How To Catch A Cowboy: A Small Town Montana Romance

by Joanna Bell

  "Wait a second. I – Jack – I don't know if –"

  I took my hands off her and squeezed my eyes tightly shut. I took a deep breath. Everything inside me, every cell, every little voice in my head, every angel and devil on my shoulders, was screaming at me in unison.

  "What is it?" I asked. And then, when she didn't answer right away, I lifted her gently off me and stood up. "I'm sorry, Blaze. I literally can't talk with you like that – on my lap. It's turning my brain off."

  "Yeah," she breathed. "Me too. It's – nothing. It's nothing, Jack. I'm just, oh my God, I don't even know. I can't think right now."

  "Me neither."

  I turned my body away from her so I could adjust my aching cock into a more comfortable position in my now way-too-restrictive jeans.

  "This is so stupid," she said, drawing her knees up to her chin and resting her head against them. "This is going to sound so stupid. I want to do this. I – Jack, I couldn't even tell you right now how much I want to do this. But I just – I don't know. I'm scared."

  "You're scared?" I asked, worried. "Blaze, why are you –"

  "Not of you!" She broke in. "Not scared of you, Jack. Scared of myself. Scared of how," she paused and put her hands over her face, "oh God this is embarrassing. I already sound like I'm about 15 years old right now, don't I?"

  I didn't know how old Blaze sounded, because it was already taking every single ounce of my self-control to actually listen to what she was saying instead of scooping her into my arms. "I – uh, I don't know," I replied. "You're scared of – what, Blaze? Of yourself? What does that mean?"

  "Ugh!" She exclaimed suddenly, throwing one of the pillows on the sofa at me. "Why are men so dense sometimes?! Yes, Jack, I'm scared of myself. I'm scared of how you make me feel."

  Her cheeks were flushed bright pink and her eyes were sparkling with what she wanted. And believe me, I knew what Blaze wanted. I ran my hand through my hair as I looked down at her, filled with a restless energy. "Jesus, you're beautiful."

  She laughed and closed her eyes. "Please don't say things like that, Jack. I'm hanging by a thread here. Please –"

  "You are, though," I told her, looking her right in the eyes and not bothering to try and hide my hard-on anymore. If she needed me to wait, I would wait. But I knew there was no point in trying to conceal what she was doing to me. "You are beautiful, Blaze. Part of me feels like I'm going to die if I don't kiss you again right now. But I'll wait. I will wait if you need me to."

  "OK," she whispered, standing up. "Thank you, Jack."

  We both knew if we so much as brushed fingers we were both done for, so we didn't even give each other a goodnight hug. She leaned in a little, almost like she was going to kiss my cheek, and then pulled away at the last minute.

  "I'm sorry, Jack. I just don't want to do anything stupid. I feel like I've kind of been spiraling these past few weeks and I don't – I don't trust myself with you. I don't trust myself not to lose it completely."

  "I understand," I told her. "I get it. But I want you to know that I'm not going to hurt you, Blaze. I'm not going to take advantage of you or knock down your defenses."

  "I know, Jack."

  She scurried out of the room with the haste of a woman who knew even a few more seconds of proximity could well be enough to send us both crashing to the floor in a frenzy of flying clothes.

  As soon as I was alone I reached down and adjusted myself again, wincing a little at just how ready to go I was. I looked around, desperate for something to distract me from what I wanted to do – which was jerk off in the middle of the living room, in full view of my Grandma Dottie's small collection of dancing porcelain figurines. My eyes landed on the deposit book. I pulled out my phone to check the time. Almost eleven o'clock. Damn. Time flies when you're all wrapped up in a beautiful girl.

  I sat back down on the sofa and Googled the Bank of Ireland, trying to find a phone number I could call the next day, as I'd promised Blaze I would. Not that I expected anything to halt the process that the IRS had already put in motion – David McMillan had already told me that it was going to take a lot more than a few thousand dollars to get them to even consider making a deal. Would two hundred thousand dollars do it? Even if it did, where would the payments come from? And that was assuming there even was a huge chunk of money like that sitting in some forgotten bank account halfway across the world, which there almost certainly wasn't.

