Cowboy Professor_A Western Romance Love Story

by Ivy Jordan

  “We both will, you self-centered shit,” Stacy barked back at me. “You think Quinn is going to want you after what she’s seen? You’ll end up alone like the rest of us.”

  If she were a man, I would have hit her. As it stood, I knew there was nothing else I could say that might sway her. I needed to salvage my relationship with Quinn. I needed to try and make things right. Especially if what Stacy said was true and Quinn had seen the photos. There might not be any saving it. Everything might be over, for good this time.

  I called Quinn and sat in the car in the parking lot. She didn’t answer, and so I called her again, and then a third time.

  I closed my eyes and set my fists on the steering wheel. I wanted to punch something. I wanted to go to Quinn’s house, to her office, anywhere she might be and talk to her in person. But if she wasn’t answering my calls, she didn’t want to talk to me, and I didn’t want to force her to talk to me if she didn’t want to. She would come around when she wanted to.

  But there was a chance she wouldn’t. I drove home and managed, somehow, not to hit anything in my blind rage. I stomped inside and slammed the door behind me.

  Quinn might be leaving me. I thought of all the times I’d pictured her at the kitchen table in the mornings, having her coffee on the porch. I’d been stupid enough to think that I could deserve her, that I could overcome my past and have something so good in my life.

  Except that I had overcome my past. I’d done everything I could and more to overcome my past. I was better now. I’d convinced myself that I was beyond it all. It was Stacy, or perhaps my empathy.

  It was bullshit. It was all bullshit, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The hours went on, and I began to get tired behind the eyes. My brain was still wide awake for some time, and I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know if I’d be able to go to sleep, and I was almost afraid to. I checked the locks again to make sure no one could get in. Stacy wasn’t there. No one was there but me.

  I’d be alone for a long time if Quinn had deserted me.

  Despite how alert my brain was, my body began to get too tired to stay awake. Sometimes in the SEALs, we would need to stay awake for a few days at a time, and we would take short naps during the day to keep our bodies from getting exhausted. When I drifted off to sleep, it was the SEALs that I saw.

  My old teammates behind my eyes were so alive. I couldn’t remember a time that I’d ever been part of something so important. In the SEALs, I belonged somewhere, I meant something, I stood for something that meant something. There was no gray area. It was doing your duty, and that was it. There weren’t horrible ex-girlfriends. Our pasts didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was the task ahead, and everything else could wait until later. And later could be drunk or slept away into nothing.

  And as much purpose as there was, there was so much more blood. That was behind my eyes, too, every time that my body tried to sleep. Blood, screaming, sounds and smells that I never wanted to experience again. I knew what it smelled like when people died in the desert. I knew what it smelled like when we couldn’t bury them and so the sun tried to dry them out, make it easier. I knew what it looked like when new recruits didn’t duck in time, and could tell what type of grenade had exploded based on the holes in a man’s face.

  I woke up and found myself still there. I slept, and went back. I tossed over in my bed and prayed that one day, maybe, I might wake up.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  QUINN

  “So I don’t know what to do, you know? My wife won’t talk to me about it. I think she’s embarrassed, but I can’t help what my dad says. He’s always been like that, and I told her before that he was going to be a little… weird.” Mark, one of my regulars, scratched at his head. “She won’t talk to me about it.”

  I clicked my pen and sat back in my chair. I’d been taking notes every now and again because it was hard for me to listen. I’d spent countless hours in training, learning how to compartmentalize my own problems so that when I went to work, it wouldn’t be an issue to hear someone else without worrying about myself. What good was a therapist if they were too consumed by their own issues to help their patients? I knew of therapists that could barely hold their own lives together but still gave stellar advice to their patients. Preaching and practicing were entirely separate when it came to this line of work.

  But I was still in the learning process. I’d never had something majorly awful happen and then had to come to work. This was the first time I’d ever been truly shaken before heading into an appointment. Mark didn’t deserve to have a therapist that only half-listened and struggled to even empathize with him. I prided myself on my work, on my talents, and here I was unable to even focus on my patient, let alone offer anything more than cliché advice.

  And it was all because of a man, and that was the worst part. If it were a death in the family, perhaps that would be permissible. But no, I’d had a relationship problem, and here I was acting like a child in my own mind.

  I didn’t know what to do about it. If I’d had the chance to solve things with him, perhaps this wouldn’t feel so awful. But as it was, I hadn’t had that chance. I’d been left to draw my own conclusions, and while I’d done my best to be fair to him, I couldn’t mentally walk myself back from the choice I’d made to leave him.

  He didn’t even know I’d left. I knew he was calling me; my phone went off a few times during the day, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer. If I answered, I would have to restart the whole process again. As awful and selfish as it was, it was easiest to assume I was right and keep barreling forward. After work, maybe I would go out for drinks with Babs. Or stay in and have drinks with Babs.

  More likely, I would throw myself into my work and never look up again. Looking up had proven to be dangerous. I said goodbye to Mark when it was time for him to leave and packed up my own things to go. Instead of going home, though, I went to Babs’s house. She sent me a text asking if I wanted to come over and talk, and I didn’t know if she’d caught wind of my troubles—everything had gone down only the day before—but I needed to tell someone about this.

