Secret Nights with a Cowboy

by Caitlin Crews

  Once upon a time, Rae and Amanda had been close. Amanda had told her everything. Rae had been her older brother’s girlfriend and then his wife. They’d been family—until Rae had moved out.

  But Rae wasn’t going to trot out her list of losses.

  Not today. Today was about moving on.

  “There have to be places to live in town that aren’t connected to the Coyote,” Abby said, shaking her head at Hope. “I heard Theresa Galace rents out that little renovated cottage behind her house from time to time.”

  Little Bart fussed a bit, and Abby extended her hands as if to pluck him away from Hope—who only frowned and adjusted how she held him. Bart was a sturdy, adorable little boy who still conked out like an infant and was happy enough to be carted around by his mother and her friends. Until he wasn’t.

  He made Rae’s heart hurt.

  “Obviously, Hope and I can’t comment on the urge to move out,” Abby said, shifting in her desk chair. “I only moved once, and not only was it from the house I grew up in to my husband’s house, his house is next door. There are some miles from door to door, sure. But it’s not really the same thing as moving out, is it?”

  “I like to think that I’ve lived in two homes,” Hope said, rocking Bart as she held him. “The house I grew up in that my mother and aunt ruled with humorless iron fists, and the more relaxed house my sisters and I now enjoy.” She considered that. “Relatively more relaxed.”

  “It’s the same house,” Rae couldn’t help herself from saying.

  “The same walls,” Hope agreed. “But believe me, a different house altogether.”

  “Anyway,” Rae continued as if they’d never gone off on these tangents, “I think it’s time. Past time.”

  “Does it make sense for you to move all the way into town?” Abby asked. “I know the shop is here, but all the greenhouses are way out in the far valley. You’ll spend your entire life on the road.”

  Rae shrugged. “I already do. And also, Matias can do the greenhouse-to-shop run more often. It won’t kill him.” She looked back and forth between her friends, who were both looking studiously blank, and sighed. “I want to completely change my life. Make it absolutely unrecognizable from anything it’s ever been before.”

  She’d kind of expected girl power cries and perhaps the odd parade, but again, her friends … paused.

  “That sounds a lot like a midlife crisis,” Hope said after a moment.

  “It sounds amazing,” Abby contradicted her, a little bit sternly.

  Rae eyed Hope. “Thank you, Abby.”

  “You might as well get a shiny little convertible and a twenty-year-old, blond girlfriend,” Hope continued, her eyes gleaming. “That always ends well.”

  Rae slumped in her seat, her heart kicking at her. “I’m not having a midlife crisis. Possibly because I’m not middle-aged, thank you, Hope. I don’t want a convertible or twenty-year-old girlfriend. I just want to feel … different.” It shocked her how hard it was to say that. And then to keep going, when she was so used to tamping everything down and keeping it to herself it was almost a reflex by now. “Like this is the start of a brand-new me.”

  Abby smiled. “I like the sound of that.”

  “You can be brand new in a sweet little convertible, though, can’t you?” But Hope laughed as she said it.

  Rae found herself sitting up straighter. Almost as if she’d thought her friends would slap her down. Almost as if she’d wanted them to argue her out of this. But she shook that off. And prepared to tell them at least some part of what she should have told them all along.

  “I decided what my life was going to be like when I was fourteen years old,” she said, carefully and deliberately, here in the confessional of the back room of the coffeehouse. Even though it made her a little light-headed. “Work at the Flower Pot. Or out in the greenhouses.” She sucked in a breath and reminded herself that this was a day of joy and truths—hard or otherwise. That meant she had to stop pretending a huge chunk of her life hadn’t happened. “Marry Riley Kittredge.”

  She wasn’t surprised to see Hope’s and Abby’s eyes widen. They looked at each other for a long moment. Then they looked back at her, their expressions notably bland.

  “It’s okay,” Rae made herself say, because it needed to start being okay. Right now. She was making it okay. “We can talk about it. Him. Riley.”

