Gentling the Cowboy

by Ruth Cardello

  She pulled her arm out of his grasp and said, “It’s fine. I understand. I shouldn’t have left the two of you alone. I knew my brother was being a bastard. I guess I hoped you’d put him in his place.” A lone tear ran down her face. “I just didn’t know you’d use me to do it.”

  “Sarah, don’t . . .”

  She met his eyes and he knew that no matter what he said, he’d already lost her. She held up a hand in request for him to stop talking. “Please. Stop. I know you said it to hurt my brother and not me, but maybe I needed to hear it. I was imagining us living happily ever after, but you can’t do that, can you? Because you can’t let yourself be happy.”

  He didn’t have to say anything. She knew him too well.

  “I’m going to hook up my trailer and load Scooter. If you can ask Melanie to come see me, I’d appreciate it.”

  She’s leaving. She’s really leaving.

  “I can ready your trailer for you.”

  Sarah shook her head sadly. “No, I’ll do it myself. Just get Melanie.”

  Tony turned and walked back into the house. Charles was headed toward the front door when they met up. The two men stopped and glared at each other.

  Tony said, “She’s packing up.”

  “Good,” Charles said curtly. They both knew he’d gotten what he came for. There was nothing left for him to say.

  The same couldn’t be said for Tony. He took a step closer and said, “Get your head out of your pin-striped ass and say something nice to her.”

  “I don’t need someone like you to tell me how to deal with my sister,” Charles countered coldly.

  Tony leaned closer and said, “From where I’m standing, it looks like you do—before you lose her, too.” Having spoken his mind, Tony walked away to find Melanie.

  Sarah was loading the rest of Scooter’s tack into the front compartment of her horse trailer when Melanie joined her.

  “The boys could have done all that for you,” she said.

  Sarah closed the door of the trailer, leaning against it with one hand. “I wanted to. I needed to do something while I calmed down.”

  “Did you talk to your brother yet?”

  Glancing over at the limo she knew Charlie had returned to, Sarah shook her head. “No, I’m surprised he didn’t storm over here and gloat, but I’m grateful he didn’t. I don’t think I could handle him right now.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I was hoping you’d have an idea of someplace that boards horses.”

  “You heading back to Rhode Island?”

  Sarah leaned her back against the trailer and closed her eyes. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I have some money saved so I have options.”

  “What about that friend who owns a cattle ranch? You made up.”

  Sarah opened her eyes and shook her head. “Lucy? She has her own problems. I need a peaceful place where I can finish my book. That’s the important thing to me now, that I finish what I came down here to do.”

  “You could stay with my parents. They have a place a few towns over. Very quiet. They’ve always had horses. They wouldn’t even notice Scooter. There is an in-law apartment they don’t use. I’m sure they’d let you stay for free.”

  “I don’t mind paying rent. It sounds wonderful, but if it’s that great why don’t you live there?”

  Melanie tried to make light of something she was clearly uncomfortable discussing. “Could you live with your parents?”

  “Okay, good point.”

  “I’ll call them now. They’re only a few hours away.”

  “Is that enough notice?”

  “I’m sure it is. I’ll run in and call them. Give me five minutes.”

  Sarah nodded. “Mel, one other thing.”

  “Anything.”

  Sarah swallowed painfully. “Could you pack up my stuff and bring it down?” Just the thought of doing it herself made her stomach twist and threaten to hurl. She covered her mouth with one shaky hand. “I can’t go back in there.”

  Melanie smiled sympathetically and hugged her. “Sure thing, hon.”

  Sarah hugged her back and marveled that their friendship had blossomed despite its rocky start. “I’ll miss you, Mel.”

  “You’re only going a few hours away, not dying. Jace and I will come visit you. With you there, my family may actually behave long enough for me to survive a visit.”

  After Melanie had gone back into the house, Sarah knew she couldn’t put the unpleasant off any longer. The limo driver opened the back passenger door for her as she approached and she slid into the air-conditioned domain of her brother.

