Between a Rock and a Hard Cowboy: Wilder Brothers, #3

By Cat Johnson

Linc Wilder traded in his Army uniform for his old cowboy boots and hat and the quiet seclusion of his cabin on the outskirts of the Wilder ranch in Tennessee. But things are far from quiet after Eva Lucas and her two friends crash into Bitter End and turn his family upside down.

He thought being stranded with the sharp tongued red-headed New Yorker during a blizzard was his worst problem. Then he realizes what real trouble is when a secret from the family's past threatens everything. They'll all have to work together to save the family legacy. Friends. Enemies. Lovers… Good thing he and Eva qualify as all three.

It's Christmas time in the small town of Bitter End and introvert computer hacker Eva is happy to maintain her Grinch status until she's roped into the Wilder Family's annual Christmas competition and paired with youngest Wilder brother Linc, the hot young Army veteran. 

She thought that was the worst thing that could happen until her competitive nature leads to her uncovering a century old family secret that could cost the Wilders everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cat Johnson
• Release date: Dec 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215061954

Cat Johnson

New York Times & USA Today bestselling contemporary romance author Cat Johnson. Sign up at catjohnson.net/news to get new release and sale alerts.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

S top. You can’t force it in. The intensity of his passionate words, spoken so near, sent a piece of hair that had fallen across her face fluttering.

Refusing to let his closeness rattle her, she countered, I’m not forcing it.

You are. You’re gonna snap it right off. For a man in his twenties he sure could whine like a child when he didn’t get his way.

I’m not gonna break it. Jeez. She was in her thirties. She knew what she was doing.

"Can’t you just let me do it? It is mine."

Eva ignored his comment, since it was mostly true, but she didn’t see how it mattered who it belonged to.

Linc sighed. Just give up. It doesn’t fit.

Not moving back, not giving in, Eva shook her head. You don’t know that. It might fit—

Her words stopped dead when Linc’s hand covered hers. Rough. Big. Warm. She was so distracted she barely noticed he’d slowly uncurled her fingers and her hand was empty.

Hey! I was using that.

And it wasn’t working, so stop. He pulled it farther away and out of her reach.

Does this sound like some sort of weird foreplay to anyone else, or just me? Ethan asked in a low voice nearby, but not low enough.

Eva spun to send the tall cowboy a scathing glare, but only for a fraction of a moment before she turned back.

She had to keep an eye on what Linc was doing with the ornate antique key they’d been trying to wrestle into the lock of the secret compartment she’d found under the big old desk in the Wilder study. 

Don’t let her hear you say that or she’ll be forcing that key somewhere else that it doesn’t fit, Poppy warned her boyfriend, who also happened to be Linc’s brother Ethan Wilder.

I can hear you, Eva said without turning, her gaze glued to Linc’s fingers as he flipped the key around and tried it upside down.

She’d already tried that and it hadn’t worked. But of course, being a man and a know-it-all, he had to try himself.

Ugh. Wilder men. They were all destined to drive her crazy.

Cocking a brow in victory, she said, See? That didn’t work either.

She didn’t give up, ever, but she knew when it was time to change tactics and move on. That time had come.

Sighing, she said, Let’s just look for something else.

There had to be two dozen rooms in the historic Tennessee mansion the Wilder family called a home. And even though the Wilder men had insisted they’d tried every lock in the house, she’d proven them wrong.

She, Eva Lucas from New York, had found the secret compartment that none of the rest of them had. And she’d done it while drinking their very expensive bourbon. Win-win.

I only speak the truth, darlin’. Seriously, they should just fuck and get it over with. Ethan’s comment ambled slow and smooth, just like the playboy cowboy he was—or had been before Poppy had locked down his heart.

But the fact he was dating one of her two best friends didn’t mean Eva had to put up with verbal abuse from the man.

She opened her mouth to deliver a zinger of a comeback, when Linc came to her defense with a barked reprimand of, Ethan!

What? Ethan played innocent, until he spotted Darcy, his five-year-old niece who’d come into the room with her father, Wyatt Wilder. Ethan cringed. Sorry.

Wyatt scowled before his gaze swept the room, pausing on Eva. I take it from the unhappy faces, and the swearing, that the discovery you were so excited about didn’t pan out.

