Secret Nights with a Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  Then she walked out of the kitchen, leaving Riley to his Thanksgiving vigil over the dark fields and the tangled mess inside of him that seemed to grow bigger with each breath.

  20

  Rae processed her feelings about the night before with food.

  Lots and lots and lots of food.

  The turkey in the Trujillo family was a joint project most years. Oftentimes, a failed project. But Rae didn’t really care if the bird were tender and juicy or dry to the bone. As far as she was concerned, the turkey was nothing more than an appropriately unremarkable conduit for all the good stuff.

  And the good stuff tasted like all her feelings, none of which she cared to feel when she could eat them instead.

  She ate the crispy onions off the top of the green bean casserole—the entire purpose of the existence of green bean casseroles, in her opinion, though she did like eating the bean part with stuffing too. She ate extra marshmallowy sweet potatoes, which she liked to think of as a vegetable even when it was clearly more of a dessert.

  Because her mother and grandmother could never agree on anything, they had twice as much food as necessary. Competing stuffings. Competing gravies, in addition to Rae’s favorite, which was quietly made by her father. Kathy liked roasted brussels sprouts, while Inez preferred roasted small potatoes. Rae liked them both. Matias handled the mashed potatoes, always less about potatoes and more about the cream, butter, and salt.

  Rae made her stolen carrot soufflé and resented it every time someone else helped themselves to any of it.

  The Trujillo Thanksgiving was the one meal of the year where everyone was usually too busy eating themselves into a food coma to engage in the usual skirmishes.

  Rae considered it her family duty to eat as much as possible.

  After Riley had left her there in the lobby, Rae hadn’t really seen the point of going back into the gala. She’d snuck into one of the bathrooms off the lobby and did what she could to wash away the evidence of all that sobbing. She’d found her coat and had snuck outside.

  It had been so cold. She’d hunched into her coat and walked as quickly as she could, wondering what on earth had possessed her to wear high-heeled, open-toed shoes on the night before Thanksgiving. But then again, as each step made her toes feel more and more numb, she almost appreciated it.

  Maybe all of her could go numb, she’d thought. Maybe, finally, she could stop all this feeling that had gotten her absolutely nowhere.

  The Mortimer sisters were still at the gala, leaving Rae the run of the house when she finally made it there. But unlike all those mornings where she’d stood in the kitchen and imagined this was her house, tonight it felt … empty. Alien, even.

  Or she did.

  Her temples had pulsed with a sharp sort of pain, and she’d told herself she needed water. She kicked off her shoes, hissing a little as the feeling surged back into her cold feet, there against the kitchen floor. She chugged one glass of water. Then another. And when she turned around to face this dark house where she could only ever be a tenant, that, too, felt distinctly opposite of any numbing.

  She’d gone upstairs and showered until her entire body was pruned. Then she’d curled up in her new, narrow bed, prepared to cry her heart out.

  The tears hadn’t come.

  Maybe, she’d thought eventually—curled up there beneath the eaves in a life she hardly recognized because it was built, brick by brick, on terrible secrets—she’d cried all the tears she was going to in the hotel lobby. All the tears she had left.

  And today, because she still couldn’t seem to find the sobs she’d been sure were lurking around in there, she ate.

  Until she was so full she had to breathe in slow gasps. And when she looked around the table, everyone else was doing the same.

  It made them all laugh.

  “In the spirit of family harmony—or gluttony, as the case may be,” her father said, casting a particular glance between his wife and his mother that Rae was certain she wasn’t hallucinating, here in the middle of her carb and sugar high, “let’s go around the table and say something we’re thankful for today.”

  “Bummer,” Matias said darkly. But not as grimly as he usually did, indicating all that butter was doing its good work, even in him. “I forgot to bring my gratitude journal.”

  Rae couldn’t help laughing at the notion of her big, bad brother with any kind of journal, much less one brimming with thankfulness. Then stopped laughing, because she was too full.

  “I’m grateful that we can gather as a family,” their father said reprovingly. “I’m more interested in what we’d like to see in the coming year.”

  Matias brightened. Slightly. “Oh. Business? That’s easy.”

  Their father sighed.

  “We’re Trujillos,” Inez said grandly, clearly drunk on both the Thanksgiving wine and the six helpings she’d managed so far. “We don’t do emotions.”

  “Hear, hear,” Rae said, lifting her glass.

  And to her astonishment, her whole family toasted. Even Matias.

  “I’d like a promotion,” Kathy said, her voice serene but her gaze wicked. “I’d like to be president of the Trujillo Corporation.”

  The current president drew herself up in her chair, an effect that was ruined somewhat when she wobbled. “Over my dead body.”

  Kathy inclined her head. “If you insist.”

  Inez refilled her wineglass. “I would like better staff, if we’re making wish lists.”

  Obviously, things got loud from there.

  “I guess saying I want to expand our profit margins sounds a little boring,” Matias said, leaning back in his chair as if even he, who treated his body like a pristine chapel every other day of the year, were stuffed to the gills. “I didn’t realize I could have gone for a power grab.”

