Page 35 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

Chapter Twenty

Beth

“ Y OU OKAY, City Girl?” He sounds concerned as he stares at my naked body. I look at him, then at my chest. The moon is high and full, bathing us in a silver glow. I can see pink patches on my skin, from his hands, his mouth, his stubble.

I nod once, but it doesn’t seem to assuage his concerns.

He draws me to his chest, holding me. “I meant to be gentle.”

I glance up at him, confused. My breath is still coming in fits and spurts. I feel totally overwhelmed by everything we just did, everything I just felt. I don’t even know how to put that into words.

“What you did was perfect.” He doesn’t look convinced. “Cole, I’m not made of glass.”

“But you’ve been hurt.”

“By someone who wanted to hurt me. It’s different.”

“I want you to feel safe with me.”

“Believe me, I do. That’s the only reason I’m out here, enjoying what we just did.

I trust you.” I frown then, because I feel like the sentiment has to be clarified, the nuance of my trust explained.

“I mean, I trust that we can have sex, that you’re not the kind of guy who gets off on making a woman suffer.

I trust you in that sense. I don’t mean I trust you, like I want to…

trust you with anything more, if you know what I mean. ”

His brow furrows, and I don’t blame him. That didn’t exactly come out like I intended.

“Like, I’ll never actually trust anyone again, in terms of wanting to be in a couple or whatever.

The whole give and take, and blindly walking side by side that a relationship involves.

That’s a hard no from me, for always. But this…

what we just did, I’m okay with it. More than okay. It was…everything I needed.”

He nods slowly, yet still looks contemplative, as though he’s thinking things he doesn’t know how to say.

“Does that bother you?”

“Frankly, yeah, a little.”

“Why?”

“I hate the thought of you letting that bastard dictate the rest of your life.”

I shrug. “Same. But that’s just the way it is.”

“You think it has to be?”

“Yes,” I say, pushing up on one elbow, so I can see him better. “I thought you understood that about me. I’m not looking for anything more from you.”

“I’m not offering more,” he says, so quickly I feel like it’s as ingrained to him as it’s become in me. “I’m not talking about me, Beth. I’m talking about someone else, down the road, when these wounds of yours have had time to heal over properly.”

“They’ll never heal,” I say, my voice cold, and weighed down by certainty. “I’ve accepted that. What he did, the trust he destroyed, the way I lived…I will never risk that happening again. I’m the only person I ever intend to rely on.”

He nods. “I get why you feel that way.”

It’s not exactly an agreement. I feel as though there’s more he wants to say, but he lets it go, and I’m glad. I’m pretty sure we both know where we stand, what this is. How long it will last.

I lie there with my head on his chest, listening to the beating of his heart, looking up at the stars above us. They are so sparkly out here, the sky so dark, it takes this city girl’s breath away, each and every time.

I delight in running my fingers over the skin on his chest, feeling the hair-roughened flesh, the ridges of his abdomen, the muscles, the warmth.

One point of difference I can’t help reflecting on, between Cole and Christopher, is that Cole is the biggest, strongest guy I’ve known in real life.

He could hurt just about anyone, easily, but he doesn’t need to flex his muscles like that.

His real strength comes from inside, from knowing who he is; from having a strong moral compass, and a desire to do good.

My eyes are growing heavy when he says, “What’re you going to tell your friend?”

It takes me a few seconds to catch on to what he’s saying. To remember Elsie’s text, and it’s like a frigid iceberg has just drifted into my chest cavity. It’s a problem without an easy answer.

“I don’t want to go,” I say, slowly, brows knitting together. “But I also don’t want to hurt their feelings.”

He grunts. What does that mean? A grunt of agreement? Disagreement?

“Anything to add to that?” I ask, shifting sleepily, propping my chin on his chest so I can look at his face.

“You askin’ me for advice, City Girl?”

“I guess I am,” I say, and when he drops his head forward to place a kiss on my forehead, my whole body lifts with goosebumps.

I move my leg a little, over his, glorying in our nakedness, in the intimacy of lying like this, in his truck, beneath a blanket of stars, with a gentle summer breeze rustling across us.

“I reckon it’s about time you absolve yourself from worrying about their feelings.”

“They’re not bad people. What happened with Christopher wasn’t their fault.”

“You say you spent your marriage protecting him, but do you really think they didn’t know what was going on? What he was like?”

