Her Cowboy's Promise (Fly Creek)

by Jennifer Hoopes

  Emily found him a few minutes later. He stood inside the paddock, his back to her as he said something to Dan, who was keeping a team of horses under control. Dan spotted her and nodded in her direction, Adam following his gaze. A smile bloomed a moment later, and Emily’s heart kicked up, beating stronger, sending blood pumping throughout her body in a way she’d forgotten could happen.

  He waved his hand, the other still supporting the board he was attaching to the posts. She waved back and stepped closer just as two horses broke free from behind him, both headed for the opening. She cried out and Adam turned just as one horse broke left and the other right. Adam dove but not before the horse on the right shifted course and they met body for body. Adam landed in the dirt with a thud that reverberated through her boots, his hat flying off to land in the dirt behind him.

  Her heart, beating so strong a second before, froze in terror. The blood drained from her face. Every limb weighted down, her mouth thick and dry.

  Dan reached for him as two more guys came running from the direction of the river, both trying to reach the horse that had taken out Adam and found his freedom.

  He sat up and shook his head at something Dan said, and Emily took her first breath since watching the scene unfold. Adam immediately looked for her, and whatever he saw had recognition hitting him fast. He took the offered hand of his coworker and was moving toward her as fast as a man who’d been knocked down by a half-ton animal could.

  He reached for her and she took a step away from him. That’s when the shaking started despite being numb and unable to feel anything. He’d been hurt. He could have been killed, and watching it happen had her in the clench of pain just as bad if not worse as watching Drew three years ago. Every moment he could be ripped away from her. A moment where she could once again face losing someone she cared about. Loved. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t survive that again.

  He ducked his head to try and meet her gaze. “Emily, I’m fine. I’m okay. Please look at me.”

  She struggled away, unable to meet those baby blue eyes. “No. No, I have to go. I have to get out of here.”

  He caught her before she could flee, his touch both tantalizing and torturous. A reminder of what she almost had and almost lost. “Please stay. Let me finish and we can talk. Work through this. In fact, I’ll have Dan finish it and we’ll go back to the cabin.”

  She shook her head, a sob locked at the base of her throat.

  Adam froze. “Okay. How about I stop by later at the store.”

  The pain in the area of her heart doubled her over. God, she’d been so stupid. She let him in. He was there and she had to go. He would leave her. Be torn away just as Drew was. She had to get out now. Damage was done. She loved him. But the pain of not being with him was bearable. Having him killed or torn away would destroy her.

  “No, please don’t. Please don’t stop by ever again.” She lurched out of his light hold, but he lunged for her and caught her by both arms.

  “Look at me. Look at me and tell me why.”

  She owed him that. It wasn’t his fault she was damaged. She raised her gaze, her eyes blurry with unshed tears.

  “I can’t do it again. I can’t lose someone I care about. You were almost killed today. You could get trampled tomorrow. Fall off the roof the next day. I can’t take the risk. I wouldn’t survive it.”

  “Dammit, Emily, anyone could have an accident on any given day. Why are you running? Why are you letting the past ruin your happiness? Our happiness.”

  Fury erupted inside her, and she lurched out of his grip. “Happiness is a luxury I can’t afford. It sets false expectations that are ripped away. I have to go back to the way I was living.”

  Something like a growl ripped out of Adam’s throat. “God. You weren’t living. Don’t you see that? Nothing about your life the past three years has been about living. It’s been about existing. That’s it.”

  They stood feet apart but the gulf between them seemed bigger than the Grand Canyon. Emily couldn’t catch her breath, each motion squeezing her throat tighter and tighter. She looked at Adam, and pain etched every line of his face. He met her gaze with one of resignation.

  Running a hand through his hair, he shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t make you see. You have to do it yourself. You have to want to do it, and I thought maybe last night, when you asked me to stay…”

  With one final rake of her face, Adam turned and went back to the fence. He’d given up and there was nothing left for her to do but get her things and head home.

