Never the Cowboy's Lover

by Amelia Wilde

  Never the Cowboy’s Lover

  Amelia Wilde

  Theresa Leigh

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  Connect with Amelia

  Also by Amelia Wilde

  Books by Theresa Leigh

  1

  Julie May

  My mind is completely empty except for one thought.

  I have to get to Luke.

  Luke will know what to do. Or, even if he doesn’t—a thought I really can’t let myself dwell on right now—he’ll stand next to me while I have a major freakout about this.

  Yes, the freakout is coming. I can feel it. So much work. So many years of searching and it’s finally happening. Everything Luke and I have been working toward.

  He’s at the Harvest Festival pig roast, or at least I pray he is. My pick-up fishtails on the muddy Paulson roads. A furious rainstorm rolled through earlier today, and the roads are a sea of mud. I deliberately slow down. Best not to kill myself tonight, of all nights.

  I grip the steering wheel almost as tightly as I grit my teeth. Up ahead, the festival tent is lit up from within, like a bonfire, all warm and inviting. A tiny part of me is sad that I’m not going to get to participate this year. The thought of all that good food going uneaten makes my stomach growl.

  But then I see Luke Bliss’s ancient Honda, and I’m not hungry for anything except answers. I screech to a halt illegally, say a quick prayer that the Paulson police will all be too full of cornbread to care, and sprint from my truck.

  “Luke!” I shout as I fling the text flap open. I can’t see him in the sea of faces that whip to stare at the crazy lady bellowing across the festival.

  And then I do. He turns and gives me his broad, easy grin and I feel instantly more in control. He’s always been the only one who can do this for me. That’s why we’ve been best friends since we were four. I grin back and sprint towards him.

  Too fast. The rutted, pitted ground is still uneven from the earlier rain. The toe of my shoe catches in one of the divots. “Oh—!” I pitch forward, jarring my wrists as I catch myself.

  What’s there to do but bounce right up again? I don’t feel any pain. “You okay?” Luke rushes to me.

  “Luke!” I gasp.

  “I heard you the first time.” He has only seconds to chuckle before I tackle him to the ground. He’s giving me a look I don’t understand. Probably because I haven’t told him why I am shouting in his face. “Are you okay? You tripped back there. Thought you were going to crack your head open.”

  This is so monumentally unimportant right now that I have to laugh. “On the dirt? It’s dirt, Luke. I’m not going to crack my head open.” I take a deep breath. Now that I’m here, I don’t even know how to start. I should have rehearsed this on the way over, but I was so focused on getting here in one piece that I completely blanked on how to even explain all that happened over the past few hours.

  “Seriously, are you okay?” I realize how weird I must look right now, because Luke is starting to look genuinely worried.

  I shake my head. “Seriously.” I wave my hands in front of his face like I can erase that worried frown he’s wearing. This isn’t a time for frowning. He should be celebrating!

  Right—he still doesn’t know what’s going on. “What are you doing?”

  He raises his eyebrows above his Bliss blue eyes and makes a sweeping gesture towards the table. “I’m attending the pig roast, Jules. Like half the town.”

  Half the town is indeed here, but for all the ruckus I’m causing, no one seems to notice me at all. They’re all happily eating and chatting like I’m not even here.

  I should be used to it by now, but I’m not. I’ve never fit in here in Paulson. But that doesn’t matter anymore. Luke is still talking, something about Ferris wheels, but I’ve had enough. “Are you done?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest. I feel like I need to hold on to something or I’m going to float clean away.

  And this is why I love Luke and why I couldn’t ask for a better friend. Because he immediately grabs his coat. “I guess?” he says, swinging it over one shoulder. “What’s got you all worked up?”

  He looks damn handsome in that pose. I want to tease him about it, but it’s not important right now. “I need your help.”

  He nods and swings his jacket back down again, then pats the chair next to him. “Okay. Sit down, and we can talk about it. You want food?”

  My stomach growls at the temptation, but I shake my head and grab his elbow. “Don’t sit down. We have to go.” We've wasted too much time already.

  Time I could be spending starting my brand new life with my newfound family.

  Luke frowns. “What do you mean, go?”

  I don’t get it. A second ago he grabbed his coat at just the hint of me wanting to leave. Why’s he looking so freaked out, and why is Miller staring at us like we’re animals in a zoo?

  Or maybe he’s just staring at me like that because I don’t fit in here. That’s what people do in Paulson. They either ignore me or act like I’m a different species. Something confusing, and a little bit distressing.

  I can’t take it any longer. Blood thumping in my ears, I turn and hurry towards the exits. “Come on,” I call to Luke, pleading now. “I need you.”

  “My pork,” he answers weakly.

  “Bring the pork with you,” I sigh. “We gotta go.”

  The air outside the tent is about a million degrees cooler. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs with the scent of rain-soaked earth.

