Secret Nights with a Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  He had married her a month after she’d graduated high school. He’d built her this house. He’d figured they’d have the rest of their lives together. On nights like this, he thought he should have been more specific about how.

  Four years into their marriage, she’d left him for the first time. It had taken her a solid two years to leave him for good. Meaning she’d finally moved out at that point. Back to her parents’ house, where she’d stayed ever since.

  He’d been pretty sure that was the end of it. He’d gone down to Denver to spend a little time with Brady, who’d lived there then, a long way from the mess. And when he’d come back, he’d been home all of twenty-four hours before Rae showed up at his door.

  Just like tonight.

  And more nights than not ever since.

  She walked toward him, holding his gaze the way she always did and as unreadable as ever. She climbed up to his porch, then stopped as if she couldn’t see the clouds her breath made on the cold air. Or as if she liked the clarity of the cold in the face of the confusion between them. Like he did.

  But then, if either one of them really wanted some clarity, they wouldn’t keep doing this, would they?

  “Pretty sure I told you I was done last night,” he said, not moving from where he stood, leaning up against the door like he planned to physically bar her from coming inside.

  More games, he was well aware. All they did was play these games.

  Some nights he enjoyed them.

  Rae looked like a delicate, snappable twig of a thing, when he knew she was anything but. Her brown eyes were silky and huge and had always made him foolish. These days she liked to keep her wavy, black hair in a knot on the back of her head instead of the loose curtain down her back that he preferred, which he personally thought she did deliberately to annoy him. And it was always the same sweet torment to look more closely and see those curves that had wrecked his world at fourteen. They were even better these days, especially since he knew exactly what to do with them. Sometimes Rae dressed to accentuate her perfect hourglass shape. Other times she wore slouchy clothes that hung off of her and hid the way her waist nipped in—but he knew. He always knew.

  This woman had been making him stupid for most of her life. She still did.

  “You always say that.” Rae folded her own arms, less to mirror him than to proclaim her own willingness to fight—oh yeah, he knew every single step in every variation of this dance of theirs. “If you suddenly started meaning it more last night than ever before, you’re going to have to make that clear.”

  Like always, he felt his pulse begin to kick and that familiar, uncontrollable fire begin to build in him. Like always, he felt edgy and dangerous and a lot like he might die if he didn’t get his hands on her. Because that was the one place they were always on the same page.

  “One of these nights you’re going to show up here and I’m not going to open the door,” he told her, very darkly, because he was sure that must be true.

  One day, that had to be true.

  “I think about that all the time.”

  “I don’t think you do. Why would you?” He laughed. Not nicely. “You get everything you want.”

  “Do we have to do this?” She looked almost tired then, he thought. Or something heavier, for a moment there beneath the porch light he would have turned off, wouldn’t he, if he hadn’t assumed she would turn up. But sure, this was all her fault. “How many times do you think we can have the exact same conversation?”

  “You tell me, baby. It’s been years.”

  She sighed, staying where she was. “Come on, Riley.”

  And that was … different. Normally, Rae was only too happy to jump into the fight, any fight, her blazing temper at the ready and more than capable of matching his own. Sometimes Riley thought that was the whole reason she came here.

  Well.

  That and how they handled the fighting, historically. One flame led into another, and they always let it burn.

  But tonight, she didn’t move closer. She didn’t defend herself. She didn’t throw the same accusations at him, setting that merry-go-round of theirs into motion.

  Riley wasn’t sure he’d ever stopped to think about how much he relied on the flare of temper and injustice to make the usual spark between them blaze. And he couldn’t say he liked how that realization settled in him. He was supposed to be a grown man. Yet when it came to Rae, he might as well still be a profoundly stupid teenager.

  “Did you come here for a serious conversation?” He pushed away from the doorjamb, wishing—as usual—that she wasn’t the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. “You never come here to talk, Rae.”

  She studied him a moment. “I know you think this is easy for me. It’s not. It never has been.”

  “Every time, the same game,” he said in a low voice. “Show up at my door. Pick a fight. Poke and prod until we’re all over each other, like always. I keep thinking that one day, you’ll just ask for what you want. One day.”

  Riley wasn’t being entirely fair. Everything he’d said was true—but he was no saint. He also did more than his fair share of poking and prodding when he felt like it.

  And he usually felt like it.

  “I’ve spent a long, long time trying to figure this out.” Rae didn’t say that angrily, which made the back of his neck prickle. “And I want to blame you for not being everything I want, because you’ve always been the only thing I knew how to want. But that’s not fair.”

  That sounded a lot like a goodbye.

  But they didn’t do goodbyes.

  “I can’t help you figure this out,” Riley growled. “You’ve never seen fit to clue me in on what’s been bothering you. For years.”

  She frowned as if she wanted to argue that, but … didn’t.

  Something cold introduced itself to Riley’s spine, then tracked its way down the length of his back. He kept going. “You told me we had problems that couldn’t be solved. That’s it. Care to update that?”

