Page 13 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

Chapter Eight

Beth

I T’S NOT MY FIRST ever hangover but it’s my first official run in with hangxiety, and I can’t say I recommend it.

From the minute I woke up this morning with a furry taste in my mouth and a persistent banging in my temples, I’ve felt off.

That definitely didn’t ease when I got out of bed, saw the door to my room, and remembered.

Everything. The way I’d looked at Cole. Talked to him. Begged him to kiss me.

Ohmygod. The way I’d kissed him.

The way he’d looked at me with—I’m sure I’m remembering correctly—something like pity, before turning and walking away.

And probably gone back to the bar to hook up with some girl who’s more his type.

Someone who talks his talk and walks his walk, not a blow-in from New York who’s never even been on a horse before.

I couldn’t stop shame-groaning as I showered and fresh memories assailed me, or the same memory on repeat, mortifying me to the point of curling my toes.

I’d walked into the kitchen to grab a juice—all I could stomach—terrified of seeing Cole again, but at the same time, partly thinking it was better to just get it over with.

Except the only person in the kitchen when I do my walk of shame to the fridge is a curvaceous redhead I vaguely remember seeing the night before. It takes me a second (because my brain is post-Chardonnay) to recognize her as the woman who was dancing with Beau.

“Mornin’,” she says, way too loud, way too bright.

At her feet, Boots startles a little, makes a deep breathy sound then settles back to sleep.

The woman reaches down and pats between his ears, then straightens and fixes me with a glance.

“I thought I was the only one these boys brought home last night.”

I frown, trying to unpack her meaning.

“Oh, me and Beau have a bit of a thang,” she explains in a drawl.

“You do?” I think of his shameless flirting and frown, because I don’t have him down as the kind of guy who’d be unfaithful. He seems too decent for that. Then again, looks, and first impressions, can be deceiving. Don’t I know it.

“Not like a thang thang, more…we’re friends. And sometimes more.” She smiles. “Coffee?”

I shake my head but then change my mind. It’ll probably help blow out the cobwebs. “Sure.”

“So, you here with Austin? Or Cole?”

“I work here,” I blurt out, unable to bear the thought of this woman laboring under the misapprehension that anything happened between the oldest Donovan brother and me.

If it had been up to me, of course, it might be a different story, but Cole was a perfect gentleman. “He was just looking out for me.”

“That’s our boy Cole,” she says with a wink. “And here I thought you might have been the one to break his dry spell.”

I hate myself for asking, obviously, but how can I not? “Dry spell?”

“Don’t remember the last time he got some. Has to have been before his old man passed away. But even before that,” she tips her finger to the side of her lips. “He’s not exactly a ladies’ man.”

I almost spurt my orange juice out over the counter. How can anyone with eyes describe Cole as ‘not a ladies’ man’. I mean, I’m not going to say he’s sex on a stick, but if such a thing did exist…

“Beau reckons it’s something to do with their mom dying, that he was different after that, but who knows.” She shrugs. “What’s that saying about still waters, runnin’ deep? Reckon that’s probably the case with Cole.”

Curiosity is twisting through me but now there’s something else. Something protective and embarrassed, brought on by the knowledge that Cole would hate us to be talking about him like this.

“Do you live in Goodnight?” I change the subject clunkily, too hungover to care. Boots shifts again, this time standing up, shaking his head before moving to the dining table and lying down beneath it.

“We have the ranch just over there,” she tilts her head toward the window. “Probably’s why Beau and I first started hookin’ up. When you grow up around here, there’s not a lot to do, so you work out how to keep busy.”

We are so different, but I like her. She’s honest and open and not at all pretentious. Which is really refreshing after moving in the circles I occupied since marrying Christopher.

“I’m Beth,” I say.

“Ashley, but everyone calls me Ash.”

“Nice to meet you,” I stand, taking my empty juice glass to the sink before doubling back to wrap my hand around the coffee mug she poured for me. “I’d better get to work.”

She lifts her hand in farewell as I make my way to the door, glad for the sanctuary of my office. I shoulder the door in, head pounding, expelling a long, grateful sigh, only to stop walking smack bang in the middle of the room and freeze.

