Make Mine a Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  Charlotte laughed, for real this time. “If it’s between that and my favorite Trader Joe’s meal for one, I’m guessing she’d prefer the pub fare. You think Pearl will be relieved or even more worried when she finds out I’m her temporary replacement?”

  Carter laughed too. “You’ll be fine,” he insisted. “Also, the nearest Trader Joe’s is close to two hours away, so you’re probably going to have to make some changes to your diet staples.” Carter glanced at his watch and then back at Charlotte. “Okay. You’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours. We need to get you to the inn.”

  “Oh my God,” Charlotte said. “What time does breakfast start? What do I need to do? Who do I need to call?”

  Carter placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’ve got tomorrow covered. Let me take you home so you can get settled and sleep. You don’t need to worry about anything other than getting some rest.”

  Instinctively, Charlotte reached for her suitcase. Suddenly, she realized it hadn’t been there since she’d made it to Pearl’s room.

  “Oh my God,” she said.

  “What?” Carter’s brow furrowed.

  “My suitcase. All my things. I wheeled it into the ER, and I have no idea what happened after that.”

  Carter grinned.

  “Ben Callahan texted me. Said he grabbed it when you left it behind and that he’ll swing by the inn and bring it to you whenever you get there.”

  She cleared her throat. “Well…text him and tell him he can drop it off now…before I get there.”

  Carter shook his head. “No can do. He said he wouldn’t feel right handing it over to anyone but the owner. But I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way.” He raised a brow. “I’m guessing the guy wants to see you. Hey, that’s not who you were— I mean, when you were dreaming just before…”

  “Of course not!” she lied.

  Her throat tightened. She sure did enjoy seeing him in her mind’s eye, but that was all she had time for. No distractions this time around. No leaving reality at the door. She was here to play caretaker for her grandmother and for all the patrons and employees at the Meadow Valley Inn.

  She swallowed. “Oh my God, Carter. What did I sign up for?”

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “You signed up to do a really good thing for someone who needs you. And don’t worry. You’ve got an entire town to support you. Take it from someone who less than two years ago was an outsider too. Now this place is more of a home to me than Houston ever was.”

  She nodded. “So everyone welcomed you with open arms as soon as you got here?”

  He shook his head. “Oh hell no! A probie in my company tried to run me out of town. Took getting trapped under a burning ceiling beam in Mrs. Davis’s old house to set things right, but it’s been smooth sailing ever since.”

  A burning ceiling beam? How had she not heard about this?

  “Have you ever given a pep talk before?” Charlotte asked. “Because that one sucked.”

  Carter laughed. Pearl stirred in her bed, but she didn’t wake.

  Charlotte shushed him, and they moved farther down the hall from her grandmother’s doorway.

  Carter brought up Ben Callahan’s number on his phone’s screen and initiated the call. He put it on speaker, and Charlotte held her breath. Why? She had no idea. But she was well aware that she was neither inhaling nor exhaling as she listened along with her cousin.

  Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.

  “Hey. It’s Ben. You know what to do.”

  Beep.

  Carter groaned. “Thought you said you’d still be up, Callahan. I’m taking Charlotte to the inn. I’ll make sure she has what she needs for the night, but if you could swing by with her suitcase in the morning…” He glanced at his cousin and winced. “You know what? Make that early afternoon. Thanks, Ben.”

  Charlotte scoffed. “Early afternoon? What am I supposed to do without my stuff until early afternoon?”

  Carter shrugged. “Sleep. Pearl has toiletry type stuff for purchase, right? We’ll grab you a toothbrush and some toothpaste. Maybe even a Meadow Valley Inn T-shirt for you to wear to bed. You’re set until tomorrow. Maybe next time think twice about storming off without your suitcase.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “How do you know I stormed?” she asked, incredulous.

  Carter raised a brow.

  “Okay. Maybe I stormed. I was— And he was—” But there was no use in arguing. Her cousin was right. The inn had what she needed to make it through the night, and chances were she would sleep past noon, if her body even remembered how to do such a thing.

