Cowgirl Education: a Camden Ranch Novel

by Jillian Neal

  He sighed contentedly as she continued to touch and explore him.

  “Can I ask you something?” she spoke softly, not wanting to disturb the air surrounding their afterglow. She was warm, naked by his side, and freshly bathed, inside and out just like he’d promised.

  “Anything.”

  “Why did you only ink your left side?”

  “You’re the psych student. You tell me.”

  “It’s either because you feel like you’re constantly at odds with yourself or you’re constantly at odds with addiction.”

  “So bloody smart with a killer ass. How did I get so damn lucky?” He brushed a kiss in her hair. “But being at odds with my addictive nature is being at odds with myself, sweetheart. No matter how hard I try I can’t separate myself from my demons.”

  Holly nodded against him. She hated that he always had to fight so hard. She wanted nothing more than to wage the war on his behalf, but she had no idea how to do that.

  -------

  “Shit!”

  Holly groaned as she heard Dec’s curse and felt the mattress quake the next morning. “What’s wrong?” She blinked rapidly as she sat up and watched him throw on his t-shirt and jeans.

  “It’s ten ‘til eight, love. Get up. Or maybe you don’t have to get up yet. I don’t know. But I’m supposed to be on the other side of town in ten minutes. I sleep when you’re in my arms. Haven’t slept in years.” He planted a quick kiss on her open mouth. “Stay with me tonight.”

  “Promise,” she managed. Her first class wasn’t until 11:00 so she was trying to process all of this. Her only coherent thought as she heard her front door slam shut was that she needed coffee, or maybe a few more hours of sleep. Yeah, sleep. She collapsed back in the bed.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Dec sprinted through the doors of Lifespan un-showered and wearing the suit he’d worn Friday. The term fuck it replaced the lyrics that usually resided in his head on constant repeat. He planned to go back home and shower at lunch instead of running. Being with Holly last night made him sure he could get through the day without the physical exertion.

  Nearly colliding with Sherry from accounting, he leapt over a file box to avoid a pile-up.

  “Oh, goodness, Dr. St. James, there you are. Dr. Gibbons and a few members of the board are waiting in your office.”

  “What?!” Panic rose like a tidal wave in his gut. His vision swam. No. No. NO. No. No. This could not be happening. Not now. “I’m only twenty minutes late. My first appointment isn’t until 9:00.”

  Sherry’s brow knitted. “Well, you’re not being fired, Dr. St. James. I believe you’re just being reassigned.”

  “What?” Reassigned. What the bloody hell did that mean? Was there some kind of satellite office he was unaware of? Oh God, what if it was out of state? Holly. No. Just no. He wasn’t moving out of Lincoln.

  “I’ve working on reassigning all of your patients.”

  Dec bit back a long string of expletives, not wanting to horrify Sherry. Instead he turned and marched to his doom. Choices weren’t something afforded ex-pats with addiction records. Without this job, he couldn’t stay in the country. Unless he could talk his way out of this ridiculous re-assignment he was on the first flight back to London, back to the past that had nearly eaten him alive, back to face his father with another failure tucked firmly under his belt, back to that damned graveyard, back to every mistake he’d ever made, and a culture that wanted him to drink them all away.

  Fury and defeat ricocheted throughout his body. Why did the universe hate him? Why couldn’t he just have one good thing without it being taken away from him?

  “You’re late, Dr. St. James,” Dr. Chad Corrington, resident asshole and Dr. Gibbons’ favorite golfing buddy, sighed as Dec managed his way to his desk.

  “Sorry,” and, “Traffic,” were the only two words Dec could force from his lips as he studied the four men standing uninvited in his office.

  “It’s fine.” Dr. Gibbons shot him a glare that said it wasn’t fine but that he wasn’t going to call him out in front of half of the board. It was such an oddly humane gesture, the tension in Dec’s gut intensified with every passing second. “Got a call late last night from Rich Newsome from UN-L. This all works out well, really, even under the unfortunate circumstances.”

