Untamed Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

That she wasn’t enough.

  That she didn’t fit.

  Her own parents felt that way. And if Bennett had really felt this way about her he wouldn’t have been so close to marrying Olivia.

  She wouldn’t have been a last resort like this.

  No, Bennett was lying to himself. Because he was a planner, and he saw the perfect end to his plan. And he didn’t mean to lie to her, she knew that. Because Bennett was a good man. But that was the problem. He was a good man who believed firmly in his plans.

  But plans weren’t enough. And neither was being a puzzle piece.

  Because what she knew was that she didn’t fit. Not really. He would try. And she believed that Bennett would try with everything.

  He wanted a wife. He was choosing a wounded bird.

  She didn’t want to be a wounded bird to him.

  “No,” she said again. “I’m not going to marry you.”

  “No?”

  “Yes!” she shouted. “No, I will not marry you, Bennett. I know it’s hard for you to believe that anyone would dare go up against you and your plans. But I am. I’m not going to marry you. I’m not going to help make your life easier. I did everything for you,” she all but screamed. “I became a veterinarian for you. I admitted what a pathetic idiot I am. I can’t... I can’t keep being this pathetic.”

  “Is being in love pathetic?”

  “I’m not in love with you. I’m like a stupid puppy that started following you around seventeen years ago and never found anyone else to follow around. That’s it.”

  “That’s it?” Bennett’s face was still, frozen like a mask. White with rage.

  “Yes. I’m a mess, Bennett. But at least I know I’m a mess. I know enough not to saddle you with me for the rest of your life.”

  “Did I say that I felt like I was going to be saddled with you?”

  “No,” she said. “But maybe I don’t want to be saddled with you either. With your guilt, and your duty. With this good guy stuff.”

  “You’re the one calling it that,” he said.

  “Because I’m honest. I’m realistic. About who you are and who I am.”

  “Who are you, Kaylee?” he asked. “Because I think I know the answer to that question, but you’re standing there saying all these things, and it makes me wonder if you have any idea who the hell you are.”

  “I’m a Band-Aid that has never healed anything. Ask my parents. I’m the sidekick. The helper.”

  “Have I ever made you into that? Have I?”

  “You don’t need me,” she said. “You have your dad. You have your brothers and Jamie. You have Dallas. You don’t need me.” She was just saying things now. Anything. Anything to push him away. To get some distance.

  “Don’t say that,” he said.

  “I’ll say it because it needs to be said. Because I’m not going to live in a fantasy world where I pretend that I’m somehow important when I’m really just a supporting character.”

  “That’s the fantasy,” he bit out. “This. This thing that you’ve built up in your head. I do need you, Kaylee. Not because there’s a lack of anything in my life except you. You’re right. I have plenty of people. Plenty of people surrounding me, plenty of people who love me, and I still want you. What does that tell you? About how important you are? You. Not a woman. Not a friend. Not a wife. You. You’re right. I have friends. I have family. There’s not a single thing in this world, a single empty role that I couldn’t fill without you. But no one and nothing else is you. And you’re what I need. That’s what I’ve come to figure out, Kaylee. That love is the most important thing. And that love is never going to play by the rules. That’s why all this time I made it nothing. That’s why all this time I didn’t let myself tell anyone I love them. But I’m done with it. And I’m done waiting until it’s safe. I love you. Even if you can’t let me do it right now. Even if you can’t love me.”

  Even if she couldn’t love him? She loved him with everything that she was, and that was the damned problem. All she wanted to do was brush aside her fears and run into his arms, but she couldn’t do it. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know how to be anything but this. She didn’t know how to do anything but hide.

  All of her life she had let herself have just the safest part of caring for Bennett. Because she didn’t deserve the rest of him. She just didn’t.

  He deserved... He deserved a woman who wasn’t quite so broken. He didn’t need a fixer-upper. And that was what she was.

  “No,” she said. “No, Bennett. Not us. Not like that. You can find somebody else. You can—”

  Bennett cut her off. “I can’t. I need you. I won’t find someone else. This isn’t about me just having a wife. I don’t want one or need one in that sense. I need you.”

  “For what? Why me?”

  He took a step back, looking stricken. He didn’t speak for a long while. “Because I love you.”

  “What does it mean? Why me and not someone else?”

  He didn’t say anything. “That’s what I thought,” she said.

  “Kaylee,” he said, reaching out and wrapping his arms around her. She wanted to let him hold her. She wanted to sink into him. Into his warmth. But she couldn’t let herself. Already these past weeks had been like a dream, they had been everything that she had never thought she could have. And it... She couldn’t put herself through more. She couldn’t risk the eventual fallout of it.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Kaylee,” he said, tightening his hold on her.

  “I’m going to go,” she said, making her voice louder. “I don’t think you’re going to stop me.”

  She started to head out the door as soon as he released his hold on her, but it was his voice that stopped her this time. Harder, shot through with iron. “I never took you for a coward, Kaylee Capshaw.”

  She turned around to face him. “I’m not a coward.”