  It was like stripping naked to just … say his name like that. It reminded her of back in high school when he was all she’d talked about, ever. When it seemed everyone she knew, and certainly her best friends, were as involved in her relationship as she was.

  She’d found it hard to shift away from all that discussion when her marriage was good. And then, when it wasn’t good, there was a part of her that had almost been embarrassed that she’d let everyone down by not being the perfect happily-ever-after story she was supposed to be. Today, everything felt a bit like a bruise. She told herself that was growth.

  “This feels like a trap,” Hope muttered.

  Abby didn’t say anything.

  “So. Uh.” Rae cleared her throat and tried to ignore the commotion in her stomach. And the way her heart was pounding at her. “Riley and I are getting divorced.”

  Then she sat there, trying not to squirm. She might have actually imploded from the strain of all that stunned silence had Bart not started fussing again. Little Bart, who had caused this without even knowing it, simply by existing. Rae found her hand on her belly without realizing she’d moved it.

  It was a relief when Hope stood, transferring Bart to his mother so Abby could soothe him. It took the tension out of the room. Or delayed it, anyway.

  But then the little boy was snuggled on his mama’s lap and everything was quiet again, and Rae couldn’t think of a single reason she hadn’t made a run for it while she could. It was one thing to grandly decide that she intended to change her life and start by talking about the one subject she’d always, vehemently declared off-limits. It was something else to actually do it.

  “So, to clarify,” Hope began in an overly calm voice that put Rae’s teeth on edge. “This whole time … you’ve still been married to him? You didn’t get divorced years ago?”

  There were approximately five million ways she could answer that question. Rae opted for the most direct answer, ripping off that Band-Aid. “No.”

  Hope looked at her for what seemed like a very, very long time. Then she looked over at Abby.

  “Pay up,” she said, and cackled.

  “I don’t believe this.” Abby groaned. “I was sure she kept the divorce secret because she didn’t want to give all the gossips more ammunition.”

  “My money was on a secret marriage the whole time,” Hope crowed. “Come on, Abby. With the books you read all the time? You should have known better.”

  Abby shook her head sadly. “I’m deeply disappointed in myself.”

  Rae, meanwhile, couldn’t decide if she felt outraged or stunned or something in between as her two best friends in the entire world continued to laugh. At her busted-up marriage. Abby dug around in her desk drawer, pulling out a ten-dollar bill. She slapped it down on her desk, and Hope swiped it up triumphantly.

  “I knew it!” she cried again.

  “Are you kidding me?” Rae asked. A little more stung than she was prepared to admit. “You bet on my life?”

  “Just because you didn’t talk about you and Riley doesn’t mean we didn’t,” Hope replied, looking completely unbothered as she settled herself back down on her side of the couch.

  “But now that you’re talking about him again,” Abby chimed in, clearly reading Rae’s expression and swallowing down her laughter, “you can tell us what happened yourself. No need for us to speculate.”

  “Or place bets?” Hope asked. “Come on. Double or nothing that the two of them—”

  “I don’t want to talk about Riley,” Rae interrupted her with as much dignity as she could summon. “Not because I can’t, or won’t,
but because that’s the past. I want to move on. I don’t want to be trapped by decisions a fourteen-year-old made. Just like I don’t want to live in a house where I constantly have to negotiate the peace between two bitter women who don’t want peace when I’ve finally decided to stop fighting. No more fighting.”

  Her mother and grandmother had already been at it when Rae had come downstairs that morning, set up in their battle stations in the kitchen where, she knew, they would stay all day. Sniping at each other the way they’d been doing ever since Rae’s father had brought Kathy home to meet his parents.

  She’d poured her coffee into a travel mug and had gotten out of there. Fast.

  “Your grandmother’s terrifying,” Hope said, sobering. “Legitimately.”

  “I like to think of her as more … incapable of showing her affection in productive ways,” Abby said gently, ever the peacemaker.

