“I’m not,” he denied fiercely. What did his cousin take him for? “Ash dumped me last night so she’s in play.”
Bodhi rocked back on his heels. Bowen stared.
“She dumped you?”
“Yeah.” It took guts to admit it. “Gonna win her back. I’m buying her a ring any cowboy can see across a dance floor. I’m going to propose to her in front of Granddad and the moms,” he said feeling reckless. “And we’re going to pick out a dog!”
After the finals.
If that wasn’t a commitment, he didn’t know what was. Beck kicked into his boots, grabbed his keys, and jammed his hat low on his forehead before Bodhi and Bowen even moved.
“Hell, I’ll even marry her at the damn Bash. See if you can top that!” Beck pushed open the back door and headed for his truck, his mind made up and his blood burning with determination.
He heard his cousins coming up behind, and he started to run. Their footsteps pounded the dirt fast and familiar behind him, and Beck increased his speed, smiling. It was going to be okay.
“You’re on, cowboy,” Bodhi called out, just like Beck knew he would.
“Don’t count on your Plum Hill until the foundation is poured,” Bowen said.
Beck laughed and reached his truck.
“I dare you,” he said to both of his cousins. “Double dare.”
Their eyes flared. It was all kinds of crazy, but it felt good. Beck got in his truck and started his engine, peeling out ahead of Beck and Bodhi, just a little.
Chapter Six
There was an actual line at the Java Café. Each time Beck came back to Marietta, the Java Café seemed busier. Something was new or there was a menu change. Marietta might be small, but it wasn’t standing still. The Java was far more than a coffee shop—it served a small, but hearty and delicious breakfast selection and offered a lunch menu for the steady grab-and-go customers who worked the ranches, construction sites, first responders, and local hospital and medical offices.
Sally Driscoll, a barista for as long as he could remember, pulled shots like a pro and kept up a steady stream of conversation while not missing a beat taking customers’ orders.
“Hey, Beck, good to see you.” Boone Telford, a local whom he’d competed against in the summer rodeos stepped in line behind him. “I saw that you were competing again this year at Copper Mountain—slumming it.” Boone laughed. He too had followed the pro rodeo tour for quite a few years but always came home to compete at the Copper Mountain Rodeo.
“Hardly.” Beck was happy to see Boone. He was easygoing and had always been quick to help others and generous with his time and volunteering. “Copper Mountain Rodeo feels like home. You riding?”
“Nah, I had my time.” He waved his left hand, which had a thick, gold wedding band. “Officially retired. Found a girl at the beach in Cali last spring, brought her home in the summer and got married all in the same year. Piper’s the best thing that ever happened to me, but we’re due to have something even better in a couple of months. Can’t wait. Building a house on the ranch. Working with my dad but got a few side hustles going.”
Boone had always been quick with a smile and a deluge of information.
“Wow. Married.”
In a year.
Expecting.
Retired.
Boone was his age.
“That’s a lot to take in.” Beck’s mouth felt dry. “Fast.”
“Why wait?” His smile split his face. “When you know, you know.” His face shadowed. “Oh. Ummmmm. I didn’t mean…you still with Ashni, right?”
“Yeah.” Beck ignored the hard kick in his gut. They weren’t broken up. This was just temporary. Very temporary.
“Great.” Boone’s shoulders relaxed, and he was all smiles again. “Can’t imagine you guys apart. She’s been in your cheering section since high school.”
She had been. Always cheering him on, which hit him wrong today.
“Bringing her a chai and some pastries as a Monday morning treat.” Beck felt the unusual need to defend himself. “She’s teaching an after-school art class at Harry’s House this week.”
Boone nodded. “Oh, yeah? Must be the one my cousin’s taking—a guest cartoonist. Petal’s been talking about it all month. The kids got sketchbooks ahead of the class and were told to take pictures of at least ten people doing something and to tell a story about it with dialogue or a thought bubble. Petal’s been on a mission. Her book’s nearly full. She’s excited.”
