Cowboy For Hire

by Victoria James

That wasn’t exactly the response she was looking for. If this had been one of her romance novels, the hero would have closed the final step between them and proceeded to kiss her while declaring his undying need for her, and then they would have had sex and faced the repercussions later.

  This…this was just humiliating.

  She lifted her chin. “No.”

  He nodded. “That’s what I thought. So no way in hell.”

  A jolt of searing heat blasted through her body. She wasn’t going to beg. She just needed to get out of there and not see him again until she absolutely had to. Too bad they had a two-hour drive home. How was this even happening to her? Could there be a more humiliating way to be turned down?

  “You have a wonderful way with words, Cade,” she snapped. “You could have used a little more tact and less ‘no way in hell.’ Thanks so much.” She stomped past him and whipped open the door. A part of her expected he might reach out to hold her back, to let her down gently. The other part of her wished that he’d lose all sense of propriety and kiss her, and then sweetly—in that deep voice—tell her how much he wanted to be with her but just couldn’t.

  “It’s a ‘no way in hell’ because there are always strings,” he said. “Two people who work together can’t have strings. Think about this. You and I get involved, then things come to their natural end. You marry some rancher. He finds out we were together. Do you think he’d want me as foreman? Do you think I’d still have a job?”

  His tone was harsh, and his words were so brutally honest and bleak. She didn’t know how to respond. They were obviously thinking of two very different futures—because they were two very different people. She was silly and following her emotions. He was worried about job security.

  She clutched her purse to her, like it was a shield of armor. “Okay. You’re right. I don’t know why I brought all this up. Well, because I felt silly and…I don’t know. But now I feel even worse, so let’s just pretend this conversation never happened. Better yet, let’s pretend this entire weekend never happened.”

  “It happened. I won’t forget it,” he said, opening the door.

  They walked out to the truck in silence, and she wondered if this was the end, before anything ever happened between them. She stared at her reflection in the window as Cade appeared behind her. He opened her door, and she mumbled out a thank-you before climbing into the truck.

  A moment later, he was pulling out of the parking lot. She stared at the Highwayman sign in the side mirror, watching as it grew smaller and smaller. Not wanting to deal with the awkwardness ahead, she shut her eyes and leaned her head back. She had just ruined the friendship they had established—for nothing. She was also going to have to face Mrs. Casey and her dramatic worry. If only it had been for good reason, she might’ve been able to keep her head.

  A few minutes later, she heard Cade gruffly say her name, but she kept her eyes shut until she actually fell asleep.

  …

  Cade decided as they approached the ranch that he was probably the world’s biggest jerk. The gorgeous, smart, sweet woman beside him had made it very clear that she wanted him, and he’d turned her down. Not only had he turned her down, he’d humiliated her—and he regretted that deeply.

  But he’d been so close to giving in that being nice hadn’t been an option. Because like he’d told her, if she’d reached out for him, he wouldn’t have been able to say no. Being blunt had been the only way because he knew her pride would prevent her from pressing further. But now this also caused a whole new set of problems for them—namely the fact that they worked together and he worked for her…which was exactly what he’d been trying to avoid by not giving in to his fascination with her.

  Really, he was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t.

  Gravel crunched under the truck tires as he pulled into the ranch driveway. Sarah still slept soundly, and he was glad. Even though she looked better than this morning, she was still pale and not herself. He turned off the engine and softly called her name. Her silky hair had spilled around her face, and he wanted to reach out and tuck it behind her ear. No, he wanted to kiss the soft spot under her ear as he moved the hair away and slowly wake her up like that.

  He knew she was strong and brave, but the image of her lying in a fetal position on that bed for hours wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon. When she’d started throwing up, he’d known this was what Edna had been referring to. It had scared the crap out of him when he’d had to help her to the bed because she’d seemingly lost her sight. He never wanted to be the cause of that, never wanted to be someone who triggered that kind of pain in someone else. A part of him agreed with Edna that maybe Sarah was doing too much; maybe she should be taking it easy.

