Never the Cowboy’s Bride Read online

“I think you’re lying.”

  “Do you have a guest room?” She cocks her head to the side, a brat til the end. “I’m not bunking with you. I know how much you’d like that.”

  Touché. “Don’t you know it, sweet thing? I do have a guest room. We have two, matter of fact.”

  “Of course you do. You have everything over here, don’t you?” Her eyes flick around the kitchen, which I’ve been keeping clean since the day my mother died. It’s a run-of-the-mill kitchen to me, not so different from the one in her house. The one her house used to have.

  “Not everything.” I don’t have my parents, who I thought would still be living here ‘til their old age. I was supposed to be somewhere else in Paulson setting up my own ranch. That didn’t pan out.

  “You still have a full herd, you asshole,” she says under her breath.

  “What was that?” I put a hand to my ear. “You wanted to sleep in my bedroom? I’ve got the nicest bed in the house.”

  “It’s not a bed I need now.” A shine in her eyes tells me she’s struggling not to stick out her tongue, and in this moment I think I’d pay all the money in that damned account to see her do it. “I need to go shopping.” The light flickers out, replaced by a cloud of worry. Last week, I’d have quietly relished watching her struggle.

  Now?

  I don’t relish it nearly as much as I thought I would.

  “Let’s go shopping, then,” I offer, and it feels like sticking my bare skin into a campfire.

  “Not so fast, bucko. I know you want to see me stripped down in a changing room, but you’re going to have to earn that. I’ll be back later.” Brooke turns on her heel, hips swaying.

  “You’re going out like that?” I call after her.

  “How else do you want me to go out? Naked?” She shakes her head, clucking her tongue. “You just want to see my tits, Austin. Admit it.”

  She’s got me. I do.

  * * *

  I spend a sleepless night in bed down the hall from Brooke Carson.

  I can’t believe she agreed to stay here. I can’t believe she agreed to mix her herd in with mine, and stable her horse in my stable. She doesn’t hate anyone as much as she hates me. At least, I don’t think she does. She must be desperate. And given what happened...I guess I’d be desperate too. Desperate enough to crawl on my knees, asking her for help? I don’t know. Her family never seemed like the type to put the pressure on, but maybe they did.

  I want to ask her, but I don’t. I stay in my own damn bed. Right where I belong. You just want to see my tits, Austin. Her voice blurs in with a dream. It’s hot and heavy and she’s taking that t-shirt off over her head. My cock strains against my boxers. Why are boxers such cock-prisons? It’s criminal. It’s wrongful imprisonment.

  When I wake up it’s light in the bedroom. It’s the soft, early light just after the sun has crested the horizon and my cock pulses again at the thought of Brooke stretched out in this light, her perfect nipples grazing the sheets. “Stop it,” I tell myself out loud. It’s bad enough that the woman I’ve hated all these years is sleeping down the hall.

  I’m seized, suddenly and inexplicably, with the desire to know why. Why have I been harboring this awful, twisting hurt when it comes to Brooke Carson? I search back in my memory. Tears on her face, a quiver in her jaw. Why can’t I remember? It must have been a big deal if it made her cry.

  I can’t stand it anymore. It takes two seconds to throw on clothes and another five to pad down the hall to her room.

  She’s not there.

  “Unbelievable,” I grumble. If she’s gone back to that barn, I don’t know what I’ll do. Bundle her back here, I guess. I can’t have Mrs. Howard and God and everybody knowing that I didn’t have room for a person in need. Sweet Jesus.

  Shoes. Socks. Hat. I tell myself I’m going out to do the chores and only stopping by her house to check up on her. I tell myself I don’t care where she’s gone. I tell myself I don’t feel the rapid, nervous beat of my heart.

  On the way to the property line, which down here by the house is formed by a low gully, a sound from the stable catches the very edge of my attention. It sounds like it’s coming from the stables.

