Cowboy Professor_A Western Romance Love Story

by Ivy Jordan

  “One night?” I asked her.

  She nodded. Jesus, she looked exhausted. It looked like if a strong wind blew, it might knock her right over.

  “Fine.” I started out, and she followed me. I didn’t offer to help her into the car, and she remained completely silent on the way to my house. I couldn’t fight the pounding in my heart. I shouldn’t have been doing this, and a part of me knew this was a bad idea. That Stacy, no matter the context, was a bad idea.

  But I couldn’t just let her suffer needlessly. That was shitty, no two ways about it. If she was lying, then she’d gotten a night on my couch out of me. If she wasn’t lying, then she had to live with the fact that I was the one who helped her when no one else would.

  When we reached my house, I pointed to the couch. “There’s a blanket on the back,” I said.

  “I won’t try anything,” she said.

  “Don’t care.” She wasn’t going to sleep in my bed. That was absurd. I grabbed a few of the valuable things laying around, but I didn’t own much she could snatch and run with anyway. I went to my bedroom and decided on leaving it open. If she moved, I wanted to be able to hear it and react.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  QUINN

  When I drove into Austin on Monday morning, relief washed over me. I’d only been gone for one weekend, but it felt like I’d been gone for centuries. It had been difficult to get a hold of Sawyer, and I couldn’t shake my concern. In the back of my mind, I still worried about that text he’d gotten from Stacy over a week ago. I hadn’t asked him about it, and it didn’t seem that it had amounted to anything, but it bothered me somehow that he didn’t mention it to me. He wasn’t obligated to tell me everything that went on in his life, but a text from Stacy was something out of the norm, and I liked to think of myself as worthy of being told about things that fell out of the norm.

  I was excited to see him, though. Especially since I hadn’t heard from him. I wondered if he would be too busy to get lunch or something later in the day. He worked at Pete’s farm, and there was no telling what Pete had planned. He seemed to do everything from quirky farm inventions to casual vegetable farming, and so Sawyer could be anywhere between slightly busy to totally preoccupied.

  For a few minutes, I unpacked my bag and put some clothes in the laundry. I’d gotten home a bit earlier than I’d expected, but then, the conference had let out earlier than expected. The Sunday speaker had been canceled, allowing me to come home in the morning rather than later. I sat down at the kitchen table, flipping through some emails on my computer, when my phone went off.

  I hoped it was Sawyer. I’d sent him a text to let him know that I was coming home; perhaps he’d only been waiting for an indicator. I hurried to fish my phone out of my purse, and when I saw the caller ID, I frowned. Stacy. I couldn’t even remember where I’d gotten her number—my aunt must have given it to me at some point, I figured.

  She was the last person I wanted to talk to. Luckily, thanks to my occupation, I was more than trained in the art of sounding like I wasn’t judging the person I was talking to. I wanted to hit decline, but I didn’t know what the situation was, and especially since I hadn’t heard from Sawyer in some time… curiosity got the better of me, and I accepted the call.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Quinn.” Stacy sounded weirdly calm and relaxed, and I wondered if she was high. I checked my watch—ten in the morning was a little early for any drugs, wasn’t it?

  “Hello,” I repeated. “Did you need something, Stacy?”

  “Sort of,” Stacy said. “It’s important.” She sounded sincere, but then, she was a liar by nature. “It’s something I can’t really talk to my parents about, and I don’t know if they can hear me.”

  I didn’t know whether that was drug-induced paranoia, convincing acting, or genuine panic in her tone. Either way, I knew that the quickest way to diffuse the situation would be to play along with her. “Okay, what is it?”

  “Can we meet in person, actually?” Stacy asked. “Can we get lunch?”

  It clicked why she’d called me; she wanted free food. I knew sending her a gift card for some restaurant would be condescending, and if she wanted free food, the easiest thing to do would be to buy her a meal and get back home. I really did want to see if Sawyer was available later.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said. “Meet you in an hour?”

