Courting Chloe

by Nancy Warren

  Chloe chuckled. “She brought over salted caramel brownies to thank me for helping her break up with Matthew, and to ask if it was too soon to date another man—the gym teacher at her school who is, by the way, perfect for her in every way. Of course, I suggested she not waste a moment. And then, I decided to let her know that I found her ex very attractive.”

  “Did you end up slapped with a salted caramel brownie?”

  “On the contrary, after a stunned moment, I could see she was relieved. She’s a nurturer, you see, and the only cloud on her horizon was the thought that Matthew might be in pain. But, if he also had a new romance on the go, then she could relax and move on.”

  “I can’t believe the things you get away with.”

  Chloe shrugged modestly. “It’s a gift.”

  They ended up at a big, noisy place with wooden floors and a live band playing bluegrass. She glanced around the table and felt a wave of affection for her new friends. Brittany and Stephanie both fit right in with this place, of course. Deborah looked as though she’d rather be home reading Freud, and she had to admit that even she was a little out of her element.

  Chloe said, “I asked you all to come out because I need a summit meeting of my top advisors.”

  Brittany and Stephanie exchanged a glance. “And we’re it?”

  “Absolutely.” She glanced around at the three attractive women—Brittany the blonde, Deborah the redhead, and Stephanie the brunette. She laughed. “We’re exactly like Charlie’s Angels.”

  Stephanie said, “Except that we don’t fight crime.”

  “Oh, well.” She waved the objection away. “We do help people solve their problems.”

  “We break hearts by proxy, for people who are too chicken to do it themselves. We’re not Charlie’s Angels, we’re Chloe’s Devils.”

  Brittany raised her glass. “To Chloe’s Devils.”

  “Right, girls. I’ve got myself a problem and I’m relying on you to help me fix it.”

  “Chloe’s Devils are on the case,” Brittany said, her blond hair even bigger today than usual, which Chloe had learned indicated her level of happiness. Today, apparently, was a good day.

  “I did something very stupid involving a man and I need to fix it.”

  Brittany looked suddenly concerned. She didn’t want to think of anyone unhappy. “What did you do to Matthew?”

  “I did what I always do. Acted like a spoiled child and made a complete fool of myself.”

  “And then what did you do?” Steph wanted to know.

  Chloe grinned. One thing about her new friends—she couldn’t get much past them.

  But her grin was soon wiped off her face. “I hurt him,” she admitted. “I meant to hurt him at the time, but I was sorry immediately.”

  “Did you apologize?” Deborah’s quiet words broke through her façade.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I need more than a simple apology. I need to make him understand that I want him permanently, that he’s not some temporary fling.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  She ran her index finger around the rim of her margarita glass, bumpy with salt. “I don’t have much of a track record. I tend to get engaged to men and then drop them. I was going to break up with him, but something stopped me… and then he broke it off with me.”

  “Maybe he’s afraid you’ll run back to England.”

  “Right,” Stephanie agreed. “He needs to understand you’re going to stick.”

  “So, you need to show him that you really are a Texan?” Deborah said, a slow smile beginning to build. She hadn’t seemed to hold a grudge against Chloe for almost ruining her life, but Chloe couldn’t help but be a little wary.

  “I suppose.”

  Deborah looked around at the other women and Chloe reminded herself that they were all Texans, she’d helped break two of their matches, and she was a delicate English rose.

  “We could fix your hair, make it big and Texan,” Brittany offered.

  “You could get a tattoo of the Lone Star in a prominent place,” Stephanie offered, staring thoughtfully at Chloe’s forehead. She wondered what she’d ever done to Stephanie. She’d ended up with Rafe, hadn’t she? It had all worked out.

  “A tattoo?” she said feebly.

  “Tattoos and hair are only skin deep,” Deb reminded them. “She needs to learn how to be a true Texas woman.”

  “They give classes for that?”

  “Oh, yeah.” By now, Deborah’s ladylike expression was more like a python’s right before it strikes. “Cowgirl University.”

