Accidental Cowgirl

by Maggie McGinnis

  “She’s gonna hear it come through the valley, Deck.”

  “Shit. Right. Better call her now.”

  Jimmy shifted uncomfortably. “Boss, what about Jess and Hayley? They’re gonna wanna be in that chopper …”

  “Ranch policy, Jimmy. Can’t put guests in a chopper unless they’re on a stretcher.” Jimmy nodded and headed back to the group to relay the plans.

  “Decker?” Cole looked up from where he crouched with his hands on Kyla’s ankles. “We don’t have a ranch policy about choppers.”

  “Jimmy doesn’t know that. And neither do Hayley or Jess. Last thing we need is two hysterical women along.” Decker looked up at the sky as he heard the distant sound of Pine Valley Medevac. “Thank God.”

  Cole looked up as well. “They’re still a good ten minutes out. Don’t let go of the traction, Deck.”

  “I’ve got her. Go put out the flares so they can find us.”

  “Already sent Pete to do it. They’ll land just above us there.” Cole pointed to the rise they’d just come over.

  “Shit, Cole.” Decker shook his head as he looked down at Kyla’s face braced between his hands. She still hadn’t even twitched. “She fell hard.”

  Cole was checking pulses on Kyla’s ankles and nodding slowly. “I know. Good thing the hospital’s only a twenty-minute chopper ride.”

  “I can’t believe this.”

  “What the hell happened between you two last night? You’ve barely even looked at her today.”

  “None of your business.”

  Cole leveled him with a look. “This why Ma has a don’t-get-personal policy?”

  “It’s a good policy, Cole. A really good policy. But don’t worry. There’s nothing personal going on here.”

  He looked down at Kyla’s ashen face. Oh, who was he kidding? This was all about personal. He wasn’t a casual hook-up kind of guy anymore. Never had been, even when he’d tried to use the L.A. lifestyle to prove otherwise. When he’d danced with Kyla, when he’d kissed her, when—good God—he’d spent the night with her … that had made it way more personal than he wanted to admit.

  He shook his head, feeling Cole’s eyes on him. Damn. He’d fallen like a ton of bricks for this little city girl he hardly knew, and it had scared him enough to fling evil words her way in a misguided attempt to scare her off.

  He didn’t deserve her, dammit. She’d had a plan to save the ranch, all right. And front and center in that plan was Decker Driscoll Junior living here, soaking up the profits with Ma and Cole.

  Ha. Like he had any right to be here, to live on this beautiful land and make a profitable enterprise out of it. He moved his thumbs almost imperceptibly along her jawbone, being careful not to break traction. Her skin was soft and natural, devoid of makeup, nothing like the L.A. gals who usually surrounded him. He couldn’t believe he’d thought she was anything like them when he’d found her beside the road. He stroked her cheek softly. Damn. He pictured her face last night when the ugly words I don’t need you, Kyla had spewed out of his mouth.

  It killed him to admit that at the time, he’d wanted to say something hurtful enough to send her packing and spare them both from getting in any deeper. It wasn’t her fault that he couldn’t get her out of his head, but it scared him silly, so he’d reacted the only way he knew how. She was a picket-fence-and-puppy sort of girl, and she deserved someone who could give her that life.

  What killed him most was that she’d done nothing but fall in love with the land he already loved with his entire soul, and in the span of two weeks, she’d figured out how to save it. She’d succeeded where he hadn’t. And now she was unconscious.

  The chopper blades grew louder, and Decker could see the growing speck moving up the valley sky toward them. Cole looked up as well, then back at Decker. “Y’know, you can try to lie to yourself, but you’ve been my big brother for longer than you probably want to admit.” He looked back down at Kyla, then directly into Decker’s eyes. “It’s okay to let your guard down, Decker. It’s okay to fall in love.

  “It’s okay to be happy. You don’t need to keep punishing yourself for Emily.”

