Falling for a Cowboy

by Karen Rock

  You may not have much, but you still have your pride.

  A few minutes later, they were out the door and in her mother’s pickup. The warm June air flowed through her cracked-open window as they drove home. She picked out the scent of Smokey’s barbecue, sweet and tangy, and pictured the crispy, white-and-red awning and blue-covered picnic tables instead of the passing color smear.

  Would she ever see it again?

  No.

  Another loss, one of the many ahead to grieve. Her future rose black and immutable, her past a cemetery filled with everything she once loved and now lost.

  “Listen, sweetheart, I’m going to be with you every step of the way. Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t want to be taken care of.”

  The faint twang of a country song crooned through the radio. “No,” her mother said gently. “I suppose you don’t. You never did.”

  Amberley let out a breath. “I love you, Ma. It’s just that I need not to need you right now.”

  “Of course.”

  They rode a while more in silence. Amberley dropped the back of her head to her seat and shut her eyes. When the air turned thick with pine scent, she imagined them crossing out of town and onto the highway that led to their home, a small log cabin with a deep porch that her father had built himself.

  What would her dad say to her now?

  He’d be so let down.

  Sorry, Daddy.

  Three more turns and the truck bounced on rough track. When the right side dipped, she imagined the ruts that marked the halfway point up her packed-dirt drive. Then her mother pulled to a stop and Amberley jerked open the door.

  “I’m going to bed,” she called once she found the porch banister and stepped up the stairs.

  “Shoot!” her mother exclaimed behind her.

  Amberley stopped and turned—a pointless gesture since she could make out only her mother’s tall, thin shape. She pictured the narrow oval of her face, the long brow and upturned nose that’d always given her comfort as a child. Her heart squeezed. She’d never see her mother’s face again.

  This was real.

  Not temporary.

  Not fixable.

  Forever.

  The porch step creaked, and her mother’s soft hand fell on Amberley’s wrist. “I completely forgot. We have company coming for supper.”

  “I’ll just stay in my room. Tell them I have a headache.” A deep ache now clawed her brain.

  Her mother guided her up to the porch, then paused by the front door. In the distance, chickens squawked and the American flag atop a flower bed’s pole snapped. The warm wind carried the scent of newly blooming wildflowers. “I don’t think he’ll accept that.”

  “Why?” she asked through a yawn. Her heavy-lidded eyes closed. Sleep. She just wanted to sleep and not wake up for a long, long time.

  Or ever.

  “It’s Jared.”

  * * *

  “JARED!”

  Jared Cade waved at a former high school buddy, then swept chalk over the tip of his pool stick. “What’s up, Red?”

  “Not much.” Red clomped over in heavy boots, hitching up drooping work pants, a faint burnt odor preceding him. His short auburn hair stuck up around his smudged face.

  “Phew.” Lane, one of their Saturday night poker buddies, wrinkled his long nose. “You come straight here from a cookout?”

  A couple of the guys guffawed at their long-standing joke with the lone firefighter in their group. Many worked on ranches or in rodeo and gathered at this pool hall most nights.

  From corner-mounted speakers, a George Strait tune blared. Pictures of local and state sports teams covered every inch of the wood-paneled walls, jockeying for space. Jared had signed a few of them, he recalled, eyeing a framed eleven-by-sixteen photo behind the cash register. It featured his senior year, record-breaking catch during a state division championship.

  One thing he liked best about Carbondale, he’d always be its hero.

  “Just finished toasting marshmallows on I-77,” Red drawled, referring to the location of a small wildfire that’d broken out over the weekend. He lifted a finger and waved it in a circle, signaling the waitress for a round of drinks. “What can I get you fellas?”

  “I’ve got this,” Lane insisted. “Plus, it’s my turn to buy.” He turned to Jared, eager to please, a fan of Jared’s since high school. “Another beer?”

  He shook his head, then eyed the striped balls remaining on the pool table. “Heading out to Amberley’s in a minute.”

  Roseanne, the pool hall owner’s daughter and part-time waitress, hustled over. She laid her hand on his arm and peered at him beneath lashes so long he guessed they were either fake or she was an alien.

