Craving the Cowboy

by Liz Isaacson

  “Yeah.” Gordon swung a wicked smile at her. “You’re going home for the weekend.”

  “I am home,” she said.

  “No, you’re not.” He walked away, leaving her to wonder when he had become so astute about matters of the heart. She watched him go, torn between jumping in her car and heading to Grape Seed Falls immediately, or hurrying home to make dinner for Momma.

  God, it seemed, did not have an opinion either way.

  The following morning, Felicity did indeed leave the house early for church. Gordon had speared her with a daggered gaze when she’d returned last night. She hadn’t offered any explanations. She didn’t have any.

  Dwayne had told her that his favorite part of his Sabbath Day worship was listening to the music. He claimed to arrive at church fifteen minutes early just to listen to the organist, or maybe catch the tail end of the choir as they practiced.

  Felicity, on the other hand, always showed up a few minutes late, as if that way no one would see her attending the meeting. She wasn’t embarrassed about going to church—it seemed everyone in these small Texas towns did—but she didn’t want anyone to know she didn’t really belong there.

  But not today. Oh no. Today, she got to the red brick church early, parked in the front row, and entered the building to the magnificence of the organ. Voices filled the rafters moments later, and she had arrived before the choir had finished their rehearsal.

  She paused, took a deep breath, and ducked into the back row of the chapel. Two white-haired ladies sat right up front—the Butler sisters. Both widowed, they’d moved in together a few years ago. Felicity had gone with her father to help move the bigger items, and a smile touched her lips for a moment with the kind memory.

  Closing her eyes, she let the music flow over and around her. Through her. Something stirred inside her. Something she hadn’t felt for a long time.

  Something that whispered she needed to get to Grape Seed Ranch right now.

  Without hesitating, and with a heart about to burst with gratitude for this tiny, microscopic whisper she could barely hear, she leapt from the bench and ran back to her car.

  Dwayne wasn’t taking any calls except those from Kurt and Heather. If someone knocked on his door, he didn’t answer it. He simply didn’t have any more to give.

  Guilt riddled him, but Kurt assured him that the ranch was running just fine without him and that he should take as much time as he needed to be with his family.

  The doctors had found one of his father’s veins to be blocked, which had caused the shortness of breath he’d complained about to Dwayne’s mother, the tingling in his right arm he hadn’t mentioned to anyone until questioned by the heart surgeon, and the eventual unconsciousness.

  With rest and strict orders to pay attention to how he felt, he’d been discharged from the hospital a week ago now that it was the Sabbath again. He’d stayed down too, and Dwayne usually spent the mornings with him so his mother could get things done in the yard and around the house.

  He had a surgery scheduled to put a stent in the artery to keep it open in a couple of weeks. Until then, Dwayne didn’t want him to be alone.

  In the afternoons, Dwayne worked with Spotlight. The horse was almost completely trained now, and he wanted the animal to be ready whenever Felicity returned. But with each passing day, he wondered if she even would. To torture himself further, he’d started stalking the FOR RENT section of the Grape Seed Falls online classifieds. If her house went up for rent, he’d know she wasn’t coming back.

  He had to do something.

  She hadn’t returned a single call or text of his in almost two weeks, and the last three words he’d said to her had turned pointed and sharp. They stabbed into his lungs every time he thought about telling her he loved her.

  This pain was much, much worse than when Serenity had broken their engagement. Dwayne knew now what true love felt like, and that was why he couldn’t see anyone, talk to anyone. His existence was okay if he limited himself to his family and Kurt.

  He’d been planning to skip church completely, skip all interaction for the day. But Heather had texted Mom’s making ghost pancakes, and that had changed Dwayne’s mind in a heartbeat.

  When he was growing up, his mother made pancakes for breakfast every Sunday morning. She colored the batter for holidays, and used cookie cutters to make special characters. And ghost pancakes meant buttermilk batter with chocolate chip eyes. For some reason, Dwayne loved them. Because he’d loved growing up on the ranch. Loved growing up in his family, with his parents, with Thatcher and Heather.

  The desire to have a family of his own like the one he’d had made his throat so narrow he could barely swallow.

  Someone knocked on his door, and he stepped away from it.

  “I know you’re in there,” Heather called. She tried the doorknob, but it just clicked back and forth. “C’mon, Dwayne. Come eat breakfast with us.”

  He strode to the door and opened it. Sunlight streamed in, reminding him of how much he loved being outdoors. “I’m comin’.”

  She scanned him from head to toe. “Not going to church, I see.”

  “I already told you I wasn’t.” He stepped out onto the porch. “Leave me be.”

  She joined him as he went down the steps. “Oh, come on. She’s going to come back.”

  “You don’t know that,” he practically growled.

  “Want me to go talk to her?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I might just do it anyway, the way you talked to Levi when I told you not to.”

  Dwayne stalled, his feet growing roots right there in the grass. “How did you find out?” He hadn’t said anything to her. He’d barely been home from the auction when his father had fallen.

  A hint of redness entered her face. “He talked to me on Friday. First time in months.” Heather looked down and twisted a lock of her hair around and around. “He asked how much you liked Felicity, because he hated seeing you like this, and he was hoping to set you up with someone.”

