Courting the Cowboy

by Liz Isaacson

  “We let Dwayne and the other boys handle it,” he said. “Remember how you thought you’d be okay in that sports car of yours?”

  She looked at him with wide eyes and then started laughing. “I remember.” She sobered and watched as Dwayne yelled and sent Tiger running north, out toward the open range on the ranch. “At least out there, he can’t hurt anyone.”

  “Right,” Kurt agreed. “And Dwayne will be okay too. He’s done this lots of times.”

  “I wish he’d get rid of that bull.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.” Kurt chuckled. “I’m gonna go saddle up.”

  “Wait,” Felicity said. “Did you talk to May about your grandmother’s ring?”

  “Yeah.” Kurt sighed. “She seemed interested. Honestly, I think I scare her. She needs, I don’t know. I don’t know what she needs.”

  “She likes you,” Felicity said. “Remember that.”

  He grunted and got out of there, talking about his love life with his boss’s wife almost as awkward as doing it with Dwayne. As he threw a blanket and a saddle on Minnie, he realized that the reasons he wasn’t scared was because he was ready.

  Ready to move to the next level. Ready to be a husband again. Ready to fall all the way in love and not be embarrassed about it.

  Please let May get to this point too, he prayed as he finished and swung himself into the saddle. Quickly, if possible.

  After all, Kurt wasn’t getting any younger.

  By the time he returned to his cabin, the lasagna was stone cold. The house was empty. His phone had told him two hours ago that May needed to get back to town, back to the restaurant, and could she borrow his truck?

  He’d said yes, of course, and now he just needed a ride over to Sotheby’s to pick up his vehicle.

  He slouched onto the couch, every muscle in his body begging him for a hot shower and a long nap. He could go get his truck tomorrow, so he texted May that she should drive it back to her house and he’d get it later. He put the lasagna back in the oven, and then he stepped into that hot shower.

  When he got out, Dwayne had texted to say that he and Shane still wanted to meet about splitting the foreman duties, so Kurt toweled his hair dry while the two men entered his cabin.

  “You guys look terrible,” he said.

  “Some of us haven’t had time to shower yet,” Dwayne said darkly.

  “Lasagna’s almost hot again,” he said.

  “Thank the stars.” Shane sat heavily at the bar.

  “You sure we want to do this now?” Kurt asked. “There’s plenty of time to talk.”

  “No, let’s do it.” Dwayne got up and collected the folder he’d brought over earlier from the coffee table. “Kurt would like the majority of evenings off,” he started. “Which should work out okay, because you’re a night owl.” He looked at Shane, who hadn’t so much as moved since sitting. “Right?”

  “Right,” he confirmed. “Nights are fine for me.” He spoke in a monotone, and Kurt put his hand on Dwayne’s folder.

  “Shane,” he said. “How’s Austin?”

  “Broken ribs,” Shane said. “Four or five. I don’t know.” His jaw twitched and tightened, and he looked seconds away from going nuclear.

  Dwayne closed his folder. “Why aren’t you at the hospital with him?”

  “Dylan wanted to go. I needed to be here.” He wouldn’t look away from the refrigerator.

  “Nonsense. I’ll drive you in.” He slid the folder to Kurt, who took it and stuffed it in the first drawer he could get open.

  “Dwayne, I’m fine.” Shane finally tore his eyes from the handle on the fridge and looked at Dwayne.

  The two men seemed locked in a silent battle, and Kurt watched Shane the most. He did have some anger in him, and Kurt was worried about his mental health as well as nervous that Dwayne could find himself on the receiving end of Shane’s anger.

  “Why are you so mad?” Dwayne asked in a whisper.

  “I have no money to pay for broken bones,” Shane said, his fury falling, leaving behind only despair.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Dwayne said. “He was injured on the ranch. The ranch has insurance.”

  A tear slipped down Shane’s cheek, and he swiped it away as quickly as it had appeared. “I don’t want to call my mother and tell her Austin’s been injured.”