  I woke up, disoriented, from the doze I'd accidentally fallen into and grabbed my phone. Almost 4 o'clock in the morning. I had to go to bed. Blaze was presumably asleep in the same guest bedroom she'd slept in on her previous visit. But just as I was about to head upstairs, I remembered that there's a time difference between North America and Ireland. Google told me it was seven hours later there than in Montana, which meant it was almost 11 o'clock in the morning there. That was opening hours. I could call the bank before going to bed.

  So that's just what I did, trying the whole time I was on hold and then being transferred from person to person not to get too excited or hopeful. Which was an excellent instinct, because when I finally got through to someone and told her what was going on, she informed me less than two minutes later that they had no savings accounts of that age in Dorothy McMurtry's name.

  I confess, my stomach sank a little. The woman on the phone asked me if there was an account number in the deposit book and I flipped through it one more time, unable to find anything. She must have heard the disappointment in my voice because she checked one more time, only to confirm that no, there was no savings account under that name.

  So that was that. I was almost glad of the distraction provided by the extreme level of sexual frustration I felt that night. It didn't leave a lot of room to be sad about there not being a convenient chunk of change waiting for me in an Irish bank account.

  I headed up to my bedroom and fell asleep on top of the bed, fully clothed because I was going to have to be up again very soon to feed the cattle.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Blaze

  I found Jack in the kitchen the next morning, looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as he tended to something on the stove. He didn't realize I was in the room for a minute or two, so I kind of stood in the doorway, watching him. He was wearing what I was coming to think of as his uniform – plain white t-shirt and jeans. The t-shirt wasn't tight-fitting, but it didn't do a damn thing to hide the muscular breadth of his back and shoulders. He was humming a little, concentrating on whatever it was he was preparing. It was an achingly adorable scene.

  The temptation was to walk up behind him, bury my face in that warm, strong back and wrap my arms around his waist. He turned around before temptation could get the better of me, though, and I saw that he was holding a large plate stacked high with pancakes.

  "Blueberry," he said, "I hope you like them."

  "Did you wake up early to make these for me?" I asked, sitting down at the table as Jack transferred two pancakes to my plate.

  "I should probably say yes to that, huh?" He replied. "But I was up at 6 to tend to the livestock. Only got time for a short breakfast now before I head back out."

  He looked down at his enormous stack of pancakes as he spoke. It almost felt like he was trying to hide his face.

  "Oh?" I asked. "What else do you have to do?"

  "Got to ride out into the foothills, check on the steers."

  Jack's voice was so quiet I could barely hear what he was saying. The pancakes were amazing, too. Perfectly fluffy, studded with blueberries – probably the best pancakes I'd ever had in my life. Was there anything Jack McMurtry couldn't do?

  I took another bite and waited to see if he would say anything else, or explain the strange mood he seemed to be in. When he didn't, I finished my pancakes quietly.

  "More?" He asked, the second the last bite was in my mouth.

  I laughed. "No thanks. I don't usually eat breakfast – this is already way too much."

  Jack grabbed himself a
few more and busied himself buttering them. Maybe he was just one of those people who was quiet in the mornings? After he'd managed to put away more food than I thought was humanly possible, though, he did finally look up at me.

  "Do you want to come? You can ride with me."

  "On a horse?" I asked. "I've never ridden a horse. I don't know if –"

  "No, I mean you can ride the same horse as me. There's nothing to be afraid of, and it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours – the herd sticks to the lower elevations at this time of year."

  I did want to go with Jack. But something about his mood just seemed a little off. I wasn't expecting it, especially given what had happened between us the previous night.

  "I'd love to come with you," I said carefully, "but you don't need to feel obliged. You don't have to take me. I'm fine to stay here if it's going to be too much trouble."

