The Cowboy's Convenient Wife

by Joanna Bell

  I felt too much for Cillian Devlin. Too much for a man I barely knew, from a troubled family. He was unmooring me from everything I thought I knew about myself. From those very first moments in the Billings airport I felt it – the ropes snapping, the ship of my life beginning to drift away from its sheltered pier.

  And that afternoon, after he saved me from a bear? After we made love in the stables and how close I was to the edge really started to sink in?

  I'm the girl who hates roller coasters – remember? I told myself leaving was about talking to my parents, about thinking, about planning. And it was about those things. But it was also about fear.

  Chapter 22: Cillian

  I drove Astrid to the airport. I insisted on driving her, driven myself by the desperate hope that she would change her mind along the way.

  Before we left she went back to the hotel to get her things and I dropped into the main house to grab something to eat. Saving beautiful girls from bears and then fucking their brains out before they sweetly inform you they're leaving anyway gives a man an appetite.

  Darcy was in the kitchen when I got there, doing something on her phone. She looked up when I walked in.

  "Oh. Hi, Cillian."

  "Hey," I replied shortly, opening the fridge. "Anything to eat?"

  "There's some leftovers in there, I think. Are you OK?"

  "Not really," I replied, grabbing a random box of mashed potatoes and pulling it open. "Any gravy for these?"

  Darcy bent down and looked into the fridge. "I don't think there is. Sorry about that."

  "It's not your fault," I shrugged, grabbing a spoon and scooping an enormous mouthful of cold potato into my mouth.

  "What's wrong?"

  Normally, I wouldn't talk to Darcy. It's not that we don't get along or anything, we're just not close. We don't talk to each other about our lives. But that day, I was desperate. Desperate enough to discuss my personal life with my stepmother.

  "Astrid's leaving," I replied, carving out another spoonful of mashed potatoes and lifting it to my mouth. "I'm driving her to Billings right now."

  "Oh? She's leaving for good, you mean?"

  "I don't know. She says it's not for good."

  Darcy watched me eating for a few seconds. "You really like her, huh?"

  I sighed and leaned back against the counter. "Yeah. Yeah I really fuckin' like her. I'm only driving her to the airport because I'm hoping she'll ask me to come with her."

  "Is she flying private?"

  I glanced down at the floor to hide the fact that I was smiling. No one ever said Darcy wasn't predictable. "Uh-huh."

  "Well good luck," she smiled, taking the empty box out of hands before I could leave it out on the counter and throwing it in the trash. "I can see this girl is special to you. I hope it works out."

  ***

  I shouldn't have said a goddamned thing to Darcy about anything. I should have known she would go straight to my dad.

  But an hour later I was on the road with Astrid and my stepmother was the furthest thing from my mind.

  We drove in silence for the first hour or so. I was waiting for her to break and ask me to fly back to Miami with her, and she was just waiting to get to the airport – so she could fly back to Miami alone.

  When we hit the halfway point I stopped at a gas station to fill up the truck and got a text from my dad while Astrid was using the restroom:

  Need your help here tonight.

  I replied:

  Can't. Busy.

  Never let it be said that the Devlins do not appreciate brevity.

  I wandered out into the gas station parking lot and looked up at the sky. It was a clear night, the stars shining brightly over my head. My phone chimed again. Another message from my dad.

  Really need your help, son. Need to talk as well. Important. Has to be tonight.

  When Jack Devlin calls you 'son,' you know he's in about as good a mood as Jack Devlin ever gets. Still, the timing was really bad. I decided to call him and he picked up immediately.

  "What is it?" I asked, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. "I'm busy right –"

  "Gotta be tonight," my dad cut in. "One of the fences in the northeast pasture is down. Whole fuckin' thing! Can't wait 'til morning, whole herd'll be in Canada by then."

  A fence was down? I knew damn well my dad paid people to take care of things like that. It wasn't just a fence. I couldn't even remember the last time I helped repair a fence.

