My Heart's Guardian Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by Tell Me More Publishing LLC

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Tell Me More Publishing LLC

  P.O. Box 764

  Bellefonte PA, 16823

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1 - Rose

  Chapter 2 - Colton

  Chapter 3 - Rose

  Chapter 4 - Colton

  Chapter 5 - Rose

  Chapter 6 - Colton

  Chapter 7 - Rose

  Chapter 8 - Colton

  Chapter 9 - Rose

  Chapter 10 - Colton

  Epilogue | One year later

  My Heart’s Protector, Evans Sisters Stand-alone Book 1

  Accidentally Perfect, Brocker Brothers Novel 1

  Accidentally Mine, Brocker Brothers Novel 2

  Accidentally Devoted, Brocker Brothers Novel 3

  Accidentally Yours, Brocker Brothers Novel 4

  Accidentally Divine, Brocker Brothers Novel 5

  Chapter 1 - Rose

  JUNE 20TH

  Dear Gossips,

  We all cheer for a win-win situation, but I fear for Frost Forest's favorite twins, Rose and Abby Evans. There is one delightful winner and one abundantly clear loser. What a shame.

  Both girls claim to be as entrepreneurial as their family (the oldest sister is married to a Brocker Brother, need I say more?). The twins even look similar—except one is petite, and the other is altogether larger—but there’s a world of difference between the two. . . and those differences grow larger every day.

  One twin is focused, hardworking, and authentic, and the other floats tradition and stirs trouble and now, tragedy!

  What should’ve been the joyous opening day of Happy Hooves, which is Rose’s—the large twin's—horseback trail-riding venture, was marred with tragedy instead.

  Families gathered to have fun and make memories at a well-known trail in Frost Forest. Sadly, the only memory that will remain is when one of the trail riders found Mr. Avery’s body in a field after they stopped for a brief break.

  I’m told this shocking and sad event occurred during the first stop on Rose’s “beginner trail.”

  Family fun turned into a tragedy for the Avery family and a nightmare for all involved. An emergency four-by-four brought Mr. Avery out of Frost Forest, which helped to carry him to where he rests now, the Graw Funeral Home in Clear Creek.

  *Services will be held next Thursday at 2 pm. In lieu of flowers, the family is asking for donations to the Clear Creek Kayaking Club.*

  A very reputable source said the whole ordeal could’ve been handled more professionally by Happy Hooves owner, Rose Evans. Rose has also flouted tradition recently by being “voted” in as the Founding Families choice for the hostess of the Clear Creek Crawl. Rose’s Happy Hooves has now shut down for the summer. Unfortunately, all Rose offered to her traumatized guests was a choice between a trail ride reimbursement or a rescheduled trail ride in the fall.

  Please be careful if partaking in a Happy Hooves adventure. If this “business” ever reopens, it has a deceptive level of athletic difficulty and incompetent ownership. And some people continue to wonder why Boyd Vasny called it quits with Rose? It’s quite obvious now, isn’t it?

  As always, keeping you informed for the common good of our community!

  Forever Yours,

  Gossip Godmother

  “WHY DOES APRIL KLINE insist on calling herself the Gossip Godmother when everyone knows she’s the one writing this foul, local rumor mill blog? It’s unimaginable that she started something like this when she was the victim of vicious rumors after her ex-husband's scandal. I don’t get it,” said Abby, my twin.

  The petite one.

  “Because, hurt people, hurt people,” I said, between unladylike bites of a milk-dunked, chocolate chip cookie.

  Abby shook her head. “And I love how she wants to pit us against one another. The woman is evil.”

  I knew when I woke up this morning and heard Abby’s mixer going and smelled cookies baking in the oven that the malicious, socialite blogger, the Gossip Godmother, had struck again. The first article, a little over two weeks ago, had gleefully reported on Boyd Vasny, my longtime boyfriend, breaking up with me as I worked to open Happy Hooves. Apparently, a reputable source reported that I'd given Boyd a marriage ultimatum after we'd graduated from college in May, that I'd wanted to ring on my finger. In truth, Boyd was the one who was pressuring me to get married. I said things were moving too fast, and then I saw Boyd in the background of a picture posted on social media making out with another girl and confronted him. That was when Boyd said he needed time to explore his feelings for someone else. But the truth didn't matter to this blogger or her readers. They didn't care about what had actually happened as long as they were entertained.