  “Maybe what I should have said a long time ago is that I have problems that you can’t solve. But I’ve never known how to say that.”

  “You said it fine.”

  It wasn’t lost on him that this was maybe the most honest they’d been in years. Honest when not shouting at each other, that was. There had been a point, back there somewhere, where he’d veered between two extremes. Either assuming that he needed to let her work it out in her own time—whatever it was—and therefore accepting this for what it was whenever she turned up. Or so riled up about all of it that he knew if he even opened his mouth to ask one question, he’d tear down his own house with his hands.

  Funny thing was, time marched on all the same.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” Rae said in that same soft way that made every alarm in his body start to howl. “I’m so tired of fighting with you, Riley.”

  Normally, they would have poked at each other enough that they would have been tearing off each other’s clothes by now, staggering inside, sometimes not making it to the bed at all the first round.

  Some years, Riley told himself it was that kind of passion that mattered most. That it would be the thing that saved them in the end.

  But tonight he felt strung out on the softness in her, far more deadly that her temper. Because he knew what to do with a fire. He knew how to let it burn and take them both into the white-hot center of it until neither one of them could move, much less fight.

  Softness, on the other hand, just might kill him.

  But Rae didn’t continue. And following an urge he would have denied if they’d been sniping at each other, he reached out to smooth his hand over her hair until it rested there, curled around her neck. He let his thumb move over her jaw.

  And watched, something in him scraping wide open and raw, as her eyes filled with tears.

  He had seen her cry too many times to count. He liked to pretend he was immune, but he wasn’t. What he was, he knew, was good at playing this game
of theirs because it was all he knew. Their families had taken sides. Their friends knew better than to ask direct questions. Sometimes Riley thought their secret wasn’t much of a secret, but no one brought it up, so he figured it didn’t much matter that they weren’t as “ex” as they pretended they were in public.

  He knew that it was generally assumed that he was the way he was—grumpy on a good day, according to his siblings—because he was bitter.

  Riley knew better. It wasn’t that simple. But it was easier to let them think that.

  Rae’s mouth moved then, as if she were about to say something, and he had the strangest sensation suddenly. Some kind of premonition that because she wasn’t fighting tonight, she was actually gearing up to take a much bigger swing at him—

  He told himself that was silly.

  But he went with his instinct anyway, leaned down, and covered her mouth with his.

  And like everything with Rae, it was too good. Too right. The way it had been when they were just kids. The way it had been every time since.

  Every time he kissed her, it was like he could remember every other time he’d kissed her too. That first time, her very first kiss, out behind her family’s flower shop. The day he’d kissed her to claim her as his wife, standing up there feeling so grown up in front of everyone they knew and loved. And all the other ways he’d kissed her since then.

  To say goodbye. To ask her to come back. To do the begging he refused to do with words. To convince her, compel her, even confound her if that was what it would take.

  He had kissed her a million times, and it still wasn’t enough.

  It was never enough.

  Riley could feel the cold air all around them, but her mouth was warm. Hot the way she always was. He took the kiss deeper, angling his mouth as she surged against him the way she always did, gripping his T-shirt in her fists.

  Because another truth was that he might not be able to resist her, he never had been, but she was equally unable to resist him.

  Some years that felt like balance.

  But tonight there was this. Only this. His other hand moving so he could hold her face where he wanted it. So he could kiss her over and over. Drawing it out. Finding that fire that was always between them, making them both burn.

  He would usually haul her up against him and carry her inside. Or not bother going inside, depending. Tonight, he didn’t do that.

  Tonight was different, and Riley didn’t like it.

  It wasn’t until he pulled back and they were both breathing heavily, their foreheads touching, that it occurred to him that this was a whole lot like the way they’d kissed during those years before they’d gotten married. When they’d been dating and he didn’t want to push her into anything and they’d taken breaks like this, panting and delirious and so wild for each other it had actually hurt.

  He was amazed that he could want anyone this much.

  Still.

  And it took him a moment to realize that tears were pouring silently down her face.

  “Tell me what’s wrong.” He tipped her face back so he could use his thumbs to wipe her tears away. And he gave in. “Just once, baby. Tell me.”

  He could feel her shaking. She closed her eyes.

  And it occurred to him that maybe he didn’t actually want her to answer the question.

  That if he’d really wanted an answer, he would have demanded it years ago.

  That if some part of him weren’t afraid to know the real reason why she’d left him—or sort of left him—he wouldn’t have put up with all this in the first place.

  But like most things where Rae was involved, it was too late.

  It was always too late.

  He’d felt a distinctly similar sensation at that church picnic a lifetime ago when he’d been fourteen and completely incapable of handling what was happening to him, because of her. It was lowering to realize that where she was concerned, a part of him was still that fourteen-year-old.

  Rae straightened her shoulders. She lifted that stubborn chin of hers. The way she looked at him was as sad as it was determined, and it sent a kind of iron spear straight through him. Because she normally hid that part.