  Dwayne looked at Kurt. “Well, I can call her.”

  “I’ll do it,” Kurt said too.

  “No.” Shane shook his head, his attention singular on the refrigerator again. “I don’t need your help.”

  Dwayne extended his hand toward the cowboy. “Shane, let us—”

  “No.” He stood in an explosion of movement, and Dwayne jerked his hand back. Kurt fell back a step too. “My family is very private. It’s none of your business.” He stomped toward the front door, pausing long enough to say, “I’ll drive myself over if I can borrow a ranch truck.” He didn’t turn back to look at either man.

  “Of course,” Dwayne said, and Shane nodded once and disappeared. Kurt met Dwayne’s eyes, and he saw the same emotion mirrored there that he felt pouring through him. Compassion and concern.

  “Do you have his mother’s number?” Kurt asked.

  “Even if I did, I’m not going to call her,” he said. “No need to enrage that bull further.”

  “I’m surprised he wanted to meet.” Kurt got down two plates and shoveled huge helpings of lasagna onto them.

  “Me too. But he showed up on my doorstep and demanded we come over here.”

  “We’ll stop by the hospital in the morning,” he said. “I need to go get my truck, and you can drive me.”

  Dwayne scooped up a big bite of food. “Deal.” He chewed and swallowed. “So you and May? You’re okay?”

  Kurt groaned and put another bite of noodles and cheese into his mouth to buy himself some time to answer. “I don’t want to talk about it any more today. Ask Felicity.”

  “You told my wife?”

  “Yeah. Now get on back to her so I can go to bed.” Kurt added a chuckle, but he didn’t finish his food after Dwayne left. Instead, he really did flop into bed and fall asleep only moments later.

  Chapter Fifteen

  May drove Kurt’s truck to the hospital the next morning, as he was planning to be there with Dwayne to visit the cowboy that had been injured on the ranch yesterday. She could barely control the vehicle, but she’d managed to drive it to the restaurant and home, and now back to the hospital.

  She found Kurt in a waiting room on the second floor, right where he said he’d be. “Hey, there,” she said, sidling up to where he waited in a blue plastic chair. The scent of really clean things and really unclean things mixed together into a smell that uniquely belonged to the medical industry.

  “May.” He stood and gathered her into his arms. “It’s so great to see you.”

  “You guys aren’t working this morning?”

  “Dwayne’s shuffled a few things around,” he said, releasing her and stepping back. “But Shane’s not gonna be able to take over right away. It was his brother that got hurt.”

  “Oh, no.” May glanced toward the coded door that led to the patient rooms. “Are you going to go back?”

  “I’ve already been back.” He threaded his fingers through hers. “Let’s go to breakfast or something. We didn’t get to talk much yesterday.”

  “Breakfast sounds great,” she said, though her stomach cramped at the thought of eating anything. “I called Pastor Gray, and he said we can make a reservation for the outdoor stations starting next Monday.”

  “Oh, great.” Kurt squeezed her fingers. “Thanks for doin’ that.” He sounded tired, but he looked as handsome and refreshed as ever. They’d taken two steps toward the elevator when a man said, “Kurt, I need you.”

  He turned back toward Dwayne, his shoulders falling. “Right now?”

  “It’s important.”

  Kurt looked at May, an apologetic look in his eye. “I’m sorry, May. Ra
incheck on breakfast?”

  “Of course. You go on.” She tipped up on her toes and gave him a quick kiss. “I’ll walk over to Sotheby’s. It’s not far. I’ll call you later?” She released his hand and fell back a step, then two, waiting for him to confirm.

  “Yeah, call me later.” He turned and walked toward Dwayne, his cowboy hat ticked down and his bootsteps sounding somber. May went downstairs and out the front doors, into the warm sunshine of spring.

  She didn’t immediately turn toward Sotheby’s, but went toward Main Street, hoping for the chance to get a maple peach bear claw from the bakery. And with any luck, Lena would’ve made her cinnamon swirl bread that morning and there’d be some left.