No, Linc answered for her, which had her narrowing her eyes at him.

She could answer for herself. She didn’t need some man—and a younger man, to boot—doing it for her. She was about to tell him that when the AI device in the room chimed.

What’s happening down there? Olivia’s computer amplified voice filled the office and was echoed by the second device across the hallway in the kitchen.

All right, who taught her how to use the Alexa like a whole house PA system? Ethan asked.

Wyatt raised one finger to take the blame. It was me. She was going so crazy at the thought of being on bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy, I had to do something to make her feel more connected.

Hello? Is this thing on? Olivia asked as two out of three Wilder men groaned. Apparently, Linc was too busy protecting the key he’d finally gotten possession of again to be annoyed by Olivia.

Eva couldn’t help but smile. Seeing two-thirds of the Wilder men annoyed was good enough to cheer her up after the key had again defeated her. I’ll go upstairs and report in.

I’ll come too, Poppy offered.

She hooked her hand under Eva’s elbow, which was such a typical Poppy thing to do, Eva, who generally didn’t like touching another person unless she was fucking or fighting, allowed it.

They walked arm-in-arm, surrounded by a cloud of Poppy’s no-doubt insanely expensive perfume, all the way up the wide staircase where finally at the top they had to disengage to fit through Olivia and Wyatt’s bedroom door.

So that was fun, Poppy said, pointedly looking at Eva.

What was fun? What’s happening? I hate being stuck up here. Olivia pouted.

That’s what you get for not using protection, Eva pointed out.

Olivia’s brows drew low as she scowled. Mean. I take it the key didn’t fit the secret compartment you found, judging by your fouler than usual mood.

True, but I’m not so sure if the foul mood is key related, Poppy tipped her head to one side, sending her nauseatingly perfect long blonde hair cascading over one shoulder.

I love you, but that doesn’t mean I won’t throttle you. Eva’s warning did not have the desired effect as her friend’s smile flashed straight white teeth.

Olivia sighed. I’m right here and I still don’t know what’s going on. How soon can I schedule a C-section? Somebody Google that.

Eva and Linc treated us all to a display of what sexual tension looks like when both people are too stubborn to admit they’re attracted to each other.

Poppy relaying that completely inaccurate information had Eva knifing her hands through her cropped red hair. Ugh. Not true. Don’t listen to her delusions.

Not delusions. Poppy shook her head while looking gleeful.

He’s a child, Eva countered.

Linc was the baby of the Wilder family. The youngest of the three brothers, while she was the oldest of her two friends.

Just hanging out with Poppy, who was firmly a Gen Z, made Eva feel like the girl’s mommy. The last thing she wanted was to feel like that with a guy while having sex.

Age is just a number. Poppy delivered that wisdom gleaned from all of her two decades of life.

Says the twenty-two-year-old. Eva cocked a brow, thinking how her favorite boots were older than this girl.

Linc is twenty-seven, Olivia supplied.

But he’s more like a forty-year-old in a twenty-seven-year old’s body. With all he’s been through, and how serious he is most of the time, it’s like he’s the oldest Wilder brother, not Wyatt, Poppy argued. Livvie, don’t you think so?

Olivia let out a huff. What I think is that I’m going to tell Wyatt to install an elevator in this monstrous house so I can go downstairs and see all this romantic intrigue for myself.

There’s no intrigue, romantic or other. Eva scowled. The key didn’t fit the lock in the secret compartment.

That was what had made her cranky. There was nothing between her and the youngest, grumpiest and most stubborn Wilder brother.

Move along. Nothing to see here…

So the key doesn’t fit. Call a locksmith. Or can’t you pick the lock?

Eva glanced up to see Olivia had directed that question at her. Why would you ask me that?

Olivia’s deer caught in headlights expression was accompanied by an incoherent, Uh…

It’s just that if any of us would be clever enough to be able to pick a lock, it would be you, obviously, Poppy said, swooping in to Olivia’s rescue.

Mm-hm. Eva pulled her mouth to one side and glared at them through narrowed lids. She knew they all thought she lived life on the dark side…or at least earned a living there.

The problem was, they weren’t too far from the truth. That didn’t mean she was going to support their theory.

