Always & Forever: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection, Books 1 - 4)

by Brenna Jacobs

  Madi stuck her uneaten salad back in the bag and cleaned up the wrappers and napkins they’d left behind. She knew she should be present and focus on the reward of restoring things to order, but her eyes kept drifting back to Cash with his hat pulled low and his wrist slung over the steering wheel, totally at ease in this world that moved at the same slow pace she imagined their cows moved at. Her heart slowed, as though just being around Cash made her blood stop pumping so fast to try and keep up with the speeding cars, competing social media platforms, demanding beauty regimens and every other thing that made up her LA life.

  Including Vance.

  Chapter Seven

  Cash had never talked as much as he had that night, not even with Lindsey. And he never shared food. Ever. Something about this girl made him want to open up and find out everything he could about her. He knew it was risky, but so was breaking horses, and that was the only thing that came close to giving him the rush he’d felt when Madi walked out of the motel room wearing the dress and sweater thing she’d put on.

  “Will there be dancing at this place?” Madi asked as he pulled into the gravel parking lot of Trail’s End.

  “Maybe.” Lord, he hoped not. Putting his arm around her waist and feeling her cheek on his shoulder would sink him. He’d broken a million bones taming horses, but getting his heart broken again wasn’t an option. Nothing took longer to heal than a broken heart.

  He parked the truck and went around to her door to let her out, but she’d already opened it herself by the time he got there.

  “You’ll dance with me, won’t you?” She hopped down from the cab but misjudged the distance and landed in Cash’s arms.

  Or had she misjudged? Maybe she’d done it on purpose. He didn’t care. All he knew was that sage had never smelled so good as it did on her.

  Cash’s heart pounded, but he shook his head. “I don’t dance.” He let go of her arms and took a step back.

  “That’s too bad. I’m a pretty good dancer.” She looked at him through thick lashes which couldn’t be real but had his pulse racing anyway.

  “I’m sure you are.” He turned toward the bar and guided her to the entrance, careful not to actually touch the small of her back.

  The bar was crowded, and a cowboy stood on stage looking completely at home with the spotlight beaming down on him. Cash spotted a couple empty seats at a table in a corner, so he led Madi there.

  He pulled out a chair for her then leaned close enough to ask, “You want something to drink?” She still smelled like sage.

  “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she answered without taking her eyes off the cowboy poet who was reciting lines about how to know a city slicker had transformed into a bona fide cowboy.

  Cash nodded as the poet said, you’ll know he’s legit when he don’t mind stepping in…cowpie. Madi laughed along with the rest of the crowd, but it was her voice alone that carried him to the bar. He kept listening for that laugh again as he squeezed between people to order his drinks, blocking his view of her.

  A few minutes later, he walked back to the table with two bottled Cokes and caught her tucking her phone into her purse before she saw him. When he set the bottle on the table in front of her, Madi did a doubletake.

  “I don’t drink,” he explained, pulling out a chair to sit in. “I probably should have mentioned that.” The seat right by her gave him a better view of the stage, so it made the most sense for him to sit there. At least that’s what he told himself.

  Madi took the bottle and smiled. “Coke out of the bottle is my favorite.” She tipped her head back and took a long sip.

  Cash swigged from his own bottle but kept his eyes on the line of Madi’s chin and neck. Her throat was long and slender, reminding him of one of his favorite horses who loved to turn her head toward the sun, stretching her graceful neck.

  Of course, he’d never say that to Madi. He may not know much about Instagram, but he did know women didn’t like being compared to horses. At least, now he knew. He’d had to learn that the hard way.

  “That last guy was hilarious,” she said after she’d set down her bottle. “Are they all that funny?”

  “Some will be more serious.” He hoped not though. Watching her laugh was as close to a religious experience as he’d had in years.

  “And will they all be about cows and horses and stuff?” She clapped as the next guy stepped on stage with a guitar slung across his back.

  “That’s what makes it cowboy poetry.”

  The cowboy did a quick tune of his guitar, then strummed a D chord. “This is a little song I like to sing to my heifers to put them in the mood.”

  “What’s a heifer?” Madi asked as Cowboy Dale hummed a few notes.

  “It’s a female cow who hasn’t calved.”

  “Oh.” She paused. “Ohhhh. I get it. But why does he have to get her in the mood?”

  Before Cash could answer, Dale sang a line about full-length rubber gloves and artificial insemination. Cash burst out laughing, as did everyone else in the bar wearing a legitimate cowboy hat. There was so much laughing that Dale had to strum a few chords until it died down enough that the audience could hear his words again.

  By the time Cowboy Dale finished singing the rest of the lines about playing music and whispering softly in his heifer’s ear, Cash was doubled over. Madi looked at him, confused.

  “I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t he just put a boy cow in the same room with her and let nature take its course?” She clapped for Dale but not as enthusiastically as everyone else.

  Cash let the cheering die down before he answered Madi’s question. “Breeding cows is big business. Top-rated bulls cost a lot of money. Their sperm does too but not nearly as much as the bull itself.” His leg brushed hers, and he could almost feel her bare knee through his Wranglers. Had he actually just said the word “sperm” to this woman? He didn’t know how much longer he could talk about breeding.

