The Truth About Cowboys

by Jones, Lisa Renee

  He means to play again. It’s not out of his system. He rotates and faces me, his eyes haunted in a way I don’t quite understand. Yes, I know losing his parents is huge, but there’s still more to this story. I decide to throw caution to the wind. He opened this door. I’m going to ask questions, but I don’t get the chance to ask more.

  Suddenly, his mouth is on my mouth, and he’s kissing me with a fierce hunger that isn’t just about me or us. It’s about a need he’s trying to satisfy. I’m not the only one trying to escape with sex, and I don’t even think twice. I let him pull my shirt over my head. I let him strip my leggings away. I let him set me on the island and spread me wide, driving into me. And I let him not because he’s sexy and he makes me feel good. I let him because he needs this. I let him because I need this. I let him because he’s a complicated, interesting man who’s a giving grandson just as surely as he is a giving lover. I let him because he’s not an asshole cowboy after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jessica…

  After that hot sexual encounter, we laugh at my place on the island and it’s good laughter. Easy laughter. The tension and darkness of his earlier mood faded into the bliss of orgasm. He helps me to the floor and we clean up and dress. Him back in his jeans and nothing else. Me, under his protest, back in my leggings and tank.

  We eventually return to the important tasks of making and eating food. We end up in the bed, his bed, my bed, whoever’s bed, with plates in hand, sandwiches and mac n cheese, both of which are piled high in Jason’s case. Okay, my plate is pretty darn full, too, but there has been sex. Lots of sex and sex burns calories. And so we eat. And talk, but the talking isn’t about those sensitive topics about relationships or career or even family. We most definitely don’t talk about the decisions that got us to where we are now. Instead, he tells me all about the town and upcoming festival. And Roarke’s horse farm.

  “He’s the town vet like his father before him, but he’s also a damn horse whisperer,” Jason informs me.

  “Really?” I say, finishing off a bite of mac. “A vet. That’s interesting. He runs the ranch and cares for animals. That must be tough.”

  “He has a staff,” he says. “And he doesn’t have cattle or apples like we do. He just cares for animals and trains horses.”

  “When you say horse whisperer, that means what?”

  “There was this black stallion, gorgeous wild animal, that wouldn’t allow anyone near him. Roarke had him by his side, showing affection in half an hour. It’s on the internet, as are a lot of his videos. He makes a pretty penny on his YouTube channel.”

  “That can’t help you keep your privacy.”

  “No one associates him with me, not many at least. It hasn’t been a problem.”

  “But I was,” I challenge, only half teasing

  He sets his plate aside. “You, city girl, are most definitely a problem.” There are about ten meanings to that statement, but the warmth in his eyes defines what matters; he doesn’t want me to leave anymore. At least not soon, and I can live with that.

  We’re silent, our eyes connected, my heart on a collision course with this man. He strokes my cheek. “Grab your computer and I’ll show you some of Roarke’s videos,” he suggests. “If you want.”

  “Yes,” I say eager for an escape from this heat burning between us. “I’d love that.” I scoot off the bed and hurry away, returning to him finishing off my sandwich.

  “You didn’t want this, did you?” he asks, stuffing the last bite into his mouth.

  “And if I did?” I ask, sitting down next to him and powering up my computer.

  “I’d make you another.”

  “It’s tempting to say I did just to have you make me another. You, being domestic, is entertaining, but I was done.”

  I log into my computer and go to YouTube, turning the computer toward Jason. A series of text messages from my desktop messenger system beep like crazy, reminding me that my phone is nowhere near. Jason’s eyes narrow on my computer screen and then lift to me. “Your ex really is a prick, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, but what pricky thing did he say to make that more obvious than it already was?”

  “Nothing you want to read. I’m muting him.” He doesn’t give me time to argue. He pulls up a YouTube video and pulls me close by his side. “Forget him. I’m right here.” He kisses me, a quick, perfect reminder that yes, yes, he is here.