  “What unfortunate circumstances? What are you talking about?” Dec demanded.

  A contract landed on top of his desk and his stomach landed somewhere near the vicinity of his feet.

  Holly grinned as she answered her cell phone while stirring cream in her second mug of coffee. “Hey, Beth. You want to grab breakfast before class?”

  “Sure, I’ll meet you at Bread and Cup, but did you hear?”

  “I’m going to go with no since I have no idea what you’re talking about. I went back home this weekend.”

  “Dr. Benders died yesterday.”

  “What?” Holly almost dropped her mug. “Are you serious? Oh my gosh, okay, I should not be excited about him dying, but this is so, so good for the department.”

  “I agree. We will only be internally excited because he was four-hundred and ninety-seven years old and still did not believe in the existence of the clitoris, but we will be outwardly saddened even though he died in bed with his wife’s sister beside an open bottle of little blue pills.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait.” A horrifying thought dampened the news. “He was teaching our Foundations of Human Sexuality research class. They don’t offer it again until next Fall. That delays us graduating an entire year.”

  “No. Already checked. Class hasn’t been cancelled. They got someone to cover it, I guess.”

  “What about all of his undergrad classes?”

  “No idea, but we might actually learn something this year. I’m so excited.”

  “Inwardly.”

  “Right. Now, get to campus so we can drop by Dr. Newsome’s office and remind him of how awesome we are before class. Word is he’s announcing who he’s going to supervise before Christmas.”

  Twenty minutes later, Holly and Beth settled in their favorite booth at Bread and Cup. It had decent breakfasts and good coffee and they could both afford it on their stipends, which made it the perfect before-class eating locale.

  Beth studied Holly closely as she downed a long sip of coffee. “Why, Miss Camden, I do believe you have been fucked recently.” She giggled while she pointed to the fading marks on Holly’s neck.

  “They’re not that noticeable.” Holly fixed the scarf she was wearing tighter around her neck.

  “No, they’re not, but I noticed them, so tell me who the lucky guy is.”

  “He’s amazing.”

  “Amazing like he wears a cape or amazing in bed?”

  “Haven’t seen him in a cape, but trust me, he could rock most anything. He’s a psychologist at Lifespan, but I’m not advertising that we’re getting pretty damn serious since I really want to intern there next year.”

  “If you get the internship, I vow to forever tell everyone that you slept your way to the top.”

  “I feel certain you will.” Holly and Beth both dissolved in a fit of laughter.

  “No, but seriously, I don’t want Treavor ‘the asswipe’ Singleton to have anything to say about my degree or how I got it.”

  “Agreed. You know I’d never tell anyone. I’m excited for you. I know it sounds silly, but you look in love.”

  “It’s not silly. I am in love. It’s complicated though.”

  “Aren’t all the good things? We need a girl’s night so I can hear more about your out-of-cape superhero.”

  “Beth, he’s unlike any other guy I have ever been around. Dec is serious and smart and so damn sexy. Perfect mix of bad boy with a heart of gold. He makes idiots like Singleton look like a toddler.”

  Beth’s eyes goggled and she shook her head frantically.

 
; “What?” Holly spun in the booth to see Dr. Singleton Sr. taking one of the tables nearby. Crap. She was going to have to learn to keep her mouth shut.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “No. I’m sorry, sir, I simply cannot accept a position at the University. My patients need me,” Dec continued to insist, though it was getting him nowhere.

  “Need we remind you, Dr. St. James, that your work visa is tied to this practice? Teaching hours count towards your supervised professional experience hours required to be fully licensed to practice here in the States. This is the perfect opportunity. You were a guest scholar at several of the fancier universities in London. This shouldn’t be difficult. We’ll be paying your salary still, and Dr. Newsome from UN-L has added in a very nice bonus for you serving as a visiting professor for the year.” Gibbons wasn’t backing down.

