The Cowboy's Courtship

by Brenda Minton

  “I got myself here, I think I can drive myself to the Mad Cow.”

  “And you’ll wreck your truck and hurt someone.”

  Jason held his keys in a tight fist. “Etta, have you ridden in a five speed with your granddaughter? I bet she can’t drive a stick shift.”

  “She needs to learn and who better to teach her?”

  “Might as well drive my truck.” Jason handed over the keys and Alyson didn’t want to take them. “She won’t give up.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You’ve got to.” He winked and walked away. As Alyson stood on the sidewalk, trying to figure out what to do, he was tossing crutches into the back and opening the door.

  Okay, she was driving a truck. She opened the driver’s side door and stared at the cowboy sitting in the passenger seat, a cute grin on his too handsome face. Smug. He definitely looked smug.

  She climbed in and sat behind the wheel. Her feet were miles from the gas and brake, and the added pedal, the clutch. She felt queasy as she stuck the key into the ignition.

  She started to turn the key and he stopped her.

  “Foot on the clutch.” He clicked his seat belt.

  “Foot on clutch. Anything else?”

  “Once it’s started keep your foot on the clutch and shift into Reverse. And then give it a little gas and back up. Then you’ll put your foot on the clutch again and shift into first.”

  “Got it.”

  Alyson started the truck, remembering to keep her foot on the clutch and then forgetting as she put the truck into reverse. It jumped, choked and died.

  “This is so hard on my truck.”

  “We could sit here and Etta would get the hint.”

  “She’s already gone.” Jason smiled. “We could go to my place and have a picnic.”

  A picnic. Alyson tried to remember the last time she’d done anything like that. She was tempted, and she knew he was teasing. It was just suggested as a way to get back at Etta, not because he thought it might be a good idea.

  “Do you want to go on a picnic?” Jason turned, resting against the passenger side door, his arm over the back of the seat.

  “It would be fun, someday.”

  He pulled out his phone. “We’ll invite Etta.”

  He was serious. She tried to stop him but he held up a finger to silence her and dialed. She started the truck again, not sure what to do next, so she sat there. A car drove around them, the people inside it stared, shaking their heads.

  And of course Etta didn’t want to go on a picnic, but encouraged the two of them to go ahead. She’d meet with friends. Alyson sat there, listening to the conversation on speaker. A picnic with Jason.

  He put the phone away. “Now let’s switch places.”

  They were still sitting in front of the church and everyone else was gone. “I can drive.”

  “Not on your life.” He unbuckled his seat belt. “I’ll slide over there, you come over here.”

  “I’ll come around.”

  “Just climb over here.” He shook his head and grinned. “Never mind, get out and go around.”

  When she got in on the passenger side, Jason was starting the truck. He did it with ease, shifting without so much as a chug or cough from the engine. Alyson watched out the window as farms rolled past, including the one where he lived with his dad and sister.

  “Where are we going?”

  “My place.”

  “When do you think you’ll move back?”

  “Soon. My memory is better. I still have headaches, some dizziness, but not as bad. It’s little stuff now. Did I put the milk in the fridge, or mail the check for the electric bill? But every day is a little better. Maybe because I’m learning to cope better.”

  “You remember me.”

  “You’re not short-term.” He grinned. “I had to keep reminding myself of you. Even of that kiss.”

  She felt heat work its way up from her neck to her cheeks.

  “That shouldn’t have happened.”

  “I don’t know why it shouldn’t have happened, and I’ve reminded myself of it on a daily basis, so I won’t forget that it was about the sweetest thing that ever happened to me.”

  “Do you really think you should ride a horse?” Alyson changed the subject with ease, and she didn’t admit that she’d thought about him, and about that kiss, so often she was starting to question her sanity.

  She was twenty-eight and she really thought this might be her first crush. And if that was the case, it would end. That’s what happened to a crush. At least she wasn’t sixteen, so it wouldn’t break her heart when it was over.

  She knew about being dumped. She’d just never been dumped by a cowboy.

  “Why wouldn’t I ride a horse?” Jason stopped the truck in front of the house he’d built a year earlier. The farmhouse design was clean, with white siding, a green metal roof and porches that held empty flower baskets. He should have hired someone to take care of the place. Maybe he had planned to and had forgotten.

  At least he could smile about it now.

  “Your knee.” Alyson broke into his thoughts with what sounded like a random phrase.

  “My knee?”

  “You asked me why I thought you shouldn’t ride a horse.”

  “And the answer is, my knee?” And she was probably right. “Come on in, we’ll get our lunch together and, I guess we’ll drive the truck back to the creek.”

  “You think?”

  She was pretty in her ruffled Western shirt and denim skirt. She wasn’t country, but she was trying it on for size. Maybe someday she’d grow into it. Maybe she’d find out who she was in Dawson.

  Or maybe she’d find that she really loved the city and her life was there.

  “I think maybe you’re coming out of your shell, Cashmere.” He opened the door and before he could hop to the bed of the truck, she was there with the crutches. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome. And thank you for suggesting a picnic.”

  “Been a while?”

