A Cowboy in Her Arms

by Mary Leo

  “Don’t be,” he told her, then he kissed her again. This time it was longer, and as their tongues touched she felt as if he wanted to consume her. She would let him if she didn’t know what it might lead to.

  Complete heartache.

  Now she was the one who pulled away, walked to the front of the porch, and perched herself on the swing. He sat down next to her, slipping an arm over the back of the swing to get a better look at her. Her lips still tingled as his gaze rested on her mouth.

  She desperately wanted more of him. Wanted to forget about their past and pretend it never happened, but she knew that wasn’t possible.

  “What do you want to say, Joel?” She folded her hands on her lap and looked him in the eye waiting for an explanation.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Neither one of us had planned to hurt you. We were drunk, very drunk, so drunk that I barely remembered kissing her when we woke up the next morning. I didn’t even remember walking her over to her dorm room. The entire night is still a blur. What I do remember is our argument, how I felt when I woke up in bed next to Sarah. Ashamed. Completely and totally ashamed. So much so that I couldn’t think of facing you.”

  “Is that why you avoided me for the next six weeks? Why my best friend met me for lunch and told me that the two of you were together now, and I had to deal with it? You sent Sarah to do your dirty work? I expected more from you, Joel. You broke my heart.”

  “I was a coward and I’m sorry. I was afraid to face you. Afraid that I wouldn’t find the right words, so instead I avoided the whole thing, and I’m truly sorry.”

  “I wasn’t expecting a ring and a date, just a conversation about what we each expected in a mate and in a marriage. It wasn’t supposed to turn into an argument, just a discussion. When you left, I thought for sure you’d cool off and come back so we could talk it over. But when you didn’t, I tried to call you, but you didn’t answer.

  “Then when Sarah laid down the law and told me how you always had a thing for her, and that you loved her but were too afraid to break up with me, I felt as if my whole world had blown up into a million pieces. She said some hurtful things that day. Things I wanted to talk to you about, but I could never pin you down.”

  Joel slipped his arm from her shoulders. “I had no idea she said that. I never told her I loved her or that she and I were a couple. Heck, we hardly saw each other for those six long weeks until she told me she was pregnant.”

  Callie was beginning to understand everything now, beginning to see how her best friend had lied to her about the one thing that Sarah knew meant everything to Callie—a baby.

  “So you’re saying every time I saw you two together, that wasn’t real?”

  “Never. She would beg me for favors or claim she needed something and I was the only person who could provide it. After a while, I felt sorry for her so I’d do whatever she wanted because truthfully, no one else would. She told me you had abandoned her, and that you hated me and wanted to talk to me just to say hurtful things. She warned me to stay away from you. I only slept with her that one time. That’s why, in the beginning, it was hard for me to believe it was my baby, but we did a DNA test, so I knew unequivocally the baby was mine.”

  Callie wrapped her arms around her stomach. She couldn’t accept that Sarah had been so cruel when Callie would have done anything for her. He had no reason to lie, but it was still hard for her to accept that her best friend had been that malicious. “You’re going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that my best friend spread complete lies about me, and about you, and that you only slept with her once? Everyone in our circle said you two had practically moved in together.”

  “Those were her lies that she spread. Sarah liked to exaggerate everything. You know that. You know how she was.”

  Callie stood and walked to the railing, trying her best to digest all this information about a girl she’d once thought of as closer to her than her own sisters. “Then why did you marry her?”

  Joel came over to her at the railing. They stood only inches apart, her heart thundering inside her chest as she stared into his eyes, trying to understand all of this.

  “Because it was the right thing to do, Callie. I didn’t know if we stood a chance, but we both agreed to try. For a while, I thought we might make it, might be happy, but as you know, it didn’t last very long.”

  Her heart was breaking all over again for the friend she apparently never had.

  He took her hand in his, gently caressing her fingers, causing a combustible heat to surge through her. Maybe she knew too much now. After all these years of wanting to know the truth, maybe not knowing the truth had been better. Her heart felt heavy with sorrow.

  She leaned in closer and could feel his breath on her face. “Joel, I...”

  “There you two are,” Polly said as she walked up onto the porch. “Everybody’s waiting for you to cut the cake. Emma wants her dad to be there. You know how she gets when you’re not around.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Joel told her without taking his eyes off of Callie.

  “We should go,” Callie told him, breaking the spell and turning toward Polly. “Thanks for coming to get us, Polly.”

  “I didn’t mean to intrude,” Polly whispered, once she and Callie were on their way back to the covered seating area. Joel tagged along behind them.

  Callie slipped her arm around Polly’s waist, and Polly did the same to Callie. “Your timing was perfect,” Callie told her in a hushed voice. “We were just talking.”

  “It looked like more than talking. Are you sure I didn’t interrupt something important?”

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, you did,” Callie told her, smiling, suddenly remembering the one event she loved like none other. “I was just about to invite you, Emma and Joel to the annual Briggs Whopping Fish Tale Contest next Saturday. I’m sure you remember the annual fish fry? Seems to me it was your husband who got the whole thing started in the first place.”

