Tempted by a Cowboy

by Sarah M. Anderson

  She had to leave before Phillip took her down with him.

  She’d left jobs before. Leaving shouldn’t be the hard part. Except...she’d started to think of the Beaumont Farms as home. Betty loved it here. Betty and Sun were friends.

  She just...she needed another job. Something new to focus on. Something to remind her who she was and what she wanted. She was a horse trainer. One of the best. She didn’t need friends or...love.

  It just caused pain and since she was an alcoholic, she couldn’t ever take anything to numb it. The high wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth this.

  The only thing she had was her work and her rules. Rules she wouldn’t bend, much less break, ever again.

  She opened her laptop and blindly scrolled through emails about damaged horses, only to find herself typing a message to her parents. Coming home, she wrote. I didn’t forget.

  It was only then that she realized she was crying.

  Fifteen

  Everything moved, including Phillip’s stomach. Urgh.

  Jo. He needed Jo. Jo would make this better.

  He was moving. Why was he moving? He tried to open his eyes, but it didn’t work, so he patted around with his hands.

  God, his head. Why did it hurt so badly? Combined with the moving...his stomach was going to make him pay.

  He hit something cool and round and long. A bottle. Why was there a bottle next to him on the seat?

  Everything shifted to the right and the bottle rolled away. It made the dull clanking noise of glass bouncing off glass. The noise did horrible things to his head.

  But he managed to get his eyes open. He was in his limo. He thought. Except...there were bottles everywhere. His fingers closed around something soft and lacy. He held up a scrap of fabric and stared at it for a minute before he realized that it was a pair of red panties. Not the kind Jo wore.

  Oh, shit. He dropped them as if they were poison and stared around the limo. There were beer bottles all over the place and a few other scraps of clothing. And a woman’s shoe. And some questionable stains. God, the smell. What had happened?

  Oh, no. No.

  He needed fresh air right now. He fumbled for the knobs on the door. His window went down, which let in way too much light. What time was it?

  When was it?

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know where he was or where Jo was and he didn’t know what he’d done. But the limo—the limo was full of answers. The wrong ones.

  That realization made him want to throw up.

  He reached for his phone, but it wasn’t there. He tried the knobs again and this time, the divider between the front and the back of the limo slid down.

  “Mr. Beaumont? Is everything all right?”

  “Uh...” He tried to think, but damn his head. “Ortiz?”

  “Yes, Mr. Beaumont?”

  “Where are we?”

  “We’ll be at the farm in ten minutes, Mr. Beaumont.”

  The farm. Jo. He needed her. Oh, God, she was going to be so mad. “What...time is it?”

  “Four. In the afternoon,” Ortiz helpfully added.

  “Sunday?”

  “Sunday.”

  That meant he hadn’t missed that day. Just...Phillip rubbed his head, which did not help. Did he remember Saturday?

  “What happened to Fred?”

  “He was arrested.”

  That sounded bad. “Why?”

  “He punched Pitbull—you know, the rapper?” Ortiz waited for some sign of recognition, but Phillip had nothing. Ortiz sighed. “There was a fight and Fred got arrested.”

  “I don’t...” I don’t remember. But that was probably obvious at this point. “Is he still in jail?”

  Ortiz shook his head, which somehow made Phillip dizzy. “Your brother Mr. Matthew Beaumont bailed him out.”

  “Oh.” That wasn’t his fault, was it? If Fred got arrested and left him all alone, that wasn’t his doing, right? He needed to send a message to Jo. He needed to tell her he hadn’t done it on purpose. Any of it. It’d just been...it’d been a mistake. Everyone made them. He patted his pocket for his phone, but it still wasn’t there. “Where’s my phone?”

  “It got...flushed. At least, that’s what you told me.” Ortiz looked at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Oh. Right. I remember,” he lied. Bad. Very bad.

  He really was going to be sick.

