by Amelia Wilde
Cowboy’s Conquest
A Big Sky Short Story
Amelia Wilde
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
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Also by Amelia Wilde
Emily
I’m chasing a cowboy with no name.
It’s stupid. God, it’s so stupid, and it’s never seemed more stupid than right now. This stretch of concrete on Main Street in Paulson is not the kind of place I’d like to linger with my rolling carryon suitcase and my phone held out in front of me like it might help me make a decision.
Oh, I’ve made plenty of decisions leading up to this point. I booked the plane ticket, for one. I called an Uber to take me from the airport. And then I panicked and had him drop me off in front of this cinderblock building with its rounded roof and proud green sign: HISTORICAL MUSEUM.
He asked me if I was sure I wanted to be dropped off here. Yes, totally sure. So now I am loitering in front of the HISTORICAL MUSEUM with no idea what to do next. The August sun beats down on the top of my head. Maybe I’m getting sunstroke. Maybe that is why I’ve made this monumentally idiotic decision. What am I going to do at a museum? I shade my eyes with my hand. In the far distance I can see the hills bumping up against the horizon, and that makes me think…that way is the way of the cowboy. According to my phone, that would be south. But the other direction looks a little more like civilization than the museum does.
And that makes me feel guilty, because the museum is probably not uncivilized. Here I am, a judgmental tourist looking for a nameless cowboy, passing judgment on a sweet little HISTORICAL MUSEUM. I am the worst.
I go into the historical museum.
The rounded roof stretches high above what appears to be a historical thrift shop. Every inch of this place is piled high with historical artifacts. I’m already sick of hearing the word historical, even in my thoughts, though I’m usually the type of girl who loves places like historical villages. There it goes again. It has to stop.
I move grimly through the exhibits, checking out a pioneer home interior from 1910, Calamity Jane’s saddle, and a bunch of old stagecoaches. Because I’m trying to not be the worst, I go outside and see an authentic trading post. Apparently, locals used it in the 1880s. They’ve stocked it up with old cans and bottles and everything else one would buy in the 1880s. I linger in front of an authentic can of tomatoes.
I’m still being the worst.
I came here to find a cowboy who kissed me on the Fourth of July, so hot and possessive and manly that I can still feel the ghost of his lips on mine. It was bruising, that kiss, and I want to be bruised. I resist the urge to test my lips with my fingertips and let out a huff of a sigh in the general direction of the can of tomatoes. It’s not the can’s fault I haven’t got up the courage to commit to my fools’ errand.
That’s the thing—I don’t know his name. I only know the dark tousle of his hair, and the emerald green of his eyes shot through with streaks of moonlight, and the way his shoulders feel under a tight t-shirt.
He told me not to come here. He told me I was too sweet and too good for him. Well, would someone this sweet fly to Paulson and promptly get roped by her own conscience into visiting a museum?
Probably.
I tear myself away from the tomatoes and stalk back through the HISTORICAL MUSEUM, breathing in the scent of old fabrics with a whiff of garage sale, and force myself back out into the sun. My heart says go toward the hills, where the ranches are, but where’s that going to get me? Out in the hills, with a rolling suitcase. I need people. I need to go north, farther into town.
The wheels of my suitcase bump merrily over the ground as I go. I march past a body shop, another body shop, and an Elks lodge. I pause at the back of a two-screen movie theater—two screens, oh my god—and consider going in to ask about the cowboy. But then the doors burst open and two men dressed exactly like my mystery rancher come out. My heart rocks in its place and throws itself to the concrete beneath my feet. What am I going to say, even if I do go inside? I don’t even have a picture of him. Have you seen a cowboy who has stunning green eyes and kisses like it’s his last day on earth? Also, could I have a ticket to Mamma Mia 2?
What I should do is call myself another car. It’s an hour back to the airport in Kalispell. I pull up the app on my phone and prepare to bail.
Except…
I haven’t given it a full hour in Paulson yet, even counting the HISTORICAL MUSEUM. Shouldn’t I at least look for him for an hour? I’ve thought of him for days and weeks already. I’ve given him more than an hour of my heart already.
I’m definitely getting sunstroke.
I keep going north, toward the bay on my map, until I get to the highway. Why not take a right and keep going? I take a right and keep going.
And going, and going. It’s been five minutes, maybe ten, but my legs feel heavy and my head throbs in the sun. I don’t know where to stop. Every place I consider seems wrong, somehow, and there’s a strange energy in the air, like the entire town is waiting for something to happen. I can’t tell if that something is going to be good or bad.
The sidewalk on the side of the road gives out, but I keep going. I’ve left panic behind now and I’m fully committed to the version of my life where I exist in this movie montage of me, walking through a strange town and dragging a rolling suitcase, forever.
Oh, man, that diner is cute. I stop on the grass next to the highway and brush the hair away from my face. Merry’s Diner is a little pink building with porch seating out front. It’s all very cozy with a bar next door. The name of the bar, above the door on a wooden sign, is the Riverbend. That’s hilarious. There’s no river here, only the bay. I double over laughing, then straighten up and pretend it was…I don’t know, coughing. Something else.
