Promise Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo)

by CJ Carmichael

  She had short, dark curly hair, serious brown eyes, and lips that had a tendency to look stern—maybe because they were so thin, and Eliza rarely smiled.

  She wasn’t smiling now, though she did give an approving nod. “Thanks for coming. Do you have time for coffee?”

  Sage hadn’t expected the invitation. If she accepted, she was going to be late opening the store. Yet, this was the first friendly overture Eliza had made. “Sure.”

  She stepped into a large foyer papered in a brown, rose and cream floral pattern. The wooden floors gleamed in the morning light and wide French doors led to an adjacent sitting room—one Sage remembered well from previous visits.

  This room was papered, as well, and outfitted with dark antiques, most of which were covered with knick-knacks. A handsome fireplace rescued the room from appearing too feminine. And the brown leather furniture arranged around it, Sage already knew, was as comfortable as it looked.

  Sage sank into the sofa in her usual spot.

  Great Aunt Mabel was to her left, in an upright arm chair. With her hair in a bun, complete with hair net, and her perfect posture, she looked like an aging ballet instructor. But as far as Sage knew, her aunt hadn’t worked a day in her life.

  “Hello, Aunt Mabel. How are you?”

  “Fine, Sage. And your family?”

  While they exchanged pleasantries, Eliza poured coffee from a silver urn, into Royal Albert cups, the same pattern as Sage’s mother’s. Which made Sage wonder if her mother’s china was perhaps more valuable than any of them had guessed.

  Too bad the gold trim had all but been erased by the dishwasher...

  “You must have been busy for the rodeo,” Sage said, though the place had a quiet, empty feeling now.

  “The last guest left half an hour ago.” Eliza looked like this suited her just fine.

  “My father would roll in his grave if he knew we were accepting common guests into this house.”

  It was a rant Sage had heard before from her great aunt. But what surprised her was that people were willing to pay money to stay in a home where their presence was so clearly resented.

  “The reason I wanted to talk to you—" Eliza was ready to get to the point. “Is because I was hoping you and your sisters would help me with my new project.”

  “Oh?”

  “Eliza’s going to write a book on the Bramble family history,” Great Aunt Mabel announced with pride. “About time someone did it.”

  “I’ve gone through all the old family letters and diaries,” Eliza said.

  “And she’s researched on that Web thing, too.”

  “She means the Internet, of course. I’ve traced our family tree back to the fifteen hundreds. But in the book I plan to focus on the Montana years. What brought our family out here and how we all but built the town of Marietta.”

  Sage’s gaze went to the family photographs hanging in silver frames next to the fireplace. When she was little, her mother had explained who was who, but Sage could no longer remember. What she did recall was her mother’s pride when she’d explained that the Brambles were one of the town’s founding families. Her great-great grandfather had been a prominent journalist as well as a mining engineer.

  Sage doubted, however, that the credit rested entirely with them.

  “We were hoping,” Eliza continued, “That you would check your mother’s papers to see if she had anything that would help with this project.”

  Steven and Cordelia Bramble hadn’t been impressed when their eldest daughter elected to marry a simple local rancher. His lack of education and social prominence had been liabilities that no amount of land or money could overcome. After her marriage, Beverly had rarely seen her parents, and it was only after their deaths that she’d been invited back to the family home by her father’s unmarried sister, Mable.

  “You think Mom took important family documents with her when she married dad?”

  “Possibly.” Eliza shrugged. “Anything pertaining to the family would be interesting,”

  “I’ll try. But I can’t make any promises.”

  Sales were often slow on Monday and today they seemed especially so. Maybe it was a good thing. Between her weird conversation with Mabel and Eliza that morning, and the revelation that Dawson had found a job in Marietta and was buying a house, Sage was having a hard time concentrating.

  When Rose showed up for her afternoon shift, she glanced at the balance on the till and sighed. “Rodeo hangover. I think it’s hit the entire town. Hardly anyone out on the streets today. Sure you want me to stay?”

  Sage knew that Rose counted on every hour she could give her. “Yes. You can watch over the showroom while I start a new batch of chocolate in the kitchen.”

  Having a job to focus on was helpful. Otherwise she’d surely go insane imagining Dawson moving into her beautiful little house with the pretty red door. Not to mention going to work for the Sheriff’s Department.

  She wondered if anyone had told him... ? No, probably not.

  The buzzer on the roaster sounded. It was time to put in the next batch. She’d done a lot of experimenting over the years, and had settled on a long, low roasting process to get the maximum flavor from her premium cacao beans.

  Tomorrow she’d crack the beans into nibs then use a blower a lot like a hairdryer to remove the husks. The process of making a fresh batch of chocolate took the best part of a week. The slowest step was the conching and refining which usually required about thirty hours, all told.

  The rest of the day went by quickly and Sage was surprised when Rose stuck her head in the door, tossing her apron in the laundry basket. “It’s almost six and I haven’t had a customer in an hour. Mind if I head home ten minutes early?”

  “Go ahead. I’m almost done here. Put up the Closed sign on your way out, would you?”

  “Sure. See you on Friday.”