  Dwayne didn’t know what to say. He only breathed and blinked because his body did it involuntarily.

  “Eventually, it came out that you’d asked him what kind of women he liked.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “At least I’m already blonde.”

  Her grin unstopped his vocal chords, and he laughed for the first time in days. After he sobered, he said, “I didn’t mention you, I swear.”

  “I know you didn’t.”

  “He’s a real idiot for not seein’ you there, right in front of him.”

  She smiled but it wobbled a little. “I keep telling myself that too.” She linked her arm through his, and they started much slower toward the homestead. “But come on. You really don’t think Felicity will come back?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “So how much of your sequestering has to do with her, and how much with Dad?”

  He sighed, avoiding a hole in the ground. “All her.” He could deal with his father. He had. They had a solution. His dad was going to be fine. But Dwayne seriously doubted that he would ever be whole without Felicity.

  The scent of browning pancakes and hot maple syrup met his nose a good ten yards from the back door. At least something in Grape Seed Falls hadn’t changed, and Dwayne’s spirits lifted the teensiest bit.

  “Hey, Mom.” He pressed a kiss to his mother’s forehead. “Looks great.”

  Heather said grace, and Dwayne loaded his plate with three ghosts and more sausage links that any human should eat. He poured syrup over all of it and sat down to eat. His father said something, and his mother laughed, and Dwayne basked in the happiness from the two of them. They’d always been so positive, even when things hadn’t gone well on the ranch. And they loved each other.

  Dwayne bit the head off one of his ghosts, his mood shifting toward the negative again. His own parents were making him jealous. Would he have to stop seeing them too?

  Someone rang the doorbell, making everyo
ne pause. “Who could that be?” his mother asked, abandoning her post at the griddle to answer the door. If it was Kurt, he’d have walked in the back door. One of the cowboys would’ve knocked and then walked in the back door.

  No one rang the front doorbell. Dwayne was surprised it actually worked. He didn’t care. Whoever it was hadn’t come here to see him.

  “Dwayne.” His mother appeared in the doorway that led into the living room and then the foyer.

  He glanced up, his pulse panicking at the shock on his mother’s face. “It’s for you,” she said.

  “Who is it?”

  “Go see.”

  “Mom.” He stayed put at the dining room table.

  “I’ll go see.” Heather jumped to her feet and threw Dwayne a mischievous smile. She hadn’t taken two steps into the other room before her gasp and cry of surprise seemed to happen simultaneously.

  “Come see,” she said, flapping her hand for him to rush forward.

  With both of them conspiring against them, he slowly left his pancakes to see who was at the door. His mind raced with possibilities. He stopped and looked down at Heather. “Just tell me who it is,” he begged.

  She moved behind him and pushed him through the doorway. “Go. See.”

  Dwayne also stalled just inside the other room. His eyes needed a check-up, because the one person he’d wanted to see, to talk to, to hold and comfort for the past two weeks stood in his parents’ foyer.

  “Felicity.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Dwayne’s legs felt weak and strong at the same time. Thankfully, they moved without express direction from his brain. He had so many things to say to her, and a lot of explanations he needed to hear.

  But the very sight of her, standing there with her hands in her pockets, that worried look on her face, rocking back onto her heels and then onto her toes.

  He entered her personal space, his hands slipping around her waist and pulling her into an embrace. “Felicity,” he repeated, his voice hardly his own. He was aware that his family was watching, and he didn’t care. Stepping back, he ran his hands down the sides of her face as if to check and see if she was real. “You came back.”

  “Hey.” She tiptoed her fingertips up his chest, sending shivers through his whole body. “I can’t stay, but I really wanted to see you.”

  “Do you want breakfast? My mom made pancakes.”

  “Uh….” She glanced past him. “Maybe we could go for a walk. Or ride Linus and Lucy.”

  Dwayne saw something in her expression, but he couldn’t identify it. “Sure.” He guided her toward the door while turning back to his family. “We’re gonna go ride for a bit. Thanks for the pancakes, Mom.”

  His stomach quivered as they stepped outside, because he knew the hard conversations were about to start.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, Felicity blurted, “I’m really sorry I didn’t answer your calls. I was in a bad place, and I didn’t want to drag you there too.” Her chest heaved with pent-up emotion.

  Dwayne hummed as he gathered her close and trailed his lips along her jawline. “Doesn’t matter now.” He touched his mouth to hers, and while Felicity had had every intention of telling him everything first, she kissed him back.

  She pulled away long before she wanted to. “It does matter,” she said. “My mom is pretty sick, and that was hard on me. I thought for a few days last week that I could come back here, but the more time I spend in Marysville, the more I think I won’t be able to.”

  “Hey, it’s okay.” He took her hand and led her toward the stable. “Let’s take one thing at a time. Your mom. She’s really sick?”

  “Thyroid cancer she needs surgery for. We’ve got a date scheduled, but it’s still a couple of weeks out.”

  “Same with my dad.”

  “Your dad?”

  “I mean, not the thyroid cancer, but he has to have a stent put in his artery. He fainted last week, and we found out he has almost one-hundred percent blockage in one of his arteries leading into his heart.”

