“For what?”
He ducked his head, looking sheepish. “Well, that’s part of the problem. I’m not sure for what. But I’ve clearly done something you didn’t like and it’s put me in an odd position.”
She stared at him as he studied the tips of his toes. Was this actual sincerity? “What position is that?”
“I want to make it up to you, but I don’t have the first idea how. I mean, normally, I wouldn’t even care if I’d been a jerk and if I did, I’d throw some roses or diamonds at the problem and be done with it. But I know that won’t work. And I don’t want to be done with it. With you.”
Oh, God. This was sincerity. She considered bolting from the barn, but there was no guarantee he wouldn’t follow her. “What do you want from me, Phillip?”
“I want...” He turned away as he ran his hands through his hair. “I want to understand what it is about you that makes me want to do...things. Stay home on the farm. Stay sober. Not—” He paused.
Jo leaned forward, suddenly very interested in that not. “Yes?”
He let out a short, sharp laugh. “Is it always this hard?”
“No. Sometimes it’s harder.” Although, frankly, this was pretty damned hard. She hadn’t been faced with this level of emotion—involvement—in so long. She didn’t know what to do.
It’d be easy to think he was feeding her a line of bull.
She watched as the muscles in his jaw twitched. He really thought he’d screwed up. Damn.
“If I say it’s not you, it’s me—will you laugh?” she asked.
That got her a rueful grin. “I haven’t heard that line in a long time.”
“I had given up men, remember?” She wanted to touch him, but she didn’t want to. Life was so much simpler when she followed her own rules.
But there’d been that moment in his arms, watching him bring her to orgasm....
Simpler was not always better.
“You said that.”
“I always mixed up the two. Men and alcohol. There was no way to separate them in my mind. They were two wagons that were hitched together and I couldn’t fall off of one without falling off the other.”
He nodded. “I can see that.”
“Then you come along and you’re...all my triggers wrapped up in one gorgeous smile. And I—” Jo swallowed, wishing this were easier. But it wasn’t. It wouldn’t ever be. “I wasn’t strong enough to say no to you. Not the first time.”
Phillip spun to face her fully. She could see him trying to understand, trying to make the connection. “You think that sleeping with me will lead to drinking?”
She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. The sex—you were amazing. I’d...I’d forgotten how good it could be. How much I liked it.”
“That’s a relief.” He grinned, but instead of his normal, confident grin, this one seemed a little more unsure. “I thought I’d done something you didn’t like.”
“Yeah, no—amazing.” She shuddered at the memory of his teeth moving against her skin. “But in my mind, I’d fallen off one wagon. I can’t afford to fall off the other. What if I lose control? Because then I’ll lose everything I’ve worked for. Everything.”
“I understand. Weirdly enough.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You do?”
“Look, my six days isn’t much on your decade, but...this is so much harder than I thought.”
She knew that feeling—that the mountain was insurmountable and failure was guaranteed. “This,” she said, unable to keep the grin off her face, “is the part where I say ‘one day at a time.’”
“I don’t have to sing ‘Kumbaya,’ do I?”
She laughed. “God, no.”
He came to her then, his arms slipping around her waist. She hugged him back. She couldn’t fight this attraction. “Stay with me, Jo. Wake up with me.”
“For how long? Sun’s getting better. He won’t need me much longer.”
Phillip stroked his thumb over her cheek. “For as long as you want. Betty loves it here. And I have other horses, if you’re worried about missing a job.”
A job? No, she wasn’t worried about that. She set her own schedule and that schedule could be rearranged. But would she still get jobs, if word got around? “I don’t want people to know about this. About us. No tweeting or press releases or pictures.”
His eyebrows shot up. She kept going before she lost her nerve. “I am a professional. I can’t have this compromise my reputation as a trainer.”
He nodded. “This has nothing to do with Sun. You’ve done an amazing job with him. This is between us and us alone.”
She swallowed. “What about your club appearances?”
“That’s why I hired Fred. He’ll be with me any time I have to leave the farm.” He stroked the edge of his thumb over her cheek.
They were standing on the edge again, but it felt less like falling off a cliff and more like...falling in love. Which was ridiculous. She’d never been in love. She had no plans to start now. “I thought you weren’t seducing me.”
He brushed his lips across her forehead. “You can stay in the guest room tonight if you want.”
She gave him a look then pulled away from him so she could get her thoughts in order. “I can’t put myself at risk for you. If you want to be with me, you have to stay sober.” She cupped his face in her hands. “I cannot kiss you and taste whiskey. I just can’t. It’s a deal breaker.”
His eyes searched hers. Gone was the haunted, raw pain she’d seen a few days ago. His eyes were clear and bright and filled with a different kind of need. “I’m done drinking, Jo.”
He kissed her then, rough and gentle at the same time.
She’d already fallen off the man wagon. But that didn’t have to mean she’d fall right back into drinking. As long as she kept a hard line between her time with Phillip and alcohol—and they kept a hard wall between what happened in the paddock and what happened in the bedroom—she could indulge in some great safe sex and enjoy herself without repercussions.
