Saving Cowboy

by Leslie Garcia

  As Jody slid down, he impulsively brushed her cheek with his lips.

  “This isn’t the time,” she muttered.

  Behind them, Benton chuckled. “Any time’s the right time, eh, Cowboy? But I’m in a hurry. Go look at the horses you’re so hot to buy. Count ‘em. Then we’ll go get my money.”

  So much for protecting Jody. His hands knotted into fists and he was surprised he didn’t shake with the rage burning through him. But Jody was already halfway to the first pen, cell phone in hand, so he ignored Benton and followed her.

  She made a quick count, then turned to them. “You two count. We’ll see if it matches what I got. Then we’ll do the second pen.”

  She sounded all business, completely in control. But Joe noticed the tiny dots of perspiration forming on her forehead and above her lips.

  “Thirty-eight,” Joe said, pointing at the roan yearling nearest them.

  “Thirty-eight,” Benton agreed. “I hope you notice they got food and water.”

  “Where’s the buckskin weanling?” Jody asked him.

  Benton shrugged indifferently. “I buy horses that are going to die. Some of ‘em just don’t make it down to the slaughterhouse. The colt was sickly. That’s why he was in a kill lot, Colton.”

  Joe drew in his breath, wishing he could flatten Benton. Or hug Jody. From her expression of loss, she’d had plans for the little guy. Soon. Soon we’ll be through this. He willed Jody to understand his thought.

  Watching Jody march to the next sad head count, he remembered telling her he wouldn’t stay. That he didn’t know what he wanted.

  But what if he did? What if Jody was just what he wanted—and it turned out that he wasn’t what she needed at all?

  Chapter Ten

  Jody stared at Joe as they headed toward the bank. She wasn’t used to being driven around. She didn’t say anything, because Benton probably believed men should drive and women should sit idly by and paint their nails. She looked at her own unpolished nails, then back at Joe. Usually she was alone in her car. But Joe was good company.

  Memories of the night they’d spent together made her smile in spite of herself.

  Joe looked at her just then and her smile faded. Their first night together might have been their last. Better to focus on the problems ahead.

  “Left at the second light,” she said as they passed the city limit sign.

  A few minutes later, Jody’s account manager waved them into the office. She fidgeted. She’d been here a few times, but usually managed everything online.

  Efficient and pleasant, Ms. Ramos collected the paperwork she needed and returned quickly with thirty thousand dollars. She’d agreed to it and Joe had committed them to four times that amount, but Jody had to swallow a couple of times as she watched Benton count the bills.

  “You’re buying horses?” Ms. Ramos chatted while Benton counted a second time. Jody didn’t really want to talk, but coming here had been deliberate; she wanted others to know in case Benton tried to back out.

  “Sixty-three of them,” Jody told her.

  “Reckon that does it,” Benton said, standing. “I’ll look for the rest Friday morning, Roberts.” He ignored Ramos’s outstretched hand and walked away.

  “I’m sorry,” Jody apologized, “he—”

  “It’s not your fault, honey.” Ms. Ramos walked with them to the door. “But I bet those horses will be happier with you.”

  You have no idea. They shook hands with her and the bank officer smiled. “Jody, tell Eric hello for me, next time you see him.”

  “Sure,” Jody answered automatically.

  “We’re on our way to see him now,” Joe noted, and Jody glared.

  “Really?” Ms. Ramos sounded delighted. And nosy, as she prodded for more gossip. She looked from Jody to Joe and grinned ear to ear. “So, will we be hearing some kind of announcement soon?”

  “Maybe,” Joe answered.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Jody whispered as they left. “You know she thinks—she was checking my finger for an engagement ring!”

  “Gotta love small towns.” He looked around. “I guess.” Then he stretched and handed her the keys. “Faster if you drive, since you know the way.”

  Could the man read minds? Jody climbed into the cab without asking him. Better that he let her drive here than in Dallas. Sooner than she wanted, they were pulling up outside the sprawling ranch house where she’d grown up.

