“So you were just a kid? It must have turned your world upside down.”
“Pretty much. Jed had to leave agricultural college, come home and hold us all together. And Jesse kind of went off the rails for a while.”
“What did you do?”
He frowned, his gaze on the ceiling. “Kept to myself, mostly. Couldn’t play my guitar, ‘coz Dad gave it to me.” He glanced at her. “Not my favorite year.”
“Hell, no. I can’t even imagine.” The words felt utterly inadequate.
“In the end, having to keep this place going saved us,” Casey said. “At first we just needed to pay the mortgage, put food on the table. Then it became more about preserving their legacy. They bought this land, built the house, developed the herd. They lived in this trailer for over a year when they first started out, if you can believe it.”
“For real?” Eva looked around the small space, trying to imagine sharing it with another person day in, day out. “They were either very happily married, or incredibly tolerant.”
“Bit of both, I think,” he said with a smile, his eyelids drifting shut.
Eva watched his face soften as he drifted into a light sleep. She closed her own eyes, enjoying the lassitude in her body. But instead of falling asleep, her mind started sifting through the events of the evening, anxiously parsing the meeting with the McGregors and the woman from the Chamber of Commerce, trying to assure herself she’d done everything humanly possible to advocate for herself. Inevitably her thoughts moved on to the fight with Dane at the saloon, and she felt a prickle of embarrassment, along with a wash of anger and hurt as she remembered what he’d said to her, the coldness and disdain in his eyes.
It was hard to believe that things had gotten so ugly between them. She’d spent five years with him. They’d had amazing adventures together—but it had all been on his terms. She could see that clearly now, and as soon as she’d started to advocate for herself, to ask for something that might progress her career and ambitions, he had become angry, resentful, and finally, openly selfish.
And now she could add nasty to the list.
She had to take a deep, steadying breath as she remembered the way he’d essentially called her a whore in front of the whole bar. She might have made a spectacle of herself, throwing water in his face and following it up with the basket of pretzels, but she was glad it was rage she’d felt, and not hurt.
Not then, anyway.
Now… Now she felt weary and sad and stupid that she’d wasted five years on a man whose first move when he felt threatened was to try to humiliate her using the oldest, most obvious weapon at hand—her virtue, or lack thereof.
Do you really want to do this now?
No, she did not. Tonight might have started badly, but it had ended with a big, happy bang, and she was going to hang on to the memory of Casey Carmody worshiping her body when she hit the road tomorrow. It was going to be the highlight of her trip, the silver lining, and she wasn’t going to taint or dilute the experience by lying in bed next to him brooding over her ex. It was wasted energy.
She deliberately refocused her thoughts, thinking instead about what Casey had told her about the ranch and his siblings, about the ranch helping save his family after his parents had died. There had been gravel in his voice when he talked about preserving their legacy.
It was a noble calling, and she tried to imagine what it must be like to have such a strong sense of connection to the land and a way of life.
Life. Love. Legacy.
The words drifted across her mind as sleep rose up to take her.
Then suddenly the idea was there, clear and crisp and undeniable.
“That’s it,” she said, sitting up with sudden urgency. “Oh my God, that’s it.”
“What?” Casey murmured.
“The grain elevator. I just worked out what the theme should be,” Eva said, scrambling out of bed to find her sketchpad and pencils.
She pulled it out of her backpack with urgent hands and climbed back onto the bed. Legs crossed, she dragged the corner of the quilt around her shoulders and flipped to a fresh page in the pad.
Then, her brain racing, she started to sketch.
*
Casey lay with his arms cradling his head, still pleasantly drowsy after some of the best sex of his life. He could hear the scritch-scratch of a pencil on paper and guessed Eva was busily sketching something, trying to capture an idea before it evaporated. He’d done the same with song lyrics, and he waited for her to finish and rejoin him under the covers. He knew for a fact that there was one condom left in her toiletries kit and once he recovered enough he had definite plans to use it.
In the meantime, he closed his eyes and listened to Eva draw or take notes or whatever it was she was doing. After a few minutes, she still wasn’t done and he opened his eyes and saw how engrossed she was.
Huh.
He shifted in the bed, making a big deal out of adjusting the quilt. Eva didn’t so much as glance up.
Okay.
Clearly, she was very absorbed in her work. Lucky he wasn’t the sort of guy who was insulted easily.
He glanced toward her toiletry bag, but his hopes for round three were rapidly dwindling. He gave it another ten minutes, then Eva flipped to a fresh page in her sketchbook and started on a new sketch.
“I can go, if you prefer,” he offered. Better to ask what she wanted rather than assume anything.
Eva barely looked up. “Oh. Um, sure. If you want. Up to you.”
And then her head was back down, her pencil moving over the page.
Casey raised his eyebrows. His reaction was wasted on her, however, because she was utterly focused on her work. He sat up and threw back the covers. Shifting to the edge of the mattress, he stood and reached for his jeans. Eva continued to sketch, and he glanced across at what she was drawing.