Pride washed through Beck. And then shame. Ashni had so much to offer. So many talents, but she’d been following him in his career now full-time far longer than the one or two years they’d initially discussed.
Beck tried to shrug off this new, uncomfortable feeling. He and Ash would work this out. She was just stirred up from Reeva’s wedding. And Jerry’s dumb stunt. And his dumber response.
“Hey, you should bring Ashni one night to dinner. You could meet Piper. She’s a masseuse in town. She had an early client this morning so I’m bringing something for her break then heading back to work on the house. If you and Ashni come by for dinner, I can show you around. I’m setting up a rodeo school for kids—an after-school program in conjunction with Harry’s House. Got some retired cowboys helping out. Kane Wilder’s helping with financing. We’re working with little kids and then we’ll have more of a development program out on the ranch for older kids, who are more serious. Something to think about when your time comes. Your turn to order.”
Feeling a little like he’d been knocked off a bucking bronc and kicked for his trouble, Beck ordered the chai extra hot, hoping to keep it as warm as possible, and his drip coffee, and then exchanged cell numbers with a still-smiling Boone, who was greeting nearly everyone in the place.
An unexpected rush of longing hit him.
Beck knew many people in town, but not like Boone, who’d grown up ranch. He hadn’t had to split his time between his beloved ranch and city life with such different expectations.
City boys. Summer cowboys. Country hicks.
Shaking off the half-remembered taunts from both sides, Beck walked the few blocks to Bramble Lane, hoping to clear his head. Boone—his happiness, his certainty, his plans—still echoed in his brain.
He mounted the outside stairs of the carriage house over a four-car garage and knocked on the door.
“It’s open.” Ash’s voice floated through an open window.
It felt strange to feel nervous. Ash was his life, part of him. And yet last night she’d closed the door on him. Told him they were through.
And today he was going to change her mind.
The studio apartment appeared to be spacious—full of light—wide windows, a few skylights in the peaked ceiling that was composed of whitewashed tongue-in-groove wide planks—similar to the floor. A full kitchen with a white quartz island with four barstools. And a comfortable seating area.
Not sure where to put the coffee down, in the kitchen or in the sitting area with the white plush furniture and colorful pillows and throws, he prowled. And then stopped, seeing the large, plush, artistic horse sitting upright in a chair—the goofy expression on its face, the rakish beret and paintbrush in its mouth, and the palette on an extended hoof.
“Did you forget something?” Ash came out of the bathroom, dark hair gleaming. “Oh.” She paused and pressed her lips together. A flush stole across her cheeks, and she didn’t meet his searching gaze. He could see her pulse hammer in her delicate neck. “Beck.”
“Where’d you get this?” he asked, feeling stupid.
She was still buttoning up her denim shirt dress, and he couldn’t help that his gaze narrowed on her slim fingers on the buttons, closing off the tantalizing view of her satiny skin.
“Bodhi.”
“Bodhi?”
Ash jolted and frowned. “Why are you yelling?”
What was Bodhi doing at Ash’s apartment? He’d said nothing about winning the horse. Nothing about stopping off this mornin
g. And how had Bodhi known where Ash was? A suspicion gnawed at his brain and twisted his gut, but it was too…too impossible.
“What is wrong with you?”
He stared at her in disbelief. How could she ask that when she’d dumped him last night with no warning?
“He just dropped it off a few minutes ago for you,” Ashni said. “What’s the big deal?”
He moved his mouth, brain trying to keep up, but nothing, not a word emerged.
“He said you won it for me yesterday.” She crossed her arms. “But clearly he was once again helping you out.” Her beautiful mouth pursed, and her eyes sparked.
