rabbit had come hopping around the corner, Austin wouldn’t have been more surprised.

  “McCall,” Austin murmured back.

  “McCall,” Cody Joe said. Not a murmur, more like a whine of relief, and he sprang up, heading to the side of the porch toward her.

  “No,” McCall snapped, narrowing her eyes at Cody Joe. It probably would have looked more menacing if she hadn’t had on a kilo of sparkly eyeshadow lighting up her eyelids. “If you try to touch me again, so help me I’ll kick you in the nuts, and I’m wearing very pointy, very hard shoes.”

  Wisely, Cody Joe stopped in this tracks, proving that he perhaps wasn’t a complete idiot, after all.

  Austin didn’t make a move to go to her, either. In part that was because he was stunned. Not only because McCall was indeed at his place as Cody Joe had thought she would be. Stunned, not only because of her strange outfit, either. But what was the most surprising of all was that he’d never heard McCall sound as if she might do some actual nut-kicking. When she’d been on Little Cowgirls, she’d been dubbed the nice one of her triplet sisters. Later on, Prissy
Pants had been what folks called her.

  Too prissy for Austin, that was for sure, which was why their “relationship” had never gotten past the peck on the lips stage.

  Well, she’d definitely shed some of that prissiness.

  “But, McCall—” Cody Joe tried.

  “No,” she repeated. “You don’t speak to me unless I say so, and I’m not saying so. And you won’t grab me again, either.”

  She pointed to the bruises on her left arm. Fingerprint bruises. Since the marks had no doubt come from Cody Joe, that made Austin want to kick his ass, and he wouldn’t need pointy shoes to do a damn good job of it.

  Still huffing, McCall turned toward Austin. “I can explain,” she said, motioning toward her clothes. She eyed his tiara and tutu. “I’m guessing you can, too.”

  “I was reading to my girls.”

  He yanked off the tiara, tossing it into the rocking chair on the porch, but there wasn’t a dignity-saving way for him to get out of the tutu without tearing it—something that would cause Gracie to cry. It’d taken some time and effort to shimmy it over his jeans.

  “It’s a costume for a charity fundraising beauty pageant,” McCall said, pointing to her sash. “It’s pinned on from the back, and I can’t get it off. I didn’t want to rip the dress because I can eventually put it in a charity auction.”

  Unlike some of the things Cody Joe had said, Austin wouldn’t have minded hearing the story behind that, but he was pretty sure the tale would end with Cody Joe nailing the winner of the contest and getting caught.

  And then bruising McCall.

  “I bought you that pony you always wanted,” Cody Joe blurted out. “I called a friend after you left, and he brought it right over for me. It’s a peace offering.”

  The look McCall gave him was the Super Bowl and World Series of earth-searing glares. “Shut up. And get the ridiculous hat and sunglasses off that poor animal. It’s humiliating.”

  “That’s what I said,” Austin agreed in a grumble.

  While Cody Joe took care of the de-humiliation of the pony, McCall again turned back to Austin, and he could see her fighting to rein in her temper and turn off the laser rays she’d just shot at Cody Joe.