Untamed Cowboy

by Maisey Yates

  She turned to Bennett. “Should I wait for you inside?”

  He could tell she was offering him a moment alone with Dallas, and he was grateful.

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  She turned and left them, looking back a couple of times before she slipped out of the barn.

  “Is she going to die?” Dallas asked, vulnerability showing through, the anger fading away a bit.

  Bennett felt like he’d been punched. He let out a long, slow breath.

  “I can’t tell you for sure that she won’t,” Bennett said. “But I wouldn’t think so. Most likely the question will be how comfortable she can be after this. And then... That’s when sometimes you have to make unpleasant decisions.”

  “No,” Dallas protested. “You’re not going to put her to sleep.”

  “I don’t want to. It’s all going to depend on how she does over the next few days. And then a few weeks after. But we don’t want her walking around suffering.”

  “Why not?” Dallas asked. “The rest of us are. And we just have to live through it.”

  “Unfortunately,” Bennett said slowly, “physical suffering and emotional suffering are two different things. Especially when it comes to animals.”

  Bennett sat down in the bottom of the stall, next to the horse, who had now calmed a little bit. Dallas joined him, and they both leaned back against the wall.

  It was silent except for the sound of Lucy’s breathing. Bennett watched her chest rise and fall. And then he looked back over at his son.

  “Dallas,” Bennett said. “I love you.”

  He hadn’t intended to say that. He hadn’t even been thinking it. And he realized he hadn’t said those words to anyone since...

  Since he was seven years old.

  Since he saw his mother one last time being loaded up into an ambulance, just days after she’d given birth to Jamie.

  He had told her that he loved her, and then...she had never woken up.

  And he never even thought those words anymore. Never said them to his family. Had never said them to Olivia. He had made it all about keeping control as far as Olivia was concerned. Not wanting to be reckless, not wanting to make a mistake again like he had done with Marnie. But it was so much deeper than that. It went back so much further.

  It wasn’t like he had told Marnie he loved her either.

  He had been crazy about her, true. But he was sixteen in the throes of his first physical relationship and he’d been completely out of his mind. But love? Really opening himself up to people... He didn’t do that. He built walls. Strong, sturdy walls, and operated within a fortress of his own making, entirely run by himself. But he couldn’t do that with Dallas. He couldn’t. Dallas was never going to love him, never going to trust him, if Bennett didn’t do the giving first. If Bennett didn’t let him in. You couldn’t ask for things you didn’t give. And Kaylee was right. If they didn’t know each other’s pain, if they didn’t know each other, there was no way to fix it all.

  Dallas looked over at him, lines etched between his brows as he pulled them together, the expression in his dark eyes like a frightened, wounded animal. “What?”

  “I love you,” Bennett said, his throat getting tight. “I love you. Because...you’re my son. And I’m so proud of you.”

  “Because... I’m your son. Because we’re blood related? And a paternity test proved it?”

  “No,” Bennett said, his voice rough. “I cared the minute that I met you. And I knew you were mine from that moment. I cared, or I wouldn’t have had you stay here. I wouldn’t have changed my life around to make room for you. But as I’ve gotten to know you, and as I see who you are... It’s changed. And I get all the things that people say about kids. About babies. That when that newborn baby opens his eyes and looks at them right in the face, that their whole world changes. Dallas, I didn’t get to see that with you. You didn’t get to change my world fifteen years ago like you should have. It’s not fair that we didn’t get that. It’s not. But I can’t sit around feeling angry about it. Not all the time. Because we’ve lost too many years already. But it’s not a burden to have you. It’s not a chore to be your dad. This... Now... It’s what I want. More than anything. For us to be a family. And maybe what I want isn’t a fair thing to ask of you. Maybe asking for you to call me Dad, for you to someday tell me that you love me too... Maybe that’s too much. Too much after all the time we spent apart. But I just want you to know it’s not too much for me. And I’m okay with whatever you can give. But I’m going to give you everything I’ve got.”

  It was silent for a beat. Dallas’s face smoothed slowly, his eyes getting blank, unreadable. Then he finally spoke. “Okay.”

  Bennett’s chest winched. He had said all those words, and he had meant them. But of course he had hoped that Dallas would say I love you, Dad and give Bennett a hug. He really wanted that. He craved it. But he also knew that it really wasn’t something he could just ask Dallas to feel.

  It was complicated. And it was going to take time.

  He had to give Dallas that time while giving 100 percent in return. He couldn’t hold back just waiting. He was the parent. That meant flinging himself in front of a moving train to save his son if necessary. Even if his son was driving that train, and it was just a metaphor for something that would leave him emotionally devastated.

  “I’m going to do my best with her,” he said, putting his hand on Lucy.

  “Okay.”

  On this, Bennett was going to push him.

  “Do you trust me?” he pressed.

  “I...”

  He turned toward Dallas, putting both hands on his shoulders. “Dallas, I promise you I am going to do everything I can to give Lucy the longest life possible. To make sure to the best of my ability that she’s not in pain. I’m going to try to do both of those things. I’m going to give it everything I have. Do you trust me?”

