A Cowboy To Keep: A Contemporary Western Romance Collection

by Hebby Roman

  Hers was the face that had brought him here, out of Wyoming: the person—the reason—he tolerated the late nights dealing with jackass patrons at a pretentious restaurant downtown, an overcrowded city that made him feel stifled, a subway system that repulsed him, and a number of people now in his life whose throats he’d be happy to wring. She was it, K.C. and her hyacinth eyes. It. Everything. And she was worth it.

  But would he last two years?

  Chapter Two

  Chay felt the chill of the floor as he ambled barefoot into the living room. His jeans had been pulled on and zipped up, but the waist was left unfastened like an arrow pointing to the taut lines of his stomach. Still not fully awake, he rubbed his eyes but caught Daphne’s peek before she pulled her glance back to the newspaper in front of her. K.C. looked up from her breakfast, laying a finger to mark her place in the essay she was re-reading, and smiled.

  “Sleepy head.”

  “Hmmm, well.” With a small snuffle, he turned to the refrigerator, yanked open the door to a sigh from Daphne, and grasped a carton of milk. He felt the housemate’s hard stare as he drank straight from the carton.

  “I hope that isn’t my milk!”

  The complaint in Daphne’s voice irked him. “For chrissake, don’t start this early in the morning.” He licked what might be a comical milk mustache from his upper lip and turned to her with a snort. “Do you think I’d dare eat or drink anything of yours? Lord, you may have contaminated it with your—”

  “Chay!” K.C. slapped her stack of papers. “Do you have to start?”

  “Start? Me?” He stood there, hand extended with the milk at a tilt.

  Daphne pounded the table making her bowl of cereal bounce. “You do everything possible to annoy me!”

  “My presence here annoys you!”

  K.C.’s, “Please stop you two; you’re acting like children. For heaven’s sake—” had no effect.

  “That’s right!” Daphne continued. “When I agreed with K.C. you could live here, I had no idea what an inconsiderate, slobby, dirty, noisy….”

  “Man?” Chay leaned back against the fridge, a few drops of milk sprinkling out onto the floor.

  “Seeeee?” Daphne snarled, pointing to the offending spots.

  K.C. pushed back from the table and started to gather her papers. “Daphne.” Her retort was in a restrained, quiet voice. “You leave things in the living area same as me and Chay; you were thankful for the agreed sixty, forty split in the rent with us having the master bedroom; we’ve agreed to all your terms as regards the use of the kitchen, cleaning, and so on. I don’t understand what it is you find so abhorrent in Chay.”

  “Well, look what he’s just done!”

  K.C. stood open-mouthed staring at her friend before moving toward the door.

  Chay leaned back against the fridge before placing the milk on the counter and grabbing a cloth. He bent down to wipe the spots on the floor, then peered up at Daphne. “Satisfied?”

  “I’m not satisfied with the noise you make each and every night when you come in! Especially when you have your skateboard with you. I’ve asked you before; in fact, I’ve asked several times to please be quiet, and yet you insist, you traipse in on purpose—”

  Chay rose and threw the cloth in the sink before turning back to his assailant. “First of all, I’ve stopped taking my skateboard to work—it takes too long to get home, I can’t wear my boots, and I keep K.C. awake. Second, Daphne, I don’t do anything ‘on purpose’ to annoy you. Lord knows, being quiet and obeying your goshdang rules is far easier than listening to this crap every single day. I’m a human being who moves and breathes and talks—”

  “And has sex! Geesh, the two of you are like animals!” She gasped, realizing what she had said met a heavy silence. She glanced over at K.C. by the door for a moment, before turning back to Chay who wore a smirk on his face.

  “Hmm.” Chay gazed across at K.C. trying to read her, but her face was a stoic blank. He rested his two hands on the table and leaned toward Daphne so he was right in her face. “A little bit of jealousy, have we, perhaps? You haven’t been listening at the door, have you, Daphne?”

  “Don’t be disgusting! You’re ridiculous.”