  She entered the vibrant atmosphere of the bakery, which smelled and felt like warm cider. She hugged herself and drew in a deep breath of this place she’d been coming to since she was a child.

  “May, how are you?”

  She glanced over to find Ally standing there, two to-go cups of coffee in her hand and a brown paper bread bag tucked under her arm.

  “Ally.” She smiled and drew Ally into an awkward hug, what with her bakery items and all.

  “You want to get some coffee and talk?” Ally looked at her with sympathy and questions in her eyes.

  May shook her head. “You’re obviously headed out.”

  “This is for Mike.” Ally lifted one of the to-go cups higher, the one obviously for her husband. “He can wait. It’s no big deal.”

  “Let me go through the line, then.” May grinned at her and moved forward to place her order. Once she had her bear claw, and her cinnamon swirl bread, and her dark roast, she slid into the seat across from Ally.

  “Ahh.” She lifted the warm liquid to her lips. “I think their coffee is better than ours. Don’t tell anyone, though.” She smiled as Ally giggled.

  “How are things with you and Kurt?”

  “Just great,” May said, ripping off a piece of her bear claw.

  “So you haven’t told him you’re a few short months away from becoming the Sotheby.”

  “If I get married,” she said. “He doesn’t need that kind of pressure. Although….”

  Ally almost slopped her coffee out of her to-go cup, which would’ve been something. “Although, what?”

  “We did talk about getting married, and where we’d live. Or at least, he wanted to. We keep getting interrupted.”

  Ally’s green eyes sparkled. ‘Well, that’s perfect, May. So you don’t need to worry about scaring him away with the serious talk.”

  No, May had never thought Kurt would be one to get scared away. For all her trying, all her dating, all her praying that the Lord would bring the right man into her life, it was May who was getting scared.

  “What if…I don’t know. What if I didn’t want the restaurant? Or what if I did, but I didn’t want a man to go with it?” She wasn’t even sure what she was saying.

  Which made things hard when Ally asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know.” May sighed and picked off another piece of her breakfast, a corner with a particularly large bit of frosting. “It just feels dumb to have to get married in order to take over the restaurant. I mean, I know why my parents want that, but what if I don’t want a family?”

  Ally reached across the table and put her hand on May’s. “You’ve always wanted a family.” She shook her head, her eyes concerned. “I don’t know where this is coming from. Or where it’s going.”

  “I don’t either.” May shook her head too. “I just feel…like maybe everything has been too easy, and someone’s going to pop out of the wall or something and say, ‘Just kidding! You can’t have Kurt and the restaurant.’”

  Ally gave her a wry look. “Which is ironic, because you can’t have the restaurant without Kurt.”

  “But I can have Kurt without the restaurant.” And maybe that was what she wanted. Maybe she’d rather stay home and bake instead of pull up to the restaurant at the crack of dawn to do it.

  “You love the restaurant,” Ally said. “You have since you were little.”

  And that was true too. “Do you think he’ll care that I joined TexasFaithful to meet someone fast, because I have this deadline?”

  “I don’t see why he would.”

  “Maybe he’ll think I’m just using him.” And May couldn’t stand the thought of that.

  “You like him, right?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Then you’re not using him.” Her phone went off, and Ally swiped it open to read the message. “Oh, it’s Mike. I have to go. See you this afternoon.” She stood and May did too, pecking her on both cheeks before watching her walk out.

  She sat at the table a while longer, eating half of her bear claw as she thought about Kurt, and his grandmother’s ring, and what it would be like to live in the same house—or cabin—with him and run the most successful restaurant in town.

  Could she even have both?

  Her parents did, but they ran the restaurant together. Kurt cooked, sure, but he was a cowboy through and through. Would he quit that to help her with the business? Should she even ask him to?

  In the end, she left the bakery without any answers, but with a very satisfied stomach. After all, Lena made the best pastries in town—besides May’s, of course.