Neither confirm nor deny…

So? Can you call a locksmith? Olivia asked.

Or pick the lock? Poppy added.

That way we’ll know what’s in there and it doesn’t matter that the key didn’t fit, Olivia said.

Eva drew in a breath, more annoyed with herself than with them for tag-teaming her.

She should have thought of picking the lock herself. Her one excuse was that the key was the focus.

Her inability to think had nothing to do with the sensation of Linc literally breathing down her neck. Or how he smelled like horses and leather and pine. Or that he looked like a damn lumberjack, with the hard body of a twenty-something who worked outdoors. Or that she was having trouble remembering the last time she’d seen a man naked. Mostly because she’d pushed that visual out of her mind because that man had been less than stellar in the bod department.

Nope. It was none of that.

Finding where the key that Wyatt, Ethan and Linc’s grandfather had reportedly carried with him every day of his life was the concern here. The mystery that needed to be solved. More than what was in the drawer that the key didn’t fit.

Still, a secret compartment that no living Wilder knew existed was also exciting and she couldn’t believe she wasn’t down there picking that lock right now. Because yes, she had the skills. She also had the tools, although they were back at the apartment above Rosie’s Cafe with the rest of the stuff she’d brought with her to Bitter End, Tennessee from New York.

The apartment she kind of sort of shared with Poppy.

Her roommate now had a suite at the big fancy Wilder Inn as part of her position as management there, but Eva suspected Poppy and Ethan used that mostly for lunchtime quickies. Which was fine with her. It kept Ethan from trailing around the apartment after Poppy like a puppy.

Eva could count on Poppy being there quite a bit of the time. She’d sleep in the apartment most nights of the week.

She’d be there when she needed to vent and when she needed a cinnamon-dusted cappuccino and a sweet treat from Rosie’s. When she needed that purse, or shirt, or fill in the blank of some overpriced designer fashion item stored there. Half the girl’s stuff was still in the apartment. Apparently socialites didn’t pack light.

It was the perfect situation. Eva had enough peace and quiet and privacy to satisfy her. And Poppy was there often enough to keep the apartment from feeling empty or lonely.

Eva drew in a breath and glanced at the bedside clock next to her pregnant friend who was supposed to be resting, not hosting a mystery hunt. Besides, she had some work to get done tonight. Actual money-making work.

I’m heading back to Rosie’s so Livvie can rest. You coming back there or spending the night at the hotel? she asked Poppy.

For the first time ever, Poppy seemed to be at a loss for words. She glanced at Olivia, then back to Eva. Um. So, I have something to tell you.

No sentence in the history of the world, delivered in that tone, and with that expression, had been good news. Eva folded her arms and braced herself for the worst.

She was thinking it had something to do with Poppy’s rich mom and dad in New York. Something along the lines of they’d offered to buy her a mansion to go along with the vintage Alfa Romeo waiting for her at their Hamptons beach house if she came back to civilization and abandoned the idea of living in Bitter End.

A couple of days ago…Ethan asked me to move in, Poppy spilled that news on a burst of breath.

Olivia’s eyes widened. In here?

Yes. Poppy cringed. Is that okay. I mean it’s Wyatt’s house. And yours. And with Darcy and the new baby and Wyatt’s father all living here…

It’s amazing. Of course I want you here, Olivia squealed with joy. Eva did not.

Poppy noticed and turned to her. You all right with this?

Me? Of course. Eva dismissed the concern with the wave of her hand. It’s not like you’re really living at Rosie’s anymore anyway since you got that fancy suite at the hotel. Maybe now you’ll move your shit out of the apartment and I’ll have more room to spread out.

Poppy watched her too closely—all those damned Psych classes the girl had taken at Cornell made her fancy herself a therapist sometimes.

You sure? she asked.

I’m more than sure. I need the peace and quiet for work.

Olivia raised a brow. I’ve seen you work at the table during family dinner.

"There’s work and then there’s work. And speaking of, I have some to do so I’ll say goodnight." She turned toward the door.

What about the secret compartment? Olivia asked.

She’d forgotten about that. Tell Linc to leave it alone and not break anything. I’ll bring my lock pick kit by tomorrow and get it open.

