“Ouch!” Part of her hair, released from its braid, was caught underneath Axel’s body. And more was tangled in his seat belt. “Ow.”
“Keep still.” Axel carefully eased her hair from the strap and casing. She hissed in a breath.
“I thought cowgirls were tough.”
August blew the horn again.
“I’ll prove they are when you get me free. I’ll take care of the killing of August.”
“Note to self,” he said patiently, working her hair free. “Do not unbraid your hair in my truck. Ever.”
“Will there be another time?” She looked up at him, her eyes full of pain. Anger surged in him. August thought he was so funny catching them in the middle of something. He had, just not what he thought. Axel couldn’t stand to see Cruz in pain.
“I hope so.” He really did. But the things he had to say to her might make that impossible. “Although a bed would be less hazardous.”
“But not as adventurous.”
“True. There, you’re free.”
Cruz cautiously moved and massaged her scalp. She huffed out a breath, then rolled back into her seat and buckled up. “I feel like a teenager getting caught parking. Only I never did that.”
“Yeah, you did. With me. You weren’t yet twenty when we got together. Back then, we were more discreet.”
“We used to get way more wild in your truck,” Cruz said as Axel fixed his seat and shifted into drive. “How did that not happen before?”
“You hadn’t yet had the misfortune of meeting my brother.”
“Nah. It was dumb luck,” she said. “August is growing on me.”
Dumb luck. Axel thought about that as he drove her home. He just hoped that his serendipitous luck wasn’t about to run out.
He parked the truck off to the side of the house and walked around to open her door. Despite how close they’d been tonight, his heart felt heavy.
He needed to come clean. It was the right thing to do, and Axel always did the right thing.
Only this time, he was dreading it.
Maybe he was making too big of a deal about it.
He should tell her.
But he didn’t want an audience.
And her eyes were full of stars when she looked up at him. She held out her hand and he took it, helping her out of the truck. He saw a generous flash of golden-tan skin before her dress swished back down her bare thighs.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I had fun. Even when we got caught.”
“Let’s get inside before I’m tempted to teach August a lesson in manners.”
Cruz tucked her arm in his and they walked along the slate path to the back of the house.
“Why don’t you ever use the front door?”
“Habit,” he said.
It was true. But it wasn’t the whole truth. No one knew that but him. And the police chief.
“It’s a beautiful entryway. Quite grand, but empty. What happened to the light? There’s a hole in the ceiling. Was there a fancy chandelier or something?”
“Don’t remember.”
He walked her into the house. Devin was on the couch playing a video game with Diego. They had popcorn, soda and cookies out.
“Who’s winning?” Cruz asked.
“Me!” Diego shouted, still hugging the controller and leaning into the curves as if he was really driving a car.
Devin stood up. “Let’s clean up, sport.”
Diego put down the controller and picked up the bowl of popcorn. “A deal’s a deal,” he said. “I promised I’d clean up after two races.”
Devin seemed in a rush to get out the door. “Sorry,” he mouthed to Axel.
“Does he think we’re contagious?” Cruz whispered in his ear, her breath warm against his skin. “It makes me wonder what you told him.”
August and Catalina entered behind them.
“Sorry about that,” August said. “I didn’t see you until it was almost too late. Hope we didn’t interrupt anything important.”
Cruz picked up a pillow off one of the couches and threw it at him.
“Ow?”
“I have a kid to put to bed. See y’all in the morning.”
It wasn’t the end to the evening he’d hoped, but it was probably for the best. If August hadn’t come home so early, if Devin and Diego hadn’t been playing a video game…well, that kiss in the truck would have gone a lot further. His resistance had been down to zero. And before he made love to Cruz, he wanted there to be only truth between them.
And he wanted her to know that he was all in.
*
The sun was just starting to crawl up in the sky when Cruz finished her run and arrived back at the house. She’d stuck to the ranch roads and by her Fitbit’s calculations, she’d finished six miles. That should clear her head. Usually she had each day planned out, but this Sunday stretched out empty. Open. No studies. No trying to catch an extra shift because she needed the money.
Just her, Diego and time. And Axel. But they hadn’t made any plans. She shouldn’t count on him, but she was starting to.
Cruz stretched out on the wraparound front porch, hiking one leg on the railing and touching her head to her knee, then repeating the stretch with her other leg. She dropped down to a plank position and counted a slow sixty.
A cold bottle of water appeared in front of her.
“Thanks.” She hopped to her feet and took the water.
Geez, her heart hadn’t pounded this hard when she’d been running.
“I didn’t know you were a runner.”
“I started when I got Diego. Shell had a baby jogger and I started putting him in it and running in the mornings and the evenings because he liked the motion. I found that running helped me keep my stress in check.”
He nodded.
“Have you thought about riding again?”
“No,” she said. “I haven’t. Well. No that’s not true.” She ducked her head and concentrated on uncapping the water. She took a big drink. “I think about it all the time. I think about Misty River all the time.”
“I want to take you for a ride today.”
“Axel, I’m not sure I’m ready for that—that I’ll ever be ready for that.”
