The Circle Eight: Nicholas

Circle Eight: Caleb

“In Lang’s first full-length self-pubbed novel, readers must hold onto the reins tightly as she takes them on an unforgettable ride…” — 4 1/2 stars, TOP PICK!, RT Book Reviews

“Caleb is an absolutely delightful read.” — 5 cups, Coffee Time Romance and More

“Emma Lang has given us another great family to enjoy in her Circle Eight series…” — 4 1/2 stars, Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews

“I love how lost Caleb is, but also how determined in life and even willing willing to fall in love with the unconventional Rory.” — Romancing the Book

“Emma Lang’s newest release Circle Eight: Caleb is a fast-paced and action filled historical romance…Another wonderful installment of the Circle Eight series that fans are sure to enjoy.” — Book Reviews & More by Kathy

“With Emma Lang’s strong and colorful characters, the Graham legacy promises to continue on, and excitedly so.” — 5 Stars, Book Obsessed Chicks

“Caleb and Aurora are not instant combustion, they are a slow burn.” — 4 Feathers, Under the Covers

“Caleb is a great western romance with a sultry cowboy and a fierce heroine that take you on one wild adventure....” — 5 Stars, The Romance Reviews

Circle Eight: Brody

“A hot, raw western romance. If you like ‘em gritty, this one’s for you.” — New York Times bestselling author Kat Martin

“Lang has grabbed reader attention with her Circle of Eight series and continues to hold it with Brody, as a bold Texas Ranger meets his match in a determined rancher’s daughter. Not only is Lang’s latest a powerfully realistic western/adventure, but a sizzling hot love story as well…” — 4 Stars, Romantic Times Book Reviews

“Hotter than a habanero, and a thrill-a-minute action adventure to boot, “Brody” is a very intense romance read.” — Red Room, Virginia Campbell

“Brody is a wonderfully well-written, good old-fashioned western love story. And when you get done, you’ll definitely be anticipating which of the next Graham siblings will fall in love!” — 5 Stars, Affaire de Coeur Book Reviews

Circle Eight: Matthew

“Book one in Lang’s new Circle Eight series is a delicious tale of passion and betrayal. Opposites attract in this fiery tale, with memorable characters, fast-paced action and emotional rewards.” — 4 Stars, Romantic Times Book Reviews

“Wonderful love story, featuring the well thought out theme, filled with mystery and heroic women and strong western men.” — 5 Hearts, Romance Book Scene

“Go back to the days when Texas was a Republic in Emma Lang’s first book of her Circle Eight series, Matthew. From its opening page, I became engrossed with the Graham family” — 4 1/2 Kisses, Two Lips Reviews

“MATTHEW is one of the rare novels a reader picks up and never wants to end. Luckily for all of us, this is only the beginning of The Circle Eight series.” — The Romance Reviews, Top Pick

July 1844

Nicholas Graham wanted to vanish. Simply disappear from here, from life, until he existed in a place where no one knew him. He didn’t remember how he got to this point, or why, just that he was there. Needing,
aching
, to be anyone but himself.

A hole had opened in his chest, one so vast and wide he doubted it would ever be filled.

“Why are you standing here?” His sister Rebecca had hiked up the hill to speak with him. Flowers hung from various points of her light brown hair and a wreath sat atop her seventeen-year-old head. “You’re supposed to be helping with the barbeque pit. The wedding guests will be here in an hour.”

Nicholas scowled. “The pit is dug. Stop being so damn bossy.”

She scowled back. “Eva won’t like you cussing.”

“Too bad she isn’t here to scold then.” He turned his back and waited for his sister to leave. He’d found a quiet place amongst all the hullabaloo of their sister Elizabeth’s wedding and Rebecca had ruined it. His family usually ruined things. With seven brothers and sisters, and now spous
es for three of them plus young’uns, it was near to impossible to be alone. Ever.

“You mad or something?” Elizabeth
was usually the quiet peacemaker of the family, finding ways to soothe even the most fractious situations.

He sighed. How could he explain what he didn’t understand? Nick wished for the millionth time he could disappear. Being a Graham was a lodestone.

“No. I’m not mad. Just…tired.” He was. So very tired. The ranch sapped him of everything.

She placed her hand on his shoulder. “Then you rest here a while. I wouldn’t be late for the wedding
, though. Ellie is counting on all of us to be there.”

Nick waved her away. “Don’t fuss. I’ll be there on time. I
haven’t let the family down and I don’t intend on starting.”

That was part of it. Always doing what was expected, no matter how much he wanted to say no. Or how miserable he was.

“All right.” She patted him. “I won’t tell anyone where you are.” With that, Rebecca walked away, her boots scuffing through the dirt around the big oak tree. She’d found his favorite thinking spot, just beyond the rise before the valley opened up to the Circle Eight ranch. He could see for miles from the tree, even more when he climbed up, although it had been some time since he’d scampered up the bark. Even climbing trees had lost its allure years ago. Although he was twenty-three, he felt eighty-three, an old man trapped in a young man’s body.