I need lunch.
Merry’s is cute but hilarious trumps cute in this situation.
One step inside the bar, and I know I’ve made the right choice. The man behind the bar looks at me and smiles, inclining his head like everyone comes in here with a rolling suitcase and weird leftover laugh smile. I take a seat right at the bar, tuck my suitcase up next to my stool, and drop my face into my hands.
The bartender steps over, the floor creaking under his feet. “Rough day?”
I prop my chin into my palm. “I flew here to find a man, and so far all I’ve done is drag my suitcase down most of Main Street.”
His eyes twinkle. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have his address?”
“I know he lives in Paulson. That’s it.”
He nods solemnly, as if this is not the dumbest thing he’s ever heard in his life. “Anyone worth knowing comes to this bar. You’ve at least got a chance. How long are you in town?”
Another five minutes, and then I’m calling it quits. “For the night, probably.”
The bartender extends his hand over the bar for me to shake. “I’m Greg Owens. I own the place.”
“My name’s Emily. Are you the one who called the bar the Riverbend? Because honestly, a riverbend bar next to a bay is the silver lining of the last few hours.”
He cracks a smile. “I didn’t. That was my dad. But he would be glad to hear people still appreciate his sense of humor.”
“I got mine from my—” The door of the ba
r opens fast and hard, a gust of the outdoor breeze ruffling my hair. We both look.
“My delivery’s here,” says Greg. “Let me get that, and…are you okay?”
I don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. Because standing in the doorway, his broad arms cradling a wooden crate, is the cowboy I came here to find.
Wyatt
Well, I’ll be damned.
I’d know that fall of red hair and that petite little body anywhere, but Emily’s not anywhere, she’s sitting up at the counter at the Riverbend with her feet hooked on the second rung of her stool.
Greg looks from her face—frozen with her mouth in the cutest O I’ve ever seen, aside from the zeroes on the checks I get from my side business brewing beer—to mine. His eyebrows shoot up toward the ceiling faster than a cat in a bath. “This your guy?” He points at me like I’m a ghost back from the dead and not delivering him some of Montana’s finest craft beer.
Emily drags her eyes away from me and back to Greg. I know it’s only because he asked her a question, but a hot surge of jealousy nearly knocks me off my feet. It’s absurd. It’s more than absurd. It’s criminal. It’s a criminal jealousy, because I’m the one who told her in no uncertain terms not to come to Paulson. She shouldn’t be here. Not for a man like me.
But I want those pretty blue eyes back on mine more than anything.
No—not more than anything. More than most things, and less than I want her back at my ranch, to do as I please with.
Which would not be good for her.
No, it would not.
The fact of her sears into me all over again, a red-hot brand against the skin over my heart. I’ve got to shut out this want before it burns down the Riverbend. That would be an awful shame, to have this desire turn my favorite bar to ashes. A terrible shame. I’d never recover from it.
Taking another step inside is like walking into an inferno, but I do it anyway. Beer’s got to be delivered, and I have to get back out—out and away from Emily. I’m going to climb into my truck and keep on driving until the knot in my chest unclenches and the hard rod between my legs is a distant memory. I can’t do this to her. She’s too sweet, and that’s a fact.
I take one more step, then another, and then I set the crate down on the bartop with a heavy thud that I feel in my teeth. “Order’s up,” I tell Greg.
He slowly, so slowly, sets down the glass he’s been polishing on a drain mat behind the bar. “What do I owe you?”
I tell him a number. I don’t know if it’s the right number. I went over my crate of bottles before I left the ranch, but Emily sitting there has wiped away all the relevant details from my mind.
She’s close enough to touch.
I’m not going to touch her.
Greg crosses to the cash register and I grit my teeth. He’s talked to me over many a beer in the past—some of them my own brews—and I’ve spent more than a few late, lonely nights at the Riverbend. But damn if he isn’t going this slow on purpose. He slips each bill from the register like it’s a holy wafer and he’s not sure I deserve communion. I’m already in purgatory by the time he comes over to my side of the bar and presses the money into my palm. His eyes cut to his left, toward Emily. He’s killing me.
“Be in touch.” I tip the brim of my hat at him—black, like the outline on the labels I had made up for my beers. It’s a miracle I can touch anything at all, since it feels like my arm’s been singed up to the shoulder in the heat coming off her body.
I could have touched her.
I turn on my heel, away from Emily, and head for the door.
“Wyatt, what the hell are you doing?” Greg’s voice stops me in my tracks. “This lady’s been looking for you.”
It’s not a discussion I relish having in public, but now he’s shouted the question across the bar and I can’t very well go back, can I? I can’t retrace my steps and end up in touching distance of the angel I met in Colorado. I knew the second I saw her that I should stay far, far away. Women like Emily—they don’t like what I like. They don’t need what I need.