  Rae rolled her eyes. “That’s very kind. But you know that doesn’t fit. Inez Trujillo has never been affectionate a day in her life.”

  “She and your grandfather were married for a thousand years,” Hope ventured. “Surely that suggests a little bit of affection? I hope?”

  This was another topic Rae didn’t talk about. But wasn’t that the point of her new start? It was time to talk. Especially about the things she never talked about. It was time to do the things she never did.

  Floral design was all about balance. Proportion and scale. Harmony and rhythm. She could do wonders with a selection of stems and vases, drawing the eye where she wanted it to go and creating compositions that were all about creating joy. But the minute it was her life she ought to be arranging artfully, she retreated.

  That had to stop. Might as well be now.

  “They hated each other,” she said baldly. “They only stayed together for the business.”

  Rae had never just … said that. No one in her family said it. They didn’t have to—everyone knew. It was one of the family secrets no one was supposed to discuss. As she’d learned. The hard way, naturally.

  “I don’t know that I thought theirs was a love story for the ages,” Abby said slowly. “But I didn’t think they hated each other.”

  “My grandmother is a woman of deep and abiding grudges,” Rae said. “She and my grandfather never divorced, when they probably should have. Some of my earliest memories are of walking back and forth between their separate houses delivering messages because they refused to speak to each other, right there on the same property.” She tried to smile. “I’m not supposed to talk about that. Do you remember when I got mysteriously grounded in sixth grade?”

  “Yes.” Abby sounded as if it had happened last week. “We were all supposed to go on the class camping trip together.”

  Hope nodded. “Abby and I were forced to share a tent with other people, Rae.”

  Rae reminded herself that she was not retreating, no matter what. “I was grounded because a teacher called home, and you know we always had a very strict policy on calls from school. Whatever the reason they’re calling, you’re wrong. And in trouble.”

  “You never did anything bad in school.” Abby looked mystified. “None of us did. Ever.”

  “Mr. Thessaly was concerned because I’d written an essay about my grandparents for our family tree presentation. He wanted to make sure my family was aware of the things I was planning to say to the class.” Rae smiled faintly at Abby’s and Hope’s expressions. “You know, stuff like the kinds of things my grandparents shouted at each other at a regular Sunday dinner.”

  “I never liked Mr. Thessaly,” Hope announced. “His chin was very suspicious.”

  “My parents sat me down and explained that I couldn’t share private family things with other people,” Rae continued, because she didn’t want to start thinking about an old teacher’s chin. Because if she did, she knew she would use it as an excuse to stop talking about this. And then maybe never would again. “Then they told me I couldn’t go on the camping trip because they really wanted me to understand the point they were making.”

  “Rae.” Abby looked warm and sad at the same time. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us about this then.”

  “We would have camped out in your backyard in solidarity,” Hope agreed. Her eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell us about this?”

  “I wasn’t just grounded from the camping trip,” Rae told them. “I had to redo my whole presentation. That very weekend.”

  She had been as outraged as an eleven-year-old on the cusp of twelve could be. What was being done to her was wrong. Surely everyone could see it.

  Rae had wanted to make them see.

  “A grave injustice was done to you, Rae,” Hope said solemnly, though there was laughter in her gaze. “I’m glad you can talk about it. Twenty years later.”

  “At Sunday dinner,” Rae continued softly, “I made my case. It was a school project. We were supposed to share intimate stories about earlier generations. And I knew my grandmother could be harsh about things, but she’d always loved me best. She said so. I was sure she’d take my side.” She swallowed, and it was funny how painful it still was, two decades on. And how dry her throat was. “She did not. Instead, she didn’t really speak to me. For nine years.”

  Rae had never wanted to disappear more than she did then. She felt clammy. Maybe some part of her expected her entire family to materialize in front of her and condemn her all over again. It took a few intense moments to understand that … nothing was happening. She was fine.

