A Good Old-Fashioned Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  Of course, it wasn’t that easy. As Grant drove toward Cade’s cabin, Cade was getting out of his truck, a box in his hands.

  Grant slowed to a stop, working through the various excuses he could use for coming into the ranch this way. He rolled down his window, mind blank. “You’re out early.”

  Cade held up the box. “JJ’s having a hard time keeping stuff down. I went and grabbed some bagels from the bakery.” Cade studied Grant and then where he’d come from. “Pru, huh?”

  It was a relief not to have to come up with a lie, and that it was Cade who’d caught him. Cade might be the youngest, but he was the more mature of the other brothers. “Can you keep that on the down low for the time being?”

  “Sure. Why?”

  “She’s not ready to spread it around yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Grant shrugged, not sure why Cade’s questions bothered him. “It’s the Rileys, and Mary’s been so good to me, I guess.”

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  “It’s no big deal, Cade.”

  “Okay.” Cade looked like he was about to step back, but then he shook his head. “Listen, you don’t need advice from me, but speaking as someone who had their wife walk out on them, you want to make sure you’re on the same page. If it’s more than sex, that is.”

  “The same page?”

  “Yeah, I mean you don’t have to have the same opinions, or even want the same things, you just have to be clear about that. It’s...keeping it to yourself that sours things. Trust me.” Cade patted the truck door and stepped back.

  Grant nodded and drove the rest of the way to the barn.

  Pru was definitely keeping some things to herself. But it was early yet. Cade was talking about a failed marriage, not the beginnings of something that might not even be feasible.

  But it worried Grant how much he wanted to make it feasible.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PRU WAS WHISTLING when she walked down to breakfast. It was much later than she usually appeared, but she could use a million different excuses for that. Her hair no longer looked sex tangled, and she felt...

  Good. Really good. Relaxed and happy and...mmm. When she reached the kitchen, everyone was there, still in their pajamas, speaking in earnest, excitable tones.

  “You guys are slowpokes this morning,” Pru greeted. “I’m ready to head for the store.”

  “You hooked up in the house!” Charity pointed an accusing finger at her. “You hardcore broke the rule.”

  Pru should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. And yet, she couldn’t work up any outrage or irritation. As her friends stared at her accusingly, she couldn’t even work up guilt.

  They wouldn’t tell anyone and there was no use lying about it. Besides, it proved how not scared she was.

  Even if she felt the flutter of fear every time Grant looked at her with those serious, studying eyes. But that was a problem for another day.

  “Yeah, I did. And you know what? It was totally, one hundred percent worth it. I’ll take all the slips in all the land. That’s how good breaking the hooking-up rule was.”

  “Well, that’s a far cry from Prudence Riley’s usual ‘sex is fine’ stance,” Kit said blandly.

  “It was not fine. It was fantastic.” She walked over to the coffeemaker and poured herself some. Why not gloat?

  “The right guy makes all the difference, huh?” Hope said.

  “Yes, I... I mean, not that Grant’s the right guy.” There was no room in her head to think about that. About what came next. There was too much that could still go wrong for her to leap ahead like that. She had to focus on the moment. On the now.

  And she felt great about the now.

  “It doesn’t prove anything,” Kit said loftily.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You wanted to prove you’re not afraid. But sex doesn’t prove anything. It’s all the stuff that comes with it that’s the scary part.”

  With that, Kit sailed out of the kitchen, one of her scarves trailing behind her, and Pru could only stand there, all that great leaking slowly out of her.

  She drove to the store alone, because she was ready and they weren’t. Because she didn’t know how to share air with her friends when they’d ruined her lovely post-sex buzz.

  They hadn’t even remembered to make her take a man-catching slip. For the first time, she stepped out of her truck, looked at her store, and didn’t feel calmed.

  It was a dream come true to make these stores theirs, and for Pru, specifically, to be in Jasper Creek. Everyone else had wanted to leave, to build their lives somewhere else. She was the only one who’d wanted to be here.

  She might not have the ranch like she’d always wanted, but she had just about everything else.

  Her breathing came in shallow gasps. What was she going to do when it all fell apart the way things inevitably did? She would fall apart. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t...

  She pulled herself back. She was thinking too far ahead. One step at a time. They had to survive the centennial first.

  She wouldn’t cross any bridge until they’d proved themselves a success at the centennial.

  She went inside and put herself immediately to work. The harder she threw herself into it, the less she had to think. When the bell tinkled, she looked up, and Grant entered her store.

  She had a vivid memory of what they’d done in her store last night. And then in her bed. When he smiled, like he was remembering too, everything inside of her jittered with something she recognized. And it terrified her.

  She used to feel that way about her plans. Excited and scared, but sure. Sure she’d have a piece of the Riley ranch, sure she’d build a life she loved.

  When that had been such a bust, she’d taught herself to avoid that feeling. Any time it threatened, she bolted. Just like her friends had accused her of—the ranch, the farm in California.

