Bad News Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  “You have to get your ketchup somehow.”

  She set the bottle down and placed a knife inside the narrow neck, drawing out as much as she could. And even completing this silly, clumsy task, she was the most captivating creature he’d ever seen.

  Yeah, it was love. What else could it be? Love, he was pretty sure, was watching someone smack a ketchup bottle while wanting to drag them into the bathroom and have them against a wall.

  Well, it was more than that. But that was part of it.

  She dipped her fry in her hard-won ketchup, crunching loudly.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  She paused midcrunch, her eyes widening. “What?” she asked around a mouthful of potato.

  “Something I should have realized sooner.”

  “If you brought me here to tell me things are done...”

  “Why would I do that? Why the hell would I do that?” He was defensive now, and he knew it. Because she was supposed to know him better than that.

  “I knew this felt like a bad idea.”

  “Is that right, Katie?” he asked, anger firing through his veins. “Then you don’t actually know anything. I brought you here because I’m tired of sneaking around. Because I’m tired of hiding the fact that we are together. I don’t care what anybody thinks about it. No, I don’t deserve you. Everyone here knows that. But I have you, and I’m so damn proud of that fact. And I’m going to do everything I can to be a man who’s worthy of you.”

  She was still holding her French fry up by her mouth, her lips parted slightly. “What exactly are you saying?”

  She didn’t look happy. She didn’t look hopeful. She looked... She looked scared, and when a man was making confessions, shaking down to his core, that wasn’t what he wanted to see.

  But it was too late to turn back now. The burning that had been growing, spreading in his chest for a while now, had taken hold completely, and there would be no stopping it until he said this, until he admitted it.

  “I’m trying to say that I love you.” He waited for a smile. For something that looked even a little bit like happiness. But Kate just sat there, her eyes glittering, darting back and forth as if she was looking for an exit. Looking anywhere but at him. But he’d never been accused of being a fast learner. So he kept talking. “I love you, Kate. I want more. I want everything.”

  Kate braced her hands on the edge of the table, like a passenger grabbing hold of the dash when she saw an accident coming that she couldn’t do anything to stop. “Jack... You can’t... That’s not what this is.” She looked wild, panicked. Like he’d told her he was dying of a terrible disease, not like he’d confessed to having feelings for her. “You said. You told me this would be sex only. Only sex.”

  “Yes. I said that. And in the beginning, I meant it. I’ve never had anything more with anyone else. It changed. I changed. That’s what it is now.” He took a deep breath and looked at her, at the woman he’d known for so many years. The woman who had been part of his life for so long he couldn’t imagine living without her. The woman who had recently become his entire world. Whether her hair was braided or free, her lips naked or painted red, she made his heart beat. “I love everything about you, Katie. Probably always have. You see me. You’re the only one who sees me.”

  She blinked hard, her brows locked together. “But that doesn’t mean...that doesn’t mean that I love you. That doesn’t mean that I can love you. Or that I want... Jack, I’m going to go professional next year. I’m going to travel all around the country.”

  “Yes. I know. And I’ll... I’ll go to some of it. I’ll travel with you sometimes. Or I’ll just stay here and wait for you if that’s what you want.”

  “You... You told me... You were the one who said this was only physical. You were the one who was worried about me getting hurt. You can’t just change the rules,” she said, her eyes glittering, her voice fierce.

  And it hit him then what an arrogant asshole he was. Because in his momentary revelation he hadn’t imagined she might tell him no. He’d been so focused on his own journey, on his revelations about himself, that he hadn’t stopped to think she might not be on the same page. That she might not love him.

  Looking at her now, at the anger, at the terror in her eyes, he knew he had miscalculated, and badly.

  She was rejecting him. She was honest-to-God rejecting him. He’d never been rejected by a woman in his life.

  Because you never asked for more.

  And now that you have...

  He gritted his teeth against the searing pain, the burning anguish in his chest.

  “I have to go.” She stood up, pushing her food back to the center of the table and turning away from him, then walking quickly out of the restaurant.

  He would have bled less if she’d shot him. As it was, he was just sitting there feeling like he’d sustained a mortal wound with nothing to staunch the flow.

  He reached for his wallet and dropped sixty dollars on the table, knowing he was overpaying and not caring. He stood and followed the path Kate had just forged with all of her righteous indignation, well aware that everyone in the restaurant was looking at him. Well aware that everyone had just seen him get rejected by a woman he didn’t deserve.

  If there were people in there who knew them, and there very likely were, they had just seen Jack get put in his place. They had just seen his unworthiness confirmed on a grand stage.

  He walked outside, his breath visible in the cold air. People were dining out on the front deck, outdoor heaters lit, the warmth warping the air around them. And Kate was standing there, wringing her hands and looking both ways. Probably pissed because she’d just realized she’d stormed out on her ride.

  “Kate,” he called down to her. He realized that he’d captured the attention of the outdoor diners, but he didn’t care. “Come back. Let’s talk.” He started down the steps toward the street and she turned partly away from him. As if she didn’t want people to know he was talking to her.

