A Cowboy to Keep

By Barbara Ankrum

On the run from her past, photographer Ali Thibeaux arrives undercover in Marietta to find her biological half-sister. Plan A: Meet Olivia, photograph her wedding, and disappear before endangering anyone. Plan B: All hell breaks loose.

Reclusive rancher Adam Wolfe’s only plan when he hires Ali to manage his dysfunctional household is to go on hiding from the world. But his scars don’t seem to matter to the beauty who unexpectedly turns his house into a home and heals the rift between him and the teenaged niece he’s taken in. Still, he suspects there’s more to Ali than meets the eye and he’s determined to uncover what she’s hiding from him before it’s too late.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tule Publishing
• Release date: Sep 12, 2017
• ISBN: 9781946772725

Barbara Ankrum

Barbara Ankrum says she's always been an incurable romantic, with a passion for books and stories about the healing power of love. It never occurred to her to write seriously until her husband, David, discovered a box full of her unfinished stories and insisted that she pursue her dream. Need she say more about why she believes in love? With a successful career as a successful commercial actress behind her, Barbara decided she had plenty of eccentric characters to people the stories that inhabited her imagination. She wrote her first novel in between auditions and led to a publishing contract, but she's never looked back. Years later, she still believes in happy endings and feels very lucky to do what she loves. Her historicals have won the prestigious Reviewer's Choice and K.I.S.S. Awards from Romantic Times Magazine, and she's been nominated for a RITA Award from Romance Writers of America. Barbara lives in Southern California with her actor/writer/hero-husband, two cats and one scruffy, unrepentant dog at her side. They have two perfect grown children

Book preview

Author

"In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you."

—Buddha

"People who wonder if the glass is half-empty or half-full miss the point. The glass is refillable."

—Someone else

Prologue

"I have a lead on her."

The slight, balding man sitting across the wrought-iron table from Elliot Capuzzo at the Echo Park Café pushed a manila envelope past his own double espresso coffee and folded his hands. Around them, the tables were full of young, upwardly mobile Los Angelinos who were all busy gentrifying the once-seedy neighborhood and who cared more about being seen in the trendy café than about noticing the two men nearby. They couldn’t have been more private if they tried. Not quite what I’d hoped, he acknowledged, but at least we know she’s crossed the Canadian border into Montana.

"Montana?" Capuzzo opened the envelope to pull out the contents. A moment went by before the frown was back on his face. Inside was a blurry photograph of a woman, alone, who might have been her, pulling a bag through an airport terminal. And another of that same long-legged woman hailing a cab outside the airport. If it was her, and the man sitting opposite him apparently felt quite sure it was, she’d let her hair grow and maybe colored it in Haiti, and they had narrowly missed her. So? A couple of blurry photographs? How much am I paying you again, Forrester?

Those photos were taken at Montréal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Quebec in late November.

And?

According to my sources, she left Haiti four and a half months ago under a Canadian passport registered to an ‘Alexa Wheeler.’ She’s become quite the chameleon. I found the guy who doctored that passport for her. Strictly work for hire. He didn’t know jack about anything else.

I assume you…explored all avenues to see if he was telling you the truth?

The balding man leaned back and crossed his legs. Believe me, if he’d known, he would have told me, Mr. Capuzzo.

He lifted his coffee cup with a satisfied nod and took a drink. Go on.

She flew to Montreal then essentially vanished for four months. She’s gotten quite good at staying invisible.

Or you’re just bad at your job.

Forrester colored. That she’s managed to narrowly evade us for the last two years speaks to her ingenuity. No credit cards, no bank account, no car rentals. Which means she either was using cash to travel by bus or train, or she’s purchased a car somehow. She basically ceased to exist until— he pulled another, smaller photo from a pocket —one of my ICE contacts a pulled up a video of a woman fitting her description crossing the U.S./Canadian border into Montana on a U.S. passport in December, using the name Thibeaux. Alessandra Thibeaux.