Something had to change. And soon.

His thoughts drifted to Houston. To a certain blonde woman who had haunted his dreams since he’d seen her a few months earlier. He shook his head to dispel her image. Winifred Watson was not for him. Not only did she make that clear, but a boardinghouse owner in a big city was not the right match for a rancher from the middle of nowhere.

If only he hadn’t met her, held her while she fought for her life. Their experience had been intense and ill-fated. Now they were tied together by a memory he could never forget. She
made him realize that the numbness he’d been feeling was much more than boredom. It was misery.

He blamed her. She
had awakened the sleeping beast within him. Now he would do anything to shut it up.

Nicholas’s gaze strayed north. To Houston. To her. He shut his eyes and breathed in through his teeth.

Fuck
.

He pushed off the side of the tree and started back toward the ranch. Being the middle Graham brother always meant he was expected to do what everyone wanted. He wanted to hide but he didn’t want Elizabeth to suffer for his twisted soul. It was her wedding day, even if she was two months gone with a babe. Her husband-to-be was a shyster who
had gotten her in the family way. Nick didn’t like it but he would be there for her. The Grahams were nothing if not always there for family. Happy or unhappy.

Wagons were scattered around the yard and folks milled around, no doubt chatting about the latest Graham wedding. Their three older siblings had married and
now suffered from wedded bliss. Now it was Ellie’s turn, although Nick was not convinced Vaughn Montgomery was the right man for her. Done was done.

Nick took his time walking down to the house. Perhaps if he timed it right, the ceremony would begin right as he arrived. Their eldest brother, Matt, was set to walk Ellie down the aisle. The rest of them only had to be present.

The twins, Meredith and Margaret, ran in circles around the dog. The seven-year-olds sported shocks of red hair unlike their parents, Matt and Hannah. Behavior-wise, they took after their Aunt Catherine, the youngest of the Graham siblings at fifteen, and the hellion of the lot. Matt and Hannah’s young son, Michael, danced around behind his sisters with his cousin Stuart, Nick’s sister Olivia’s boy, squealing like only four-year-olds could.

It was a happy scene. Too bad Nick felt nothing. He was hollow inside. Something was wrong with him, that was for certain. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

He pasted on a happy face for Elizabeth. It wasn’t her fault he couldn’t actually be happy. The day wasn’t his—it was hers. Nick could ignore Vaughn. After all, his future brother-in-law was held in doubt by all the Graham men. The man had spent his life as a confidence man, bilking people out of their money and goods. The last job he’d had, to swindle a family named the Gibsons, ended in the Circle Eight burning to the ground. Then, after the Gibsons kidnapped Elizabeth and Vaughn, she somehow fell in love with him.

Nick didn’t understand it and he doubted he ever would. The Gibsons
had helped rebuild the ranch but that was a crime against the Grahams Nick would have trouble forgetting. There was too much lost in the fire, not the least of which was Martha Dolan, grandmother to Hannah, Matt’s wife. That particular wound was still fresh. Damned if Elizabeth hadn’t asked them to the wedding but Tobias Gibson was smart enough to not appear on the ranch.

Nick wouldn’t be responsible for his actions if he saw the eldest Gibson again. Good riddance to the entire family. The Grahams would rebuild their lives without their help.

“You look like you swallowed a thunderhead.” Caleb’s voice interrupted Nick’s internal rant.

Nick forced himself to take a breath before he turned. All the Graham brothers were similar in build, not only because they were kin, but because ranching was hard word and tended to put slabs of muscle on them. With the exception of the youngest, Catherine, they all had
blue-green eyes, something that set them apart from most.

Caleb and his blacksmith wife, Aurora, lived in a cabin nearby, which had not been damaged by the fire. Although he was only a few years older, Caleb had worked as a Texas Ranger for four years before he returned to the Circle Eight. Now he worked the beeves every day, side by side with his brothers and Javier and Alonzo, the two ranch hands
who had grown up with them.

Of all his siblings, Caleb was the hardest to fool. Texas Rangers could smell a lie from a hundred paces. Nick had no choice but to be honest.

“Some days I think I did. It tastes damn bitter too.”

“You should try to hide it today.” Caleb looked concerned, but thankfully didn’t offer any more wisdom. That was the last thing Nick needed.

“Yep. Planned on it.” He didn’t know how he would accomplish it, but he would.

“You should start now because here comes our future brother-in-law.” Caleb didn’t trust Vaughn Montgomery yet either. Perhaps it was because he had already gotten their sister pregnant, or perhaps because he was a former swindler. No matter the cause, the Graham brothers were polite to him but nothing more
yet.

