Cold Heart, Warm Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

Hannah’s head ached, and she only wished it was from the one beer she’d had at the bar. And her jaw hurt from the fake smile she had welded to her lips.

  “Will you please let me do this? My way?”

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?” Mama retorted.

  But she didn’t hang up in a huff, the way she normally would. Hannah asked after Aunt Bit, the only person alive who found Luanne’s controlling nature entertaining, probably because she was the older sister and could ignore it. Hannah cooed at her baby more, trying not to cry, because this was her first separation from him. And it turned out, it hurt her heart even more than she’d expected it would.

  This time, her mother actually said goodbye before she hung up.

  “Progress,” Hannah muttered out loud.

  The way her voice hung in the room only reminded her that she was all alone, again, which was another thing she hadn’t been for any extended period of time in a long, long while. Not since she was a kid, really. Before she’d started down the rodeo queen path, there had been Aunt Bit while Mama was working. Librarians. The people at the stables where she worked mucking out stalls and whatever else needed doing to help pay for her riding lessons.

  Once she’d started doing rodeos regularly, her mother had become her chaperone. And Luanne hadn’t taken her eyes off of Hannah for years. Not until Hannah had found a way to deceive her—another one of Luanne’s favorite topics. She liked to trot that one out when Hannah least expected it, the better to use it like a hammer.

  But Luanne wasn’t here. Besides, Hannah had found herself significantly more sympathetic to her mother in the ten months since she’d had Jack. She’d had no idea it was possible to love anything or anyone that much. She’d had no clue how ferocious that love was. How deep and primal.

  If Luanne needed to express something that huge and unwieldy through her relentless nitpicking, Hannah could live with it.

  Right after she let herself sob because she was away from her baby, and no one had explained to her what that would feel like. How did people … let them grow up? Move out? Make terrible decisions about their own lives the way Hannah had?

  She rubbed at her eyes, laughing at her own sentimentality.

  When she swung her legs over the side of her bed, she was as alone as she’d been when she’d gotten off the phone. In this lovely B and B she probably couldn’t afford. In Cold River, Colorado, where her husband lived and continued not to know her or want her.

  Hannah glared at the book on her bedside table that she’d imagined could make her feel better about her own life. The trouble was, she could read about other lives, but she still had to live this one. Things could be worse. Things could always be worse. But that didn’t make the things that were less than great right now feel any better.

  She took her time getting up. Then dragged her feet as she got herself ready for another day that might potentially include run-ins with Ty. To add insult to injury, she kept checking her phone like some kind of overwrought teen to see if he’d called. When of course, he hadn’t.

  “And won’t,” she told herself. “Because men can’t be trusted.”

  By the time she pushed her way back out onto Main Street, she felt, if not exactly ready to face another round of memory games with her errant husband, at least sufficiently armored to handle the day. The morning was cool, and she’d taken her outfit down to a more casual level, like that might help her blend. For Hannah that meant jeans, a T-shirt, her hair pulled into a side ponytail, and enough mascara that she could be seen from space.

  Because a girl needed her face on to tackle the day.

  She walked down the street to Cold River Coffee, and ordered herself an espresso drink and some breakfast to go with it. She found a seat in the back near the overstuffed bookshelf and helped herself to the nearest romance novel as she ate.

  Hannah couldn’t remember when she’d finished eating, or the last time she’d checked her silent phone, but she was well into chapter six when a shadow fell over her table. She looked up, trying to hide her annoyance at being jolted out of the world of a brooding pirate hero and the heroine who was more than a match for his antics.

  It was the woman from the bookstore, holding a to-go cup in her hand.

  “Look at that,” she said, grinning. “Looks like you couldn’t help but find yourself a better mood.”

  “Guilty as charged,” Hannah replied. When she smiled back, her smile felt real. Not the one she trotted out for awkward social occasions and liked to hide behind everywhere else. That struck her as significant. “I guess I was looking for hope after all.”

