Hard Loving Cowboy--Includes a bonus novella

by A. J. Pine

“Every Sunday dinner with my parents, you always said no to a glass of wine because of the long drive back to Oak Bluff, and no one ever thought twice about it.”

  He shrugged. “You saw what you wanted to see, and I let you.”

  “And that night after the karaoke bar, when you scared the shit out of me and behaved like a complete asshole, it was because…” She swiped a finger under her eye, then blew out a shaky breath as she stared at the items he’d left on the kitchen table—the bottle of whiskey and the shot glass.

  Even though she was correct, she didn’t want to say it, to accuse him if there was a chance she was wrong. And he wouldn’t make her.

  “Because you served liquor to an alcoholic,” he said flatly.

  She nodded. “I helped Olivia with all those wine tastings. When I saw her inventory, that some of it was from Ava Ellis’s family vineyard, it should have hit me, you know? She and Cash were drinking a bottle of it tonight, and it took you admitting you still wanted to be with me for it to all fall into place. Why hadn’t Olivia broken out a bottle for a dinner party Ava attended? It was for you. You—you have a hard time even being around it.”

  It wasn’t a question. She just—knew.

  “It’s getting easier every day,” he said.

  “How long have you been sober?”

  He let out a bitter laugh. “If I make it through today? One hundred and sixteen days.”

  “Oh my God.” Her hand flew to her mouth much like it did when he’d slammed the cup of tea against the wall.

  “Don’t,” he said. It was like he could see the wheels turning in her head. “Don’t apologize to me after what I did. I don’t deserve it, and I sure as hell don’t deserve your sympathy. I did this. I fucked up. Hell, I’ve been fucking up for a lot of years. Just because I’m sober now doesn’t mean I’m all of a sudden getting it right.” He realized she’d taken advantage of his unlocked door. “Guess you decided not to knock this time, huh?”

  She shook her head. “I still think a person ought to lock their door when they’re not in the house and when they turn in for the night. You’re liable to get random women walking in off the street to do your dishes.” She laughed softly. “I was in bed, trying like hell to talk myself out of coming here because maybe this is too much. Maybe it is too hard.” She shrugged. “But it’s you.” She nodded toward the items on the table. “Did you—did you drink?”

  He shook his head. “I thought about it. I think about it every night. But no. I didn’t.” He picked up the bottle and unscrewed the cap, and breathed in the sweet aroma that still smelled like home to him.

  “I’m not ready to pour it out,” he said. “Not until I’m doing it for the right reason.”

  “And what reason is that?” she asked.

  He ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “I thought if I did it for you right now that it would be some sort of grand gesture, but I can’t stay sober for you, Violet.”

  She stared at him, her eyes coating with a sheen of tears.

  “If I’m sober for you or my brothers or Jenna, then what does that mean when none of you are around? If I’m not doing it for me, then I’ll drink the first chance I get when I know I won’t be caught. It’s why as soon as Jack and Ava tie the knot, I’m getting the hell out of town.”

  Her eyes widened. “Where?”

  “Up north with Sam and Ben to build the ranch. Figure that’ll give me the time and distance I need to see if I can really do this.”

  She worried her lip between her teeth, and it made him want to kiss her like he always did, but he had no right to do such a thing.

  There was nothing more than a couple inches between them, but it might have been an entire canyon for how far away she still felt.

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Right now I’m considering the ride up to Meadow Valley a one-way ticket. How about you and France?”

  She huffed out a laugh. “Same. We sure are a pair, huh? There’s one thing I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me, Walker? Did you think it was something you could hide for however long this thing between us lasted? I mean—I’ve all but infiltrated your hometown where I’m guessing I was the only one in the dark. If that night hadn’t happened, there’s a good chance the issue might have come up before summer.”

  She had a point.

  “I’ve never been good at thinking past today. And once it was out there that I was leaving—that whatever this was was only temporary, I didn’t think I’d have to. I thought I could be someone else with you—with someone who didn’t know.”

  She rubbed her bare arms with the palms of her hands. “When you said you were getting out of a long relationship and weren’t ready to date…”

  He laughed softly. “Yeah, whiskey and I had a ten-year thing going. Guess I wasn’t ready to rebound.”

  She nodded. “Speaking of rebound, I finally told my parents about France.”

  His brows furrowed. “I don’t follow.”

  She hopped up onto the counter, her legs dangling as she fidgeted with the hem of her tank. “Well, it turns out when my dad was studying abroad in Paris during college, he didn’t immediately meet and fall in love with my mother. He met my aunt first.”

  Walker hissed in a breath between his teeth. “Shit. That is heavy.”

  “My father really, truly cared for her, but it was through Ines that he met Maman. He didn’t cheat. He didn’t even express his interest in Maman until after he’d ended things with Ines, but she didn’t take it well. She told my mother she never wanted to speak to her again.” Violet buried her face in her hands and shook her head. “She has nothing but regret for the things she said to my parents, and Maman still blames herself for breaking her sister’s heart. They both let their stubborn pride keep them from reconciling all these years. I don’t think my parents realize what not knowing my family has done to me. Maybe they didn’t mean to, but the truth is, they all robbed me of such a huge part of my roots.” She hesitated. “Which is why I’m not sure when I’m coming back. It’s more than being there for my mom’s treatment. I think I need to be with my family for a while. You know?”

