“Because then you could give me a heart attack every few minutes instead of a few a day,” Laird muttered.
Tucker laughed. “It’s another gift.” She kissed her husband’s cheek. “Or maybe now it’s a skill. Probably the one I’m best at.”
“I don’t know.” Her twin smiled. “You’re getting pretty dang comfortable with the bull-breeding operation.”
“Piper.” Tucker sat up straight, her eyes sparkled, and her mouth curved in a you’re-so-fucked curve that Boone was really hoping was directed at her sister, not at him. Luke and Laird groaned, but Tucker continued enthusiastically. “You haven’t lived until you’ve jacked off a bull. I showed Shane how. She was all in. Started thinking of giving up bartending. Life-changing experience. Plus, you could help create the monsters that will toss stupid-ass, arrogant cowboys on their dumb asses in front of a crowd. Sell tickets.”
Boone tossed his napkin on his plate.
“Okay, Tucker,” he heard her twin Tanner say quietly. Tanner had always been the nicer one. “You made your point.”
Tucker’s eyes squinted in challenge. Boone faced her. He’d been a jackass. He could handle anything Tucker could dish out, but he didn’t want Piper hurt. Or embarrassed.
“You want to talk directly to me?” he asked Tucker quietly.
“It’s okay, Tucker, really,” Piper said softly, the husk in her voice pronounced.
Boone jerked restlessly. Piper was a million miles from okay, and he was a million further.
Shane poured herself a finger of whiskey. Then she poured another finger in a shot glass and scooted it down to Boone. He stared at it. What? They wanted him to get drunk and thrown tomorrow because he’d been an idiot about Piper, wanting to keep her close even as he knew he had to cut her loose? Wanting to keep her for himself even though he knew she was too good for him? Get in line. He was beating himself up enough.
“I don’t…”
“You’re gonna want it tonight,” Shane said and hoisted up her shot and threw it down her throat.
“I need to learn how to do that.” Piper leaned on her elbow, food forgotten as she watched Shane toss back the shot. Boone could swear he saw admiration cross her beautiful features.
What. The. Hell?
He’d barely seen Piper drink, much less shoot whiskey.
“I can teach you,” Tucker called out. “Any night of the week.”
“Tucker’s got the advanced degree,” Talon said, looking around her husband, Colt, to grin at Piper. She ran her hand through her long, spiral blonde curls. “I still choke doing it. Maybe we could practice together.”
Like Piper was going to have time for that, Boone thought moodily. He hoped she wasn’t too shocked by the conversation, and he opened his mouth to tell her they were teasing—at least he hoped they were—but Piper was listening. Her eyes sparkled and looked a little dreamy. She swirled the large ice cubes in her drink, and Boone realized with a start that it was a margarita from Rosita’s. And there was an empty glass beside her. And a nearly full plate of food.
Shit. When he fucked up, he did it but good. Piper was a light-weight.
Miranda returned holding two margaritas. “Here you go, Piper.”
“I’ll find you a chair.” Colt rose up quickly, a mountain of a man full of purpose.
“No need,” Boone said pushing back from his full two plates of food more aggressively than he meant to. The chair tipped backward, and he didn’t even pick it up. Instead he picked up the shot glass, mock toasted Shane, who stared at him stonily. Subtly flipped off Tucker while holding the glass.
“So hurt.” She laughed at him.
Boone ignored her and tossed back the whiskey.
Fuck, Laird knew what he was doing. Boone craved another shot. He needed it. But he was manning up now. This was between him and Piper. Not his family. Not his so-called friends and definitely not his family’s business partners.
“Anyone teaching Piper to drink whiskey’s it’s me,” he said. “Let’s dance.”
*
He didn’t give her much choice. And Piper knew she should say no. Or at least put up some sort of resistance, but Boone laced his fingers with hers and walked her through several long rows of tables as he made his way toward the band and the dance floor, and really, Piper just wanted to curl in to his body and cling. It felt so good to be connected after feeling adrift all day.
