My One and Only Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  She wasn’t sure how long she was in the shower, but when Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You,” the song she couldn’t listen to without the ASPCA commercial playing in her head, piped through her smartphone’s speaker, she decided enough was enough.

  She turned off the water and stepped onto the rug with renewed purpose—well, as much renewed purpose as she could when she was soaking wet, naked, and heartbroken. But when she was dry and it was morning and Millie was chugging along, she’d be one step closer to getting her life back on track once more.

  She turned off the music, then wrapped one towel around her head and another around her body. When she threw open the door, she gasped to find Scout sitting outside it, waiting for her.

  For a few seconds her traitorous heart leapt as she remembered her request that next time Sam sneaked into her room, he wouldn’t sneak back out. But nothing he had to say mattered, not when it couldn’t erase what she’d overheard outside his apartment door.

  But when she looked past Scout to scan the rest of the room, her hope quickly turned to dread. Because there was Wade Harper, his long body stretched down the length of her bed, his hands behind his head where it rested on the headboard. He was the perfect picture of nonchalance despite the cat on the nightstand who let loose a low, guttural growl.

  “Evening, sunshine. You know, you really should make sure your door is all the way shut before you make yourself vulnerable to intruders.” He winked. “It’s a good thing I showed up when I did.”

  “How did you even know I was here?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “Far as I know, you don’t know anyone in LA, and I know how much you hate big cities. Figured if you went missing right around the time that Meadow Valley became interesting to me again that you might have figured out a thing or two.” He patted the bed next to him. “Come on sweetheart. Have a seat. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sam would take it all back if he could. He’d reacted out of fear, and now he’d have to live with hurting Delaney when that was the one thing he wanted to avoid. At least he wouldn’t be backhanding her across the face in twenty to thirty years.

  Maybe he should have waited, let the dust settle after what transpired at Pearl’s. But Sam was in love with Delaney. His own mother left before they even knew Nolan was sick. If Sam’s test results ended up being positive, how could he ask Delaney to sign up for that life now that she’d seen how bad it could get?

  He shook his head as he trudged toward the guest cabin. He and Delaney were better off cutting their losses while there was only a week of their lives to lose. He’d explain. Apologize. Smooth things over the best he could. Then he’d pray for time to heal what he’d broken in both of them.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket—a text from Delaney asking him to pick Scout up at the front desk.

  She wasn’t going to make it easy for him, not that he deserved easy.

  He paced for a good twenty minutes outside the guest quarters, maybe longer, trying to figure out what the heck to say. Being scared to hurt her was one thing. Knowing what to do now that he had was downright terrifying.

  Another text came through.

  Can Scout stay here with me and Butch for the night? I need some time to think, and she’s good company.

  I’ll bring her by in the morning on my way into town.

  Sam let out a long breath.

  Scout had grown attached to Delaney in a matter of days. They’d both fallen in love. And Butch Catsidy? It took him only a second. That was why all of this was so damned hard. But he could give her this, especially if it meant they’d get a chance to clear the air in the morning.

  He texted her back.

  Sure. And Delaney…I never wanted to hurt you.

  He waited for a reply, watching with his heart in his throat as those three dots indicated she was crafting a response, one he hoped she’d send.

  But one never came.

  He trudged back to his place and through the front door, where he kicked off his boots. Then he headed straight to the bathroom, removing articles of clothing on the way, not caring where they fell, until he was wearing nothing but his boxer briefs—a sort of reverse surprise for Delaney that she’d never see—standing in front of his bathroom mirror, toothbrush raised and ready to begin.

  He stared at the dark circles under his eyes, and those weren’t even counting the mottled purple bruising where she’d surprised him with an unexpected right hook.

  You sure are one hell of a mess, Callahan.

  Yet the rest of the week following his time in the ring with Delaney Harper had felt anything but messy. They’d felt light, even normal, if ever his life could have a sense of normalcy.

