Cowboy Crush(30)

It wasn’t about their fears. It was about bringing a man to heel.

He’d been working on the pens when he remembered he’d told Wyatt he’d send him a pair of old spurs. The kid still wanted to ride. Cal had failed to dissuade the kid, but he’d already discussed all of this with his mom. He reminded her of Wyatt’s propensity for picking up new hobbies that he obsessed over for a few months before setting them aside for something new and shiny. His mother agreed she’d wait rodeo out the same way she’d done with karate, lacrosse and countless other activities. When Cal had come up the back kitchen steps and opened the door he heard his mother pleading with Maggie to talk to him, to use the trust and affection he had for her to manipulate him.

And did Maggie say no?

No.

She said she’d try.

His heart had withered in his chest as the sour taste of betrayal coated his mouth. He stepped off the stoop, not drawing any attention to himself, stunned the woman he’d spent the past month loving and laughing with could even think about conspiring with someone to take away the only thing he cared about. How could she do something like that to him? Hadn’t he opened himself to her, telling her about what his mother and Charlie had done in the past? Hadn’t he told her how much his mother nagged him about quitting, about doing something less dangerous? Didn’t Maggie know how much his career meant to him...how much coming back after the injury meant to him?

And she agreed to talk him out of it?

The door opened and both the women stepped out, shading their eyes with their hands. He didn’t say anything. Just kept working on hooking the trailer to the back of his pickup truck.

“What are you doing?” Maggie asked, moving toward him.

“Hooking up the trailer.”

“I can see that, but why?” She stopped beside him and he could smell the lavender lotion she’d smoothed over her legs when she’d gotten out of the shower earlier that day. He’d told her he loved the scent of lavender...that it made him horny. She’d put it all over her body. Cal had swept her into his arms, tossed her on the bed and made love to her just to prove how serious he was. Now the scent rubbed his face in the betrayal.

“Because I’m leaving early.”

“You’re leaving early?” Maggie repeated, stepping back as he brushed by her. “What’s wrong? I don’t understand. The pens aren’t finished and you said you weren’t leaving until Wednesday.”

“I changed my mind,” he said tersely. It would be better this way, anyway. No more dreading Wednesday, no more making love to her and growing almost weepy at the thought of leaving her. Rip the bandage off and forget about it. Done. Over. Finito.

“Why? We were going to go to that steak house in McKinney. Wait, what’s wrong? You’re acting crazy.” She tried to put her hand on his arm, but he shrugged it off. Half of him wanted to stop and talk things out. Tell her she couldn’t control him that way. Tell her using his feelings against him was so wrong. But what would it matter? They were over in a few days, anyway. And he didn’t want to talk about his goddamned feelings. He wanted to ride. Conquer. Prove he was worthy in this world.

“I’m fine. Just realizing I need to get to Mobile early. Clear my head.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice full of tears. That sound tore at his resolve, pecked at his heart, but he wouldn’t be tricked. He wouldn’t be moved by her tears or anything else. He was a man resolved.

“I do,” Ruth said, setting her hands on her hips. “You’re running. Just like your—”

“You know, Mom, I’m not like him. You don’t have a right to say something like that. What happened between my father and you is your hang-up. You’ve used it as a crutch your whole life and you’ve allowed it to shape our relationship. You need therapy and you need to stop trying to control me, Wyatt and Gary. No one’s leaving you. No one thinks you’re not important. My dad was a shitty man who hurt you. That’s been over for a long time so let it go. Just let it go.”

“You heard,” Ruth said, her features shifting into the face she’d used when he’d refused his peas or knocked a glass of iced tea onto the floor.

He stared flatly at both of the women he loved and set the cowboy hat he’d left on the bumper on his head. “I’m going to Mobile. I have a career and a life to live. No one is going to force me to live her vision of it. I choose to be a cowboy. I choose the life I’ve always had because that’s who I am.”

Maggie grabbed his arm. “You think I’d try to stop you?”