  “As a matter of fact, my name is Hope, so you’ve already found it,” the woman said with a laugh. She stuck out her hand. Hannah shook it, murmuring her own name as she did. “It’s nice to meet you, Hannah. When you’re ready to come exchange that book you bought, I’ll be waiting.”

  Long after she left, Hannah was still grinning. Until it occurred to her the way it had in the saloon last night that if everything had gone according to plan, she might have come to this town with Ty when their time with the rodeo was through. Hadn’t that been one of the plans they’d talked about on those long, stolen nights? If they’d moved here, maybe she would have already befriended Hope from Capricorn Books.

  Maybe it wasn’t the fact that Cold River looked like such a pretty postcard that kept digging beneath her skin, an itch she couldn’t quite scratch. Maybe it was that she was visiting a phantom version of her life. She was peering down the road not taken, and sure enough, it was filled with ghosts of what could have been.

  Her phone was still silent.

  Hannah made herself concentrate on her book, not any ghosts-of-lost-futures that might have been hovering around. After a while, she moved over to the comfortable couch. She ordered herself more coffee, and then she lost herself in a novel the way she hadn’t done since Jack was born.

  When she went up to get her third coffee drink, because she could, the coffeehouse—crowded and busy when she’d walked in this morning—was quiet. The doors were propped open to let the summer breeze in, and overhead fans circled it around lazily. Hannah could hear her boots against the hardwood floor, a richly satisfying sound.

  The girl behind the counter had her hair tossed back in the kind of messy bun that Hannah always admired, but could never do herself. Hannah had been raised on curling irons, endless amounts of hairspray, and the sure knowledge that messy buns were for other sorts of girls. The truly effortless girls, unlike rodeo queens, who had to put time in to appear that way. Easy, carefree girls who didn’t have to work so hard to be beautiful.

  “Didn’t I see you in the Broken Wheel last night?” the girl behind the counter asked, tilting her head slightly to one side.

  Hannah studied the girl—the easy, effortless, carefree girl who was much too pretty in that laid-back, woke-up-like-this way Hannah coveted and maybe hated a little—more intently. She read the name on the tag on her chest. Amanda.

  The only thing Hannah had been aware of in the Broken Wheel Saloon last night had been Ty. The husband who didn’t know he was a husband. The husband who didn’t know he’d made vows.

  It was a lot easier to ponder all the ways he could have broken those vows, and how it wouldn’t really be his fault if he couldn’t remember he was married, when she wasn’t staring straight at the sort of girl he might very well have done his vow-breaking with.

  Her stomach heaved.

  “Did you?” she asked, as noncommittally as she could, and hoped none of her turmoil showed on her face.

  Because maybe it wasn’t Ty’s fault if he’d broken his wedding vows. But it wasn’t Hannah’s either.

  “You and Ty Everett,” Amanda said, with exactly the sort of blissful confidence that a girl like that would embody, from her head to her toes. It wasn’t her fault Hannah felt numb with horror everywhere except her knotted-up stomach. Nothing was anybody’s fault, yet Hannah still wanted to scream. “You must know him from the rodeo.” />
  “Must I?”

  The girl grinned as if Hannah hadn’t sounded like she was chewing nails.

  “I’m Amanda Kittredge,” the girl said as she handed back a few bills. She shut the register and leveled a look on Hannah. Then held it. “Kittredges and Everetts have been neighbors out there over the hill since the dawn of time. Or the 1800s, anyway, which is basically the same thing. And Ty has always treated me like the bratty kid sister he never had.”

  A surge of relief washed over her, so intense it made her knees tremble, and Hannah wanted to hate herself for it. But what she knew about her husband was that he had very, very healthy appetites. Was she really going to try to convince herself that he’d ignored them all this time? When, from his perspective, he had no reason not to indulge as he pleased?

  “Everyone in this town treats me like a bratty kid sister, as a matter of fact,” Amanda was saying, which at least kept Hannah from really exploring how ill she was making herself. “I guess I should count myself lucky. It’s not every girl who gets to stay sixteen years old forever in the eyes of every single person she knows. Even when she actually hasn’t been sixteen in six years.”