  And while her mother and grandmother bickered—which she was now forced to see with a new set of eyes, after last night’s discussion with her mother—Rae had time to take a few more bites she definitely didn’t need.

  But all those feelings were sloshing around inside of her like too much pie, and not releasing themselves in floods of tears the way she’d expected they would.

  She felt almost washed clean, somehow.

  Maybe because of that, she was convinced that she could finally see everything clearly in a way she hadn’t before.

  She’d had one life with Riley, and she’d loved that life. But it had ended on a terrible night eight years ago when she lost a secret she shouldn’t have kept in the first place.

  And yes, she’d clung to that night. She’d had reasons—good reasons, she thought even now, even if she regretted them—for keeping that night to herself. But because she’d wrapped herself around that secret and hoarded it, it had become a kind of scar tissue.

  That sharp-edged blade that had stabbed at her.

  Rae had stayed like that ever since.

  She hadn’t grown. She hadn’t changed. Even this latest attempt to break out of the cycle of her life hadn’t worked.

  She’d thought the problem was her. Or her and Riley together. Friends, not friends, drawn back together to their own doom—however she wanted to think about it, the fact was that until last night, it didn’t matter what she did. Because whatever it was, whatever she wanted, some part of it was built on lies.

  Lies of omission, but lies all the same.

  And now everything was swept clean. Everything was out in the open. When she thought about the future, it was as if she could suddenly see it. She might not know what it held, but she believed it existed. She wasn’t afraid of it any longer.

  Rae had shaken all the dust and scars and lies off the past. That meant the future didn’t make her despair any longer.

  That was why, when the sniping around the Thanksgiving table died down and everyone was suddenly looking at her, she smiled as if she’d known exactly what she wanted all along.

  “I want to completely change the Flower Pot,” she announced. “First, enoug
h with the uniforms. We’re not a big-box store, and we shouldn’t look like one. Cold River is becoming more and more eclectic and funky, and we need to keep pace with that.”

  “What do uniforms have to do with anything?” her grandmother demanded.

  “They’re ugly, Grandma,” Rae said gently. But firmly. “And if you stop speaking to me for another nine years, they’ll still be ugly.”

  Across the table, Matias smiled.

  Everyone else looked stunned. Especially Inez.

  Rae smiled. “And the reason that matters is that we want the entire experience when a customer enters the shop to be beautiful. From top to bottom. The shop should celebrate individual expression, from my arrangements right on down to our staff.” She cut her gaze to her father. “And while we’re arguing about titles, I want one.”

  “You have a title,” her father said, and though his voice gave nothing away, she was sure there was a bit of twinkle in his eyes. “You’re an employee of the Trujillo Corporation like everyone else at this table.”

  “Artistic director and events coordinator,” Rae countered. “No uniforms. And it’s time to promote the hourly staff to do those cold openings instead of Matias and me. That’s what I want.”

  “Everybody hates the uniforms, Grandma,” Matias added, staring down the table toward Inez. “Literally everyone. Silent treatment or not.”

  “I’ve always liked the uniforms,” Inez protested. “Who doesn’t like a neat, orderly appearance?”

  “You don’t have to wear it,” Matias retorted.

  Inez sniffed. “Very well, then. And don’t be childish, either of you. The silent treatment. As if.”

  Kathy laughed at that. Matias and Rae stared at each other in disbelief.

  But their father smiled. “I like all of it. And why wait for next year? You can start tomorrow. Wear whatever you like, Ms. Creative Director.”

  Rae helped with cleanup, then zoned out on the couch in the living room with everyone else until her food coma lifted its grip a little. Then she staggered into the kitchen to fill up the Tupperware she’d brought with leftovers, feeling surprisingly … buoyant.

  Especially for someone who hadn’t been able to resist an extra helping of pie the moment she hadn’t felt actively uncomfortable.

  She left her father and brother debating the merits and uses of the often overlooked carnation. Her mother and grandmother were still arguing about the best corporate titles, and more importantly, which of them deserved an upgrade. The football game was on the television, a happy little background noise.

  Rae let herself out the back door and walked out into the dark.

  It was cold. The kind of bitter Colorado cold that punched out a space between her ribs and settled in, no matter how many layers she was wearing or how much she’d fattened herself up today. Her boots crunched against the frozen ground as she walked over to her truck, and it sounded like more of that happy noise. She slung her leftovers into the passenger seat, then walked around the back of her truck, the night around her so deeply quiet it almost felt like its own kind of song.

  And before she got in, she tipped her head back and let the stars make her dizzy.

  The good kind of dizzy, until she felt as if she were dancing.

  She meant to head straight back to town once she pulled out of her parents’ drive. But instead, out there on the county road where there was nothing around for company but the slumbering fields and the crowded night sky, she found herself rolling to a stop instead.

  There at the crossroads where she could turn toward town or turn deeper into the valley instead.

  Rae switched off her headlights. She folded her arms on the steering wheel and gazed out through her windshield.

