Hard Loving Cowboy--Includes a bonus novella

by A. J. Pine

  “Oon-tarta-huh?” Luke said. “Can we go back to speaking English for the duration of the meal?”

  Violet laughed. “Cow pie. Literally stepped in one earlier with Ava, then fell and broke the glasses. Now I’m asking you all to pretend like me and Walker are a thing. I do not know how you pulled that off, by the way, but bravo.”

  “You’re welcome,” Jenna said with a grin.

  “So you and my brother are not dating,” Jack said. It was a statement, not a question.

  “We are not,” Violet said. “But the other night when Walker drove me home, my mother just assumed, and she was so happy that neither of us had the heart to tell her she was wrong.”

  Luke pointed the carving knife at her from across the table. “Why not tell them the truth?”

  “Why not point your knife somewhere else,” Walker snapped.

  Violet squeezed his shoulder. “It’s okay. I owe you all the truth.”

  So she told them the whole story—minus the kiss the morning they met—right up until the part where she hadn’t told her parents that she and Walker had broken up.

  “You probably will fire me after this part,” she continued, her gaze falling on Jack. “But if everything works out how I want it to, I’ll be heading to France sometime this summer where my mother will hopefully receive experimental treatment that we were really hoping she could do here in the U.S. I swear this wasn’t my plan when I applied for the job. I found out over the weekend that her local neurologist is unable to provide the treatment, and being a French citizen, she still has access to health care over there, and if this doctor in France is on the same time line that my mother’s U.S. doctor would have been on—I’m rambling.”

  Something sank like a stone in the pit of Walker’s stomach.

  “You knew this all day and said nothing?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “There’s a lot of red tape to go through. Plus I have to convince my mother to agree to all this since it means burying the hatchet with the estranged sister she hasn’t spoken to since before I was born, but that’s beside the point. Nothing is set in stone, and this isn’t how I wanted to tell you all—especially after my stellar first day on the job. But the truth is that I need the money. And you all seem like pretty fantastic people to work for. So if you’ll keep me on for as long as I’m here, I’ll help find a great replacement.” She smiled nervously and looked at Olivia. “I can help with wine tastings until then, too.” She turned her attention to Cash. “And I hear you have a dog who needs walking. Basically, anything I can put in the bank between now and then will be a huge help, and I know you all just met me and that I’m asking well beyond what I have the right to ask—”

  “Winery job is yours for as long as you’re here,” Walker said. He stared his oldest brother down, hoping Jack knew that if he protested, Walker would fight him on it.

  Jack said nothing, but there’d be words one way or another when the two were alone, and he figured it had nothing to do with Violet’s temporary employment.

  Olivia brushed a tear from under her eye. “Wow,” she said. “Just—wow. You all love each other so much. I get so caught up in how much my parents can’t stand each other that I sometimes forget how lucky I am that they’re both still around. And healthy.” She sniffled. “Friday night wine tastings are all yours for as long as you’re here. Cash, tell her she can walk Dixie for you and that you’ll pay her really well.”

  Cash cleared his throat. “Guess you’ll be walking Dixie. And I’ll pay you really well.”

  Ava laughed, but Jack’s eyes were still fixed on Walker, his expression unyielding.

  “But you two aren’t really dating, right? Because that would be a conflict of more than one interest, little brother.”

  Walker’s jaw tightened. He knew Jack cared little for the workplace conflict of interest.

  “Nothing more than a show for the old man,” Walker said coolly, then held his plate toward Luke and Cash. “Now let’s eat.”

  After a tense silence when no one protested, Luke finally doled out the beef, then laughed when he saw how much he had left. “Lily always makes too much food. But it’s so damn good it doesn’t matter.”

  “Dibs on leftover meat,” Cash said.

  Jack chuckled, finally breaking his stoic mask. “Hawkins, when in the hell has there ever been leftover meat at a meal you’ve attended?”