  Her trip back to the cabin was like walking through a blizzard. Every step to his house like maneuvering through a snowbank. Each step sucking you farther down, leaving you cold and tired. How could she have fooled herself? She wasn’t strong enough. But the final blow was how easily he’d given up. He hadn’t even fought for her. Not that it would have changed anything, but was she really that easy to let go? Drew had left her and now Adam gave up. Was it a sign that she wasn’t meant to be with someone?

  Maybe it was because he couldn’t see himself staying, no matter what she might have argued. A bitter laugh escaped her. She wasn’t the only one being controlled by the past.

  She arrived at the cabin to find a tall cowboy standing beside a pickup. He tipped his hat at her. “Hey, you must be Emily.”

  Every ounce of control she possessed was focused on not crying. On not throwing herself to the ground and demanding to know why she couldn’t be happy. The last thing she needed was small talk with some rancher. She managed a wave without stopping, her only focus to get in the cabin, get her stuff, and find her way home. She would close the store, regroup, and make decisions.

  “Hey, hold up? I’m Levi, Adam’s brother. I wanted to—”

  If her boots could have skidded, they would’ve. Her hand gripped one of the porch posts, and she turned to look at the man intent on making nice with her. The brother, the only family Adam had left. A quick glance registered the similarities, same eyes and slant to the nose, but Levi was the dark to Adam’s light. He stood at attention, his military background screaming through every line.

  Five minutes ago she would have dragged this man somewhere and grilled him about Adam until she had the insight to make him stay. Five minutes ago she was a fool.

  “Adam’s down that way.” If Levi heard her voice crack on his brother’s name, he was gentleman enough not to mention it.

  Levi took off his hat, concern on his face. The blue eyes watching her so very like his brother’s, and yet his coloring so similar to Drew’s. Two men in her life. Neither meant for her. If it weren’t for the post, she would have slumped to the ground.

  So unfair. The phrase kept echoing around her brain and as she stared into eyes so eerily like his brother’s.

  “Aww man, he must have told you.” Levi hung his hat on the porch rail. “I’m sorry. I know it must be such a shock. But even if Adam started off just trying to keep his promise to Drew, I know for a fact he’s come to care for you.”

  Emily closed her eyes and shook her head. Lord, she was so upset she was hearing things.

  “It’s a lot to process. We loved Drew and from what I’ve heard, so did you.”

  Her eyes snapped open, and she grabbed hold of Levi’s shoulders. “What. Did you. Just say?”

  He swallowed hard and scanned her face. She knew what he saw. Desperation, confusion, and little bit of craziness because that was only a glimmer of the chaotic emotions tumbling around inside of her. For a woman who had eschewed feeling anything for three years, today picked a fine damn time to reacquaint herself.

  “Are you okay?”

  “How do you know Drew?”

  His blue eyes widened and a blush creeped across his face. Shaking his head, he spoke to the steps, “He didn’t tell you, did he.”

  No. No. No.

  She couldn’t be here. She needed to be gone. Away from whatever craziness was about to be unleashed. She’d had enough in her past. She didn’t need more. Her
life was irrevocably broken, and no amount of wishing or steps she’d taken the past weeks would change that.

  Pushing away from Levi, she hurried up the porch steps and burst through Adam’s door. Her gaze caught the river flowing beyond the French doors, and the tears she’d done such a good job of holding back erupted down her face. Sob after sob choked until she stumbled forward and caught herself around the support beam.

  A board creaked and she glanced behind her. There stood Adam, the morning sun a blinding brilliance behind him. He was her version of heaven and hell combined. Hope and despair rolled into the body of an angel. A lying, deceitful angel.

  …

  Adam’s world was imploding.

  Watching Emily run away upset, hurt, lost again had sucked the breath from his lungs, and it took less than two minutes for him to realize the hollow feeling in his heart would take up permanent residence unless he went to her, did anything he could to ease her pain. The fear. To ensure she found her way back and didn’t use it as an excuse.

