Steal Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo)

by Kim Boykin

  “Soon as I get the rest of the money, I’m heading out. I’ve written you a check for most of it, I’ll give it to you along with the rest in cash when I see you. Thanks again.”

  “I was glad to do it, Rainey. See you in a few.”

  After working the bridal party, I was already exhausted. When Dillon stopped by, I had my swollen feet propped up on the shampoo bowl, but I got up to hug him and look at my car. It looked like it had just been driven off a very good used car lot. I gave him his money and oohed and ahhed over it, genuinely amazed that he’d turned my piece of shit Civic into something semi-beautiful.

  “I’m gonna miss you, Rainey.”

  “I’ll miss you too, but you have my number. Call me sometime. I’d like that.”

  He left and took my resolve to hold out for walk-ins with him. If I had to wait until Sunday or even Monday to leave Marietta, that was fine, but I decided to wait until I got back to the hotel to tell Adam.

  I’d just finished packing up my box when I heard the bell over the front door. And there he was. Beck. Beautiful. Hair hanging down his shoulders, looking at me like he’d come for more than a haircut, a lot more. He surprised me by sitting down in Earline’s chair.

  “Need a haircut.” I picked up my scissors and he shook his head. “Wash it first? Please.”

  I opened the hinged tabletop that covered Earline’s shampoo bowl and leaned him back. His neck settled into the bowl. My hands trembled as the warm water washed over him, my fingers finally and completely in his beautiful hair. I felt his eyes, daring me to look at his face as I worked the shampoo in, massaging him slowly. When I raised his head slightly to rinse the back of his neck, I felt his eyes rake down my neck to my breasts. “Don’t, Beck,” I said as I towel-dried his hair.

  He got up and lowered the tabletop so that I could see him in the mirror and then sat back down. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t make this harder than it already is.” His hair was so thick, so beautiful. But I was a professional for God’s sake. “How much do you want me to take off?”

  “As much as you want.”

  I loved Beck’s hair. I loved it long. I loved the way he looked when he pulled it back and the way he looked like some kind of hot cowboy when he wore it down. “Your hair is perfect the way it is.”

  “But I came here to get it cut.”

  “I don’t want to.” I got the blow dryer and started drying his silky chocolate brown locks, desperate to get him out of my chair. When I was done, he reached for his wallet. “No. It’s on me.”

  “I insist,” he said and then he put a hundred dollar bill in the pickle jar.

  “It’s too much, Beck.”

  “You’re right Rainey, this is too much. It should be easier to let you go, but it’s not. And I think you feel the same way. So what’s it going to be, Rainey?”

  “Stop it, Beck.” I threw the money at him. “Take your money back. I don’t want it.”

  “Now that we’re talking about what you want, if you really wanted to be in Missoula, you’d take my money and run. But I don’t think you want to be with that guy. I think you want to be with me, and God, knows I want you for keeps.”

  “You can’t do this, Beck. You can’t just walk in here and tell me to choose. Adam and I have been together four years and you’ve only known me for a week. And what makes you think you know me so well anyway?”

  “Here’s what I know about you Rainey. I know that you turn that drawl on when you’re nervous or when you want something. I know you’d rather die than show anybody you’re afraid. I know that when you smile, the right corner of your mouth turns up slightly before the left corner. And the only thing I’ve ever seen kill that fire you always have in your eyes is when your boyfriend doesn’t return your phone calls. I know a lot about you, Rainey Brown. I learned all that in a week, and I can’t even imagine all the amazing things I’d learn if you gave me more time. At this point I’ll take anything you’ll give me. I’m hoping for another day and shooting for forever. Stay with me, Rainey.”

  I handed him the money on the floor. “Give this to Dillon. I have to go.”