  “You goin’ to hear Back Country play at The Barnsider next weekend?”

  His lips curved into a smile at the flirty look she shot him. She was short and thin and kind of twitchy, filled with the kind of restlessness that set her earrings swinging. A long sweep of cropped platinum hair fell in her face—pale with clean quick features, eyes covered in a haphazard blue.

  Roseanne no longer interested him, exactly, seeing as how they’d already been out a couple of times and that’d gone nowhere, but he wouldn’t turn his nose up at the attention.

  “Could be.”

  “I might be goin’,” she said, coy.

  “That a fact?” he answered lightly, shooting for a tone that was friendly but not encouraging.

  His brothers, and especially his younger sister, Jewel, teased him mercilessly about his “girl problem,” calling him lady-killer or heartbreaker. But the women, they came to him. He never aimed to hurt anybody. Just wanted to keep things light. Fun. No strings roping down this cowboy. If they got their hearts broke, well, he did feel bad about that, but he’d never done it intentionally. That would have required him to put effort into it, which, like most things in life, he didn’t since everything came kind of easily to him. Sports, friends, ladies’ hearts...

  Roseanne finished taking drink orders, snapped her pad closed and turned to him again. “Wouldya like to go with me? If we get too drunk, we could just crash at my place after.”

  He shot his buddies a quick side eye to stop the guffaws he sensed coming. Roseanne might be misled, but she didn’t need to feel bad for it.

  “Well, now, I appreciate that offer. I do. But I might have already promised to take Amberley, so...”

  “Oh,” Roseanne nodded fast. “Of course. You and Amberley, I mean...”

  She scurried away, her face aflame. He hung his head a moment. Now he did feel bad. Although he and Amberley were just friends, everyone assumed more. Here he’d gone and added fuel to the fire.

  “Thought you two broke up,” Red taunted as the guys exchanged knowing, irritating looks.

  Jared shrugged, then stooped over the pool table. It bugged him that Amberley had been ignoring his recent calls and texts. The word friend didn’t describe how much she meant to him. Family neared the mark, but then that’d make her a sister. Given how pretty he found her when he forgot to think of her as just his bud—well, thinking of her as a sister was every kind of wrong.

  No. Being his best friend made Amberley one of the most important people in his life. Tonight he’d get to the bottom of her freeze-out. Right after he won this pool game.

  His fingers tightened around the stick he now angled over the table. He had two shots, he assessed, doing his level best to tune out his exasperating friends and win the game. Fifty dollars rode on it, but more than that, Jared just plain hated losing, especially to a member of his family’s longtime feuding neighbors, the Lovelands. His opponent, bull rider Maverick Loveland, a middle child out of five brothers like him, and a smug, tight-lipped, mean son of a gun, not like him at all, had stopped by his table and challenged him twenty minutes ago.

>   He didn’t care about the money. His thirst to win was rooted in decades of fighting with the ranching family that constantly trespassed on their land for nonexistent water access rights, damming up a river that didn’t belong to them, and all because they blamed his family for stringing up one of their own over a hundred years ago.

  Yet the murdering, kidnapping, jewel-thieving Lovelands started the feud, putting them squarely in the wrong...not that anyone could ever talk any bit of sense into that mulish clan. The Cades and the Lovelands had struck back at each other for so long it’d become a way of life, despite the fleeting truce they’d called last Christmas. For the first time in generations, the Lovelands had attended the Cades’ annual neighborhood party, a surprise move that’d ended about as well as could be expected—with nearly all of them sharing a jail cell overnight for brawling.

  His deputy sheriff brother, Jack, who’d been visiting from Denver, and local sheriff Travis Loveland had agreed to release the disorderly group in the morning if they hadn’t killed each other by then. Somehow, they’d made it through the night without anyone dying. More shocking still, it turned out his brother James’s girlfriend, Sofia, had invited Boyd Loveland to the party because he and his ma wanted to start dating.

  Jared still struggled to believe that.