  "I need to talk to you as well," he added, seeming to sense that I wasn't convinced. "Like I said, it's important. Ranch business. Think there may be a way we could make this work, still. You know – with the girl."

  That perked my ears right up. I knew the introductory dinner had gone badly and I'd just been assuming that the agreement – to inherit the ranch – was off.

  "Oh yeah?" I asked. "Really?"

  "Really. We got off to a bad start but I don't see why that has to change anything. I do need your help here tonight with this goddamned fence, though."

  And like an idiot, I agreed to go back – even though it would be well past midnight by the time I got there. It didn't even cross my mind to ask my dad if he'd spoken to Darcy. I thought I knew who he was, how low he would go. As it turned out, I didn't have any idea.

  I was just so excited to be offered a smidgen of hope. After all, if my dad agreed to pass the ranch on to me in spite of his obvious antipathy towards Astrid – well that was something, wasn't it? Something to offer her? Maybe he would be perfectly fine with us living in the condo and not the main house?

  Of course none of that was true. Astrid Walker needed the Devlin Ranch like a fish needs a bicycle. She didn't need money because her family had its own money. And if she ever got it into her head that she needed a few thousand acres of Montana to her name, she could buy it herself. She didn't need me for any of that.

  I was just panicking. Not thinking straight. And my dad knew it.

  ***

  A half hour out of Billings, Astrid asked me what the deal was with Jackson.

  The fingers of my right hand tightened around the steering wheel. "What do you mean?"

  She turned towards me. "I was just wondering what happened. You brother – Séan – made it sound like something happened."

  "Nothing happened," I replied evenly. "Fuckin' dick thought he was better than us so he left. That's it."

  It was a lie, obviously. I may not be the smartest man in the world but even I knew that wasn't the right time to confess my part in Jackson's departure. Astrid was already having doubts after the disastrous 'family dinner' – informing her that I helped my dad basically ruin my own brother's life would not have gone down well.

  It's almost funny – and not in the ha-ha way – how I dealt with what happened with Jackson. I knew it was bad. And I knew if I told people – if I told Astrid – that it would affect how they saw me. But for a long time I didn't really think I'd done anything wrong. Or maybe I did and I couldn't face it? I don't know, but either way I wasn't going to breathe a word of it to my wife.

  "Really?" She pressed. "Because it sounded like there was more to it than –"

  "Look!" I snapped, before she could even finish. "I don't know how else to put this but I do not want to talk about my fucking brother. Is that OK with you?"

  Goddamnit. I immediately lapsed into silence after that outburst. So did Astrid, chastened by my yelling.

  I should have apologized. I should have done a lot of things that I didn't do. Instead, I waited until we were at the airport to grab her hand and beg her to take me with her. Fuck Jack Devlin and his fence. I didn't want to let Astrid go.

  "This is so good," I pleaded, disgusted with myself at the same time as I was unable to stop. "Isn't it? Isn't this good? I know you feel it, too. I know you do. If I come with you I can be there when you talk to your parents. Right? I can –"

  "Cillian –"

  It was the look on her face that let me know I wasn't going t
o like the answer.

  "What?"

  "I told you," she said, very gently. "I told you I have to do this by myself. And I told you I need to –"

  "Yeah," I replied, cutting her off again. "You need to think. I think you already said that a thousand fuckin' times. Jesus Christ."

  That's what I did. That's who I was. I was that man – and there are a lot of us out there – who did not know how to respond to any kind of negative emotion except with anger. Astrid was leaving and it hurt. It hurt because I didn't want her to leave. Because being with her, knowing her, making love to her was better than anything else had ever been for me. And I was trying to hold onto it the way a child tries to hold on to a particularly tasty handful of stolen candy.

  Astrid was leaving. She was choosing to leave. To my mind, that meant she didn't share my feelings. It meant she didn't have the same voice inside her own head, screaming at her to hold on, hold on, hold on!