  We watch videos, and I’m enthralled by Roarke’s skills and the horses. “They’re stunning animals. I want to know them all.”

  “You want to know the horses?”

  “Yes. I think I’ve gotten things wrong, spending so much time with people. Horses, animals in general, don’t expect, judge, or hurt you.” I don’t ask him to take me to see the horses. I don’t ask him anything that requires anything beyond this night.

  “I think I’ve been replaced,” he teases, but I don’t reply. I hit the play button on another video.

  Long after our plates are on the nightstand, I’m laughing and praising the amazing stories he shares about Roarke, and it’s obvious he enjoys sharing them. “How long have you two been friends?” I ask.

  “Since grade school.”

  “I don’t think I know anyone from grade school,” I say.

  “Big city versus small town,” he says, resting against the headboard. “Two different worlds. You said you want to know all of the horses. Have you ever ridden a horse?”

  “Not since I was in college,” I say, laying down on my side, facing him, my elbow supporting me. “And that was with a group of friends thing, but I really adored the horses. I just never made time to go back. Just like I never seem to make time for a pet. I really want a pet. Do you have a farm dog?”

  “We did,” he says. “He died the same year my parents died. He was old and attached to my mom. I think losing her did him in.”

  “Oh God.” I sit up in cross-legged position. “I don’t even know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing you can say. We were a close family, right down to the dog. I’m blessed in the ways of family I’ve loved, even if I’ve lost most of them.”

  I’ve always wanted a family, yearned for a family even. Perhaps that’s why I stayed with Craig. He felt like my fastest path to a home. I can’t imagine what it was like for Jason to have that stripped away from him. “I see that in your grandmother. Do you think that she rented this place to try to fill the hole they left behind?”

  His jaw clenches. “Among other things,” he says, and he doesn’t give me the chance to ask a question I wouldn’t ask anyway, like what other things? He catches my hand, pulls me to him, and the next thing I know I’m under his arm, snuggled close. “She loves you. Maybe a little too much.”

  “Because you think I’ll leave and forget her? I won’t. I told you. I don’t have a grandmother and—”

  He kisses me, a quick stroke of tongue before he says, “Now you do. In her eyes, she’s your grandma. Don’t make that a mistake. Don’t burn her or me, Jessica.” His voice is raw, etched in an odd mix of warning and worry, one somehow canceling out the other.

  “You still expect the worst of me.” I swallow against the rawness in my throat. “Why?”

  “Experience.”

  It’s an answer that comes fast and easy to him, and despite the fact that his “experience” doesn’t come from me, on this I do not object. “The same reason I expect you to be an asshole,” I say, understanding completely. “I’m not going to ask you to trust me or treat me like I’m one of a kind and different when you barely know me. I get why trust is a challenge.”

  “Yes,” he says, studying me closely. “It is.” His phone rings on the nightstand, and he grabs it, reading a message. He studies it several beats, and I’m not sure he’s even reading the message. I suck in a breath, feeling the distinct chill of him going cold on me. He s
its up, offering me a beautiful but unwelcome view of his back.

  He types a message to whoever texted him, or I think he did. “I need to go take care of a problem.” He stands up, and before I can reply, he’s heading to the living room where I already know he will dress and leave. I don’t get up. He doesn’t want me to get up. We were one night of sex. We made that awkward by talking. I let him go, hating how much I don’t want him to go. He’s different. I’m different with him, which is a thought I’ll analyze later.

  I listen to the creeks of the room as he dresses, and then there’s silence. Did he leave? Suddenly, he’s in the doorway, hands on the frame on either side of us. “I’ll take you to the main house tomorrow. When you’re done, you want to take a ride around the ranch, get the lay of the land?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Right. Got it.” He disappears out the door, into the living room.

  My eyes go wide. Is he leaving? “Jason!” I shout, scrambling off the bed and his direction. “Jason!” I exit the bedroom and pant out, “Damn it, don’t be an asshole.” I grab the doorframe. “You didn’t let me finish.”

