How To Catch A Cowboy: A Small Town Montana Romance

by Joanna Bell

  I put the back of my hand to my forehead in a not-really-joking-I-feel-faint gesture and steeled myself to spend an afternoon – or God forbid a whole day – with Jack looking the way he looked and me not being able to rip his clothes off him.

  "Come on," he said, handing me my bag and slipping one arm around my waist. "Let's go, before I lose my resolve."

  We took a taxi into Dublin and sat in the back seat holding hands like besotted high school students, unable to tear ourselves away from each other for long enough to really get a look at the beautiful countryside outside the windows.

  About halfway there, though, something started to feel a little off. The taxi had all the windows closed and the heat turned on, and it was suddenly incredibly stuffy.

  "Are you alright?" Jack asked, noticing the expression on my face.

  "I don't know," I said, "can you ask him to roll down one of the windows? I think I'm getting carsick."

  The driver did as asked and rolled down the window next to me, which I stuck my head out of as my stomach roiled.

  "I didn't even have anything to eat," I said to Jack as he rubbed my back.

  "Maybe that's the problem?" He responded. "Maybe you should have had some toast or something. We'll stop at grocery store and get some plain crackers and ginger ale when we get there, OK?"

  I nodded and went back to taking slow, deep, controlled breaths and concentrating on not barfing. By the time we got to where we were going, the nausea had abated a little.

  "Maybe it was the stick shift?" I pondered as I took Jack's arm and we walked down a quaint little cobblestone street lined with pubs and boutiques. "I got carsick once when I was kid because my aunt drove stick shift really badly – it was that constant back and forth motion, like being on a boat in rough water."

  "Could be," Jack said. "Just let me know if you want to stop anywhere or go back to the hotel."

  "I think I'm OK."

  I definitely did not want to go back to the hotel – Dublin was too beautiful, too much like something out of a novel. I'd been to Europe before at that point in my life, I'd been to Paris and London and Barcelona, but never to Ireland.

  "I read a short story set in Dublin once," I told Jack as we walked out onto a stone bridge and stood near the center, looking out over the dark blue River Liffey as the golden light of the afternoon fell on the city. "In college, for my English pre-requisite. It was about a big family having a party – I think it might have been a Christmas party, actually. The last line was something about a snowfall, about snow blanketing the city and everyone in it – 'the living and the dead' – something like that. I just remember getting a strange feeling from that last line – you know when you read a book or a poem and a character describes something you haven't experienced, and yet you suddenly know just how it would feel? It was like that. I remember feeling like I knew, afterwards, exactly how it would be to stand under the falling snow in Dublin."

  "Maybe it will snow while we're here?" Jack mused, gazing at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" I asked.

  "I'm just thinking about what you just said. Well – I'm thinking of you, really. Of you in college, reading a book about Dublin and not knowing that one day you would be here, with a man you hadn't met yet, standing on a bridge and talking about that very book."

  We looked at each other for a little while, unselfconscious about the lack of need for words, before Jack leaned in and kissed my forehead. "I bet you were a diligent little student, Blaze."

  "Ha ha, yeah, I suppose I was. I definitely didn't have that wild binge-drinking party life that a lot of students do. I was in a sorority, but it was pretty academic. I don't know, I'm an only child and I guess I've always been conscious that I'm, like, my parents one chance. I have to turn out right, because if I don't there's no back up."

  I wasn't entirely joking, telling Jack about my experiences in college and my feelings about my parents, but I was being lighthearted. He didn't laugh, though.

  "So you're saying you wanted to go to all the parties but you didn't, because you didn't want to disappoint your parents?"

  "I don't know," I shrugged. "It's not like I wanted to spend every weekend totally wasted or anything, but I did feel a little left out sometimes. I do kind of regret not spending more time in college on the social side of it, I guess. But it's normal to not want to disappoint your parents, isn't it?"

  "To an extent. I'm not sure it's normal to spend your all your time in college with your nose in a book. Not that I have any idea what I'm talking about – college was never going to be in my life plan. Some of my friends from high school went, and most of them never came back. I admit I felt a little jealous at the time – although that had more to do with the girls they had access to than the education."

