Cocksure (The Cochrans of Cocker County)

by Walker, Shiloh

  Tossing the keys on the table next to the door, I went straight into my room, threw myself on the bed and buried my face in the pillow.

  Then I gave in to the scream.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Luke

  “SHE LOCKED YOU OUT?”

  The amusement in Kelly’s voice irritated the shit out of me, but it wasn’t like I could blame her. She’d expected this—okay, not this exact outcome, but she’d known I’d end up hurting her best friend. “You’re laughing your ass off about that, aren’t you?”

  “Damn straight,” she replied, chortling.

  Kelly might be my agent but ours had always been more than just a business relationship, and Kelly had never been afraid to hold back when she thought I needed it.

  She’d also always been there when I needed support and stood between me and shitstorms more than once—and she’d been a veritable bulwark for the past two weeks.

  I ignored her sounds of mirth as I skimmed the information on my phone. It was new—Kelly had warned me that connectivity wasn’t reliable the higher I got into the mountains and had recommended I get a satellite phone in case I got lost.

  “Son of a bitch,” I muttered.

  “I take it you finally got into your Twitter account,” Kelly said.

  “Yeah.” It had taken a ridiculous amount of time, too, and not just because the phone—an Android satellite smartphone—had a different layout and design from what I was used to using. I didn’t even know my own password to my various social media accounts. Sabrina handled all of those. The passwords were kept secured on my regular phone, but I’d left it back at the hotel, figuring I wouldn’t need it, which meant I had to reset the damn Twitter password just to log in.

  Something else Kelly excelled at—making me look at things I didn’t always want to look at...and yanking my head out of my ass. She and Sabrina were a lot alike in those aspects. Kelly had performed another cranio-rectal procedure just a few minutes ago—over the phone no less—as she told me I needed to go look at Twitter.

  It took an annoying five minutes to even log in, because I had to reset my password. Once logged in, I discovered the #WheresSabrina hashtag trending at the top, where it had apparently been for the past three days, ever since somebody who followed me, London, Sabrina, Chris, Chase and Bella had decided that I needed help finding the woman I’d treated like shit.

  The fan, Twitter user, LukeCLoverForever, had a huge following—apparently I’d met her at some point—the picture looked like it had been taken at New York City ComicCon. I had to squint to see it, but that background was pretty iconic.

  “I’m going to kill London,” I said conversationally.

  “Be nice, Luke.” Kelly sighed. “You can tell she didn’t intend for this to happen. You need to go in and say something, try to stem the flow. I doubt it will do any good, but you need to make an attempt.”

  Shooting a look up at the cabin, I shoved back against the dread clawing at my gut. “Has Sabrina seen this?” That might explain why she was so pissed.

  Does she need another reason?

  I tried to silence that inner mocking voice, but it was a wasted effort. That annoying, cynical, other smarter me had been my constant companion ever since I had come back to an empty condo two weeks earlier. Each day that passed without me making things right with Sabrina, the voice grew louder, and my desperation spiraled ever higher.

  “I don’t know. We’re only taking once or twice a week. She doesn’t have internet at the cabin and I know she’s not watching the news or anything—told me that if she saw your face on the screen even one more time, she’d have to buy me a new TV.”

  I winced. Then, straightening, I stared hard at the big picture window that took up almost the entire width of the front porch. Was she finally going to let me in?

  I saw her moving—Yes! She was striding closer. Lowering the phone, I stared at her hungrily. She’d pulled her long hair back into a ponytail, revealing her cheekbones. She’d put on the glasses she sometimes wore while she worked and misery drifted through me, just looking at her. I hadn’t realized it was even possible to miss somebody the way I missed her.

  Open the door, I thought.

  My heart sank as she came straight toward the window, though. She gave me a hard look, then reached out. I groaned as the automated blinds came down, blocking her from my sight.

  Bringing the phone back up, I heard Kelly talking, apparently unaware I hadn’t been listening for the past thirty seconds. I cut her off. “She’s fucking pissed at me, isn’t she?”

