Secret Nights with a Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  But here they were. She and Riley. Friends, apparently.

  And currently, friendship involved saving Riley from himself. “You may not remember Alyssa Bond from school, but I do.” Rae started ticking off points on her fingers as they both watched the woman in question as she and a couple of her friends giggled and whispered to each other on the far side of the dance floor. “In a nutshell, she plays the victim like a violin. She talks endlessly about herself while pretending she’s too shy and introverted to stand upright. And given the slightest opportunity to stab you in the back, she will go at you with a machete.”

  Riley eyed Alyssa, who, in fairness, looked angelic tonight. Then he turned that lazy gaze of his on Rae. “She’s cute.”

  “It’s your funeral, I guess. You’re welcome to choose whatever pallbearer you like.”

  Riley laughed, took another swig of his beer, and stayed seated.

  And Rae told herself the little glow of contentment she felt about that had to do with saving him from his own bad choices. Alyssa Bond, of all people. When Rae and her friends talked about the dark days of middle school, Alyssa was always the villain.

  Some part of her thought Riley probably remembered that too, or at least Rae talking about it over the years. And was only pretending to consider Alyssa as a potential date—but Rae didn’t really want to let herself think about the reasons he might do that.

  “How’s life as an honorary Mortimer sister?” Riley asked then, and it was a measure of how far they’d come that Rae didn’t bristle at that. She didn’t glare at him suspiciously, trying to figure out what he meant by the question.

  It was Friday night, and they were friends. That was new, obviously. And like any new garment, it fit a bit awkwardly at first. But Rae thought she was getting the hang of it now.

  “You know Charity works at the church, right?” She waited for Riley’s nod. “Well, her passion project is the choir. She sings. A lot.”

  And her family might have a lot of opinions about her grumpiness in the morning, but nobody knew it better than Riley. The way his eyes lit up with an unholy amusement made her own grin widen.

  “Yes,” Rae confirmed. “At all hours, but especially in the morning.”

  “At least she has a good voice. That’s something.”

  “There is that. They’re all still treating me like a guest. When that fades, we’ll see what it’s really like. But so far, so good.”

  There were other things she could have said. Like that living in town was both everything she’d always imagined it was, and nothing like it. It was so noisy, for one thing. She could lie in her bed up under the eaves in the graceful old house, and hear … sounds. Not only the creaks and settling that was a hallmark of any old house, but people. Out in the streets, having conversations, laughing at things she felt could not possibly be so funny in the middle of the night when the bars were closed. She could hear it every time someone fired up an engine, drove away too fast, or took a corner with wheels squealing and music pumping. Rae could theoretically sleep in a bit now that she could walk to work, but she didn’t feel better rested when she was up half the night listening to all those unfamiliar sounds in the dark.

  But she opted not to mention that, because it seemed … disloyal, maybe, because she should love every aspect of this brand-new life of hers. She’d chosen it, after all. She shouldn’t feel a strange sense of homesickness now that the choice was made. Not for her parents’ house, necessarily. Not for Riley’s house, either. Not really.

  She’d started wondering if she was more of a country girl than she’d always imagined, down deep in her bones. Maybe she needed the wide-open spaces, the wind and the mountains, to really feel at peace—and she didn’t want that to be true. She’d always secretly assumed that if she wanted, she could pick up and move to a huge city on a moment’s notice and thrive.

  That was unlikely to be true if she found Main Street in Cold River too busy for her tastes.

  “What about you?” Rae asked Riley, because that was far more interesting than realizations she didn’t want to have. “Are you doing any more clinics this year?”

  “I’m raffling off riding lessons at the Harvest Gala, against my better judgment,” he replied. Reminding Rae that she still hadn’t gotten official confirmation on her centerpieces. “But no. No more clinics until the new year. I’m only taking on individual clients at the moment, and only if they make me offers I can’t refuse.”

  “I think it’s smart not to run yourself ragged at this time of year. You always regret it when you do.”

  “I do.”

  When the silence that fell between them seemed almost companionable, Rae found herself working at the label on her beer, wondering how that was possible. How it was that after all this time, she and Riley could … talk? Just talk, like normal people. Take out the sex and the fighting and the years of hard feelings and he was a man she’d known since birth who she also knew pretty much inside and out by now.

  Like the fact that his family boarded so many horses over the holiday season because a lot of wannabe ranchers liked swaggering around their ranchettes in their pristine Luccheses—but not when they could be skiing at Vail. They liked to have someone else take care of the unpleasant necessities of their home-on-the-range fantasies for a spell when there were slopes to shred. In years past, Riley had kept taking on both private clients in the group clinics he offered during this time, but he’d always about worn himself thin.

  It was more evidence that they were growing up that she could simply know that without trying to hurt him with it. Without bracing herself for a cutting thing he might say in return if she carelessly said something that referenced their long, complicated relationship.

