Her Stubborn Cowboy

by Patricia Johns

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” Andy went on. “And just hear me out. I can’t leave my brother in the lurch. I’ve been trying to talk to him about selling, and he won’t do it. He’s stubborn—you know that. He wants this land, and he won’t be happy otherwise.”

  “You want me to sell my ranch to him,” she concluded, and she realized with a sick feeling that this was it... This was the proposal she’d been waiting for the past couple of weeks. It was coming—she’d felt it in her bones—but she hadn’t expected it to come from Andy. She raised her eyes to meet Andy’s steady gaze.

  “So who is this coming from?” she asked. “You or Chet?”

  “I’m saying it, but you know what he wants deep down,” Andy replied with a bitter smile. “What are brothers for?”

  She stood in silence, his words sinking in. Maybe it was more complicated for Chet, given his feelings for her, but Andy was right. Chet might not want to say it, but it was the obvious solution staring them all in the face.

  “I haven’t thought it through all the way,” she admitted.

  “Fair enough,” he said, nodding. “But I’m running out of time here. I need to sign, or the deal is off the table. I’d hate to miss out on it. Chet won’t ask you, but I will. Would you at least consider selling to my brother?”

  “The Grangers looking out for each other,” she said sourly. Nothing had changed. She had fallen for one of them, and the other was rising up in defense of him. They were a family, one that made her feel so jealous of their loyalty she wanted to cry. That kind of loyalty was what she’d been aching for the past ten years, and here it was—always just out of reach.

  “We always do.” There was an apology in his tone, as if he sensed the unfairness of it all. “Mack, I’m sorry. I can’t put it off any longer. I want to buy the car dealership I’m currently managing, and I want to move forward. The money from the developers is the only way to do it.” He paused and caught her gaze. “And if you’re in Billings, too—if you decide that Hope isn’t for you—I’d like to take you out to dinner.”

  “Dinner.” She looked away.

  “I told Chet how I felt about you,” Andy said quietly. “You’re my biggest regret. You’re the one who got away. I know this is awkward and a little crass—”

  He smiled hesitantly and she gulped in a breath.

  “Andy, would you tell me what happened that night at the fair?” she asked.

  Andy hooked a thumb through a belt loop. “I wish you’d just let that go.”

  “I can’t. I need to know.”

  He nodded slowly, then shrugged. “I just hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “Try me.”

  There was silence for a few beats, and then Andy took a deep breath and met her gaze. His eyes were sad, and she could tell this was difficult for him.

  “Okay, well...I was cheating on you.” He cleared his throat. “I was young and stupid, and I don’t even know why I did it. I’ve regretted it for ten years. I never did it again. I didn’t want to be that guy, but there it is. I’m sorry.”

  Somehow she wasn’t surprised. She’d suspected it deep down, but having him confirm her suspicions still stung. So he’d been cheating on her while she’d been trying to find some sort of explanation that let him off the hook. Her mother had done the same thing for her father for years. It was an easy pattern to fall into, apparently.

  Trust her gut—hadn’t that been Chet’s advice?

  “Who was the girl?”

  “She worked at the corner store. Her name was Tiffany. If it makes you feel any better, we only lasted a couple of months.”

  Tiffany from the corner store. Mackenzie shook her head. It was so ordinary. Was it that easy for men to betray the women who trusted them? Her father, now Andy... Granny had been right to keep this from her.

  “I’m really sorry, Mack,” he said. “You have to know that—”

  “And Chet?” she interrupted. “You told me that he’s the one who told you to break up with me. Is that really what happened?”

  “He told me to choose,” Andy admitted. “He said that I couldn’t string you along, and that I needed to choose one of you. I knew he was right—I was already really guilty about it. I’m the moron who chose the wrong girl.”

  Did this change her feelings toward Andy? Not really, she realized. It helped to have an explanation, but it didn’t leave her angry and betrayed the way she’d feared it might.

