Hard Loving Cowboy

by A. J. Pine

  “Thank you,” she said, giving him back his phone. “For the ride. The commute won’t be a problem for me, as far as the job goes. In case you were wondering.”

  He pulled out onto the road but didn’t offer her a response.

  “Strong and silent,” she said. “I get it. Not a big fan of silence myself, which is why I tend to talk. A lot.”

  He turned on the radio and fiddled with the dial until he landed on a country station. Then she noticed his shoulders relax.

  “Okay. So you’re not a talker. Message received,” she said. Then, because it was Maren Morris’s “Once,” and she knew all the words, she hummed softly to the tune. Well, she started out humming. But once the song hit the first chorus, she was belting out the lyrics as if she was on stage herself. She couldn’t help it when the music took over, and right now she was grateful for it. Strong and silent might work for him, but she’d sing herself hoarse if she had to. Anything to avoid thinking about how her mom was using her cane daily now and not only for flare-ups. Or how her dad had taken out a second mortgage on his building to cover medical bills that had been growing exponentially since Violet left school one year shy from graduating with her bachelor’s degree in music education.

  No way she was tacking on another year of school loans to their already mounting debt, no matter how much her parents protested. It was her decision, and she promised she’d go back when the time was right. When she didn’t have to worry about the long hours Maman was alone while her father worked.

  She’d sing for ninety-four whole minutes if she had to because silence was never an option.

  Chapter Three

  Finally, after four songs, Walker broke.

  “You gonna sing the whole damn way?” he asked. He realized he sounded pissed, but it wasn’t at her. It was at himself for offering to give her a ride in the first place. He had plenty of shit to work on today—mainly repairing the fence between the pasture and vineyard—but hell if he didn’t want to spend the extra time with this strange woman who had kissed him like she was suffocating and he was her only source of air.

  Or maybe that was how he had kissed her back.

  He needed to focus on this whole being sober situation. It was one thing to be locked away from his vices, forcing his body to enter withdrawal and somehow living through it. But it was another to keep at it alone, to choose to keep saying no to the bottle when saying yes would be so much easier.

  He needed to focus on one day at a time—on when and if he was leaving Oak Bluff to figure out who the hell he was. Here his past defined him, but somewhere else he could be someone else.

  Thanks to the Callahan brothers building their own guest ranch up north, there was an offer on the table to do precisely that. He didn’t see much point in getting everyone wound up about what ifs, so he hadn’t told anyone yet.

  Right now he was fighting to not let himself get distracted by a beautiful employee who could kiss like no one’s business and apparently carry a tune as well as if not better than the artists she was singing along with. Maybe she hadn’t thought he was listening, but it was pretty hard not to.

  She turned to face him and crossed her arms.

  “If you can stay quiet for ninety minutes, that’s your prerogative. But I am not a fan of silence. Feel free to turn the radio louder so you don’t hear me.”

  Walker turned the radio off.

  He was crap at conversation, but he figured the ride would feel a lot longer with all the tension that was brewing in the air.

  “So you speak French,” he said.

  She laughed. “Is that supposed to be a question?”

  The muscle in his jaw tensed. “How is it that you know English and French?”

  He saw her smile out of the corner of his eye.

  “My mom is Parisian by way of West Africa. My grandparents both immigrated to Paris from Senegal, so my mom is first-generation Parisian, and my dad is American. I was raised speaking both languages.”

  He stole a glance her way to get the full effect of her smile. Bad idea. She lit up the whole damn truck.

  “So one parent was always left out of a conversation if it wasn’t their native language?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. My mom speaks perfect English—with a light French accent. And my dad was a French minor in college. It’s how they met. He was studying in France. She was a local pastry chef, and the rest is sorta history. Tell me about your parents.”

  He clenched his teeth. This wasn’t a therapy session, and they were employer and employee. He thought about what he could say. My mom died and my dad turned into an abusive alcoholic, but it’s all good because he finally kicked the bucket last year. Also, you know how alcoholism is hereditary? Dear old Dad was good enough to pass that on to me. Somehow none of that really screamed small talk.

  “My brothers and my aunt are my only family. Got a nephew, too,” was all he said.

  “Punch Buggy red!” she cried out, then slugged him in the shoulder.

  He peered at her over the rim of his sunglasses with brows raised.

  She let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry? It’s a game my dad and I have played since I was a kid. You see a VW Bug and call out Punch Buggy and the color before the other person. Then you give ’em a playful little slug.” She brushed her hand over the spot where he’d received his playful little slug. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Her tone was teasing, and he bit back a grin.

  “It’d take a lot more than that to cause any damage,” he said.

  He could still remember his father smacking his older brother Jack when he left his baseball glove on the kitchen counter. Or when Jack Senior tripped over Walker’s boots on the rug inside the front door, but Jack took the blame to keep Walker from getting hit. Then there was the one time his big brother didn’t get a chance to protect him—when Walker had tried to pry the liquor bottle from his passed-out father’s grip only to have the man wake suddenly and backhand him across the face.

