Down Home Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  “I’m good, actually,” his brother responded. “But, I thought you might want to talk about your current situation.”

  Liam’s eyebrows shot up. “You have a situation?”

  “None of your business.”

  “We’re supposed to be bonding,” Alex said. “It’s good for morale. That’s something I learned in the military.”

  “You all sat around talking about girls in the military? That’s some official morale-boosting exercise?”

  Alex grinned. “No. But it sounded good.”

  “Fine,” Cain said. “I have a situation. Are you happy?”

  “Are you?” Finn said, arching a brow.

  “I’m having sex, how could I not be?”

  “How the hell,” Liam said, rocking back in his chair, “are you having better luck with women than I am?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Cain responded. “Except maybe that women just like me better than they like you.”

  “Very much not likely,” Liam said.

  “Except, it seems like maybe they do.”

  Finn and Alex smirked at each other.

  “Stop enjoying this,” Liam said.

  “I can’t help it,” Alex said. “It’s just so great. Because you essentially admitted that you haven’t had any play since you’ve been here.”

  “I didn’t say that. I just said Cain seems to be having better luck than me.”

  Cain took a long sip of his beer. “Women like older men, Liam. They like men who know what they’re doing.”

  “It’s that redhead, right?” Alex asked. “Alison. Violet’s boss.”

  Cain frowned. “Not your business.”

  He looked over at Finn who wasn’t saying anything at all, but he had a feeling that his brother knew already, seeing as Lane almost certainly did.

  “Definitely then,” Alex said. “I saw her when she came by the house last night. She was looking for you. And she had some choice names for you too. Which means she’s spent more than a little time in your presence. Because let me tell you, they were descriptive names, and they were accurate.”

  “Did any of them contain the words big or thick?” He couldn’t help it. Something about being in the presence of his brothers regressed him all the way back to adolescence.

  “Yes,” Alex said, his tone serious. “And dick. And also head.”

  Liam snorted. “That does sound about right.”

  “I think it’s great,” Finn said. “It’s good to find somebody you want to be with.”

  “It’s not like you and Lane. You can stop looking at me like that.”

  “Hey,” Finn said. “Whatever makes you happy.”

  “You seem so much less concerned with my well-being,” Liam said.

  “Because you’re a jackass,” Finn said.

  Liam shrugged, then took a drink. “Fair enough.”

  “Where were you all day?” Cain asked Alex, happy to take the focus off himself.

  “I told you, I have some business to take care of. Property that I’ve inherited.”

  “You know,” Finn said. “Most men don’t inherit one giant parcel of land. You happen to get two? How did that happen?”

  “Everybody that I’ve ever loved has died? Oh, and they handily owned large parcels of land. So I guess it’s not all bad?”

  “Shit, man,” Liam said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Alex said, lifting his beer to his lips. “Everybody that enlists understands there’s a risk. It could have just as easily been me instead of Jason. It sucks, but there it is.”

  “Why did he leave everything to you?”

  Alex hesitated. “It’s complicated. His sister... He wanted to make sure his sister was taken care of. She pretty much would have been better off being left to the care of...anyone else.”

  “How old is his sister?” Liam asked, an expression of horror on his face. “Did he leave you a kid?”

  Alex snorted out a laugh. “Worse. He left me a young twentysomething who’s going to be awfully pissed he did. I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with that.”

  “All right, I officially feel more sorry for you than I do for Cain,” Finn said. “Because now Cain is getting laid, and he doesn’t have to deal with that mess.”

  “Wow,” Cain said. “It feels good to move up in the world.”

  “You see why I don’t feel sorry for you not being able to drink,” Alex said, directing the question at Finn. “Because I need to drink.”

  “Have you seen the sister yet?”

  “I’ve met Clara before,” Alex said. “But no. I haven’t seen her since Jason’s funeral.” He shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t think she’s going to take to me owning everything very well. But, oh well. I’m here to make her happy. I’m going to keep her safe.”

  There was something haunted in Alex’s eyes when he said that. And Cain could only figure that Alex must’ve felt that he failed in that objective where Jason was concerned.

  “That sounds so fun,” Finn said. “Women love being kept safe against their will.”

  Alex nearly growled. “I’m honoring the last wishes of my friend. And I’m going to do it no matter how mad it makes his sister.” He took another sip of beer. “I just might avoid her for a little while longer first.”

  Cain laughed, because he couldn’t help it. Because it was so rare that someone else’s life seemed like a bigger mess than his. But, at the moment, Alex’s certainly fit the bill.

  Liam looked to the side, his gaze sharpening as his eyes connected with the back of a curvy blonde. She shook her head, leaning against the bar, her rear accentuated by the pose. A few weeks ago, Cain might have been affected by that, in the way that a man was affected by a beautiful woman. Not now though. Now, the only ass that appealed to him was Alison’s—not a terribly romantic sentiment, maybe. But then, he supposed that his and Alison’s relationship wasn’t really about romance. So that was fair enough.

