Cowboys for Christmas Read online

  Cowboys for Christmas

  Jan Springer

  Jennifer Jane (JJ) Watson has spent the past ten Christmases in a maximum-security prison.

  The last thing she expects is to get early parole, along with a job on a remote Canadian cattle ranch serving Christmas holiday dinners to three of the sexiest cowboys she's ever met!

  Rafe, Brady and Dan thought they were getting a couple of male ex-cons to help out around their secluded ranch, but instead they get an attractive and very appealing female.

  In the snowbound wilds of Northern Ontario, female companionship is rare.

  It's a good thing the three men like to share...

  They're dominating, sexy-as-sin and they fill JJ with the hottest ménage fantasies she's ever had. Suddenly she's craving cowboys for Christmas and wishing for something she knows she can never have…a happily ever after.

  ~*~

  Cowboys for Christmas

  Christmas Encounters Series

  Cowboys Online Book 1

  Published by Spunky Girl Publishing

  Copyright 2014 by Jan Springer

  Discover other titles by Jan Springer at http:www.janspringer.com

  Cover Art by Clarissa Arty

  Edited by Julie Naughton

  Notes

  This ebook is permitted for your personal use only. If you would like to share your ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, places, settings and events presented in this book are purely of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead or to any actual events, places and/or settings.

  Chapter One

  Duncane Institution for Women, Quebec, Canada

  “Yeah, perfect. Thanks for the favor, Jenna. We appreciate it. She’ll be there sometime tonight.”

  Jennifer Jane Watson stared at her parole officer, Sabrina Heathers, as she spoke on the phone. The officer kept glancing at JJ with an encouraging smile and a hopefulness that JJ just didn’t feel. Actually, she hadn’t had an ounce of hope inside her since the day the jury had said she was guilty more than ten years ago on her eighteenth birthday.

  It didn’t matter that JJ had killed her stepfather in self-defense. Or that she’d killed him because he’d just beaten her mother to death. Nope, the jury decided she was guilty of pre-meditated murder because she’d taken the law into her own hands and dished out the justice herself.

  They’d been wrong in convicting her. Hell, mistakes were made every day in the judicial system, and she’d had to learn to live with that knowledge or go insane.

  “I just confirmed the perfect job for you. All the proper channels are in agreement, so it’s a go,” Sabrina said as she hung up the phone. She grabbed a pad of paper and began writing.

  Yeah, like JJ wanted a job. She’d just been locked up in a six-by-eight foot prison cell for, like, ever. The last thing she wanted to be was a drone and get stuck on some crummy assembly line or doing some nine-to-five receptionist job. No, she wanted her freedom. She wanted to do her own thing and pretend the last ten years had never happened.

  JJ gazed around the parole officer’s tiny cluttered office and frowned at the small artificial Christmas tree set upon the filing cabinet. It looked dreary with plastic ornaments and artificial tinsel. Just like her elderly parole officer looked bogus with her long black false eyelashes, her ultra-long red fingernails that had to be phony, and her bleached-blonde hair pulled tight off her face to prevent her wrinkles from showing.

  No, she didn’t want any more of this dull atmosphere. She wanted a natural live tree, like the ones they’d had when she’d been a kid. She wanted to smell pine trees and string popcorn and hang fragile glass ornaments on the tree and watch pretty colorful lights flicker at windows of houses.

  “Correctional Services partakes in many different programs and participates with many employers who are willing to hire recently paroled cons. You were lucky you applied for the pilot Freedom Run project so you could get early and full parole. Lucky, too, that I know Jenna personally. She’s the owner of Cowboys Online and Jenna has been placing people from the prison system through her company for years. Let’s hope your lucky streak continues.”

  Yeah, lucky. Not.

  Sabrina paused. If she was waiting for JJ to kiss her ass and say thank you, she’d be waiting until next year.

