The Camden Cowboy

by Victoria Pade

  Her brothers might not have had to deal with their father’s sexism, but they’d had their own burdens to bear with Morgan’s expectations of them on the football field, in business, in personal lives he’d tried to use to his advantage.

  And her burden to bear was that she the girl. She was female. And Morgan Kincaid had archaic, macho opinions about what that meant. None of which were any more important than anything he’d said about Ian or Hutch along the way when they hadn’t done what suited him.

  But she was killing herself to change her father’s mind. To prove he was wrong.

  And worse than that, she was turning her back on what she’d found with Seth to do it.

  Seth wasn’t her father or Dominic. He hadn’t asked her to stop doing what she was doing, he hadn’t ignored what was important to her or expected her to fit some idea he had of what a woman should do or be. All he’d done was ask her to do what Ian and Hutch had just advised her to do: put work into perspective, not let it take up every minute of every day—and night. Not let it be all there was to her life.

  Seth had asked her to explore what she wanted. What made her happiest.

  And she’d been afraid of doing that because if what she wanted was him and a life with him and a family with him, then her father would ride in on his high horse and say that he’d been right all along.

  But so what? So what if he rode that high horse into a life she had with Seth? Into a life that was always like Founder’s Day weekend had been? Into a life as happy as what Hutch had found with Issa, as happy as what Ian had found with Jenna? Wasn’t that happiness—feeling the way she felt when she was with Seth—the real victory? Not that she could prove her father wrong or make her point, but that she had Seth and all he was offering?

  How could I have been so dumb? she asked herself.

  Seth was amazing. He was gorgeous, he was smart, he was funny and sexy and strong. He was his own man, a man who had shunned expectations that had been placed on him as a Camden because he’d had the wisdom to know himself and what he needed in life in order to find his own way.

  And she was empty without him.

  She’d filled every single hour since ending things with him with work or fitful sleep. She’d frantically done anything she could to keep from even thinking about him. But the truth was that in spite of any of that there was a huge hole in her heart that she couldn’t fill, that never went away.

  She wanted Seth. She wanted to be with him. No job, no point to prove, no worry of an I-told-you-so, carried more weight than that. Nothing and no one carried more weight than that. She wanted him. She wanted a life with him. A future with him. Kids with him.

  If she hadn’t already lost any hope of that…

  “I have to go!” she announced before she even knew she was going to say anything.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Are you sick?”

  Lacey’s laugh at her brothers’ questions was slightly batty. She knew she really, really was tired.

  But what she said was “You guys are right—in more ways than you know. And I need to take care of something—if it isn’t already too late. So I’m not going to stay for dinner.”

  Ian and Hutch both looked worried and along with Issa and Jenna, they all tried to persuade Lacey to stay.

  But they couldn’t.

  Because she had something so, so much more important to do than to eat a hamburger and an ear of corn.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lacey was anxious and eager and scared and worried and in a rush to get to Seth as soon as she could. She didn’t want to lose another moment and risk that he might meet someone else or decide he was better off without her.

  But she also didn’t want him to see her looking like she’d showered and shampooed her hair for the last ten days under a barely warm drizzle of water and slept on an air mattress for far fewer hours than she’d needed.

  He was likely at one Labor Day function or another and not home anyway, she decided, so she could take a little time to spruce up.

  When she reached Hutch’s duplex, she used the key he’d given her to let herself in and go straight up the stairs to the upper-floor apartment with her suitcase in hand. She dropped the suitcase in the middle of the living-room floor as soon as she went into the apartment, opened it up and took out the only thing she had to wear that didn’t look like it belonged at a construction site—a short yellow A-line crepe sundress that was plain, sleeveless and shapeless.

  She knew it wouldn’t be sex appeal that won the day with that, but it was her only choice.

  She found a hanger in the closet in the bedroom, hung the dress on it and took it with her into the bathroom, hoping the steam from her shower would rid it of wrinkles.

  Then she took her first good shower in days and washed her hair so thoroughly her scalp started to hurt before she rinsed it.

  There was nothing to be done with her hair but to let it air-dry because she hadn’t packed her hair dryer. But she counted herself lucky to have enough natural wave and body to still wear the blond mass down once it dried on its own.

  Even though she hated the time it was taking, she was careful with her makeup, using concealer on the dark circles under her eyes, blush to add some color to her face, and just enough mascara to draw attention to her lashes and away from the evidence of her lack of sleep.

  She didn’t have the bra she needed to wear with the dress, and since the ones she had would have left the straps showing, she went without, wearing only lace bikini panties under the well-lined shift.

  Then she did a couple of fierce shakes of the dress to rid it of any lingering wrinkles, judged it presentable, and put it on.

  Once she’d slipped her sandals on, she was ready to go.

  Taking with her so many butterflies in her stomach that she had to pause to breathe deeply in an effort to calm them before they made her sick.