Her body felt warm and liquid as she admired the familiar line of his back—the silky black shirt with the white piping across his broad shoulders. He wore jet-black Wranglers and shined cowboy boots.
Don’t look at him, she ordered herself.
It was just the tequila talking.
She was over Boone Telford. So over.
Except when they reached the dance floor, the main band was already moving into their second song, and Boone swung around, his body already set, and Piper rested her hand on his hip, and let him take her other hand.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Except it felt so right when he began to move, and she followed his moves as if connected by invisible threads. He’d left the two top buttons of his shirt open creating a deep V that revealed his throat and his chest, and her heart squeezed.
“You look beautiful, Piper,” he said, his voice low and serious. His gaze grave.
“Don’t say that,” she whispered back.
“It’s true. Most beautiful girl here.”
“You can’t talk like that to me anymore.”
“Can’t help it.”
He was so good at this, Piper despaired, making her feel special, when clearly she wasn’t. He’d made his choice, and it definitely wasn’t her.
And still, he didn’t miss a beat, effortlessly steering her around the floor, dodging the couples without looking.
She should run. But another part of her wanted to remember this—how Boone looked when he gazed at her. How his body felt brushing against hers as he’d spin her or turn her to promenade. Memories were all she’d have, and she needed to store each one up.
“I know we need to talk,” Boone said.
She stared down at the tips of the turquoise boots he’d bought her in Missoula. She didn’t know if she’d wear them again. Too many memories. She’d store them in the box, maybe high on a shelf—perhaps even in the studio over a garage apartment Shane, who was leaving Marietta in a couple of weeks, had offered her. Perhaps she’d take them out in a year or two when it didn’t hurt so much. Wear them to another rodeo steak dinner when she could actually appreciate the beauty of the night, the food, the conversation without everything aching so much inside she could barely stand up straight, much less dance.
“Piper I’m sorry.” He bent down, trying to look into her eyes, but she kept her gaze glued to her boots.
Now that he was here, his attention on her, she wanted to forget about what he’d done, pretend it didn’t matter, just dance with him, let him make love to her one last time. She hated how much she wanted him to hold her. Her father had said love made you weak. Piper felt so weak, but she didn’t want the colonel to be right.
She hated how easily she’d fallen in love.
And how easy it had been for him to keep her separate from his real life.
She’d been more temporary than she’d realized.
And now she was a burden because Boone was a nice man who wouldn’t just walk off into the sunset with a head bob of ‘thanks, see ya around.’ He’d want to help her get to where she wanted to go.
Only she didn’t want to go anywhere.
And she didn’t want to make her new life without him.
The song ended and the next flowed into a slow, haunting melody. Boone gathered her close, and Piper, weak, let herself melt into him. Her fingers touched the onyx snaps on his shirt.
She felt like she was about to crack open and only him holding her tightly would keep her in one piece.
Was it wrong to wish?
Was it wrong to hope?
Piper closed
her eyes and willed the moment to last, but she knew what she had to do. She’d wanted Boone to be honest with her, and yet she needed to be honest with herself.
It was all so clear now. The inequity. Her feelings compared to his.
“You don’t need to apologize,” Piper said, forcing herself to look him in his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m the one who broke the rule.”
“The rule?”
“You were honest from the beginning. You offered a summer of fun, but for me, it became more than fun a long time ago.”
She reached up and traced his brow and across his high cheekbone that always made her tummy flip. Then she smoothed her thumb over his lip. Maybe the last time she’d ever get to touch him.
“I should be the one apologizing. I changed.”
“Piper.” He caught her hands in his and held them to his chest. He’d done that so many times—holding her hands to his heart. How she wished she could hold his heart. Be his.
“I’m going to miss you, Boone.” Piper sucked up her courage and her pride. She wasn’t her father’s daughter for nothing. She’d been rejected before for reasons both in and out of her control. And it would happen again. She’d survive. That was also what she did. Time and time again.
