Page 14 of Ride Me Cowboy
“I didn’t know you’d still be here,” he says. He looks like he’s just come in off the land. Wearing dust-covered jeans and a plaid shirt, holding his light brown hat in one hand, his hair is a little damp with perspiration, and his brow has a smudge across it that my fingertips suddenly tingle to swipe away. I clasp my hands firmly in my lap to get rid of the feeling.
“I just had a last few things to tidy up,” I say, nodding toward my desk. And to fill the silence, I add, “I got this overdue notice from the feed store—the original bill probably came in around when Reagan had her baby, so I guess she must have missed it.”
His eyes lock to mine and his jaw seems to clench. More butterflies. Fear is an easy response for me, even when I know I’m not actually afraid of Cole, so much as what I know anyone can become capable of.
I’m safe. I’m safe.
“I’ll post it,” I say. “Or I can take it into town tomorrow, if you’d like. I want to get some running gear anyway.”
“I’ll do it,” he says, holding out his hand. I pass the check to him, and almost jump out of my skin when our fingers brush and something like electricity seems to explode through my body, hot and powerful. I quickly tuck my hand in my lap, concentrate on my breathing and trying not to look like I’m losing the plot. But his eyes bore into mine and a frown tugs at his lips, like he’s struggling with this, too. Or something. He folds the checkin half then in half again and slides it into his top pocket, all without looking away.
“It’s hot today,” I say, wishing I didn’t have a pathological need to fill silence around Cole.
“Sure is.” He rubs a hand along the back of his neck. He probably gets a sore neck, sore shoulders, sore muscles all over. Or maybe he doesn’t. Maybe that’s just howIwould feel if I was out riding horses and jumping fences or whatever it is cowboys do all day. It’s funny, I really have no idea what his day involves—it’s not something I’ve ever thought about.
“I got this for you.” He shoves the hat in my direction. At first, I don’t take it, then, my fingers reach out and curve around the soft felted brim.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Looking down at the hat, I can see my assumption was wrong. This isn’t his hat, but rather, a brand new one, with the tag still attached.
“It’s what you wear out here.”
“I’m only here for three months,” I say, to remind myself, as much as anything.
He shrugs, carelessly. “Three months is three months.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Okay, well, thanks.” I put the hat on my desk quickly.
“You know, you never answered my question, the other day, Beth,” he says, and the air in the office seems a little thin, all of a sudden, making it hard to properly inflate my lungs.
“Which question?”
I feel like he’s moved closer to me. I can see pilled lint on his shirt—just a little, a few white flecks on his broad shoulder. My fingers spark with an instinct to lift up and brush it away. I can just imagine how hard and warm he’d feel through the fabric.
“What brings you all the way to our ranch?”
My lips part on a rush of breath. I do remember him asking that, and I remember fobbing him off. It’s not an unreasonable thing to ask, but I don’t have an easy answer to give him. “I saw the ad online and just applied,” I say, knowing I’ve left a thousand things out.
He nods slowly. “They run out of bookkeeping jobs in New York?”
My lips twist sideways in a grim acknowledgement of his logic. “Have you ever been to New York, Cole?” I realize I haven’t used his name very often, and that I really like saying it.
He shakes his head, eyes still resting on mine.
I lift a finger to my necklace and hook it through the chain, pulling it from one side to the other. “Well, I’ve lived there pretty much all my life,” I say. “Born there, went to school there, college as well. I love that place, but sometimes, it feels so big, so loud, so over-built and over-crowded, that I can hardly breathe.” I turn my back on him to look out the window, at the dusk-draped ranch.
This is my favorite time of day.
The landscape of Coyote Creek Ranch is always striking, but right now, it’s particularly so, with the fields turning a shade of silver gray, the sky vibrant with tendrils of purple and orange streaking across a mauve background that’s darkening by theminute, showing a soft blanket of stars beginning to sparkle. The enormous trees at the edge of the property are mere silhouettes now, somehow imbued with a kind of magic.
“I just wanted to come somewhere I could breathe a little, and stay a while.” I shrug, not even caring that I probably just gave away more than I’d intended.
“Do you miss home?”
I flinch at the mention of home.
It conjures the most jarring, awful image. After Christopher died, I stayed in our apartment. Where else would I go? I have no family, other than Christopher’s sister—my one-time best friend—and Elsie has no idea about what our marriage was really like. Spending time with her was as hard as it was being with anyone else, because I had to fake it. Fake my grief, my sense of loss, all to protect the man they thought of as ‘perfect’. A shudder rolls through me. The idea of going back to that place fills me with ice, and I make the snap decision, then and there, that I won’t do it.
It’s strangely freeing.