I frown, thinking of Elsie. I hadn’t known her that long when I met Christopher, yet I feel like I really understood her. I don’t doubt that she cared about me. “I really don’t think they knew, no.”

“Maybe not the extent of it,” he says, after a beat, stroking my hair, as though he wants to reassure me even when he’s disagreeing with me. “But I reckon they knew something wasn’t right.”

I thought the Christopher scar was at full expansion, but it cracks a little in my chest, opening up wider, because I realize Cole’s right. There’s no way anyone could have spent time with Christopher and me—who knew me before—and believed things with us were healthy.

So what? Were they intentionally ignoring the signs, or just hoping for the best?

“It just seems to me that after what you’ve been through, you need to look after yourself. Maybe next year, you’ll feel like you actually want to go see her on her birthday. Maybe things will have changed. But for now, you’re running because you need to run.”

I lift up to look at him again. It’s a perceptive comment and in the back of my mind, I’m almost bothered by how well he sees inside of me.

“I just don’t want to think about my old life, you know?”

“So don’t,” he says. “Why don’t you just exist in this moment, here with us. For now, it’s exactly where you’re meant to be.”

And as my eyes grow heavy and I stifle a yawn, I admit to myself that he’s completely right. I know it’s temporary, but that doesn’t change the facts: in this moment, there’s nowhere else I’d want to be than Coyote Creek Ranch, and no one else I’d rather spend time with than Cole Donovan.

“What was in town this afternoon?” I don’t know why I ask it.

After all, I presume someone like Cole has a million reasons for heading into Goodnight.

But there’s something in the back of my mind, some sixth sense, and the question forms without me really intending it.

I stifle another yawn, tiredness wrapping around me like a blanket.

He doesn’t answer straight away, and then says, “Why d’you ask?”

Which is enough of a reason to be glad I did. It makes me think it’s important. “Is it a secret?” I tease, keeping it light. As someone who’s made an artform out of keeping things close to my chest, I know that asking a question too directly can lead to a shutdown.

“I had a meeting,” he says, after another longer-than-necessary beat.

“Yeah?” I glance up at him. “A good meeting?”

He looks at me, his eyes roaming my face, like he’s thinking that through, long and hard.

“Not really.” It’s more than I’d expected. I nod, slowly, thoughtfully. I’m not tired anymore. My interest is piqued, and it’s brought me a second wind.

“In what way?”

He sends me a look. A look that says, butt out . Or, why are you asking me this ? But he sighs, then runs his hand over my hair. “Why do you make me feel like I can tell you anything?”

My heart trembles, like the breeze brushing over me has somehow reached inside my chest.

“I don’t know. Maybe because you know I’m only here a little while. I feel it, too.”

He grins, slowly, and my heart stops trembling and starts flipping. Then, his expression sobers, his eyes focusing on the stars overhead.

“The ranch is in trouble.”

“What?” It’s literally the last thing I expect to hear from him.

“I had no idea how much until the old man died and I took things over. It’s a mess, Beth. He left it in a mess.”

I sit up, propping my weight on the palm of one hand, so I can see him properly. “How big of a mess?”

“If I can’t turn things around in the next six months, I’m going to have sell off a fair bit of land.”

I close my eyes, instinctively knowing how much he hates the idea of that.

“This land that’s been in my family for generations, and I’ll be the one to carve it up.”

“That’s not your fault,” I say sharply. “If your dad left things the way he did…”

A muscle jerks in his jaw.

“How did this happen?” I ask, softly.

“It happened the day he let his big, stupid heart take over his decision making,” he mutters.

“Never could help himself from wanting to fix everything. So, when some old childhood friend of my mom’s got in trouble, asking to borrow money, he couldn’t say no.

Especially not when this friend kept going on about mom, how much she meant to him.

” He shakes his head angrily. “I had no idea about any of this, until after he’d died, and I saw the emails. This guy led my dad down a merry path.”

“But surely you can get the money back.”

“It was a scam, Beth. This bottom feeder preys on whoever he thinks he can sweet talk into handing over cash.”

I shake my head, hating that. “How much money?”

“More than dad had in the bank, so he took out a loan.”

“Oh, God, Cole…”

“It seems like by the time he started to wise up to it being a scam, he was in too far. I wish he’d told me. I hate to think of him having lost sleep over this.”

I nod, pressing a hand to his chest. “But surely between you and the others, there’ll be something you can…”

“They don’t know,” he cuts me off. “And I plan to keep it that way.”