  “Sure,” she said. She hung up with that, and I glanced at my phone for a moment before putting it down.

  I fished a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from my clean laundry, or what was left of it. I put a little bit of makeup on and sprayed my hair with a bit of dry shampoo—I’d showered the night before, but it looked a little limp for my liking. After a check to make sure my shirt wasn’t stained, I changed the laundry and then made my way out.

  I spotted Stacy sitting inside the restaurant before I even walked in. She sat near a window, and she looked out of place, like a ghost. I walked in and sat down across from her, wondering how she’d even gotten here—it wasn’t likely she had a car, and I couldn’t imagine people were exactly lining up to help her at this point. Her parents probably still chauffeured her around—they never did know when to draw the line with her.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to gauge how badly she was doing. She looked gaunt, but she’d always been gaunt.

  “Hey,” she returned. She didn’t look terribly malicious. Usually she had a glint in her eye that presupposed anger even when nothing had happened.

  “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” I asked.

  A waiter approached and took our order. She walked off, and Stacy levied her gaze at me.

  “Sort of,” she said. “See, things have been kind of stressful since I left rehab.”

  “I can imagine,” I said. “Have you been seeing a therapist?”

  “Ugh, no.” Stacy pulled her sweatshirt forward and buried her hands in the pockets. “You know what I think about therapists. Besides, I don’t need them. I’m fine. My issues are all financial, not mental.”

  That was a problem, and I yearned to explain to her that most financial problems had a mental root. Some people got honestly stuck in medical bills or rental payments, but a good deal of the time, financial troubles stemmed from something emotional in a person’s life. Especially when that person was addicted to drugs, which were, of course, expensive. And Stacy didn’t have any source of income that I was aware of.

  Which, again, brought me to wonder how she’d gotten herself here and why she was telling me any of this. Sure, there was the free food, but I had a feeling it went beyond that. Especially since she appeared to have something else she wanted to talk to me about.

  “That’s, um, okay.” I tried to turn off the part of me that wanted to psychoanalyze my cousin. After all, she was absolutely fascinating from a therapist’s standpoint. But that wouldn’t help me now. I was just trying to have a painless, easy lunch. “I’m glad you’ve found a system that works for you.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Stacy said. “Me too. It’s been working amazing; it’s just been kind of stressful.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows at her phrasing. It was like she was trying to get me to pry and ask her for more information.

  “Is there something going on?” I asked.

  “Sort of,” Stacy said. She took her phone out of her pocket and tapped at it for a few seconds. “I really wanted to talk to you about Sawyer.”

  Ah, now we were getting somewhere. I’d been expecting to have this conversation with her. I’d expected to have it in the form of a temper tantrum on her behalf at the restaurant—part of my nervousness came from the fact that she seemed to be calculating what to do rather than lashing out emotionally.

  “I think you think he’s reforming or whatever the fuck you people call it,” Stacy said, scrolling on her phone. “But he’s really not buying any of your bullshit.”

  “What do you mean?” I couldn’t help but ask. I was worried, after all. He hadn’t been in to
uch, and I began to worry about the worst. “Is he okay?”

  “Um, better than he would ever be with you fuckin’ doctors down his throat,” Stacy said. She pulled a few photos out of her pocket and set them down on the counter. I picked them up, nervous despite my constant reminder to myself that everything would be fine. Sawyer wouldn’t steer me wrong, would he? He had no incentive to hurt me.

  I looked at the first picture. Sawyer, in his bed, next to a scantily clad Stacy smiling at the camera. The next was the same picture from a different angle, and I could see lines of something on the counter. My stomach clenched and I looked at the next picture: a close up of the table, and I could identify the cocaine too easily.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Sawyer was a very well-trained Navy SEAL who wasn’t exactly prone to getting snuck up on. He was an incredibly light sleeper, as I’d learned from experience. There wasn’t any way for Stacy to stage these. But that meant that they were real, and I didn’t know what to do with that fact.