  “So, you’re telling me mommy and daddy cows don’t live in happy little families? They’re no better than everybody I know who comes from a ‘broken’ family?” She made air quotes around broken. Cash had touched a nerve. “Except the girl cows are just forced to have babies? Without their consent?” Madi waved her hands as she spoke, getting more and more impassioned the more she talked about the cows.

  “No offense, but I think you’re a little mixed-up about how things work in the animal kingdom.” He wasn’t surprised. She came from a place where people put clothes on their pets and pushed them around in baby strollers. He’d seen it with his own eyes when he’d visited Lindsey in some city south of LA that she insisted wasn’t LA, but Cash couldn’t tell the difference. “Even if a heifer got pregnant by the bull of her choosing, he wouldn’t stick around to make pancakes on Saturday mornings.”

  “I know.” She sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “It just seems kind of sad is all. Why can’t she pick her own mate?”

  “Breeding cows takes a lot of research.” Cash tore his eyes away from Madi’s… arms and wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. “We study genealogy charts and breeding lines to find the right fit for our heifers.”

  “What makes a bull the ‘right fit’? Nice eyes? Good horns?”

  Cash laughed. “Something like that, but there’s a little more to it. I could bore you to death talking about breeding.”

  Her knee touched his again. He needed to stop talking about breeding.

  The next cowboy on stage tapped his guitar three times, and the hollow sound quieted the crowd. He plucked out a few notes before launching into his song.

  “I’m not bored. I’m actually fascinated by this type of thing.” Madi nodded her head to the beat of the song. “I have friends who kinda did the same thing to pick out a sperm donor. They went through all these resumes to find the right guy. I had no idea people did that with cows too. I thought it was kind of cool when my friends did it. I mean, who needs a husband or partner anymore to have a kid? Marriage does
n’t work anyway.”

  “Yep.” He didn’t know what else to say. He thought it was pretty important for people to have partners to parent with. Spouses even. That’s what he wanted anyway. But then, he wasn’t from LA.

  “I did DNA testing.” She stared at her bottle of Coke, twisting it back and forth between her palms. “To see if I had any siblings. My dad took off when I was really young.”

  Cash couldn’t quite see the link between bull lines and Madi’s dad leaving, but he’d follow her there if it meant they could change the topic. Talking about personal life stuff couldn’t be any more uncomfortable than saying or hearing the word “sperm” one more time.

  Especially once Madi took off her cardigan. Even in the dim light he could tell her bare shoulders were toned and tan.

  A person squeezing behind his chair gave Cash an excuse to move it closer to Madi. Close enough that when he picked up his Coke to take a drink, then set it back down, his arm touched one of those shoulders. Just for a second, but what a glorious second it was.

  “So, did you find any?” he asked. “Siblings, I mean.”

  Madi shot him an embarrassed look that made him almost wish they hadn’t changed topics. Almost.

  “Not yet.” She stared at her Coke and shook her head. “Maybe I’m the only kid my dad left behind.”

  He could sense the loneliness behind her words and was acquainted enough with that emotion to not want her to feel it when she was with him.

  Cash took another swig of his drink and swallowed hard. “My dad sold the ranch away after I told him I didn’t want to work it with him. It’d been in my mom’s family for three generations.”

  She tilted her head toward his. “The Rocking M isn’t yours?”

  “Nope. Not anymore.”

  They were in territory Cash avoided like rattlesnakes, but if he changed the subject to his dad, maybe Cash would be the only one feeling lonely.

  The next cowboy stepped on stage carrying a ukulele, and Madi winced. “I thought I’d be able to escape ukuleles in Montana. You can’t go twenty feet on any beach in California without seeing some kid playing a uke.” She blinked slowly then put a hand over her mouth to cover a yawn.

  “You ready to get out of here?” Cash asked her.

  “Yeah.” She covered another yawn. “But I can’t say I’m ready to go back to the motel.”

  He stood and grabbed her hand without thinking about it. “Come on. I know somewhere we can go.”

  He led her out of the bar, still holding her hand. He didn’t know what else to do with it. Letting it go wasn’t an option, not when it was the softest thing he’d touched in a long time, and not when she didn’t seem to mind his calloused hand in hers.

  Once they made it outside, though, he let go. Not that he wanted to; it just seemed like the right thing to do.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked as he opened the door to his truck and helped her step up to the running board. Madi’s petite frame reminded him how big his truck was.

  “Sightseeing.” He shut the door for her and walked to the other side.

  He didn’t know Hamilton well, but the one time he’d been there he’d found a bluff that made a perfect stargazing spot. Madi had stared at the stars every time they’d gone outside, so why not take her somewhere to really look at them? Especially when the other option was hanging out in a too-small motel room with one bed and not enough square footage to keep him from getting too close to her.

  “Sightseeing? How much more of this town could there be left to see?” Madi asked him once he’d climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “You’d be surprised.” He nodded at her, then cranked up the Willie Nelson song playing on the radio and peeled out of the Trail’s End parking lot, startling a laugh out of her, which was just the reaction Cash wanted. He could do with a few more “religious” experiences, plus hearing her laugh had the added benefit of chasing his loneliness away.