Because there, at the big timber desk, sits Cole ‘go to bed, Beth’ Donovan, and crap it all if I don’t just want the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

He glances up, eyes scanning my face, and the hair on my arms stand on end. The ground seems to tilt beneath my feet, and not just because of the wine I drank last night.

“Mornin’, sunshine,” he grins. Teasing me. I close my eyes on a fresh wave of mortification. “How you doin’ today?”

I force a smile. “Good, thank you. How are you?”

He laughs then. “Don’t worry about it, Beth,” he says, as I make my way to the desk by the window and sit down, grateful I can keep my back to him. “You’re not the first girl to drink too much and make a pass. It’s not a big deal.”

I hate everything about that. I hate the way he dismisses what happened between us, the way he dismisses my feelings and what I wanted from him, the way he clumps me in with any other woman he’s been drunkenly hit on by.

But at least he’s giving me a way out, letting me save face. Isn’t that what I should want?

“Right. Got it.” I settle down at my desk and take a long drink of coffee, gaze fixed on the window beyond. The thing is, I was tipsy last night, and I was asking him for something that sober me would never have had the confidence or spontaneity to do, but that doesn’t mean it was a mistake.

I went to the bar because I was determined to regain some of my autonomy. To start calling the shots in my own life. Kissing Cole was as much about that as anything else.

But he couldn’t have made it more obvious that he wasn’t interested in me. Or anyone, if Ashley is to be believed. I glance over at him, and say, “Thank you for not taking advantage of the situation.”

His eyes pierce mine. “I would never.”

“I know that.” Because he’s decent, honorable, and all things trustworthy.

“You feeling okay today?”

I’m tempted to tell him my head hurts, but to what end?

Maybe the more space I can keep between us, the better.

Because pining for a guy who’s not into me is the last thing I need right now.

Even if it is about removing the ghost of Christopher from my life, and minimizing the power he has over me, there’s something about Cole that makes it less than straight forward.

The fact he’s my boss, and that this place is like my sanctuary. I don’t want to mess this up.

Besides, there must be dozens of cowboys in town I could ask to kiss me. I think back to the bar last night, the group that was dancing, and try to bring to mind the face of a single guy who caught my eye.

And draw a blank.

When I think of last night, all I can think of is Cole. His voice, his laugh, his strength and natural authority, the way the others look to him without even realizing it. The way he smelled, the way he drove, the way he carried me to my room.

I stand abruptly, my heart racing, heat flooding low down between my legs. “I just remembered…something I have to do,” I mumble, without looking at him. “I’ll see you later.” I almost run out of the office.

Cole

After three days, it’s as clear as the summer sky that Beth is ignoring me.

Going out of her way to ignore me, in fact.

I know she’s working, because the books on her desk keep moving around, but damned if I’ve actually seen her sitting at her chair in our office since Saturday morning.

Same with the kitchen. The level of coffee in the pot keeps going down, so she’s definitely around, but I haven’t seen hide nor hair of her, and it’s really starting to get my goat.

I did the right thing that night. God knows I wanted to kiss her back.

Hell, I wanted to do a damn sight more than kiss her.

I wanted to buck that girl halfway to Sunday, but I’ve never taken advantage of a woman who’s been drinking.

Does she have any idea what it took to walk away from her, when she was looking at me with those enormous eyes, her lips all sultry and pink, parted like she was begging me to jam my tongue down her throat?

Hell, she was begging me, and I still walked away.

And then next morning, when I could see she wanted to disappear into the walls of the office, I let her clean off the hook, told her I knew it didn’t mean anything, made it sound like women made a habit of throwing themselves at my feet.

And once upon a time they did, but it’s been a long time since the message got through that I’m not interested in seeing anyone.

Not more than a casual thing, anyway, and even then, not if it takes my attention away from the ranch.

My old man used to harp on about it a fair bit, how I’d need to think about looking for the right woman one day.

Finding the ‘one’, someone who’d open me up to love like mom did for him.

Used to tell me I’d want kids of my own eventually, that it was the best thing in the world to see the woman you loved grow round with your child, and then to hold that baby in your arms and know that you would move heaven and earth for them if you could.

I know that’s how he felt, but I’ve never come halfway close to meeting anyone that makes me want to think about getting serious. About settling down. As for kids…forget about it.