  “So long I don’t remember the last time.”

  He pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. After pushing it open, he motioned her inside. The house smelled clean, but deserted. He had Beth to thank for that. The hardwood floors were swept and mopped, the furniture was dusted. His sister, always looking out for him.

  “I like your house.” Alyson stood in the center of the living room. The furniture was plaid, and big rugs covered the hardwood. She zeroed in on the piano in the corner of the room. His mother’s.

  She crossed the room, forgetting him, but he didn’t mind. He watched as she stood in front of it, her hands hovered over the keys and then dropped to her sides. He joined her, leaning the crutches against the wall and taking a seat on the bench. While she stood frozen in that space next to him, he played something he remembered, that he didn’t have to open a book to play.

  She sat down next to him, a frightened foal, not quite ready for contact. He knew that look in her eyes, that longing for something, and fear of reaching for it.

  “I didn’t know you played.” Her shoulder brushed his.

  “My mom taught me.”

  “Your mom?”

  He gave her a sideways glance and then back to the keys of the piano, smooth from use. When he played, he remembered his mom, how it had felt to sit next to her before she got sick.

  He played a hymn from church and she touched the keys, playing with him. But then she stopped and he stopped, too.

  “Why don’t you play?” He closed the piano up, but they didn’t move from the bench.

  “I can’t.” She didn’t look at him, and she didn’t cry. “For twenty-five years the piano has been my life and for most of those twenty-five years, I’ve hated it. The pressure, the practice, the people staring at me. I wanted to be like all of the other girls. I wanted to be like my sister, Laura. I wanted to go on dates, hang out at the mall and dance at the prom.”

  “I understand.”


  She looked up, her blue eyes penetrating, asking questions, and shadowed with the pain of a life lived for other people. He understood. He’d been an adult his entire life. He’d helped his mother with her medication because his dad had hidden in the barn. He’d held his sister when she cried, because their parents couldn’t. He’d told stories, made people laugh. He’d learned to cook, to teach his sister the things she needed to know about life.

  But he’d told jokes to keep people smiling, to keep them from noticing how much they hurt, and how much he hurt.

  And now this woman, a woman with her own stories, wanted him to share his.

  “We should get ready to go. Before long it won’t be lunch, it’ll be supper.” He grabbed the crutches and she stood, as if she was still waiting for answers.

  He wasn’t going there.

  He’d take her on a picnic and help her find the kid who should have grown up in Dawson. He’d teach her to ride. He’d even break the buckskin and give him to her. He could do those things.

  She followed him through the big dining room with the French doors that led onto the back porch with its stone fire pit and outdoor kitchen. She stopped to look outside and he went on to the kitchen. He was pulling food out of the fridge when she walked into the room.

  “What can I do?” She leaned against the counter and watched.

  “You can get the chips down.” He nodded in the direction of the cabinets. “They’re up there. And if you could get the basket out of the lower cabinet.”

  “You keep food here, even though you don’t live here.”

  “I have to eat when I’m over here working.”

  “I see.” She had the basket out and she set it on the cabinet. “Do you work over here a lot?”

  “Every day. The animals have to be fed. I have horses that need to be taken care of. This really is all new to you, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve always lived in cities.” She glanced out the window. He followed her gaze, seeing what she saw, but not the same way. This had always been his life. The cattle, the open land, the rodeos.

  She had always been city.

  He didn’t want to connect too much, not when it felt as if he wouldn’t want her gone, not tomorrow, or even next week. She reminded him of a bird that just passes through, on its way to wherever it’s supposed to be.

  He’d seen one of those birds last week. Beth had pointed it out, asked him if he’d ever seen anything like it. He hadn’t. And the bird hadn’t stayed. It was going north, back where it belonged.

  He was a broken cowboy without a career. What did a guy like him offer a woman like her? Why was he even thinking like that?

  He had a brain injury, of course. He was thinking crazy thoughts. A man did that when he looked death in the face. It made him think about the future, like he needed to fill it up with something.

  She wasn’t the thing he was going to fill his life with. No matter how good she looked in his kitchen. He nearly laughed at the idea of her in an apron, tossing frozen pizzas in the oven.

  “You okay?” She was standing close, and he really didn’t need close.

  “Good to go.” He grabbed the basket and she took it from him.

  “I can get it.” She held it in front of her.

  “I’ll leave these here.” He leaned the crutches against the wall and took a painful step without them.

  “Have you ever been called stubborn?” she asked as he tried to take the picnic basket.

  “More than once.” He had the basket and he took another step. She walked next to him. Okay, so he’d done something pretty bad this time. He could feel his knee give with each step.

  “Oh, come on, this is crazy. Cowboy or not, you have to use common sense.” Alyson grabbed the crutches and came back with them.

  “Cowboys have plenty of common sense.” He exhaled and gave up on strong and whatever else he’d been trying to be.

  Idiot came to mind.

  “Okay, let’s go, Cowboy.”

  She sashayed out the front door, carrying the picnic basket and maybe his heart. But no, he didn’t give that away. He’d never given that away.

