Last Chance Cowboy

by Cathy McDavid

He felt the same way.

  Pocketing his phone, Gavin reread the auction flyer for the third time, only to be distracted by a lone man climbing the bleacher stairs. He didn’t look like the usual horse auction patron, not with his tailored slacks, dress shoes and expensive jacket.

  As he took a seat three rows in front of them, he turned to speak to an old-timer beside him.

  “James,” Roberto suddenly called out. “James Bridwell.”

  Glancing behind him, the man gave a brief wave of acknowledgment when he spied Roberto.

  “You know him?” Anna asked.

  Gavin was wondering the same thing.

  “We run into each other on occasion. He’s an attorney with a firm in Scottsdale.”

  An uneasiness Gavin couldn’t explain came over him. Why should it matter that an attorney from Scottsdale was at a BLM horse auction?

  Except he couldn’t shake the feeling that it did matter. A lot.

  The feeling intensified when he noticed the man also held a card stock bidder’s number.

  “SOLD TO BIDDER…”

  Gavin held up his number for the auctioneer to see.

  “129.”

  “You won!” Cassie tugged on his jacket sleeve.

  He smiled down at her, admittedly caught up in the excitement. “We probably don’t need another mare.”

  Except he would need them, when he brought the mustang home.

  As Sage had predicted, the horses at the auction were all going for one to two hundred dollars despite the enormous crowd. Gavin dared to hope. Surely the mustang wouldn’t bring much more than that. He patted his pocket, the one containing his checkbook, and thought again of the balance.

  It would be enough.

  The attorney sitting in front of them hadn’t bid on one single horse. He wasn’t alone. According to the snippets of conversation Gavin picked up from his neighbors, many people had come solely to see the mustang auctioned.

  He tried to shake off his uneasiness, telling himself the attorney wasn’t important.

  The auction continued. Thirty minute went by. Forty-five. At one point, the auctioneer’s singsong voice started to crack. Burros, managing to be both scruffy and adorable at the same time, were also sold. Cassie was naturally enamored, as was most of the crowd, and wanted one.

  Finally, they announced the mustang was up next for bid. Excitement rippled through the stands, and the noise level instantly increased. Gavin’s right leg beat a frenzied tattoo.

  A minute passed. Then three. Clanging noises came from the holding pens behind the auctioneer’s booth, followed by shouting. More noise, more shouting, and the gate was at last thrown open.

  The mustang emerged, and he was none too happy.

  Nostrils flaring, feet prancing, head shaking, he fought the three men who dared try to restrain him with their ropes. Oohs, aahs and whistles emanated from the crowd, which incited the mustang even more. The wranglers, three of them, did their best to control a living, breathing tornado.

  Sage entered the arena behind the men and horse, acting as an extra hand and spotter in case of trouble.

  Gavin paid little attention while the auctioneer extolled the mustang’s merits. Everything and everyone took on a strange, surreal quality. That changed the instant the bidding began.

  The auctioneer called for five hundred dollars to start. When no one responded, he called for four hundred. Then three.

  Someone offered two hundred. Like a gun shot at the start of a race, they were off. From that moment on, the bidding came fast and furious.

  Gavin didn’t jump right in. Instinct told him to wait and see what everyone else did first. Within seconds, the price jumped to six hundred. Then seven. He raised his number in the air. One of the auctioneer’s helpers standing outside the arena saw him, pointed at him and called out his bid.

  Immediately, he was beaten. He bid once more, only to be outbid again. Each time he went higher, vaguely aware that the price for the mustang had reached a thousand. Then two thousand. That was okay. He still had plenty of money.

  One by one, the less serious bidders dropped out. When the going price reached three thousand dollars, only three people remained. Gavin, a middle-aged woman and the attorney. The attorney?

  Gavin had been too involved to realize the attorney had been bidding against him.

  At thirty-five hundred dollars, the woman dropped out.

  The mustang began to paw the ground impatiently as if urging Gavin to hurry up.

  “Thirty-eight hundred,” he called out.

  “Do I have thirty-nine?” the auctioneer asked.

  No one responded. The attorney was on his cell phone, speaking to someone.

  Elation surged inside Gavin. His hands shook. The mustang was his!

  In the arena, Sage grinned and gave him a thumbs-up sign.

  “Going once, going twice—”

  “Four thousand dollars,” the attorney shouted.

  “Do I hear forty-one hundred?”

  Four thousand was all Gavin had in his checking account. Fighting panic, he called out, “Forty-five hundred.” He couldn’t lose the mustang. Not when he was this close. Somehow he’d come up with the other five hundred dollars.

  Then, he remembered he’d also bought the two mares. Son of a bitch. He was screwed.

  The attorney continued talking on his cell phone, then waved his hand wildly in the air.

  “Five thousand dollars!”

  “Going once,” the auctioneer sang into the microphone.

  There was no way Gavin could match that amount, much less beat it.

  “Going twice.”

  Pain sliced through him. This couldn’t be happening. The horse was supposed to go for hundreds of dollars, not thousands.

  “Going three times.”

  He crumpled his card-stock number into a ball and threw it on the bleacher floor beneath his feet.

