Chapter 43

Shawnee could not make one more decision.

She stared at the heap of stuff piled on the kitchen table, and her brain refused to compute what to do with it. For two days, every move she’d made had required a choice. Did she pack this, or that? Close the checking account she’d had since high school to open a new one in New York? Get her oil changed now, or at her uncle’s shop during her stopover in Kansas, even though the pickup would be five hundred miles past due when she got there?

And now, this.

She plopped down in a chair, too tired to even scowl at the mess on the table. Half-eaten boxes of cereal, open bags of pasta, plastic tubs of flour and sugar, a jar with two lonely dill pickles floating in the brine, a barely used squirt bottle of ketchup—all the odds and ends from her cupboards and refrigerator that she hadn’t been able to donate anywhere. It seemed wrong to throw it all away, but she had no one to give it to. If she’d been thinking, she would’ve unloaded the leftovers on Tori before…

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, as if she could wring that whole conversation out of her brain.

As if she’d needed to be told. Yes, Shawnee was scared. Every minute of every waking hour, at some level. On the good days, when she was busy with her horse or roping, that level was eight floors below the basement of her subconscious. The fear was always there, though, with one finger poised over the up button for the express elevator to the surface.

But that hope is the enemy line was pure bullshit.

Shawnee had plenty of hope. Every time she rode into the arena, she hoped her partner would turn the steer in the money, and she’d do her part by roping both feet. She hoped Sooner would keep improving, so he’d be good enough to sell by the end of the year. She hoped she could live up to Brady’s expectations.

She hoped she hadn’t cursed herself by making promises that could extend clear into next fall.

She hoped—Lord, how she hoped—that she hadn’t done any permanent damage to Cole. Her goal had always been to leave any man at least as good, if not better, than when she’d found him. Please, God, don’t let Cole be the exception. She didn’t want to be the reason that when the right woman did come along—her breath hitched at the stab of pain—he refused to take another chance. She should have told him…what?

I love you, you big idiot. Now go find someone who can give you what you need.

Yep. She’d fallen in love with Cole Jacobs, of all the damn people. It was so ridiculous, she laughed out loud. An ugly, rasping sound, echoing around the barren apartment. If the two of them hadn’t been so impossible, he couldn’t have snuck up on her. It was Cole, for crying out loud. What danger could there possibly be? And then there he was, taking up all the space inside her head, in her chest, so there didn’t seem to be enough room to breathe anymore and her heart felt squashed.

And now all she had was leftovers. Literally.

She kicked the table leg and clamped her mouth tight against another of those gross, sobby laughs. If it weren’t for this table full of crap, she could load up the horses and leave right now. She’d have to camp in the trailer tonight anyway, since all of her bedding was packed. She wouldn’t sleep tonight unless she tranqued herself into oblivion. Why waste a perfectly good pill when she could just climb behind the wheel and drive until she was too tired to keep going? Out of here. Out of Texas.

Away from Cole, so she didn’t show up some horrible night, begging on his doorstep.

With a sudden burst of anger, she heaved out of the chair, grabbed the last empty box, and shoveled everything from the table into it. She’d just…just…cram it in the trailer somewhere. Gran could always use extra groceries. If any of the cold stuff went bad, she’d toss it out along the way. Lighten her load as she went.

Who knew—by the time she left Kansas, she might not feel like her bones were made of lead.

She jumped at the heavy thud on her front door. Her heart felt as if the fist had made direct contact. She knew that knock. For an insane moment, she couldn’t decide whether to fling herself toward the door or out her bedroom window. Luckily—for her bones, at least, since her apartment was above the barn—common sense elbowed aside the panic. Every light was on and her rig was parked out front. Kinda tough to pretend she wasn’t home.

Thud! “Shawnee?”

She drew a breath, braced herself as best she could, and opened the door. And was still staggered by the sight of him. The sheer size of him, blocking the sun and the sky and every single brain wave. At the rodeos everything was bigger than life. The stock. The arenas. The grandstands. Cole hadn’t seemed quite so massive by comparison. But here…she just stared at him, too overwhelmed to make words.

He braced a hand on each side of the doorframe as if to block her exit. “You’re going to New York.”

His voice gave no clue as to how he felt about the news.

“And…what?” she asked, dredging up some sass. “You wanted to be sure I was actually leaving the state?”

His expression didn’t shift one iota. “I’ll be here.”

“No shit.” She squinted at him, trying to extrapolate some kind of meaning from his statement. “And you needed to tell me this because…”

“For you,” he said. “I’ll be here for you.”

