The Hard-to-Get Cowboy

by Crystal Green

  If one smile from her could make his night, what could she do to the rest of his life?

  God help him, but he wanted to know. He just had to find the right time to put his heart out there, to take the risk of telling her.

  But would she decide that they had no future and turn him down, just as she had done to her former boyfriends who had come close, only to leave with their hearts on the floor?

  Jackson almost forgot he was on the phone with Jason.

  “Hey,” said his brother from over the line. “Where did you go?”

  Jackson turned away from the window. “I’m here.”

  Even though he couldn’t see Laila any more, it was as if he still had her in his sights, vivid, everpresent.

  “So what about Thanksgiving?” Jason asked. “Mom wants to know if you can make it down.”

  “I…” What was Laila doing for Thanksgiving?

  His office door opened, and Ethan and Corey entered, both taking quiet seats in the leather chairs under the lasso clock on the wall.

  “Damn, Jackson,” Jason said. “Maybe I’ll just call back.”

  Ethan spoke up. “He’s only in La-La Land, Jace. Give him a break.”

  “His brain is mush,” Corey said, “because he’s got a real live girlfriend.”

  He drew that last word out, and Jackson leaned over to his desk, grabbed a piece of paper, wadded it up and then threw it at both his brothers. It hit Corey in the head and ricocheted over to Ethan, winging his shoulder.

  Both brothers thought that was hilarious, and Jackson went for another piece of paper.

  “What the hell is going on there?” Jason asked. “Are you running a madhouse?”

  “Pretty much,” Ethan said, ducking Jackson’s follow-up.

  “Next time,” Jackson said to Ethan and Corey, “it’ll be the pencil holder coming at you.”

  They pretended to be scared, then laughed, stretching out their legs, getting cozy.

  Unable to help himself, Jackson wandered back to the window, just to catch a glimpse of Laila again.

  When he saw she was now talking to that cowpoke, Duncan Brooks, he remained at the window, yet another unfamiliar emotion claiming him.

  Jealousy.

  Jason said, “Jackson, when you decide about Thanksgiving, give Mom a call. She’s waiting, and you know she doesn’t like to be kept on a hook.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  His twin hung up, but Ethan and Corey didn’t make a move to leave. Jackson wasn’t even paying much attention to them because his full focus was on Laila, who had gone from a polite posture with Duncan Brooks to tilting her head, leaning forward a little, as if she was trying to understand something he was telling her. His hat was even over his heart.

  What the hell?

  Corey said, “Why don’t you bring Laila to Thanksgiving, Jackson? Mom and Pete would love to meet her.”

  “I think it’s time,” Ethan said.

  Yeah, Jackson thought. Time for him to walk downstairs and see what was going on.

  He went for the door, still seeing Duncan with his cowboy hat in that heart-covering position, as if he was calling on Laila for a dance or something.

  After going down the stairs, he came to the lobby, just as Laila entered the doors.

  He didn’t ask what she had been talking about with Duncan Brooks. Hell, no—she had a fire in her eyes that told Jackson something bad had happened out there.

  “Tell me it’s not true,” she said, her voice sounding as if it had been shredded.

  And…the hurt. It was all over her for some reason—from her tortured expression to her fisted hands.

  “Laila?” he asked.

  She headed for the side of the lobby as people looked after her. Jackson ignored them and followed her, straight to the women’s restroom, where the door had just been shut.

  Knocking, he repeated, “Laila?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he eased open the door, hoping no one else besides Laila was in there.

  And it was empty, but for her. She had her hands braced on the counter, her head down, leaving a long strand of hair that had escaped from her barrette covering her face.

  “Did I do something?” he asked, shutting the door behind him.

  When she glanced up at him, her gaze was reddened, as if she was about to cry.

  “What did Duncan Brooks say to you?” Jackson asked, ready to go after him.

  “He…”

  When Jackson went over to her, she backed away toward the wall.