  JJ resisted the impulse to flick Sabrina the middle finger and tell her she didn’t want any favors. She wanted her freedom. But she kept her mouth shut, like the way she’d been trained. The last thing she wanted was to get tossed back behind bars. She’d suck up Sabrina’s crap and when she had the chance, she’d make herself disappear.

  Her parole officer smiled and for a split second JJ almost warmed to the woman. Maybe she was being sincere? Maybe she really did care about what happened to her? But she clamped down on the warm fuzzy feeling. No, she didn’t want to be chummy with anyone in the judicial system.

  “You’ll be working on a cattle ranch.”

  A cattle ranch? JJ blinked in surprise. That sounded promising. She liked animals and she loved the outdoors.

  “It’s not just any cattle ranch. This one deals in organic beef cattle and is situated in Northern Ontario. In the wilderness. Nothing but you, an elderly female role model who used to be a con, your bosses, wild cattle and thousands of acres of forests and meadows.

  The Ontario wilderness? She could disappear over there.

  “Your free spirit will love it.”

  Yeah, right. Like Sabrina knew her? Sure, they’d been meeting over the last few months to figure out a release plan. Sabrina as well as JJ’s psychologist and the corrections officers had said nice things about her at the parole hearing, but everybody’s cheeriness and optimism only irritated JJ.

  “This position just came up through the Freedom Run program. They need an assistant to the elderly female cook & housekeeper and you’ll be available for other odd jobs as they come up, such as a cook on cattle drives.”

  She would be a freaking housekeeper and cook? As if she knew anything about either. Those kinds of jobs were so not her.

  “There is only one little problem,” her parole officer said.

  Sabrina’s red lips dipped into a frown and JJ’s tummy did a not-so-nice roll.

  As if I don’t have enough problems?

  “As I mentioned, the ranch is in a very secluded area. So the only way in is by private plane. I have your flying schedule here.” She ripped a sheet off her pad of paper and slid it across her desk for JJ to take a look at.

  JJ didn’t make a move for it. The word plane reverberated around in her mind. There was no way she could get onto a plane.

  Anxiety swelled inside her chest. Suddenly the walls began to waver and then move in around her. She grabbed the edges of her chair and held on as a wave of dizziness swept over her. Was it suddenly getting hard to breathe? Yes, it was getting hard to breathe. She was going to suffocate!

  “I realize you’ve been having a problem with claustrophobia, anxiety and panic attacks. So I’ve put in an order for a prescription for appropriate meds to keep you calm during the trip. You’ll be fine if you take them.”

  Oh crap. I am so not getting onto any plane. I’d rather go back to prison.

  “The ranch is called Moose Ranch and it’s run by three men around your age. They’ve agreed to allow you to work there on a conditional basis. If things go well, they will hire you on a contract basis. You’ll get paid monthly. You’ll have to check in with me two times a week for the first month, once a week for another month and then once a month thereafter. And I may do unexpected spot
checks too.”

  The woman leaned closer and her blue gaze turned intense and her look was stern.

  Despite not wanting to be intimidated by the officer, JJ shivered.

  “JJ, I don’t have to tell you how lucky you are to get an early parole with the Freedom Run program. You only got it because of an overcrowding problem and due to your record for not getting into trouble. If this job doesn’t work out, you’ll be sent back to prison and I don’t have to tell you that your next chance to get out won’t come until your next parole hearing, and that won’t be for a long time. Do you understand my meaning?”

  “I understand,” JJ managed to say between frantic gasps for air. A familiar nausea, compliments of a panic attack, churned her tummy.

  The officer smiled, seemingly satisfied that she’d managed to ruin JJ’s day with the talk about a plane.

  “Good. Good. I’ll call the guard in and she can get you set up. Any questions?”

  JJ’s grip on the chair tightened as the walls began to crush her.

  “Yeah, where’s the nearest bathroom? I need to puke.”

