Page 52 of Ride Me Cowboy (Coyote Creek Ranch #1)

Chapter Thirty

Beth

I CAN’T GO BACK to our apartment. It was my plan, when I left Coyote Creek Ranch.

It makes sense, right? I mean, it’s ‘home’.

Where I’ve lived for years. But as my flight neared La Guardia, and my driver slipped through New York, toward the Upper East side, I had this almost catastrophic inability to breathe.

Sweat broke out on my brow, my back, making it hard to sit in the car.

So, I’d knocked on the window between us and asked to be taken to a hotel on the edge of the park. Just to regroup. I have to go back at some point, to pack up the remnants of my life.

Or do I? If there’s one saving grace in this situation, it’s that I do actually have access to money.

Sometimes, I can do rich people things. Like getting someone to pack up the place for me.

It’s cowardly, and yet, right now, with my heart as battered, bruised and broken as it is, that has definite appeal.

The whole heartbreak thing is my fault. I’m the one who pushed him to say he doesn’t love me. I needed to hear it, so that I could remind myself of that, replaying those words, whenever I’m tempted to weaken and call him.

I don’t feel like doing anything, back in New York, and this view I once thought of as incredible no longer does anything for me.

I close my eyes and see the ranch. All the beauty of it.

The contradiction of the landscape, the wide, bubbling creek behind the guest house, the rose garden, the ancient trees, the over-bright stars.

I close my eyes and I’m back in The Silver Spur, dancing with Cole, laughing with Beau, talking to Mack.

I’m in the kitchen at the Ranch, watching Beau cook, salivating at how good everything smells.

My phone starts to ring, and I startle, reaching for it, with that awful, pathetic hope in my chest that it will be Cole.

I know they’ve gotten the letters, because I’ve heard from Cass, Austin and Mack.

I’ve been torn about the social media stuff.

I want to see what Mack does, but at the same time, I need a break, so I’ve blocked the account, just to give me some breathing room, while I’m coping with all this.

But when she messaged me, I told her to let me know if she needs any help, because I’ve somewhat left her in the lurch.

Except it’s Elsie’s face I see on the screen, not Cole’s, or anyone else from Coyote Creek Ranch. From the place I’d stupidly started to think of as my place.

For the briefest moment, I think about ignoring the call. The way I feel right now, I know I can’t take being yelled at by her again. But I swipe right anyway, and press the speaker phone button, so I can keep the phone resting on my thigh, rather than holding it to my ear. “Hi, Els.”

Elsie’s voice fills the hotel living room.

“Oh, Beth,” she says, sobbing. “Can we talk?”

It’s not at all what I’d expected. “Are you okay? Is everyone okay?”

“Yes, no. I need to talk to you.”

“I’m—okay.”

“I’m so sorry for what I said the other day.”

I shake my head, tears filling my eyes. “Please, don’t apologize. I still don’t even know if telling you was the right thing to do.”

“You should have told me sooner,” she sobs. “You should have let me help you.”

“Are you—are you saying you believe me?”

She sobs and is unable to speak for a time. I wait, though, staring out at the park, my heart thudding heavily inside me.

“I believe you,” she whispers.

I close my eyes, surprised by how badly I needed to hear that. Surprised by how her words bring tears to my eyes, and then wrench a huge sob from me, so we’re just two people sitting on a call in New York, crying.

“Are you back in New York?” I ask, through the tears.

“Yeah. I came straight back.”

“Okay. Do you want to come over?”

“Are you here?”

I nod, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Yes. But not at…the apartment.” I give her the name of the hotel then we disconnect the call. I pace the hotel room, consider showering, because I haven’t since I left the ranch three days earlier, but find I still don’t have the energy for it.

Instead, I make a coffee and sit back down on the sofa, resuming my position of catatonic observer of the city.

It’s not quite an hour before the buzzer rings at my door. I move quickly, pulling it inwards, so Elsie hurtles herself toward me and wraps me in a hug.

“I am so sorry,” she says again, crying. “I can’t believe what I said to you. I can’t believe—I just can’t believe—,” She’s crying so hard it’s impossible to speak, so we just hold each other a long time, but in tears, finding it hard to breathe.

But eventually, she pulls away and reaches for my hand, her watery eyes latched to mine.

“I had no idea,” she whispers.

I nod, tears slipping down my cheeks. “I know that. Who would have thought it of him? And for my part, I—,” I hesitate, because this is still her brother.