  With a smile on Madi’s face, Cash sped down Main Street toward the outskirts of town and the distant shadows of the plateau that overlooked it.

  Madi drummed her fingers on the armrest between them and swayed to the beat of the music. There weren’t many people he could be this close to without feeling like he had to make conversation. Watching her from the corner of his eye, Cash regretted he hadn’t danced with her. He’d be smarter the second time around if he got the opportunity. A little flirting wasn’t going to hurt. He could follow her rule and Be Present while she was around. It was only two weeks.

  Within fifteen minutes they’d left behind the lights of the town and were climbing a dirt road in the foothills surrounding Hamilton.

  “Should I be worried?” Madi asked.

  “About what?” Cash turned down the radio as the station was lost to static.

  “Oh, I don’t know…” Madi’s voice softened, and already Cash recognized that as a sign she was going to tease him about something. “I’m in the middle of nowhere without my phone and with a guy I just met this morning. Not my smartest move ever.”

  Cash turned his head to stare her down. “You’re still pretending you actually left your phone back at the motel?”

  “I did!” Madi pulled off a genuinely surprised face that quickly turned to recognition she’d been busted.

  “I saw you looking at it when I went to get our drinks.”

  “Do you know, I completely forgot I had it for a minute? I was honestly thinking I’d left it at the motel, it’s been that long since I looked at it.” She seemed as shocked by the realization as she had been about how calves are born.

  “It’s only been forty-five minutes, tops.” He pulled off the road to a landing that overlooked the town and parked his truck.

  “That’s a long time for me!”

  Cash raised his eyebrows.

  “It really is.” She smiled and her dimples sent his pulse stampeding. “It takes a lot for me to forget about my phone. I must be having a good time.”

  He swallowed and nodded to the window. “I’ll give you something even better to look at than your screen.”

  He opened his door to climb out, but before his feet hit the dirt, he heard her murmur, “The view inside this truck hasn’t been half bad.”

  Heat rose up his neck, and even the cool air couldn’t lower his temperature. He took the long way around the truck so he could fan himself with his hat. She opened the door and already had one leg out before he could get there. Even in the dark he could see the contours of her thigh where her white skirt skimmed it.

  “Lord have mercy,” he said under his breath as he hurried to help her the rest of the way down.

  Once she was out of the truck, he grabbed a blanket from the back seat, then led Madi to the rear where he rolled up the truck bed cover then popped open the tailgate. He jumped up and folded the blanket in half to spread it over the hay bale behind the cab. When he was sure Madi would be comfortable sitting there, he hopped to the ground to help her into the truck.

  “Is this what you wanted to show me?” Madi stared at the sky. Cash stared at her.

  “Yep.” He stood next to her and followed her gaze to the millions of stars shining their light on them.

  “Wow,” she breathed.

  “Yep.”

  The air rustled the tall grass around them, filling Cash’s senses with the smell of sage, long rides, and something else he couldn’t quite pin down. Maybe the ocean.

  Being so close to Madi reminded him of the day he’d stood in the ocean letting the water lick his toes before it retreated with the sand from underneath his feet. Every time the water came back to shore, it pulled him further in.

  That’s what it felt like to stand next to Madi. He could head back to shore any time, but he liked the feeling of being pulled in by her.

  “Come take a seat.” Cash rested his hand on the small of her back and led her to the open tailgate, which was obviously too high for her to climb onto by herself.

  “How am I supposed to get
up there?” She turned to face him, and he answered her by putting his hands around her waist and lifting her into the truck bed.

  “That works,” she whispered, before tucking her legs underneath her so she could stand and walk the few feet to the hay bale.

  “Lean back against the cab. You’ll be more comfortable.” He boosted himself into the bed, his hands still tingling from being around her waist. A dance with her definitely would have been nice.

  He sat close beside her, and they stared at the sky, Madi admiring the stars and Cash enjoying the feeling of her arm pressed against his. He regretted the night wasn’t a few degrees warmer so that she could have left off her sweater. The image of her bare shoulders was burned into his brain, but he’d still like to see them again.

  “I’ve never seen so many stars in my entire life.” Madi sighed and rested her head on his shoulder.

  A wave of emotion rolled over Cash, pulling him into a sea he wanted to stay floating in, even if he was afraid of the battering he knew might follow. He took a deep breath to slow his heart. It didn’t work, so he held very, very still, enjoying the moment.

  He stayed that way for what felt like days but was probably less than an hour. Either way, it wasn’t enough time. But when Madi’s head slipped off his shoulder, he knew it was time to leave.

  He gently shook her awake. “We’d better go.”

  Madi sat up, and Cash helped her to the tailgate where he jumped down.

  “Time to get you to bed.” He held out his arms to help her.

  Madi wrapped her arms around his neck and slid slowly off the truck and into his arms.

  “That’s a definite maybe, but don’t you think we should start here first?” she asked in a voice that didn’t sound so tired anymore, and then her lips were on his in a kiss that left no doubt in his mind what she meant.