  I looked over at Abby, her normally smiling lips were pulled in a tight line and a frown pinched between her brows. “Plus, she failed to mention the glaring fact that Mr. Avery was taking a walk by himself that day and the trail group just happened upon him. Kline makes it sound as though he joined your trail ride and you had everyone pounding through the woods at a breakneck pace,” said Abby, and absentmindedly slid two more, still-warm cookies off of a baking sheet and onto my tea saucer while glaring at the article on her cell screen.

  Abby’s love language largely consisted of offering gourmet baked goods. In fact, she had a popular food blog. And over the past two weeks, she’d had to make a few midnight runs next door to Brocker Lodge for extra flour to keep me pumped full of her love since all hell had broken loose in my life.

  Normally, there wouldn’t be such a rumor mill backlash toward me, but last month, the public eye turned my way when I got voted—as the first woman from Frost Forest—to act as the hostess of the Clear Creek Crawl. The crawl was one of our local summer events put on by the Founding Families Club. It was very important to some of the members and had always been hosted by a woman from Clear Creek.

  Clear Creek County consisted of Clear Creek, where the billionaires lived, and Bloomsbury, where the millionaires lived, and the private college sat. Frost Forest was the town—or long stretch of wilderness rather—that connected the two. Ever since my sister, Sammie, had married a Brocker billionaire from Clear Creek and began running their luxury lodge next to our family teahouse, owned and operated by my sister, Eloise, Frost Forest had gained a lot of local attention. And some people from Clear Creek and Bloomsbury didn't like that.

  I shrugged.

  Abby gaped at me over the screen of her phone. “How are you so calm, cool, and collected about all this?”

  I cracked a smile. “I wouldn’t necessarily say that.”

  Abby briefly narrowed her eyes. “You’re sitting here, shrugging off the fact that someone is trying to sabotage your dream! You’ve talked about running a horse-riding trail since. . . I don’t know, forever! Now this mean-spirited, jaded, ne'er-do-well, blogger一”

  I raised my brows. “Please, never try to roast anyone, unless it’s a ghost from Colonial times. Ne’er-do-well? We apparently failed to teach you how to cuss someone out properly.”

  Abby’s deadpan expression started to cave into a sheepish grin. “No, but this is serious. . . and look at you making jokes. April Kline is trying to start crap with someone I l
ove. You! My sister, my twin sister.”

  “Well, I’m glad that you think that I’m calm, cool, and collected. Maybe others will think that too. But I'm not. Look I just ate a dozen chocolate chip cookies for breakfast.”

  Abby glanced down at the baking sheet, and her eyes widened with surprise. “Oh, my Lord, yes you did. Okay, I might hold off on the red velvet cupcakes I planned on whipping up later.”

  “Please do, or I won't have any pants left that will button. I'm already known as the large twin.”

  Abby threw her hands into the air. “You are a size eight, for goodness sake. That’s it! I’m going to scratch her eyes out and the eyes of that gaggle of mean girls from Clear Creek that don't want you to host the crawl!”

  I shook my head and laughed. “Well, when you do, please refrain from calling them a 'gaggle.' You are straight-up old-timey, which is just wrong because you are the youngest Evans sister!”

  Abby rolled her eyes. “I'm your twin. I was born twelve minutes after you. I'm not your little sister.”

  “Mmm, yes, you are, but let's focus on the more pressing problem at hand. I'm not hosting the crawl after the July 4th celebrations.”

  Abby gasped and pressed her open palm to her heart. “But you have to. The Founding Families Club voted on it, and you publicly agreed. You can't back out now.”