  They stood in silence for a moment, and then he said, “I’m serious about that dinner, Mack. I know you’ve been getting closer to Chet lately, but I had to tell you how I felt. We could be good together, you and I.”

  “You aren’t the same dumb kid that you were, Andy,” she said softly. “And neither am I.”

  “So you forgive me?” he asked.

  “I do.”

  And that was the truth. Forgiving him was easier than she’d imagined it would be. Enough time had passed. Enough had changed. This space between the tents was feeling stuffy now, and she was anxious to get out, get away. She wanted to get back to the ranch, go curl up on her grandmother’s couch with one of her hand-stitched quilts and think. She had some choices to make, and she didn’t exactly trust her mangled heart to make them.

  “But I’ve got to go, Andy...” As she turned, she collided with someone tall and muscular. She looked up, startled. “Chet!”

  Chapter Eleven

  Chet rubbed the back of his neck with one work-roughened hand as he scanned the crowd. The truck had been fine—the lights turned off, as he remembered—and he knew this wasn’t a coincidental mistake. It was the same old competition between him and Andy, and while they were both grown men, there was a spark of adolescence that never quite left a man, no matter how old he got.

  Andy was making his move. It wasn’t the idea of Andy asking her out that made his ire rise; it was the fact that he’d play some manipulative trick in order to do it. Andy wanted what he wanted, no matter who got hurt. He wanted to sell his land. He wanted another chance with Mack—

  Okay, the thought of Andy and Mack together again did tick him off. But if being with Andy truly, deeply made her happy, he’d be able to get over it. Eventually. But he didn’t think it would. Andy wasn’t the guy for her, and Chet was tired of lurking in the background.

  He spotted Mackenzie from behind. She stood in the space next to a ringtoss game and another tent. He knew her shape, the way her hair shone in the midway lights, the same way it had ten years before when he’d come sauntering through a fair in search of her—feeling more than he had any right to. Why couldn’t that part have changed?

  Her form was slim, and she glanced back, not far enough around to see him, and he found himself picking up his pace. He’d take her aside and talk to her—tell her all of it. It was high time, anyway.

  Mackenzie took a step back just as Chet came up behind her, and she looked up at Chet in surprise as she collided with his chest.

  “Chet!”

  It was then that he saw his brother, and by the look on his face, they both knew what had happened here. He put his hands on Mack’s shoulders and she moved aside easily enough.

  “So you send me off to check on the truck to get some time alone with Mack?” he demanded.

  Andy didn’t answer, but a flush rising in his neck was confirmation enough.

  “We aren’t teenagers anymore, Andy!” he barked. “We’re not the Granger boys. We’re grown men.”

  “You were standing guard,” Andy snapped back. “I did what I had to do to have a conversation without you there.”

  Doing what he had to do. That wasn’t even a fair assessment. Chet had done what he had to do. He’d run the ranch, stayed behind when Andy went off to have fun and been the responsible brother when their father died. He’d taken care of everything, including Andy, only to have his brother waltz back into the picture and announce that he was tearing the ranch in half. Chet had had enough!

  “Why did you even come back to the ranch?�
�� Chet demanded.

  “We’re family,” Andy snapped. “Remember that?”

  “A lot that seems to mean to you.” Chet raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve tried helping you—you won’t take it. So what are you doing here?”

  “Who asked you for help?” Andy challenged.

  Chet blinked. “Isn’t that what we do? You mess up, I clean up?”

  “You don’t see it, do you?” A look of disgust twisted his lips. “But then, you never did. All you care about is that bloody ranch.”

  “And why shouldn’t I?” Chet barked. “It means something!”

  “More than a brother does?”

  Since when did it come down to a choice between his brother and his land? Andy was the one who’d walked away after their massive fight. Andy was the one who’d blocked his phone number so that he couldn’t reach him. Andy was the one who’d decided that his part of the ranch wasn’t enough. Chet hadn’t made this about the land; Andy had.