  Hannah leaned into the counter. As much because she was suddenly in love with this girl Ty treated like a kid sister as for emphasis. “Funny you should say that. I grew up in a small town myself. Every person in it treated me like a stick of dynamite about to go off from the day I was born. An immature stick of dynamite, I should say, no matter how old I was.”

  Even when some Sweet Myrtle residents had pitched in to help with her queening, they’d made it clear they always remembered where she’d come from. And therefore where she’d end up. And look at that, they’d all been right.

  “I wish anyone worried about my potential for mayhem.” Amanda sounded rueful as she moved from behind the cashier over to the big, sleek espresso machine. “I could actually strap myself in dynamite and explode right there in the middle of Main Street. No one would think it was dynamite. They would think, ‘What’s that Kittredge girl doing out in the street by herself? Does her mother know where she is?’”

  “Unless you actually blew something up. I find that often cures condescension. What with the exploding.”

  Amanda looked thoughtful. “What an excellent idea.”

  “I feel I should clarify that you probably shouldn’t blow anything up that you can’t put back together. And there are worse things than condescension. I’m really talking metaphors here.”

  Amanda scoffed at that. “This is the Wild, Wild West. We prefer directness over metaphor, every time. We used to have shoot-outs in the street.”

  “Here?”

  “Not here. But in the west in general.”

  Amanda quickly fixed the drink Hannah had already forgotten she’d ordered and slid it onto the countertop between them.

  Hannah stared at the drink. She reached out and ran her finger down the Cold River Coffeehouse logo. And reminded herself that she’d already lost all her dignity, and then some. What was a little pride?

  “So, what are the Everetts like?” she asked. Innocently. So very innocently. “Out of idle curiosity.”

  Amanda’s eyes gleamed. “The Everetts helped found Cold River,” she said, leaning into the counter that separated them. “They’re basically a part of the scenery. Amos Everett died last fall, making pretty much nobody sad, and left the ranch to his three sons. The oldest, Gray, married Abby Douglas, whose family has also been around forever and who happens to manage this coffeehouse. They’re about to have a baby.”

  It occurred to Hannah that the pregnant woman she’d seen here yesterday was Abby. Her sister-in-law, who she didn’t know. Who she’d stared at, making up a life for, because she’d had no idea the woman was married to Ty’s brother. It made her feel … hollow. One more road not taken.

  “The youngest is Brady. He’s…” Amanda stopped. Her cheeks heated, then she rolled her eyes. “Annoying. But the middle one. Ty.”

  “Yes. That one.”

  “He came back last fall for the funeral. And he’s been here ever since.”

  “At the Broken Wheel Saloon?”

  “Sure. Sometimes he hangs out with—or I should say, near—my older brothers. But you know. He was badly hurt. Folks say he’s not quite the same since that bull trampled all over him.” Amanda made a big show of wiping the already clean counter. “I wouldn’t know because I’m everybody’s little sister and apparently my ears are too tender for the truth. Still. My impression is that Ty was never short of company. Back when he was a rodeo star.”

  “But not since he’s been back here?”

  Hannah should really have despised herself for asking that question. And maybe she did. It was hard to tell, mixed in as it was with all the rest of the strange, outsized emotions knocking around inside of her.

  “That’s why I asked you about him in the first place,” Amanda said, with understanding in her voice and that level gaze. “Because it was such a novelty.”

  And Hannah was horrified to find she was this close to breaking down and crying. Right there at a coffee counter with a perfect stranger.

  “Thank you,” she managed to say. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “Don’t thank me for sharing simple facts,” Amanda replied. She grinned. “But should you see me blowing something up out in the middle of Main Street, non-metaphorically, definitely don’t ask me what I’m doing out there unsupervised.”

  If Hannah pretended her throat wasn’t tight, her voice had to sound normal. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  A group of people swept in, then, laughing their way up to the counter, and Hannah honestly couldn’t tell if she was grateful or frustrated that her conversation with Amanda was interrupted. She took it as her cue, carrying her coffee back to her couch. Her book.

