Down Home Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  But because it was Alison, because of everything she had been through, he couldn’t.

  If he was ever going to win her, if he ever had a hope... He had to be the man her ex-husband never was. He had to love her in the way that was hardest.

  The way that meant he wanted what was best for her, not what might make him happiest. And not even what he thought might be best for her. But what she felt was best for her. What she chose.

  All he could do was what he had done. Tell her.

  And wait for her to come to him.

  And pray to God she would.

  * * *

  “HI,” VIOLET SAID when she walked into the bakery. It was clear to Alison, upon arrival, that Violet was mad at her. And there really was only one reason that could be.

  The same reason she was mad at herself. The same reason she wanted to curl up and hide under the counter and cry into a bowl of buttercream frosting. Then cry into a bowl of cookie dough. Then maybe into a bowl of cake batter. Because she had a lot of feelings, and she needed a lot of butter to deal with them.

  That made her think of conversations with Cain. And it made her want to cry all the more.

  But she was at work, and she was looking at the man’s daughter, so maybe she needed to keep it together.

  “Good morning,” Alison said, trying to sound perkier than she felt.

  Honestly, though, a roadkill raccoon was perkier than she felt.

  “How are you?” Violet asked, which was something the teenager never asked, because she was a teenager. And the fact that she was asking indicated she knew that Alison might not be doing so hot. Great. Just great.

  “Fantastic,” Alison returned, putting her focus on the tray of turnovers that she was placing into the display case. “Just wonderful.”

  “Good,” Violet said, her expression slightly stony as she made her way behind the counter and grabbed her apron. “That’s good to hear.”

  “Right,” Alison prevaricated, not entirely sure if she should speak the words that were hovering on the edge of her lips. But in the end, she didn’t have the self-control not to. “How is your dad?”

  Violet’s expression went flat. “He’s awesome. I’ve never seen him happier. He brought home a brunette. And a blonde. Pretty sure they’re having sex.”

  Alison knew that Violet was messing with her. It was, in fact, so transparent she didn’t even think Violet was trying to make it seem realistic. Even so, the image of Cain wandering in with two different women on his arm right after she had thrown him out of her apartment made her want to take the tray of turnovers and smash it on the ground, kicking pies everywhere.

  Which made absolutely no sense. Because she didn’t want Cain. At least, not in the capacity that he wanted her to. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. She kind of did want that. It was just that she shouldn’t. She couldn’t. The fact that she wanted it was actually a bad thing. She needed to not want it.

  The only real solution to that, the only possible way to deal with it, had been to get rid of him.

  He could sleep his way through L’Oréal’s entire hair color rainbow for all she cared.

  “Good for him,” Alison said, knowing that her words sounded as brittle to Violet as they did to herself.

  “So I guess... I suppose you don’t want to talk to me anymore.”

  The words shocked Alison. “Why would you say that?”

  “Because. You were only talking to me because you wanted to get into my dad’s pants, apparently. He asked you to figure out what was wrong with me and you did, because you wanted to sleep with him. But now you’re done sleeping with him, so you don’t need me.”

  Alison’s heart crumpled up tightly inside of her chest, which a moment ago she would have said was impossible since the organ was already frazzled and reduced. She hadn’t thought it was possible to sustain any more damage. And lo, it had been.

  “No,” she said to Violet. “No. That isn’t why I was talking to you. I like you. I care about you. I enjoy your company. I want you to have the best life you can possibly have, and your dad has nothing to do with that.”

  “I don’t believe you. I know how this works. I mean, my own mother didn’t stick around when she was done with my dad. Why would you?”

  “Because of you. Because of who you are as a person. Because you’re bright, and you’re talented, and you’re really funny. And I wish that you were more confident in the fact that you have value apart from what’s happening with your dad.”

  “I don’t...” She blinked, and was clearly doing her best to hold back angry tears.

  “Come here,” Alison said. “Let’s go in the back for a minute.”

  She led Violet out from behind the counter to the door that went up to her apartment. She opened it, and then stepped in the entryway with her, closing the door to give them privacy.

  “Okay. You can yell at me now. Or whatever you need to do,” Alison said.

  Actually, she would kind of enjoy being yelled at. Cain had not been as angry at her as she needed him to be. Somebody should yell at her.

  “I don’t want to yell at you,” Violet said. “I just don’t understand. If you like me, and you like him...”

  Alison took a breath, trying to fortify herself. But she had a feeling there was no real fortification to be had at this point. “Remember I told you I was in a bad relationship? My ex-husband was abusive, Violet. And I fought very long and hard to have the independence that I have. It isn’t about Cain. Your dad. It’s about me. And it certainly isn’t about you. I just have baggage, and I need to not be in a relationship.”

  “Okay. But I’m supposed to let go of everything that happened to me and move on, while you’re allowed to be all emotionally scarred?”

  Annoyance shot through Alison. “No. This is different. It’s relationship specific. Romantic relationship specific. And getting involved...it conflicts with my goals.”