“You’re strong. You’re a horsewoman,” he said, his voice washing over her. The concern in his eyes nearly unraveled her. “Diego’s riding for a short time every day now. He’s still in the corral, but he’s enjoying himself, and he listens. He’s going to want to ride with you. I want to ride with you—with both of you.”
Cruz blew out a breath and took another swallow of water.
“You must think I’m the biggest baby,” she said. “But I just can’t imagine loving another horse like I did Misty River. I can’t imagine having to let a horse go again.”
“She was special. You are special.”
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He didn’t even look at it.
He looked tired. She hadn’t slept all that great either. There were things she needed to say, and she didn’t really want to say them. She squared her shoulders and looked at him. He was so tall and strong and fiercely independent, her cowboy. He should want that in his partner—if he wanted to be her partner, if he’d changed enough to let her in all the way.
“The thing is, Axel, this has been one of the happiest times in my life. I’ve loved being on the ranch with you and your brother and Catalina and the ranch hands. Everyone has been so wonderful to me and Diego. I love it here, but I need to stand on my own two feet, and I can’t do that here. I don’t want to fall in love with you again, and have Diego fall in love with you too. I don’t want us to fall in love with the ranch and the people here and your family and then have it all disappear.”
“It doesn’t have to disappear. You and Diego can stay. Move in with me. Permanently.”
She pressed two fingers to his lips.
“I want that,” she said. “I wanted to be a family with you when we were first together, but you never had that o
n your radar. And now maybe you do, but I have to be a full partner. You have all this…” She waved her hand to encompass the ranch. “I, on the other hand, don’t even have a permanent position at the hospital. I’m just a fill-in.”
“That’s not important.”
“It is to me.”
His phone vibrated again.
“Dammit.” He ignored the text again. “You can commute to a different hospital for a while. Something at Jameson Hospital is bound to open up. You don’t even have to…” He stopped himself, taking a deep breath as if he’d been running. His expression was tense, impatient. “We don’t have to solve everything now. We can just take it day by day.”
“I can’t live that way.” Cruz was appalled that he didn’t seem to understand her at all. “I need security, permanence, a plan. I’m a mother. Diego needs stability, a home. Not me shacking up with a man who wants to relive the past and have a fling. I’m not going to start serial dating, hoping to find Mr. Right by cycling through a bunch of Mr. Wrongs.”
Axel glared at her. “So much is wrong with that statement.”
“Not from my point of view,” Cruz said sullenly. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you are dismissing my feelings here.”
“What feelings?” His hands were on his hips and she could imagine one of his ancestors looking like that, just before heading out for a gunfight at high noon.
Did he expect her to produce a list, so he could pick them off one by one?
“I have worked hard all my life to get what I want and what I need. I want to be a full partner, which means I have to be able to contribute.”
“People contribute in different ways.”
“I have to have a purpose outside of keeping your bed warm.”
His eye narrowed even further. Yes, he totally could have been cast as a gunslinger in a western movie.
“You’re not hearing me. I have never been with another man. None. I loved you. I loved you so much, I almost gave up my spot in medical school. I wanted to be with you that badly.”
Now she was just loading the gun for him.
“Then we went to that AEBR competition, and I saw what your life would be like, and what the women were like and what was expected of the wives and the girlfriends… And I just couldn’t be that girl.”
“I didn’t expect you to follow me around.”
“You didn’t expect anything. That was the problem, and still is. If I come live here with you but have no job and no purpose and no goals, then I’m just going to be like those women following their men around. And that’s not me.”
“No, it’s not.” He cocked his head and regarded her.
She was all riled up—sweaty from her run, flushed from the argument. And he looked calm and cool and ready to ride into the sunset.
His phone vibrated in his pocket again. He ignored it.
“You really want me to do this the hard way.”
“That’s my style,” she said, still not ready to back down one inch.
Axel reached into his pocket and pulled out a dark blue velvet box. He held in down at his side, but she could see it. She felt a little dizzy and her throat tightened.
“I know you’re not ready for this,” he said, his voice hard. “You might never be ready for it. But it’s yours.”
“Axel?” She could barely squeeze his name out.
“It’s been yours for seven years.”
Now she really felt confused. “What are you talking about?”
“I knew that weekend at the AEBR freaked you out. I loved it. I was so excited, but I could tell it bothered you. So I started thinking that maybe you’d feel more comfortable if we got engaged.”
“Comfortable?”
“You wouldn’t worry so much.”
“How would a ring ease my worries for your safety?”
“I’m talking about other women.”
“Axel, a ring doesn’t stop people from cheating. My dad found many willing partners.”
“You think I’d break a commitment?” His outrage was tangible.
“Nooooo,” she said.
“A ringing endorsement.”
“This is just so…unexpected.” She sagged against the porch railing.
“I figured if we were engaged, you could go to medical school, and then we’d get married after you were done. I was hoping you could get a residency in San Antonio or Austin. Somewhere commutable. You still could, if Jameson isn’t hiring.”
“So you had my life…our life, all worked out.”
Her tone warned him, clearly, because he shut up.
“I’ve got something else to tell you. You won’t like it, but it will prove to you that I’m not a temporary man.”