  It was Sunday before May saw Kurt in the flesh again. She squealed as she skipped down her front steps. He leaned against the front of his truck, a wide smile on his face. He was seriously the sexiest man alive, and May giggled as he swept her into his arms.

  “Well, hello to you too,” he said.

  “Sorry it’s been such a crazy week.” He set her on her feet, and she held onto his shoulders and beamed up at him. She touched her mouth to his, the spark and heat of the touch needed. She’d thought about him constantly this week, and they’d spent a lot of time texting. But texting simply wasn’t the same as kissing. Or smelling his intoxicating cologne. Or feeling the warmth of his palms against her back.

  She’d spent extra hours at the restaurant this week, learning things from her father. She’d taken notes on the specials they ran, the seasonal items he’d kept records of, and marveled at the fact that he’d changed the menu six times in her lifetime. Six times, and she hadn’t really known why.

  “To stay relevant,” he said. “We want people to come back for the classics, May. Our chicken fried steak always stays on the menu. So does the steak. But we put new things on and take old ones off all the time. You’ll want to make the menu yours once you take over.”

  He spoke as if he had full confidence May would be able to make a husband out of Kurt. And if not Kurt, someone else.

  But as Kurt kissed her, May realized she didn’t want anyone else. She pulled away, her earlier euphoria fading. “I need to talk to you about something,” she said.

  He backed up and looked down at her. “All right.”

  She gathered her courage close and took both of his hands in hers. “I joined TexasFaithful because I needed to find someone fast.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Everyone has their own reasons, I guess.”

  “Why did you join?” she asked.

  “It’s not easy to meet people out on the ranch,” he said. “Not a lot of available women, and I only get into town for church. And that’s only sometimes.”

  She nodded and nodded, finally telling herself to stop. “Well, I joined because my parents told me they wouldn’t pass the restaurant to me if I didn’t get married.”

  Kurt squeezed her fingers. “Really?”

  “And I’d been out with a lot of men, and no one was even close to a fit.” She blinked at him, two words pulsing against the back of her throat. “Until you.”

  Soft lines appeared around his eyes as he smiled. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. “They gave me until this summer to have a serious prospect for marriage, or Daddy would consider Juan Carlos to pass the restaurant to.”

  Kurt let several secon
ds of silence pass, and May appreciated that he thought before he spoke. “May, you want the restaurant, right?”

  She nodded, tears gathering behind her eyes for some stupid reason. “Yes.”

  “And we’ve already talked about diamond rings and stuff.”

  “Not a whole lot of the ‘stuff’,” she said. “And I’m worried that I’ll be so busy with the restaurant that there won’t be time for you. Time for us. Time for a family.” May drew in a deep breath and tried to steady herself with the extra oxygen. “And I’m running out of time for all of those things.”

  Kurt folded her into his arms, tucking her right against his chest. “May, it’s never been me or the restaurant.”

  “No, I know.” She gripped the back of his shirt in both fists. “But Kurt, it is.” She held him so tight, so tight her fingers ached. She backed out of his embrace until she bumped into the truck. “It is, Kurt. With a restaurant, it’s always that or something else.” She’d never realized it before, not until that moment.

  “It was the restaurant or football games in my teens. The restaurant or dating in my twenties. I thought I could be happy with just the restaurant in my thirties, but I haven’t been.” She drew in a deep breath, the eyes with which she saw with now open and seeing things in a whole new way.

  “There will be times where it will be the restaurant or you. Or the restaurant or our children. It never sleeps. It never gets sick. It’s always there, and someone always needs to be there.” Her lungs shuddered, and she forced herself to slow down. “And once I take over, that someone will be me.” She drew herself up tall, as tall and straight as she could make herself as she stood in four-inch heels on the dirt. “And you should know that right now, before you show me your grandmother’s ring. You should know, so that if any of what I just said isn’t okay with you, you can walk away now.”

  May prayed with every energy of her heart that he wouldn’t walk away now. Seconds passed that felt like hours. He finally said, “May, I have nowhere else I want to go, and no one else I want to be with.”