  Charlie pocketed his cell phone and said, “I can’t wait to get back to civilization. My cell phone works everywhere, but not here. Leave your vehicle for now. As soon as we’re on the highway I’ll send a driver for it. I have a private plane waiting in an airfield just outside Dallas. You’ll be home by tonight.”

  It was obvious that Charlie still considered Scooter no different than a vehicle. Just another item to be shipped up North and another part of her life that he didn’t understand.

  Bracing herself with a hand on either side of her, Sarah said, “I’m not going back to Rhode Island. Not today. Maybe not ever.”

  Charlie gave her an impatient look. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you are.”

  “No, Charlie, I’m not. I came to Texas because I wanted to find out what was holding me back from writing—from being who I felt I should be.” He didn’t understand, but this time Sarah needed him to. “You know what I discovered? I was all locked up inside myself. We never really talked about what happened with Phil because that’s the deal we made that summer—we’d close off that chapter of our lives and pretend it never happened. But you know what living a lie does to you? It kills you slowly, Charlie. It’s not healthy.”

  Charlie’s face hardened at the mention of the brother they’d lost. “What’s not healthy is thinking that embarrassing yourself down here with some has-been celebrity is going to do anything more than hurt Mom and Dad. Grow up, Sarah.”

  Slapping the leather beside her, Sarah said, “No, you grow up, Charlie. Grow up and face that something awful happened to our family and none of us got over it. You’re not here to save me. Admit to yourself that the only reason you want me back in Rhode Island is so you don’t have to be. I’m done pretending I never had a little brother. I don’t care if it upsets Mom and Dad, I’m going to ask them to send me pictures of him—pictures of all of us together. I want to remember him. I’m going to remember him. And if you can’t handle that, go back to New York and hide.” When Charlie remained stone-faced, Sarah asked, “Do you blame me, Charlie? Is that why you can’t discuss it?”

  A visible shudder betrayed how much her words touched him. His jaw was white with tension. “God, no. I never blamed you.” He didn’t say more and Sarah’s heart broke for him.

  “It was an accident, Charlie.”

  In a voice full of self-hate, Charlie said, “Mom and Dad asked me to watch both of you while they were cooking. I should have stayed with you, but I wanted to ask them something. I don’t even remember what was so goddamn important.”

  “We were kids.”

  “Maybe you can tell yourself that, but I was twelve—old enough to know better.”

  Suddenly Sarah understood what had torn her family apart. She closed her eyes for a moment to gather her strength, opened them, and said, “I’ve told myself it was my fault every day since he died. Every single day. Guess what? It was my fault. And it was yours. And it was Mom and Dad’s. We can keep blaming ourselves and each other, but none of that is going to bring him back. None of it will make us back into the family we might have been.”

  Charlie shook his head, refusing to hear what she was saying. Sarah thought about Tony and the pain he refused to let go of. In the saddest of ways, Tony and her brother had more in common than either would likely ever know. Maybe it was time to admit that both were beyond her reach. “I thought
I could heal Tony, but I couldn’t. If you want to torture yourself for the rest of your life, I can’t stop you. But I’m not going to live like that anymore. I’m going to find a place where I can be happy. Good-bye, Charlie.”

  Sarah opened the limo door before he could say anything and closed it behind her, raising her face to the cleansing brightness of the sun. She looked around and saw Tony standing in the barn doorway with Scooter. Melanie and Travis were putting her luggage in the back of her SUV. Melanie waved the notebook in the air, making sure Sarah knew it had made it to the vehicle, and gave her a thumbs-up regarding her parents. Sarah groaned. Only she and Tony knew the subject of her novel, and now she had to face him again to get her horse.

  Tony walked Scooter to the trailer. Sarah took the lead line from him and stopped just before him, looking up into his eyes. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to storm away with some sophisticated cutting remark that would make him feel as badly as she did.

  And she wanted to hug him and tell him that she understood.

  Instead, she said softly, “Do you know how little it would take to make me stay? I love you.”

