The Trouble with Texas Cowboys(44)

She breezed past him, crossed the cold gravel lot to his truck, and had her hand on the handle when the beeping noise told her he’d opened the door remotely. A norther hit with a blast of colder air, sending dead leaves, cigarette butts, gravel, and dirt into a swirl. It would be fifteen degrees colder by the time they reached the bunkhouse. She’d love to curl up in his warm arms under the fluffy blanket, but that wasn’t happening.

They drove home in complete and uncomfortable silence. She glanced his way a couple of times, but his neck was stiff and his eyes set on the road ahead. Before he could be the cowboy gentleman and open doors for her, she bailed out of the truck, stormed the short distance to the porch, used her own key to get inside, and went straight to her bedroom, without even stopping to talk to the kittens.

A loud slam told her that he had done the same thing. Bathwater started, she stripped down to nothing but socks and caught her reflection in the mirror. The daisy had wilted, some petals twisting toward the middle, others hanging limp. She removed it carefully, ran an inch of water in the bathroom sink, and floated it. Maybe it could be saved with a little rehydration.

Tears welled up and ran down her cheeks. She shouldn’t have wasted even one of her daisies. All the others would last for a week if she changed their water daily, except for that one she’d popped the stem off and wrecked to show the feuding cowboys that their roses didn’t impress her.

She sunk into the tub, her spirits sinking even lower. She didn’t like this feeling of distance between her and Sawyer. They might have started off that first day on shaky ground, but he had become her best friend, her partner in three different jobs. Maybe even her soul mate.

“Whoa!” She brushed away the tears and slid down into the water, getting her hair wet so she could wash the stink of smoke from it. “I’m not going there tonight, not when he’s being such a jackass.”

* * *

Pulsating hot water kneaded at the sore muscles in Sawyer’s back, but he couldn’t be still long enough to let it work all the anger knots from his shoulders and neck. He turned the knob, threw back the curtain, and picked up a towel.

The jar of daisies sitting beside the bed caught his eye. He didn’t want to look at them, but he couldn’t force his eyes to look at anything else. When he did finally glance away, his eyes came to rest on the indentation in the pillow where he’d left the poem. He quickly dressed in pajama pants and a thermal-knit, long-sleeved shirt, but all he could think about was Jill with tears in her eyes and the poem in her hand.

“Dammit!” He threw himself on the bed, wiping out the hollow place with his head and getting a whiff of her perfume at the same time.

It was light and airy like Jill, not heavy or musky. Just sweet and sassy at the same time, drawing his thoughts to that first evening when she’d barreled into the bunkhouse with a shotgun. They’d come a long way since then, but tonight had sure enough put the skids to another step forward.

The kittens chased through the crack in the door, deftly climbed the bedcovers, and jumped around like windup toys from one side of the bed to the other. Piggy stopped short of falling off the edge and discovered a purple daisy petal hung up in the stitching on the quilt. One little gray paw flew out, and she swatted it, growling down deep in her throat. Chick arched her back and tiptoed from one side of the bed to the other. When she saw the evil purple alien, she fluffed up her tail, and the two of them fought over who’d kill the wicked thing first.

“You two are crazy, fighting over a daisy petal.” He almost smiled. “Maybe you can’t forget where you came from after all.”

They grew tired of the petal after they’d killed it half a dozen times, fell down on the blanket at the same time, and went to sleep with Piggy’s leg thrown over Chick’s ears. It didn’t take long until the voice in Sawyer’s head sounded off loud and clear. He put a pillow over his eyes, but it didn’t go away.

“Shut the hell up!” he demanded, but it kept right on.

Of all the dumb-ass, stupid things to fight about. A damn daisy, and one that you sent her at that. It wasn’t like she put a rose in her hair. Hell no! She put them all in her office behind a closed door, so she didn’t even have to look at them. Granny told you that settling differences before sleeping was the secret to a happy relationship…okay, so she said marriage…but a relationship should work the same.

