Cowboy to the Rescue

by Trish Milburn

  “Yay, progress.” Brooke resumed her spot on the end of the coffee table. “Looks like your color’s coming back, too. You were pulling a Casper a few minutes ago.”

  “Can’t say I’m a fan of the sight of blood.” There it was again, an echo of meaning beyond the actual words.

  She took his hand in hers, ignoring the zing of unwise awareness, and removed the bloodstained towel. “Then I suggest not stabbing yourself.”

  When he smiled, she smiled back. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

  She cleaned the wound, washing away the last remnants of blood, then applied antibacterial cream and a gauze bandage.

  “She cooks, she plays a mean game of Scrabble and makes a pretty fair nurse.”

  “A necessity when your sister is the clumsiest person on the planet.” Brooke wasn’t sure why she’d said that, but Holly’s various mishaps had been what sprang into her mind. She hadn’t revealed too much, and if she kept too private that might invite as many unwanted questions as being too open. The trick was finding the right balance between saying enough but not too much.

  Mentioning Holly brought on a wave of homesickness—not for her condo in Arlington but for the mountains of West Virginia and her older sister, her only remaining family.

  “You all right?” Ryan asked.

  “Yeah.” Brooke realized she was still holding Ryan’s hand so she released it and scooted back on the table. “How does your hand feel?”

  “Like some idiot stabbed it with a carving knife.”

  “Hey, accidents happen.”

  He glanced out the door toward his shop. “But never at a good time.”

  “Is there ever a good time to stab yourself?”

  He lifted his good hand from the arm of the chair then let it drop. “You have a point.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with?”

  “You a wood carver by chance?”

  “Nope, sorry.” She stood and walked toward the door. “Anything else on your to-do list?”

  “I have a table and chairs ready to deliver. Maybe I can get Simon or Nathan to help.”

  “Or me.” She lifted her hands, holding the palms out, and wiggled her fingers. “See, two good hands.”

  “You looking for a second job?”

  “How much you paying?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “How much do you charge?”

  She crossed her arms, hugging herself against a flicker of innuendo she thought she might be imagining. She leaned against the doorframe. “Actually, I just need a ride into town. You might be the idiot who stabbed himself, but I’m the idiot who barreled into that pothole this morning.”

  “And you have a flat.”

  “Two.”

  “Talk about going overboard.”

  Laughter bubbled up in Brooke. “What can I say? I’m an overachiever.”

  Ryan rose from the chair, steady on his feet this time. In the small space, he appeared taller, broader. Had she just made an offer that would have her spending more time with him instead of less? Had she spent too much time in the sun while digging out that useless spare tire?

  Or had the feel of Ryan’s hand in her own caused her attraction to overrule her common sense?

  Of the two idiots in the room, she was definitely the bigger.

  Chapter Four

  Ryan decided not to examine his reasons for accepting Brooke’s offer too closely. He was just going to stick with the fact that he needed help until his hand healed. He still couldn’t believe the klutzy move. It was a wonder the U.S. Army had ever allowed him to pack a gun.

  “Turn here.” He pointed to the street coming up on the right. “We’ll drop off your tires first so Greg can have them ready before we head back to the ranch.”

  Brooke made the turn. She’d grown quiet on the ride into town, but it didn’t bother him. For the most part, he wasn’t a chatty guy. He’d already talked to her more in their short acquaintance than he had to some of his neighbors in months.

  “Hey, there’s your mom.” She pointed out his side of the windshield.

  “Yeah, that’s her art gallery.”

  “She has a gallery? Wow. She mentioned painting, but I had no idea it was a profession.”

  “It’s still pretty new. Grace runs her interior design business out of there, too. Also has the new-car smell.”

  Brooke smiled. “You Teagues seem to be a talented bunch.” She nodded toward the furniture riding in the bed of the truck. “Including you.”

  “It’s a living.”

  “It’s art as much as painting.”

  He barely knew this woman, but that simple praise from her sent a wave of warmth through him.

  “I can’t imagine doing anything remotely artistic,” she said.

  “But you do. With food.”

  She glanced at him. “That’s different.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s just a job.”

  “Building furniture is just my job.” Granted, he enjoyed it, but wasn’t that what you wanted from a job, something that wasn’t drudgery? “Do you not like cooking?” He’d have sworn otherwise.

  “Oh, I love to cook. Just never thought of it as art before. At least not what I prepare.”

  “Take it from the guy whose fanciest dish is mac and cheese from a box, what you do is art.”

  She smiled. “Maybe I should autograph all my dishes then.”

  His own smile responded to hers. “Maybe you should.”

  He directed her to Greg’s garage then hopped out to find his friend. Greg wandered out in his grease-stained jeans and Longhorns T-shirt, wiping his hands on a shop towel.

  “Hey, Ry. What’s up, man?” That’s when Greg noticed Brooke approaching. “Damn, I heard the new cook was hot, but Simon was holding out.”

  Ryan suspected Brooke was close enough to overhear. “Classy,” he said and punched Greg in the shoulder. “I told her you could fix a couple of flat tires this afternoon. Don’t make me into a liar.”