  His face filled with a mixture of sadness and farewell. “I know.”

  “I don’t regret any of it, Tony. Not one moment of it.”

  His eyes glistened, then he turned and walked away, leaving her to numbly take directions from Melanie while one of the ranch hands finished loading Scooter. Sarah stopped at the turn in the driveway, waiting one last time, hoping to see Tony appear in her rear-view mirror.

  He didn’t, and that was when she knew it was really over.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Tony stepped out of the barn to watch Sarah’s vehicle pull onto the main road. Her brother’s limo pulled out directly after. Tony felt, but didn’t acknowledge, the presence of David at his side until they were both gone. Then, without looking away from the path they’d driven, Tony said, “Say it. Tell me I’m a fool to let her go.”

  In a surprising twist, David didn’t. Instead he said, “She couldn’t stay. You’re not ready for her. Staying wouldn’t change that.”

  In that moment outside of time, Tony admitted, “I hurt her and I never meant to.”

  David took his time answering. “You’ve hurt a lot of people since I met you, Tony, and I’ve never seen you look sorry about it.”

  “I never felt sorry,” he said. “I stopped feeling anything a long time ago.”

  “Until Sarah,” David diagnosed.

  Softly Tony agreed. “Yeah.”

  The two men continued looking out over the empty driveway in silence. Finally, David said, “Five years ago I came here thinking I’d find a man celebrating his court victory. I was ready to cut you down a peg or two and shove a bit of reality in your face. But you taught me something instead.”

  They both knew the condition David had found him in, so Tony didn’t bother to ask. He’d rather not know.

  David continued, “I learned that in a tragedy there are no winners, only people struggling to survive the aftermath.”

  Tony nodded slowly and said, “You sure I was worth saving? I am one miserable bastard.”

  “And you always will be until you face your past.”

  “I face it every day, every night. It never leaves me,” Tony said in frustration.

  “I’m no psychologist, but it seems to me that when something pesters you that much you haven’t dealt with it the way it needed to be.”

  What the hell is that supposed to mean? Tony would have asked, but David had walked away.

  A week later, Dean came by around dinner time. Tony was sitting at the small table in the kitchen not touching the plate of food that Melanie had placed in front of him. He hadn’t eaten in days. Nor had he left the house. He’d tried to go back to the way things were before Sarah, but instead of feeling nothing, he felt an overwhelming sadness.

  “You look like hell, Tony.”

  Tony rubbed a hand over the week’s growth of beard on his face. He felt like hell. “Isn’t there sheriff business somewhere that you’re late for?”

  “You drinking again?”

  Tony shook his head, pushed himself off the table with two hands, and stood. “No, but if I were I wouldn’t need you here butting into what has always been none of your business.”

  “You’re my brother. You are my business.”

  “Half brother. Consider that your ticket to freedom from any responsibility.”

  Dean sat back against the kitchen counter, not appearing bothered by Tony’s foul mood. “I’ve been making excuses for you since the first time I met you. David said you haven’t been feeling well.”

  “Is there a point to this conversation? If so, make it and get out.”

  Folding his arms across his chest, Dean said, “I should. I was never happier than the day I found out I had a little brother. I know you blamed my mother for yours leaving and maybe I always felt a bit guilty about that. I never stopped hoping you’d get over it. When you bought this place, I moved here because you were self-destructing. Everyone figured it was only time before someone found you dead. I came here for you, Tony. And I stayed, smoothing over every mess you made. Keeping your ass out of jail every time you threw someone off your property with enough force to have warranted an assault charge. Now you’re self-destructing again, and I can’t sit back and watch it happen. I don’t expect you to be grateful.”

  “Good, because I never asked you to get involved in any part of my life.”

  Dean’s face whitened a bit in anger. “You’re right, you never did, and you never thanked me. You’re an ungrateful ass.”

  “Then why are you still here when you know I don’t want you to be?” Tony goaded.

  Dean pushed off the counter, his hands clenching at his sides. “I give up. You want to be as miserable as our father was.”

