Rocky Mountain Cowboy Read Online Free

Jenny’s twelfth birthday, Mary Fletcher announced that she had filed for divorce. It had been a shock, but maybe not a surprise. Both Jenny and Tom knew Mary was not happy being a rancher’s wife. Though neither of them had expected the devastatingly cruel blow she inflicted on them in the process. With the help of her wealthy father, she had sued for and won sole custody of their only child.
    Separating father and daughter was the cruelest thing her mother could have done, and Jenny had always believed that was exactly why Mary had done it— because it punished Tom for not giving her the life she had expected.
    Mary had come from money, and expected to live her life surrounded by abundance. Why she had ever thought Tom Fletcher could provide that was beyond Jenny’s understanding. In the twelve years Mary had lived with Tom, Jenny had never seen a great deal of love or even affection expressed by Mary toward her husband or even her daughter. Tom’s struggles to establish his ranch had never reached Mary’s financial expectations, and her daughter was a nuisance. Mary spent more time back East with her wealthy family than she did on her husband’s remote mountain ranch. As a result, Jenny had never been close to her mother. There had been no bonds established between them.
    And Jenny’s maternal grandfather had been undermining his daughter’s marriage from the beginning. Samuel Cameron visited frequently, and he always brought expensive gifts for his only grandchild. Jenny hadn’t liked him from their first meeting. Like Mary, he had a cold, manipulative manner about him. He resented Tom, sneered at his small-time business efforts, and visited simply to cause trouble.
    In the end, Tom had never stood a chance against Cameron’s money and influence. His fight for custody of his daughter had been swiftly and ruthlessly stopped. He hadn’t even been able to win visitation rights.
    The legal blow was heartbreaking for Tom, and it nearly destroyed Jenny. The pain of her last day with her father was still etched in her memory as if it had happened yesterday.
    They had gone to their favorite fishing hole to be alone, granted that final indulgence by the two waiting for them at the house. Jenny could still see Tom’s midnight blue eyes gazing down at her. His handsome face had been filled with the Herculean effort to hold back the oceans of pain behind those eyes. Sitting against a big tree by the stream, with his arm curled around her and his long legs stretched out before him, he had spoken quietly to her, attempting to soothe the tearful, pleading protests she made.
    She remembered thinking how small her hand had looked in his big work-roughened one. “I could run away, Daddy,” she had sobbed. “You could hide me. Tell Mary you can’t find me.” Her plea had been a desperate one.
    “I don’t want you to do that, sweetheart,” Tom had replied, kissing the top of her dark head. “Never, ever run away. Something awful could happen to you, and it would break my heart.”
    “But something awful has already happened!”
    “Yes, it has,” Tom had agreed sadly. “But you must promise me that you will remember how much I love you. You will always be the most important thing in my life. No matter how far away you are or how long we are apart, I will always love you and be waiting here for you to come home someday. Mary can take you from me, but she can’t keep you from me forever. Someday, when you’re all grown up, we’ll be together again. I promise you that, Jennifer Michelle.”
    Then Tom had pulled her into his strong arms and rocked her for a long, long time.
    For as long as she lived, Jenny would never forget that final farewell. She had cried the whole time. Nothing her father said had eased the pain and helplessness she felt at being taken away from him. During the years afterward, when she got so lonely she thought she’d die, the knowledge of his love kept her going. It was like an eternally lit