And where is she now?

On a hunch, I’m heading to a small town in Southern Montana called Marietta, near Livingston. Town where her mother, apparently, got herself knocked up and gave birth before moving to Canada. Far as I can tell, her mother never married, never had a reported relationship with Alison’s father after her birth, but there might be something there. I’ll track down the birth father’s identity, and find out whether he’s still in the area. It’s the best lead we’ve got.

Capuzzo lifted the photograph again to study the woman. In two years, this was as close as they’d gotten to her. The end of the chase was close. He could almost taste it. And when it was over, his brother could rest in peace. She would pay for what she did to him, then he could get back to his life again. He had ambitions, after all, and they didn’t end the day Mark died. She was his last loose thread. One tug on that thread could pull his whole future apart.

And he had every intention of stopping her.

He shoved the manila envelope back at Forrester. "Go find her. Fail me again and your gravy train ends here. Got it?"

Yes, sir. Forrester stood, tucked the envelope back in his pocket. I’ll be in touch.

Chapter One

"Please. Look again. It has to be here. Ali Thibeaux braced her hands on the glass countertop of the pawnshop’s display case, panic closing her throat. I’m…I’m only a day late. You can’t have sold it already. She flattened out the pawn ticket against the glass and pointed to the number. Six-seven-nine-three-zero. Check again."

Eeben Baxter, the paunchy, middle-aged owner of Marietta’s only pawnshop, scratched his chin. I’m afraid it’s gone, Miss. I sold it myself just yesterday, end of day. I’m real sorry. You should’ve come then, I guess.

I didn’t have the money yesterday. But now I do. She tightened her arm around her purse, where the thousand dollars in cash she’d managed to scrape together to pay off the loan lay tucked in her wallet. Suddenly, the smell of the place, the odor of discarded pulled-out-of-the-attic stuff made her feel dizzy and nauseous. You don’t understand. I need that camera. There’s a job. I have to have it. But that camera meant more to her than that. Much more. She closed her eyes. Panic would not serve her. She had to stay calm.

If it’s just a camera you need, we got a few decent ones here, Baxter said, pointing to the case full of used digital cameras, none of which could hold a candle to the one she’d pawned. Not as nice as that Hasselblad, but maybe one of these will suit you.

Was he joking? "No. I need that one. It belonged to my— She caught herself and began again. Who bought it? At least tell me that."

Baxter tucked in his chin. We never betray a customer’s confidence here, ma’am. If we did, we’d be out of business right quick. I will tell you that the individual who bought your camera had their eye on it for a couple of weeks and knew just when it would come up for sale. So, I’m sorry but they had every right to buy it. Fair and square.

In her panic, Ali caught the gaze of the woman standing at the other end of the counter cleaning the glass countertop, who looked away quickly. Oddly, she reminded Ali vaguely of Eugenia Parland, a woman who’d been her foster mother for the better part of her freshman year in high school. This sparrow of a woman had deep grooves around her mouth. She was brown-haired and dowdy, kicked a few times, Ali guessed, but probably stronger than she looked. Ali was familiar with the haunted look owned by so many women she’d known. Perhaps she’d only imagined her sympathetic look. Or maybe it was simple judgment.

Pathetic was probably what she was thinking. The anthem of her youth, Queen’s Another One Bites the Dust, began pulsing behind her eyes, along with the sinking feeling that she’d just torpedoed her future and tossed away the best of her past in one fell swoop. She’d honestly never imagined someone in this small town would even appreciate that camera, much less buy it for whatever Baxter must have charged. It wasn’t a hobbyist’s camera. It wasn’t even one most people would understand how to use.

Eeben, I’m takin’ my break, the woman said to her boss. She mimed smoking a cigarette and Baxter nodded to her. Gathering up her rags and half-empty bottle of glass cleaner, she disappeared through a pair of red velvet curtains hanging in the back room doorway.

