24. My Pretty Cowboy

Phoebe insists on celebrating her wedding anniversary with Duke on the last night the players are in town with a party under the stars of Montana's big sky country. There's a local country band, a bar fashioned out of hay bales, a barbecue, and a bonfire.

Their family and the hockey players all mingle, having a great time. Duke's cousins and their friends are here, too, and some are cute for country girls and puck bunny wannabes. Being the fourth summer in a row he's held off-season hockey conditioning camp at his family ranch, word has spread. This year, it seems like more chicks are hanging around hoping for a chance with a hockey player.

I've had enough of the circle of bumpkins trying to catch my eye, and not interested. But there's one woman at the party shining like starlight who's been glancing my way for some time. She's classier, refined—far from the others.

For one, her boots aren't scuffed up, telling me these aren't working on the ranch boots, but fancier with a black and white scroll pattern on them.

While she line dances with her thumbs in her belt loops, her fine ass shimmies in a short denim skirt. The red and blue short-sleeved flannel shirt tied under her ample breasts shows off a torso that's meant for my hands to caress—and to grow with my baby in her tummy. Her brunette locks flow with the breeze on every turn and her laughter drifts my way.

The song ends, and I see my opening. I play it cool and approach the bar where she takes a break from dancing. She doesn't drink, but peels the label on her beer bottle from some local micro-brewery. A concoction called Summer Love Lager.

Pretty sure I've seen her around my games a time or two. Other men eye her as well—she's that hot, but doesn't even know it. For so many reasons, I don't want her eye-fucked by anyone but me. For the rest of our lives.

Maybe it's Duke and Phoebe celebrating their union with their adorable kids that does something to me. I want what they have.

I train my eyes on the woman's ass as I approach behind her with my hand in my pocket containing a velvet box. But as I side up on her right, so does some asshole on the left.

He's one of the ranch hands, asking for her name and if she'd like to dance. She stonewalls him, but he doesn't get the hint. I'm about to blow a gasket and usher this jerk into another field and ram his face into a cow pie.

"Bottle of tequila," I order from the bartender. I side eye the beauty and our eyes lock. My future lives there, deep inside her crystal blues.

"You look like a whole lot of trouble," she says, turning her body my way. The asshole finally leaves us be and saunters away.

"Why, trouble is my middle name, ma'am." I touch the brim of my new black Stetson hat, tilting it toward her with a nod. It matches my black boots and black jeans, and I hope I paint a pretty cowboy picture enough for her.

The way she bites her plump bottom lip tells me I do.

I grab the bottle of tequila and leave her there wanting more. I stalk across the field to my cabin. One of a dozen Duke had built for his summer camps.

On the porch of mine, I sit on a wooden chair, watching the stars, and take a few swigs of the tequila. I think about life, and love, and kids, and head back to the night Duke and Phoebe got married. While I was happy for them then, I got down on myself, thinking too deep, wondering what the meaning of my life was.

I wandered into a bar, and that's when I met her. One night in Montana changed me, gave me plenty of meaning, and made me a father, a lover, and now…

I think about all these things when the beautiful woman from the bar walks up to my porch.

She takes the bottle from my hands and drinks from it, but if I know her well, and I do, she fakes the sip, being a lightweight with booze. So seductively, she sets the bottle in between my thighs on the chair.

"You're a woman who knows what she wants," I declare.

"Always, and tonight I'm looking for trouble." Her knee rests on mine, and she leans forward with her hands on the back of my chair. "You see, I left my child with my brother to watch, and I flew up here today, hoping to meet a pretty cowboy like you."

"Now that you found me, what exactly do you want, darling?"

"I think you know." She leans in, her lips graze on my earlobe. Her lemony scent from Paris strikes me as so familiar. She whispers, "Another baby in my tummy."

My brow arches, and my cock roars to life, as Whitney veers off the script. We'd talked for the past few months, anticipating this trip to Montana, about reliving our night from the past.

But that's okay, because I'm about to veer off script, too.

My hands roam up her creamy thighs, pushing her denim skirt up. They dip in between to her legs, where I find her wet and sensitive to my touch. She hisses.

"Well, you've come to the right cowboy hockey player. My sperm seems to work really well under the big sky." An amused smile plays across my lips.

"So I've heard," she chuckles.

"But I have one condition this time."

"Really? What is it?" Her eyes gleam from our little play acting.

"Seeing how Remy has my last name?—"

"And Remington Bellamy is the coolest name ever," Whitney gushes.

"Yep. But now I want mama bear and every child that comes after to also have my last name." I lift her off of me and get down on one knee, pulling out the ring box to show off the rock I bought for her. "What do you say, Whitney? Will you marry me?"

Her hands fly to her mouth, and she stands there and stares at me. For at least a minute. Which isn't exactly the response I expect, and my heart stalls. In the span of seconds, I think back over the past year together, trying to figure out if there's any reason she would turn me down.

After the Vipers won the championship, she and Remy and I moved in together in a house in the Hills, and we became an instant family. Every day, I love being the best father and taking my son out to the grass in our large backyard, teaching him to play all kinds of ball. He's quite the sporty kid, and that's just something Brad has to come to terms with.

Whitney didn't pass her first attempt at the bar exam, so I encouraged her to take some time off and enjoy motherhood and not worry and stress about it for a while.

It did her some good, because this spring, with renewed passion, she studied again for the exam, attacking it with a vengeance. Just this past week before she flew up here, she attempted it again. We have our fingers crossed she passes and should get her results in a few months.

After that, she plans to join Brad part-time as legal counsel in his sports management firm. He and I are actually decent friends now, and he's still my agent. After he took up golf, another sport I excel at, we found common ground there.

He's a really great uncle to Remy, although my brothers try their best to outdo him in the uncle department, sending gifts from New York all the time.

I play for the Vipers, and Flynn and Scott and I make a formidable line on the ice. Off ice, Duke and Storm and Ex-man are still my best friends and we hang out together often, with our significant others, any chance we get.

The past year of my life with Whitney and Remy has been incredible. And I want many more to come.

Laughter carries from the party across the field, and I sweat it out. I didn't plan on a long speech, keeping it simple, and now I'm at a loss for words. "Whitney, I love you. Please, marry me?"

"Oh, Tucker! I love you, too." At last, she glances down at the round cut diamond ring, and her left hand extends out. It shakes and I slip the ring on her finger, admiring the glint from the moonlight, then a wet droplet falls upon it. I glance up to find tears streaming down her face.

She shuffles around me before I can stand and catch more tears. At my door, she sniffles, dabbing at her eyes. "Well, are you coming?"

"That depends, Trouble. Are you going to answer my question? I still haven't heard a yes, and yet, you took my ring and you hold my heart in the palm of your hands." I haul myself up, and stroll behind her.

"Tell you what. You make me come three times and the answer is yes," she purrs, recovered from the tears, and nods toward the entrance.

With a lopsided grin, I lean in, my hand on the door frame above her head."Then it's a yes, because you know a hat trick is my thing—guaranteed—on the ice or in bed."

She arches a brow. "You're that cocky you can score on me that many times?"

"Only one way to find out." I sweep her into my arms, and carry her to bed.

All night long, as per my guarantee, with each score, I have her screaming, "Yes, Tucker!"