  Parole officer Sabrina Heathers listened to the convict retching in the adjoining office bathroom and shook her head in disappointment. At the mention of flying, she’d read the panic flare in JJ’s brown eyes. She’d wished the notes she’d read by JJ’s prison psychologist had been overstated. She’d naively hoped that JJ’s anxiety problems could be overcome if JJ knew she was getting out of prison. Maybe she’d been wrong?

  She had no idea why she’d taken it upon herself to make it as easy as possible for JJ on the outside with a good job. It had helped that the woman who ran Cowboys Online had a government contract with the Correctional Service of Canada. Jenna was a friend of hers from her high school days, and Sabrina also knew the three men who owned the Moose Ranch.

  They were good, hard-working, decent men and she had the feeling they would like JJ. She just hoped that they didn’t regret taking her, especially with her anxiety issues.

  Another loud retch sprang from the bathroom and echoed through Sabrina’s office. She grimaced at the violent sound. If the mere mention of a plane made the woman lose it, she had to wonder how long JJ would last out there in the wilds and seclusion of Northern Ontario.

  * * * * *

  “Did you get the cattle secured in the barn?” Brady called out when he heard Dan and Rafe stomp into the nearby mudroom located beside the ranch office.

  “All settled in. It’s going to be a cold night tonight. The snow storm is coming too. Black clouds to the north,” Rafe shouted back.

  Brady frowned and lifted his gaze from the bookkeeping records and peered out the office window that was right in front of his desk. It was four o’clock and getting dark fast. The sun had dipped behind the pine trees spreading black shadows everywhere. From here, he could barely see the ice-covered lake where the plane was going to land. The large lake had been frozen for a good two months and would hold up with no problem beneath the weight of the plane.

  They’d been lucky this year. It was already late November and not much snow so far. But it appeared as if that was about to change. Rafe was right. Dark clouds loomed on the horizon.

  The plane bringing their new employee and their supplies was a little over an hour late and coming in from the north. He hoped they hadn’t been caught in the snowstorm. He’d give the plane another five minutes and then he’d get on the satellite phone and send out an alert.

  Dan, the youngest partner in their cattle venture, suddenly opened the office door and popped his head into the office. A whisper of cold air blew against the back of Brady’s neck, making him shiver. He wanted to yell at Dan to shut the freaking door as he was letting all the hot air out, when movement out the window and in the sky caught his attention. A small red plane swooped in over the tree line and angled toward the lake.

  “They’re here,” Dan said. He left and then Brady could hear the drone of the plane’s engines.

  Red plane. That would mean Kelly was flying in. He liked Kelly. She was a pretty blonde with cheerful blue eyes and was a few years younger than he. She worked for North Country Air, a bush-flying business located a few hundred miles to the north of Moose Ranch.

  He’d heard rumors that she was in the air more than she was on land. He’d asked her out a couple of times, but she’d politely declined, giving an excuse that she didn’t date. He wondered if she ever would date again after the horrific way she’d lost her smokejumper fiancé a couple of years ago in a raging forest fire. His body had never been found.

  “Let’s go out and greet them,” Brady said a moment later, when he joined them in the mudroom. He grabbed his jacket.

  Rafe and Dan grimaced and didn’t move to put their winter gear back on.

  “Come on, let’s get a move on. Kelly is going to need help unloading the supplies and I can’t get the snowmobile down in time,” Brady prodded as he pulled on his black hat.

  Rafe shook his head. “Sorry, but I have a cold ass that needs warming.”

  “Yeah, and my belly is screaming for food,” Dan said quickly as he hurriedly tugged off his boots and gazed up at Brady from the bench seat. “You know I won’t be able to get dinner on the table if I’m out there greeting some old convict.”

  Rafe chimed in. “Yeah, you can thank Mrs. Wilson for skipping out on us without notice.”

  “Wasn’t her fault she couldn’t take another winter here,” Brady said.