  Her unexpected morning of peace and quiet, with sugary-sweet coffee drinks.

  But it was different now. Her heart felt swollen. With shame and embarrassment for asking, on the one hand, because she’d revealed far too much. And with relief and gladness, on the other hand, because maybe he hadn’t broken his vows after all.

  Sure, she wanted a divorce, but she would prefer not to have been cheated on in addition to having been left pregnant by the side of the road. Or in a Kentucky hospital, to be more precise.

  That was why, when she looked up again to see someone walking toward her with purpose and intent, she forgot to mask her natural reaction. She forgot to be wary.

  Because Ty was coming toward her, all cowboy saunter and his mouth in a harsh line, and there was no way she managed to conceal her simple, involuntary joy at the sight of him.

  Because he was hard and lean and as dangerous as he was beautiful. She didn’t know how everyone around them didn’t see it. And today he wasn’t aiming that lazy grin of his all around, hiding himself in the process.

  He was focused on her, his dark green gaze intent.

  It made her heart clutch at her. It made her stomach flip over.

  It made her remember.

  Her body too. Because there were parts of her that didn’t care what he’d done or what he might have done. Parts of her that ran soft and sweet for him, now and forever, and when he was this close to her, Hannah forgot to feel ashamed about that.

  He stopped in front of her, his gaze moving over her as if this were the first time. As if she was new, or he was, and Hannah supposed she should take offense at that. But he’d always looked at her that way. As if he couldn’t believe she was real. And for a moment, she forgot to let it hurt.

  “I thought you left again.” He didn’t sound accusing. He sounded … intent. “You weren’t in the bed-and-breakfast.”

  “I told you I wouldn’t leave. Though if you took a few days to do all that thinking, I can’t promise I wouldn’t have revisited the idea.”

  Something moved over his face, and she couldn’t read him anymore. That she’d lost that, too, made her chest tight.

  Hannah g
lanced away, because she was afraid he could still read her too well. She blinked, bringing the front of the coffee shop into focus, where Amanda was making another round of drinks. The other girl caught her eye and nodded once. In support.

  It was the funniest thing. Hannah had considered the other girls in the rodeo queen program friends, but they had also been competitors. They traveled around together in packs, but girls were always coming and going, depending on how they handled themselves and the demands of the program.

  There were girls who were too overwhelmed to handle the rodeo schedule. There were girls who thrived on it. There were girls who seemed aloof and snobby when they were really shy. There were always girls like Laura, who would be the first to call Hannah sister, particularly while she gossiped about her to everyone else. Hannah had loved her time with them. But she’d missed the sense of camaraderie more than she’d missed anyone in particular.

  Yet here was Hannah feeling a sudden kinship for Amanda that she’d never felt for the girls she’d toured with. Because she’d never dared tell them the things she’d revealed to Amanda over a coffee drink.

  She jerked her attention back to Ty and found him studying her, a storm she didn’t understand brewing in his gaze.

  “I told you I need to think. I’ve done that,” he said. Almost formally.

  Hannah got to her feet, clutching her romance novel to her chest like it was her Bible. “And what have you decided?”

  Ty’s gaze moved over her, as if he was trying to slot her into place. Fit her into a bigger puzzle to make the image come into focus. Then he reached out his hand, over all that distance between them, which was about a foot. And a very long eighteen months.

  He didn’t speak. He only held out his hand, and waited.

  Hannah stopped breathing.

  There were a thousand reasons to slap his hand away. Slap him, while she was at it. There were a thousand reasons for bitterness. Anger. Tears. A thousand reasons to try to hurt him, so he would know how it felt.

  There were a thousand reasons, but she loved him.

  As angry and hurt as she’d been, as she still was, she had never stopped loving him. She had fallen in love one time in her whole life, and she wasn’t sure she was capable of falling out of it again. Even if that made her a bigger fool than she already was.