Hard Loving Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “You know that steamroller part of my personality?”

  He laughed. “You just took what you wanted. Didn’t you?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Patience is not one of my strong points.” She squeezed her legs around him, taking him deeper than she thought he could go. She sucked in a trembling breath.

  He pulsed inside her.

  There was absolutely nothing left between them—no lies or half-truths, no fear or anger or regret. Just Walker and Violet. Together like they were meant to be, even if it was for one last time.

  “Tell me again about how much you love me,” he said.

  She laughed, squeezing her legs around him tight. “I love you, Walker Everett. And I’ll be back for you one day.” But then her laughter quickly turned to tears.

  “Hey,” he said softly, kissing her with more gentleness than he should be capable of considering their current situation. “I thought the rule was no sad stuff.”

  She let out something between a laugh and a sob. “To hell with the rules,” she said.

  He kissed her again. “Yeah. To hell with them.” He tucked her wet hair behind her ears. “Tell me how to say it in French.”

  She nodded, forcing a smile. “Je t’aime, Walker.”

  “Je t’aime, Violet.”

  The ride to the airport was a solemn one with Walker and Violet in the back of her father’s car, Papa and Maman in the front. Papa would be out the end of the week when Maman started treatment, but he wanted to give her and Violet a few days alone with family to reconnect. They’d worked it out that he’d stay for a week, go home for three, and keep up the pattern until Maman was well enough to come back home.

  But Violet and Walker? They didn’t have a plan. He was committed to the construction of the ranch up in Meadow Valley, and she was committed to a full semester schedule. It would be at least six months before they’d see each other again, if they’d even want to by then.

  She’d want to. She was sure of it.

  As if he could sense the fears running through her head, Walker threaded his fingers through hers and squeezed.

  “We’ll figure it out,” he said. And because she had to trust that they would, she nodded. The alternative was admitting that this good-bye was the good-bye, and she wasn’t ready to do that.

  When they pulled into the departure lane of the terminal, Violet’s breath caught in her throat. First she saw the balloons, then Olivia wildly waving both hands in the air. Lily was jumping up and down trying to get their attention, and Ava simply waved. Behind them stood Cash, Luke, and Jack.

  She laughed. “I can see why you hate airports,” she said, remembering his thoughts on the matter that first day they met. “They let just about anyone hang out around here.”

  He kissed her palm before letting her go.

  “How did they even know what car we’d be in?” she asked. “Did you put them up to this?”

  He grinned. “I guess your good-bye dinner the other night wasn’t enough. They wanted to give the newest member of the Crossroads family a proper send-off. Who was I to argue?”

  Her blood-related family was about to stretch across international date lines, but Violet knew that if she came back, she’d have a whole other sort of family waiting for her.

  Walker took her as far as he could go, which was barely past baggage check-in, before they had to say those dreaded words.

  “Remember what you said that day after the ER, about me being some sort of hero who kept rescuing you?” he asked.

  She nodded. “You saved me from my own bruised ego, from disappointing my parents, and from being afraid to want something for myself. I think that qualifies you as a hero.”

  “Maybe,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “But here’s the thing. I’d barely been out of rehab at your parents’ party, and I’m not gonna lie. I was so sure that everyone was betting against me that it would have been really easy to prove them right.”

  She pressed her palms to his chest. “What made you change your mind?”

  “This beautiful woman who saw me as someone else. She made me want to be that someone else, even when I didn’t think I could. But I have to see if I can do it without her. I have to see if I’m worth it, whether you think I am or not.”

  She slid her hands up and snaked them around his neck. “Oh, Walker. I hope you figure out how wonderful you are because I’ve always known.”

  “You make me want to be a better man, Vi. I’m gonna figure out how to do that, and then I’m coming after you, no matter where you are.”

  “You better.” Her throat tightened. “You know, it wasn’t only that first day that I had to kiss you. That I couldn’t not kiss you. It’s every time, Walker. Every single time I see you, it’s impossible to think about anything else until I plant one on you, or you plant one on me.”

  He laughed. She’d really miss that sound, especially when she was the one to elicit it from him.

  “Then kiss me already, Teach. What the hell are you waiting for?”

  She kissed him then like she had when she didn’t even know his name. She kissed him for coming to her rescue time and again and for finally letting her come to his. She kissed him because she couldn’t not and because she never wanted to stop. Though eating and breathing would eventually get in the way—but she’d worry about those issues later. Right now, she was wrapped in the arms of the man she loved, and she was going to savor every last second she had with him.

  “I love you,” she finally whispered against him when she knew it was time to get in line for security. “And this is way harder than I ever thought it would be.”

  “I know,” he said, his voice tight. “So let’s skip the hard part. I won’t say it if you won’t.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. Because she knew the power of words, whatever language they were in. If you said something out loud, then it had to be true.

  She was moving to France.

  Walker was driving seven hours up North.

  She loved him and his Oak Bluff family.

  He loved her right back.

  All of these things were true. But good-bye? She wouldn’t say it. Not today.

  “Vee,” she heard her mother say. “It is time to go.”

  She lowered herself from her toes and unclasped her hands from around his neck.