  There were so many stars tonight that they crowded into her, filling her up, shoving aside all the helpings of Thanksgiving dinner she’d eaten, and making her feel …

  Hope.

  The minute she thought the word, it seemed to burn even brighter than the Thanksgiving night sky. Brighter and deeper and wilder, until that was what filled her, and burst out of her, as if that were what she’d been waiting for.

  Rae finally cried then. Oh, how she cried. But she was laughing at the same time. Laughing and crying, both at once, and all of it was a part of that same brightness outside and in her too.

  Because she wasn’t afraid any longer.

  She wasn’t afraid.

  There were no more secrets, and that meant the past was finally past. The future was as unknowable as the sky.

  But that didn’t make it any less bright.

  All she had was tonight. The stars, the quiet song in the dark, the Colorado cold.

  All she had was her.

  And hope.

  So much hope, at last, long after she’d given up on it. Long after she’d resigned herself to a life without it, filled with necessity instead of wonder, because those were the choices she’d made a long, long time ago when she’d been scared.

  She wasn’t scared any longer. And she was only as scarred as she chose to be.

  So Rae did the only thing she could.

  She headed home.

  21

  Riley’s mood had not improved by the time he made it to his own, private road. He bumped along the track he’d made earlier, but all he could think about was that talk he’d had with his mother.

  He wasn’t like his father.

  That was a ridiculous thing for her to say.

  “Ridiculous,” he muttered out loud as punctuation.

  It didn’t matter how many times he thought it or said it. His words felt hollow inside and outside of his own head. Luckily, he had a remedy for that. In the form of a bottle of Maker’s Mark waiting for him in his house.

  But when he finally made it up the drive to his own yard, he slammed his foot on the brake, fishtailing a little until the truck stopped dead.

  Because Rae’s ancient truck was parked in her usual spot out front. And all the lights were on inside the house when he knew he’d left only the porch light on.

  Riley didn’t bother thinking or talking himself down.

  He reacted.

  He was out of the truck and up on the front porch in a single beat of his heart. Maybe less. He threw open the door, expecting to find Rae simmering with the usual temper or fury on the couch, but the living room was empty.

  He didn’t bother to strip off his layers, because his heart was like a jackhammer in his chest. And all those feelings he had absolutely no desire to share with his family—or himself—pounded at him. Through him.

  Until he couldn’t really tell if this was some kind of late-in-the-day hangover, if he’d eaten too much, or if he was simply so angry he thought tonight might be the night he tore down this house he’d built. Then burned it to ash.

  Because that would be better than these things in him that were making him crazy, making him feel as if he were running when he was standing still, making him feel—

  He heard a faint noise, and then she appeared, drifting out from his bedroom to stand there at the other end of the hall.

  Wearing—

  But his mind refused to take it in.

  Or maybe he actually blacked out for a moment there.

  When Riley was in control of himself again, Rae was still there. Still standing there at the end of the hallway—and the fact he was surprised about that told him that some distinct part of him had really thought that maybe she was a ghost.

  Because Rae was in bare feet. Her dark hair was down, flowing around her shoulders in glossy waves, the way he liked it best.

  And otherwise, she was wearing a tiny, silky thing that he’d last seen—

  But again, his mind couldn’t quite process that.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t get rid of this,” she said softly. She ran a hand down the front of it, and it wasn’t any kind of seductive gesture. That made it worse, somehow.

  Why was she so comfortable when he was coming out of his own skin?


  Riley was standing so still, every single bone and muscle in his body so tight he was amazed his jaw hadn’t cracked in half.

  Or he hadn’t cracked in half.

  “What are you doing here?” he managed to get out over the pounding in his head and the racket in his heart. “Are you trying to torture me?”

  She dropped her hand. Then she started toward him, and Riley couldn’t decide if he hated that or wanted it. Both, maybe. Because this was Rae.

  This was still Rae.

  But he didn’t understand how he was supposed to let go of the things she’d told him only last night.

  “This isn’t going to work,” he gritted out, though his words didn’t stop her. “You can’t drop the kinds of things you dropped on me last night and then show up here like this. You don’t really think that’s going to work, do you? Even if you are wearing that thing you wore on our honeymoon.”

  He expected her to stop dead. She didn’t.

  And there was something different about her. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Rae glided down the hallway, moving closer to him with a smile he didn’t understand curving her lips.

  Maybe she really had come here to kill him. To finish the job.

  Riley figured it wouldn’t take much.

  “Remember our honeymoon?” And now she was too close. Because she was right in front of him, tipping her head back to aim that smile at him. The scent of her filled his head, he could almost feel the warmth of her soft skin, and she made him feel liked he’d drained that bottle of Maker’s Mark. “You told me we were going camping. Then you took me up to that cabin instead.”

  “That cabin’s about as far off the grid as it’s possible to get,” Riley said. Against his will. “It was camping.”

  “It’s not camping if there’s a bed and a roof. That’s the law.”

  Riley shook his head, off-balance and filled with too much darkness.