  Chapter 24

  “Hey, Snow White. It’s time to wake up. Enough sleep.” Decker sat in the hard plastic chair next to Kyla’s ER gurney, rubbing her hand but being careful not to disturb the oxygen sensor on her finger. He glanced at the beeping monitors. No change. She’d had a CAT scan and MRI, and save for a nasty contusion on the back of her head, everything had come back normal. The doctors were calling it a concussion for lack of proof otherwise right now, but Decker couldn’t help worrying until she woke up.

  He glanced down at her left ankle, splinted and wrapped until the swelling had a chance to go down enough to put on a cast. He’d been right on that one. Great. Her trip souvenirs were going to include a gash on the head and a cast on her ankle.

  “How’s she doing?” Cole poked his head through the door.

  “Same.” Decker didn’t let go of her hand, and he noticed Cole noticing.

  “The doc was just updating Jess and Hayley. Tests look good, right?”

  “Yup. Just waiting for her to wake up now.”

  Cole sat down in the other plastic chair. “We should probably keep this part out of the brochure, eh?”

  “You don’t think restful unconsciousness would be a big seller?”

  “Not so much.” Cole sighed and leaned his elbows up on the bed, watching Decker’s hand stroke Kyla’s. He lifted his chin to indicate their entwined hands. “This where you keep telling me she’s nothing but a guest?”

  Decker shook his head and closed his eyes. “This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Never is.”

  “No, this really wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  “Why not, Decker?”

  Decker sighed. Where could he even start? There were so many reasons he didn’t deserve this girl, the ranch, these open arms Ma and Cole had greeted him with. “I don’t deserve any of this, Cole.”

  “Any of what?”

  “This … this life. God, this woman. I don’t know. Any of it.”

  “Why not?” Cole’s voice was low as he raised his eyebrows.

  “I think that part’s pretty obvious.”

  “Emily.”

  “Yeah, Emily.”

  “It’s not your fault she died, Decker.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Did you push her under that water, Deck?”

  Decker shook his head miserably. “That’s a stupid question.”

  “No, it’s not. You didn’t throw her in that pond. You didn’t kill her. That’s like you saying I killed her because she took off on my stupid horse.”

  “That’s just ridiculous.”

  “Exactly. Decker, we didn’t kill Emily. We loved that little shit so much that we thought none of us would be able to go on after she died. She was sweet, she was adorable, and damn, she gave the best little-kid hugs in the world, but Decker, she had a mind of her own. And she knew better than to mess around with that horse. It was her fault. Hers.”

  “She was only ten, Cole. What the hell could she possibly know? I was supposed to be watching her. I wasn’t supposed to piss her off enough that she took off on an unbroken horse. What kind of a brother does that?”

  “Every kind of brother does that.”

  “Well, every kind of brother doesn’t end up with a dead sister.”

  Cole sighed and plowed his fingers through his hair. He still hadn’t gotten a damn haircut. “No, Decker. Not every brother ends up with a dead sister. But we did. And that leaves us with two choices. We can either give up the rest of our lives to the guilt, or we can admit that we can’t control the universe, and we try to move on.”

  “How can you just move on? Christ, you’re surrounded by her every day. Ma still has her pictures up in the kitchen. Her saddle’s still in the tack room. Her gravestone’s visible from the upstairs windows. How do you not let it kill you, Cole? How have you survive
d here for ten years and not died of this grief?”

  Cole stared at him for a long moment. “Well, Decker, I didn’t have the option of choosing to leave.”

  Decker’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “Choosing to leave?”

  “Yeah, choosing to leave.” He sighed, running his hands over the stubble on his cheeks, looking like he was buying time. “You left, buddy. I hated you for it for a long damn time. Wished I was old enough to buy a crappy old car and head west, get away from Ma crying every night while Dad was piling up Jim Beam bottles in the shed. You might blame yourself for Emily dying, Decker, which is completely insane, but damn, you were the lucky one. You got to leave.”

  Decker’s heart pounded in his chest, so loud he feared Kyla’s monitors might pick up the sound. So Cole really did believe he’d left by choice? Is this what he’d started to talk about the other day? Did he really think his big brother would have packed up and ditched the family at a time like that? For ten goddamn years?

