Cowboy Come Home

by Sinclair Jayne

  Same thing everyone says about me.

  Only now he was being a grade A asshole.

  “Haven’t missed it in eight years.”

  Make that twenty-five, but seven competing. And who’s counting?

  He also hadn’t made all-around cowboy. Or placed higher than second professionally on any event in his hometown. Last year he hadn’t even made it to the short round, he’d been so tired and beat up. Sure. He was good. Better than good. Sometimes great. But not legendary.

  Not Taryn Telford. His father.

  “Then you must know the town.” Her lips curved in that smile that always broke his heart a little, made him want to be a better man. “It says here…”

  Wait for it.

  She’d lose cell service as soon as they swung around the next curve. And he wouldn’t have to hear about all the joys of Marietta for another ten miles.

  Piper made an exasperated sound, placed her cell phone in the cup holder and kicked up her bare feet onto his dash. Electric-blue polish on her toes. She had beautiful feet. She disagreed. She’d been a dancer so she had a lot of callouses. But he loved how they fit in his hands. How her eyes would roll back and she’d gasp and moan and whisper his name when he would massage her feet with warm oil. Before he moved north on her body.

  Ironic as hell since she was the professional.

  “It’s the twenty-first century,” she griped. “Why am I losing cell service twenty or so miles out of a town? On a highway? This is America! What happened to we’re number one and make it great again?”

  He laughed at her outrage.

  “In London you can talk on the tube and that’s deep underground.”

  “Not a lot of rodeos in London,” he said without thinking. Could he sound like more of a hick? Piper had traveled the world.

  She grinned. “Those London girls don’t know what they’re missing.”

  He liked how she always had a comeback. How conversation was so easy with her. She asked him a lot of questions because she was interested. Yet, sometimes, she could be so still and lay outside his trailer in the summer grass while he felt each breath she took and she’d stare at the spangled sky without a word.

  And her citrus and honeysuckle scent always made him hungry.

  “Boone! Look! Stop. Pull over!”

  He knew without asking what had caught her attention. Piper loved the scenery when they traveled as much as he did. She never complained when they made a photo op stop.

  “Oh my God,” she breathed. “That is so beautiful.”

  He was already signaling, pulling over. There was a small turnout because it was a well-remarked view point—a beautiful alpine lake nestled in the Gallatin Mountains. He stopped the truck and checked his mirrors to ensure the trailer was completely off the road. Usually he’d check on his horse, but they hadn’t been driving long, and they were close to the rodeo grounds. It wasn’t even noon on Thursday. They had plenty of time.

  Usually he rushed this part of the trip home, eager to see his family, take some of the burden off his father, catch up with friends, but today, because he was not manning up, he was happy to stop.

  Piper spilled out of the truck, a flash of long, toned legs on the side of the road.

  “Ouch!” She dashed across the asphalt toward the grass for a better view.

  “Baby—” he caught her easily and swung her into his arms “—you’re barefoot,” he said, pointing out the obvious.

  She was often barefoot. It made him crazy and turned him on at the same time. She sighed and threaded her fingers through the back of his hair—which he was going to have to chop off soon. His mom and sister would give him grief. He was practically sporting a mane, but when he’d met Piper, he’d been long overdue for a haircut and Piper had been very physically and verbally demonstrative over his thick, shaggy hair.

  Damn, one more sign he was whipped.

  He put her down, wrapped his arms around her, and rested his chin on the top of her silky head. She crept back so that the soles of her feet rested on his cowboy boots. He didn’t try to hide his smile.

  “I bought you boots,” he reminded her.

  “Two pairs.”

  “Gonna glue ’em on, baby. Can’t have my girl at the rodeo barefoot.”

  Her body relaxed into his, and for the first time this morning, he felt settled. Everything right.

  “It’s called Miracle Lake,” he said, letting the strands of her fiery hair catch in his lips. God, sometimes he was worried he would hurt her, hold her so tight she’d bruise.

