A Cowboy To Keep: A Contemporary Western Romance Collection

by Hebby Roman

  Chay stomped his good foot. “Right! Have it your way, if that’s the way you want it.”

  And the door slammed behind him.

  For hours, K.C. went through the entire scenario in her mind trying to figure what had happened. Did he want her to say she had come back for him? Was he saying he wanted her, to be included in her life? What the heck had happened?

  That map of Australia on the ticking of the upper bunk’s mattress didn’t give her the answer. As she drifted in and out of sleep that night, it became Breezy’s face looking at her, brows raised in question over dinner, being sorry for her, apologizing. And it became Chay, angry with her for coming back into his life.

  Chay.

  They had to have it out. Once and for all.

  * * *

  “Jeez, can you sit up please. Your head is heavy and you’re hurting my leg.”

  Lisa Stanford curled herself forward and pivoted to look at Chay. “Boy oh boy. You sure are grumpy for someone who had good winnings last Saturday. What the heck’s got into you?”

  Chay threw his head back against the couch and took a breath. “Nothing’s got into me, Lisa. I’m in pain is all, and you’re not helping.” He picked up a cushion and played with it in his hands, round and round, corner to corner. Without warning, he pushed himself to his feet and grabbed his hat off a chair. “Your parents will be home from their dinner out soon. I’ve got to go.”

  “You can stay and see them, you know. They don’t bite.”

  “I know but—" Chay glanced down at the floor and bit his lip. He knew what he had to do but he didn’t like the idea of hurting the sweet twenty year old. “Listen,” he started, trying to find words that wouldn’t bruise a girl’s ego. “I…uh….”

  “Oh, here we go! The famous Ridgway shove-off. What are you going to say, Chay? ‘I really like you but….’ ‘I’m so much older than you.’ Or is it just a plain old, ‘I’ve met someone else’?”

  Chay let out a breath and swirled his hat around in his hands. He sat down next to Lisa, the hat still turning as he stared at the floor, his mouth bunched into misery. “The girl…the woman I was living with in New York is here. And it’s not fair to you—or to her—to keep seeing you until I sort things out with her.”

  “You’re still in love with her.” Lisa’s voice was flat and to the point. It wasn’t a question because there was no question Chay was in love with ‘her’.

  Another deep breath. “Yes. No. I guess so. I don’t know.” He glanced across at her and laughed. “It’s complicated.” His hat spun some more as he considered what had been said when he had met up with K.C. What an idiot he’d been. He’d had no idea, absolutely no idea what he was saying, he was just so overcome when he saw her, he could have thrown her on the bed and just made love to her straight off. Instead, in his jumbled mind, he’d gone and messed things up.

  Finally, Lisa offered, “And I’m just a further complication I guess.”

  “Yah.” A heavy silence was broken by one of Lisa’s dogs pawing at the door and whining.

  “Go away Smokey, get lost!” Lisa scowled and tilted to Chay. “Look, just go. I’d like to say I understand but obviously I don’t, and I’m mad as all get-out, so just go, will you? Just go.”

  Chay got up and set his hat on his head. “Listen, if things—”

  “Don’t you dare say it, Chay Ridgway, don’t you dare. I’m not playing second fiddle to anybody, least of all someone you’re so in love with. Just go, will you, get the hell out of here.”

  Chay nodded and let himself out, limping down the front steps of the Stanford house to his pickup. For a while, he leaned against the truck, his mind a blur of thoughts. He hadn’t been with K.C. for over a year and a half now but he knew his feelings hadn’t changed, his body still responded to the sight of her, he still yearned for her touch, longed to hear her voice, sense her skin on skin, feel her moving in time with him.

  As he turned to open the door to the truck, a pain shot up his calf that burned the inside of his leg. Chay crumpled trying to move through it but he knew he was in trouble. He’d had broken bones and bruises before, but never like this. He tried to straighten but the pain was getting worse and he thought he might pass out if he tried to drive.

  “Lisa!” His voice rang out with a croak. “Lisa!”

