THE STARDUST COWBOY

by Anne McAllister

  He couldn't stop thinking about her.

  Two days ago, after she'd hung up from telling him she was going to get a divorce, that she was going to Denver, he'd wondered if she'd really meant it, if she'd really leave.

  Apparently she had.

  And then he wondered if she would call him the way she said she would. He wondered what she'd say if she did. He knew what he'd say… What he had to say…

  It's too late, Tricia. I have other commitments.

  Chris had told her to go home, to get lost, to take their unborn child and go away.

  "It isn't that I don't love you," he'd said in a moment of total self-delusion.

  "What is it then?" Dori had said, tears stinging, a lump in her throat the size of Mount Everest. She'd waited for the great revelation while Chris had paced the room, scowling and looking furious and distracted.

  Finally he'd shaken his head and, in doing so, come to a moment of clarity. "It's that I just … I just … can't."

  He couldn't. He wouldn't.

  Riley could. Riley would.

  Dori knew Riley would marry her because he'd said he would, just like he'd given half the ranch to Jake because it was the right thing to do, just like he hadn't had sex with Tricia when she was married to Jeff because it would have been wrong.

  Riley did the right thing. No matter what it cost him.

  But he didn't love her.

  Not the way he loved Tricia.

  Dori knew that. She knew it from the way he had grown so quiet since Tricia had called with her news. She knew it from the way he seemed distracted when either she or Jake talked to him, as if part of him was here, but most of him had gone to Denver.

  With her.

  But more than that, she knew it when he came to bed with her.

  They hadn't made love many times. She didn't have a lot of experience to go by. But she knew when a man's mind was where his body was.

  Riley wasn't there.

  Oh, he loved her. In fact there was almost a desperation in his lovemaking now, as if he was trying to prove to himself that it would work. But the sweetness was gone. The focus was shattered.

  His body was in hers.

  But his heart was elsewhere.

  She had hoped that things would be all right. She had tried to pretend that Tricia's divorce wouldn't make any difference, because it would hurt so bad if things went wrong.

  After all these years Dori had dared to dream again, to let herself open up to another human being besides her son, to wear her heart on her sleeve. She'd fallen in love with Riley Stratton—first as a dream, then as a man.

  But she couldn't have him.

  She knew that now, as she lay in bed next to him and watched him sigh in his sleep. He muttered and twisted as if in pain.

  She knew his pain.

  And she knew she couldn't marry a man who didn't love her.

  "Why're we packin'?"

  "Because we need to go visit Aunt Milly for a while." Dori didn't turn to look at Jake when she answered him. She didn't want to see the surprised look in his eyes. She didn't want to see the worry, the hurt, the confusion.

  "How come?"

  "Because she invited us. I put your duffel bag on the bottom bunk. Go put in it what you want to take. We'll get the rest—" She broke off. "Just put in it what you want." She wasn't going to tell him they were leaving for good. She couldn't deal with that. Not yet.

  "Don't wanta take anything. Don't wanta go," Jake said. "You go see Aunt Milly. I'll stay with Uncle Riley."

  "No, dear. Grandma and Grandpa want to see you, too. They miss you." Not that she'd told them she was coming. She'd only called Milly this morning.

  "Don't mention this to Mom and Dad," she'd said. "I just need a bolt hole. I'll find something. I just need a little time … and space."

  "Are you sure about this?" Milly had demanded. "I thought you loved him."

  "I—" Dori had been going to deny it, but she couldn't. "It won't work," she'd told Milly. "He doesn't love me."

  That part Milly understood. She didn't argue anymore.

  "We're takin' Tugger," Jake said. He wasn't asking.

  "We'll take Tugger." Knowing that Tugger was coming along was going to be what got Jake out the door. "Go pack your bag and put it by the door. Then get Tugger's food and his crate."

  "We're goin' now?" Jake clearly didn't think much of that.

  "Now," Dori said.

  She'd put it off, had dared to hope, but she couldn't hope now. Not after Tricia had called at lunchtime from Denver.

