Real Vintage Maverick Read online

  THUNDER CANYON NUGGET

  Found: One genuine cowboy, in need of a cowgirl!

  Folks in Thunder Canyon all remember the broad-shouldered, blond cowpoke with the green eyes and somber expression. We haven’t seen Cody Overton smile much in the years since he lost his wife.

  But there’s been a strange discovery inside Catherine Clifton’s new secondhand boutique, Real Vintage Cowboy. Rumor has it that the eldest Clifton sister has found Cody Overton’s heart! Is it true that cutie Catherine has put the spring back in Cody’s boot-scootin’ step? Stay tuned, smart shoppers, and find out whether Catherine and Cody can seal the deal—and what other surprises the sassy shopkeeper might have in store!

  Hell.

  He could still taste Catherine on his lips. The temptation to take her back into his arms was damn near overwhelming.

  Cody looked down into her dazed, upturned face. His breathing had yet to return to normal. “If you’re waiting for me to say I’m sorry, you’ve got a long wait ahead of you,” he warned.

  Catherine moved her head from side to side—slowly so as not to fall over. “I don’t want you to say you’re sorry,” she whispered.

  “Good,” he finally declared. He pulled his Stetson down farther until the brim all but obscured his eyebrows and hid his eyes. “’Cause I don’t know why the hell I just did that, but I know I’m not sorry that I did,” he emphasized.

  And then, just like that, Cody turned on his heel and went back to his vehicle.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome back to Thunder Canyon, Montana, and the fine citizens of that town who make life there so very interesting. Last time, I got to write about Calista Clifton, one of eight brothers and sisters (perhaps you see a pattern here?). This time around, my book centers on Catherine Clifton’s story. Catherine is the oldest girl and has always been the caretaker in the family (my lord, can I relate to that), sublimating her own needs and dreams in order to care for everyone else. Well, now just this one time, it’s her turn to get something. Jasper Fowler’s neglected antiques store had closed its doors and was up for grabs. Summoning her courage, Catherine took the plunge, buying it with the intention of turning it into not just a place where forgotten antiques were kept to gather dust, but a shop where vintage clothing and intriguing one-of-a-kind items were sold. Catherine was looking for customers. She certainly wasn’t looking for a man to win her heart, but she got both in Cody Overton, a genuine cowboy who was still grieving for his late wife eight years after he’d lost her.

  This is a story about two lonely, independent and self-sufficient people who found each other and accidentally wound up filling the void in the other’s life. I hope you like it.

  As always, I thank you for reading my book, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

  Marie Ferrarella

  Marie Ferrarella

  Real Vintage Maverick

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Harlequin Special Edition

  ¶A Match for the Doctor #2117

  ¶What the Single Dad Wants... #2122

  **The Baby Wore a Badge #2131

  ¶¶Fortune’s Valentine Bride #2167

  ¶Once Upon a Matchmaker #2192

  §§Real Vintage Maverick #2210

  Silhouette Special Edition

  ~Diamond in the Rough #1910

  ~The Bride with No Name #1917

  ~Mistletoe and Miracles #1941

  ††Plain Jane and the Playboy #1946

  ~Travis’s Appeal #1958

  Loving the Right Brother #1977

  The 39-Year-Old Virgin #1983

  ~A Lawman for Christmas #2006

  ¤¤Prescription for Romance #2017

  ¶Doctoring the Single Dad #2031

  ¶Fixed Up with Mr. Right? #2041

  ¶Finding Happily-Ever-After #2060

  ¶Unwrapping the Playboy #2084

  °Fortune’s Just Desserts #2107

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Private Justice #1664

  †The Doctor’s Guardian #1675

  *A Cavanaugh Christmas #1683

  Special Agent’s Perfect Cover #1688

  *Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard #1699

  *Cavanaugh Rules #1715

  Silhouette Romantic Suspense

  †A Doctor’s Secret #1503

  †Secret Agent Affair #1511

  *Protecting His Witness #1515

  Colton’s Secret Service #1528

  The Heiress’s 2-Week Affair #1556

  *Cavanaugh Pride #1571

  *Becoming a Cavanaugh #1575

  The Agent’s Secret Baby #1580

  *The Cavanaugh Code #1587

  *In Bed with the Badge #1596

  *Cavanaugh Judgment #1612

  Colton by Marriage #1616

  *Cavanaugh Reunion #1623

  †In His Protective Custody #1644

  Harlequin American Romance

  Pocketful of Rainbows #145

  °°The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise #1329

  °°Ramona and the Renegade #1338

  °°The Doctor’s Forever Family #1346

  Montana Sheriff #1369

  Holiday in a Stetson #1378: “The Sheriff Who Found Christmas”

  °°Lassoing the Deputy #1402

  °°A Baby on the Ranch #1410

  *Cavanaugh Justice

  †The Doctors Pulaski

  ~Kate’s Boys

  ††The Fortunes of Texas: Return to Red Rock

  ¤¤The Baby Chase

  ¶Matchmaking Mamas

  °The Fortunes of Texas: Lost...and Found

  °°Forever, Texas

  **Montana Mavericks: The Texans Are Coming!

  ¶¶The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

  §§Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle

  Other titles by Marie Ferrarella available in ebook format.

