Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 104448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104448 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 418(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
I came to tiny Majestic, Wyoming, to escape misfortune: the loss of my brother; my parents’ blame for it; the billion-dollar secret that caused it all.
I find peace in my horses, in my friends, in quiet nights alone… and sometimes in remembering a scorching-hot one-night-stand from two years ago.
But everything changes when Tully Bowman, the man behind that unforgettable encounter, turns up in Majestic bringing me the daughter I’ve inherited (along with her multi-million-dollar trust fund).
Just like that, my peace becomes chaos, my quiet nights are filled with little Lellie’s cries for “Daddy,” and the heat between Tully and me becomes more than just a memory.
Because it seems Tully’s planning to stick around… at least until I prove I’m a “suitable father” and not the fortune-hunter Lellie’s grandparents think I am. And the longer we spend together–the more he challenges and provokes me, comforts and calms me–the harder it is to remember why I ever thought one night would be enough.
I’m a bad bet for fatherhood, but if I choose to keep Lellie and raise her as my own, it won’t be for her money. It will be because this precious girl and the man who brought her to me might be the fresh start and new family my heart has been looking for.
And because the best thing that ever happened to me might just be… Inheriting Miss Fortune.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
TULLY
“Custody goes to Devon McKay?” Franklin Scott boomed. “Of my granddaughter? You can’t be serious!”
I clenched my jaw and held my tongue. His reaction was no surprise. As Katie’s parents and sole surviving family members, Pastor and Mrs. Scott might have seemed like the obvious choice to get custody of her daughter. Obvious to anyone who hadn’t been close to Katie, that was.
The founding partner at my firm frowned at me from across the large conference table. “Tully, do you know this Mr. McKay?”
I opened my mouth to respond but quickly shut it. The answer to that question was… complicated. I didn’t know him in the way that one knew a longtime friend or coworker. While I’d heard a little about him from Katie, I’d never gotten to know him personally outside of having spent a few hours with him once at a party at Katie’s house.
Having said that… I did happen to know what his face looked like when he tried to keep himself from coming. What his hot mouth felt like wrapped around my most intimate body part. The way his face had turned gently against mine as he’d surreptitiously inhaled the scent of me before leaving.
I blinked and focused back on my boss. Orris Dunlevy’s thick, chalk-white hair was always perfectly formed into a slight swoop to one side, regardless of how frustrated he was. Monogrammed cuffs peeked out from his thousand-dollar suit jacket as he studied me with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised.
“No, sir,” I said on an unsteady exhale. “I mean, not really. I’ve heard of him, of course. I did prepare the will.”
The pastor clenched his fists on the tabletop while Katie’s mom continued to cry and flutter an honest-to-god old-fashioned hankie near her face. “Someone needs to explain to me how this happened,” he demanded.
Orris nodded but stayed focused on me. “Tully?”
“I’m unsure what you’re asking exactly,” I said carefully. While I was considered the golden boy of Dunlevy, Pace, and Trumble, no one in this firm was safe from the scales of justice around here… and by “justice,” I meant money.
As the founders of the Church of Heavenly Victory, Franklin and Paula Scott were richer than god. And they’d moved all of their legal business to the firm as soon as Orris had hired Katie out of Duke Law. Keeping the Scotts happy was the key to keeping my bosses happy.
But I’d been Katie’s friend as well as her personal attorney, and I wasn’t about to let her down, especially when she was no longer here to stand up for herself or her daughter.
“I’m asking you to tell me why Ms. Scott named this… Devon McKay… as the legal guardian of her child,” my boss clarified.
At the mention of Lellie, Mrs. Scott sobbed louder, which only made the pastor’s face turn redder.
I cleared my throat and prepared for the explosion. “He’s her biological father.”
Orris’s eyes only widened a little, but everyone else in the room, including Katie’s parents, another managing partner, two associates, a junior associate, and two assistants, all seemed to lose their collective minds.
“Impossible!” Pastor Scott barked.
“Kathryn, how could you?” Mrs. Scott sobbed.
The managing partner turned to the junior associate and spoke in a low voice, “Get us everything you can on McKay.”
I concentrated on breathing and reminded myself to stay calm and professional. While I understood and had expected the panic, I also trusted my good friend. Katie adored her daughter and would have never named Dev McKay Lellie’s guardian if she hadn’t trusted him with the girl’s future.
And it wasn’t like the man wouldn’t be able to afford to hire help. Not once he realized Lellie’s guardian would also be the trustee of the fortune her mother had left her.
Mrs. Scott seemed to get control of herself for a moment. “Wait. Isn’t that… that McKay the boy who used to work on Daddy’s ranch?”
Her mention of Dev’s past brought back memories of the night we’d met. Memories of muscled shoulders and biceps, callused hands, and late-day stubble.
I could see the man as a ranch hand, no doubt about it.
“He can’t have a pot to piss in,” Pastor Scott said, outraged. “He mucked stalls for my father-in-law—”
His wife stopped him with a hand to his arm. “Frank, dear, didn’t he end up going to Yale? Whatever happened to him? How did he and Kathryn wind up dating without us knowing?”
I clamped my teeth together. While confessing to Dev’s biological involvement in this custody situation was appropriate and inevitable, it was not my place to remind the Scotts about the details of Lellie’s conception—specifically, that it had been done through a fertility clinic with no dating involved since their daughter had been proudly asexual. I doubted my reminder would matter anyway, not when Katie had explained her asexuality and decision to use a sperm donor several times and they seemed not to have listened.