  He didn’t believe she would do it, but she was scared and angry, gritting back the tears. By the time she pulled onto Main Street, she was sobbing. Beck stood in the road. Cars honked their horns and swerved around him. He watched her Civic head up the long straight road toward the bend and then he’d never see her again. He was stupid. He’d pushed too hard. It was crazy for him to fall in love with her in just a week, and even crazier to hope she could lay her stubbornness aside and admit she felt the same way.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I wished that Dillon hadn’t fixed the car so well because I rolled into Missoula around eight, just like I told Adam I would. He’d given me good directions, but I drove around for about an hour, even passed by his cute little house four times. The first two times, he wasn’t home, but as I was driving past the last time, my cell rang.

  “Babe, you just passed the house.”

  “Oh, shoot. Turning round now.”

  He was standing under the porch light when I pulled into his driveway. Barefooted, no shirt, the ancient paper-thin jeans I’d always loved hanging low on his hips. Absolutely gorgeous.

  But the fireworks that always went off inside me that first moment I saw Adam fizzled. Maybe it had something to do with being a visitor or having to invite myself to even get a reluctant invitation from him. No. It was Beck’s fault, and it pissed me off that he had done such a good job planting doubts, trying to convince me that four years didn’t mean anything. Well Beck didn’t know me as well as he thought he did, and he sure as hell didn’t know Adam.

  Barely out of the car, Adam scooped me up, making me squeal and laugh as he hurried up the steps, into the house, and then his room. The laughing stopped and the kissing began as I slid down his body, my feet on the floor.

  “Aren’t you going to give me a tour of the house?” I breathed against his lips.

  “What? No. Baby, I’m swinging for the fences, here.” And he was also peppering kisses down my neck, fumbling with the buttons on my shirt. “Fuck this,” he said and whipped it off over my head. He kissed me some more and then stopped. “What’s wrong? It feels like you’re shaking off the signs.”

  I pushed him so that he fell onto the bed, feet still on the floor, leaning back on forearms that on a good day could crush a fastball four hundred feet over the centerfield wall. “Okay, so you’re in charge,” he teased, that crooked smile promising to eat me up. “You’re up. Show me what you’ve got.”

  What I’ve got. What I’ve got?

  “Adam—.”

  “God, Rainey,” he groaned. “Don’t say my name like that. I know what’s coming.” He pulled me on top of him, his hand pushing my skirt up over my ass. “I want you so damn bad.” I rolled off of him, but he wasn’t giving up without a fight.

  Normally, wrestling was our second favorite sport, followed by mind-blowing sex that left both of us wasted, well really just me because Adam could go on for hours. He was getting angry, but I wasn’t. I needed some answers, and I’d driven two thousand miles to get them.

  “Adam, why am I always the visitor?”

  “No. Hell no. We are not talking about this now.” I lay beside him and looked at him long enough to let him know we were in fact talking about us. Now. He flopped onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “I don’t know, Rainey. I love you. You know I do. I don’t know what you want from me.”

  And for the first time since I’d known Adam Harper, I didn’t know what I wanted from him either. I’d driven across the country because I thought I was sick to death of living as the baseball lady-in-waiting, but surprisingly, the idea of Adam down on one knee was terrifying, and not at all in a good way. Did I believe he loved me? Yes. Did I believe he’d eventually pop the question or at the very least ask me to move in with him? Yes. But did I want him forever?

  “I’ll tell you why,” I said softly. “I�
�m always the visitor because I let myself be. Because it was safe. But I don’t want safe anymore, Adam.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You really drove all that way to break up with me?”

  “No.” I pulled on my shirt. “At the time I didn’t think so, but I think that’s what I need now.”

  “But what about what I need. Come on, Rainey, you’re my home team.”

  “No, Adam, and I don’t mean this in a hurtful way, because I did this to myself. The truth is, you were right. I was just your backup. But I need more than that. A lot more.”

  Beck Hartnett had given me a little taste of what more looks like and it was enough to make me admit to myself that I wanted more with him. I kissed Adam on the cheek and left without shedding a tear, headed back the way I came.

  It was just after 1:30 when Nell answered the doorbell in her robe and pajamas, her big hair cocooned in toilet paper, completely undisturbed by sleep. “Everything okay, hot stuff?”

