Page 13 of Rogue Cowboy (Montana’s Rodeo Cowboys #3)

“I should be over it. I am over it. Mostly.” Him arriving was what was messing with her, but even as she had the thought, she swallowed the words.

They were cruel and not fair. He’d done her a solid—more than a solid.

Above and beyond, and she had to suck it up and talk about it because he wanted to talk about it.

And as she looked into those inky-blue midnight eyes, she tried to calm her galloping heart. Her blunt, erratic breaths that burned.

But how when her own family saw what she wanted them to see?

“You did nothing wrong, Riley. You were targeted. Attacked. Those men wanted to hurt you. Take your power.”

“They and others wanted me to be a pop star. Be sexier,” she remembered, hurt leaking through. She hadn’t been enough and then…

“Look at me,” Cole said softly. “See me. Breathe.”

She stared at him, helpless to look away. She couldn’t even find her anger that he’d used that word. She hated that word. Hated it. Hated it. Hated it.

“In for four. Hold. Out for four.” He matched the softly spoken words to her actions, and she felt her limbs relax a little. She’d come back faster this time, but she could still feel her heart, and from Cole’s forefinger on her fluttering pulse in her neck, she could tell he was counting her BPM.

“I don’t want to be someone you have to take care of,” she whispered, willing the prick of tears away. She didn’t want to explain what looked like an intimacy to her family.

He smiled ruefully, and the sight was so unexpected, she circled her fingers around his wrist.

“Good because I was hoping you’d take care of me.”

So Cole. Sweet. Trying to make her feel whole when she was a disaster.

“I want to be strong,” she said. “Like I was.”

“You were this morning when you performed what Petal informed me was the suicide drop. Scared ten years off my life.”

“I hope not.”

Cole said he’d mustered out. She wanted him to have a long and happy life. He’d earned it. In Texas. With a woman who was not her. She hated the spurt of jealousy. Cole wasn’t hers to keep except in name.

“You looked joyful.”

She blinked, surprised by his impression.

“The night I first saw you, your spark was so bright enough to blind me. You were magic.”

But she wasn’t that woman anymore. Would never be.

“Today, I saw a glimpse of it again.”

Had he? She’d definitely felt like herself again as Cinnamon had loped around the small arena, her dangling, feeling fully alive.

His palm cupped her chin, forced her to face him. He searched her eyes, his expression serious.

“Did you feel it too or was that stunt a death wish?”

“What? No,” she objected. “I did feel good,” she remembered. “Even at the worst, Cole, I never once…”

He pulled her into his arms, and she went, relaxed, breathed him in and, for a moment, closed her eyes and just let go, imagined she could keep him, if only for the weekend.

But that wasn’t fair. And she’d spent nearly six years hiding what had happened from her family, and she didn’t want all that good undone by Cole’s presence. What would they think of her if they knew she’d lied? She pushed away.

“I don’t want to keep talking about the past,” she said firmly. “I don’t want to keep dragging all my baggage out and have you insisting I pick through it.”

She saw the flash of frustration before he buried it.

Maybe he should try acting. He’d be a marvelous hit on one of those westerns or a law enforcement show.

“You want us to get to know each other? Okay. We can—as friends, but I don’t want it to be about the past—what happened.

” Something that felt like anger scorched her throat when she thought how unfair it was—all she’d lost—her music, her dreams, her desire for a husband who adored her and a family, Cole’s admiration.

And he’d lost his freedom, but he’d see after this weekend a path to take it back.

“Today…” she bit her lip, reached for a chip, but ended up crushing it in her hands “…for the first time I felt like myself again. Me before.” She brushed the crumbs in her hands onto the plate. “I don’t want to keep sliding back.”

He didn’t answer right away, and she wondered what arguments he was formulating against her plan, and if it would be worth the scene to rush out, as she’d wanted to earlier.

But no. That was childish. Dramatic teenage Riley.

Not Riley, her mother’s assistant at the Telford Family Ranch. The horse breeder and trainer Riley.

“Then that’s where we’ll start.” He reached for a chip, scooped some guac, and held it to her lips.

She took the bite. It felt like the most intimate thing she’d ever done, and the brush of her lips against his finger made her tummy flip in a weird way.

