One Night with the Cowboy

by Brenda Harlen

  So if they’d been together at the beginning of her cycle, then she was right and it was unlikely that there would be any repercussions from their night together.

  But why hadn’t she called?

  ...if you forget, I can call you.

  He picked up his phone and scrolled through his list of contacts, his finger hovering over her name.

  Chapter Seven

  What happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas—except when what happened was a hookup with a not-quite-ex-husband who, more than three weeks later, Brielle still couldn’t stop thinking about.

  Of course, she’d always had trouble getting Caleb out of her mind. Everything she’d thought she remembered about him had been true, but her memories had been pale and weak in comparison to the reality of the man.

  Being with him again, making love with him again, she’d finally accepted that it was unlikely she’d ever love anyone else the way she’d loved him—but she was going to try. When she came back from Nevada, she vowed to move forward with her life—to meet new people and welcome new experiences.

  The start of a new school year was the perfect time for a new beginning. Brie had hit the ground running upon her return from Nevada, busy preparing her classroom and meeting her new students. The first weeks could be a challenge. Some little ones were eager to start school and fairly skipped into the classroom on the first day. Others were more hesitant about the unknown and clung desperately to the hands of their equally wary parents or caregivers.

  The surprise visit of her aunt and cousin had been a nice distraction, too. Because being distracted meant that she didn’t have a lot of time to think about what had happened in Caleb’s hotel room—or dwell on the fact that her period was late.

  Four days late.

  She was usually pretty regular, but it wouldn’t be the first time her cycle had been affected by external events or stresses. In fact, she’d been three days late when she’d gone back to Haven in the spring, after the birth of her sister’s twin babies. The excitement and anticipation—and yes, uneasiness, because she was always a little bit uneasy about returning to the town where she might run into Caleb—had thrown off her system.

  Of course, she hadn’t worried at all about being late then, because there’d been absolutely no possibility that she was pregnant. And on day four, she’d awakened with telltale cramps that proved her cycle was back on track again.

  When she woke up on the fourth day after her period was due in September, she felt nothing aside from a growing apprehension—because this time there was the possibility of something.

  But was it really apprehension she was feeling?

  Or was it anticipation?

  Because while the idea of yet another unplanned pregnancy probably wasn’t a cause for celebration, there was no denying that she wanted a baby. A family.

  Of course, in the naivete of her youth, she’d believed that she would follow the traditional path of falling in love, getting married and planning to have a child. Even when the little plus sign showed up in the window of the pregnancy test she’d bought in Elko—because Battle Mountain wasn’t far enough to ensure she wouldn’t be seen by someone who knew her parents—she’d trusted that her dreams would come true. Because Caleb loved her and they were going to get married and be a family.

  And they did get married. But then everything had fallen apart, and the hurt had been so huge and all-encompassing, she hadn’t known how to cope with it.

  So she ran.

  And he let her go.

  She’d run again, the morning after the night they’d spent together in Vegas.

  And again, he’d let her go.

  And there had been no communication between them since.

  Was he giving her space? Or had he already forgotten about the potential repercussions he’d seemed so concerned about three weeks earlier?

  Had he forgotten about her?

  Grace actually laughed when Brie ventured to ask that question aloud.

  “He hasn’t forgotten you,” she promised her friend.

  “How do you know?” Brie challenged.

  “Because he looks at you the way Mr. Darcy looks at Elizabeth Bennet in Pride & Prejudice.”

  “I’ve never seen the movie,” she confided.

  “Well, there’s a fabulous scene at the end when the hero walks across the field—”

  “And Matthew Macfadyen is so hunky as Mr. Darcy,” Lily filled in.

  “—to confess his feelings to the heroine—”

  “Played by Keira Knightley,” Lily supplied again.

  “—and you can tell, just by the way he’s looking at her, how much he loves her. I actually said to Lily, ‘That’s what I want—a man who looks at me the way he looks at her.’”

  “She did,” Lily confirmed.

  “You want a man to look at you the way an actor looked at the actress cast as his romantic interest in a movie?”

  “You really have to see the movie,” Grace said, unfazed by Brie’s dubious tone. “Because that’s the way Caleb looks at you.” Then she sighed, a little wistfully. “Even after seven years apart, he looks at you as if there’s no other woman in the world.”

  She ignored the rush of warmth through her veins, refusing to let her heart be swayed by her friend’s fanciful imagery. “You’ve been editing romance novels at work, haven’t you?”

  Grace waved a hand dismissively. “That’s beside the point.”

  “No, I think that is the point,” she said.

  “And I think, if you’re thinking about him, you should call him,” Lily chimed in.

  Brie had promised that she would, but she had no intention of doing so until she had some news to share. So it was both frustrating and inconvenient that her period had chosen this particular month to be late.

  But as soon as her cycle was back on track, she’d call him and reassure him that there were no repercussions from their night together. Then he could sign the divorce papers and finally end their ill-fated union, returning her life to the familiar status quo.

