A Cowboy to Remember

by Barbara Ankrum

  The movements came back to her just as Ken told her they would. And Jinx responded as if they’d been working together all along. “Warmbloods are commonly used in international dressage competition for both their size and temperament. You may have seen a dressage trial before or heard that it’s about as exciting as watching oatmeal boil.

  “But originally, it was created to train military horses in battle. To make the horse more maneuverable on the battlefield. And while it’s done with an English saddle—or postage stamp saddle as you cowboys like to call it—the moves are not all that different from what you must teach a quarter-horse who works with cows. In the end, it’s about communication between horse and rider, and there’s really nothing more important when you’re on a horse. I’m communicating with him through my legs and hips and hands, but instead of telling you about it, why don’t I just show you a little freestyle dressage?”

  Ken cued the music and the first song in a montage of songs she’d programmed began to play. Country music was the last thing the crowd expected to hear when Brad Paisley’s The Riverbank started playing and Jinx did his thing. He did it all for her, from passages to flying changes to half-passes diagonally across the arena floor. Along the way, she guided him through gates, over low barriers, and dancing as only a horse like Jinx could dance as she collected rings on a long pole, just for fun.

  Fun! Olivia thought. She was actually having fun!

  The crowd loved it, and clapped to the beat from the stands. When the Band Perry’s ‘Done’ began and Jinx did a freestyle pirouette they shouted and cheered. And when Ken entered the arena on Gracie and they had a showdown to beat of Darius Rucker’s ‘Wagon Wheel,’ spinning like two dervishes at the center of the ring in opposite directions, riding diagonals in unison and cantering in opposing circles only to meet in the middle, she knew she didn’t have to worry about utter failure. They liked it! And when they finished, Olivia looked at Ken and laughed, and they lifted their hats to the audience.

  That was when she saw him. Standing near the entrance rail. Smiling at her.

  Jake.

  Beside him, Deke and Monday, who held a purple, stuffed elephant in her mouth.

  Jake felt his heart take a tumble as he watched her ride like she’d been born to it. And she practically had been. But seeing her on a horse again eased an ache inside him, or maybe generated one, he couldn’t be sure which. Whatever was about to happen between them, he was glad she’d found her courage again. He supposed her nerve was what she’d been looking for all along.

  He, on the other hand, had almost lost his, but instead of going to Seattle as he’d planned, Deke had come and picked him up, taken him home, and gone directly with him to the river. Along with Monday and the falcons, he and Deke had fished the rest of the day, not even talking, just sending the line in and out of the water.

  In. And out. A meditation. Or a prayer.

  Most of his best decisions got made, standing in the cool Yellowstone, hip-deep in water filled with trout. Something about the smell of the vibrant Montana grasses, and the sharp memory of all the other days spent that way, centered him. It hadn’t even mattered that they’d caught nothing, because what he’d found there was more important.

  Yeah, he’d been mad at her. Disappointed. Maybe hurt was more accurate. But standing in the water, he started to understand what she was trying to tell him back at the car the other night. And she wasn’t wrong.

  He realized she’d spent the last ten or twelve years answering to everyone but herself and her confidence had been chipped away to nothing. The fear that had kept her from riding, the thing she loved so much, wasn’t something he could fix for her or drive away like he could her ex-husband. Only she could do that. And what stood between them wasn’t so much her fear of what could become of him and her, together, as it was her need to prove to herself who she could be, to herself.

  And he saw now that she was so much stronger than anyone, including him, knew. Today, in front of him and all the people she cared about, she’d pulled her courage up, from the dark place where it had been hiding. And she’d pulled it up all on her own. And he couldn’t be more proud of her.

  He had three texts from her in his phone and he wasn’t too bullheaded to find out what she wanted in person, because texts were not the place to begin or end a relationship.

  He knew the moment she saw him and he watched her double take and bite her lip. Beside him, Monday woofed past the stuffed elephant in her mouth and wagged her tail because she saw Liv, too. But he held her leash tight so she wouldn’t spook the horses.