  Just then, they drove through the massive gates at the edge of Beaumont Farms. His heart tried to feel light—he loved coming back to this place—but there was no lightness in his soul.

  He’d messed up. The blackout wasn’t worth it.

  But it wasn’t his fault! Fred was supposed to be his sober coach and he’d gotten in a fight with a rapper and gotten hauled off to jail.

  He just had to explain it to Jo, that was all. This was an accident.

  He hadn’t meant to drink. Bits and pieces filtered back into his consciousness. Fred had disappeared. Phillip had been onstage. Someone had put a beer in his hand. But he wasn’t going to drink it. He remembered that clearly now. He wasn’t going to drink that beer. He’d promised. He’d hold it, because that was his job. He wanted everyone else to drink Beaumont Beer and have fun. He did a good job. He always did.

  But the beer...it’d smelled good. And some woman had kissed him, rubbing her body against his. Because he was Phillip Beaumont and that’s what women did. And he knew that the picture would wind up online. And that Jo would see it. She’d see this strange woman who meant nothing to him kissing him and the beer bottle in his hand and Jo would think he’d failed her. She’d leave him.

  Suddenly, he’d felt the same way he’d felt when Chadwick had said he was selling the farm and the horses—hopeless. He’d been good for three weeks, with Jo, but the moment things went wrong, he wound up with a beer in his hand and woman in his arms. Because it would never change. He would never change.

  And the woman tasted like beer and he’d liked it. Needed it. Needed not to think about how Jo would look at him, the disappointment all over her.

  There’d been a bottle in his hand....

  And he’d stopped thinking. Stopped feeling.

  “Mr. Beaumont, you want to go to the house?”

  What had he done? He needed Jo. He needed that silly little donkey. He needed someone to tell him that it would be okay, that he could sleep it off and tomorrow they’d go back to normal. The farm. The horses. Sun. Tomorrow, this would all be a bad dream.

  He needed to see her and know that she forgave him. That he hadn’t disappointed her. That he hadn’t forgotten her, not really.

  “The white barn.” Yeah, he probably looked like hell and smelled worse, but he had to talk to Jo now.

  They drove through the perfect pastures. His horses trotted in the fields. It was perfect.

  Except for the big trailer hitched to a truck out front. No, no, no. He’d gotten here just in time. She couldn’t leave. She couldn’t leave him.

  Ortiz pulled off a few feet opposite the trailer. Phillip tried to open the door but he missed the handle the first time. Then the door swung open and Ortiz was hauling him out. “You sure you want to do this, boss?”

  Phillip winced at the sound. “Gotta talk to her.” He tried to pull free, but the world started rolling, so he let Ortiz hold him up.

  They awkwardly started toward her trailer. He didn’t need Ortiz. He could walk. He stopped and straightened up, but his feet wouldn’t cooperate. He stumbled and went down to one knee.

  “Mr. Beaumont,” Ortiz said. “Please.”

  Phillip heard noises but he couldn’t make out what they were. Then he was on his feet again. His head rolled to one side and he saw that Richard was under his left side. “Dick?”

  “Don’t know if yo
u realize this, sir, but you only call me Dick when you’re drunk.”

  “Wasn’t my fault,” Phillip tried.

  “Sure it wasn’t. Let’s get you to the house.”

  “No—need Jo. Betty?”

  “Sir,” Richard said in a voice that was too loud for everything. Then they started moving. Away from the barn. Away from the trailer.

  “Wait,” came a different voice. A female voice.

  Jo.

  Somehow, Phillip got himself turned around and found himself facing Jo. This turned out not to be a good thing.

  The woman he’d spent weeks chasing? Gone. The chase was over. He could see it in her eyes—hard and cold.

  Next to her stood Betty, her small body wrapped up in something that had to be a harness.

  “No.” It came out shaky. Weak. He tried to clear his throat and start again. “Don’t go. I’m sorry.”