  Felicity stopped walking, Dwayne’s wonderful voice reverberating inside her skull. “Your dad…he fainted last week?” And she hadn’t been here to support Dwayne. Hadn’t answered any of his calls. “Is that why you stopped calling?”

  He wouldn’t look fully at her. “Didn’t think you’d notice if I stopped calling.” He cleared his throat. “But yeah, I was dealing with a lot, and adding silence from you whenever I called hurt too much.”

  The wounds in her heart cracked a little more. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Apology accepted.” He tugged on her hand and got her going toward the stable again.

  He moved steadily down the aisle to where Linus and Lucy were housed, but Felicity noticed the new horse in the end stall. “Oh, what have we here?” She turned to Dwayne and cocked one eyebrow. “Looks like you got the bay.”

  Joy exploded through her. He’d wanted that horse, and she was glad he’d gotten him.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Dwayne said, stepping over to the handsome horse. “I probably paid way too much for him. But we’ve ridden several times, and he’s a great horse.” He glanced at her. “Already broken.”

  “What’d you name him?”

  “King.”

  The horse held a royal air about him, so Felicity said, “Seems like it fits him well.”

  Dwayne gave King one last scratch and went down the aisle. They worked to saddle the horses in silence, and when Felicity boosted herself onto Lucy’s back, the stars seemed to align.

  “I painted the bluebonnets,” she said.

  “On the ranch sign? That’s great.”

  “My brothers and I are working out a schedule to take care of my mom.”

  He nodded and nudged Linus forward. “When do you think…?”

  “I don’t know, Dwayne. I don’t even really know what I'm doing here. I just know I went to church early to listen to the music, and I felt like I should come.”

  Lucy stepped, stepped, stepped before Dwayne said, “You went to church early to listen to the music?”

  “Yeah.” She shrugged one shoulder. “You said you liked it, and I thought I’d give it a try.”

  “So you came to tell me….” He let the statement hang there, and Felicity had no idea how to fill it.

  “I wanted to apologize,” she said.

  “You’ve done that.”

  “And…I don’t know. I just felt like I should come.” She had something else to discuss with him, but she couldn't bring herself to bring up the subject of having kids. His mother had just made pancakes for the family, and all of her children were well into their adult years.

  “But you don’t know if you can come back to Grape Seed Ranch.”

  “I don’t know that, no.”

  He gazed out at the horizon, the wheels in his mind obviously churning. She gave him the time he needed to organize everything, because she needed it too.

  “Do you love me?” he finally asked, his voice barely louder than the hoofbeats on the ground.

  “Yes,” she whispered without any hesitation.

  “All right. Then I can wait for however long it takes for you to come back.”

  She loved the way he drawled out allll riiight. She thought about the first time she’d heard him say that, and a smile graced her face. It didn’t last long, though, as her brain seemed to constantly remind her of what needed to be said.

  “I have something I want to talk to you about,” she said. “Something I’ve realized while I’ve been home these past two weeks.”

  “Something we haven’t talked about already?”

  “Yes, something we haven’t discussed yet.” She suddenly found her mouth void of saliva. “A family,” she forced out. “Kids. I—I—I don’t want kids.” She said the last four words in a huge rush.

  Dwayne gaped openly at her now. “You don’t? Why not?”

  Felicity’s heart dropped to her boots and rebounded to the back of her throat. In
her fantasies, when she told Dwayne her feelings about children, he said, “It’s no problem. I don’t want children either.”

  But it was obvious the opposite was true in her reality.

  “I—I’m not cut out to cook and clean and care for children all day.” She could turn Lucy around here and find nothing but blue sky, fences, and waving prairie grasses. “I don’t want to make pancakes for breakfast, or have dinner waiting on the table when you come in from the ranch. I want to be out on the ranch, fixing fences, and repairing equipment, and hauling hay, and training horses.”

  A dark edge entered his normally sparkling blue eyes. “And you think havin’ kids will make it so you can’t do those things.” He didn’t phrase it as a question, but Felicity nodded anyway.

  “I’ve seen what my mother does. It’s not the life I want.” She didn’t realize how much punch her words carried until he visibility flinched.

  “It’s the only life I have to offer you,” he said, his voice full of agony.

  “That’s not true,” she said. “I love you, and you love me, and we could work this ranch together.”

  “And then what? Sell it?”

  Everything she’d worried about, every fear she’d experienced, had been right. And Felicity had never wanted to be wrong about something as much as she did right then.

  Dwayne exhaled, his head held slightly away from her so she couldn’t read his expression. She disliked this new distance between them, but didn’t know how to fix it.

  “So you came here to break up with me,” he said.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Not at all.”

  “I want a family, Felicity,” he said, his voice even and deep and beautiful. “A whole house full of them. I want boys to love the ranch and horses as much as I do, and I want daughters to learn to rope and ride the way you do.”

  And when he said it like that, she wanted those things too.

  “I’m wonderin’ why you think it has to be one or the other,” he said. “I know how to make pancakes, and do laundry, and put shoes on a kid. Well, maybe not that last part, but I’m sure I could figure it out.”