  Summoning herculean restraint, Dec refused the words he so desperately wanted to pierce Gibbons' sweaty visage. You’re doing this because you don’t want me here, and you don’t want me here because I make you look like the piece of shit you really are.

  “What about my ongoing patients?”

  “That is a legitimate concern, Gibbons.” Corrigan seemed to have located some fragment of his soul in the last half-hour. “How about this, as long as you can work it around the class schedule they’ve assigned you can see any patients you have time to see.”

  “At the University. Not here,” Gibbons decreed.

  Mother fucking jizz-trumpet.

  Every argument he’d tried had been denied. This wasn’t going away. Dec flipped through the standard visiting scholar contract on his desk until his eyes landed on the words Ethics Codes and Violations Agreement. His breath seized in his lungs. Bile lodged in his throat. He somehow wished he was surprised, but he wasn’t. Nothing good ever remained in his life. He never deserved for it to. He was nothing more than an addict with a record and two deaths that would forever dam his soul.

  He read the line: Visiting Professors and Scholars shall not fraternize, keep company with, or have any romantic involvement with an enrolled student while student is in their class. Hope sprang anew from the depths of his despair. There was a chance, a slim chance, but a chance none the less that Holly wouldn’t be one of his students. Maybe he’d wouldn’t even see her on campus. He knew he didn’t deserve the prayer he silently offered. Just please, let me have her. I’ll never ask for anything else. I never really have. He’d never even asked for help with his addictions, but he knew he had no hope of existing without her. His conquering angel. His saving grace. All he’d ever needed when every other quest had been nothing more than a want, no matter how badly he’d fucked that up.

  He read the rest of the clause. ‘If any inappropriate relationship develops with a current student and is reported, the University of Nebraska has the right to expulse professor, file a formal complaint within the American University System and the visiting professor’s home institution, and seek arrest if any laws in the state of Nebraska have been broken. They also hold the right to withdraw student, deny stipend payments, scholarships, or any other financial aid, and withhold all funding to either professor or student.’

  Deep breaths. The lyrics to Holly’s song played in his head. I want to dance in your light

  Affect the chemistry of my longest night Vanquish the darkness in the heat of your sun

  Let your touch give me sight. As long as she wasn’t in any of his classes, he could survive. He could do this. He’d taught before. He hadn’t even sucked at it. It was only a year, and it guaranteed his visa for longer than that. Who knew what he and Holly would look like in a year? Taunting images of her in a white gown stabbed through him.

  Ridiculous. She deserves someone so much better. You’ll always be a user, and when this blows up in your face too, you’ll go right back to the lines.

  No. Not this time. He refused the craving for the tenth time that morning alone. He had to remember he could never exist in years. He only survived moment to moment, and as he’d discovered recently, he only survived if those moments contained her.

  He accepted the Cross pen Corrigan thrust in his face. As he signed the contract, he swore the weight of the pen was heavier than the weight of Evie’s gravestone. God, he hated pens. Their permanence. Their heartless cruelty. Their inability to be undone.

  He would not ruin Holly’s life. He’d rather end it all right now than do anything that might keep her from everything she deserved. With the strike of the ruthless instrument, he made one more prayer that he wouldn’t even see her on campus. Somehow, he knew he would never be that lucky.

  “Did you hear about the visiting professor?” Beth slid into the desk beside Holly in the lecture hall where their two o’clock Modern Foundations of Human Sexuality was being held. They sat fourth row, center just like every other class.

  “Beth, how the hell do you hear everything?”

  Beth’s cheeks pinked as she shrugged. “I have really good hearing and I grew up in the middle of nowhere where absolutely nothing ever happened. I got very adept at listening to my grandma and mom talk on the phone. I’m an expert eavesdropper, basically, but I swear I only use my powers for good.”

  Holly shook her head. “I promise not to hold it against you.”

  “Thanks. There’s a reason you’re my friend. Anyway, the new professor is apparently ripped, tattooed, and completely freaking gorgeous. Also, he’s British.”

