Cowboys Down

by Barbara Elsborg

  Calum looked up when he heard the knock at the door.

  “You all right?” Vera asked. She looked tired and drawn but keeping it together. Her gaze fell on the desk, strewn with papers. “You don’t have to do everything straightaway.”

  “I know.”

  “Your father wants to see you.”

  “Now?” Calum stiffened.

  Vera nodded.

  He pushed himself to his feet. “The guests okay? Staff okay? You okay?” He wrapped his arms around Vera and gave her a hug. Her fingers gripped him tight for a moment.

  “The guests are fine. Staff’s overexcited but fine. I’m fine.”

  Christ, we’re all experts at hiding how we feel.

  “He should have had bypass surgery a long while ago,” Vera said.

  Calum pulled away to look at her.

  “He kept putting it off, putting it off. Now he has no choice.” She gave a grim smile. “You two have so much in common. Avoiding issues, stubborn as mules, letting problems grow into impassable mountains.”

  “Not impassable,” Calum whispered.

  “No, that’s true. Passable with care. Go and see him, Calum.”

  He hugged her again and pressed his face into her hair. “Love you, Mom,” he whispered.

  When he felt Vera shake, regret for what he could have said and done years ago rose into his throat and choked him. She pushed something into his hand and Calum looked down to see another of Angie’s bracelets.

  Vera smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. “She wants Jasper to have it in case he gets lost again.”

  As Calum rode the elevator to his father’s room, he glanced at his watch. By the time he made it to the other hospital, he doubted they’d let him see Jasper, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. But first he had to speak to the man he didn’t really want to see. Had his father delayed his mother seeking medical advice? He was a bull of a guy, never admitting to any of his own aches and pains, but Calum remembered him being gentle with his mother. He didn’t want to believe his father would have brushed away her worries over her health.

  His father opened his eyes when Calum walked into his room. He looked shrunken somehow, much smaller than the man he knew. The bed was surrounded by machines, and it struck Calum that his father might die and this could be his only chance to make things right.

  “How are you feeling?” Calum asked.

  “Absolutely fine. Can’t understand why they don’t let me out of here.”

  Calum rolled his eyes. “Mom sent these.” He didn’t miss his father’s startled glance.

  “Mom?” Erik muttered.

  Calum put a bag down on the bedside table. “A book she says you ought to read and your puzzle book. She’s ripped out the answers to stop you cheating. She’ll be here tomorrow with Angie before your op.”

  “Mom?” Erik repeated. “What changed?”

  “Something Jasper said to me.”

  Erik scowled.

  Calum took a deep breath. “When did Mom find out she had cancer?”

  He supposed he deserved the puzzled look Erik shot him.

  “Nine months, three weeks and two days before she died.” Erik worried the sheet with his fingers. “She found a lump and didn’t tell me. By the time she went to see the doc, it had spread. She should have told me. I don’t know why she didn’t.” He sighed. “Maybe I do. I don’t like weakness. I didn’t allow myself to be ill and I think she thought that applied to her too. There’s not a day goes by that I don’t blame myself for her death.”

  And Calum knew that no matter what Marty’s wife had said, his father was telling the truth. Maybe Lois had her own agenda, married to a man who still held a torch for a woman he couldn’t have. At least this wasn’t something else to blame his father for.

  “How’s everything at the ranch?” his father asked.

  “Fine.”

  A snort was the response to that. “Two of my wranglers try to kill a guest and everything is fine?”

  “Ring and Pete are in custody. The guests think this is the most exciting vacation they’ve ever had and two of them have booked again for next year.”

  That brought a smile to his father’s face. “Think you’re up to handling things until I’m back on my feet?”

  Calum bristled and made himself take a deep breath before he responded. “I’ll do my best.”

  “I heard you gave me CPR. Saved my life.”

  Calum shrugged.

  “If you do a good job of running the ranch until I’m back, I’ll make you foreman.”

