Hard Loving Cowboy--Includes a bonus novella

by A. J. Pine

  She shrugged. “It wasn’t the right fit, you know? Not the same vibe as our place. A couple months ago I heard from a friend of a friend about the Oak Bluff job and figured it couldn’t hurt to apply, especially since they weren’t looking for me to start until next week. Of course I nailed my interview.” She shot Walker a knowing grin, and he laughed softly, shaking his head. “I don’t mind the drive. I actually kind of like the time to myself. Just me, the road, a good playlist. Doesn’t get any better than that.”

  Walker pictured her with the windows down and the speakers blaring her favorite songs as she sang along. And even though he believed she was doing what she wanted for now, he had a better sense of what she’d given up to help someone she loved.

  “I’m gonna hit the road.” Walker interrupted. This was all getting too personal, and truth be told, it was none of his business. He was enough of an outsider in his own family to know he’d intruded on the Chastains long enough.

  He stood and grabbed his to-go box of cake.

  “Um, thank you.” He held up the cake. “For this and your, uh, hospitality. But I gotta make that ninety-four-minute drive now.” He shook Gabriel Chastain’s hand for the second time tonight.

  “I’m still not sure about you, Everett,” he said. “But Violet lights up whenever she looks at you, so I’m going to take that as a good sign.”

  “Papa!” Violet said, giving her father a good-natured tap on the shoulder.

  Walker nodded but said nothing in response. When he spun toward the door, Camille was standing. Again she kissed him on both cheeks as she’d done when they’d met.

  “You’re good for her,” she whispered to him before backing away.

  This was too damned much. Games weren’t supposed to feel this real, to have stakes that involved people’s lives.

  He eyed the liquor still lining the buffet and licked his lips.

  “Good night,” he simply said before kissing Violet on the cheek.

  She rested a hand on his back. “I’ll walk you down.”

  Wordlessly, they stepped out the apartment door and down the staircase. They were still silent as they headed outside, as Walker tossed the cake onto the passenger seat, and as they rounded the bed of the truck, making their way to the driver-side door. It was dark now, well past ten o’clock, but the night was the clearest it could be—stars blanketing the sky with a moon so full it lit up the alley.

  Finally he broke the spell. It was the only way he’d make it out of there alive.

  “So you and your mom…” he started. “I mean, I’m just making an observation, but this is an anniversary party. Usually family shows up to stuff like this.”

  She huffed out a laugh, though she wasn’t really smiling.

  “You mean why are my mother and I the only people of color here?”

  He nodded.

  She stared up at the apartment and then back at him with a tiny shrug. “My mother’s family lives in Paris. We don’t see them very much.”

  “End of story?” he asked, brows raised. He wasn’t going to push.

  She nodded. “For now.”

  “Okay, then. Slight change of subject. What are you going to tell them—about us, I mean?”

  She winced. “I’m not sure yet. I wasn’t expecting them to like you so much.”

  He raised a brow. “Thanks?”

  She laughed. “Sorry! I didn’t mean it like that. You just seemed to click with them in a way I wasn’t expecting. I mean, my father is the stereotype. No one is good enough for his little girl. And my mother? She gave you cake.”

  “That a big deal?” he asked.

  “The biggest. No one has a sweet tooth like Maman.” Violet hugged her shoulders and rubbed her upper arms.

  “You’re cold,” he said, stating the obvious. But they weren’t playing make-believe anymore. It wasn’t his place to wrap her in his arms no matter how much he felt the urge to do so. So he crossed them over his chest, fighting to keep from doing exactly that. “You should probably head back up.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You’re right. We need to finish cleaning up.” She rested a hand on his forearm. “Thank you, Walker. What you did tonight? I can’t tell you how much it means to me. And even if it alleviated their worry only for the evening, it meant a lot to them, too. But back to our intended roles of employer, employee. I’ll see you Wednesday.”

  Her hand slid from his arm. She lingered for a moment, like there was something else she wanted to say, but then she pivoted to walk away.

  He’d finally had her all to himself—and he sent her packing. He was definitely the asshole in this scenario.

  “I thought the French kissed good-bye.” If he’d thought about it a second longer, he’d have talked himself out of it, but the truth was that he wasn’t ready for the charade to end. They’d played their parts so well for their unsuspecting audience. Why couldn’t they play a bit longer, just the two of them?

  She stopped and spun to face him.

  “It’s more of a general European thing. Anyway, I’m not really French,” she said, smiling. “I mean, I was born here so I tend to behave more like an American.”

  She was teasing him, and it only made him want her more.

  “But you speak the language,” he said, taking a step closer. “That’s not typical American behavior.”

  She raised her brows. “That’s true. I do speak it.”

  “And I’m pretty sure if one of your parents is from another country, it’s okay to claim their nationality as your own.”

  She was the one to take a step this time. They were only a couple inches apart now.

  “So what you’re saying is I should act more French?”

  “Way more French,” he said. “You owe it to your heritage.”

  She hooked a finger in the belt loop of his jeans. “Walker?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Je veux t’embrasser.”

  “Then kiss me already,” he said, echoing her words from the balcony.

