Once Upon a Cowboy

by Maggie McGinnis

  She’d finally stopped thinking about Billy.

  But then that envelope had come, and it had all come back in a raging red haze. For as sad as she was about Grampy’s death, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of anger. She’d worked so hard to build her new life, so hard to bury the old—and now? She sighed. She had no idea what now was going to bring.

  The money he’d left her would certainly ease the strain of a client-starved summer, but at what price? There was no way that Luanne and Roxie would rest until they had their nicotine-stained paws on the money.

  Jess blinked hard, trying not to let her brain even travel to Breezy Meadow. She rubbed her nose, the stink of Roxie’s Marlboros still stuck somewhere way up inside. Aunt Luanne might be the mouthpiece right now, but Jess knew Roxie was right at Luanne’s elbow, egging her on. They smelled money, and they’d chase the trail until they got what they thought they deserved.

  And then there was Billy. And Mack. That night was etched in her memory forever, and she grew more scared by the day that it was finally catching up with her.

  “Morning, Jess!” Cole’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

  She jumped and looked up, pasting on a smile, and was struck by how unfairly adorable he looked, every single time she spotted him. Today he had on Wranglers that hugged in all the right places, a dark blue T-shirt, and his ever-present Stetson.

  He flopped a saddle over the rail. “Any rug rat sightings yet?”

  “Not yet. I think Ma’s still plying them with her chocolate chip pancakes.”

  “Perfect. That’ll give us time to get ready for today’s craziness.”

  She grimaced. “Should I be scared?”

  “I don’t know. Did you bring extra clothes this time?” He winked, and Jess’s shoulders relaxed. Apparently he was going to play things light and easy today. Thank God.

  “You ended up wetter than me, cowboy. And you deserved every drop that hit you.”

  Cole smiled, and again that dimple just about felled her. “Maybe.”

  Just then, a chorus of yelps came flying out of the main lodge, followed by the ten kids Jess had helped with yesterday. “Brace yourself. She just let them loose.”

  Cole looked up the hill. “So I guess before they get here, I should probably warn you about this afternoon.”

  “Do you have to sound like one of those doomsday-show announcers when you say it?”

  He laughed. “It’s not that bad.”

  “Which tells me it’s awful.” Jess looked up the hill. “You know what? I think actually Hayley might need me this afternoon.”

  “Too bad, cowgirl. You’re stuck with me for the day. State laws and kid-to-adult ratios and all that. Whisper Creek management requires a one-to-five ratio.”

  “Whisper Creek management is Kyla.”

  “Yes.”

  “Cole—”

  He shrugged. “Hey, I don’t make the rules around here anymore. I just follow them, or I don’t get any pie.”

  “Nice.” Jess raised her eyebrows. “If I’d broken my leg falling in the creek yesterday, you’d have to figure it out today, right?”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I could have.”

  He laughed again. “I still don’t understand how you didn’t realize that was a turtle.”

  “How many turtles do you think I see, generally? It looked like a rock, it felt like a rock, and therefore, I assumed it was a rock.”

  “Wasn’t.” He looked toward the kids, who were only fifty feet away now and coming fast. “Kids voted for a dance-off this afternoon. That’s why I went with the doomsday voice.”

  “A dance-off?”

  “Yeah. You know—we dance, they score us, I win.” He shrugged, grinning. “The usual.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “Because you can actually dance?”

  “Nope.” His eyes darkened for a second. “Because I get to watch you dance.”

  Jess put her hands on her hips, looking left to right like maybe she could still escape, but it was far too late. The kids were swarming around them, all hyped-up on chocolate chip pancakes and syrup.

  “Jess, did you hear about the dance-off?” Ella grabbed Jess’s hand.

  “I just heard, sweetie.” She tried to keep a growling sound out of her voice.

  “Are you excited?”

  “Um, I don’t know, really. I’ve never been to a dance-off. I have no idea how it works.”

  Ella tipped her head. “You just dance, silly!”

  “Yeah, silly. You just dance.” Cole raised his eyebrows in challenge.