  “Do you know what the miracle was?”

  That was Piper, always wanting to learn.

  “There mighta been a few over the years. Stories change depending on who’s telling. Long while back a boy fell through the ice. Was pulled out. Dead. Not breathing. No pulse.”

  Piper’s breath hitched. He loved that too. Her sensitivity.

  And he was going to hurt her. He knew he would.

  He closed his eyes tightly and buried his face in her hair. Slipped the elastic band from her messy bun so the red-gold mass just blew around them in the breeze racing down from the higher elevations into Paradise Valley.

  “So the rescuers wrapped him up, breathed for him. Maybe did CPR and then he opened his eyes. He’d been dead a while. But was brought back to life. No permanent damage.”

  “Boone.” She pressed her hands over his, and he felt the tremble to his bones. “Losing a child. It’s the worst pain of all.”

  She was so stiff and quiet. He paused. Curious. The pain in her voice. He’d never heard anything like it before from her. Piper was always easy, soothing him. Lifting him up when he crashed.

  “Piper?” he questioned, and without meaning to he slipped his hands lower, covered her abdomen, wondered if there was something in her past she hadn’t shared. “The boy didn’t die,” he assured her after a beat of silence. “He was fine. It’s a local legend. He grew up. Had a family. All the normal things.”

  “Normal,” he thought she whispered, but the breeze stole her words. “Any other miracles this lake has produced?” She turned in his arms and pressed a kiss where his shirt parted at his throat, a little above his heart. It was as high as she could reach unless he helped her. Boone usually preferred taller girls he didn’t have to stoop to kiss, but Piper had snuck in under his guard and settled in.

  “Well, maybe not everyone would think this was a miracle, but during the winter lots of folks go ice skating on the lake, and a couple of Christmases ago, a man, Laird Wilder arrived in Marietta with some hard questions about his life and family he was searching for. He lit a bunch of candles on the ice and went skating in the dead of night. And as he prayed for answers, he met a local woman, who was a bit of a town bad girl, but a hella barrel racer, Tucker McTavish.

  “Anyway, she too was aiming to change her life. She wanted absolution for a lotta things to hear her tell it, but mainly from her sister who was marrying a cowboy Tucker had once fancied, and well, she and Laird met that night, fell in love and then he found the answers he was seeking. Turned out he too was born local, a twin, but he and his brother were adopted out separately so he’d never met his birth mother or his twin, and by Christmas a month after he made his prayer, he’d found his family and the love of a good woman. They still live here in Marietta. Married. Happy.”

  And were poised to do business with his father. Business that his father really wanted him to move home and join as a full-time partner.

  Piper turned her face up. Her eyes were shiny with tears, her expression sober.

  “Love is a miracle,” she stated.

  He found it hard to breathe. His skin prickled, and he felt like he was burning up inside. He hadn’t used that word with her, but a lot of unnamed feelings beat around his head like caged birds. And he had to keep that door locked up tight.

  “It is,” he said, his voice tight.

  Piper searched his face, but Boone looked back out toward the view.

  �
��That’s a beautiful local story,” Piper said quietly. “How’d you hear it?”

  “Like I said, Tucker was a barrel racer.”

  Different circuit than him. And she’d been the revered beautiful high school bad girl barely graduating senior to his middle school attempts at swagger.

  “Finding your family and your forever home would be a miracle,” Piper snuggled closer, her lips doing something to his skin that felt like she was lighting matches.

  Hard to argue with that.

  “Can you take me to Miracle Lake, Boone? Do we have time? Can we get there from here?”

  There were two ways to take that question. Literal or symbolic he supposed.

  The first he could manage. The second? Boone didn’t know how to be that man. If he’d met Piper a few years from now, he’d want to be. But wanting got you nothing. Doing mattered.

