All-American Cowboy

by Dylann Crush

  Her gaze danced around the room, not staying in one spot for more than a second. “Oh, yeah… I know.”

  The awkward silence that bubbled up between them made him want to laugh. Made him want to hightail it to the safety of his rental SUV. Made him want to do something stupid, like yank the hot-pink T-shirt over her head and finish what they’d started a few days before.

  He stood. “So I’ll see you tomorrow. What time do you want me to meet you?”

  She stepped around him to open the office door. “It’s easier if we pick you up on the way out of town. Say eleven?”

  He nodded. “See you then.”

  The office door clicked shut behind him, and he wanted to pat himself on the back for his self-restraint. Another part of him wanted to barge back in and take her right there on the desk. Labor Day weekend suddenly felt very far away. But at least he’d see her again tomorrow. His gut clenched, a tightness radiating out from his core.

  Floating on a river probably meant swimsuits. That created a couple of problems. First of all, he’d have to see Charlie half-naked all day. Based on what he’d seen of her so far, that would do nothing to help him maintain his self-control. Second, he didn’t have a swimsuit with him. He’d either have to cut off a pair of his new jeans or find somewhere to buy a halfway decent swimsuit before eleven in the morning.

  He ran a hand down the leg of his jeans. Damn, he’d just been getting used to them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charlie hopped out of the back seat of Presley’s Jeep and bounced up the sidewalk to Holiday’s only bed-and-breakfast. She didn’t bother to knock on the front door. Instead, she walked around to the back and let herself in through the mudroom. Darby’s parents had only opened the place about ten years ago, but she’d still spent so much time there that it felt like a second home.

  “Good morning, sunshine.” Darby’s dad sat at the small kitchen table, cup of coffee in one hand, the thin Sunday paper in the other.

  Charlie hugged him from behind. “Morning, Mr. Knotts.” Even though she’d known the Knotts family since birth, she still felt funny calling Darby’s parents by their given names. They’d stopped urging her to.

  “I hear you’re taking our guest tubing today?” He folded the paper in half and set it down next to his mug.

  She plucked a piece of bacon off the platter in the center of the table. “That’s right. Thought it would be nice to give him a taste of the local scene.”

  “He seems like a nice guy, kiddo. How are you holding up with all the changes?” He tilted his head, like he was trying to get a read on her. Darby’s parents had been a huge source of support when Charlie went through what she liked to think of as her “black period.” Mr. Knotts had the sometimes-annoying gift of being able to tune in to peoples’ moods.

  “So far so good. It’s not like I have much of a choice, is it?”

  “Maybe it’ll be good for you.”

  “Maybe what will be good for her?” Mrs. Knotts entered the kitchen through a swinging wood door that separated the heart of their home from the dining room. She held a carafe of coffee in one hand and a basket of homemade cinnamon-streusel muffins in the other. “You want some coffee, Charlie? I made a whole pot, and Beck won’t drink it. Had some fancy-schmancy coffee maker sent in.”

  Mr. Knotts held up his cup, signaling a request for more coffee. “I was about to tell Charlie it might be good for her that someone else is coming in to take over the Rose. Maybe she’ll take the opportunity to look for a job up in Austin or even Dallas.”

  Charlie’s hand froze, inches away from grabbing one of the still-warm muffins from the basket.

  “You’re not suggesting she move away?” Darby’s mom stopped refilling his coffee and set the basket down on the table. “Holiday wouldn’t be the same without our Charlie.”

  “And Charlie wouldn’t be the same without Holiday.” Mr. Knotts pushed his glasses back up on his nose. “It might be just what she needs to get a fresh start though. Don’t you think you’ve been hiding around here long enough?”

  Darby’s parents turned their gazes on her. She was about to speak, to defend herself against the accusation that she’d been avoiding living her life. Mrs. Knotts raised her eyebrows in encouragement. Mr. Knotts folded his hands together and set them on the table in front of him. The grandfather clock in the formal living room played through its hourly routine and began to chime.