  Dallas looked away, but nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  Bennett would take that. He would take it as a damned victory.

  “Let’s go in the house,” Bennett said. “She’s as comfortable as we can make her.”

  “I’m going to stay out here for a little while,” Dallas said.

  Bennett hesitated. “Okay. Do you want me to stay with you?”

  “No,” Dallas said. “I would rather stay alone.”

  “Okay,” Bennett said, standing up and brushing his pants off. So much for his Sunday clothes. “If anything changes, let me know.”

  Dallas nodded wordlessly and put his hand on Lucy’s neck, stroking her slowly. Bennett turned and left them there.

  His heart felt heavy and light all at the same time. He couldn’t quite figure it out. As he walked back toward the house, the front door opened and Kaylee came out onto the porch.

  She walked over to the handrail and gripped it, looking out at the mountains that surrounded the ranch. The breeze kicked up and ruffled her red hair, rose gold sunlight bathing her face.

  What a thing it was. To walk up toward the house and have her come out. To have her be there in his home.

  “Is he okay?” she asked when Bennett’s boot hit the bottom step.

  “I think he will be. I think we will be.”

  “Good.”

  “Thank you,” Bennett said. “For what you said back there. It was exactly what he needed to hear. And it’s what I needed to hear too.”

  “You?”

  “Yes. I promised that kid honesty. And I don’t think I can give anyone honesty the way that I like to live. I want to protect myself. I want...to not be hurt. But I don’t think you can love a kid the way they need to be loved if you’re not willing to get hurt doing it. So that means letting go of all my stuff. Letting him know where I’m hurt.”

  She nodded slowly, but she still didn’t move to touch him. So he did
it. He was the one that pulled her close, took her in his arms.

  “I wish... I just hope that it’s not too late,” Bennett said. “For him to love me. You know, like a father instead of a stranger who took him in.”

  Kaylee bit her lip, looking over toward the mountains. “Remember when I told him to be nice to your family because they needed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s hard, when you’ve been through the kind of thing he has. The kind of thing I’ve been through...it’s hard to let yourself need people. To let them care for you. It’s much easier to pour yourself into them.”

  “Hard to ask them to come help you move a hutch?” he asked.

  Her cheeks turned pink. “Where is Dallas?” she asked, looking around.

  “Still with Lucy. He said he’s going to stay in there for a while.”

  His heart felt raw, bruised. Opening himself up like this meant exposing himself to pain, because when you didn’t have brick walls up around every feeling inside, you tended to feel it all a little bit more keenly. But he still wouldn’t go back. Not now that he knew. Not now that he understood how much richer and fuller the past few weeks had been than the years before.

  Really, it all came down to that moment in the diner. That wrenching feeling of sadness and wistfulness. All the time that he and Dallas had lost. The time they had before them. How much Bennett both looked forward to seeing his son’s name written on that diner window, like his had been those years before, and how much he wanted to slow the years down so that they had more time.

  Somehow, that moment of pain that came through love held more beauty, more brilliance and more happiness than any time in his life that had simply been content.

  It was deep. And it was real. He wouldn’t trade it. Not for the world.

  And then there was Kaylee. This feeling that he had for her, that had always been there but had grown now, expanded. Like a creek that had overflowed in a heavy rain and become a torrential river. The same feelings that had always been there, made bigger, faster moving, by the injection of new feelings.

  And like a river, it was scary. Like a river, it might pull him under, drown him.

  But he wasn’t sure he wanted it any other way.

  In fact, he was mostly sure he didn’t.

  It was just a matter of figuring out what he was going to do with it. If he was going to try to raft it to the end. Or if he was going to jump in and swim, take his chances. Submerge in it. Go all the way.

  He cupped her face, sliding his thumbs across her cheekbones. And then he kissed her. That soft, sweet mouth that had smiled at him more times than he could count. Had frowned at him. Had cussed at him.

  His friend’s lips.

  His woman’s lips.

  Because she was both, wasn’t she? All of it. Not divided into compartments, his lover Kaylee, his friend Kaylee. Kaylee was all of it. The keeper of all these feelings. All these needs. It had to be her.

  It really did have to be.

  “Why don’t you come inside?”

  Kaylee balked, chewing on her lower lip as she took a step away from him. “Are you sure you want to... Here?”

  “I’m sure.”

  If he was sure about anything, it was wanting Kaylee with him tonight. All night.

  If he could just have that, the morning would be fine.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “BENNETT...”

  “Thank you. For today. For coming with me. For having dinner with us. For the last few weeks. And no, I’m not thanking you for sex, like I did the first time. I learned from my dumbass mistakes. But I am thanking you for being there like this. Without you none of it would have gone right.”

  Kaylee shook her head. “That’s not true. You’re his dad, Bennett. He needs you. He doesn’t need me.”