  I didn’t want to tell her about what had happened with Adam. Or Beck. “I’m sorry to wake you. I forgot to drop your key off.”

  “And you forgot my hug. But something tells me you didn’t come all the way back from Missoula at this hour for that.” She raised her perfectly plucked gray eyebrows.

  “No ma’am. I need a place to stay, just for tonight.”

  She stepped aside to let me in. “You can stay as long as you like.” She showed me to a small guest room that looked like a Laura Ashley love fest, pink floral wallpaper, pink floral bedspread, a fuchsia-colored shag rug beside the bed. “Sure you don’t want to talk?”

  “No, I’m good.” And I was good with what had happened and a little sad because endings, even good endings, are sad. “I broke up with Adam tonight.”

  She nodded and pulled her bathrobe a little tighter. “Figured that. Want me to put on a pot of coffee?”

  “No thanks. I’m exhausted. If it’s okay with you, I think I’ll just turn in, but I will take you up on that coffee tomorrow.”

  “It’s a deal. You planning on going to work with me come Monday morning?”

  “If that’s okay. I need the money.” It seemed to be a permanent state for me. “But you’ve been so good to me, I don’t want to take your people. And to be honest, I know they want you back. I thought I’d go around to the B&Bs and the hotel, hand out my cards, hopefully drum up a little business from the tourists.”

  “Well if we can’t shoot them, why the hell not?” She let out a big throaty laugh and hugged me. “Good to have you back, kid.”

  Since I wasn’t on Adam’s team anymore, I put on a plain Gap-T and settled into bed. I knew it was late, but that he would understand. I hit the Call button.

  “I hope I don’t have to march myself up to Montana and kick your lily white ass.”

  “Hey, Antwan, you’re up. No ass kicking. Adam and I are over. What are you doing?”

  “Buster and I couldn’t sleep. We’re watching Will and Grace, season three. He really liked seasons one and two, but I’m not sure he’s digging this.” I could hear the canned laughter in the background, Buster groaning little. I could just picture my boys propped up in the bed, Antwan scratching Buster under his chin, like I always did. “You okay, baby girl?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know what I am. This trip wasn’t what I expected.” In so many ways.

  “Are you on your way home?”

  Home. Adam definitely wasn’t home. Even thinking about Columbia didn’t feel like home. “No. I’m staying at Nell’s for a couple of days. I’ll work a little, make some money and then see what happens. How about you?”

  “Lucky you. I just adore that whole retro thing she’s done with her place. I’m thinking of doing the same when I open my next shop. But in the meantime, I’ve rented a booth at Epic. It was good to get back to work.” He paused. “Rainey? I’ve got to ask, what are you waiting on to happen?”

  “I don’t know.” He used the ancient southern torture trick to get the truth out of me—complete silence. “There’s this guy—.”

  “I knew it. Is he hot? Is he hotter than Adam? Oh, my God, if he is does he have a brother?”

  “Yes he’s hot and no, he doesn’t have a brother.” The scary part about wanting Beck was that, at one time I thought I really wanted Adam, and I never thought of myself as one of those girls who never really knows what she wants. What if I’m wrong about Beck? “I’m kind of afraid to run from Adam to Beck. I just want to know for sure it’s real, you know? That it’s not just about having a man around.”

  “Are you sure, because he sounds really hot. Beck. I even love his name. Are you sure he doesn’t have a brother?”

  “According to him. Hey, I just wanted you to know that I need to sort some things out before I come home.”

  “If he made your horny self forget about sex with Adam’s god-bod, you must like him. A lot.”

  “I think I love him, Antwan.” The first time I’d admitted it out loud. It felt scary, but good.

  “And his hair?”

  “Gorgeous. Long. Dark.” Perfect.

  “Does he have the whole Calvin Kline cowboy thing going on?”

  “Yeah,” I laughed. “But maybe it was just the hat.”