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than two hundred books for Harlequin Books and Silhouette Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

  To

  Stella Bagwell,

  who is strong enough

  to actually live the life

  I can only write about

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Marie Ferrarella for her contribution to the

  Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle continuity.

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  The sound of her laughter filled his head as well as his heart, echoing all through him. Generating within him, as it always did, a feeling of tremendous joy and well-being.

  It was one of those absolutely perfect Montana mornings that begged to be pressed between the pages of his memory. Cody Overton tried to absorb it as much as possible, instinctively knowing that it was important he do so.

  Very important.

  He and Renee were at the state fair—Renee always loved the state fair—and, as always, the love of his life had coaxed him onto one of the gaily-painted horses on the weathered carousel while she had mounted the one right next to it.

  “Tame
stuff,” Cody had pretended to grumble before they got on—as if he ever could have denied Renee anything. “At least let’s ride the Ferris wheel instead.”

  But Renee paid no attention to his protest. His wife absolutely loved riding the carousel; she always had, even when they’d been in elementary school together. He’d teased her that he was surprised she hadn’t insisted on their taking their wedding vows sitting astride two of the horses on the carousel.

  Renee had laughed and said that they would have had to wait for the state fair to come through and she hadn’t wanted to delay becoming Mrs. Cody Overton a moment longer than she had to.

  She had always had a sense of urgency about living life to the fullest. It never made any sense to him.

  Until, sadly, it did.

  “Maybe, if we close our eyes and wish real hard, the carousel’ll go faster. C’mon, Cody, give it a try. Close your eyes and wish,” she’d entreated, wrapping her hands around the horse’s pole before her. She was like a ray of sunshine. “Don’t you believe in wishes?”

  Not anymore.

  The words seemed to silently resonant in his head even as the carousel began to speed up, spinning faster and faster. Just as she’d wished it would.

  And as the speed increased, so did the sound of her laughter, until that was all there was, just her laughter overpowering everything else.

  And all the while, they were spinning ever faster and faster.

  Cody kept trying to see her, to fix his eyes only on his beautiful Renee, but suddenly, he couldn’t find her, couldn’t see her.

  Couldn’t see anything at all except a sea of smeared color bleeding into itself.

  She was gone.

  Twenty-five years old and she was gone.

  His soul realized it before his mind did.

  He began calling out her name, but nothing came out of his mouth except for an anguished, guttural cry.

  With a start, Cody bolted upright in his bed. As always, when this dream came to him, he was covered in sweat and shaking.

  The crisp September weather had slipped into the bedroom, thanks to a window he’d forgotten to close, but he was still sweating.

  Still shaking.

  Still praying it really wasn’t just a dream. That Renee was still alive and with him.

  Nurturing a hope that was completely foreign to his very practical, pessimistic outlook, Cody slowly looked to his left, to the spot beside him that had once belonged to Renee.

  Aching so badly to see her that it physically hurt. But he didn’t see her. She wasn’t there, as he knew she wouldn’t be.

  She hadn’t been there for eight years.

  Hadn’t been anywhere for eight years because she’d been dead for eight years. Another statistic to the ravages of the insatiable cancer monster.

  His heart had been dead just as long.

  At times, Cody was surprised that it was still beating, still keeping the shell that surrounded it alive and moving.

  A man with nothing to live for shouldn’t be required to live, Cody thought darkly.

  He tossed off the covers and got out of bed despite the darkness that still enveloped the room. He knew it was useless to try to go back to sleep. Sleep was gone for the remainder of the night. If he was lucky, a glimmer of it might return by that evening.

  Most likely not.

  Slipping on the discarded jeans he picked up from the floor, Cody padded across the bare floor to the window and looked out.

  There was nothing to see, just a vastness that spread out before him.

  His ranch.

  Their ranch.

  “Why did you leave me?” he demanded in angry frustration, not for the first time. “Why did you have to go?”

  He wasn’t being reasonable, but he didn’t much feel like being reasonable. It wasn’t fair that he had been left behind, to face each day without Renee after she had filled so much of his life before then. He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t known her, hadn’t been aware of her. The very first memory he had was of her.

  Eight years and he still wasn’t used to it. Hadn’t made his peace with it. Eight years and a part of him still expected to see her walk through the door, or see her standing over the stove, lamenting that she’d burned dinner—again.

  He’d never minded those burnt offerings—that was what he’d teasingly called them, her burnt offerings—and he would have been willing to eat nothing else for the rest of his life if only he could see her one more time. Hold her one more time...