  “That’s not true. You’re the one who connected with him quickly. It took me longer. He understood you. You understood him. That means something. It matters. Honey, it matters a hell of a lot.”

  He had meant it to come out light, but it didn’t. All he could think about was tasting her again. Holding her again. He didn’t understand how this day, this person, could be so many different things. The intense triumph and abject terror of taking the step to legally becoming Dallas’s guardian. The intense desire to have Kaylee there as a friend. The sadness he’d felt seeing not just Lucy in pain, but Dallas in pain as a result. And also in a strange, twisted way, the pride that the depth of his son’s caring made him feel.

  And now this.

  This desire. Deep and unending, and somehow all part of the same few hours.

  Part of the same woman he had wanted at the courthouse, had needed to come to dinner. Needed to help find the right words to ease his son’s distress.

  The same woman he wanted in his bed. Naked and screaming out his name.

  He was used to simple. His life, on his terms. But now it was so much more than that. Life was just happening, all around him. And the people that he cared about were changing the decisions he was making. Changing what he wanted.

  Before, he had made a plan and he had set about making it happen. He had seen certain holes in his life, and wanted the puzzle pieces to fit in them. Wanted a friend puzzle piece. A wife puzzle piece. Kids, house. All of it to complement the career puzzle piece.

  But now, he had all these pieces, and he wasn’t sure where yet to put them. And he didn’t even mind. Because it was better. So much better than what he had thought he needed.

  He wanted to call Luke Hollister and get down on his knees and thank the man for seducing Olivia. Because if he had gone ahead with things as they had been... It wouldn’t be like this now, that was for sure.

  More than that...

  He wanted to be what Kaylee needed.

  He needed her, no question. In so many different ways. But he wanted her to be able to need him. To be able to count on him.

  To call him when she needed furniture moved. Or needed to be held.

  He wanted to give to her as much as he’d ever taken.

  She’d used it to shelter her, he understood that now. She’d let herself be the giver, so she would never be disappointed. He didn’t want that. Not anymore.

  He took Kaylee’s hand, weaving his fingers through hers, and he led her through the front door, down the hall and to his bedroom.

  He brought her inside and closed the door behind them. She looked around, shivering lightly.

  “What?”

  “I’m in your bedroom.”

  “You’ve been in my bedroom hundreds of times.”

  She looked uncertain. “Not for this.”

  Her voice was so small, so feeble. He wanted to make her feel better. Wanted to put her at ease.

  “I think we’ve had sex about a hundred times now too.” He tried to lighten the tone but the exasperated look on her face told him it was the wrong move. That was the problem with being friends first. He knew what to do when he was a friend. He knew less what to do now.

  “We have not.” She scowled at him. “It’s only been a few weeks. We can’t have had sex over a hundred times.”

  He shrugged. “I think it’s possible. I think we might have broken some records.”

  She shook her head. “I’m serious. Anyway... I’ve never been in your room for this. It feels...significant.”

  There was a heavy note to her voice and he wanted to translate it. Wanted to find a way to figure out exactly what she meant. Exactly what was hidden beneath the surface of each and every word she spoke.

  Right in that moment, he wanted to know everything about her. He remembered that day in the barn, the day after the first time they’d made love, when she had suddenly felt the need to question him. About how many partners he’d had, what kind of sex life. He understood it. Understood that feeling beyond a moment of passing curi
osity. That need to see it all. The desire to be able to read her mind.

  He wanted to know it all. Every last bit.

  The details of what it had been like growing up in her family. All the things that she had hidden from him, kept from him. And the things she was hiding from him now. Like why it mattered that they were in his bedroom. Why it made her feel insecure or vulnerable, or whatever had brought on the shiver.

  “What made you decide to become a veterinarian?” he asked, taking a step back from her and taking his shirt off.

  Kaylee frowned, her eyes darting from his stomach, to his face, his chest, his face. “What kind of question is that? Especially when you’re stripping.”

  “An important question, Kay. Because I don’t think I’ve ever asked you. Because we were...together when we decided, so in a lot of ways I felt like I kind of knew why, but we never really talked about it. We went to school together for veterinary medicine. We planned and plotted this practice together. And I don’t think I ever asked you why you wanted to do it.”

  She shrunk slightly, her shoulders folding inward. “I...I like animals.”

  He didn’t believe that was the whole truth. Not at all. But like he’d figured with Dallas earlier, he couldn’t take without giving.

  “When my mom died I felt like I didn’t have any power. I couldn’t fix it. I didn’t know what to do. Along the way I figured out that I wanted to do something to stop some of the suffering in this world. I wanted to find out some way to be the person who could control the outcome some of the time. And even if it is for animals, and not for people, it’s something I feel like I can do. It’s in impact I can make in my community. In the lives of the ranchers, and in the animals. It matters to me on a deeper level than just liking animals. It’s the way I found to help when I feel helpless. A way I found to feel in control in a world that I really can’t ever hope to control.” He reached down and started to undo his belt.