  “Gosh, look at that. Eleven o’clock right on the nose. Presley’s in the Jeep out front. Do you mind if I grab Beck and we head out?”

  Mr. Knotts shook his head and picked up his paper. Darby’s mom set the basket on the table, then, one hand still wrapped around the carafe of coffee, slipped her other arm behind Charlie. “He said he needed to run upstairs and grab his things. If you want to wait for him in the front room, you can.”

  Charlie pressed a kiss to her other mama’s cheek and pushed through the doorway into the dining room, where Beck’s dirty breakfast dishes sat alone on the long dining room table. He must have been the only guest. The Bluebonnet Bed & Breakfast usually did a brisk business, especially on the weekends. Maybe Beck had scared the rest of the guests off. Still, it would be pretty lonely to eat breakfast alone every morning.

  She almost felt sorry for him. But then he clambered down the steps, a day pack slung over one shoulder, a pair of cutoff jeans clinging to his hips.

  “Hey, have you been waiting long?”

  “Nope.” Just long enough to regret ever asking you to come along. From the moment the invitation had escaped through her lips, she’d wished she could have taken it back. It’s not that she hated Beck or didn’t want him around. She just had to hold herself in constant check around him, and it would have been nice to take a day off and relax around her family and friends. “Ready?”

  He walked ahead of her and held the front door open in response. She slid her sunglasses back in place to fend off the blazing light of day. Knowing she’d be bobbing up and down the river all day, she hadn’t bothered to shower or put on makeup. She’d been doing good to roll out of bed and get her hair up in an elastic. Beck followed her out to the Jeep, where Presley and his latest girl of the month sat smacking lips across the stick shift.

  Charlie grabbed on to the rollover bar and climbed into the back seat, knocking her brother’s hat off in the process. “Cut it out, Pres. Save it for the river.”

  Presley wiped a thumb over his bottom lip, smearing Shana’s cotton-candy-pink lip gloss onto his hand. He must have noticed his pink fingers because he wiped them off on his muscle tank before sticking his hand out to Beck. “Hey, bro. Glad you could make it.”

  Beck settled in next to Charlie, wedging his body into the tiny back seat. His hip pressed so hard against hers she wouldn’t have been able to slip even a piece of paper between them. “Thanks for inviting me.” Then he turned to Shana, who studied her mouth in the reflection of the rearview mirror. “Hey, I’m Beck.”

  Shana turned around in her seat and tossed a sparkly pink smile his way. “Shana. Presley told me all about how you’re the new owner of the Rose. Nice to meet you.”

  The gears groaned as Presley shifted into reverse. “Y’all ready to have some fun today?”

  Shana’s hand squeezed Presley’s leg, much closer in proximity to his crotch than his knee. Charlie chewed on her bottom lip, hoping she wouldn’t regret this. At least not more than she already did.

  As they cruised along the two-lane road into New Braunfels, the wind whipped through the Jeep, scattering her worries as wide as the green acres of grazing pasture that stretched as far as she could see. Between the roar of the wind and the blare of the country stations Presley kept flipping between, she and Beck weren’t forced to make conversation. Lost in her own thoughts, she studied his profile in short side-glances. A few days’ scruff made him look more casual and at home. Almost like a local. Exce
pt behind the designer shades, she figured he was probably counting the days until he could hightail it back north.

  Even though he had months to go, the idea of him leaving sent a weird, prickly chill through her. Of course he’d leave. Why in the world would he want to stay? A guy like him, a successful entrepreneur in what most people considered the most important city in the world… Why on earth would someone like Beck ever even consider spending the rest of his days in a quiet town like Holiday?

  Mr. Knotts’s comments from earlier played through her head. What would she do when it was time to move on from the Rose? Would she have the guts to pick up and leave everything she’d ever known—everything she’d ever loved—for a chance to stop living in the past and start building a future? The thought terrified her in every possible way. She was meant to be where she was. Things would work out. They had to.

  The Jeep came to a stop in the parking lot, and Presley hopped out and checked his phone. “Well, hell.”

  “What’s wrong, babe?” Shana leaned her head against his chest and studied the screen.