It was a near thing, too. I almost slipped up. I spent the whole of that evening and most of the night at my grandpop’s favorite bar from way back when, the Stars & Stripes, talking to her. I’d been ballsy enough to run my fingertips over the smooth back of her hand.
Hell, I kissed her. When it was time to go, long past time, I let her follow me out of the bar. And then I pressed her up against the rough bricks and I kissed her like she was already mine, but I was giving her away.
I tried to give her away. Why is she here?
I open my mouth to ask her the question, but that’s a trap. If she gets to talking, if I hear that voice again, I might not be able to stop myself.
Besides, Greg already asked me question. It’s still hanging in the air around my head like pesticides from a crop duster. I clear my throat. “I told her not to come.” Surely, my telling her not to come is equal to her looking for me. Surely, he can’t have any problem with that.
Greg glowers at me. “She flew in for you, and you know it’s an hour to the airport.”
He means that she spent an hour in the company of some stranger, some car driver or some airport shuttle, and there it is—jealousy like boiling acid in my veins. Only it’s a good kind of boiling acid. It feels pleasant as hell to indulge in the fantasy that I have anything to be jealous about.
Or maybe he doesn’t mean that. Maybe my brain is getting scrambled by the fact that she’s disobeyed me directly.
There are things I can do about that. Things I want to do about that.
No. No a thousand times. Not today, not ever, not that sweet little thing, as good as it would feel.
And it would feel so good.
I turn on my heel. “Sorry to hear it,” I say over my shoulder.
But this time, it’s not Greg who calls after me. It’s not Greg’s footsteps I hear rushing over the old wood floor, making it creak and sing.
It’s Emily.
“Wyatt.” My name is like a prayer on her lips. “Please don’t go. Or, if you go, take me with you.”
Emily
I mean. I mean. I’m about to burst into flames, right in the middle of this hilarious bar, because not only have I spent more time than strictly necessary in a HISTORICAL MUSEUM but now I have begged the mystery cowboy to take me home with him. Is it crazy? Yes, it’s crazy. A girl should not fly over to Montana, hunt down a man, and throw herself in a truck with him without texting everyone she knows an advance warning, just in case.
But I’m not exactly alone, am I? I’m on a first-name basis with Greg the Bartender. He’ll ask about me next time Wyatt makes a beer delivery.
Excited energy zings through my veins, so powerful and pure I want to jump up and down. I know his name. I know his name. I’ve wanted to know his name since he kissed me on the Fourth of July. Since before he kissed me, honestly. Since the moment I first looked into those green eyes and my heart threw itself against my rib cage like a dramatic Victorian fainting lady.
Speaking of my heart, it’s pulling the same move now, only harder and even more dramatic.
Wyatt looks at me, the air between us sizzling so palpably I can hear it over the hum of the refrigerators below the bar, and he takes in a breath so measured and steady that I know he must feel the same way I do. He’s only hiding it better.
He opens his mouth, parting lips that are somehow both manly and beautiful. “I told you not to come.” This time, when he says it to me, his voice is raw. It sounds like the sun beating down from the wide-open sky. It sounds like a cowboy riding hard, urging his horse away from a deep wound in the earth.
“I couldn’t help it.” The truth drips from my lips like clear water. “I had to find you.”
He turns his head away, and I marvel at the cut line of his jaw and the set of his teeth. His hat is nearly silhouetted against the door, and half of me wants to shout freeze and snap this picture with my phone. It’s like he’s stepped
right out of the Wild West. I wish I was wearing a pioneer dress. That would be more fitting for this moment than the yoga leggings and tunic I wore to go to the airport. “You don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“I do, though. I do.” I move a few steps closer, cautious and tentative. I have the sensation he’s like a wild horse, and if I move in too close he’ll rear up and run away. Montana’s a big state. If he ran far, I wouldn’t be able to catch him. There are only so many Uber drivers who will indulge you in a follow that car! kind of mission. “I’m looking for you, Wyatt.”
Tasting his name on my tongue carries an illicit thrill. He whips his head back around to look at me, shock in his eyes, like he didn’t expect me to use that weapon against him. “God,” he says. “Somebody hands you a gun, you’ll fire it.”
“Wyatt...” The second time I say it, his chest heaves like he’s sucking in all the rest of the oxygen on the earth. Those green eyes flash. “Stay with me.”
He shoves his hands down into his pockets, which has the effect of accentuating his absolutely ripped arms. “Can’t stay.” It’s a simple answer, but each word is a pinprick to my heart. Bravery surges up from those tiny, stinging holes.
“Then let me come with you.” I did not come all this way to see him for five seconds in a random bar and then watch him drive away. He’s the kind of man who would go without looking back—I know that already. It’s not going to happen a second time. Not today.
“Got plans,” he says. “The festival’s starting tonight, and I’ve got to be down at my booth by the evening.”
“It’s not evening yet.” Do I sound desperate? Yes, in fact I do sound desperate. But desperate times call for desperate voices. “There’s plenty of time until sundown.”