The Cowboy's Homecoming

by Donna Alward

  She finally caught up with Lacey at the bar, where her friend was ordering a plain tonic water with lime. “Hey, Lace, have you seen Rylan?”

  Lacey took a sip of her drink and fanned her face, which was pink with the exertion of dancing. “He left.”

  “Left?” Now why on earth should she be feeling disappointed? Still, he just up and took off from his sister’s wedding?

  “Quinn’s mom wasn’t feeling so well, and Amber was getting tired. Duke was going to take them back to Great Falls, but Carrie...” Lacey grinned. “I think they’re just Braxton Hicks contractions, but she’s a bit worried with a bit over a month left to go, and Duke was getting on her case about overdoing the dancing. Rylan offered to drive instead.”

  “Oh. That was nice of him.”

  “It was. You know, Kailey, I’m not excusing his behavior before. But he really is a decent guy. He didn’t have to come back here at all. He did it for Duke and he did it for me. He won’t admit it, but in his way he’s trying to help. I really do believe that.”

  “Me, too,” she admitted.

  “You do?” Lacey sipped on her straw, her eyebrows lifting at Kailey’s unexpected agreement.

  “We’ve talked about bucking stock a few times. He might not stick around, but I get the sense he does actually care what happens to the place. I think he’ll do what he needs to so you and Duke can keep it.”

  Kailey got a glass of ice water from a pitcher to the side of the bar and Lacey followed her there. “You know he was like that when we were kids, too.”

  “Like what?” She tried to picture Rylan as a child. It wasn’t that hard. Hair a little lighter—perhaps a true redhead—and with a devilish twinkle in his eye.

  “Devil-may-care, like nothing mattered. Things rolled off him like water off a duck’s back. But when the chips were down, he’d come through. Like the year I lost my purse when we were Christmas shopping. I’d saved my allowance for weeks to be able to buy presents for Mom and him and Duke. I was probably ten years old. Duke gave me a lecture on responsibility. Rylan reached into his wallet and gave me half his money, which was more than I’d had to begin with.”

  “How sweet.”

  “He really was.” Lacey smiled with fondness. “We kind of thought he’d outgrow his fascination with rodeo as he got older. Instead, he graduated high school and took off the next day. Found a job, then another, started competing and ended up at a big place in Wyoming.”

  “And now here.”

  Lacey nodded. “I don’t pretend to understand him. I understood Duke’s need to follow in our dad’s footsteps with the military. And me...” Her face softened a little. “I just wanted a home and family with a mom and a dad and a perfect little life.”

  “And you got it.”

  “I do now.” Her smile was beautiful. “But I’ve never quite understood what drives Rylan. He just goes from place to place like he’s searching for something.”

  “Or running away.”

  “Or that. Either way, I’m enjoying spending more time with him. I’ll take it for as long as it lasts.”

  Quinn came over to claim his bride for a dance. “Are you ready to leave soon?” he asked. Kailey felt that little bit of longing in the pit of her stomach again. Clearly Quinn couldn’t wait to begin married life with his bride.

  She hated that she was jealous.

  Lacey gave Kailey a quick hug. “Looks like we’re heading out in a bit. I just want to say thank you, for everything. It’s been a perfect day.”

  “Yes, it has,” Kailey agreed.

  She stayed until they drove away in Lacey’s car, headed to a resort in the mountains for a few days of privacy and an abbreviated honeymoon. It wasn’t until they were gone that Kailey realized she’d been left without a ride back to the ranch, where her truck was parked. Duke had taken Carrie home, being the concerned dad-to-be. Once more she chafed against circumstances; she was going to have to ask her parents to give her a lift.

  Maybe it was finally time for her to find a place of her own. On her own.

  Chapter Five

  The porch light was off and the house was dark when Kailey retrieved the spare key from under a flower pot and let herself in. Her jeans and T-shirt were upstairs, along with her makeup bag and curling iron. She’d grab them and head home and to bed. Tomorrow was Sunday, but there were still chores to be done.