  "No trouble at all, I'd love to take you out. We'll get you one of Emily's old coats and bundle you up nice and warm. You can test out being a cowgirl."

  I peered at him, unable to figure out if he was just being polite or not. "Like I said," I told him. "I'd love to come with you. But you – Jack, you look kind of strange. You definitely don't need to take me with –"

  "Yeah," he replied, rubbing his forehead. "That's not you, Blaze. It's just that this might be the last time I ride out into the hills to check on the cattle. Ever, I mean. I might lend a hand rounding them up to the people they're being sold to, but truth is I don't know if I can do that."

  "Oh," I said quietly, looking down at my empty plate. I didn't know what else to say. It was a sad situation, and no words were going to take the sadness away.

  "Never mind," Jack said, getting up and taking the plates to the sink. "We should probably get out there – it was cold last night and sometimes the water troughs and the little streams and ponds they drink from freeze over and need breaking up."

  Jack wasn't kidding about getting me bundled up. By the time we walked out to the stables I was so layered and padded I could barely move my own arms. I watched him saddling up the largest of the four horses he owned, impressed as ever at the sheer number of things he could do.

  "What are you looking at?" He asked, grinning in spite of his mood, when he caught me.

  "You," I smiled back. "You can do everything. I couldn't saddle a horse if my life depended on it."

  "But that's why you can't do it," he replied. "Because your life doesn't depend on it. I'm sure you have all sorts of skills that I wouldn't know the first thing about."

  "Maybe," I said. "But your skills seem... real. Like if there was a zombie apocalypse, your skills would be useful. Everything I know how to do is all in my head. I can't do anything with my hands. I don't even know how to change a flat tire."

  Jack's expression was slightly disapproving. "That's not good, Blaze. Everyone should know how to change a tire."

  "I know! That's what I'm saying!"

  "Well maybe I'll teach you how to change a tire later if it warms up this afternoon. But as for right now, come here, let's see how you feel about being on horseback."

  I thought there would be some instruction, maybe some theory, on riding a horse. But no, Jack just picked me up and plopped right down on the horse's back – right behind the saddle instead of in it. Then he swung himself up in front of me and looked back over his shoulder.

  "Well?"

  Jack had placed a thick blanket under the saddle, across the horse's back, but I did not feel secure. When the horse suddenly shifted I shrieked and clutched the back of Jack's coat, convinced I was about to slide off.

  "I'm going to fall, Jack!"

  "No you're not. You're fine. Just try to get a feel for the animal's movement, OK? We'll go slowly, at first."

  And with that, he nudged the horse and it walked towards the open barn doors. I felt incredibly high up and vulnerable, as if every movement the horse made was about to send me tumbling to the ground.

  "Stop holding my coat," Jack instructed. "Put your arms around me and hold on."

  "I'm going to fall off, Jack! I can feel it!"

  He looked over his shoulder. "You're not, Blaze. You just think you are because this is your first time and you're not used to the feeling of it yet. But you can sit in the saddle with me if you want. It's just going to be a bit of a tight fit."

  "OK," I replied nervously. "Yes, please."

  Jack turned around, then, and grabbed me by the shoulders, hauling me into the saddle like I was a sack of potatoes. I felt more secure right away – I also noticed that he was right about the tight fit. I was pressed closely against him, almost forced to rest my cheek against his strong back. I could feel every little movement of his body as we rode.

  At first, I kept myself stiff and upright in the saddle, too wary of falling or somehow giving away to Jack just how sweet it was to be so close to him. But as the horse took us over the foothills and the wind turned the exposed parts of my face a bright pink, I found myself relaxing into him, slipping my arms around his body when the horse mounted a small hillock or stepped over a rock.

  "There they are."

  Jack pointed and my eyes followed the direction of his finger. There, huddled tightly together in the shelter of a small hill, stood a herd of shaggy, reddish-brown cattle, their breath rising like smoke into the frosty air.

  "They're furry," I commented as we approached.