  “Sold! To number 238.”

  The words rang like a death toll in Gavin’s ears.

  “GAVIN!”

  He slowed at the sound of Sage’s voice. Not that he’d been walking fast. He couldn’t, his feet weighed a thousand pounds each.

  She ran to where he, Anna, Roberto and the girls milled on the fringes of the thinning crowd.

  “I couldn’t get away any sooner,” she explained in a rush. “I had to help the wranglers with…” She took his hand, pressed her free one to his cheek. “It’s crazy. I still can’t believe he went for that much money.”

  Gavin wanted to comfort her. She seemed to need it. Except there was only cold emptiness inside him.

  “Do you know who bought him?” he asked in a flat voice.

  “Not the owner’s name. The man who bid on him was acting as an agent. I might be able to find out in a few days, once the paperwork is processed. Steve will tell me.”

  Her boss. The name penetrated the thick haze surrounding Gavin’s brain.

  “Cassie?” Where had she gone? He searched the immediate area, spotting the two girls with their heads together by the chuck wagon. “Come on, honey,” he hollered. “We need to get on the road.”

  “You’re leaving?” Sage asked. “So soon? I thought we’d…have some time together.”

  He’d thought that, too, when they were going to be celebrating.

  “I need to get the mares home.”

  “That’s right. You bought two new horses.”

  Breeding stock he wouldn’t need now.

  Dammit. The mustang was his. He’d tracked him, captured him, pinned his entire future on owning him.

  “Can I help you load them?” Sage offered.

  “I can manage, thanks.”

  On some level he recognized he was putting distance between him and Sage. She realized it, too.

  “Please, Gavin. Talk to me before you go.” Her fingers entwined in his were warm and coaxing.

  Anna must have read the situation. “There’s a little petting zoo right up the road. Why don’t Roberto and I take the girls t
here?”

  Sage smiled her thanks.

  Gavin muttered a distracted “Okay.” He was still reeling and really didn’t want to talk to Sage. Or anyone for that matter.

  She accompanied him to his truck and trailer. Climbing in, he drove very slowly through the grounds to the horse pens.

  Loading the mares didn’t take much time. Gavin had chosen well. For wild horses, these two possessed relatively calm dispositions as well as striking looks. It was a shame they wouldn’t be able to combine their desirable qualities with those of the mustang.

  All at once, the barrier holding his emotions in check broke. They crashed over him with a force that left him shaking. Anger. Frustration. Resentment. Disappointment.

  Devastation.

  He slammed the trailer door shut harder than necessary. The startled mares flinched and bunched toward the front.

  “There are other feral stallions for sale,” Sage said gently. “They come in all the time.”

  Gavin shook his head.

  “I know they won’t be the same—”

  He cut her off. “I’m not interested in another horse.”

  “You may feel differently later.”

  “I’m not interested,” he repeated harshly.

  They got back in his truck and drove to the main parking lot. Anna and Roberto hadn’t yet returned with the girls. Gavin selected a spot in the half-empty lot, parked and turned off the engine. He and Sage said nothing for several moments. He hoped it would last, that she would give him a break before pressuring him.

  She didn’t.

  “I was thinking, I can relocate to Mustang Valley. Live with you, if you’re willing,” she added shyly. “My house is on a month-to-month lease so I can leave anytime. And I have family in the Phoenix area.”

  If the mustang were in the trailer with the mares, Gavin would be having an entirely different reaction. He’d grab Sage, kiss her, tell her how happy she made him. As it was, the cold emptiness inside him grew only colder.

  “What about your job?”

  “If the BLM doesn’t have an opening in their Phoenix office, I’ll find a new one.”

  She was going to make him say it, strip him of his pride and leave him bare to the bone.

  “I can’t afford to support you while you’re looking.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to,” she answered breezily. “I’ll have extra money coming in now that Dan’s paying me.”

  Gavin ground his teeth. He wished she hadn’t brought up her ex’s name. If he and Dan were still partners, Gavin would have been able to outbid the attorney.

  “I’d rather you didn’t live off his money.”

  “It’s not like that. He owes me. I’ve supported Isa for years when he should have been paying.”

  Splitting hairs, in his opinion.

  “Don’t you want to keep seeing me?” She was finally getting past all his excuses and to the heart of the matter.

  “Keep seeing you,” he said. “Not be the reason you’re uprooting your entire life.”

  “I was thinking of it as more like creating a new one.”

  It was then he noticed the tears forming in her eyes.

  Much as he wanted to, he wasn’t ready to make the kind of commitment she was asking of him. He might have been, if the day had ended differently.

  Instead, he said, “Let’s talk about this in a week or two. After I’ve had a chance to meet with the family. Examine our options.”

  “You can still go ahead with the stud and breeding business.” She looked at him appealingly. “With a new partner.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  He recoiled as if she’d slapped him across the face. “I won’t take money from you.”

  “But you would from Dan.”

  “That was different.”

  “Why? Because he’s a man?”

  “Because he’s not someone—” Gavin started to say, I love, but stopped himself. This wasn’t the time to admit his feelings for Sage, give her cause to have expectations he couldn’t meet. “Someone I have an intimate relationship with,” he said instead.