  It was an ego blow, basically. And I, like the immature asshole I was, couldn't handle it. Not even one little bit. So of course what I did was make everything a lot worse.

  "But I do need to think," she said, in that quiet tone women use with angry, irrational men. "I'm not leaving for good. I told you that. I'm telling you the truth, I just need to –"

  "Don't patronize me," I barked. "And don't talk to me like I'm a fucking child, Astrid. I can't stand women who do that."

  "But I'm not –"

  "Whatever," I shrugged, like her leaving was the most inconsequential thing in the world to me – when in fact the exact opposite was true. "Call me if you call me, text me if you text me. But don't patronize me. I hate that."

  She looked up at me, her expression hurt and confused, just like it had been on the mountain earlier that day. I did that. I was the one who hurt her, who confused her, who yelled at her because I couldn't handle myself like an adult.

  "Cillian why are you being like –"

  "Being like what? Being like anyone would be? Not wanting you to leave? What's wrong with that?"

  "Nothing!" She replied, glancing down at her phone to check the time. "Nothing is wrong with that. You just sound so angry right now. I don't want to leave like this. I don't want to –"

  "So don't!" I implored, taking her hand again. "Astrid – don't. You don't have to go. Just – stay. Or let me come with you. I promise I'll –"

  But she pulled her hand out of mine and shook her head. "I have to. I don't even understand why you're getting so upset about this – I said it wasn't for good! I said I –"

  "Oh, screw you."

  I could say the words 'slipped out.' I could pretend I didn't know what I was going to say. But that would be a lie – I did know. I said them on purpose. I said them with the express intention of causing pain. I was hurting – and so I wanted her to hurt, too. It was that damaged male ego again, that part of me that couldn't deal with how much I already needed her.

  Her eyes widened after I spoke, and then narrowed again. I saw the decision etch itself across her pretty features, watched her mouth set firm, knew immediately and with complete certainty that I'd gone too far.

  Without another word – but not before I saw her eyes begin to shine with tears – Astrid took her bag out of my hand, turned around, and walked away. I stood frozen to the spot, watching as she disappeared through the doors.

  I didn't try to stop her. Didn't yell, didn't chase her down to apologize and beg forgiveness. I was too angry, too wounded, too utterly incapable of acting like a grown-up. Instead I just watched her go, furious with her for leaving. And then the farther she got from me, the more indistinct in the neon-lit environs of the terminal, the more my fury melted away until, at the moment she slipped entirely out of view, it disappeared completely.

  I made it to 26 years old before getting my heart broken. A very good run, many would say. Probably a good 10 years more than most people. I think back to myself standing outside the airport that night, more profoundly alone than I had been for many years, and I think: if only I knew. If only I knew what was coming, and how it would make that night look like the child's game it was.

  Chapter 23: Astrid

  There was a magnet of unknown origin on the mini-fridge in my first-year college dorm. It was about 2 inches by 3 inches, with a pink and green floral border. Inside that floral border was the following, printed in fancy, curling script:

  'Hurt people hurt people.'

  When I was really young and naive – I mean younger and even more naive than I was when I met Cillian Devlin – I thought that magnet was supposed to be funny. I thought it was intended as a humorous play on words. And then it turned out, in its inspirational cheeseball-ness, to be one of the most profound truths of human emotional life.

  Because hurt people do hurt people. Cillian Devlin was hurt. I didn't even know how badly. That's why he lashed out at me at the airport.

  Explanations only go so far, though. Knowing why my husband's last words to me were 'screw you' didn't change that my husband's last words to me were 'screw you.'

  I slumped into my seat on the jet, downed a glass of champagne and wept most of the way back to Miami.

  Two days later, I had dinner with my parents. The dinner. The 'oh yeah I got married to a stranger and even though I think he might have some serious issues I'm not sure I can let him go' dinner.

  On my way out the door Jordie called after me.

  "Miss Walker! Astrid!"