  “Love you, Teach. Go take care of your mom and follow that dream.”

  She nodded, swallowing back the tears. She wouldn’t make this harder for him.

  “Love you, cowboy. Go take care of you. I’ll call you when I get there.”

  He winked at her. “Don’t tell Jack or Luke, but for you I’ll actually answer.”

  She kissed him one more time and then followed Maman to the TSA line. When she turned back to steal one last look, Walker was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  This is disgusting,” Walker said. “I’m glad I can’t drink this stuff.”

  “It’s tradition!” Ava cried through peals of laughter.

  “It’s so gross,” his nephew Owen added. “But so awesome, too!”

  Jack stood across from Walker in a tux, his pants rolled up to his knees and his feet buried in a barrel of grapes—the same as Luke, Walker, Jack’s son Owen, and Ava in her juice-spattered wedding gown on Jack’s other side. Jenna stomped around in the barrel next to Walker, hooting and laughing as Lucy the psychic chicken squawked about the grass.

  “We tried!” Lily and Olivia said in unison as each held a handful of Ava’s dress in an attempt to keep it from the stomping bucket.

  But here was the thing about stomping around in a bucket of grapes. Juice splattered. Any idiot should know that, and Walker prided himself on being any idiot.

  “Don’t worry,” Cash said with his phone pointed at the group. “I’m getting it all on video so we can remind everyone where the first Crossroads vintage began.”

  Grapes squished between Walker’s toes, and he swore he could have been
stepping on a bucket full of eyeballs. Based on how much the splattered juice looked like blood, he double-checked to make sure he wasn’t bleeding.

  “Come on, little brother,” Luke said. “Make like you’re enjoying this unless you want Jack and me to make sure you are.”

  Oh, hell no. Not today. Walker was almost twenty-six years old. The brotherly hazing had to be done by now, didn’t it? And even though he was happy for them, if he wanted to pout about watching Jack and Ava profess their love for each other when the woman he loved was thousands of miles away, then so be it.

  Camille had started treatment, which meant Violet spent more time at the hospital each day—which meant finding times when they were both awake to talk was harder and harder. They’d gone from talking twice a day, to once, to every few days. Now it had been more than a week since they last spoke. Walker guessed she’d found more than family in Paris. Each day he was surer that she’d likely moved on. His family needed to face it. He scrubbed a hand across his whiskerless jaw. He might clean up good, but he was still a grumpy stick-in-the-mud with Violet gone.

  “Don’t,” Walker warned. “Whatever you’re thinking, just don’t. Have some respect for the sanctity of marriage.” Or something to that effect. He hoped he sounded convincing.

  But the first handful of grape guts didn’t come from Luke or even Jack.

  He wiped the goop from the side of his face and narrowed his gaze at his new sister-in-law.

  “Didn’t think you had it in you, Ellis,” he said coolly.

  She gave him a taunting nod. “It’s Everett now—little brother.”

  “That’s it,” he said. And by the time he’d stooped to scoop up a handful of smashed grapes, it was an all-out wedding-party grape war.

  Guests backed out of the danger zone but stayed close enough to snap photos. Lily and Olivia said to hell with Ava’s dress—as it was very much ruined at this point—and joined in the fray. Jack, Owen, and Luke were already covered in it when they all locked eyes on Walker, who hadn’t even thrown his first handful.

  He hopped out of his bucket and ran, but the two men, the boy, and now somehow the sheriff were all on his tail. How the hell were they all running so fast on bare feet when he was slipping and sliding at every turn?

  Walker took one of those turns too sharp, and his feet lost purchase all together, sending him sailing through the air and onto his back, effectively knocking the wind straight from his lungs.

  His assailants gave him a short reprieve to catch his breath, but as soon as he could breathe regularly again, they were on him like a cow pie on an unsuspecting boot. Soon they were nothing more than a rolling ball of tuxedoes and grape juice, and all he could hear was a mixture of laughter, hoots and hollers, and the artificial clicking sound of smartphone cameras.

  “Okay!” he called out. “Are we done yet? Because the party hasn’t even started, and I don’t think the new Mrs. Everett is going to let us set foot in the winery like this.”

  Jack and Luke rolled off him. Owen had already fallen out of the grape brawl and was now lying on his back, laughing. Jack and Luke showed their age a little more, breathing hard with an occasional chuckle.

  “He’s right, you know,” Ava said, standing over them. Then she held up her hands in surrender. “I know. I know. I started it, and I don’t regret a thing. But how about we all head back to the ranch for a quick change before we get this party started? There are plenty of hors d’oeuvres and drinks to keep everyone busy until we get back.”

  They all agreed and followed Ava on her trek across the pasture and back toward the ranch.

  What a sight they must have been had anyone been looking on from the house. But there was no one there. No ghosts, he realized, waiting to drag him back under. Once he’d let the memories come to the surface in his kitchen with Violet, he hadn’t felt like he was being eaten alive from the inside out. Their power over him lessened until he realized he was the one in control, not his past.

  “Shit,” he said under his breath. He’d been the goddamn keeper of his demons this whole time. Not Oak Bluff. He didn’t need to leave to stay sober. He needed to let go, and it looked like he’d done that without even knowing.