  Luke’s hand lands on my back. A light touch, just letting me know he’s there, and I feel myself relax again. I turn to him and he gives me a quizzical smile. “Where are you taking me?”

  I still haven’t rehearsed this. “I’ll tell you in the car.”

  He follows me to my truck and I try to formulate my thoughts. I want this to be as momentous for him as it is for me. He helped me, after all. All those hours in the library, all those dead ends. The futile search for my birth family that is suddenly not so futile anymore.

  Luke climbs into the passenger seat and balances his plate carefully on his knees. He doesn’t ask again, just waits. Patiently. He can see I’m freaked out, and he’s trying not to spook me. The way he’d approach a skittish horse. I know what he’s doing and I appreciate it.

  I’m so glad I can finally tell him the good news. Alone.

  “Luke,” I say. “I have a cousin.”

  He blinks. Realization dawns on his face. “From your birth family?”

  I nod, suddenly overwhelmed. Tears prick at my eyes. “Her name is Maya. I talked to her, Luke. On the phone.”

  His eyes widen. “Holy shit, Julie May!” He almost knocks his plate over as he hugs me tight. “That’s awesome! Was she nice? Are you going to meet her?”

  I nod.

  “Wow, that’s so cool. When?”

  I lick my lips. “Um, right now?”

  He blinks again.

  “She invited me to spend the night but uh…I’m kind of freaked out.” My head spins. I haven’t thought this far. I’ve only thought about telling him, but now that I’m saying the words, they suddenly become real. “Oh my
god.” I bury my face in my hands. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  “No,” he says. “You can’t.”

  I peek at him through my fingers.

  He grins and tugs my hands away from my face. “But we can.”

  “What?” I gasp. “You mean you’d come with me?”

  “Hell fucking yeah!” he croons. “You think after all those beautiful afternoons I gave up to spend looking through dusty old birth records, I’m gonna let you hog all the fun?” His teasing laugh makes me grin, too. “Nah, girl. I’m coming with you.” He takes my hand and grows serious. “Let’s go meet Maya.”

  I stare at him. “You’d really do this for me?”

  He shrugs. “You’re my best friend, right?”

  “Right.” I nod.

  “So of course I will.” He gives me a look. “And I’m mad that you’d even question me. It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

  I shake my head and put my key in the ignition. “Leave it to you to make finding my birth family all about you, Luke Bliss.” But there’s no sting in the words, and I can’t wipe the smile off my face as I drive us out of the lot and toward my new future.

  2

  Luke

  I’ve known Julie May since we were in preschool, and I’ve known she was adopted since we were in kindergarten, and none of that has ever made a damn bit of difference for me. Who cares who your parents are if you’re perfect? Not to say that Julie May is perfect. She’s just damn near perfect, which is about as close as a person can get on earth.

  Austin’s probably not going to be happy with me for taking an unscheduled road trip while there’s so much going on at the ranch. Now that it’s the width of two properties, it’s also the work of two properties. Which is good, in a way, because it keeps my mind off the fact that even my silent ass of a brother found a soulmate before I did. It’s not a competition. Nothing in life, according to everybody in Paulson, is really a competition, unless it is. And then it’s all fun and games.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this excited,” I tell Julie May as we cruise down the highway.

  “It’s the pinnacle of my life.”

  “Naw. The pinnacle of your life was when you met me.”

  “What did I say about making this all about you?”

  Julie May wrinkles her nose when she says it, and it’s about the cutest damn thing I’ve seen in all my life. Everything about her is pretty cute. Has been since the first day of preschool, when she tipped her favorite block into my hands, screwed up her lips, and asked me to play with her. She doesn’t wear her hair in a water-fountain ponytail anymore, but if she did, she’d be able to pull it off.

  “I’m just glad for you, that’s all.” And that’s all this feeling is. Here in the passenger seat, I am only feeling happy for a friend. The warmth that’s growing behind my breastbone has nothing to do with the way the moonlight glints in her hair, which is the same sunny blonde it’s been since she was three. Three and a half, she would have said. Julie May’s always been a stickler for getting things right.

  “You sure I’m not taking you away from anything at the ranch?”

  “Julie May, you’re taking me away from everything at the ranch.” Her teeth worry at her lip. “Austin will manage. He’s got Miller to help him. And his new wife.”

  “They seem so happy.” Julie May’s eyes go a little faraway, and I get a hand ready to take the wheel from her in case she slips all the way into one of her daydreams. Can’t have us going off the road on the most momentous day of our lives. Of her life.

  “You’re happy,” I point out. “You’ve got everything now. The job at the library, a new apartment, and you found your family. What else could you want?”

  “Honestly, pizza,” says Julie May, and the look on her face makes me laugh. Just like always. That familiar warmth behind my breastbone gets warmer. It’s nothing—just happiness for my best friend. That’s really all it is. “But I probably can’t barge in on...you know, these people and ask for pizza.”

  “We could get some on the way, you know.”