  "I bet!" I laughed.

  "Yeah, there were a few early mornings in my late teens when I would definitely have traded ranch life to waking up at noon with a smart, well-spoken hottie in my bed." Jack looked down at me. "But I've got one now, don't I?"

  I was about to respond when the feeling from the taxi came back in a sudden, intense wave. I barely had time to turn away from Jack and clutch the bridge railing before a fit of violent retching seized me.

  "OK," Jack said, pulling my hair away from my face even as nothing really came up. "OK, Blaze. We need to get you some crackers or water. Or we need to go back to the hotel."

  "No," I gasped, closing my eyes tightly against the awful feeling in my stomach and the acrid taste in my mouth. "No, I'm OK. I'm –"

  'You're not OK!" Jack said, kneeling down beside me. "You probably need to –"

  "No," I insisted. "I'm OK. I'm – it probably is because I haven't eaten anything. And I'm a puker, remember?"

  But I wasn't really a puker – not for no reason, anyway, and skipping breakfast had never made me sick before. I just didn't want to go back to the hotel – I wanted to see more of the city with Jack and if that meant pretending I didn't feel like spewing then damnit, that's what I was going to do.

  Jack walked me to the end of the bridge and jogged off to find me some crackers and ginger ale while I sat on a low stone wall, waiting for him. By the time he got back the feeling had mostly passed again, but after a couple of very slowly eaten crackers, I did actually feel a lot better.

  "There we go," Jack said, putting the crackers in my bag. "Are you sure you're OK? Because this can wait until –"

  "I'm fine!" I insisted. "Really. I'm fine. Where are we going, anyway? I don't know if I can face a heavy meal right now."

  Jack pointedly refused to answer and led me down a narrow side-street, into what appeared to be a more exclusive, less touristy area of town. I saw the jewelry shop before I realized it was our destination. I even stopped briefly to admire a beautiful pair of gemstone earrings that had been displayed in the window before Jack took my elbow and led me inside.

  "Jack!" I said, genuinely shocked. "Jack, no! I don't need anything like this – I really don't. It's enough to be with you. Jack you don't have the –"

  "Shh!"

  He shushed me. He actually put his finger to his lips and shushed me and I couldn't help laughing.

  "Quiet, woman. If I want to buy you something shiny then damnit, I'm buying you something shiny and I won't hear another word about it!"

  "But Jack," I whispered, not wanting to embarrass him by talking about his financial situation in public. "Please don't do anything stupid – if there's some money in that account you need it for –"

  He turned and looked at me. He didn't say anything, he just stood there, giving me one of those 'are you finished?' looks. And soon enough, I withered. OK. Jack was buying me something shiny. I was going to pick something inexpensive, though, whether he liked it or not.

  "I'm Jack McMurtry," Jack said, introducing himself to the salesman. "I called you earlier?"

  "Yes, of course, Sir. I've selected a few items the lady might like to see."

/>   "You called them?" I asked, impressed. The last man – and up until that afternoon in Dublin with Jack the only one – who bought me jewelry ended up giving me a five hundred dollar gift certificate to an online store when he couldn't even be bothered to use a little subterfuge to try and find out what my tastes were.

  "Yes I did – I didn't want to waste time with old lady pearls."

  "We actually have some beautiful pearls from the Sea of Cortez right now," the sales assistant told us politely. "Very colorful, very youthful. And a lovely strand of Japanese Kasumi pearls. Would you like to see them?"

  For some reason, I had it in my head that all non-white pearls were inexpensive. Which turned out to be hilariously wrong, but it was why I nodded and asked to see the ones the man had mentioned. He disappeared into a back room and returned with a length of velvet fabric over his arm, which he laid down on the glass display case. I was in the middle of thinking it was all a bit of a production for some affordable pearls, but then he laid two strands of pearls down, side by side, and I actually gasped out loud.