  “You’re scared. You’re running scared. Don’t think I don’t know it. All this time I thought you were the strongest woman I knew. I thought you were one of the strongest people I knew. But you’re afraid. Just like everyone else.”

  “Big talk from a man who was no different only a few weeks ago. So here’s what I think, Bennett. Either you’ve undergone a pretty miraculous transformation in a short amount of time or you’re just doing what you do. Coming up with a plan. I don’t think you’re braver than I am, Bennett Dodge. I just think you’ve come up with more creative ways to mask your fear.”

  “You’re an expert on that, huh?”

  “You know what? Maybe not. But you know what I am an expert on? You. And it hasn’t escaped my notice that you want all of this from me the minute you want it. Because whatever you say, you think I’m your sidekick. Even if you can’t admit that.”

  Then she turned and walked away from him completely, heading out the door of the veterinary clinic. She didn’t stop to say anything to Laura. She got into her truck and headed to her house, her fingers numb, her lips numb. And only when she was inside her own house did she let herself cry.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  BY THE TIME Bennett got to Wyatt’s house that night his face was permanently set in stone. His entire body felt like stone. Like lead. Heavy. Except, it all still hurt. It hurt like a mother.

  He had risked himself with Dallas and it had paid off. And as a result he had gotten cocky. He had thought that he might be able to risk himself with Kaylee too. Instead, he had been rejected spectacularly.

  But he didn’t believe it. He just didn’t. That she didn’t want him. That she didn’t want to be with him. It was that confidence, though, that made him second-guess his own motives. Made him wonder if he was doing just what she had accused him of. Trying to make his life easier. Trying to fill a space and fit a plan altogether.

  Dallas met him at the porch, and when he
got a look at Bennett’s face, his own expression turned to one of concern.

  “Is Lucy okay?”

  “Lucy’s fine,” Bennett said. He had been by the house to check on her before he had come to get Dallas.

  “Then why do you look like somebody’s dead?”

  “Nobody’s dead. Just...stuff.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Kaylee stuff,” Bennett said honestly. Because he had promised the damn kid honesty, which was just obnoxious now.

  Dallas frowned and sat on the porch swing. Bennett joined him. “What did you do?” Dallas asked.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Bennett said, feeling defensive. “I told her I loved her.”

  “Well, she loves you, so you must have messed it up somehow.”

  “I swear I didn’t. I asked her to marry me.”

  “Then what’s wrong?”

  “I don’t think she trusts me. I don’t think she trusts anyone.”

  Dallas frowned. “Fair enough. You know, because I don’t really either.”

  “You do now,” Bennett said.

  “A little.”

  “Well, then if you can trust me after a few weeks she should trust me after seventeen years.”

  Dallas shrugged. “If you could choose to not be fucked up, then you would just choose to not be fucked up.”

  Bennett snorted. Sage words of wisdom from the teenager. “Fair enough.”

  “I’m going to go say goodbye to Jamie,” Dallas said, standing up and walking away from the porch. Then Bennett’s father came out from inside the house.

  “Good kid,” Quinn said, taking a seat next to Bennett on the porch swing, watching Dallas’s retreating form.

  “All things considered,” Bennett said, “he is.”

  Quinn turned to face Bennett. “Something on your mind, son?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because you always come out here to sit when you are looking particularly serious. And you’re looking particularly serious now, sitting here. So I wondered.”

  “I asked Kaylee to marry me. She told me no.”

  “Really?” Quinn asked, rocking back in the seat. “She told you no, huh? Did you have a ring?”

  “Not yet. But I didn’t have time to get one.”

  “Rookie mistake, Bennett. Always have a ring. And get yourself down on one knee.” He stared at him hard. “You didn’t get down on one knee either, did you? I’ve asked three different women to marry me, Bennett. And without exception I’ve given them that.”

  “Three?” The only women that Bennett knew about were his mother and Freda.

  Quinn shrugged. “Ancient history. But that’s where you went wrong.”

  Bennett shook his head. He wished it were that simple. “Somehow, I don’t think it was the lack of ring that made Kaylee say no.”

  “Why did she, then?”

  “She doesn’t believe that I love her. Seventeen years I’ve been her friend, and I’ve never lied to her. She doesn’t believe that I love her.” Without his father pressing for more, Bennett continued. “She thinks that I’m after convenience. That I’m looking to fill a hole in my life. That because of how things were with Olivia I was just... Well, that I was just looking for a replacement fiancée.”

  His dad looked at him hard. “And you aren’t?”

  “I sure as hell am not. If I was going to choose myself a convenient wife it would not be Kaylee Capshaw. She’s inconvenient. She makes me feel things. She’s a pain in my ass.”

  “Has she seen that? Have you done anything that was just for her? Because it seems to me that if your relationship with her changed around Dallas coming into your life that a woman as skittish as her is going to think the worst.”

  “But I told her that I loved her, beyond that... I don’t know what I can do.”

  “She was a friend when you needed it. She’s been around helping you with Dallas. She’s been your work partner. She’s been all that for you. On your schedule. And now you’re proposing, and she didn’t fall in line right away, and that surprises you?”

  Bennett felt like he’d been smacked in the face with a board. “I...I never meant it like that. I just...”