  She didn’t know how to bolt from Grant. Send him away? Tell him the sex sucked?

  “Morning. What’s on the list today?” he asked cheerfully. Grant Mathewson was being cheerful, and she’d had something to do with it.

  Which gave her such joy and that would lead to what? Complicated feelings and emotional needs and no. No, thank you. “I have a couple online orders I want to get filled and ready for pickup.”

  He nodded and they got to work in easy, silent teamwork.

  “You’re going to need help,” he said as they stepped back and surveyed their work. “A cashier. Or a stock boy. Someone who understands the merchandise and the customer, just as you do.”

  She considered the store. It wasn’t open yet. They weren’t at the centennial yet. How could she think about after when the here and now was scary enough? She waved a hand. “I’ll think about that after.”

  He took the waving hand in his, surprising her enough to look up. Why did that dark blue make her heart kick so hard?

  “Think about it now,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze before he released it. “Easy choice. Me.”

  Her eyebrows drew together. “You want a job here?”

  “Yeah. I’m enjoying myself. I know hiring me is probably more paperwork, but I’ll help you figure it out. You can pay me minimum wage. I don’t need health insurance or anything like that. We’ve got all that covered through the ranch.”

  “You can’t...be my stock boy.” He’d be here. Always here. Entwined with the one thing she’d believed she could have. That was your first mistake.

  “Why not? I like the work, and it’d just be part-time. I still have some responsibilities at the ranch I’d keep.”

  She blinked and she shook her head. It was too much to consider. She didn’t want to picture it. “We’ll talk about it after the centennial.”

  “That seems to be your answer for everything.”

  “Beca
use if that’s not a success then we don’t have stores.” And if it was a success, if everything they’d been building came to fruition, how would she deal with it when things went wrong?

  Suddenly, not having a store felt like the better option. “And if I don’t have a store, I have to go back to California.” She’d been safe in California. Sad maybe. But safe.

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why?”

  “Why couldn’t you stay here? Why does that have to mean you run off to California?”

  She didn’t know how to answer that. Things were spiraling too far out of control. If she succeeded, things would be hard. If she failed, she’d have to live with the knowledge she’d failed her friends and with the loss of this thing she genuinely loved. It was all rock and hard place. How had she let herself end up here? “I...couldn’t live in this town a failure.”

  “You’d hardly be a failure, Pru.”

  She could only stare at him. Of course she’d be a failure. Her old life had been safe and she’d been good at it, but she’d given it up to go after what she’d wanted.

  And what she wanted was right here. But she was never any good at the things she loved. And she loved this store so much. She...

  He was looking at her funny, worry starting to creep into his expression. She was freaking out and she couldn’t possibly talk to Grant about the freak-out. About her feelings.

  She sucked in a breath. She wouldn’t let herself think beyond the next step. If she survived the centennial, she would think about the next step.

  But only then.

  “We have work to do,” she said firmly, closing the conversation.

  And when he didn’t push, she told herself she felt relieved and vindicated.

  * * *

  IT WAS A strange thing getting more and more involved with someone you’d known most of your life, and was the sister of your closest friend. There were the impressions Grant had of Pru as a kid, or even as an adult. Impressions formed by his own experiences, but also formed by the Riley family’s interpretation of Pru.

  But the more Grant got to know her, got to be around her, the more he saw there was a thread of disconnect somewhere. She wasn’t exactly what her family thought she was, any more than she was exactly what Grant had thought she was.

  She was so much more than the Pru-ricane everyone joked about. She had a vulnerability about her that she shored up so hard, he only saw little glimpses of it at odd moments.

  She worked herself to the bone on the store, but she flitted around like she was building on sand. Like it could all shift and sink away through no fault of her own. But also like she’d have to flee the wreckage.

  And any time he made a suggestion that might firm up that foundation, she closed him off and out. Never fully. Never for long. There’d been approximately one night in three weeks when they hadn’t been together, though she rarely let him talk her into either bed.

  But something wasn’t right. It was good. They were good, but something was off-kilter and it took him a while to figure out what it was.

  No matter the weeks that passed, she wouldn’t talk about what might happen after the centennial. Not when it came to where she was going to live, whether she’d hire him to work at the store, or what they meant to each other.

  It was like a talisman. After the centennial.

  And he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. The more he poked and prodded, the less she opened up to him.

  The worst part was, that conversation with Cade haunted him. He’d always thought Cade’s first wife had been halfway out the door long before their second daughter had come around. She’d been searching for a reason—or for the courage—to leave, and there was something similar in Pru’s eyes.

  It wasn’t the same, but it wasn’t fully different either.

  He should be fine with keeping it strictly casual. He kept telling himself so, but it stuck in his craw and made each passing day a little more dissatisfying. He drove into town, just a few days away from this magical centennial and tried to convince himself Prudence was right.

  They’d figure everything out after the centennial.