  The breath bolted out of Jackson. He recovered just enough to say, “I don’t understand…”

  She merely shook her head, and it seemed as if she had to gather everything she had within her just so she could speak.

  “Once, I asked you if you had set your cap for the local beauty queen when you came here.”

  The suspicion about what Duncan Brooks had told Laila crept over Jackson with the slow surety of coming devastation.

  “I asked you,” she continued, “if the only reason you invited me out was because you wanted to add me to your collection. You said no.” Her expression crumbled. “Now that I think about it, you didn’t even deny it. You went on to tell me that, when you first saw me, you noticed a spark, and that’s why you wanted to get to know me.”

  “I did,” he said, knowing now that it had been so much more than just a spark.

  She shook her head, her eyes even mistier now. “Duncan Brooks heard you say something that puts you in a whole other category than who I thought you were.”

  His world started to wobble. Why hadn’t he just told her earlier that he hadn’t meant to say what he had said? That, at the time, he had wanted to take it back, even though he had desperately been trying to persuade himself that he wasn’t falling for her?

  “I should’ve told you all about that conversation I had with DJ in the diner,” he said.

  She went back to the counter, leaning against it as if her faith in him had been the only thing holding her up until now.

  He continued, hoping that he could redeem himself. “It was wrong of me, Laila. And I didn’t mean a word of it. If I could take it back, I surely would, but—”

  “Do you know how it makes me feel to know that you’re just like the rest of them?” she whispered.

  Like the rest of them—adoring her for her beauty, never bothering to look any deeper.

  It was like a bladed thrust to everything he had started to believe about himself since he had met her. But she didn’t give him the opportunity to tell her that he had changed, and it was because of her.

  His love for her.

  She wiped at her eyes, struggling like hell to overcome more tears, and her fight to do so ripped at him.

  “You really are a playboy,” she said. “I just bought into your act.”

  Now he was the one who needed the crutch of the counter, although he kept himself from reaching out for it.

  Laila, the only one who had seemed to look past his reputation. He had pushed her too far.

  “Laila,” he said, “the only reason I said what I said to DJ is that I didn’t know what else to do. I…”

  The words—the big I’ve-fallen-for-you ones—almost escaped from his mouth, but then instinct took over, years and years of self-preservation.

  Besides, she wasn’t going to believe that he had changed. He had already done enough damage to her that she would remember this moment—this heart-killing crash—every time she saw him from now on.

  As she rushed out of the room, the door slammed behind her, just as she had shut the door on him before, on their first date when he had teased her to the point of frustration.

  It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  He turned, looked in the mirror at Jackson Traub, seeing the pain in his eyes.

  Seeing a crushed man who was missing something vital without Laila.

  Chapter Twelve

  That night, Jackson sat at the dining table in his condo, a beer in hand, trying
to drown his sorrows.

  But he had no taste for it any more.

  None of it.

  He had left the office early, intent on going out, chasing a good time and forgetting about Laila altogether…

  Unfortunately, even that had left a taste as bad as this beer.

  Now, with every swallow, he realized that he didn’t want to forget the feel of her silky blond hair tangled through his fingers, her smooth skin under his hands, her soft mouth—the softest and most desirable in the world—murmuring sweet nothings under his kisses…

  Jackson thumped the bottle onto the table. This wasn’t working at all. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten through one beer yet and he already felt hung over.

  How could he cure himself, though?

  Not for the first time, he was tempted to grab his phone, call her, apologize. But he knew it wouldn’t be enough. And he knew that if he showed up at her doorstep full of more excuses, it wouldn’t do any good, either.

  He tugged a hand through his hair just as a knock sounded on his door. When he didn’t answer, his phone rang.

  Checking the ID screen, he saw DJ’s name.

  Crap.

  Instead of answering his cell, Jackson went to the door and pulled it open. DJ was on the other side, closing his own phone, making Jackson’s generic ringtone come to a halt.