  “I’d forgotten all about it. Yes, he did, sometime in the late seventies, as I recall. We’d love to come,” Polly agreed. “There’s only one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  Polly grinned and whispered, “I don’t think Joel knows the first thing about fishing.”

  “Then, just like everything else in his life, he’ll have to learn,” Callie said, and the two women chuckled as they hurried to join in on the birthday fun.

  Chapter Ten

  Wade had the patience of a saint. At least that was Joel’s assessment as Wade tried for what seemed like the hundredth time to demonstrate how to properly cast a fishing line into the meandering river. They’d been practicing for hours and Joel still couldn’t seem to get the hang of it. He really didn’t want to look like a complete fool at the annual town event, so he needed to get this. Unfortunately so far, he didn’t seem to have the aptitude for it.

  It’s not like it’s rocket science, Joel thought as he studied Wade’s stance, the location of his hand on the cork part of the rod and how his shoulders moved.

  It sounded more like instructions for a good golf swing or how to hit a baseball farther than first base...neither of which Joel could do. He just wasn’t good at sports—any kind of sports, and apparently fly-fishing was high on that list.

  “You have to relax, Joel. You’re too uptight. Just let it flow. Be one with the fishing rod, one with nature.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’ve been doing this since...what...you were five?”

  “Three, actually. My grandma taught me. She loved to go fishing early in the morning, while everyone slept. She’d slip out and spend an hour or so at sunrise every Sunday morning. Usually caught that night’s dinner. I always woke up at the crack of dawn when I was a kid, and since she lived with us after my grandfather passed, she’d take me out with her in order to
give my parents a break. I have some excellent memories out on this river with my grandma. We fished nearly every Sunday morning until she passed when I was sixteen. She never liked to miss fishing on Sunday morning. I believe she would rather have missed Sunday services than Sunday fishing.”

  “What is it about the people in this town? Did everyone have a great childhood?”

  Wade chuckled. “Some small towns are like that. Some others, not so much. We happen to be lucky here in Briggs. Good, solid stock. People who care about family, friends and community. That’s not to say we don’t have our share of troublemakers and ruffians, but for the most part, people here want to do what’s best. Like teaching a greenhorn cowboy how to cast a line. You want to try it again?”

  Joel took the rod and reel. “A greenhorn cowboy, huh? We’ll just see about that.”

  Joel looked down at his fishing rod, and this time he scrutinized Wade’s stance, the length of his slack line and how he eased the line out over the water before the fly landed. He focused on the false cast, the backward movement, then the forward cast, making sure he did each one in a straight line while holding the rod in his right hand, thumb on top of the cork grip, facing forward. No wrist action. He could only use his forearm with an equal amount of momentum on the back and forward action.

  “Abrupt sharp stops at either end,” Wade cautioned, demonstrating his instructions. “Always keep the false casts short, only allowing the line to fly on the forward stop, not the backward.”

  Once Joel focused, miraculously, the bright orange fly landed exactly in front of him, far out in the water where he allowed it to float.

  “Hot damn, Joel, I think that was near about perfect. You really do catch on quickly.”

  “Not normally, but for some reason, lately, when I concentrate, I’ve been doing all right.”

  “It’s because you’ve found your place, your niche in this world. My wife was a lot like that. Claimed she couldn’t boil water until she picked her own corn from our garden and made up some of the best corn chowder I ever tasted. Claimed she couldn’t jump a horse until she started riding Mountain Midnight, a sweet mare she bought over in Cody. And don’t even get me started on how she thought she couldn’t mend a fence until I caught her driving a backhoe, then digging the proper sized holes for the poles. The woman was a marvel.”

  Wade cast his line into the water, a beautiful graceful movement of simplicity in motion.

  “I didn’t know you were married, Wade. You never mentioned it.”

  “It’s not something I like to dwell on.”

  Joel could only assume it was a nasty divorce, something Joel had thought about on countless occasions. He knew if he’d ever tried to divorce Sarah, she would have made his life a living nightmare, along with taking Emma from him. He’d had friends who’d divorced with kids and nothing ever seemed to go right.

  “Sorry I brought it up. I know how contentious a divorce can get. Had a good friend go through one a few years back and it nearly broke him.”

  Wade pulled his line back in and beautifully cast it out again, the line rolling into the water without even a hint of a splash. “It wasn’t a divorce. I would’ve thought Polly told you. My Megan passed away from complications due to lupus. She was only twenty-six years old. Pneumonia came out of nowhere and took her before we had a chance to fight it. No one should have to suffer like that.”

  Polly had never mentioned this to Joel. He felt like a fool for bringing up such an obviously devastating time in Wade’s life.

  “I’m sorry, man. I had no idea.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve learned how to cope. It’ll be three years this coming December. Takes a while to come to terms with something like that. We thought because she was young and we did everything the doctors recommended she’d get through it. Statistics were in her favor, but those drugs wore her down and complications set in. It was like the first thing went wrong, then the second thing, and pretty soon everything was going wrong, like dominoes, ya know?”

  Joel could relate that domino effect back to his own life with Sarah.

  “I get that. Once things start going bad, it’s almost impossible to fix.”