  Chapter Eleven

  K.C. thought she had never driven so fast in her life, shooting down route eighty-nine, praying the elk grazing by the side of the road wouldn’t suddenly decide to bolt across. In the traffic of Jackson, she had no idea where the hospital was, but her phone spoke out with directions. The antler arches of the town square blurred in her peripheral vision as she drove past. She parked the ranch truck, and as she turned to the building, she could see the blond rodeo girl pacing outside, pulling on a cigarette, and flicking the ashes away in a nervous rhythm.

  “Breezy told me you’d phoned and Chay is in the hospital. Is it bad? What’s happened?” Torn between punching the girl and thanking her for getting Chay here, she pinched her own face in to stop herself from crying.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  The girl’s antagonism hurt, not only because K.C. felt this was not the time for it, but because it appeared Chay had never mentioned her. K.C. sniffed back the tears. “I’m…I’m his ex, I guess. Look, can we put this aside and just tell me what the doctor said? I don’t even know your name, sorry.”

  The girl struck a pose and threw the cigarette down, stamping it out before answering. “Lisa. You ask the doctor what’s happening to Chay; he wouldn’t tell me. ‘Not family’.”

  K.C. started for the door when Lisa spoke to her back, her voice bitter. “He may lose his leg, you know. That’s what I heard.”

  K.C. didn’t turn to look at her. As the automatic door opened with a pneumatic wheeze, the smell of disinfectant and pure alcohol hit her. She marched right through and up to the desk. “I’m…I’m K.C. Ridgway. I understand my husband’s here.”

  The attendant sitting there looked up with such wide-eyed surprise, K.C. almost laughed. “You’re Chay Ridgway’s wife?” She sat there tapping a pen. In reply to K.C.’s nod, she just said, “I’ll inform the doctor you’re here.” She slipped down from her stool, then spun back to K.C. with a smirk. “Shall I tell…your husband you’re here as well?”

  K.C. glared at her for a moment, so on edge she’d forgotten that she’d lied. “Yes, yes, tell him please.”

  Seconds stretched into minutes in what seemed like hours before a doctor appeared as K.C. paced the waiting area. Without any introduction, arms folded across his chest, he began, “Interesting, none of us knew Chay was married. He listed an uncle in Dubois as next of kin when he checked in. You know, in a small town like Jackson, even with its surrounding area, most everyone knows everyone else’s business. And you take someone like the Ridgways who’ve been here for generations, and in particular someone like Chay who’s such a local…well, I’d say ‘character’ but others might say ‘hero’, well, I think if he’d been married we’d all know.”

  K.C. couldn’t look the man in the face. “And if he were married in New York?”

  “Look, I don’t know who you are—ex girlfriend, fiancée, wife, whatever, but I can see you’re concerned for Chay—”

  “His current—Lisa I think her name is?”

  “Lisa Stanford.”

  “She said he may lose his leg?”

  “Not likely. He should, of course, have come straight here after the kick he took from the horse, but he didn’t. Didn’t even bother to see the medics at the rodeo, from what I understand. So, things got worse. He has a severe hematoma—”

  “Can you…can you talk in plain English, please?”

  “We’ve done an MRI and there is damage to the vein wall. There was a small clot—Miss, Miss whoever you are, are you all right?”

  K.C. had doubled over, feeling faint listening to the description of Chay’s injuries. She brought herself upright in a slow, jerking movement, he
r voice just above a whisper. “I’m afraid I have a very weak stomach when it comes to medicine.”

  The doctor nodded, an amused look shaping his face. “Well. The bottom line is we’re keeping him here for a few days and have started him on blood thinners. We got it in time. If it had traveled to his brain, well…you no doubt can figure the consequences. He’ll have to continue on blood thinners for about three months but get moving—walking—alternating with keeping his leg up, lying down. No rodeo—easy riding only so he doesn’t chance a fall while on the blood thinners. But walking is best.”

  “With Chay, that’s almost impossible.”