“It’s okay. I know you don’t…feel the same, but I…” She wanted to tell him. Love was a beautiful feeling even when it hurt. And Boone deserved love.
The music kept playing soft and sweet. Couples brushed against them as they swayed past. The fairy lights strung up in the trees overhead coupled with the distant conversation made everything seem a little dreamy.
“I love you. I wanted you to know. But…” How did she get the words out when she felt like she was dying inside? “We need to be over.”
He still held her hands. She could feel his heart pound like a wild thing.
“Piper, I never…”
She pressed two fingers against his lips, not wanting to hear his next words, not wanting her fears confirmed. She loved him. He didn’t love her. Story of her life.
But she was going to change her story.
“I love you, Boone. I think I will always love you, but I can’t be with you anymore.”
The ballad ended, and the space between the last note and the first of the next song seemed to stretch forever. Boone looked as tortured as she felt. He blurred before her like a watercolor in the rain.
It was over. It hit her like a dump truck. Completely over and the last hope flickered out that he’d protest. Tell her that he loved her too. That he couldn’t imagine his life without her.
Piper pressed her lips together and kept her eyes from blinking because then the tears would fall.
“Thank you, Boone, for an amazing summer and showing me Montana and so much more.”
She spun around and walked away fast. She didn’t even know where she was going. Everything looked underwater. She couldn’t go back to the tables. She couldn’t face anyone until she’d had a pathetic sob fest and then pulled herself together. Piper hopped over a grouping of hay bales and skirted around some trees before she heard the babble of the Marietta River.
Usually water soothed her, but Piper had a feeling it would be a long time before she could feel soothed. But in a way she was proud. She’d deeply loved a man. And she’d had the strength to let him go so that she could eventually find her own home and her own happiness even if it was alone. And she’d left Boone’s heart whole. He would be free to find what he was so desperately looking for. He’d be free to find the woman of his dreams.
She was full-on hiccupping ugly sobs by the time she made it to the bridge. And she was running even though Boone wasn’t chasing her. Oh. God. What was he thinking? Feeling? He must be so relieved to get rid of her. He’d tried to show her and tell her in so many ways this weekend.
Piper bit back a scream of anger at herself. She was having a breakdown over a man. Something she never thought she’d do. She’d told Boone she loved him, and he’d just looked stricken. Piper stumbled toward the grandstand thinking she could hide under it. But she stopped uncertainly. She heard people, whispers, breathing, a soft moan.
That’s all she needed, to witness someone else’s personal bliss. Piper scurried away. She’d go to the trailer. Pack. But the burst of will that had helped her to rip open her heart on the dance floor for Boone’s dismayed and embarrassed perusal, before cutting him free, had deserted her. She could barely lift her key to unlock the door. She struggled with the lock and then fell inside. She slammed the door, locked it and pressed back against it.
“Think. Think.” She dashed her hands over her eyes.
She hated crying. It was weak and unproductive. Her father’s words. Cold. But practical. Besides she didn’t cry pretty and she was always blotchy and swollen the next day so she had to stop now. Piper gulped in a few breaths while her eyes seemed to ping-pong around the small space that had been home for four months.
Squaring her shoulders, she pulled her duffel bag out from the bottom of the small closet. And her backpack. She traveled light. Often. This part, the physical part—picking up and leaving—she was so damn good at it.
Chapter Eleven
Boone watched Piper’s back as she hurried through the crowd. Usually she was so graceful when she moved, and he’d find himself staring at her like she’d cast a spell on him. But now her movements were slightly jerky, and her shoulders hunched. She was practically running, and her red-blonde hair bounced down her bare back as if urging her to move faster.
She loved him.
She’d told him that she loved him, and he’d just stood there. He couldn’t love Piper. He couldn’t. What did he have to offer her? Fun times and great sex.