Montgomery was tall with black hair and light blue eyes. He wasn’t as big as the Graham brothers
…but he was big. The man obviously had done some hard labor in his life, and recently. In the last month he’d been helping out and demonstrating he could sweat alongside everyone else. It didn’t mean Nick trusted him. That would take some time, if ever.

“Less than an hour left.” Montgomery rubbed his hands together.

Caleb and Nick remained silent.

“She’s still going to marry me, isn’t she?” Now Montgomery looked worried.

Caleb smiled and walked away. Nick crossed his arms and spread his feet. “Is there a reason she shouldn’t?”

“No
, of course not.” Vaughn straightened his shoulders, looking affronted. “I’ve been nothing but a gentleman. And I did everything your family asked.”

Nick shrugged. “
I’m not judging. Ellie is the one who has to marry you, not me.”

“You don’t plan on giving me a chance.” Vaughn didn’t whine or accuse. He simply stated a fact.

“Since I met you in Houston, I haven’t seen anything to make me change my mind.” Nick had helped Vaughn get back the deed he’d stolen from the Gibsons, although the shyster had spent a two months in jail after his boss’s murder. No matter that Vaughn hadn’t been the one to do the killing.

“Fair enough. I haven’t lived life as a saint but I am not the same person I was when I landed
at your sister’s feet.” Vaughn nodded and walked away, his charcoal gray suit shining in the sun.

Nick probably should have been nicer. Ah
, well, spilled milk now. If he thought too long about Vaughn, Nick’s mind would slide to her. Vaughn’s friend and confidante. To the blonde who rode within him every day.

Winnie Watson stared ahead at the seemingly endless plains and sighed. Beside her on the carriage seat, Bartholomew Johnson turned to look at her. The older man had been her father’s servant and soon after he died, or rather when Winnie shot him dead, Bartholomew showed up at her doorstep. He hadn’t left and seemed to have appointed himself as her guardian. The sixty-year-old man had nowhere else to go and, truthfully, she was glad of his company.

The white-haired former butler was barely five feet tall and had a balding pate currently protected by a ridiculously floppy hat. He was a city dweller and out there in ranching territory, they were both out of place. Yet there they were, plodding along in a rented carriage on their way to the Circle Eight.

Her two friends, Elizabeth and Vaughn, were getting married. It was a happy day, and she was excited for them, yet she was melancholy. If she were honest with herself, it was more to do with the other person she would see at the ranch and not the wedding.

Nicholas Graham.

The man had saved her life when she’d been shot. The still-healing wound picked that moment to twinge. He had been the first man she’d allowed close in a very long time. Theirs had been an intense few days, ones that had shaken her, scared her, and left her heartbroken.

People didn’t fall in love at first sight or in only a few days. That was a ridiculous notion. She had stopped believing in love ten years ago when the darkness came. Then she saw Vaughn and Elizabeth, two people who would die for each other, and knew that love existed.

Nick had woken her heart, swiping off the cobwebs with his sweet care of her. His gentle touch had made her feel cherished, special. A foreign concept and one that sent her sideways. She’d had to send him on his way, albeit in the guise of bringing his sister home. Now she was riding toward him and didn’t know what would happen.

Discomfort
and confusion warred with excitement and joy for Elizabeth and Vaughn. Winnie was a mess and she knew it.

“What’s got your tail in a twist, Miss Winnie?”

She shook her head. “I am tired, Bartholomew. It’s been a long, dusty drive.”

The older man harrumphed. “Don’t be thinking that fib fooled me.”

A smile threatened her lips at Bartholomew’s words. “It’s not a fib. I truly am tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“There’s more to it than that and you know it.” He had the reins held loosely in his gnarled hands but he took the time to point a finger. “You ain’t been
the same girl I knew since I come to work for you. I think it’s ‘cause you got shot.”

Bartholomew knew part of what happened but they had never discussed it. He didn’t know what she’d done or what it had done to her. Some days Winnie wondered if she was anything more than a series of scars, some old, some new, all on top of each other to form her into what she was.

No one truly knew the depth of how far she’d fallen or how much it took to pull herself out of that hole.

Now that her father was dead, she should be free. However she didn’t feel free. She felt trapped by those scars, drowning in dark memories that hung on her. Nick had shown her a glimpse of a normal relationship and she knew then it was not for her. However
, she was excited for Vaughn and Elizabeth, believed in the love they shared. That was why she’d left Houston and headed to the middle of nowhere for the wedding.

The wide open plains were beautiful but confusing. She couldn’t judge distance as she could in a city. It wasn’t as though she could estimate ten blocks to a building. No, out here, it was miles
, or even hours, until they found what they sought. In fact, they had started out before dawn yesterday for the Circle Eight. She hoped they’d been going the right direction or they would be hopelessly lost.