It was a woman’s face, weary and careworn, her gaze focused on something in the distance. Eva had used powerful pencil strokes and delicate cross-hatching to create shadow, and even though it was only a bare-bones portrait, quickly rendered, he was struck by the emotion in the woman’s eyes. He didn’t know much about art, but even he could tell Eva was good at what she did.
She muttered something under her breath and flipped the page, immediately starting to sketch in the outline of a new portrait.
He realized he was standing there, naked, jeans in hand, and gave himself a mental shake. He stepped into his jeans, yanking them up, then found his T-shirt on the counter, on top of her computer. He shoved one boot on, then the other. He paused after he’d pocketed his keys and phone, wondering if it was even worth interrupting her. She must have sensed his diffidence because she looked up, her expression distracted.
“Thanks for tonight. I had a good time.”
“Me, too,” he said.
She smiled, but he could see her mind was still in her work.
“What time you heading off tomorrow?” he asked.
“Not sure yet,” she said.
“Well…okay,” he said, unsure if he should say goodbye or if he’d maybe catch her tomorrow.
“Sleep tight,” she said, and then her gaze dropped to her sketchpad and she was drawing again, sucked into some world only she could see.
Bemused and maybe a little offended, Casey let himself out of the trailer. The warmth of the day was well and truly gone now and his stride was long as he made his way up to the house, entering via the kitchen door.
Sierra looked up from where she was making herself a hot chocolate, her expression surprised.
“Hey. Didn’t hear your truck come in,” she said.
Casey hesitated, unsure what to say in response to his sister’s casual comment. Sierra’s eyebrows rose in silent query as she registered his weirdness.
“I was, um, talking to Eva,” he said. “We ran into each other in town. Got talking.”
“Okay,” Sierra said, her tone telling him she suspected there was more to the story than he was offe
ring.
“Got those plant stakes you wanted from the hardware store,” he said. “They’re in the back of my truck, I’ll grab them for you in the morning.”
He headed for the door, eager for the privacy of his bedroom.
“Wait. Hang on. You can’t just walk out. We were having a conversation,” Sierra called after him.
Interrogation, more like. He’d seen the look in his sister’s eye, and he knew he’d been dumb enough to give her ammunition when he hesitated before responding to what was, in hindsight, a perfectly innocent comment.
Realistically, bailing on Sierra now only meant a delay—his sister would be sure to pursue him tomorrow because she was nosy as hell when it came to her brothers’ romantic lives—but right now that seemed like a good trade-off.
He took care of his teeth, then shut his bedroom door and stripped for bed. Stretched out under the covers, he tried to analyze his own feelings.
He felt…dismissed. There was no other word for it.
Kind of dumb, when he considered what he and Eva were to each other. She was going home to LA tomorrow. Neither of them had any claim on the other. And it wasn’t as though she’d kicked him out—he’d volunteered to leave, mostly out of stupid pride because she’d moved on so quickly from what had been a pretty damn notable event for him.
But maybe she had great sex like that all the time. Maybe the sense of affinity he’d felt with her was entirely one-sided.
Jesus, can you hear yourself?
He could, and it was pissing him off. As he’d already established, she was going home tomorrow. Him lying in his bed brooding over how he felt and what she’d said or not said was bullshit.
They’d had their one night. It was over, before it had even started. And there was nothing he could do or say that was going to change that.
*
Eva sketched until her hand cramped and her neck ached. Taking a break, she registered three things all at once: she was cold, her bladder was full, and it was very late. Unfolding her cramped legs, she stood and stretched, then quickly leafed through the sketches she’d made. Some of them were good, a lot were so-so, but a couple were great.
Were they enough to swing the decision in her direction? She had no idea—but she had to try.
She’d been so close to giving up, just getting in Bertha and driving away. But she knew now that she couldn’t leave Marietta without sharing her new ideas with the committee somehow. She couldn’t leave anything on the table, otherwise she would always wonder what might have happened if she’d only pushed a little harder.
But right now, she really needed to go to the bathroom. Hustling to the other end of the trailer, she took care of business, then stood in the tiny bathroom staring absently at her reflection as she brushed her teeth.
She felt simultaneously wired and tired, her body exhausted by her epic session with Casey, her mind busy with ideas and plans.
The way she saw it, she had two options tomorrow—she could try to get an audience with Jane, who was apparently in the middle of some kind of work crisis, or she could hunt the McGregors down and pitch to them.
It was a fairly easy decision to make—it may have only been an illusion, but she’d felt as though Heath and Andie McGregor had been more sympathetic to her cause. Probably she was misreading pity and politeness for something else, but what the hell.
Conveniently, she happened to know where she had a good chance of finding the McGregors tomorrow morning, since their housing development was adjacent to the grain elevator. She would get up early, take the best of her sketches, and go make her Hail Mary pitch. And if that didn’t move the needle, then she’d get in her van and start the long drive home.
Which meant she really needed to go to bed now, because despite the hope fizzing through her veins, the odds were good she’d be on the road tomorrow.
Turning off the light in the bathroom, she walked the short distance to the bed and clambered onto the mattress. The pillow still held the impression of Casey’s head, and when she lay down she detected the faint scent of his deodorant.