  Jack laughed. "You're cute, Blaze."

  "Why?" I asked, feigning an indignation I did not feel – because being called 'cute' by Jack McMurtry actually made me feel like bursting with happiness.

  "The way you talk about the animals – those cows last night had spots, these ones are furry – it's hilarious."

  "Well they are furry," I protested. "What should I say? I didn't know cows were furry."

  "Steers. And they're not always furry, this is just their winter coats."

  Jack took us closer to the herd and rode around and through them a couple of times, checking for signs of illness or injury. When he was satisfied all was well, we started back to Sweetgrass Ranch, stopping along the way in front of a large metal trough.

  "Hey!" I called out when Jack slid off the horse. "Don't leave me here, Jack!"

  He looked up at me, shielding his eyes from the pale winter sun that had emerged from behind a bank of clouds. "I think you'll survive."

  Jack was right. I did survive. He used a stick to smash through the thin layer of ice that had formed on top of the water and we set off again, neither of us saying much.

  "It's really nice out here," I said, when we were almost back to the barn, and even I wasn't sure how much I was talking about the early winter Montana landscape versus how much I was talking about being pressed up against Jack on the back of the horse.

  "It gets into your system," Jack replied. "Doesn't take long, either. Imagine how you'd feel if you spent your whole life out here? Even in my dreams all the landscapes look like this one."

  A wave of sadness washed over me, that now-familiar feeling that I was somehow personally responsible for the fact that Jack was losing his home. I couldn't even picture him in a small town, let alone a big city. It was like picturing a bear in a shopping mall – it didn't fit.

  When we got back into the barn and Jack reached up to put his hands under my arms and lift me down from the horse, he must have seen something in my expression.

  "What's wrong?" He asked, looking concerned.

  "I feel terrible," I replied, just plainly stating the truth for once. I actually felt oddly forthcoming. It must have been the ride – the cold air and the sweet proximity and feeling of safety being so close to Jack. "I feel like this is my fault."

  "But it isn't your fault, is it?" Jack said, lifting the saddle off the horse. "If it wasn't you on my front porch last summer it would have been someone else. If you had flat out refused to come out here, your boss would have had someone else to do it in minutes."

  I stepped back, not wanting to get in his wa
y as he put away the saddle and stirrups and blanket and other bits and pieces I didn't know the names of. "You're right. Someone else would have come. Someone else did – David McMillan. But it's what you said at the motel, about me not having a conscience, about not feeling guilty –"

  "I didn't mean that," Jack cut in."Blaze, I only said that because –"

  "No, I know. It's not about whether you meant it or not. It's true. Or, it used to be true. I never did feel any guilt before I met you. I just thought there were rules and everyone needs to follow the rules or it isn't fair. I still think that. At least I think I do. But at what point does doing something like this – like what I do – at what point do I really get to avoid culpability? No one forced me to do this, you know. And I'm staying here with you now, and I'm seeing you on your land, in your house, checking your livestock. And I'm not a bystander, you know? I didn't just happen upon this situation. I work for the organization that's making it happen. I chose to work for them."

  Jack was listening. Properly listening. When I was finished he nodded. "Yeah. You're right, you didn't just happen upon this situation. I look at you, Blaze – I look at you right now, all red-cheeked and gorgeous, telling me these things, respecting me enough to be honest, and it's all I can do not to rip my heart out of my chest and hand it to you on a platter. But then I think about what you're actually saying, and what's happening in my life and I wonder what the hell I'm doing. I wonder if I have some kind of self-destructive streak in me."

  My teeth began to chatter at that point and Jack took my gloved hand. "We should get back to the house if we're going to have this conversation. If we stay out here any longer you're going to freeze."

  We walked back to the house like that, hand in hand. I liked it. I liked him. I liked him so much I didn't know what to do with all the emotions.

  "Hot chocolate?" Jack asked, after we'd peeled off our layers and left them in a heap beside the front door. "You look positively frost-bitten."