  "Tell Riley I called," she'd said, her voice husky. From crying, Dori had wondered. She'd felt like crying herself.

  "Yes," she'd said hollowly.

  "Tell him I'll call back later," Tricia instructed.

  "Yes," Dori agreed. But she wasn't going to wait around to tell him. She wasn't going to wait around to say goodbye. She knew Riley Stratton. He'd tell her that Tricia didn't matter, that he'd already committed himself to marry her.

  Dori didn't need that kind of sacrifice.

  She needed to get out of there while Riley was still gone.

  "Come on, Jake," she urged. "I want to have some time to drive while it's still daylight."

  Jake scowled, but finally he left.

  Dori ended up helping him pack. They'd have been there hours if she'd waited for him to do it on his own. She threw his things in haphazardly, trying not to look at the picture of Riley and Tricia in high school prom garb, which was tacked to the bulletin board on the wall. She tried not to see Riley's shirt hanging on the doorknob, or his scuffed moccasins peeking out from under the bed.

  She tried not to think about Riley.

  But Riley was everywhere.

  She lugged the duffels out to the car. She stowed them in the trunk. She put Tugger's crate in the back and started to put Tugger in it.

  "He can't ride there. He's gotta ride with me!" Jake protested.

  "He'll pee on you," Dori reminded him. But Jake clutched the puppy against his chest. "I don't care."

  "Fine. Let him pee on you." It was the least of her concerns. She blinked fiercely against tears and swallowed hard. She opened the front door and waited. "Just get in. Now."

  "How come we're not waitin' to say goodbye to Uncle Riley?"

  "I left him a note."

  "But—"

  "Jake, get in this car."

  Jake got in the car. Dori breathed a sigh of relief. But when she came around to get in the other side, he had another question.

  "Is Uncle Riley throwin' us out?"

  She looked at Jake, startled. He was looking at her in complete seriousness, his eyes wide and worried as he regarded her over Tugger's head. "No, Jake. Of course not."

  "Then why—"

  "I told you. Aunt Milly—"

  "This isn't about Aunt Milly."

  "All right," Dori agreed, defeated. "It isn't about Aunt Milly. It's about your Uncle Riley and … and me. We were going to get married. Now we aren't. And the rest of it you're too young to understand!"

  "I am not!" Jake said, indignant.

  "Well, how about I'm too miserable to explain it to you, then?" Which was only the truth. More honesty. Poor Jake.

  She sniffled and scrubbed at her eyes with her shirtsleeve. Then she started the engine, crashed the gears and stomped on the gas pedal, scattering gravel and sending the car shooting up the road.

  Jake sat beside her silently, Tugger in his lap. He had, she was grateful to notice, stopped asking questions at last.

  They weren't in the yard when he came over the rise. The car wasn't beside the house. He supposed they'd gone into town. Dori had said something about getting Jake school clothes, that he'd grown out of all his old ones. Riley could believe that. The boy seemed to have grown inches in the few weeks he'd been here. Once already Riley had even lengthened Jake's stirrups.

  "He's outgrowin' everything," he'd said last night.

  "He can't help it," Dori had replied, as if he'd been co
mplaining.

  He didn't complain. Ever. He just … endured.

  Now he turned out his horse and went to check on Tugger. He whistled as he approached the pen he'd built by the side of the house, but Tugger didn't come running. Probably they'd taken him with them into town. Wherever Jake went, Tugger went, too.

  He was sure he'd hear how taking the puppy shopping for school clothes went when they got home. He went up the steps, took off his boots and went into the house.

  It felt quiet. Too quiet.

  Of course it was quiet. They were in town.

  He glanced at the table and saw a note there. Idly he picked it up and started to read.

  As he read the words Dori had written, the bottom seemed to drop out of his world.

  Dear Riley,

  We have gone back to Livingston—not to my parents'. We'll be staying with my sister for a while. I'll be in touch when I know where we'll be and can arrange for our things to be shipped. I don't know yet about selling you the ranch. I think Jake may want to hang on to it, and I really can't tell him not to. But I can set you free to marry the woman you love. She called. She's in Denver. She'll call you later this afternoon.