  She blew out a long breath. “Fine. Let’s go. But if he calls you back before we get there, we’re going to the ranch for my stuff. Okay?”

  Carter crossed his heart. “Scout’s honor.”

  She laughed. “You were never a Boy Scout.”

  “Fire lieutenant’s honor, then. That’s gotta hold some weight.”

  He put his arm over her shoulders and pulled her close. “It’s good to have you back, cuz,” he said and kissed the top of her head. Then he gave her a warm smile, and the weight of the day lifted, if only slightly. His dark auburn hair matched hers, a reminder that while they hadn’t been close growing up, they were family. The next two months were not going to be easy. But she had support. She could do this.

  They paused outside Pearl’s door, and Carter nodded toward his sleeping aunt. “She didn’t want to ask too much of her employees, but they rallied as soon as they all learned how bad the fall was. They’ve got your back. And so do I.”

  Charlotte pressed her lips together and tried to smile back. She could swab a reluctant child’s tonsils like nobody’s business, diagnose an ear infection in seconds, and administering vaccinations? Please. She could do it without her patient shedding one tear.

  But running an inn? No clue. And she only had one afternoon and evening to figure out how to do it. By the time Gran came home tomorrow, Charlotte wanted her to see the Meadow Valley Inn as the same well-oiled machine she’d left it the day before.

  “Okay. Let’s go,” she said. “Time to sleep off this day and then give myself a crash course in the art of hospitality.”

  “In that case,” Carter said, “your chariot awaits.”

  Charlotte startled awake and for a moment didn’t know where she was. Then the familiar layout of the room—the bed facing the bathroom, her clothes from yesterday balled up on the dresser—sunk in, and she let out a breath.

  She grabbed her phone from the night table and looked at the screen.

  1:10 p.m.

  But she’d set an alarm for eight—and had likely shut it off in her sleep-deprived state. She knew she wasn’t expected to get to work this morning, but sleeping the day away was unacceptable. She could be learning. She could be getting to know the staff. She could be…

  She sprang out of bed and realized she was wearing nothing but a Meadow Valley Inn T-shirt and her underwear.

  A knock sounded on the door, and she gasped, promptly forgetting her attire as she ran to open it.

  A knot tightened in her stomach.

  There stood Ben Callahan—cowboy hat on his head and devil-may-care grin spread across his face.

  “Mornin’, Doc. Or should I say, good afternoon?” he asked, tipping the brim of his hat up with a flick of his finger. “Fancy seeing you here. Love the outfit, by the way.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, but her shirt rode up. Then she crossed them over her knees but realized that hid nothing. So she promptly slammed the door shut, raced over to the dresser, and grabbed her wrinkled pants. Then she ran her fingers through her hair, pulled it into a ponytail, and groaned.

  He’s seen you first thing in the morning before, she reminded herself. It was just usually post-orgasm that she looked so disheveled, which meant he was happy no matter what her appearance. Now though? And after she ye
lled at him last night?

  She groaned, ran into the bathroom so she could splash some water on her face and brush her teeth, and was back at the door in—she guessed—less than two minutes after having slammed it.

  There he stood, still grinning, and he had the audacity to wink at her.

  “Take two?” he asked.

  She tried to ignore how sexy he looked standing there with her luggage no worse for wear beside him—or how it was sort of nice of him to have taken care of her suitcase in the first place. It also didn’t help that her attempt at meditation turned into a replay of their last morning in bed together. The time they spent together was a fantasy—a really fun fantasy both of them always knew was going to end. She wasn’t on vacation anymore. She didn’t have time for fantasies or fun or…cowboys.

  “Thanks for bringing my suitcase,” she said coolly, reaching for the handle.

  Ben slapped a palm down over said handle at the same time so that she grabbed his hand rather than the case.

  She sucked in a sharp breath and pulled her hand away.