  His cousin took one look at Jackson and said, “They told me you were a disaster when you left. They were being kind.”

  When Jackson had last seen his brothers, it had been post-Laila, after he had numbly climbed the stairs and gone to his office, sat in his chair for a while just staring straight ahead of him, then left. Corey and Ethan had tried to talk to him, asking him what had happened, but Jackson hadn’t responded.

  He hadn’t had the heart.

  Without being invited in, DJ brushed past Jackson, shedding his coat and hanging it on the rack.

  “What’re you doing?” Jackson asked.

  DJ went to the living area and took a seat on a stuffed leather couch. “Babysitting you. Your brothers seem to think that you’re going to get into some trouble tonight.”

  “Why aren’t they here to stop me?”

  Raising an eyebrow, DJ said, “Let’s think back to a few months ago… Corey’s wedding…? Fists flying, Traub brothers brawling, you leading the way…?”

  Jackson just wiped a hand over his face, then sat on the opposite end of the couch from DJ. “And that’s why they sent you—because you’re the most diplomatic of the family.”

  “They know that something’s really wrong, Jackson, and they’re ready to swing over here at a moment’s notice if you need them.”

  In spite of that assurance, Jackson felt more isolated than ever. He loved his brothers, but they weren’t Laila.

  He had allowed her glimpses that no one else had gotten—or he feared would ever get.

  “Word is,” DJ said, his brown eyes full of sympathy, “Laila ran crying out of the Traub Oil building just before you came upstairs. Why?”

  No hiding it anymore.

  But Jackson didn’t even want to hide it. He just wanted her here again.

  He broke down, telling DJ just about everything: the flirtation that he thought wouldn’t ever get so serious, the part where they had gotten more serious, the seriousness of what he was feeling now.

  “What I told you at the Rock Creek Diner… When I said that I had wooed Laila just because she was beautiful…?” Jackson shook his head. “I was wrong. Even then, I was attracted to her for a whole other reason, but I didn’t have an inkling of what it was.”

  “Now you know it was love.”

  See—even DJ knew it.

  Jackson leaned his forearms on his thighs. “Now I don’t even want to drive a mile out of Thunder Canyon because it’d be too far from her. I couldn’t admit that back then or today, though. And when Laila confronted me with what I said, I should’ve…”

  Revealed his heart to her.

  Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve…

  “Jeez, Jackson,” DJ said. “It’s obvious that you’re a mess, and if you don’t go to her and tell her everything, you’re never going to forgive yourself. Believe me.”

  “Is that what you did with Allaire?”

  DJ’s face took on a glow, one that Jackson had also felt when he had been watching Laila from his office window today, moments before she had come into the building and dismantled his life.

  “My wife,” DJ said, “was the one who didn’t know what she wanted. I always did, even when we were younger. Allaire just needed a big gesture from me—needed to see that I was never going to give up, no matter how tough the going got.”

  And, suddenly, every bleary thing around Jackson got a little clearer.

  “If Laila’s what you really want,” DJ said, “then humbling yourself is a strong first step, Jackson. You’ve got to show her that this obstacle is nothing compared to how you feel about her. That is, if you’re ready.”

  Jackson remembered that man in the mirror—the distraught “disaster” who had lost his heart when Laila had run out of the restroom.

  And it was just a matter of getting up off this couch and getting his tail in gear to show Laila that he had become a better man because of her.

  “I’m ready,” Jackson said.

  As DJ stood by, the first thing Jackson did was suck up his courage, calling Mrs. Cates to explain, apologize…

  …and hopefully to plan.

  The next evening at the Cates ranch house, Zeke and Evelyn’s annual Halloween bash was in full swing.

  Every costume from that of a joker to a witch to a ghost was represented by the guests. The house was decorated with Halloween streamers and doodads: Crones on broomsticks hanging from the ceiling, huge sparkling spiderwebs in corners, paper skeletons dangling on the walls. The aromas of pumpkin cake and caramel-dipped apples filled the air while howling, haunted house sounds added to the festive atmosphere.