  Rose worked Friday, Saturday and Monday, a schedule that coordinated best with her parents’ needs. Sage’s other part-time employee, Dakota, came in afternoons on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Mostly Sage worked a full six-day week. But having the extra help meant she could slip out when she needed to.

  Sage switched off all her equipment before turning out the lights and tossing her own apron in the basket. She’d make a final check of the storefront, before leaving from the back where she kept her bike.

  “Long day?” Dawson asked. He was standing behind the counter, studying the chocolate-making photographs. Her friends Jenny and Chelsea had taken them for her, then helped her select the right dark frame to set them off nicely against the pale coffee-colored walls.

  “How did you get in?” She’d been in a state of mild shock ever since this morning. It had been one thing knowing she had to deal with three days of him being in the same town as her. But now it seemed as if his move was permanent.

  And she honestly didn’t know if she could handle that.

  “I caught Rose as she was leaving. Told her I was a good friend. Isn’t it nice how people in small towns are so trusting?”

  She glanced at the sign in the window. Her side read Open, which meant to the world, she was closed. Next she tried the door. Locked.

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Because you didn’t meet me for a drink the other night. And I know you’ll keep putting me off if I give you the chance.”

  She couldn’t argue with that. What he was saying was absolutely true.

  “Sage, Darlin’, I think it’s high time we did some talking.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dawson was starting to feel like a stalker and he hated that. He’d been dreaming of seeing Sage again for so long, but their reunion wasn’t working out the way he’d imagined. Not even close. He’d had so much to work out, to plan and organize. He supposed it was only to be expected that something would get screwed up.

  She brought out a second chair from the back and sat on the other side of the counter from him. “Well? What is it you want off your chest?”
>
  He rubbed his eyes. It had been a long three days. But Sage—she looked gorgeous. He wondered, did she ever think about all the things that had gone right between them—before they’d gone so horribly wrong?

  “There’s a lot I want to say. How about I open with this. When I invited you to my trailer, I did it because I loved you. I didn’t know Gina followed me to Wyoming. And I sure as hell didn’t know she owned a shotgun.” He brushed his hair back from his forehead and let out a long breath. “It wasn’t loaded, by the way.”

  “That would have been nice to know then.”

  “Were you really afraid she was going to shoot you?”

  “Of course I was afraid! Weren’t you?”

  “Hell, no. Gina’s mostly bluster, just the way her hair is mostly hair spray and air.”

  “If you think I find it comforting that I was scared out of my mind and you weren’t, here’s a news flash. I don’t.”

  She was mad, and he got that. But he couldn’t look at her without remembering how amazing it had felt to make love to her. The connection between them had worked on every level. And it was something he’d never experienced before in his life.

  “You wanted to talk. So why so quiet?”

  “I know I should have told you about Gina before things got... romantic between us.”

  Sage turned away from him, for a moment. Then, her voice quiet, she asked, “Why didn’t you?”

  “I was embarrassed, I guess. I’d made a big mistake and I didn’t want to admit it.” He hated looking back on those days. But it was full disclosure time. “I met Gina shortly after I’d attended my mother’s sixth wedding.” He heard the disdain in his voice, and could tell Sage did, too. He was sorry for that. Generally he tried not to judge his mother. But he didn’t find it easy.

  “Did you meet Gina at a rodeo?”

  “Sort of. In a bar, after. She was wild in a dancing on table tops with a wet T-shirt sort of way, and I was at a stage in my life when I thought her lack of inhibitions was a good thing. We ended up getting married in Reno two months later. And I guess we had about three or four pretty good months. But we also had some whopping fights and soon we were fighting all the time. That was when I came to the sorry realization that I was following in my mother’s footsteps and that I was done with Wife Number One.”

  Sage looked horrified. “That sounds so cynical.”

  “To you, sure. But given the way I’d grown up, it just seemed to be the way the world worked. Gina and I were off and on for a few more months. Then we had a big fight up at Fort Benton in Montana. She tossed our rings in the Missouri River and told me the next word would be coming from her lawyer. I said ‘fine with me, please make it quick,’ and went back on the road.”

  “To another rodeo...” Sage said softly.

  “Sure. Rodeo was my life. And I knew Gina wasn’t. Stupidly, I took Gina at her word when she said she’d be contacting a lawyer. I wish like hell that I’d gone to a lawyer on my own.”

  Sage shook her head, clearly wishing the same thing. “And how much later did you and I meet?”

  “A few months. You knew I was following you, right?” He’d find out which rodeo she was heading to next, then register right behind her.

  “I suspected.” She pulled back a little. But she didn’t look upset.

  Their romance had started slow. Rather than going to the bar after the rodeo, Sage liked to get on her mountain bike and check out the local trails.

  He’d bought a bike too and got hooked on the sport as well.

  Later, they’d grab a meal, then find a coffee shop that stayed open late and talk until midnight. By the time they’d made love he’d known for certain that this was the girl he wanted to spend his life with. Wife Number Forever.

  But then his past had bit him in the butt.

  That seemed to be the way things went for guys like him.