He sat up in bed and grabbed a pair of socks from the bottom drawer of the dresser, pulled them on his feet, and headed for her room. They might argue until dawn, but the air had to be cleared.

The sight of her sitting on the sofa, lit only by the moonlight flowing through a window, stopped him at the door. She held a ragtag daisy in her hand and carefully laid it in a bowl of water on the coffee table. Shiny tears dripped from her chin and ribboned down to her jawbone. She looked so fragile, with her chin quivering and her shoulders hunched over the cereal bowl, that his heart ached. He swallowed hard, but the lump didn’t disappear. He wanted to take her in his arms and make the pain go away, but his feet were glued to the floor.

“I ruined it, Sawyer. Just to show off to those fools who don’t matter, I ruined one of my precious daisies. It looks pitiful,” she said. “And you are mad at me. A part of me wants to tell you to go to hell, but the other part wants to kiss you, because my heart is hurting, and I’m still mad at you, so don’t try to talk me out of it. You are clamming up and being all holier-than-thou, like you are better than me.”

He switched on the light and joined her on the sofa, leaving a foot of space between them. “Evidently, I’m the dumb old cowboy who gives you daisies so you can flaunt them before the rich cowboys to make them jealous. Or maybe you were showing me that all I had was daisies when you could have been wearing an expensive rose in your hair.”

Her shoulders squared up, and the tears dried. She glared at him with flashing green eyes. “I’m not guilty of such shit! Dammit, Sawyer. I wore the flower in my hair because of what you said.”

“What I said?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Yes, you said something about us not being together in public for the whole world to see. I can’t quote it word for word, but the idea is there. I was so damned proud of those daisies, I wanted to take a jar full of them to the bar and tell everyone that finally a cowboy gave me what I wanted. But I decided to wear one. I thought you’d be tickled that I was telling the world that we were together, but instead you got all pissy and mad and won’t even talk to me.”

“Miscommunication,” he said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.

“I let my past get in the way, and you did the same.”

The kittens bounded out of the bedroom, two energized bundles of fur after their romp with the purple petal, now ready to dive into their food bowl. Piggy growled at Chick, but the yellow kitten was a scrapper, pulling a portion of the dry kitten nuggets her way with her claws.

“You have to talk to me, Sawyer. From now on, you have to tell me outright if something upsets you,” Jill said. “It’s not miscommunication. It’s flat-out no communication. If I’d known the flower in my hair was going to set you off, I wouldn’t have worn it.”

“I do not have the right to tell you to take a flower out of your hair, Jill.”

“Well, I damn sure can’t read your mind, Sawyer, so you are going to have to use words.”

“Would you have taken it out of your hair if I’d asked?”

“We’ll never know now, will we?” Piggy finished eating and scampered over to Jill’s foot. “Do you think we are worth trying again?” Jill reached down with one hand and drew the kitten up to her lap.

“We’ve come a long way to start from scratch,” he said.

“This isn’t a trust issue. It’s a communication problem. We don’t start from the beginning. We start from about”—she looked at the clock on the wall above the stove—“six hours ago. Are we worth six hours?”

“Hell, yes,” he said. “I’ll make an effort to talk more.”

“I’ll try to speak before I act on impulse,” she said.

He offered his hand. “Shake on it?”

She put hers inside his. “Now can we please go to bed? I’m so sleepy and worn out emotionally that I can’t even think straight,” she said.

He picked up Piggy and laid her on the rug in front of the stove with Chick, then he returned to the sofa, picked Jill up like a bride, and carried her to the bedroom. He gently laid her on her side of the bed and pulled the covers up over her body.

“Hold me, Sawyer. I need your arms around me to reassure me that everything is fine between us,” she said.

He realized he’d forgotten to switch off the light, but it didn’t matter right then. He needed to feel Jill’s body next to his, to smell her hair and to kiss that soft spot below her ear. Tonight he didn’t need wild kisses, makeup sex, or even any more words. That things were settled between them before he shut his eyes was enough.

She slipped her hand into his. “Are we good, Sawyer?”

“Yes, Jill, we definitely are.”