  “Tippy, Cash, and the rest of the crew are gonna be late.”

  “Wait, Cash is coming?” Charlie couldn’t believe it. He was the most serious of her brothers, and as a single dad, he rarely joined in on any fun and games.

  “Yeah, I thought he was kidding at first. But Kenzie went to Dallas with Mom and Dad for the weekend, so I figured he could use a distraction.”

  That made sense. Cash wouldn’t know what to do with himself without his five-year-old daughter around. “Well, how long are they going to be? Should we wait?”

  “Nah, Tippy says to go ahead. Looks like it’s the four of us this afternoon. Beck, give me a hand with the cooler?”

  Charlie’s throat constricted, and a wave of dizziness washed over her. The four of them? So the “date” was turning into a date date after all.

  “You okay, Charlie?” Shana stood in front of her, wrapping her long brown hair into an elastic on top of her head.

  “Yeah, um, fine.”

  “Will you lotion my back?” Shana whipped her tank over her head, revealing a skimpy string bikini top.

  Presley yelled from behind the Jeep. “Don’t you dare take my job, Char.”

  Shana smiled. “Never mind. Guess I don’t need help after all.” She took the sunscreen and walked toward Presley.

  Charlie groaned.

  “What’s wrong? You really want to apply sunscreen to someone, I’ll let you do me.” Beck offered her a tube of sunscreen.

  “Ha. No thanks.”

  “Have they been together long?” Beck asked.

  “Long for Presley. Which means probably about a month.” Spending the afternoon with Presley and Shana wasn’t what she’d had in mind when she’d invited Beck to hang out with a big group of their friends. Now it looked like it would be the two of them floating down the river while trying not to watch Presley and Shana hook up for the next three or four hours.

  “Y’all ready?” Presley hefted the cooler onto his shoulder.

  “You sure you don’t want to wait for the others?” Charlie asked. “I thought you told Shep and Brittany to come, too.”

  “I did. Shep has tickets to some concert in Austin, and Brittany’s out in Amarillo. I can call Dwight if you want.” His mouth quirked up, showing off the dimple in his cheek. Her mom always said Presley was a wolf in sheep’s clothes. He knew how Charlie felt about Dwight and never missed out on a chance to give her a hard time about it.

  “Okay, then, just us.” Presley and Shana and Beck. She could do this. It would be…fun. She needed a day off from her worry and work at that bar. No matter what, she vowed she’d enjoy herself. “I’ll get the tickets. Beck, can you and Shana grab the tubes?”

  Ten minutes later, Charlie’d shed her cover-up and stood poised on the last concrete step, ready to plop into the river. She held the tube by the handles and nestled her bootie in the center. Shana and Presley had already launched, and she waited for the group of college-age kids in front of her to get a move on and get in the water. As they joked and jostled each other around, a pang of envy pinched her gut. Is that what she would have been like if she’d stuck it out at UT and had the typical college experience? Instead, she’d come home for spring break her freshman year to bury her fiancé and had never gone back.

  “You okay?” Beck’s voice nudged her out of her often-visited past.

  “What? Oh yeah, I’m fine.”

  “You looked like you were somewhere else for a minute.”

  She gave him a smile, one she didn’t actually feel. It was the same smile she’d pasted on all those years ago when people kept asking her if she was all right. The kind that let the person asking feel good about themselves for making an effort but didn’t take away the ache in her chest or knit her broken heart back together.

  “We’re up.” She turned and attempted to ease into the water with a tiny bit of grace. Her foot slipped on a moss-covered rock, and she splashed into the river, the water dousing her in cool drops.

  Beck entered the river behind her and paddled to catch up. He lifted his leg and caught the edge of her tube with the heel of his foot. “Mind if we stick together?”

  Charlie’s gaze swept over the groups floating on the river. Presley and Shana were nowhere in sight. At least they’d left the cooler. It bobbed behind Beck in a small tube of its own. “Looks like we don’t have much of a choice. The rapids aren’t crazy, but you do need to pay attention if you want to stay in your tube. You ever done anything like this before?”