  He ran his hands down his face, exhaustion finally hitting him. He was in no position to tell Sarah he thought she shouldn’t pursue her dreams of running her family ranch. It wasn’t his business, wasn’t his call to make. But he could start with some changes. He could alter some of the things they did around the ranch. Maybe he could say he really needed more help with the office end of things. That would be less dangerous. Hell, if that had happened on a cattle drive or even just during the day, dealing with cattle, what would she do? It was way too dangerous.

  He glanced over at the house. The front porch lights were on, and he knew it was only a matter of minutes before Edna realized Sarah was back. He said her name again, this time more loudly, and she finally stirred.

  She rubbed her eyes and then sat up straight, looking at him. “Sorry. I hope you weren’t sitting here long,” she said, her voice stiff and not filled with the warmth he’d gotten used to, that he was starting to love.

  He shook his head. “No, just a minute. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Yup. Thanks. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “If you need to take the morning off, that’s fine.”

  She raised her chin. “No, I’ll be there at the usual time.”

  “I was thinking that I need some extra days to catch up on all the office work. I haven’t put in any time over there. Maybe we can start there?”

  She stared at him, and he could feel her evaluating him. After a long moment, she finally gave him a nod and unbuckled her seat belt. “I should probably start learning the business side of things as well.”

  “Great.”

  She picked up her purse, and he went to open his door. “Please. Don’t get out.”

  “Sarah,” he said, wincing when his voice came out sounding harsh.

  She paused, her hand on the door handle. “Yes?”

  He searched for the right words, hating that no matter what he said, he’d be hurting her. But he knew who he was, and he had no illusions about who Sarah was. She was his boss; he was her employee. She was the heiress to a ranching fortune; he was an heir to predispositions toward drug and alcohol addiction. He would always be the guy without a family, without a past, and it was best that he remembered that at all times, for both of them.

  “I have a really good thing going here. I love this ranch, love working alongside those men every day. I like our time together and the fact that we are going to be building this ranch back up to what it used to be. I can’t jeopardize any of that.”

  She turned to him, her green eyes glittering. “I understand that. It’s very commendable and is exactly what I needed to hear. It was wrong of me to think or maybe make you feel like we had to be more. It’s best that we go back to the way we were.”

  It took all his self-control to sit still and watch her leave. His teeth were clenched hard and his knuckles white in his lap. Sarah had no idea how much he’d wanted her, still wanted her. He knew he was doing her a favor by letting her go now before they got in too deep. And that’s what would happen to them. He knew it, because he’d never experienced this before. He knew that he had the potential of falling hard for her, and he also knew what that meant—
it meant opening up about his past, his feelings. He’d never had the luxury until this job came along of walking away, moving from one job to another. Sure, he could always go back to Tyler’s, but it would be a pity job. He wasn’t a man who had anyone to fall back on. There was no safety net for him.

  He pulled away when Sarah entered the house and shut the door.

  He drove down the gravel driveway, to the home he’d worked for, the only home he’d ever lived in based on true merit, and hated that he had no choice.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sarah shut the door behind her, barely keeping it together, wanting to lean against it in exhaustion and sadness, but Mrs. Casey dashed into the foyer, her face white and her eyes wide. “Where were you?”

  Sarah sighed. She needed to deal with Mrs. Casey first; then she could go wallow by herself in her room. “I was away for the night with a friend, just like I said in my message. Last time I checked, I was a twenty-six-year-old woman, not a child.”

  Mrs. Casey put her hands on her hips. “Cade was also away last night.”

  Sarah knew she couldn’t lie. She shouldn’t have to lie. “I was with Cade.”

  Mrs. Casey sucked in her breath and placed a hand across her chest as though she’d just taken a bullet to the heart. “I’m very disappointed to hear that. Your parents would be ashamed. Your father would have fired him immediately, and you should do the same.”