She hoped.
Thunder cracked around them. Sun whinnied, but he didn’t freak out. “Come up to the house,” Phillip murmured as his teeth scraped over the skin where her neck and shoulder joined. “Wake up with me.”
Her remaining resolve crumbled. How could she say no to that?
She couldn’t.
So she didn’t.
Fourteen
The next three weeks were something far outside of Jo’s experience. Suddenly, she was living with Phillip Beaumont. She’d never lived with anyone besides her parents and a few unfortunate college roommates.
But this? Waking up with Phillip’s arms wrapped around her waist? Making sweet love in the morning, then having breakfast together? Spending the day working with Sun—sometimes with Phillip, sometimes without—then heading back up to the house after the hired help had gone home for the night to have dinner with him? Falling into bed with him at night where he was both rough and gentle in the best possible ways?
It was easy. What’s more, it was good. Well, of course the sex was good. But her time with Phillip went well beyond that. Yes, they had sex at least once a day—usually twice. But she got up the next morning, kissed Phillip, and did what she always did—worked with Sun.
After a week, he would come to her to be haltered. After two, he consented to be tied to the fence so she could brush him. He really was golden, a shimmering color that she’d never seen on a horse before.
She even had Richard walk by a few times while Jo led the horse around the paddock. Sun wasn’t happy, but he also wasn’t insane with fear.
A new sense of calm filled her. After ten damned long years, she’d managed to unhook the men wagon from the drinking wagon. The realization that she could enjoy Phillip and still be
the same woman was—well, it was freeing.
Phillip left the farm after a week and a half. His sober coach showed up at the farm the afternoon Phillip was to leave. Jo stayed with Sun, but she knew that Phillip, Fred and Ortiz were discussing ways they would keep Phillip in control. No drinking, no hook-ups—Phillip had promised—and no blackouts. That was the plan.
Phillip would text her at regular intervals. She could also follow along at home via Twitter, where he’d be posting to his account.
Jo stayed in her trailer, Betty bedded down next to her as she toggled between texts and Twitter, where Phillip shared his Instagram photos. Can’t believe how stupid some people are drunk, he texted her with a photo of a public sex act between two women and one guy.
She smiled at her phone. Doing okay?
Miss you & Betty was the response. Home soon.
Later that night, her phone buzzed her out of a dream. It was a photo of Fred in one of two double beds in a hotel room. Not alone tonight, the text read. Just me & Fred. He’s no Betty, but he’ll do. :) Miss you.
Miss you too. She was shocked by how much.
Phillip was back in the paddock by four Sunday afternoon. He’d made it through three events in two days without a drop of liquor. They’d been doing really well about not displaying their affection in front of the hired help, but she didn’t stop him when he kissed her for what felt like a good five minutes. When the kiss broke, they realized Sun was watching them.
“Later,” she’d giggled. Actually giggled.
“You can bet on it.”
“Later” couldn’t come fast enough but finally they made it to the bedroom without even eating dinner. After amazing sex where Phillip held her down and left bite marks on her breasts, he said, “I did it,” as he lay in her arms, both of them panting and satisfied.
She knew he wasn’t talking about the two orgasms that had her body humming. “You did. I knew you could.”
He propped himself up on his elbows to look down at her. “You did?”
“No one’s past saving.”
He lowered himself down onto her. “Who knew being saved could be so good?”
She didn’t get a chance to reply.
Phillip was home for another week before he had to go again. This time, he headed to a music festival where Beaumont Brewery had sponsored a party tent. Jo was nervous for him—this wasn’t a few hours at a party, but a solid weekend of temptation. But he had Fred and he knew he could do it. So she sent him off with a kiss and the reminder, “Don’t forget.” She wanted to say more. But she didn’t.
“I won’t,” he promised her. And she believed him.
That Saturday, she had to fight the temptation to check her phone constantly. She’d made it a policy not to check her phone while she was in the paddock with Sun—the horse was smart enough to know when her focus was elsewhere. Distractions were how trainers got hurt. So she left her phone in the trailer. That way, it wouldn’t tempt her.
She checked her messages at lunch. Only one text that read, Gonna be a long day. Wish I was home with you, that he’d sent at ten that morning. Nothing since.
She swallowed, feeling a kind of anxiety she hadn’t felt in a long time—a futility that she couldn’t change things so why bother? That’d been the way she used to think when she’d wake up and be confronted with what she’d done. Changing seemed so hard, so impossible—why even try?
Expecting Phillip to change, just like that?
No, wait. No need to jump to conclusions. Phillip had just realized that she’d be working in the paddock all day, that was all. And he was busy doing...party things.
She sent a text—I know you can do this, babe. Then, she sent another—Don’t forget.
Don’t forget me, she wanted to add, but didn’t. Instead, she took a quick photo of Sun and sent it.
She didn’t get a reply.
What could she do? Nothing. It was not as if she could go to him. He was in Texas. This was up to him. She couldn’t make the choice for him, any more than her parents could have kept her from driving to that convenience store.