  “Pissed. Hurt. All the colors of the broken-hearted rainbow, Luke...she’s feeling it.” Kelly didn’t sound so amused now. Rather, her voice was tired and sad. “She’s loved you for so long, honey. She’d long since resigned herself to the fact that nothing would ever come of it and she was okay with that. But then this started. Even then, she knew it was all for show, but some part of her started hoping...” Kelly’s voice trailed off. She laughed, bitter irony underscoring the sound. “Hell, I started hoping, too. The way you looked at her...shit. Some of us go our entire lives without having a guy look at us the way you look at Sabrina. Then you broke her heart.”

  “I’m going to fix this, Kelly,” I said hoarsely.

  “If I didn’t believe that, you wouldn’t be where you are.”

  “Hey, you didn’t tell me. I figured this out on my own.”

  “Luke...honey.” Kelly tsked. “You asked if she was there. If I wasn’t willing to give you this one chance to make things right with her, I would have just lied. I have no problems doing it—and unlike some people, I’m good at it.”

  Annoyed, I had to concede she had a point. “Is she going to let me in?”

  “Probably not. At least not any time soon. And you’re going to have a lot of fun. I just looked up the weather report. It’s going to start raining later tonight.”

  “Oh.” I grinned. “Well, hell. She’ll have to let me in then.”

  Kelly started to laugh. “Oh, Luke. You’ve got no idea just how absolutely mean a woman can be when she’s nursing a broken heart, do you?”

  TENTS WERE A HELL OF a lot harder to put up solo than they were when you had a couple of brothers helping out.

  Even the ones advertised to be easy set-up and pop-up weren’t as hassle-free as one might think.

  I’d just finished hammering the final peg into the ground—in retrospect, the sales guy who’d advised me to buy the mallet should be named salesperson of the fucking century—when I heard the door open.

  If she decided she was going to let me in after I’d gone to all of this work, I was going to...

  Fuck, I’d just fall on my knees and say thank you, then beg her to take me back.

  Dropping the mallet, I shoved upright and turned to face her only after wiping the desperation from my face.

  One look told me she wasn’t about to invite me in, despite the leaden gray skies overhead. Gaze flicking from the tent back to me, Sabrina stood there in a nightshirt that went down to her knees, and from what I could tell, she wore nothing else.

  Okay, maybe I’d start with begging, then go from there.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

  “Putting up a tent.” I glanced over at the small, two-person structure, then added, “Actually, I’m done putting it up now.”

  “Why?” Her brows furrowed, the temper I’d seen earlier clearly still evident.

  “Because you won’t let me in.” I hitched up a shoulder.

  “I’m not letting you in because I don’t want to talk to you. Maybe you should take a hint and leave,” she suggested. Then with a twist of her lips, she added, “And maybe tell London to call off the hoard. I have no desire to be found by your fans, Luke. Kelly told me I could stay here as long as I want, and right now, I’m thinking I’ll stay here until unicorns frolic in the streets.”

  “Sabrina...” Uncertain how to handle this angry, hurt side of her, I dragged my hands ov
er my face. But in the few seconds I looked away, struggling for words, she disappeared back into the house, the door slamming shut behind her. Well, fuck.

  A fat drop of rain landed on my nose, followed by another. I shot a look up at the sky, then trudged over to the car to grab the supplies I’d picked up. Kelly had told me to plan on Sabrina not letting me in any time soon, and I’d decided to take her at her word. That meant a few things—I needed to get used to sleeping out here...and I needed to have food on hand, because I wouldn’t put it past Sabrina to decide to disappear the second I left to go get something to eat.

  I had several bags of camp-style food, gallons of water, and other staples, plus the equipment needed to cook. It was a good thing my parents had enjoyed camping with us before my dad had died—and that my older brothers had remembered enough of it that I had a vague idea of how to do this. I hadn’t camped in years, but if this was what I had to do, then so be it.