  He cleared his throat. “When do you leave?”

  She winced, like she already knew how much the answer would gut him. “The beginning of May. Things happened quicker than I expected.”

  His chest tightened. “That’s not even a week. You—you won’t even make it to the wedding?”

  She shook her head. “I’ll be enrolling in university there after Maman finishes treatment, but it’s thanks to you,” she said. “You made me read that first e-mail from my aunt. You convinced me that it was okay to want this for me and for Maman. You made me brave, Walker, and no matter what happened before or what might happen in the future, I will always be grateful for that.”

  He strode toward her and placed his hands on her knees. “Please,” he said. “Don’t let the last time we kissed be the last time we kissed.”

  She cupped his face in her hands, and he leaned into her touch. God he’d missed her.

  “You know my whole story now,” she said. “First I need yours.”

  “Fair enough,” he said. He held out his hand, and she took it, hopping off the counter and following him to the couch. He sat in the corner, legs stretched the length of the cushions so that she had no choice but to climb between them, and she did so willingly. She leaned her back against his chest, then took each of his hands and wrapped them around her midsection. He held her like a life preserver, and that’s exactly what she was. She’d saved him time and again without him even realizing it. But it wasn’t enough. To be the man she needed, he had to be strong enough to save himself, which meant facing the past that left him broken and bleeding on a bed of glass 116 days ago.

  So he ripped off the Band-Aid, the words tearing from his lips in a torrential downpour of his past.

  He told her about his mother—Jenna’s sister Clare—whose face he fought to
remember these days. How cancer took her when he was barely eleven and how grief took his father and never let him go. He told her how Jack Senior turned to the bottle and became a monster instead of a father. How his older brother Jack took the brunt of the abuse in order to protect Luke and Walker, even though it almost killed him. And how for Walker’s fifteenth birthday, even when the brothers had been removed from their father’s custody and sent to live with their aunt, their father had sent him the gift—a bottle of whiskey—that would set him on the path that would eventually land him in a jail cell with a busted-up face and his last chance at getting things right.

  Violet was still beneath his arms, and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing let alone what the hell she might be thinking.

  “Shit,” he said after letting out a long breath. “This is the point in the story where I say that I could use a fucking drink right about now.” Except he didn’t want one. Somehow putting it all out there took away its power.

  She backhanded him on the thigh, a sign—at least—that she’d heard him.

  “What?” he said. “The situation needed lightening up. Too soon?”

  “Yes,” she said, crawling to her knees and turning to face him, but she was smiling. “So what do we do now?”

  “I think I earned my kiss.”

  She answered him by snaking her hands around his neck and pulling his lips to hers. He tasted the mint of her toothpaste and the salt of her tears. He tasted the regret of what he’d put her through and the gratitude that even when he fucked up, he’d still given her the courage to want for herself.

  “I’m in love with you, Teach,” he said.

  She squeezed him tight, burying her head in the crook of his neck.

  “You know, Olivia told me the only way to find the answers I was looking for was to start asking the right questions. So tonight, when I decided to come back over here, I asked myself why, after everything, I couldn’t move on with a great guy like Sam.”

  “What’d you come up with?” he asked hesitantly.

  “That I’m in love with you, too. That whether it’s Oak Bluff, Santa Barbara, or Paris, you’re home to me. And maybe that means someday geography will be on our side again. But until then, I just want to be here.” She pressed her palm to his heart, and he kissed the top of her head.

  “Always, Teach,” he whispered. “Always.”

  And then they fell asleep, lulled by the rhythm of each other’s breaths.

  Chapter Twenty

  You sure about this?” Walker asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “This is how I want to spend my last night in Oak Bluff. With you.”

  They’d spent several nights in his apartment, but much of the past week Violet had been back in Santa Barbara packing.

  Tonight, though, was for room four, with the bath running and Walker Everett a willing participant in her bath-time fantasy.

  She stood in the white terry cloth robe that was the most comfortable thing she’d ever worn, then giggled at Walker wearing its matching counterpart.

  “I look ridiculous, I know. So how about you get me out of the robe and into—well, into you.”

  She shrugged. Who was she to argue? She untied her robe and let it fall to the floor.

  “Jesus,” he whispered.

  Her belly tightened.

  She stepped over the pile of terry cloth and strode the two feet to where he stood. She untied his robe as well, and a second later he was as naked as she was.

  “Wow,” she said aloud, having lost her inner monologue. She stared at his taut, muscled torso. At the dusting of dark blond hair that covered his chest and the trail of it that led from his belly button to his long, hard length.

  She pressed one hand against his torso and raised the other toward his face. She brushed a finger down the bridge of what she considered his perfect nose, despite the fact that it wasn’t exactly straight. Only now she understood the reason why.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, then dipped his head toward hers. She kissed the bridge of his nose. “Not as much as saying good-bye to you will, though.”

  He cradled her face in his hands, then kissed her so softly her chest ached.