  She was halfway down the stairs when she heard the front door open.

  “Duke? That you?”

  Footsteps paused. “Kailey?”

  It was Rylan. Damn.

  “I just came back to get my stuff. And my truck.” She went the rest of the way down the stairs. She could do this. It didn’t matter that they were alone. It changed nothing.

  And then she turned the corner and saw him standing in the kitchen, still in his wedding clothes but with his tie untied and hanging around his neck, the top buttons of his shirt undone.

  Trouble. Times ten and then some.

  “I just got back. Came in for a beer before heading to bed. You want one?”

  “I’ve got to drive home.”

  He didn’t argue with her or make a smart comment like “you don’t have to.” She appreciated that. It was the sort of thing he might have said a few months ago. In fact, she was pretty sure it was close to verbatim what he’d said at the Valentine’s Day dance.

  “Do you want something else? Ginger ale? I think I saw some of that in the fridge.”

  Actually, it sounded good. “Sure. I guess.”

  He reached in and got a can, handed it to her without the benefit of a glass. She popped the top and watched as he opened his beer. “Want to sit on the porch for a few minutes?” she suggested. It would be better than staring at each other here in the kitchen. “I could stand a few minutes of peace and quiet.”

  They made their way outside to the veranda, settled into the deep wooden chairs that lived there during the summer months. Kailey let out a sigh. “It’s nice to sit. In the stillness, I mean.” She could still hear peepers chirping from the ditches, and a cool breeze fluttered the leaves on the trees. Up on the porch, though, they were sheltered from the wind.

  “I thought you liked music and commotion.”

  “I do. I don’t know why, but I was just tired today.” Dissatisfied, really, she realized. And had been for a while now.

  Silence stretched out.

  “It was nice of you to take Mrs. Solomon home.”

  He took a long pull of his beer. “It was no biggie. It was a long day for her. Plus Amber was getting tired. She fell asleep on the drive.”

  “She sure looked cute in her flower-girl dress.”

  “Yes,” he said, his voice deep and smooth. “She sure did.”

  Kailey had just taken a long, cool drink of ginger ale when Rylan added, “And you looked pretty, too, Kailey. That color suits you.”

  She was still wearing her dress. She’d figured she’d jump in the truck, head home, maybe take a bath before bed. “Lacey chose it,” she said, and somehow her voice sounded strangled in the peaceful night.

  This was probably a mistake. Right now all she was picturing was the sight of him changing back into his jeans after swimming, his body corded and muscled and the scar on his left hip from a long-ago injury. She should leave. Take her bag and get in her truck and go as quickly as possible. He was no good for her.

  Yet she couldn’t seem to make herself get out of her chair.

  He was right beside her, close enough that she could smell his aftershave, sense the warmth of his body. Her right leg was crossed over her left knee, and she watched, transfixed, as Rylan reached over and touched the skin just below her hem with a single finger. Her eyes fluttered closed as all her senses went on high alert. Warning bells crashed through her brain, but she didn’t hear them. She was so focused on the delicious feel of that single finger lightly grazing the skin right above her knee. No higher or lower. Just back and forth, a lazy caress, sending her hormones into overdrive.
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  “Ry,” she whispered, a warning wrapped in a sigh.

  “I know,” he answered softly. “I know I shouldn’t. But you’re so damned pretty.”

  She swallowed against the lump in her throat.

  “I can’t seem to stay away from you,” he lamented, all the while the rough pad of his finger slid back and forth on her skin. “I know I should. I know I’m not the kind of man you want. Hell, I don’t want to be. And yet here I am, wondering if I dare kiss you again.”

  How was it that one innocent touch could send her body into a nuclear meltdown?

  “Why’d you have to come back, anyway?” She closed her eyes, losing herself to the sensation of being seduced. By his voice, by his touch, by simply being here in the dark with him.

  “I ask myself that a million times a day,” he answered, and now it was his hand on her knee, sliding beneath the light fabric of her dress, running over her thigh. “I don’t know, Kailey. I just don’t know.”