  No. A little game of Punch Buggy couldn’t hurt him. But it could make him remember why he’d found solace in the bottle in the first place. When he drank, the memories drowned. His sobriety breathed new life into everything he wanted to bury at the bottom of a whiskey-filled ocean.

  One of the things they stressed in his time away—he still wasn’t ready to put a label on it—was to avoid triggers. His whole life up until a couple months ago was one big trigger. It took him almost that long to start talking in his group therapy sessions. So right now, his best way to avoid triggers was to put up a wall or two. The more he kept people out of his head, the better it was for everyone, including Violet Chastain.

  “How about the alphabet game?” Violet asked.

  “How about we enjoy the silence?” he bit back more forcefully than he’d intended, but she didn’t skip a beat. For whatever reason, when it came to car games, the woman was unflappable.

  Violet bounced excitedly in her seat. “We go through the alphabet and try to find each letter on license plates, highway signs, stuff like that. I’ll even throw in a bonus. I’ll teach you a French word for each letter you find.”

  “What if I just concentrate on the road?”

  “A in that license plate,” she said, pointing at a mini-van in the other lane.

  “I’m not playing,” he insisted, even as his eyes started scanning other plates and signs.

  “BMW!” she shouted with glee as she spotted the next letter.

  “You’re not going to stop, are you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Nope. So you might as well join me. You know you wanna.”

  He sighed, rationalizing that at least if he played her game, he was ensuring the conversation wouldn’t get personal. “All right, Teach. But we’re starting over. Those first two don’t count.”

  She clapped. “Great. Okay. A…where is an A…”

  “Camry,” he said as he pointed out the windshield. “Right lane, two cars up.”

  He couldn’t help hi
s self-satisfied grin. Once upon a time he’d had a competitive streak. Being the youngest of three brothers, he’d had no choice. It was either rise to the occasion or get left in the dust in everything from baseball, which was all Jack, to riding, all Luke. Plus, he kinda wanted to hear her speak more French.

  “Very nice, Mr. Everett. You’ve earned yourself a word. Agréable.”

  Her voice had a rasp that threatened to worm its way under his skin. It was even more pronounced when she sang, so he figured this was at least a bit safer.

  “What’s it mean?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “First you have to say it. Ah-gray-AH-bleh.”

  “That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  She straightened in her seat and squared her shoulders, all proper-like. “It is now. You can’t learn the words without practicing them.”

  He rolled his eyes behind the safety of his glasses. “Ah-gray-AH-bleh,” he mumbled, feeling like an idiot. He felt too crude for a language that seemed so refined.

  She smiled. “It means pleasant or agreeable. You’re being trés agréable by playing along with my silly game, Monsieur Everett.”

  She said his name with an accent, the sound of it making the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

  They made it through the whole alphabet twice before hitting the outskirts of Santa Barbara, and he learned quite a few words like déjeuner, which meant lunch; jalousie, which was jealousy; and merde, which was shit. He liked that one. Not that he would admit it, but he liked the game, too.

  His GPS app notified them that the destination was approaching on the right. But it wasn’t a residential address. It was a bakery called Have Your Cake.

  “This is where you live?” he asked as he pulled into a parking spot.

  She winced. “Not exactly. I’m heading to my parents’ for their anniversary party, and my mom asked me to pick up the cake. I didn’t want to ask too much of you, so I can totally walk from here. It’s less than a mile away.”

  He put the truck in park and finally turned to face her. He glanced down at her shoes, then met her gaze. “Less than a mile in those, carrying a cake?”

  “It’s possible,” she insisted.

  “You know, I might let you try so I can drive behind you and watch.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “That would not be very agréable of you.”

  He nodded toward the bakery. “You need help with that cake?”

  She blew out a breath. “I think I got it from here. Thank you. I promise this is the only stop.”

  She lowered herself out of the truck and strode toward the bakery door. He knew he shouldn’t watch her walk away, but she was like a magnet, drawing him to her whether he wanted to be or not.

  From the shoes to her pressed shirt and her perfectly styled hair, she was class and sophistication personified. He was—well he was one fine mess. Never mind whether or not she was good for his recovery. He had no business thinking about kissing a woman like her again.

  She emerged from the bakery several minutes later, and Walker chuckled before hopping out of the truck to help her carry a box over which she could barely see.

  “You sure you don’t need a hand, Teach? Or maybe you still want to try that short walk to your folks’ place?”

  He couldn’t see her expression behind the box, but he expected she had a few choice French words for him.

  “How about I open the door for you and help you into the truck?”

  “Thank you,” she said haughtily, and Walker grinned.

  He led her to the passenger-side door, opened it, then grabbed the cake from her so she could climb in. Once she had her seat belt on, she took the cake back, holding it in her lap.

  He was still smiling when he made it into the driver’s seat and started the truck. He checked his window and then turned to check hers for any parking lot traffic, but all he could see was Violet’s profile and the damned box.

  She finally lost it and burst into a fit of laughter.

  “Could you imagine”—she gasped for breath—“if I was stubborn enough to walk?” She laughed harder. “Just to prove that I could?” A tear streamed down her cheek. “Oh my God. This thing barely even fits in your truck. What were my parents thinking?”