  “I miss you, Rainey. Buster misses you, but he’s fine and he’ll be much better off with a happy mommy. Take as much time as you want to figure this thing out. You’ll know if it’s right.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Beck was a mess. He should have gone back to work after Rainey left, but he didn’t. He stayed home and drank too much, hoping he’d be able to sleep. But every time he closed his eyes, he saw the taillights of Rainey’s car, disappearing around the bend for good. If he’d seen them blink, if her car had slowed to a stop, he would have run to her. Hell, even three days later and hung over, he’d still run full tilt to Missoula if he thought he had a chance with her. But he didn’t.

  It was after eleven when he grabbed some coffee and headed next door to the restaurant. It didn’t take long for him to slip back into the comfortable chaotic rhythm. The moment he pushed through his office door, Diego, his manager, hit him with a list of fires to put out, including the freezer he’d just repaired a few days ago that was broken again.

  “Must have been a bad part,” Beck said, running down the list. “Get someone over here to fix it.”

  “You sure, boss?” Beck gave him a look; of course he was sure. “It’s just that you always fix things around here yourself. You’re a little anal that way.”

  “Just do it,” he snapped. God, he had to stop punishing the world because couldn’t have Rainey Brown. “Sorry. Just call the repairman. Please.”

  By three o’clock, he almost felt like his old self. He’d changed the menu up at the last minute, which didn’t make Chef happy. For the featured appetizer, he added the house-made ravioli made with forest mushrooms, crème fraîche, sautéed leeks, and shaved asiago. He’d gotten almost a bushel of heirloom tomatoes out of the garden around noon, and added a simple clean salad of pickled red onions with the tomatoes, topped with basil and poached shrimp.

  He really pushed the envelope when Chef saw the main course. He could tell she was mad, but knew she’d get over it by the time the dinner crowd started in, and there were a lot of reservations for a Tuesday night, including two big parties. Yeah, work was just what he needed.

  The first large party was ten women. All gorgeous. One of them Courtney.

  She smiled, looking down at her menu as her girlfriends gabbed.

  “You should go out with us, Court,” one of the blondes said.

  “We let you have two nights off. No, three. After dinner, you’re definitely going out,” the one who could have passed for Courtney’s sister said.

  She glanced up at Beck to let him know that her friends didn’t know that like him, she’d had that very thing in mind a couple of nights ago.

  “You need to find you a cowboy and get laid,” another blonde added.

  “Tell m
e about it,” she laughed.

  “Welcome to Beck’s Place,” he said to the table. “You ladies celebrating?”

  “The opposite,” the lone redhead said. “Our last night in Marietta. It’s been fun.”

  “Thanks for stopping in. Hope your last night in town is a good one,” he said.

  He checked in with each table after their meal like he always did, introducing himself, making sure everything was perfect. It was a good night. The place was buzzing with happy diners, the best kitchen staff he’d ever had and the only ones who could give each other shit and still turn out great food on time. Graceful servers turned impatient on a dime the minute they passed through the kitchen doors and then floated back to serve their tables with an extra helping of Zen. Yes, for the first time, in what felt like forever, Beck felt like he was back.

  After the diners had left and the staff was gathered in the bar, Beck lifted his glass. “Great night, everybody. Thanks.” Most of them looked like they’d forgiven him for being such an ass last week, even Chef had come down off her high horse and was having a beer with him.

  “So what’s been up with you lately?” She cocked her head to the side.

  “Nothing. How ‘bout you?”

  She laughed and took a long draw off of her beer. “I’ve been good, but you. You’ve been acting weird.”

  “Weird? You’re full of shit.”

  “Maybe.” She toasted him. “Maybe not.”

  “Everybody’s allowed a bad day.”

  “Not you. You’re too damn anal. “

  He laughed. “Funny, you’re not the first person to tell me that today.”

  “You have to have everything your way, Hartnett, or it’s definitely not a good day.”

  “You’re a pain in my ass. I’m thinking of swapping you out.”

  “Wanna get someone in here who won’t give you shit?” She smirked. “Be my guest.”

  “Listen to you, thinking you know everything. I could be sick. Dying and keeping it all to myself since I’m so anal.”