Choose Me, Cowboy

by Barbara Ankrum

  She rubbed her temples, trying to remember some Confucius wisdom she’d heard about moving forward, but it eluded her. Something about studying the past to define the future. But, at the moment, her possibilities felt as small and confined as the mistakes she’d left behind.

  But whose fault was that?

  Yours, a small voice retorted.

  If left to her own devices tonight, she’d be tucked into her favorite reading chair, in her childhood bedroom, with a tub of Chunky Monkey and a good romance novel. All to take her mind off the fact she was thirty, divorced, and, yes, living in her childhood bedroom. But, her sisters hadn’t allowed it. They’d dragged her to the fair for a ‘date’ so she wouldn’t spend her birthday alone. But, hands down, she would take alone over the rejoining ‘party of one’, who’d never even asked her if she wanted a churro.

  She scooped her hair away from her face, then leaned closer to inspect a new crinkle near her eye. Under the flickering florescent lights, she looked older, and a little tipsy, which made sense since she had just exceeded her two beer limit with a third one.

  She brushed a finger across her unglossed lips and blinked at her reflection. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been seriously kissed by someone she really wanted to kiss her. Even though she’d sworn off men and marriage, and anything to do with relationships, a fluttering curl of want settled down low in her belly at the thought of such intimacy, reminding her some little part of the person she used to be still had a pulse.

  Sadly, only one memorable, toe-curling smooch came to mind when she allowed herself to think of such things and her ex-husband of five years had nothing to do with it. No, the one she had in mind was the kiss that always came to her in the middle of a sleepless night, or as she watched the dark water of a river slide across a deep, trout-filled pool or, honestly, whenever she thought of kissing at all.

  She had no trouble admitting Jake Lassen was the one that got away. But in truth, she’d intentionally let him off the line and released him. He’d been her best friend in high school, but even that was understating the teenage angst of their relationship, a strange mix of confidences, friendship, and unrequited longing.

  Timing had always been their issue. Either she’d secretly wanted him when he was dating someone else or it had been the other way around. But through it all, they’d been friends. Friends, like no other friend she’d ever had.

  THE KISS had only happened only once, the night of their graduation after-party, in the wee hours of the morning down by the river.

  She and Jake had walked downstream, where he wanted to show her a secret fishing spot, and it had happened. A mutual collision of hunger, so unexpected and thorough, that just thinking of it now sent a hot wave of longing through her. That day, they’d lost control for a minute, tumbling on the beach in a tangle of lust, unrequited love and confusion.

  In a way, their kiss had unalterably changed things between them. She blamed herself for not letting it go any farther, because she hadn’t wanted to risk their friendship that way. It had become too important to her to lose because Jake had been her rock. Her compass. So, she’d taken the blame, as well—rightly or not—for his sudden decision to join the U.S. Army a few weeks later, because for the next month, she’d pretended the kiss hadn’t happened. But whatever the real story, she’d squandered her chance to make things right with him.

  She’d never seen him again after that summer.

  Her life went in one direction, his in another. Oh, they’d stayed in touch for a few years, with him in the Middle East and her on the east coast, but then they’d lost touch.

  And the pinky swear promise they’d made to meet up again on her thirtieth birthday at the Big Marietta Fair, to be each other’s fallback person, was just—silly. Jake had joined the army and, as far as she knew, hadn’t been back to Marietta since he’d buried his parents two years ago after that terrible accident. She’d been gone nearly twelve years. He was probably still somewhere in Afghanistan, being brave and she...?

  She was hiding in a bathroom.

  Oh, why the hell was she thinking about kissing and Jake now anyway? All she wanted to do was escape this evening, go home, and soak in a long, hot bath. With bubbles.

  Olivia took another desperate gulp of beer as she scoped out the windows at the back of the rest room.

  Wait.

  She could actually climb out one of those windows and escape without Peter seeing her. It wouldn’t be hard, except for the dress, but who’d be looking? Then she’d find her sisters and make them drive her home.

