How To Catch A Cowboy: A Small Town Montana Romance

by Joanna Bell

  "How is it?" She asked, after a couple of bites. "Did I put too much –"

  "Mmph," I said, my mouth full. "Perfect. They're perfect. Just like how Grandma Dottie used to make them."

  Blaze tilted her head to the side and gave me a look like she wasn't quite sure she believed me. "Well, I'm not sure about that, but they're edible at least, right?"

  "Like I said," I told her. "Perfect."

  She laughed out loud suddenly, and shook her head. "Oh my God, Jack."

  "What?"

  More laughing and head-shaking and then a pause. "Nothing – I'm just being silly. I think you should deal with those hands now, though."

  I looked down at my raw, reddened palms and sighed. "Yeah. I'll go jump in the shower. If you want any of those scones I'd advise you to eat them now, too, before I finish them off myself."

  "A shower?" Blaze asked, concerned. "Don't you have a tub upstairs – the one I used before, after the flood? Come with me, Jack."

  Normally, when people try to take care of me, I just get annoyed. I can take care of myself, and it's a lot less time and hassle if I do. Even as a child, when Grandma Dottie used to fuss over me when I had a cold or a 'flu, it used to annoy me. I just wanted to get back to playing with my toys and running around in the fields. But when Blaze took my hand – well, my wrist – and led me upstairs to the old bathroom at the very top of the house, and started to run a warm bath for me, I swear I just about died of happiness.

  I knew why, too. I knew why I took my clothes off and slid into the water and leaned back against the cold surface of the tub while Blaze tended to my shredded palms. Not because I had suddenly developed a taste for pampering. No, it was Blaze herself. I was still in something like a state of shock that a woman like her would want to tend to me the way she was, so sweetly and carefully. What did she see in me, a man who was about to lose everything, a man with no fancy degrees on his wall and no illustrious family name? I opened my eyes after settling back into the bath for a few moments and letting myself relax, and watched her. She didn't know I was watching, she was too engrossed in my hands, washing away the dried blood and tending to the rough, worn skin so gently I barely felt it.

  And when she was finished with one hand, she moved on to the next.

  "I never used to like this," I told her quietly as she worked on me. "I never used to like being fussed over."

  Blaze looked up, into my eyes. "But now you do?"

  I couldn't resist putting my finger under her chin and pulling her in for a brief kiss. "I like it when you do it."

  "Well you should have done it yourself," she scolded me in that affectionate, busybody-ish way that women who care about you are wont to do. "The skin is very thick and rough, Jack. You should have taken better care of yourself."

  "Cowboy's hands," I said. "That's just how they get, Blaze. Green peas like you just aren't used to it."

  "Green peas?" She giggled. "Did you just call me a green pea?"

  "Yes I did, because that's what you are. It just means someone from the city, someone who couldn't survive in the country. Someone who thinks a man can spend years driving and tending cattle and have hands as soft as a banker."

  "I confess I didn't realize it was normal," she said, slipping her hand down my wrist and running her fingers over my forearm. "But I like your hands, Jack. I like your rough hands."

  Our eyes met when she said that to me, and my cock, already half-awake due to her mere presence, stirred more fully to life. She smiled when she saw it, but didn't move to take care of it. Instead, she grabbed a washcloth and dipped it into the bath water.

  "Lean forward, Jack. The back of your neck is dirty."

  I leaned forward, breathing deeply as she squeezed soapy water out against my neck, just taking it in – taking her in.

  "Are you OK?' Blaze whispered into my ear as she washed my neck and back. "Are you OK, Jack?"

  She wasn't just asking about my hands, and I knew it.

  "I don't know," I answered honestly as she rinsed the soap off. "I don't know what's going to happen with my life. But right now, with you, today? With this beautiful creature from the big city washing my neck and kissing me and feeding me scones she made from scratch and just being her wonderful self? I don't think I was ever as happy as I am right now, Blaze."

  She looked right at me, then. "Really?"

  "Yeah," I told her. "Really."

