The Accidental Cowboy

by Heidi Hormel

  “This isn’t a real job?”

  She shook her head, her smooth hair moving gently. “I can’t pretend anymore that it is. You know I was in corporate communications.” She didn’t wait for answer. “I was good at it. I’m not bragging—I was. But I burned out. My company had been bought out and I fell on the sword so another person in my department could keep her job during the downsizing. I’ve kept busy, helping my sister and a friend. Then Gwen called and I came here. I imagined I could go back to being a cowgirl, but you know, you never can go home again.”

  “Corporate communications. That’s what you really want to do?” He’d had the feeling that she’d been dissatisfied with her life in a vague way. As if he could figure out these sorts of emotional puzzles. Pottery shards were about the only puzzle he was competent to solve.

  “It’s what I do, and what I do well. I love the West and even loved the rodeo, but it felt so...small.”

  He laughed, then he realized she wasn’t joking. “What do you mean ‘small’? The Highlands are big, open spaces, I’ll grant you. But nothing like this. Everything is farther and bigger. Even the sunsets are brighter and more colorful.”

  “That’s just pollution. The rodeo was small because, even though we traveled, we saw the same people and we did the same thing every week. Then, of course, there was the fact that my two siblings were very, very good at what they did.”

  “Weren’t you a champion?”

  “That was years ago, and my heart wasn’t in it like Jessie’s and Danny’s.” She paused for barely a moment and if he hadn’t known her so well he might not have noticed. She went on brightly, “I’ve had a good, long break—like a professor’s sabbatical, since the last ‘realignment of assets.’ Businesses should probably allow employees to do that periodically, without the downsizing. I know when I go back to work, I’ll be better.”

  Maybe he didn’t have the skills to put together her “shards,” but he couldn’t help himself. She wanted something to call her own. He could understand that. He fought for that all the time as he tried to make his own mark, which had led to the dolls and now had him on the path to Kincaid’s Cache. “During sabbaticals, professors work on research or writing for publication.”

  “Oh, then maybe just a gap year?”

  “So you’ve had your gap year—”

  “More like two years.”

  “Two years, then. You’re ready to go back to your corporate job, all refreshed.”

  “Sure.”

  Another shard in the puzzle, explaining what she didn’t want. So what did she want? “That wasn’t very enthusiastic.”

  “Long day,” she said, getting up from her seat. “I’ll throw away your packet of dinner—love those kind of dishes—and get the Hobnobs.”

  Too many missing shards for him to understand what was going on. What did he want it to be? For all of her pieces to fit together so they could recapture the joy they’d found in each other’s arms. The recent desperate edge to their lovemaking worried him. Exactly, though, who was the most desperate?

  “Hobnobs, sir. Coffee?”

  He tugged on her arm and she fell into his lap. “Whether you’re a cowgirl or a be-suited—”

  “That’s not a word,” she said, pushing against him.

  “It is if I say it is. I was trying to pay you a compliment. I know that no matter what you put your mind to do, you will do it well, with integrity and panache.”

  “Really?”

  He didn’t know where to put that shard, so he kissed her, because that’s when everything made the most sense.

  She moved her lips away enough to say to him, “I could say the same thing about you, but you’ve got swagger, not panache.”

  “That’s what she said.”

  * * *

  LAVONDA HEARD HER siblings before she saw them in the downtown Tucson restaurant, one of those old-fashioned, been-around-forever cantinas. Jessie had organized the meet-up. Lavonda had been happy for the excuse to be away from the ranch and Jones after returning from their latest foray into the desert. She’d promised herself that when they got back to Hacienda Bunuelos she’d get serious about rebooting her career. Her great contribution to that plan was posting her résumé on a PR job site.

  “Hi, everyone,” she said when she walked up to the table. Seated were Jessie and Payson and his brother, Spence, and his wife, Olympia, and, of course, her own little brother, Danny, who topped all of them at six-three.

  “Finally,” Jessie said. “We figured you’d have some excuse to cancel, like you were leading another bean safari.”

  “It wasn’t—”

  “I’m starved,” Danny said. “Less talking, more ordering.”

  The conversation moved to food and details about caring for babies. Lavonda had forgotten how nice it was to hang out with her family. Mama and Daddy were the only pieces missing, but they were traveling around the state visiting rodeo friends.

  “Quiet,” Jessie said after the plates were taken away and before dessert arrived. “Payson and I want to—”

  Danny raised his beer and said, “Remind everyone how much they love each other.”

  “Shut up, Danny,” Jessie said without heat as she stood. “You’re just jealous. I—”

  Her sister choked up and tears shone in her eyes. Triple crap. Something big and bad had happened. Jessie never cried. Both she and Olympia leaped from their seats to go to her. “What? What’s wrong?”

  Jessie shook her head and gave a trembling smile. “It’s all good.” Then Payson stood behind his wife, his expression heartbreakingly tender as his arm held her and his hand went to her belly.

  “You’re pregnant,” Olympia and Lavonda yelled at the same time.

  Lavonda barely heard what anyone else said as she grabbed and hugged her sobbing sister, who murmured, “It’s just the hormones.”