  As the exhibition ended, Olivia brought her horse to a stop and raised her arm as the audience quieted. “Thank you, so much,” she said over the loudspeaker, “it’s been a little while since I’ve done that and Jinx, Ken, Gracie, and I all appreciate you all being such a great audience.

  “I just want to add a few things before we go.” Jinx pranced rhythmically around the arena as she talked. “Whether you work with horses, or ride them, or just love them, communication is the key. Learning to talk to your horse with a gentle nudge of your knee, or shift of your weight, is a bit like a magical language you learn to speak together. It’d be easier if they could talk, of course, but there are ways of letting them know they’re your teammate.”

  She looked right at Jake then and no one else. “Miscommunication happens between horse and rider. You want them to go left, but, inadvertently, you tell them to go right. But if you’re lucky enough to have a good horse that loves you, he’ll give you a second chance to tell him what you really mean. You learn to trust each other. Know what’s important and what’s not.”

  “You have each other’s backs. And when you’re a team, there’s no telling how far you’ll go.” Her voice broke a little on that last part.

  “Thank you everyone for coming. Give your horses some love, and have a great rest of your day at the fair!”

  The stands erupted in applause and she and Ken cantered out of the arena, but as Ken kept going, Olivia pulled Jinx up and stopped beside Jake.

  Her mouth was quivering a little as she smiled down at him. “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi,” he answered.

  “I thought you went to Seattle.”

  He shrugged and gave her a little grin. “I thought you didn’t ride anymore.”

  She nodded as tears sprang to her eyes. “Took me long enough, huh?”

  “I’d say it’s perfect timing. So proud of you, Liv.”

  “Oh, Jake—I’m so sorry—” She leaned down and kissed him full on the lips.

  Jake kissed her back with all the pent-up emotion that had been roiling through him the last few days. No kiss had ever tasted sweeter. She put her hands on his shoulders and he pulled her off Jinx until she was flush against him with her arms around his neck.

  “I was such an idiot to let you go,” she murmured against his ear. “But I didn’t want you to go. I wanted you to stay. See? I’m a terrible communicator. Even with the people I love. Can you forgive me? Give me another chance?”

  He answered, kissing her face, her eyes, her mouth again.

  He brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Did you just say you loved me?”

  She brushed at her cheek with one knuckle. “Allow me to restate: I love you, Jake Lassen. I’ve always loved you, even if I called it something else. I was a fool to worry about what anyone else thought about it. Let ‘em say whatever they want. I do need you. And want you. And if that means you save me from my own foolishness, then thank God for it. You’re my team, my rock, and I can’t imagine my life without you. Let’s be us. I want that more than I can say.”

  Jake replied with a deep, hallelujah kiss so there’d be no mistaking his answer. Beside him, Monday whole-heartedly agreed and jumped up on them with that stuffed elephant still in her mouth.

  It had escaped their notice that the arena stands hadn’t really emptied, and they suddenly erupted again with applause, whistles and cheers. She and Jake looked up from
their kiss to find the audience hooting and applauding for them.

  “Your microphone,” Jake whispered with a grin. “It’s... still on.”

  Olivia flushed, shook her head, then waved up at her friends and family up in the stands before turning a happy smile back at him. “No, that?” she said against his ear, “that’s the sound of the universe saying, it’s about damned time.”

  “Hoo-ah!” he shouted and swung her in his arms.

  The kiss he planted on her this time was the fulfillment of the promise that had been born under the Ferris wheel, twelve years ago, before their lives had spun them sideways.

  But right here at the Big Marietta Fair, they’d come back, full circle. They’d found a way ‘in’ to each other, and today was just the beginning of a very long road together, one on which he intended to walk alongside her to the end of his days. Holding the sweet weight of her against him, her arms around his neck, he realized he was finally done searching for home. Because home was Olivia and wherever their lives took them from here, she would always be the place he returned to.

  The End

  The Canadays of Montana Series

  If you loved A Cowboy to Remember, you’ll love the rest of Barbara’s Canadays of Montana series!

