The Cowboy's Baby: Devlin Brothers Ranch

by Joanna Bell

  And it was. We arrived safely in London on schedule and I walked through Heathrow airport on wobbly legs, trying to understand why it felt like I'd just been through some kind of major ordeal.

  ***

  "What the hell is wrong with me?" I asked my cousin later that night as we lay in our beds in our hotel room, jet-lagged but unable to go to sleep because it was only early evening back in New York. "Nothing like that has ever happened to me before."

  "It hasn't?"

  "Why do you sound surprised?"

  The temporary glow of her phone filled the room as she checked the time. "I'm not. I mean, maybe a little. You're just – are you surprised? You've been under a lot of stress lately, you know."

  "Have I?"

  Even as I asked the question I realized how stupid it was. Of course I was under a lot of stress. My whole life was stress. Wake up in the morning, stress out all day about Brody and Jackson and work and everything and then go to sleep at night only to repeat the cycle the next day.

  "I guess I have," I continued, answering myself. "It's so weird. Like I think about my life and I feel like I should be happier. Like I shouldn't be worried all the time. You know?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "But – I am. I am worried all the time. It's fucking exhausting."

  "Have you thought about talking to someone?"

  It was a good question, asked in a nervous tone because Lili knew me and she knew I didn't always react well to questions like that one – questions that seemed to imply that something was wrong.

  I was 23. Old enough to know better? Maybe. Old enough to know having panic attacks wasn't a great sign. I hoped it was a one-off but worried that it wasn't. The thought of Brody seeing me like that – terrified, out of control – filled me with dread.

  "Maybe I should," I replied, sighing. "I'll ask Candy when we get back to New York. She'll probably have a whole list of therapists saved on her phone."

  ***

  The show, like the one in New York and the one in Los Angeles, sold out immediately. My pieces were listed at higher prices by then, because I was becoming well know enough to command them. In the space of an evening in London I made enough money to buy our old condo in Sweetgrass Ridge 5 times over.

  And none of it made me happy. It didn't even make me content. I still spent the entire flight back to New York seized with terror at the thought of another panic attack as Lili held my hand and read instructions for deep-breathing exercises off her phone.

  What the hell was wrong with me? Was I just incapable of happiness? Was it woven so tightly into my character that I would be better off just accepting it rather than trying to fight it?

  A couple of weeks after the London show, Jackson's name came up on my phone as I sat in my studio, staring out the window.

  "Hey," I said, deciding to answer it at the last minute before it went to voicemail.

  "Hey," he replied. "What's up?"

  I sighed and rubbed a paint-stained hand across my forehead. "Not much. Just trying to decide whether or not to have a nervous breakdown."

  It was still difficult to hear Jackson's voice. Even though all we talked about anymore was Brody and flight numbers and schedules, there was still something that threatened to throw me off balance every time. That afternoon in the studio with the summer sunshine blazing through the windows and the sounds of laugher and conversation floating up from the street below, it was somehow especially difficult to hear his voice. When he asked me what was up I replied with 'not much' – but what I really wanted to say was: 'I miss you.'

  Did I miss him? Or did I just miss my younger self? The version of me that still thought money and recognition would solve all my problems?

  "Are you being serious?" Jackson asked, probably noticing the flatness in my tone.

  "I don't know. I think so. You don't have to worry, it's not a big deal. I was just, uh – thinking. Thinking about talking to someone, maybe. Candy gave me her therapist's number. He has a purple Lamborghini. I think –"

  I stopped. Was Jackson laughing?

  Chapter 37: Jackson

  She took it the wrong way – no surprise there – but I couldn't help laughing. I wasn't laughing at her being upset, or talking about seeing a therapist.

  No. What I was laughing at was the way she dropped the little factoid about the purple Lamborghini into an otherwise serious conversation. That was such a typically Hailey thing to do, and for some reason it just struck me as hilarious. She didn't even change her tone of voice. And for some reason the purple detail got me. I had this image in my head of a bookish older man in a suit, with a pipe and a monocle –because apparently that's what my brain thinks a therapist looks like – zooming around Manhattan in a bright purple Lambo.

