The Cowboy

by Molly O'Keefe

  She tilted her head like she was hoping to get a different view. “You think?”

  “I do.”

  “We’re figuring out what to do with the place,” she said. “None of us want it.”

  We stepped out of the Jeep under the bright blue sky and the air smelled like pure Texas—sunlight and dust and trees in the distance.

  “I’ll show you the stables,” she said, stepping across the gravel parking area to the field beside the house and I followed. The stables were bright red with pretty turrets. Flapping white flags on the top of them. Like it was a castle.

  The King’s Land Stables had a top-notch reputation. If you wanted a fast quarter horse you came here. You wanted top-shelf working horses, you came here. Deana McKenzie, the number-one-ranked barrel racer, got her horse here.

  It blew my mind that Bonnie could be living here.

  There was a man leading a pretty Appaloosa out of the doors toward one of the many corrals and fields. The scene was so familiar it squeezed my heart.

  “So,” she said as we stepped into the dark of the barn. The smell…god, the smell. Horse shit and hay and animals. The oil they used on the saddles.

  Was this ever not going to hurt?

  I stepped back, out of the stables. And breathed through my mouth.

  “This looks great,” I said. “I mean, Bonnie won’t know what hit her—”

  As soon as I said that stupid joke I wanted to eat my words.

  “You don’t want to see where she’ll be? Meet Oscar?”

  “Do you trust Oscar?’

  “With my whole heart.”

  “Sounds great.” I had to turn my back on the stables, look out at that house so I could keep breathing. “How…how much do I owe you?”

  “Cody?” She ducked around to see my face, but I started walking away. I smiled, feeling like I might cry. Again. This is why I didn’t go see her at the rehab facility. This is why I had to walk away and stay away. Because I couldn’t get better. I couldn’t feel better, move on, whatever. I couldn’t do any of that if I was still walking into the places that reminded me of everything I’d lost.

  “Hey,” she said, and her hand touched my elbow. I jumped just slightly at the electric sizzle of the contact. The heat of her fingers I could feel through my T-shirt. “Cody?”

  She slid her hand from my elbow to my shoulder and I followed the movement with all my concentration. I leaped onto her touching me, threw myself away from my grief and my fucking freak-out and just latched onto her.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Why are you lying?”

  “Because I need it to be true.”

  “Okay,” she breathed. “Hold on. Brace yourself.”

  “Why?”

  She slid her arm over my shoulder, and then her other arm came around my other shoulder and the soft, tender skin of the inside of her elbows touched my neck. She stepped closer and closer until her chest touched mine. Her breasts… Fuck. God. Her breasts and then her hips, and my hands remembered what to do. They touched her waist, cupped that tensile heat with their palms, torn in that place between pulling her closer and pushing her away.

  “Friends hug,” she said, her breath in my ear, down the back of my shirt. She gave me goose bumps, like I was a child. And something about her made me feel young. Less jaded. Less…used and forgotten. Something about her hugging me made me feel new.

  “We’re not breaking any rules in the just friends handbook.”

  “Well, in that case,” I said, and I pulled her to me with all my strength and I didn’t so much as hug her as cling to her.

  “I had a horse,” she said. “As a kid. Tinkerbell.”

  “That’s a great name.”

  “It was. And I loved her. We rode in some shows but we were terrible. Tink just wanted to eat apples and I just wanted to braid her mane.”

  “What happened?” I asked, because underneath the joke was something sad.

  “Cancer. She was four. We had to put her down.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know…tell me about your horse.” She rested her head on my shoulder, her bony little chin finding some spot in the joint that didn’t hurt.

  “Bonnie,” I said. And maybe it was easier because she wasn’t looking at me with those eyes. I couldn’t see any pity there. I just felt the warm press of her all along my lonely body. “Her name is Bonnie and I had her for three years. She was…she was the most expensive thing I ever bought, you know? She was this beautiful, sleek, fast, strong beauty, and she was going to take my career to the next level. That’s what Charlie said—”

  “Charlie?”