  He knew he shouldn’t, but her hands were stuck holding the box. So he reached for her face and swiped at the tear with his thumb.

  Her laughter trailed off. “Um…thanks,” she said softly.

  Walker cleared his throat. “Which way to your folks’ house?”

  They were on the outskirts of downtown, and based on her classy attire and her father owning what was likely a fancy French restaurant, he expected she’d be leading him to some sprawling estate with an ocean view. Despite what she’d said about her family making some financial cutbacks, this was Santa Barbara. It might only be ninety-four minutes away, but it felt like the other side of the world compared to Oak Bluff. It wasn’t like the Everetts didn’t own land, but their land—a vineyard and a ranch—was their livelihood. They worked every inch of it.

  “Go right out of the parking lot and then right again at the first light,” she said.

  He did as she asked and found himself on a street lined with white stucco shops sporting red terra-cotta roofs. Impeccably dressed pedestrians lined the sidewalks, some carrying shopping bags, others with to-go coffee cups that probably held fancy drinks costing upwards of ten dollars each.

  Walker had never been to Santa Barbara, and now he knew why. He fit in about as well as a watermelon fit inside a can of Pringles. Jack’s hand-me-down truck must have been a sore sight compared to the BMW in front of him and the Mercedes convertible approaching from the opposite direction.

  “I can’t really see, but there should be an alley coming up after the coffee house on the corner,” she said.

  He turned down the narrow alley in between the coffee shop and what looked like some sort of fancy restaurant. He couldn’t see the name of the place, but through the window he saw white tablecloths and napkins folded into intricate shapes atop the plates at a corner table.

  “There should be a couple of paved parking spots with a sign that says RESIDENTS ONLY. Park in one of those.”

  “I thought we were going to your parents’ place,” he said.

  “And here we are,” she said. “Wanna help me out?”

  Confused, because this was far from a sprawling estate, Walker hopped out of the truck, then took the monstrosity of a cake from Violet so she could exit the vehicle as well.

  “Okay, so I really wasn’t expecting this.” She motioned to the box that he was still holding. “Since you can actually see over the top and aren’t wearing heels, do you think you could carry it up for me? I promise after that you can wash your hands of this ridiculous day and get back to your life.”

  He stared at her through the lenses of his aviators, grateful she couldn’t see his eyes because they’d sure as hell give away that if she wasn’t an Everett employee and he wasn’t fresh out of rehab, he’d be looking for any damn excuse to kiss her one more time. Even after a ninety—okay, ninety-four—minute drive, having to make the extra stop to pick up the monstrous cake that he now had to carry up a flight of stairs, there was still something about her he couldn’t put his finger on.

  It was more than the shoes, the clothes, the way she sang her heart out to every song that came on the radio, or how she could turn the letters of the alphabet into the sexiest French lesson he’d ever had—even if it was the only French lesson he’d ever had. More than her brown skin lit by the afternoon sun or that ridiculous cake that was nearly half her height. It was all of it, wrapped up in a stiletto-wearing package that was Violet Chastain—someone who was a damned stranger up until a few hours ago. Maybe he couldn’t call her gorgeous now that they were in a working relationship of sorts, but good lord she was.

  Get it together, Everett. You don’t lose your shit over good-looking women.

  He didn’t lose his shit over anyone. He�
�d basically courted the bottle for the better part of ten years. This interest or infatuation or whatever it was—it was brand new. And it was with the wrong woman at the wrong time.

  “Ask me in French,” he said. “Then I might say yes.”

  She crossed her arms and glared at him, but he could tell there was a smile about to break through. “Aidez-moi, s’il vous plaît.”

  “See?” he said. “All you had to do was ask nicely. Lead the way.”

  She pulled open a door on the side of the building and led him up a flight of stairs that ended at a small landing and a single door. She pushed it open, and he followed her inside.

  “Maman?” she called out. “Je suis là avec ton énorme gâteau!”

  She grabbed the box from Walker and set it down on a long narrow dining room table, then rounded a corner to where he guessed the bedrooms were. Walker took off his sunglasses and clipped them over the collar of his T-shirt. He ran his hand along the wood of the table—knotted pine—and spun in a slow circle to take in the layout of the apartment. It wasn’t big, but it was spacious enough to not feel cramped. To the right was a living room with a large sectional and respectable big-screen television. Straight ahead was a well-lit galley kitchen. The whole space had this bright and cheery feel that made something twist in Walker’s gut.

  This wasn’t some obnoxious mansion, but it was a home, a word that felt so foreign for him to even think.

  He froze when he came back to the table—and to the long buffet lining the wall behind it. It was set up as a bar, lined with several liquors and two bottles of red, two bottles of white chilling in ice buckets.

  His mouth went dry, and his palms dampened.

  “Shit,” he said under his breath.

  Violet slowly emerged from the hallway with a woman who walked balancing on a cane. She was almost as tall as Violet was in her heels, but she wore flat-soled shoes. She had Violet’s full lips, but her face was more drawn, cheekbones more pronounced, and skin a darker brown. Her curly dark hair was pulled back in a multicolored scarf that rested on a bare shoulder. A simple sleeveless black dress hung loose over her frame.