  “Your goals to be alone? Your goals to not accept the love of a man who loves you? Because let me tell you, I saw my dad when my mom left. He was mad. He’s been mad about it for years. But he never looked like he does now. This is different. You’re different. He loves you, and being with you... He’s different. I like who he is when he’s with you. I didn’t know that was why, but now I do. And I don’t want... I don’t want things to go back to the way they were.”

  Alison gritted her teeth, pain flooding her. She wanted to pull Violet close and give her a hug. Wanted to tell her that everything would be okay. But she couldn’t, because she didn’t know if it would be okay. The very real possibility that she might have broken this already fragile family wounded her to her core.

  “You and your dad know how to talk to each other now. That’s a start,” she said cautiously. “He loves you, Violet. More than anything. Nothing will ever change that. He’s not a man given to flowery speeches, but the closest he gets...he’s always talking about you. You don’t ever have to worry about losing him. No matter what.”

  “So that’s it?”

  Alison’s throat constricted. “It has to be. But it’s not it for you and me. Understand that. Please.”

  Violet nodded and turned toward the door that led out to the main dining area. Then she paused. “It just seems to me, though, that if you’re still doing things because of what your husband did to you... He’s kind of still controlling you. I mean, if you really want to be alone then fine. Be alone, I guess. But if it all just has to do with him... Well, he’s still choosing what you do.”

  Then Violet opened the door and walked back out to the dining room, leaving Alison standing there alone. Shattered. Feeling like she had been punched in the chest.

  The words hurt. And they hit way too close to home. But at the end of the day, Violet was sixteen, and she didn’t understand what Alison was dealing with. She d
idn’t.

  Somehow, Alison made it gritty-eyed through the rest of the day, all the way until closing time. And that was when she realized that it was girls’ night. They had bumped up their time because Lane’s brother, Mark, was coming into town for a visit during the usual week.

  She made a series of grousing noises while she Saran-wrapped a tray full of leftover pies and angrily stomped to The Grind, where they were theoretically meeting. She did her best to school her face into something more relaxed and a little less feral before she went inside.

  She must not have done a very good job, though, because when she walked in they all looked at her as though she had grown fangs.

  “Hello to you too,” she said, setting the tray of pies down on the counter. “I am late. I forgot.”

  “You look...” Lane started.

  “Like you’re ready to eviscerate somebody with your teeth,” Rebecca finished.

  “Well, I spent the entire day on my feet. It is basically prime evisceration time.”

  Cassie took a step back. “I think I’ll just stay out of harm’s way.”

  “Here. Eviscerate this,” Lane said, pushing a tightly wrapped bundle toward her.

  “What the hell is this?” Alison asked, poking at the package.

  “I don’t know. Some fancy-ass brick of a fruitcake that a company in South America sent me as a bonus product with my order today. I am skeptical.”

  “You offering me a sketchy cake full of raisins is not going to make me less murderous.”

  “Right. I forgot you had raisin baggage. And apparently some other baggage. At least, I’m assuming by the general state that you’re in.”

  “I’m not in a state,” she said, sitting down at one of the tables in the dining room. “I’m just tired.”

  “Everything going okay with your man?” This question came from Cassie.

  “He was never my man,” she said, the words coming out more tart than she’d intended.

  “What happened?” Rebecca asked.

  “Why do you think something happened?”

  “Because,” Lane said, her tone maddeningly rational, “if nothing happened, you would just say nothing happened. But you’re not saying that. You’re being cagey. And you’re snarling around like a hedgehog.”

  “Do hedgehogs snarl?”

  “If they did it would be like this,” Lane said confidently. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I mean, nothing of note. I have ended my physical-only engagement with Cain.”

  She didn’t know what sort of reaction she had been expecting. A round of disappointed noises, perhaps? Something a little more like a movie than she was currently experiencing. She didn’t get that. Instead, she was treated to a round of blank expressions.

  “And it’s fine,” she continued, her tone deadpan.

  “Right,” Rebecca said, clearly disbelieving.

  “Of course I’m disappointed. Because he was good in bed. Who wants to lose that? But he and I agreed that it was going to be temporary.” For some reason, tears started to form in her eyes, that thick ache spreading through her throat again. “It was only supposed to be physical. And he was supposed to be just as averse to relationships as I was. He changed things, not me, and I had no choice but to end it.”

  Everyone was still just staring at her. Those same blank expressions on all of their faces. It was judgment, she realized. They were judging her.

  “I can’t have a relationship. Not like that. I’m not going to...commit myself to some man, let him make all of the decisions about my life. You know what? It’s not even that. It’s not that he would be controlling, it’s that I just... That person that I used to be. She contorted herself into these ridiculous shapes to try and fix a marriage that was so...flawed. I can’t go back there. I can’t.”

  “Why do you think you would? Why do you think that being with somebody would turn you back into that other person?” Lane asked.

  Alison laughed, a kind of humorless, hysterical sound. “Because I have no evidence to the contrary.”