How much did you sell it for? Ali pressed, turning back to him.

Again, Baxter said, that’s information that’s privileged, Miss Thibeaux. But his expression couldn’t quite hide how proud he was of the deal he’d struck with the new owner. Now, if you aren’t interested in another camera, I got me some paperwork to catch up on.

He’d made a small fortune on it, she was sure. The thousand dollars he’d given her as a collateral loan was only a fraction of the camera’s real worth. And if anyone knew who had once owned it, that value would be even higher.

The backs of her eyes burned. Don’t cry. Do not cry. You did this to yourself.

She spun and blindly collided with a rack holding a hundred or more vintage shooter marbles, which fell in what seemed like slow motion and bounced in all directions.

Her every attempt to catch them—to stop the disaster—failed, ending in her backing into another display of musical instruments behind her. Tambourines, clarinets and harmonicas all collapsed musically sideways like dominoes.

Eeben Baxter, who’d managed to round the counter amidst the bouncing marbles, caught the instruments before they hit the floor—except for the last, precarious piccolo that pinged to the linoleum and rolled to a stop at his feet beside the milky cat’s eyes. As the last of the marbles rolled to a stop, he gave a long-suffering sigh. He glared down at her, crouched beside his counter. You finished yet? I got a whole store.

I’m sorry. I’m really very…very sorry. Straightening, she proffered a handful of marbles to him, which he took without a word of thanks. Believe me, that was entirely an accident. I would never have—

Eeben pinched his fingers together at her in a universally understood male gesture demanding silence—which rubbed her exactly the wrong way.

She tipped her chin up. Okay. Fine. But just so you know, she said, whatever you asked for that camera, it wasn’t nearly enough. It was once owned by Lilah— she stopped short —by a famous photographer. The man’s face paled. And you could have made a lot more money than you did. She tsked at him and shook her head. "A lot. Opening the door, she turned back one last time. A whole lot."

Go! he bellowed.

She turned and walked outside on legs that were shaking. Several deep breaths later, dizziness had her grabbing for the side of a building as she moved down the street. She’d been both clumsy and reckless, mentioning her famous mother, even if she hadn’t named her. But men like Eeben Baxter just made her mad. He reminded her of her second foster father who’d made that little gesture if she ever dared offer an opinion that challenged his. It was a button she very much disliked having pushed.

But what was done was done.

She glanced down at her watch. Ten a.m. She’d forgotten to eat this morning. Scratch that, she hadn’t had the money to eat this morning. Except for the money in her bag—the money she’d saved here to buy the camera back—she was officially broke. After two years, three months and seventeen days of running, this was what she’d come to at last.

Well, at least now she could afford breakfast. And enough gas to get her out of this town. No point in staying now. Where she’d go, she had no idea. How ironic she’d have to turn down the job she’d been praying for now that she’d lost the camera. But the job itself didn’t matter. It was the subject of the job—Olivia Canaday and her wedding—that mattered.

And the camera…mattered.

This whole idea that had brought her here to Marietta…had been ill conceived at best. And even that she had screwed up.

Numbly, she headed up Main Street, passing people and cars without really seeing them. In the little over three months she’d been here, she had kept to herself, kept her head down and blessed every morning she woke up alone.

Safe.

She’d used the money she’d gotten for the camera to rent a room in a small highway motel outside of town, called the Dew Drop Inn, where they’d also given her a job cleaning rooms. Before that, she’d waited for weeks, hoping to hear from Eve Canaday about the résumé she’d left with her at Christmas time, about the photographer job she’d advertised in the Marietta paper. But nothing, until finally last week when she’d contacted her about an upcoming party she was organizing, which Ali assumed was a test run for bigger events. Events like the one she’d come here to attend.

But no camera, no job. Those other cameras back there would never give her the quality shots she’d been able to take with the Hasselblad. Eve and her sister would certainly be disappointed in the result. Not to mention losing the last precious connection she had to her mother. But time was running out. She couldn’t stay so visible here in Marietta and expect he wouldn’t find her.