  “What, so if I cared about you, I’d sell the ranch my father left me?” Chet demanded.

  “Left to you. That’s what it amounts to. That entire cursed ranch was supposed to be yours. The fact that I got some pasture was just a formality.” Andy spat on the ground. “You and Dad were exactly the same. You always cared more about the mud under your boots than you did about people. Mom wasn’t happy with him. Did you even notice that?”

  “She was happy.” Chet grit his teeth. What would Andy have known about happy marriages? He was thirteen when their mother died, but his words brought up a wriggle of worry.

  “How would you even know?” Andy said. “You were too busy with Dad to ever notice anything she felt. She was miserable. And that complete inability to see when a woman is unhappy is why you’ve been alone all these years, you self-righteous prig!”

  Something inside Chet snapped at those words. It wasn’t only the mention of his mother; it was the jab at his single status, too. Chet wasn’t alone because he didn’t have options—he was alone because the one girl who made his heart race had been off-limits. She still was. He loved this land, and his brother would tear it away from him out of sheer spite. Why he hadn’t just done it already, Chet had no idea, but he was tired of waiting, tired of begging, tired of hoping that Andy would change his mind. If Andy was going to do it, he might as well get on with it, and Chet wasn’t going to rein himself in any longer.

  He didn’t even feel it as he raised his fist, and it was like watching it happen in slow motion as his knuckles connected with his brother’s face. Andy staggered backward and came back with a right hook that left Chet’s head ringing.

  The fight was on. Chet hadn’t gone against his brother since their teenage years, and it felt strange to be fighting him at this point of their lives. Andy hadn’t spent the past decade doing manual labor, and it showed in his slower responses, but his younger brother still managed to get some solid hits in. Chet took three consecutive blows to the face before he let out a grunt of rage and slammed his brother back, launching Andy onto the ground, and he followed him down, landing on top of him, where he could slap away Andy’s punches the way he had when they were kids.

  “Stop it!” Mackenzie shouted. “Get off—”

  Her words were swallowed up as Chet flipped his brother over and slammed his face into the ground. He’d used this move when he was a fourteen-year-old and his brother was twelve—it felt oddly satisfying to use it again. He held him still with a knee in his back.

  “You think Mom was miserable?” he panted. “She wasn’t miserable—she was sick! I knew about her cancer a full six months before anyone told you. That wasn’t an unhappy marriage—that was grief, you little twit!”

  “What is wrong with you?” Mackenzie’s voice pierced his furious focus. He looked up to find her standing over there, her lips quivering with unspoken words. Her blue eyes snapped like crackling ice, and he found himself noticing wryly that he’d never seen her quite this beautiful.

  “Get off me!” Andy growled from his position on the ground, but Chet didn’t move.

  “Sorry, Mack.” Chet cast her an apologetic look. He hadn’t meant to do this in front of her—he hadn’t actually meant to do it at all, and as his blood began to slow, he knew that having her see him like this made it worse. This wasn’t him—this wasn’t the man he was day in and day out. This certainly wasn’t the side of him he wanted her to remember when she thought of him.

  “Let him up, Chet!”

  “Not until I’m sure he’s done,” Chet replied, dabbing at his lip with the back of his sleeve. It came away bloody.

  “I’m done, I’m done,” Andy said, squirming against Chet’s grip.

  Chet released him, and Andy sat up, then rotated his shoulder, wincing. They both slowly rose to their feet. With the adrenaline seeping away, shame was taking its place. Chet wasn’t proud of having just thumped his brother. They were grown men, and this was no way to resolve their differences. He knew that.

  “So you all knew Mom was sick?” Andy said, his voice thick with emotion.

  “Dad didn’t want you to know,” Chet said. “You were close with Mom. He didn’t think you could handle it.”

  Andy shook his head and he eyed Chet with disdain.