  Jessie and Payson had been trying to get pregnant since they got married for the second time. It had been particularly hard on her when Olympia had been pregnant last year. Now, Jessie and her husband glowed with happiness. Lavonda was thrilled for her sister, but a little tug around her heart reminded her that she was alone. Like Danny, but not like him, because he was a hound dog to beat all hound dogs, with a different buckle bunny every night. He never seemed to want or need more. Back before her “gap years,” as she was beginning to think of her time away from her real work, she’d been happy with her job and her well-organized dates. It had never gotten serious because neither she nor her boyfriends had had the time for a relationship or one of them was moving to another job, up another rung.

  “Here,” Payson said as he handed her a glass. “Those of us not pregnant are toasting.” He laughed. The serious surgeon who had the focus of a rattlesnake about to bite looked and sounded happier than she’d ever seen him.

  Lavonda wanted Jones to be here with her. She wanted his big strong arms around her. She wanted to be enveloped in his familiar scent of pine and moss. She wanted all of that—and shouldn’t. What they had wasn’t permanent like Jessie and Payson or Olympia and Spence.

  She felt the heavy weight of Danny’s arm across her shoulder. “Drink up and celebrate,” he said. “’Cause it’s better them than us, right?”

  “At least it will mean that Mama will stop bugging us about grandbabies.” She forced out a laugh.

  “There is that. You and me should go out on the town.”

  “In Angel Crossing? What would that be, a beer at the one bar? Besides, I’ve got commitments at the ranch and with the university.”

  He looked at her hard and said seriously, “If you need me to give him a bloody nose, just let me know.” Danny gave her a brotherly one-armed squeeze, then went to talk with Payson and Spence.

  She glanced at Olympia. Had she told him about Jones? And if he knew, then Jes
sie knew. She’d talk with them about it later. Tonight was Jessie’s. Lavonda was going to focus on her sister and the miracle of another baby.

  When they left the restaurant, Danny followed her to her car and said again, “We should hang out.”

  “I’ll call.”

  “Really. I’d like to show you around the town. It’s one of those places that just needs... I may need...” He stopped himself and gave her one of his slow grins that always made all of her friends sigh, until he acted more tomcat than lap-cat. “I’ve got plans that you might be able to help me with.”

  “Just let me know.” Danny had never asked for help before. In fact, he’d always told his sisters to leave him alone, because he already had a mama, thank you very much.

  He hugged her hard again. “You call if you need me to come out and kick his ass.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m your brother. Don’t BS me. Plus, you know that Olympia has already told me all about the guy in the kilt. Doesn’t sound like much of a cowboy, but if you—”

  “There’s nothing.”

  “Doesn’t appear that way to me.”

  “Like you’re an expert on relationships. What has your longest been? Three months?”

  “We’re not talking about me.”

  “We are when you’re trying to tell me what to do. Plus, you’re the baby brother—you don’t get to do that.”

  “I do when my big sister is getting up close and personal with a guy in a kilt and cowboy hat who’s on his way back to wherever he came from any day now.”

  “It’s all good.”

  “‘Don’t serve me bull crap and call it pâté,’ as Mama would say.”

  Lavonda laughed, proof to herself and Danny everything really was fine.

  “I won’t say I told you so or anything else if you give me a call. Okay?” She nodded and let Danny open the door to her Mini Cooper. “When are you going to get a real car?”

  “As soon as I grow another foot,” she answered as she always did. She waved as she pulled out of the lot. The familiarity of the banter should have made her feel comfortable, like settling back into a pillow. Instead, it opened the ache in her heart. A temporary one. As soon as the Scot went back to the Highlands, she’d be happy and on her way to another corporate high-rise, spinning into gold the latest disaster or discovery.

  While she did that spinning, she’d get the cash to buy the ranch. She’d talk to Gwen about that. Could she keep her feet firmly in both lives? The ranch being home and her work...her work? When had being a guru of corporate communications become just work? When she’d burned out from one too many news cycles and “rightsizings.” She’d been good at her job and committed to each company. She’d climbed up the ladder, getting nearer to the coveted corner office. She’d happily wiped the desert dust from her boots and put away the fantasy of settling for a cowboy. She’d wanted something else. She’d wanted to know what life was like beyond the arena. The trouble was the corporate cowboys didn’t understand the rules. They bent and broke them and expected her to fix it all. That’s what she’d tried to do her whole life. Fix things, people and animals. Could she fix herself? Or, maybe, she didn’t need fixing?

  Crap. She’d missed the turnoff for the ranch. She swung around and back onto the long drive. She stopped in the middle of the dirt track. No one else would be coming this way. She turned off the Mini and got out to walk in the dust. Crappedy crap. Had she just spent the past eight years of her life proving to no one that she wasn’t a cowgirl and was a success because she wore a suit to work every day? She couldn’t have been that shallow. Could she? Had she been embarrassed by her family and her rodeo life because it didn’t include Chanel and Coach? Worse. She’d imagined that if she was a success and could fix everyone’s lives by buying those things they’d always wanted, then everyone would love her. Exactly how well had that worked? Well enough that she burned out, drifted through her life for nearly two years and now was thinking about doing it all again. Idiot.

