Secret Nights with a Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  Connor groaned. “We’re doomed.”

  Riley looked around and saw pretty much the same reaction all over the bar. Matias stood frozen by the dartboard. A tableful of folks Riley knew, though not well, were as wide-eyed as if they were family members. Behind the bar, Tessa Winthrop’s mouth had actually dropped open.

  When he looked back to Rae, he could see that while Abby and Hope stood on either side of her as if they were fully prepared to do battle in their own ways, Rae herself looked more … fragile.

  And he couldn’t have that.

  There was only one thing on this earth that should make Rae Trujillo emotional, and he was it.

  “Maybe we should go outside,” Jensen said conversationally, his gaze narrowed on Riley. “Take a walk, cool off.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Riley replied. “I’m good.”

  When he stood up from his chair, he felt like it was high noon in one of the old Western movies his grandfather loved so much and he was the gunslinger. Every single eye in the place slammed to him and stayed there.

  Including Rae’s.

  Riley grinned again, though all that seem to do was freak everybody out more.

  Deep down, he could admit that he didn’t hate that. He had a reputation as a dangerous man to push, and he couldn’t say he minded it. It was a pity that the only person around who really dared push him was the one he needed to stop pushing back.

  Or stop pushing back in a way she would recognize, anyway.

  He took his time ambling over toward the door, his grin only widening when he saw the way Hope moved slightly forward as if she were ready to throw herself bodily between Riley and Rae if necessary. Even Abby, renowned all over the valley for her trademark levelheaded sensibility, looked at him in a way he could only call … a warning.

  At other points in his life, he’d loved the fact that his woman had two fierce defenders, ready to stand up for her no matter what.

  “Maybe you should walk away,” Hope suggested.

  Riley took that to mean that his grin was faltering a little bit at the edges. But that was okay. He could let his temper simmer as long as he didn’t let it burst free, because letting it loose now would be a disaster. Not only a disaster but all the proof Rae thought she needed. He knew better.

  This was a long game, and he was going to win it.

  “You look great,” he told Rae.

  Her eyes were too big, and he could see the uncertainty there. That fragility he didn’t like, because it was too close to her hurting. That was unacceptable.

  She cleared her throat. “Um. Thanks?”

  Riley flashed his grin at Hope, who only raised a wary brow. Then at Abby, who smiled back, because she always did—but she didn’t move away from Rae’s side.

  “Let me buy you all a drink,” he said.

  And he actually laughed when all three of them gaped at him as if he’d tried to hand them something horrible. Like, say, a bouquet of skunks.

  “Are you kidding?” Rae asked, her voice little more than a breath.

  “Of course I’m not kidding, Rae,” Riley said, injecting a faintly disapproving note into his voice as if he were shocked at her behavior. Instead of delighted. “That’s what friends do.”

  8

  This was obviously a bad idea.

  Rae was wearing as skimpy a dress as she’d ever worn thanks to Hope’s younger sister’s questionable wardrobe. She was actually wearing it out in public even though that much exposed skin was pretty much the exact nightmare she’d been having since she was a child. And Riley was there the way she’d feared he would be.

  Or had hoped he would be, maybe.

  But unlike the way it had gone down in her head, he was …

  Grinning.

  Laughing.

  And if the ringing in her ears wasn’t warping things, he was calling them … friends.

  “Are you friends?” Hope was demanding with a challenging sort of laugh. “That’s news to me. Normally, there’s a lot of sulking in corners, glaring, and dire mutterings.”

  Because of course Hope would just say that. Rae expected Riley to react to that with a blast of all that leashed darkness he was so good at throwing at her. At everyone.

  But he didn’t.

  “That’s not a very nice way to talk about Rae,” Riley replied instead with a sort of lazy, indulgent edginess spiraling all around him. And winding tight in her.

  How could she hold on to what she was feeling when it kept changing? When it was like a kaleidoscope that Riley was twisting over and over, so that every time she thought she was looking at something, it shattered into a thousand pieces of something else?

  Over and over again.

  “We probably shouldn’t stand here,” Abby observed mildly. “Everyone is staring at us.”

  Riley gestured for them to precede him toward the bar with an exaggerated courtesy that was a whole other problem. Especially because Rae was also wearing ridiculous shoes to complete her announcement of an outfit. She would die before she let anyone see that they were too high for her. Sadly, she might also die when she tripped and slammed her head into the floor.

  But everyone she’d ever met was watching her. That meant she had no choice but to brazen it out. Since she’d gone ahead and made this choice down the block in Hope’s house, where it had seemed delightful and fun to get all dressed up and remind everyone that she was alive.

  Consider this dress your new dating profile, Hope had said.

  It seemed a lot less delightful and fun now that it was happening and Riley was right here, but Rae didn’t intend to slink off into the night. She launched herself toward the bar instead, hoping her legs would figure out what to do while she moved. Hope stayed by her side, hopefully prepared to catch her if she started to tumble, while Abby fell back to talk with Riley.

  Like this were a normal night and they all usually hung out together.

  “Where’s that man of yours?” Riley asked.