  He supposed, in a way, that was what the dreams were about. Seeing her one more time. Because they were so very vivid that, just for a moment, Renee was alive again. Alive and the cornerstone of his world.

  He wished he could sleep forever, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  Cody dragged his hand through his hair and sighed. He might as well get dressed and get started with his day, even if it was still the middle of the night. The ranch wasn’t going to run itself.

  “I miss you, Renee.”

  His whisper echoed about the empty bedroom just as it did about his empty soul.

  Chapter One

  It happened too quickly for him to even think about it.

  One minute, in a moment of exasperated desperation—because he hadn’t yet bought a gift for Caroline’s birthday—Cody found himself walking into the refurbished antique store that had, up until a few months ago, been called The Tattered Saddle.

  The next minute, he was hurrying across the room and managed—just in time—to catch the young woman who was tumbling off a ladder.

  Before he knew it, his arms were filled with the soft curves of the same young woman.

  She smelled of lavender and vanilla, nudging forth a sliver of a memory he couldn’t quite catch hold of.

  That was the way Cody remembered it when he later looked back on the way his life had taken a dramatic turn toward the better that fateful morning.

  When he’d initially walked by the store’s show window, Cody had automatically looked in. The shop appeared to be in a state of semi-chaos, but it still looked a great deal more promising than when that crazy old coot Jasper Fowler ran it.

  Cody vaguely recalled hearing that the man hadn’t really been interested in making any sort of a go of the shop. The whole place had actually just been a front for a money-laundering enterprise. At any rate, the antique shop had been shut down and boarded up in January, relegated to collecting even more dust than it had displayed when its doors had been open to the public.

  What had caught his eye was the notice Under new ownership in the window and the store’s name—The Tattered Saddle—had been crossed out. But at the moment, there was no new name to take its place. He had wondered if that was an oversight or a ploy to draw curious customers into the shop.

  Well, if it was under new ownership, maybe that meant that there was new old merchandise to choose from. And that, in turn, might enable him to find something for his sister here. As he recalled, Caroline was into old things. Things that other people thought of as junk and wanted to discard, his sister saw potential and promise in.

  At least it was worth a shot, Cody told himself. He had tried the doorknob and found that it gave under his hand. Turning it, he had walked in.

  Glancing around, his eyes were instantly drawn to the tall, willowy figure on the other side of the room. She was wearing a long, denim-colored skirt and her shirt was more or less the same color. The young woman was precariously perched on the top step of a ladder that appeared to be none too steady.

  What actually caught his attention was not that she looked like an accident waiting to happen as she stretched her taut frame out, trying to reach something that was on a higher shelf, but that with her long, straight brown hair hanging loose about her back and shoulders, for just an instant, she reminded him of Renee.

  A feeling of déjà vu seized him and for a moment, his breath caught in his throat.

  Balancing herself on tiptoes, Catherine Clifton, the former Tat
tered Saddle’s determined new owner, automatically turned around when she heard the little bell over the front door ring. She hadn’t anticipated any customers coming in until the store’s grand reopening. That wasn’t for a couple more days at the very least. Most likely a couple of weeks. And only if she could come up with a new name for the place.

  “We’re not open for business yet,” Catherine called out.

  The next thing out of her mouth was an involuntary shriek because she’d lost her footing on the ladder and both she and the ladder were heading for a collision with the wooden floor.

  The ladder landed with a clatter.

  Catherine, fortunately, did not.

  She was saved from what could have been a very bruising fate by the very person she’d just politely banished from the premises.

  Landing in the cowboy’s strong, capable arms knocked the air out of her and, along with it, anything else she might have said at that moment.

  Which was just as well because she would have hated coming across like some blithering idiot. But right now, not a single coherent thought completed itself in her head. It was filled with just scattered words and a myriad of sensations.

  Hot sensations.

  Everything had faded into the background and Catherine was instantly and acutely aware of the man whose arms she’d landed in. The broad-shouldered, green-eyed, sandy-haired cowboy held her as if she weighed no more than a small child. The muscles on his bare arms didn’t even appear to be straining.

  A tingling sensation danced through Catherine’s entire body, which was stubbornly heating up despite all of her attempts to bank the sensation—and her reaction to the man—down.

  Her valiant efforts to the contrary, for just a moment, it felt as if time had stood still, freezing this moment as it simultaneously bathed her in a heretofore never experienced, all but debilitating, feeling of desire. For two cents proper, using the excuse that this rugged-looking cowboy had saved her, she would have kissed him. With feeling.

  Catherine could absolutely visualize herself kissing him.

  The fact that he was a complete stranger was neither here nor there as far as she was concerned. Desire, she discovered at that moment, didn’t have to make sense. It could thrive very well without even so much as a lick of sense to it.