  “Of course you didn’t. But it doesn’t change the fact that she’s been there for you endlessly. What have you given her?”

  He knew what she’d told him about their friendship. About why it mattered to her. How knowing him had helped her to believe in herself. But that...didn’t seem like enough. Not next to that towering list his dad had presented him with of what Kaylee had been for him.

  “I’m an idiot,” he said. “I...”

  She had been everything for him. His friend. His support. His business partner. His lover.

  Then suddenly he’d decided he wanted it different and she was right: it hadn’t occurred to him that she wouldn’t fall in with his plan. Because she always did. Because he expected it.

  “You can’t control love, Bennett. Or how people react to it. When you don’t feel particularly lovable, it doesn’t always feel like a gift. Just a burden. Something else for her to do.”

  That wasn’t what he wanted. Not at all. He didn’t want to take from her. He wanted to give. He didn’t want her because of what she could give him. He wanted...he wanted to hold her. Shelter her. Shield her.

  “So what do I do?” he asked. “Until she’s ready. What do I do if she never is?”

  “Love her anyway. If you really love her, and you’re not looking to fill a vacancy, you wait. Showing her is the only thing that’s going to show her. Forget about what you need. Be what she needs.”

  “I’ve loved her for seventeen years. As my friend. And now I love her as everything. I’m not going to stop just because she told me to go away.”

  “Then take the time to show that. Live it.”

  And suddenly, Bennett had an idea. But it was going to take some doing. If Kaylee was afraid that she was just a piece being slotted into his life, then he was going to have to do something just for her. Away from life. Away from their regular roles. From the things she thought of as her filling convenient spaces.

  “I might need you to watch Dallas for a few days.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  KAYLEE WAS DEEPLY entrenched in her misery by the time her doorbell rang that night. She was completely shocked that somebody would come see her. She had been too much of a troll to Bennett earlier for him to come. Except...he kind of hoped he had. That he had come after her.

  Pitiful. She didn’t know what she wanted. She wanted...

  Well, she wanted to be somebody else.

  Somebody who wasn’t such a coward. That was the bottom line. Bennett was right about her. She was running scared. Because she just didn’t know how to make that decision to trust. To let go of all these things that had hurt her so badly and embrace what she wanted most.

  She had spent her whole life on the edge of those dreams. Grabbing hold of them was just... It was too hard.

  She scraped herself off the couch and padded across the hardwood floor to the front door. She was wearing her pajamas, but oh well. She looked out the little window at the top of the door, shocked to see Dallas standing there, looking edgy.

  She jerked the door open. “Dallas? What are you doing here?”

  “I drove my dad’s truck. And if he finds out he might ground me for the rest of my life.”

  She was torn between surprise that he was here, the desire to scold him and a strange warmth when he referred to Bennett as his dad. “You know how to drive?”

  “Yeah. I mean, it’s not legal for me to do it, but I do know how.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I’m here to talk to you.” Dallas walked past her into her house without waiting for her to invite him in. “Why did you tell him no?”


  “Oh. He told you about that?”

  “It was obvious since he was looking depressed all over the place today. You love him. I don’t understand.”

  “Yeah,” Kaylee shot back. “You love him too. But I bet you haven’t told him that you do. And you act like a prickly cat with one foot halfway out the door all the time.”

  “Yeah,” Dallas said. “So?”

  “So, why do you expect me to be any different?” This was ridiculous. She could hear herself being ridiculous and she couldn’t stop it.

  “First of all,” Dallas said. “I’m fifteen. I have a right to my immature bullshit. You’re old. You don’t.”

  Kaylee sniffed and gripped the front of her bathrobe. “I am not old.”

  “You’re older than me. So that’s just number one. Second of all...I’m staying. I am. I’m going to take this. Because I want it. And I don’t see why in hell you shouldn’t take it.”

  “He doesn’t really want me. I’m just...here.”

  “Well, the same could be said for me. I’m the son he got. He didn’t choose me. There’s no reason—genetic or legal—that he’s stuck with you.”

  “Convenience.”

  “I don’t think he’s upset over inconvenience right now,” Dallas said. “He’s really sad.”

  “Well. It’s just that I don’t... I don’t... I don’t deserve it,” she finished, her voice flat.

  “What? And I deserve it? I deserve to have the sainted Bennett Dodge rearrange his whole life for me? I have a criminal record. I got myself thrown out of more foster homes than I can count. He still seems perfectly happy to have me around. If deserving it is part of the equation then I’m screwed.”

  “It’s different,” she said. “You’re his son.”

  “Yeah, I’m my mother’s son too. But it didn’t seem to matter much for most of my life.”

  “It’s just different for you, Dallas. It’s different with a parent. A good parent. This is...romance stuff. And there’s a reason it’s never worked out in my life. Trust me.”

  He continued on as if she hadn’t spoken. “You were the only person here that really understood me, Kaylee. And you were the easiest person for me to start to care about. But you gave me a hell of a lot of advice that you don’t seem to want to take yourself. Just let him love you. Just love him back. Life is hard enough without making it harder, right?”