  An expression that looked almost like sadness flitted across her face, but it was gone before I could figure out if I'd simply been imagining it or not. Then she was leaning over the edge of the tub, kissing me, taking my tongue into her mouth and sighing when she tasted how badly I wanted her again.

  "No," she said, when I reached for her. "You need to keep your hands under the water, Jack, so they can soak."

  She knew I wasn't going to put up with that for long, though, so she followed up her instructions by sliding her soft hand down my chest, over my abs and wrapping it around my aching length.

  I listened to the breath rushing out of me and leaned back into the warm water, closing my eyes at the feeling of her hand stroking me.

  "You better be careful," I told her, as the urge to come came on quicker than expected, and I felt my hips straining upwards, pushing myself further into her hand. "I'm not going to last very long if you keep, oh, fuck... Blaze –"

  "That's OK," she whispered, not slowing down at all. "I want you to come, Jack. I want to make you come."

  At that moment, as I hovered on the edge, it occurred to me that Blaze Wilson had been sent to torture me. What better way to torture a man than to be everything he ever wanted, to give him everything he ever wanted, and then take it away? Fuck it, it didn't matter. The fever was taking over my mind and Blaze's soft little hand felt like heaven.

  "Blaze," I growled, snaking my fingers around the back of her neck and pulling her to me, baring my teeth against her pale flesh as the pleasure reached a sudden, agonizing peak and I came, copiously and everywhere.

  "Oh," she whispered, with what almost sounded like reverence. "Oh, Jack. Jack..."

  I looked up at her, so out of breath I couldn't yet speak, and too beyond words to come up with anything coherent even if I could.

  "Relax," she told me. "Just keep your hands under the water, OK? I'm going to go get you a towel."

  "Wait –" I grabbed her wrist before she could leave.

  "What?"

  I looked into her eyes, darkened as they were with desire. I liked seeing that. I liked knowing, as I did and without her saying it, that only I could take care of that for her.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Blaze

  The old farmhouse at Sweetgrass Ranch became, for the next couple of days, a cocoon of the kind of tenderness and easy warmth I honestly hadn't realized even existed until I experienced it there, with Jack. We took care of each other, in the ways each of us needed to be taken care of. I tended to his wounded palms and his uncertain heart. I gave him a center, something to focus on, as his former center – Sweetgrass Ranch and his life there – slipped out of his grasp forever.

  What Jack gave me in return was a gift I wouldn't even have thought to ask the universe for, before I knew him. He gave me his masculine presence and his constant, unabashed hunger for my body – a hunger that, although I had not experienced it in that way before, I never would have assumed was a necessary thing. Especially for a woman like me – a modern woman who makes her own way in the world. It's not that being with Jack suddenly turned me into some kind of traditionalist – not at all. But there was simply no denying that nothing in my life had ever felt better than being his. Nothing had ever made my heart fuller than knowing, even for a few days, that the one place I belonged was in his arms.

  "This feels like a solar eclipse," I told him on our last night together, as the ache of knowing we were soon to be parted did nothing but heighten the sweetness of our naked bodies tangled together in Jack's bed.

  He looked at me. He looked at me and I
knew that even when I was an old woman, I would still be able to close my eyes and see the way Jack McMurtry's blue eyes gazed into mine in that farmhouse on a cold winter's night in Montana.

  "What do you mean?" He asked.

  "Well," I started, gently pressing my cheek into his chest. "It's short, right? It's not going to last long. And it's rare. It's like this special circumstance, isn't it? And we know it has a start time and an end time, and when it ends, we both go back to our regular lives. But we'll always have it, won't we? This wonderful little interlude? It will always have happened."

  I don't know what had gotten into me that night. Nerves, probably. The creeping, terrifying fear that I wouldn't be able to go back to my regular life – that nothing would ever be quite as good for me ever again. I wasn't putting on a stoic act to fool Jack, I was putting it on to fool myself. Because the other alternative was wrapping myself around him and crying that I couldn't go back to D.C., that none of the colors were ever going to be as bright as they were during those few magical days with him.

  "You're right," he said, thinking. "It will always have happened."