So she pushed her worry from her mind. She wanted to try and saddle Sun and that required her full attention. But the work didn’t stop her from praying that Phillip remembered. Or, at the very least, that Fred forcibly reminded Phillip what was on the line.
Because what was on the line was the farm. The horses. This was about Sun and the Appaloosas and all the Percherons—Beaumont Farms. Not her. What she needed to remember was that she was here for the reference, the paycheck—the prestige of having saved a horse no one else could.
She had to keep up the wall between what happened in the paddock and the bedroom.
But he’d promised her. And she so desperately wanted him to keep that promise.
She didn’t get Sun saddled. The horse must have picked up on her nerves because he refused to stand still long enough for her to brush him. She did get him back into his stall. She left Betty in the stall next to him—hopefully that would help him mellow out more.
Then, dread building in her stomach, she went to her trailer and got her phone. No new text messages.
She sat there, her fingers on the buttons. She shouldn’t be afraid to look, right? He had Fred. He had a clear head. He wouldn’t forget. He wouldn’t forget her. She was making a mountain out of a molehill. He was working, no doubt. She needed to get a grip.
Fortified by these completely logical thoughts, she toggled over to Twitter—and her stomach immediately fell in. Oh, no. He’d posted pictures almost every half hour of him with famous people she recognized and a lot of people she didn’t. A lot of women.
The women were concerning—but not nearly as worrisome as the look in Phillip’s eyes. As she scrolled through the feed, his eyes got blearier. Each smile stayed the same—infectious and fun-loving—but his eyes? They were flatter and flatter.
What had he done?
Then she saw it. The bottle of Beaumont Beer in his hand, almost hidden behind the waist of a curvaceous redhead. Open.
The next photo, the bottle was less hidden. She needed to stop scrolling, but she couldn’t help herself. How far had he fallen? How much had he forgotten?
Everything. The women in the pictures got more outrageous, more hands-on. The beer got more obvious. And the look in Phillip’s eyes? He wouldn’t remember any of this.
And she knew that she’d never forget it.
Each picture after that was worse until she got to the photos he’d posted about an hour ago. She knew the guys in the photo were some famous band, but she didn’t know which one. All she knew was that they were surrounding Phillip on stage and they were toasting with their beer bottles. Phillip toasted with them.
After that, she shut her phone off and sat there, staring at the dinette tabletop. This feeling of hopelessness, helplessness—this was exactly why she’d held herself back. She’d always told herself it was to keep people safe, like Tony, the guy who’d died in a car next to her. She couldn’t get involved with people because it would end badly for them. And there was no question that this would end badly for Phillip.
But he’d made his choice. He could drink away his pain.
She couldn’t. That hard wall she’d demanded between men and alcohol—between Phillip and whiskey—she had to cling to that wall.
She never should have slept with him. Cared about him. Fallen for him.
Because now she was going to hurt. And just like the pain she’d had to feel when she’d been coming out of surgeries and physical therapy, she’d have to feel all of this.
She didn’t want to. God, she didn’t want to hurt, to know she’d broken her own rules and now she was going to pay the price for it.
Her mind spun, trying to find something that would allow her to sidestep around the heartache. Okay, Ph
illip had fallen off the wagon. Everyone did, right? Obviously, there’d been a problem with the sober coach because he hadn’t been in any of the pictures. Fred had screwed up. They’d fire Fred, wherever he was, and hire another sober coach. Someone who wouldn’t bail on Phillip in high-pressure situations. This could be fixed. This could be...
Against her will, she picked up her phone. A new picture popped up. Phillip, with his arms around two women who could have been the same two he’d brought to the ranch a month ago. He had a bottle in each hand. His lips were pressed against the cheek of one of the women.
No, it couldn’t be fixed. She was making excuses for him and she knew it. They’d had a deal. She couldn’t be with him if he wasn’t sober. She couldn’t kiss him and taste whiskey.
Whatever Fred did or did not do, it still came down to Phillip. It was his call. He’d gone to this event just like she’d driven herself to that gas station all those years ago. He’d been faced with a beer tent, just like she’d stood in front of the walls of cans.
She’d walked away from beer. She’d stayed on the wagon.
He hadn’t.
Phillip was an alcoholic. And he was, at this very moment, drunk and probably getting drunker. She’d told him she couldn’t be the reason he chose to stay sober. She’d meant it every single time she’d said it.
It shouldn’t have hurt so much. But it did. God, it did.
She couldn’t save Phillip if he didn’t want her to. And to stay around him when he had whiskey on his breath.... He’d tempt her.
Could she really stop kissing him? Could she really stop loving him?
She couldn’t. It was all or nothing with her. Always had been. And once she tasted that whiskey...
She rubbed at the skin on the back of her neck. The deal was broken. In so many ways.
What did that leave her with? Besides a broken heart?
It was time to go. She’d done her job. Sun could be haltered, moved and brushed without causing harm to himself or anyone else. The horse, at least, was on the road to recovery.
Tempted by a Cowboy Page 15