  “Sun,” Jo said, “is manageable. He can be haltered and walked from the stall to the paddock. He can be brushed. He’s doing much better.”

  That statement hung in the air. Phillip was pretty sure he heard someone else whisper “unlike you” but every time he tried to move his head, he had to fight off nausea.

  “I didn’t—Fred—Jo,” he begged. Why weren’t the words there? Why couldn’t he say the right things to make her stay? “Don’t go. I’m sorry. I’ll do better. I’ll be better. For you.”

  Jo looked at the men on either side of Phillip. Both of them stepped back and, miracle of miracles, Phillip’s legs held. He stood before her. It was all he could do.

  “No. Not for me.” She took a step toward him. “We had a deal, you and I.” This time, her voice was softer. Sadder.

  “It won’t happen again. Don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you.”

  She reached up, her palm warm and soft against his cheek. He leaned into her touch so much he almost lost his balance.

  “I can’t kiss you and taste whiskey. I can’t be the reason you drink or don’t drink. I never could. I can’t...” She swallowed then, closing her eyes as if she was digging deep for something. “I can’t love you more than you love the bottle. So I won’t.”

  Love. That was a good word. The best one he had. “I love you, Jo. Don’t go.”

  Her smile wasn’t one, not really. Not when tears spilled down her cheeks. “I won’t forget our time together, Phillip.” She leaned in close, her breath warming his cheek. “I won’t forget you. I just wish...I wish you could say the same.”

  He tried to put his arms around her and hold onto her until she stopped saying she was leaving, but she was gone—away from him, picking up Betty off the ground and cradling her in her arms.

  “No,” he tried, but his voice didn’t seem to be working so well. “Don’t.” He tried to chase after her, but he tripped and went down to his knees again. “Don’t.”

  Then people were holding him back—or up, or both—he didn’t know. All he knew was that she walked away from him.

  She carried Betty to her truck. She got in. The door shut.

  She drove away.

  After that, he didn’t remember anything else.

  He didn’t want to.

  Sixteen

  Jo dusted off her chaps as she climbed back to her feet. Precious was not in the mood to run barrels right now. Jo sighed. If a horse could be passive aggressive, Precious was. She’d let Jo saddle her and mount up as if they were old friends and then boom. Jo was on the ground and Precious was on the other side of the paddock, munching grass.

  Jo glared as she walked over to the horse. “Here’s the bad news,” she said as she grabbed the reins and wiped the sweat from her eyes. Late summer sun beat down on her head. Not for the first time, she missed the cool greenness of Beaumont Farms, even as she tried to tell herself that it was summer there, too. “That worked for about twelve seconds. Now we’re going to do it again and again until you get tired of it.”

  Precious shook her head and tried to back up.

  Oh, no—Jo wasn’t having any of that. She swung into the saddle before the horse could get very far. This time, Jo was ready for her and managed to stay in the saddle when Precious went sideways. “Ha!” she said as she guided the horse around the makeshift barrel run she’d set up in her parents’ paddock. “Again.”

  They ran the barrels several more times, Precious trying to buck her off at the same spot each time. Jo held on. The less fun the horse could have bucking her off, the more likely she’d stop doing it.

  In the two months since she’d come home, Jo had continued to train horses. She’d given up the road—for the time being, at least. She was back in her room and her mom was back to grumbling about a donkey sliding around on the hallway rugs.

  It’d taken a few days, but Jo had finally told her granny what had happened as they’d rocked on the porch swing.

  “Be thankful for the rain,” Lina had said after Jo had cried on her shoulder. Which was a very Lina thing to say. “Nothing grows, nothing moves forward without a little rain now and then.”

  Which was all well and good, except Jo didn’t feel as if she’d grown much at all. She was still living with her parents, though that was her choice. She’d billed Beaumont Farms for the time she’d spent with Sun and received a check signed by Matthew Beaumont.

  The check alone was enough for a down payment on a piece of land. She could have her pick of properties anywhere she wanted to stake her claim.

