Enchanted by the Rodeo Queen--A Clean Romance

by Melinda Curtis

  “The situation with Aria is complicated.” Bo leaned on the porch railing, staring out over the calm lake.

  “Emotions often are.”

  Bo smiled. “Like you’d know. Listen to yourself. Emotions.” He put the word in air quotes. “Just say what it is. Love. You write about it enough, but I don’t hear it dropping from that run-on mouth of yours so often. If ever.”

  “I know what love is.” Technically. “And I’ve seen first-hand how Hollywood ambition and love don’t mix. But even when you know what it is and what it feels like, there’s a point where you have to separate love for a person from being in love with a person.”

  Bo glared.

  “You love Aria,” Jonah continued, because they should have had this conversation months ago. “I get it. I loved her, too. And she loved us. Remember that? She loved both of us.” Jonah pointed back and forth between them. “Whatever hang-ups Aria has, she has to work them out alone.”

  “She is alone,” Bo said gruffly.

  Jonah’s jaw dropped. It took him a moment to gather his thoughts. “So it didn’t work out for her again.”

  “No.”

  Intelligent, fragile, artistic Aria was once more alone. And Bo loved her. Present tense. Jonah could see it in his eyes.

  There was trouble brewing back in Texas.

  Who was Jonah kidding? It was brewing here in Second Chance.

  Jonah stared up at his cousin. “Grandpa Harlan would say we love who we love.” The old man had been an expert, having loved four women enough to marry them and having had three of those marriages fall apart. “But this...” It felt like Aria had built a web and snagged Bo in it.

  “I’m leaving in the morning.” Bo jutted his chin.

  “Or you could wait,” Jonah said carefully. “Test the waters with someone else. Just to see if what you feel for Aria can only be felt for Aria.” To know that he loved her and only her.

  What a stupid, stupid idea.

  Bo didn’t immediately call it out as such.

  Jonah was relieved. Not because he loved Aria—he most definitely did not—but because Aria wasn’t good enough for Bo. Not in this lifetime and not in the next.

  “Maybe you’re right. But I don’t need to take Emily out to test for the possibility of love between us.” Bo sighed. “Any guy can spot attraction if he looks for it. I’ll just hang out at their place for an hour or two tomorrow and see if sparks fly. But I’m telling you, they won’t.”

  That was a darn good idea. A darn good idea. So, why didn’t Jonah like it? Maybe it was the fact that Emily’s kiss banked a fire inside him, waiting to flame. So, why was he pressing the idea? Oh yeah. Em wanted a cowboy and a ranch. Bo could give both to her. So Jonah lied. “Hanging out won’t cut it. I kind of promised her a week or so ago that I’d get you to take her on a date.”

  “What a stupid, irresponsible promise.” Bo went inside the cabin and slammed the door behind him.

  Selfish relief cascaded through Jonah’s veins.

  A second later, the door swung open. “I’ll do it but from now on, keep your matchmaking in your scripts.” Bo slammed the door once more.

  Jonah stood, gathering his resolve and his regrets, holding his water bottle between two fingers. It fell, of course, clattering down the steps to the dirt.

  Kind of like his original plans.

  Which plans? you might ask.

  All of them.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “I DON’T HAVE time to play games, Jonah.” Emily was up in the loft making room for the ranch’s regular hay delivery, sweeping out snippets of old straw to fall to the breezeway below.

  Jonah had stayed away from her for days, only to come back urging her to visit Bo? Talk about adding insult to injury.

  “I feel obligated to deliver on what I initially promised you.” Jonah stood on the ladder beneath Emily, brushing hay from his red hair. “You wanted a cowboy and it just so happens there’s an unmarried one in the vicinity.”

  Emily bit back a groan. “I’d rather not live through a repeat of that breakfast you set up for me.”

  “It won’t be like that,” Jonah assured her, staring up at Emily with a serious look on his face. “He won’t be rushing to eat in order to finish working on those cabins. The cabins are ninety-nine percent done. He’s practically a man of leisure now.”