Her laugh was sharp with disbelief. “Keepin’ the porch light on?”

“Yes.”

Was he drunk? She leaned closer to sniff, but only caught a hint of mint gum. “I’m not even gonna ask if you’re insane, because we both know that’s a slippery slope.” Then a thought struck her—the same one that had been sneaking around, whispering impossibilities into her ear. “Oh hell. I suppose you’ve decided that if I can’t pop out a few kids, we could adopt instead. Well, forget it. I can’t make that kind of commitment, and even if I could, who would want me raising their kids?”

“Me.” He didn’t even hesitate. “They’d be tough, and ballsy, and know how to handle a horse.”

She snorted to cover the spurt of warmth. “Well, that’ll get ’em into Harvard for sure. Sorry, but I’m not mama material.”

“Okay.”

What? He was giving up, just like that? Not likely. He probably figured he could wear her down. “You’re not gonna change my mind.”

“That’s okay. If I can’t have both, I choose you.”

She blinked, stunned, then glared at him. “I’m leaving, remember? And you’re staying.”

He nodded gravely. “Right here. Anytime you need me. Any reason. Flat tire. Sick horse. Friend. Lover. Fix your toilet. Whatever.”

She laughed. How could she not? Only Cole would put love somewhere on a list between colic and plumbing.

Only Cole.

“I told you, marriage and family isn’t in my cards.” She made her voice cold, so it couldn’t be mistaken for a whine. “And before you go spouting off about how it can all end at any minute for any one of us and nobody knows better than you…well, I’m sorry for your loss and all, but it’s not the same.”

“I know. I want you anyway.” He had that look. The one that said he was ready to bust through fences and tear down walls to get his way.

She stepped back, shaking her head. “No. You want me now. But eventually you’ll realize it wasn’t worth everything you gave up and you’ll hate me for it.”

“I’m not Ace.” He gave her a long, steady stare that she couldn’t refuse to meet, if only for an instant. “I make my own choices and I stand by them. And I want you.”

Damn him. He had to quit saying that. Suddenly furious, she cupped a hand under each boob and shoved them up for inspection. “And what about when these are gone? What’s left then?”

“All the important stuff,” he said, so certain she wanted to punch him. “I’m gonna fall apart too, you know. My belly will get bigger and my ass will shrink up to nothing. Happens to all the Jacobs men. Are you gonna quit me then?”

“Of course not.” Then she slapped herself upside the head, realizing the trap he’d laid for her. “I mean, I wouldn’t. If we were gonna stick together.”

“I am sticking.”

Agh! It was like talking to a rock. “What if I never come back from New York?”

“That’d be a damn shame. We’ll probably never find anything this good again.”

“Because I’m not looking.” But she’d stumbled over him anyway. Just one more way life had decided to torture her. And now he stood there making the two of them sound like a perfectly rational choice. Holding a match to a candle she’d snuffed out years ago.

The one called hope, Tori’s voice mocked.

Shawnee cursed, words she normally reserved for Ace and idiot drivers. “How can you be so calm about this?”

“Do you want me to come unglued? Because I can.” And buried in the deep rumble of his voice, she heard a note of desperation.

Finally, finally, she let herself really look at him. His eyes were dilated and the knuckles of the hand clenched on the doorframe were bone white. His chest rose and fell with deep, deliberate breaths. The kind she took when she was fighting off the anxiety demons. They were both holding on by a thread, and it was a dead heat whose was gonna snap first. And then…well, God help them.

She closed her eyes. Shook her head. “Don’t do this to us, Cole. You’re only making it harder.”

“I love you,” he said. “It can’t get much worse than that.”

She choked out a laugh. “That’s the first thing you’ve said that made any sense.” She could feel the tears coming. Damned if she’d make them both suffer through that, too. She blew out a shaky sigh. “Do you really want to know what I want?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. I want to know that you’re going to move on.”

He started to open his mouth. She gave her head a quick shake and stepped up to put her hands on his shoulders. Those broad shoulders that would be so easy to lean on. She slid her hands down, her breath catching at the piercing pleasure of touching him one last time. Then she slid her arms around him and hugged him so hard that if it had been anyone else, she might have cracked a rib. In the process of letting go, she ducked under his arm and out the door. “And I really, really need you to go.”

“Shawnee—”

Halfway down the exterior staircase, she stopped to glance past him into the apartment. “While you’re at it, take that box of crap on the kitchen table with you.”

* * *

Cole left. It was what she wanted, and there was nothing more to say. He loved her. He was ninety percent sure she loved him. And she was leaving.