  A pair of teenagers pushed into the restroom, giggling about some boy who was not only flirting with the blonde one, he was already, apparently, going steady with another girl.

  The shorter one, a dark-haired girl—who reminded Olivia of herself at that age—was swooning at the thought of such attention.

  “If Jarrod Stephenson likes you,” Mini-Her told the taller one, “senior year is going to rock for you. You know Jarrod can do no wrong.”

  Except maybe cheat on his current squeeze. But hey...

  As the blonde one expounded on her good fortune, Olivia washed her hands, contemplating whether asking the girls for a boost up to the window would be too much.

  Mini-Her scrunched her nose at her reflection, clearly not pleased with what she saw. She pulled her hair back away from her face, then let it fall across her cheek like a curtain.

  “If Jarrod Stephenson liked me,” she sighed, as if auditioning for the part of a Disney princess, “I’d do anything for him.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes and, for reasons that had everything to do with the third beer, said,

  “You say that now, but in ten years you’ll realize that girl”—she gestured at Mini-Her’s reflection in the mirror—“is perfect, exactly as she is. Don’t try to make her into something she’s not for any boy. She’ll just wind up losing herself and her dreams and everything she could have been, and I guarantee you, he’s not worth it.” She punctuated her questionable piece of wisdom with an unladylike beer burp. “’Scuse me.”

  For a moment, the two girls stared at her in horrified silence. Before she’d spoken, Olivia had apparently been absolutely invisible to them. A thirty-year old, invisible—

  “Wow, lady. Ever heard of privacy? C’mon, Amanda. Just ignore her.” The blonde grabbed Amanda’s arm and steered her toward the door in a pubescent huff.

  But Amanda/Mini-Her cast a confused, eerie look of recognition back at Olivia before she disappeared out the door.

  Olivia glanced in the mirror.

  Lady?

  Pfhhtttt!

  She took her last gulp of beer, checked the windows again, and dismissed the coward’s way out. There was only one thing to do. She had to put on her big girl panties and ditch Peter like a mature adult.

  Past the crowd milling beneath the colorful strung up lights, she caught sight of him waiting beneath the big wheel. He had apparently buttonholed another victim to hold captive to his autobiography.

  The stranger, whose back was to her as she approached, was a few inches taller than Peter; lean, but powerfully-built, his too long, dark hair tickling the collar of an old, denim jacket.

  A quick scan downward revealed a perfectly sculpted ass encased in a pair of threadbare, but oh-so-sexy jeans and scuffed, worn-down-at-the-heels cowboy boots peeking out from underneath.

  A charge of heat traveled up through her as if she’d accidentally stepped on an exposed electrical wire. She blamed it on the beer, or the fact that the only backsides she’d been noticing lately had belonged to horses.

  Beside him sat a large buff-colored dog who reminded her of a Siamese cat, with its soft grey ears, nose and tail. The dog stared adoringly up at its owner, clearly ready to follow him to the ends of the earth.

  With his back still to her, the cowboy touched the brim of his hat to Peter, then took off, walking away with the dog at his heels. She frowned at a niggle of something familiar
about him, but by the time she reached Peter, the stranger had disappeared from sight.

  “C’mon,” Peter said, reaching for her hand before she could say what she’d come to say. “I got the tickets. We’ll be the last ones on.”

  “Peter, wait—”

  The bearded carny, an apparent refugee from Duck Dynasty-land, had the last seat waiting for them with the lap bar held open. “Hurry up, you two lovebirds. Wheel’s about to go.”

  Lovebirds?

  As. If.

  Olivia shot him the evil eye as Peter bum-rushed her into the seat. The lap bar slapped shut with a disquieting clunk. Beside her, Peter was smiling, watching her as the Ferris wheel began to spin. Olivia white knuckled the bar and focused on the fairgrounds, secretly hoping to spot her sisters heading to her rescue.

  “That was weird, running into him,” Peter said, almost to himself.

  “Who?” Was that Kate and her date walking over by the Zipper?