  The other two hooted with laughter and Chloe smiled, willing to be the butt of a joke since she was perfectly confident there was no such institution.

  But Deborah wasn’t joking in the least. “It’s the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. Check it out on the website. They teach Cowgirl 101, and everything from horse care to leather tooling. Honey, if you want to prove to your man that you are willing to work on this relationship, I can’t think of a better way.”

  “Wait a minute,” Brittany said. “We can have our own customized course. My aunt is Sadie Watkins Hawke.”

  Sadie Watkins Hawke certainly wasn’t a household name in London, England, and it seemed from the momentary silence that Sadie wasn’t exactly the most famous woman in all of Texas either. Then Deborah’s puzzled expression lightened. “The rodeo star?”

  “That’s right. My aunt did really well on the rodeo circuit, then she went to Hollywood for a while as a stunt rider. Now she’s back home and runs a ranch. I’m going to call her right now. She’d get the biggest kick out of teaching an English gal to be a cowgirl—she’s like to bust a gut laughing when I tell her our plan.”

  Chloe felt that now was the time to share her reservations about this excellent plan, but luckily, Deborah forestalled her. “You think your aunt would tailor a course especially for Chloe?” Her obvious feelings of doubt were shared by Chloe herself.

  Brittany laughed. “No, silly. For all of us.”

  “All of us?” Stephanie, who had been staring vacantly into space with an annoyingly satisfied smile tilting her lips, suddenly entered the conversation.

  “Yeah. We can’t let Chloe go alone. She’s going to need all our help. Deborah, you can give her the psychological training to be a true Texas woman, and me and Steph can give her the more practical techniques. Plus, we’ll all get to ride. It’ll be fun.”

  “When were you planning on doing this?”

  “Are you kidding? After the way Chloe completely blew it with Matt, there’s no time to lose. We’re going this weekend.”

  Three voices rose in instant protest and Brittany held a hand in the air, like the elementary school teacher she was. “I do not want to hear excuses or whining,” she announced, silencing them all. “We’re going this weekend. Clear your schedules.”

  “Where is this place?” Deborah finally asked.

  “A couple of hours outside San Antonio. You’ll love it there. Trust me.”

  Chloe and Deborah traded glances. Delight was not the paramount emotion shared. However, even as Chloe opened her mouth to decline spending so much as five minutes on a dusty ranch learning to be a cowgirl, the idea began to appeal to her.

  Matthew wanted to be surprised?

  Oh, Matthew was going to get his wish.

  Chapter 28

  For the first time in his life, Matthew broke the law.

  He told himself he wasn’t really breaking the law by using his key to enter the house he owned and that Chloe was renting—he was worried about her. He hadn’t seen her in four days. Her car was gone.

  Not that he really believed anything bad had happened to her. He thought something bad might have happened to him. Her rent was paid to the end of the month, but what if she’d packed up and left—without even saying good-bye?

  He kept telling himself she was more of a fighter than that, but what really scare
d the hell out of him was the possibility that he wasn’t worth fighting for. That she’d gone back to England and her regular life, leaving him behind and everything he wanted to say to her unsaid.

  The second he stepped into the house next door, he wished he hadn’t. It was neat. Too neat. The fact that Chloe was a neat freak didn’t register as he yelled her name—which was crazy when her car was gone and he could sense the house was empty.

  He pounded up the stairs, more than a little disappointed that she’d take off like this, even as he was thinking he could rearrange his schedule and be in England in a couple of days.

  But when he burst into her bedroom, he stopped. Her stuff was still there. The girly things on the dresser, her bedding on the bed. He could smell her. The scent of whatever she used on her skin, that he thought of as English rose.

  He let out a long breath and increased his lawlessness by sitting on her bed. Wishing she were here so he could talk to her, do all the things he wanted to do to her right here on this bed. Okay, he thought, chances were he’d get another shot. She wasn’t gone forever. She was coming back.