  “Me either,” she said, and opened her eyes. Her whole body was at attention. “Ry, you either have to stop or kiss me because I’m dying over here.”

  It was all she had to say. Slowly, so slowly it was sweet torture, Ry slipped his hand away from her leg and pushed himself up out of the deck chair. Then he leaned over her, his hands braced against the arms of her chair, and touched her lips with his.

  This was what she remembered. What she’d hungered for. The memory had been accurate but not nearly as good as the reality, and she put her hands on his shoulders, kissed him back. When he lowered himself farther, kneeling in front of her chair, something flashed through her mind, a remembrance of how good, how intense, how consuming it had been making love to him. They wouldn’t go that far tonight. Couldn’t. But she’d waited three and a half long months to touch him again.

  He let go of the chair and put his hands on her hips, pulling her forward a little so that her legs parted and he knelt between them. She leaned forward and kissed him back, his head just slightly below hers. A gasp sounded in the stillness—hers—when his lips slid away and trailed down her neck to the hollow of her throat.

  Yet something didn’t feel right. It wasn’t even the way he’d left her before that was sticking in the back of her mind somewhere. It was the knowledge that he’d leave her again. And recognizing that, at least for her, there was more at work than sexual attraction.

  He was fun, he was charming. He cared for his brother and sister and was good with kids. If they played with the fire that was desire, she would be the one who got burned the worst.

  “Stop,” she breathed, torn between knowing they had to cease this craziness and never wanting it to end. “We can’t do this, Ry. We can’t.”

  “We already are,” he murmured, his tongue sliding behind her ear and sending shivers down her spine.

  “No.” She put her hands on his arms and gripped them firmly, pushing him away. “I don’t want this.”

  He stopped, but he met her gaze boldly. “You’re a liar. You do want it. You want it as much as I do, Kailey.”

  Damn him for making things so difficult. “Yes. I do. Physically. But it’s more than that for me, and it’ll never be more than that for you. Do you understand?”

  He frowned. “You make it sound like I don’t care about you at all.”

  Kailey sighed, wished he’d move so she didn’t feel pinned in her chair. But at least he’d stopped, moved back so that he wasn’t right in her space anymore.

  How could she explain that everything had changed the morning she’d woken alone, without making him think that she was in love with him? She wasn’t. But it had been the kick in the pants she needed. A cold-water slap of reality.

  “Ry, neither of us can deny that there’s a certain...attraction between us. But something changed in February, the morning I woke up and you were gone.”

  She met his gaze, hoped she wasn’t blushing. Confession and unloading her feelings wasn’t really her style. “It was a wake-up call to me. I know what I want, and it’s not what you want, and I’d only be setting myself up to get hurt.”

  He finally sat back on his heels. “Jeez, Kailey.”

  “Ry, you’re not a bad guy. You’re funny and charming and fairly kind. You’d have the power to hurt me, and I can’t walk into that. This really isn’t about me being angry about what happened then. It’s more...understanding what would surely happen now, and being smart enough to avoid it.”

  Rylan sat down on his rump and pushed back the few extra inches until his back rested against the veranda railing. “You know, in my experience most women see that as a challenge. That I’m a project that needs to be fixed.”

  Kailey understood that, too. Heck, she’d been there. Attracted to the unattainable guy, so sure that she was the one who could change his mind and tame his bad-boy ways. Colt Black had been a prime example. She’d taken her time, certain he’d come around and reconsider, and then he’d found someone else. On Valentine’s Day she’d started dancing with Rylan just to make Colt jealous. Make him see what he’d given up...

  “I’m not interested in fixing anyone.” She let out a sigh and then a little laugh. “Shoot, do you think this means I’m getting old?”

  He chuckled a little, too. “Not old. Wise.” He held her gaze, his eyes nearly black in the moonlit evening. “Look, I’m not going to deny that I’m disappointed. You do something to me, Kailey. But I also appreciate you shooting straight with me.”

