Page 46 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Beth

I JUMP APART FROM Cole so fast I likely would have fallen down the stairs if he hadn’t quickly caught me around the waist and held me to the spot. I look over the railing and see Mack, Caleb and Elsie staring up at us, all with very different expressions on their faces.

Mack’s, bemused. Caleb’s, surprised. Elsie’s…I can’t even begin to describe Elsie’s.

The hurt and betrayal I see on her features is like a physical slap.

She mouths my name, but can’t hear it. I swear, and quickly pull away from Cole. I know he’s right behind me, as I move quickly down the spiral staircase—for once, not scared by the way it shakes with our steps.

But when I reach them, I have no clue what to say. I just stare at her, and she stares at me, so now it’s the others I’ve tuned out. I can’t even imagine what I must look like to her, how much I’ve changed since I left Manhattan.

“What is this?” she says, finally, recovering before I can, her eyes flicking to Cole, a frown pulling on her lips.

“It’s—,”

“You’re—are you—I don’t understand,” Elsie says, her eyes filming with tears. “He just died, Beth. Your husband—my brother—just died and you’re out here playing cowgirl with, with, this?” she jerks her thumb at Cole.

I don’t look around.

I can’t.

I can’t even think of him right now. But Caleb is right beside Elsie, and I see him stand up taller, squaring his shoulders, like he’s getting ready to say something for Cole.

“It’s not?—,”

“Don’t tell me it’s not what it looked like,” Elsie spits. “I’m not stupid. I have two eyes. I could see you two going at it up there. Do you have any idea—he just died. How can you do this to him? To his memory?” She looks at Cole again, shaking her head. “And with this guy?”

My stomach twists. “Leave Cole out of it,” I say, my voice quiet but firm.

“That’s what you should have done.” She shakes her head, and a tear slides down her cheek.

I know this is coming from a place of grief, rather than anger, but it doesn’t make much difference right now.

“I can’t believe this. I came out here because we’ve been worried sick about you, and all the while you’ve been screwing everything in a cowboy hat. ”

“Hey,” Cole’s gruff voice comes from behind me, and I turn to face him.

“Leave it,” I say, pleadingly. His eyes shift to mine, and there are so many emotions swirling in his depths that I can’t think straight. It’s happening again—that weird vortex thing we have, that pulls me out of reality and into our own little existence.

“Come on, Beth, you can’t just let her—,” Cole says, gently.

“Let her what?” Elsie demands, so I turn back to my sister-in-law, feeling totally caught between them.

“You can’t come onto my ranch and talk to Beth like that. I’m sympathetic to what you’ve been through, but Beth’s her own person. She can make her own choices.”

“Her husband just died. Do you really think you’re the kind of choice she’d make if she were thinking clearly?”

I stare at Elsie, totally shocked by how cutting that comment is. “Elsie?—,”

“What? It’s the truth. You’re obviously not thinking straight or you would never have come out to his backwater place, to do a job that’s miles beneath you, working for these—these—hicks.”

My jaw drops. “Okay, Els, just—stop talking a second, okay?”

I whirl around to face Cole. He’s looking straight ahead, a muscle jerking in his jaw. My old life and my new life are at war with each other, and I’m on a strangely wobbly little precipice between them. I need some time and space to sort this out.

Cole’s eyes flick to mine, probing my depths, before he says, “I’ll give you both some privacy.” He leans closer, so I feel his warm breath on my cheek. “But you should tell her the truth, Beth.”

“Cole,” I say, warningly, panic rising through me at the thought that he’s going to reveal the reality of my marriage to Christopher.

He shakes his head a little. “It’s the only way you’re ever going to be free of this.” And he lifts his hand to my cheek and brushes his thumb across it tenderly, so my heart does a little flip, like Elsie isn’t even here. Like Cole’s the only man I’ve ever known—the only man I ever will.

As he leaves the stables, his feet make a crunching sound on the gravel beneath us. Caleb and Mack follow in his wake, and finally, Elsie and I are alone.

“What’s he talking about? What truth do you need to tell me?”

My heart drops to my feet.

“Damn it, Beth. I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.”

Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe she never did?

“Are you actually sleeping with that guy?”

I flinch at her question.

“I mean, he’s hot, obviously, but you were married to Christopher.

You had the world at your fingertips. How can you come out here and just—,” she shakes her head.

