The Last Real Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  “You’re the one who invited me up.” He smirked. “For coffee.”

  “You said you wanted some.”

  “Is that really what you were offering, Amanda? Because I don’t think it was. And I think you know it.”

  “I distinctly remember telling you I liked coffee.”

  But her voice was a little bit breathier than before. And when Brady straightened from the counter, then took his time rounding the island toward her, her jaw didn’t exactly drop. Instead, her lips parted, and her eyes began to look a little bit glassy.

  “I—I … I don’t—”

  “Now, sweetheart, you spent a lot of time ranting at me about how grown-up you are,” he said, almost like he pitied her. He didn’t. “Are you really going to tell me that I misunderstood you down there in my truck?”

  She kept turning as he came around the corner, keeping her body pointed toward him. That suited Brady fine. He waited until they were face-to-face, and then he moved even closer, trapping her with her back to the counter while he caged her between his arms.

  For a long moment he did nothing but listen to her fight to breathe.

  This close, he could smell her soap on her skin. And mint in her hair. And he could smell coffee too, but then he’d always had a deep appreciation for the rich, thick scent of it.

  The pulse in her neck was going wild. She looked jittery and hopped up, but he knew it was something far more intense than caffeine. He could feel it too.

  “I’ve been up in these apartments a time or two, I don’t mind telling you,” he said, and with his hands on the counter he had to lower his head toward hers. So he did. “But it hasn’t been for coffee. In fact, Amanda, I believe you’re the first woman to actually make me a cup of coffee outside of a coffee shop in a good long while.”

  “I can’t help it,” she said weakly, and he liked how greedy her voice was, then. How shaky. “It’s literally my job.”

  “And that’s why you invited me up here?” he asked, his voice a low, lazy rumble. “To do your job?”

  “To be honest,” she said, and then swallowed so he could hear it, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “No?”

  “No. I thought you’d rant at me some more about walking on the street, crossing without a crossing guard, not maintaining a buddy system, or any number of other things that apply to kindergartners that you somehow think also apply to me. Then I thought you’d growl something and drive off in a cloud of dust. After telling me that you might as well be my older brother a few thousand more times.”

  “You’ve made it a point to remind me that you’re not my sister.”

  Amanda arched her back to keep looking him in the eye. And her body brushed against his while she did it, costing him more than he wanted to admit. He had to fight to keep his expression impassive, but she didn’t do the same. Instead, she made a shuddery little sound, and then, worse, he could see goose bumps prickle to life down the line of her neck.

  And once again he was … desperate.

  He told himself to ignore it.

  “I’m not your sister, Brady.” Her eyes searched his. “I never was.”

  Brady couldn’t decide if he was furious or filled with something far more dangerous than temper. That place inside himself where he stayed so still, so watchful, seemed to grow wider. Ravenous.

  He couldn’t keep himself from following where it led. Not for one second more. He shifted, pressing himself against her while he smoothed back her hair. Then he held her face in his.

  He didn’t let himself think about how natural it all felt.

  Her hands came up too, and Brady could feel them on his abdomen. He hoped she wasn’t pretending to herself that she wasn’t affected by this, when he could feel her shaking.

  For a moment, he didn’t bother to hide. He gazed down at her, intense straight through and wild with it, buffeted by seismic changes he refused to name.

  He let her see all of that, and then he dropped his head even closer.

  “Brady—” she started, though it was more like a squeak.

  He took a thumb and dragged it over her lips. Back and forth, over and over, to make them both crazy.

  “I’m not one of your older brothers,” he told her, his voice going gravelly. “And if you want to play these games of yours, you need to remember that I’m an adult. Not a kid.”

  She blinked, and then her eyes flashed liquid gold as her gaze went defiant. “Right back at you.”

  Brady knew he needed to teach her a lesson. One she wouldn’t forget.

  So he kissed her.

  He could have kissed her sweetly. He could have eased in.

  If he’d thought about the fact that this was Amanda Kittredge, he might have. Assuming the thought didn’t kill him first.

  But this was a lesson, and he wasn’t here to be sweet.

  He kissed her like she was a girl in a bar. Like she’d invited a man she barely knew up to her apartment on the flimsiest of excuses. He kissed her like a one-night stand, deep and hot and carnal.

  There was every chance in the world that Amanda had never been kissed before, so he didn’t waste time pretending he was a safe, domesticated boy.

  He kissed her like a man. Need and hunger and expectation, with every stroke of his tongue against hers.

  She made a noise in the back of her throat, but he couldn’t tell if she was startled or greedy. So he kissed her until he could tell the difference.

  He knew when her hands smoothed out against his abdomen, then dug in. He knew when her tongue met his.

  And for a blistering moment, it was all earthquakes and appetite, so he ran with it. He hauled her up against him, up off the floor until he could set her on the counter. Then he moved between her legs. He pulled her flush against him and didn’t protect her from his arousal. Or the force of his hunger.

  But it wasn’t until he slid his hand down her back to grip the sweet curve of her hip that she finally made a noise and wrenched her mouth from his.

