Page 38 of My Cowboy Trouble (The Cowboy Romantic Comedies #1)

ASHER

I find her at the diner at eight in the morning, sitting in the same corner booth where I heard she met Darla yesterday. It's true, there's no damn privacy in this town.

She's got a cup of coffee that's probably gone cold and a plate of toast she's only picked at. Her hair is pulled back in its usual messy ponytail, and she's wearing yesterday's clothes, which tells me she probably spent the night at the local motel.

If I were her, I wouldn't come back either. Not yet, anyway.

She doesn't look up when I slide into the booth across from her, just keeps tearing her toast into smaller pieces until it looks like bread crumbs.

Or something we'd feed the chickens. Silence stretches between us, and I'm trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to say.

Sorry doesn't seem like enough, even for someone who’s usually good with words like me.

"Coffee's okay here," I say finally.

"I've had better." Her voice is flat, emotionless. The same tone she used when she first arrived at the ranch, before we'd earned the right to hear her laugh.

"In New York?"

"Everywhere." She finally looks up, and the exhaustion in her eyes hits me like a physical blow. "What do you want, Asher?"

Straight to the point. No small talk, no pretending this is fun.

"To... uh." Shit. I rehearsed this on the drive over, but now I can't remember a damn word. "To fix things."

"Things." She raises an eyebrow. "That's specific."

"You know what I mean."

"Do I? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you guys had your fun and now you're worried about the consequences."

Each word cuts, and they're supposed to. She's pissed, and she has every right to be.

"It wasn't like that."

"Wasn't it? Because that's sure what it sounded like when Clara Mae?—"

"Clara Mae doesn't know shit." The words come out harder than I intended, but I'm tired of that woman's poison spreading through everything. "She wasn't there."

"There for what?"

I run a hand through my hair, trying to find words that don't make me sound like a self-serving idiot. "There when you told Sir Clucks-a-Lot to go to hell. There when you fixed that delivery situation better than any of us could. There when you..." I trail off. I don’t know why.

"When I what?"

"When you stopped being what we expected and started being..." Fuck. "Just come with me. Let me show you something."

"Asher—"

"One hour. Give me one hour, and if you still think this was all fake, I'll... I don't know. I'll figure something out. I’ll drive you to the damn airport if that’s what you want."

She studies my face, probably looking for lies or whatever it is she expects to find. I let her look, because I've got nothing to hide. Not anymore.

"One hour," she says finally.

"One hour."

She leaves money on the table, and follows me out to my truck.

The ride is silent except for the radio playing something low that matches the mood in the cab.

She stares out the window at the passing landscape, and I wonder if she's thinking about how much she'll miss it or how eager she is to leave it behind .

"Where are we going?" she asks as I turn onto the dirt road that leads to the north pasture.

"You'll see."

The drive gives me time to think, which is probably a mistake.

I can talk up a blue streak, but this emotional stuff?

That’s where I fall flat on my face. Give me a fence to fix or cattle to move, and I'm your man. A pretty woman to flirt with? I’m all over that shit.

But trying to explain feelings? I'd rather wrestle a bull.

When we reach the section of fence we repaired together two weeks ago, I park the truck and get out, waiting for her to follow. She does, slowly, suspicion written all over her face.

"The fence?" she asks. “What about it?”

"Yeah. The fence?"

"What’s up?" she asks with a deep sigh, hands on hips.

It’s clear her patience is thin, and getting thinner by the moment.

This is it. The moment where I either find the right words or screw things up worse than they already are. I walk over to the corner post, the one that gave us so much trouble. The one where we argued about alignment and technique and ended up laughing until we couldn't breathe.

"Look," I say, pointing to a spot about shoulder height.

She looks, and I see the moment she spots it. The initials carved into the wood: A.H. & K.R. surrounded by something that's supposed to be a heart but looks more like a lumpy potato.

"When did you?—"

"Day after we finished the repair. Came back out here with a knife and spent an hour carving like some dumbass lovesick teenager." I run my thumb over the letters, still rough under my touch. "Seemed like the thing to do."

She stares at the carving like it might disappear. "Why?"

"Because." I shrug, because explaining feelings isn't exactly my strong suit. "Wanted to mark it, I guess. This place. This moment."

"What moment?"

