Just like bad boys, cowboys have a way of making a girl’s heart gallop off into the sunset. While developing The Lost Millionaires series, I knew I had to write about a cowboy, a man more interested in working hard on his land than the fact that he’d just inherited millions of dollars.

Especially a man like Mitch Smith, who believes his land is the only thing in his life he can trust. Getting him to trust the woman sent to bring him into the McCoy fold was a real challenge, but so worth it.

The fact that I’d pretty much grown up on the back of a sassy quarter horse and spent many a day “herding” a black angus calf that was supposed to be fattening up helped me a lot writing this story. Great research for me, but not so good for the market value of the calf.

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CHAPTER ONE

Dear Mr. Smith;

It is our duty at this time to inform you of the death of Marcus McCoy due to an unfortunate, unforeseen encounter with a grizzly bear while fly-fishing in Alaska on June 8 of this year, and per the stipulations set forth in his last will and testament, to make formal his acknowledgment of one Mitchell Davis Smith, a.k.a. Mitch Smith, age 31, of The Circle S Ranch, Rural Route 5, Whiskey Ridge, Colorado, as being his son and heir to an equal portion of his estate.

It is the wish of Joseph McCoy, father to Marcus McCoy, grandfather to Mitch Smith, and founder of McCoy Enterprises, that you immediately assume your rightful place in the family home and business with all due haste and utmost discretion to preserve the family’s privacy.

Regards,

David Weidman, Esq.

 Weidman, Biddermier, Stark

Mitch squinted at the letter in his hand, the June Colorado morning sun reflecting brightly off the expensive white business stationery. He laid his dusty work gloves over the top rail of the corral and tipped his tan cowboy hat back with his finger. His squint deepened into a frown as he tuned out the bawling Angus calves behind him. Even after a second reading, the letter still made no sense, and the day wasn’t even that hot yet.

He settled his forearms on the rail and looked up at the leggy redhead who’d brought his men to a standstill in the middle of inoculating some prize calves. She’d sashayed from her white pick-up truck, the name of the rental company splashed across the side, in high-heeled black boots, snug black jeans and a black knit top to hand-deliver the envelope bearing this letter to him.

It wasn’t every day that women who at first glance looked like a darker red-haired Nicole Kidman in one of his crews’ favorite movies, Days of Thunder, showed up in U-Haul Rental pick-ups. He could tell from the conspicuous lack of whistles and shouts behind him that she still had their interest.

He nodded at the letter. “What is this?”

“Just what it says.” Her voice had a rasp to it, like she’d had a little too much fun the night before. Which might explain her lack of anything bordering on friendly. He certainly knew the type. And did his damnedest to steer clear of them now after almost committing himself to one. He wouldn’t have had a dime to his name within a year.

He waited for more explanation, staring at a distorted reflection of himself in her dark, rimless sunglasses. Didn’t get any.

Great. A tight-lipped female when he wanted answers. So far all she’d done was ask if he was the Mitch Smith who owned this ranch, then handed him an envelope with a ring-less left hand.

“Well, Miss...?”

She hesitated a moment, shifting her weight to one scary pointy-toed boot, then supplied, “Sullivan. Alison Sullivan.”

“Well, Miss Sullivan, what I think this is, is a mistake. I’ve heard of the McCoys--at least the ones who own all those stores that sell just about everything. Is that the same McCoys?”

At her emphatic nod, he shook his head. “Then I sure as hell have never met one. Or know anyone who has. Sorry, but you’ve got the wrong man.” He folded the letter up and tucked it into the envelope.

When he handed it back to her, she just stared at it, her lips--much fuller than Ms. Kidman’s now that he really looked at her--parting slightly.

She shook her head with conviction. “No. There’s no mistake.” She yanked off her sunglasses and pinned him to the rail with the prettiest blue-green eyes he’d ever seen. “The McCoys hired me--my private investigation firm--to find you, Mitchell Davis Smith, deliver this letter, then escort you to Dependable, Missouri.”

She took the letter back out of the envelope and thrust it at him.

Mitch had no choice but to take it. “Ah. That explains the bad-to-the-bone look.” He shrugged and straightened away from the corral fence. “Then there must be another Mitchell Davis Smith running around somewhere, because I think I would have known if my natural father had been...” he glanced down at the letter “...Marcus McCoy. Him being a member of one of the richest families in the states, and all.”

She took a step closer to the rail and placed her hand where his forearms had been, lending an air of intimacy to their conversation that would catch any man’s interest. She glanced at the three men behind him and leaned forward more.

Not that Carl, Juan, or Richie could hear her over the noise of calves unhappy about being separated from their mommas, despite his ranch hands’ avid interest.  