No, she’d gambled and lost. Her time here was finished. She would put Marietta in her rear-view mirror now as fast as she could and never look back.

Dodging traffic on Main Street, she crossed to the other side and walked two long blocks to the Main Street Diner and found a booth in the corner. It was all she could do not to drop her head down on her arms and bawl.

You look like you could use some coffee, darlin’.

The kindness in the woman’s voice made her look up. Ali brushed a hand quickly down her cheek and straightened. The woman’s nametag read, ‘Sally’. She, too, was middle-aged and looked like she’d circled the block a few times, but this woman had a smile on her face that seemed genuine. Ali needed one right now.

You all right, dearie?

She felt about as far from ‘all right’ as she ever had. I’m fine. And yes, coffee would be nice.

Sally turned over the mug on the table and poured her a cup. Take cream with that?

No. Just black. Thank you. And some eggs, please. Three, actually. Scrambled. With toast. And jam, if you have it.

Only the best homemade jam in the state of Montana. What kind of toast, dearie?

Sourdough.

Independent thinker. I like that, Sally teased with a smile. Most folks just say white or wheat.

A half-sob, half-laugh escaped her and Sally hesitated before she patted the table, stuck her pencil behind her ear and headed back to the kitchen.

Sipping her coffee, Ali welcomed its warmth on her emotion-clogged throat. The diner was half-full despite being smack in between breakfast and lunch. She let her gaze roam over the heads of the customers—families, some of them. A few singles. Businessmen and cowboys. Each of them had a place to be when they left here. Home. Work.

A life.

They were not looking over their shoulders or sitting with their backs to the wall. They seemed caught up in their lives and living, unafraid. But it had been so long since her life could be described that way, she could hardly remember it now.

She’d often heard people talk about luck, about whether or not such a thing existed. Or whether good fortune was as simple as preparation meeting opportunity. She’d quit believing in luck years ago. Whoever had bought her camera couldn’t have paid what that camera was worth and she’d never find its equal, even if she had all the luck in the world.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to look, expecting Sally with her food. But it was that woman from the pawnshop. Ali’s lips parted in surprise.

I hope you don’t mind me followin’ you here, the woman said, sliding, uninvited, into the booth opposite her. But I felt for you back there. Even before the…well, you know—the marbles.

Without a clue as to what to say to the woman, she just stared at her.

You don’t know my name, the woman went on, and I don’t know yours. Which is just as well. But you remind me of a good friend I had once who did something real nice for me. In fact, you’re a dead ringer for her. And I just thought to myself, ‘I should help her.’ So here I am.

Y-you want to help me? Maybe it was the hunger, but she couldn’t grasp what this woman was up to.

"Maybe I’ve just had enough of men like Eeben. See, he has a set policy of waitin’ an extra twenty-four hours after a contract expires, to sell with an item as expensive as that one—honestly anything over five hundred dollars—just to give our better patrons the benefit of the doubt. It’s not the law, but it’s a courtesy, you understand. Something the people of Marietta have long appreciated. But not this time. I think he figured you wouldn’t be back for it, not bein’ a local and bein’ a woman, at that. And that just burned me, if you want to know the truth. I’m sick to death of that way of thinking. Men like Eeben feelin’ superior to us women, not even knowin’ a girl’s story. So, I’m going to break the

Reviews for A Cowboy to Keep

[sueyates · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book. If you like nice romantic stories with a little intrigue then you will enjoy this book. it also has a teenager who has experienced too much loss in her life and her uncle needs help in helping her cope. This is a standalone book which is another reason to like it. I read a lot so if I can remember what a book is about enough to write a review, then it was an interesting read.

[jlleonard · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Good light reading.