  The town was starting to prepare. Mrs. Kim and the decorating committee were standing in the middle of the square as he drove past, likely planning everything they’d do on Friday night and Saturday morning with the gravity of a military campaign.

  He parked his truck around back now that the Dumpster was gone, and entered through the back door. The stockroom was full and organized, and it gave him a quick zing of satisfaction.

  It was Pru’s store, no doubt about it, but he’d played a part in building it.

  When he entered the main section, she was standing behind the counter, organizing the impulse-buy stock. He walked up to the counter and leaned across to give her a quick kiss, but she ducked away. “Windows.”

  He glanced at them. They were big and the sun shone through, but he doubted anyone would see a quick kiss. “Right.” It hurt. He kept telling himself it shouldn’t. That her reasons were valid, even if he was past them. But it hurt nonetheless, and it was reminding him a little too much of what he’d done after his dad had died.

  He’d sacrificed himself for everyone else. Put responsibility above everything else. Never let anyone see how hard it was to do it on his own.

  “It looks good, doesn’t it?” she said, surveying the store.

  It looked good and it looked ready for the big reveal on Saturday. “It looks great. We make a good team.”

  Something flickered in her expression and her shoulders tensed, but she smiled at him, no matter how forced it was.

  She said nothing.

  And that did it. Because he couldn’t see past this wall, and he wasn’t going to fling himself at it. Not if she didn’t want him to be on the other side. There was no point.

  “I need you to give me some answers, Pru.”

  “About what?” she asked, studying Victor the goat with her head cocked, clearly only half paying attention to him.

  “About everything you’ve been avoiding.”

  She froze, then very carefully turned her eyes away. “Grant. I’ve got two more days. Can’t the answers wait two more days?”

  “I’m not sure they can.” It wasn’t fair, but being fair hadn’t gotten him anywhere. “Pick one question to answer. I don’t care which one. Where are you going to live when your rental is up? Are you going to hire me after the centennial? Are we going to tell your family about us after the centennial? If you struggle here, are you going to give up and go back to California because that’s where you really want to be?”

  “I don’t really want to be in California,” she said softly, almost as if it was some grave admission.

  “Then where do you want to be?”

  CHAPTER NINE

  HOW COULD GRANT not understand here was exactly where Pru wanted to be? How could she possibly tell him that she wanted this store and him and this life she’d been building more than she’d ever wanted anything?

  More than the ranch. More than that farm back in college. And the bigger it became, the more real it felt in her hands, the more it was like sand dripping through her fingers.

  Because this was her. She was building her store. She was sleeping with Grant. These weren’t things happening to her, things held back from her. The universe wasn’t pulling the strings. It was the life she’d always wanted and she’d built it with her own two hands.

  Her own two hands—and a heart that didn’t know how to handle how much she wanted this.

  She’d tried to talk to her friends, but they were wrapped up in their own stores, their own romances. Besides, Kit would only call her a coward and Charity would only tell her what she wanted to hear, and Hope would ply her with fudge and that didn’t fix...

  This. Her. Only she could handle that task and sh
e...couldn’t. Clearly. It wasn’t fear, it was...what?

  “Maybe you don’t know,” Grant said gently, but it felt like razors against her heart. She was hurting him and she didn’t fully understand how. “I don’t think there’s anything so wrong with that, except it means you’re keeping one foot out the door.”

  One foot out the door? When she’d flung herself at him and this store? “I am not. How can you say that? I left my life. All the time we’ve spent together—”

  “Secretly. Secretly together. But I don’t just mean me. I mean the whole thing. No house. No planning beyond the centennial. Talking about going back to California. Why are you halfway out the door?”

  He sounded so hurt, and he was so wrong. He just didn’t understand, and it was hardly her fault she didn’t have the words to get through to him.

  “There is no door,” she said, trying not to cry. What an utter embarrassment to cry in front of him.

  “You said you’d have to go back to California. That’s a door.” He shook his head and looked away. Then he squinted and pointed. “There’s your dad in the square. Call him over. We’ll break it to him. Together. Prove there’s no door.”

  “Are you insane?” Tell her father she was sleeping with Grant Mathewson?

  “What are you afraid of? We build something and then break up and your family has to have a complicated emotion about their family friend? I promise, we’d all survive, Pru.”

  “Have you met my family?”

  He shook his head. “The thing is, no matter what you say, your actions aren’t backing it up. So I have to form my own conclusions. And they don’t work for me, Pru.”

  He was breaking things off. And that was fine. Just fine. She’d do better without him muddying up the waters anyway. “I’m sorry this isn’t working the way you want,” she said, wondering why her voice sounded so strangled when she was trying to be firm.

  “No. No, you won’t put it on me, Pru. I’ve played martyr too long to let you do that. Maybe you are afraid of your family’s reaction to us—it doesn’t explain the other stuff, but we’ll go with it for a second. It messes up your life, or so you think. Okay? So that’s more important than anything we’ve got going? You’re afraid of—”