Cowgirl Education: a Camden Ranch Novel

by Jillian Neal

  “That’s fine. Luke says you were sex therapist. I don’t really know what that is, but do you know much about PTSD?”

  “Sex therapy was just my specialty. I have a full-fledged degree in cognitive behavioral psychology. I can attempt to treat it all.”

  “Could I ask you stuff about sex?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Been out of the Army for three years. I was in an Army crazy-ward for eight months.”

  Dec frowned. “Let’s maybe not refer to it as such. You were in a treatment facility.”

  “Whatever you say. Anyway, I been in the Glen for two years. Wandered around for the months in between. I don’t have so many nightmares anymore. Last time I freaked out was about a year ago when someone accidentally shot my dog. I think I’m getting better, but, uh. . . .”

  “Three years is a long time to not have sex.” Dec supplied the inevitable conclusion.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is your dog okay?”

  Aaron looked relieved at that question. He needed Aaron to relax a little if he was going to be of any help. “She’s real good. Luke saved her.”

  “He’s a good guy.”

  “He’s the best. All of the Camdens are, really.”

  Take my sister out. Luke’s laundry list of reasons there should be a therapist in Pleasant Glen became crystal clear. “Natalie.”

  “Yeah. Natalie’s really great. Here’s the thing, though. Before the three years I probably had way more sex than I should have. I used to not think too much about the lead ups to sex either. Kissing. Rounding the bases. All the other stuff. I think I even made out with Holly once but honestly I was trying to get her sister to notice.”

  “I’m going to need you never to mention that to me again.”

  “Sorry, I swear it meant nothing to either of us. She was drunk.”

  “Still talking about kissing the woman I’m about to marry.”

  “Wanna go back to Natalie?”

  “That’d be good.”

  “I went out with Nat twice. I really like her. I just can’t quite tell if she likes me. We would talk for hours. When I talk she listens to me like she cares what I say. Kinda makes me forget all the stuff I have to go see the therapist about, but when I tried to do other stuff she kinda. . . .”

  “Became uncomfortable?”

  “Yeah, you’re really good at this.”

  “Any idea why?” Dec would never reveal what he knew of Natalie.

  “Why you’re good at this? I don’t know, Luke says you’re smart.”

  Dec chuckled. “No. Any idea why Natalie might be uncomfortable with base-rounding, as you put it.”

  “I’m thinkin’ it’s either because she knows I was kind of a man-whore back in the day and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with a guy like that, or maybe somebody did something to her that would make me want to kill them.”

  “Since she did agree to go out with you twice, I doubt she has any issue with your experience level before her. If you think someone might have been sexually abusive with Natalie, be very patient with her. I might also suggest asking for every step you’d like to take. Make sure you have consent for each and every thing, even holding her hand or rubbing her leg. That can actually be very sexy if you do it right. Or tell her what you’d like to share with her, but that you want her to make the first move whenever she’s ready. Never ever pressure her.”

  “You think that’d really work?”

  “Won’t know if you don’t try.”

  “I never want her to feel any pressure from me about anything. She’s amazing. It’s just it’s been so damn long. . . .”

  “Yeah, I get that, believe me. Piece of personal advice that I would never have believed until I met and fell in love with Holly — the best things in life often take too damn long to come, but they are worth the wait whenever they arrive.”

  “Yeah, I figured you were gonna say something like that. Thanks, Doc. You really should open a center or something nearby. There’s tons of people that have no access to help anywhere. ‘Sides, the way I hear it, Pleasant Glen might do for you what it did for me.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Made me feel like maybe I have a real home with people that care about me.”

  “What are you doing? I haven’t seen you on your laptop since we got here,” Holly snuggled up beside Dec in the bed as he researched.

  “A brilliant young vet gave me an idea this afternoon and I was researching the possibilities of it.”

  “Aaron?”

  “Yeah, apparently you snogged him a year ago.”

  Holly cringed. “I was drunk. He looked sad, really, really sad. I felt bad for him. It was a very weird night. It never went anywhere. I used to have a thing for pierced, tattooed bad boys.”

  “Used to? I’m a little worried.”

  “Now, I just have a thing for you. Never anyone else.”

  Dec shut his laptop and set it on the bedside table. “Is that so?” He scooted down in her bed and drew her body to his.

  “It is.”

  “Please tell me that after this ridiculous hearing Friday we can at least go by my house long enough to have wild, crazy, loud sex. Living with your parents is getting to me.”

  “We can definitely do that. We can also pack if you want.”

  “What if Newsome decides you can go back to school for Spring semester?”

  “Then I’d have to really think about that. The other night when we did the NA meeting I loved feeling like I was actually helping people. More classes, more years of school, an entire year of research for my dissertation, all of the Supervised Professional Experience hours, it all feels a little useless when I’m here. It’s very daunting. It’s like I told you when we first met, I can’t ever seem to fully blend my two selves.”