  I wasn’t going to force my way into the cabin, but I could damn well wait her out.

  The rain started coming heavier before I reached the back door of the truck I’d rented for the trip. Of course, it did—and it was a miserably cold rain, too. I focused on grabbing the essentials, carrying as much as I could, snagging the duffel bag that held a couple changes of clothes before kicking the door shut.

  Halfway to the tent, the sky opened up.

  I was drenched in seconds.

  “It figures.”

  I HAD TO FIGHT MY WAY out of the wet clothes in the tent, which was a hell of a lot smaller with all the gear I’d had to shove inside it—it was either keep everything in the tent with me, or let it get soaked, or get soaked again as I carted half of it back to the truck. There were a few things that were essentially worthless in the nonstop downpour—like the camp stove.

  I would have killed for some coffee and something hot, but made do with swinging water from one of the jugs and eating two peanut butter sandwiches.

  I listened intently through the rain for the first hour, hoping against hope that Sabrina would feel sorry for me and come outside to get me, telling me I could come into the cabin.

  It was a wasted, futile hour.

  I spent the next hour wasting the battery on the sat phone, reading through that ridiculous hashtag, and the responses to my post, in which I’d tried to assure people I was handling things.

  Does this mean you’ve found Sabrina, Luke? Please say yes!!!

  That was the first tweet. The second made me mutter out something that would have had my mother wash my mouth out with soap if she heard me.

  I’m hoping you haven’t found her. Say NO, Luke...then DM me...I’ll treat you so much better. That Sabrina is TRASH.

  The picture attached left nothing to the imagination and the girl, who barely looked legal, found herself the center of a pretty ugly attack, but I had a hard time feeling sorry for anybody who called Sabrina trash.

  I was pissed before I’d spent even two minutes reading through the responses. Tweet after tweet, there were variations of the same, responses that ranged from support to people dumping on Sabrina and telling me to move on.

  The people who’d decided they wanted to attack her had, naturally, decided to include her in the tweets. It was almost like they couldn’t help themselves—they wanted Sabrina, this woman none of them knew, to feel their absolute vitriol—something they really had no right to feel. None of them knew either of us. We weren’t real to them. I was used to this shit. I wasn’t immune to it, but I’d gotten jaded, and the personal attacks didn’t have the effect on me they might once have had.

  Sabrina shouldn’t ever had been dragged into this, and I was a fucking fool for not realizing this would happen.

  Hunched over in that small tent, with the rain pounding down and the woman I loved more than my soul only yards away—yet still impossibly out of my reach—I skimmed over more of those ugly words, then put the phone down, pressing my fingertips to my eyes.

  I waited until the anger edged back.

  Then I picked up the phone and called Kelly.

  “WELL...” THIRTY MINUTES later, she whistled under her breath. “That’s a pretty strong, emphatic statement.”

  “If you’re trying to talk me out of it, it’s not going to work. I want it up, Kelly. If you won’t post it to the site, I’ll dig up the nearest reporter and go on air with it.”

  “Hold your horses, cowboy,” she said, unperturbed. “Normally, I’d be all over this with a red pen, telling you that it’s not in your best interest to be so inflammatory. But this is about people attacking another person—and it’s not just because I adore Sabrina. I’ve seen some of the posts from these people. They’ve gotten downright ugly. Nobody should be subjected to the shit they’re flinging at her. Besides, you’ve always been one to speak up about bullying—that it’s the woman you’re in love with makes it even more important for you to speak up. What kind of guy are you if you don’t defend her?”

  I blew out a breath, the band around my lungs easing up for the first time since I’d made myself acknowledge that it wasn’t just going to be a matter of finding Sabrina.

  I was going to have to work my ass off to prove to her that I was shit-faced in love with her.

  “Can you draft up a copy and email it to me? I want a screen shot that I can post to Twitter.”

  Kelly sounded taken aback. “Wow. You know how to do that?”

