Cowboy Crazy

chapter 16



“Why won’t you let them drill on the ranch?” she asked.

“That’s what you want to talk about?”

“Of course.” She leveled what she hoped was a dispassionate stare. “What else would we talk about?”

“Us.”

“There is no us. There can’t be. It’s not just my job, either. You’re a cowboy, and I’m—not. You like Two Shot, and I don’t.”

“How can you not like your own hometown?”

“Easy. If you’d really grown up there, you’d understand. Trust me, if it was, you’d be all for making some changes. I know it looks all quaint on the outside, but people there really struggle to keep going.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“It is when you’re the one struggling.”

He sighed. “Do you really want to pave over your past like that?”

She thought of the town as she’d left it. The abandoned school building, with its broken windows and chipped facade. The town library, filled with out-of-date fiction by Frank Yerby and Anya Seton. The streets, pockmarked with potholes.

Then there was the gossip. The meanness. Her mother hadn’t been very well equipped for life, but instead of helping her, folks in Two Shot had whispered and lied. Even the smallest mistake got blown up into a drama worthy of Shakespeare in that town. And Sarah’s mother had made a lot of mistakes, mostly under the influence of alcohol.

“Yes,” she said. “I do want to pave it over.”

“Why?”

She glanced around the table, almost hoping Gloria would say something embarrassing so she wouldn’t have to answer the question. But at some point, probably while Sarah was listening to Lane talk about rodeo, Gloria had left. So had Eric.

As a matter-of-fact, only the middle-aged cowboy with the bolo tie remained.

“Excuse me.” Shoving back her chair, Sarah set her napkin on the table and headed for the front lobby. Maybe Gloria had just felt the call of nature. She glanced right, then left as she left the restaurant. No Eric, no Gloria.

“Where’s the ladies’ room?” she asked a uniformed waitress.

“Down the hall.”

She headed down the hallway and ducked into the door marked “Ladies,” but it was empty, the stall doors standing open. Any other time she’d admire the plush carpet, elegant settees, and posh potpourri bowl, but she had to find Gloria. She went back to the lobby, where a black-jacketed server was manning the maître d’ stand.

“Is there another ladies’ room?” she asked.

“No, ma’am.”

“Have you seen a blonde? Petite, big—hair?” She fluttered her fingers around her face to illustrate Gloria’s poof of curls.

“She left with the gentleman,” he said.

“What gentleman?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I believe they—never mind.” He skittered off to the kitchen as if he’d just revealed the hidden life of Brad Pitt to a paparazzo.

Sarah hovered in the hallway, unsure how to proceed. Should she run outside, try to catch Eric and Gloria? For all she knew Gloria was puking in the bushes.

Then again, she might be in Eric’s Porsche, making out. Or worse.

She stepped outside, holding the door open behind her with one foot while she scanned the parking lot. The highway hummed just over the hill, the steady sound broken by the occasional rumble of a big rig and the rush of wind in the grass.

Eric’s Porsche was gone, and so was Gloria. He’d probably have to help her up the stairs, and then he’d discover Sarah lived there too.

Not that she was going to live there for long. She’d given Gloria one rule, and the girl had broken it as quickly as she could. Heck, Sarah never should have moved to Casper anyway. It would be easier—and cheaper—to live with Kelsey and commute.

She’d tell Gloria in the morning. Or maybe she’d just pack her stuff and go. All her belongings would fit in the Malibu’s backseat and capacious trunk. How pathetic was that? She was living a midsize life.

Something needed to change.

Reluctantly, she returned to the dining room. As she emerged from the hallway, she slammed into a familiar figure, bumping her nose into the unyielding plane of Lane’s chest. He steadied her with one hand, but she quickly skittered backward.

“You want dessert?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “No, I want to go home.” She scanned the empty dining room. There were only a few diners scattered around the room, and Eric’s table was occupied only by a busboy who was clearing dirty dishes.

“Let’s go then,” Lane said. “I’ll take you home.”

The two of them strolled in silence through the parking lot, a lone cricket announcing their arrival. Lane was all cowboy confidence and swagger, and that testosterone aura Sarah had sensed the night before surrounded him like smoke from a campfire.

He unlocked the passenger side door of his beat-up pickup.

“I thought you were doing well with rodeo,” she said. “This looks like the Clampetts’ truck.”