  And it hit him then. She wasn’t the dirty secret. She never had been.

  It was him.

  Of course it was. He was no good. The town bike, bike that everyone had ridden once. The bastard son of no one.

  She was Kate Garrett, sister to Connor and Eli Garrett, the best men in town. She deserved better and everyone knew it. Apparently, so did she.

  He took a deep breath, the salt air burning his lungs, his heart pounding heavily in his head, and asked himself how the hell he’d gotten here. Breaking into pieces over a woman he would have called a girl only a few months earlier.

  She had been honest when she’d said she didn’t want more and when he’d decided he’d believed he was being honest. But he was a liar. Apparently.

  He just stood there, his hands clenched at his sides. He was holding back a flood of heartbreak and poetry, and neither were anything he had experience with. And behind the poetry were small mean things that he wanted to say to hurt her, to get a reaction out of her. To make her understand what he was feeling.

  All of it was better left unsaid. He might not have any experience with this kind of thing, but he knew enough to know that.

  Too bad he was past the point of giving a damn. There was no point in pride, no point in preserving any damn thing when his heart was already broken. She was ashamed? She wanted it to be a secret?

  Too bad. He didn’t.

  Because he was proud of her. Proud of what he felt. He didn’t deserve her shame. He deserved for her to at least listen to him. To say it to his face if she didn’t want him.

  His father had sent a damned legal team and payment to get him out of his life. He needed at least a conversation from Kate.

  “Fuck it.” He strode toward her, and she turned away, starting to walk in the other direction. “Kate! Wait. Listen to me.”
/>
  “No.”

  “You don’t have to commit to anything. Not right now, but we need to talk. You are not running from me.”

  He closed the distance between them and she looked up at the audience they’d gained. “I’m not having this fight with you in front of half the town.”

  He looked up at the diners. “That’s not even close to half the town. And you’re trying your best to not have this fight with me at all, and I’m not going to have it.”

  “I didn’t ask your permission to not have it. I’m not having it.” She turned away from him again and he caught her arm.

  “You’re gonna run away with your tail between your legs like a scared little animal?”

  She whirled around, jerked her arm from his hold and planted her hands on his chest, shoving him back. “I am not afraid.”

  “Could’ve fooled me. You look like you’re running scared.”

  She took another step toward him and he wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his body. “Don’t,” she said, her tone warning.

  But he had never been very good at taking warnings.

  He dipped his head and kissed her.

  It wasn’t a kiss to try and seduce her around to his way of thinking. It wasn’t even a show for the crowd. He just wanted her to taste his anger. So that she could feel the desperation he did. So she could feel how wrong it was for them to be anything but together.

  She didn’t push against him. Instead she kissed him back, giving him a taste of her own rage.

  Fine. He would take that. It was better than her walking away. Better than her refusing to fight. He would rather fight. Would rather go down in a blaze of bloody glory than offer her his heart and watch her walk away in a huff as though they’d done nothing more than disagree about politics.

  He would drag it all out right here so everyone would know it had existed. That it had been real. She wanted it to be a secret? She wanted it to stay hidden? Too damn bad.

  It was too big for him to hide, too big for him to walk away from unchanged. And he was tired of being invisible. He would be damned if she tried to make him invisible to her, too.

  All those stunts he’d pulled, all the things he’d done to get his father’s attention... They were a boy’s rebellion. A boy’s bid for what he’d been denied.

  This...this was a man’s desperation. From deep within his soul.

  He wanted her to cry for them, for this. Because he would cry. He wanted her to break, because he was shattering inside like glass.

  If she was going to walk away, he wasn’t going to make it easy.

  She was holding tight to him now, clinging to his shirt, but in spite of that, he found himself being propelled backward.

  “What the fuck, Monaghan?”

  Jack found himself off balance and staring at the hulking silhouette of his best friend Connor, standing there backlit by the streetlight, his hands clenched into fists. Jack was having a hard time figuring out what the hell Connor was doing in town, and in the middle of that confusion was the instinctive fear he felt for his safety.

  Even with the darkness keeping his expression vague, Jack knew that Connor had murder on his mind.

  Jack was having trouble making his mouth work. So it wasn’t a huge surprise when the words that came out of his mouth were both asinine and self-destructive. “It’s exactly what it looks like.”

  That had been a mistake, and he knew it. When it came to physical strength, if it were Eli, Jack was pretty sure he would have a fighting chance. They were about the same height, with lean muscle. Connor, on the other hand, was roughly the size of a rodeo bull and, much like a rodeo bull, had no qualms about stepping on your head.

  “Connor,” Kate said, “just... Don’t...”

  “Stay out of this,” Connor said, his voice hard.

  “No. I will not stay out of it. I’m in it. What are you doing here?” Kate asked.

  “I was out having dinner with my wife and I got a text from our friend Jeanette saying you two were out here making asses of yourselves on Main Street. That’s what I’m doing here. I don’t know what I expected but that,” Connor said, pointing to Jack, “that was not it.”

