The Cowboy Who Got Away

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  A couple of her weddings had been featured in national magazines. “For a while, travel was a nice perk, but after a while, living out of a suitcase four and five days a week starts to become a strain.

  “It’s hard, because I have a dog now. Did I tell you I have a dog?” Her eyes lit up and she looked a lot happier than she had when she was telling him about the daily grind of her business.

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “But Lucy told you, didn’t she?”

  He swallowed the last bite of his steak. “She might’ve mentioned it. A corgi, right?”

  Her brows shot up. “You get extra points if you know his name.”

  “Franklin.”

  Her mouth fell open. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “I’m sensing an unfair advantage here. And I’m also wondering why I talked all the way through dinner if you already knew all this. I mean, I guess I should be flattered that you cared enough to keep up with me all these years—and to hear it again.” She laughed.

  He hoped it didn’t sound stalker-ish. His sister loved to talk and when it came to any information about Juliette, he loved to listen. It had been like offering a starving man a feast.

  The server appeared again to clear the plates and ask if they wanted dessert—they didn’t; they were too full.

  Between the time it took for Jude to pay the bill and for them to leave the restaurant and start walking to their cars, Juliette had become a little quieter and more subdued than she had been before he’d tipped his hand and told her he had indeed kept tabs on her all these years. He wasn’t going to lie.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Her smile was a little too bright. “I’m fine. I’m great. I enjoyed dinner. Thank you. My car is right over here.”

  She hooked her thumb in the direction of a row of cars parallel parked on Main Street. Within a few steps, they were standing by her Prius.

  He intended to keep his promise. No pressure. No good-night kiss, even though he was dying to revisit what they had started that first day at the cabin. But he’d promised he would mind his manners and he sensed that she was feeling a little overwhelmed after learning about his reconnaissance.

  “Can we do this again? Soon?” he asked.

  She was looking down, fishing her keys out of her purse. When she looked up her eyes were so heartbreakingly earnest, it knocked him for a loop.

  “What are we doing, Jude? I mean, what do you want? From me?” Her hand fluttered to her neck in a nervous gesture. “From us?”

  He didn’t quite know how to answer that. Not yet. That’s what he was hoping to figure out while he was home. He needed to know if they were on the same page, wanted the same things—

  “It’s taken me a long time to get over you.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I told myself I wasn’t going to say that. It’s not your problem. It’s mine. But I’m fine now. Really, I am.”

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Are you completely over me, Juliette? Have you moved on?”

  “Jude, you really did a number on me.”

  “You’re the one who turned down my proposal,” he said. “I mean, since we’re laying it all out on the table. I wanted to marry you.”

  “And then three months later you come back for Christmas engaged to someone else.”

  “I didn’t marry her.”

  “Do you know that I came back that Christmas ready to give up everything for you? Scotland, my scholarship, college. And then there you were with her. You’d moved on so seamlessly that it felt like you and I never even happened.”

  What? The words hit like a slap square in the face. “You didn’t come home for Christmas that year. Or any of the years after that as I recall.”

  “Yes, I did. Not only was I here, but I’d planned on not going back to Scotland until my mom told me you were engaged. But I didn’t believe it. I was on my way over to see you, because I was sure you would tell me that everything was a mistake, a big misunderstanding. But before you saw me, I saw you with her. You were downtown. You were kissing her. I went home. Guinevere helped me change my ticket and I went back to school the very next day. I couldn’t deal with the thought of running into you with someone else.”

  He was so stunned; he was still trying to digest what she’d said. “You were going to give up everything for me? For us?”

  She nodded, but the gesture was swallowed up when she shrugged at the same time.

  “I’m sorry. She ended up being just a rebound...a mistake. My parents never met her. My dad and I still hadn’t made amends. I called the house to see if I could come over, but my mom said it was still too soon. It was Christmastime and my dad still couldn’t put our differences behind him. But none of that matters now.”

  He let the words hang in the air, teetering on the emotions suspended between them.

  “I’ve wondered for a long time if maybe things were meant to be this way.” His voice was hoarse with emotion. “Maybe we’ve been on this crazy path because we weren’t ready for each other then. We loved each other, but I don’t know if we were ready for each other, for this... I don’t know that we were ready for us. I’m not saying I’m glad we broke up, but going away to school in Scotland and spending time in Europe has made you who you are today and all these years I have channeled this restlessness I’ve always battled into riding bulls.”

  She crossed her arms and braced her back against the door of her car. “So where does that leave us now?”

  Where did it leave them? “I want to spend time with you, Jules. Do we have to label it?”

  “Don’t you think your adoring public will want to know what’s going on with the ex-girlfriend that you’re spending so much time with?”

  He raised a brow. “Oh, are we going public with this?”

  “I didn’t say anything about going public. I just need to know where your head is. What you want.”

  Fair enough.

  “We’re seeing each other. Trying to figure things out. Does that work for you?”