  “Excuse me,” Liam said, getting up from the table and walking over to the bar.

  Finn, Alex and Cain exchanged glances, then they all watched their brother as he approached the woman.

  “Bet you ten bucks he strikes out,” Alex said.

  “You’re on,” Finn said.

  They watched as Liam sidled up to the woman, planting his hands firmly on the bar and turning to face her. Then, she turned to him, and Liam’s face changed noticeably. Then went flat. But it was the woman who took three steps back, then abandoned the bar like she wasn’t waiting for a drink. Walked straight out the door like she hadn’t been there at all.

  “Well, damn,” Finn said.

  Liam turned, rubbing his hand over his face, then looking toward the door. He hung out by the bar, rather than turning to the table right away.

  “What the hell was that about?” Alex asked.

  “I don’t know what it was about,” Finn said. “But I do know that was Sabrina Leighton. And I also know that the last time she saw Liam in here she ran out just as quickly.”

  Cain knew that Liam had spent his teenage years raising a lot of hell, so it stood to reason that there were some casualties that he’d left behind here in Copper Ridge. He had to wonder if Sabrina Leighton was one of them.

  “Don’t ask,” Liam said, as he sat back down at the table.

  For once, Cain could tell that his brother wasn’t joking. Usually, Liam seemed to take everything pretty lightly, but clearly Sabrina Leighton wasn’t one of those things.

  It was easy for him to look at his brothers, so long estranged from him, as one-dimensional irritations. Well, that was his least kind way of looking at them. The best he’d seen them as was supportive while he’d worked to rebuild his life, worked to build something new.

&nb
sp; He couldn’t work the ranch without them. He needed them. But it was still easy to see them as something other than what they were. Which was most definitely men with their own issues, their own wounds.

  Alex liked to pretend his didn’t exist. Finn had hashed most of his out with the help of Lane when Cain and the rest of the guys had come into town after their grandfather had died. And Liam... Well, Liam was the hardest to get a read on.

  And Cain had been so caught up in his own stuff that he hadn’t really tried. But then, that was the story of his life, wasn’t it?

  He didn’t ask other people what was happening. Because then they would ask him. He didn’t know how to get close. Or maybe he didn’t want to.

  But this was his family. This was his chance. He couldn’t run the ranch without them, and he was starting to think that he couldn’t have made it through the past month without them either. Alex and Liam, for all that they were pains in the ass, had come right into that barn with him to get Violet, guns blazing.

  “You know her,” Cain said, not respecting his brother’s boundary. Which was possibly the first time he had ever done that. Not because he was such a nice guy, but because of all that resisting of intimacy he’d spent his entire life doing.

  “Obviously,” Liam said.

  “Old girlfriend?”

  Liam treated him to a murderous glare. “Ancient history. Anyway, she was a kid last time I saw her.”

  “I bet you were a kid too.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. But, it does remind me why I’ve spent so long avoiding living in such damn small towns.”

  “Something about her still bothers you,” Cain said.

  “No. I bother her. And here I am, in Copper Ridge, so now she’s tripping over me. I’m a jackass, Cain. But I’m not that bad. Just because I couldn’t give someone something they wanted doesn’t mean I want to be in their face hurting them later.”

  He took another drink, then glared at the bottle of beer. “I need something way harder than this.”

  Then he excused himself and went back to the bar again.

  “Hey,” Alex said. “You almost got Liam to share.”

  Cain laughed. “I suppose that’s about as strange as getting me to share.”

  “Almost,” Finn agreed.

  “It didn’t kill me,” Cain continued. “So maybe it will be a new theme.”

  “I’m good,” Alex said. “I don’t need to have sharing hour. Not really.”

  “You’re the one that was asking for details earlier.”

  “Right. But when I was asking it was because I wanted to hear dirty stuff.”

  Cain snorted. “Get your own sex life.”

  “I have two ranches instead. Hoo-fuckin-ray.”

  “You’re the only guy I’ve ever met who’s been pissed off about something like that,” Finn said.

  “I was in the military for more than a decade. I traveled light. This... Connections... Not really my thing.”

  “And family is kind of a new thing for all of us,” Finn conceded.

  Family wasn’t really a new thing for Cain. Violet had made him and Kathleen a family sixteen years ago. And since then, things had broken apart, and been shoved back together in strange, mismatched ways. He had lost the wife, gained three brothers he had never really known before. Moved across the country. Met Alison. And something about Alison was changing him.

  Yeah, things looked different now. But he wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. For the first time, it all actually felt like it might be pretty damn good.

  “To family,” he said, raising his beer bottle.

  Alex followed suit, clinking the bottles together. Finn just sat there and scowled. “I’m drinking water,” he said. “I’m not toasting to anything.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I WANT TO take you out.”