  “I’m not a woman of leisure.” And Mr. Bodilicious no longer fit the framework of her dreams.

  “What’s thirty minutes here or there?” Jonah made a come-hither gesture. “The days are longer. It’s not like you have to rush to get things done before nightfall. And Zeke’s back. You said yourself that takes a load off.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Zeke entered the barn, leading his horse. He tilted his hat brim up with his left hand, the one flashing that new wedding ring of his.

  Envy made a sour dash through her veins.

  “Yes.” Jonah climbed down. “I want to steal Emily away for a bit. You can cover for her, can’t you?”

  “He can’t,” Emily insisted, annoyed with Jonah. “This is his lunch break. I need to finish here and then start training some of our young bulls in the arena with Franny.” Em swept hay into a pile near the top step of the ladder. “And later, Tina’s coming by to practice her competition skills.”

  “Come on.” Jonah glanced from Zeke to Emily. “You have time to take Bo some lemonade made by your grandmother. I was just inside and had a taste.”

  “Gertie’s lemonade.” Zeke tied his horse near her stall. “That’ll go good with my lunch.”

  “See?” Jonah tried to grin.

  “Oh, Jonah.” Emily stared at the man, willing herself to hold his intense blue gaze and not think about kisses or hunkiness or frog princes. “I can spare a little time. It’s just that with you it’s never just shuttling lemonade down the road.”

  “This won’t take long. I promise.” Jonah made that come-hither gesture again with his hand and although it was lighthearted, his smile seemed forced. “You should try that new dress, maybe a little makeup, a spritz of perfume...”

  “And then we’re talking an hour out of my day, not just a neighborly thirty-minute jaunt.” Emily tugged off her thick gloves and climbed down the ladder because it was easier to get this over with than to argue with him.

  By the time she reached the ground, Zeke had left.

  “Em, don’t look so glum.” Jonah was like Adam, running on ahead toward the house and waving at her to follow. “Do you know what my grandfather used to say about missed opportunities?”

  “No.” She took off her hat and dusted her blue jeans with it as she followed him.

  Jonah walked backward across the ranch yard, still wearing that strained smile. How she wanted to kiss him until he grinned for real. “Sometimes a missed opportunity is the difference between five minutes and five excuses,” he said.

  “I don’t want to offend you, Jonah, but your grandfather and his sayings are beginning to annoy me.”

  “You can’t feel the true sting of Grandpa Harlan’s insight unless he delivered one of his pearls of wisdom right after you’d embarrassed yourself.” His false grin dimmed. “And since he’s gone, you’ll just have to humor me when I quote him. It keeps him alive here.” He tapped a spot over his heart and ascended the front porch steps, pausing at the top to turn back and reach for her hand. “Now, let’s get into the spirit of the exercise.”

  Emily sighed. “All right.” She took his hand, telling herself to ignore the way it fit snugly around hers, and marched up the stairs. Her odds were much better for long-term happiness with Bo. That was her head talking.

  Without another word, Jonah opened the door for her. And held on to her hand down the hall and...

  Emily turned, laying a palm on his chest. “That’s as far as you’re coming. I’ve got it from here.”

/>   He stared at her as if she was a sacrificial lamb in a flock he tended.

  Impulsively, she stretched up on her toes and touched her lips to his.

  “I’ll be okay.” Emily closed the door behind her and stared at the burgundy dress she’d bought in Ketchum. She felt so pretty in it. Confident. Capable. Attractive. She wished she was wearing it for Jonah. And then she stared at the box of shoes resting on the floor beneath it. The heels were completely impractical for walking across a meadow. Suede booties. What if there was still dew in the grass? They might be ruined. Wearing them was a risk, but reaching for dreams was risky, too.

  What if Jonah’s scheme worked? What if Bo asked her out?

  Her heart might be ruined.

  * * *

  “YOU LOOK...” JONAH frowned at Emily when she emerged from her room a few minutes later. “You’re wearing cowboy boots?”

  “I am.” Hardening her resolve, Emily grabbed the keys to a ranch truck off a hook, her cowboy hat and the thermos he handed her. Her eyelashes felt stiff from too many coats of mascara and her pink boots rang like thunder on the floorboards. “I’ll be back in a few, Granny.”

