Secret Nights with a Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  “I’m waiting for Grandma to grade them,” Rae replied. Not in as much of an undertone as she should have used, maybe.

  She could tell exactly how long the ride into town had been when her mother sighed. And made no attempt to hide it.

  “I love the rustic boxes,” her father said, eyeing the wooden rectangles critically. Then smiling at her. “You have your grandmother’s eye.”

  That was a compliment. And Rae might find her grandmother a lot to take, but there was no arguing with the fact that Inez was responsible for building the Trujillo reputation—mostly through her glorious arrangements. Glossy pictures of her best compositions hung all over the business office out near the greenhouses.

  “Thanks, Dad,” Rae said, permitting herself to get a little emotional. Just a little.

  “You young people and your floral theatrics,” Inez said then, turning back to face the rest of them. “Why not go with a classic, circular shape for a traditional audience? Why a distressed rectangle, of all things? It looks like a trough.”

  But Rae knew that was a compliment too, almost. Any real complaint would have been about the flowers, not the base they sat in.

  Love looked the way it looked, not the way you wanted it to look.

  “It’s lively and fun, Inez,” Kathy was saying. “And perfectly suited to a historic Western town, I think.”

  “You need to learn your audience,” Rae’s grandmother said, though it was unclear who she was talking to. She threaded her arm through Rae’s father’s and pulled herself up high as if she’d won something. “Now I would like a drink.”

  Rae and her mother stood there, fixed smiles in place, as Grandma Inez led him away. Or more precisely, he let her.

  “Why do you put up with her?” Rae asked her mother when Grandma Inez and her father were out of earshot. “All these years of her poking and poking. And it’s not like she’s declined since Grandpa died. She was always like this.”

  “She’s getting worse,” Rae’s mother agreed. “No doubt about it.”

  “But you stay,” Rae said.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hope on the far side of the table, laughing as she spoke with some of their neighbors and fellow shopkeepers, all of them looking slick and shiny. Over by the ballroom doors, she heard an even bigger laugh and knew before she turned her head that it was Jensen.

  And where there was one Kittredge, there was bound to be more.

  Her stomach tied itself into a knot. She thought maybe she started to sweat.

  “Where would I go?” Rae’s mother asked with a laugh. “I suppose I could go on an extended vacation to Santa Fe, like Stella Mortimer, but I think your father would have something to say about that.”

  Rae’s eyes were glued to the door now. Connor Kittredge came in after Jensen, looking as cocky as he always did as the youngest of the Kittredge boys. Donovan and Ellie were behind him. Donovan looked as stiff and remote as always, while Ellie radiated that cool Western elegance that was her trademark.

  She didn’t expect to see Zack with the rest of them, and sure enough, a quick glance around showed her that the sheriff must have come in on his own. He was currently fending off the red-faced concerns of garrulous old Charlie Dunn and one of his old cronies, Victor Mansell. And to his credit, Zack looked fully engaged in the conversation when both old men were known for their extreme talent in talking the ear off anyone who ventured near.

  Rae tried to concentrate on her mother and the conversation she was having, not assorted Kittredges.

  “You don’t have to let Grandma live with you, Mom,” she said, even though it was something she’d held back from saying for years. Because maybe someone needed to say it to her. “You could have put your foot down years ago. Fix her up a little in-law pad and be done with it.”

  “Rae Lynn Maria Trujillo.” Her mother sounded legitimately shocked. “What’s gotten into you?”

  And as if on cue, Riley appeared in the door to the lobby. Rae could see him perfectly despite the crowd, and that wasn’t exactly a good thing.

  Because Riley was a cowboy, through and through. His jeans and his boots were as much a part of him as his dark gaze and his impossibly clever hands. Many a cowboy in this room wore the same uniform, and made the transition to a suit … reluctantly.

  All around him, there were examples of men who preferred to live and die in their work clothes, uncomfortably packaged into suits they clearly hated.

  Not Riley.

  He looked like dessert.

  Rae understood in that moment that there was no chance whatsoever that she was going to react well to whatever date he planned to parade around in front of her tonight. That it was going to kill her.

  It made her wonder what on earth he’d been doing, encouraging her to dance with Tate Bishop. Who she’d also seen here tonight and had already forgotten. Was it possible that despite all her big talk and attempts at action, Riley was the one who’d actually moved on?

  Something ripped open inside her, a black, wide pit.

  The crowd shifted as he looked down at whoever was clinging to his arm with an indulgent and affectionate sort of smile that made that pit in Rae roar even wider. Even darker.

  Even worse.

  God, she’d been a fool. Rae was pretty sure that this was the textbook definition of cutting off her nose to spite her face, and now all she had was a noseless face and enough spite to set the world on fire.

  But what she didn’t have was Riley.

  She didn’t think she was breathing. And then the crowd shifted again, and she saw Riley’s date.

  It was seventeen-year-old Becca Everett. Gray Everett’s teenage daughter from his first marriage, Abby’s stepdaughter, and for all intents and purposes, Riley’s niece. That was how close he and Brady had always been.

  He hadn’t brought a real date, after all.