  One of them, especially, was made up of strikingly beautiful pearls, whose colors seemed to shift and change as I looked at them from different angles.

  "This is the Sea of Cortez strand," the sales assistant told us. These pearls are only farmed in the Sea of Cortex and are completely unique in color and luster. They're completely natural, no dyes or treatments of any kind. You can pick them up, if you like."

  Jack picked up the strand and held it up to my neck so I could look in the mirror. The pearls were different colors – peachy pink, pale cream, golden yellow with flashes of green. There were even a couple of ice-blue ones in there. You'd think they would look a bit of a mess but somehow they didn't. I even wondered if the jewelry shop had had some kind of special lighting installed, to make things look shinier and more beautiful than they were.

  But there didn't appear to be any special lighting, and the pearls did look beautiful against my skin, giving me the kind of glow I've spent way too much money on overpriced cosmetics trying to achieve.

  "Do you like them?" Jack asked. "They do look beautiful on you. I always thoughts pearls were for old women but it looks like that was totally wrong."

  "I do," I replied, before turning to the man on the other side of the display case. "How much are they?"

  "The gentleman has a budget," he responded, "and this item is within that budget."

  Wow, Jack really had planned this whole visit out. I eyed him. "You better not be spending too much on these, Jack. I mean it. That money is for –"

  "The money is for whatever I want it to be for, Blaze."

  I shut up, because making a scene – even a polite one – didn't seem to be the thing to do in a place like that.

  "We can have them strung within the hour, if you like, and you can pick them up later today or tomorrow? Or whenever is convenient?" The salesman asked us.

  I hadn't even realized the pearls weren't properly strung yet. When we were outside again, I laughed. "I thought they already were strung. Now I feel like I'm in that Rodeo Drive scene from Pretty Woman, shopping in stores I don't belong in."

  Jack rolled his eyes. "Yeah, they tried to give me a bit of that in New York when I bought the suit but I wasn't having it. You work in a clothing store. I'm a cowboy. Why does that mean you get to look down your nose at me, again?"

  We spent the next hour in the vicinity of the jewelry shop, wandering up and down the narrow little streets, all hung with Christmas decorations and lights. And after we picked up the necklace we went to a pub we'd spotted, tucked away from the main throngs of tourists.

  "Give me a sec," Jack said after we found a small table with room for the both of us. "I'll be right back. Keep an eye on my jacket."

  The necklace was in his jacket. And so, I remembered, after he was out of sight, was the receipt. I didn't even think about whether or not it was my business to look at it – it was just there, poking out of the pocket a little, and I grabbed it.

  I didn't quite accept what my eyes were seeing at first. Perhaps they did receipts differently in Ireland, in some old fashioned way that involved too many zeros? I looked in the direction of the men's room and then back at the piece of thick paper (even the receipt was luxurious!) in my hand. 11,000 it said. Eleven thousand. Euros. How much was that? Euros were worth more than dollars, weren't they? That necklace was worth more than eleven thousand dollars? No.

  By the time Jack got back to the table I was already on my feet and on my way out the door.

  "What are you –" he started, and then stopped when he saw the receipt in my hand. "Blaze! You weren't supposed to look at that. You –"

  "No," I said, looking him in the eyes. "No, Jack. You're not buying me this. We're going back to the jeweler right now."

  "No we're not," Jack chuckled, following me out onto the street, where a soft rain had begun to fall.

  I kept going until he actually reached out and took me by the arm. "Blaze! Slow down, they're going to be closed now anyway. We're not taking it back."

  "Yes we are," I repeated simply. "We definitely are. And if they're closed then we'll come back tomorrow and return it then."

  "No we won't," Jack responded, his tone of voice as stubborn as mine – and much more amused.

  I winced and rubbed my forehead. "Jack, why are you laughing? That necklace was eleven thousand euros. Eleven thousand!"

  "I know."

  "You don't have eleven thousand euros. And if you do, you shouldn't be spending it on necklaces for IRS investigators who tried to ruin your life!"