  “Cole, if you felt that way, why did you welcome me back this summer?”

  “Because I wanted you back, Decker. Because it’s been ten years, and I’m a grown man. I understand what drove you away. I get it. In a small way, I still hate you for it, but I get it. And I don’t want you to go back to L.A. I don’t. This is your land just as much as it is mine and Ma’s. You belong here, Decker, whether you want to be here or not.”

  Decker felt his chest aching. All those years, Cole had thought that he’d chosen to put his family in the rearview mirror and head out west to make a life for himself. And yet at the first opportunity, he’d let Decker right back in as if he’d never left. And had let him stay here all summer, never asking the question that had to be foremost on his mind.

  “Cole, I didn’t leave by choice.” Decker let the words land between them, heavy. He watched Cole’s face carefully as he processed them.

  Cole tipped his head like he couldn’t understand what Decker was saying. “What do you mean?” His words were choked.

  “I never wanted to leave. Never pictured myself anywhere but here, for the rest of our lives. Even after Emily.”

  “Then why did you go?” Now his words were barely a whisper, and Decker could see glimpses of the fourteen-year-old boy he’d been when Emily’d died.

  “Dad bought that shitcan of a car, Cole. Brought it home one day and parked it out front, then spent the next hour clomping up and down the stairs, dumping everything I owned into the trunk. He came down to the barn and said I got a surprise for you and led me back up to the house. They were the first words he’d spoken to me in six months. I couldn’t get my head around why he’d buy me a damn car until I saw it stuffed with all my shit.

  “He handed me the keys and two twenties, said Get some gas on your way outta town, boy. Enough to get you good and far, because I don’t ever, EVER want to see your face again.”

  Cole’s mouth was open, head still tipped like he was trying to hear Decker’s words through water. “Decker. Jesus. Jesus.”

  Decker shrugged his shoulders slowly and blew out a deep breath. “That’s why I left, Cole. And that’s why I couldn’t come home.”

  Cole nodded slowly. “God, Decker. I never knew.” He stood up, pacing back and forth in the small cubicle, shaking his head. Then he stopped and turned to Decker, lips tight, fingers forming a gun shape. “I’ll tell you one thing, and don’t you dare tell Ma I said this. It is a good damn thing he’s dead. A good damn thing that slimy excuse for a human is six feet under.” He looked up at Decker. “I’d kill him myself, Decker. I’d shoot him dead. I never knew. I swear to God, I never knew.”

  “I know you didn’t. And I feel like shit having you find out like this, here.” Decker looked over at Kyla, still silent and still.

  “Right, because there would be so many better places for this conversation to take place?” Cole smiled tepidly. “So what now?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  “How long would it take you to pack up your L.A. apartment?”

  “It’s not that simple, Cole.”

  “Could be if you let it.”

  “I have a life out there. A business. A partner. I can’t just pick up and move back to the ranch like nothing ever happened.”

  “Actually, I’m pretty sure you can. I know Ma wouldn’t argue, and I’m the only other one with a vote. I’m not making light of it. You have a life out west. I get it. But a lot’s changed since you left, and more’s changed since Dad died.” Cole let out a big breath. “It’s our ranch now, Decker. We can run it how we see fit. We don’t have to do it the way Dad would have done it. It’s ours.”

  “It’s not mine, Cole. It’s yours and Ma’s.”

  “That’s bullshit.” Cole thumped his fist on the bed, then looked guiltily at Kyla and lowered his voice. “It’s your ranch as much as it is mine. You’ve worked dawn ’til midnight every damn day since you’ve been back. You’ve sunk your sweat, tears, and a hell of a lot of money into it in the past three months.

  “Can you really tell me this place isn’t in your bones? Can you really tell me you rode up to the lake earlier today and didn’t imagine your house looking down over that view?” He cocked his head toward Kyla, still lying silent and pale. “Didn’t imagine a family in it?”

  “Whoa. Slow down.”