  And if she wasn’t coming for him, then damn it, he was coming for her.

  Knowing he should leave, he lingered a little longer. He didn’t touch anything, or pry. He just wanted to be in her space.

  Man, he had it bad. He was a walking humiliation to every Texan male.

  While he beat himself up, he held on to his cell phone, willing it to ring. Willing Chloe to tell him where she was so he could go get her. Four days was long enough to keep a man in suspense. More than long enough.

  When his cell phone rang, he answered before the first ring had finished. “Chloe?”

  “Hey, man. It’s Rafe.”

  “Hey. I can’t talk. I’m waiting for Chloe to call.” He should play it cool, make a joke, but he couldn’t. He was in love with that woman and tired of playing games. He never should have pushed her.

  There was a short pause. “Okay. Sorr—”

  “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “You at home?”

  “Yeah.” Close enough.

  “I’ll come by later. We’ll have a beer.”

  Of course Rafe didn’t know where she was. “Sounds good.”

  He rose from Chloe’s bed, resisting the memories of the two of them in it, when he could have sworn he heard a horse neigh.

  Crazy. He was going crazy. There were no riding stables for miles. Still, he went to her bedroom window, which overlooked the cul de sac. And he blinked.

  Then a grin split his face.

  Chloe was coming down the sidewalk on horseback and it was the craziest damn sight he’d ever seen. She wore a blue spangled riding costume that would look more at home in Vegas than Austin, a blue and white cowboy hat to which somebody had pinned a rose, and a kickin’ pair of boots.

  She was riding a black gelding that didn’t seem too happy with its rider. Easy to see why. She was holding the reins all wrong and bouncing up and down in the saddle.

  “You’re riding English style again, Chloe,” Brittany called. He had no idea why, or what was going on, but Chloe had a whole posse of gals with her. And he suspected they were coming for him.

  It was High Noon—with a lot more lipstick.

  He sprinted for the stairs, nearly pitching down them in his hurry, let himself out her kitchen door and raced across the yard until he was in his own backyard. He shoved the phone in his pocket and strode to the far end of the yard, where he’d started fixing the fence earlier in the day.

  He banged a nail into the fence a lot straighter than he had earlier, the grin stuck on his face.

  A cowgirl. An English princess cowgirl.

  Now he’d seen everything.

  Except it turned out he hadn’t.

  He heard the clopping of reluctant hooves and then a clipped accent saying, “Now, Raven, you don’t want to make a mess of my outfit. Do not push me into this tree.”

  “Neck rein, Chloe. Neck rein,” he heard in urgent undertones, and turned.

  There she came around the house. The posse must be hiding. The horse gave him a look that said, I don’t have any better idea than you what’s going on, but I’d rather be back at the barn eating hay. Chloe looked like a toy version of a rodeo rider—small and dainty and far too pretty to be real.

  He started walking toward her to help her down, but before he’d taken two steps, she’d dismounted with a flourish. She dropped the reins, but her valiant steed didn’t seem like it was in a hurry to be anywhere. Probably, like Matthew, it wondered what was coming next. He watched, bemused, as she popped a coil of rope off the horn, then strode toward him spinning a lasso like a pro.

  Before he’d half figured out what was coming next, the coil of white was drifting through the air like a very determined smoke ring, and then he felt the thing slip over him. She let out a holler, sounding like a rancher at round-up time. “Yee-haw!” She hauled the rope tight so that his arms were caught to his sides. She’d roped him as neatly as a steer.

  For a long moment they stood there looking at each other.

  He loved this woman to his very soul, he realized, and always would. She was crazy, sweet, sexy, the last woman he would have looked for and the one he needed more than anything.

  “You gonna flip me on my back and hog-tie me?”

  Heat arced between them down that rope as though it were a lightning rod. “If you’re very good,” she said in that snooty, sexy voice that did him in every time.