  And Calum felt his father had thrown a chain around his neck. What he’d once wanted was not what he wanted now.

  “Not going to ask why Pete and Ring did it?” Calum asked.

  “Guess they feel a little more strongly about gays than I do.”

  You bastard. “Going to ask how Jasper is?”

  “No.”

  Fucking bastard. And Calum no longer wanted to make things right. The guy would never change and there was somewhere else Calum wanted to be.

  “Seth isn’t mine,” Calum said. “Suz was running a scam. He’s Dean’s kid. Suz cheated on me. I never cheated on her.”

  His father’s eyes widened. “I thought—”

  “I know what you thought, but you never asked.” Calum stepped toward the bed and landed a clumsy kiss on his startled father’s cheek. “Good luck tomorrow.” Then he walked out.

  Jasper opened his eyes when the nurse bent over him. The Hispanic guy had a sweet face and smelled of lemons.

  “You awake?” he asked Jasper.

  I am now.

  “You have a visitor. It’s after-hours, but I can let him in for a couple of minutes if you feel up to it.”

  Jasper shook his head. “No, not up to it.”

  He tried not to wince at the pain. It wasn’t just his body that ached but his heart. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to see Calum, which was exactly why he couldn’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t. Better for both of them to break like this.

  The nurse left and a few minutes later, the door opened again. Jasper held his breath because the idiot part of him wanted Calum to take no notice of what the nurse said and burst in to see him and tell him he lo— Ah fuck. The nurse came up to the bed and put something in Jasper’s hand. Jasper knew what it was before he looked at it. Another bracelet.

  When the police had interviewed him, they’d told him Calum had followed the trail of beads. If it hadn’t been for the gift from a sweet child in a woman’s body, Jasper suspected he’d be dead.

  On the third day, when Calum was told he couldn’t see Jasper, he realized it wasn’t a medical problem keeping them apart but Jasper’s choice. He’d been asked to bring Jasper’s bags, discovered hidden behind a stack of timber, and Calum had washed and folded the clothes himself, and then packed them with an immovable lump in his throat. The police had kept the tie that had been used to gag Jasper, but Calum took another from his bag. He wanted it to remind him of how he’d used the tie to pull Jasper in for that kiss. In the heart of the suitcase, he placed a well-wrapped package and hoped it survived the trip back to London.

  Calum hadn’t wanted to accept that Jasper didn’t want to see him anymore but he wasn’t going to push. A word with the nurse confirmed there was no point coming the next day because Jasper wouldn’t be there. Pete and Ring hadn’t made bail yet. Calum hoped they fried the bastards. His father had sailed through the operation and was issuing orders from his hospital bed, most of which Calum had already dealt with. Another load of guests had arrived, half of whom hadn’t ridden before. Calum had taken on two more wranglers who seemed to be working out fine.

  Note to self: Everything is fine, fine, fucking fine—as long as I stop thinking about Jasper.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Two bloody weeks leave? How did you wrangle that, you jammy devil?” Ken Adams asked as Jasper passed him in the corridor.

  Ken didn’t wait for an answer. Jasper h
ad told his boss not to tell anyone why he was late coming back, including his uncle who was one of the firm’s partners, and in any case, Jasper hadn’t told his boss the entire truth. Easier to say he’d been attacked, hospitalized, and leave it at that. Even so, Jasper expected the office gossip machine to invent salacious details during the coffee breaks.

  After being discharged from the hospital, Jasper had checked into a hotel and spent his time either in or by the pool allowing his body to recover. His heart didn’t do so well. His interest in visiting Yellowstone submerged under a myriad of emotions, continuing headaches and pain in his chest, and inertia tightened its hold. He’d kept telling himself everything was fine, but it wasn’t then and it wasn’t now.

  Apart from the fact that he was plagued with nightmares where he suffocated in a grain silo, he couldn’t stop thinking about Calum, and when he did, he felt as though a heavy weight pressed against his chest. Feeling it was hard to breathe seemed to be the constant in his life. He’d used his inhaler more over the last couple of weeks than he had in the whole of last year. Jasper suspected he needed to talk to someone, but there was no one he wanted to tell. He could, however, tell his mum tonight, as long as she didn’t recognize him.