  Sarah rubbed her temples and forced her temper to remain in check. “I invited Cade, not the other way around. It wasn’t some grand attempt on his part to seduce me. Quite the opposite.” If she only knew just how true that was, she wouldn’t be worrying about nothing.

  “Why would you do such a thing? He should have refused.”

  “We’re friends. Nothing more.”

  “Still, your father would have had him packing. Your mother, too.”

  Sarah glanced at the piano across the room, the family pictures lining the bookshelves, her gaze resting on the spot where Josh’s picture should have been. “Please stop talking to me about my parents. I understand you’re trying to protect me, but the guilt trips won’t work. I don’t need a chaperone or a nanny—I’m an adult. If I want to spend the night out, I can. But because I do believe this is coming from a place of concern, I will tell you that nothing happened between Cade and me. We are friends. He is, was, the perfect gentleman.”

  Mrs. Casey crossed her arms and shook her head. “I don’t know what’s happening to you, and I’m just so afraid I will lose you because you’re going off in the wrong direction.”

  Sarah stormed over to the bookshelves, crouching down to open the closed cabinet doors on the bottom. She knew their pictures were in here somewhere. His school pictures and the ones of them together at birthdays, Christmases.

  “What are you doing?” Mrs. Casey whispered as she stood beside her.

  Sarah grabbed the stack of silver-framed pictures and pulled them out. “What I should have done as soon as my mother died. I’m putting Josh’s pictures back out on display so I can see them every day, so that I can remember the brother I had, not try and forget him,” she said, making room on the shelves to nestle his pictures among the assortment of other family photos.

  She braced herself, waiting for Mrs. Casey to tell her all about how wrong it was to defy her parents’ wishes. She was startled when Mrs. Casey handed her a picture. “I agree with you,” she said softly, her eyes filled with a rare show of tears. “I never thought it was right to not speak of or see Josh anymore. But I didn’t want to judge. Loss is hard, and we all handle it as best we can, right or wrong.”

  Sarah paused, looking down at the last picture, the one of Josh and her the Christmas before his accident. He was making a face at the camera, and she remembered her mother reprimanding him, asking why at his age he still couldn’t behave properly for a picture. She smiled and placed the picture on the shelf, then turned to Mrs. Casey.

  “Thank you. I’m not a teenager; I’m past the age of wrong direction. You don’t owe my parents anything,” she said. “You can’t let yourself be saddled by what they’ve burdened you with. Live your own life. You need to get out of this place, too. Maybe you should find a man!”

  Mrs. Casey gasped again, that hand flying to her chest, this time taking a step back, another bullet received. “Child, the last thing this woman needs in her life is a man. One man for one lifetime is more than enough, thank you very much.”

  Sarah almost laughed, but Mrs. Casey didn’t look as though she was joking.

  “I know about men like Cade, Sarah. So good-looking that you forget why they’re so wrong. Where are his parents? Why doesn’t he have a family of his own? What, he just drifts from town to town without ever putting down roots?”

  Sarah swallowed the worries because she knew Mrs. Casey was trying to get to her. “He’s not drifting; he’s been living in Wishing River for more than a decade, so… And as far as family, I think that’s really low of you to say. We can’t choose our families. He’s a fine rancher, a hard worker, and one of the most caring people I’ve met in my life. When I got a migraine at the hotel, he took care of me, made sure I was okay.”

  “You had a migraine in front of him?”

  If she wasn’t careful, another one would be coming on soon. “Yes. A migraine. I didn’t give a striptease.”

  Mrs. Casey made the sign of the cross, and Sarah almost felt bad. The most “scandalous” show Mrs. Casey watched was Downton Abbey—all this was way beyond her. But true to form, the older woman didn’t stay down for long. She put her hands on her hips. “You come from a long line of wealthy ranchers, people with lineage, history, roots, and faith.”