  Rae couldn’t see Abby grin, but she could hear it in her voice. “Gray Everett in a bar in town on a Thursday night? Has the world ended?”

  Riley’s laugh sounded appreciative. Rae hadn’t seen or heard of him laughing in years, and now there were different kinds of laughter?

  “How exactly did you end up with the oldest young man in the Longhorn Valley?” he asked Abby.

  “There are compensations,” Abby replied, more laughter in her voice.

  Rae knew she’d hit a low point when she felt what she was embarrassed to admit was actual jealousy kick around inside her then. Jealousy. Of Abby. Who was so in love with her own husband she could hardly see straight, but even if she hadn’t been, was one of Rae’s best friends of all time. And would never, ever betray her.

  “Where did you just go in your head?” Hope asked when they made it to the bar. “You look like you saw a ghost.”

  “No ghosts,” Rae said, angling her head toward Riley as he came up behind them, all saunter and smile. “He’s entirely too real.”

  “We are not here to wallow in Riley Kittredge,” Hope said. Fiercely. And not exactly under her breath. “I have absolutely no qualms telling him to go away.”

  As she said that, Hope got a certain gleam in her eyes that came before she Hoped out. Which was kind of like hulking out, but much prettier. If with the same potential for destruction.

  Rae had to think that as entertaining as that might be in the moment, it would only make things worse overall. Not that she could think of any way to stop Hope from doing as she pleased. No one could.

  Riley, having known all three of them for their entire lives, didn’t consult them on their choice of beverages. He ordered from Tessa, then stood back, leaning against the bar with that same genial grin all over his face.

  It wasn’t any less disconcerting here than it had been in the flower shop the other day.

  “As a friend,” Riley said, amiably, lounging there as if he were someone else. Someone deeply unconcerned with what was ha
ppening around him, when the Riley that Rae knew had always been burning with intensity no matter what he was doing or who he was with. “It’s my duty to tell you that if you keep scowling around the place, you’re probably not going to get the results you’re after.”

  Rae only then felt what her face was doing. She tried to correct it and scared the hiker-type standing a few feet away.

  “As her friend,” Hope retorted, “I think maybe it’s the looming presence of her mean and bitter ex that might stand in the way of her progress here tonight.”

  Riley shifted that dark gaze of his to Hope, still holding on to his grin, though Rae watched it change. Taking on that edginess that made her whole body shiver in awareness.

  Hope did not look like she was shivering.

  “As everybody’s friend,” Abby said then, in a far more conciliatory tone, “I think the thing to worry about here is whether or not we’re putting on a show. Right now, I would say yes, we are.” She smiled placidly when everyone looked at her. “And I’ll point out this is certainly not going to convince anybody that you two are just friends.”

  Rae wiped her face clear of whatever expression she was wearing. And for his part, Riley shifted so he was less aggressively leaning, and looked … Well. Still not that simmering, male darkness that she knew best. Almost approachable, really.

  She told herself that the way her stomach twisted around at that had to do with this new enterprise of hers. The short hem and high heels. The invitation she was trying to extend. Not with him.

  Because one way or another, Rae was determined that for at least five whole seconds strung together, she would think about something other than him.

  This was admittedly harder to do when he was standing in front of her.

  Almost as if he were … waiting.

  Abby and Hope struck up a completely different conversation then, this one about all the new boutiques and shops and restaurants that had opened in town over the last couple of years. A conversation they’d had with each other pretty much every day of those years, so it was clear the purpose of it was to rope in Riley. So the three of them could carry on having a congenial night out with friends while Rae stood there at the bar baring more skin than she thought she’d ever expose at this time of year—or ever—and trying to look casual.

  She folded her coat and put it on a barstool, making a slight production out of it for Hope’s benefit. Since Hope had threatened to rip it off her if she didn’t remove it once inside and that would not be remotely casual. When Tessa came back with their drinks, she smiled her thanks and then turned back around so she could look out over the bar as if this were a normal thing she did. As if she were dressed like this purely to gaze around in what she thought—hoped—was a compelling sort of way. At the Broken Wheel’s so-called scene that she’d witnessed a million times before. But never quite from this perspective.

  She ignored her brother, who she could see eyeing her from his place over by the dartboard, where he liked to quietly terrify anyone paying attention with his skill and accuracy. Because Matias never liked to point out his own accomplishments when he could perform them, right there in plain sight, for everyone to see and fear.

  There were the usual tables of the usual groups of locals and scattered tourists. There was the group that had been hers, once upon a time. A mix of Kittredges and Everetts and an empty chair that she knew was her brother’s—because he’d made it very clear that he wasn’t picking sides. By then picking sides.

  And not her side.

  A claim she knew he would dispute. But still.

  There were families with kids, many of them eating out here in town before taking the long drive back out into the valley, the way Rae and her parents had done as often as not when she and Matias were younger. But it was right at that hour when the families would start to leave. Soon there would be a different sort of dancing than the few indulgent parents with toddlers out there now, on the dance floor in front of the tiny little stage where there were sometimes live bands. Lucinda Early was out there now, two-stepping sedately with her husband, George. Because even dragon ladies were sweet sometimes. Tonight was a quiet Thursday in the last gasp of October, so the only music came from the jukebox. And the same way there’d been as long as Rae could remember, there was the typical group of teenagers clustered around it, out-cooling each other with their selections.