  He took her hand and flipped it over, palm up. Being with Piper was strange. In some ways it was a little like getting on that bucking bronc or bull. Holding on. Euphoric. Alive. All cylinders firing and then a second before the bell, the monster ducks his head or drops a shoulder, or kicks left when you thought right, but that stunt and the laws of physics just kick your blissed-out state of mind to the fence and your hurtled body just rag dolls right along with it.

  He and Piper were about to get tossed off.

  Hard.

  “Yeah, baby. I’ll take you.”

  *

  The water was cold. Colder than she’d anticipated. Piper had imagined…what, stripping off her clothes and running naked across the gravelly sand and splashing into the dark blue water? Maybe in a book. But here there was a family picnicking out of earshot but definitely within view. And a couple of fishermen in boats on the lake.

  So Piper had changed into her bikini and was wading cautiously into the water instead of running and jumping, while Boone leaned against a picnic table, arms crossed, eyes intent on her, and looking hot and perfect and… She sighed. Hers. She wanted him to be hers. Hers in a way no one had ever been before, and so many times during the day and especially at night she felt like he was. Everything she’d ever dreamed of. Strong and kind and caring and fun and so into her body that she kept looking into the mirror trying to figure out what the big deal was. But then she’d catch a look or…or a shadow or a drop in Boone’s energy like he was suddenly absent and dread would sweep through her.

  “Don’t be stupid. You’ll ruin everything,” she whispered to herself.

  Boone was magic. And for once she didn’t want to overanalyze everything and make the safe decision—the so-called right decision. She wanted to go with her heart.

  She’d never had anything close to what she had with Boone. Not in high school—hard to when she was moving every year and sometimes more. And not in college as she’d ground through her dance and kinesiology majors in less than four years. Definitely not in the dance company with the hours of rehearsal followed by performances and then moving to another city, another rehearsal space and theater, every day or so.

  And then she’d left the dance world behind. She’d wanted a place to call home. Friends. Family. So she’d gotten certified in massage and the day before she walked in the ceremony she’d gone to Newport Bay to celebrate by herself like she’d done all her life and then like magic, Boone had appeared.

  He’d walked toward her with a rolling, fluid stride that stole her breath and exploded her mind.

  His eyes had never left hers, and the determination in his jaw had filled her with awe. Excitement. A sense of destiny that she still felt. And when he’d shrugged out of his shirt she’d been unable to stop her jaw from dropping.

  Boone had definitely noticed. Even his eyes had laughed.

  “Like what you see?” he’d teased before he’d even introduced himself. And his playfulness and audacity had crushed her protective wall. “Because I do, and I was thinking about trying one of those things.” His blue gaze had briefly skimmed the paddleboard and then returned, lighting her up in a way she’d never experienced and made her feel dizzy. “If you’re willing to share.”

  And then he’d smiled at her.

  Bright as the sun.

  Eyes blue as the sky. Smile as wide as the Milky Way and dimples like craters on the moon. He’d looked at her like she was special. Piper felt special with Boone. And she’d been willing to share far more than the paddleboard.

  “You swimming or trying to catch fish by letting them nibble on your toes?” Boone called out amused, tugging her back to the present. “Because toe nibbling is my job.”

  “It’s cold,” she said. “I thought the Pacific was chilly but this is bone-cracking icy.”

  “Girl, this is Montana. Glacier fed. Not water rolling in from the white and black sand beaches of Hawaii.” He let his voice slide all country and that never failed to soak her panties.

  “That’s right,” she said letting her voice turn to smoke. “You’re a cowboy.”

  “Damn straight. To my soul. One hundred percent Montana cowboy. The kind your momma and daddy warned you about,” he teased, not moving from his sexy slouch against the picnic table.

  Her mother hadn’t stuck around long enough to warn her about anything.

  God. He was such a man. Like she’d always dreamed of. She was crazy about him, and her father would stroke out to know that with all of her education and ‘worldly exposure to politics and culture,’ she had fallen hard and irrevocably for a cowboy.