"When I realized you weren't just passing through. When I figured out that watching you succeed mattered more to me than being right about you failing."

She's quiet for a long moment, just staring at our initials carved into the wood. "You carved our names like we're in high school."

"Yeah."

"That's..." She looks at me, and there's something different in her expression. Something that might be amusement. "That's really stupid, Asher."

"I know."

"And corny. And juvenile. And kind of sweet."

"Don't tell anyone."

She laughs, actually laughs, and the sound goes straight through me. "I’m telling everyone in town. Maybe I’ll even take bets.”

"Good. You should. I deserve that."

"There goes your reputation." She steps closer, close enough that I can smell her shampoo. "This will put a serious dent in it. I can see it now, Clara Mae screeching up in her truck, stirring up all kinds of dust, both literal and figurative."

"Worth it."

"Is it?"

Instead of answering with more words I'll probably screw up, I show her. My hands frame her face, and I kiss her before she can think too hard about it. It's not smooth or practiced, I'm too wound up for that, but it's honest. Everything I can't say poured into the connection between us.

For a moment, she's stiff against me. Resistant. But then she melts, her hands in my shirt, pulling me closer.

"This doesn't fix anything," she whispers against my lips.

"I know."

"This doesn't mean I forgive you."

"I know."

But she kisses me anyway, fierce and hungry. Like she's been wanting this connection, this proof that what we had was more than just entertainment and a stupid fucking bet.

I back her against the fence post, the one with our initials, and she lets me. Her hands are already working at my shirt buttons, and there's an urgency in her touch, a need to get closer.

"Here?" she asks, glancing around at the open pasture.

"No one comes out here. It's just us."

"Just us," she repeats, like she's testing the words.

I lift her onto the fence rail, settling between her thighs. Everything about her drives me crazy—the way she fits against me, the little sounds she makes when I touch her, the way she looks at me.

"Missed this," I admit against her throat. "Missed you."

"It's been one day."

"It was a long fucking day."

She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You're ridiculous."

"Yeah, I am. So what?"

My hands map familiar territory, finding the curve of her waist, the softness of her skin where her tank top has ridden up. She makes those sounds that drive me crazy, breathy sighs and quiet moans that go straight to my cock.

"Damn," I murmur against her collarbone.

"Yeah."

We're clumsy in our urgency, all hands and heat and a need to reconnect. Her jeans hit the ground, followed by my belt, my pants, and everything else that's keeping us apart. When I enter her, she gasps, her head falling back. It's awkward, and hot as fuck.

"God, Asher," she breathes

"Kenzie."

We move together like we were never apart, like the past day was just a bad dream. Her body knows mine, responds to mine, and I know exactly how to touch her to make her come apart in my arms.

"That's it," I murmur when she starts to tighten around me. "Go for it baby."

When she comes, her body clenching around mine, I follow her over the edge and come hard myself, hard as I can ever remember coming. We collapse together afterward, breathing hard, hearts racing, and for a moment, it's like none of the ugliness of yesterday ever happened.

"That was—" she starts.

"Good."

"I was going to say complicated."

"That too."

She curls into me, her head on my chest, and I can feel some of the tension leaving her body. Not all of it, there's still too much to work through for that, but enough that she's not holding herself apart from me anymore.

"This doesn't fix everything," she says quietly.

"I know. "

"I'm still hurt. Still angry."

"Yeah."

"But I'm glad you brought me here. Glad you showed me this."

I press a kiss to the top of her head. "Me too. Even though it’s one of the stupidest fucking things I’ve ever done."

“Yeah. Carving initials is up there,” she says with a laugh.

We get dressed slowly, neither of us in any hurry to break this moment. But eventually, reality creeps back in. The knowledge that we still have a ways to go, that carved initials and hot sex don't cure everything.

"What happens now?" she asks as we walk back to the truck.

"We go back to the ranch. Face the music."

"All of it?"

"All of it. Gavin and Trent are probably pacing holes in the porch by now, waiting to see if you'll even talk to them."

She's quiet as we drive back, staring out the window at the landscape rolling by. I wonder what she's thinking, whether she's already regretting coming out here with me or if she's starting to remember why she fell for this place to begin with.

"Asher?" she says as we turn into the ranch driveway.

"Yeah? "

"Thank you. For the fence. For the initials. For... everything. You’re a good guy."