  “I—I can’t—”

  “You can’t what?” he asked her pitilessly.

  “I can’t—I mean, I’ve never—”

  She blew out a long, shuddering breath. Brady understood she had no idea of the picture she made. Her hair, tousled and wild, and her lips damp and faintly swollen from his.

  He didn’t understand the tenderness in him, then. When the whole point of this had been to overwhelm her. He didn’t understand why he wanted to hold her, pull her head to his chest, soothe her.

  He didn’t understand any of this magic, only that Amanda was making a mess of him.

  But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that he cleaned up her mess.

  “Riley is my best friend in this world,” he gritted out. “And I’m pretty fond of the rest of them too. That’s what you have going for you when things get too intense between us. I know them, they know me, and because of that, I know you too. But what happens if it’s some other guy? One of those men you think you’re going to pick up downstairs? They won’t know a single thing about you except the invitation.”

  “So what?”

  He could feel the growl inside him. “What if you change your mind, and he doesn’t want that, Amanda? What’s your plan, then?”

  “Just because someone likes to drink in the Coyote doesn’t make him a monster, Brady. You should know. You drink there all the time.”

  “And you can tell the difference. With all your vast experience with men, you can tell if you’re looking at a good guy or bad mistake waiting to happen. Are you sure, Amanda? And what are you prepared to risk if you’re wrong?”

  She pushed at him, looking panicky, so he didn’t move. He was proving his point. One beat, then another, and all he did was wait. Only when she pushed again did he move to the side. She pulled her legs together, then slid off the counter and onto the floor.

  Amanda caught herself with one hand on the kitchen island, letting him know without another word how unsteady she was. It
was one more detail he filed away, vowing that he wasn’t going to look at it. And if he did, it would be much later. Alone. Somewhere his shame wouldn’t choke him.

  “Is that what this was?” she asked softly. Uncertainly. “You wanted to teach me a lesson?”

  “Did you learn something?”

  Brady hated himself when a look of misery washed over her face. And he wondered why, if hurting other people felt like this, his father had committed himself to it with such gusto. He couldn’t get his head around it.

  But this wasn’t the time or the place to examine his Amos issues. Or to wonder how he’d picked up so many of the old man’s ways when he’d been so sure he wouldn’t. That he couldn’t. That he’d gone ahead and built a life somewhere else to prevent it.

  “I’m going to go wash off this day,” Amanda said, still in that small, shaky voice that made his bones ache like an old man’s must. “And that’s not an invitation, Brady.”

  She didn’t look at him again. She wrapped her arms around her middle, ducked her head, and headed off across the room toward her bedroom.

  Leaving him there with nothing but his hat on the counter and a stone deep in his belly, chock-full of all that regret he’d warned her she didn’t want to experience. He didn’t much care for it either.

  Brady heard her shower go on and tortured himself for a while, imagining those curves he’d felt pressed flush against his chest, finally bared to his view. And better still, covered in water and soap and—

  “Enough,” he muttered.

  At himself. At this situation. At innocent Amanda, who tasted like sin and redemption and who had already ruined him without even trying.

  He let himself out of her apartment and took the stairs too fast, throwing himself into his truck. But no matter how much dust and gravel he kicked up behind him as he pulled away, he had the feeling his Amanda Kittredge problem was only just beginning.

  8

  “It’s the last weekend of September, Uncle Brady,” Becca said over breakfast a week or so later, staring at Brady as if he’d transformed before her very eyes from her uncle into a fire-breathing dragon. Or a clown. “This is Cold River. In the Longhorn Valley, Colorado, right here in these United States. All of this taken together can only mean one thing.”

  “Come on now, Denver,” Ty drawled in a chiding sort of way.

  Ty was kicked back in his normal place at the big kitchen table in the ranch house, holding a sleeping Jack against his chest. He had one hand on his son’s back. And yet he managed to look as smirky as he ever did.

  “Do the math, college boy,” Gray chimed in gruffly, though there was a hint of a curve in the corner of his stern mouth.

  Because it wasn’t a morning at Cold River Ranch unless his brothers were riding him.

  Brady closed his laptop with a decisive click and made himself smile. “This might come as a shock, but none of that actually helps. I still don’t know what it is you all think I should be excited about this weekend. That October’s coming?”

  “Uncle Brady.” Becca said that like she despaired of him, and when he only stared back at her, she sighed even louder. “Homecoming and the Harvest Festival, of course. It’s always the last weekend in September.”

  Brady loved his niece, often more than he loved his annoying brothers, so all he did was smile at her. “Of course. Silly me. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “Seems to me you’d have better recall,” Ty drawled over the top of Jack’s head, his dark eyes merry. Or malicious. With Ty, there wasn’t much difference. “You were on the homecoming court two years running, as I remember it. I would have thought you’d slap that right on the top of your resume.”

  “Sure,” Brady agreed. “Because in the corporate world, what really matters is whether or not you went to a dance in high school.”