  Once, that had been her over there, hoping to impress Riley Kittredge if she could just pick the right song—

  But she wasn’t thinking about him.

  Rae had to kick herself then. Because she wasn’t here to admire all the things she usually liked to pay attention to in the Broken Wheel on a comfortable, forgettable evening. She wasn’t here to wax rhapsodic about Cold River and all the people she loved who lived here, no matter how tempting that was to do every year come fall when there were fewer tourists and more of the real folks who made this place what it was.

  Possibly because reminding herself what she loved about her hometown outweighed the whispers about her.

  Either way, tonight she was here to scope out the talent, according to Hope. A phrase that had made Abby laugh uproariously, back behind Capricorn Books in the Mortimers’ ramshackle old Victorian house that an enterprising new shopkeeper at the dawn of the twentieth century had bought from a catalog to assemble for his brand-new bride.

  Rae had not laughed along, mostly because she was the one who was going to be expected to perform said scoping, and she hardly knew what that meant.

  Or worse, she knew exactly what it meant and was horrified at the prospect.

  That sounds very romantic, Abby had said.

  Tonight is not about romance, Hope had declared. Tonight is about prospects and new beginnings. It’s time to remind the good people of Cold River about your assets, Rae.

  You mean the family greenhouses?

  Hope had smiled in that serene way of hers that was, first of all, not all that serene and, second of all, was actually more like bloodcurdling when you knew her well.

  I do not mean the greenhouses, she’d replied. I mean your body. Which is usually in those sad khakis and that Izod shirt that is not doing you any favors.

  I can’t help my uniform, Rae snapped back, every fight she’d ever had with her parents about how ugly it was ringing in her head.

  Your uniform is fine in the shop, but it is not fine on an evening out, Hope had decreed.

  And that was how Rae found herself dressed the way she was, which had the unexpected benefit of being so outside her comfort zone that it was too much to actually process. She had no choice but to look as relaxed as Hope had ordered her to pretend she was.

  Beside her, the little knot of her two best friends with the man who seemed to think they could be friends after all their tangled history looked animated. But Rae was an expert on Riley’s surreptitious glances. And it turned out that she was capable of picking them out of any mess. Or knot.

  She knew each and every time that dark gaze of his tracked over her. Over all of her exposed skin that she’d known full well he would appreciate.

  She could feel his appreciation.

  And her body reacted to him the way it always did. She felt herself shift as she stood, because she felt looser. Brighter. Softer, straight through the middle.

  You’re supposed to be looking at literally any other man, she reminded herself tartly.

  The fact that she wasn’t actually looking at Riley seemed like splitting hairs, really.

  One of the doors in the back that led to the kitchen swung open, and she saw Jackson Hale come in, carrying trays of freshly washed glasses. He had been on Hope’s list of potentials. Rae remembered when he’d first come to town and all the buzzing and carrying on about an attractive new single man on the scene when so many of them had grown up here and were known a little too well.

  I know people grow and change, Hope had said once about another man they’d known as a kid. But the problem is, if I know he was a nasty li
ttle bully in fourth grade, there’s some part of me that assumes that when things get tough? That nasty little bully is going to come right out again.

  Jackson Hale could have been horrible in fourth grade for all anyone in Cold River knew, but there was no way to find out. Rae fixed her gaze on him dutifully. He was tall, and though he was dressed in jeans and boots like every other man in town, he didn’t wear the typical plaid or flannel shirt. Or even a T-shirt. He wore the kind of thin sweater that highlighted the excellent shape he was in and also hinted at the much fancier life he’d lived before he’d come here.

  His gaze—moving around the saloon much the way Rae’s had, though she figured it was likely different when a person owned the place—found hers. And unlike every other time she’d happened to catch the man’s eye, Rae didn’t smile distantly and look away.

  She held his gaze, though it made her pulse pound in what she told herself was not a kind of horror. Then she made herself smile.

  Jackson’s gaze sharpened as he slung the trays of glasses onto the end of the bar. And Rae watched, a strange sensation whirling around inside of her, as his gaze lowered to take in her outfit. Then rose again even more slowly.

  And her smile faltered because she didn’t have the slightest idea what to do next—

  But Jackson looked slightly to one side of her. His eyes widened. Then he walked away, disappearing into the back again.

  Riley.

  Rae clenched her teeth tightly. Then, not paying the slightest attention to what he might have been discussing with Abby and Hope at that point, she hooked her hand around his elbow and yanked him toward her.

  It was only after she’d done that—after he’d let her do it—that it occurred to her that putting her hands on him with that kind of familiarity wasn’t exactly helping her cause.

  “What did you do?” she asked him.

  “Listen, baby, Hope and Abby can talk all they want about progress and moving into the modern age, but you’re never going to convince me that Cold River doesn’t trade as much on nostalgia as—”