  “Why? Why slow down? What if that rattler’d knocked you off Chance today and that was it? Would you be happy with how you left things in this world? Really? Is there some reason things have to move at some predetermined pace? Do you have some half-assed notion you’re not worthy? Jesus, if you’re in love, you’re in love. Why wait and screw it up because of some asinine notions you’ve got swimming around in your head?”

  Decker sighed. “I already did.”

  “What did you do?” Cole frowned. “Now are you going to tell me what you two talked about last night?”

  Decker pulled his hand free of Kyla’s and sat back in the uncomfortable plastic chair. “Shit, Cole. I don’t know. I don’t know how to do this anymore.”

  “Little out of practice?”

  “Out of practice doesn’t even begin to describe what I am.” Decker leaned forward again, elbows on his knees. “Did you catch that Kyla has an MBA? From Princeton?”

  “So? You scared she’s smarter than you?”

  “Oh, I know she’s smarter than me.”

  Cole lifted his eyebrows. “So, lemme guess. She had some ideas for us?”

  Decker grimaced, remembering her scrawled drawings and figures. “Oh, she had ideas, all right. Along with a complete map of the property with all of its new buildings, and figures for the next five to ten years.”

  “Well, that’s all well and good. Did Miss MBA have a plan for where we’d get the financing?”

  Decker sat back up and steepled his fingers under his chin. “Investors, she said.”

  “Well, I’m sure those would be coming right out of the woodwork. Great. Problem solved. When do we start construction?”

  “She had already lined one up.”

  Cole stilled, cocked his head. “She’s been on a horse for four days. How in the hell did she line up an investor?”

  Decker took a deep breath and looked Cole square in the eye. “She was the investor.”

  “So she’s smart and rich?” Cole looked over at Kyla’s face, curious. “How’d we miss this on the application?”

  “Not funny.”

  “Decker, what did you say to her after she offered to invest in the ranch?”

  Decker lowered his head. “You don’t want to know.”

  “You told her to take her money and head back east where she belongs, didn’t you?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “Why? What are you so afraid of?”

  “Think about it. I barely know her, and here she is offering to invest in the ranch after being here for less than two friggin’ weeks. One week, Cole. How could I possibly take her money? Hell, I’m leaving
in three weeks.”

  “Want my take on it?”

  “No, Dr. Freud, I do not.”

  “I’ll give it to you anyway. I figure you’re falling for her and it scares the hell out of you. You’ve built a wall around your heart for years because you always figured you weren’t worthy, weren’t dependable, weren’t enough for someone like Kyla.

  “Well, guess what? You were dead wrong. This woman’s a keeper, Decker, and you know it. And who’s she falling in love with? You. Why’s she offering to help? Because she believes in you, and in Ma, and in the ranch.”

  “She can’t possibly know enough in two weeks to make that kind of decision.”

  “I’m sure she was smart enough not to be gifting you the money. It was an investment, yes? For which she’d expect a return?”

  “Well, there’s no guarantee on that one.”

  “She’s a Princeton MBA. I imagine they covered that in the first year of the program.”

  “Shit, Cole. I don’t know. It’s too much, too fast. I can’t be making a deal like this with a woman I barely know, especially when I can’t figure out how I even feel about her.”

  He pushed his hands through his hair. “What if we went ahead? What if I said Okay. What the hell? Yeah, we’ll take your money. And then what if everything blew up between us? Or what if the ranch failed anyway, despite her investment? You think owing bookies is awkward? We’d look back on that as the easy days!”

  He looked up at Kyla’s ashen face, which still hadn’t even twitched. “No, Cole. Nothing good can come of this. I’m the one who needs to figure out how the hell to get us out of this goddamn hole Dad left us in. It’s the least I can do, and I should have been doing a lot more all along.”

  “Decker, stop punishing yourself. You know you’re falling hard for this girl, and the fact is, she could be the answer to some prayers here. So what if she just happens to be rich? Do you think it’d be easier if she lived in a hovel in the slums?”