  “When it was good between us, it was damn near perfect, wasn’t it?”

  Sage crossed her arms. “I thought so at the time. But I was wrong.”

  “So now we’re back where we started?”

  She nodded. “You were married and you should have told me. You had to know it would matter.”

  He swallowed, miserably aware what she was referring to. “Because of what happened with your Mom.”

  “Yes.”

  Dawson was the only person she’d ever told about the locked door and what was behind it. In some ways for her, sharing that secret had been even more intimate than sharing her body.

  Her Mom hadn’t meant it to happen, but what she’d seen that day had stolen her childhood. Nothing was what she’d believed it to be. Her mother didn’t love her father. Did she even love them, her children?

  Sage had spent the next six months wondering when her mother was going to leave.

  Never guessing it would be a stupid accident with a cow, not Bill Sheenan, that would take her away.

  “You’re right,” Dawson said. “I should have known and I should have said something. But I couldn’t stand the idea of you thinking badly of me.”

  So he’d covered up one mistake with another—a lie.

  “What happened with Gina after I left? You two reconciled, I guess.”

  “Hell, no!”

  “But you scratched both your events that afternoon.” And he hadn’t been there to give her a pep talk before her turn at the barrel-races, either. She sure could have used one. She’d been so shaken up from the confrontation that morning, she shouldn’t even have tried to ride.

  But she had.

  “I didn’t go because right after you left Gina told me—well she didn’t need to tell me, I could see—that she was pregnant. And I was the father.”

  “Are you kidding?” She certainly hadn’t noticed any such thing. “Gina was pregnant when she was pointing that gun at us?”

  “Hell, yeah. Seven months.”

  “All I saw was that gun—and her hair,” Sage admitted.

  “Well, she was wearing a loose dress, but she was definitely pregnant and believe me, that was not a complication I was happy about.”

  Talk about lousy timing. And yet...”That complication led to your daughter.”

  He tilted his head, acknowledging her point. “Yeah. And that kid is worth all the bad times, she really is. But I won’t say the past five years were easy for me.”

  Sage wondered if those years would have been easier for her, if she’d known the whole story. It was hard to say. “You still could have come round to say good-bye.”

  “You have no idea how intense things were with Gina. I didn’t even believe her at first when she said I was the baby’s father. We had the biggest fight ever. And then she threatened to hurt herself—and the baby. That’s when Jamie sent me a text and told me you’d had a fall and had been taken to the hospital.”

  She glanced away.

  “I should have been there for you,” he said. “And believe me, I wanted to be. But I couldn’t just abandon Gina.”

  “The fall was my fault,” honesty made her admit. “I knew I should have scratched. I was literally shaking in my boots.”

  “Aw, Sage. I’m so sorry.” He rubbed the side of his face, looking miserable. “Tell me what happened? How did you have the accident?”

  The tone of his voice, so gentle and caring, made her want to answer. It was why they had become friends in the first place and why she’d fallen for him so hard. “Coffee Girl and I started okay, but as we were going around the second barrel I miscued her and she slipped and fell. I jumped off, just in time, but landed badly. At the hospital I was told I’d snapped my ACL, sprained my knee and torn the meniscus.”

  Dawson cringed. “Bet that hurt like hell.”

  “It wasn’t so bad.”

  “By the next day I had Gina calmed down. I told her I would look after her while she was pregnant and then later I’d support her and the baby. I still wanted a divorce but I didn’t push it then. By the next day she was stable enough that I was able
to slip away and come to the hospital. But they told me you were gone.”

  “I still don’t know how my father got there so fast. I guess Jamie called him right away with the news and he must have jumped in his truck and driven all night.”

  “I wish he hadn’t.”

  “You think things would have turned out any different? Gina was still your wife. And she was still pregnant.” Sage pushed back from the counter and left her chair. This talk was supposed to be clearing things up, but instead she was more mixed up than ever.

  “In some ways the accident was a blessing. Finally I got the nerve to tell my father I didn’t want to barrel-race anymore. And you and I were already over by then.”

  “I didn’t want to be,” he insisted.

  She headed to the far corner. “I’m not sure this talk was a good idea. It doesn’t change anything.”

  He followed after her, blocking her with his wide shoulders, then putting his arms around her. She didn’t return the hug, but she didn’t fight it either. She’d forgotten how tough and hard he was. He didn’t have a body builder’s bulk, but there wasn’t a soft spot on him.

  “Why did you come here?” She didn’t need to speak above a whisper since he was holding her so close.

  “I had to,” was his simple answer.

  And then he lifted her chin and when their eyes met, she knew he was going to kiss her.

  Her body reacted fast—turning hot, smooth and sweet, like tempered chocolate. She’d wanted this from the first moment she’d seen him. Why was it only Dawson O’Dell who made her feel this way?

  At the very last minute she lowered her eyes and turned her head. “Are you still married to her?”

  His body tensed and he dropped his arms. “The divorce is in process...”

  She held up a hand. Five years later, and the divorce was still in process? “I can’t believe this!” Finally she gave him a tired, disappointed look. “You better leave, Dawson. Just go.”