  They’d been playing this same game for a long time, and he’d spent each and every one of those years wishing that it would change. But now that it was, on a Thursday night that had been otherwise unremarkable, Riley wanted to stop it. Whatever it was.

  He wanted to keep things as they were. Messed up and frustrating and maddening, but familiar. Theirs, somehow.

  “Riley,” she said, a lot like she was saying her vows, though he knew instantly that this particular vow was not going to lead anywhere he wanted to go. “I want a divorce.”

  3

  The moment she said it—actually said it, out loud, to him—Rae felt dizzy. Her stomach heaved, and she thought she might actually throw up right there on the porch with the October wind slapping at her wet face. And some part of her wanted that.

  She wanted to crumple. She wanted to give in, now, before she even tried.

  Because her heart hurt so much her ribs ached, and a panicked voice inside her kept telling her that this half-life of theirs was better than no life—

  This is long overdue, she told herself sternly. This is what’s best for both of you.

  Riley didn’t let go of her. His hands—always a little rough, always so strong, and so familiar—tightened, but that was his only reaction.

  And for a moment, Rae took comfort in that.

  Even though his eyes had gone so thunderously dark it made her shiver. And as she watched, everything about him … changed. She was suddenly entirely too aware that he was a huge, tough man towering over her, that he could tear her apart with his fingers if he liked, and that she had never, ever, seen him look quite this … scary.

  But if she knew anything in this life, it was that Riley Kittredge would never, ever hurt her. Not physically. He would hurt himself first.

  She tried to swallow, though her throat was like chalk, and tried again. “I want—”

  He dropped his hands. “I heard you.”

  Rae missed his hands, instantly. And his voice … ouch.

  But she’d known that this would be messy.

  Everything with Riley was messy. Always had been, probably always would be, whether they divorced right now or limped along the way they usually did for another decade.

  All she was doing was cleaning up her mess. Their mess. Whether he appreciated that right now or not.

  The look on his face made her breath catch. It did not look remotely appreciative.

  And her throat was still much too dry.

  “You want a divorce,” Riley said.

  Eventually.

  They called him the most dangerous of the Kittredge boys, though none of them were boys or particularly approachable or safe. Rae had always thought that was funny. But tonight she finally saw it.

  Did she ever.

  “We both know that this isn’t healthy,” she said, working overtime to make her voice sound even. And not to end the sentence with a question mark, because she wasn’t asking him. “I’m not sure it ever has been.”

  “I must have missed when healthy became a goal.”

  “We got together too young and held on too long.”

  That line had sounded particularly good in her head. She’d repeated it to herself, out loud, on the long, all-too-familiar drive from her parents’ place to his.

  She expected Riley to explode. She expected his temper.

  They’d always fought like kids who didn’t know any better. Loud and mean. Saying things that were better left unsaid. Throwing things. Making threats and ultimatums and generally behaving like idiots with each other, because that was how they’d fought when they were teenagers.

  It hadn’t been until Rae’s friend Abby had gotten married to Gray, an undisputed adult complete with a teen daughter, that Rae had understood that it wasn’t necessary to burn down the house every time th
ey disagreed. That some people—with far healthier relationships than her secret marriage to her ex—actually didn’t try to hurt each other.

  Some conflicts were actually resolved, and then the people concerned grew closer and loved each other more. Imagine that.

  Maybe that was where this had started. Maybe that was when Rae had begun to understand that continuing this insanity was legitimately bad for both of them.

  She braced herself for Riley to yell at her, but he didn’t.

  That was worse.

  “This has never been healthy,” he said, sounding more resigned than angry, which didn’t fit a single narrative she’d imagined about how this would go. “It’s been an adolescent mess from day one. And 50 percent of that is you, baby. You think you’re going to be healthy out there on your own? Great. Have fun.”

  Rae watched, astonished, as he turned and stalked back inside. She half expected him to slam the door in her face, but he didn’t. Instead, he headed for the bottle of whiskey he’d left on the coffee table. The bottle of whiskey he liked to swig when she was around, because he’d once said it was the only way he could handle her.

  That comment had caused a knockdown, drag-out fight that had ended with the two of them winded and wrapped around each other in bed, with some embarrassing holes in the wall besides.

  But tonight there was … nothing.

  When she’d expected fireworks.

  You can’t possibly be disappointed, she lectured herself. Maybe he knows this is the end of the road too. Maybe he’s grateful you brought it up first.

  Rae did not feel grateful. She felt … painfully bloated with a fight she’d expected to have but wasn’t having, after all. More than anything, she wanted to run away. Just … literally turn and run, drive out of here, and pretend none of this had ever happened.

  The way she’d done so many times before.

  Tonight, she was changing the script. She was doing the thing she’d been too afraid to do. For years. She sucked in a ragged breath. She tried to keep her hands from curling into fists. Rae followed him inside, easing the door shut behind her. She leaned against it once it was closed, watching Riley warily.