  Abby blinked. “What?”

  “Nine years?” Hope sounded flabbergasted.

  She was fine. “Not a word. Not at my grandfather’s funeral. Not at my wedding. She just glared.” Rae rubbed at her chest. “I didn’t tell you because, you know, I couldn’t. I figured I’d already said more than enough.”

  And she’d learned a valuable lesson, hadn’t she? People made a lot of bold claims about truth setting them free, but that wasn’t her experience. At all. Truth was dangerous.

  Better all around to keep it to herself.

  So she had. She’d swallowed down all kinds of truths. And the blade buried inside her reminded her why every time she thought about telling the really ugly stories.

  “But she’s talking to you now.” Hope was shaking her head like she couldn’t stop. “I’ve seen her talk to you. In an ice queen kind of way, now that you mention it, but I always thought that was just the way she is.”

  “Flowers.” Rae had to clear her throat. She didn’t know what to do about how fast her heart was beating. “I got good at flowers, and she wanted to take credit for that, you know, since designing arrangements was always her thing.”

  “Flowers,” Hope echoed. “Rae. That’s not okay. You know that, right?”

  “Oh, I did it to myself,” Rae said, a tight smile on her lips. “Ask anyone.”

  “Your grandmother is a very sad woman,” Abby said then, staunchly. “I feel sorry for her.”

  “I do not,” Hope retorted.

  “Anyway,” Rae said. “I’m ready to move out.”

  “I think this is great,” Abby said, lifting her brows at Hope as she said it. “A fresh start.”

  Hope leaned forward and swiped a pad and pen from Abby’s cluttered desk.

  “Operation New Rae,” she said as she wrote the same words in huge block letters on the top of the pad. “We start right now.”

  “We?”

  Hope eyed her. Imperiously. “You want to change your life, and Abby and I are here to be your wing women. What’s number one?”

  Rae didn’t have to overthink it. “Move out of my parents’ house.”

  Hope dutifully wrote that down. Then she got a speculative look on her face. “That one I think we can solve pretty quickly. You know we have room. You should move in with us.”

  “With you?” Rae asked, startled. “And … your sisters?”

  “Sadly, they both live in the house too.” Hope sighed. “In all their state.”

 
; Hope’s sisters were named Faith and Charity, naturally. Faith was the oldest and had never had any use for Hope’s ever-present best friends. Charity was the youngest and had veered between following them around and loathing them, often in the course of an afternoon. Still, Rae had to imagine the Mortimer sisters in whatever state would still be better than the endless Inez and Kathy show.

  “I … would love to move in with you,” Rae stammered out. “I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to live in town.”

  “Right?” Abby smiled. “It always seemed so fancy.”

  “I think you know it’s not fancy at all.” Hope laughed. “It’s a rickety old house behind a bookshop, that’s all. But you know we have spare bedrooms, you’re welcome to one, and best of all, you can move in whatever you want.”

  “Don’t you have to … ask permission or something?” Rae asked.

  Hope’s gaze gleamed. “No.”

  Rae took that to mean Hope didn’t feel she should have to ask permission, which probably meant she should, at the least, run it by her sisters. But she also knew how stubborn her friend was, and figured that was a Mortimer family issue. And she knew all about family issues.

  As far as Rae’s own issues went, she felt a bit dizzy. It was one thing to say she wanted something. And something else entirely to have it offered to her five seconds later.

  Everything was moving so fast. She thought about the look on Riley’s face last night. The way he’d watched her from across the room, intense and brooding and—

  But she had to let go of him.

  Moving on meant … actually, finally moving on. It had to.

  “What else do you want?” Abby kissed Bart’s head, her eyes dancing. “At this point, I feel like anything is possible.”

  “A good divorce lawyer?” Hope asked. Then frowned at Abby’s expression. “What?”

  Rae thought about Riley again, no matter how she told herself not to. He was in her, like it or not. All their years were part of her, like it or not.