He pulled away. “Honey, I heard what you said. You’d try to talk to me, try to make me see reason. I know what kind of woman you are. You live safe. I don’t.” With that, he turned and strode to his truck. He’d left his toiletries and his favorite pair of jeans inside the Triple J, but he wasn’t stopping. He had to get away before he did and said something he’d really regret.

He needed space.

Wide-open space.

He’d drop the trailer at Charlie’s place, drive to Mobile and get his mind right. He had a ride waiting on him there. He had a name to uphold, a career to resurrect.

Firing the engine, he put the truck in Reverse, watching Maggie and his mother move back so they wouldn’t get run over. He felt like an ass, but even more than that, he felt deep, utter anguish.

Maggie didn’t understand him, after all.

* * *

RAIN HAD COME that afternoon and washed away some of the heat and dust. For once it felt decent outside. Not cool. But decent. Like sweat didn’t roll down her back and her shorts didn’t stick to her thighs. The evening came soft like an apology.

Maggie stood in the far pasture, watching the grass sway against the paintbrush sky spread out before her. Tears streaked her cheeks, half of them over the stubborn, dumb-ass cowboy who’d driven away a few days ago and half for the loss she held in her hands. Bud had elected to get a simple urn for his ashes. Ever the pragmatist in things such as this, his romantic nature was captured only by the place he’d requested his ashes be spread.

His children hadn’t wanted to do it and when the ranch was left to the girl who “thought she was somebody,” Julian had delivered the ashes to her and told her she could deposit the ashes since she was the one who now owned the place.

He’d said deposited. Like it was no big deal.

She looked down at the urn. “Well, I did what you wanted. I brought you back to the place you loved. Even fixed it the way you would have expected me to.”

Pulling the lid off the urn, she said, “Here you go, Bud. Be at peace.”

She tipped the urn, making sure the wind was to her back and carefully began emptying the contents. As she walked along the hard Texas terrain, she said a prayer for the man who’d been such a part of her life. There was a sense of rightness in her actions, even as the tears dripped off her jaw, landing on her T-shirt. Perhaps she should have worn something nicer than shorts and a T, but Bud would have scoffed. Too hot to be uncomfortable.

“Goodbye, Bud.” She set the lid back onto the urn, wondering what she was supposed to do with the thing now. What were the rules for a used urn?

She carefully stepped through the grass and walked back to the rental car. She should have worn her cowboy boots, but hadn’t bothered with being practical. She’d been sitting at the kitchen table, crying into her sweet tea when she’d seen the box in the pantry. The signed offer sent over by Hunt Turner sat on the counter. The man had given her a fair price, more than she’d expected. With a heavy heart, she’d scrawled her signature on each marked blank. The Triple J would belong to someone else and she’d go back east and figure out her life. And with that grim thought, she had gotten up, grabbed the box with Bud’s ashes and driven to the back pasture. As if a demon was on her heels, she felt the need to complete her original task.

She opened the box to set the urn inside and spied a letter she’d not seen earlier.

On the outside was scrawled Margaret Anne Stanton in Bud’s handwriting. Maggie lifted the envelope, set the urn in the box and climbed onto the back of the car, wincing at the heat of the trunk.

“Damn Texas heat,” she muttered, ripping the seal and pulling out a handwritten note on Bud’s personal stationery.

Dear Maggie,

I’m sure you’re wondering how I knew you’d be the person disposing of my ashes. Rest assured I know what value I was in the eyes of my children. I felt confident you’d see my wishes carried out. You always do.

It has also occurred to me you might question why I would leave you a place so far from where you call home. Suffice it to say, I had a hunch. As a child you lounged on the couch in my office, staring at the photos I’d taken at the Triple J and eagerly sat, eyes wide, when I told you stories of my time at the ranch. You were the only person who listened to my tales with any interest.

As you grew into a smart, lovely young woman, I began to imagine you more my daughter than the housekeeper’s girl or the assistant who filed my contracts. A shrink could probably make much of that, but it comforted me to think of you that way. I had not ruined you by giving you too much or loving you not enough, and you pleased me with your tenacity, adaptability and loyalty. I wanted to give you something I thought would be perfect for the dreamer beneath the business suit. In you, I saw myself.