  “Connor,” Jack started, but his words were cut short when Connor’s fist connected with his face. Jack went down, the sharp, hard crack of the sidewalk on his knee enough to offset the throbbing in his head.

  “Connor?” Another voice was added to the chorus calling out Connor’s name. Liss had just appeared behind Connor, holding on to the edges of her coat, the yellow streetlights igniting her hair like a red flame.

  “He was kissing her,” he said, pointing down at Jack. Then he turned his focus back to Jack. “I saw you two yelling at each other. Heard you yell at her. And I saw you grab her and make her kiss you.”

  Yeah, as things went, that was probably the worst way ever for Connor to discover his relationship with Kate wasn’t entirely platonic. The yelling. The kiss, which could be viewed as somewhat of a rough kiss.

  “I care about her,” Jack said. “And you know me. Think about those things right now.”

  “You care about her?” Connor asked, his tone incredulous. “Like you care about all the women you pick up at bars and fuck?”

  “Don’t,” Jack growled. “Don’t say that shit when you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You,” Connor said, rounding on Kate now. “How could you be that stupid? You know him. You know what a damned ass he is. Tell me you’re not sleeping with him.”

  Kate had her arms wrapped around her midsection, as if she was trying desperately to fold into herself and disappear. “Connor... I...”

  “Shit,” Connor bit out. Then he turned his focus back to Jack. “Give me one good reason not to kill you here and now.”

  “Two. There are witnesses and your brother is the sheriff. I’d hate for Eli to have to arrest you.” It was a bad time to make a joke. Though it wasn’t entirely a joke. He half believed Connor would kill him where he stood if he didn’t give him a good reason not to.

  “I swear to God, Monaghan...”

  “I love her,” Jack said. His pride was dead and buried anyway. Might as well make it roll over in its grave. He directed his gaze to Kate. “I do. I love you. I’m proud to love you. I want more. I want more than just sneaking around. I don’t care if he knows it. I don’t care if they know it,” he said, gesturing up to the people who were now avidly watching the scene unfold. “Maybe I’m not good enough for you. No, hell, I know I’m not. But I thought you at least knew me well enough... I thought you trusted me. You know my past—everyone here does. I thought you knew I was more than that.”

  Kate was shivering now, her eyes resolutely dry, her teeth chattering. “I do know you. That’s the problem.”

  The last bit of hope he carried died a slow, howling death inside of him, begging for mercy as Kate’s words pushed it to a place beyond healing.

  Connor was just standing there looking grim. Liss was a few paces back, her skin waxen. And Kate was in the center, determination in her face even while she shook so hard he thought she might rattle apart.

  All of them standing away from him.

  A clear line.

  He stood alone. As always. He’d been a fool to think it could ever be different.

  “Perfect.” He turned away from them, the feeling of isolation growing inside of him. Pain bleeding outward, pain no one else saw or cared about.

  Because they saw only what they wanted to when they looked at him. Maybe in the end, they were right. Could everyone be wrong about him? It didn’t make much sense.

  Maybe, all this time, he’d been the one who was wrong.

  He’d been such an idiot. He had imagined that if he tried, he could be good enough for Kate. But he should’ve kno
wn. Bad blood. He would never be good enough for her; he would never be right for her. Even the people who were supposed to love him most felt that way.

  He’d told Kate that he was wrong for her. But somewhere along the line he had stopped believing it. But she still did.

  Damn himself for being so convincing.

  * * *

  KATE WATCHED AS JACK walked back to his truck, started it up and drove away. Then she turned and looked at her brother and at Liss, who were both staring at her awaiting an explanation she wasn’t sure she could give. She wasn’t giving any sort of explanation right now, because her throat was too tight, and her head was throbbing.

  He loved her. Jack loved her. He had said the words and everything had frozen inside of her.

  And now everyone around her seemed frozen, too. She couldn’t face it.

  “I need a ride home,” she said, the words sounding far away and fuzzy. Not just like someone else was saying them—but like someone in another time and space was saying them.

  Liss moved to her, wrapping her arm firmly around Kate’s waist. “Of course.”

  Kate didn’t want to be touched. She felt so damn fragile. As if a touch might break her. But she also wasn’t about to push her pregnant sister-in-law away from her.

  They walked down the street, Liss holding her tight, holding her together, Kate imagined now, since she felt as if her body was made entirely of cracks and splintering glass. Connor was behind them, acting like a shield against everyone rubbernecking to get a look at the situation.

  Liss opened the door to Connor’s truck and stood waiting for her to climb in.

  “I... Can you sit in the middle?” Kate asked.

  Kate needed an easy escape. She didn’t know if she would survive the ride home. She needed to let part of the splintered bits of herself break open entirely. To let some of this pressure escape so it didn’t dissolve her entirely.

  “Sure.” Liss climbed in ahead of her, surprisingly agile given her advanced stage of pregnancy.

  For the first time ever in her whole life, Kate really wondered what it would be like to have a baby. A whole new wave of longing broke over her. Dreams, desires she’d never once let herself have, clawing up from deep inside her, threatening to overtake her.