  This was all good, she told herself, looking around at what she assumed was set to become her typical Friday night these days. This time without furtive looks across the bar to see what Riley was doing while pretending she didn’t know he was there. Tonight, she didn’t have to pretend anything. She could sit right next to him and they could talk about the people they might move on with in a way that she was sure was healthy, because wasn’t that what mature people did? Keep everything amicable no matter what? And meanwhile, their friends could mingle again instead of feeling they had to choose sides.

  Really, Rae couldn’t understand why they hadn’t gotten to this point years ago.

  “Check it out,” Riley said.

  That made her look at him again. Which was, she could admit, more challenging than simply sitting next to him while carefully looking elsewhere. When they were sitting next to each other, it was easy to think about friendship. All their years together funneling into that friendship and making it bloom. When she looked at him directly, he was just … Riley.

  And Riley was still Riley. A whole lot, in other words.

  Because she might have made some long-overdue decisions about their life, but her body wanted what it wanted. Still and always, and it didn’t particularly care that he was bad for her. Not when he looked the way he did.

  Tonight, he was casually mouthwatering, a Riley Kittredge specialty. He was lounging there in the seat beside her with one arm stretched out over the back of the chair on his other side. He wore jeans and a Henley the way he always did, but no one managed to make two otherwise forgettable garments look as delicious as Riley did. All those muscles, lean and hard, showcased to perfection.

  And she could pretend all she liked, but she hadn’t forgotten how it felt to touch him.

  “You okay there?” he asked, laughter in his voice.

  She saw a gleam in his dark gaze that made her wonder how seriously he was taking this brand-new friends thing—but Rae shook that off. She was choosing to take it at face value, because it was better that way. Everything was better now, and better was what they both needed.

  “I thought you wanted me to check something out?”

  The gleam in his eyes intensified, but he nodded over across the crowded room. “You should get your d
ance on, Rae. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

  Her stomach flipped around a bit at that, but she followed his gaze to see Tate Bishop standing at the bar and looking around as if he, too, was looking to spice up his evening.

  Though what Rae felt was anxiety, not spice.

  Excitement, she corrected herself. It’s excitement, not anxiety, and you need to break the seal.

  Because the truth was, as Hope had pointed out to her this very morning, for all Rae’s big talk about moving on, all she’d really done so far was hang out in public with Riley.

  It almost looks like the two of you are back together, Hope had said mildly when she’d stopped by the Flower Pot for a midmorning coffee break before opening the bookstore. Because while Rae opened at six, Capricorn Books opened at the far more civilized hour of ten or thereabouts, as the spirit moved them. But then, they didn’t have as many daily deliveries to offices and care facilities.

  Rae had glared at her. Why would you say something like that?

  Hope shrugged. You didn’t speak to each other in public for years. Now you’re cozying up in full view of half the town. How did you think that would be interpreted?

  Admittedly, Rae hadn’t thought much about interpretations. But here was her opportunity to prove that Hope’s was dead wrong.

  “Tate Bishop,” she said as brightly as possible. “Do you think he’s a good dancer?”

  Next to her, Riley didn’t quite laugh. “I can’t say I’ve ever had reason to inquire.”

  “He doesn’t really seem like a dancer to me.”

  “Only one way to find out, baby.”

  “And who will you be dancing with?”

  Maybe a little belligerently, she could admit. She told herself it was the use of baby. There was no telling what she might do if he called her that again.

  “I haven’t rightly decided.” Riley flashed that grin. “You start. I’ll follow.”

  And Rae knew she wasn’t imagining the challenging way he looked at her.

  He didn’t think she was going to do it. He thought she would come up with some excuse to avoid making an actual move, and he wasn’t wrong, because she had several excuses right there on her tongue. The fact that Tate had liked Abby, way back in high school, and surely she should be loyal to her friend who had never noticed his existence because she’d only ever seen Gray. Or the fact that Tate had a checkered past—including claims he’d torched a building before disappearing for years—which maybe ought to be considered in full before she did something reckless, like smile at him too intently.

  But she knew they were excuses. Just like she knew Hope had a point. And most of all, she knew that if she backed down from a challenge that Riley was clearly throwing out before her, she would regret it.

  Because it would prove that despite everything, she had no intention of moving on at all.

  And she did. Of course she did.

  She smiled at Riley, then stood. And it was instantly worth it when his expression changed. A whole lot less challenging, suddenly.

  “Aren’t you supposed to say something?” She tilted her head as she looked down at him. “Isn’t there some kind of bro ritual that’s supposed to happen now? A wingman code of some kind?”

  “Go get ’em, tiger?”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  “I can sing the high school fight song if you want. I know all the verses.”

  “You? Sing? In a public place?”

  “It’s the enthusiasm that matters, Rae.”

  “I’m not sure we really want to make this a high school thing,” Rae said. As diplomatically as possible. “That doesn’t seem like the right vibe for a Friday night…”

  “Hookup?”

  His voice was innocent. His expression blank.

  Rae counted that as a triumph.

  “We’ll see,” she singsonged at him. “Wish me luck.”