“It gets me places and carries my stuff,” he said. “Is there something else trucks are supposed to do?” He opened the door to reveal a bronc-riding saddle set fork-down on the seat. The stirrups were looped over the seat, and a coil of rope was tossed haphazardly on top. His gear bag was on the floor.

“Oops, no room,” Sarah said. “Better call a cab.”

“There’s room.” He hoisted the saddle against his chest, then set it in the truck bed. There was no sign of the previous night’s injury, and she wondered if he’d really needed help with his bag even then.

He brushed off some of the dust with the flat of his hand. “Come on, princess.”

She climbed into the truck cab, feeling awkward in her short dress and heels. The scent of the saddle lingered in the interior—leather and metal and horse. There was dried mud on the floor mats and a stack of papers shoved between the window and the dashboard.

Considering the amount of space Lane seemed to take up in the restaurant, Sarah had expected to feel cramped in the confines of the truck cab. But with one hand on the wheel and one on the shift lever, he fit far better than he’d fit into the cavernous walnut-paneled dining room at the club.

“Stick shift,” she said, thinking aloud.

“You’re not the only one who likes to control things, princess.”

“Don’t call me that. And anyway, I’m just doing my job.” Suddenly conscious of her posh dress and demure pose, she looked down at her hands, which she’d folded in her lap like a good little girl on a trip to the fair. “I don’t like to control things. Not really.”

“Well, you’re controlling me.”

She let out a quick, short laugh. “I can’t control you.”

Not only couldn’t she control him, she couldn’t control herself. Ever since he’d turned up at the club, she’d felt like everything was spinning out of kilter. The idea of spending time alone with him made her want to screech to a halt like the Road Runner coming to the edge of a cliff, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself—maybe because she was hanging out with Wile E. Coyote. Lane might not have the cartoon critter’s knack for disaster—in fact, he seemed to live a uniquely charmed life—but he had the same scrappy optimism as a coyote, the same trickster mentality, the same devil-may-care determination to get what he wanted.

She’d been like that once—a girl who ran horses hell-for-leather, who cussed and kicked and spoke her mind. Sometimes she wondered if all the phoniness she’d let into her life was really worth the paycheck. The new Sarah might be successful and secure, but she wasn’t really very likable.

***

Lane rested one hand on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead. Sarah was gazing out the windshield too, as if they were already on the highway. As if the two of them were actually headed somewhere together.

Actually, they were. He just wasn’t sure where they were going to end up.

“So tell me again why you want to destroy Two Shot. What did that town ever do to you?”

She heaved a heavy, weight-of-the-world sigh. “It didn’t really do anything to me. I didn’t let it. But my mom, my sister—things didn’t work out there for them.”

“Would they have worked out differently anywhere else?”

“Yes.” Her vehemence surprised him. “You probably think everybody in a small town pulls together, right? That everyone knows everybody else’s business, and they just can’t wait to help their neighbors?”

He shrugged. She was right—he did think that. If you all lived in the same place, you’d care about the same things. Surely that would bring people together.

“Well, you’re right on the first count, wrong on the second. Everybody’s got their nose in your business, but when things go wrong, they just crinkle it up like you smell bad and pull away.”

He couldn’t help chuckling at the metaphor and she scowled, making a little crease appear between her eyebrows. He figured she was probably trying to look mean, but mostly she looked hurt.

“And that’s the good part,” she said. “After they pull away, they all go whisper about you together and point fingers and judge you. Remember in high school how there were cool kids and outcasts? Well, in small towns that never ends. Cliques and power plays, winners and losers—it’s all there. If you make a mistake, just one mistake, you’re done. Done.”

“Surely not everyone’s like that.”

She turned away as if something fascinating was going on outside the passenger side window. “No. Some people pretend they feel sorry for you so you’ll let them help you. That way they’ll have more to whisper about.” The hand resting in her lap curled into a fist. “You bet I want to pave it over.”

She turned quickly to face him and he was surprised to see a teardrop hovering on her lower lashes. He brought his hand up to brush it away and remembered how he’d cupped her cheek the night before, just before he’d kissed her.

She must have remembered that too, because she reached up and grabbed his wrist to pull it away. But when their eyes met, she stopped, the two of them barely breathing. Her eyes were wide, and her lower lip trembled a little until she nipped it in her teeth and looked away.

“You are a winner, Sarah,” he said in a low voice. “You made it out in spite of it all.” He kissed her, just brushing her lips. “Forget Two Shot. Just be who you are.”