  I couldn’t be my own therapist. Jesus, maybe I needed my own therapist. I pulled up to Babs’s house and parked precariously towards the end of the driveway. She had a huge assortment of plants piled up on the driveway, and I imagined she was probably watering them all at once with the hose as she was want to do. It didn’t work, and it was inefficient, but she liked to take pictures of all her houseplants on the driveway.

  I knocked on the front door, and she flung it open, smiling.

  “Quinn! Hey,” she said. “Hey, it’s good to see you. I’ve been busy.”

  “Yeah, I saw the plants in the driveway,” I said.

  “I’m trying to get some cleaning done. It’s a real mess in here.” She ran a hand through her hair. “I swear, every time I stay sober for more than a few days, I go on a cleaning spree. It’s probably for the best, though. My parents are coming to visit at the end of the week, and it smells like pot in here.”

  It did, but not so prominently as usual. “It’s not so bad,” I offered.

  “Thanks. I went out and bought a few scented candles, and I have the windows up. It’s ridiculous that it still smells at all. I haven’t smoked in a few days. Pot usually clears out pretty quick, but, I guess it’s in the furniture or some shit. I don’t know.” Babs shrugged and closed the door behind me.

  I nodded, trying to engage in this conversation. “Smoke can do that.”

  “Yeah. You okay? You look a little out of it.” Babs sat down on the couch and wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, this couch might just have to go. Can you wash sofa cushions? Sorry, sorry, I asked you a question.”

  “You can wash sofa cushions,” I said. I might as well offer some kind of advice as collateral for the emotional hand-holding I needed. “And, um, some stuff with Sawyer happened.” This felt like grave-dressing, and I didn’t like any part of that.

 
; Babs set her chin in her hand. “Oh? What happened? You haven’t mentioned him in a while.”

  “Yeah, I was out for a conference, and then before that we were busy,” I said. I was trying to avoid what had happened and failing miserably. “I… I got back, and Stacy called me. She said she’d met up with Sawyer and she had these, um, these pictures. Of him and her and him with cocaine and it was just…”

  “Wait, what?” Babs balked. “What do you mean him with cocaine?”

  “Him on the bed and cocaine on the table.”

  “Do you have the photos?”

  “No, I went by his house and dropped them off.” I shifted in my seat and sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know if she set it up or if he actually did cocaine or if there’s some middle truth there, but I don’t want to deal with this anymore. I just want a regular boyfriend who isn’t involved with cocaine.”

  “I understand,” Babs said, but there was something in her face that reflected she was holding back.

  “What?” I asked.

  Babs shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

  “Babs, come on.”

  “You’ll get mad!”

  “Come on!”

  Babs sighed and pulled her head up off her hand. “Fine. But it’s not my fault if you get mad.” She shook her head. “So this is Stacy we’re talking about, right? Stacy who has always been shady and mean and backstabbing? Who has no reason to change? And Sawyer’s never given you any reason to doubt him until now. As far as I can tell, he’s done everything and then some to get himself back on track.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not finished.” Babs tilted her head to the side. “So basically what I’m hearing is that you got this information from Stacy—who is basically like, an unreliable narrator but in real life—and you’re condemning Sawyer for it without even asking for his side of the story.”

  I balked at her bluntness. “Well, I mean, I can imagine his side of the story is that she set it up.”

  “You don’t know that.” Babs frowned at me. “You don’t know what happened. You’re just going off intel you got from a pathological liar.”

  “But even if that’s true, I just… I don’t want to deal with it,” I argued, though I could sense that my logic was crumbling in front of me.

  “That might be true,” Babs said. “But not for the reasons you think. I think that you’re scared that you and Sawyer are doing so well and you’re so scared of that commitment that you’re frankly relieved for an out.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Is it? Because you have no reason not to get Sawyer’s side of the story. You have no reason not to talk to him about it. It’s not like you walked in while they were fucking or watched him snort a line. He could very reasonably be completely innocent.” Babs’s eyebrow was still up.

  I frowned and felt like pulling the card she always pulled on me. ‘Stop psychoanalyzing me!’

  “But if you go over there and talk to him and everything works out, then what? You’re back on the up and up. Things will be going well. And then what? You’ve not been in a relationship this strong and steady before in a really long time. I think you’re letting your fear of commitment get in the way and you’re using this incident as an excuse,” Babs said.

  I folded my arms. “Are you done?”

  “Yup.” Babs cleared her throat and sniffed the sofa cushion again, making a face.

  I shook my head. I knew, on some level, that she was completely correct. It was wrong of me not to at least talk to Sawyer. “I already decided I was leaving him.”

  “Did you tell him that?”

  “No.”

  “Then great news! You can still talk to him.” Babs smiled a bit grimly at me. “And look, Quinn, I’m not saying nothing happened or that you have no reason to be worried. But I think he’s a good guy, and I think you deserve to be happy, and frankly, it would be shitty to decide to walk away when he didn’t do anything wrong. Give him another chance and leave him when he really does fuck up.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Got it. Thanks, Babs.”