  “Yeah, but what kind?” Worry transforms Julie May’s face. It’s so sincere I want to rub the wrinkles off her forehead with the pad of my thumb. “There’s no point in pizza without pepperoni, but what if they’re vegetarians? I could get two pizzas, but I’m trying to make a good impression.”

  “How does two pizzas make a less-good impression than one?”

  “It’s just weird, showing up with multiple pizzas.”

  I take her word for it. I learned years ago that it’s best to just take Julie May’s word for it. The worst fight we ever had was halfway through high school when Julie May swore up and down she didn’t want a date for the homecoming dance. She was not happy when I showed up at her house. Still don’t know why, but I have to assume it’s because I didn’t take her word for it.

  The GPS app on her phone chimes, and Jules pulls into the exit ramp on the freeway. “Oh, man,” she says softly. “Oh, this is getting real.”

  “Your new family lives on this exit ramp?”

  She reaches over and slaps my shoulder, a glancing blow that leaves behind more heat than is strictly necessary.

  “Ow,” I tell her, rubbing at it to get that feeling to go away. “You been working out?”

  “Yes.” She lifts a hand and flexes. “Can you tell?”

  “Sure as hell I can.”

  Julie May pulls to a stop at the light and the GPS app directs us to turn left, then proceed straight for three miles. We pass a grocery store, a post office, and an honest-to-god video rental store. The last one in Paulson closed a couple years ago.

  “Julie May, look at that.”

  “What?” She flicks her eyes to the side, obviously not interested.

  “A video rental store. That’s what you should bring. DVDs.”

  “Oh my god, Luke. What if they don’t have a DVD player? I can’t waltz in and ask them to put on a DVD.” Her face gets more serious by the second. We don’t want stormcloud Julie May, the one with only a single-minded focus, to take over now.

  “It’s bonding,” I insist. “Besides, can you imagine it? Picking up all those movies, putting them down...the stacks of cases…”

  She laughs. “Remember the time we watched all of those Lord of the Rings movies in a single night?”

  I groan. “That was too much. Too many elves. Too much popcorn.” And not enough making out. What? No. I’ve never thought about kissing Julie May. Not like that. A peck on the cheek, maybe, for a special occasion. It’s just that making out goes with the movies. We spent the entire night in her family’s living room, watching all those hobbits go traipsing all over Middle Earth for god knows what.

  The GPS chimes out more instructions and a hush falls between us. We’re five minutes away. Then three. Then one. And then we’re pulling into the driveway of a little white ranch house. All the lights are still on, the glow spilling out onto a neatly mowed front yard.

  Julie May just stares.

  A quiver moves through her chin, and just like that, I’m in second grade again. That was the year we got to visit the big library at the state capitol. Julie May stood on the steps with tears in her eyes and awe on her face. I had to be the one to take her hand and lead her inside before Mrs. Robbins got annoyed at us for falling out of line.

  “Hey,” I tell her softly. “They’re going to think you’re creepy if you sit out here in your car the rest of the night.”

  She turns her big green eyes on me. “Will she really?”

  I know what she’s asking. “No, Julie May. Your cousin’s going to love you.”

  Jules takes a big, shuddering breath. “Thanks for coming with me.”

  It’s as vulnerable as I’ve ever seen her, and I’ve seen Julie May lots of ways. “Of course.”

  “I brought you with me so it won’t be awkward.” Her voice tightens, rises. “I’m so awkward, and you’re not.”

  “You’re gonna do great.”r />
  Julie May clutches the wheel again, tight tight tight. You wouldn’t know she was losing her mind unless you knew her. Well, I know her. And she is. She’s got that wheel in her hands like it’s going to carry her inside.

  This is where I come in.

  I get out of the car and stride around to her side. Her door comes open easy. Her eyes meet mine, a jolt goes through me, and I ignore it. I have to. All I can do is offer my hand. She looks down at it for a long moment. Too long. What’s so weird about a guy holding out his hand to his best friend? It’s a good idea for a million reasons. Reason number one: if she’s holding my hand, she won’t fall on her face in the middle of the driveway. Good impressions, right?

  Her hand fits into mine and there it is again—that jolt, like Julie May’s a naked wire made from something really good. I ignore the wire. Now’s not the time. Never is a good time to start thinking about Julie May like that. So I don’t.

  “Come on, Julie May. Let’s go.”

  3

  Julie May

  He’s holding my hand.

  He’s done this before, of course. Running together in the death-trap playground of Paulson Elementary. Jumping from rock to rock in the creek that borders Bliss Ranch. “Come on, Julie May, don’t be a scaredy cat, I’ve gotcha,” he’d insist with a wink to make me feel better before grabbing my hand and giving me a giant yank to help me clear the water without getting my feet wet.

  And it’s not just my hands, either. Luke Bliss has touched me all over the place -- all fully clothed of course. Boosting me into the treehouse, helping me onto a horse, sharing a saddle as we ride together to have a picnic under a tree.