  Greg extended his hand. “Greg Bozeman, ma’am. And for you, all these other jokers can wait.”

  Ryan noticed a touch of unease in Brooke’s eyes as she shook Greg’s hand, and he got the feeling it didn’t have anything to do with Greg’s grease-stained fingers. Maybe she just didn’t want to encourage any flirting. Goodness knew she was getting enough of that from Simon.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

  “How are you liking your new job?” Greg shoved his hands into his pockets, as if trying to hide them. Brooke seemed to have all the men she met acting out of character.

  “I like it.”

  “I see you’re having to beat these Teague boys off with a stick.” He gestured toward Ryan’s bandaged hand.

  Brooke looked startled for a moment then recovered. “No, he managed that all by himself.”

  “No doubt to earn some sympathy from a pretty lady.”

  Ryan resisted slugging Greg again. “On that note…” He turned for the truck. “Get those tires done or I’m going to Bernie’s next time.”

  Greg laughed. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

  After Greg retrieved the flat tires, Brooke climbed into the driver’s seat. Ryan thought about offering to drive, but truth was his hand was throbbing as though he’d stabbed a spear right through it.”

  “So Bernie’s is the competition?” she asked once they were back on the road.

  Ryan barked out a laugh. “If you can call him that. He’s eight hundred if he’s a day, and he piddles with cars on the days when he doesn’t decide to run a roadside taco stand or go into the Christmas-tree farm business.”

  “The resident jack-of
-all-trades, huh?”

  “And master of none.”

  Brooke drove slowly through the main part of town. “Blue Falls seems like a nice place, slow-paced.”

  She sounded as if part of her liked the idea of the laid-back way of things here and part didn’t know quite how to adjust to it. He resisted the uncharacteristic urge to delve into her past. It wasn’t his business, and he never said anything that invited others to ask about his past.

  “It’s home.”

  Before they headed to the Rochester, they made the side trip to the Mayfairs’ house to deliver the table and chairs.

  “Looks like you’ve got an eager customer waiting.” Brooke indicated Rob Mayfair standing on the edge of his front porch.

  “Yeah, we’re trying to get this inside before his wife, Julie, comes home. It’s an anniversary gift.”

  “That’s very sweet.” Brooke parked close to the porch and cut the engine.

  As soon as they exited the truck, Rob shot them a wide smile. “You must be doing well, son, if you’ve got a chaffeur now.”

  Ryan held up his bandaged hand. “Needed some extra hands.”

  “Well, I’m sure hers are a damn sight prettier than yours.”

  “Definitely.” Ryan glanced at Brooke in time to notice a flush to her cheeks. He wasn’t prepared for how that simple, innocent look punched him in the chest.

  HOW COULD ONE simple, offhand word from a man she barely knew make her cheeks warm? No, it had to be the heat. She just wasn’t used to this crazy Texas oven-roasting. D.C. got plenty hot and humid in the summer, but this Texas heat was a different breed. You could bake a loaf of bread out here.

  She shook Mr. Mayfair’s hand as Ryan introduced them and was glad when they cut the chitchat and started moving the table and chairs inside. They became the centerpiece of a small dining room decorated in a warm, country style. She looked closer at the new furniture and saw how Ryan had incorporated little details like tiny carved apples around the edge of the table and on the backs of the chairs. Apples that looked remarkably like the ones on the room’s wallpaper border.

  She couldn’t imagine Chris ever noticing that kind of detail, making that type of connection with any of his clients. But that wasn’t what they paid him for, was it? Brooke shook away the image and the chill it brought. Chris was the last thing on which she wanted to expend any mental energy. Too much of her life had already been lost to him.

  “You’ve outdone yourself,” Mr. Mayfair said as he stood back and admired Ryan’s craftsmanship. He pulled a checkbook out of his back pocket.

  Ryan quoted a figure that surprised Brooke, not because it was high but rather amazingly low.

  “That’s not the price we agreed on,” Mr. Mayfair said.

  “I took a little longer than I projected, and I’m having a sale this month.”

  Ryan and Mr. Mayfair stared at each other for a long moment before the older man nodded. Brooke thought she saw a glimmer of tears in his eyes, but he bent to write the check before she could be sure. He handed it to Ryan and shook his uninjured hand.

  Then Mr. Mayfair turned his attention to her. “Try to make sure this one doesn’t hurt his other hand. No matter how talented he is, I don’t think he can carve with his toes.”

  She smiled at that image and Mr. Mayfair’s easy friendliness.“I’ll try.” She didn’t know what else to say. Despite her offer to help Ryan, she wasn’t going to be spending all her time with him. But she couldn’t really explain that without it looking odd either.

  Once they were back in the truck and headed toward the Rochester, she glanced at Ryan. Despite her pledge to herself to keep a bit of distance, she had to ask one question.

  “You aren’t really having a sale this month, are you?”

  “For him, I am,” Ryan said, answering as if he’d been expecting the question. “Julie just went through a battle with cancer, and he wanted to get her something really nice. He told me she’d seen some of my furniture in a shop in town and really liked it. But he’s been working two jobs just to pay the medical bills.”