  Book 1 – A Cowboy to Remember

  Book 2 - Choose Me, Cowboy

  Book 3 – The Cowgirl’s Christmas Wish

  NEW! The Cowgirl’s Christmas Wish

  Event planner Eve Canaday and her secret crush, Dr. Ben Tyler, are unexpectedly drafted to help a little girl fulfill her late mother’s wish—a magical Christmas to create some happy memories. Eve sees this opportunity as a sign; Ben, as a glitch in his plan to leave Marietta behind for good.

  As the trio checks off the to-do list of Christmas fun, Ben’s ‘bah-humbug’ opinion of the holiday fades, along with ideas about keeping his distance from Eve. Getting involved is the last thing he wants to do but, alas, there’s no accounting for cosmic interference.

  With the season of miracles upon this jewel of a town, will Eve find it’s possible that Christmas wishes aren’t only for little girls?

  An Exclusive Excerpt from Choose Me, Cowboy

  If you loved A Cowboy to Remember, you’ll love Book 2 in Barbara’s Canadays of Montana series, Choose Me, Cowboy!

  Copyright © 2015 Barbara Ankrum

  For a girl who wasn’t born yesterday, Kate Canaday had the sneaking suspicion she’d been had by the two people in her life she cared most about. If they weren’t all sitting in Grey’s Saloon on a noisy Saturday night with a hundred people she knew, or at least recognized, as witnesses, she might have lost her temper.

  Instead, she slid a disbelieving look between her sister, Eve, and her step-sister, Olivia, as the country music band cranked up behind them.

  “So, let me get this straight,” she said after taking a calming sip from her grapefruit vodka spritzer. “You two didn’t just randomly join me here for a night out? Just because you’ve missed me and love me and thought a get-together would be fun? You came here for a...a dating intervention?”

  Eve, the fairer of her two sisters, blinked and flicked a sideways plea for help to Olivia, who quickly said, “Intervention? Well, that’s completely inaccurate.”

  “Totally. Inaccurate,” Eve agreed, tucking a blond strand of misplaced hair behind her ear, looking lost.

  Except that they’d spent the last five minutes breaking down Kate’s questionable dating history and her habit of falling quickly—then dumping—every man she dated after a few short weeks. But mostly, their concern was about her current problem-in-residence, Cree Malone, the lead singer of the band playing on Grey’s small stage right now.

  Kate leaned toward them to be heard over the sound of the music, her long, auburn hair falling against her cheek. “What exactly would you call it, then? This little get-together?”

  “Sisterly concern?” Olivia ventured with a sheepish look.

  “Over my dating habits in general? Or about Cree?”

  “His name isn’t Cree, Kate. It’s Charlie,” Olivia corrected, “and he was in glee club with my best friend, Zena, in eleventh grade.”

  Kate narrowed a look at her. “I know his name. Of course, I know his name. He’s in a band. It’s his persona.” The hairs on the back of her neck rose. “Wait. Did Dad and Jaycee put you up to this?”

  “No!” they answered in unison, then exchanged guilty looks.

  “They...might know we’re doing this,” Eve admitted in a small voice.

  “This, meaning the intervention,” Kate clarified.

  “Stop calling it that.” Olivia pulled her dark hair into a one-handed ponytail around her shoulder. “We just care about you and we’re worried. Listen, it’s no secret that you’ve had at least a dozen boyfriends this year—”

  “That’s a gross exaggeration,” Kate said, tapping her nails on the table. “The figure’s closer to ten.”

  “—and we haven’t met a single one.”

  Kate sent them an incredulous look. “Why would you want to meet them? None of them was serious.”

  “Exactly!” Olivia slapped her beer bottle down on the table and the crown erupted in a little plume of foam. As she scrambled to mop up the mess with napkins, she said, “None of them was even your type.”

  “How do you know my type?”

  “Were they?” Eve asked, her voice tinged with disbelief. She hooked a thumb in Cree’s direction. “Is he?”

