A Real Cowboy Never Says No

by Stephanie Rowe

  Perfection, in every way.

  Chapter 14

  The moment was heaven.

  Chase stretched out on the blanket he’d brought with him, the rough surface warm against his back. Mira lay against him, using his stomach as a pillow as she pointed out shapes in the clouds.

  He grinned contently as he played with her drying hair. He was valiantly trying to discern the animals she could see in the sky, but all he could see were floating balls of white fluff, constantly changing shapes.

  It wasn’t that he had no imagination. It was that all he could think about was the woman who’d spent the last hour leaping off the rock, doing more acrobatics than he could ever hope to do without breaking his neck, though he’d certainly tried. He’d crashed more times than not, completely schooled by her talent.

  But it had been hilarious.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so hard. Mira’s laughter had been infectious, each of them igniting more humor in the other, until finally, exhaustion had done them in. Well, not him, but he’d been carefully tracking her energy level, aware that her body was supporting two.

  The moment he saw her energy dip and her shoulders start to slump, he’d suggested a break, and she’d agreed right away.

  And now…what had been high-octane fun had morphed into quiet, peaceful intimacy that was equally perfect. She fit, he realized. She fit the ranch, she fit the horses, and she made him happier than he’d ever been.

  He reached down and placed his free hand on her belly. There was a slight swell now, but it was still, devoid of any telltale movement. “When can you feel it start to kick?”

  She went still, and he felt her stiffen slightly. “Around four to five months, I think. A while.”

  “I bet that’s wild.” He rubbed his thumb over her belly, almost unable to believe that a live human being was forming inside her body. He didn’t want her to feel threatened by his touch. He wanted to be the one to ease her stress, not magnify it. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?” He kept up the slow, deliberate caress on her belly.

  She relaxed slightly. “It is.”

  They were both silent for a moment, but it was no longer a tense silence.

  “Chase?”

  “Yeah.”

  She put her hand over his. “I think you’ll be a great father.”

  His hand stilled on her belly. “You do?”

  “I do.” This time, it was Mira who began a slow caress, tracing her fingers over the back of his hand. “Even if we don’t get married, I’m going to put you in my will as the baby’s guardian. I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have look out for it if something happens to me. Is that okay?”

  A ball seemed to lodge itself in Chase’s throat. “Yeah, sure. Of course it’s okay.”

  “Good.” A faint smile played at the corners of her mouth, a smile so sweet that he found himself wanting to lose himself in it.

  He grinned, untangling the ends of her hair. A lock fell free and floated over his chest, across a long scar from the horsewhip his father had found at the town dump one day. His smile faded, and that old, familiar fear clamped across his chest. As idyllic as this moment was, it didn’t hide the truth of her life, and of the demon chasing her and the baby. He knew suddenly that it didn’t matter what his brothers thought. Mira and her baby deserved to be protected, and he was all they had. He was their protector, end of story. He knew it, without any doubt whatsoever, whatever the repercussions were with his brothers. “Mira?”

  “Hmmm…” Her eyes fluttered closed, and he felt her head become heavier against his stomach as she began to doze off.

  “I think we should get married.”

  Her eyes snapped open, and she turned her head to look at him. “Why?”

  He shrugged. “It feels right.”

  She smiled slightly, and his heart seemed to stutter in his chest at her relaxed smile. “It’s felt right all along, hasn’t it? You think it’s all because of AJ?”

  He took time to consider her question, then finally he gave her the truth. “I don’t know how much of it is the last ten years, and how much of it has been the last few weeks. I don’t think I can divide it.” He lightly squeezed her belly. “I just know that I want to protect both of you.” His gaze flicked to his scarred forearm. “We can’t leave anything to chance.”

  She stared up at the sky, watching the clouds. “What has changed with your brothers?” she asked. “I can tell you meant it just now, when you said we should get married.”

  “Nothing has changed with them, but I’ve changed. I know it’s right, and if I know it’s right, they’ll come around. You saw Travis. He understood.”