  And he and his brothers and sister sure as heck wouldn’t permit it. They suspected cash-strapped Boyd, threatened with his ranch’s foreclosure, sought their mother’s money and—of course—those water access rights. Fortunately, Ma came to her senses after the Christmas fiasco and stopped taking calls from Boyd. Still, she swapped too many looks with him at church for his comfort. A plan to rid themselves of Boyd for good was in the works.

  For now, he’d content himself with Maverick.

  He eyed his shot choices again, evaluating the easier target. He hated losing and avoided it at all costs.

  “Heard Amberley dumped him stone cold,” Lane guffawed.

  The eight ball jerked forward and smacked into the lone solid ball left on the table. Loud laughter followed on the heels of a brief stunned silence when it sunk into a pocket.

  Maverick Loveland clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, dude. Though if you wanted to give me fifty bucks, you could have just handed it over. Saved me some time.” He plucked the cash off the table and ambled away, as sarcastic and conceited as every other rotten Loveland.

  Jared swore under his breath, stung.

  “Sorry, Jared!” Lane jittered around him, shoving his hands in his pockets, then yanking them out again. “That’s on me. If I hadn’t distracted you, you would have won it for sure.”

  The rest of the crew nodded quickly, and Jared relaxed a tad. Lane was right. He hadn’t lost. He’d been sidetracked by thoughts of Amberley.

  Why was she avoiding him these past few weeks?

  He fitted his stick back in the holder. “Loveland got lucky.”

  “Yeah, he did,” Red vowed. He lifted the mug Roseanne offered him and sipped.

  “Exactly,” murmured another friend.

  “Heck, yeah,” said a third.

  The tight group, former high school football teammates who’d won the state division championships together, shared plenty of glory days. He’d missed them when the NFL drafted him out of college. After last year’s injury, an ACL tear that sidelined him from his starting Broncos position, they’d rallied around him, supportive of their hometown hero.

  Life was simpler in Carbondale, where he wasn’t some nobody with nothing much to offer. What good was being in the middle of the pack? When his agent called recently with the Broncos’ offer: a one-year contract, at a lower salary—basically a benchwarmer position—he’d turned it down.

  He’d rather be here, where people knew him, appreciated him, where he could fulfill his vow to his dying father.

  “Later.” With a wave, he headed outside, hopped on his motorcycle, donned his helmet and roared out onto the two-lane route that cut through Mount Sopris’s eastern side. He let out the throttle and ripped through the dark night. Around the edges of his light beams, a dense forest crowded each side of the road. Each breath dragged in the spring-fresh scents of fresh earth, pine and growing things mixed with gasoline fuel. Waves of heat rippled up from the engine, and the wind rushed past.

  Life was lived for moments like this, he thought, effortlessly guiding his Breakout around a fallen branch from this morning’s storm. Astride his Harley, listening to the rumble from his straight pipes, seated in his low-slung seat, he felt in control of the elements regardless of their severity because only the ride mattered. Sure, not returning to professional football bugged him, but he’d made that call, not the team. An important distinction. One that preserved his status as a winner. Not a failure.

  He slowed at a flashing red, then stopped, peered side to side, and peeled off the line with a deep burrrrrooomboomboomboom. At the top of a steep incline, his Breakout went slightly airborne, and for a quick second he imagined himself flying. Nothing above or below him. Just moving through space, wind, and its feeling of force on his face and body.

  Dad would have enjoyed this ride, he thought, glancing up at the full moon crowning over a distant peak. Growing up, his father called Jared a star. He’d attended every football game, cheered the loudest and told Jared nothing made him happier than seeing Jared win, especially during his final months of life when he’d battled liver cancer.

  Jared’s wins on the football field distracted his family and gave them moments to cheer in a dark time. His pa insisted Jared was the glue that held the family together. Before passing away, his father told Jared his siblings would need someone to look up to after he’d gone. He made Jared promise to be that hero.