  Just go find him… Maybe it will be okay…

  Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it was already too late…

  No, she couldn’t think that, she told herself.

  She couldn’t.

  But still the thought lingered as she grabbed her keys, hurried out of the apartment and headed for the Camden ranch.

  She’d had her assistant notify Seth of two things during the last week—one that she would have all of her belongings out of his guesthouse by Labor Day, and two, that she would appreciate it if he would give her specifics on what he was willing to do on the issue of the road she needed to put through his property.

  She’d received Seth’s response via a messenger of his own—the Camdens would sell her the strip of land that she required at a price that was reasonable enough to please even her father, and with no conditions, exceptions, exclusions or contingencies despite the fact that it would be bisecting a parcel of their property.

  There had been no comment about Lacey vacating the guesthouse.

  As she drove to the ranch, she worried that that had been because it suited Seth just fine for her to get out. And that it might be an indication that he wouldn’t be so welcoming of her when she showed up.

  It didn’t occur to her until she turned onto the road that led to Seth’s house that he might be having a Labor Day barbecue of his own. An entire party that she might be crashing.

  But since there were no cars to be seen when she approached the house, she decided that wasn’t going to be a problem.

  So she pulled around to the garages and parked where she’d parked when she’d been staying there, opting to take the rear route into the houses again now.

  Not only wasn’t there a party going on in back, around the pool, but there also wasn’t a single sign of Seth anywhere. In fact, the main house was locked up tight, and she went back to thinking that he was probably spending the holiday with friends. Ho
pefully male friends.

  She considered using the time while she waited for him to return to pack what remained of her belongings in the guesthouse. Certainly a case could be made for it—if this didn’t go well, it would be good to have all of her things cleared out, loaded in her car and ready to take with her.

  But something about that just seemed so defeatist that she couldn’t make herself do it. Instead she sat on the nearest lounger and decided to try to get her nerves under control while she waited for Seth.

  Initially, she sat perched on the side of the lounger, her feet planted flat on the pool tiles, her spine straight, her hands in her lap.

  But time passed and she could feel herself beginning to slump, so she swung her legs onto the lounger and sat back, her head still high and held away from the chair.

  Then somehow her head fell back, too, and she started to look at the calm, clear blue water of the pool.

  Then her eyes were burning so she closed them…

  For only a minute, she told herself. She would close them for only a minute.

  Or maybe for two…

  “Lacey?”

  Seth…

  The man was insatiable.

  But that was okay, because she wanted him, too. This really had been the very best way to close out Founder’s Day weekend…

  “Lacey? Wake up.”

  Founder’s Day weekend? The power was out. They’d made love.

  But they’d gone inside. Why did it feel like she was still outside?

  It wasn’t Founder’s Day weekend.

  It was Labor Day.

  She wasn’t supposed to be asleep!

  Lacey jolted awake, realizing that somehow it had gotten dark. Very dark. And it seemed really late. And she felt like she’d been asleep for hours and hours.

  And Seth was there—she could see him through sleep-blurred vision, wearing a gray polo shirt and jeans, sitting a few feet to the side of the lounger. On a suitcase?

  “Oh… What time is it?” she muttered, struggling to get her bearings and recalling suddenly all that had gone on and why she was there.

  “3:00 a.m.”

  “It’s three o’clock in the morning?” She’d slept a long time. “And you’re just coming home? With a suitcase?”

  “I’ve been in Vegas with my brother and a couple of my cousins. They, uh… It’s something we do for each other when it seems like there’s a need…”

  “A gambling need?”

  “A need to get away to cheer one of us up…”

  “Which one of you?” she asked artlessly, still fighting her way out of the heavy cloud of exhausted slumber.

  “I think you know,” he said somberly.

  Lacey’s vision finally came into focus and she took a closer look at Seth—disheveled hair, scruffy beard, circles under his blue eyes, too.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked. Then, before she could answer, he said, “Oh, yeah, it was Labor Day, wasn’t it? You said you’d get the rest of your stuff from the guesthouse. What did you do, sit down to catch your breath between loads and fall asleep?”

  “No!” she said, sounding slightly panicked that he thought that, that he was so accepting of that explanation for why she was there. “That’s not what I came for at all.”

  She’d raised her head from the back of the lounger when she’d come awake but now she sat up completely, realizing that her short skirt was high on her thigh.

  She tugged at the hem to pull it down as she swung her feet to the tile, wondering where her sandals had gone even as she caught Seth’s gaze dropping to her legs for a moment before he yanked it away.

  “What did you come for?” he asked then, a deep frown pulling his brows toward each other.

  “My brothers twisted my arm to get me to a barbecue at Ian’s house today… Yesterday, I guess… And, well, it was eye-opening.”