  “He understood for a few months of free room and board. Not for the full nine months, let alone marriage.”

  “It was a start. We’ve all been knocked around by our father. They’ll get it.” He knew they would, because they had to. “There’s no way on this earth that I can do anything but commit every last resource I have to you and the baby.”

  He saw a tear trickle out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t look at him. “Do you love me, Chase?”

  “I’ve always loved you.” The words were automatic and natural, a truth that he’d lived with for over a decade.

  She turned her head to look at him again. “Not like that. Do you love me so desperately that you feel like you’ll never be whole again unless I’m by your side?”

  Fear clamped down on him, even though a part of him burned to say yes, to acknowledge that she’d described exactly what he felt like, putting into words that which he couldn’t articulate himself. But he didn’t. Because he knew he couldn’t. Instead, he shook his head. “I can’t do that. I can’t even let anyone that close, even if I want to.” But if he were capable of letting someone matter that much to him, it would be her.

  “I see.” She closed her eyes, putting distance between them, distance that made him want to shout in denial.

  Swearing, he caught her hand, drawing her attention back to him. “Don’t you understand, Mira? I know I can’t give you promises of soul-searing love, but I’m giving you every last thing I have to give. Whatever love I’m capable of, it’s yours. My money. My home. My family. My brothers will become yours. I’m offering you my circle of protection. It’s everything to me. It’s all I have to give, and it’s yours.”

  He knew it wasn’t enough, not for Mira the woman, but maybe, just maybe, it would be enough for her as a mother who needed to protect her child.

  Mira bit her lip. “Chase—”

  “Can you afford to say no? What if Alan comes for you? What if he finds you living in town, and your only safety is my name on the kid’s birth certificate? A name on a line isn’t going to be enough, Mira. Are you willing to risk it for the baby?” He knew he was being unfair, pushing her at her most vulnerable, but he didn’t know what else to do. All he knew was that he had to make her a part of his world. He knew that he alone wasn’t enough, but his protection might be. It had to be. “You know we get along. We have great sex. We fit okay, and the baby will be safe.”

  Gone was the hesitation that had plagued him at first. He knew, without a doubt, that Mira was the missing piece of his life, the very thing he’d been waiting for all these years. She made him laugh. She made his house feel like a home. She enriched the life he wanted to live.

  His brothers would get on board, one by one. She could be the anchor that held them all together in a way he could never do, because he couldn’t articulate or express the warmth that she could. “Marry me, Mira.”

  She didn’t answer, and he felt his soul freeze, hovering in terrified anticipation of what she might say. Had he pushed her too far to the edge? She had a job now, and was on her way to supporting herself. Soon, she wouldn’t need him, except to deal with Alan.

  She sat up, facing him, her blue eyes searching his face. “Chase—”

  The sudden roar of a motorcycle broke through the moment. They both turned to see a bike h
urtling across the plains toward them. It took Chase only a split second to realize it was Zane.

  Alarm ripped through him, and he lunged to his feet. What in the hell was his brother doing out there on his bike?

  Mira grabbed her jeans and yanked them on. “Who is it?”

  “My brother.” Chase jerked his own pants on, watching the dust spiral from Zane’s tires as he sped toward them. “He never comes out here. Something’s wrong.” Instinctively, he shaded his eyes to look toward his ranch, half-expecting billows of smoke to be filling the air, but the sky was blue.

  The relief that his ranch wasn’t on fire was fleeting, replaced by the gnawing realization that it had to be something else equally wrong. He jerked on his shirt and shoved his feet in his boots as Mira got dressed.

  The horses were dancing in agitation as Zane roared up. Chase suddenly recalled that he’d silenced a call from Zane just before they’d headed out to ride.

  He grabbed Mira, pulling her back as the back tire came to a stop inches from her bare toes. “What’s wrong?”