  Then she launched herself away from him, letting her momentum carry her across the crowded bar floor before she was tempted to second-guess herself. Or second-guess herself more. She wound her way between groups of people talking and laughing together, sitting at the tables and standing in groups. She skirted around the dancers out on the dance floor, some executing clearly choreographed moves while others simply swayed around in time to the music, obviously there for the excuse to get their hands on each other.

  She made it all the way across the bar floor on the strength of her desire to prove … whatever this was. And her desire that Riley should watch her do it, because she was sure he didn’t think she would.

  Then she was actually at the bar itself. And it was harder with every step to convince herself that what she was feeling was excitement instead of … crushing anxiety liberally laced through with dread.

  She knew Tate Bishop, but only the way everybody knew people around here. Meaning they weren’t close, never had been, and she usually referred to him by his entire name—even in her own head. She couldn’t remember having any particular interactions with him back in high school, but then, high school had been approximately seven million years ago. In case she was tempted to forget that, the Tate Bishop who stood before her, leaning against the bar and surveying the scene before him, was very clearly a grown man. Not the boy she’d only sort of known back then. Whatever he’d done with his life, it had left him etched into stone and sinew.

  He was intimidating, if she was honest.

  Was Rae really planning to … wander up to him? And then what?

  She had never approached a man. In a bar. Ever. She had only ever been with one man in her life, and he was currently sitting across the room, smirking at her. Rae didn’t have to look over her shoulder to see him do it. She could feel it.

  He doesn’t think you’re going to go through with this, she reminded herself.

  She was so indignant at the prospect that she ignored what felt like a sudden stomach flu, washing over her like doom, as she drifted closer. Closer to Tate Bishop, a man of many contradictory rumors and much local gossip.

  Obviously, she wanted to stop, so she kept going. She made herself. Until she was standing directly in front of him and waiting for him to acknowledge her. Which he did, though he took his time.

  “Rae Trujillo,” he said.

  She assumed that was a greeting.

  “Hi, Tate,” she replied. Bishop, she added privately, as always.

  So far, she was killing this.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked, nicely enough.

  Rae did not have an abundance of experience in sultry bar conversation that was supposed to be flirty, then lead to all kinds of other things, but she felt it probably wasn’t supposed to start off quite so … antiseptically.

  All she wanted to do was abort this mission. Right now. She could claim she was trying to get past him to the bar to order something. She could do anything at all, so long as she ended this. Because what on earth was she doing? Once again, she hadn’t thought things through. She had no business trying to act like any other woman her age when she wasn’t like them. Because the last time Rae had thought about dating, she’d been a teenager. And the only boy she’d ever liked had been the only boy she’d dated.

  She should have tried to take classes in bar behavior before she branched out on her own.

  But the only way out was through, she decided in another flash. Retreating was only going to make it worse.

  Not to mention she had now been standing here, staring up at him, for entirely too long.

  “Well, I hope you can help me,” she said. You sound like you’re about to ask him directions to the bathroom. She flashed a smile and pretended he was a customer. One of those shamefaced men who turned up, usually right before the store was closing, desperate for the perfect arrangement to get them out of whatever trouble they’d caused. “I love to dance, but I don’t have a partner.”

  Tate’s gaze sharpened. For a long moment, she panicked and thought he hadn’t heard her. She would have to say i
t again, in the same bright, easy voice. Except now her heart was kicking up a racket inside her, and she was almost certainly sweating.

  How attractive.

  “I was under the impression you have a partner,” Tate said, and she wasn’t prepared for his voice forming words that weren’t her name. The boy she remembered had been unremarkable, really. He certainly hadn’t sounded like this. Gravelly. Serious. Masculine. “The same partner you’ve always had.”

  He didn’t look behind her, over across the bar. But then, he didn’t have to.

  “Do you mean Riley?” She made herself laugh. “We’ve been broken up for years.”

  “If you say so.”

  Yet he made no move. And as she stood there, it dawned on Rae that she might have to do something. When she’d never had to do anything. And wasn’t that a kick in the teeth. So much for her mission of empowerment or whatever she was doing. Had she really spent her entire life just … sitting back waiting to see what Riley might do?

  But she already knew the answer.

  Rae heard familiar voices all around her, but she refused to look and see who it was. She refused to let herself get caught up in who was paying attention or how much the center of the town’s gossip machine she could expect to be by morning.

  But still, something in her quailed. A large part of her wanted to curl up into a ball and die right there.

  She thought of that look in Riley’s eyes. The smirk that she had every intention of wiping off his face.

  Rae didn’t know what she was supposed to do in a situation like this, but Tate was still looking at her. Waiting, she figured. So she ran with it. She stretched out her hand and took his.

  It was a perfectly nice hand. Male, strong, and surprisingly calloused for a man who, so far as she knew, didn’t work out in the fields.

  But it was the wrong hand.

  Rae ignored that, smiled wider, and even fluttered her eyelashes a little bit as she looked up at him. For the full effect. That she’d seen on television, because she certainly hadn’t tried such a thing before.