  “You and Dad and the land,” Andy said, then spat some blood onto the ground. “Well, Dad’s gone and now it’s just you alone on some dirt. Not the same, is it? I said it before, and I’ll say it again. You’re alone for a reason. You put this stupid ranch ahead of everything that matters. You say family first, but you don’t mean that. The land is first, and family comes second.” He paused, then shook his head. “So stop trying to solve my problems and take a long look at your own.”

  His brother’s words sank in slowly, and he hated the truth behind them. How long was he going to be cautious and responsible, ranching the land that would never keep him warm at night? Land and legacy mattered, but what happened when there was no one left to share it with or pass it down to? When did holding on to this ranch stop being worth the cost?

  “Let’s go home,” Chet muttered. He tossed a handkerchief toward his brother, who let it drop on the ground. Andy used the back of his hand to wipe his bleeding nose instead.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Andy shoved past him. “I was an idiot to come in the first place.”

  Andy stepped out into the flow of people and the jangle of gaming music.

  “Andy!” Chet called, but his brother flatly ignored him and rounded the corner, heading back toward the concession, leaving Chet with Mackenzie, who didn’t look entirely pleased with him, either.

  “I’m sorry, Mack,” he said. “I shouldn’t have hit him. That was stupid.”

  “You better believe it was stupid!” Mackenzie looked as though her adrenaline was just starting to flow. “Look at you!”

  “How bad is it?” he asked ruefully.

  “Terrible. You’re a bloody mess. What makes men think that pounding on each other is going to solve anything?” She picked up the handkerchief from the ground and turned to face him. He reached to take the handkerchief back.

  “Stand still,” she commanded. Chet obliged, and she reached up and dabbed at his eyebrow, wincing in sympathy every time she touched him.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “You’re an idiot, and you’re not fine!” she shot back.

  Chet caught her wrist in his grip and looked her in the eye. “I’m fine, Mack,” he repeated. “I’m a big boy now.”

  Her expression softened, and as it did, tears misted in her eyes. She wasn’t used to seeing that, he realized, and he felt bad that he’d exposed her to it. He released her wrist, and she looked down. He couldn’t catch her eye again, and he wished that he could fix this with her somehow, show her that he wasn’t the violent lout he appeared to be at the moment.

  “We should get you back,” she said, pulling her hair away from her face.

  His jaw hurt and one of his teeth was loose—Chet had to admit
to that—and he nodded in grudging agreement. He couldn’t go around the fair looking like this, and he was pretty sure he was still bleeding from his lip.

  “All right,” he said on a sigh. “I’ll get you home.”

  “What about Andy?” she asked.

  “He’s got friends here. He’ll be fine,” Chet said with a shake of his head. “He’s not exactly a lost kitten.”

  “And for the record,” Mack said testily, “I’m getting you home.”

  Chet smiled, and they headed back out toward the concession area and the front gates. One mother pulled a small child away from him as they passed, and guilt wormed its way up his belly. He certainly didn’t want to freak out any kids, either.

  As his boots hit the ground, he knew that everything was different now. It was over—whatever careful balance he and Andy had been holding was officially over. Andy was going to do whatever he had been planning to do all along, and Chet would have to live with the fallout.

  Had he just lost his ranch?

  “Mack,” he said softly, and she looked up at him. “Thanks.”

  Just her being here while his life was about to implode—he was grateful for it. It was going to hurt, he had no doubt about that, but having her by his side, even if only for now, was more comforting than she’d ever guess.

  * * *

  BACK IN GRANNY’S KITCHEN—her kitchen now—Mackenzie grabbed a cloth from a drawer by the big sink and turned on the tap. Outside the window, the night was dark and she could make out her own reflection in the glass—her hair tangled and her face as pale as the moon outside. She idly wished she looked better, but in comparison to Chet, she was a raving beauty at the moment, so perhaps it didn’t matter much. She pointed to a chair by the table.