  Olivia rounded the table with a bucket of ice, filling everyone’s tumblers. “Yeah, I have never seen that man leave a morsel of food behind.” She set the ice on the table and approached the sheriff, pressing one palm to his chest and ruffling his dark hair with her other. “What can I say? My hardworking lawman’s got an appetite.”

  Cash dipped his head and whispered something in Olivia’s ear that made her blush.

  Walker was surrounded by so much happiness it was almost off-putting, especially after everything that had already gone down. If it had been anyone other than his aunt, his brothers, or their friends, he would have taken one look at the scene before him and run for the hills. In fact, he’d intended to do exactly that after leaving a very naked Violet upstairs. But the whole evening had been—bearable. Maybe even a notch above that, possibly something resembling good.

  He was ready for some space, though, but right now he was trapped with the woman he wanted desperately not to want amidst a room full of couples who were openly wanting one another with zero regard for his struggle.

  Assholes.

  “I should have said something about leaving,” Violet said when the table chatter gave them the illusion of privacy. “I mean, I should have said something to you first.”

  Walker shook his head. “Look,” he said. “About—”

  “Rejecting me while I was naked and vulnerable?” she interrupted. Her tone was teasing, but Walker didn’t miss the bite. It didn’t matter that he’d made the right decision. He’d bruised her ego in the process. The alternative was admitting how much he hadn’t wanted to leave. But if there was ever a wrong guy at the wrong time, he was that guy.

  “I was out of line,” she continued. “You made the tough decision for both of us—the right decision—and I shouldn’t fault you for that. It was simply the adrenaline rush of the day, you know? I needed rescuing again. You did the rescuing. I found it sort of hot. But I’m over it. Ready to move on.”

  He flipped one of his forks over again and again on the cloth napkin. “Glad you can see it from my perspective,” he lied. For him, wanting her had nothing to do with adrenaline, but he was getting good at this acting thing, masking the sting with an assuring smile. But it was more than a bruised ego he was hiding. The last time he’d seen her before dinner, she was wearing nothing but a robe pooled at her feet. Moving on for him would happen sometime after he forgot what she looked like naked. He figured that would take anywhere from one to five years.

  He let out a quiet chuckle under his breath.

  “Anyway, I guess this is payback,” Violet added as she unfolded her napkin and set it on her lap.

  “You mean this is the same as you dragging me to your parents’ anniversary party and asking me to pretend to be your boyfriend? Because I don’t see much dragging. Or pretending.”

  This got her to laugh. “No. I’ve definitely not been dragged here. Maybe stranded due to extreme clumsiness, but not dragged. Though my father did show up like I was a teenager who missed curfew, so I get a few points for humiliation in front of a roomful of strangers.”

  Walker raised a brow. “I suppose I’ll give you that.”

  She leaned closer and whispered in his ear. “And the bath—though short-lived thanks to Olivia’s knock on the door—was fantastic. Thanks for making sure I got in safely.”

  Along with not being able to forget what the woman next to him looked like with her robe on the floor, for the rest of the evening he’d be picturing Violet Chastain, naked and alone in the Oak Bluff Bed and Breakfast claw-foot tub, which meant another cold shower for him when he got
home tonight.

  The hustle and bustle of the room seemed to have died down. In fact, Walker heard nothing but his own blood pulsing between his ears as he noticed everyone’s eyes on him and the newly invited guest.

  “Is there a football game or something broadcasting on my forehead?” he asked.

  Luke was spearing meat onto a serving fork and pointed said fork toward Walker. “Super Bowl was weeks ago, lil bro.”

  Right. When Walker was at the treatment facility. He hadn’t even watched the game, because he hadn’t known how to without, at the very least, a six-pack.

  “Well, something seems to have piqued everyone’s interest,” he said, his jaw growing tight.

  Ava gave Jack’s shoulder a nudge with her elbow. “Stop messing with your little brother. Maybe if all three of you stopped taunting each other for a few minutes, Walker might come back the next time we do this.”

  Violet had her glass of strawberry and cucumber water to her lips and choked on her swallow.