  As Chay stood again and leaned back once more against the fridge, not only did the chill of the cold metal cool him, but the realization he might have pretty well two more years of this froze him.

  As if reading his mind, K.C. offered, “We can look for another place, Daphne. I’m sure you’ll get another, more satisfactory roommate.”

  “No….” But Daphne’s voice trailed off without resolving anything and was met with the sound of K.C. heading out the front door, leaving the two opponents together.

  Chay took in a gulp of air as he turned, ignoring Daphne, to open the fridge and gather his breakfast. Outside in the October breeze, a tree tapped the kitchen window like some Morse code trying to tell him what to do. For a brief moment, he was glad they had found a brownstone apartment; the thought of being cooped up in one of those endless high-rise buildings sent a shiver of revulsion through him, but revulsion was pretty much with him on a daily basis since moving to New York. Too small spaces, too many people, too many cars, too many of everything.

  Feeling Daphne’s gaze bore into him, he grabbed the eggs and placed them with the milk before getting a bowl and a frying pan to make his breakfast. He peered over his shoulder at Daphne.

  She pushed her long dark hair out of her face and attempted a smile.

  “Eggs?” he offered, holding out the box. “Or are you afraid of getting egg on your face?”

  * * *

  Stomping into his running shoes, Chay took a quick peep out the window to check the weather before bending and tying his laces. Running on pavement rather than dirt roads had its advantages, as did the circuit he made in Central Park as opposed to the bridleway he had used at home. New York, one; Wyoming, nil. What else? What other good points can I think of today? He looped his headphones on, clipped his old iPod onto his shorts, and started off. Positive thoughts, let’s see. Hmmm. Convenience of shops, pharmacy, doctor if we need one, dry cleaner if we can afford one, food delivery, museums and theater if we had the money or the time. No need for a car—bit of a bummer, that, actually—good places to skate board? Hmm, maybe. K.C., K.C. and K.C. is about it….

  “Chay? Ridgway? Wait up!”

  Chay felt a tap on his back and swiveled to see a friend of K.C.’s, Adnan Kahn. He pulled off his earphones while trying to keep up his pace as Kahn ran alongside him.

  “I didn’t know you were a runner,” Kahn said. “I thought you people rode horses all the time.” He laughed at his own joke.

  “We people? We people? You mean like those of us of European descent? Or young men in their late twenties? Or maybe you mean people born in these United States? Or how about guys living in Hell’s Kitchen with very beautiful significant others?”

  “Now, now, Ridgway.” Adnan’s voice was mellifluous with a note of tolerance, as if Chay were a small child who had to be amused. “You know very well what it is I mean: westerners! Cowboys! The few times I have had the pleasure of your company with K.C., you have always worn those boots, those cowboy boots. I am therefore surprised to see you in running shoes.”

  Chay took a gulp of air and stopped at the corner with a red light, hanging over to stretch out for a moment before standing and facing Adnan who had come to a halt beside him. He gave the friend a crooked smile as he took in more air. “Adnan. This is 2017, I’m not some character in a Zane Grey book. Besides which, I have to keep fit so when I do get back to my riding, roping, and everything else we cowboys do, I’m fit enough for the work.”

  Adnan started to jog and Chay took up the pace once more. “So, tell me, what this is like to be a real, live cowboy. I thought they were a myth, or had died out by mechanization. Living in Pakistan this seemed a very strange occupation, requiring you to wear boots, a big hat, and spurs. But here you are, Chay Ridgway, a li
ving, breathing cowboy. It is a miracle, is it not, you have not been replaced?”

  Chay swallowed his laugh and continued his run. “Yup, I’m alive and I’m a cowboy. That sure is one heckuva miracle.”

  Adnan looked across at him as they entered the park. “You are making fun, I presume. You feel your life is a normal one?”

  “It’s the only dang life I know, Adnan. It’s normal for me, it’s normal out west. No, here in New York it may seem odd but ranching and cowboying is quite a normal occupation out west.”

  “Then you must be very unhappy to be so far from all you know.”