  I shook my head because I didn’t want to talk about Charlie. I hadn’t even meant to mention him.

  “I took one look at her and…I just knew. I just knew she was mine. She knew which way to cut before I did, she knew when to pour it on, when to ease up. And she trusted me. Like, she would have jumped over a cliff if I made her think that was what I wanted. And I…hurt her. I nearly killed her.”

  I felt her sigh, the increase of pressure on my shoulders as she relaxed even deeper into me, and I couldn’t help it. It was, in fact, a miracle it hadn’t happened the second she touched me…my dick twitched. Pulsed with blood.

  With need and desire.

  For Bea.

  I had to step back. Because I was going to embarrass myself.

  Embarrass her.

  Her arms fell off my shoulders and I was instantly cooler. My dick gave up its fight.

  “But she’s okay, right?” she asked, and I nodded. “Well, we’ll take good care of her here and you can have twenty-four-hour visiting privileges.”

  I turned and walked away from the beautiful stable and the beautiful girl toward the Jeep and the other world I was trying to be happy with.

  “Hey,” she said, jogging to keep up with me. “Are you—”

  “I’m not going to be visiting. I’ll pay for her care. But I won’t be here.”

  “Cody,” she breathed, and I could tell, looking at her, that she understood. There were some things that were just too much. She reached for me again like we were going hug. Like she was going to press that bright, curvy body against mine and I put my hand up, stopping her on a dime.

  “I think,” I whispered. “That we’ve pushed our friendship as far as I can stand it today.”

  “Cody.” She grabbed my hand and I jerked away from her, breaking the contact.

  “Stop it, Bea. Jesus. I don’t want your fucking pity right now.”

  “It’s not pity.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t want it! I don’t want you. Like that. So stop.”

  She jerked back, lips tight. I hadn’t meant to hurt her. But if her curse was disappointing people, mine was hurting the creatures that might love me.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean…to push.”

  And I could have said I know. I could have said I wanted her to touch me just as much as I was scared of it. I could have grabbed her and put that soft, tender skin of her elbows back around my neck, because that would feel so fucking good.

  She…no, fuck…we, would feel so fucking good.

  But I needed friends more than I needed to feel good.

  “Let’s head back,” I said.

  12

  BEA

  This is a thing I know to be true. I could not, no matter how hard I might try, heal a guy’s emotional wounds with my body. I could not fuck him into a better headspace. I couldn’t even fuck him into liking me more than he did. Those two things were independent of each other.

  Their pain.

  And my spreading my legs to make it go away.

  I don’t want you. Like that.

  I mean, that was clear as a bell. Clear as could be. Only a sucker would be thinking of going back for more. Only a sucker.

  And I was the biggest sucker of all.

  Was I being hard on myself? Sure. Of course. Being ha
rd on myself was another thing I was good at. But I needed the tough love as I stood in the bright early morning light on the inside of my sliding glass door. I needed someone to stop me. To tell me to have some pride.

  Ah, fuck it.

  Clearly, I didn’t have any. And if I wasn’t going to have any, neither would he.

  I opened the door. Because Cody had rejected me yesterday—well, he’d rejected my touch. And my friendship on any terms that weren’t his. But I was pretty goddamned sure he’d be standing out on the other side of that tree. Watching me through the leaves and branches.

  I was pretty goddamned sure he wasn’t going to reject this version of me.

  Stark naked, I stepped onto the deck and I dared him to try.

  From the corner of my eye I caught sight of him, standing there in his old blue shirt with the tear in the collar.

  When he saw me, I heard that long, slow exhale that was half moan, half laugh. The moan was for me, the laugh was at himself. I knew him enough to know that. But I didn’t respond. I didn’t talk to him. I didn’t look his way—not that he could tell. I fed the dogs, who ate in record time and then left me alone, giving me the cold shoulder like they knew I’d gone out to the ranch without them yesterday.

