Smooth-Talking Cowboy Read online

  Her mind raced, as she tried to figure out what the wrong idea might be. “Right,” she said, not willing to admit that she didn’t quite understand. She was tired of feeling like she didn’t understand everything.

  “He was excited, I think. Because, with me buying the land he imagines it might give you roots close. In many ways, I feel like he might have thought he was selling it to me as a gift to you.”

  Suddenly, it hit her. Her father was now starting to imagine she might marry Luke.

  The idea flooded her with a kind of crazy, reckless adrenaline that sent her blood pressure shooting sky-high. Made her hands shake.

  She didn’t hate the idea. That was the thing. The idea of spending the rest of forever with Luke Hollister. The man who made her feel safe, but not overprotected, all at the same time. The man who made her feel like she was something precious and special, to be treasured, but also to be lavished with passion.

  Luke seemed to understand that she was a controlling, controlled, crazy person. And he seemed to not mind it so much.

  She blinked, trying to get those thoughts out of her head. She really, really needed to not entertain things like that. It was her default setting. Wanting security. Wanting forever. Because she didn’t want to face the prospect of heartbreak. Of the aftermath of something like that.

  Of loss.

  Losing another person that she could never have back.

  This thing with Luke wasn’t a marriage thing. She knew it. She obviously had a problem with wanting commitment immediately from any man she could find.

  Resolutely, she pushed any warm fuzzy feelings away.

  “I see,” she said.

  “That kind of didn’t become clear until after. After we had agreed. And I just wanted you to know that I don’t want you to talk to him for me. I don’t want you to say anything.” He cleared his throat. “I see the merit now in not flaunting the relationship,” he continued.

  “Right,” she said, hollow.

  “Because what are people going to say? When I end up with that land that your father was notoriously reluctant to sell and then...”

  “And then we’re done,” she said, “I get it. Fox. Sad little hen.”

  “You know it’s what they’ll say.”

  She nodded. And she wished that she could tell him she didn’t care. Right now, she felt like she didn’t, but maybe she would. And anyway, he wouldn’t believe it. Not when appearances had always been important enough to her, because of what Vanessa had put her parents through.

  “Okay,” she said. “But I want you to know that I don’t think that,” she said. “I know that all of this... It doesn’t have anything to do with the land. I mean, I know we made a deal. About Bennett. And that I would help you. But I also know that the real stuff... I know you’re not using me, Luke,” she said. “I do.” A strange expression crossed his face and her stomach tightened.

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Take me to the ranch,” she said, feeling impulsive. “I want to see it now. Now that it’s yours.”

  “Okay,” he said slowly.

  He honestly looked like he had expected things to go a different way. “Luke, did you really think that I would be afraid that you were using me for the land?”

  “It’s been said to me more than once over the past couple of weeks that I’m difficult to know.”

  “I suppose that could be considered true in some ways,” she said. Because it wasn’t like she knew a whole lot about Luke’s past or anything, but she knew him. She had seen him naked, after all. She hadn’t seen anyone else naked. And no one else had seen her naked.

  “But I feel like I know you,” she said. She took a step forward, placing her hand flat on his chest. “I trust you.”

  “That feels a little bit misplaced.”

  “We’re both getting what we want.” She did her best to look at him, to make eye contact. “I know this isn’t forever, Luke. I know that we are not headed toward a great big happy ending. I’m okay with that. Whatever anyone else thinks... We can’t control that. I’m tired of trying to control everything all the time. Myself. Everyone. So let’s just have this. And not think about the future. That sounds nice to me.”

  He nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  “Now, take me to your ranch, cowboy.”

  * * *

  THERE WAS A strange feeling of pride swelling in Olivia’s chest as they drove down the road to the ranch that now belonged to Luke. Or would soon. It was a curious thing.

  She had never felt that way for someone before. It struck her then how much her relationship with Bennett had been about her. About what she wanted. About her plans.

  She hadn’t really considered Bennett in them much at all. If she had, she wouldn’t have been badgering him mercilessly about getting engaged as if his timeline didn’t exist or matter.

  And yes, this relationship with Luke, this relationship that was about sex and satisfaction, that had started to make someone else jealous... It felt different. She cared so much about this ranch that seemed to mean the world to him. Cared so much that it worked out for him.

  And she didn’t want to do anything to get in the way of it or to compromise it. Or to ruin the moment.

  She had wanted so badly to reassure him, to have nothing spoil that moment of triumph for him.

  And she had wanted to share it with him.

  This ranch that wouldn’t be for her. That would maybe be for another woman someday. Whatever woman he decided to marry. He said he didn’t want to get married, but with a place like this, and plans and a future ahead of him... That would change. She was sure of it.

  They were going down the driveway, toward a home that had nothing to do with her goals. And she just... Her chest felt full with her need for him to be happy. Her need for him to feel satisfied. To have good things.

  Unconsciously she reached across the space between them in that old truck of his that was starting to feel familiar, and she rested her hand on his leg.