  Instead, Levi had met him on the road and confessed he’d spilled the beans about Drew.

  Now he stood less than five feet in front of her and nothing he imagined in the thirty second sprint to his front door prepared him for the woman he saw.

  He took a step and she held up her hand. Anguish poured from every line of her, and yet in her gaze was a hardened strength he knew she possessed.

  “How do you know Drew?”

  “He was my cousin.”

  “Oh God.” She fled toward the spiral staircase, and Adam followed, catching her at the bottom of the steps.

  “Let me go,” she cried. “I don’t want to hear this. None of it matters. I’m leaving. You’re getting exactly what you wanted.”

  “It’s not what I want,” he whispered.

  She stumbled up a few steps then froze. Adam prayed and feared what was coming. He’d been right. Her eyes had grown cold to him. Disgust had mixed with the anguish. Why hadn’t he told her last night? Why hadn’t he chosen her well-being over his own damn selfishness? Things might not have gone any better, but he would have been honest. Could have told her everything in the right way instead of her stumbling across bits and pieces and refusing to let him put them together for her.

  Meeting his gaze with defiance, even as the tears continued down her flushed cheeks, she asked the one thing he’d dreaded since meeting her in the store that first day. “Why? Was I just a nice roll in the hay? Was it a challenge? Did you seek me out to see if I would recognize Drew in you?” She laughed so bitterly it stung the back of his throat. “Of course I would never see Drew in you. He was everything good and honest in this world.”

  Anger bubbled through his veins leaving every inch of skin crawling with desire to tell her how wrong she was. “If I recall, you were the one who sought me out. You were the one pleading with me to stay last night.”

  She flinched as if slapped, and Adam went to gather her in his arms and beg her to forgive his harsh and uncalled for words. He was hurt. Hurt that she would throw Drew back at him in such a way.

  She fought against his chest, forcing him back a step. “Why did you come to Fly Creek?”

  This was the end. The final pieces he held that would form a puzzle designed to send her away from him. Deep down he’d known. Known they could never be together. He was living a fantasy that a solution was for them. That she would see past the hurt and betrayal and find him on the other side waiting.

  He looked at her. She was folded in on herself. Her arms wrapped around her stomach holding on for all they’re worth as she stood staring at the floor. Adam moistened his lips and opened them, the words that would end everything spilling out.

  “I came because of Drew, because he asked me to, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  She shook her head. Self-preservation clearly kicking in, even as she could never imagine what she would be protecting herself from.

  Adam crossed to the couch and sat. He could feel Emily’s gaze on him, her anger fighting with her desire to know. To understand. But he couldn’t look. Not yet. Not until he set this in motion. Because she was in denial, and if he caught another hint of longing and love and fear combined, he would chicken out.

  Reaching underneath the coffee table he pulled out a cedar box. He placed it beside him and finally looked at the woman he’d hurt. The woman who was about to find out her life wasn’t exactly what she thought it to be.

  She moved toward the couch, each step heavy and measured, as if she had to convince her feet they were making the right choice. She looked down at the box and then over at him. Adam shifted the box to the coffee table and reached his hand out for her. She shook her head and sat, careful not to touch him in any way. Nothing cut to his heart more than the distrust pouring out of her hazel gaze.

  “This belongs to you.” He tapped the top of the box. “It’s something that’ll make you question a lot of things and in many ways cause you even more hurt than you’re feeling right now.”

  Emily flinched and tried to get up, but Adam placed a hand on her knee and squeezed. “I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you, Emily. If there was any way to spare you the next few moments, I would, but I can’t. I have to be honest with you.”

  She snorted and yanked her knee from under his hand.