  Dori.

  P.S. We've taken Tugger.

  He'd barely finished reading it when the phone rang. With nerveless fingers, he grabbed it. "Dori?"

  "N-no," a startled female voice replied. "It's Tricia."

  Tricia.

  "I called you earlier," she said, her voice husky. "I left a message."

  "I got it."

  She made a tremulous sound, somewhere between a sob and laugh. "Then you know I'm here. I'm settled. Well, not really settled. I have an apartment. I'm looking for a job. I've talked to Jeff about having the children with me part of the time when things are … calmer. I think it would be better for me to be here for a while before we talk about me coming back to the ranch. It's such a small town. You know how they talk."

  "I know how they talk." He could barely get the words out. His mind was reeling.

  "And maybe you'll like it here well enough to decide you don't want that ranch after all. You were going to leave it once, remember?"

  He remembered that she'd thought he would leave it. He hadn't denied it. He'd taken the easy way out. He'd remained silent and let her believe what she wanted to believe.

  She went on now. "You'll like Denver. It's a long drive, but not terrible. We can have weekends. And then maybe by the time we get married you'll want to move here. What do you think?"

  By the time we get married…

  There it was. His heart's desire. The relationship he'd always wanted with the one woman he'd always loved.

  But she wasn't the woman he loved.

  Not the way he loved Dori Malone.

  He knew it then, recognized it at last, saw that his youthful infatuation with Tricia had been just that. It had revved his hormones, made his body come to attention, plucked the strings of his emotions, played havoc with his pride.

  But what he felt for Tricia had never hit the core of him. It had never touched his heart.

  Dori had touched his heart.

  Her stubborn refusal to let Jake's dreams be trampled, her determined commitment to making a home for them on the ranch, her curtain making, her painting, her computer skills, her laughing, her teasing, her wondrous lovemaking—all of it Riley loved. There wasn't a selfish bone in her body. She was as giving and loving as Tricia was selfish. And finally Riley understood that.

  "Riley? I only said you might want to move here," Tricia began.

  "No."

  "Well, if you don't, we can talk about it, I guess, but—"

  "I'm not coming to Denver, Tricia. I'm not … marrying you."

  There was a moment's stunned silence. "Don't tell me you're going to honor your commitment to her now! Honestly, Riley—"

  "She isn't here. She left me."

  "Well, then—"

  "I love her, Trish. I love her!" Maybe it was the wrong thing to say. Certainly it wasn't a very tactful thing to say. But Riley had never been long on tact. Or patience.

  "But—"

  "I gotta go, Trish! You divorce Jeff if you want, but don't you divorce him for me. I'm marryin' Dori—if she'll have me."

  Then he banged down the phone. He didn't know how much of a head start she had, but he knew he had to catch her.

  Jake had never made a call from a pay phone before.

  He wasn't sure how to do it, so he asked the checkout girl in the gas station. She didn't know much, either, because she was only about sixteen and too busy flirting with a couple of rodeo cowboys to pay much attention to him. But one of the cowboys knew how.

  "You wanta reverse the charges," he told Jake. "That means the other guy pays for the call."

  "Sounds good." Jake glanced over his shoulder, hoping his mother couldn't see him. She thought he was in the men's room while she was in the women's.

  "I'll show you," the cowboy said. "What's the number?"

  Jake told him. The cowboy punched it in. "When they answer, the operator will ask if they'll accept a collect call from … and you say your name." The cowboy grinned. "That's all there is to it."

  Jake wished that was the truth.

  The phone rang and rang. And just when he was about to give up, he heard his uncle's voice. "Dori?"

  "No, it's—"

  But the operator cut in. "I have a collect call from…"

  There was a second of dead silence. Then Jake remembered what the cowboy had told him. "Jake! It's me, Uncle Riley! I—"

  "Do you accept the—"

  "Yes, damn it! Jake, where are you?"

  "In a gas station. We're gettin' gas. We're goin' to Aunt Milly's. What'd you do to my mom?"