In a low voice she said, “No, you wouldn’t have. Your mother was paid a million dollars to keep your true paternity a secret.”

Mitch froze.

A million dollars.

Mitch, we’re so proud of the man you’ve become. It’s time for you to have the money I received when your real father died.

What had started out as a million dollars before taxes had been sitting in an account since before he’d been born. The interest it piled up had been more than enough for the down payment on his maternal great-grandfather’s old ranch. The ranch he’d yearned to bring back into the family since his mother first lulled him to sleep as a kid with stories of her visits here when she’d been a child.

He wiped away the echo of his mother’s words along with the sweat on his brow. “No,” he insisted to the gorgeous PI as well as to the spark of doubt that flared in his chest. “My mom’s first husband, my real father, died before I was born.”

She nodded like he’d just told her his cattle were the other white meat. “And you know this how?”

His hackles rose. “For your information, when the man I’d thought was my dad, Ed Smith, was diagnosed with heart disease around the time I first started college, my mom admitted that Ed wasn’t my biological father because she was afraid that I would worry about having inherited his health issues.”

“And she hadn’t told you before because...?”

Mitch raised his hands sharply at her insinuation. “Why in the heck am I telling you this?” Reining in his temper, he spread his hands wide. “Look, lady. You made a mistake. It happens. It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone. But as you can see--” he swept the hand holding the letter toward the corral filled with over two dozen calves and three of his men behind him “--I’m busy, so goodbye.” Mitch turned to walk away.

“Your mother’s name is Bonnie Larsen, and she’s lived in Boulder all her life.”

Her accurate statement stopped him in his tracks and made his heart skip a beat.

“Before she married Edward Smith--her only recorded marriage, by the way--she worked for a development firm that did business with McCoy Enterprises. Which was how she met, and apparently became involved with, one Marcus McCoy.”

Shock, disbelief, disappointment, a whole riot of emotions attacked him. Just as when he’d found out Ed wasn’t really his dad, that Michelle and Megan weren’t his full blood sisters. Afraid what might show in his eyes, Mitch was unwilling to meet Alison Sullivan, Private Investigator Extraordinaire’s blue-green gaze.

He changed course and ducked through the round corral rails next to her. He’d put this whole thing to rest once and for all.

She said, “You are his son, and have been acknowledged as such in his will. Per the stipulations of that will, I need you to accompany me to Missouri.”

Mitch ignored her and headed across the dusty expanse jokingly referred to as the yard separating the house from the corral.

“Mr. Smith?” she called after him.

He lengthened his stride, his stomach churning and his heart pounding.

“Mr. Smith!”

Mitch jumped over the two stairs up to the low porch that circled his entire house, the heels of his cowboy boots sharp on the already weathered planking, and yanked open the screen and front door.

He went inside, letting the screen door bang in his wake. The sound echoed through the empty house like a truck backfire. Going straight for the phone on the foyer wall across from the stairs, he punched in his mother’s number.

“Mr. Smith, please--”

He turned toward the PI standing on the other side of the screen door and threw her a hard glare. The sight of him on the phone had her pressing her plump lips together in obvious frustration.

Welcome to the club, sister. If there was more to the story of his parentage than what had already been kept from him, he’d strangle his dear mother.

“Hello?” his mom answered in her usual cheery tone.

He skipped any preamble and got right to the matter at hand. “Mom, I’ve a lady PI standing here telling me that my real father was none other than Marcus McCoy, of the billionaire McCoys.”

“What?”

Relief washed through Mitch. One colossal surprise in a guy’s life was enough. But he still slowly asked the question so there would be no doubt. “Mom, was my biological father Marcus McCoy?”

His mom sputtered. “A PI? Do you know who hired her?”

The flood of reassurance ebbed. “The McCoys. Or at least their lawyers.” He glanced down at the letter, smudged from the dirt that always managed to work its way through his leather gloves. “I guess this Marcus guy was killed, by a grizzly bear in Alaska, no less, and when they read his will, he claimed a Mitchell Davis Smith as his son and heir. I told her she had the wrong--”

“Oh, my Lord. Oh, my Lord,” his mom chanted, rocketing his heart rate back up.

“Mom?”

“Oh, Mitch...”

“Mom!”

“Oh, Honey...”

At that moment, he knew. The lady PI had been telling the truth.

Staggered by the height of the stack of lies his life had been built on, Mitch fisted the hand holding the letter and planted it on the wall above his head to steady himself.

His throat rapidly closing from the strangle-hold being the last to know something so critical to his life for the second time, all he could force out was, “Tell me.”

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