  I couldn't get a read on him. I wasn't looking at his face. He sounded calm and accepting. But I sounded calm and accepting, too, and I didn't mean a damn word of it.

  The next morning, as I gathered my things in preparation for the taxi to the airport in Billings, I felt as fragile as a sugar sculpture, like the slightest bump would shatter me into a million pieces. Jack offered to drive me but I turned him down because I can't handle goodbyes, and sitting next to him in his truck for that long would have made me crawl out of my own skin with the effort it would have taken not to tell him to turn around, drive back to Little Falls, I'm staying there with you forever.

  "I love the way you do that," he said, as we sat at the kitchen table chatting inanely the way people do when waiting for cars or trains or planes.

  "What?"

  "That nose-brushing thing you do – I mentioned it last summer, when you were still an evil IRS woman."

  "I'm still an evil IRS woman." I said, as the winter sunlight streamed in the big window and illuminated Jack's limpid blue eyes. He smiled.

  "Yeah, I suppose you are. To everyone else, anyway. Not to me. To me, you're Blaze Wilson, The Best and Most Wonderful, Sexy, Smart, Funny, Strange, Amazing Person Who Has Ever Lived."

  "Don't," I pleaded, looking away. "Jack, don't."

  "Why not? It's all true."

  At that very moment a horn sounded outside and my stomach sank. "Because it makes me want to stay, Jack. And I can't stay. We both know it."

  I got up from the table and my whole body felt heavy and slow, like the universe itself didn't want me to go and had somehow increased the force of gravity on me specifically, to try and make me stay.

  Jack didn't say anything to my statement about us both knowing I had to go. He walked with me to the front door and waved at the cab driver. "That's Mike Burkowski, I went to high school with him. He's probably going to tell you about playing football."

  Our eyes met and damnit, I couldn't keep mine from welling up. "I'm sorry," I sniffled, wiping them quickly and flushing red with embarrassment. Why couldn't I have waited until I was in the car to do that?

  "Why are you sorry?" Jack asked. He seemed to be in a strange mood. Strangely calm, especially compared to me. I didn't know how I felt about it. I didn't know if I wanted a big display of emotions from him or if that would just have made everything worse.

  I flapped my hands in front of my eyes, like that was going to help. "I don't know," I replied. "I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to fall apart."

  Jack suddenly took my face in his hands, forcing me to look right at him. "But you have fallen apart, Blaze. I've made you fall apart so many times these last few days. I've looked you in the eyes as you fall apart."

  "That's not what I mean," I whispered, closing my eyes and feeling hot tears trailing down my cheeks.

  "Isn't it?" Jack asked, kissing the tears away. "You're still embarrassed, aren't you? After everything we've done together, you're still embarrassed to be seen to feel emotions."

  "Well some emotions are more –" The cab honked it's horn again. "Jack I have to go!"

  He bent his head down and kissed me. Not a quick goodbye kiss, but a real kiss. Slow and long and full of everything he wasn't telling me with words. It was only when I was in the taxi that I realized he'd never actually agreed with me, never nodded or said 'yes, I know' or 'uh-huh' after I said I had to go.

  But I did have to go. Because if I didn't go, I was going to lose my job. And losing my job meant losing my condo. And both of those things meant the time and expense of my education would have been for nothing. On the flight back to D.C. I looked out the window at the snowy landscape below and tried to imagine what my parents would say if I called them one night and casually informed them that I was moving to Montana to live with a temporarily homeless man in at least two million dollars worth of debt. They'd probably try to have me committed.

  And even as I played out the various awful scenarios in my head, some deeper part of me knew what was really going on. And what was really going on was a human being desperately trying to use logic and reason to convince themselves they've done the right thing, because their heart is pretty certain they haven't. I looked down at the grey city suburbs as the plane flew over them, and something inside me broke.

  At Jess's parent's house, Lulu was so excited to see me she didn't stop moving for a good five minutes, running circles around me, throwing herself at my legs and licking my face and neck with what I can only describe as intense glee.

  "She missed you!" Jess's mom, Kate, commented.

  I started to respond, started to ask how she'd been for them, but the words stuck in my throat. Only at the very last minute did I realize I was emotional. What the hell?!