  "I'm sorry," I said, before breaking into laughter again. "I'm – Hailey – I'm –"

  "Don't worry about it," she replied, completely unamused. "I don't know what I expected."

  Ah, there it was. There was the unexpectedly abrasive comment that managed to just about stop my mirth in its tracks. "Oh come on," I admonished. "I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing at the – at the –" I broke off again briefly before once again regaining control – "the purple Lamborghini! I just imagined this old man driving around New York in a – in a –"

  I was off again, my shoulders shaking with laughter. "I'm sorry!" I spluttered. "I'm – I'm sorry. Just give me a –"

  "So just to be clear," she said a couple of minutes later after I'd wiped my eyes and managed to stop cracking up long enough to listen. "You're not laughing at the fact that I'm sad, right? You're laughing at a –"

  For one horrifying moment, I thought she was crying. She made a sound that almost sounded like a sob. But a second later a short peal of giggles filled my ears. Which, obviously, just set me off again.

  "A purple –" she gasped. "A purple – a purple –"

  "Lamborghini!" I managed to squeak out before we both dissolved into actual hysterics.

  It was a very long time since I laughed that hard. Hard enough to make my abs ache and my eyes leak.

  "Why did you tell me it was purple?!" I burst out a couple of minutes later, wiping my eyes. "What does it matter what color it is?"

  Hailey was giggling so hard she could barely answer. Goddamn it felt good to hear her laughing like that.

  "I don't know!" She squeaked, taking a deep, shaky breath. "It just seemed important! Come on, Jackson. Having a Lamborghini is no big deal, right? But having a – having a –"

  She was off again. "A purple one!" I finished for her. "You're right! That's what matters. That it was purple. Fuck red Lamborghinis. Fuck yellow Lamborghinis –"

  "Fuck green Lamborghinis!" She yelled between bouts of snickering. "Fuck orange Lamborghinis!"

  "Fuck all Lamborghinis!" I shouted back, doubling over on my chair in the barn. "Fuck all Lamborghinis except the –"

  "PURPLE ONES!"

  We both lost it completely at that perfect, half-hysterical screech of "purple ones!" I doubled over so far I fell off my chair and ended up curled in a ball on the floor, practically crying with amusement. From the other end all I could hear was burst after burst of laughter, getting louder and then quieter and then louder again, as if she'd dropped her phone and then picked it up again.

  I think I lay on the floor of the barn for about half an hour. Every time one of us seemed to be over it, all the other one had to do was whisper: "purple Lamborghini" and we'd be lost again.

  "Stop it!" Hailey eventually begged, her voice hoarse. "Please! I can't breathe! Oh my God, my stomach really hurts, Jackson!"

  What a gift. What a gift to hear her like that. To laugh with her. Like I could close my eyes and open them again and find myself next to her in the truck at the canyon outside Sweetgrass Ridge. That's how it used to be between us. That's how it used to feel. Like we were free with each other. Like we could say anything, laugh at anything.

  "Fuck going to see some sports car driving quack," I said when we
finally calmed down. "Why don't you come out here? You can stay at the ranch, Lacey will be happy to have you. Stay for a week – or two – stay however long you want."

  I didn't mean to say that. The words just came out of my mouth, almost of their own accord. And as soon as they did I felt the mood change between us.

  "I mean," I hurriedly followed up, "if you think that would help. Lacey really likes you, I know she won't mind – she's always telling me I should invite you out here."

  "Is she?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well..."

  I wanted her to say yes. I only realized in the moment itself how badly I wanted her to say yes.

  And she did. She said yes. Who knows what would have happened if we hadn't had the purple Lamborghini as an icebreaker. Hailey and me were OK at talking about Brody and related topics, but we still weren't good at talking about anything else. There was still something there between us, an obstacle over whose contours I could run my fingers without quite being able to lay eyes on it.