  He brushed his teeth and tried to ignore the growing ache in his chest, then crawled into bed without Scout and without the woman he’d wanted in his bed tonight.

  Sleep on it. That was what he had to do. And somehow he’d figure out how to make things right before Delaney left Meadow Valley, possibly for good.

  He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sleeping when he bolted upright, his brow beaded with sweat.

  Something felt off. Sam wasn’t a guy who believed in hunches, but right now he had a hunch that something wasn’t right.

  He unplugged his phone and glanced at the time on the lock screen. It was almost four in the morning. His hunch told him he needed to see Delaney. Now.

  So he scrambled to find a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and found his boots where he’d left them at the door.

  He’d just knock on her door and make sure everything was all right. She’d think he was crazy, but at least he’d know this feeling in his gut was probably something left over from a dream. Or maybe it was his subconscious telling him he needed to see her one more time, that waiting until morning wasn’t going to work for him.

  He used his master key to enter the building. Jessie was dozing at the front desk but startled awake as soon as he burst through the door.

  “Sam!” she yelped. “Is everything okay?”

  “Delaney,” he said. “Have you seen her? Is she okay?”

  Jessie looked at him, puzzled. “She and Scout went for a walk with her visitor hours ago. I’m sure she’s in her room asleep by now.”

  Though if Jessie herself had been sleeping, she couldn’t be sure.

  “Wait,” Sam said, her words finally registering. “Her visitor?”

  Jessie smiled and nodded. “Said it was an old friend. Tall guy, lanky, about her age.”

  Wade.

  Sam thanked Jessie and headed straight for the stairs and the second floor. When he reached her room, he paused for a brief moment before muttering, “Screw it,” and pounding on the door.

  “Delaney?” he called. “It’s Sam. I need to talk to you. It’s kind of an emergency. I know you’re pissed at me, but if you don’t open the door, I’ll have to use my key.”

  Silence. And the worst was that he wasn’t surprised she didn’t answer or when his stomach sank, confirming his feeling of dread.

  He slipped his key in the card reader and threw open the door, sure he’d find an empty room. Instead he found Butch yawning and stretching on a bed pillow, the bed itself still neatly made. No Delaney. No Scout. But her phone was on the nightstand and her bag was on the floor.

  He’d never rifled through a woman’s purse before but guessed this was a worthy enough occasion.

  “Damn it,” he said when he found her EpiPen inside. She promised she’d never leave the room without it again. So where the heck were she and Scout an hour before dawn?

  “Okay,” Delaney finally said when she, Scout, and Wade walked past the same tree with the white flowers—again. At least, in the beam of Wade’s flashlight, it looked like the same tree. Oh no. What if there were two trees that looked exactly the same?

  She groaned. “I’m ready to admit we’re lost. Are you ready to call for help?”

  As soon as she’d found him in her room, she w
anted him anywhere but. Not that she expected Sam to come banging on her door—although she may have wished it—but if he did, she didn’t want him finding her in the room with another man, let alone Wade Harper. So she’d suggested a walk and had ended up on the trail she thought she knew.

  Spoiler alert: She didn’t know it.

  They’d been walking and talking for hours. Sometimes she’d yelled and he winced. Other times she’d cried, and he winced some more. She’d let him have it—everything she’d been holding in since the day she left him in the ER and never looked back.

  “Sunshine,” he finally said, and all three of them came to a stop. “While I am enjoying listening to your laundry list of ways I’ve done you wrong, we’re not lost. You are.”

  She stopped and stared at him the best she could with no illumination other than his flashlight.

  “What do you mean I am? You’re with me, aren’t you? Unless you’ve been letting me walk in circles since who knows when, we’re in this thing together, much as I hate to admit it.”

  He shone the light under his chin so his face was fully lit, then tapped his index finger on his nose.