“I did.” He sat down, feeling like his legs couldn’t quite hold him up. What had he been thinking—that somehow Bodhi was making a move on Ash? It was ludicrous. Bodhi was a player, but he was loyal. “Before the finals I saw it and thought of you.” He paused and looked at her, willing her to come closer. Sit down with him. “I won it with help from Bodhi and Bowen,” he admitted in full confession mode.
“But when we were walking back to get ready for the finals, we saw a little girl with her mom. Without a dad. She had a…a…port.” He touched near his collarbone. “And she was holding the coloring book you made. She recognized me on the cover.”
Ash closed her eyes, looking pained.
“I gave the horse to her and tickets in the VIP sections since you weren’t coming in until later.”
Only she’d never come.
“I’m glad,” Ash said.
“I missed you, Ash. I wanted to have a present for when I picked you up so I went back after my events, but the second grand prize had already been won—by Bodhi or both of them.”
It would be like his cousins to have his back but to not make a big deal about it, not even telling him. “I wanted it for you.” He took a sip of his coffee. God, his hand shook. “I suppose you think that’s stupid.”
“No. Sweet.”
His heart soared, but she didn’t move from her position against the doorjamb of what he assumed led to the bathroom. Ash always told him he was sweet, and Bodhi never missed an opportunity to mock him. But sweet didn’t seem enough today. Ash looked unimpressed and unrelenting.
“Will you sit with me a spell? I brought you a chai and…”
“Beck.” She sighed. “We broke up. I don’t want to hurt you. Or drag out this hard part. But you need to stop coming around.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I do.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. He’d come here to fight for her. To charm her. To do something to make this right, to make this awful feeling go away, but he’d really been hoping that she would have changed her mind, realized her mistake, welcomed him back into her arms, and being a stupid dumbass, he’d hoped to be back in her bed.
“This isn’t easy for me either.” She made an impatient sound as she swept her chai off the coffee table and resumed standing in the doorway.
“Then why do it?”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
“I need to do something different.”
“Then do it. Anything. Just do it with me. Let me be a part of your life.”
He sounded pathetic. He felt worse. And it wasn’t working. At. All. But Beck had never played any games with Ashni. He hadn’t had to win her. She’d just always been his. He hadn’t ever had to try. They just worked.
And now they didn’t.
She stared down at her chai. “I don’t want to continue as we were because then I won’t make any changes, and I need to. I’m not happy, and it’s not your fault. It’s mine. I’ve drifted, and I need to stop. I need to make a life for myself that has challenge and meaning. I need to try something new, and I can’t do that while still trotting after you city to city doing the same job. And you need to pursue your dreams without guilt or worrying about my happiness.”
“Your happiness is my happiness,” he mumbled more miserable than he’d been last night. How was that even possible?
She took a quick gulp of the chai and then made a face.
“What is this?”
“Chai. The spicy kind with two percent milk. Just like you like.” He jumped up. It had better be chai.
“Tastes weird.” She made a face, sticking out her tongue, just like the yuck emoji.
Beck checked the cup. It was marked properly. He tasted it.
“Yeah. Chai. Tastes like it always does.”
“No, it doesn’t.” She took the cup back and walked over to the sink. “It tastes off, but thank you for thinking of me, for bringing me a chai.”
He felt so awkward, like nothing in his body was working properly. Everything hurt.
Even looking at her. She was so beautiful but far away. Nervously, he looked around the room, knowing he should leave, but afraid that if he did, he’d never see her again. His eyes lit on her guitar. The one he’d made for her in wood shop and with the help of a guitar maker in Denver. It was out of the case, so she’d been playing it last night or this morning.
That was something. She wasn’t throwing everything of them away.
“I love you,” he said, knowing he was going to walk out the door. “I always have. I know I always will. We’ve been through a lot together. Grown up together.”
Tears gathered in her eyes, and even though he hated to make her cry, it was at least a sign that she felt something, and he had to grab on to that. Make a plan. Run with it. But he needed to give her some time alone, just not as much as she thought she wanted. Definitely not forever.
“I’m not ready to give up on us, Ash, but I do want you to be happy.”