  Chapter 38: Hailey

  Twenty minutes before boarding a flight to Los Angeles with my son, my phone vibrated. I fished it out of my purse – it was a text from Lili, a link to a news website and a short message:

  Is this anywhere near the ranch?

  I tapped the link and skimmed my eyes over the headline: 'Fire Season Comes Early To California.' A brief search revealed the town mentioned in the article was over a hundred miles from Malibu. I texted Lili back:

  100+ miles away. We're good. Talk to you tonight when we're settled in.

  ***

  Lacey picked us up at LAX. I thought Jackson might do it, but I think even then, before I'd even seen him, I knew our little moment on phone was temporary – a blip.

  "He had 3 lessons this afternoon," Lacey told us as we headed north to Malibu. "He would have picked you up if he could."

  I knew what she was doing. Jackson wasn't just her employee, he was her friend. The way he talked about her sometimes almost made me think she was some kind of mother figure to him. And like a mother would do, she was making excuses on his behalf.

  I didn't believe them, of course. If he wanted to come pick us up at the airport he would have. But I kept my mouth shut. I was in California to relax for a week. No work, no thoughts of work, nothing but the California sunshine and daily horse rides around beautiful Sea Vista Ranch.

  "Is Daddy going to stay with us?" Brody asked as we drove along the Pacific Coast Highway and the smell of the ocean filled the car.

  "No," I replied. "He has his own apartment – you know that."

  "Where will I stay?"

  I turned and looked at Brody in the backseat. It was the summer, so the smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose was more prominent than usual and his hair looked extra blond against his tanned skin. His father used to get tanned like that in the summer, after spending hours on horseback in the blazing sun.

  "Wherever you want," I replied. "You can stay with Daddy if you want, or you can stay in the guesthouse with me."

  My son tilted his head to the side, thinking. "Can I stay some nights with Daddy and some nights with you?"

  "You sure can," I told him, reaching back over the seat to tousle his hair.

  ***

  I was tired and grumpy from the flight, so the first thing I did when we got to the ranch was hand Brody over to Lacey and head to the guesthouse for a nap.

  When I woke up, it was almost dark and for a moment I was disoriented, thinking I was asleep in my bed in New York. I fumbled for my phone. Almost 9 p.m. Los Angeles, not New York. My "nap" was almost 6 hours long. Maybe I did need a little vacation?

  After getting dressed and running a brush through my hair, I walked down to the main house. It was a warm evening, but not too warm – and blissfully free of the awful east coast humidity.

  Inside, I found Lacey in the main room, tucked up on a sofa reading a book. The house was quiet.

  "Oh!" She said when she saw me. "I didn't expect to see you until the morning. Are you hungry? I've got some fresh pesto in the fridge if you –"

  "Where's Brody?"

  I wasn't trying to be rude. I was just in that weird headspace you can get into when you nap for too long and everything seems sort of off-balance when you wake up.

  "He left with Jackson a couple of hours ago. We thought we should let you sleep. I'll cook some pasta, you should eat something."

  So I ate pasta with Lacey, who was at pains to emphasize how very busy Jackson was that day, how reluctant he had been to leave while I was still asleep and how she had been the one to convince him to do so. None of which I believed, obviously, but Jackson's lack of social skills wasn't her fault.

  When I finished my pasta I was still groggy and out of sorts, so I retreated back to the guesthouse.

  ***

  The next day, after Lacey left with Brody to pick up groceries, I finally found Jackson in the tack room, slamming drawers open and closed and mumbling. He didn't notice me standing in the doorway. I noticed him, though. He was wearing a plain white t-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. He looked good. Too good.

  He was always big. Even when we were kids and he must have been the size of a kid, in my memory he towered over everyone – even the adults. He'd lost that puppy-like quality that some men have in their late teens and early 20s, that youthful bounciness. In its place was a man, hardened into himself, the muscle settled into the patterns dictated by ranch work. I knew, allowing my eyes to flicker over Jackson's burly shoulders, how it would feel to reach out and put my hand on him. I knew how the warmth of his skin would feel through the thin fabric of the t-shirt.