“But not where we’ll end.”

She shoved at his chest—the dang cowboy always had to push. Had he even listened to what she’d said?

“Not going to tell you again. I’m not focusing on the past. If you want to stay there, fine. But not me. I’m not devastating my family. What happened in LA, stays in LA.”

She felt exhausted by her speech to the point that when Cole cupped her face and pressed his forehead to hers, she didn’t put up one ounce of resistance. He felt and smelled so good, and if she could freeze a moment in time and savor it, this would be the top.

“That’s the problem, baby. What happened in LA is the ghost that followed you home.”

*

Riley slowly walked down Main Street, head tilted back. He’d expected her to run. She’d bolted from the table, looking like a wild mustang, all fire and power and fear. He’d weighed his reaction. Follow or give her space?

But hell, she’d had damn near six years of space, and she was still running.

So, pursue.

She’d scanned the room, her breathing elevated and inappropriately sexy, and he’d again reminded himself to go slow. The room had quieted. People had stared. He’d eaten another chip and guac like they weren’t the center of attention, and Riley, anticlimactically had sat down.

The rest of the dinner had been less emotionally fraught.

She’d talked about her family, helping her mom with her small horse-breeding enterprise, caring for the horses that boarded with them, training horses for cutting or barrel racing.

He couldn’t help but notice that the girl he’d briefly known, seemed to have taken a back seat in her own life.

It was all her mother’s dreams. Her family’s ranch.

She’d even shared, her head ducked low, shoulders hunched, that the ranch wasn’t profitable enough to support them all, and that she was the only one without a secondary career and revenue stream.

Rohan had started some kind of survival adventure program for rich idiots—his summation, not hers.

His wife was a teacher. Boone had a nonprofit rodeo school.

His wife was a masseuse. His eldest brother was an orthopedic surgeon, and his wife had sold her boutique in the Graff Hotel and now was an agent for artists and organized the farmers’ market in the spring and summer.

They’d each built homes on the ranch and had bought supplemental property, except Rohan and his wife lived in town.

Riley was her mom’s assistant.

“You told me you made money from your music downloads when you were still in school, and from local performances and songwriting.” He hadn’t understood all the internet stuff and platforms and social media, as his career necessitated flying under everyone’s radar.

But even when he’d been in school, he’d ducked attention.

Riley had thrived on it, seemed like. One more thing for him to stuff down—for now.

She was doing enough running for both of them.

But that stopped now. This weekend.

“The horse tricks,” he said. “Is that something you want to build?”

“Well, I’m mostly self-taught,” she said. “I had some gymnastic and dance classes as a kid and then watching trick riders at rodeos and exhibitions and on YouTube, so I’m not an expert. I learned from doing.”

“Like your music.”

She was quiet, and as they walked down the street, still fairly active with some of the shops still open at nine—probably because of the rodeo—he was reminded of his hometown, Last Stand. When was the last time he’d walked down Hickory Street and relished the night closing in. Would Riley like it?

“It was fun as a kid. I liked trying new things,” she said thoughtfully.

“When I saw you do that suicide drop, I forgot how to breathe. I have no idea how your dad is still above ground.”

Riley’s laugh sparked a bubble of triumph. He was not a funny man, and while he’d once spent the best weekend of his life with her and had been helplessly captivated, he couldn’t imagine what she might ever see in him other than her brother’s older, quieter, duller friend.

“Good luck, Mr. Texas,” she teased. “When you have a kid, you’re going to be on the receiving end of a whole lot of trouble and mini heart attacks according to my mom and dad.”

He’d always wanted a family, though before he’d married Riley, he hadn’t imagined he’d be that lucky. He had trouble connecting to people. He was too cold. Too quiet. Too enigmatic, one woman at a bar who’d hit on him had summed him up. Riley hadn’t seemed to find him lacking that weekend.

“You think you’re all that—Mr. Texas Cowboy controls his destiny. Kids will knock your boots out from under you,” Riley continued, likely enjoying him in her crosshairs instead of being in his.

“They can try. I have excellent balance.”

It felt strange to joke about kids. Foreign. Yet sexual in a way he felt Riley wasn’t ready for. For a moment, the air felt electric between them. Riley broke it by quickening her steps.