  “It’s not just a dance,” Abby piped in from next to Gray, sounding deadly serious—though she bit back her own smile. “Don’t you remember? It’s an entire week of celebrations, though most of those are in the high school. On game day, which I know you remember because you won every homecoming game you played, there’s a little parade through town. Leading straight into the Longhorn Valley Harvest Festival all weekend. Becca isn’t wrong. These are staples of life here in Cold River.”

  “I do love me a festival,” Hannah drawled, from her spot next to Ty where she could keep a hand on him and on Jack, if she liked. And she often liked.

  Brady looked around the table at the various grinning members of his family. He couldn’t decide if this was an elaborate practical joke or if they had all woken up this morning significantly more interested in meaningless nonsense than they ever had been before.

  “Um. Great.” He would have preferred to study his stock portfolio, but he tried to do the opposite of things Amos would have done. That meant concentrating on the things that were important to others. The image of his father scribbling away at his ever-changing will right here at this repurposed table would haunt him forever. “I can’t say I have any personal feelings about festivals one way or the other.”

  “The Harvest Festival is the last big town event before winter,” Abby told him. Bart was in a sling across her chest, only the top of his head and his chubby legs showing. “All the shops stay open, and people come in from out of town to have themselves a little fall getaway. The Grand Hotel does a booming business, the restaurants tell themselves lies about how they’ll make it through the low season, and the high school kids have the homecoming dance. If we’re lucky, it doesn’t snow for at least a few more weeks. If we’re not, well, we get an early winter wonderland and do the whole thing anyway.”

  “This is the first time in years that you’ve been home on homecoming weekend,” Becca said. Intensely.

  “That is … true,” Brady agreed.

  “I already told the school you’ll be in the parade.”

  “The what?” Brady rubbed a hand over his face, wondering why it was only around his family—and if he was honest, a certain other member of the wider Cold River community, though this was certainly not the time to think about Amanda Kittredge—that he felt so sucker punched all the time. He didn’t like the sensation. “I’m not a parade kind of person.”

  “Becca is on the student council homecoming committee this year,” Abby said mildly, kissing the top of the baby’s head. Almost as if she was telling Bart that information.

  “I haven’t been much of a parade person historically,” Brady corrected himself without missing a beat. He smiled at his niece. “But I’d be happy to change that for you. I need to stay on top as favorite uncle.”

  Next to him, Ty hooted. “Favorite uncle? You lost that crown a long time ago, son.”

  Becca beamed, and Brady was no more immune to that smile than anyone else sitting at the old barn door that made their table. Because he remembered all too well the many years when the only smiling Becca had done had been forced. Faked. She’d been a kid who thought she had to act middle-aged. It could only be a good thing that Becca was interested in regular old teenage things. Because that meant she was doing what she was supposed to do, not what she thought she should do.

  You could take a lesson from your niece, a voice in him commented.

  But Brady was getting real good at ignoring those obnoxious little voices. Since they never said a thing he wanted to hear.

  After breakfast was finished, the various members of the Everett clan launched themselves into the main part of their day. Abby and Hannah set off toward town with the kids and Becca in tow. Ty went off to tinker with one of the farm vehicles that had been acting up, because he had a way with machines and thought he could save them having to shell out cash for an expensive part.

  Gray went into his office to make a few calls before they headed out into the fields, so Brady cracked his laptop open again. He’d taken an indefinite leave of absence from his firm, but he still liked to check in with his partners and keep a close eye on all the various financial b
alls he kept in the air.

  He also liked to read the paper, out here in the hinterland, too far from town for anything like a daily paper delivery. He liked to remind himself there was more to the world than this ranch house, something he had fervently believed when he was growing up here. Or hoped, anyway. Now he knew it for sure. And he didn’t want to sink back down under the surface of that particular swamp again.

  Some mornings, the act of reading a few headlines felt like a revolution.

  When he glanced up sometime later, he found Gray standing there in the doorway that led into the living room. He was leaning against the doorjamb, studying Brady in that way he had. As if, by his reckoning, Brady was a different species.

  “Counting your money?” Gray drawled.

  Brady was almost certain he was kidding. That this was Gray’s version of joking around, as stone-faced as ever, but maybe with a little less gravel in his voice.

  But it didn’t really matter when his joking around was in no way different from all the other times, when he wasn’t joking around at all and said much the same thing.

  Or maybe, another little voice inside him needled him, you’ve been waiting for an opportunity to vent your spleen ever since you found it necessary to kiss Amanda Kittredge.

  He was not thinking about that.

  He was only thinking about that.

  Either way, it was easy to scowl at his brother.

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing to have money,” he said, employing his own drawl, in case it was a competition. “And I get it. I do. You’re nobly allergic to the idea of profit.”

  “I make a profit.”

  “I’m tired of having this argument with you.” Brady took his time standing up from his seat, because he really was determined not to have the same fight. Ten months in and he was exhausted by it. “But I should congratulate you, big brother. You might be the first rancher in history who has no interest in expanding his profit margins. What’s your secret? Can you see into the future? You know exactly how everything’s going to go, so no need to worry about it?”