  “You don’t have to decide tonight, sweetheart. I just don’t want you to look back twenty years from now and regret anything.”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  “I hate you have to be here for Thanksgiving, Mama.” Trevor Singleton took his post in the chair beside his mother’s hospital bed. The nurses would be bringing around some version of turkey and stuffing. No one should have to be in a hospital during the holidays. There should be a law.

  “You look pale, Trevy.”

  Trevor forced a smile for his mother’s sake. “I’m fine. You’re the one in the bed. Want to watch TV?”

  “How much did you give this morning? Surely, they shouldn’t let you donate blood so often. There has to be a rule.”

  “I’m following the rules. I’m fine. You need the blood. Soon as this transfusion kicks in maybe we can get you home.”

  “Sweetheart, I don’t know how many more of these I’m going to be able to endure.”

  “Don’t say that.” That damned knot that had taken up permanent residence in his throat expanded. He hated it when she talked this way. The weight this conversation pressed on him was too much to bear.

  “Being here, watching you, I have so many regrets.”

  “Mama, come on, don’t regret anything. Please.”

  “I’m allowed my regrets, son. No one gets to live a life without a few. Look at me, Trevor.”

  He did as she asked. He always did as she asked no matter what it cost him. No matter what he wanted. She was all that mattered. “Your father and I tried to choose a path for you that we thought would be best. My parents did the very same with me, and I’m laying here about to die, realizing I never lived. If there’s something you want to do, if the path your father and I chose doesn’t fit you, please baby, choose something else. Your father will understand.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.”

  “Well, even if he doesn’t it’s not his life to choose. It’s yours. He’s made his choices. A lot of them were terrible decisions as you and I both know. You get to make yours.”

  “I don’t think you really want to hear my choices, Mama. Why don’t you try to sleep? That always helps the tran
sfusion work faster.”

  “I’m tired of sleeping. They’ve promised me a few more months with the transfusions. There are a few things I’d like to do and see. Want to go with me?”

  “What about school?” Trevor couldn’t believe what she was saying.

  “Fuck school.”

  “Mama!”

  “I always wanted to try out that word. It’s fun. Say it.”

  “Mama, what pain meds did they give you?”

  “Now you sound like your father. I’ll be up and around by tomorrow morning. We have to go to that blasted hearing your father’s so thrilled about, but after that I’ll have seven or eight days before I’ll need another treatment. Take me somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.”

  “I don’t know. What about Dad?”

  “Fuck your father.”

  “Please stop saying that. You have never cussed before. You’re wigging me out.”

  “It’s a fantastic word. You can use it so many ways. And look, I wasn’t struck by lightning or scolded by anyone. Life has too many rules. Why do we do this to ourselves? I spent my whole life trying to follow arbitrary rules made up by someone else. I wish I’d broken more rules and let you break more rules.”

  “I know, Mama, just take it easy, okay?”

  “Just promise me, after I’m gone that you’ll choose your own path. Stop letting me and your father bleed you dry, literally.” She gestured to the bandage on his arm.

  “If we go on this trip, where do you want to go?”

  “Somewhere we’ve never been before.”

  Trevor brushed a kiss on his mother’s cheek. Somehow a little of the weight he always felt when he was with her eased. “You really want to know what I want to do with my life? All I’ve ever heard is I’m the only one who can carry on the Singleton legacy at the school. You’d really be okay with me getting the hell out and doing my own thing?”

  “Only if you sit and tell me all about every detail of it. Don’t keep living with the mistakes your father and I forced on you.”

  “Dad’s making another mistake with this trial.”

  “I know he is, and I get the impression you’d like to do something to stop him.”

  “You know I hate him.”

  “I know that, but what I don’t know is if you’re going to stand up to him.”

  “I can’t believe you’re saying this to me.”

  “Death makes things very clear, sweetheart. Life is grey, some good, some bad, hopefully more good than bad, but death clears the grey. Degrees are great and wonderful if they get you where you want to go, but if they get you to a place you never wanted to be, what’s the use in that?”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Thursday night, Dec unlocked the door to his home and guided Holly inside. Life as they’d once known it stood around them, but nothing about it fit now. Everything had changed in two weeks’ time. They’d decided to come back tonight to re-center themselves, reconsider everything tomorrow’s decision would hold, and to spend the night forgetting every single thing that had ever gone wrong. He wanted to drown in the perfume of her arousal, get lost in her sighs, and fill her full of everything he would ever be.

  Smiling as he drew her into his protective embrace, he brushed a kiss on top of her head. “Only takes one-fifth of a second. . . .”

  “To fall in love.” She nuzzled against his clean t-shirt, squeezing him tightly as if she was afraid he was going to disappear right along with the rest of their life.

  “To fall in love or for everything to change.”

  “I’m glad we came back tonight. I know it feels like everything has changed, Dec, but we haven’t and, we won’t, ever.”

  “Incorrect, my sweet little cowgirl. We will change. We just have to make sure we change together, that we grow together from here on. I still don’t think I’m going to be able to stay in Lincoln, baby. I need you to know that I’ll wait for you forever, and I cannot ask you to come to London with me.”