  Olivia, who’d seated herself on Violet’s other side, patted her on the back.

  “Oh no,” she said. “I hope it’s not on a piece of fruit. I thought I cut them large enough to—”

  Violet held up a hand, asking everyone for a second.

  “Little,” she finally said through a small gasp. “She called you little, and after talking about the bath my mind just went—”

  “Okay,” Walker said, a little too loudly and definitely with too much enthusiasm. “I thought we were stuffing our faces with Lily’s grub so we don’t have to do all this—talkin’.”

  “Amen to that,” Cash said. “I’m starved.”

  And with that, the attention that had been heaped on Walker and Violet was directed elsewhere. And once he’d wrapped his lips around a forkful of Lily Green’s pot roast, Walker had gone from apprehension, to resignation, to complete and total ecstasy.

  In his mouth.

  “Christ, Lily,” he said. “You need a restaurant or something.”

  Lily and Olivia laughed. “I’m so thrilled,” Olivia said. “They’re going to tear down the outside wall next week. It’s why we’re kind of under-booking the place for the next month. Getting as much done on the redesign as we can, especially before these two tie the knot.”

  She nodded her head toward where Jack and Ava, the bride- and groom-to-be, sat staring starry-eyed at one another simply from the mention of their upcoming nuptials.

  “Y’all are so sweet I might cry,” Jenna said with a palm pressed to her chest.

  Walker fought the temptation to roll his eyes or react negatively in any way. He begrudged Jack nothing and was happy as hell he and Ava had found happiness after so much heartache. But all the good surrounding him was a reminder of not only what he hadn’t yet found but of what he’d missed choosing the bottle over his family.

  His mouth grew parched, and his fingers twitched around the glass of iced tea he didn’t remember pouring.

  “You swear the construction will be done before the wedding?” Ava asked, snapping Walker back to the moment. “Because if my parents can’t spend the night here, I’ll be spending the night before our wedding with my mom and dad sleeping at the ranch, and that is not an option.”

  Jack shook his head. “Oh God, Olivia. Lil. No. Seriously. Not. An. Option.”

  The whole table laughed, even Violet. But there was something strained in her smile, and he wondered where that strain came from…if she could somehow sense what he was going through or if his odd version of a family reminded her of something about her own.

  He’d had the whole happy nuclear family thing for a good long while, ’til just after he hit double digits. But it was hard to remember any of that now. When he looked back on his childhood, it started with his mother’s death and his father’s downward spiral. Everything else sort of seemed lost. He wanted to rebuild. He wanted to stay sober. But he’d never been afforded the distance from his pain to do so. That was why he had to get away. He’d wait until after the wedding. But then he’d take some time, figure himself out. He deserved that, didn’t he?

  Dinner went better than he ever could have expected. Violet fit into their little fold as if she’d always been a part of it. How was that even possible, that a woman who’d been a stranger only four short days ago felt like someone he’d always known?

  “I think you’ve earned the rest of the week off,” Jack told her as they all worked in the kitchen as a dish-washing and -drying assembly line. Though Violet got the job of simply stacking the items back on their shelves so she didn’t have to use her injured hand too much.

  “But I’m fine,” she said. “See? I can put plates and glasses away without even dropping them.”

  Of course, as she said this, she fumbled with a dessert plate and almost sent it crashing to the floor. Almost.

  Everyone looked at her, Walker included. He tried not to laugh.

  “Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes at herself. “Point taken.”

  “But we’re still on for the wine tasting on Friday,” Olivia piped in. “Oooh, I just thought of a great idea. Why don’t you stay at the B and B until then? I mean, if you don’t need to head back to Santa Barbara for anything. You could get to know our little town.” She blushed and gazed wistfully at Cash. “I can call it that now, right?”

  Cash finished rinsing a tumbler, handed it to Olivia to dry, and kissed her on the cheek.

  “Ms. Belle, as far as I’m concerned, you are this town, because it wouldn’t be home to me if you weren’t in it.”