  He’d let her down. She’d been hoping for a declaration of love. Everything in her expression told him so.

  Gavin shifted and stared out the driver’s side window.

  “You blame me for losing the mustang.”

  “No.”

  “I misled you. Assured you he’d sell for a fraction of what he did.”

  “Sage, I don’t blame you.”

  Only he did. A little. He’d counted on her being right. On her experience and connections with the BLM. It wasn’t anything he couldn’t get over eventually. Her intentions had been honest and sincere, after all.

  He probably wasn’t being fair to her, but he’d lost so much today and wasn’t thinking his clearest.

  “I get that you don’t want to take my money. I also get that you’re a traditional kind of guy. That you feel a responsibility to take care of any woman in your life, even if she doesn’t need taking care of.”

  He closed his eyes, wishing she would stop talking. Let him go home and sort through this mess before wringing a decision from him.

  “We’d make really good partners,” she went on, “if you think about it. I know we don’t always agree, but look at it this way. Your strengths balance my weakness and vice versa.”

  “Sage—”

  “I’ll come down next Friday. We can hash out the details.”

  The more she pushed him, the more she made him feel like a complete failure.

  “I don’t want to think about this now,” he snapped, hating himself for his lousy temper.

  She pursed her lips, her way of asking when did he want to think about it?

  “I would feel a whole lot better if we just didn’t make any decisions for a while.” He was surprised how reasonable his voice sounded considering the turmoil raging inside him.

  At that moment, an SUV pulled up beside them. Not her cousin’s vehicle. This one had a BLM insignia on the door.

  “Oh, great,” Sage muttered when a man stepped out and came over. “It’s my boss.” She opened the door and got out.

  Gavin did, too, and she introduced them.

  “Sage, I’m glad I found you before you left.” He motioned for her to join him a few feet away. “You got a minute?”

  Gavin shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and kicked at a small rock at his feet. He didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but Steve’s deep voice carried.

  “I need you to transport the mustang to the new owner tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  “Outside of Scottsdale. Not far from that place where you went on your vacation. I’ll have the exact address for you in the morning.”

  Mustang Valley?

  Learning that the new owner of the mustang lived near him and that Sage would be the one to deliver the horse was the final blow.

  Gavin returned to his truck, vaguely aware that he was staggering.

  What a fool he’d been, to think he could turn things around and create something significant for him and his family. His mother’s illness had sent them into a downward spiral from which they would never recover. He should have known better than to try.

  Without realizing how he’d got there, he found himself sitting behind the steering wheel, his hand on the key, poised to start the ignition. Wait. He couldn’t leave. Cassie wasn’t back yet.

  He jerked when the passenger side door opened and Sage stood framed in it. “Steve’s gone.”

  Sound came from his mouth, an unintelligible reply to her statement.

  “Gavin, I…I’ll refuse the assignment if you want me to. I just figured, well, I’ll take good care of the horse.”

  He didn’t answer. The fragmented thoughts whirling inside his head refused to come together into something coherent.

  “I’ll come by the ranch with I’m done.”

  Another SUV pulled into the parking lot then, this one her cousin’s. He saw Cass
ie in the backseat. She was reading a book to Isa.

  Cassie.

  She was his priority now.

  Maybe he should consider buying a different wild stallion. Salvage as much of his original plan as he could.

  “Gavin?” Sage leaned into the truck. “Did you hear me? I’ll come by the ranch tomorrow.”

  He shook his head. At her confused expression, he got out and circled the truck.

  She smiled when he reached for her. It disappeared when he held her at arm’s length.

  “You don’t have to,” he told her, striving to keep his voice gentle. He remembered that from when his mother was sick. The doctors had always delivered bad news in low, quiet tones. “In fact, it might be best if you didn’t.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I care about you. More than you realize.” He squeezed her shoulders. That was another thing the doctors had done. They’d placed reassuring hands on him and his family. “But we were foolish to ever think we could make a go of this.”

  Dismay filled her eyes. “We can.”

  “There are too many obstacles. The distance—”

  “I told you, I’ll move.”

  He shook his head. “I need time, Sage. I’m not the kind of person who can pluck a plan B out of the air. It’s important that I build the business, the ranch and my home into something meaningful before I can share them with you.”

  “That’s what people who care about each other do. They build meaningful homes and businesses. Together.”

  “I wasn’t ready to be a father when Cassie was born. I loved her but I was incapable of giving her what she needed. I regret that and am doing my damnedest to make up for it.”

  “I know how important she is to you. I have a daughter, too.”

  “When I commit to you, Sage, it will be when we’re both ready. Not before and not just you.”

  She stiffened. “How long will that take? Because some people are never ready and use it as a convenient excuse.”

  “I don’t know.” He wouldn’t lie to her. “And asking you to wait is unfair.”

  “I would, you know.” Her features crumbled.

  He was probably committing a huge mistake by letting her go.

  Hadn’t he accused Dan of the same thing?

  Pride was Gavin’s downfall. A downfall of all the Powell men. He couldn’t change the way he felt, however. Not even if it resulted in an end to his relationship with Sage.