  So why did the idea of divorcing a husband she’d believed that she was already divorced from fill her with sadness?

  Or was it just that seeing him again in Vegas had brought back so many memories of the happy times they’d spent together that she was saddened again to think about everything they’d once shared and how much they’d lost?

  Ancient history, she reminded herself, as she turned the corner onto Provost Street on her way home from Briarwood Academy. As if there weren’t enough reasons to love her job teaching at the prestigious private school, its walking distance from the home she shared with her best friends was another.

  As she drew nearer to her destination, she saw someone sitting on the steps leading up to the front door of the town house.

  A broad-shouldered and very familiar someone in well-worn jeans, a plaid shirt, cowboy hat and boots.

  Caleb.

  Her steps faltered even as her heart started to race. She deliberately resumed walking at the same steady pace, refusing to give any hint of the emotions churning inside her.

  He rose to his feet when she reached the steps. “Hello, Brielle.”

  The low timbre of his voice skimmed over her like a caress, raising goose bumps on her flesh and making a mockery of her recent claim that her feelings for him were ancient history.

  “Did you come all this way just to say hi?”

  “No,” he acknowledged. “But I thought we could at least start with the usual pleasantries.”

  “Hello, Caleb,” she said. “What brings you to town?”

  His lips curved in a slow, sexy smile that made her toes curl inside her shoes. Dammit.

  “An airplane,” he said, but tempered his flip response with a wink.

  She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Apparently I shou
ld have asked ‘why are you here?’”

  Though she could probably guess, it seemed a little extreme to show up at her door rather than picking up the phone.

  “I wanted to see where you lived,” he said.

  “I could have texted you a picture, if you’d asked.”

  “You could have,” he agreed, turning to look at the classic four-story bayfront brownstone behind him. “But I’m not sure a snapshot would have done it justice.”

  “Grace’s parents own it,” she said. “And they charge us a ridiculously discounted rent, which is the only reason any of us can afford to live in this neighborhood.”

  “You’re a Blake,” he noted.

  “I’m a Channing,” she clarified. “And I pay my own way.”

  He inclined his head. “Are you going to let me see inside?”

  She started up the stairs; he shouldered his duffel bag and followed.

  “Are you going to tell me why you’re in town—aside from wanting to see where I live?” she countered.

  “I wanted to see you,” he admitted.

  She slid her key into the lock, opened the door and stepped inside to enter the code and disarm the security system.

  “And now that you have—” she turned in the narrow hallway “—how long are you planning to stay?”

  He dropped his bag beside the ornately carved newel post at the bottom of a staircase leading to the upper levels. “I’ve got a return flight late Sunday afternoon.”

  Her low-heeled shoes clicked on the parquet floor as she led the way to the kitchen at the back of the house.

  She couldn’t blame him for peeking in the open doorways as they passed first the living room at the front of the house, then the dining room. Built sometime before the turn of the twentieth century, the house boasted gorgeous Victorian details, including eleven-foot plaster ceilings, hardwood paneling and moldings, marble mantels on each of the four fireplaces and beautifully etched glass doors.

  But while so many original details had been immaculately preserved, the kitchen and baths had been updated to include all the modern conveniences—and a few luxuries. The brightly lit kitchen boasted custom cabinets, quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances and double doors leading to a covered deck and terraced garden.

  “What do Grace’s parents do?” he wondered.

  “A lot of traveling,” she said. “But if you’re asking what they did that they could afford to buy this place in addition to owning another home in Gramercy Park—her dad previously worked as a hedge fund manager and her mom sold real estate, and they made some very lucrative investments over the years.”

  “I’d guess so,” he agreed.

  “They weren’t overjoyed when Grace told them she wanted to pursue an arts degree, but they came around—probably because she’s an only child and, if they cut her off, they wouldn’t know what to do with all their money.”

  “What does she do with her arts degree?”

  “She’s an editorial assistant at Bane & Bloom Books in Manhattan. She works insane hours, but she loves it.”

  “And Lily?”

  “Lily’s still trying to find her calling. In the meantime, she works part-time as a curator at the Brooklyn Museum, part-time as a barista at a little café down the street and part-time as a dog walker for several couples in the neighborhood.”

  She dropped her bag on a chair in the kitchen. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “What have you got?”

  She poked her head inside the fridge. “Cola, juice, milk, water and a couple of premixed vodka coolers.”

  “Cola sounds good,” he said.

  “Do you want a glass?”

  “No, the can’s fine.”

  She handed him the can, then retrieved a glass for herself, added ice from the dispenser in the door of the fridge and then filled it with water. It was, Caleb noted, the same fridge he’d put in his kitchen when he’d finished construction on his house in the spring.

  He popped the tab on his drink, then lifted the can to his lips. After traveling all day, the sugar and caffeine provided a welcome jolt to his groggy system—and reminded him of the real purpose of this visit.

  “Are you pregnant?” he asked bluntly.