  He’d felt sorry for the sixty-five year old ex-con who’d been working for them for a couple of years. She’d finally confided in them that she couldn’t handle the desolation any more, let alone another long freezing winter. She’d left unexpectedly just last week, secretly calling in one of the bush pilots over at North Country Air to get her out of here. Thankfully, his sister, Jenna, had answered his call for help and was sending a replacement through her Cowboys Online service.

  A sharp slap to Brady’s back made him wince.

  “Besides,” Rafe said. “You’ve been warming your ass off in here all day. We’ve done your share of the work out in the cold. Now it’s your turn outside and getting some fresh air.”

  “Yeah, maybe you can ask Kelly out again,” Dan said.

  “Then she can turn you down again,” Rafe chuckled.

  He winked as he and Dan rushed past him out of the mudroom and into the main house.

  Irritation bristled through Brady. No way was he asking Kelly out again. A man could only take rejection for so long before he got the message loud and clear. She wasn’t ready, and he wasn’t her type.

  “Fine. But I expect dinner to be ready when we get back!” he shouted.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Dan called back.

  The drone of the airplane grew lower as Brady slipped on his boots. Kelly had probably already landed and was wondering why no one was there to help her with their supplies and to greet the new guy.

  He opened the mudroom door and gasped as the bitter wind blasted against his face. He shivered and snuggled his chin deep into his jacket, then began to jog along the path toward the lake, a quarter of a mile down the low sloping hill.

  Sometimes he wondered what the heck he’d been thinking coming up north to carve out a cattle empire in the middle of a desolate wilderness. He should have stayed in Toronto where he’d had a nice cushy corner office and played estate lawyer. But he’d become bored with his job and had begun to crave adventure.

  Brady frowned as he spied Kelly hopping out of her plane with a couple of suitcases and added it to the several crates she’d already piled on the lake. Her blonde hair glistened in the twilight and when she spied him approaching, she waved. Then she stepped back into her plane.

  A moment later, she appeared with another person. Shadows had wrapped around the plane and he found it difficult to make out the features of the newcomer, but he was already disappointed in the man’s small size. The person was no bigger than Kelly and he was wrapped head to toe in winter gear as if he were ter
rified of the cold.

  Great. Just great.

  The person was dwarfed in a heavy green winter jacket with a fur-lined hood pulled over his head. A red scarf covered his face. They’d been expecting someone with muscles. Someone who could help them on the cattle drives, pitch in with some heavy chores and assist with the cooking and housekeeping.

  This person was already sitting down on their suitcases, instead of carrying them toward the ranch house.

  “Hiya Brady. Got your cargo!” she called out as he approached. “Wish I could stay, but I need to scoot. Storm is coming in and I need to leave now or I’ll be staying here for awhile. Not that I wouldn’t mind, but I have contracts to fill and can’t afford to get stranded down this way.”

  He still hadn’t reached her, so he yelled a thanks and a threw her a wave. She waved back, turned and climbed into her plane and settled into the cockpit. A moment later, she was roaring her plane over the smooth ice.

  By the time he reached the lake and the new recruit, Kelly’s plane was disappearing over the tree line and the smell of booze was prevalent in the air.

  Are you fucking kidding me? The new employee is drunk?

  The sound of a hiccup made him curse.

  Shit! He could not tolerate a drunk. Not on his ranch.

  “Oh, you look so grumpy,” a sweet feminine voice said.

  Brady blinked as shock reverberated through him.

  A woman?

  “Grumpy, but cute.” Her words were followed by another hiccup.

  As she raised her head to look at him, he spied velvety brown hair tumbling from beneath her scarf. She had a luscious-looking mouth, a pert nose, and the longest eyelashes he’d ever seen.

  She smiled up at him and he caught dimples popping in both her cheeks. Dimples that made him feel as if he’d just been sucker punched, but in a really nice way.

  “Plane rides make me so nervous and I…b-broke into Kelly’s b-booze and self-medicated. She was so p-pissed when she found out.” She laughed prettily. The sound was like a gentle twinkle and made his heart skip a beat.