  He’s at the door, ready to leave. He doesn’t, though, which seems like a real effort for him, but I get this, too. He cut me off at an awkward place in that sentence. It seemed like I was declining a date. “I was going to warn you that I don’t remember how to ride a horse, if that’s what you meant by ride, but yes.” I close the distance between us, stopping directly in front of him. “Yes, I would very much like to see the ranch with you.”

  He just stares at me, hard and long until I want to scream, but then suddenly, abruptly, he pulls me to him, and he’s the one kissing me just as long and hard before he says, “Roarke has a sick horse. He’s doing surgery and needs help. I owe him about ten favors. It will be late when I’m done. I’ll call you in the morning.” And just like that he sets me aside and opens the door, exiting to the porch. Leaving me alone and confused. He doesn’t want to come back. He doesn’t want to stay the night, but he wants to take me riding? I shouldn’t go. I can’t go.

  I walk to the living room and stare at the chair, my mind conjuring memories of the crazy hot sex we’d had there. My mouth goes dry and my attention swings to the kitchen, landing on the island where we had more crazy hot sex. Okay. I’m going to go with him to tour the ranch, and I may even enjoy myself, but that means nothing. This is casual rebound sex for both of us, and he’s perfectly okay with that. That’s what he wants. That’s what I want.

  Isn’t it?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jason…

  The rain is over, but the storm has just arrived. A storm named Jessica. She blew into town and I don’t know what the fuck is happening to me.

  I climb inside my truck and stare at the cottage that was my escape, my office, until now. My sanctuary where I dealt with every problem I inherited when my parents died, of which there were many. Now it’s her place. Now it’s the place I just fucked her, twice. And I wanted more. I still want more.

  “Damn it to hell, woman, what are you doing to me?” I scrub my jaw and start the engine, backing up and righting the truck outside the death holes of mud. That comes from knowing this land the way I thought I knew myself. No more city girls, and yet I just asked one on a date after rolling around naked with her.

  My grandmother would be pleased. She wants to get rid of me, and that’s not going to happen. She’s not leaving. I’m not leaving her behind. That’s how this works. She should know that by now, and no matchmaker’s scheme is going to change that. And yet, as I drive, I’m thinking about Jessica. Good damn thing it’s a short trip to Roarke’s place.

  Just a few more minutes in my own head, of memories of Jessica naked and moaning, and I’m pulling into the medical facility on Roarke’s property, a brick building about half a mile from his house. Normally bustling with a healthy staff, it’s now midnight and there is no one in sight. I park and exit the truck as he exits the building. “I was just about to call you,” he says. “Jeffrey Mills came by to check on his dog and helped me out.”

  Jeffrey being the town mechanic, like his father before him. That’s how we do things around these parts. We procreate and pass the job along. Only I doubt I’ll be doing any such thing. I’m here for my grandmother, and I plan to keep her world safe and happy for as many years as I can keep her here. Then I’ll sell out if there’s anything left to sell out.

  He motions to the house. “Whiskey?”

  “Hell yeah,” I say, and why wouldn’t I? It’s midnight, and not only was I with Jessica for hours that felt like minutes, I smell like her, all sweet and feminine, with a distinct note of something floral and smart-ass. I have no idea why the smart-ass part is so damn sexy.

  A few minutes later, I’m sitting on his front porch, replaying every moan and sigh Jessica made tonight when Roarke exits his house with two glasses and a bottle. “Johnnie Walker White Walker. Game of Thrones special edition.”

  I snort and accept a glass. “Your obsession with Game of Thrones—”

  “Is a hell of a lot less complicated than a woman.” He sits down on the chair next to me and sets the bottle on the table between us.

  Women are the last thing I want to talk about right now. “Heard from Nathan lately?”