“It must be grief. I’ve heard of this, of people doing really unhinged things when they lose someone they love. I guess that explains it.”

I nod, a little, but now, in my mind, it’s not Christopher I see, but rather, Cole.

His patience and goodness, the way he went running with me each afternoon, though it was probably the last thing he felt like doing, just because he wanted to protect me.

I think of everything we’ve shared. The conversations, our secrets, the trust we’ve built, and I can’t let Elsie’s summation sit out there, even though I know it would make her feel better.

“It’s not that,” I say.

Elsie stares at me.

“I like Cole.”

Her lips part. “You shouldn’t be liking anyone, much less sleeping with them. Christopher just died.”

“I know that.”

“You’re supposed to be home with us, mourning, working out how to get on with your life without him in it, not kicking up your heels with these…these…”

“Don’t,” I say, warningly. “However you feel about me, and my choices, leave them out of it.”

She is clearly surprised by that.

“Els, I love you. You were my friend before you became my sister, and I’d like us to still be friends. But this is my life, and you can’t come out here and tell me how to live it, okay?”

“Do you have any idea what this would do to Christopher?”

I flinch.

“Can you even imagine what he’d do, if the shoe were on the other foot?”

I shake my head. “I know how it must seem?—,”

“It seems like you’re a shallow bitch,” she hisses. “Was this about his money? Is that why you married him?”

I begin to tremble at the horrible accusation. “I didn’t even know you guys had money until that night.”

“Yeah, the night you met him. He fell head over heels for you. We thought you did, too. But all I can think now is that you were just blinded by what he could buy for you, what he could give you.”

I shake my head quickly, unable to find the words to deny it.

“You always wear designer clothes, have the latest bags, shoes?—,”

“That’s how Christopher liked me to dress.” How he insisted I dress.

“I can’t believe I was so wrong about you.”

Tears sting my eyes. Maybe Cole’s right. Maybe I should tell her the truth about Christopher. But while the thought of having her think badly of me is something I can live with, I don’t think I want to be responsible for destroying her memories of her much-loved brother.

“Jesus, Beth. I’ll tell you what, forget I was here. Forget about me, altogether, forget my parents. Best thing you can do is lose our numbers—you want out of our family? You’ve got it.”

Elsie strides toward the stable doors, her long hair swishing against her back as she goes.

She turns before she leaves, though, and shouts, “I will never, ever forgive you for this.” I stare at her, completely unable to formulate a sentence; not sure I know where I could even try to begin.

I hate Christopher’s control over me, but at least this time, I know it’s motivated by my choice, too.

My choice to protect Elsie and their parents.

I’m not protecting him anymore, nor am I keeping quiet out of self-preservation.

This is an act of love—Elsie will never know that though.

Cole

Caleb’s eyes lock to mine when I stalk into the kitchen a little while later and grab a beer from the fridge. I hold it tight in my hand, staring out at the rose garden, my pulse ticking in a way I can feel, all through my body.

The silence is heavy in the air, even though he doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter, cracking the top off the drink then placing it down on the counter.

“Sure.” Caleb’s shrug is inauthentic. He takes the beer off the bench and has a swig.

I shoot him a scowl before retrieving another one. This time, I put it down harder, without opening it. “Fuck it.” I drop my head forward, trying to get the look of Beth out of my mind when she’d seen Elsie. Trying to get our fight—was it a fight?—out of my mind, too.

Trying not to think about her being talked into going back to Manhattan with her dead husband’s sister. Trying not to think about how stifling she must find that life, all the lying, the pretending, the trying to be someone she’s not.

Whereas out here, with us, with me , she’s…free. Free, wild, and wonderful.

So what?

She can’t stay here indefinitely. This was always a temporary job. We both knew that. She wanted some space to heal, and the ranch has definitely been that for her. I just never really thought about what she’d be going back to; the people she’d be leaving us for.

“So, Beth’s a widow, huh?”

I grunt something like an acknowledgement.

“Did you know?”

I open the beer. A little froths over the rim, courtesy of my rough handling. I ignore the spill on the counter and take a drink.

“I knew.”

Caleb lets out a low whistle. I don’t look at him. I don’t need to; I know what he’s thinking, ‘cause it’s exactly what I’d be thinking in his shoes.

“I didn’t plan on it.”