  Zane jerked his helmet off and dragged his forearm across his sweaty forehead, his face lined with absolute fury as he shot Mira a look so deadly that Chase stepped in front of her. “What’s going on?” Chase asked.

  His brother jerked his gaze off Mira. “Steen’s been stabbed. Some altercation in the prison yard. They think he’s going to die. We can’t get in to see him, because you’re the only one on his visitor list. I’ve been trying to reach you all fucking morning, and you’ve been out here with her while your own brother is dying? What the fuck, man? We have to go!”

  Chase felt the bottom drop out of his gut. “Son of a bitch.” Without hesitation, he swung his leg over the back of the bike as Zane gunned the engine. “Can you take the horses back?”

  Mira’s face was ashen. “Of course,” she said. “I’ll take care of everything. Go!”

  Chase just had time to shout his thanks over the roar of the engine, and then the bike was hurtling across the high desert, bouncing over ruts as they raced back toward the ranch in a race for the life of one of the few people in the world who mattered to him, who had been dying alone while he’d been swimming with a girl.

  ***

  Steen looked like he was already dead.

  Stunned by the state of his younger brother, Chase sank down next to the hospital bed. Despite his attempts to visit, Steen had refused to see him for over two years. His head was shaved, several new scars marked his skull, and his skin was ashen. Tubes were coming out of his arms, and his bare torso was wrapped in bandages. Around his wrist was a handcuff, locking him down to the bed like he was a fucking criminal who would rip off his tubes and start shooting up the hospital.

  Of anyone who he thought would wind up in prison, it wasn’t Steen. Son of a bitch. “Steen.” Chase leaned forward in his chair, whispering urgently. “You with me?”

  “He goes in and out of consciousness.” A nurse walked up, carrying a clipboard. Behind her, Chase could see the police officer on duty to guard his brother. “You must be Chase Stockton.”

  “Yeah, what’s going on?”

  She smiled. “Excellent. I’m so glad you’re here. Steen was asking for you when he first came in for surgery, before he lost consciousness. We tried to call at the time, so he could at least hear your voice, but we were unable to get through. We had to go ahead with the surgery. There was a lot of damage, and he’s already showing signs of infection. We’re doing what we can, but he has to want to live in order to fight through it. He has a long recovery ahead even with the right attitude.”

  Guilt shot through Chase. How long had Steen been lying here, dying, while he’d been screwing around with Mira? Shit. “When did this happen?”

  She looked at her chart. “He was stabbed just before six o’clock. He was in surgery by six thirty. We tried to call several times yesterday evening but we weren’t able to go through.”

  Chase ground his jaw. It had probably happened right after they’d left to go to dinner with Gary and Martha. He’d never checked the messages on his landline, which was the number that the prison had. Shit. “Can we get his other brothers in?” He thought of Zane and Travis, sitting out in the waiting room of the hospital, desperate for news, unable to come in because Steen had refused to name them on his list of approved visitors. They were still trying to reach the others, calling them in. Every Stockton they’d reached was on his way. The brothers were finally coming together, but it was for the wrong reason.

  “If it appears that he’s close to death, yes, they can come in. Right now, we’re waiting. You’re the only one who’s approved.” The nurse checked the machines. “We were hoping you could get here earlier. The first few hours are critical. It’s all about a will to live, and Steen, quite frankly, doesn’t have it. He awoke briefly, just long enough for us to remove the breathing tubes, but we haven’t been able to rouse him since.” Her voice was clinical and non-judgmental, simply educating him as to the current situation so he’d be prepared. “Talk to him. Hold his hand. Play songs that matter to him. It sometimes works.” She sighed. “Prison sucks the will out of many of the inmates. He may simply want to go, so be prepared.”

  Fear clenched Chase’s gut and he took his brother’s hand. “Steen, man. You can’t check out. You have less than five months left in that shithole, and then you’re coming home. You and me, bro, at the ranch, like old times, with the horses. Got a new young one that I’m saving for you. He’s had a tough life and won’t trust anyone. He needs you.” All the Stocktons were horse people, but Steen had a special touch that the rest of them didn’t have.