  And then for a few minutes I pulled the deadheads off my inpatients. Picked a ripe cherry tomato off my plant and ate it, the taste of summer bursting between my teeth. I stalled and I stalled, and the whole time I felt him there. Watching me.

  If I was braver maybe I’d have said something, but I couldn’t risk him recognizing my voice. The whole Miss Texas accent I’d put on when we met had faded in a big way. And frankly, it was a good thing I couldn’t talk to him. Because suddenly that was all I wanted. To put on some clothes and talk to him.

  But, man, he’d made it real clear the day before that he had a limit on that kind of thing.

  And maybe this version of me might get further than the real me…but I wasn’t going to push my luck.

  “You know,” he said. “I could take three steps forward and I could probably see your face.”

  I stilled, gauging the three steps he needed to take and the three steps I needed to take back into my apartment.

  “Or,” he said, “I could sit in my truck and wait until you came out of that apartment. I mean, you have to leave sometime, right?”

  I didn’t answer. Because of course that was true. But…he’d never done it. Why was he talking about this? Why now?

  “And I won’t do those things,” he said. “Because I haven’t done those things. Because I’m so fucked up that this is the most straightforward relationship I have. Which makes it the best.”

  That stung in a stupid way. That he would prefer this to friendship was kind of a no-brainer. But still…I preferred friendship to this. I liked this plenty, but touching him yesterday, trying in my ultimately ineffective way to make him feel better—face-to-face and skin-to-skin—had changed the goddamned game for me.

  The smell of his neck—sweat and sawdust and soap—was burned into my nose. I had taken such deep breaths I’d been able to taste him on the tip of my tongue. I still could.

  “But let me tell you,” he said. “I wish I could. I wish I could knock on your door—”

  “Undo your belt,” I said, even though it was stupid.

  “I’m trying—”

  “I don’t care. Undo your belt.”

  I wasn’t looking; my back was turned to him. My eyes, instead, on my tomato plant, like I was going to use it to solve world hunger. But my ears were so finely tuned to him that I could hear the soft jangle of a buckle coming loose.

  “Touch yourself,” I said.

  “You’re not looking.”

  I waited for that hiss of breath that always came when he slipped his palm around the hard length of his cock. I waited…and I waited.

  “I want you to look.”

  Fuck him, I thought.

  “It doesn’t mean anything if you don’t look.”

  I laughed, deep and guttural, almost—almost like a sob. “It doesn’t mean anything anyway.”

  And then I heard the sound of a zipper being pulled back up. That made me look.

  He was doing up his belt.

  “I was trying to tell you…it does mean something. To me,” he said, and then—fucking nervy cowboy—he walked away.

  And I stood there a long time waiting for him to come back.

  But he never did.

  13

  CODY

  I tell you what. I’d gotten used to the morning hand job. Even if it was me doing it. The endorphins were now expected. And without them, I was in a shit mood. And since I was in a shit mood, all I could think about was how I was screwing everything up.

  Spilling my guts to my Morning Girl. Jesus. What a rookie mistake. She wasn’t interested in me that way. I was feeding some kind of thrill-seeking thing with her. That’s all. Some hands-off exhibitionism. Wanting more or something different was my problem.

  And yesterday, giving Bea the cold shoulder after she—like a total fucking legend—dragged my ass out of trouble?

  As Charlie would say, Boy, you’re an A-plus heel.

  Before noon, when I hoped Bea would be at the bar, maybe doing some more cleaning before her shift started, I drove back into town from Gran’s place. Ready to apologize.

  “Hello?” I said, pushing my way through the door. It was unlocked and Chris Stapleton was playing at ear-splitting decibels, which was kind of Bea’s calling card, so I had to guess she was here. “Bea?”