  The first thing Rae felt was relief. A wave of it, so intense she thought she might topple over. And on the other side of it, she felt … weak with panic.

  And worse, a terrible realization.

  “I hope you never let your father hear you talk about bundling his mother into an outbuilding,” Rae’s mother was saying.

  Because, of course, Kathy didn’t understand that Rae’s world had ended, then begun again in a new form Rae didn’t quite know how to accept. She couldn’t hear her daughter’s heart clattering around.

  Over by the door, Riley looked up again and unerringly found Rae. His gaze was dark, as always. But this time, she didn’t fight that electric surge between them. That intense connection that had always been there, like it or not.

  Once upon a time, she’d called it fate. Later on, she’d called it her due as his love and his wife.

  Tonight, she didn’t know what to call it.

  “Mom,” Rae managed to say, so much noise in her head that she didn’t have the slightest idea whether she sounded normal or not. But her heart was still beating so hard she couldn’t bring herself to care, and the press of that sharp-edged thing inside her almost felt like relief. “Nothing’s gotten into me. All you and Grandma do is fight.” She wrenched her gaze away from Riley’s. Even though that felt like more of that same grief that had been swamping her ever since she’d talked to Amanda. A hard, merciless stone no matter what she pretended. “Don’t you ever want peace?”

  For a moment, Kathy looked shocked. Then, far more surprising to Rae, she laughed.

  “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself without your grandmother around. Your father spends most of his time talking to his plants, like his father before him. I would be bored silly if your grandmother weren’t there in all her glory.” Her laughter faded as she regarded her daughter. “It wasn’t your father who insisted she move in with us, Rae. It was me. Just as I’m the one who begs her to stay every time she announces she’s leaving. At least two or three times a month.”

  Rae thought her mouth might actually be hanging open. “I can’t process anything you’re saying right now
, Mom.”

  “Honey.” Her mother looked at her as if she were both precious and silly, when Rae had felt neither for … eight years. “Life is supposed to be sour as well as sweet, or how would you ever tell the difference?”

  Rae couldn’t seem to do anything but stand there, dumbstruck, convinced that if she looked down she would find that the world had been snatched out from beneath her feet. Her father returned, dispensing glasses of wine, and she clutched hers close, wishing that it were a lifeline. Doing her best to keep all heavy stones, knife-sharp edges, and ripped-open abysses inside her, because what would happen if she let it all out?

  She didn’t realize how bad it was until there were fingers snapping in front of her face.

  “It’s not a good sign if you’re starting the evening in a fugue state,” Matias rumbled at her.

  He, too, should have looked ridiculous in a suit, but didn’t. It was one of the few times a year that Rae was forced to accept the fact that her brother was handsome. Something she could see with her own eyes, but if not, it would have been made crystal clear to her by the fluttering women who were gazing at him from all sides.

  “I’m not in a fugue state,” she told him, ordering herself to make that true. Or at least act like it were true. “My whole world is askew. Did you know that Mom and Grandma like fighting with each other? That Mom insists that Grandma stay and continue the daily wars?”

  Matias looked at her pityingly. “The inmates run that asylum, Rae. Pay better attention.”

  Rae wasn’t sure attention was required. What she felt was thrown.

  A sensation that didn’t go away even after the long dinner and all the speeches that Hope made hilarious with her under-the-breath commentary.

  “We are going to have to have a talk with Abby,” she said at one point. “I get that she and Gray Everett, the enemy of fun, don’t come to things like a gala.”

  “The Everetts never come to the gala,” Rae pointed out. “I’m sure that’s why Amanda isn’t here with all her brothers. She’s an Everett now.”

  Hope nodded. “But you’d think Abby might have sent a text to let us know who Becca was attending with.”

  “You’d think,” Rae agreed. She made a face. “She probably thought I already knew. Or wouldn’t care.”

  Hope gave her an arch look. “She knows you care, Rae. Believe me. I’m betting they put the baby down early and got … preoccupied.”

  That was a far more likely scenario. The only thing more intense than the way Abby had always loved Gray was the way he loved her back.

  The dancing started, and Rae arranged her features into the appropriate stab at composed serenity, because her experience was that no one was going to ask her to dance. Not with Riley there.

  It’s big fun when you’re playing your little barroom games, Hope had said earlier. Have a little dance, maybe a drink, with Riley right there looking on. Spicy.

  But that was a bar. This was a ballroom. People’s grandparents were here.

  She was so busy concentrating on her serenity and composure that she jolted when a man appeared before her. But it was only Matias again.

  “Come on,” he growled at her in a tone that could in no universe be considered inviting. “I can’t stand you sitting here, looking pathetic.”

  He didn’t wait for her to extend her hand. He tugged her up onto her feet using her elbow, and she decided to walk along with him as he pulled her onto the dance floor because if she didn’t, he would probably just drag her.

  Which would not exactly be serene.

  “Do I look pathetic?” she asked dryly as they started dancing. “Or are you trying to keep the hordes of your admirers at bay now that they’ve had entirely too much wine?”

  Her older brother smirked at her. “Six of one, half dozen of another. You’re welcome.”