  “No sex,” she added, a bit too hastily for his liking.

  “Not even if you get me drunk. Not even if you beg me. Well, maybe if you beg me.”

  He smiled at her. “I want you to feel safe with me, Jules.” He put both hands on his chest. “This is a safe place. Can we give ourselves some time to figure out what’s going on?”

  She searched his face, his eyes. Then nodded. “Do you want to meet for lunch tomorrow?”

  “I can’t tomorrow. I have to go to Dallas for a meeting with my agent and sponsor. Want to ride along?”

  “I have to work, Jude. I have a consultation with a potential new client.”

  “Okay, I understand. If something changes, let me know.”

  “Is this meeting about next season?”

  “It is. We’re going to talk about the terms of my sponsorship.”

  “Have you decided what to do yet?”

  “Not yet. The meeting will help me get closer to making a decision. I talked to my accountant. He said if I have one more good year, I might not need to sell the property.”

  “But isn’t there another way?”

  What he didn’t say was that if he bowed out now, he’d have to come up with a new plan. A new life plan. Jude had known this day was coming—he hadn’t planned for it to come so soon. He had a couple of ideas about what he wanted to do, but they would take some fleshing out. Frankly, until this season had come to an abrupt end, he’d been so busy with competitions and his obligations to his sponsorship that he hadn’t had time to work on much else.

  They stood there in silence for a moment.

  “There’s always a way,” he said. “Did you know the only reason I agreed to this On-Off Shirt foolishness is becau
se a portion of the sales benefit a charity?”

  Her eyes widened and she shook her head.

  “Of course you didn’t know that because that’s not the message that Copenhagen is pushing. The image they’ve cultivated for me is sexy bad boy.”

  “Why is that a bad thing? You know you are a whole lot more than a narcissistic pretty boy. As long as you know who you are, public opinion shouldn’t matter.”

  “Do you know who I am, who I’ve become over the years that we’ve been apart, Jules? Because I don’t want you to have any misconceptions.”

  “Does what I think matter to you?”

  He swallowed the lump in his throat. This was supposed to be a no-pressure night, but now that she’d asked he couldn’t tell her anything but the truth. “Of course what you think matters. You are one of the only people—maybe the only one—whose opinion matters. I can play the game. I have played it for quite a while now, but sometimes you just get tired of pretending to be someone you’re not. Know what I mean?”

  He recognized the spark in her eyes. “I know exactly what you mean. I’m ready for a change, too.”

  “Come on the road with me,” Jude said before he could stop himself.

  She smiled and rolled her eyes as if he were making a joke.

  “You don’t think I’m serious. I’m serious. We could travel the US for a year or two and then figure out what to do next.”

  “The reason I know you’re joking is because I know you remember how much I hate bull riding. Now that I know what the doctors have said, that you’d be going against doctors’ orders to ride again, there’s no way I could just stand by and watch you put yourself in danger. But you were only joking, right?”

  * * *

  Was Jude joking? Juliette wondered as she braked to a stop at a red light.

  Surely, he was joking. Because he wouldn’t believe that she would actually put her life on hold to follow him all over the country, would he?

  She had made a joke out of it and had leaned in and planted a good-night kiss on his cheek. Before he could say anything else, she’d said good-night and had gotten in her car and driven away, leaving him standing on the sidewalk.

  The most ridiculous part of it all was that part of her would’ve loved to toss everything and go off on a grand adventure, the road trip of a lifetime, just Jude and her. Without the bull riding.

  But they weren’t eighteen anymore and all of her dissatisfaction with her own life would still be waiting for her back home when the shine had worn off the journey. Why was it that love always seemed to come at such a great price? She’d experienced that with Jude years ago; she’d seen it with her mother and her string of husbands. Now, the only man she’d ever loved was back in town, but she could see the warning lights ahead—if she wasn’t careful she would end up crashing and paying dearly with a broken heart.

  It was only nine o’clock. She had too much nervous energy to go home. If she did, she would just toss and turn or eat something she wasn’t supposed to. She wasn’t even hungry. She was such a stress eater.

  The light was still red, so she pulled her phone out of her purse and texted Chelsea.

  Are you awake? I just finished having dinner with Jude and I was wondering if I could come over for some girl talk?

  Yes! Come over! Please! I have a surprise for you!

  Chelsea must’ve been drinking wine because in addition to the regiment of exclamation points, she capped off the message with a cast of emojis that included smiley faces, hearts, flowers, wineglasses—and was that a taco and zucchini? Um...okay.

  The person in the car behind her honked. Juliette looked up to see the light had turned green and there was a lot of space in front of her where the other cars had already gone on their way. She tossed her phone onto the seat, glanced in her rearview mirror, waved her apology to the person behind her and sped off.

  She arrived at Chelsea and Ethan’s house about ten minutes later. Chelsea had turned on the porch light for her. She parked and made her way up the porch steps and knocked on the door.