  Did other men feel as warm as Jackson did, even through clothes? I didn't know. I didn't know because there hadn't really been any other men except for that one at Fischer and to be honest it never got to that point with him.

  I was 23 years old and I had only been with one man – the one standing in front of me, oblivious to my presence. I couldn't tell how that fact made me feel. Angry? Sad? Disappointed? Neutral? I didn't know. It was still, after all those years, hard for me to think when I was standing next to Jackson Devlin.

  "FUCK!" He yelled when he turned around suddenly and saw me standing there. "Jesus, Hailey! Don't you knock?"

  "The door was open," I replied, shrugging.

  "How long have you been there!?" He demanded.

  "Don't yell at me, Jackson."

  "I'm not –" he started, and then stopped to take a breath before continuing in a quieter voice. "I'm not yelling at you. You just – you surprised me."

  We stood facing each other and it was there again, that restless energy between us, the urge to step closer. I resisted it. One day, I was going to learn how to just be with Jackson the way I could be with the rest of humanity. Without getting all stirred up on the inside.

  "Where's Brody?"

  Was he standing too close? I couldn't tell. Maybe he was, or maybe it was just the fact that I was always somehow too aware of his presence, too conscious it.

  "Lacey took him to get groceries," I replied.

  "Oh."

  The barn smelled of clean horses, leather, straw and the outdoors. The way Jackson used to smell when we made love in his pick-up truck at the canyon.

  I wasn't surprised when he reached out and touched my cheek with one finger. Indeed, it felt inevitable that one of us would prove unable to resist.

  I wanted to tilt my head into his touch, take the tiny step forward that would allow him to pull me tight against his body. But I didn't. He may have smelled like that young man in Montana, but he wasn't him. Not anymore. And I wasn't that naive teenage girl, happy and secure in the delusion that he would never hurt me.

  "No," I whispered, pushing his hand away. "Jackson – I can't."

  'I can't' was a lie. A rather obvious one. Even I couldn't miss the breathlessness in my voice. I definitely could have.

  But I didn't. Even as my body screamed for him, I held my ground. I'd
already given in once, after my L.A. show. I already knew how that ended.

  "Hailey," Jackson breathed, leaning in close and resting his cheek against the top of my head. "Hailey."

  Oh God, he was so close. So close I could feel the warmth of his body, the fine little hairs on my arms standing up. Nothing would have been easier than giving in.

  "No," I said again, speaking more to myself than to him. "Don't. I came out here for a vacation. Brody will be back soon –"

  He didn't step away, so I had to. It was difficult. My limbs felt weighed down, as heavy as concrete. But I did it. I turned and walked away, my heart pounding. And then, just as I was about to walk through the barn doors, he spoke.

  "Fuck you, Hailey."

  I froze for a second, aware I should just keep going but suddenly hot with anger.

  I turned around slowly and looked back at him. "What?"

  He was leaned casually against a wall, his stance giving off the impression of a man who didn't have a single care in the world. "You heard me."

  Doubling down. The thought that he was lucky he outweighed me by so much flashed through my mind as I briefly considered murdering him with my bare hands. I was almost thankful for the rage. It allowed me to ignore the hurt and the genuine shock.

  "Why would you –" I started, swallowing hard as the words caught in my throat. "Why would you –"

  "Why would I what?" He replied, shrugging. "Say something like that?"

  "YES!" I burst out, my eyes beginning to sting with tears until I, through sheer force of will, forced them stop. No goddamn way was I crying in front of Jackson Devlin. Not again. No. Goddamn. Way. "I – Jackson – what did I do to –"

  "Oh Jesus, calm down. What, no one's ever told you to fuck off before, is that it? You're too important now, right? Too precious? Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it's great – all that money must be nice. Being surrounded by ass-kissers all day must be nice, too. No one calling you on your shit –"