“By all means, continue your historical romantic proposal.”
“I…”
“Axel, what the hell?” August poked his head out the window. “All hell’s breaking loose on the fence line bordering Clemmens’s place. Your foreman’s been calling and texting. But what are you doing? Proposing. Get on your damn knee after you save the ranch.”
Then August slammed the door.
Axel dragged his phone out of his pocket and swore. He scrolled through a message and then punched in the number. “Sorry,” he whispered.
There were a lot of things he should be sorry for in his clumsy recitation of their past, but a ranch emergency wasn’t one of them. The conversation was tense.
“Do you want me to help?” she asked, feeling compelled but not sure what she could do.
“No. It might get dangerous.”
Her eyes grew wide.
He shoved the box into her hand. “I know we’ve got more to talk about.”
“You think?”
“But I gotta deal with this, first. Take your time. Regardless of your decision, the ring belongs to you.”
Axel headed for his truck, and in moments, the tires were eating up ground as he directed his team on the phone.
Cruz looked at the unopened box in her hand. What was she going to do now?
*
“Seriously you haven’t opened it?” Shell demanded, her voice rising an octave. “Do it now!” Shell leaned forward so that her eyes and nose filled Cruz’s entire phone screen.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“A million reasons.”
“Tell me one.”
“Opening the box will make it too real. It was the worst proposal in the history of mankind. He’s so sexy, I’m losing my mind. I love him like crazy and think about him all the time. He admires my so-called strength…but then, he tries to plow right over me. He wants to solve my problems. But then he’s perfect. But annoying. Perfectly annoying.”
“That’s ten reasons. Open it up! I wish I were in Last Stand right now. I want to meet him. I knew this would happen. I knew you’d meet Axel again, and true love would prevail.” Shell, basking in the waning days of her honeymoon, clearly had had too much California sun, Cruz thought rudely.
“You said it was unlikely I’d run into him. You said the chances were…”
“Of course, I was hoping you’d run into him.” Shell waved her early predictions off. “I had a vibe. It was just too perfect.”
“A vibe?” Cruz repeated in disgust. “You are not a vibey person.”
“I had one.” Shelly grinned. “Oh my God, I am so happy for you. Diego’s going to get a daddy just like Ryan. Oh! We can get pregnant together.”
“Pervert,” Cruz said. “And don’t cue the wedding music yet. Seriously, this is all your fault.”
“It’s fate. Best broken water pipe ever. We all get new furniture since we already had renter’s insurance, and because the landlord hasn’t even started the repairs, Rand and I have decided that we’re going to start house hunting. We have money saved up and we found a cute two-bedroom house just a couple of blocks off Main Street. It looks great online and we talked to the landlord, Hannah, and she’s totally cool with renting it to us month by month.”
&nbs
p; “Hannah Dean?”
“Yeah. You know her?”
Cruz frowned.
“What’s wrong? I know the house doesn’t have a studio, behind it, but you can crash on our couch for as long as you need to. And we’re getting bunk beds for Ryan. But since you’re marrying Axel…dum dum dum dummmmm,” Shell happily sang.
“Put the brakes on, missy. No one said the M word.”
“Goin’ to the chapel,” Shell started singing.
“No I am not. This is not a Hallmark movie, you goof. It’s real life. I am a mother. I have to think about Diego.”
“And yourself. For once.”
“So this house.” Cruz needed to distract Shell, and she couldn’t quite let the mystery of the suddenly available house and Hannah Dean go. “Is it blue?”
“Yeah. It’s got a backyard with a covered patio and a fire pit and yellow roses. That just seems so Texas, doesn’t it?”
“But she’s leasing it to you month by month?”
“Yeah. Why? What’s up? Were you trying to rent that house?”
“No,” Cruz lied.
Shell’s expression showed that she wasn’t buying it.
“I did talk to her,” Cruz admitted. “But…it’s better that it worked out for you,” she said, turning the problem over in her mind.
Why would Hannah give different terms to Shell?
“You’re okay at Axel’s, right?” Shell’s expression turned worried. “You said he had tons of space and no one was living in the house.”
“Yeah. Yeah. We’re fine,” Cruz said.
It wasn’t fair of her to worry Shell. She was on her honeymoon. It was good that she’d found a place to stay.
“See you soon. Let’s have a girls’ night as soon as possible,” she added, keeping her voice cheerful.
“When are you going to open the box?” Shell leaned in, apparently not content to let it go.
“I don’t know,” Cruz said. “I feel like it’s Pandora’s box.”
“Well remember what that curious girl kept in it at the end,” Shelly said, bubbling again. “Hope.”
*
Axel took some time in his shop before heading up to the house. He knew he and Cruz needed to talk, but he’d made such a bungle of everything this morning that he wanted to think clearly through what he was going to say—how he wanted to explain and apologize. He’d texted her during the day—casual texts. He’d let her know what had happened with the cattle this morning. His longhorns had wandered onto the highway due to a slashed fence line, causing a huge traffic jam with all the tourists pouring in for the Bluebonnet trail and the second day of the festival. He’d sent some pictures, hoping to make her laugh.
A Son for the Texas Cowboy Page 14