  Once inside his office, he put the box he was carrying down on his desk. He was petrified of dropping it. Jasper hung up his jacket, sat in his chair and swiveled to look out of the window at a gray day, gray concrete and a gray pigeon. His spirits sagged to puddle in a pathetic pool at his feet. He didn’t want to work here anymore. He didn’t want to do this job anymore. He didn’t—

  The telephone rang and he sighed. It all starts again. Caller display told him it was one of his bigger clients and Jasper turned up his cheerful button before he answered. “Good morning, Simon. Missed me?”

  “Been away?”

  Fuck you too.

  By lunchtime Jasper was exhausted. His head ached and his eyes were sore and gritty. When the phone rang at a minute to one, he did what he’d never done before and ignored it. He picked up the box and walked out.

  Fintan’s Gallery was a small boutique store selling an eclectic range of artwork. Exquisitely painted wild landscapes that Jasper loved but couldn’t afford to buy stood alongside pieces of sculpture he’d have been hard pressed to hold the right way up. He often popped in to look round and he had bought one small painting from the owner last year, though he’d refused the invitation to go for a drink. And all subsequent invitations though Fintan was getting more and more inventive.

  “How did you know I was gay?” Jasper had asked.

  “You’re gay?” Fintan raised his manicured eyebrows. “I’ll throw in dinner along with the drink.”

  Fintan was a lovely guy, but flamboyantly gay and twice Jasper’s age. He hadn’t taken offense at Jasper’s refusal and invited him to all the open evenings he held for his fledging artists. Those invitations Jasper did accept, though on every occasion, Fintan flirted with Jasper more than anyone else. “I can’t resist gorgeous guys. I never give up,” Fintan had whispered in his ear.

  He was exactly the right guy to show Calum’s work.

  When Jasper pushed open the door, Fintan threw up his hands in joy—oh bloody hell—and rushed toward him. Please don’t hug me.

  “Jasper! I haven’t seen you in ages.”

  Jasper clung onto the box. The contents had crossed the Atlantic. He didn’t want it to break now.

  “Hi, Fintan. I’ve something for you to look at. I’d like your advice.”

  “You only have to ask, dear boy. I’d love to handle something of yours.”

  Oh God. Jasper put the box on the counter.

  “Whatever is that around your wrist? You’re wearing jewelry?”

  “A present.” He pushed Angie’s bracelet back under his cuff. He knew he ought to take it off but he just couldn’t. In case I get lost.

  Fintan gently peeled away the layers of tissue paper and took out the clay model Calum had hidden in Jasper’s case. It was the figure of two men. One wearing a Stetson leaned back against a rock, knees bent. The other figure had his head resting on the cowboy’s chest, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankle. The cowboy’s hand was in the other guy’s hair. That guy was unmistakably Jasper.

  “Oh my,” Fintan whispered. He looked up into Jasper’s face and gave a tiny smile. “You’ve just broken my heart.”

  A shiver trickled down Jasper’s spine, as if something had passed from Fintan to him, some knowledge of which Jasper had been unaware.

  Not unaware, I’m in denial.

  The gallery owner examined the piece from all angles, even took out a magnifying glass, and then stood up and exhaled.

  “Is it good?” Jasper asked. He knew it was, but he still wanted Fintan to say it.

  “Silly, boy. It’s fantastic.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “Of course clay is hopeless. It needs to be cast. Who’s the lucky cowboy trailing his fingers in your luscious locks? The guy who made this?”

  “Yes. His name’s Calum Neilson.”

  “Is this yours?”

  Jasper nodded. “I want it cast in bronze. Can you arrange that?”