  No. Not an idiot. Just a cowgirl who’d grabbed the wrong end of the bull.

  She stopped walking and looked up at the dark sky. She really was good at PR. Look what she’d done for Jessie’s therapy program. With her help, she’d gotten enough notice in the right places for Hope’s Ride to be on its way to success. Maybe she and her job hadn’t been shallow and meaningless. What did that mean for her now? The ranch had become home, hadn’t it? Did that mean she needed to return to being a cowgirl, to riding, mucking stables and breaking in horses? Or did Hacienda Bunuelos feel like home because of Jones? Her thoughts skittered away from that conclusion. She couldn’t solve any of this tonight. She still was obliged to lead the Scotsman into the desert. Piece of cake. She’d ridden bronc with a broken wrist. This couldn’t be any more painful.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lavonda looked at the list on the laptop’s screen and wondered when the universe had found such a great sense of humor. Just as she’d convinced herself that staying in Arizona was exactly what she wanted, a position she’d applied for right after her downsizing had come open again. They wanted to talk to her about it, so saying yes should’ve been a no-brainer, except the job was in Hong Kong. She’d always looked at companies that would take her as far from Arizona as possible. Plus, this company and the description of the position had checked off every one of her must-haves on the list she’d made after her second corporate job.

  To clarify the challenges and assets, as she’d been taught, of this potential job she’d been making a pro and con list, just like she’d done hundreds of times before, from how to tell Mama and Daddy she would be a corporate executive, not a rodeo queen, to how to make a chemical spill sound like a positive thing. So far, for the pros she had:

  1. Living in Hong Kong.

  2. Making big money.

  The con side had grown to fifteen items.

  Of course, the big money might be the biggest pro, maybe the only one that counted if it meant she could seriously consider buying Hacienda Bunuelos as her...well, as her second home. She still hadn’t figured out exactly how the ranch fit into her future, only that it needed to. She had to come up with more pros. Money couldn’t trump all. She’d tried that before and been miserable.

  3. Real Chinese food.

  That was lame. She’d reached the bottom of the barrel if that was a pro. She opened another document on her screen, hoping a change in work would jar loose more ideas. This spreadsheet was familiar. It mapped out how she would restore Jones’s reputation, if he asked her, which he hadn’t. On the other hand, he was a guy and more cowboy than his kilt implied. Asking for help didn’t show up on his list of the best ways to address a problem.

  “Do you have a—” Jones’s voice sounded behind her.

  She jumped and squeaked out a girlie scream.

  “Sorry,” he said hastily. “I thought you had heard me come in. Cat yowled.”

  She dropped her hand from her racing heart. She saw Cat twining around his legs. “I was working.”

  “Ah,” he answered with a knowing hum. He loomed behind her. She ignored the heat that flushed through her when she caught his pine-and-moss scent. “What is this? Lavonda—”

  “It’s what I do. I can’t help it if my mind is just a PR machine.”

  “You haven’t done any of this, have you?” He gestured to the laptop’s screen.

  “They’re just ideas.”

  “Not very good ones, especially when I didn’t ask for any of it.”

  She’d treat him like one of the big bosses who were all ego and little logic. Managing them took finesse and saying yes without saying yes. “This was an academic exercise. Practice for when I get back to my ‘real’ work.”

  “Bloody hell,” Jones muttered. “You don’t understand. Glasgow called and
...my visa is being cut off early because of my ‘breach of academic ethics.’ In other words, I’m getting the boot and I’ll need to leave right away.”

  “You can’t leave,” she blurted out, hearing the desperate edge to her voice. “You have to fight this.”

  “The paperwork is in process. Thank you for your hospitality and help on the trail.” He thrust out his hand.

  Wait? This was goodbye and he’d just thanked her for her “hospitality”? She sucked in a breath to stop herself from spewing out something that she’d have to fix later. “You’re not leaving right now, are you?”

  He turned away and said, “I’ve got to return to Scotland as soon as we complete our next trip. I got them to give me that much time.”

  “I can’t imagine Gwen doesn’t have a say in you leaving the country before your bean research is complete.”

  He walked out of the room.

  She panicked. All her plans fled and the only thought looping through her brain was that Jones was leaving forever. She couldn’t let him do that. It would tank his career. Her plan for him could still work. She just had to persuade Gwen and the university to convince his school in Glasgow to give him more time. Her mind had started working again.

  While she worked on that, there also had to be some kind of legal delay, right? There was always a legal solution. She called Spence, sure he’d know what to do to help Jones.

  “Hello, Lavonda. You’re calling to take Calvin and Audie for two weeks, right? Then Olympia and I are going to—”

  “Only if you find a way to keep the professor here in the States. His visa is being pulled and then he’ll have to leave. He’s nearly done with his research. If he doesn’t get that done and write an article, then who knows what will happen to him.” She’d made up a lot of that, although she thought she’d guessed pretty well. “Spence?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  “I don’t have a lot of time. The visa—”