The Hard-to-Get Cowboy

by Crystal Green

  He leaned down, his mouth against the top of her head. “Is that the wish you’re going to make when you blow out the candle—that you want to stay here with me tonight?”

  “No.” She rested her cheek against his broad chest. “I won’t be gone all that long, anyway, so why waste a wish?”

  He pressed her to him, and they remained that way, until the candle started to burn lower, wax coming to roll down the side like little tears.

  “Make your wish, Laila,” he said.

  When she did, it had nothing to do with staying with him tonight.

  I wish I could find a way to ask him to stay forever, she thought, blowing out the candle.

  Chapter Eleven

  Should she ask Jackson to stay?

  Or would it be better to ask him to go before everything got way more involved and so much worse?

  There was only one person Laila could think to turn to after the night of her birthday: the one person who had comforted her after her first and only bad mark on a book report in grammar school. The one person who had stroked her hair and told her everything would be all right when she had been turned down by her first choice of college.

  The next morning, before going into work, Laila sat across from Mom at the kitchen table in the Cates ranch house, her hands cupping a mug of hot jasmine tea. Dad was taking a ride around the spread, so he wouldn’t be back for a while.

  “Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” Mom asked, stirring sugar into her own mug.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  Mom had already commented on Laila’s flushed cheeks and put her hand over her daughter’s forehead, thinking that she was here because she was under the weather. Laila wanted to say she was only heartsick. And that she had never moaned and groaned to anyone about a man before as she was about to do.

  How should she start?

  Mom made it easy on her, blue eyes brimming with compassion. “Your being here today has nothing to do with having the flu or a cold. Am I right?”

  Laila nodded, taking the first step. And, already, it felt a little better.

  “I never thought this would happen to me,” she said, her voice on the verge of breaking.

  Mom scooted her wooden chair closer to Laila’s, leaning over to catch her eye. “Oh, honey, none of us can control what happens to our hearts. If we could, we’d all be drones.” She clasped Laila’s hand. “When you allowed Jackson to come over on Sunday, I knew something big was up, even if you were fighting to hide it tooth and nail.”

  “I didn’t do such a good job of hiding, did I?”

  “Neither did he.”

  Her mom wouldn’t tease her like this, and at the observation, her spirits lifted.

  Mom squeezed Laila’s hand. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  There was something about talking to your mom that you couldn’t get from chatting with a best friend, Laila thought. Wisdom, experience, a ruthless sense of protection, and she held to Mom’s hand for all those qualities.

  “I have no idea when I started feeling this way about him,” she said.

  “Jackson?”

  “Of course, Mom.”

  “Then just say his name. Come out with it.”

  “Jackson.” There, she had finally put his name out there for all the world to hear, starting with her mother.

  Laila risked a glance at her, finding Mom smiling, looking so young, as if she had been transported back years and years into her own memories.

  “Even though you and Jackson were trying to seem casual with each other when he came over,” she said, “there was no fooling anyone. I would see him slip you a look, and you slip him one right back. Your dad and I would do the same, way back when.”

  “You still do that now. Except…”

  “Except what?”

  Laila forged ahead, broaching the deep-seated reasons she was here.

  “Except,” she said, “when there were times I thought you wished life had gone a little differently.”

  Mom frowned.

  “Surely you know what I mean,” Laila said. “You’ve always told me to develop my life outside of men. ‘Don’t rely on anyone else to make you feel valued’—that’s what you’ve always said to all of us. And I took that to heart because…”

  Mom pushed back a strand of hair that had slipped down to block Laila’s face. “Because why?”

  All those times Laila had seen the longing on her mom’s face while she looked at those college catalogues, all those veiled comments about traveling to places she had never gotten to visit came back to Laila.

  “Sometimes I think that you got married before you were ready,” she said.

  “Oh, honey. Yes, I did get married in my flush of youth, but I think you’ve misinterpreted some of the lessons I’ve tried to teach you.”

  “Am I wrong in thinking that you regret not being able to pursue your studies? And that you never got to sow your wild oats and live all by yourself before raising a family?”

  Mom’s smile was patient. “I wouldn’t trade my life with Zeke for anything. Same with you kids. Maybe I enjoy indulging in the whole ‘road not taken’ fantasy about what my life could’ve been, but if I had never married or had children when I did, I would be so incomplete, Laila.” She gave her a lowered glance, emphasizing her next point. “I encouraged you to develop a career and an independent spirit because I saw in you, even from a very young age, that you had a real fire. I wanted you to think about all your options because you had so many, but I never meant to scare you off marriage. I feel terrible that I did.”

  “Don’t, Mom.”

  As her mother sighed and then sipped her tea, Laila allowed everything to soak in. Her mom was right. Somewhere along the way—in high school? college?—she might have taken all Mom’s advice too far. She had become comfortable with being single, with being in control of life by controlling the men in it. And whenever that control threatened to break, as with her quarterback or architect, she had called it off.

  Then there was Jackson, who had thrown her for more of a loop than any of them, and ceding some of the control that she had treasured made her feel as if she was allowing herself to become weak—to give up everything she had worked so hard to earn in life, like her job, her individuality.

