by P. Dangelico
“You agree, right?” I asked my bud, yanking the thick wool beanie down over my ears. The cabin was freezing again even though the furnace was supposedly working. I begged to differ. I even tried to build a fire in the fireplace. Yeah, that hadn’t gone so well. I almost killed us by asphyxiation.
“Wanna watch Poldark?”
Juliet barked and climbed up next to me, jammed her big butt against my hip. “I know we’ve seen it a thousand times, but there’s nothing else to watch.” Juliet’s ears perked. “Don’t look at me like that. Demelza got a hall pass because he cheated first. Fathered a child, no less. Cuz men are dogs––no offense.” Another bark–like sound, this one from the only male in the room. “What? You know I don’t speak Spanish, Romeo.”
This was what my life had come to. For the next three years, this was going to be a typical Saturday night for me. And I’d done it to myself.
My so-called husband had, once again, deserted me and taken the pickup truck with him. My mind kept drifting to Scott––as it often did. He’d apologized for Misty. In a manner of speaking. And he’d particularly said “past tense.” I surmised that meant he was no longer sleeping with her, but what about the rest?
With the rare exception of our wedding night, he’d been out every single night since we’d returned from Vegas. Exactly twenty days. Within that time frame, I’d read ten books. Which was not a good ratio and said a lot about the state of my marriage. It was a pretty good bet we wouldn’t make it to the end of the year, let alone three. Not to mention, neither would my e-reader. It was ready to spontaneously combust from overuse. Inevitably, it would catch fire and burn me alive.
Woman Killed by E-Reader! the headlines would say. And Loneliness. But they’d leave that part out because nobody wanted to be reminded that everybody was at least a little bit lonely.
I was flying back to Manhattan tomorrow for my two-week stint at the office, the glossy onyx-colored Blackstone jet already waiting for me at the airport. And sadly, it was a relief. I’d gotten married, had uprooted my life, put up with cold showers and lack of heat, endured the unpredictable mood swings of a cranky millionaire playboy-turned-cowboy, and yet nothing had changed. I was as alone as I’d ever been, with the exception of his two hairy beasts who I was going to miss desperately while I was away. Their master––not so much.
Romeo planted his big head on my lap while Juliet kicked me. “Girl, stop kicking me with your cheesy feet.” I stroked Romeo’s wiry fur and inhaled the scent of baby powder. “Dry shampoo, a modern age miracle.”
Yeah, this was bad. Except I had a nagging suspicion that returning to Manhattan, to the life I had before Frank had talked me into this crazy scheme, was going to be worse. Because what was I was going back to? A sterile apartment and some bottles of condiments. Not exactly a warm welcome home. Still, this wasn’t much better. Cabin fever is a real thing.
An image of the four-wheeler in the shed flashed before my eyes.
“Ask and ye shall receive, Sydney.” It had been on the tip of my tongue to tell my grandmother that the few times I’d asked God to grant me some mercy and spare the rod, he hadn’t listened. I never did though, couldn’t risk another rap of the wooden spoon on my knuckles.
I wasn’t going to let Scott shut me out anymore. He was angry. Got it. Message received. It wasn’t like I was imposing rules on him. I’d made allowances for him. Tried to sympathize. I’d even given him the green light to pursue his…hobbies. Or whatever it was that he did at night when he hightailed it out of the cabin. He didn’t want this. Fine! I was done being painted the villain. My motives may have been unclear––he thought I was doing it for the job, which was only partly true. His motivations, meanwhile, were purely mercenary. Who was the real bad guy? And why should I stay cooped up while he was out gallivanting?
I jumped off the couch. Twenty minutes later, dressed in black skinny jeans, a tight black cashmere sweater with a down quilted vest over it, and my motorcycle boots, I stomped out to the shed, a woman on a mission. I mean, really, I’d graduated valedictorian of my Yale law class. I’d driven a Vespa that summer I backpacked through Europe. How hard could riding an ATV quad be?
A pair of goggles hung from the handles. I slapped those suckers on, mounted the vehicle, and turned the ignition key, ready and willing to make that quad my bitch.