  “Don’t hurry.” Her grandmother winked. “Franny and the boys will be back soon. Trees are hard to come by around these parts. Best bark when you can, as loud and as long as you can.”

  Em groaned. Gertie and her metaphors.

  “Hey, wait for me.” Jonah was hot on her heels.

  Emily turned once more, touched Jonah once more. This time a brief palm to shoulder—her palm, his shoulder. There was no impulsive zing to kiss him, thank heavens. “It’s time to let your little birdie fly on its own.”

  Crash and burn on my own, too.

  Emily didn’t have high hopes for this fool’s errand.

  And by the looks of him, Jonah didn’t, either. “But—”

  “No buts.”

  Amazingly, that was the end of his argument. Jonah stood on the porch and watched her drive off.

  Down at the lake camp, Emily marched across the meadow toward a cabin where she could hear country music playing.

  “Hello?” She knocked on the front door frame.

  “Yeah?” Bo came out of a back bedroom carrying a box of light bulbs. A frown flickered across his face so fast she thought she’d imagined it. “Oh, hey, Emily. Can I help you?”

  Staring at the floorboards, Emily entered the main room and held up the thermos. “I brought you lemonade. My grandmother feels like she needs to extend her hospitality your way, even though this isn’t our land.” She thrust the beverage at him.

  “Thanks.” Bo accepted her gift and set it in a cooler.

  Somewhere in the room, a large fly buzzed about his business.

  Emily should be getting about her own, too. But not without a weak attempt at winning Bo. “How’s it going?” She pretended to be interested in his progress, but she was concentrating on not looking him in the eye and listening for the grumble of a hay truck engine.

  “Things are good,” Bo said in that deep voice of his. He could have been the nighttime radio announcer on the Lonely Hearts channel. “I’m looking forward to seeing kids take over the place for a week or two. I might even stay to serve as a camp counselor.”

  What a nice guy.

  “It’s kind of you to help Shane.” There was a scuff on the toe of Emily’s pink boot.

  Bo scoffed. “I’m more likely to consider myself Shane’s blackmail victim. But since my dad fired me, I was just sitting on the beach in South Padre Island, going a little bonkers without anything to occupy my days.”

  This was possibly the most words Bo had spoken to Emily ever. She risked a glance at his face.

  He’s looking at me!

  “I like to keep busy, too.” Sucking in air, she half turned to the door. “Look at the time.” Shoot. She’d left her cell phone in the truck and there was no clock on the wall. “Hey, I won’t keep you any longer.” She hurried out the door and down the steps.

  “Emily.” Bo’s deep voice should’ve thrilled her, should’ve had her turning and smiling.

  Emily gasped for air and looked over her shoulder, not quite meeting his gaze. “Yes?”

  “Why don’t we have dinner together sometime?” Bo rubbed a hand over his face as if he’d gotten the tough part of the conversation over with, the part he’d been dreading. Not exactly the sign of a man eager to have dinner with a woman. “Say tomorrow night at the Bent Nickel? I’ll pick you up around five thirty?”

  “Sure.” Emily spun back around, marching toward her truck on shaky legs. Good thing she hadn’t worn heels.

  I have a date with Bo.

  Her ears rang so loud she didn’t hear the hay truck until it was past her and lumbering up the hill.

  * * *

  JONAH WAS POUNDING away on his keyboard on his practice rom-com script when a large truck stacked with hay pulled into the Bucking Bull’s ranch yard, followed by Emily in her truck.

  Her expression was grim as she ran into the farmhouse. He’d bet anything she’d struck out with Bo again. Poor thing. This was going to take some smoothing over. Maybe he’d borrow a ranch truck and take her into town to buy ice cream.

  And if he gave her a hug of sympathy...and if that hug led to more than a quick buss of lips... And if she needed soothing today...

  Jonah bolted out of his chair, prepared to make an ice cream run.