  It was Rebecca who spoke next, slowly, her dark eyes serious. “What I’m really wondering is why you think you’re two different people.”

  The words settled between them, layered on top of the uneasy silence. She was... She wasn’t used to this. She wasn’t used to people challenging her. Normally, her past was a convenient shield that she could use. Nobody questioned it because they hadn’t experienced what she had. Because they didn’t know what it was like, and they were well aware of that.

  Sometimes she had been a little bit resentful of the distance it put between her and other people. But, she had also wielded it conveniently, she couldn’t deny that.

  But between Cain, and Violet earlier today, and now her friends, she had been pinned down and examined more times than she was comfortable with. On top of already feeling raw and wounded, she was being subjected to this. It didn’t feel very much like support.

  She needed support. She was indignant.

  “It’s easier that way,” she said, her tone hard. “I don’t like thinking of that person as me. Would you? Honestly, Rebecca, why would I want to think of that horrible, weak woman as myself?” She took a deep, unsteady breath. “She stayed. She stayed for eight years.”

  “She left too,” Rebecca said. “Don’t forget that. You were never all weak, Alison, no matter how you felt. No matter how grim your situation was. It was never hopeless, because you were never broken. Not completely. I think you do yourself a disservice by remembering yourself as somebody different.”

  “Well, if the strength was always in me, then the weakness is still in me now, and I rest my case.” Her voice was trembling with emotion, and she felt a tear slide down her cheek. She was resolute. She knew she had made the right decision, so she had no idea why it was so hard for her to deal with the consequences now. Why she was filled with so much regret, when she should be standing firm.

  “If you don’t love him,” Cassie said, “then it doesn’t matter. And there’s no point beating yourself up over the fact that you’re not in a place to be with him or give him what he wants. But if you do love him... If you want to be with him, then I think we’re going to have to sit here and figure this out, Alison. This is part of having friends. We don’t let you stay in places that aren’t good for you. We won’t let you settle for less when you could have everything.”

  Another tear slid down her cheek, and she gave up even trying to control it then. She was miserable. And she had a feeling she knew why. But she didn’t know what she was supposed to do about it. She didn’t know how to be all of these things her friends claimed that she was. She didn’t know how to need somebody without falling apart. Didn’t know how to be vulnerable when she needed to be strong.

  “I have this whole life,” she said, the words coming out broken, which made sense since everything inside of her felt shattered. “The bakery. And this mission to help women who have come out of situations like mine, who have been left feeling like less than they should because they let the idea of love overshadow real love. As they’ve stopped loving themselves, and they let somebody else have years of their lives. That’s important. I don’t need more than that. That’s more than most people will ever have.”

  “That’s a great mission,” Lane said. “And it’s important. But at the end of the day that’s still just you working for other people. Giving up things that make you happy so you can devote more time to them, because you’re comfortable with that. But what do you want, Alison? What do you want for your life, for yourself?”

  “What does it matter?” she asked, feeling a little bit desperate now. A little bit afraid. “I’m not...allowed to have...love and happiness. I don’t use them right. I don’t know what to do with them.”

  “Maybe nineteen-year-old Alison who got married when
her terrible mom died because she was desperately seeking comfort didn’t know who she was, maybe she didn’t know how to have those things,” Lane said, her voice vibrating with intensity. “But don’t you think thirty-two-year-old Alison who has walked through the damn fire, who has made new friends, good friends, who has helped so many people find their purpose in life, don’t you think she knows how to have that? Don’t you think she can?”

  For a moment, everything seemed wide-open in front of her, and it was terrifying. There was a certain amount of security in narrowing your focus. In narrowing your life. In cutting yourself off from something entirely. It didn’t require a lot of self-control, not in the end. Because it was out of sight, out of mind. And it didn’t require any trust.

  Opening herself up to those possibilities... It made her feel exposed. Made her feel like she was standing out in the open in the wilderness, soft and ready for any predator who might happen along wanting to tear out her throat.

  It made her long for her protection. For her cave.

  “No,” she said. “No. What if... What if it goes wrong? What if I...”

  “What if you get hurt again?” Lane asked, her tone gentle.

  “I should be cured of this. I shouldn’t want to be in love. I shouldn’t want to get married again. I know how it goes. I know how it ends for me.”

  “No,” Cassie said, her tone firm. “You know how it was with him. I know my first husband didn’t hurt me. I mean, he didn’t abuse me. But if I had decided that all marriages were like what I had with him, then I wouldn’t be with Jake now. I wouldn’t have my kids. I wouldn’t have these beautiful people in my life that I love more than anything.”

  “That’s fine for you,” Alison said. “And I’m so glad you’re happy. I am. But I don’t...” She stopped talking, not quite sure what she had been about to say.

  Until Rebecca looked at her, her expression questioning. “You don’t deserve it?”

  Yes. Her soul breathed that answer. Before her mind had a chance to think it. It was the truth that lived inside of her, deeper than words, deeper than thought.