The Cowboy Says I Do

by Sinclair Jayne

  “No, I feel good.” Sky sparkled with happiness. She brushed her knuckles along her husband’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  Then she turned to Ashni as her husband tipped his hat to them both and walked off.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s me,” Ashni confessed. “I love him. I want to be with him. But I don’t trust him.” The confession whooshed out of her with a rush of clarity, and she sat down abruptly.

  “Trust?” Sky echoed.

  “I don’t trust his feelings for me,” she clarified.

  “He loves you,” Sky said. “You’ve been together since high school. And I saw him with you today at the rodeo—the way he looks at you when you’re speaking—total attention. The way he watches out for you—bringing you snacks, helping you with your scarf or coat, the way he watches you—that’s love. Is he upset about the baby?”

  “He hopped right on board with the baby,” Ashni said glumly. “Tonight he tried to propose—again, and he said he’s quitting the tour.”

  “And that’s bad?” Sky seemed to be trying to keep her voice and expression neutral, but she failed.

  Ashni sighed. Beck thought she was being unreasonable. Her new friend thought so too although she was too polite to come out and say anything. What would Reeva think? No way would she bother Reeva on her honeymoon for a late-night heart-to-miserable-heart.

  “I want him to love me for me,” she admitted. “He didn’t propose to me after years of being together and loving—” she used air quotes “—each other or quit the tour until the baby. I feel like I’m not enough.”

  There. She’d said it. Out in the open.

  Sky stared at her, compassion in every expression that skidded across her expressive eyes, and the slim lines of her body. Sky leaned forward and pulled her into a fierce hug.

  “Let’s take a walk,” she said. “I want to tell you about me and Kane.”

  “Kane adores you. His eyes and whole face light up when you enter a room. Every time you speak, he stops what he’s doing and listens.” Ashni sighed.

  “That was my point about Beck earlier,” Sky said wryly, sliding her arm through Ashni’s and walking slowly around the perimeter of the tables. “Like you, I knew Kane when I was a kid. He was my brother’s best friend. My parents weren’t very warm for a lot of reasons I’ll tell you about another time, but I worshipped my brother, who was older by about four years. He let me tag along with him and Kane a lot, and how many twelve-year-old boys can you say that about? Kane was always nice to me, but one day, I was watching them get ready to go swimming and Kane was wearing a pair of my brother’s board shorts, and he was staring at the pool, and he was so still and angry-looking, hungry, and something inside me just cracked open.”

  “Puberty is the downfall of many women,” Ashni said, remembering the exact moment her friendship with Beck suddenly became something else—mind-blowing, disturbing and thrilling.

  “Anyway. I crushed hard and forever and then one year after my brother had died and I was in my first year of college and Kane was on the tour, he stopped by to see me and well, I ended up spending the summer with him on the tour. I knew it was temporary. He was clear that he hopefully would head into the finals while I would go back to the school in the fall. Of course for me, I was in over my head in love, but didn’t dare tell him. I was never brave enough to ask him about his feelings for me or if we could see each other again. And I didn’t dare tell him that I loved him. He felt like my whole world. I would have given up school for him and followed him on the tour in a heartbeat.” She snapped her fingers.

  Ashni saw where this was going. She’d felt the same. Her dad and mom had pushed medical school since she was in kindergarten. Talked about it like it was a done deal, and while she’d excelled in science and enjoyed it, she found her happy place with dancing and art and theater. And Beck. She hadn’t wanted to break up or spend years apart in four more years of school and another four or five in residency. It hadn’t seemed worth it, and she still had no regrets.

  “What changed your mind? Did he come after you?” Ashni could picture it. The images in her mind practically had a swelling soundtrack.

  “No. Not for years.”

  “What?” Ashni couldn’t imagine Kane walking away from anything or anyone he wanted.