  “I’m nothing like him.”

  “Are you kidding? You’re exactly like him. He was one cold, unfeeling bastard. Do you even know if he’s still alive? I don’t, and I don’t care. He’s going to die alone, just like you will if you don’t wake up.” Dean turned to leave.

  “Dean,” Tony said, his tone free of all of its earlier sarcasm.

  Dean turned back.

  As close to an apology as he could voice, Tony said, “I don’t know how to be anyone but who I am.”

  Releasing a long sigh, Dean said, “Yes, you do.”

  Dean had always seen good where there was none. Still, Tony felt driven to tell him what he’d been considering. “I’ve been thinking about going to see Kimberly Staten’s father.”

  Dean’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Is that wise?”

  “I never told him that I was sorry about his daughter. It’s time I do.”

  Walking over, Dean stood in front of Tony in a move of support. “You want me to go with you?”

  Tony shook his head. “No.”

  “Then why tell me?”

  I don’t know.

  There was a past between them that he’d never spoken of, and maybe it needed acknowledging. “I may never be a good brother to you, but I don’t blame you for my mother leaving. I can’t imagine any woman being able to stay with him for very long.” The past was there, vivid between them. “I always resented how happy you were, how easy life looked for you. You and your mother would visit for a day, laughing and talking about where you’d been or what you’d done together, giving me a glimpse of what a family could look like, and then you’d leave again. I used to wonder what it would be like if I left with you. I doubt our father would have cared if I had.”

  “You could have come with us. My mother would have taken you in.”

  Tony didn’t doubt the truth of that. Dean had gotten his giving side from his mother. “That was your life, not mine.”

  “It could be yours now. You don’t have to be our father. Whatever path you take today is one of your choosing, not anyone else’s.”

  Tony put his hand on his brother’s shoulder, t
he first time he’d ever voluntarily touched him. “I want to be the man Sarah believed I was.”

  Dean nodded in understanding, then stepped back and said, “Then clean the fuck up, because you smelled an awful lot better when she was here.”

  Tony smiled, dropping his hand, releasing some of his tension in a short laugh. “That might explain why Melanie has been leaving my food and running away.”

  Dean smiled back and joked, “Probably had nothing to do with your foul mood, either.”

  “Me? Moody?” Tony looked across at his brother in feigned surprise.

  Dean’s smile widened. “Come to dinner at my mom’s house this Sunday. She’d like to see you.”

  The automatic refusal died, unspoken, on Tony’s lips. The past only had the power he gave it, and Margery, Dean’s mother, was another part of it that he’d denied for too long. “I’d like that.”

  Dean left smiling, probably the only time Tony had ever seen him leave happier than he’d arrived.

  Two weeks after leaving Tony’s ranch, Sarah had just returned from a long, cathartic ride in the fields surrounding Melanie’s parents’ home. Her cheeks were still flushed from the rush of Scooter’s ground-covering gallop. She’d smiled through untacking and brushing him down and was cooling him off by hand, walking him on the dirt road in front of the horse barn.

  She missed Tony, but she refused to let herself wallow in the feelings that swamped her when she thought of him. She couldn’t hate him. He’d never been anything but honest with her. She was the one who had invaded his home, practically thrown herself at him, ignored all the warnings he gave her, and then left when she’d discovered that he was the man he’d always claimed to be.

  Melanie’s parents could not have been nicer. They set her up in the attached in-law apartment that they said they’d made for Melanie. Why she hadn’t stayed there and why they had kept it empty weren’t questions anyone offered to answer, so Sarah didn’t ask. She understood family taboo topics.

  For now, she helped their three daughters, all in their late teens and early twenties, do the barn chores and clean up after meals. It never ceased to amaze Sarah that the women in Mel’s family were so friendly, happy, and feminine. The way they did their nails, carefully styled their hair, and pored over fashion magazines gave Sarah an instant commonality with them. Vogue was a language Sarah was fluent in.