  Then she began to pull on the rope. Her hands were small and delicate, and the color of her nails, some kind of pale purple, flashed in the sun like drops of grape milkshake.

  He didn’t even think about putting up a fight; he wouldn’t want her palms to get scratched. He tried very hard not to think about what her hand wrapped around the rope and pulling reminded him of as he let himself be tugged closer and closer, until their bodies were touching. His lack of mobility irked him.

  “I want to put my arms around you so much I can’t stand it,” he said.

  Her smile was both understanding and devilish. “You can’t always be in control, darling.”

  “I love you. Which has sent me totally out of control.”

  “And does that bother you?” she asked, rising on her toes in those boots so that their lips were inches apart.

  “Not one damn bit,” he said, kissing her as passionately as a man can without the use of his arms.

  They might have kept kissing until the sun went down, but the sound of scrambling feet followed by howls of glee and triumph intruded.

  “You did it!”

  “Chloe, I can’t believe you roped him.”

  “I know,” she said, turning to her posse. “But it’s easier when they don’t try to run away.” She beamed at him. “We’ve all been to a ranch learning to be cowgirls. It’s the most wonderful place.”

  “What other tricks did you learn?” he asked, hoping she’d show him so he could get this rope off him.

  “Are you joking? This took me four solid days of practice to get right. I had to give up leather tooling and dressage. But I’m going to go back, perhaps next year.”

  He didn’t care if she took up bareback bronco riding. The phrase next year sang in his veins.

  However, his good mood dimmed slightly when Rafe came slouching up the path behind Brittany, Stephanie, and the shrink from TV.

  “You drop by for that beer?”

  Rafe had the grace not to laugh, though Matt could see it was a struggle. “Had to see you roped with my own eyes.”

  “Don’t be cross with Rafe, darling. He was such a help.”

  “I bet.”

  “And he and the girls are going to take the horse back for me.”

  “Great. How about the rope? Bet that has to go back, too.”

  Her smile was warm and intimate and so full of promise that he hoped nobody was looking at him too closely below the belt. “I bought the rope. You never know when it
will come in handy.”

  “How about the cowgirl getup? You own that?”

  “Of course. I’ve discovered I quite like being a cowgirl.”

  He had a feeling he was going to like it, too.

  The horse sent him one last sympathetic glance, one tethered beast to another, and then turned and headed out with the gang of giggling cowgirls and one lone Mexican wolf.

  Then she tugged his rope and he followed his sparkling cowgirl. As they headed into his house—luckily, he’d left the back door unlocked—and up the stairs to his bedroom, he said, “I thought you’d left me.”

  She must have heard some of the agony he’d been through, because she stopped right in the middle of the stairs and said, “I wouldn’t have left. Not without saying good-bye. Besides, we had unfinished business.”

  “You’ve been engaged three times. Not that I want to sound like I’m doubting your sticking power, but I had to wonder if you’re the kind who takes off the minute things get rough.”

  “Oh, Matthew,” her voice was soft. “Even at my worst I always said good-bye.” She smiled a little. “Well, shouted it probably. I was so frightened, but I still couldn’t leave. It’s different this time.”

  “It’s different for me. I wasn’t sure how it was for you.”

  “Then let me show you,” she said, leading him the rest of the way to his bedroom.

  “Honey,” he said, “there’ll be lots of times when I’m happy for you to tie me up, and times I’m going to do the same for you, but right now, if you don’t mind, I really need to put my hands on you.”

  For answer, she loosened the ring of rope and slipped it over his head. “I need your hands on me, too.”

  He pulled her to him, holding her tighter with his arms than that rope had held him. “I missed you so much.”

  “So did I. I love you.” She patted her hand against her chest. “There, I said it.”

  “Sounded good,” he said, smiling down at her. “Say it again.”

  She did. Then they were kissing, hungrily.

  She tasted so sweet, so right, and when he felt her pushing her body against his, wriggling against him so that the studs and buttons on her outfit gouged into him, he knew she’d missed him as much as he’d missed her.