And then something hit her foot.
A skateboard?
Across the top was written in big letters of magic marker, “I LOVE YOU. PLEASE FORGIVE ME.”
Chay.
K.C. looked around. She glanced to her right, and then to her left. Her heart beat like a stopwatch as people came and went. She sat slightly forward to search around. Outside, planes took off and planes landed. And then, two hands came around from behind and covered her eyes.
She knew those hands, those rough, calloused hands. They had caressed her many times, hugged her hello, embraced her in love, and cuddled her in friendship. They had pleasured her and run down the lines of her body, stroked her breasts, held her face for a kiss, untangled her hair and yanked her ponytail. She had watched them hold reins, curry a horse, tap his Stetson, and swing a lariat. And she had seen him use them to wash dishes, fix his father’s oxygen, clean his home, and drive his truck.
Those were hands she knew as well as her own. She reached up and covered them, then gently drew them from her eyes as Chay’s upside-down face leaned over to plant a kiss. He slipped his hands free and came around to the front of her chair, kneeling in front of her, the pale green of his eyes questioning. But the only answer he got was two tears making parallel tracks down the curves of her face.
“Hello, Gorgeous.”
* * *
Thank you for reading Bad Boy, Big Heart by award-winning author Andrea Downing. If you’d like to read more of Andrea’s books, you can find them here on Amazon and on her website.
About the Author
A native New Yorker, Andrea Downing currently divides her time between the canyons of city streets and the wide-open spaces of Wyoming. Her background in publishing and English Language teaching has transferred into fiction writing, and her love of horses, ranches, rodeo, and just about anything else western, is reflected in her award-winning historical and contemporary western romances. You can find Andrea here:
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And you may be interested to find out what happened to K.C. and Chay in New York! City Boy, Country Heart is now available as part of the A Cowboy to Keep anthology, available at Amazon. Here’s a little taste of what’s to come…
CHAPTER ONE
He was riding.
The blue of the Wyoming sky is so pure, unlike any other, the blue of clear water, the blue of lakes you want to sink into, lose yourself in, and the blue of K.C.’s eyes right before I make love to her. And the air of the Tetons is so clean, invigorating, fresh, energizing; it fills my lungs and makes me able to do anything, ready for the day, able to face whatever comes my way.
He shook awake.
The stench hit him.
As the subway car rattled through the menacing tunnels, Chay Ridgway tried to stop himself from either heaving or dozing off again at this ungodly, late-night hour. He kept a close eye on the drunk laid out across from him, a whiff of urine emanating from the man’s filthy clothes. He had no idea whether the stinking creature might rise and attack him. At least that’s what he sensed might happen. K.C. had assured him it was unlikely; drunks slept in the subway, that was all.
Not that he was frightened. He just, pure and simple, could not get used to this environment: the closed carriages, being underground, the smell of dirty hot iron, garbage, and rats. At least if you met a skunk out on the road in the wide open spaces of Wyoming, it was in clean air. Not here. Everything closed in on him. It felt as if he were on a different planet.
For all he knew, the drunk might be dead and he was sitting opposite a rotting corpse. The few other passengers ignored the body. Weary from long days, they glared bleary-eyed at phones or dozed over newspapers, kept their glances averted some other way, any way. But Chay’s curiosity still won out. He studied people, he took in his surroundings. A mix of inquisitiveness and uncertainty—was he safe? He never felt like this at home. Doors left unlocked, a life where everyone knew everyone who lived nearby, dropped in, looked out for you as his elderly friend Breezy was doing now. This world he had entered in moving to New York was as an apocalypse, some dystopian vision of hell. What had he done?
Just what the hell had he done?
* * *
K.C. Daniels heard the key turn in the lock. She smiled at the attempt to tiptoe across the living room, and watched the door handle to their bedroom turn with careful determination.
“You know I’m awake,” she whispered.
As Chay sidled into the room, tapping the door closed with slow deliberation, she could gauge his mood by the set of his mouth. Tonight his lips turned down in a slight frown, and she caught the brief slide of his gaze over to her, and back to the door. He stood for a moment waiting to hear if their housemate, Daphne Baker, would charge out of her room as she often did with a complaint.
All quiet.
Chay waited, leaned back against the door, opened his mouth to speak and then jumped at the scream:
“You did it again, Ridgway! You woke me up! This has to stop!” Daphne’s voice was shrill, a piercing siren, and K.C. knew that what had to stop was Daphne’s tyranny. Either that or they had to move. The soft thud of a pillow hitting the wall preceded the flap, flap, flap of Daphne’s slippers before she swung open her door.
Chay stood statue still, his head bent to listen.
A moment passed, and the door slammed shut followed by more flapping as her mules slapped wood.
K.C. caught Chay’s look and grimaced, listened as his breath came out in a huff of fatigue, then smiled up at him as he approached the bed and sat down. He didn’t have to speak; she knew what he was thinking and didn’t want to hear it again.
He leaned in to brush her lips with his, pulled back to look at her and ran his thumb along her chin line before his hand drifted to her shoulder and slid her nightdress strap down.
“Chay.”
“Ummmm.”
“Chay.”
“That’s my name, want my number?”
“Chay.” K.C. kept the pitch of her voice moderated and tapped his forehead with her own. “It’s late. I have classes in the morning.”
“Uh-hmmmm.”
“And you smell of garlic and tomato sauce.”
“From one of the best chefs in town.” When she didn’t reply, he added, “I’ll go wash.” He stood up and looked down at her, gave her a smile that was more questioning than affirmation, and which didn’t reach his eyes, and he headed to the bathroom, yanking off one boot after the other as he went.
Smiling to herself that he still wore his cowboy boots in New York City, K.C. watched as his belt hit the floor, followed in some haste by the jeans meant to sit a horse, and the shirt that had covered the pronounced muscles of a man who worked cattle. The muscles were still there but K.C. wondered if they’d soon disappear, though she supposed not with the time he spent in the gym, running, and on his skateboard.
A sense of responsibility hit her and she flipped her book shut, shoved it on the night table and stretched to dim the light. He had given up so much to be here with her, to let her complete her American History M.A. course as she wished. And there was no going back for him at the moment: the folks from the next ranch—the Bantries—had leased his north pasture, the house was being fixed up, and Breezy was seeing to paying guests with a long term tenant possible for the winter. And, yes, K.C. was responsible for all of it, answerable for his happiness, accountable to him.
Now available at Amazon.
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Bad Boy, Big Heart (Heart of the Boy Book 1) Page 10