[lmdiaz-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The book was very predictable but I still enjoyed it. The "relationship" was pretty quick moving and hard to believe they fell in love that quickly but again I still enjoyed it. I was disappointed with the speed on the end, we romance lovers are always looking for the romance.

[kimmyd76 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I had not read any of the previous books and realized this said bok 4 but decided you read regardless. I'm glad I did. It is a great stand alone and I didn't feel like I was missing anything. Some twists with a little mystery with enough romance to make you root for the couple to get together!

[alyssia-88 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A nice romance with a cowboy with a past and a lady photographer with a past. Fits all together. Very nice to read. I got this book with the Librarything Early Reviewers.

[acanuckreader-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Ali is one tough cookie, and I like her. Plus I am big into photography so I have to admit that this novel may have caught my attention due to that. She is a fighter who thinks she’s a runner, and it makes her someone interesting to read about.Adam is a character I can appreciate because he’s multifaceted and has some very real trauma to deal with that does extend to his niece, Carrie. He is one of those people who does the right thing no matter what, and sometimes at cost to himself.Carrie is a great secondary character, who actually goes through the most development out of any of the characters in this book. The thing I liked about her is she seems like a brat at first, until you realize why and then she becomes much easier to sympathize with.The plot of this story is familiar, but it doesn’t seem too cliché. It is not slow burn, and does seem to be a rush to romance, but I am certainly not complaining as it was an enjoyable read with comfortable characters.Received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

[tmommy4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

**This ARC was received in exchange for a review**I enjoyed this book. I was immediately drawn into the story line and the characters. The underlying theme of the book was how the characters were trying to run away from life, Ali becuase of a stalker, Adam because of a terrible accident which killed his sister and left him with physical scars. An last there is the teenage Carrie afraid to love anyone because she feels responisble for the accident that killed her mother, scarred her uncle and several years later her father is killed in another accident. Three broken people come together and allow themselved the chance to love and be loved.

[cathygeha · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Cowboy to Keep by Barbara AnkrumThe Canadays of Montana #4I love meeting new minds by reading new-to-me authors and I truly did enjoy reading this book. I came into the series later than I like to BUT had no trouble following the story or meeting people that no doubt have been introduced previously. I like this author’s style and look forward to reading more of her work in the future. So…in this story Ali is on the run BUT she also wants to at least look in on the only family she has left – family that has no idea she exists. She has just been disappointed trying to reclaim something she pawned so heads off to find out if there is a way to appeal to the person who purchased the item that is one of her last ties to her mother and in so doing she is offered a job she cannot refuse – for a number of reasons. Who offered her the job? Adam Wolfe. Adam is a rancher but oh so much more than that. He has taken in his niece, has completely changed his line of work, is scarred (in more ways than one) and a wonderful person underneath it all. Carrie, the niece, has suffered great losses in her lifetime and has much to work through. With Ali and Adam she is able to eventually emerge a bit at a time from underneath the heavy weight she is carrying. Of course the bad guy is still lurking in the background, Ali’s family is still clueless and there is romance building. Thank you to NetGalley and Tule Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review. 4 Stars

[charlsievanderpoel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great book that catches your heart! Fate brings two people together that have a hidden pasts!

[caslater83 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

**Special note: I received this ARC in exchange for a review**

This was a good book. I just wish it was longer because I would have enjoyed more material. Ali is a young girl in hiding. She doesn't carry credit cards or anything that is likely to leave a trace. She knows she is wanted and she wants to stay under the radar as long as possible.
Carrie is a young teenager on the cusp of womanhood. She's been through the emotional wringer, losing both of her parents at separate times in her life. Now she only has her uncle and a new housekeeper/cook as her support system. It's a tough time to be a kid.
Adam Wolfe is a bachelor who doesn't really know how to reach out to Carrie. All he knows is that he owns a camera that belongs to Ali. He strikes a deal with her: she will work for him to earn that camera back.

Like I said, it has the makings of a great story. I just wish it had more material because I think the set-up is good enough to extend the story line.