  Jess crouched down. “You know who’s a great dancer? Kyla. Maybe we should go get her instead.”

  Cole laughed. “Kyla’s a terrible dancer, and you know it. So does she, so she won’t care that I said so.” He whistled to silence everyone, then pointed to the sky. “What time is it?”

  The kids looked up, then around at the landmarks and shadows Cole had been teaching them to use all week. Britney started to look at her watch instead, but he caught her. “Brit, didn’t I tell you watches aren’t allowed at Whisper Creek?”

  She pouted. “Then how can you know what time it is?”

  “Really?” He raised his eyebrows. “What have I been talking about all this week? You don’t need a watch to know what time it is. Not out here, anyway.”

  “It’s ten o’clock.” She rolled her eyes, but Jess saw a smile trying to sneak out.

  “Good. You’re close. Nine forty-five, I bet.” Cole squinted at the sky, closing one eye, then the other. “Maybe nine forty-seven. Jess? Can you verify?”

  Jess put up her hands. “Sorry. No watch.”

  “Fine. Britney, check your watch, but then you have to hand it to me until you leave.”

  Britney looked at her wrist, then tapped her watch. “No way.”

  Cole leaned on the fence, crossing his arms, the confidence practically wafting off from him. “Time, please?”

  “Nine forty-seven.” Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. “How’d you do that?”

  “I pay attention, that’s how. Now hand me your watch, and I’ll return it on Saturday.”

  Britney unclipped the band and handed it to him, then looked at the sky, shading her eyes. Jess bit her lip so she wouldn’t smile, but she couldn’t help but catch Cole’s eye. He winked, then turned toward the rest of the kids. “So, what should we do today? Frog hunting?”

  “Ride!” they chorused.

  “Super hot and sweaty mountain climbing expedition?”

  “Ride!”

  Jess laughed. Clearly this was a daily routine.

  Cole put up a hand, silencing them. “Okay, all right. Scooping horse poop in the barn?”

  “Ride!”

  Their voices launched into a wild crescendo, until finally he shook his head and sighed. “You know, I come up with all of these great ideas, and all you little cowpokes want to do is ride horses.” He motioned them toward the corral, where the ponies were standing at the ready. “All right, then. Come on. We’ll go for a ride.”

  “Yay!” The kids shouted and scrambled toward the gate, but at one tip of Cole’s hat, their voices shushed right down to nothing, and they walked through it one by one, carefully heading to their ponies.

  Jess sidled closer to him. “Are you the kid-whisperer or something?”

  “If I am, it’s purely by accident.”

  “Right. You’re really good with them.”

  “It’s just practice.” He rolled his eyes. “They love to be tortured. No idea why.”

  “It works.” She took a deep breath. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had your own kids.”

  “Someday.” He laughed. “Hopefully a whole stable full of them. The more hands to help out here, the better, right?” Then he pointed to Sky Dancer. “You ready to saddle up, cowgirl?”

  Jess smiled to cover up the gnawing pit that had just erupted in her stomach. “Sure
. Better believe it.”

  Yes, the one place she wanted to be today was on horseback, clip-clopping gently through the trails that crisscrossed Whisper Creek property. She wanted to breathe great gulps of mountain air, wanted to feast her eyes on the delicate palette of greens and purples in the meadows, and wanted mostly to disappear into the shadows of the pines.

  “Just don’t get too tired. We’ve got that dance-off this afternoon.” Cole waggled his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t want you to lose.”

  “Oh, we’ll see who loses, cowboy.” Jess hopped lightly into the saddle, clucking to Sky Dancer to get her moving. “I’m pretty sure it won’t be me.”

  Chapter 12

  “I’m totally losing.” Jess mopped her face with a towel four hours later, guzzling from a water bottle as Kyla laughed. “Where did he learn to dance like that?”

  “He’s spent a lot of involuntary Friday nights downtown at Salty’s. Must be he’s picked up some dance moves along the way.”