Eva was out the door when she heard Poppy say, Lock pick kit?

And Olivia add, I knew she’d be able to pick that lock.

That comment cheered her a little bit as she made her way down the back staircase and out the kitchen door to avoid having to interact with any of the Wilders in the office near the front entrance.

But by the time she pulled up to the back staircase at Rosie’s and glanced up at what was now her apartment, and hers alone, an unpleasant empty lonely feeling had hit her hard.

Time to get to work. Computers had never let her down the way people in her life did and always had. But the internet—that was always there for her. Day or night. A comfort. A distraction. A challenge. A win.

Since the day she’d heard on the evening news that the first text message had been sent via computer back in 1991 at eight years old, she’d been fascinated by technology.

It was ten years before she’d gotten her own computer, a Gateway Performance 1500 that cost her a whopping three thousand dollars. It had taken her a decade of odd jobs and saving to buy it while she’d made do with using the computer lab at school.

That hadn’t been all that bad. Rather than go home to an empty house, she’d stay late and lose herself on the web at school while other kids ran home to sit mindlessly in front of the television.

And she was going to lose herself on the web now.

CHAPTER TWO

Linc narrowed his eyes at the key in his hand, turning it, studying it from different angles, hoping to see something he’d missed. Something they’d all missed.

Why do you care about that old thing anyway? Ethan asked.

Linc raised his gaze to his brother. It meant a lot to Gramps. It must go to something important.

Maybe it was just a good luck charm. Or something his father gave him that doesn’t even go to anything anymore and he carried it for the memory, Ethan suggested.

Wyatt, always skeptical, cocked up a brow. As far as I’ve heard, our great-grandfather wasn’t exactly the sentimental type. And Grandfather was anything but superstitious or nostalgic.

That key was important to them for some reason. His brothers could think and say what they wanted, but Linc wasn’t giving up.

Why had his grandfather carried this key everywhere for every day of his adult life?

Could it be just an old key? It didn’t seem likely. But what if it did go to a trunk that had long since fallen apart? A door whose lock had been changed. A piece of furniture that was no longer in this house or the hotel…

The hotel.

Has anyone checked the locks and furniture in the hotel? Linc asked.

It had been built in 1886 by his great-great-grandfather, John Thomas Wilder.

Have you seen the hotel? Ethan asked the rhetorical question.

Linc was very aware how huge the Wilder Inn was. One hundred and sixty-six bedrooms dating back to the original construction, not counting renovations and additions.

He’d played there as a child, running through the building from the attic to the basement. Up and down every hallway, to the chagrin of management, employees and guests alike.

He knew how many doors there were. But how many pieces of furniture, both in use and in storage, would have to be checked? It would be a huge task, but not an impossible one. He’d faced situations that qualified as impossible more times than he could count while in the Army.

Dad said he checked everything in the hotel, Wyatt informed them, deflating Linc’s enthusiasm for his latest plan of action.

Why don’t we table the key for a bit—literally, like put it down on the table—and let’s talk about what’s really important here. Ethan folded his arms over his chest and leaned back against the sideboard that served as a bar.

And what’s that? Linc asked, wondering what his never serious brother considered important today.

You and Eva.

Linc scowled. There is no me and Eva.

The woman hated him.

Although to be fair, she didn’t like most people. At least that was the impression he got from the sayings printed on the daily parade of Eva’s impressively large collection of people-hating T-shirts. Today’s selection had said, "Sometimes I look at people and feel sorry for their dog."

Although he couldn’t exactly argue with the sentiment when it came to some people he’d known in his life, he wasn’t the type to broadcast the opinion on his clothing. Eva, obviously, was exactly that type.

Bullshit! If you two aren’t already f—

Ooo! Daddy, Uncle Ethan said a bad word!

Ethan’s wide-eyed gaze cut to Darcy, as if he just remembered she was there.

Yes, he did, sweetie. You’re right. Wyatt cocked a brow as he sent Ethan a glare.

The five-year old was sitting on the floor rubbing Bingley the dog’s furry back until wisps of loose fur flew through the air.

Wyatt, the neat freak, was going to lose his mind when he noticed. Linc could bring the girl the dog brush from the kitchen in hopes of containing