  But she hadn’t pulled the trigger on anything yet. It’d been a relief to come home, to be surrounded by people who loved her no matter what. People who didn’t think she’d done the stupid thing by walking away from Phillip Beaumont, but the smart thing.

  Plus, after a few months at Beaumont Farms, nothing seemed quite good enough.

  She told herself that she was just taking some time off, but that wasn’t true, either. She’d had five horses delivered to her on the ranch, including Precious.

  At least she was still getting jobs. Because Phillip had so spectacularly come apart, her leaving the job as she did—crying—had not come back to bite her on the butt. She didn’t know what people might be saying about her and Phillip, but it hadn’t impacted her work. She was still, first and foremost, a horse trainer who used “nontraditional” methods. Desperate horse owners still wanted her to save their horses. That was a good thing. It paid the bills.

  She could be back on the road anytime she wanted to go. And now, she knew she would not have moments of weakness, moments of need. The walls she’d built up—for her own good—would stay up. No more Phillip. No more men. She’d gotten used to it once. She’d get used to it again.

  She needed to get used to waking up alone, to going to sleep the same way. To frustrated sexual desire that she was having trouble burying like she used to.

  She’d made it years without a man. It’d just take a little while to work Phillip out of her system, that was all. Once she was sure she could do fine on her own again, she’d load up her trailer and hit the road. She’d start looking for a place then.

  She spent another hour with Precious, managing to stay in the saddle the whole time. Jo was about to call it a day when she saw a plume of dust kicking up down the road.

  She looked back at the house. No one had mentioned they were expecting company today and Precious’s owner wasn’t due back until this weekend. Who would be driving this far out to the middle of nowhere?

  As the car got closer, she saw it was an extended-cab, dual-wheeled truck—a lot like the one she used to haul her trailer. Must be a fellow rancher coming to talk to Dad, she reasoned as she pulled the saddle off Precious and began rubbing the horse down.

  She heard the truck stop behind her, heard boots on gravel. “Dad’s in the house,” she called over her shoulder.

  Then she heard Bet
ty braying in the way she did when she was excited about something.

  “Hey, Betty—you remember me? That’s a good girl.”

  Jo froze, brush hovering over Precious’s back. She knew that voice.

  Phillip.

  She turned slowly. Phillip Beaumont stood halfway between the truck and the paddock. He was wearing broken-in jeans and a button up shirt that walked the fine line between cowboy and hipster. The tips of brown boots were barely visible in the dirt.

  He was rubbing Betty’s ears. The donkey leaned into his legs as if the two of them had never been apart.

  Something in Jo’s chest clenched. He was here. It’d been almost two months, but he was here now.

  Then he looked up at her. His eyes were brighter, the green in them greener. He looked good. Better than good. He looked right, like the true version of himself.

  She was so glad to see him. She didn’t want to be—she was getting him out of her system—but she was. God, she was.

  Behind him, a small man wearing wire-rim glasses stepped out from the other side of the truck.

  Phillip nodded his head to the man. “This is Dale,” he said with no other introduction. “He’s been my sober companion since I got out of rehab.”

  She should not be this glad to see him. It didn’t matter to her one way or the other what he did or why he did it. But still... “You were in rehab?”

  “Twenty-eight days in Malibu. I’ve been sober for fifty-three days now.” He gave her a crooked grin, as if this statistic was something that he was both proud of and embarrassed by.

  “You have?” She stared at him—and got hip-checked by Precious. She stumbled forward and turned to glare at the horse. “One second,” she told Phillip and Dale.

  She untied Precious’s lead from the fence and opened the paddock gate. It didn’t take longer than a minute or two to lead the horse to a pasture, but it felt as if it took a week. She felt Phillip’s eyes on her the entire time and, just as it had that first time, it made her want to flutter.

  She wanted to throw herself in his arms and tell him how damn much she’d missed him—missed working horses with him, missed waking up with him.