With me.
“You’re not responsible for my happiness, Beck.”
Everything inside of him shouted to get out of here, regroup. But he wasn’t used to quitting. He thought of argument after argument, but discarded them all, then something Bodhi had said to him that stupid, fateful night that had so riled Ash rose up in his mind.
“Walk away before you’re ready. Makes ’em hungry for more.”
Is that what Ash was doing? A game to get him to propose? Quit the tour?
It was anathema to their entire relationship. She had never been manipulative. The games he, Bodhi and Bowen engaged in made her roll her eyes or laugh. But…wasn’t that what he was doing to her?
Guilt edged into his pain. Game playing between lovers wasn’t right, was it? But if she were playing a game with him, that meant she hadn’t given up on them.
Hope soared.
So what exactly was his next play?
For the first time since yesterday, he felt a spark of hope and…intrigue.
He walked over to her, keeping his limbs loose. She’d always loved the way he walked. He’d never really understood that. He just walked, but sometimes after a competition when he’d walk toward her, she’d run toward him, jump into his arms and kiss him like she’d never let him go. He’d feel the heat of her desire roll off of her.
This time she pressed back against the kitchen sink, her eyes flared, and he saw the pulse in her neck kick up.
He stopped close enough to touch her, but he didn’t.
“Your happiness is my happiness.” He repeated the phrase, meaning it. “Take the time you need, Ash.” He waited a beat. To kiss or not? A brush of his lips or…let her think he’d kiss her?
“Beck,” she whispered. “You can’t.”
He leaned down, his mouth close to her ear so that his breath ruffled her hair.
“I can. I want to, but I won’t.”
And then he did the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He walked away.
*
Beck walked back to his truck, his mind raced unable to focus on anything. Once, a few years ago, a bucking bronc had thrown and kicked him, slamming him into the arena’s metal fencing resulting in a concussion, despite his helmet. The bronc had hopped up, pissed, and strutted away, lunging at the rodeo clowns a few times before heading back to the chute as if it
had been his plan the entire time. First and only time he’d been carried out of an arena on a stretcher. He’d come to a groggy sort of awareness in an ambulance with a tearful Ashni holding his hand and pressing ice to the massive lump that had been developing slightly above his temple.
He felt the same now.
Only worse.
And he needed to be on top of his game. Not at the bottom.
Ashni wanted space. He needed to give her some but not too much.
Blowing out a breath, he unlocked his truck with the remote and climbed in. Slammed the door as if that would hold in the emotions roiling around inside of him.
Space was the last thing he wanted to give her. The urge to return to her apartment and lock the door until they hashed things out spooked him. He wasn’t like that at all. Bossy. Controlling. They had a partnership.
Or so he’d thought.
While he had thought he and Ash were happy, she’d been slowly growing apart from him. It was like that Taylor Swift song Ashni had loved so much she’d played it over and over on her guitar the past few months while they’d been driving.
What was it called? “Exile.” Great. The title might as well have been a billboard that she’d slammed over his head.
Beck sat in his truck, not sure he could drive. His breath shuddered in and out. He hated this—feeling helpless, out of control. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to calm his racing heart and mind.
Ashni had made it sound like she’d been unhappy for some time and he’d been some unfeeling, selfish jerk. And then to imply that her happiness was hers alone to find—like he had no part. He was calling BS on that. He wanted her happy. He wanted her fulfilled. She could have that and more with him. But she had to let him in on what she needed and what was missing. He wasn’t some sideshow psychic with a tarot deck and crystal ball.
He started up his truck and drove. He watched while several families crossed the street near the Java Café. An idea occurred to him. Ashni’s art class started this afternoon. Kids liked food. They’d be hungry after school. He could at least do that. Order some food for later in the day and deliver it himself—visit the classroom, meet the kids, see Ashni in the new life she wanted to create.
The Cowboy Says I Do Page 9