  “Are you going to be looking after him?”

  The automatic doors hummed open once again and Lisa came trudging in. The doctor gave the young woman what K.C. felt was a sneering acknowledgement, then repeated, “So, will you look after him?”

  “No!” Lisa butt in, her own scorn directed at K.C. “I’ll stay with him.”

  The doctor looked from one to the other, waiting for K.C.’s rebuttal. When she froze, his gaze lingering on her, waiting for a response, he replied, “I’ll see what Chay says.”

  * * *

  Chay lay on his living room sofa, his leg propped higher than his head as per instructions, a pile of books on the floor, the television on mute. He heard the kitchen door open but not Breezy’s usual call. Instead, there was the sound of bags, presumably groceries, being dropped on the kitchen table, what sounded like the coffeemaker being emptied and refilled, and the groceries being put away as the fridge door opened. And, without seeing, he knew who it was: the same person who had made coffee and put away groceries when they lived together in New York.

  “Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” he mumbled to himself.

  * * *

  K.C. was already standing at the door from the kitchen, peering in to see if he was doing what he’d been told. “Breezy’s not feeling well and didn’t want to take a chance on giving whatever it is to you. She gave me the Stanford’s phone number but Lisa said you’d told her to leave you alone. I also phoned the Bantries and they said they’re looking after your herd but could stop in later tonight—not a good time for dinner. I can phone your uncle if you give me the number, or anyone else you’d prefer.”

  “I’d prefer to be left alone. How’s that?”

  “I vant to be alone?” She mimicked a Scandinavian accent as she twisted back to the kitchen.

  “She never said that, you know.”

  “Who?” she asked, turning back.

  “Garbo. She never actually said it.”

  “Great. So now we can attribute it to you.” K.C. glanced around the room. It had been redecorated and refurbished in parts since she’d last seen it when Chay’s father was alive. The sole reminder of the old man was a pile of western magazines on a side table. Gone was the oxygen tank along with the smell of hair oil and sweat and mildewed fabrics. Target had been used to refresh the house while keeping its country feel, and Chay looked as comfortable as could be expected on the new sofa as he stared at the muted television, a game show running. The contractor, Jarrod, had redone the kitchen too, in modern pine cupboards not out of place in an eighteen-hundreds homestead.

  “Probably another one of Breezy’s tricks, you know. Says she doesn’t feel well and sends you in the hope…well, in the hope of something.”

  “I don’t think so.” K.C. switched back toward the kitchen. “I had to take her to the doctor this morning, and she had a temperature. Hard to fake.”

  “Who’s doing the cooking at the Lazy S?”

  “Bob’s new lady friend. She’s very nice and helps out a lot.”

  “And the office? While you’re here tending the wounded—unnecessarily I might add.”

  She marched back to the center of the room, arms crossed and glaring down at him. “I know you don’t want me here. I’m very well aware of that. So I won’t be long, and as you well know by now, office girls are off Saturday afternoons after the check-outs. Anything else you want to complain about?”

  Chay looked up. “That wasn’t a complaint. Why was that a complaint? I merely noted Breezy may be acting in order to finally bring us back together. Or get us together to get back together.” He paused and glanced at her, waiting for a response. “Or act like we’re together in an attempt to be final?”

  K.C. burst out laughing and shook her head.

  “It’s good to hear you laugh. I missed that. All that time in New York, you never seemed to laugh like you did out here.”

  The buzzer on the coffee maker sounded.

  “Maybe that’s why I came back to Wyoming,” K.C. retorted as she went to the machine. “To be able to laugh again.”

  “I thought you didn’t laugh ’cause I made you miserable.”

  “What?” She came to the doorway, a half filled cup in her hand. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because I seemed to complain a lot, I suppose. You knew I didn’t like the high school course and would quit; I don’t think you ever forgave me for that.”

  “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Isn’t that what you said when I quit? ‘Don’t be an idiot, Chay; at some point you’ll want this and you’ll be sorry if you don’t finish’.”