  Since things came easily to Jared, he’d had no trouble fulfilling his pledge until his injury. When he’d tried, and failed, to make a full comeback, however, he realized he’d never fulfill his designated role as family hero if he remained a bench warmer. He opted, instead, to return home. At least here he remained a small-town hero, his reputation intact. Much better than enduring seasons as a second-stringer with little chance of making it back under the big lights.

  Or worse, getting cut.

  Still. Returning to the ranch hadn’t fulfilled him either, no matter how much the community treated him like the “big man” in their small town. A champion. Maybe because such treatment left him feeling like a fraud. He needed something to take his mind off wondering what he’d do with his life now that he couldn’t play ball. He sped faster. Amberley was just the distraction he needed.

  A few minutes later, he pulled up beside Amberley’s cabin, cut the engine and lowered the kickstand. Something immediately seemed off about the place. Light streamed from every window, and the front door hung open.

  “Hello?” he called, swinging his leg over the bike seat. His boots clattered on the porch steps. “Amberley?”

  He swept off his hat, ducked inside the cabin and peeked at the kitchen. No signs of cooking. No evidence of anyone anywhere. Huh.

  Striding across the small space, he stopped at the start of a short hall that led to the back bedrooms. “Amberley?” He listened. Nothing.

  “Charlotte?”

  Concern brewed along with his confusion. He’d spied Charlotte’s white pickup outside. They were here. Just not in the house.

  He paced back outside and tramped down the stairs, his heart picking up speed when he spotted Charlotte walking his way, her hands cupped around her mouth.

  “Amberley!” she called.

  He caught up to her and his breath whistled fast, pulse thrumming. “Something wrong? Where’s Amberley?”

  “I don’t know!” Moonlight reflected on her damp cheeks. “She ran off when we got back from the doctors. I tried following but I twisted my ankle. Now there’s no sign of her.”

  He peered at the shed where Amberley stored her bike.<
br />
  “She go for a ride?”

  “No. She can’t because—” Charlotte stopped and clamped a hand over her mouth. So many expressions collided on her face, and he couldn’t read any of them. She didn’t seem to breathe.

  Neither did he. Worry punched him in the gut. Hard.

  “Because why? Charlotte, what’s going on? I don’t see...”

  “She can’t either.”

  “What?”

  “She’s going blind. We just learned about it today and—”

  “Blind,” he cut in, repeating a word that suddenly made no sense. Not when it came to Amberley.

  A rising wind lifted the hem of Charlotte’s long skirt and ruffled her sleeves. She twisted at the waist, eyes darting every which way.

  “It’s a genetic disorder that starts with blurring of her central vision. She’s been having trouble with her eyes for a while but she didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t want to worry us.”

  A short burst of air escaped him. “That’s Amberley.” As tough as they came and not one for sympathy. He’d never met a stronger woman. Or a more stubborn one. He had to get to her. Darn it. She needed him. Whatever the issue, they’d work it out together like they always did.

  “She was upset when she found out I’d invited you to dinner.” Charlotte’s voice kept taking on air, getting higher and higher, thinner and thinner. “Jared, what if she’s hurt? Trapped out there?”

  A long low howl rose in the dark night, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose. Wolves. And they weren’t the only animals a person had to worry about in the Rocky Mountain wilderness.

  He slammed his hat back on, mind racing, thinking as Amberley would. He knew her as well as he knew himself. Maybe even better. Where would she go?

  The answer smacked him full in the face.

  Of course.

  Dirt sprayed from beneath his boots as he sprinted down a familiar trail.

  “I’ll find her, Charlotte!” he called over his shoulder. “I’ll bring her home safe and sound. Promise.”

  Chapter Three

  AMBERLEY STUMBLED ALONG a rutted path, her gasps of breath harsh in her ears. Her boots sunk into puddles forming atop the hard-baked soil. Soaked, her plaid shirt clung to her like a frigid second skin. It’d begun drizzling only ten minutes ago. Then, in that unpredictable way of Rocky Mountain weather, the sky turned on the world with what appeared to be crack-white flashes of lightning. Thunderous booms shook the electric air and thick sheets of rain pelted the earth, shaking her from the inside out.