by Joanna Sims
“Let me get out of this monkey suit, Tater.” Gabe sighed.
He went into the sleeping quarters, kicked off his dress shoes, shrugged out of his suit jacket and stripped off his slacks. He pulled on a pair of old jeans but didn’t bother to put on a shirt or boots. He hung up his suit jacket and reached into the pocket to pull out the small ring box. He opened the lid, looked at the antique engagement ring before he tossed the box into one of the closet drawers. He’d had a much different ending planned for this night.
Gabe grabbed a beer out of the refrigerator and went out onto the porch. Meeting Bonita—loving Bonita—let him know that he was tired, dog-tired, of being alone. He was ready for more. But how could he think about having more with anyone other than Bonita—a woman who appeared to be just out of his reach?
Five beers later on a mostly empty stomach, Gabe was feeling a mixture of sorrow and anger. He wasn’t mad at Bonita—she was doing exactly what she told him all along she was going to do, going back to her life in DC. No. He was pissed off at himself. He had lied to himself about the relationship and that just wasn’t like him.
“Where the leather is scarred, there’s a great story to tell.” He lifted his sixth bottle of beer to the night.
Gabe stood up, wobbled a bit and then chugged the last beer in his six-pack. He was about to head in when he saw headlights turn into his drive. The closer the headlights got, the clearer he could see the vehicle. It was Bonita’s Range Rover.
He felt foggy-headed as his love walked toward him.
“I didn’t like the way we left things,” she said, her loose, long hair blowing gently around her shoulders. She looked so pretty standing there that it broke his heart.
“I really love you, Gabe.” Bonita was on the bottom step now.
She must have seen him sway to the side because she was suddenly standing next to him, her arm around his waist. “Are you drunk?”
His knees felt rubbery now that he was trying to stand upright for more than a minute. “A bit.”
“How’d you get drunk so fast? You just dropped me off!”
Gabe burped. “Talent.”
Bonita helped him inside, took the empty bottle out of his hand, and he fell backward onto the mattress. She unbuttoned and unzipped his pants and helped him out of them.
“We aren’t going to get any talking done tonight,” she said.
Gabe heard her voice only after he woke himself up with a snore. He reached out for her. “Come here and love on me, woman.”
* * *
Gabe had passed out before she got into bed with him and he was still asleep when she awakened. She found some fixings for breakfast, made a pot of strong coffee and had everything ready for him by the time he came wandering into the kitchen. His hair was rumpled and he was yawning while he scratched his chest.
“Good morning.” She handed him a cup of coffee.
He looked at her through squinty, bloodshot eyes as if he was unclear about what she was doing in his cabin.
“Have a seat,” she told him. “I’ll bring you your breakfast.”
He ate in silence and Bonita let him work through his kinks. He was obviously hungover. Gabe cleaned his plate, pushed it out of his way and drank the rest of his coffee.
He put down his empty cup and then he was staring at her. The intensity of his gaze—the intensity of the examination of her face—made her shift in her chair.
“I’m pissed off at you,” he said bluntly.
“I know.”
He leaned forward on his elbows. “I was thinking that it was time for us to start talking about getting married.”
She didn’t repeat the word married aloud, but it bounced around in her brain like a loose BB.
“Damn it, Bonita. Don’t look at me like I just asked you to commit a crime.”
“I’m not! I’m just surprised that you think we’re even ready for that.”
“It’s not complicated. I love you, you love me.”
But it was much more complicated than that. “Look, Gabe. I do love you. But I didn’t move to Montana by choice. I came here because my mom was sick and she needed me.”
He listened while she continued.
“I put my plans for medical school on hold. I never intended to give my dreams up entirely. And I know you say it doesn’t matter to you—the chance that I could get sick—but it matters to me.” She pointed at her chest. “What happened to my mom could happen to me, and while I still can, I’m going to live now. I’m not going to wait. I have to do this for myself and I have to do it for my mom.”
She wiped tears out her eyes—the loss of her mom still fresh. “I never planned on staying here.”
She looked up and Gabe had that punched-in-the-gut expression on his face.
“I don’t want to hold you back from your dreams, Bonita,” he said. “But we started something here and you can’t deny that. Maybe you never planned on staying here. I get that. But, here’s the million-dollar question that I need answered—do you ever plan on coming back?”
It took her several long seconds to respond in a quiet voice, “I don’t know.”
“You said you didn’t want to lie to me.” Gabe pinned her with those blue eyes of his.
Her eyebrows drew together and she frowned at him. “I don’t know, Gabe! I just lost my mom and I feel like I have to relearn how to do everything without her. I need time to figure things out. That’s what I know. I also know that I love you, I don’t want this to be goodbye, but I have been accepted to one of the best medical programs in the county. I want to become a doctor and nothing is going to stand in the way of that.”
“I’m not looking to end things. Far the hell from it,” Gabe said, his face tense. “But this is what I know, Bonita. I’m a Montana man. This is my home. If you don’t think, after you finish school, that you could come back here and be happy, then I’ve got no choice but to let you go.”