  “I’ve been white-water rafting in Colorado a couple times. Also took an amazing trip with some guys in college. We kayaked down the Futaleufú River in Chile.”

  Of course he had. Because that’s what guys like Beck were used to…bopping around the world on one adventure after another.

  “How about you?” He clasped his hands behind his head and leaned back in his inner tube. She ripped her gaze away from his seriously cut chest and tried distracting herself with conversation.

  “The Guadalupe is about as exciting as it gets for me. Although I haven’t been out here in a couple of years.”

  “So can I ask you something?”

  “If you hand me a beer.” Today seemed like at least a two-beer kind of day. Maybe more, depending on whether she and Beck ended up spending the whole day alone.

  He spun around in his tube so he could reach the cooler and passed her an ice-cold can, then took one for himself.

  “All right, what’s up?” She couldn’t wait to find out what he might be wondering about. More questions about the Rose? Why her brother was such a douche? How many days left on his sentence?

  “Who’s Jackson?”

  Her heart skittered to a stop as the noise of a Sunday afternoon on the river became muffled by the blood whooshing through her ears. Who’d told him about Jackson? Not that it was a secret. It just wasn’t something she usually brought up to strangers. But Beck wasn’t exactly a stranger. He was more of a… Dammit.

  Her heart squeezed into a knot and then banged into motion. What was Beck to her? An employer. An irritant that festered like a sliver she couldn’t work out from under her skin. An amazing kisser and the first man she’d felt any sort of attraction for since Jackson left her. Her cheeks warmed at the memory of their time in the truck.

  “Charlie?” He adjusted his foot on her tube, rotating her so their heads moved closer together. “You don’t have to answer. It’s just Dwight said something about you dating a guy named Jackson.”

  “No, it’s okay.” What did she have to lose by sharing her story with Beck? “Jackson is…” No, that wasn’t right. “Jackson was…my boyfriend.” Somehow the simple term boyfriend didn’t begin to do justice to what Jackson had been to her. Her past, her future, her life. “We dated forever—well, ever since my dad let me offici
ally date. He enlisted in the marines right out of high school. Got killed during his first tour of duty in Iraq.”

  “Oh shit. I’m sorry. I’m going to strangle Dwight next time I see him.”

  “Yeah, he likes to stir up trouble. Sully always said he was lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon’s rut.”

  “Well, I haven’t heard that one before, but based on what I know about him, I can see how someone might say that. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you talk about something painful.”

  She took in a deep breath of the stifling summer air. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.”

  Beck trailed a finger in the still water. At this point on the river, the water barely flowed, meaning they could sit here for hours if the current didn’t pick up. “Still, I’ve never lost anyone close to me like that. It must have been hard.”

  “Yeah. It was. My whole world turned inside out and upside down.” She could still remember walking around like she was in a bubble, insulated from everyone else. How could they all go on like everything was okay? Her classmates had still complained about the food in the dining hall; her family had still talked about whether to breed more quarter horses or take on more cattle. She’d wanted to scream, shake everyone until their heads popped off, and blot out the sun with the storm clouds that surrounded her heart.

  Instead, she’d had what the docs chalked up to a nervous breakdown and spent two weeks in Austin under medical supervision. Sully had visited her and offered her the job at the Rose during that time. She couldn’t imagine what good he thought she’d be able to do, drugged up and bogged down by so much emotional baggage. But he’d had faith in her, and bit by bit, her smile had returned.

  How could she tell Beck how sorry she was that he’d never had a chance to know his grandfather when Sully had been the one who saved her from herself?

  She readjusted her position in her tube so she could lay her head down and soak up the sun’s rays. A group of about twenty tubers clumped together floated nearby. The music from their speakers drifted across the water, and Charlie’s feet bobbed up and down in time to the beat. Beck looked lost in his own thoughts, which suited her just fine. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of floating on the water. Maybe they’d catch up to Presley, maybe they wouldn’t. She didn’t have anywhere else to be on a Sunday afternoon, and while the next couple of months stretched before her unknown, she’d give herself a chance to appreciate the here and now.