Page 41 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Beth

F OR THE FIRST FEW days, I upload content without making much of a splash—which is to be expected.

I spend hours trawling hashtags and get the Ranch social media account following a heap of brands associated with farming, as well as other accounts like I’m hoping theirs will be, commenting on the posts.

It’s time consuming, tedious work, and I find myself zoning out and staring toward the ranch, wishing I were out there, feeling the sun on my skin, smelling the air the way it is out here—with trees and horses and sunshine heavy in it.

Wishing I was with Cole, who seems to have taken over all of my senses and refuses to let go.

I’m so distracted by the work I’m doing on the social media account building that I almost completely miss Christopher’s mother’s birthday. It’s almost dinner before I finally remember to send her a message, knowing it’s the bare minimum she’ll expect and that I should deliver.

Anna, thinking of you, as you mark another year, your first without your son. I know you’re missing him particularly today. Sending you love, Beth.

My throat thickens as I send it, and unexpectedly, tears fill my eyes. I blink at them quickly, but the grief remains, heavy in my heart. Christopher wasn’t just my husband—an awful, horrible man to me. To them, he was their son, and they loved him. I know how much they’re grieving him.

I wish I could give them what they want, but I did enough of that during Christopher’s life.

I spent three and a half years pretending to be the perfect upper East side wife, even when I was breaking inside, sometimes quite literally.

I was a master of hiding bruises, of learning how not to flinch when he touched me in public.

I wrapped all my own feelings up and buried them deep down for so long it became habit.

Now, I’m starting to feel again, to be true to myself, and as much as staying away from my former in-laws makes me feel guilty, and hurts them, I know it’s right, at the same time.

My phone buzzes with her reply.

Thank you, darling. It’s been surreal. I’ve just had a Valium—Winston insisted—but let’s talk in the next few days. We all miss you. A.xx

I expel a rush of breath, my hands shaking as I close out of the texts and load up insta again.

There are a few new comments on the most recent video—a reluctant Caleb was pushed into service, cracking his whip across a field, the setting sun behind him casting him in glowing orange.

He looks huge and intimidating, and very, very Cowboy.

I’ve added a text overlay: Sometimes you just have to show the land who’s boss.

The comments are tending to be mostly women, verrrry appreciative of Caleb. A few of them veer into the inappropriate, observing that he could show them who’s boss anytime, that he should bring the whip, that kind of thing. I laugh, wondering how he’ll take that, and shove my phone in my pocket.

That night, after dinner, Cole and I make our way to his truck together. He takes my hand in his and I feel like everything in my life has led me to this moment—to holding the hand of the man who’s putting me back together again.

When he pulls up at the stables, he says to me, “I’ve got a surprise for you.”

I look at him, curiously.

The stables are a large, two-story building, with a big central corridor, horses lined up on each side, in their own little stalls.

The wide space that runs between them is covered in a fine, yellow gravel.

At the end of the row, there’s a big barn door that’s only ever been closed, when I’ve come here.

I’ve never looked too closely down that way, so I’ve never noticed the wrought iron spiral staircase, tacked onto the end of the barn.

Cole leads me to it, glancing at me with a raised brow. “After you.”

“Is it safe?” I ask, looking at the spiral staircase with a sense of vertigo.

“As houses.”

I start up the staircase which, despite his insistence, shakes a bit as I get higher.

“Now that’s quite a view,” he says from behind me, so I forget to be afraid of the rickety old steps and make it to the timber decking that sits suspended over the stables beneath.

He comes up behind me, brushes a hand against my side then pushes open a door, right in front of me.

“It’s a room. No, an apartment,” I say, shaking my head.

“Thought it was about time we get some privacy.”

I look at him, frowning. “I had no idea this was here.”

“I’ve been cleaning it up,” he says.

“Who usually lives here?”

“No one, for a few years. Used to be a full-time stable manager, but…we’ve laid people off.” From the tone of his voice, I can tell how hard that’s been for him, how hard it was for his dad.

“Place was covered in dust, on account of no one having been in here for so long.”

“It’s lovely,” I say, genuinely, taking in the small, neat sofa, the table for two, the double bed.

A bed feels like a luxury, after the amount of time we’ve spent in his truck or on a picnic blanket in a field.

Not that those experiences don’t hold their own charm, but this is a nice change of pace.

The floor is wide-board timber, with gaps between, but a big rug has been thrown over them, with tassels at the edges.

“You sure the horses won’t mind?” I ask, flicking him a smile.

“If they do, they can take it up with management,” he jokes, as he draws me toward the bed then kisses me down onto it.

There are three small windows in this apartment, high up, just to let the light in, and when I wake to the sound of Cole dressing, it’s still dark out.

“What time is it?” I mumble, stretching in the surprisingly comfortable—if somewhat small—bed. Fine for a person of my stature, but Cole’s feet must have dangled over the edge.

“I didn’t mean to wake you.”

I prop myself on one elbow, flicking on the lamp at my side. It’s old and casts a weak, warm glow. “You were just going to leave?” I pout, with mock insult.

He comes back to the bed, the mattress depressing as he sits on the side of it.

“For now. I planned to come wake you at a more civilized time, bring you back to the house.”

I look around the little apartment, smiling. “I like it here.”

He doesn’t respond right away, and when I turn to him, he’s staring at me with a look that makes my bones melt. Heat spreads through me. “I’m real glad, Beth. Cause I was thinking we could spend a fair bit of time out this way.”