  “I almost didn’t recognize him after all these years,” Peter said with a small laugh. “It’s this fair. Brings people out of the woodwork. You know, I think you used to know him.”

  That got her attention. “Wait. What?”

  “Jake Lassen. From high school. We played football together. I was talking to him just before you walked up.”

  Olivia felt her face drain of color. Oh, no. No!

  She jerked a look back at the crowd, searching for him. That couldn’t have been Jake. That guy had been a good four inches taller than the boy she remembered and built like a... heaven help me... like a soldier.

  As they reached the apex of the wheel’s spin, she spotted him, making his way out of the fair entrance, Jake and his dog. Heading toward—she bit her lip—‘Orca’, the Caribbean blue, ’57 Chevy pickup with shiny chrome wheels and oak railings that had once belonged to his father.

  How perfect to have missed him by inches, the only person she’d longed to see on the day she left her both her twenties, and the mess she’d made of her life behind her.

  The breeze tugged at her as they spun. Above them, a pair of teenagers laughed and rocked their chair, drawing the carny’s wrath.

  Stop this thing! Stop it right now!

  “Yeah,” Peter continued, “he said he was supposed to meet some chick here, but I guess she stood him up. So, he just took off.”

  Dread settled over her. “What did you tell him, Peter? Did you mention me?”

  Peter shrugged. “Well, yeah, sure. I mentioned I was waiting for you.”

  “By name? You said you were waiting for me by name?”

  He gave her another wink. “Your name is Olivia, isn’t it?”

  She slid her eyes shut. When had a thirtieth birthday gone any more wrong than this one? Jake had come. He’d kept the promise and she had screwed everything up.

  The damned wheel just kept spinning and spinning. Orca pulled out of the parking lot, its red tail lights glowing as it disappeared across the railroad tracks.

  As Party of One chatted up his end of the conversation about how his prom queen had dated Jake Lassen once, Olivia secretly texted Eve:

  Olivia: Get your Aaron Burr ass over to the Ferris wheel, now! Need a ride.

  Eve: Uh, who’s Aaron Burr?

  Olivia: U R on thin ice here.

  A momentary pause stretched across the airwaves.

  Eve: B right there.

  Over the din of music, conversation, and clinking-glasses at Grey’s Saloon, Jake ordered a whiskey shot from his seat at the long, polished bar. The bartender, whose nametag read, Brady, obliged and Jake scooped the glass off the bar, stared at it for a moment, then downed it in one searing gulp.

  He inhaled deeply before sliding the glass toward the bartender again.

  “You got it,” said Brady. He poured another. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Here for the Big Marietta Fair?”

  “You might say that.” Jake slugged back the second one. He hissed a breath out, tempted to just ask for the bottle and be done with it. But he’d left his dog, Monday, in the truck and he still needed to drive home, unless he decided to ask his friend and sometimes roommate, Ben, to pull his nose out of his medical journals and pick him up. And Ben would do that, if Jake asked him.

  He should eat something. But he’d lost his appetite.

  Hell.

  What had he expected? That she’d be waiting for him, twelve years later, with open arms? That she wouldn’t be taken? By Peter-freaking-Moreno? That was hard to stomach.

  He could have stuck around, just to see her. God knew he’d wanted a glimpse of her. But that would have been a mistake. He’d come back for her and she was unavailable. Why torture himself?

  “Fair’s a big draw here in Marietta.”

  Brady was a chatterer. He talked as he wiped down the bar. Jake tried to ignore him.

  “Pretty much everyone goes,” the kid went on. “They’ve even got some country music star showing up this week, I hear, if you’re into that kind of thing.”

  He felt about as far from country music as he did from Olivia. A whole damned world apart.

  “Jake? Jake Lassen?”

  Jake looked up from his empty glass to see a tall, familiar-looking cowboy with a long-neck beer in his hand. It took him a second.

  Danny Krebs.

  He’d played second-string tackle on their football team in high school. Jake had been first-string running back. Danny had lost most of his hair, but made up for it with a handlebar mustache and a herd of cowboy-themed tattoos climbing up his arms and neck.