  She clasped her fingers around his neck and tugged him down to her.

  “Oh, thank God. I thought you were going to let me walk away, and the thought of not kissing one more time tonight was killing me. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to because we’re not really putting on our show anymore, and—”

  “Vi?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you stopped talking about kissing me, I could be making your toes curl right about now.”

  She shut up, and her lips crashed into his. There was no more time to savor, so he let her take what she wanted and gave himself permission to drink his fill. He ran his hands down her back until they rested above her ass. He wasn’t taking any liberties this time, not when each step he took over the line of pretending made him want more.

  As she gripped him tighter, he felt her breasts against his torso, her hardened peaks dragging slightly up and down as she stood on her toes.

  This wasn’t working. For one it was driving him mad, and for two, he guessed she wasn’t getting everything she could out of the kiss if she was struggling to keep her balance. So he gripped underneath her thighs and hoisted her up and onto the hood of the truck.

  She yelped and then started laughing.

  “Figured this would be a little easier,” he said, his voice rough with a need he wouldn’t be able to satiate in a small alley in downtown Santa Barbara. But there was a light at the end of the ninety-four-minute tunnel called a cold shower. He could at least look forward to that.

  She was slightly taller than him now, which meant when she draped her arms over his shoulders, all she had to do was dip her head toward his so their lips could touch again.

  “I like it when you call me Vi,” she said in a breathy voice.

  “You do, huh?” He paused for several beats as he kissed the line of her jaw until he reached her ear. “Vi.”

  She shivered, and as he leaned back, he watched the skin on her arm turn to gooseflesh. He guessed this shiver wasn’t from the cold
, though.

  “Mmm-hmm,” she squeaked.

  He paid due attention to the other jaw, then let his teeth graze her other earlobe. “What about…Teach? You like it when I call you that? Because I sure as hell like it when you teach me how to say all those pretty, sexy French words of yours.”

  He was barely hanging on to the thread of his resolve anymore. He needed to touch her. Now.

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  He slid her forward, wrapped her legs around his waist. Then he glanced up the back wall of the restaurant to where he knew the apartment was.

  “What room is that window in?” he asked, noting the small glass rectangle.

  “Guest bathroom. And the restaurant is closed. Employees leave out the other side anyway.”

  He knew from her answer—at her ensuring him of their privacy—that she was game for whatever he was suggesting.

  He dropped his right hand to her leg, slid it under her dress. Then he thanked the stars for long skirts, starry nights, and a beautiful woman who knew nothing of him other than this day. This moment. She wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the next time he came to on a bed of broken glass—or worse. She saw the man he was today and believed that was who he’d always been, and with her he could pretend that was the truth.

  His hand traveled up to her knee, his thumb brushing the inside of her thigh.

  She sucked in a sharp breath, so he kissed her as he made his way to that sexy-as-hell place where a woman’s leg met her pelvis. Suddenly he was the one finding it hard to breathe.

  He’d done this before, been with women. But something was different. She was different. And he was…He wouldn’t let his head go there right now. He wanted to be here. In the moment. With her.

  This was it, the one and only time they’d do this.

  His thumb snuck beneath the soft silk of her panties, and she squirmed, so damn gorgeous reacting to his touch.

  He tilted his head up so his eyes met hers. “Toes curling yet, Teach?”

  She bit her bottom lip and nodded.

  He brushed her soft, wet, swollen center, and she gasped.

  “But we’re just getting started.”

  He pulled his hand free. Then before she could miss his absence, reentered from above, palm disappearing beneath her undergarment as one finger sunk deep inside her warmth.

  “Jesus,” he hissed.

  She whimpered, pulling his mouth to hers as a second finger joined the first.

  He kicked his resolve to the curb and let raw, animal instinct take over.

  She rode his hand, and he consumed her, feasted on the taste of the rich chocolate cake still lingering on her tongue, doing his best to commit it all to memory.

  Teeth clacked as her fingers tangled in his hair, and despite their dark, private corner, he wondered what would happen when he took her over the edge.

  He stilled inside her, and seconds later, her body went motionless in response.

  He tilted his head back, meeting her intent gaze.

  “I need you to know something before this is done.” One of his fingers twitched between her legs, and she let out a soft cry. “Sorry about that, Teach. I’m not exactly in control here, but I gotta say this one thing, and I need you to listen, okay?”

  Not the truth of who he was or who he’d been. He wouldn’t ruin the moment with that. But the truth of right now, the only damn thing he knew without a sliver of doubt.

  She nodded.

  “I’m not the kind of guy who lets himself want things. Probably because there’s not a whole lot I deserve. But I want you, Violet. I want you like fire wants oxygen.” Like a drunk wants the bottle. Needs the bottle. Which was exactly why he couldn’t have her. Not when he couldn’t separate the need to fill a void from simply the need for her. “So I’m making this one time count.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but he didn’t give her time, afraid she’d talk him into something it wasn’t his right to have.

  So he kissed her once more, then swirled his thumb around her pulsing bud. He took her to the edge of the cliff and then straight off it as she buried her face in the crook of his neck to muffle her cries.