But at the same time, I’ve stepped into the truth now, and I’m going to stay here.

“I was terrified of saying or doing anything that might give anyone even a hint of what was going on with us.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, anguish on her features. I appreciate how hard she must find this to grapple with, how much she must still love her brother and feel urged to defend him, even when she knows it’s not possible.

“Els,” I say, pulling her into the apartment, and moving to fridge. I pull out two water bottles, and hand one to her. “What happened?”

She shrugs.

“You didn’t believe me. I thought you’d always feel that way. And now…”

“I told my parents,” she says, twisting the water bottle in her hands, fidgeting like I’ve never seen her do.

“I was so angry with you. I thought we should get a legal letter to tell you to stop spreading lies about him. I just wanted everything you’d said to me to go away, and never reappear again. ”

So, their parents know. How hard it must have been for them to hear.

“I would do anything to spare them that pain.”

Elsie’s expression shifts. Her eyes flick away quickly. “They knew.”

“What?” I reach behind me for the sofa but find it impossibly far away. It’s a body blow I hadn’t anticipated. I feel like I’ve been hurtled out into the middle of the ocean, and it’s spinning like a vortex beneath me, threatening to suck me down.

“When I told them, mom looked like she was about to pass out. At first I thought it was from shock, but then she looked at dad and said, ‘you told me you’d dealt with this’.”

I find my way to the sofa and sit down heavily, staring out at the view, listening as Elsie continues to talk.

“They didn’t know he was…hurting you. In fact, they were sure he wasn’t. They asked him, Elsie.”

“What?” Disbelief makes my voice high pitched. “What are you talking about?”

“When he was in college, there were two girls they paid off, because they claimed he’d been…rough with them.”

I close my eyes.

“One of the girls, he dated for six months. The other for a year. These weren’t just one-night stands, trying to get rich off our family. They were his girlfriends, and they both had unnervingly similar stories.”

“Oh, God,” I whisper, the betrayal instant and immense. How could they have let me marry him? How could they have let this happen to me? They knew I had no family to protect me, no one who could meet Christopher and look beyond his polished veneer to see the monster beneath.

“He swore they’d just colluded, to get money out of our family. I think my parents really wanted to believe that.”

I shake my head, as something Cole said comes flashing back to me, about the women in Christopher’s past.

“You have to believe me, they thought you were happy. Safe. They honestly believed…”

“They wanted to believe,” I whisper, understanding that. Just like I’d wanted to believe Cole loved me.

“I don’t understand why they didn’t ask you,” she whispers.

I reach out, putting a hand on her thigh. “Even if they had asked me, I would have denied it. I was so scared.”

She blanches visibly. I frown though, remembering fragments of conversations then. And all is going well, Elsie? You seem happy? “She sort of did ask me,” I say, frowning. “Your mom was always checking in on me, keeping a close eye.”

Elsie’s throat shifts as she swallows. “Even if there was truth to what happened in college, they genuinely thought he’d changed since then,” Elsie says from right beside me, her voice trembling.

“That he’d grown up, and out of it, or whatever.

They made him see a shrink for a few years; they really believed he was in a good place. Which is just stupid.”

Elsie fidgets with her fingers, pain obvious on her expression, but she continues, voice stoic.

“They’re his parents,” I whisper. “Of course they saw the best in him. They didn’t want to believe?—,”

Our eyes meet, watery and laced with regrets.

“Then, he met you, and he was like a whole new man. You were just…so bubbly and sweet, he seemed so happy with you, they truly believed everything was fine. It all seemed fine . ”

More wishful thinking. I glance towards the window, eyes roaming the view without taking it in.

“You have to believe me, I didn’t know any of this, or I would never?—,”

“I do believe you,” I whisper, turning back to face her and putting my hand on her knee. She folds hers over the top of mine. “I did fall in love with him, Els. That night, at your party. It was never about your money.”

She visibly blanches. “I know that.” She shakes her head, obviously angry with herself. “It was seeing you out there, with that guy. With those people. They all talked about you like you were theirs, and it just, hit me kind of hard.”

Except, I’m not theirs. I never was.

“You’re my sister-in-law, you were married to my brother, and all of a sudden, these…nobodies, from my perspective…were talking about you like you were the sun and moon of their world. Then I saw you and him, and I just—I freaked out.”