He took the box. It weighed a ton. After checking out the contents, he hauled it into his aunt’s kitchen, where she and Lily were scrubbing pots and pans while his uncle, Delon, and Joe cleaned up the backyard with Beni’s assistance—which consisted mostly of balling up stray napkins and tossing them basketball-style at the trash can. When Cole plunked the box on the table, Iris turned to give him a searching look. He shook his head. She sighed and went back to scraping leftover chili from a slow-cooker into a plastic tub.

“What are you going to do?” Lily asked.

Cole thought about it for a moment. “Chores,” he said, then carefully folded his emotions up, stuffed them back into their boxes, and walked down to the barn.

That was the best thing about lists and routines. You always knew what to do next. One step after another. Didn’t matter if your mind and heart shut down, your body would just keep on moving out of habit. By the time he tossed hay to the saddle horses, he had retreated so far into himself he barely noticed the odd, buzzing sensation in his chest.

He pulled the phone out of his shirt pocket. His pulse jumped, hard and fast, as he answered. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.

Shawnee made a choked sound. “Well. That’s just perfect. You see my number and immediately think disaster.”

“Habit,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Texhoma. I can’t…” She took an audible gulp of air. “I had to pull over. My pickup won’t go.”

“It just quit?”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

He was already headed for his own pickup. “I’m on my way. Forty-five minutes, max.”

As he passed the shop, he grabbed a toolbox. He was almost to Earnest before his phone rang and he realized he hadn’t told anyone where he was going or why. He let it go to voice mail. He didn’t talk or text while he was driving and he refused to stop, even for a minute.

Shawnee wasn’t hurt. Wasn’t sick. But there’d been something in her voice that made his muscles jump and his hands clench around the steering wheel. He wasn’t operating on autopilot anymore. Every one of his senses was wide open and so hyperalert he could swear he heard the whoompf-whoompf-whoompf of the giant blades as he roared past a row of windmills. Felt it in his chest.

He spotted her rig before he even reached the city limits of what little there was of Texhoma. She’d limped to a stop alongside the only patch of grass in a mostly empty lot directly across from a row of huge grain silos, fifty yards short of the Oklahoma border. Both horses were contentedly munching hay inside the portable pen that attached to the side of her trailer. She’d also unloaded her roping dummy. As Cole pulled up, she took two swings, laid her loop under its belly, and scooped up the hind feet. Then she stepped forward, pulled the rope off, rebuilt the loop, and did it again. And again.

Without even glancing his direction.

Cole had watched her rope that dummy almost every day they’d been on the road. Usually, every throw was different. Five swings. Then one. Then three. Throw from a couple of steps farther back. Off to the right. Or the left. She changed it up every time, practicing for every possible situation.

This was not that kind of practice. This was rhythmic, almost robotic, the same exact steps, swings, and throws, one after another after another.

It made him think of folding gum wrappers.

She didn’t pause as he parked and stepped out into the soft evening air. Her hair was loose, a wild cloud of curls she’d made no attempt to tame with goop or a barrette, and she’d traded jeans and a dusty T-shirt for shorts, rhinestone-studded flip-flops, and a sleeveless black polo shirt.

He ached to touch her. Bury his hands in all that baby-soft hair, slide them down her bare arms…

And if he tried, he’d get whacked by the rope she was still swinging. Whish, whish, crack! The loop sucked tight around the wooden legs. She still hadn’t acknowledged his presence.

“Are the keys in the pickup?” he asked.

“Yep.” Whish, whish, crack! Retrieve her rope. Build a new loop.

“I’ll just…” He gestured toward the pickup.

She nodded without missing a beat. Whish, whish, crack!

The tailgate was down. As he walked to the driver’s door, he glanced into the bed and saw that she’d unhitched the trailer. Before climbing behind the wheel, he slid the seat all the way back to accommodate his height. When he pushed in the clutch and turned the key, the engine fired right up and ran smooth as butter. He revved it a couple of times. Not a tick or a rattle.

He put it in first gear and eased out the clutch. The transmission engaged and the pickup rolled forward. When he was clear of the trailer, he sped up a little. Still nothing out of the ordinary. He shifted into second, checked for traffic, and pulled out onto the street. The pickup accelerated easily. Third gear, on through the tiny town, then fourth as he cleared the other side and hit open highway. Fifth gear, sixth, steadily gaining speed until he hit sixty.

Two miles out of town he turned around and went back. Shawnee was still roping the dummy. He parked the pickup beside his own, turned it off, and got out. “It seems to be fine.”