  “Come on, Doc. Aren’t you going to invite me inside?” He tilted his head down just a notch to meet her eyes. Charlotte was tall at five foot eight, but Ben still had at least half a foot on her. He was a strong physical presence, but she was strong too. She could resist his charm, his use of that silly nickname she’d never admit she liked. But nicknames were personal. They evoked connection, and although their bodies had connected on more than one occasion, those occasions were behind them. In the past. They would not be connecting again.

  “Please,” she said, trying not to sound cold. “Call me Charlotte. We’re not— I mean, we don’t…you know…anymore.”

  He grinned. “Is the good doctor tongue-tied?”

  She groaned. “No, it’s just that yesterday was a long day, and I’m still catching up. I don’t have it in me to argue with you right now.”

  “Are we arguing? I wasn’t aware. I thought we were having fun. You remember fun, right? And I didn’t mean to sound like an insensitive jackass. Couldn’t forget about your grandmother if I tried. I’d have asked how she was doing, but Carter filled me in.”

  At this she smiled, her shoulders relaxing. “Why, Ben Callahan, are you getting all sincere on me?”

  He laughed. “I see your talent to banter has returned.”

  “Look,” she said, then motioned between them. “This was fun, but we both agreed it had an expiration date. I need to focus on the inn, on taking care of my grandmother. That’s the only reason I’m here. As soon as she’s up and about again, I need to get back to my life. I don’t have time for anything else. We need to keep the past in the past.”

  Ben held up his hands. “Doc…” He cleared his throat. “I mean…Charlotte. While I do enjoy that you always think I’m hitting on you, I wasn’t going to offer anything other than taking your suitcase inside. Maybe show you how to use Pearl’s registration software and where she keeps the longnecks in the cooler. It’s 5:00 somewhere, right? It’s the same system we use at the ranch, so I know it well. But, hey, if you’ve got everything under control, I’ll get out of your hair. Just wanted to do my part—for Pearl, of course.”

  He started to back away from the door.

  “Wait,” she called after him. Charlotte swallowed the knot in her throat. She wanted to prove to herself that she could do this, to prove that she was as self-sufficient behind the welcome desk of a small-town inn as she was wearing a white coat in an exam room. But she’d assumed people called for a reservation and she just wrote it down in a fancy ledger or something. She was sure they had something similar at the pediatric practice where she worked, but she didn’t make patient appointments. That was Patty and Patti, the two front desk receptionists.

  Ugh. She needed help and from the very person she didn’t want to find helpful or caring or concerned because past in the past and all that.

  “Registration software?” she finally said.

  Ben winked. “Customer calls, books a room, and you enter it into the system. Keeps you from double-booking. You wouldn’t want a couple of honeymooners showing up and asking them to share the suite with the couple who hasn’t left yet, would you? Can’t say that would go over well on Yelp. Do people still Yelp, by the way? I should see what they’re saying about the ranch if they do.”

  Charlotte’s palms grew damp and her pulse quickened. Where was her routine? Her certainty? Without those things, she was at a loss. “Um…right,” she said. She was already in over her head.

  He crossed his arms. “I’m thinking that you might be in need of my…expertise.”

  He was either teasing or flirting or both. But Charlotte’s head was spinning so much that she couldn’t tell, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She cleared her throat. “Okay. Yes. I need to learn how to do that. Like, right away.” And even though she’d just woken up, a cold beverage sounded really good after the night she’d had. When was the last time she had a drink in the middle of the day? Better yet, when would she be able to do this again? After Ben showed her the ropes, she’d be off and rolling—on duty pretty much twenty-four-seven.

  Ben grabbed the suitcase by the handle, not bothering to extend the rolling arm.

  “That thing weighs at least fifty pounds,” she said. “You can just roll it on in if you want.”

  Then she realized that her whole life fit into one large suitcase. Suddenly fifty pounds seemed lacking.

  He shrugged. “This is quicker. Besides, aren’t you impressed by my brute strength?”

  She let out a nervous laugh. “Showing off doesn’t impress me.”