  Afterward, there was no official good-bye, no further discussion about how this couldn’t happen again. He simply lifted her down and kissed her once more before she disappeared back into the apartment, the curtain finally closing on their very convincing performance.

  The scent of her was still on him when he pushed open the door to his small apartment above the Oak Bluff antiques shop, the one he’d been renting from the sheriff’s mom since she got married for the fourth time and moved to her new husband’s farm a few miles outside of town.

  Since Jack, Ava, and Owen had made the ranch their home, he and Luke had moved out. Luke went and bought himself a fixer-upper on a nice piece of land, but Walker hadn’t been able to make the same commitment. Buying meant he was sure he’d be here for the long haul; renting meant he could pick up and leave on a moment’s notice. For now he had a place to hang his hat but no place he’d call home. Nothing in Oak Bluff—the town where he was born—felt quite like home.

  He strode to the cabinet above the fridge and pulled out the bottle of whiskey and his one and only shot glass, setting them both on the center of the kitchen table.

  He sat and stared at his two oldest friends, then unscrewed the cap and poured an ounce of the dark liquid he knew could calm what needed calming…numb what needed numbing.

  His fingers wrapped around the glass, and he swirled the whiskey slowly as he licked his lips. Then he did what he’d done the past few nights since arriving back in Oak Bluff.

  He poured it back in the bottle, screwed the cap back on, and put everything back where he found it where it would wait for the next night, for the next test.

  “You passed tonight, asshole,” he said aloud. “But there’s always tomorrow.”

  Rehab was one thing. He was forced to stay clean because there was nothing around to tempt him. But being back in town was another. He needed to actively choose sobriety each and every day—or choose to live in the fog that had made life bearable for the past ten plus years. He wanted to do the former for his brothers and his aunt. But what he wanted for himself was still a mystery. So in the meantime, he tempted fate, rationalizing that every time he did, he was that much stronger.

  As much as he thought it would help, he didn’t want to numb his thoughts of Violet or how it felt to be the version of himself she saw tonight. He wouldn’t get to do it again, which meant the memory was all he’d have moving forward.

  The memory of the way she smiled at him, the way she moved when he touched her, the way her soft lips felt against his. No way in hell was he erasing that.

  He kicked off his work boots, then left a trail of clothing on the way to the bathroom.

  He was still hard when he stepped under the frigid spray of the shower, as the day replayed itself in his head.

  He pressed one palm against the tiled wall and let the other wrap around his shaft.

  How the hell would he last one day with Violet Chastain working for his family?

  “Merde,” he grumbled.

  He had the next three to figure it out.

  Chapter Six

  SQUAWK!”

  Walker bolted up from his pillow, effectively slamming his temple into the corner of his nightstand.

  “Shit!” he hissed. “What the actual—”

  “SQUAWK!”

  The sound was coming from the kitchen, but in an apartment as small as his, it might as well have been on the pillow next to him. He’d risen early the past three days to take care of the cattle feed and fix the patch of broken fence. It was Luke’s turn for the early morning shift. So who the hell was busting into his place and cheating him out of his morning to sleep in?

  He threw off the blanket, didn’t bother to cover his naked form, and grabbed a two-by-four that was leaning against his wall. Small living space meant no storage space, so t
he whole apartment was basically his storage shed. He’d never expected he’d need to use any of his supplies as a weapon, though. And certainly not at the ass crack of dawn.

  He crept down the short hallway and rounded the corner to the kitchen, wood beam raised and ready to knock the living daylights out of whoever was trying to rob him—not that he had anything of value worth stealing.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he roared.

  The refrigerator was open, and all he could see were a pair of petite legs—a woman’s legs—clad in denim.

  “Squawk!”

  A chicken flapped its wings and scrambled out of the sink, water spraying everywhere.

  The fridge door slammed, and his aunt Jenna—the woman who’d been his guardian during his messed-up teen years—straightened with a start. Then she burst out laughing as she covered her eyes.

  “Good Lord, Walker,” she said in her lilting Texas twang. “You’re naked as a jaybird, out of milk, and you scared Lucy half to death while she was taking a much needed bath!”

  He still had the two-by-four raised like she was about to pitch a strike at him.

  “Why the hell are you giving your hen a bath in my kitchen sink?” he countered.

  One hand still covered her eyes while she gesticulated with the other.

  “Because I thought I might wake you if she took her bath in the bathroom sink.”

  He lowered his arms and held the wood in front of his groin.

  “Ya think? All exposed genitalia have been covered, by the way.”

  She peeked between a crack in her fingers, then let her hand fall from her face.

  “We woke you anyway, didn’t we?” She winced.

  He raised his brows. “Yeah. You did. At six a.m. when I was planning on sleeping in. And I thought I gave you that key in case of an emergency.”

  She crossed her arms as Lucy-the-no-longer-bathing-hen clucked across his counter.

  “Well, you are out of milk, so this is clearly a breakfast emergency. Plus, your door wasn’t even locked. It was like an open invitation. I’d say you’re lucky I came when I did.” She gasped, and her hand flew to her eyes again. “Damn it, Walker. Your wood is drifting. Can you please go put something on?”