  They ran in a companionable silence for a stretch as Chay mulled this over. “It’s temporary. I’ll get back to my ranch in another couple of years, and I’ll be in a better position when I do to run it without worrying about money and so on, and K.C. will come live in Wyoming with me.”

  “So, you have this all worked out with her? She did not strike me as the sort of girl—I should say ‘woman’ perhaps?—who will move from New York. Her family, yes? They are here?”

  “Her family is here. In all their glory.”

  “It will be difficult.”

  “You moved from your family, didn’t you? And farther than K.C. would be moving. Besides which, she came out to Wyoming—it was her choice and she wants to move back there.”

  “Well, she is a woman and can change her mind, I hate to tell you. I am a man and have many responsibilities; coming to America was the best thing for me and for my family as well.” There was a pause before he said, “I have a fiancée, did you know? She is still in Pakistan but I shall be able to bring her sometime soon.”

  Chay thought perhaps Adnan should not count on it but kept his thought to himself. “I hope you can do that,” he said instead.

  “And I hope K.C. will move with you to your Wyoming. What is that like?”

  Chay laughed. “You’ll have to ride your magic carpet and go find out for yourself, Adnan.” Chay could see the saccade of Adnan’s eyes.

  “I think you are joking with me, Chay Ridgway. You well know there is no magic carpet. And before you suggest it, there is no genie in a bottle either, or a lamp to rub for three wishes.”

  Chay feigned surprise. “Really? You mean that’s a myth?”

  “It is a story for children, not even a myth. But you cowboys actually exist, so tell me what Wyoming is like. It is not like New York, I take it.”

  “Nothing like. Thank goodness.” He thought a moment—how to describe Wyoming to someone who had never been, someone who may never have been out of a city in fact. “It’s got huge open spaces for one thing. Prairie. Mountains, lots of mountains. And rivers. It’s the least populated state in the Union, or at least the lower forty-eight—there are fewer people in the entire state of Wyoming than there are in the city of New York.”

  “That sounds like a very desolate place to be.”

  “Desolate? No, I was never lonely, that’s for sure. I’m lonelier here than I ever was back home.”

  Chay stopped. The thought had never occurred to him he was lonely, that leaving his friends and what family he had, and being dependent on K.C. and her family and friends for companionship had put him in a very solitary position. “You can be lonely in a crowd, Adnan.”

  Adnan jogged beside him, waiting to go on.

  Something Adnan said traveled through Chay’s mind like a freight train at full steam without brakes: “She does not strike me as the sort of girl to leave New York.” He held his head for a moment, then shook away the thought.

  “Hey.” A second thought occurred to him that perhaps he hadn’t made much of an effort to gain friends. “Let’s finish the run and go for lunch.”

  * * *

  ‘The Test Assessing Secondary Completion,’ Chay read. Let’s see: Math, Reading—Reading? People get to high school level and can’t read? Science, Social Studies, and Writing. This is ludicrous. This is the New York State high school equivalency? I’m supposed to study for this?

  He pushed the book away and lay his head on the kitchen table before fingering the pages and pulling it back. He thought of his promise, his deal with K.C.—that he would stay with her while she finished her Master’s degree and study for his high school diploma, work to help her pay off the student loan she had insisted on getting rather than have her parents pay for her education. Help with the rent, with food, utilities—all on a meager waiter’s salary. After, they would both return to his beloved Wyoming so he could develop and run his ranch while she wrote and taught. It had sounded like the perfect way to be together, to avoid the problems of a long-distance relationship, to discover what they both were made of, and if they were made for each other. But life in the city, which had seemed so much like a great adventure, a change of scene, so far was proving to be more of a misadventure, more of an obstacle course, an endurance test rather than the settled life he had envisaged.

  ‘Read the excerpt and answer the questions that follow’…wouldn’t you have to be an idiot to not be able to read then answer the questions? Geesh. It seemed to him that leaving high school to look after his father and run their ranch may have educated him better, with all his non-high school reading, than the diploma course could do.

  He looked up to the sound of a body elbowing the door and managed to smile for K.C.