  So instead of speaking I nodded and turned away, lavishing attention on my dog and trying desperately to get control of myself.

  "Was she good?" I asked, finally, even though my voice was still wobbly.

  Jess's mother eyed me for a couple of seconds before replying. "Yes, she was fine. It was good for our dog to have a young pup around. She tuckered him out."

  "Well," I choked out. "I hope she wasn't too much for you."

  "Are you alright, dear?" Kate asked, taking a step towards me.

  "It was just a long flight!" I blurted. "I'm tired! Thank you for looking after Lulu!"

  Jack called me twice over the next week, and e-mailed me once. I did not take either call. It was frightening how quickly I slipped back into my life, almost as if my time with Jack had been a dream. I wanted it to be a dream, maybe. I wanted it not to be real. Because if it was real, I thought to myself as I commuted to work every day and came home every night and paid my bills when they were due, then that might have meant something I wasn't ready to face. Hearing Jack's voice would have been a reminder that I was completely full of it. That it wasn't a dream. That I might have to make a choice...

  I only skimmed the e-mail, too. Jack was annoyed that I hadn't called him back, although he didn't say that directly. He told me he was mostly moved out of Sweetgrass Ranch and that the old friend he was staying with was kind of a jerk. At the end, he told me he missed me. Nothing else, just that plain statement: "I miss you."

  Instead of re-reading it I got up and went into the kitchen. There were a few dishes in the sink that needed washing. I washed the dishes. Some linens needed laundering, too. I laundered them. Soon enough, the house was spotless. That's when my eyes fell on my bag - a Gucci Boston Bag in mauve and tan, a present from my parents for graduating from my undergrad program with honors. I grabbed it and sat down in front of the coffee table, unzipping it and dumping the contents out. Gum, tester vials of perfume, lip gloss, an old phone, various bits and pieces of paper with addresses or names written on them, spare change, a ten dollar bill, Motrin, a travel-sized make-up palette, mini hand sanitizer, tampons, business cards, e
ven a whole bottle of water. No wonder the damn thing felt so heavy all the time. I began sorting through the detritus of my modern life, organizing it into piles – 'keep in bag,' 'throw away,' 'put away elsewhere.'

  And there it was, mixed in with all my crap – Jack's grandmother's deposit book. How had that got there? Oh, yeah. I remembered putting it in my bag one evening at Jack's, worried it was going to get misplaced in the chaos of packing and moving and intending to give it back to him before I left, with instructions to put it somewhere safe. Now I was going to have to mail it back. Which meant e-mailing him for his new address.

  It's not that I didn't ever intend to speak to Jack again – not at all. I just needed some time. A week, maybe two, to fully sink back into my old life. And to shake off the feeling that something was wrong with that old life.

  I looked at the deposit book in my hands, the handwritten name on the front cover. 'Dorothy O'Reilly.' Jack had already called the bank, but he didn't give too many details of the call. In fact the way he'd reported it, it sounded like the call had been very brief.

  I flipped the little pamphlet open and saw that there had been a few smaller deposits over the course of the months after the account was opened. The little piece of paper fell out, too – the one with 'For Jack McMurtry III' written on it. Why would Jack's grandmother have written that note if the account had been closed? Why would she have closed the account if she meant for whatever funds were still in it to go to Jack? It didn't quite make sense.

  Better safe than sorry, right? I knew I was being a busybody, but what harm would it do to double-check? I Googled the Bank of Ireland and called their international customer service number. When I finally got through to someone who actually sounded like they might be in Ireland, it was easy to slip into my investigator mode. Well, close enough.

  "Well," I said to the woman on the other end who was asking me what she could assist me with, "my name is Blaze Wilson and I am calling on behalf of my client, Jack McMurtry. He has found a deposit book for a bank account opened in 1939 and left to him by his deceased grandmother. Unfortunately we have no other information on this account besides a name and a date – the number is too faded to read. We're also not sure the account even exists anymore, but it does clearly say 'Bank of Ireland' on the deposit book. Could you help me with that?"