  Feeling a little bit possessive, perhaps because she had just been thinking about some other woman being in his life.

  They didn’t speak as he pulled the truck up to the house and they both got out.

  They stood in front of the place, and she put her arm around his waist, leaning her head against his shoulder. “It’s yours.”

  “I’ve got the keys to the house,” he said.

  “Let’s go in,” she said, feeling excited.

  “I was warned it was rough,” he said. “I’m probably going to get a new construction going.”

  She looked at him. “You can still afford to get a new house built?”

  He laughed. “Yes.”

  Olivia scrunched up her face as she regarded his completely cool expression. “Did you... Are you a hit man or something?”

  “No,” he said, laughing.

  She squinted. “A male prostitute?”

  That made him laugh again. “No.”

  “Luke, I just realized I don’t know that much about you.”

  His expression turned irritated. “Didn’t we just talk about this?”

  “Yes. But that isn’t what I mean. I don’t mean about who you are. I know who you are. You seem like you don’t care, but you do. You care about every square inch of dirt in this county, I think. You care most of all about the land that’s Get Out of Dodge. And you care a lot about this place. You’re going to make it yours. And you’re going to work it with everything you have, because that’s what you do. You paste a smile on your face and make it look like you’re not trying at all while you throw your heart and soul into whatever you do. Even if it’s making Bennett Dodge jealous. I know what kind of man you are. But I don’t know the details about your life. And I’ve seen you naked. I want something that’s more than naked.”

  He frowned. “What’s the
point of that, Liv? When we know that it’s not forever?”

  Those words stabbed her in the chest, but she kept on going. “Maybe that’s the best reason. I spent a really long time keeping everything to myself. Because control was very important to me. And not letting anyone see the cracks in who I am. I didn’t want my parents to see me as vulnerable. I didn’t want to worry anyone. But... I’ll worry you. That’s fine. This has been my safe space. This thing that’s just you and me. There’s never been anything like it for me. Not even close.” She felt silly saying that, because she knew that he wouldn’t be able to answer in kind. But it didn’t matter. “So, I just want to know. I want to feel like I know you that way, too.”

  “Not a gigolo,” he said. “Haven’t killed anyone. No secret government contract work, either.”

  “Darn,” she said.

  The wind rustled through the pines, the cold air stinging her cheeks. And she waited. Waited for him to say something. Anything.

  “It’s an insurance settlement,” he said.

  “What kind?”

  He sighed heavily. “Let’s go in.”

  He took the keys out of his pocket, and the two of them walked up the rickety front porch and inside the little country house. The screen door swung shut behind them with a resounding crash.

  It was a rough house. But it was cute.

  They walked past the little living room, which still had some blue-and-white flowered couches and a knotty pine floor, into the kitchen, which was all yellow and white details. From the two-tone cabinets to the little flowers on the linoleum floor. There were lace curtains in the windows that were very cheery even though they were full of dust and probably a few spiderwebs.

  The lace made them seem like fancy spiderwebs, at least.

  There was a little breakfast nook with a Shaker-style table and chairs that looked out over the field. She imagined in summer the flowers in that field were yellow, too.

  It made her think that a little farm family could come home at any moment.

  It was like her dollhouse. This perfect, simple little place that had inhabited a part of her dreams since she was a child. So much more her than the cottage she lived in now.

  She could imagine a life here far too well. Children, a couple who spent their time working on the lands together. Who invested in something together.

  Her chest felt tight.

  Her dream wasn’t here. Her dream had been Get Out of Dodge and Bennett. Now it would have to be something new, but it couldn’t be this.

  She was a grown woman. She didn’t need to move into a place that reminded her of a dollhouse. Couldn’t afford to entertain fantasies of a life spent with a man who claimed not to want that.

  “This isn’t so bad,” she said, looking around. They walked through the kitchen and into the hall, which had real wood floors, and a narrow staircase with a yellow-and-white banister up the side.

  “It’s definitely not modern,” he said.

  “It’s not,” Olivia agreed. “It’s like a little snapshot of another time. Perfect.” Oh, so very perfect.

  “I promise that if I build a new house I won’t get rid of this one,” he said, his gaze suddenly intense on hers. “Promise.”

  She didn’t know why it mattered so much that he’d made that promise to her, all sincerity and seriousness. But it did.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  He walked through and rested his hand on the stair rail. “I grew up in a house that was nothing like this one. A little place in Eugene. Tract housing from the sixties.” He looked around the room. “I dreamed about places like this. Those places that seem simple, but you don’t realize at the time actually are very expensive. I dreamed of the kind of life where I could work with my hands and fix my situation.” He turned to look at her. “Nobody knows this, Olivia.” And she could hear the unspoken question in the statement that told her she needed to stay the only person that knew.

  She nodded slowly.