An hour and a half later…
For the record, an ATV quad is really hard to ride. What was a comfortable thirty minute car ride was an uncomfortable ninety minutes of uninterrupted shaking between my legs in an off-road vehicle. Which, in hindsight, was probably why it was labeled off-road and where it should have stayed. The first ten minutes had been fun. After that, it swiftly went downhill. I was already halfway there when I realized I’d made a serious miscalculation. By then, it was too late to turn back.
When the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar finally came into view, I was ready to fall to my knees and thank God for the first time in decades. Parking between two muddy pickup trucks, I dismounted the vehicle from hell and stumbled, my ass hitting the frozen sidewalk, a silent scream shaping my lips.
A pair of cowboys walked by and examined me curiously without breaking stride. “You need help, ma’am?”
“Nope. Just chillin’, but thanks for your concern.” I waved and they walked into the bar.
Ripping off the dirty goggles, I tossed them aside. I could barely see through all the gunk. In fact, I was covered in it. My clothes. My hair. Thus far, this outing had been an unmitigated disaster. Nothing, however, not a four–wheeler, not even a mud bath, was going to stand in my way of having fun. So I did what I always did when life got messy––I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and pushed on.
Inside, the bar was wall-to-wall people. Tyler Rich’s Leave Her Wild pumped through a large room. The decor was wild west meets Hollywood, the crowd equally eclectic. Most of the locals were dressed in classic western attire––checkered shirts, tooled belts, and pressed Wranglers. The out-of-towners from L.A. and New York were easy to spot in their designer, off-the-runway clothes.
I found an open seat at the bar and heaved a sigh of relief as I settled on a stool. Just being among people felt good. The bartender, an attractive guy around my age with olive skin, dark eyes, and a nose that looked like it had been broken one too many times came over and placed a napkin with the bar logo in front of me.
“What can I get you, ma’am?”
It had to be said that there was something panty-melty about being addressed as ma’am in that sweet drawl. The big smile didn’t hurt either.
“What do you recommend to take the edge off as quickly as possible?”
Attractive bartender nodded. “I have just the thing.” He started grabbing bottles. Meanwhile, the guy sitting in the stool next to me, a big burly redhead with bloodshot blue eyes and ruddy cheeks, tipped his chin in greeting while he unapologetically checked me out. His gaze paused on my diamond wedding band while he brought a bottle of Budweiser to his lips and sipped.
“Randy––” he said by way of greeting. “How long you been married?”
Smiling tightly, I gave him the only honest answer I could. “Not long.”
Enough to be sitting here with you, I thought to myself.
In an alternate reality I had a real husband who couldn’t keep his hands off me or my privates and we had great friends and took fun vacations. Not in this one. In this one my husband had orgies that didn’t include me. He touched other people’s privates.
Whatever. Randy didn’t need to know there was trouble in paradise.
An hour later, after getting a detailed blow-by-blow of all three of Randy’s divorces, I was starting to regret ever coming out of the cabin.
“I woulda gone to counseling….” Randy croaked, expression completely befuddled. “I woulda if she gave me half the chance…” Burp. “…but she didn’t, said she needed someone that shared her interests…” He air quoted. “Maybe she coulda shared that her fucking interest was gettin�
� double teamed before she decided to marry me…” Burp. “Bitch.”
Someone tapped me on the shoulder. Glancing to my right, I found a cowboy staring right back. And not just any cowboy, nooo, this was the kind of cowboy a bad, lonely wife could drown her sorrows in. In theory, I mean. I could indulge in fantasies of playing bad lonely wife, but in real life I could never betray anyone––not even a man I had no claim on and who didn’t want one on me.
Principles are a bummer. Stay away from them, kids.
My eyes widened as I took in impossibly gorgeous cowboy’s face. Tilted green eyes under winged dark brows, a deep tan, a jaw that could cut diamond into ribbons, and a mouth made for sinning. How this guy’s face wasn’t on a Times Square billboard was a mystery. He was young too. Early twenties, I estimated by the fresh face and tall lanky build. As my gaze ran down his body, I took back every disparaging remark I’d ever thought about checkered shirts and tooled belts.