  Laila was standing near her mom’s upright piano, which was shrouded with cobwebs, in the family room with Dana. Her friend, outfitted as a red-white-and-blue-spangled Statue of Liberty, had decorated herself with a couple of flourishes to make her the belle of the ball: her hair was streaked with patriotic colors, her toga swirling with firecracker designs, her Victorian ankle boots decorated with ribbons.

  Even though Laila had thought about not coming to the party altogether, much less wearing the long ethereal white dress with snowflake sparkles that made up much of her Snow Queen costume, Dana had dragged her out of the apartment. Laila had gone along with it only because she knew that her family would never let her live it down if she begged out of the party. Mom, in particular, had put the hard sell on Laila to attend last night. Even when Laila had countered that things weren’t going so well with Jackson and she would rather stay home, her mom had told her that what she truly needed was to be here.

  “Trust me,” Mom had said.

  So here Laila was, and the more she saw people having fun around her, the more she asked herself why she was allowing a relationship that was only supposed to be brief in the first place to get her down.

  She would be darned if she let anyone see how much agony she was experiencing because of Jackson.

  “Another glass of punch?” Dana asked, keeping her eye on some single men from town who had been invited by Laila’s parents. They were trading jokes with Matt and Marlon, Laila’s cousins, plus their fiancées, Haley Anderson and Elise Clifton.

  “I’m punched out,” Laila said.

  She sure felt that way, too, as if she had been blind-sided after a slam to the stomach. Last night, she had left work early and ghostwalked through the rest of the day. It had only been when she had lain down in her empty bed that she had figuratively hit the floor, knocked out.

  Obviously, Jackson hadn’t cared enough to call her after their fight. Maybe she had shamed him into believing that she thought he was dirt.

  What man would come around after that?

&nbs
p; But, damn her, with every beat of her heart, that was all she wanted him to do—reach out and explain.

  Unless…

  She tried not to think about it, but the mental specter was always there…

  Unless he truly had been using her for a disposable good time. Unless she genuinely was just a crown that he could claim and brag about.

  But, if that was the case, what about the way he had kissed her? What about the way he had looked at her as he had held her in his arms?

  Heart heavy, Laila toyed with a spiderweb on the piano until Dana cleared her throat.

  “Just hang in there,” her friend said way more optimistically than Laila could understand. “You’ll be okay. Trust me.”

  Her mom had said the same thing.

  Laila nodded, and Dana gave her a one-armed hug. A diamondlike snowflake sparkle floated out of Laila’s unbound hair, where she had pinned a bunch of them.

  Laila watched the glittering flake drift to the ground then sit on the carpet, as lifeless as she felt. And just as useless.

  Someone was laughing nearby, and when Laila glanced up, she saw that Jazzy had brought Annabel and Jordyn over to Marlon and Matt, plus the pack of construction workers who had wandered over with water guns and green face paint slashed over their cheekbones. Army men, on the go. Nearby, Abby hung out with Brody, every once in a while casting a compassionate glance Laila’s way.

  Dammit, she felt like the poor loser among the bunch.

  She smiled at Abby, showing that she could be just as good without Jackson.

  Abby toasted her with her punch glass.

  “Well,” Dana said, glancing at her bicentennial watch as if she was expecting someone, though Laila couldn’t imagine who. “I’ve got to powder my nose. You?”

  Laila told herself that the pain in her chest would go away in a minute. “No, I’m fine.”

  “It’s okay for girls to trek to the restroom together, you know. It’s not a party foul.”

  “Really, you don’t have to handle me with kid gloves.” Now she felt like she was baggage.

  Would she ever feel normal again?

  She doubted it, because it seemed as if her ribs had been pried open and her heart excised. A macabre Halloween prank come early.