My heart races. “Were you, Cowboy?”

“If that’s alright with you.”

“Won’t people notice?”

“No one comes out here at the hours we’ll be using it.” His eyes roam my face. “I’ve got no problem with them knowing, anyway.”

“But I do,” I say, quickly, thinking of my mother in law’s text, and the double life circumstances have pushed me into living. To a whole host of people in New York, I was the perfect society wife, and am now the grieving widow of an ambitious investor and heir to the McMahon fortune.

Out here, I’m Beth Tasker, forging relationships with these people on my own terms, without them knowing what a mess I left behind me. What a mess I ran out on, ran away from.

“I know that,” he leans forward and presses a kiss to my forehead. “This is as private as any place out there,” he hitches his thumb toward the walls of the stables, indicating the fields beyond.

“Then it’s just perfect.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

He kisses me again, but this time, he kisses me like he never wants to let me go. Which of course he will, because that’s our deal.

Later that morning, back in the main house, my phone buzzes and I pull it out, to see another text from my former mother-in-law.

Beth, I should also have said how worried we all are about you. You do not have to grieve alone. Please, come see us again soon. I have some things of Christopher’s to give you. Anna.

I feel like screaming. I feel like the air in my lungs can barely be contained.

I don’t even manage to change into running gear.

I just slip my shoes on at the door and push one foot in front of the other, hair flying wildly around my face as I take the drive, away from the house, down toward the gate.

I run as though I can actually escape what’s waiting for me in New York.

I run from the deception I’ve been carrying, and carry still.

And finally, when I can hardly breathe from how hard I’ve been pushing myself, I collapse onto the grass and drop my head between my knees, panic and anger swirling inside of me, so stars fill my eyes and I know I have to breathe deeply, to focus on a steady point on the ground, to let myself come back together again.

I can’t hide out here indefinitely. That was never my plan.

I thought three months would be long enough to put some distance between me and them, to rebuild myself in a way that would be lasting.

But having been here a month, a third of the time I’d planned for, the knowledge of what’s still waiting for me in New York is a cloying reality I would do anything not to have to face.

Panic subsides, slightly, so I turn my face to the side and press my cheek against my knees.

The first thing my gaze lands on is the herd, in the distance.

Big, beautiful, black cows—I would never have described a cow as beautiful until I came out here and saw them up close.

Those eyes, though, that look like they’re seeing right inside of you.

The herd is all together, but that’s not random.

As I watch, a line of five men, and one Mackenzie, ride their horses along behind the cows.

I can pick Cole out easily. He’s in the middle of the line, flanked on one side by Beau and the other by Austin.

Caleb rides the outside edge, Mackenzie the other, then there’s someone I don’t know far off in the distance, maybe to catch stragglers, or keep an eye on predators? I don’t know.

There’s a lot I don’t know about the running of a ranch, I realize, with a strange shifting inside of me. I’ve been here a month now, and I have a general idea of what’s involved, but it’s obviously a complicated business, rather than just playing Cowboy.

A noise startles me back to the foreground of my view, as a big red truck comes through the gates of the ranch and up the drive, speeding past me in a plume of dust before it stops and reverses back.

I don’t even want to contemplate what I look like—though I can easily imagine. Pale face, tear-stained cheeks, hair wild.

Ash Callahan—if she notices—doesn’t say a thing about my appearance. “Do you know where that jackass is?”

“Beau, you mean?”

“Yeah, that one.” She looks mad as anything. Spitting chips mad. “God rest his soul,” she adds.

“What’s happened?”

“I’m gonna kill him is what’s happened,” she snaps. I flinch a little at her obvious anger. At her threat, even though it’s obviously just that—words.

“What’s he done?” I ask, standing up, brushing my hands down the back of my jeans.

She hesitates a moment, like she’s wondering if she should tell me or not and then she says, “Oh, you’re gonna find out real soon anyways. Once Cole knows about this, the whole damn valley will hear his cussing.”

“What’s happened?” I ask, genuinely worried now.

“He’s gone and signed himself up to ride again, hasn’t he?”

I stare at Ash, my expression no doubt showing my surprise. Then again, am I actually surprised? Really? On some level, no. Having seen the passion in Beau’s eyes, when he talks about bull riding, I get it.

“And you don’t want him to?”

“Ain’t no one who saw what it did to him back then thinks this is a good idea,” she says sharply.

“I appreciate you weren’t around at the time, but if you imagine that man being rattled to within an inch of his life, bruised all over, bones poking out, talking like scrambled eggs for days, then you get the general idea. ”

My stomach drops. It does sound awful. But he recovered fully, and this is clearly what he wants to do.

I consider pointing that out, trying to soften the ground for Beau a little, but this isn’t my fight, and it’s clearly a fight he’s going to have to have.

“Is he at the house?”

I shake my head and point across the fields, to where they are, in the far distance now. My eyes scan the horizon, trying to pick out the border to their property. Cole’s shown it to me, a few times, but I have a hard time knowing which bit of land is which, like Cole does.

“Right then. I guess I’ll just wait.” She turns her attention to the house. “You want a ride?”

I shake my head. “I’ll walk back.”

“Suit yourself.” She drives off, leaving a huge cloud of dust in her wake. I glance back toward Beau, wondering if he’s got any idea what kind of storm is waiting for him.