  “I was afraid. I wanted him to do all the heavy lifting. I was so insecure because of my family.” Sky waved that all away. “My point is, if I had told Kane that I loved him, that I wanted to stay with him, he would have agreed. He felt the same way, but he didn’t want to interfere with my education. So he said nothing and dropped me off with a smile at the airport and missed me like crazy, and I missed him more. I didn’t tell him I was expecting Montana. At least you didn’t make that dumb mistake. He missed out on three years of her life.”

  They stopped walking. Sky looked toward the table where so many of her family members were sitting and chatting. As if magnetically aware of his wife, Kane Wilder stopped talking and looked at her. He smiled, and she smiled back, and Ashni felt as if she were on a different planet from them.

  Beck had always made her feel that way—that they were alone and connected in their own world.

  “Even when he tried to visit after a couple of months, I was too proud and pushed him away. I didn’t want him to marry me out of guilt or responsibility about Montana.”

  “Exactly,” Ashni said.

  “But emotions aren’t set in stone,” Sky said. “Even if he had married me because of the baby, we would have grown together or maybe apart. But by me being afraid, Montana missed out on three years with her daddy, and he missed out on her birth and infancy. I can’t give that back to him no matter how many kids we have.”

  The lump of guilt in Ashni’s throat was big and bumpy as a toad.

  “When he learned about Montana, he was so angry and so hurt. I did that to him and to our child because of my insecurities and fears.”

  Ashni frowned. “But you’re both happy.”

  “Blissful. Montana now has a mom and dad, siblings and a huge extended family. Your child will have that with Beck and his family. And you’ll have that with Beck.”

  “So you think I should just agree and marry him and not worry about the why of it?”

  “I think you should open your heart,” Sky said cautiously. “Give Beck and the idea of marriage a chance.”

  “I’ve been feeling so proud of myself for asserting more independence and building a new life,” Ashni admitted.

  “You can create a life you are happy in. You can work and create and volunteer and be a mom and a wife. I do all of that. Do you want to be alone to prove a point?”

  Ashni sucked in a deep breath. Put like that, the answer was no. No. No. No.

  “Relationships are organic. They change. You don’t know what your relationship will grow into once the baby arrives and you and Beck marry and settle in Marietta. And marriage is just the start of your life together. It’s not a destination.”

  “I feel like I just gave and gave until I had nothing left,” Ashni said sadly. Although that wasn’t entirely true either. She hadn’t asked Beck for anything in return.

  “So you’ve made a move to change,” Sky said, turning them back toward her family. “Now you need to let Beck make his move to change with you.”

  “And maybe we’ll meet somewhere in the middle,” Ashni mused, feeling a leap of hope that she hadn’t felt in a long time.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Beck hadn’t had much of an appetite for the pancakes, but his mom and aunts and granddad had wanted to come to the annual rodeo pancake breakfast, which had surprised him. So he’d played dutiful son and grandson. He’d brought the plates of pancakes and bacon to the table. He also brought everyone a large drip coffee before he finally sat down to stare at his stack, glistening with butter and dripping with syrup.

  His stomach revolted, but his granddad dug enthusiastically into the food and happily talked about the Bash tonight. Hi
s mom and aunts chatted—all the details were finished, and they were going to watch the finals, a fact that Beck found hard to believe, but he kept that thought, like everything else in his life, locked up tight.

  He stared across the park with the sea of people and the tables with blue tablecloths and families eating, laughing, so much life.

  Bowen and Bodhi arrived and lined up—Langston and Nico chatting like old friends.

  “No Ashni this morning?” his mom asked.

  “No.”

  He didn’t have an excuse. He waited for his mom to weigh in with some dismissive remark.

  “What’s wrong?” And for once, heavy judgment didn’t weigh down her question.

  Everything. Nothing. Both words vied for an exit strategy from his mouth, but instead he pushed his plate away. The coffee he could maybe keep down.

  “She wants to break up,” he admitted. “She’s angry I waited so long to ask her to marry me.”