“Yep.” Whish, whish, crack!

“You said it quit.”

“Nope.” She built another loop with those precise, mechanical movements. “I said it wouldn’t go.”

“It ran just fine for me.”

Whish, whish, crack! “Probably ’cuz you were pushing on the gas pedal.”

Cole gawked at her. “And you weren’t?”

“Nope.” She paused in the act of retrieving her loop to point at a sign that said Welcome to Oklahoma. “I saw that and I just sort of…vapor-locked. I couldn’t make myself cross that line.” She braced her fists on her hips, loop clenched in one hand and the coils of her rope in the other, gaze fixed on the sign. “I’ve never left Texas. Not indefinitely. I just…couldn’t.”

She seemed confused, and more than a little angry. As if someone had thrown up a roadblock at the Texas border and refused to let her pass.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said.

“There’s a shock.” She rolled her eyes and huffed out a breath. “I have to go to New York. I promised. And you’re gonna have to figure out how to get me there, since this is your fault.”

“Mine?”

“You and Tori.” She kept staring at the sign, her scowl deepening. “You win, okay? I’m tired of letting this cancer bullshit push me around. And I’m really tired of going it alone. So if you’re crazy enough to want to take this on…” She spread her arms wide in a check it out gesture. “It’s all yours. Just don’t come whinin’ to me when you realize you got a sucker deal.”

His? Cole felt as if the earth had bucked beneath him, taking out his knees and slamming him into the dirt. He actually saw stars. Moons. A whole damn galaxy whirling through his head. It was a surprise to realize he was still standing.

His.

“So, uh, yeah,” she said, eyes still fixed and slightly glazed. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m sort of freaking out here. It would help if you would—I don’t know—speak? Shoot me with a tranquilizer dart? Knock me in the head and put me out of my misery?”

He closed his hands over hers instead, prying the rope out of her fingers and hanging it on the roping dummy. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated, as he threaded his fingers into her hair. He lowered his cheek to the top of her head, bracing against the storm of emotions that raged through him.

After a few moments, Shawnee sighed and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I suppose it was too much to expect that you’d actually say something.”

He nodded, savoring the rub of his cheek against her hair. When he did eventually speak, it was to ask, “Do you have to leave right now?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Good.” He slid his hands down to her hips and began backing toward the door to the trailer’s living quarters, tugging her along.

She dragged her feet, but it was a token resistance. “What are you doing?”

“We’re in shock. We need to lie down.”

Her eyebrows quirked, the sass already making a comeback. “Oh, really?” she drawled. “For how long?”

“At least eight hours. Maybe twelve. Depends on whether you have any food in there.”

He opened the door, pulled her inside, and closed it behind them before planting his mouth on hers. A long, deep kiss that was the equivalent of that first drink of water at the end of a dry, dusty trail. His entire being gave a huge ahhhh. Her hair tickled across the backs of his hands as he molded her close against him. He could spend at least two hours just running his fingers through that hair. Another three or four kissing her.

She drew back, her mouth soft and slick from his kisses, her expression still not entirely certain. “What happens when you’ve recovered from this terrible shock?”

“I doubt I ever will.”

“Even while I’m halfway across the country for the next year or so?”

“Even if you were halfway around the world.”

But tomorrow would come, regardless. He thought about the next day’s schedule. Young bulls to gather. Salt and mineral supplements to haul out to the pastures. Fences to check. The first fall practice session late in the afternoon. Then he looked at Shawnee.

No contest.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Hey, Violet.”

He kicked off his boots while she ranted about his disappearance, finishing with, “You even drove off and left Katie sitting in the middle of the driveway!”

Oh. Shit. That was gonna cost him. “Tell her I’m sorry. Give her a steak. And whatever you do, don’t let her in my cabin. Or the tack room. Oh, and let everyone know I won’t be home for a few days.”

“You what?”

“Could be longer. I have to drive to New York,” he said, grinning as he heard Shawnee gasp. “I don’t know how long it will take. We’ll just have to wing it.”

“Wing it?” Violet practically screeched. “Since when do you—”

“Gotta go,” he said, and hung up.

He turned off the ringer before tossing the phone on the table. Shawnee looped her arms around his neck, and as he gazed down into her whiskey-brown eyes, his heart nearly exploded from what he saw there. “I love you,” he said. “And I’m sticking. No matter what.”

“Same here.” She shook her head in disbelief. “And ain’t that just a kick in the ass.”

He laughed. And then he kissed her until neither of them could talk.

Just how he liked it.