  She came out of the kitchen with her arms full of old menus, singing maybe the saddest song ever written—“Either Way.” I smiled at how painfully off-key she was. And really…really so cute with that kerchief around her head. When she saw me, she jumped and the plastic-coated menus went sliding out of her hands.

  “Crap, Cody, you scared me.”

  “Sorry,” I yelled over the music and bent to pick up the dropped menus. She smacked the menus down on the bar and turned the music off. The sudden silence pounded in my ears.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked. My friendly friend from yesterday gone. Chased some chilly distance away.

  “Well, we didn’t finish stuff yesterday,” I said.

  “I got it covered.”

  “Bea,” I said. “I’m sorry. About yesterday.”

  “What part?”

  “What part what?”

  “What part are you sorry about?” She leaned against the bar with her hip. “Because the number of men who have apologized to me because I’m mad—not because of something they did, but because I wasn’t putting out anymore—is legion, Cody. Legion.”

  “I’m sorry I pushed you away when you were trying to be a friend. I don’t…I don’t have a lot of practice with friends being—”

  “Friendly?”

  “I was going to say pushy.” I grinned at her and that tension went out of her shoulders.

  “I’m not used to being a pushy friend,” she said. “I’m not even all that used to being a friend.”

  “You’re doing all right by me.”

  “You sure you don’t want to rethink that friends with benefits thing?”

  “God, yes. But how would that make anything better?”

  “Oh, Cody,” she sighed. “If you have to ask, you don’t deserve me.”

  Her confidence was the hottest thing I’d seen since…well, this morning maybe.

  Never in my life had I been held suspended between two women in this way. I felt, stupidly, like a web spun by two spiders. Two painfully sexy spiders.

  I reached forward to pull from her dark hair some fuzz from whatever cleaning she was doing back there. Her breath left her body in a gust and I was standing close enough to her that it brushed over my parted lips and crossed my tongue.

  I tasted her. The coffee she’d had. The toothpaste she’d used. Her mouth.

  I got hard so fast it was almost shocking.

  “Cody.” It was a whisper
from her mouth, another taste of her. And I wanted more. Endless more. I wanted my mouth on hers. Her tongue on mine. I wanted her body against me. I wanted to put my hands around her back. Feel the fragile span of her ribs and then…fuck, I wanted to curl my hands around her ass. I wanted to grab her ass like no one had before. Until she was moaning my name.

  And every molecule of her face, of her eyes, her slack damp and pink mouth told me she wanted the same.

  It would feel so good to forget for a while. To put all the shit in my head on pause so I could make this girl see some goddamned stars.

  Her fingers touched my hair, too long over my ears, and her thumb brushed the thin skin of my ear lobe and it was an electric current through my whole body. It was hard to imagine what would happen if we really touched.

  “We might not survive,” I whispered, because we were standing close to each other now.

  “What?”

  “Touching each other.”

  “You want to find out?” Her grin was pure sass. Pure dare.

  And suddenly I was thinking about the woman next door. My Morning Girl. I was thinking…about how uncomplicated it was. Until it wasn’t. And I could kiss this woman, this wild, beautiful creature who turned me on and turned me inside out and it would be amazing.

  Until it wasn’t.

  I stepped back. “I’m shit,” I told her. “I really am. And as much as I want you—”

  “I know.”

  She stroked my face and then she smacked me. Not hard. But enough that her point was made and I laughed, my skin tingling more than stinging. “And we have things we need to talk about.”

  “Sounds serious. We tearing apart the parking lot?”

  “It’s about your horse. I have—” She stood on tiptoe and reached over the bar and I looked away from the way the bottom of her shorts showed, just slightly, the sweet curve of her ass. Tender white and pink skin.

  I wanted to suck that skin into my mouth. Bite it between my teeth.

  God, the things I wanted to do to this woman.

  “Here.” She held out a couple of sheets of paper. “It’s the contract for Bonnie. Just sign the bottom. You’ll have all the access you want—”