  “When you got married,” Laila asked, “did you ever feel as if you were becoming… Well, something other than yourself?”

  “You mean, did I feel as if Zeke was infringing on my personality and I would never have that part of myself back? Maybe. But I would’ve never become the person I am today—a person I love—if it wasn’t for Zeke. I wouldn’t give back who I am now for the world.”

  Laila drank some of her tea, realized it had gone a bit cold.

  “There’s more to it all than that, isn’t there?” Mom asked.

  “Yes.” She put down her mug. “It’s just that, for the longest time, I thought I could have it all—a career, a social life, freedom—while having men in my life. But with Jackson, I’m so afraid that I’ll have to give up some of that.”

  “And you still want it all.”

  “Yes, Mom, I do.”

  But could she have it?

  Mom said, “Truthfully, I’m not sure you can have it all—not at the same time. But I think you can find a balance as well as a lot of happiness in the effort.”

  Laila turned that over in her mind, but in her heart…

  Her heart had already decided, and that was the reason she felt ripped apart between two warring factions. She had spent too much time being stridently single to give up everything she thought was at stake this easily.

  Mom said, “Are you in love with Jackson?”

  Even after all this, she was still too afraid to say it out loud.

  Was she waiting until he said it first?

  “Ah, well,” Mom said, crossing one leg over the other as she got ready to sip from her mug again. “You don’t have to tell me. A mother can always see into her child’s heart.”

&
nbsp; “Like a crystal ball,” Laila said, trying to smile.

  “Just like that.”

  As Mom drank, Laila wondered if her mother was right—if she could see a future in which her daughter lived happily ever after with Jackson, with no regrets.

  And no heartbreak from the Texas bad boy.

  Even a couple of days later, Laila and Jackson were still doing their lying low routine, visiting each other’s homes, spending the nights in each other’s arms, going about their business as if nothing was threatening to break under the growing weight between them.

  Laila would watch him when she believed he wasn’t looking. Over dinner, on the sofa, she would silently will him to give her a sign that she could pour her soul out to him. There had been so many times when she had almost started up the conversation, but she had always chickened out.

  Her need to tell him everything was pushing at her, though, and she didn’t know how much longer she could last by staying silent.

  There were even times when she told herself that maybe this was never meant to be, and she should just let it go. Getting over him would be easy once he was gone.

  Today, she was with Dana during their lunch hour, shopping in a crafts boutique in Old Town for spangles that her friend wanted to use on her “Liberty Belle” Halloween costume. Laila was just as distracted as she had been the past couple of days, if not more.

  They were on the boardwalk, where other lunchtimers passed them.

  “Earth to Laila,” Dana said, bopping her with the craft store shopping bag.

  Laila sent a vague smile to her friend. Then she realized that Dana wasn’t going to let the subject go this time.

  “Ever since your birthday,” Dana said, “you’ve been off in the clouds.”

  “I’m here.”

  Her friend chuffed. “I see your body, but the inner Laila is AWOL.”

  Laila had spent so much time trying to sort this out herself that it was obvious she had gone into some kind of shell. It wasn’t fair to any of her friends.

  She glanced around, grabbed the sleeve of Dana’s conservative bank jacket, then pulled her off the boardwalk. Others strolled by, watching, then moving on.

  “I’ve been trying to do it,” Laila said.

  “Do…what?”

  Her heart popped in her chest. “Tell Jackson that I’m ready.”

  No other explanation was required for Dana.

  “You?” her friend asked, taking the Clark Kent glasses from their resting place on top of her head and putting them over her eyes, as if she couldn’t see straight without them.

  But Laila knew better. Those glasses were just for show in the bank.

  “Yes, me,” she said.

  Dana enfolded Laila in a big hug, squeezing her hard. When she pulled back, she cuffed at a little wet streak that had leaked from her eye.

  “Don’t mind me,” Dana said.

  Laila held her hand. “I’m not going to leave you behind. And there isn’t even a guarantee that Jackson—”

  “Oh, of course he adores you.” Dana fluttered a dramatic hand in front of her face. “It’s obvious to everyone in town that the man would swim an ocean for you, but you’re both such stubborn mules about admitting it.” She sucked in a wobbly breath. “I’m so happy for you.”

  Laila hugged her again, and from the way Dana held to her, she knew this was about more than Laila deserting her. Dana and she had gone to their first school dance together, as fluttery as new butterflies as they had waited for a boy to cross the room and talk to them. She and Dana had kept scrapbooks of their dreams and hopes.

  She was happy for Laila.

  They separated, both laughing, recovering, drawing more attention from everyone around them, but Laila didn’t care. She was a new woman after admitting this to Dana—she felt as if she could go tell Jackson right now.

  But she kept thinking that even a little pause from him, a hint that he wasn’t going to commit right back to her, would shatter her.

  So when would be the perfect time to let him know?

  Dana linked arms with Laila as they stepped back onto the boardwalk. The day had a slight chill to it, and each of them pulled her jacket and coat tighter around them.