  He downs his whiskey and refills his glass. “My loser younger brother? Outside of a wedding invitation I’ve ignored, nope, and that works for me. He was too busy on Wall Street to come home when Pops had his stroke. I’m too busy for him and plan to stay that way.” I down my whiskey and he refills my glass. “Pretty little lady you got staying at the cottage. Interesting energy between you two. What’s that about?”

  And here we are. Back to women. I grunt and drink.

  “There’s a decisive answer.” He laughs.

  “I don’t know what the hell it’s about.” I set my glass down and lean forward, elbows on my knees.

  “She’s a challenge,” he says. “She won’t lay at your feet like your groupies and the townies.”

  “More like a pain in my ass,” I murmur, sitting back while he refills my glass.

  “Good, right?” he asks, motioning to my glass.

  I’m not sure I’ve tasted it. I’m still tasting her. “Really damn good,” I say.

  He fills his own glass again. “Maybe it’s a sign from above. You won’t go back to the city, so it came to you.”

  “More like my grandmother brought the city to me.”

  “She wants you to go back before it’s too late. You’re thirty-two. Nolan Ryan pitched into his forties. Years in the minors. Years on the bench. Finally, you were the man. No one remembered those hard years but you. Jason, man—”

  “Roarke, damn it,” I bite out, standing up and looking at him. “You know why I can’t do that.”

  “You still haven’t told your grandmother the mess your parents left behind.” Disapproval etches his tone. “The two-year anniversary is coming up. It’s time.”

  “Which is exactly why now is not the time. It gets to her. This time of year gets to her.”

  “Her or you?”

  “Of course it gets to me, but it’s my grandmother I’m worried about. She’s not getting any younger. I’m not letting her leave this world unhappy and worried.”

  “Why do you punish yourself? You didn’t make the plane crash. You didn’t make your parents make the business decisions they made.”

  “Don’t go there,” I warn.

  “Okay. Then I’ll go to the other place you need to go. We both know you didn’t have deep enough pockets to handle the magnitude of what you were handed and handled. Your grandmother is a smart woman. She would have understood if you’d cut your losses. She will understand. One more contract—”

  “No,” I say. “I’m not telling my grandmother that my father burned holes in his wallet and mine. I’m not going to tell
her what my father did. I’m not telling her she has to leave her home. This is the place she met our foreman, a man who became—”

  “A second grandfather to you. I know that.”

  “And I don’t want her to feel like her daughter, my mother, was miserable when she died.”

  “Was she?”

  “They were buried deep,” I say. “Of course she was fucking miserable, and I didn’t even know.”

  “Because they didn’t want you to know.”

  “I should have known. And bottom line, I’m not letting my grandmother end up miserable.”

  “Then you need another plan because this one is taking too long. You did what needed to be done to the orchard’s irrigation system, but it’s going to take you another year to get where you need to be to turn a profit.”

  I walk to the railing and stare into the deep, dark night, no star in sight. Roarke won’t let up. I know this about him. He’ll keep pushing this, and as surely as I have that thought, he’s standing next to me. “Play ball,” he says. “I’ll take over until you get back.”

  “What?” I turn to face him. “Are you crazy, man? You can’t run your place and mine.”

  “I’ll figure it out. We’re brothers from another mother, and your grandmother is my grandmother in every way possible but blood. I have a hell of a team here. I even have a new intern coming in from A&M to study with me.”

  “She wants to be a damn horse whisperer,” I say.

  He snorts. “That damn nickname.” He glances over at me. “You didn’t just change the subject. You tried but you failed. I can handle The Flying J. Go play ball before I kick your ass.”

  “You’re my brother, and I love you. I appreciate you. I would bleed for you. Which is exactly why I won’t take advantage of you. No. End of topic.”

  “Jason, damn it—”

  I turn and start walking away, because that’s the only way to shut Roarke down. It doesn’t work, though. He shouts after me. “You can bleed for me, but I can’t bleed for you? That’s fucked up, man.”