  “I earned that. I should have told you last night. You deserved that from me and I have no excuse except to say I’m selfish. I wanted one more night with you. One more night where we had a chance. But I need, absolutely need, you to understand that nothing I have ever said to you was a lie. Nothing that has occurred between us is a lie. It’s based on something special and although neither of us looked for it, it found us. Please remember that.”

  If a person could vibrate, Emily would be a tuning fork. Her pulse beat visibly in her neck, and Adam could just picture the tension humming through her veins. Would things have been different if he told her the first day? Would they be different if they’d never slept together? He firmly believed the answer was no. She couldn’t have handled the news in the beginning. Not that she wasn’t strong enough, but she didn’t believe then that she was strong enough.

  “Do I have to know?”

  He’d asked himself the same question so many times and the answer was the same. “Yes. You may not believe you need to hear it right now, but over time you’ll understand why it was necessary.”

  And to nip any more stalling, either by him or her, in the bud, Adam forced his hands to move and pick up the cedar box from the table. The contents weren’t physically heavy, but emotionally they caused his arms to strain. He placed it on her lap and let go.

  Her hands froze suspended over the lid. She looked at him, pleading for something he couldn’t give. Reassurance.

  And then her fingers curled around the edges and she lifted the lid, and Adam’s heart shattered in a burst of pain-filled eyes.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The picture in front of Emily was of Drew smiling beside her from three years ago. It was taken right after their engagement. The frame a gift from friends. It sat right in the middle of Drew’s mantle, and after his death, when she finally had the strength to go to his place to try and pack things up, it was gone.

  She shook her head. Nothing was real anymore. Adam was Drew’s cousin. He had his things. What did it all mean and did she really want to find out? The emotions working through her body were more than any she’d faced the day after Drew died. Those had a focus, a place to run and hide. Now she was inches from a man she loved, or thought she’d loved, and he’d kept secrets from her. Their connection was a joke. He’d known all along, and here she thought she’d made some breakthrough when she confessed to him last night.

  Her fingers traced the frame, lingering over the date engraved. Lifting it out, she placed it on the table. The only sounds in the cabin, her movements. She couldn’t look at Adam. Not now. Not when she had the urge to beat on his chest and demand to know how he could hav
e held her so tenderly last night knowing it was all a lie.

  She fingered the next item in the box. It was a badge with Drew’s picture and name, but it wasn’t for the school they worked at. It was from the DEA.

  More questions, more pain. Her eyes refused to meet Adam’s. She knew he watched her every move, her every breath. He wanted—no, needed—her to speak, but she couldn’t. At this moment he didn’t deserve to be let off the hook, not while she was dangling over an abyss that could swallow her whole.

  Emily placed the badge beside the frame. The next item was a picture of a grave. A grave she’d never seen. Never visited. But as her mind processed the name, Andrew Conley, and dates on it, she began to shake. Pushing the box from her lap, she jerked up off the sofa.

  She shoved the picture in Adam’s face. “What is this? What does this mean?”

  “It means what you think it means.”

  Emily lurched backward, took two steps, and collapsed to the floor. Hugging herself, she rocked back and forth until Adam stirred. Pushing up and away, she spun around. “Don’t come near me. Don’t. Touch. Me.”

  He froze where he was, his hands outstretched in a plea. God, why was this happening to her? Why was he doing this? She’d been happy. She was finally healing, moving forward. Then the happiness was ripped away by fear only to learn all of it was a lie. And now this. This box of pain and questions and… How much more could she take?

  She held up the picture again. The death date was seven months ago. Numbness took over and a voice she didn’t recognize asked Adam, “Did Drew die that day in the river?”

  “No,” he whispered.

  “How did he survive?”

  “He swam to the other shore. He was a strong swimmer. Someone was waiting for him.”

  She knew that. It was one of the things that never made sense to her. Even without the life vest he could have easily swam downstream out of the rapids. That was why there was no body. She knew all this and yet it hadn’t made sense to her, because that would have meant Drew willingly left her. And why would she believe him capable of that. They were going to get married. They’d made plans for a future.