Impossibly gorgeous cowboy pulled out his phone and typed. Then he showed me the screen.
How’s the water heater working?
The guardrails went up. “How do you know about my water heater?”
He typed again.
I’m Drake Wayland
Drake. An uncommon name that sounded familiar. Then I recalled Scott mentioning a Drake.
“Yes! Oh my God, thank you so much for fixing it.” He stared at my mouth as I spoke, which got me thinking… “Are you deaf?”
He nodded, then typed.
I can read lips. You should take my number in case it breaks again.
And then he smiled, a wicked smile. One that could wreck a woman or two.
Scott
“I’m already at the end of my rope and I’ve only been married three weeks.” I glanced up from my tumbler of whiskey at Ryan who looked distracted, his gaze aimed over my shoulder. I was sick of sitting at home watching games and thinking about my wife. Correction: thinking about what I wanted to do to my wife. So I’d called Ry to grab a beer and Ry seldom went anywhere without his adopted little brother in tow. “I’m leaving. Where’s Drake?” I checked my phone. Was it late enough? Had Sydney gone to bed? I couldn’t risk seeing her walk around half-undressed again. I couldn’t risk seeing her at all.
“Trying to pick up a smoking hot blonde, I think,” Ryan absently answered.
“Good. She can drive him home.” I downed the last of the Macallan 12 and pushed the glass forward on the table. That’s when Ryan gave me a look I didn’t like.
“What has Sydney been doing while you’ve been hanging at your place?”
“Working. Making plans to take over the world…” I shrugged. “Perfecting her ice princess expression in the mirror.”
Reading cookbooks and figuring out new ways to make my dick hard without even trying, I mentally added. It wasn’t for Ryan’s consumption. Nobody needed to know that I was softening toward my fake wife. My heart was––everything else was as hard as steel.
“She talks to the dogs a lot.” Was it weird that I envied the dogs? Probably.
“I don’t think she’s cold.”
“Yeah, maybe you could stop having a thing for my wife.”
“Can’t help it.” Ryan raised his beer bottle to his lips and stopped short. “Have you even considered that maybe she’s cold to you because you’re a dick to her?”
“No. I haven’t.”
That was a lie. Sydney wasn’t half as bad as I wanted to believe. Save for the cabin being clean and the aroma of food worthy of a five-star restaurant permeating the air, I wouldn’t have known she was there. Well, that and the perpetual erection. Can’t forget that. Worst case of blue balls I’ve had since I was thirteen.
Which I chalked up to not having gotten laid in far too long. And yet I felt disinclined to go looking for it––a sentiment I wasn’t ready to examine because entertaining the idea that my vanilla wife was the only woman that did it for me was out of the question. That would make me screwed and not in the way I wanted to be.
Needless to say, I hadn’t gotten much sleep. Every night I went to sleep hard. Every morning I woke up that way. I was a thirty-eight-years old, grown-ass man. I paid my taxes on time. I’d slept with models and movie stars in my sordid past, even a genuine princess once. And I couldn’t even jerk off in my own cabin because I didn’t want my fake wife on the other side of the wall to hear me. Three weeks and this arrangement had already become unsustainable.
Also, it had to be said that she had terrible decorating skills, but I couldn’t hold bad taste against her. I wasn’t that petty.
“You sure she hasn’t been out?” Judging by Ryan’s flat expression, something was up.
“Sydney? Out?” A bark of dry laughter shot out of me. “No. Even if she wanted to, I’ve got the truck.”
Ryan nodded, his mouth twitching. “So she couldn’t…let’s say, go to a bar if she wanted to?”
I didn’t like this line of questioning. Whether it was bogus or not, Sydney was my wife, my wife, carried my name, wore my ring, and I didn’t take kindly to anyone speaking ill of her. Even my best friend.
“No.”
“I found Drake, by the way.” Ryan tipped his chair back on two legs and took another pull of his beer.
“Yeah?” Craning my neck left and right, I scanned the room. “Where is the little hustler?” Loved the kid, but Drake had earned the nickname Cowboy Casanova for good reason.
“At the bar, talking to your wife.”