  My shoulders slumped forward. “What is this community’s obsession with crawls? Cabin crawls, creek crawls, everyone is just looking for a way to make it socially acceptable to walk around and flirt while they legally drink in public. Let’s end this madness now. And besides, I knew that you were going to say that, which is why I'm going to ask Kaylee Stone to take my place. She has become a dear friend over the last few years, is from Clear Creek, and carries one of the oldest family names in recorded county history. How would the Gossip Godmother put it? Kaylee's a win-win.”

  “Kaylee? I don’t think that’s going to work,” said Abby with a wrinkled brow.

  “Why not?”

  “I doubt she’ll be in town much this summer since she’s taking a vet clinic internship all the way up in Good Canyon,” said Abby, giving me a puzzled look.

  “What? Are you serious? I thought she said that she was thinking about doing that in the fall?” I sputtered.

  Abby’s eyes bulged. “How far behind are you in our text thread? She already left with her parents to find a summer sublet. She’ll be back for the fourth celebrations, but after that, she’ll be busy learning how to doctor horses and probably some large farm animals.”

  I groaned and dropped my head. “I’ve been avoiding all forms of technology recently. I don’t want to know what’s happening outside of this house. I wonder if she needs me to check on Dasher?” I said, feeling ill and wishing I hadn’t eaten those dozen cookies for breakfast.

  Abby shook her head. “Nope, she has someone checking in on him this week and plans to board him at a stable near her vet clinic for the summer.”

  “She’s from Clear Creek, so she probably doesn’t want me to tarnish her horse’s reputation,” I said, joking but starting to feel the weight all over again.

  “Rose, stop it. This isn’t like you. I know that you’ve suffered a couple of setbacks . . .” began Abby.

  I lifted my head and arched a brow. “Setbacks? A dead Mr. Avery, a new business on hold, a herd of Clear Creek mean girls, and a rumor-filled blog is more than a couple of setbacks. This is exactly why I am going to back out of hosting the Creek Crawl. I’ll write to the Founding Families Club after the fourth.”

  “Absolutely not,” bellowed Tula Cooper-Parks, bursting into the kitchen from the darkened butler’s hallway that connected to the dining room. Her British accent sounded clipped this morning.

  “Jesus!” I cried and clutched my chest to make sure that my heart hadn’t stopped.

  “Saves!” responded Tula and laughed. She absolutely loved saying that but also failed to realize that people tended to shout to the Lord around her because she had the habit of scaring people half to death. Tula didn’t enter a room; she exploded into it.

  I shook my head but smiled, anyway. “Tula! You just scared the crap out of me,” I said and rubbed my hand over my chest bone as though I were trying to calm a nervous animal.

  Tula smiled, and her oversized, pearly white, bucked teeth popped out from under her upper lip. She was everyone's favorite person, and she was an eclectic mix of well-to-do British hippie in her early sixties, slightly psychic, and a well-known professional sex therapist who was rocking her best life. Tula laughingly referred to herself as a mouthful because when she met the marketing mogul, Teddy Giltz, at a Brocker Lodge party, he spat a pitted olive across the crowded room from laughing so hard. Then he offered to market her latest book.

  Tula had shown up last summer when Eloise was opening the Lamplight Teahouse. Tula played such a critical role in drawing guests to the teahouse that she’d ended up staying and buying a beautiful house along Lake Garvey. She hosted popular monthly workshops. And, Owen Brocker, my brother-in-law, even had a beautiful small stone cottage built for Tula in the far reaches of the yard so she could work privately, one-on-one with therapy clients.

  But Tula's biggest claim to fame was the workshop that she developed at the Lamplight Teahouse last summer: Feminine Fire. Feminine Fire meetings drew people from all over the county, then the state, and now the region to hear Tula speak. Her events got booked for months in advance, and often, guests would stay a few days at Broker Lodge to put their newly gained knowledge to the test. The workshops definitely made things interesting. It was the kind of event one didn’t forget.

  Tula glanced at me and laughed. “Oh, that reminds me. Will you be able to help me with the July Feminine Fire meeting?”