Chapter Sixteen
One of the many things Bonita learned about Gabe Brand was that he was the consummate gentleman. She had the feeling that Lilly was responsible for instilling this invaluable trait in her son. Even when he was hurt or angry or disappointed, Gabe did the right thing by the women in his life. She had firsthand experience with this.
After trying to hash things out, they had both come to the decision that they should give their relationship some room to breathe. They weren’t cutting ties completely, but they were accepting the reality that their lives were heading, for the time being at least, in very different directions.
In light of that decision, Bonita had wanted to hire a different long distance transporter to move Val and Jasmine back to Virginia. Gabe wouldn’t hear of it. It didn’t matter to him that their relationship had taken an unexpected turn; he wanted to personally see to it that her horses were safely delivered to their new home. So they had taken another four-day journey together in his rig; the place where they had first formed a friendship. The place where they had first formed a bond.
It wasn’t the same trip as before. How could it be? There was a poignant heaviness in the air between them, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom. They couldn’t help but make each other laugh, and even though things were uncertain between them, their physical chemistry pulled them back into each other’s arms before the trip was over. For Bonita, the lovemaking had been the most passionate and intimate and intense of her life. They made love to each other as if it were for the last time, because they both knew that it just might be.
“How are classes?” Her friend Jill joined her for coffee weeks later. “Crazy?”
“It feels like someone backed up a dump truck and unloaded a ton of work on top of me,” Bonita said with a laugh. “But I love it.”
“Did you hear anything about the research position?”
“I got it!”
“Bonita!” Jill�
��s face lit up. “Congratulations! That’s a really big deal.”
It was a really big deal. Bonita had managed to secure a position as a research assistant for one of the program professors and it was a prestigious appointment.
Her first semester of medical school was off to a busy but successful start. Her move back to DC had gone smoothly. Jasmine and Val were settled into the facility in Alexandria; she had decided to find Val a permanent rider with an option to buy to keep him on the show circuit and Jasmine was signed up for regular exercise as well. She had purchased a penthouse apartment near Howard Theatre, restaurants and shopping. In theory, she had it all. But in reality, she didn’t because she didn’t have Gabe.
She drank coffee and caught up with the new events in Jill’s life for another hour before Bonita knew she had to get back to her studies. There were plenty of nightlife options all around her, yet the chances of having much of a social life while she was in school were less than zero.
Bonita opened the door to her apartment and was greeted by her new feline friend, a long-haired rescue named Patch. Patch was all white, except for a black marking around his left eye that looked exactly like a pirate’s patch. He was ten years old and came with the name, but it seemed to fit.
Bonita picked up the cat and hugged him. He sat in her arms, purring and rubbing his face against hers.
“How are you, my handsome boy?” She kissed him on the head.
She grabbed another cup of coffee, which she now consumed morning, afternoon and night, and went to her office. There were books stacked up to eye level on her desk and there were piles of research articles everywhere.
Patch followed her into the office, jumped up on the desk and took his favorite spot beneath the lamp, right next to the wedding photo of her parents.
“All right.” Bonita sighed. “Let’s get some work done.”
She tried to read one of the many chapters assigned for the week, but she discovered that the street noise was distracting her and she ended up reading the same paragraph several times without actually comprehending the content.
“Ah!” She hit the book with her hands in frustration. “It’s so noisy here, Patch!”
She had been so excited to get back to the city, to the energy of the place. But what she hadn’t anticipated was how much she was going to miss the quiet of Montana. Before Bozeman, she hadn’t noticed the noise that came from living with people in closer quarters. Now, every sound, from the voices on the street below to the honking of the cars to the doors shutting in the hallway drove her nuts.
“Fine.” She opened the desk drawer and grabbed the pair of expensive noise-canceling headphones her father had sent her the week before. It was annoying to have to wear headphones just to hear herself thinking!
Bonita read chapters and took notes until she couldn’t stand to do it for a minute longer. With Patch in tow, she retired for the night. She was too tired to take a shower, but she brushed her teeth and took care of her skin. Once she was in bed, she set the alarm on her phone and then started her evening ritual. First, she listened to an old message that she had saved on her phone from her mother. Missing her mother was a constant ache and being able to hear her voice—being able to still hear her say, “Te amo, mija”—was a gift.
“Good night, Mom.” She pressed her fingers to her lips and then transferred the kiss to a small oval framed picture of her mother.
“Are you comfortable?” Bonita petted her feline companion, who had curled up beside her on top of the blanket. She switched off the light, and then put her earbuds in and turned on the music she listened to every night before she went to bed: country.
It seemed ridiculous, but listening to the music she knew Gabe loved made her feel close to him; especially now when they couldn’t be farther apart, literarily and figuratively. After a heated phone conversation, he had told her that he needed to take some time away from the relationship. It had been a month since she had spoken to him—he wasn’t answering her texts, returning her calls or responding to her emails. He had, for all intents and purposes, ended things between them.