  “He’s in the office,” Jody told him, leading him down a hall. “I’ll be right back. He’s expecting us.”

  He nodded and stepped into the office, hoping Eric wasn’t armed and that Jody would come back. What exactly was he supposed to say?

  Eric got up to shake his hand and motioned to a chair. The man looked old, Joe thought. And as if he expected to be hammered with bad news.

  Jody came in and her stepfather merely nodded at her. No physical contact at all. How sad. It made him wonder how in the world he could take Jody home with him. His family would be on her like ticks.

  She sat down in the empty chair, inching it closer to him than to Eric’s desk.

  “How are you?” she asked formally, her hands clasped together.

  “Fine. I got your text, Jody.” Eric shook his head. “I didn’t understand the thing. You want me to turn over your mother’s part of the ranch now because of what? You know she didn’t want that used until the ranch was sold or you inherit it outright.”

  “But I need it now,” Jody argued. “You know if I could ask her, she would say yes.”

  “So what’s the deal with you and Jody, Joe?”

  Joe shrugged. “We’re trying to save some horses, including her horse—including Cowboy. But we’ve only got a few days and we need to put up some shelters and maybe separate some that need special attention. We just really need your help, Eric.”

  “That’s not what I was asking, though,” he said to Jody.

  She flinched. “We’re together. Not permanently. Neither of us wants that. But I won’t lie. Right now, we’re together.”

  He sighed. “You know how I feel about that—and how Katie would have felt. She tried to tell you.” He turned his attention back to Joe. “When I married her mom, it was hell. At the time, there was still oil on the ranch. Fracking wasn’t a thing. Everyone—all the gossips, workers on ranches, especially the press—knew I was marrying her for money. I wasn’t. We loved each other. But you’re going to hear that, too, you know. And there’s not even much money to speak of.”

  “I told you we’re not marrying!” Jody snapped.

  “But where do the two of you plan to stay? What are you going to do with a bunch of sick old horses?”

  “We don’t know yet. We’ve thought about setting up a non-profit foundation but all the rules and regulations…the horses have to be moved by Saturday at midnight, Eric.” Joe shrugged. “It’s a lot to ask.”

  “And we need to stay here. We wouldn’t ask you to look after a bunch of horses you didn’t want,” Jody added, her tone calmer. “We can stay in my room.”

  “You know I can’t say yes to that,” Eric protested. “Look, I’m downstairs. And I know there’s not much point in asking young ‘uns to live like we used to. I’ll help, Jody. But you have your room. He has the room next door. You can do any damn thing you want, but you have separate rooms.” He flushed. “Whether or not you use them.”

  Jody looked down at her knees, then up at the ceiling. Tears stung, but she managed to blink them away. She always had trouble defending positions when someone opposed them. She finally looked at Joe, who looked slightly embarrassed by the whole discussion.

  “Joe?”

  “Honestly? I think two rooms will work just fine, Jody.” He smiled, hoping she didn’t misunderstand. “We don’t know how crazy things could get. We might need the space.”

  “We can’t move in until the horses are here, anyway,” Jody noted, standing. “Can we fit all sixty-three in the home pasture, the corral and th
e barn?”

  Eric nodded. “Pasture’s big, and if we’re going to move some to the back pasture later, I’m sure it’s better than what they have now.”

  “Yeah,” Joe agreed, tersely. “And it won’t be a problem for your stock?”

  Erich shook his head. “Nah. The cattle won’t be bothered.”

  Jody stood. “We have to go to Dallas. We’re coming back—when, Joe? Thursday? Then we can come help check fences and bring in supplies. The horses will start coming in Friday. I hope.”

  “Might not be ‘til Saturday if Benton gets his way,” Joe muttered. “He’s betting we can’t pull this off.”

  “Have a safe trip,” Eric said stiffly, shaking Joe’s hand.