  I stopped and walked back inside, approaching the front desk where he was sorting through his long chain of keys. "What is it?"

  He smiled. "Well first of all, it's welcome back. And second of all – you've got mail. Just let me grab it for you."

  "Thank you," I replied as he headed off towards the locked room where all the packages and mail that needed to be signed for were kept. "It's good to be back."

  I wasn't sure if it was good to be back or not – but it was good, after 48 hours of moping and a conspicuous absence of texts from Cillian – to feel a little like a normal human being again.

  "Here it is," Jordie said, handing me a large brown envelope. It was so big I couldn't fit it into my purse, even if I folded it in half. Suspecting it wasn't anything important, I asked if I could pick it up later that evening, when I got back.

  "Sure thing, my dear. I'm off at 8 but I'll leave it with Jackie if you're not back by then – how's that?"

  "That's perfect."

  I headed out into a humid Miami night.

  ***

  As I expected, my parents weren't thrilled. There were no smiles or hugs when I got to the restaurant – and they'd already ordered without me.

  "You could have waited," I said, taking my seat.

  "Your mother was hungry," my dad shrugged. "And we didn't know if you were going to be here on time."

  I'm always on time and my parents know it. They've always had a little tendency to passive-aggression when they're unhappy, though. I think it's their social class. They don't exist in a milieu where yelling or fist-fighting is acceptable, so they make their points in other ways.

  I ordered monkfish and they at least let me eat most of it before starting in with the questions. My father went first.

  "So, Cillian Devlin. Is that his name?"

  "Uh-huh," I replied a little sullenly, reverting easily back to the grumpy teenager it was so easy to be with my parents.

  They looked at each other across the table. I pretended not to notice.

  Eventually, my mother leaned in close to me.

  "You don't have to be here, you know," she said quietly. "If this is all too much for you, you can go. We just thought you might have something to say to us – to the people who raised you – about your marriage to a stranger. We thought you might want to tell us a little bit about him, at least."

  My mom was right. I owed them an explanation. And I needed to drop the sulky teen act. It wasn't a good look – and it hardly had anything to do with them.

  I set my fork down careful
ly and straightened my back. "Yes," I began calmly, "you're right. I'm sorry – things are a little mixed up at the moment. His name is Cillian Devlin. He's 26 and he lives in Sweetgrass Ridge, Montana. His father is a rancher and his mother died when he was young. He has 4 brothers. We met through an online matchmaking service."

  My face burned hot at the confession about the matchmaking service. And sure enough, that was what my mother reacted to first.

  "A – a matchmaking service?" She asked. "I didn't even think those existed anymore."

  "Well they do," I told her. "They're just online now."

  "We should have stayed with her in France," she continued, addressing my father. "I told you we should have stayed longer. Remember? I said we –"

  "Mom," I cut in, sighing. "Please don't talk about me like I'm not sitting right here."

  Both of my parents turned to me.

  "I guess we just don't understand why you did this," my dad said. "To be honest I'm not even sure what to say right now. Do you feel we let you down somehow? Did we –"

  "You didn't do anything wrong," I replied quickly. "This isn't – it's not about that. It's not something you did. It's me. It was my decision."

  How to break it to your parents – especially if you have parents who are used to having things work out their way – that in spite of all their efforts and love, you're still an imperfect person? That you have insecurities and desires and hopes for a future they may not understand? They love me, I know they do. They love me more than anything in the world. But love doesn't create perfect human beings.

  "Well hopefully it's a decision you plan to reverse," my mom commented, eying me. "You do plan to reverse it, don't you? When did you actually do it? How long have you been married?"

  "Just over a week ago," I replied quietly.

  "Just over a week," my mom repeated, looking pointedly at my dad. "That should be fairly easy to deal with, shouldn't it? Of course if he tries to go after her assets, we could –"

  "Mom!" I cried. "He is not going to 'go after my assets' – he's rich too! And I haven't even – I don't know if I even want to –"