  All the women Awwed, and Walker was sure he saw Jenna swipe under her eye while Luke simply threw his hands in the air.

  “What the hell are you doing, Sheriff? Jack, Walker, and I—we can’t compete with a line like that. You know, I think I liked you better when you were surly all the time,” Luke said.

  Cash gritted his teeth. “I wasn’t surly, Everett.” He said this, of course, with a tone as surly as could be.

  Olivia nudged him with her hip. “You did arrest me the day we met,” she reminded him. “I love you, Sheriff, but you mighta been a little surly. It was sexy, no doubt about it, but I’m afraid Luke might be telling the truth.” She bit her lip and grinned, turning back to dry more dishes.

  Cash turned off the sink, dried his hands on a towel, and wrapped his arms around her from behind.

  She yelped with laughter.

  “Well then, I guess I’m damned glad you came speeding into my surly life,” he said, burying his face in her neck.

  “Who wants more coffee?” Olivia asked through a fit of giggles.

  “Early appointment tomorrow morning,” Jack said.

  “And I have a sculpting class at eight. Shoot. Jack, can you get Owen to school before that appointment?” Ava asked.

  Jack grinned. “Already in my calendar.”

  “And Ben and Sam are coming over tomorrow to work on the stable and barn for my property. Can’t have Lucky living in a converted shed too long.”

  Violet’s brows creased. “Who’s Lucky?”

  Lily beamed. “She’s my pet cow. Been mine since she was born. Luke’s starting a side business boarding horses and teaching kids to trick ride, which is what the small stable is for.”

  Jack continued his job as a lawyer while still helping maintain the ranch and vineyard. Ava had art school. Luke was going to take some of the Callahans’ horse-boarding clients off their hands when they left to build their guest ranch up north in Meadow Valley. He was pretty much building a whole new business on his land, and Lily was putting in a restaurant at the bed-and-breakfast. Even Aunt Jenna had her small farm and the eggs she sold at the farmers market.

  Each member of his family had something just for them. What was his thing? Building a piece of furniture here and there and selling it way under value of the blood and sweat he poured into it? Or was it being the misfit, the drunk, the one they’d always have to keep an eye on for fear he’d spiral again?

  Walker truly didn’t
know, and that was the part that terrified him the most. If he was no longer the man he’d been for the past ten years, then who was he?

  “Violet, will you stay the rest of the week?” Olivia asked again.

  Violet pursed her lips as she seemed to work something out in her head, and Walker found himself waiting for her answer with an earnestness he didn’t recognize.

  Then she shrugged. “I mean…I don’t see why I can’t. I have to check on a couple of things back in Santa Barbara, but consider me in.”

  The kitchen was as good as new when they all piled out. Everyone said their good-byes, but Walker lingered, waiting for Cash and Olivia to disappear to her private room on the first floor. Then it was just him and Violet.

  “That was really, really fun,” she said, backing toward the front foyer stairway. “I had no idea what I was walking into this evening. Kinda scared the pants off me to be honest and made me appreciate even more what you did for me Saturday night—what you all did for me tonight. But your brothers, Jenna, the sheriff, Olivia, Ava, and Lily—they’re wonderful, Walker.”

  He shrugged. “They’re tolerable.”

  She laughed. “I know you care about them. You’re not that good at hiding it. There’s a big ole teddy bear hiding beneath that gruff exterior.”

  “Gruff, huh?” He took a step closer to her but kept his hands crossed over his chest.

  She raised her brows. “Don’t forget the part about the teddy bear. I’m envious of what you have with your brothers and your aunt. Even your friends. Our extended family is basically everyone who works at the restaurant. And they’re great, but they’re not really mine. Does that make sense?”

  He nodded. If there was one thing he couldn’t deny—even when he wanted to—it was the sort of claim he felt over his family. He guessed they felt something similar. But they were also each other’s biggest reminders of the painful past that shaped them, just like this town. When you put it all together, it made for a volatile mixture, especially for Walker.