  “I don’t want to be angry at you,” she replied. “I just want...”

  That was just it. Part of her still wanted to throw caution to the wind and fall into his arms. The other part wanted them to find a way to coexist for the next few months until he left Crooked Valley behind.

  “I just want us to be friends. Do you think that’s even possible?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Okay. Good.” Yet agreeing to keep things 100 percent platonic caused an awkward silence to fall over the evening. “I’d better go. Mom and Dad will be wondering where I am.”

  He grinned and she rolled her eyes. “I know. Don’t say it. I’m too old to live with my parents.”

  “No judgment,” he replied, the smile still on his face.

  “Cool.” She got up and went inside to get her bag. When she came back out, Rylan was still sitting with his back against the veranda railing, his arms resting on his knees. He looked a little sexy and a little bit sad at the same time. Definitely lonely.

  She looped her keys over her index finger and went down the steps, her boots sounding extra loud in the stillness of the night. She paused at the bottom and looked back up at him.

  “Rylan? For some reason, you seem to sell yourself short. Maybe if you stopped doing that, you wouldn’t feel the need to keep running.”

  He spun to look at her, and she shrugged. “Just a suggestion.”

  She drove back to the ranch, her body still humming from his touch, but sure in her head that she’d done the right thing.

  It was just unfortunate that her heart took a little more convincing.

  * * *

  THIS TIME WHEN Rylan rolled into Crooked Valley, it was midafternoon and he was pulling a horse trailer behind him. The latest rodeo had taken him north, and he’d come out on top again. The side trip he’d made yesterday had turned out to be worth it, and the prize money had come in handy.

  Very handy. He whistled as he pulled up next to the corral outside the horse barn and carefully backed the trailer toward the gate.

  He parked and hopped out, then checked the doors and gates to make sure the corral was secure. Only then did he swing open the gate behind his trailer and prepare to let out Rattler, the newest addition to the Crooked Valley stock contracting business.

  He could hear the stomps and crashes of hooves in the back and he grinned. This stallion was full of piss and vinegar for sure. Getting him into the trailer had been interesting, but Rylan knew how to be patient. Just as he’d be patient now.

&n
bsp; Rattler could be a pussycat if he wanted to. At least with no one trying to sit on his back.

  Randy, one of the hands who worked mostly with the horses, came out of the barn and ambled up to the fence. “Whatcha got in the trailer, Ry?”

  “A present. Do me a favor and stand over here, will ya, Randy? I’m going to let him out.”

  A thump echoed against the side of the trailer. “Sounds like a bruiser,” Randy mused.

  “We’ll find out when I get him in the chute,” Rylan answered. He was pretty sure he’d made a sound investment. And even Duke couldn’t argue about the price because Rylan had a plan for that, too. Just because his plans didn’t include sticking around in the long term didn’t mean he couldn’t help invest in the ranch’s future.

  “Ready?”

  Rattler thundered out of the trailer with a clatter of angry hooves, charging down the ramp and straight through into the corral. He was off like a shot, kicking up his legs in a tantrum-like statement. The equivalent, Rylan figured, of giving him the finger for keeping him closed up for so long. He chuckled, impressed and, to his surprise, quite excited. Rattler could make all the difference to Crooked Valley if Duke could hang tight for the investment to pay off.

  “He’s a pretty one.” Randy nodded.

  “Don’t let him hear you say that. You’ll offend his manhood.” But he was secretly inclined to agree. “Close the gate, Randy. I’m going to pull the trailer ahead.”

  By the time he’d moved the truck, a small crowd had gathered by the fence. Carrie had come down from the house, bringing Lacey with her. Duke and Quinn came into the yard as supper time drew close. Unconcerned, Rattler trotted around the fenced circle, his mane streaming and eyes bright.

  “What in the world?” Duke asked, a deep frown marring his face.

  “Meet Rattler, the newest stud for your bucking stock.” Rylan kept his voice deliberately upbeat and light.