  Leaning up on her tiptoes she brushed her lips across his. “I’d wait for you forever, too, but I don’t want to talk about leaving tonight. You’re not going to London without me, but right now, I want you to carry me up those stairs and make me yours. I can’t exist without you, Dec, and I need to be full of you. I just. . .I need to. . .I need you. . . .”

  Words had never been necessary for the two of them. He knew this. “Your wish is my command, Ms. Camden.”

  “Be careful, darling, those words could get you into all kinds of trouble.” And there was his giggle.

  “I’m hoping.”

  Reaching across his cold bed the next morning, Dec came up empty. Momentarily terrified that the last two weeks had been a cocaine-induced dream, he crawled out of bed. Holly’s duffle bag was on the chair in his room. The panties he slipped down her legs the night before were on the floor.

  His heartbeat steadied. Shrugging into a pair of boxers, he began his search. By the time he’d canvased the main floor and came up empty, he was on edge. The cravings had come back last night knowing the hearing was today. Nothing he couldn’t handle, but being in Lincoln made everything far too close for comfort. He missed the soothing sounds of the ranch and the space to think and exist without intrusion.

  A neighbor’s car alarm blared through the sunlight’s dance on the fresh snow that blanketed the grass. Out of places to look, Dec opened the basement door and continued. He found her sitting in his music room holding a mug of coffee and staring at his wall of signed memorabilia.

  “Baby? You okay?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I just like this room. It feels like you here. What if you don’t like the ranch because this is you and I’m trying to make you be me?”

  “Come here to me.” He scooted beside her and wrapped her up in his arms. “I think the reason you like this room is it’s the only room in this massive house that I like. It’s the only room I had any say in. I do love the entire ranch because I feel you there the way you feel me in here, but I also love other things about it. I love the community there. I love the work. I love that people depend on me and I can’t let them down. I miss it already. I’m anxious to get back.”

  “What if they don’t fire you or they don’t kick me out of school? What happens then?”

  “That’s up to you, sweetheart.”

  “That doesn’t help. I never know what to do.”

  “When you’re here in Lincoln. . . .?”

  “I want to be there.”

  Dec wasn’t surprised at that answer, but was a little shocked at the quick response.

  “Then you just answered your own question.”

  “But I don’t want to be there without you. The ranch isn’t my home without you there. If they don’t fire you, and they agree to take over your visa, you have to work here. It feels like too many choices, and there’s only one thing I know for sure.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You’re my home, and if that means we have to stay in Lincoln or we somehow figure out how to be at the ranch, or we have to go to London, I’m home when I’m with you.”

  “I love you so much. I’m going to do everything in my power to make Camden Ranch our home, just give me a little time.”

  “Is that really what you want, too?”

  “It really is.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  While Holly showered, Dec called Sarah Nicholls. “What did we find out?”

  “It still depends on what happens today. Even if they fire you, your hours in the classroom do count towards your required SPE hours, unless the University contests them. Between your hours working for Lifespan, and teaching, and seeing patients you have the required number. After that, all that stands in your way is the licensing exam. Just try to talk the University into not contesting your hours with the state.”

  “Not sure I have any favors to call in there, but I’ll do my best.”

  “As long as you pass the exam, you can go throu
gh with your plan. You can carry your own H-1B until your citizenship is approved via marriage and open your own non-profit.”

  “My cowgirl needs to be on horseback on an open range. I’m going to get her there.”

  “I have no doubt. I am researching getting Holly a student visa for the UK should this all go south, though. I don’t think it would be difficult, but if she is removed from UN-L that could complicate things. Maybe try to sweet talk them into allowing her to remain enrolled just until I can secure a student transfer to a school in London.”

  “We’ll do our best. Thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “I better get an invite to the wedding.”

  “You got it.”

  Holly clung to Dec’s hand as they entered a board room she’d never seen before. They had nothing to hide now.

  Dr. Newsome was seated at the head of the table. Both Dr. and Mrs. Singleton, Dr. Anderson, Dr. Sinclair, and Dr. Simpson sat along one side of the table. The other side was empty. Dec pulled out a chair for Holly and took the seat beside her.

  She’d pictured some kind of courtroom. Something like she’d seen on television. She’d been worried that being back on trial might get to Dec. He’d endured a brief stay in prison and several courtrooms according to him. Despite there being no bench or gavel and no one being dressed in black robes, the room was fraught with tension.

  The stale air was difficult to breathe. The clouds outside the windows were bruised with another impending storm.

  “Did you have a nice holiday, Dr. St. James?” Newsome asked. Holly wondered what he was playing at, exchanging pleasantries before placing someone’s head on a chopping block.

  “Holly’s family welcomed me in very graciously. I helped prepare the family meal after feeding cattle, and then Holly and I spent the rest of the evening sharing the meal with a few members of my NA group that had no family to celebrate with. It was a lovely day. And yours, sir?”

  “It was fine.”

  Holly wanted to scream. Why wouldn’t they just start? Just say something, anything useful. She was a baited rat circling a trap.