  “Why did you wait? It’s not like you didn’t adore that girl from the moment you met her.” His mom, her coffee cup halfway to her lips, paused and looked at him. Some of what he felt must have been in her expression. “Ah. Yes. I can imagine my parade of husbands was hardly a conducive example to wedded bliss.” She rolled her eyes. “At least I was persistently and consistent in my disasters.” She grimaced, and it was the most self-aware moment from his high-powered, driven mother that Beck could remember.

  “Do you want to marry her?”

  “Yes.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  And that was the crux of it. He didn’t know. And his mom with four marriages under her belt was hardly the person to ask for advice. Should he tell her about the baby? No. Not now. The baby should be celebrated. Not admitted to like some guilty secret. And not when he had no idea where he stood with Ash. He knew he had to fight for her. He just didn’t know how, and if he let himself play out the worst-case scenario, he saw himself in front of a judge begging for partial custody of his own child, and he just couldn’t let his mind go there. He’d be destroyed.

  “Women are complicated,” his mom mused, much to Beck’s growing astonishment. She’d always dismissed his problems with a wave of her hand because she was too busy. His problems were too small, beneath her notice. She’d snap out a solution and move on.

  “They want love. They want romance. They want to be taken outside of themselves. Transformed into someone new by love. They want a fantasy that they can float around in where they are loved and cherished and everything glows.”

  Beck stared at his mom. That didn’t sound like Ashni at all.

  “At least I was like that,” his mom said. “I wanted this mirage, but life is hard and reality cold and the mirage would always implode, and I was myself again. Alone.”

  “Was that so bad to be yourself?”

  “It must have been. I lost each one of my husbands. Drove them right out the door,” his mom admitted. “Drove you out too.”

  That was true, but Beck now saw it from his mom’s perspective—wanting something that the other person was unable or unwilling to give.

  “You pushed so hard,” he said. “I was never good enough.”

  “You were always better than good enough,” his mom said. “I just wanted you to be strong. Achieve your potential. I was worried that you would settle because you didn’t have a fire under your feet. Ashni has always looked at you as if you hung the stars and moon for her—Dad used to say that about our mom. That she thought he decorated the sky for her, and he would have if he could. He was the most loving man I ever met.” She smiled at her father. “I never found another man even close. You’re like that. Ashni is very blessed. I hope she realizes that.”

  Beck blinked. His mom had never complimented him that he could remember. Ever. And she’d never mentioned her parents’ marriage.

  “Maybe Ashni just found Mr. Right too soon so she doesn’t know what she has. You should show her. Fight for her.”

  Beck sipped his coffee for a few more moments. “I intend to,” he said. “Just trying to think of a strategy.”

  “Make it a game.” His mother didn’t look at him, but her lips curved in a smile. “You and your cousins always excel at games. My sisters and I are still always trying to one-up each other. And Dad doesn’t stand on the sidelines,” she said affectionately.

  “Ugh, no,” he groaned. If his mom only knew. “Making a game out of winning her back is the last thing Ashni needs.”

  “I don’t know, she’s fairly competitive,” his mom said. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Hey, Beck.” Ashni’s voice jump-started his heart. “Do you have a moment?”

  *

  Nothing like opening up your heart in front of the town. Ashni switched her weight from side to side and gripped her fingers together as she stood behind Beck at the pancake breakfast. So many of the tables were already full, and the Daughters of Montana volunteers were still cooking pancakes and bacon on massive griddles. She wanted to flee, but she’d screwed up, and she had to own it, and she had to confess her feelings and her fears before Beck competed today so his head would be clear.

  “Sure.” He popped to his feet, sending relief washing through her.

  He looked a little haggard, as if he’d slept as poorly as she had.

  “Hi.” Ashni waved as Beck’s mom and his aunts smiled and greeted her. His granddad patted the empty place next to him and told Beck to go get her a plate.