  It’s Brooke, singing a song to my horse. My horse. She works a soft brush gently over one of his shoulders, then stops to nuzzle Daisy’s nose. She leans her head into Daisy’s. “I miss her too,” she murmurs. “It’s stupid to be saying this to you. You’re a horse. But I miss her like crazy. And I can’t even tell her about the chair.” Brooke lets out a heavy sigh. “Everly knows it’s gone by now, but I just feel like I’m being...I don’t know. Stabbed in the chest. It’s horrible. And the farmhouse here is so...intact.” She hums a little tune again, using the brush to smooth out a part of Daisy’s coat. “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she says softly. “But you don’t have to worry. I’ll figure it out.”

  Brooke brushes her fingers over Daisy’s mane and smooths one of her flyaways. Connecticut reaches his nose over to demand attention, and Brooke curves her arm around his head, snuggling him in close. A stallion. My heart is practically stalled, practically stopped, and when it beats again it’s against a warmth so intense it feels like pain.

  This is not the Brooke I know.

  Maybe I don’t know her at all.

  I drag my feet across the ground so I don’t startle her. She startles anyway, sucking in a breath that’s close enough to a gasp of pleasure to make my cock twitch in response. “Oh my god, Austin, don’t sneak up on people like that.”

  “What happened between us?” It’s the morning light coming in through the open windows in the stable. It’s the way her hair falls over her shoulders, loosely held back from her face with a hair tie. It’s the ache in my hands from not running my hands through her curls. “All those years ago. What happened to make us hate each other?”

  Her face goes hard. “You’re a hateable person. What other explanation would you need?”

  “I remember you crying.” The light—something about the light—makes the moment feel surreal, like this will have no consequences. I know it’ll have consequences, but I can’t stop myself. “I remember you were pissed. But I don’t remember what you were pissed about.”

  Brooke keeps one hand on Connecticut’s back even while she glares at me. “Are you telling me you can’t remember the reason you’ve hated me for a decade now? More than a decade?”

  “I swear on my mother’s grave, I can’t remember anything but your face that day. A lot has happened since then.”

  She shakes her head, blowing a breath out through her nose. “You were a prick. If you don’t remember, you’re still a prick. I’m pretty sure that’s true.”

  “I’d really like to know.”

  “So you can do what, exactly?” Her eyes are like thunderstorms rolling down off the mountains, slashing everything to bits with lightning strikes. “Apologize? You’re not going to apologize to me for anything. Why would you? I’m a Carson woman.”

  A hot shame brands the center of me. I’ve said it enough times, to enough people—but I thought I kept it mostly on Bliss Ranch. Obviously not. “I admit I haven’t always been a perfect gentleman. We’re talking about being teenagers.”

  “You were in college, and we’re talking about our lives, you—you—” No word seems strong enough for what I am. “You got to go to college.”

  I don’t see what that has to do with any of it. “Everybody went to college.”

  “Not me.” Her eyes flash and flare and I hear the boom of distant thunder. “I didn’t get to go, because your dad didn’t recommend me for a scholarship.”

  It comes back to me in a few falling pebbles and then a rockslide. “A scholarship...”

  “Yeah. I needed recommendations to get a half-ride to State, because that was the only place my parents could come up with half the tuition. I didn’t get it. And I found out later that it was because your dad said I wasn’t suited for that kind of thing.” Her chin quivers. �
�Because of what you told him.”

  Sweet Jesus. Because Brooke has always been after me, one way or another. She was always needling me in the halls, pretty ballsy for a girl two years younger. I was home from college when my dad asked me about her, and I gave some flippant reply.

  “I was an asshole.” The air is thick and heavy in the stable, so thick I can hardly draw a breath. “I was young, and I was an asshole, and I wasn’t thinking about it that way. I didn’t know why he was asking me about you.”

  “What did you think?” she spits. “That he was asking so we could get married or some bullshit?”

  I have a vision of her in a white dress and a delicate veil, the wind lifting it away from her face. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing, to marry her.

  My mind rears back from the image. Of course it would be the worst thing to marry her. I’d wake up dead the first morning of the honeymoon. Brooke’s anger fills the barn, making the air feel slippery against my fingers. Slippery, like she could send an electric charge through it this very moment and knock me down dead. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t know.”