When she was in class or working or studying, it was easy to push aside the pain of losing her mother and Gabe. That was far from the case when it was time to sleep. No matter how exhausted she was, sleep didn’t come easy. Gabe was the last person she thought of before she fell asleep, and he was often the first person on her mind when she awakened. She told Jill as much the next day when they had a few minutes to chat on the phone.
“I miss him,” she told her friend. “He’s just a genuinely kind man. He makes me feel cherished and loved and safe when I’m with him. And I know—truly know—that if I do get sick that he’d be there for me. He’d take care of me. I never thought I’d actually be able to say that about anyone.”
“That’s hard to find.”
Some women waited their whole lives for Mr. Right to come along, only to be disappointed. From her perspective, Mr. Right came unexpectedly at the wrong time in her life. But maybe it hadn’t been the wrong time. Maybe he had come into her life at the exact time when she had needed him the most.
“I don’t know what to do.” As she said the words, she knew that wasn’t true.
“What would your mom tell you to do?”
That was easy to answer. She would tell her what she had told her right up to the end of her life. “Don’t be afraid to live your life.”
“Good advice.”
“Excellent advice,” Bonita agreed. And then, just like a light turning on with a simple flick of a switch, she knew exactly what she needed to do to get back on track with the man she loved. “Hey, Jill. Would you be willing to watch Patch over the weekend? I think I need to go home.”
After she hung up the phone with her friend, she called her dad. It might feel like Gabe was a world away right now, but he really wasn’t. In fact, he was only a plane ride away.
“Dad—I need to borrow the jet.”
* * *
Life after Bonita had left Montana felt hollow to Gabe. He still took pleasure in training horses and he had a couple of long-distance transports on the calendar, but his day-to-day existence seemed mundane. Days seemed to stretch out longer than normal and he found himself spending more time alone and going to bed before the sunset.
He’d never been truly depressed in his life, just normal ups and downs. But this thing was holding on for dear life; he didn’t like it. More than that, he didn’t like the twist in his gut every time he thought of Bonita—every time he imagined her face, the scent of her skin or the taste of her lips. He missed her in a way that didn’t seem possible and the more he missed her, the more he wanted to push her away.
The last time they’d spoken, Bonita still couldn’t say whether she would ever return to Montana. He couldn’t change that part of him—he just couldn’t. He was a fifth generation Montanan; this land was a part of his DNA. And if the love they shared wasn’t strong enough to pull her back to him, then it wasn’t a love strong enough to keep. So he walked away from her. It was the only thing he could do. He had to get down to the business of healing his heart.
“All right.” Gabe lowered his rifle and looked at the target. “Now that felt good.”
One way he was working through some of his angst was to run through boxes of ammo. He liked to shoot and he had plenty of guns to choose from. Some days, when he didn’t have a client, he’d spend the afternoon shooting at a paper target until there was nothing left of it.
“That looks like a good way to relieve stress.”
Gabe had just put his rifle down and had taken his ear protection off. He hadn’t heard anyone come up the drive and he sure as heck wasn’t expecting to hear anyone talking to him. Caught off guard, he stared at Bonita.
She was standing a few feet away from him, just as pretty as the day he first met her. But this time, she wasn’t dressed in English
riding gear. She was in jeans, cowgirl boots and the cowgirl hat he’d handpicked for her. His body immediately reacted to the sight of her—he couldn’t stop himself from admiring the sexy curves of her hips and legs in those jeans. His first instinct was to grab her and hold her in his arms the way he had held her so many times in his daydreams.
She gave a little self-conscious wave. “Hi.”
He picked up a new box of ammo. “You were just in the neighborhood?”
Bonita gave him a hesitant smile. “Well, I had to travel like two thousand miles to get into the neighborhood. But yeah. I was just in the neighborhood and I thought, hey, why don’t I stop by and see my old friend, Gabe?”
His lost love was standing so close to him now that he could catch the subtle lavender scent of her hair. Gabe had to resist the urge to pull her into his arms—to kiss her.
“Can I try that?” she asked.
“Ever shot one?”
She laughed. “No. But it looks like fun.”
He’d imagined her coming back into his life a hundred times, but he hadn’t imagined it like this. Gabe selected a less powerful rifle for Bonita to shoot for the first time. He showed her how to hold it, how to aim and how to pull the trigger in one smooth motion.
“It’s going to kick back against your shoulder. Don’t brace against it but expect it,” he told her as he put a spare set of headphones on her head and adjusted them. While he showed her how to hold the rifle, he had to put his arms around her, he had to touch her, and it hadn’t taken much for his body to start betraying him.
“When you’re ready,” he instructed from a few paces away. “Go ahead and pull that trigger, nice and smooth.”
Bonita shot the rifle, and as he’d warned her, the rifle jumped in her hand and kicked back against her shoulder. But when she looked over at him, her face was beaming with pleasure and she was smiling like someone who had just won a prize.
“Did you see that? I almost hit the target!”