  Jake was in no mood to talk to anyone right now, but it looked like there was no escape.

  Jake stood and took his hand. “Danny. How are you, man? Been a long time.”

  “Great, great. Hell, you grew since high school. Almost didn’t recognize you, except for that photo of you a year ago in the local paper.”

  Jake narrowed his eyes. Photo?

  “Now that was something. It’s not every day one of our own makes the national news. Hey”—Danny summoned up the handful of friends who were mingling in the crowd nearby—“guys, look who I found. Jake Lassen. Remember him? Our own local hero!” He dragged Jake close for a manly, shoulder-to-shoulder hug.

  Oh, hell no.

  As Danny’s friends began to surge and surround him, Jake felt himself break out into a cold sweat. His skin began to itch. Snippets of congratulatory well-wishes swelled around him and people started slapping him on the back.

  “...it was all over the Copper Mountain Courier a year or so ago...”

  “...what you did for those men was really...”

  “...and a freaking rescue chopper pilot...”

  “...a medal from the President himself.”

  By now, half the bar was paying attention and Jake was desperately looking for an escape route. Hold it together, damn it. Just get out of here. He pulled money from his pocket and tossed it on the counter.

  Danny stuffed it back in Jake’s shirt pocket. “I got this, Jakey. Our own Marietta hero ain’t payin’ for his own drinks tonight!”

  There was no arguing with him about the money. “Look, thanks, but I-I gotta go.”

  “What? No.” He slapped the bar. “Brady, a round on me for our boy, here.”

  Brady had ten shots lined up before Danny could finish and expertly filled the line in one swoop of the bottle.

  Jake swiped a fist across the sweat on his upper lip as Danny thrust the shot glass at him. He counted backward, trying to slow his thudding pulse.

  “To Jake Lassen. Our own freakin’ hero.” He lifted the glass higher. “We thank you for your service, man. Your mom and pop—God rest their souls—would’ve been damned proud of you.”

  That nearly knocked the wind out of him. He lifted the drink, but left it untouched. His heart slammed irrationally against the wall of his chest as the crowd seconded Danny’s toast, then began firing questions at him about Afghanistan, the army, his job as a helicopter pilot.

  Their voices
seemed to come from underwater. He couldn’t quite catch his breath.

  That’s when he saw her. Standing ten feet away, those haunting green eyes of hers watching him calmly, the way she might one of her horses in full blown panic.

  Olivia.

  A foul expletive escaped him, which, from her wince, she interpreted as meant for her.

  With another curse, he turned and pushed his way out of the noisy chaos of Grey’s Saloon.

  He was already halfway down the block to his truck by the time Olivia had fought her way out of the bar and caught sight of him. “Jake! Wait!”

  He slowed, but didn’t turn. From here, she could see his dog poking its head from the passenger window of his truck, waiting for him.

  “I’m sorry,” she called. “Please, just stop.”

  He did and turned, then stole her breath all over again. Twelve years had only trebled how handsome he’d been at eighteen. And she hadn’t forgotten the color of his eyes. Even under the street lights, their color, the stark blue-lavender of the Absarokas at sunset, stood out against his tanned skin. He looked every bit the warrior he’d become, from his posture to the expression on his face that suggested meeting on a half-lit street at night might be an ill-conceived impulse.

  His gaze dragged down her from the top of her head to the tips of her turquoise boots and back up again. His look skimmed the pale blue cotton dress that clung to her now and suddenly made her self-conscious.

  His perusal of her, a look loaded with raw, male intensity, bore little resemblance to the boy she remembered. The boy from the river, who’d stopped at one kiss, was gone. This man would know exactly what to do with a woman.

  An uncharacteristic shiver of hunger ruffled across her skin and curled deep inside her as his eyes rose to meet hers again.

  Lord.

  Imagine that. Olivia Canaday—divorcee, escapee from paths wrongly taken, the girl who’d officially sworn of men of all ilk, wanted her best friend.