  But I know now, and it explains everything. The way she’s stabbed me through the soft underbelly with her gaze every time I’ve seen her in town since then. The bristling dislike at every public event. The cheating accusations. Could it be that Brooke deserves for me to prove it to her?

  “I’m sorry.” Something in the room shifts, changes. Can’t put my finger on what.

  “I don’t care,” she says quickly. “Doesn’t change how I feel about you.”

  “Doesn’t it?” I cross my arms over my chest and notice her featherlight glance tracing the lines of my muscles. “Would it be better if I wasn’t sorry?”

  “Yes.” Her voice has dropped to a barely audible register. “It would make it easier to hate you.”

  A refreshing breeze slaps me gently on the cheek, the touch almost playful. What am I hearing? In the dusty stable, I’m suddenly drinking in fresh mountain air. “What was that?”

  “I’m bringing Daisy to the show tomorrow,” Brooke says, loud and clear. “Connecticut is staying home.”

  Just like that, the hairs on the back of my neck rise, blood galloping through my veins. I let out a sharp laugh. “No. We’re showing my horse.”

  “Fight me about it, why don’t you?”

  “I sure as hell will.”

  The fresh mountain air is gone. A storm’s coming in. And coming in fast.

  Chapter Ten

  Brooke

  “This was a stupid idea,” Austin hisses in my ear at the back of the event barn. “Everybody else only has one horse”

  “Everybody else is getting to work by themselves. I’m the only one who’s been forced to partner up to even get a chance.” I keep my hand lightly on Daisy’s lead rope and stare straight ahead. All in all, ten ranches have turned out for the contest, and every one of them has done their best when it came to the horses.

  Well, so have I. I even dolled myself up for the occasion. For god’s sake, I tied my shirt up above my belly button in a little bow, just to accentuate my waist. I have a good waist. And Austin’s been stealing glances at me all afternoon. At least I had the sense to wear a black tank-top underneath. I’m no Bethany Dawson, who’s in the ring right now, her navel on display for all to see.

  I had to shop for this. I had to spend some of my meager savings on a meager wardrobe. And I bought a curling iron, too. Lipstick. I don’t want to think about how much is left in my bank account.

  “Fine. I guess I’ll give you this one.” Austin’s jaw works, his shoulders rising and falling in an almost imperceptible movement. If it weren’t for the cloud of tension surrounding us I’d never know he was nervous. But he is.

  The barn smells like horses and hairspray and fall and I take a big breath in. This is it. There’s no more hiding that Austin and I are working together. I wasn’t trying to hide it, not really, but after we step out under the lights there will be no going back.

  Peter, who has put on a suit for his MC duties, keeps up an endless chatter, his voice bouncing off the high ceiling. “And thank you, Bethany,” he says, a huge smile on his face. No doubt he’s checking out her ass as she leaves. “Next up—” He extends his arm, the gesture too big even for a showman. “The Bliss Ranch.”

  There’s all kinds of noise coming from the crowd—low murmurs, the crunch of popcorn between people’s teeth, a baby crying. It all stops when the lights hit the horses. Not just the horses. Us. Even the baby shuts up. Even the baby knows there’s something off if a Bliss and a Carson are walking side by side in front of the entire town.

  “Beautiful horses,” says Peter. “Beautiful owners, too.” I swear, a string instrument starts playing somewhere close. My smile seems plastered to my face. I’m not sure I could frown right now. I’m shoulder to shoulder with Austin, the solid mass of him at least blocking me from Peter’s prying eyes. And it feels...good.

  We make our way around the ring, in front of the judge’s panel, where I catch Hal Kilroy giving Austin a wink. Austin stares straight ahead. A tic in his jaw is the only sign he’s noticed at all. Peter is reading off a bunch of information about the horses. It all blurs into nothing. Is it Austin’s heartbeat that’s so loud, or mine? He looks so good in his checked-blue flannel. It brings out his eyes. I can’t stop the crazy thoughts now that we’re out here in front of everyone.