  And that was the problem. She was impressed. She’d initially found the idea of Ben Callahan attractive. A strong, sexy cowboy who literally made people swoon. This was no exaggeration. She saw it firsthand at the fall festival—how he drew looks from basically anyone with a pulse, how strangers flirted with him, how all the locals, especially women, knew his name. It hadn’t bothered her. It still didn’t. Ben was a story to tell her friends—well, as much as her colleagues and neighbors were her friends—back home. She had no circle of girlfriends she brunched with on Sundays or anything like that. There was hardly time in her life for that. But if she did, she’d tell them about the man ripped from the page of an L.L.Bean catalog. She’d talk about how he was a really good fantasy—who was now going to teach her one of the most important aspects of running the inn, which didn’t feel very fantasy-like at all.

  “Well,” Ben said, lifting the case with ease and depositing it on the luggage rack beneath the window on the opposite wall. “If upper body strength doesn’t do anything for you, there’s always my brain.”

  He raised his brows.

  She wiped her damp palms on her pants.

  “I’m good with just learning the computer system,” she said. “That’s all I need.”

  The last thing she needed was to find Ben Callahan’s brain attractive too—or to move into the highly unfamiliar territory of what she might actually want.

  “As you wish, Do—Charlotte,” he said with a grin. “Happy to be of service.”

  Chapter Five

  Ben left Charlotte to start unpacking—since she clearly wasn’t going to be staying in his bed this time around—and headed back toward the lobby. Not that he expected any sort of interaction like they’d had before. It was just that the last time he saw her, she was naked. In his bed. Okay, fine. She did get dressed before heading to the airport, but that was nothing more than a technicality.

  He rummaged through Pearl’s cooler and found the shelf with ice-cold bottles of beer. The inn wasn’t exactly a beer-serving establishment. That was why they had Midtown Tavern. But Pearl liked to kick back on the porch swing with a longneck every now and then. If Ben happened to be in the area, she shared one with him too.

  He paused before leaving the kitchen. He needed to figure out a game plan. He and Charlotte had had a good thing going during the fall festival, but he’d never looked
past that. For a guy who thought he’d had an expiration date of his own—or at least a time when life would get a lot harder for him and anyone he let get close—he never counted on more than having his fun until he couldn’t any longer.

  Now he had his life back. A healthy future. And suddenly Dr. Charlotte North looked…different.

  Her auburn hair, her freckles, and her full pink lips—not to mention that she could ride bareback like no one’s business—all of it still drove him mad. But what would it be like to let himself feel something for someone like her—someone who, from the moment they met, saw right through him? Where would he even start? Maybe it wasn’t the wisest choice to start with the first woman to cross his path since getting the news about his false diagnosis, but he couldn’t get the idea of What if? out of his head.

  “Except she’s still leaving, idiot,” he mumbled to himself. “Just not today.”

  Besides, he didn’t have the first clue how to do different or more or anything of that sort. It didn’t stop him from thinking he might want to try it out, especially with someone where the chemistry was undeniable—even if it was purely physical right now.

  “You’re still an idiot,” he said under his breath again. “But maybe you’re just the idiot she needs.”

  When he made it back to the lobby with two perspiring beer bottles in his hands, Tyler—the front desk assistant—was just hanging up the phone.

  “Room seven-A just called—Pearl’s granddaughter?” Tyler said. “She wanted to know if I had a detailed breakdown of the daily schedule, from sunup to sundown and everything in between. She even asked if I had a spreadsheet that laid out which hours had the highest surges in reservation calls. She seemed a little…intense.”

  Ben laughed. That wasn’t how he would have described the woman with whom he’d spent a fun-filled, no-strings-attached fling, but then again, that woman wasn’t the whole Charlotte North, was she? He raised a brow. “Hey, you think I could borrow that laptop?” he asked. “You can forward any telephone bookings to Charlotte’s room and we’ll take care of it. The sooner she learns the ropes, the less overwhelmed—and intense­—she’s going to be.”