  I sat back, eyes wide. “Did you just read my mind?” I asked, astonished and slightly nervous about Tula’s apparent powers.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I was just thinking about your meetings, that’s all,” I said and finished the last of my tea.

  “Well, good! I’ll need help since Eloise and Troy are finally stepping away for a long weekend with Sammie and Owen on that island they always talk about.”

  “Elys Island?” asked Abby, looking up from her phone.

  “Yes, that’s the one. Eloise and Troy will be out of town during my next meeting, and I thought . . .” Tula’s words faltered for a moment.

  I continued for her, “You thought I would be the best person to ask for help since I clearly have no other business to run!”

  Tula shook her long, brown-gray locks and put her hands on her narrow hips. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “It doesn’t matter. On the advice of Mason Brocker and his PR specialist wife, Trish, I’m not attempting to reopen Happy Hooves until the fall. Between trying to be sensitive to the Averys and becoming the huge target of the damn Gossip Godmotherー”

  Abby slammed her phone down on the kitchen table. “I’m going to scratch her eyes out!”

  Tula gracefully dropped onto a kitchen chair. “No, you’re not, dear girl, although I understand why you want to. I do think that everything happens for a reason, though, and even in moments of frenzied tumult, we can use these situations to learn something. To become truer, stronger versions of ourselves.”

  I tilted my head to the side and studied Tula. “I’ll try to keep that in mind. Over the last few weeks, I’ve lost my long-timeー”

  “Loser boyfriend,” inserted Abby and bared her teeth. She’d never liked Boyd, even from the beginning of our relationship three years ago.

  “Thanks, Ab. And I launched my dream business. On opening day, we found a dead body, and now I’m the unfortunate target of a wicked local gossip group and possibly a small gaggle of Clear Creek girls who don’t want me to host some silly summer event. There’s no way that I’m going to stand before everyone in the entire county at the Creek Crawl and pretend like everything’s okay because it’s not!

  Tula laid her palms flat
on the kitchen table in front of her. “Sleep on it for a few nights. It’s not even July yet, and it’s obvious the Founding Family Club could find a replacement hostess on short notice. Take time to think about it and let your thoughts settle. Life has a funny way of giving you exactly what you need and plucking out everything not meant for you. Through mysterious pathways the universe provides. Anyway, did you girls know that today is the first day of summer?”

  I grunted noncommittally.

  “Yes!” chimed Abby.

  “How are you both going to celebrate the turn of the season?” asked Tula, reaching for the teapot and a cup from the breakfast tray Abby had prepared earlier this morning and sat at the table.

  “I’m going to join El and Sammie at the lodge for some pampering and might even go out tonight.”

  “Will you be joining your sister, Rose?”

  “No, I am giving a lesson at the Mills Stable. I figure that while I’m stuck in limbo with Happy Hooves, the least I can do is teach a few kids how to ride.”

  “That’s a lovely idea,” Tula said and smiled.

  “WHO NAMES A HORSE FRANK?” asked the boy as he white-knuckled the horn of the western saddle and tried to balance himself.

  I smiled and rubbed my forearm along my forehead. I was probably rubbing dirt and all manner of barn bits into my auburn locks, but I was too hot to care. The first day of summer had officially brought the heat with it and confirmed that today would be the last day I’d wear blue jeans when working at the stable.

  I am swimming in sweat and smell like a horse. Abby is probably getting a massage and a manicure right now and will look and feel amazing if we got out tonight, whereas I’ll probably start yawning and checking the time by ten.

  “Why not a name with some more pizzazz?” asked the beginner rider.

  I shook my head. “David, you just might be the first nine-year-old I ever heard use the term pizzazz,” I laughed.

  He shrugged. “My pap says it all the time.”

  I laughed and nodded. That explained it. David’s vocabulary hinted at the time he’d spent with his grandparents. “Center yourself and keep your reins gathered. And to answer your question, I'm not sure. Frank and Fancy were already adult horses and had names by the time my big sister, Sammie, found them for me,” I said and slid the plastic mounting block over and moved to secure David's foot in the stirrup.