  “I never knew my dad. My mom was single always, as far as I know. Maybe she didn’t even know who my dad was. She never talked about him. But it didn’t take me long to start realizing that my mom wasn’t quite like other kids’ moms. She didn’t have a lot of energy, and it was difficult for her to see to everyday tasks sometimes. Some days she didn’t get out of bed at all. And on those days, I just expected that I would have to feed us both. I learned how to make pancakes when I was six. We ate a lot of pancakes. I loved my mom. I really didn’t mind taking care of her. And it was easy enough to get myself to school most days. I could ride my bike, so that was simple. By the time I got old enough, I just started forging her signature on school documents so that I didn’t have to miss out on field trips and things. Because keeping track of all that paperwork was too difficult for her.”

  Olivia thought of her own family. Of the way that her mother and father had always been so involved in her life. Her mother had volunteered in her class always. Her father such a presence that she couldn’t imagine simply not having a father at all. It hurt her just to think about it.

  Luke hadn’t just been without one parent, he had been the caregiver for the one he had.

  And he talked about it with a strange kind of affection that she could hardly understand. Maybe it hadn’t been her fault in some ways, but she’d left a little boy to his own devices. It made Olivia want to shelter him. Protect him.

  But he didn’t seem upset.

  He cleared his throat. “It was a combination of permanent disability and government housing that paid for where we lived. Food stamps. I took a lot of charity. Coats for Kids, that kind of thing. It all worked. It worked fine enough. But I definitely dreamed of bigger things. I watched a lot of Westerns.” He looked around the room. “I loved everything about them. The idea you could forge your own way. Like you said. I wanted to be a cowboy.”

  “Yeah,” she said, her stomach tightening with dread, because she could sense that this wasn’t going to a happy place.

  “When I was sixteen I went into my mother’s room and I found her unresponsive. She had taken an entire bottle of sleeping pills. It wasn’t accidental.”

  “Luke,” she said, the word coming out in a breath of horror.

  “Don’t do that,” he said, “don’t give me sad eyes and sorries. I’ve never told anyone this.” He reiterated that part, and Olivia went silent. “I just need to say it. My mother killed herself. She killed herself two days after she and I got in a big fight and I asked what the hell she was doing. What the hell she was doing with her life. With our lives. That she couldn’t ever be there for me.”

  He took a deep breath and looked across the room. “I understand that I didn’t make her do it. Because fighting with your mom...that’s normal,” he said, resolute. “That’s normal life stuff. It’s normal teenage stuff. But our lives were never normal. I lied about my age when the police came by, but I knew it wouldn’t take long for them to figure out I was a minor. I dodged a social worker after that, called the office and said I was looking for relatives. Then I found out about the insurance money.”

  Olivia bit her lip, trying to do what he had asked her to do. Trying to keep silent so that he could just tell his story.

  “She’d taken out a policy a few years before. Which is interesting to note because there’s a time frame, often, with suicide. If you take the policy out and kill yourself within a couple of years, your remaining family doesn’t get the money. And all I can think sometimes... Is that she thought I would be better off with the money than with her. I got so angry at her, and I yelled at her. And I told her how messed up our lives were. And how she didn’t do anything for me. So I think she figured I could have money instead.”

  “You can’t know that,” she said, the words rushing from her mouth before she could stop them. He hadn’t wanted her to say anything, but she couldn’t just let him stand there and
say that. Not when it hurt so much. Not when it was hurting them both. “She’s not here, so you can’t ask her.”

  “I know,” he said, his words scratchy, his green eyes pained. “That’s why it’s so damned hard. That’s why I have to wonder. Because she’s not here. Because she left the money instead. Because whatever the reasoning was, if she had any reasoning at all, or if it was just another dark moment in a lifetime filled with them, and this time the darkness won... I don’t know. All I know is that I was left with money. A hell of a lot of money. And no mother.”

  Her heart felt like lead. Pounding against her chest. Pounding so hard she couldn’t breathe. Could hardly speak. She wanted so badly to fix it. To go back in time and take care of the boy that he’d been.

  So much of her life she’d been about control. About fixing. But she couldn’t fix this.

  She hated it. Imagining this man, this gorgeous, strong, laid-back man, alone and vulnerable, made her ache all the way down.

  “Why didn’t you end up in foster care?” she asked.

  “Because I disappeared. And nobody really looked that hard for me. I’m not a missing person or anything. I just left that house. Quinn had that ad in the paper... Hiring a ranch hand. In Gold Valley. It was the place I’d dreamed about. I needed to go. I needed to...to see if it was what I hoped it would be. There was nothing behind me, nothing around me. There was only going forward.” Luke shook his head. “I thought maybe it was my chance to have that life. That life that I’d seen in those movies. But I never wanted to use my mother’s money. I was much happier working my ass off, much happier getting no more than what I had earned off my own back. But the problem with money like that is that it sits there. It just sits there. And if you do nothing with it... Well, what if that was why she killed herself? What’s worse than using it to make a better life? Not using it, right? Not honoring that twisted sacrifice. But I don’t even like to think of it that way. I don’t know how to think of it. That’s why for twenty years that money has just been there. Until this place.”