  I went home after that and tried not to think too hard about what Babs had told me. I imagined that this was how many of my clients felt after intense sessions. I didn’t appreciate being seen through so easily, and especially not when I hadn’t considered most of those things myself. It bothered me that she could know me so much better than I knew myself. But then, an outsider’s perspective was important. That was the whole point of therapy.

  I took a long, hot shower and made sure to blow-dry my hair before getting into bed. When I did, I took my phone and plugged it into the charger. For a few seconds, I played with the on button, clicking it on and off and considering whether I was going to call Sawyer. I knew that I should. The fact that Babs’s speech had gotten under my skin meant that she was probably right, but I didn’t know that I was ready to admit it yet.

  I would see how I felt later. I set my phone down on the table and curled up in the covers, willing sleep to come easily.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  SAWYER

  Early Wednesday morning I got a call from my mother asking if I wanted to go over for breakfast. I needed something to take my mind off all this isolation and doom, so I agreed and forced myself through the shower. I needed to go to the grocery store anyway. Sandwiches and cereal made up most of my diet, and I knew I needed to at least try to do better.

  When I walked in the house, my dad and mom were both sitting at the table. A plate was out for me, and I smiled. The smile faltered when I remembered that I had Quinn to thank for the reunion with my father in the first place. If she hadn’t intervened, I might still hate him. We might not even be talking.

  Or maybe not. I sat down at the table. “Hey,” I said. I wondered what I could honestly say were my own accomplishments at this point. I wondered how easy it would really be to see Quinn go. That was assuming she was leaving me, but at this point, I didn’t know. She hadn’t contacted me in a few days, and I knew that she’d seen things that would probably make her hate me.

  “Good morning,” Mom cheered. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Good to see you too,” I said. “What have you been up to?”

  “We’ve been trying to plant some tomatoes,” Dad said. “It’s been a little bit of a hassle, but it seems like we might actually get some vegetables to grow back there.”

  “Your father’s been doing lots of work in the backyard. Reminds me of the old days when he would mow my parent’s lawn to impress them,” Mom said with a sarcastically wistful sigh.

  “Oh, there was never any impressing old Frank,” Dad said.

  I offered a smile. It was hard to engage in this conversation with my mind as occupied as it was.

  “Are you doing alright? You look awful tired. Pete’s not working you too hard, is he?” Mom asked, leaning forward in her seat.

  I shook my head. “I’d say he isn’t working me hard enough,” I said. “He sent me home after a few hours yesterday and hasn’t called me yet today. It’s been, uh, it’s been a weird couple of days with Quinn.”

  “Is everything alright?” Dad asked.

  “Not exactly.” I set my glass down and watched the condensation form a little ring on the wooden table. “I had a run-in with Stacy while she was out at her conference. She told me she was homeless and didn’t have anywhere to go, so I told her she could sleep on the couch for one night. She took a bunch of, um, compromising photos with me and showed them to Quinn.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Eugene, language.”

  “I tried calling Quinn, and she won’t answer,” I said. “I don’t know why she won’t answer. I mean, I know why, but… Stacy is a liar, and Quinn knows that. I don’t understand why she believed Stacy at her word.”

  “Do you know that she believed Stacy at her word?” Dad asked.

  “What do you mean?” I raised an eyebrow. “She hasn’t called me since she found the photos, and she won’t pick up an
y of my calls. I would assume she’s angry with me.”

  “But you don’t know. You need to talk to her.”

  “She won’t answer my calls.”

  “So go find her,” Dad said. “I happen to think that Quinn is good for you. If it’s going to fall apart, then that’s fine, but you have to give it a fair chance before you declare it dead.”

  He was right. I couldn’t reasonably say I’d done everything in my power to right the situation, and that was what ultimately mattered here. I needed to try and make things right, and if, when I’d done everything I could possibly do to right this wrong, she still hated me, then we could call the relationship dead. Until then, I still had work to do.

  After breakfast, I decided to drive out to her house. She wasn’t there, so I changed routes to her work. Sure enough, her car was in the lot, and I worried about what I was doing. I probably needed to wait until she was off work and then talk to her. I called her, and she didn’t answer.

  If she had someone coming in, she could shoo me off. I wasn’t going to make a scene. I only wanted to talk to her, and I knew that she would see reason if I could just explain myself and the situation.

  No one was in the waiting room when I walked by. I took a few steps down the hallway and saw Quinn beginning to walk out of the door. She saw me, and we froze, staring at each other, and I almost forgot to say anything at all.

  “Quinn.” I swallowed. “Do you have any patients?”

  She shook her head slowly. “No, I, um… the last one just left. I was on my way home.”

  “Do you have a couple of minutes?” I’d meant to be more insistent than this, but I couldn’t boss her around. This was all happening on her terms, whether I liked it or not.

  She nodded slowly. “Yeah, sure. A couple.” She opened the door back up to her office, and I walked in behind her, looking up at the clock above the door out of habit. I was glad that there wasn’t anyone there—if there had been, I would have had to leave, and if I’d come back, it would have been simply too invasive. As it was, I felt bad for showing up where she worked.