Now that the urge to give life to her ideas had faded a little, she remembered the way he’d left and winced. If the shoe were on the other foot, and he’d left the bed to go deal with business while she was still enjoying the afterglow, she was pretty sure she’d be a little ticked off, to say the least.
Damn it. She’d been an asshole, and he’d been so sweet and lovely tonight, intervening in the bar, escorting her to dinner, and then helping her enjoy two world-class orgasms.
She’d apologize to him tomorrow, explain her urgency to him. Hopefully he’d understand. It would be sucky indeed if he was left with the impression she was an ungrateful, selfish sex maniac. She didn’t want him to think badly of her, not when she would be taking home such awesome memories of him.
*
Between anxiety over ambushing the McGregors and guilt over Casey, it took her a while to fall asleep, but she finally dropped off, waking with a start when the alarm she’d set on her phone sounded. The first thing she did was scramble to the edge of the bed to review the sketches she’d made last night.
She hadn’t been in the grip of a post-sex fever dream—they were good. She closed her eyes and sent a little prayer out into the universe before tearing out the three sketches that best captured her vision. Then she hit the shower. Twenty minutes later, she was out the door, sketchbook under her arm. It was still dark out, dawn only just turning the horizon peachy-pink. There was condensation on her windshield, and the steering wheel was cool beneath her hands as she started the van and did a three-point turn to head down the driveway.
Mindful of Casey’s warning about deer, she went a little slower than she might have usually. Dawn arrived just as she was pulling off the highway onto the side road that led past the grain elevator, and she was relieved to see several pickups and SUVs parked near the portable site office when she turned into the first street of the development.
She took a moment to steady her nerves, flipping down the visor to make sure she wasn’t sporting eye booger. She looked fine, which meant she had no more excuses. She pushed the door open, grabbed her sketchpad, and strode toward the site office.
The metal stair treads clanged beneath her Chuck Taylors as she climbed, and she knocked briskly on the closed door. She couldn’t hear anyone inside, and she was starting to think she’d beaten the McGregors to work when the door opened to reveal Andie.
“Eva,” she said, surprised. Then she laughed. “That’s so weird—we were just talking about you.”
“I won’t take up too much of your time, I promise, but I had what I guess you could call an epiphany last night, and even though I know the committee might have already made a decision, I didn’t want to leave without telling you about it,” she said, her words coming out a little too fast and loud.
“Okay. Sure. Come in,” Andie said, standing back and gesturing for Eva to enter.
The small space featured a desk at the far end, a bookshelf, and a bar fridge, which doubled as a table for a coffee maker. Heath was filling a mug as Eva entered, and he turned and offered it to her with a small smile.
“Figured you might not have had one of these yet,” he said.
“I haven’t, thanks,” Eva said, wrapping her clammy fingers around the warm mug.
“Sit, please,” Andie said, indicating a battered guest chair.
Eva sank into the seat, then leaned forward and set her coffee on the desk.
“I know you’re busy. I just wanted to show you these. Last night, I was talking to Casey Carmody, and he said something that got me thinking about families, community, and legacy. And I realized that the triptych shouldn’t just be about Marietta now, it should be about Marietta before, and Marietta after, too.”
Andie and Heath were frowning, and Eva could tell she was making a hash of conveying her vision. She pulled out the three images she’d chosen from last night’s work and set them side by side on the desk, h
oping they’d speak for themselves.
The first sketch was a woman, her hair pulled back in a no-nonsense bun, her stern face weathered by the elements. She wore a simple, old fashioned dress, and one hand shaded her eyes as she kept watch over her land. Next was a depiction of a modern-day cowboy on horseback, his gaze aimed straight down the barrel as he stood ready to take on the world. And the last sketch featured two children, a boy and girl, each in jeans and plaid shirts and miniature cowboy hats, their faces turned up toward the sun, laughter and hope in their faces.
“Past, present, future,” Eva said simply.
It had felt so right, so fitting last night, and she held her breath, waiting for Andie and Heath’s reaction.
“I love it,” Andie said. Then she shot Heath a slightly sheepish look. “I know I probably shouldn’t say that, given the situation, but it’s a great idea, and I love these sketches.”
Heath was studying the pictures, and he glanced at Eva assessingly.
“The reason Andie and I were just talking about you is because we were going to call you first thing,” he said.
Eva had been so focused on what she needed to say and do, Andie’s words had barely registered when she first arrived. Now Heath had brought them to her attention, however, they seemed loaded with portent.
“Right.” She reached forward to grab her coffee, needing something solid to wrap her hands around.
“We talked with Jane last night, and we were all on the same page—we can’t decide.”
“Oh,” Eva said. Then it hit her what he meant—that she was still in with a chance—and she sat up straighter.
“So what we decided was that we’d like to see a more detailed proposal from both contenders,” Andie said.
“More detail. Sure, I can do that,” Eva said, trying to stop herself from grinning like a demented person.
Contrary to what she’d thought, they’d taken her proposal seriously. She still had a chance of winning the commission.
This could actually happen.
The Rebel and the Cowboy (The Carmody Brothers Book 2) Page 7