Piper deserved the world. The home and family and sense of belonging she’d always missed. He needed to let her go, but as he watched her hurry through the crowd and then clamor over the hay bales and disappear toward the small copse of trees by the Marietta River, all he could think of was how small and vulnerable and alone she looked.
And he’d done that to her.
“Hey, Telford, stop pretending to be a damn cowboy sculpture and get off the dance floor.” Cody deliberately shoulder-checked him as he spun that pretty girl Boone had seen him with a few times this weekend: Kelly. She must be the one Cody had done right with his prize money. He’d seen her holding the hand of a cute kid. She was already looking at Cody with stars in her eyes.
“You gotta ask a girl to dance. You can’t just stand here looking stupid and hope some gorgeous girl takes pity on your sorry ass.”
“I’ve been dumped,” Boone tested the words.
“Wait.” Cody stopped dancing and his arm snaked around his partner and he tucked her close to his side. “By Piper?”
He nodded. He took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair and then stared at his fingers. They were shaking. Shaking. “She told me she loved me,” he told Cody feeling hollow inside.
He dropped his hat but made no move to pick it up. Couples moved around them, but Boone felt like he was seeing it all from far away. Even the music, voices and laughter seemed muffled.
Kelly bent down and retrieved his hat. She held it out to him, but he hardly noticed.
Cody shifted his weight. Pulled off his own cowboy hat, spun it around his hand once. Opened his mouth to speak. Spun it again and then jammed his Stetson back on his head.
“That’s good right?” He sounded as lost as Boone felt. “I mean she’s been traveling with you for, what, like four or five months now? She adores you. Everyone could tell. Hell, her face lights up every time you saunter up like you own the whole place and everyone’s just waiting for you to arrive.”
“Well, she was running away tonight.” Boone could hardly speak around the lump in his throat. He tried to swallow. “Why the hell would she love me?”
“You going after her?”
“Pretty sure that’s the last thing she wants, but yeah I need to.”
“Need or want?”
&n
bsp; “What’s the difference?”
“You love her? Tell her. If not…” Cody shrugged.
“It’s not that easy,” Boone said still staring off in the direction where Piper had fled as if chased by demons. “It’s complicated.”
And he didn’t do complicated.
Ever.
But he couldn’t let Piper go. Not like that. Not thinking he didn’t give a damn. Boone jammed his Stetson on his head.
“Later, man,” he said already striding away.
It took him twenty agonizing minutes to find her. Even when he went to her massage tent, he didn’t spot her right away. It was more like he felt her there. And he’d stood quietly, absorbing the smell of the grass, the lingering scent of the oil she used, and the hint of the elusive scent of Piper.
“Piper,” he said softly, looking around. It was dark. And quiet. But he felt her. “Piper. Baby?”
“Please go, Boone,” she whispered.
She was crying. He heard a gulp and a muffled sniff and the rustle of material. Damn. He really was a dick. To Piper. Who’d only given him total acceptance and a happiness he hadn’t known had existed outside the thrill of pitting his strength and skills against a beast at the rodeo.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness in the tent. Piper wasn’t on the massage table, she was huddled under it, and Boone felt like all the blood in his body just whooshed out of him leaving him cold and numb and aching.
“Piper, baby.” He knew she wouldn’t come out.
So he went to her. Not easy bending six-foot plus of his body under the low bed, but he did it and scooted over to sit cautiously beside her. Piper held herself rigidly and leaned away from him. And after a few seconds, Boone couldn’t take the distance. He slipped his arm around her.
“Piper,” he breathed.
She folded herself in to him, and Boone stretched out his legs and pulled her close. It was damned cramped underneath the table, but nothing had felt as right as Piper in his arms. His hands smoothed over her body and he kissed her tangled hair that fell all around them. He’d always loved how the strands would catch in the scruff that he had by the end of the night—connecting them.
Cowboy Come Home Page 13