  A sinking feeling weighted Holly to the ancient cushioned seat though she couldn’t fathom why. “That does not at all sound like the kind of professors UN generally hires.”

  “I know. That’s why this is so exciting. I ate lunch over at Union and the two girls sitting behind me were calling him Professor Sex.”

  “I can honestly say I don’t care. I have my own Professor Sex and I don’t want anything else.”

  “Well, we can’t all be that fortunate. Be happy for me. At least we have something good to look at during the two hour lectures.”

  “Fine, I’m happy for you. Now, do you want to partner up for Standson’s Psycho Anal Fun project?”

  Beth giggled hysterically. “I seriously cannot believe the University abbreviates Psychology Analysis and Functions to that on our schedules, but I do appreciate the laugh, and of course.”

  “Get this, Single-ass texted me and asked me to team up with him,” Holly rolled her eyes.

  “Not surprised. He knows you’ll get the top grade and I still say he has crush on you, or maybe he wants to try out psycho anal fun with you.”

  Holly gagged. “Never, ever say that out loud again. He has a crush on not doing any work and still getting an A. He’s a douchebag and he’s never getting anywhere near my anal fun.”

  “A whale-sized douchebag.”

  A half-second later the whale douchebag himself entered the lecture hall and took the seat directly behind Holly and Beth.

  “Holly,” he sneered. “I just talked to my father and he said you’d declared your specialty as Sexual Psychology. That has to be a joke, right? I’m pretty sure cows don’t need you to talk them through mating season. What are you going to do with a specialty in sex?”

  Holly spun in her seat, wishing the fire surging through her veins could shoot out of her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, Singleton, deconstruct your entire social reality. Here, let me begin with — cattle do not have a mating season, dumbass. How are you even a doctoral student? Oh, right, Daddy’s head is stuck all the way up Dr. Newsome’s ass.”

  A wave of hush silenced the chatter in the lecture hall. When Holly spun back, she almost fell out of her seat. What. The. Actual. Fuck? Her mouth hung open stupidly as she watched Dec set a laptop case down on the desk at the front of the hall. He glanced her way, pale like he’d just encountered a ghost. Holly’s heart stalled. This just couldn’t be.

  He took entirely too long settling into the classroom. A hiss of intrigue rose from few of the women in the class seated nearby. Holly couldn’t breathe. She could
barely even see.

  “Holly? Are you okay?” Beth whispered frantically. She pressed her hand to Holly’s arm, either checking for fever or pulse. Neither of which currently felt present. Her traitorous eyes refused to look anywhere but at him. This had to be some kind of dream. Trying to pinch herself, she twisted Beth’s skin instead. Beth jerked her hand away and stared at Holly like she’d lost her mind.

  “Good afternoon, I’m Dr. Declan St. James, visiting professor from Lifespan Counseling. This is Modern Foundations of Human Sexuality. Your syllabi are available online, but I’m passing back a paper copy. For the purposes of this class all notes, papers, and tests will be turned in written in pencil.”

  Holly slunk down in her seat. No amount of squeezing her eyes shut seemed to be working. She willed Dr. Benders resurrection.

  Singleton’s hand shot upwards.

  “You already have a question?” Dec’s voice was harrowed and distant. It carried a note of death in its tone. Fear crawled up Holly’s spine. What did this mean? What was he thinking? When had this happened? Obviously, he’d been assigned Bender’s classes but. . . ? No. Just no. She’d left for the weekend and he’d come unglued. He wasn’t equipped for this. It was cruel. Suddenly, Holly understood for the first time in her life that there was something she wanted more than this degree, and he was standing at the front of her classroom.

  “Look, I don’t know how they do it in jolly Ol’England or wherever the hell you’re from, but here in the U.S. we have these handy dandy things called computers. No one uses pencils anymore.”

  “Singleton, right?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Trevor postured for Dec. Holly would have laughed at Dec’s responding glare, but her entire world was crashing around her currently.