  “I can figure it out,” I said, irritated.

  “I’m sure you can,” she responded in a conciliatory tone. “But...I can make it look prettier. Give me your new password. I need to update it so the news from your site connects to Twitter anyway. I’ll update that, then make the statement nice and pretty and share it on Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.”

  With a groan, I flopped back on the sleeping bag. “I don’t want this taking half the night.”

  “Please, Luke. I’ll have it done in half the time it would take you.”

  I thought about arguing, then decided against it. I gave her the password and we hung up. Flinging my arm over my eyes, I told her I’d give her twenty minutes, then call her back. If it wasn’t done, I’d make her email me the damn statement and I’d handle it.

  I meant it, too.

  But my body had other plans.

  Sleep crashed down hard, and for the next few hours, I was unaware of anything and everything.

  THE RAIN FINALLY STOPPED.

  I think that was what woke me.

  Either that, or my own shivers, because I was fucking freezing.

  Birds chirped all around, their music so loud, I didn’t know how anybody could describe birdsong as gentle and soothing.

  Water dripped incessantly from nearby and my overfull bladder strained, reminding me it had been quite some time since my pitstop at the restroom in the small grocery store in Estes Park.

  Blowing out a breath, I sat up. My entire body protested the movement, back screaming, legs stiff and my neck aching. This camping shit was for the birds. I should have gotten one of those damn cots after all.

  A nasty film coated my tongue and filled my mouth, reminding me I hadn’t brushed my teeth before falling asleep last night. I had a toothbrush and toothpaste in one of the grocery bags, but oral hygiene would have to wait until I’d emptied my bladder.

  After I unzipped the flap to the tent, I crawled out, grimacing at the screaming protests my back sent out. I shot one look at the house. The pearly, pinkish-gray light gave me some rough idea of the time—early, but after dawn. Was Sabrina up? She tended to rise early when she was working, but...well, she didn’t have a job anymore.

  Because I fired her.

  Would she let me in to use the bathroom?

  I considered it, then decided not to risk it. I’d be much better off saving that request for when it was absolutely necessary. It wouldn’t kill me to find a tree and piss against it.

  Ten minutes later, after digging through one of the bags I’d left in the car, I unearthed toothbrush, tooth
paste and some single-use disposable washcloths. As I pulled out of the truck and shut the door, movement caught my eye. Sabrina stood on the porch, wearing leggings and another long tunic. She gave me a critical once-over that made me acutely aware that it had been almost twenty-four hours since I’d seen the inside of a shower, equally as long since I’d used a comb, and even longer since I’d touched a razor—it would be even longer before I could address the stubble on my face, since I’d forgotten to pick one up, too.

  She took a sip from the steaming cup she held, then glanced at the tent.

  “Don’t suppose you’ll let me come inside and use the shower?”

  She snorted. “There are plenty of hotels in the area. You want a shower, go check into a hotel.”

  I had a hotel room. But I wasn’t going back to it until we’d worked things out—or she just flat-out kicked me out of her life for good.

  “I don’t need a shower that bad.” I smiled at her.

  “It’s going to get hot today.” She took another sip of coffee. “Into the nineties. Then more rain tonight. You’re not going to like that tent much.”

  “I already don’t like that tent much.” Hitching up a shoulder, I added, “But since you won’t talk to me yet, it’s my best option.”

  Her mouth flattened into a tight line and she looked away. “There’s nothing to talk about, Luke.”

  “You don’t really believe that.” I took a step toward her.

  Her gaze flew back to me. “You want to talk to me about what I believe, Luke? Really?” She laughed, but instead of her normal, husky tones, the sound was bitter and jagged, like shards of broken glass dipped in acid. Looking up at the early morning sky, she said, “What I believe...that’s not something I even can discuss, because I don’t know what I believe anymore. I used to believe you respected me. Then you get angry at me and not only do you accuse me of stabbing you in the back, you all but call me a whore.”