  Moves was one way to put it. The guy could teach a class at her studio, for goodness sake. The kids had actually started the dance-off with them, but one by one, they’d dropped out until just Cole and Jess were left. At first she hadn’t suspected a thing, but after the fifth kid had fake-tripped and sat down, she’d known there was a plan afoot.

  The self-appointed judging panel of Britney and her two friends had made quick work of dismissing the rest of the kids, so now she had to go head-to-head with Cole in the finals. Yes, there were finals. These kids apparently took their dance-offs seriously.

  “Does he dance at Salty’s?” Watching Cole goof around with the kids on the lawn behind the stable, Jess couldn’t imagine him out in the middle of a tourist-packed dance floor, turning and dipping to the latest country line dance.

  Kyla shook her head. “Nope. Just watches.”

  “Great.” Jess narrowed her eyes. “He doesn’t even practice, and he’s this good? I am sunk.”

  “Oh, come on. You know how to dance. Look! You’re a finalist!”

  “Stop laughing. You saw how this went down. They’ve rigged the whole thing. I’m destined to lose.” Jess pointed. “The five-year-old is doing it better than I can.” She watched as Cole picked up Ella and spun her around, making her pigtails fly out behind her.

  What would that feel like, she wondered? Had anyone besides Grampy ever bothered to pick her up when she was little?

  What would it feel like if Cole did it?

  Cole put Ella down, then pointed at Jess. “I think it’s your turn to dance, cowgirl.”

  “I’m on break, cowboy.”

  “You take a break, you forfeit the prize.”

  “That could work. What’s the prize?”

  Cole looked at the kids sprawled all over the lawn. “Hey. Good question. What am I going to win after I dance this girl out of the competition?”

  Britney laughed—sort of nervously, Jess noticed—and pointed at Cole. “If you win, you get to kiss Jess.”

  Jess felt her face go scarlet as Cole’s jaw dropped open.

  “And if she wins, she gets to kiss you!”

  The kids all melted into hysterics, but neither Cole nor Jess was laughing. She saw him watching her carefully, so she tried her best to mask her distress with a fake smile.

  Cole shook his head. “We don’t do kissing prizes here at Whisper Creek.”

  “You said we got to make the rules, though.” Britney pouted.

  Cole raised his eyebrows. “New rule: adults make the rules from now on.” He put his hand out for Jess. “Come on, Jess. Let’s show these little cowpokes how it’s done.”

  She cringed as she put her hand in his, even as she loved the feel of his fingers closing around hers. “I don’t know how it’s done.”

  Still holding onto her hand, he turned to the kids. “Okay, guys. You get one vote. What dance move should we do?”

  “Spin her!” Ella called. “Spin her like you spin me!”

  Jess pulled her hand back. “Oh, no you don’t.”

  “Why not?” Cole raised his eyebrows. “Afraid to get dizzy?”

  “No. I’m afraid you’ll drop me. I weigh a lot more than little Ella here.”

  “Nah.” He reached out his hand. “Come on, cowgirl. Trust me. I promise I won’t drop you.”

  “You say that now.” Jess held back.

  “Spin her! Spin her!” Ella chanted, and the rest of the kids quickly chimed in. Jess widened her eyes at them, shaking her head, but it only made them louder.

  She felt Cole’s arm slide around her back, and it made her shiver deliciously. Then he leaned his head down to whisper in her ear. “The sooner we do it, the sooner we’re done, right?”

  Jess tried to ignore the zings flying down her neck as his breath touched her ear, but it was nearly impossible. “Okay,” she finally said. “Okay, you can spin me. But if you drop me, I swear you’ll have a lot more than water balloons to deal with afterward.”

  “Deal.” Cole laughed as he swung her into the center of the circle the kids had formed around them. “Ready?”

  She closed her eyes tightly, putting her hands gingerly on his shoulders. “Just remember I’m not five. And I’ve been eating Jenny’s and Ma’s cooking for days now.”

  Before she could deliver any more warnings, though, his hands were on her hips and her feet were off the ground. She felt suspended in space, as light as a fluff of cotton as he spun her, and she found herself letting her head fall back so her hair swung out behind her.