  “No,” she said, teeth gritted and blood running cold. “It was my idea to go outside. My idea to take Scout for a walk.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and went over the events of the evening, from Sam breaking her heart to Wade—for all intents and purposes—breaking into her room.

  She’d come out of the shower, shooed him out of the room while she got dressed, and then sat with him for a spell on a bench outside the guest quarters’ main entrance, where she’d proceeded to unleash her fury—until Scout needed to pee.

  “Why don’t we take that sweet girl for a walk? Can’t imagine she likes being cooped up in that one little room now, does she?” Wade had suggested.

  “Son of a gun,” she said, coming back to the moment. “This was why you came?” She started backing away from him, and Scout began to growl, like she knew as well as Delaney did that something was up. “To get me lost in the woods?”

  Wade took a step closer, and Delaney swung at him with an uppercut, only grazing his chin.

  He held up his hands and chuckled. “I’m not going to hurt you, sunshine. But good to know you’d be a worthy adversary.” Then he had the audacity to bow. “I have always had a way with you, though. Happy to see I haven’t lost my touch.”

  Her fists opened and closed at her sides. How had she let him manipulate her again? “Let me guess. After selling our land without my legal permission, you still need money.”

  “I don’t need money,” he protested. “Okay, I might need money, but you hit the nail on the head, sweetheart. I may have tiptoed around the law.”

  She scoffed and crossed her arms. The late-night/early morning autumn chill struck her right down to the bone, and her teeth started chattering.

  “Th-that’s an understatement. So what? You’re worried about paying a fine? Wh-why don’t you just pay me, and the law won’t be an issue?”

  He shook his head. “See, that’s the thing. I don’t have the money to pay you, and if you get your hands on that deed, I’m down for forgery, filing the forgery…Did you know that could get me up to three years?”

  Her throat grew tight. “I don’t understand. If you’re not going to hurt me, then what are we doing out here?”

  Wade smiled, and her stomach churned. “According to the state of California, the statute of limitations on contesting a quitclaim deed is five years. I figured if you were here—which you are—then you caught me.” He held his hands up in mock surrender. “Guilty. But I also know you have a soft spot for my sweet side, so I figured once we spent some quality time together, you’d see that I had no choice and just lay off the whole deed thing.”

  “Quality time? Is that your spin on it?” she asked. Then she glanced around their surroundings, realizing how lost she truly felt. But maybe Wade wasn’t lost at all. “Did you—” Delaney’s breath caught in her throat. “Did you kidnap me? What’s your plan, Wade? Tie me up for three years so you can run out the clock? Because I’m all out of soft spots for you.”

  “Actually, you came willingly,” he reminded her.

  Her stomach sank. “So you’re going to keep us lost in the woods until I agree not to contest the deed?” No matter what she did, Wade was somehow a step ahead of her. Even if she made it to the courthouse once the festival was done, she’d bet what little was left of her savings that Wade would find a way to intervene. And Sam—God, if she’d never come here, she never would have met him or fallen for him or gotten her heart steamrolled just when she thought it was her turn for a happily ever after.

  “Come on, Scout,” she said, patting her side. “We’re going to find our way out of here. I’ll make sure Jessie gets you back to Sam, and then Butch and I…”

  They’d leave. It wasn’t like Sam was running after her and saying he loved her and made a mistake.

  Scout perked up and started pacing, ready for the adventure ahead.

  “You forgetting something, sunshine?” He nodded at the flashlight in his hand. “Where are you going to go without this?”

  At some point the sky had melted from black to gray, which meant she could see clearly. It also meant she might figure out the trail. Other than Scout, she had nothing and no one else to get her out of this situation.

  “I can see just fine, thank you very much. So unless you’re going to call us a middle-of-the-woods Uber or something, I’m going to find my way back to the ranch.”

  Wade shrugged. “My Uber rating stinks. And I think we’re far enough off the beaten path that you’ll just keep circling your way back to me.” He winked at her. “You always do. And soon you’ll see that you don’t really want me to do time for this. We’ll come to an agreement, and then—”

  Nope. No more. Enough was enough.