  As they trudged up the front porch steps, their feet sticking to the wood, it all hit him like a ton of bricks.

  “I’m not going to Meadow Valley,” Walker said, and Jack and Luke both stopped short of the door. Ava and Owen headed inside, giving the three men some time alone.

  “What are you talking about?” Jack asked. “You’re heading out in the morning, aren’t you?”

  On a whim, Walker had applied for a passport a couple weeks ago, thinking if Violet had needed him in Paris, he could be ready at a moment’s notice. Granted he’d never been on a plane before, and his hatred of airports and crowds and most people in general hadn’t changed. But, see, there was this woman he loved. And he’d launch himself straight to the moon if it meant seeing her again.

  Sam and Ben might want to kick his ass for backing out at the last minute, but he didn’t care. Not when he realized it wasn’t distance he needed. It was her.

  “Yes,” Walker said. “I mean, I guess that depends on flights.”

  Luke shook his head. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up a second. You’re flying now? Didn’t you just get the truck tuned up for the long car ride? Jack, I think the grape fumes are getting to him or something. He’s talking bullshit again. Gotta say, I didn’t miss it. I like when the things he says make sense.”

  Jack was smiling, and Walker realized they were both messing with him.

  “You’re going to get your girl, aren’t you?” Jack asked.

  Walker nodded.

  “You coming back?” Luke added.

  This time Walker shrugged. “I think so, either when she kicks me to the curb or when she’s ready to come back herself. It also depends on you two—because I want to be a part of the ranch, the vineyard, all of it. It is a family business, after all. I just know right now I need to go.”

  Luke laughed. “God what I wouldn’t give to see you walking around Paris. You’ve never even been on a plane, have you?”

  Walker swallowed. He’d ridden his share of horses, even been thrown from one or two. He’d been in a handful of bar fights and had fallen through a picture window and nearly killed himself. Yet he was scared to hop on a large machine and fly across the country and maybe an ocean or two.

  Or maybe he was afraid he’d get there and Violet would have already moved on. There was only one way to find out.

  “So, how the hell do I buy a plane ticket?” he asked.

  Walker wasn’t sure with the time difference if it was two days later or three. All he knew was that he hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and he was in a country where he couldn’t say much more than I love you, You’re too beautiful, and Go fuck yourself.

  He didn’t think any of those would go over too well with a taxi driver.

  He threw the small duffel over his shoulder and stepped through the arrivals door and into the Paris sun.

  It was a little cooler than California’s sun, but other than that it felt the same.

  He found the taxi line and hopped in the next available car.

  “Où voudrais-tu aller?” the man in the driver’s seat asked. Walker hoped that meant the guy was asking for a destination.

  “Saint-Louis Hospital?” he said, the answer coming out like a question.

  “Ah, Americain, yes? You want hôpital de Saint-Louis?”

  Where Walker had pronounced the name of the hospital like the city in Missouri, the taxi driver said it in what he assumed was the correct way. Walker anticipated much of this in days, maybe weeks, to come.

  The ride was excruciating, mainly because of the traffic. Walker still hated traffic. It was nearly an hour before they pulled up in front of the hospital’s main entrance.

  Walker handed the man his credit card and trusted that he swiped the right amount since he’d never dealt in Euros. Then h
e practically sprinted into the building.

  “Camille Chastain?” he said, and the woman behind the desk smiled politely at him before typing something on a keyboard and then checking her computer screen.

  “Fourth floor,” she said in accented English, and he was suddenly grateful for his terrible pronunciation of the French language. “Room 412.”

  “Thank you!” he called out as he ran toward the elevators. “I mean gracias. No! Merci. It’s merci. I knew that.”

  He didn’t care what an idiot he sounded like because he was minutes—maybe seconds—away from seeing her.

  When the elevator doors opened, he took off down the first available hallway, realizing too late that he’d gone the wrong direction.

  Patience, he reminded himself. Because he’d never been one to rush. Until now.

  He finally found room 412 and approached it with caution, but the door was closed.

  “The doctor’s with her right now, so I was heading downstairs for a snack.”

  Violet’s voice came from behind him. It was tinged with a slight accent, and he realized that must have been the first English she’d spoken since their last phone call.

  He spun slowly to face her, preparing himself for all possible reactions. What he wasn’t expecting was for her to launch herself at him as soon as their eyes met, but he caught her in his arms just the same.

  “Sorry,” she said, taking a step back. “Steamroller, remember?”

  He laughed, then wrapped a hand around her wrist, tugging her closer once more.

  “I’m not letting you get farther than arm’s reach from me again,” he said.

  She gasped, her hands cupping his cheeks. “Where’s your beard? Who is this strange man claiming to be Walker Everett? Explain yourself.”

  But she was grinning, exploring his face with her fingers.

  “Figured I’d try something new for the wedding,” he said. “Being that I’m a new man and all. Also Ava begged me to do it for pictures. Don’t tell her, but I’m kinda scared to say no to her.”

  Violet laughed. “God, you’re so beautiful it hurts, you know that?”