  As the kids continued to chant, Cole spun her and spun her until he had to be dizzy, and then finally he set her down as lightly as if she were a ballet dancer. He kept his hands on her hips until she looked up into his eyes, and then she felt her whole face break into a smile.

  “How was that, cowgirl?”

  “That was very, very…fun.” She laughed, heart still pounding from the exhilaration of it.

  “Are you dizzy?”

  Oh, yes. She was positively drunk-dizzy, that’s what she was. Looking up into his deep blue eyes, itching to trace the dimple in his cheek, dying to maybe sample one little kiss—yes, she was downright spun.

  “A little,” she finally admitted.

  “Good.” He pulled his hands back, winking, then turned back to the kids. “I don’t know about you guys, but I call this a tie.” He motioned to them to get them all back out into the circle of grass. “Last dance is guys versus girls! Winners get ice cream!”

  Britney frowned. “What do the losers get?”

  “Losers get to scoop the ice cream!”

  Twenty minutes later, Jess was up to her elbows in mint chocolate chip ice cream, scooping into cones for both the winners and the losers. By unanimous vote, the boys had won, and Cole had been declared the Ultimate Dance Champion.

  Thus the scooping.

  After all of the kids were settled on the grass with their cones, Cole stepped up to the picnic table. “I’d like a double, cowgirl.”

  She paused, scoop in hand. “You totally rigged the voting.”

  He dropped his jaw in mock horror. “I did no such thing. I won fair and square.”

  “You won on a moonwalk. Who moonwalks to country music?”

  “Hey.” He put up his hands in defense, a grin on his face. “I can’t help it if I just happen to have the exact skills the kids were looking for. Lucky win.”

  “Luck, schmuck.” Jess rolled her eyes. “But I will be a gracious loser and scoop your ice cream for you.”

  “Thank you.” He winked. “You know, you’ll have another chance to reclaim the title. Tomorrow night. Salty’s. Bachelor/bachelorette party.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t want this title, but thank you.”

  “Now, now. Let’s not be a sore loser. I can teach you to moonwalk so you’ll have a chance next time.”

  “My dream.” Jess rolled her eyes.

  “How about line dancing? Know how to do that?”

  “Nope. Don’t tell me you do that, too.�
�

  He shook his head. “I watch it. Under duress.”

  “Then I guess you’d better not challenge me to a line dancing dance-off, cowboy.”

  “We’ll see.” He tipped his head. “I kind of like dancing with you. Might even put up with a line dance at Salty’s if it means I can do it again.”

  Jess felt her cheeks flush at his words, then was embarrassed that she’d let them. For God’s sake, Cole was the consummate flirt. He delivered these lines like it was second nature. His words meant nothing.

  “I’m not dancing tomorrow night, Cole. Especially line dancing—in public. Not going to happen.”

  “We’ll see about that, cowgirl.” He grinned and tipped his hat, then turned back toward the kids. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter 13

  “Yum. More Jell-O.” Jess reached up for a tiny cup as Kyla came back to their tiny table at Salty’s. “Why do I only ever drink these out here in Carefree? I always forget how much I love them. I definitely need more jiggly drinks in my life.”

  Kyla laughed. “Don’t we all?”

  “Why does Salty’s Jell-O taste so much better than everybody else’s?”

  “Bottom-shelf liquor? I don’t know.”

  Hayley motioned at them to bottoms up, and at her signal, Jess let the cool Jell-O slide down her throat. The chill was followed by a lovely heat as the tequila warmed her from the inside out.

  Tequila.

  Shit.

  “Kyla? Didn’t we say we were doing the non-alcoholic version of these things tonight?”

  Kyla shrugged, feigning innocence. “Salty’s all out. Only had the high-test version left.”

  Jess looked at the table, littered with tiny cups. “How many high-tests have we had?” She pointed to the table. “Not all of these, right?”

  It was Hayley’s turn to shrug. “You’ll know when you try to stand up, I guess.”

  “You guys! This isn’t funny! I need to be stone-cold sober tonight. You know this!”