  The people in the crowd speed up, their waving hands going out of focus. Chewing on popcorn too fast. I’m here in the slow time. I don’t even like science fiction, but that’s what this feels like. Every step takes a hundred years. Boom, boom, boom. We’re giants shaking the packed dirt beneath our feet. And somehow, somehow, I am the delicate giant next to Austin’s breadth. His arm around my waist, his hands on my hips, sweet thing...

  The horses, in slow motion, lean their heads together and nuzzle noses. Awwww, everyone in the crowd says for a period of about a century. My heart thud, thud, thuds in time with our footsteps. We’re. Going. To. Win. This. Each word floats up into my mind on its own separate bubble.

  I snap back into reality the moment we step into the shadows, gulping in a huge breath. Austin gingerly pats my back. “You okay? Did you see something scary?”

  “Like what, Austin?” It hasn’t been long enough since the fire and I taste the smoke when I cough. “Your dick?”

  His hand stills on my shoulder, and then he laughs. “Don’t worry, sweet thing. It makes a lot of women nervous.”

  “Nervous that they’re not going to be able to find—” I can’t finish the joke, because I’m overtaken by another coughing fit. Oh, god. Is it possible I feel warm toward Austin, and not the frigid bitter wasteland I’ve been since I found out about that scholarship? I haven’t let myself think about it in so many years. And I never expected to hear the words I’m sorry come out of his mouth. Not ever. It was like standing too close to a nuclear reactor. It made me feel too many things. So naturally I picked a fight with him about the horses, naturally. So naturally.

  “You’re always exactly yourself, aren’t you?” There’s a note of awe in his voice, though I can’t say why.

  “Who else would I be?”

  We turn the horses around and watch Ferris Lane, one of the quietest ranchers I’ve ever met—and that’s saying something—lead his white mare around the ring.

  “You guys killed it.” A heavy hand comes down on my shoulder, and Luke Bliss sticks his head between Austin and I. I take a big step out to the left. We were standing pretty close, there. “How’d you get the horses to do that?”

  I shake off Luke’s hand. “It was unplanned.”

  “Anything else unplanned going on? Because the chemistry out there was—”

  Next thing I know, Austin’s got Luke in a headlock and is dragging him away from the horses, mumbling something in his ear.

  “I’m tapping out, for the love—” Luke’s words only make Austin hold him tighter. My heart flutters like an overe
xcited bird. He’s so strong. This competition is making me ridiculous. Something unplanned. As if anything unplanned would ever happen between me and Austin.

  Ferris Lane is finishing his loop when Austin steps back up beside me, face flushed. “Shut him up,” he says gruffly.

  “What was that about?”

  “My brother claims he only wanted to tell us that the crowd is with us tonight. That move the horses pulled—” He shakes his head. “This town is full of romantics. Told him to go sit with Julie May, where he belongs. That shut him up.”

  I snort. “This town is full of—” It occurs to me that I probably shouldn’t say what this town is full of at this particular moment. “This town is full of good people.”

  “Very believable, Brooke.”

  “Good people like you, Austin,” I say, louder. “You’re the best man this town has ever seen.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Nobody is like you in all of Paulson, or even the world.” Heads are turning, and Austin’s hand comes down on my arm with a sizzle and a spark. I shake him off, but a beat too late. “Fine. I’ll stop.”

  “People are going to think—”

  “What? That you’re the king of Paulson? You already run the show, Bliss.”

  “No. They’re going to think you like me.” His blue eyes bore into mine and blink I see the sky and blink the sea and blink something deep and cold and new. “You wouldn’t want that, would you? It’s one thing to work with me. It’s another thing to like me.”

  I don’t hate you, I want to blurt out. But that wouldn’t be true, would it?

  “You’re right.”

  “Shhh.” Mrs. Howard comes up behind us, and when I turn to see her she’s got her finger pressed to her lips. “Peter’s leading us in a song while the panel deliberates. Let’s join in, shall we?”

  I straighten up and sing You Are My Sunshine with the rest of the people gathered in the barn, the ghost of Austin’s touch on my arm. His glistening, naked body climbing out of the creek. The fire in my cheeks. It builds to a rush that blocks out all the rest of the sound from my ears. I cannot feel this way about Austin Bliss. I cannot.