  She stood there, her gaze never leaving him, trying to remember if she had been so dogmatic about the dang high school diploma. “I’m sorry,” she said at last as she wheeled back toward the kitchen. “I didn’t mean to be so dictatorial.”

  “You weren’t. At least I don’t think you were. You believed it was the right thing to do. But I was just unhappy there. And, oh lord, Daphne. What a bitch! Geesh. At times, I thought one more day of looking at her mean, mealy face and I’d lose it. What happened between you and Daphne after I left; you become best friends again?”

  K.C. decided it was best to ignore the sarcasm in his voice as she brought the two cups of coffee into the living room and handed him one. She left his question hanging, unable to explain the lethargy that had set in when he left, how difficult it was just to get up in the morning without him there, go to class without him to come home to. “I’m not the cook Breezy is but I’ll grill you steak and some veg and a potato if that’s okay; at least, that’s what I brought.”

  “I seem to remember you cooked pretty well. Anyway, how much do I owe you? And you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Settle with Breezy, will you. She gave me the cash.”

  “Then I don’t owe anything, I don’t suppose, since I gave Breezy cash for meals. You gonna answer the question?”

  K.C. took a sip of her coffee and, finding it too hot, put the cup down. “I stayed. I didn’t want to start looking for another apartment; things were difficult enough for me after you left and she was helpful to a point. We had a working relationship, you might say—”

  “Sort of like you and me?”

  K.C. sat down on the floor in front of him, legs crossed, staring up at him. “I thought we had more than a working relationship, Chay. But maybe I was wrong.”

  “No.” His chest raised with his breath as he rested his head back on a pillow.

  “No, we didn’t have more or no, I’m not wrong.”

  He sighed. “You know damn well we had more.”

  K.C. reached for the cup. “What do we have now, Chay?”

  Chay hit his head back against the pillow several times before he rubbed his eyes. “You tell me,” he challenged.

  “What do you want?” She knew he would realize his answer to this could make or break their future together, he would play for time. And he did.

  “I should have sent you money; I left you with the rent to pay. And your loan.”

  “It’s fine. I would have had those things without you anyway. Daphne agreed to fifty-fifty eventually. Well. Forty-five/fifty-five actually because I had the master suite; she said it wasn’t fair I had my own ‘en suite bathroom’ while she had to go out into the hall.” A small smirk colored K.C.’s face.

  �
�Bitch!” In obvious discomfort, he rolled his body to face her, head on hand, elbow on sofa. “How are your parents? How did your parents take you coming out to Wyoming?”

  In the quiet that followed, K.C. twirled the remains of her coffee before glancing up. “My father died, Chay. A heart attack. It was very sudden.”

  “Shit! When?”

  “Don’t get up! Keep your leg higher than your head, that’s what the doctor ordered.”

  “Screw the doctor. Anyway, he said I should walk every half hour.” But he lay back down.

  “Two months after you left. I’d been thinking of moving out when Daphne broke her promise about smoking weed in the apartment yet again, but then Dad died and she was, like, another person—the person I’d first known. She was very helpful. Very kind and understanding.”

  “I bet.” There was still a shade of dislike in his voice, but he didn’t continue in that vein. “I’m sorry. I mean, I’m not being insincere, I know your father and I didn’t get on, but I’m sorry for you.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “How’s your mother doing?”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled like someone blowing out a candle. “She’s getting on with her life and letting me get on with mine. She’s as accepting of my wanting to be out here as she can be. You know, she has a lot of friends in New York and they’ve all come rushing to her side—including a few single men.” Her eyebrows raised and she smiled. “So, who knows? But she told me to go if this is what I want. And it is.”

  Chay tilted his head back again but said nothing.

  “I better get your dinner on. I don’t like driving in the dark.”

  “Then stay.” His voice was so soft she couldn’t be sure she had heard him right.

  She laughed. “I don’t think you’re well enough for any…activity. Not yet.”

  “Stay,” he repeated.

  “No, Chay. I don’t think we’re ready for that yet.”