  Alison blinked rapidly as Cain leaned over the bakery counter, his hands clasped together, his green eyes intent on hers. It had been two days since she had seen him. They had missed each other yesterday, and with some extra work that had come up on the ranch, plus Violet being around, they hadn’t managed to connect. But today, he had shown up at the bakery around closing time without texting or calling.

  “Is that like... A threat? Are you admitting that you’re an assassin? Because that actually connects some dots that weren’t quite lining up before.”

  He laughed. “No. I mean I want to take you to dinner tonight. Unless you have plans. In which case, I suppose I could plan ahead, and stop trying to do the spontaneity thing. But in the past I have been accused of being not spontaneous. I’m trying to change some things.”

  She frowned. “Are you asking me on a date?” Frankly, the idea that he might be an assassin was less scary.

  “Yeah.”

  “Cain... We talked about what this was.” What world was this? Where she was the one having to tell this gorgeous man that it wasn’t going to be anything but physical? Why would he want anything more with her? It didn’t make any sense.

  “I’m not changing the rules. I’m just adding something. You work hard, so do I. Don’t we deserve the chance to go out? Plus, you told me yourself you’re trying to rewrite your story. You want to change the way people around here see you. Let them see you with a man who wants to do nice things for you. Let them see you being treated the way I think you deserve to be treated.”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear, taking a step back, trying to ignore the ache in her feet that was centered squarely on her arches, from standing all day on the hard floors. “Are you going to tell Violet?”

  He shook his head. “There’s really nothing to tell her. Since we both know what this is.” He didn’t look away from her when he said that, and it made something uncomfortable twist in her stomach. “But if it gets back to her it’s not the worst thing in the world. I would have to talk to her about something kind of uncomfortable... But somebody told me just a couple of days ago that I was going to have to be a little more honest with the people in my life. So.”

  “Really? Somebody told you that?” she asked, fully aware that he was referencing her own advice. “I don’t think she’s somebody you should listen to. I think she sounds crazy.”

  “Well, she might be. But she’s my kind of crazy.”

  Would it be so bad to take this? To take this little bit of extra? Part of her thought that it might be. Part of her thought that it was probably a very bad idea to let herself crave anything beyond the physical satisfaction she had found with Cain. But he was so handsome, so tall, broad and gorgeous, and there was a part of her—a petty, small part of her—that was drawn to the idea of everybody in town seeing her wandering around with this sexy man.

  Rewriting her story indeed.

  “Sure,” she said, starting to untie her apron. “Why not?”

  “Not the most enthusiastic acceptance I’ve had to a date, but since it’s been about sixteen years since I’ve been out on an actual date, I’ll take it.”

  That actually helped her feel a little better about everything. Cain was trying to get back into dating, probably. He would want to date other women after her. So this was practice for him. She ignored the hard bite of jealousy that thought brought on.

  Of course there would be other women after her. Because they weren’t going to be together forever, and Cain was hardly going back to being celibate. Really, it was a waste of sexual prowess for the man not to have sex. His body was a public service. Or it could be if he used it accordingly.

  And she had no right to feel possessive or angry about that.

  There was nobody in the shop, so she turned the lights off and flipped the sign to Closed. She would take care of any details that needed finishing when she came back home. One of the perks to living right above the bakery.

&n
bsp; “If you have anything you want to take care of I can help you with it,” he said.

  He really was a nice guy. A nice guy who was capable of being a bad boy when the situation called for it. The kind of man that it would be very easy for a woman to start having feelings for.

  She swallowed hard. “No. I’ve got it. I am hungry though.”

  “Do you have a food preference?”

  “I haven’t been to Ace’s new brewery yet.”

  “Well, that sounds like a pretty decent plan, then.”

  He held the door open for her, an act that made her stomach turn over again. The streets were mostly clear as they started down the sidewalk, the little shops on Main all closing early on Sunday.

  The sky was a pretty peach color, low-hanging clouds starting to roll in over the sea, rimmed in gold, fading to a dusky color at the center. Part of her wanted to reach out and take hold of Cain’s hand, because it seemed like a romantic thing to do. But she wasn’t supposed to be having romance with him. She was supposed to be having orgasms.

  What are you doing, then?

  A very good question.

  But she seemed to be intent on doing it, whether or not it was something she should be doing. She drifted slightly to the left, her fingers brushing Cain’s, a thrill of excitement rushing through her. Just from the touch of his fingertips against hers. The way that she had reacted, you would’ve thought that he’d touched her somewhere intimate.

  You would have thought there was something much deeper happening than a simple touch on a public street. But of course there wasn’t.

  And she didn’t want him to hold her hand. She ignored the yawning chasm that seemed to open up inside of her that called her a liar. Yeah, she ignored it all the way down the street to Ace’s Brewery.

  They both paused in front of the door, and Cain reached out and opened it for her. Another innocuous gesture that she felt all the way down to her toes.

  She was pathetic, really. That such simple gestures made her all fuzzy inside. It was a testament to how ridiculous her past life had been, and just how much she needed to be on guard now.