  "Nothing! I didn't do anything. I didn't want you to leave. Hell, I—Jake, where are you?"

  Jake looked around. One gas station looked like any other to him. "Hey," he said to the cowboys who were still chatting to the checkout girl. "Where are we?"

  They looked at him, then at each other. They shrugged.

  The checkout girl popped her gum. "Ranchester," she told them all.

  Jake repeated that to his uncle.

  "Right. I can be there in a couple of hours. Stay put," Uncle Riley said.

  "Mom won't," Jake told him. "She doesn't know I called you. If she finds out, she'll leave."

  Uncle Riley muttered something on the other end of the line.

  "What?" Jake said. He'd never heard Uncle Riley use words like that before.

  "You gotta stop her," Uncle Riley said. "Disable the car."

  "Disable the car?" Jake repeated doubtfully.

  "She can't leave if you disable the car. Let the air out of tires."

  Jake's eyes widened a little. "How?" he asked a little breathless.

  Uncle Riley told him. Then he said, "It might not take her long to get 'em pumped again. You might have to do something else. You could pull the boots off the tops of the spark plugs."

  "She might notice me foolin' around under the hood."

  "Right. Well, then—"

  "She's comin'," Jake blurted. "I gotta go."

  "Keep her there," Uncle Riley said. "I'll be there as quick as I can. Just keep her there. Do that for me, can you, Jake?"

  "Can a bear climb trees? That's what Grandpa always said."

  Uncle Riley almost laughed. "Go for it, son."

  It wasn't easy. There were too darn many helpful cowboys and truckers around willing to help a lady in distress. And Jake's mom, even red-eyed from crying, seemed to be a magnet for most of them.

  Jake let the air out. They pumped it up. He needed to go to the bathroom. He lobbied for dinner.

  "I'm starvin'," he told her. He ate as slowly as he could. He ate more than he'd eaten in his life. He thought he'd probably bust. He hoped to heck Uncle Riley hurried up.

  "Come on, Jake," his mother urged. "Aunt Milly's expecting us."

  "We could spend the night here."

  "We're no
t spending the night here. Come on." She hauled him back to the car and reluctantly he climbed in. His mother went around and started the car.

  "I gotta go to the bathroom again," Jake blurted. "An' so does Tugger."

  "Fine. Go to the bathroom. Hurry up. And while you're there, I'll take Tugger into the lot." She switched off the ignition and got out, taking Tugger on his leash with her.

  Jake waited until she was gone, then he ambled to the bathroom. He came back almost at once, and when his mother returned, he was waiting for her.

  "Any more reasons to stall?" she asked him.

  He shook his head.

  She reached to turn on the key. It wasn't there. She looked in her purse, on the seat of the car, in her jacket pocket.

  "What did I do with the key?" she asked Jake.

  Jake shook his head. "I don't know."

  "Oh, good grief." His mother almost banged her head on the steering wheel. "Go inside and see if I left the keys on the counter. I'll look out here."

  "Okay." Jake bounced out of the car.

  "I have to find the key. What could I have done with it?"

  He was almost afraid she'd start crying again. He was pretty sure he'd be the one crying if she ever found out he'd flushed the key down the toilet.

  Riley saw her car as he approached the gas station. He'd driven like a bat out of hell all the way to Ranchester, praying he wasn't ticketed. He was.

  Twice.

  He didn't care. He only wanted to get to Dori.

  And now that he saw her there, surrounded by a half-dozen ranchers, truckers and cowboys, all looking worried and concerned, all fussing over her, he turned the corner before he pulled to a stop.

  No one noticed him. No one except Jake.

  The boy was sitting on a bench by the station, holding Tugger in his lap. When he spied Riley's truck, he got up. But he didn't come toward him when Riley got out of the truck. He just held Tugger and watched.

  Waited.

  For Riley to do what he needed to do.

  It wasn't the scene Riley would have chosen. He hated an audience. He had a big one. He hated to see women cry. He could hear Dori sniffling now.

  "It's just … been a hard day," he heard her tell the assembled truckers and cowboys. "D-don't mind me."