  “So I just thought I should let you know—”

  Stacy was cut off as I shoved the pictures in my purse and stormed out of the restaurant. I needed to get answers from Sawyer himself. If Stacy had found a way to concoct this entire plan, then I needed to know how, because at the moment all I could think of was how much I had tried to help him.

  I called him when I got to the car, and he didn’t pick up his phone. I called again, and again, and then again while I was driving. No answer.

  He had no reason not to answer me. Maybe the first time, but not the second or third or fourth. He’d never missed my calls before this past weekend, and the only thing that had changed was Stacy’s presence in our lives. I didn’t want this to be true. I didn’t want it to be real. But everything pointed inevitably and dangerously towards this being the worst case scenario.

  I reached his house and marched up to the door, knocking loudly. He still didn’t have a doorbell installed, but I knew that he would be able to hear me in the house. He didn’t answer the door, even though I could see his car in the driveway, which only confirmed that he had something to hide in my mind.

  I closed my eyes for a second. I didn’t want to do this anymore. I couldn’t keep trying to correct him, trying to be his therapist, trying to save him, if he didn’t want to be saved. Even if this was some carefully constructed ruse on Stacy’s part—I couldn’t honestly rule it out, especially considering her past—I still didn’t know that I wanted to sign on to this anymore. I put the pictures down partway under the doormat so that he would see them but they wouldn’t fly away in the breeze.

  I didn’t want to hear his excuse. That was what told me that I was already over this in my mind. I didn’t want to listen to him explain that this was all a misunderstanding and have to put myself through this again. As a therapist, it was fine—I could listen to patients talk about their abusive childhoods and drug addict family members all day long. But I couldn’t watch this happen to someone I cared about, and I didn’t want to get involved where I clearly couldn’t help. It was better for me to escape while I still had my life intact and I could still salvage, possibly, some of my emotions and keep them safe from this devastation.

  I needed to get on with my life. This wasn’t going to end well for either of us, and I couldn’t see it continuing the way things were. Sawyer clearly didn’t want help, and I couldn’t keep trying to give it to him if he didn’t want it. I thought to the conference I’d been at this weekend; I was seeing major business success, I was making decent money, and I could find someone else.

  Never mind that it felt like hell to put those pictures down and know that I couldn’t be with him again.

  Never mind that I knew, deep down, that I cared about Sawyer, more than I wanted to admit.

  I turned on my heel and walked away. I didn’t want to hear his excuses anymore. All I wanted now was to be done and start the long, painful process of putting myself back together.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  SAWYER

  The next morning, Pete picked me up from my house so we could go to the hardware store for a few odds and ends. I didn’t like leaving my car behind, but it wasn’t any trouble, and after the hardware store Pete dropped me back off. He wanted to take the rest of the day working on projects he’d bought the materials for, and I couldn’t help him with most of it anyway. So he dropped me off with instructions to take the day off.

  I thought about whether Quinn was back in town yet. I needed to talk to her about everything that had happened with Stacy for sure; it bothered me that I hadn’t gotten the chance to do so. I felt like I’d cheated, even though I definitely hadn’t. Stacy had been gone from the house when I woke up that morning, gone without a trace, and as unnerved as I was by her sudden disappearance, I was glad for her to be gone.

  When I looked down at my phone, I saw quite a few missed calls from Quinn and frowned. She must have been trying to get in touch with me. I started to call her back, and then paused at the door when I saw something poking out from under the doormat.

  They looked like photographs. I picked up them up and dusted the small layer of dirt off them. Me, asleep in bed, with Stacy next to me in her underwear. Me, asleep with… cocaine? I thought at first that they might have been old pictures, but they weren’t. That was my current house, and I’d gotten some of those tattoos overseas.