  Alyson sat next to Jason as the truck bounced through the field in the direction of a copse of trees at the far edge of the field. She’d kept her gaze averted for a minute or two, but now she was watching him again.

  She enjoyed watching him, had enjoyed it from the first day when he’d come around the corner of Etta’s house, a cowboy in faded jeans and a sweat-stained T-shirt. He still looked like that cowboy, rugged with that grin that hit a girl in the midsection.

  She’d never met anyone like him. Maybe that was the attraction. It was just the experience, the newness of it all. Maybe it wasn’t about the cowboy at all.

  Sitting next to him, she felt like the kind of woman who could be strong. She felt like she could haul hay, break a horse, and hog-tie something. She felt like the kind of woman who cooked big meals on a Sunday afternoon.

  She wasn’t that woman, but he made her believe that about herself.

  “You’re quiet.” He reached to turn down the radio, silencing a Kenny Chesney song about tractors and haylofts.

  “I’m just thinking.”

  “About?”

  Anything but him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working, this effort at distraction.

  “You ask a lot of questions, but you don’t talk about yourself.”

  His eyebrows shot up and he grinned. “That’s because I’m a private kind of guy.”

  “Is that it?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. I don’t like to share my stories.”

  “But I want to know them.” She’d get to know him, bit by bit, Etta had said. That’s how you found out a man’s stories.

  “I’m sure you do.” He slowed as they got closer to the trees. She could see the creek and hear the crickets, or maybe grasshoppers. He stopped the truck.

  They picked their way across ground that was rough, with heavy clumps of grass and a few big rocks. The trees at the edge of the creek were small and some were topped, as if someone had chopped the tops out.

  “What happened to the trees?”

  “Storms. Tornadoes.” He nodded to a spot near the edge of the creek. “You can put the blanket there.”

  He’d pulled a blanket out from behind the seat of his truck and given it to her to carry. Alyson spread the blanket and took the picnic basket that he’d lugged along in his right hand, hobbling with one crutch under his right arm.

  “Are there fish in the creek?” She held his arm and he lowered himself down, stretching out on the blanket. And then what? Was she supposed to sit next to him? Or maybe lean against a tree?

  “Sit down.” He shook his head and laughed a little. “I don’t know about you, but I’m about to starve and you want to play twenty questions. No, there aren’t any fish in the creek. My mom was probably one of the kindest women I’ve ever known, and she fought a twelve-year battle with cancer. I’m the oldest of two kids, and my dad is emotionally detached.”

  Alyson bit down on her bottom lip and fought the sting of tears, because she understood now why stories should come in small pieces. And she got that sometimes a story didn’t tell anything about a person. It was just facts.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Alyson, sit down and relax. This picnic is for you. Enjoy it.”

  She sat down next to him, pulling her knees up and hugging them close as she watched the creek. A hand touched her shoulder and she turned to look at him.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not good at the whole ‘kiss and tell’ part of relationships.”

  “I didn’t expect kiss and tell. I wondered about you playing the piano.”

  “How’d you know that I play?” He grinned, probably because her face lost all of its color. “Kidding.”

  “Cute.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am. I like to think I am.” He leaned back on his elbows, a piece of grass between his teeth.

  “I was talking about your sense of hum
or, not you.” She pulled food out of the picnic basket. “You’re definitely not cute.”

  He sat back up. “Really?”

  “Really.” She handed him the sandwich with mayo and took the one without for herself. “We should eat.”

  “I left the room when my mom was taken off life support.”

  His words stole her appetite. She put the sandwich back in the baggie. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was my choice. I couldn’t watch her leave. I knew her faith. I knew that she believed she’d go to heaven. But man, I didn’t want her to go. I was so angry with God for thinking He needed her more than us. She was the person who kept our family together. Even when she was sick.”

  “Jason, I…”

  He shook his head. “Let’s not, okay. You wanted to know. I told you. End of story.”

  “I didn’t mean to force this out of you.”

  He took in a deep breath and his expression shifted. With a tenderness deep down in his brown eyes, he touched her cheek and his smile returned. “It isn’t something I like to talk about, but you didn’t force me. I wanted to tell you. I want you to know me.”

  She tried to make sense of those words. He wanted her to know him. As she was making sense, he was moving closer.

  He slid a hand behind her neck and pulled her to him, touching his lips to hers, holding her there for a moment that felt like forever. It was one of those moments, the kind that felt as if you’d caught a butterfly in your hand, or seen a meteor fall to earth. It felt suspended in time, and yet, not long enough.

  The kiss was as soft as a whisper on a summer night. Alyson didn’t plan on it ending, but felt the cold air between them when it did.

  “I want you to know me,” he whispered again near her ear and then grazed her lips with another sweet kiss. She’d never been kissed like that before, not in a way that touched her heart, that changed what she believed about herself, and about the person holding her close.

  Her heart was melting.

  Cowboys knew the right words. Cowboys were good at making a girl believe they loved her more than anything. And hadn’t Andie warned her about him? Jason Bradshaw didn’t do long-term relationships.

  Her phone rang and, dazed, she reached for it, answering it without looking at the caller ID.