  Seth didn’t say anything to that. He merely went on watching her, giving no encouragement or even an indication that he was glad she was there. Instead the expression on his heartbreakingly handsome face was still dark, leery, distant.

  But Lacey knew this was all her fault, that it was up to her to fix it, so she went on to tell him just how her eyes had been opened earlier and the realizations she’d come to.

  “I don’t want to turn around one day, alone, with nothing but some point I’ve proven. Seeing my brothers happy, with their new families—Dad not being a factor in any of that—made me know that I just want to have a life, my own life, too. That I should be able to.”

  “Where do the jobs fit in?” Seth asked with some skepticism coloring his tone.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about you, about us, about having a future together—”

  “Before thinking about work?”

  He was skeptical, all right.

  “Instead of thinking about work,” Lacey said. “I know I want to go on with the clothing line because I enjoy that—it’s mine, it’s all mine, and I want to keep doing that. But it’s manageable. And when it comes to the training center? I already feel like I’ve been working on that for ten years. And I don’t enjoy anything about it. I know my father will say that I couldn’t handle it—”

  “But you can because you have.”

  “That won’t matter to him. He’ll still say that construction isn’t a woman’s work. But I somehow reached a place where I don’t care. It isn’t a job for me because I don’t want to do it. Maybe he’ll give the project back to Ian—if Ian wants it. Or maybe he’ll have to do it himself—he’ll get to have his say over every nail and splinter and clod of dirt that has to be moved.”

  “So he might as well be there doing it himself.”

  “All I know is that it’s you I want, Seth,” Lacey said, her voice going quiet all of a sudden and catching in her throat as she watched him stand up. She worried that he might be fidgety because he was about to tell her it didn’t matter anymore what she wanted.

  And in response to that thought, she stood, too, as if that would make her position stronger.

  “For the first time,” she continued, “there’s something that’s only about the one person I care more about than anyone I’ve ever cared about before—you. There’s something that’s only about being with you. About what we have when we’re together. I know that essentially what Dominic wanted—my full attention—”

  “Except that he wanted you to give up everything else and I didn’t ask that of you.”

  “I know. And that’s a very big deal to me. But when I thought about basically having the kind of life with Dominic that I’ve been thinking about having with you, I didn’t want it. He wasn’t that important to me. I didn’t have the same kind of feelings for him. But when I think about having that life with you… It’s exactly what I want. It’s all that I want. You’re what I want. And everything else takes second place.”

  His hands were on his hips. He switched most of his weight onto one of them and stared at her. But again he didn’t say anything, and Lacey’s heart was beating fast and hard with the worry that he just couldn’t accept what she was saying.

  She stepped nearer to him, facing him, and looked up into his eyes. “And you don’t have to become the biggest football fan ever,” she told him. “It means a lot to me that you’d be willing to go to such lengths in order to fit into my family, but you don’t have to. Because you and I are enough. For the first time, with you, I can see myself building something of my own. A family of my own. A life of my own. All my own. And it’s more than enough—it’s the way it should be.”

  Seth went on staring into her eyes for another long moment before he said, “I love you, Lacey.”

  “I love you, too,” she said, still unsure if that was the segue to something.

  “I don�
�t want you to give up anything you don’t want to give up. I just want you. And time with you.”

  “You can have all you want,” she assured.

  “I want you to marry me,” he said as if it were a test.

  “I want you to marry me,” she countered, as relief began to seep in and she started to feel a little cocky.

  “I want to have kids with you.”

  “I want to have kids with you,” she said.

  “I want to grow old with you.”

  “Go ahead, but I decided a long time ago that once I hit thirty-five I was sticking with it from then on,” she joked.

  He finally cracked a smile, and it was the best thing Lacey had ever seen.

  “I’ll be eighty and you’ll be my still-thirty-five-year-old bride?” he asked.

  “And I’m going to have to count on you to look like December so I can pull off looking like May.”

  He laughed. A sound good enough to go with the smile. So good that for no reason Lacey could fathom, it brought tears to her eyes.

  “I’ll ask for extra wrinkles with every birthday from here on,” he promised.

  Then his arms came around her and he pulled her to him, so tightly that she had to turn her head. Her cheek was pressed to his chest as she hugged him back.

  “I was afraid I wasn’t going to get this,” he said then in a grave voice. “And no amount of Vegas or my brother or my cousins could cheer me up.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lacey whispered. “I’m sorry I was so stubborn and stupid and blind and slow.”

  He loosened his grip on her and veered back, looking down at her while she peered up at him. “Watch it, I don’t let anybody say those kinds of things about my fiancée.”

  Lacey laughed a little at that, finally conquering that threat of tears as she looked up at him and saw what ravages her actions had wreaked.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  This time his smile was devilish. “I had a nap on the plane, so I’m not too tired,” he said before he kissed her a kiss that, at first, only said hello.