  Not that she’d tell him. Or that he’d ask. If she did go for a visit, which she likely wouldn’t, she’d probably only get five minutes with him at his office on whatever base he was currently stationed before he’d call some suck-up to take her somewhere he wasn’t—a museum, symphony, dinner.

  “But not anymore,” she said softly. She’d made a promise to herself. A vow. And she would keep it.

  “Baby, it’s so cute when you talk to yourself.”

  She nearly jumped to see Boone striding through the water toward her. Hat off. Shirt off. Jeans off. Boots off. Just the black boxers that hugged his butt, thighs and the thing she was obsessed with. Who knew with her few tepid, fumbling sexual forays in college that had left her embarrassed and even lonelier, that she would become so sexually driven?

  “Clearly the water’s not that cold.” His voice slid through her ears and through her blood, heating her. He looked down and she could see how hard he was. The tip of his cock poked through his waistband.

  “Boone.” Excitement slithered through her, and her heart kicked up like she was on her morning run. “There’s a family at the north end of the lake. And fishermen on the opposite shore.”

  He laughed. “Look at you with the compliments. Like they can see me. You talk like that to a cowboy, girl, you’re gonna need to do something about it.”

  His eyes were nearly navy with desire, and the heat he threw off puddled her core.

  Her breathing fractured. She stared at him, ignoring the view of the lake, the trees, the huge mountain glowering at them. The world, no, the universe narrowed down to Boone. His broad shoulders. The defined muscles of his pecs, and the corded muscles of his shoulders and arms and his abs that could never be sculpted in a gym.

  And she knew he had strength. And stamina. He proved it to her every night. She still couldn’t believe he was real. That he was hers.

  “I can’t breathe,” she whispered, so caught in his spell that she’d given up even pretending he didn’t completely undo her every time.

  “You hot for me baby? Wet?”

  “Standing in water,” she said.

  “My girl’s funny. You know what I meant. Do I need to check for myself?”

  She nodded. He reached for her and she melted. She could feel him hard against her abdomen. A molten steel spike that could make her scream and beg and forget her own name. His large, calloused hand slipped between their bodies and dipped into her bikini. One finger curled deep inside her.

  “Boone,” her legs noodled. “We’r
e sort of in public.”

  “Makes it more exciting doesn’t it?” He withdrew his finger and licked it, his eyes on her. He tilted his head as if thinking, and Piper thought she’d die from excitement. “Not wet enough,” he concluded.

  Then he lifted her and launched her into the air. Piper yelped and splashed into the icy water and came up spluttering. Boone was already flat-out swimming toward her like a shark. His gaze intent. Excitement flared and she turned and began to freestyle across the lake. Her laugh broke free and rolled out across the water. She loved to swim, and she loved to play with Boone more than anything.

  “Catch me if you can, cowboy.”

  Chapter Three

  “Boone! Good to see you.”

  “Boone. You still gluttoning for punishment on the back of any beast that will give you a chance?”

  “Boone…could you take a look at…?”

  Piper liked that Boone was popular. Usually they rolled into the rodeos the afternoon or the night before. After four months, she too knew many of the cowboys on the tour, but it seemed there was always someone new in each town, and then others leaving—injuries, broke or life’s demands. Still Boone knew almost everyone. And he’d always slip his strong arm around her waist, introduce her, have a funny story about everyone. And he’d get roped into helping with a cowboy’s rig or his trailer or equipment. And he never said no.

  Once he got his horse settled, Boone always helped her set up her small tent and massage equipment. Now with her earnings she’d purchased a commercial-grade Pilates reformer to provide deep stretches for her clients, which had initially garnered a lot of snickers and one-liners about bondage and S & M, but once she’d stretched out a few cowboys before their events, her bookings had grown and the attitude was more grateful and blissed out instead of overt sexual snark. Although she still got that, just a little more subtly.