  “I will, Granddad, but we’re going to take a walk first.” He lightly wrapped his arm around her and steered her through the crowd.

  “Do you want me to get you some pancakes?”

  She was having a hard enough time with this. Eating something would definitely be a disaster for her queasy stomach.

  “I want to apologize,” she said in a rush as they headed away from the crowds and around to the other side of the courthouse so that they weren’t on the path leading to the fairgrounds.

  “You don’t…”

  “I do.” She placed her hand on his chest. His heartbeat was steady and that gave her courage. “I’ve been all over the map this week emotionally.”

  Massive understatement.

  “A lot of changes,” Beck said—accepting, steadying like he always was. Her throat clogged with emotion and her eyes pricked.

  “You’re right. I should have confronted you when I was hurt. I should have shared that I was tired of touring. I should have insisted we keep the dog. I should have told you about the job offer. So many mistakes to keep the peace.”

  “Water under the bridge,” he said.

  “No. Because I was hurt and angry but didn’t do anything about it. I let it fester, and I closed off. But really, it started before that. You re-upped for the tour without discussing it with me, and instead of calling you on it and telling you how I felt, I started shutting myself off from you.”

  “I felt that. All year I felt it,” Beck admitted. “I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t ask you what was wrong.”

  “I’ve been blaming you for our lack of communication,” Ashni said. “But it’s been me too, and I think I have a bigger role to play because I recognized what was happening, and I let it. I felt self-righteous about it, and I think Reeva’s wedding, when you didn’t come with me, just made all of my resentment blow up. I felt you valued the rodeo and your points more than me.”

  “Ash,” he said. “No.”

  She dragged in a deep breath. “It was easier to blame you for my unhappiness instead of myself.”

  She held on to his hands that were so large and warm and callused from hard work. They always steadied her. She gazed into his beloved sky-blue eyes.

  “I realized last night that I was acting like my mother. She’s so passive sometimes. She won’t share her hurts or anger or disappointments and instead withdraws and then just strikes fast and retreats like an eel. It maddened me when I was a teenager, and I swore that I would be stronger than that—that I would be emot
ionally honest with myself and with you and I would be an active participant in my life, and yet when I hit my first hurdle really, I did the same thing—shut you out and looked to place the blame on someone else. I’m sorry, Beck. So very sorry. You deserve better.”

  He rubbed her chilled hands in his. “It’s not all on you, Ash,” Beck said. “I can see why you thought I valued the rodeo more than you. I did get obsessive about the points, always comparing myself to my cousins. And I didn’t come to you to talk about my worries about Bodhi this year. And I never confessed how much my mom and her string of failed marriages bothered me. Or how her endless criticisms just kept flaying pieces off of me. I pretended nothing hurt when it did. I didn’t want to look weak to you because you always looked at me with stars in your eyes, and I loved that. I needed that.”

  “I still do,” she said shakily.

  “Ash.” He pulled her into his embrace, and he felt so good—so warm and strong and Beck that she just clung to him. “We’ve both made mistakes, but we can learn from them. Communicate better.”

  “We’ll need to,” she mumbled against his so strong chest. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about the job at the public health department in Crawford County. I was afraid you’d talk me out of it, and I really, really needed a change and to feel like I was doing something for myself, not just always have your goals as a top priority.”

  “We can share our goals and support each other.” He made it sound so simple, and maybe it was. She just had to stand up for herself and what she wanted more. Not defer and resent as her mother had so often done.

  “Teaching at Harry’s House this week has made me realize how much I want to work with kids and have art in my life as well. I do want to work at the public health department. That’s important to me, but I also want to have time for my own art and to volunteer at Harry’s House.”

  “I want you to have those things. That’s why I quit the tour, and it wasn’t just because of the baby,” he said. “Look.” He scrolled through his phone and showed her the sent email to the tour.

  “The date.” Her breath caught. “That was before I told you about the baby,” she said, her heart feeling like a balloon that had been released.