  Chelsea answered, two flutes of champagne in hand. “You’re here! I’m so glad you decided to come over.” She handed Juliette one of the glasses of champagne and linked her free arm with Juliette’s. “Look who else is here. My sister arrived early. She’s the surprise.”

  Pencil thin and posh as a London fashion plate, Chelsea’s sister, Tori Ashford Alden, perched elegantly and languidly on the living room couch. Her blond hair was cut in a fashion-forward short do. She wore a sleek, body-hugging minidress with the most gorgeous pair of black boots that Juliette had ever seen. No doubt, the entire ensemble was from her latest Tori Ashford Alden collection.

  She and Juliette greeted each other with double cheek kisses.

  “Jules, your ears must have been burning,” Chelsea said, “because Tori and I were talking about you right before you texted. She is dying to pick your brain. I promised her you would tell her everything you know about the American wedding industry.”

  Juliette was happy to see Tori. Really, she was. But she would’ve been lying if she hadn’t admitted to herself that she felt a teensy bit disappointed that she would not be able to tell Chelsea what had transpired tonight with Jude. Back in college, her friend had always been the voice of reason. She was counting on Chelsea to help her sort out her mixed emotions. She was depending on her friend to point out what an impossible situation this was if she thought for one second that Jude Campbell wouldn’t break her heart again. He was at a crossroads in his life. He was discontent and was looking for something that felt familiar...at least until he figured out what he wanted to do next. She was more convinced than ever that love always came with a cost, and she had a feeling if she let Jude in, she’d end up paying dearly.

  But it was probably just as well that she and Chelsea couldn’t talk right now. She’d seen Ethan’s truck in the driveway. It was probably best not to talk about Jude in his brother’s house. For that matter, she was probably better off giving herself time to come back down to earth and put things into perspective so that she didn’t say something she’d be embarrassed about later.

  The three women had just settled into champagne and girl talk when a knock sounded on the front door.

  Chelsea glanced at her phone. “Good grief. It’s after nine thirty. Who in the world is that?”

  She answered the door and Juliette recognized the sound of Jude’s voice. “I’m sorry to barge in so late. Is my brother still awake?”

  “He sure is,” she said. “Come in and join the party.”

  Chelsea appeared in the living room with her arm linked through Jude’s. “Juliette, look who I found.”

  Chapter Six

  “Are you following me?” Juliette’s right brow shot up in that sassy way that always made Jude smile.

  He held her gaze. “I’d follow you anywhere. The question is would you follow me?” She blushed and he hoped she was recalling their conversation they’d had before she’d sped off. He noticed that Chelsea and her sister were exchanging curious glances.

  “Why do I feel as if I’ve stumbled into the midst of an intimate conversation?” Tori asked. One of the woman’s rail-thin arms was stretched along the back of the red leather couch. A champagne glass, the stem of which was balanced between the middle and ring fingers of her upturned palm, dangled precariously, as if it might drop to the floor if she shifted her wrist.

  No one answered her question.

  He wondered if Juliette had thought about his offer to come with him on tour. Was that what had spurred her to come over here? If she’d join him, it would breathe new life into what felt like an arduous task.

  “Don’t let me interrupt,” he said. “As you were. I’ll go find Ethan.”

  “Last I knew, he was out back working in the shed,” Chelsea said. “Wou
ld you like a beer?”

  Jude waved her off. “Thanks, I’ll get it.”

  Unless Chelsea had rearranged the kitchen, he knew where to find the beer and bottle opener. He, Lucy and Ethan had grown up in this house. Ethan had inherited it with his third of the property after their folks died. It was surreal finding himself back here after all these years. Everything looked the same, but at the same time, everything was completely different.

  That seemed to be the theme these days. Exactly the same, but completely different. Especially with Juliette sitting in the living room. She was here, but not with him. Not this time.

  He grabbed a beer and went out back, holding the screen door as it closed so it didn’t slam. Their mom used to yell at them about slamming the door. Catching it before it closed was a reflex. His gut clenched at the memory.

  This was the only home he’d ever known since he’d been on the road for the better part of the past decade. The ninety acres of land that comprised the Campbell Ranch had been in the family for generations. Telling Ethan that he was thinking about selling wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. The only way he could soften the blow was to offer Ethan first right of refusal. There was a case to be made for his part of the land sitting vacant and dormant all these years. It’s not as if he were pulling the rug out from under Ethan and selling his livelihood. Ethan had his own piece of the Campbell legacy.

  The property taxes were due on November 1. It would take every spare penny that Jude could scrape together to pay them. In his championship year, he’d won a nice purse, but after sitting out a few matches—forfeiting the chance to defend his title—and paying his doctor bills, he’d almost depleted his resources.

  Even though being back here excavated some challenging memories along with the sweet ones of Juliette, it was killing him to sell off his legacy, but he simply didn’t have the money to hang on to it. If he sold, he would have the capital he needed to start over.