  “I guess we’re finished with the exchange of pleasantries,” she noted, lowering herself into a chair at the small table.

  He straddled a seat across from her. “You’re not answering the question.”

  She lifted the glass to her lips, sipped. “I don’t know.”

  “You haven’t taken a test?” he guessed.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “But your period’s late.”

  She frowned. “You can’t know that.”

  “No,” he acknowledged. “But I figured, if you’d got your period, you would have called right away to tell me.”

  “And because I didn’t, you hopped on a plane?”

  “I wanted to have this conversation face-to-face, so that we could make whatever decisions need to be made together.”

  “There’s nothing to decide,” she said.

  “Your period’s late,” he said again.

  “Only four days—which doesn’t prove anything.”

  “So why haven’t you taken a test?”

  She dropped her gaze and rubbed her thumb through the condensation that had formed on the outside of her glass. “Because I’m scared,” she finally confided.

  He shifted his chair closer, then tipped her chin up so he could see her eyes. “Scared to think that you might actually be pregnant?” he asked, his tone gentle. “Or scared that you might not be?”

  “Both,” she admitted.

  Caleb knew what she meant, because he felt exactly the same way. If she was pregnant, a baby could be a second chance for them. If she wasn’t, she’d expect him to sign the divorce papers—no more excuses.

  And even if she was pregnant, he knew a baby wasn’t any guarantee of a happily-ever-after for them. A baby wasn’t a guarantee of anything, especially when there were so many unresolved issues between them.

  “Why don’t we go out to grab a bite to eat?” he suggested, because his brain functioned better when his stomach wasn’t empty.

  She glanced at the clock. “It’s a little early for dinner.”

  “But very late for lunch,” he countered.

  “You’re still on Pacific time,” she realized.

  “And I missed lunch.”

  She was immediately up from her chair. “Do you want me to make you a sandwich or something?”

  “I don’t want you to go to any trouble,” he protested.

  “You might find this hard to believe, but I’ve learned my way around a kitchen over the past seven years.”

  “I don’t find it hard to believe. And while I appreciate your willingness to prove your wifely qualifications—” He held up his hands in mock surrender—and caught the apple that she’d grabbed out of a basket on the counter to throw at him. “I’m kidding,” he assured her. “You know I have a grandmother and two sisters who would strenuously object to a gender division of labor.”

  “Lucky for you, I do know that.”

  He polished the fruit on his shirt then bit into it.

  She opened the cupboard, frowning when she discovered a single slice of bread in the bag. “I was supposed to pick up a few things on my way home.”

  “Then let’s go get them now,” he suggested.

  “Because you came all the way to New York to peruse the aisle of a Whole Foods?”

  He shrugged as he chewed on another bite of apple. “We don’t have a Whole Foods in Haven. And since I came all this way, I might as well see something of the city.”

  “I have a better idea,” she said. “Let’s go get a hot dog.”

  Caleb assumed t
hey would take a short walk to a local park area and find a street vendor.

  Instead, they took a short walk to a local subway. He dropped his apple core into a garbage bin as they entered the station, where Brie swiped a card and gestured for him to proceed through the turnstile, then swiped it again and followed.

  “Good timing,” she noted, taking his hand and tugging him toward the platform as a train pulled into the station.

  They merged with the crowd that surged through the doors—not unlike cattle being herded into a pasture, he thought. There were a few vacant seats in the car but no two together, so Brie grabbed hold of a strap hanging overhead—obviously having done the same thing hundreds, or maybe even thousands, of times before. But this was Caleb’s first trip to the Big Apple and his first subway ride, and he had no doubt that he looked like what he was: a small-town cowboy out of place in the city.

  As the train lurched forward again, he reached up and wrapped his hand around the bar, holding on.

  “Where are we going?” he asked, trying to decipher the colorful and convoluted subway map posted above the doors.

  “To get what is arguably the best hot dog in New York,” she told him.

  “We couldn’t get the second- or third-best hot dog somewhere closer to your place?”

  She gasped at the suggestion. “Bite your tongue.”

  “Since I don’t have anything else to bite right now, I guess I’ll have to,” he remarked.

  “It will be worth the trip, I promise,” she said, turning toward the doors as the train pulled into the next station.

  His rumbling stomach was relieved that they were finally at their destination—until it realized they weren’t. Instead, they transferred to another line and resumed their journey.

  He wasn’t claustrophobic. At least, he didn’t think he was. But he wasn’t entirely comfortable being trapped in a subway car speeding through an underground tunnel with no real idea of where he was or where he was going. Maybe it was a quick and efficient way for city folk to travel, but Caleb would rather be on the back of a horse under open sky any day.

  Every day.

  Brie seemed completely in her element, though. Steady on her feet despite the lurching stops and starts of the trains, unbothered by the bumping and jostling of other riders entering and exiting the car. He moved closer to her as more people packed onto the train, so that her back was aligned with his front.