  “Of course. I could sell a bronze version of this for at least £700, maybe £1,000, though it would cost twice that to produce the first one. The most cost-effective way would be to make perhaps ten bronzes, keep one, sell the rest. I’d buy the other nine for £5000. And I’d be keeping one for myself as a memento.” He winked at Jasper. “It’s stunning. Reminiscent of Remington.”

  Jasper smiled. Part of him wanted there to be only one bronze just for him. The cost of casting didn’t matter, but he imagined how thrilled Calum would be to know people wanted to buy his work.

  “Okay. Ten bronzes,” Jasper said, “but I get two. And it’s still £5000.”

  “Deal.” Fintan stuck out his hand.

  Jasper shook on it and didn’t miss the extra squeeze.

  “He’s a lucky guy,” Fintan whispered.

  For a brief moment, Jasper considered telling Fintan everything, but he knew it wouldn’t make him feel better. Probably make him feel like an idiot.

  “Fast as possible,” Jasper said.

  “Spoilsport.” Fintan winked. “I love to go slow.”

  By the time the phones stopping ringing, Wyoming was a fading dream. Back in the noise and bustle of London, those wide-open plains and dazzling Western skies seemed a lifetime away. He’d have to go back for the trial. And see Calum again. How would things be between them? Would Calum have found someone else? Jasper hoped he did and yet even as he completed the thought, pain flared in his heart.

  He caught the Tube back to his house and then used his car to drive to his mother’s nursing home. It was getting dark when he arrived and lights shone in every window of the converted mansion. All the lights on and nobody home, Jasper thought with a wry smile.

  Alcott House had been his mother’s residence since Ben had died. She’d slid into a state of shock and never really emerged from it. It had been as though all her energy had been put into looking after her youngest son, and when he’d gone, she had no reason to carry on.

  Bronwyn Randolph had seamlessly drifted from a dreamy daze into Alzheimer’s, and because Alcott House would take anyone who could pay the exorbitant fees, she’d stayed there. The money from the sale of the family home had been far less than Jasper hoped. His father had remortgaged to buy the best of everything for Ben. His suicide meant no insurance payment because he’d taken out the policy less than two years earlier.

  Jasper had managed another year at university before it became clear he couldn’t afford to continue. He didn’t want to give up his dream, but he had little choice but to leave university and take the job offer with the company run by his father’s brother. Four times the salary he’d expect for the first few years as a vet. Huge annual bonus he’d never get as a vet. All to make sure his mother had clean sheets on her bed every day and tea served in the middle of the afternoon with crusts cut off her cucumber sa
ndwiches.

  As if she’d fucking know.

  Jasper lifted the bouquet of flowers from the passenger seat and climbed out of his car. He hated coming here. He planned his time of departure before he even arrived.

  “Mr. Randolph, welcome,” said the woman on reception. “Come to see your mother?”

  No, I thought I’d come and sit by the bed of some random stranger. He might as well.

  “I’ll call and tell them you’re coming up.”

  She pressed a button, nodded for him to pass through the security doors, and he headed for the stairs. No smell of old age here. The place was like a five-star hotel. Except the guests never left. Well, only in boxes.

  Jasper never knew what he was going find. A mother who knew him. A mother who thought he was Ben. A bewildered stranger. A snarling witch. Ah, that’d be the mother who knew him.

  A nurse smiled at Jasper as she came out of his mother’s room. “Good evening, Mr. Randolph.”

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “Quite bright today. She’ll be pleased you’ve come.”

  That’ll be the day. When she was lucid, she railed at him for putting her in there and accused him of stealing her money when it was more like the opposite. Jasper pushed open the door. His mother sat in a recliner in front of a better TV than Jasper’s. She didn’t look up when he coughed. He moved so she could see him and she glared.

  “You’re in the way,” she snapped.

  “What are you watching?” He glanced at the TV. Football. Jasper almost laughed. As far as he knew, his mother had no interest in any sport.

  “It’s me,” he said and just in case added, “Jasper. I brought you roses.”

  He put the flowers on her lap and she smiled. “Ben, you spoil me.”