  The band, a collection of locals who came together only on occasions like this one and enjoyed themselves almost more than the crowd enjoyed them, was as good as ever. She and Matias danced, and Rae found herself acting a little goofy, the way she had when they’d been younger and her older brother hadn’t taken himself quite so seriously.

  Maybe Matias challenged her about her life not because he didn’t support her or love her but because he did. In his very own, ornery older-brother way.

  Complete, tonight, with dips that made Rae clutch at him in case he dropped her on her butt.

  She was still laughing from the latest dip when he traded partners with Jensen, who had been dancing with Becca.

  Rae and Jensen stared at each other. She felt her smile fade.

  “Jensen,” she said.

  “Rae,” he rumbled at her, no sign of that big laugh of his that he shared with literally everyone else.

  Maybe someday things like this would stop hurting, but she doubted it.

  And then the next moment, she was traded yet again.

  But this time, it was Riley.

  17

  The dress Rae was wearing pretty much sucker punched all of Riley’s good intentions into oblivion.

  It was red. It flowed. And clung. It made her look even more beautiful than usual, which shouldn’t have been possible.

  He knew he should say hello. Act like a functioning adult. A grown man, perfectly capable of controlling himself, handling challenging situations of any stripe, and—

  But she slid into his arms the way she always had. Like a dream come true.

  He liked when she wore heels like the ones she had on tonight, because it brought her face that much nearer to his. And it meant when he pulled her close, he could feel her breasts higher against his chest.

  And for somebody who was supposed to be over playing these games, the only thing he could seem to think about was playing. Hard.

  “Becca must be thrilled,” Rae said when the silence between them had long since turned into tension, and the tension had rocketed straight into want.

  He couldn’t read the look in her eyes. Too dark and too mysterious, but he felt her voice kick around inside him all the same. It didn’t make the want any better. Nothing did.

  “Brady said she wanted to wear a real dress to a real dance, and not with some kid from high school. How could I resist?”

  Rae smiled, and it lodged in his chest, and he didn’t understand how he was supposed to go about the necessary work of handling himself when she could do that. Just cast a spell offhandedly, in the middle of a crowded dance floor.

  “No one could resist,” she agreed.

  And they danced, her head tipped back so she could look him full in the face. He had her hand in his, and another in the small of her back, and there was a point where he couldn’t tell the difference between them.

  There was Rae and there was him, and he was fully aware of each and every point of contact, but he was also conscious of something bigger.

  Them. Together.

  And that was the trouble. He still didn’t know how to be something other than them. No matter what that looked like.

  “Did you bring a date?” he asked her roughly.

  Though he already knew the answer.

  “I consider myself my own date. All of the fun, none of the hassle.”

  “Is somebody hassling you?” Riley asked, and only realized after he’d thrown out the question that he sounded … gravelly.

  And was, maybe not subtly, looking around the room for Tate freaking Bishop.

  “I find the notion of dating a hassle.” She did something with her chin, lifting it up in a way that normally meant she was preparing to fight. But all they were doing was dancing. “This is the holiday season. Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and all I want to think about is turkey, my dad’s gravy, and more sweet potatoes than one body can bear.”

  Riley searched her face, trying to see what it was that made her sound so … determined. “Why are you telling me that like you expect me to keep you from Thanksgiving dinner?”

  “Full disclosure, Riley,” she said, that smile creeping back into
her voice, if not quite making it onto her face. “I shamelessly stole your grandmother’s carrot soufflé recipe and have been passing it off as my own for years. There. Now you know the depths of my deceit.”

  He gazed down at her in mock astonishment. “That carrot soufflé recipe has been in my grandmother’s family for generations, or so she claims.”

  Rae nodded soberly. “I can offer no excuse for my actions. Except it’s delicious.”

  Riley laughed. Big and loud. So big and so loud that he saw heads turn.

  He didn’t care if people stared at them, but Rae stiffened in his arms. He looked down and saw her glancing around, that little frown appearing between her brows.

  “What’s the matter? Confessions are supposed to be good for the soul. You should feel all light and airy now that you’ve told me you’re a Thanksgiving thief.”

  “Nothing’s the matter.” Rae scanned the ballroom, and when she looked back at him, there was more distance on her face than he liked. Almost as if she were bracing herself. “I’m starting the countdown, that’s all.”

  “Countdown? That’s the wrong holiday, baby. It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, not New Year’s Eve.”

  “Not that kind of countdown.” She didn’t object to him calling her baby. That probably wasn’t a good sign. “I mean the countdown before someone—usually a member of your family, but not always—will take me to task for my treatment of you.”

  He laughed again. “How are you treating me?”

  “Badly, Riley. That’s the consensus.” Her chin jutted out even more.

  He spun her around, maybe a little too fast. But whatever else she might have said was lost in the swirl of it. In the grip of their hands, her face upturned and open, and the way her dress flowed around him. And for a while, there was only that. Riley thought he could feel her heart beating, low and hard.

  Then he realized it was his.

  “They’re not my minions, Rae.” And maybe he pulled her closer too. “I don’t send them out to do my bidding. They have their own opinions. I don’t necessarily agree with them, and you certainly don’t have to listen to them, but I can’t keep them from feeling what they feel.”