  “Promise me,” Dana said, “that you’re not going to go all Bridezilla now.”

  “I promise.” And she meant it. After all, Mom said there could be a balance, and Laila was going to find it.

  As they strolled in the direction of a town square lunch cart to pick up something to take back to the bank, they passed the brick building where Traub Oil had its offices. Feeling a magnetic draw to it, Laila slowed her steps.

  Dana pinched her. “There’s still time on lunch break to say hi to your boyfriend. Maybe even to tell him—”

  Anxiety shook up Laila.

  “Go!” Dana gave her a tiny push and then was on her way.

  But Laila just stood there for a moment longer. Would Jackson see it on her face—that she had decided once and for all that he was the one for her?

  A niggle haunted her. What if he had already seen it before and he had chosen not to do a damn thing about it?

  She heard footsteps on the gravel behind her, and she turned to discover a mustached ranch hand in a low-riding cowboy hat, a thick flannel coat, a big silver belt buckle.

  Duncan Brooks.

  She sent him a polite smile as he awkwardly greeted her with a nod, his hands in his jeans pockets.

  “Laila,” he said.

  He barely made eye contact with her, and she felt sorry for him in a way. He was a bit of a loner, and whenever she had talked with him before, it had been a stilted experience.

  “Hello, Duncan,” she said, spying his red-and-white pickup parked near the boardwalk. There were feedbags in the back of it, and she surmised that he must have made a store run here in town.

  He didn’t go anywhere, as if he was trying to figure out how to talk to her. Laila didn’t want to be rude, so she waited him out.

  Finally, he adjusted his hat, glancing up at the Traub Oil building.

  “I don’t want to presume, but I was just wonderin’… About that Halloween party your parents put on every year… You’ll be attending that tomorrow night, won’t you?”

  She held up her bag from the crafts store. “I’m putting the finishing touches on my costume when I get home.” She had been keeping her Snow Queen outfit a secret from Jackson, and he had, in return, teased her about the costume he was putting together. She doubted he would come as anything other than what he was.

  A halo of warmth surrounded her heart.

  And it all felt nice and wonderful until Duncan cleared his throat, then said, “I was only wondering… If you would… If you needed…”

  Was he trying to ask her to the party?

  “Duncan,” she said gently, “I’m going with Jackson Traub. But we’ll see you there, right?”

  “Sure.” He had gone tense, reminding her of Cade Pritchett after she had rejected him, too. She wished these situations didn’t have to come up.

  He started to tip his hat to her but hesitated.

  Laila waited for him once more, hoping that he wasn’t going to ask her out for a different time.

  What he actually said startled her.

  “Excuse my bluntness, Laila, but I can’t believe you’re with Jackson Traub. He doesn’t respect you as you should be respected.”

  She shook her head, ready to argue. Duncan didn’t know the real Jackson.

  “He’s going to use you and throw you away,” Duncan said. “Mark my words.”

  “Why would you say that to me?”

  Duncan shuffled in his boots, but when he spoke again, it was with some conviction. “He ain’t keeping it a secret. I heard him not so long ago in the Rock Creek Diner, crowing to his cousin about how he only went after you because you’re a pretty face. And when he goes away, he’s going to do it without another thought.”

  Her legs felt brittle.

  Just a pretty fac
e…

  Jackson couldn’t have said that, much less in public, where someone like Duncan Brooks could overhear. Jackson knew how much it would wound her, because she had spilled out her soul to him about what it felt like to have people underestimate her. He had even told her to go out there and kick butt.

  He had cared. He had changed from that bad boy who probably would have run around town being so callous.

  Hadn’t he?

  Duncan saw her doubt, and he took off his hat and held it over his heart. “I’m so sorry, Laila. I just thought it was fair to let you know.”

  He gave her one last sympathetic glance before putting his hat back on and walking away toward his pickup.

  Numb, Laila didn’t move. The man who had charmed her, snuck his way into her heart, where no one had ever been before…

  According to Duncan, that man had said that about her.

  She still couldn’t believe it, because if he had said it, it would mean that, all this time, he had only taken what he wanted from her, setting her up for the big fall when, after he left, he wouldn’t have to stick around to pick up the pieces. He had been every bad thing anyone had ever said about him.

  Worse yet, had Jackson really ever seen anything in her but her looks?

  As the numbness went from her chest all through her body, she had to wonder if she would ever be more to anyone than a Barbie doll.

  A trophy that a bad boy would grab and leave behind when the shininess wore off.

  Chest tight, hardly able to breathe, she looked at the brick Traub Oil building, but the stinging blur of her gaze made it hard to see much more than a big, slashed red heart.

  Jackson had been standing by his tinted office window for about ten minutes now as he talked on the speakerphone with his twin, Jason, who had called him just to catch up.

  But it was hard to concentrate on a phone call when he could see Laila down below, near the oak-laced town square. She and Dana were down there, and he wondered if Laila was going to come into the building.

  In anticipation, his pulse twirled, imitating the swirly candle he had put on her birthday cake the other night.

  Just remembering how it had felt to see her so happy at a simple gesture—one he had made so easily—swept him away again.