  Brooke’s heart swelled at the story and at Ryan’s act of kindness. “That was really nice, what you did.”

  He shrugged, like he was uncomfortable with the praise, like what he’d done was no big deal. “They need the money more than I do.”

  A surge of admiration for Ryan had her finding him even more attractive. Before she and Chris had crossed paths, why couldn’t she have met a man like Ryan?

  Geez. Listen to her. One kind gesture and she was ready to believe he was perfect. But it wasn’t a lone act, was it? Her brain ticked off all the kindnesses she’d seen him undertake in their brief acquaintance.

  Telling her how many guests to cook for, suggesting she stay in the bunkhouse, calling Greg to get her tires fixed, and now the thoughtfulness toward the Mayfairs.

  Still, she knew the interstates through Texas better than she did him. While not every man hid a dark side the way Chris had, that didn’t mean she was going to trust the first interesting one to come along. She was willing to go with friendship, but no more.

  She popped over a hill, revealing the sad sack of a motel that was the Rochester. At night, it’d been less than appealing with its faux adobe facade and window AC units in various states of disrepair, but in the full daylight it took pitiful to new levels.

  Ryan laughed beside her.

  “What? It was just a place to sleep. Well, attempt to sleep.”

  “No, I was remembering this time in high school when Dad caught Simon trying to get a room here with a girl. I think Simon still winces when he thinks about it.”

  “Bad, huh?”

  “Oh, yeah. Dad gave him every horrible chore he could find, and even made up a few. It was like an episode of Dirty Jobs on steroids.”

  Brooke laughed at the image. “I’ve known your brother less than twenty-fours hours, and somehow that story fits.”

  “Ironic that he’s now the one who has to come out here and roust kids out of this place. Though most of them have gotten wise and go to Austin now.”

  She stared out the windshield at the motel of way yesteryear. “I can’t imagine.”

  “Sneaking off to a motel with a boy?”

  “When I was a teenager? My dad would have had my hide. And I’d have been the lucky one.”

  “Tough guy?”

  She thought about it for a moment. “Just protective.” A trickle of sadness made its way through her. If only someone had protected him.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded. “I’ll just be a minute.” When he started to get out of the truck, she paused. “I didn’t leave very much here.”

  He took her words the way she intended, that she didn’t need help collecting her belongings. Though he knew this ratty motel better than she did, a well of embarrassment bubbled up at the idea of him seeing inside her room, at what running for her life had reduced her to, though he wouldn’t know the reason why.

  When she stepped into the drab little room with its icky floral polyester bedspread and cheaptastic furnishings, she couldn’t believe she’d actually stayed there, that she’d convinced herself it was okay. She wasn’t an elitist, but it wasn’t okay that she’d been forced to stay in a dump motel at the crossroads of Nowhere and Edge of the Earth. Who in the world had ever thought this was a good location for a motel? Blue Falls looked like a booming metropolis compared to the dusty stretch populated by the motel and equally run-down gas station.

  But the moment she stepped out of this room, she was closing the door on more than bad carpeting and scratchy towels. She was also locking away a chapter of her life she’d like to delete as easily as she could a computer file. To say she was tired of running, of making every decision as if her life depended on i
t, would be the Goliath of understatements. And she was done.

  She tossed her few personal items in the overnight bag and headed back out into the strong sunshine. Its heat burned away the lingering feel of dismalness the room imparted, and she took a deep breath. She felt good. The shock of that realization nearly made her stumble as she headed toward the office to check out. All her careful planning had brought her a second chance at life, and she was determined to enjoy it. No more timid mouse. That so wasn’t her personality, and she’d been angry at Chris all over again every time she found herself looking over her shoulder or refusing to interact with people more than absolutely necessary.

  Could she do it? Be her old self, the one untainted by the gradual erosion perpetrated by Chris so expertly she’d not realized it until it was too late? She ventured a quick glance at Ryan sitting in his truck. Though she told herself it was a good thing he wasn’t watching her, that unfortunate nugget of herself that still wanted to mean something to someone shrank in disappointment.

  With a shake of her head, she strode toward the motel office and found the same gray-haired, chain-smoking woman who’d checked her in. Brooke placed her key—the shove-it-in-the-lock kind, no key cards for the Rochester—on the scuffed countertop.

  “Leaving us already?”

  As fast as I can. “Yes.”

  “I see you’re with Ryan Teague.” The woman lifted her eyebrow, asking for more details without saying the words.

  “Yes, I’m working at the ranch. Had a bit of car trouble this morning, so Mr. Teague was nice enough to bring me by to pick up my things.”

  “You’re staying with the Teagues?” The woman sounded as if she couldn’t wait to get on the phone and spread the word the moment Brooke left, as though she was the president of the local chapter of Gossips of Texas.

  “I have my own place.” This woman didn’t need to know it was at the ranch. Brooke didn’t offer any further information and kept her face blank, so the woman was left with being uncomfortably nosy or simply taking Brooke’s key and money. After a few suspended moments, the woman chose the latter.