  “Tell me about it. Sorry you lost your wife the way you did. That has to be tough. Plus, the loss is still fresh. You seem to be coping well.”

  “Have to for Emma’s sake.”

  Joel didn’t want to go into the details of his marriage, at least not now. Sarah’s death had hit him harder than he’d thought possible. Sure they didn’t have a marriage during those last two years, but there had been times in the beginning when he thought it might work out between them. When he and Sarah shared some great moments, particularly when Emma was born. He’d never seen Sarah so happy...genuinely happy. She always said Emma was the best thing they’d ever done. And Joel had to agree. Even now, when he would watch Emma sleep, he knew nothing he could ever do in his life would equal the euphoria he had felt when she was born. Emma meant everything to him, and because of her, he knew he could never resent or dislike Sarah again.

  She had given him the best part of his life.

  “Children are a gift,” Wade said without looking Joel’s way. “Megan and I were planning on at least three kids. She would’ve loved your Emma, cute and full of moxie.”

  “She tugs on my patience at times, but you’re right. She’s the one thing I did right in my life. I wouldn’t change that for anything.”

  It was the first time Joel realized that despite everything that had happened between himself, Callie and Sarah, he wouldn’t go back and change one darn thing if it meant he wouldn’t have Emma with him.

  “Then nothing else matters...except of course the fact that I think you caught yourself a fish.”

  Joel felt the tug on his line. He’d thought he felt it a moment ago, but he was too busy with his thoughts to notice.

  “What do I do?” Joel asked as the fish pulled away from him, still attached to the line.

  “First off, don’t panic and let’s ease that big fella in. You’ve got this.”

  “I sure do,” Joel said, feeling as though not only could he master fly-fishing, but with a little help from friends and family, he might be able to master just about everything else in his life, as well.

  * * *

  WHY THE CITY COUNCIL of Briggs, Idaho, ever decided to hold its annual fish fry during the third week of October had always been a wonder to most of the folks who lived in the town, and Callie was no exception. The weather during the third week of October could vary from a balmy sixty degrees to a chilly thirty-five, and the sun could be all but nonexistent.

  Fortunately for everyone concerned, the day had turned into a miracle of sorts with a high of sixty-five and a low somewhere in the fifties. The sun had peeked through the clouds early that morning and refused to let those cottony clouds have their way. They floated by and never once did they linger. The tall grasses and trees had turned to their deepest reds, oranges and yellows, warming the entire canyon that seemed reflected in the winding Snake River as it journeyed over rocks and stones to the grand Columbia River and eventually the Pacific Ocean.

  It was perhaps the most perfect day on record for the annual fish fry, and at least half the town had gathered along the banks of the Snake River to participate. Of course, there would be no fish fry without the fish, so the first order of business was the Briggs Whopping Fish Tale Contest, caught solely with fly rods. There were contests for adults and for children. Also, there was a contest for the catch-and-release group, so anyone who wanted to participate could try for the coveted prizes.

  The biggest fish caught for the day would be honored with a bright blue ribbon, three hundred dollars in gift cards from the local shops and restaurants in Briggs, and a six-inch resin trophy of a lifelike rainbow trout with its mouth gaping. The fish itself was silver in color, with black
spots over its entire body, dorsal and caudal fins. A distinctive bright rainbow of colors traveled along each side as it rode on a wave.

  Callie’s brother, Carson, her dad and her sister Kenzie had all won the coveted first-place trophy over the years. Callie had won two second-place trophies and three third-place trophies, but had yet to win the coveted first place.

  She had bet Carson that this would be her year, but secretly she knew she hadn’t practiced nearly enough. She’d be lucky if she came in third, which came with a white ribbon, a small silver trophy and fifty dollars’ worth of gift cards.

  Her second-place silver trophies sat on a shelf in her bedroom, along with the yellow ribbons. Back when she’d won them, there were no gift cards associated with the prize. The gift cards were a recent addition brought about by the forward-thinking mayor, Sally Hickman, who liked to rally the local shopkeepers for a good cause. Getting more townsfolk to participate in the annual fish fry seemed to be one of them.

  Most of the Granger family participated, with Dodge Granger and his plucky wife, Edith, casting deeper out in the river from a small boat this year. Milo Gump and his wife, Amanda, who owned Holy Rollers bakery, Spud Drive In and Belly Up Tavern, had staked out their chunk of shoreline along with Sammy Hastings and his family, owners of Sammy’s Smokehouse. Hank Marsh and his teenage grandson, Tommy, were there, along with countless other folks who populated the city of Briggs.

  Then there were the out-of-town folks who had driven in for the day. The river swarmed with men, women, teens and younger children who all seemed to enjoy participating in the event, along with a few folks who sat along the shore in lawn chairs watching all the fun on this beautiful day.

  “So, I’m ready to win this thing,” Joel said as he sneaked up on Callie, who stood at the shoreline holding her fly rod in one hand and the line in the other.

  Despite any lasting apprehensions, a hot streak of happiness bumped at her heart. She had hoped he’d come today. This more open and honest Joel Darwood was slowly winning her over, and she had no intention of trying to quell her growing feelings for him. Instead, she wanted to see where they would lead her.