  “Come on, Scout,” she said, interrupting what would be his last attempt to charm her. “Let’s go for a walk, girl.”

  It was getting lighter every few minutes, which made it easier to navigate her path. They were on the path to the swimming hole. She remembered it now. They’d just gotten turned around—several times.

  She also remembered the wasp sting Sam took for her that first day she came to town. He hadn’t even known her, and yet he’d sacrificed his own personal safety for hers. That was something, right? It hadn’t all been pretend.

  She stepped lightly over rocks and twigs, squinting at each tree to try to make out nests hidden in the nooks where branch met trunk. But when Scout ran ahead of her, Delaney ran too. And while nests in trees were easy enough to avoid, she wasn’t thinking about a possible nest on the ground, one that might have been knocked down by a rodent or a bird.

  At first, when she stepped on it, she thought it was some sort of hollow rock. But then her eyes registered movement on the ground around her foot. It was nearly dawn, which meant she could see the black and yellow stripes just in time for the first stinger to embed itself in the skin above her ankle.

  Wade probably thought he was the luckiest man in the world—getting lost in the woods with the only person who had the power to make him answer for all he’d done. Looked like he no longer had to sweet-talk her into backing off after all.

  Chapter Twenty

  After a late bonfire, Ben and Colt stayed on the property in a couple of empty guest rooms. After all, they had plenty. Their rooms were directly across the hall from each other, so Sam pounded on one and then the other, realizing he was likely to wake guests along with his brother and friend.

  Not surprisingly, Colt answered his door first, but Sam was confused to find him alert and dressed in a T-shirt and sweats, no sign that the man had just rolled out of bed.

  “What are you doing up?” Sam asked, forgetting for a second why he was there.

  Colt shrugged. “Meditating. Always do it right before the sun comes up. Centers me into my day.”

  “Okay, that was not the answer I was expecting.�
� Sam shook his head. “I need your help. Ben’s too. Where is he?” He pounded on his brother’s door again, this time more frantic.

  “Open up, Ben! This is an emergency!” he called through the slab of wood separating them.

  Other doors in the hall creaked open, and Sam waved them off. “Sorry, folks. Just a, uh, family situation. Go back to sleep. Breakfast isn’t for another few hours.”

  The awakened guests rubbed their eyes and happily turned back toward their rooms.

  He pounded on his brother’s door some more. “Come on, Ben! If you don’t get your ass out here—”

  The door flew open to reveal Ben Callahan, his dark hair standing on end, not awake enough to even open his eyes, and 100 percent naked.

  Colt gave his friend the slow clap. “And the winner for morning wood is…”

  “Cover yourself up!” Sam snapped. “You’re in the guest house, not your damned living room.”

  Ben blinked his bleary eyes open, and they widened as soon as he took note of his surroundings.

  He laughed and held up a finger, signaling for the other two to wait, then reached behind the door. He came back holding what was very clearly a pair of women’s panties over his exposed erection.

  “I don’t have time to ask if you’ve got Charlotte in there, and to be honest, I’d rather not know.”

  “It’s Charlotte!” a woman’s voice yelled from inside Ben’s room. “Tell my gran I’m a grown-up and can have sex with whoever I want!” Her tone was playful, singsongy. But Sam had zero time for playful.

  “I just hung up with Pearl a few minutes ago. Asked her what she knows about Wade Harper and how dangerous he is. And she said—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Callahan,” Colt said. “Slow down a minute. Wade Harper? Does he know she’s here for the property?”

  Sam’s jaw was tight. His hands balled into fists, but that wasn’t going to do him any good now. “He’s here. At least, I think he is. I know Delaney tried contacting him before heading to Meadow Valley. Now I can’t find her. Or Scout. And Jessie mentioned some guy visiting Delaney in her room. Something’s not right.”