  Gertie lowered her knitting to her lap when he entered the farmhouse, and then closed her music box. “What are you up to?”

  Jonah pressed a finger to his lips and went to knock on Emily’s closed bedroom door. “Hey, how’d it go? Wanna go into town and have an ice cream?”

  “Ye of little faith.” Emily flung open the door, having changed into the jeans and chambray work shirt she’d had on earlier. “Your magic worked. I have a dinner date tomorrow.”

  Jonah’s jaw dropped.

  She edged past him and beat him to the foyer where she yanked on her boots and mashed her cowboy hat on her head.

  Jonah followed, leaned against the wall, trying to get a bead on her mood. There was no excitement. No gushing. No cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “You don’t have to sound like you’re going to a funeral.”

  “I’m busy, Jonah.” Emily banged out the door. “My hay order is here.” She marched away in that purposeful gait of hers, each step away from him like a stomp on his heart.

  “Be careful what you wish for, young man,” Gertie said from the living room. She’d picked up her knitting. Her needles clacked.

  “This is what I wished for. It’s what’s best for...for both of them.” But his words felt hollow.

  Outside, Emily made small talk with the driver. Zeke came out of the barn to join them. They laughed.

  Jonah swallowed thickly. “Emily doesn’t want a man like me.” She wanted a man like Bo. Someone who could give her life a deeper meaning and purpose. Small town living. Cattle and horses. Puppies and kidlets.

  “My granddaughter is perfectly capable of deciding what’s best for her.” Gertie smirked. “I can’t say the same about you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  But would he be when he left Second Chance?

  His phone rang. It was his agent. Jonah stepped outside to take the call, hurrying down the porch.

  Maury didn’t waste any time. “I fielded two calls today from studios looking for romantic comedies. They want scripts, but they’ll take treatments. What have you got for me?”

  “I’m still vested in the Western,” Jonah said unconvincingly, crossing the ranch yard. “Isn’t anyone interested in the treatment I wrote for that?” He grimaced. He’d written that story summary when he’d thought Mike Moody was a killer.

  “Unless you’re going to produce and direct that Western yourself, there’s no market for it. I should know, I’ve as
ked.”

  “You did?” Maury had been anything but supportive of the Mike Moody project.

  “Darn straight, I asked. I looked up the box office gross on the last three successful Westerns. Big money.” Now Maury’s interest made sense. “Not to mention they do well during awards season.”

  Jonah entered the bunkhouse and closed the door behind him.

  “But those Westerns?” Maury paused to sip something, not that it made his gravelly voice any smoother. “They were all passion projects. Written, produced and directed by brand-name directors.” He drew a noisy breath. “I gotta be honest. Your project has the stink. I told you, I don’t want you to have the stink, too. Give me teenage rom-coms. I can sell those.”

  Jonah sat down on his bunk. Hard. “I don’t want to write them anymore. I don’t want to be that guy anymore.”

  “What guy?”

  “I want to be on the list people consider for the most interesting projects.” Not the studio hack who could take an okay idea and make it into a vehicle for a star to do in her spare time on summer break.

  Apologies to my sister.

  Because he’d done that a lot for her.

  “Jonah, you gotta know. You’re just not that guy.” Maury was a lot of things, but he was brutally honest. “All your stuff... It’s based on your experiences and those of your family. Those wacky siblings and cousins of yours. You’ve never written a story like this Western, one with a gritty premise. And I’d never expect you to, either.”

  Maury’s words slammed home with cold certainty. The truth bent Jonah’s shoulders. It shattered his lifelong dreams. It broke his heart.

  Because it was true. Because he’d written teenage sitcoms for Ashley. Teenage movies for Ashley. He’d been casting shade on her talent, but he might just as well cast doubt on his own.

  Dad was right.

  “Don’t get me wrong, Jonah. You’re great at what you do,” Maury continued. “So you should write what you know and only what you know.”

  The romance he’d written about Bo... The rom-com he’d written about Emily... They weren’t teen fare, but he’d written them based on his experiences, his first-hand observations. And they were good. Maury and his father were right. He had a talent for this kind of thing.