  “Thank you, Eric.” Jody took a step forward. For one crazy moment, the urge to hug him overwhelmed her. Just as quickly, she moved back. She hadn’t ever been able to hug him. If she did now, all he could do would be wonder why it had taken her sixteen years.

  ***

  “Now what?” Joe asked, as she drove back towards Calumnias. She hadn’t given him a choice, just gotten back in behind the wheel. He suspected she needed the distraction. Concentrating on the road and traffic should help her get over the encounter with her stepfather. If not, then probably after she met the fourth of his five siblings, she wouldn’t have the energy left to worry about anything. He smiled. Good thing Derek was in Europe at a medical conference. He was the outgoing brother. The others were just…Roberts.

  “What’s funny?” she asked, when he chuckled.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” he retorted, still grinning. “But you will. After Dallas, you will.”

  “Sounds threatening. Are we just going by my house, or—”

  “I have all my stuff in the truck. Old habits die hard. Anything else I need, we’ll pick up in Dallas.”

  “So just to the house?” she pressed.

  “Why don’t we stop at the next place and grab a bite? Then we’ll go pick up what you need.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t sound thrilled,” he noted, leaning his head against the door to watch her. “Did you have something else in mind?”

  She didn’t look at him. “Maybe,” she admitted.

  He laughed. “Almost straight home, then,” he agreed. “But let’s take something to eat anyway, so we don’t have to stop as soon. We may need to make up a lot of lost time.”

  ***

  Four hours later, Jody leaned back and closed her eyes as Joe merged onto I-35.

  “We should have a fairly smooth trip,” he predicted. “We’ll probably beat rush hour.” He pulled around an eighteen-wheeler. “Unless we stop anywhere.” He shot her a quick grin. “For anything.”

  “Not happening,” Jody murmured. “Does this thing have a radio?”

  He pushed a button and music flooded the cab. The wrong music. Jody blinked and turned toward the passenger window, but he’d seen her eyes well up.

  “It’s just a song,” he said gently, reaching to change songs.

  “I know. But I always cry when I hear “For the Good Times.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” he promised. But he hoped she didn’t believe in bad omens. Or know that sometimes he did.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jody clambered out of the truck when Joe pulled into a diner off the interstate to fuel up and eat. She glanced around, surprised at the number of passenger vehicles and big rigs there so early.

  “They’ve already got breakfast up and going,” he explained. “All my rodeo buddies stop here whenever they can.”

  “Breakfast?” Jody asked. “Really? At four in the morning?”

  He caught her hand and squeezed it. “Bet they have fried eggs,” he teased. “My new favorite.”

  She pulled her hand away. “Laugh now. But you’ll miss it someday.”

  Once again they wound up in a corner booth. The conversation droning around them isolated them, and after the waitress took their order, Jody sipped idly at her water. “How long did you know Lorraine before you knew you loved her?”

  The question slipped from thought into speech and she blushed furiously. “You don’t have to answer."

  “I don’t mind answering,” he assured her. “But we spent six hours on the road with hardly a word.”

  “You sang, though,” Jody reminded him, smiling a little at the memory.

  “Yeah.” He nodded at the waitress who brought their plates and waited until she’d gone to answer. “I thought I knew the day I met her. I spent the next twelve years trying to prove I hadn’t been wrong.”

  She was silent, remembering his seeming instant attraction to her. Attraction? She’d thrown herself at him.

  “My family never liked her,” he said, after eating most of his food. “My sisters especially hated her—thought she was a gold-digger. I hadn’t won a title yet, but I had some good rounds and had made some money. Even after I knew she’d cheated on me and filed for divorce, I pretended that something would change and we’d be together.”

  “Do you still love her?”

  “No.” The answer was immediate. “I don’t let go well, Jody. I guess it’s stubbornness. Or pride. My brothers would say stupidity. But I don’t love her. And sometimes I wonder if what I felt ever was love.”

  She poked her pancakes, but didn’t eat. She wasn’t surprised when he decided it was her turn. But when he asked if she’d ever married, admitting to her one mistake sickened her.