  Sarah’s breath caught, and her heart squeezed for Cade. “You have it all twisted. None of that means anything. Nothing real. You can’t hide who you are behind a pile of money, Mrs. Casey. When Josh died, my parents fell apart—not for a while but for the rest of their lives. They destroyed each other, their marriage, and I was collateral damage. Nothing could save them. Even with all their resources, they didn’t turn to their faith; they turned away from it and turned to gambling, drinking, and anger.

  “When push comes to shove, when horrible things happen in life, all that status isn’t what saves a person. It’s something else, deep inside. Some people have that will to survive, to keep going, to conquer…and some don’t. It can’t be bought and it can’t be faked.

  “I don’t hate them, and I’m not trying to dishonor them, but I am trying to shake that mentality. There was no life for them after Josh died. I can’t do that. He wouldn’t want that. I’m twenty-six, and I hope there’s life for me; I pray there’s a long life for me ahead, filled with good days and good people. I’m going to honor the life I’ve been given by living. I would love for us to be in this together, Mrs. Casey,” she said softly.

  Mrs. Casey’s eyes were glistening, and Sarah didn’t know if it was from regret or anger.

  The older woman braced her hand on the piano. “We are in uncharted waters, Sarah, dear. I’m not sure I’m prepared for this. You were the child I never had. So was Josh. It was my biggest privilege to get to be a part of this family. And…I’m glad you took out that locket. Keep him close to your heart.”

  Sarah smiled at her, the lump in her throat making it hard to speak. “Thank you. Josh adored you. I’m going to change things up around here. As soon as I have a free morning, we’re going into town. There’s a great little diner, and I bet you’ll meet a nice group of ladies to become friends with.”

  Mrs. Casey glanced away and patted her unmovable curls a few times. “Oh, Sarah, don’t be ridiculous. Women my age don’t go out with friends.”

  Poor Mrs. Casey. Sarah shook her head. “There’s a whole other world out there.”

  “I can still pray that another man comes along for you.”

  Sarah reached out to give Mrs. Casey a hug, despi
te her comment. “I’m so happy you’re here with me. Even though we may not see eye to eye about everything, I know you’re only looking out for me.”

  Mrs. Casey patted her cheek. “Me too. Just remember that the next time I ask after your whereabouts.”

  Sarah almost laughed as the older woman walked away. She sat down on the bench, running her fingers over the smooth keys. Playing wasn’t an option for her tonight, as it hadn’t been for so long. What had once been a joyful, creative outlet for her had turned into a painful reminder of a life that no longer existed.

  Sometimes, she’d imagined herself married with her own kids, picturing teaching them how to play the piano. She closed her eyes, her fingers on the keys to start her favorite song, but she couldn’t make them press down. She let her head fall forward, exhaustion taking root deep inside, swirling with disappointment.

  Maybe it was the disappointment that was more overwhelming. Maybe her parents had been right. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for the real world. Maybe her reaction, her retreat inward after Josh died, meant there was something wrong with her. Maybe Cade sensed it, and that’s why he pulled away from her.

  Well, there was one thing she knew for sure—whether or not she was ready, life kept moving forward. It didn’t matter how cruel or unfair, it kept going, and she had no choice but to move along with it. With or without Cade, she wasn’t going to cower in this house.

  She was going to live.

  …

  After a week of pretending as though nothing had happened between Sarah and him, Cade was at a breaking point. Besides the personal reasons for keeping contact to a minimum, there was now the stress of what he’d discovered about her dad. Cade was fighting the urge to walk over to the main house and tell her the truth about how bad her father’s gambling had become.

  But he had avoided any kind of conversation that didn’t have to do with day-to-day operations around the ranch. There were two reasons, mainly—he regretted ever going away with her last weekend. It had been a moment of weakness on his part when he’d agreed to that. Never mind that it had probably been the best weekend he’d had in…forever. None of that mattered, because it could never go anywhere.