  “Hey, cowboy.” She raised her eyebrows in query with a nod toward their house-mate’s room to ask whether Daphne was at home, and got the desired shake of Chay’s head, ‘no.’ Dropping her books on the table by what served as their kitchen—a series of cupboards and appliances in a space about as big as a garden shed—she eased herself onto Chay’s lap and put her arm around him, moving in for a kiss.

  “Good class?”

  “Uh-huh. How ’bout you, your day?”

  “Ran into Adnan—literally—and we ended up running and eating some street food off a cart. That was an experience. If I’m sick you’ll know why.”

  “You won’t be sick. Was it good?”

  “Suspiciously so. Probably horsemeat or something.”

  “Chay! What else? What have you been studying?”

  “Let’s see. I’ve learned about the Constitution; energy consumption in the U.S., China, and India; and OPEC, NATO, and the EU. You might say I’m well on my way toward running for office.”

  K.C. snorted. “I think you might make a better president than some.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be very much here of use to a future rancher.”

  K.C. slipped off his lap and went to the fridge, pulling out a bowl of grapes. “That wasn’t the idea, Chay, and you know it. The idea was you got your high school equivalency so, if at some later date, you wanted to go on to agricultural college or something, you could apply. I know—we both know—you’re well read and know all this stuff. That wasn’t the point.”

  “And just who will run the ranch while I’m off at this agricultural college or whatever? Had you thought of that?”

  “No, but at least it gives you options. Maybe you’d decide to go before starting the ranch back up, letting Breezy continue to rent out the house and the neighbors have the land. It would give you another couple of years to save.”

  “I don’t think so. We’d be saddled with another loan—had you thought of that?” Chay closed the book. “I could sit this test tomorrow and pass—”

  “Then do it! Take it and get it out of the way. Maybe you could get a better job, something you’re happier with, rather than waiting tables.”

  “Tips are good.” Chay drummed the book.

  K.C. popped a grape in his mouth, then bent to give him a kiss as he tried to chew at the same time. As she pulled back, she caught his grimace. “I know you’re not happy; I know you’re not happy here, hate Daphne, hate New York, and for all I know hate me now—”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” He grabbed her hand and got her back onto his lap. “Hate’s not in my vocabulary. I just feel like…a fish out of water, I guess. And having to live wit
h someone who does hate me, or at least is jealous of us, it’s just another irritation.”

  “Do you want to move? We could look—”

  “Don’t be silly. You said this was a convenient location for you; it works for me, you’ve told me it’s a good deal, and Daphne is your friend, if not exactly mine. Plus the neighborhood is suitably named—Hell’s Kitchen! I can’t see starting house hunting; it was bad enough job hunting, plus I know my way around this area. You can’t teach an old dog.” He tapped her on the nose.

  “You’re hardly an old dog. Elderly perhaps….”

  “Ha!”

  “And there’s my parents, of course, whom you adore and love you like a son.”

  Chay grunted. “Do you think they’ll ever get used to me? To us?”

  K.C. blew out a breath. “I’m not taking any bets, I’m afraid. But the fact you managed to sort out your life and come here to be with me—I think that counts for a lot with my mother if not both of them. It’s just…it’s just, well, you know. I guess parents think they see a whole future life in front of their children, have it mapped out, and when it doesn’t turn out the way they want, they can’t handle it.” She leaned in and pecked him on the cheek. “We won’t be like that with our kids, will we?”

  “Oh, no.” Chay fanned the pages of his book. “But any kids of mine who don’t work the ranch, or want to inherit it, get kicked out straight away.” He checked to see her reaction but got a knowing, smug look. “All right, maybe one can be a lawyer or something.” There was a touch of sarcastic generosity in his manner.

  “Well, my parents would approve of that.”

  Chay took in a breath. Was the approval of K.C.’s parents always going to be needed, always going to be playing in the background? He pushed a loose curl behind her ear. “Okay, back to work. Let me look this over and think about taking this dumb test.” He shoved her off his lap, then grasped her hand again. “You can make this all worthwhile, you know.”