  “After I found out Cowboy was gone, I acted like a spoiled brat. And then Mom died during the second semester of my first year in college.” She felt her palms moisten in spite of the air conditioning. “Devin was a year ahead of me. He pretended he loved me, but apparently he’d heard I had oil money.” She tried to chuckle, but could only grimace. “We already had very little left from the leases, but he didn’t know. Told me he was okay with me being—reclusive. That he had always wanted to live on a ranch. That he loved me. My second semester, and one of the coolest guys on campus wanted to marry me.”

  She tried to drink more water but it stuck in her throat.

  “You don’t have to go on,” Joe told her quietly.

  “You probably know where it’s going. We’d set a wedding date. He offered to sign a pre-nuptial agreement because he said he didn’t want my parents to think he cared about my money. Of course I refused. I didn’t want to insult him. I trusted him. He went to meet Eric and Eric went off on us. I started skipping classes and not giving a damn about anything. Then one day I tried to pull myself together and ‘support’ him. He’d gone to a party he said mattered because of the people going. He begged me to come, then told me not to worry if I wouldn’t be comfortable. When I went there to surprise him, the surprise was on me. He was in bed with the girl he’d been with for a couple of years. People had been drinking and I heard an earful. Mostly about my stupidity.” She shrugged and swiped away a stray tear. “I’m not crying for him,” she said honestly. “Just because I was such an idiot.”

  She lifted a bite of pancake, then put it back and pushed her plate away. “That’s why I couldn’t pay Benton’s money myself,” she whispered. “Except for what my father left all those years ago and what Eric pays me for doing nothing, really, I don’t have money. It’s all tied up in trusts. After that fiasco, they thought I couldn’t look out for myself.”

  He looked pained for her. “Jody—”

  She didn’t want to talk. Just wanted Saturday to come, the horses to be safe, and then to figure out how she’d go on without Joe. He’d said he didn’t want another relationship and she understood. She’d only lost months, and any trust or respect her stepfather might have found for her after her mother’s death. He’d lost twelve years and someone he had loved.

  She stood and he sighed, but didn’t say anything else. When she came back from the restroom, he was waiting for her. The waitress thanked them and they walked out into the brightly lit parking lot.

  He opened the doors of the truck as they a
pproached, but put a hand on her shoulder as she started around the truck. “Jody, brace yourself for today, okay?”

  “I’ve heard the traffic is awful. I can handle traffic.”

  Joe shook his head. “The traffic’s nothing, sweetheart. My family? Hell on wheels. And that’s if they come at us one by one.”

  ***

  Jody sat in a secluded corner, grateful for the respite from traffic and people. She’d had an anxiety attack when Joe approached the Rogers Memorial Medical Center. Joe—rodeo Joe, her Joe—was related to a family of renowned doctors. Going on four days together, and he hadn’t mentioned that his oldest brother, Richard, was the renowned orthopedic surgeon who’d supervised his recovery.

  The potted plants here in the lobby were spectacular, and large enough to shield her from everyone. Grateful that she could breathe again and Joe was off on a mission to get Benton’s money without her presence, she pulled her phone out and checked her email. Three more students wanted help on doctoral dissertations. She regretfully refused to work on a paper for a student who needed it by the end of the week. She couldn’t commit to anything until after Sunday; they couldn’t let Cowboy and the other horses die.

  A woman clearing her throat loudly finally registered and she looked up. The tall, elegant woman in heels and a business suit made her feel grungy and out of place. “Yes?” Jody mumbled, knowing that, as usual, she was blushing without reason.

  “You’re Ms. Colton?”

  Jody wondered if she could lie and just walk out the door. She could lurk on the bench she’d seen out there until Joe came looking for her. She nodded. “Uh, yes.”

  The woman smiled, which really didn’t ease Jody’s discomfort, and held out a perfect hand with shimmery silver nails. “I’m Ari Trevor, Dr. Rogers’ secretary. Come with me, please.”