  How the hell had this happened? Was it photoshop? I squinted at the page and thought of the drinks I’d had the night before. But they weren’t enough to even prevent me from driving home, let alone enough to make me sleep.

  Somehow, I had slept through this, if it wasn’t photoshopped. I didn’t know how, and I almost suspected that Stacy had drugged me. I put the photos down and then the question hit me: Who put the photos there?

  Stacy could have done that, but it wasn’t likely. Was it? I looked down at the photos and at her, smiling in her bra and underwear and wrinkling her nose at the camera, and finally I began to get angry. I’d let her into my house, trusted her to behave herself for one night, and this was how she repaid me. It wasn’t fair, dammit, and I needed answers.

  I opened the door to my house to see if she was back. She wasn’t, so I got in my car and started driving. Hell, I didn’t even know where to find her, especially if she didn’t want to be found. But all I could think about was what would have happened if Quinn saw those photos, and all the progress I would lose with her. She trusted me, and I couldn’t betray that trust.

  When I went to her home, her parents hadn’t seen her. In fact, they hadn’t seen her in quite some time and asked me to send her back if I ran into her.

  She’d lied about needing a place to stay. She’d lied about needing a place to stay so she could come into my house and set me up to… to what? What was her motive behind this? She’d give the photos to me, not the police—or someone else had. I drove to the place she used to work, and they hadn’t seen her in years.

  I tried a few bars to no avail, and finally, I tried George’s. She was the first thing I saw when I walked in, sitting up on a billiards table with her hair done up in a braid.

  “Stacy, I swear to fucking Christ,” I started, marching up to her.

  A bulky man in a tank top that showed off his muscles walked up to me. “He botherin’ you, Stace?”

  I sized him up and set my jaw. I could flatten this man into the floorboards without breaking a sweat. I’d taken worse down with less anger in my system.

  “No,” Stacy said. “Maybe back up a little. He’ll kick your ass.”

  The man looked slightly insulted, but he did back up. I turned back to Stacy and took the photos out of my pocket, shoving them in her direction.

  “Where the hell did these come from?” I barked.

  “Um, your house.” Stacy leaned forward, raising an eyebrow. Like she was daring me to contradict her, like she had any moral ground to stand on here.

  “What did you do? You broke in my room and set this up?”

  “Yeah
, I mean, isn’t that obvious?”

  “Why did you put these at my door?” I was fighting to keep some semblance of calm, and the veins on my neck were close to bulging. My jaw was almost too tight for me to speak, my words coming through clenched and forced.

  “I didn’t put them at your door,” Stacy said. Her gaze was even, almost eerily calm.

  “Then who the hell did?”

  “Probably Quinn.” Stacy pursed her mouth like she was pondering over whether it would rain later in the day. “I mean, she was kind of upset when I showed her what you’d done.”

  “You bitch.” I threw the photos down on the table. “You did this all to fuck over my relationship?”

  “It’s not fair,” Stacy said. Her lower lip quivered and she bit down on it. “You know that? It’s not fair. We get in deep with some hard shit and you take off, and I’m alone. And I don’t have any money. My parents keep paying for all my bullshit. I never get better. And you come back all better, like nothing ever happened. I have to go to rehab or jail and I can’t ever get a job again and you did the same shit I did but you’re scot free. It’s not fair. I’ll never get better, and you deserve to know what that feels like.”

  “I never stooped to your level.” I expected to yell, but my voice only grew quiet, dangerously quiet, restrained because if I didn’t keep it down I would explode. “I did what I had to do to make it out okay. There was never anything stopping you from recovering but yourself. You think I went to a fucking vacation resort for six years? You have no fucking idea what I’ve been through to get myself back on track.”

  The insinuation that I had got off easy was enough to end the conversation. I couldn’t hear the rest of what she had to say. “The fact that you think I got off easy is enough,” I spat. “You’ll never change. You’ll never fucking change. You’re never going to get better. I hope you fucking rot.”