My head cranked around just in time to catch Sydney making eyes at my twenty-one-year-old ranch hand.
The fuck?
I stood and charged without a second thought to consequences, to how it may or may not look. How the hell did she get here? And while I was busy contemplating that mystery, what else had she been up to while I’d been at my place, parked on the couch watching games?
Drake saw me coming before Sydney did. When she finally did notice me standing behind her, she swiveled around on her barstool. A smile lit up her face and an unfamiliar feeling of joy slammed into my chest, briefly disarming me. I’d been living under a dark cloud for so many years I’d forgotten what it was like to feel good, and this woman with her rare sunshine smiles reminded me of what I’d been missing.
Problem was, she almost never smiled at me. With everyone else, she doled them out frequently and indiscriminately, but not her husband. Much later I’d admit that I both liked it and it also scared the crap out of me. Mostly because I wanted to bask in those smiles, hoard them. In the moment, however, fear made me act like an asshole.
“Hey, look who I finally met.” She tipped her head at Drake who smiled like the cat that had eaten the canary and licked his fingers clean.
Are you fucking kidding me? Go find your own wife, I signed.
Drake signed back, I’m too young to get married. Still sowing my oats.
Which prompted me to immediately reply, Then go sow them in someone else’s wife, you little shit.
Drake laughed.
“What is he saying?” Sydney asked Drake while Drake’s attention remained on me. “Scott, what are you saying to him?” Drake’s focus swung back to Sydney. Lifting her hand to his lips, he placed a kiss on the back of her knuckles and Sydney beamed.
Watching her get played by the ranch’s resident manwhore-in-training got my blood up. Before I could break it up, Drake dropped her hand and walked away.
“How did you get here?” I barked, rounding on her. It came out way harsher than it should have, but I didn’t like surprises and finding Sydney out and having a grand old time was definitely an unpleasant one.
“It’s nice to see you too.” She smiled again. Mrs. Blackstone smiled with her whole face, not like the Botoxed beauties I was accustomed to. Her grin stretched from ear to ear, her teeth were even and white, and her eyes became crescent moons. I needed to see it again and often––directed at me obviously––and resolved to make her smile more.
“I asked you a question.”
Maybe that wasn’t the way to do it because her smile faltered. Then she erupted in laughter. That’s when it dawned on me. The smiles, the giggles. She was drunk.
Spotting Tony behind the bar, I signaled him over. “Did you serve my wife?”
Tony looked surprised. He should. I hadn’t advertised my new marital status.
“Uh, yeah, man,” Tony warily admitted, his deep-set brown eyes shifting between me and Syd.
“What exactly did you serve her?”
“Tony––” Sydney cut in. “Don’t listen to him. He’s not the boss of me. As a matter of fact…” She giggled some more. “…as a matter of fact, I’m the boss of him.” She aimed another bright grin at me. “Technically I am, Scott. Or I will be.”
Her laughter was infectious. It chipped away at my vow to keep her at bay and I found myself almost smiling back.
“Three Long Island Ice Teas,” answered Tony.
“They were yummy. Thanks, Tony.”
While Tony smiled at my wife, a meaty hand slid into the small space that separated her and me. “I’m Randy. Pleased to meetcha.” I glared at the outstretched hand. Then I glared at the man attached to the hand because…what the fuck, seriously? The hand retreated.
Sydney hooked a nonchalant thumb in the general direction of the guy seated on the barstool next to her. “This is Randy. He’s been divorced three time.” She held up three slender fingers in my face. Taking them gently in my hand, I lowered them, not letting go once they were out of my line of sight. Touching her felt good. Too good.
The humor melted off her face as her warm brown eyes held mine. Unguarded. Earnest. The vulnerability I saw there cut me wide open. Her lips pursed a little before she spoke.
“I don’t wanna be divorced, Scott…not even once.”
In one breathless suspended moment, I simultaneously wanted to give her anything she asked of me and take away everything she cared about. I didn’t think she was capable of being vulnerable and something about it called to me. Which made me mad. Because I hadn’t forgotten what this was about––a promotion. She was a world-class manipulator, and I was nobody’s mark.