  Steen didn’t respond, not even a blink of his eyelids.

  “His name’s Superman. I figured he needed a badass name, because he’s got a long way to go. I can’t even get near him. Someone beat the hell out of him, and he’s still losing weight. He needs you, Steen.”

  There was still no response, and Chase bowed his head, fighting off the grief. He’d tried so fucking hard to hold his family together, and now, he was losing Steen, for good, for real, forever. “Come on, man. I got this big ranch, and I need help on it.” He swore under his breath. Steen, of any of his brothers, had suffered more at the hands of their stepmothers and their father. He’d wound up in prison because a woman he’d loved had betrayed him. There was no one who had less faith in women than Steen, and now he was dying because of it.

  Grimly, Chase realized that there was no way in hell Steen would come back to the ranch if Mira were there, no matter what the reason for her presence.

  If he even lived.

  ***

  Exhausted beyond words, Mira sank down on the couch in Chase’s living room, her muscles actually shaking with exhaustion. She’d fed all the horses, walked Spy and made sure he was still recovering, cleaned the stalls, and watered the horses.

  It had taken all day, and it was almost six now. There had been no word from Chase all day, and she hadn’t dared call him, not after the look of absolute horror on his face when he’d realized that Zane had been trying to reach him while he’d been with her. The accusation in Zane’s lethal stare had clearly stated what he thought about Chase being with her when their brother was dying.

  No room for her. No room at all.

  Mira rested her head against the back of the couch, staring at a photograph of a young Chase and two other teenage boys. They were wearing cowboy hats, and holding the reins of three scrappy looking ponies. Hoodlums in cowboy boots, she was sure. Was one of them Steen?

  God, she would never forget the depth of anguish in Chase’s eyes when Zane had told him that Steen was dying. His fear had plunged right into her heart. She knew that terror. She’d felt it the day she’d gotten the phone call that her parents had been in a car accident. The hospital had said the same words about her own father, that they didn’t think he’d live through the night.

  He hadn’t.

  She knew the shock of losing a loved one in an instant. She kne
w it too many times over.

  Again and again, she’d replayed their car accident in her mind, wondering if it would have been different if she hadn’t gone to college, if she’d stayed home, if she’d called her parents that night and made them three minutes later. No matter how many times she revisited the situation, she was never able to make the accident go away. It had taken time, but she’d eventually accepted that she couldn’t blame herself for it.

  But she’d seen the look on Chase’s face, the stricken horror at the realization that his brother had been dying, but he hadn’t answered his phone because he’d been with her.

  If Steen died, a part of Chase would always blame her. And if he didn’t die, Chase would realize that it had been a close call. There was no room for her and them in his life. After tonight, Chase would be sure to always put them first. Always.

  Tears filled her eyes as she looked around the room. She had become accustomed to the ranch, and it had started to feel like home. Some of her books were on the shelves, and her magazines were on the coffee table. Her sweatshirt was draped over the armchair, and a picture of her parents was on the mantle next to Chase’s pictures. The fridge now held her favorite kind of yogurt, organic milk, and flaxseed meal for her oatmeal, and there was now fabric softener in the laundry room.

  At some point, this ranch had become home, and Chase was a part of it. She hadn’t even been aware of it, until now, until she was facing a future without it. She’d assumed she had time to find her way. She’d rested comfortably on the knowledge that Chase would fight for her and the baby, that she didn’t need to commit to him because he would wait for her.

  But now that opportunity was gone. She’d hesitated, and the window had closed. After spending the night helping Chase save Spy’s life, and then playing at the swimming hole, she’d realized that she wanted to be with him, that she wanted to find a way to make it work. Yes, she knew he was damaged and bruised when it came to relationships, but there was such beauty in his soul and in their connection, that she’d realized she had to be brave enough to try.