  “My type?” Kate shook her head. “Yes.” No. Wasn’t that the point? The men she dated were like...like seat-fillers at awards ceremonies. One person vacates and another takes his place. Simple as that.

  Behind them, her latest seat-filler, the very good-looking lead singer, ‘Cree’, better known to mere mortals in nearby Livingston circles as Charlie Malone, had been belting out a drinking song about dirt roads, pick-up trucks and hot girls in cutoff shorts. No one would argue his talent. He’d probably be in Nashville within the year. With that rockabilly dark hair, those blue eyes and his penchant for ink, he looked like every other musician these days. He’d even inscribed her name on a small, blank spot on his forearm—a poor decision from which she’d tried to dissuade him. But her name was already lost there in his sleeve of tattoos and she supposed he could always turn the thing into a spiral or a cat or something that would blend in.

  Before the next song, after he played an expert riff on his guitar, he pointed to Kate with a possessive nod, then punctuated that look with an onstage guzzle of beer. Several girls at the front tables who looked barely old enough to be in this bar, squealed for his attention.

  Kate wondered where their parents were.

  “This song’s for my sexy, red-haired lady, Katie-Kat Canaday, sitting right over there,” he purred a little drunkenly into the microphone. He followed this horrifying mangling of her name with an embarrassing cat yowl.

  With all eyes suddenly on her, Kate slid down in her chair. Beside her, Eve and Olivia shared a private, confirming eye roll.

  “What?” Kate said from behind the hand shielding her eyes. “It’s not like I’m going to marry him. He’s performing.”

  Olivia gestured with a meaningful tip of her head toward a nearby table, where the Bellmers—parents of one of her current kindergarten students—were staring at her with undisguised horror after Cree’s shout out to her, their red wine glasses frozen halfway to their mouths.

  Drat. She would hear about this one on Monday. And here it was, barely September and only two weeks into the school year. She pasted on her most professional smile and finger-waved at the Bellmers, who turned away whispering to one another.

  “Look, I’m not one to judge, Kate,” Olivia said, leaning across the table. “That’s not what this is about. But your life is not exactly...you know, uncomplicated. You’re a kindergarten teacher, in a very small town. And a guy like that? He will ruffle some feathers.”

  She knew that. Of course she did. Most of the men she’d dated were lower pro
file than Cree, and she had no rational answer as to why she’d agreed to go out with him.

  “Technically speaking,” she said in her own defense, and not a little bitterly, “I’m a laid-off kindergarten teacher. Long-term sub doesn’t quite qualify.” She’d been caught in a ‘last-in, first-out’ situation when budget cuts had forced layoffs. The school had kept her employed, temporarily, thanks to the beloved kindergarten teacher, Bette Moynihan, whose mother had the good grace to break her leg this month and suddenly needed Bette’s help.

  “You know they’ll hire you back full time next year, as soon as the budget thingy gets resolved,” Eve said. “They love you there.”

  Whether they did or not was a moot point. Their budget thingy was about to become her budget thingy. Bette was due back in November and she was counting the days and her pennies.

  Still, she supposed she was simply pushing the envelope with Cree, but, truthfully, her life felt like it was starting to fly out of control like a spin painting, with bits of her casting about, looking for a handhold.

  Reluctantly, she admitted that Olivia and Eve might have a small point, at least where Cree was concerned. She wasn’t sure why she was defending him anyway. His boyfriend ‘sell-by’ date had expired two nights ago when—and she shivered at the memory—he’d drunkenly licked her cheek like a standard poodle in lieu of a kiss when he’d said goodnight. Which was the last in a short, but consistent list of line-crossings that had effectively ended them.

  They were over. Cree just didn’t know that yet.

  Maybe ten boyfriends in one year was a bit indulgent. All right—excessive. But in her own defense, most of them had lasted less than three weeks and it wasn’t as if she’d gone looking for love, or pined over each one she’d left. She wasn’t interested in love. Or commitment. Or anything that could break her heart again. She just wanted to have fun. Was that so wrong?