  “You promised no sad stuff,” she whispered. “Not when there’s a bath to be had.”

  She gripped the base of his shaft and stroked him from root to tip.

  He growled. “You don’t play fair, Teach.”

  “Good thing you love me,” she said.

  “Good thing I do.”

  She released him and turned toward the bathroom door.

  “Wait,” he said, his voice rough. “I need a second to take you in. How do you say beautiful in French?”

  “Belle,” she said. “Or jolie.”

  “How do you say, ‘You are beautiful’?”

  She crossed her arms over her torso, impatient with her admirer.

  “Walker, can’t we just—”

  He raised a brow. “Patience, Teach.”

  She groaned. “It’s different depending on if you’re referring to a man or a woman. If I were saying it to you”—she pressed a palm to his chest—“I would say that Tu es très beau. Maybe even Tu es trop beau.”

  Her thumb swept back and forth over the dusting of hair on his chest.

  “What’s the difference?”

  She kissed his neck, and he hummed in what she hoped was pleasure.

  “Tu es très beau means you are very beautiful. Tu es trop beau means you are too beautiful.”

  He laughed, then hooked a finger under her chin so her eyes met his. They were a storm of blue and gray, of heat and desire.

  “You think I’m too beautiful?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Walker. You have seen a mirror once or twice in your life, right? I’m not even sure I cared whether or not I was making Ramon jealous that morning. I think on some level, when I saw you, I had to kiss you.”

  He tucked her curls behind her ear. “You sure as hell were a woman on a mission.”

  “Yeah. I’m kind of a steamroller. Not my best quality.”

  He shook his head. “You know what you want, and you don’t let anything get in your way. No way you should apologize for that. You’re just lucky it was me there that day and not one of my brothers. They’re both taken—and not as good-looking.”

  She laughed. “I see you let my compliment go straight to your ego.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t see any reason to argue with the truth. But you’re still skirting the issue. How do I tell you you’re too beautiful?”

  Heat flooded her cheeks, but she didn’t falter, her gaze staying fixed on his. “Tu es trop belle.”

  He dipped his head to kiss the side of her jaw. “Tu es trop belle.” He then paid equal attention to the other side. “Tu es trop belle.” Next came her shoulders, then the slope of each breast, and with every kiss he repeated the words like a mantra—tu es trop belle—until she wondered if he’d forgotten all other words entirely.

  His lips swept across her dark, hardened peak, and she cried out softly at how sensitive she was to his touch.

  Without warning, he lifted her into his arms and backed toward the bathroom. He lowered her gingerly into the tub, then turned off the water.

  She noted the condom packet on the edge of the sink, and her belly did a flip-flop.

  This time it was her turn to pause and take him in, the man she loved.

  Holy hell. Walker Everett was trop, trop beau. That sun-kissed sandy hair, the beard. His torso was tanned, which made Violet imagine him outside in the vineyard, the pasture, or in his makeshift workshop behind the winery. Wherever it was he was shirtless and working hard. With his hands.

  She giggled and buried her face in her palms.

  “Not quite the reaction I was hoping for,” Walker said unamused.

  She peeked between her fingers.

  “No. It’s not that. It’s—” She blew out a breath. “I’m letting my imagination get the best of me.
I need to stop fantasizing and simply be in the here and now.”

  He lowered himself into the tub and slicked his hair back with a splash of water.

  Both of them sat with their knees bent, neither one yet daring to stretch their legs the length of the tub and into the other’s space.

  “I’m just going to do the math, here,” he said. “The first time you saw me, you had to kiss me. I’m too beautiful. And now you’re fantasizing about me. I don’t know, Ms. Chastain. How are you ever going to let me leave this room?”

  She splashed him, and he retaliated by grabbing her ankles and sliding her toward him. Then he slid the rest of the way to meet her. She yelped with laughter, then realized how close they were.

  He reached for the condom, but she shook her head.

  “I’m—on the pill,” she said. “Since this is the last time we’ll do this in—I don’t know—what if we’re together without anything between us?”

  He let the condom fall back on the counter, then wrapped her legs around his hips. “Nothing between us,” he said. “I kind of like that idea.”

  “I kind of do, too,” she said.

  So he kissed her—sweetly at first. His fingers kneaded her hips, then traveled up her back. Despite the warm water, she had goose bumps. Her belly coiled and her heart squeezed. How was it possible that a couple months ago she hadn’t even known this man?

  He pulled her to him.

  “I love the feel of you against me,” he said before kissing her. Then his hand went to her breast where he gave her a soft pinch.

  She gasped.

  His palm trailed farther down until it stopped at her pelvis. Once again she forgot to breathe as anticipation burned at the tip of every single one of her nerves.

  She squirmed against him.

  “Patience,” he sing-songed in his deep voice.

  His thumb found her aching center and traced small circles around it.

  She whimpered. She’d never last like this. He was driving her out of her mind, and the only cure for it was him. Inside her. Now.

  She gripped him at the base of the shaft, rose onto her knees, and sank over him with ease.

  “Jesus, Violet.” His voice was hoarse as he gripped the sides of the tub. “Like a fucking glove,” he ground out.