  I turned away again, intending to march right back to the jeweler. That time, Jack held on tighter.

  "Let go," I demanded. "Jack, let go!"

  "No. I won't let go. Stop it, Blaze. Look at me."

  So I looked at him, because I could tell he wasn't going to let me go storming off, and then I surprised the hell out of both of us by suddenly bursting into tears.

  Jack immediately softened, taking my face in his hands and searching my eyes. "What are you doing?" He asked me gently. "Why are you crying you nut? If you're really crying about the necklace – if it truly makes you sad, then we will go and return it right now. But –"

  "I'm not crying about the necklace!" I sniffled. "At least – not like that, not like you think –"

  "Come here," Jack said, pulling me under the awning of a shop so I was out of the rain. "Now Blaze, tell me what's going on."

  My mind spun with the ways in which I could attempt to explain what I was feeling. None of them seemed adequate. None of them seemed to truly get to the heart of the matter. In truth, I think maybe I was almost as confused about my tears as Jack was.

  "I'm happy!" I blurted out suddenly. "I'm happy, Jack. OK? And –"

  Jack was smiling at me patiently. "You're happy, are you? Is that why you're sobbing? Seems like a strange way to express –"

  "No!" I cut him off. "No! It's not an odd way at all Jack. I'm not kidding, you know – I'm not just saying things here to say them. I mean it – I think I'm crying because I'm happy. Because it's poignant, OK? Because it's hitting me, or it has been hitting me ever since I met you but especially so when I stayed with you at Sweetgrass Ranch and during this trip."

  Jack waited as I tried to get control of my emotions. "What?" He asked, a few moments later. "What's hitting you, Blaze?"

  "How special this is, I suppose. How rare. I've had a good life, Jack. My parents love me, I have good friends, I've never wondered where the next meal was coming from or whether or not I would have a roof over my head. I already know I'm luckier than ninety-nine percent of all the other people on the planet. And even then, it's like being with you is this heightened thing, like I'm getting this really fleeting glimpse of what it's like to be truly happy. And I don't – I don't –" I broke off, unable to stop breaking down again.

  "You don't want it to end, do you?"

  I shook my head as tears spilled down my already rain-wet ch
eeks. "No, I don't. I'm so – here, look at my hand." I held my bare hand up and showed Jack that it was shaking a little. "This is what I mean, I just feel like a high-tension wire around you, like part of me wants to grab your ankles and never, never let go. And then I feel afraid of that feeling. Like you're going to wake up one day and see how much I need you and –"

  "And leave?"

  I nodded miserably.

  "And why do you think I would do that?" Jack asked. "What have I ever done that would give you the impression that I want anything other than to be with you?"

  "I don't know!" I exclaimed shakily , half-laughing at the absurdity of what I was saying, half-crying because I just couldn't control it. "I don't know. I don't think it's anything you've done, Jack. I think I'm just someone who worries. All the time."

  "I think you're right about that," he replied, his blue eyes fixed on me. "You're probably just a worrier, Blaze. Some people are. I've noticed that it's more common in women but I've known some men –"

  "Sexist," I cut in, grinning through my tears, trying to bring some levity to the moment.

  Jack shrugged and smiled back. "Maybe, but I don't see why. Women just seem to worry more, wouldn't you say? My Grandma Dottie spent all her time worrying about us – her children and her grandchildren. It was one of the reasons we were so well cared for, in spite of our totally fucked up family situation. Because she was there, like an all-powerful source of love and understanding. You're going to be a good mother some day, Blaze."

  I looked up through my wet eyelashes, surprised at the turn the conversation had just taken. "Uh – you think?"

  Jack smiled at me and kissed my cheek. "Yes. Now. We need to get out of this rain. Should we go back to the jewelry store? Because I meant what I said –"

  I shook my head. "Of course I don't want to return it, Jack. But apart from my apparent transformation into one of those awful people who's always crying, it is too expensive. It just is. And I do think you need to be smart about –"

  "It's ten million, Blaze. Well, just under ten million. The money, I mean. In the bank."