Down Home Cowboy

Lane owned the Mercantile in town, and specialty foods were her passion. That meant that she simply wouldn’t let any of them go unfed on her watch, or fed on cruddy, frozen meals.

It suited him just fine. Though Finn’s disgusting happiness and constant look of satisfaction got a little bit old. But there was food.

He made his way into the kitchen, and stopped, feeling like he had been slugged in the stomach.

Because there she was, red hair piled on top of her head, bent over in front of the oven, showing off an ass that was even more perfect than he had imagined it might be. He knew it was Alison. There was no one else it could be. Nobody else affected him like this. Wasn’t that a joke?

“What’s going on?”

Both Violet and Alison jumped. “Baking practice,” Violet responded, lifting a red spatula.

“Okay,” he said, but it wasn’t okay at all. Because temptation had walked right into his house, and he was doing his very best to stay away from temptation.

“I thought... I thought you knew,” Alison said.

“No,” he returned.

“Sorry,” Violet said, looking more angry than sorry. “I said that Alison was bringing me home. I didn’t think you needed details. I figured I wouldn’t see you at all.”

What struck him was the way that his daughter’s body language had changed since realizing he was there. When he had walked in she had looked happy, at least the small blips he had gotten of her before his gaze had fixated on Alison’s butt. And now she was back to looking angry. Angry and tense.

So, it was just him, then.

“The cake is almost done,” Alison said. “Do you want to do the honors, Violet?”

Violet gave him a wary look. “I guess.”

“It’s okay that I’m here, right?” Alison asked him.

That woman. She had no problem coming at him from the front. Of course, not exactly the way that he fantasized about her coming at him from the front. He’d like to come at her from behind. He tried to ignore the kick of heat that pooled in his gut at that thought.

“Of course,” he said. “Have you had dinner?”

He didn’t know why he was testing this line. Or maybe he did. Because she was here. She was here in his house. Baiting him with her perfect ass. And if she was going to do that, then he was going to push right back.

“No,” she said. “But that’s fine.”

“What’s fine?”

“You don’t need to feed me.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “I didn’t offer to.”

“Dad,” Violet said, jerking him out of the interaction, and out of the haze that had descended upon him. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing. But I do think that Alison should stay for dinner. And then we can enjoy the cake afterward. I was just giving her a hard time.”

“Whatever. You’re weird. Can I...” She shot a sideways glance at Alison. “I just want to talk to my friends until dinner.”

“You’re not on the clock,” Alison pointed out. “But thanks for asking.”

“Well, I didn’t want to deprive you of my company,” Violet added.

“Go talk to your friends,” Cain said. “We’d hate for them to experience Violet deprivation.”

Violet walked out of the kitchen, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she moved away from them to head up the stairs.

His stomach tightened, a strange sense of anticipation stealing over him. Oh, yes, he remembered this. Very vaguely. That crackle of possibility that sizzled over your skin when you were near somebody that you wanted. When you wondered if you were going to have them.

It had been a long time. But he still remembered that.

And he wondered where all his common sense was. That common sense that told him he needed to steer clear of a woman who was so involved in his daughter’s life.

But then, flirting wasn’t sex.

It had just been so long since a woman had looked at him like that. With color in her cheeks. Since he had felt this kind of excitement. Since he had wanted.

“I hope she’s better for you than she is for me,” he said, not really meaning to lead with mention of his daughter. But then, he supposed that was a pretty fitting metaphor for his life. Violet came first. No matter what. Even when he would rather just be a man, just talk to a beautiful woman, he couldn’t really. Because he was a father. First and foremost.

His ex-wife might have forgotten that. But he hadn’t. He never would.

“She’s fine, honestly. I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but with me she’s fine.”

“Normal teenage stuff, I guess.” he said, making his way over to the fridge and opening the freezer. There were several meals that had been premade by Lane there, ready for them to heat up when necessary. “Did you like your parents when you were a teenager?”

“No,” she said. “Not even a little bit. But I don’t like them very much now either.”

“That...isn’t encouraging.”

“Do you have a better relationship than that with your parents?”

He laughed. “Hell no.”

“Right. Well, then.”

“Do you have a food preference?” he asked. “It looks like there’s pasta, pot roast and...meat loaf? All made by Lane Jensen.”

“Then all of it will be good,” Alison said. “Lane is one of my best friends, so I’ve eaten most of her food.”

“Right,” he said, “I know that she’s a good friend of yours. She talks about you a lot. And she kind of helped Violet get the job at your bakery, right?”

“Oh,” Alison said, leaning against the island in the kitchen, tucking a stray curl behind her year. “Right. What else has she... She talks about me?”

She looked concerned by that. Which seemed strange to him. “She hasn’t told me anything.”

“Okay. Good to know.”

“I’m voting for pasta,” he said lightly, taking a metal pan out of the freezer. “I had a long workday.”

“Have you always been a rancher?” she asked. “I mean, Lane did tell me a little bit about you. Or, I mean about Violet. But I applied some of it to you.”

“Right. Well, then you know we just moved here from Texas. And yes, I have always been a rancher. I sold the spread back in Dallas. That was beef, this is different. But I like different. Violet not so much.”

“Well, you know what they say. You can please some of the people some of the time... But you can’t please teenagers ever.”

He laughed, making his way over to the oven and sticking the pan of pasta inside. “True. Very true.”

“Really though, she’s not bad as far as teens go. She’s a good kid.”

He felt a momentary flash of... Something. Jealousy almost? That this woman, this stranger, got something from his own child that he didn’t. And then, he was just pissed. Pissed that he was standing here with a beautiful woman, the first woman he wanted to touch since his divorce, and he couldn’t.

Because of his daughter who hated him anyway.

“Do you want to come sit in the living room while that warms up?”

That was better than inviting her up to his room, which was what he actually wanted to do.

“Sure,” she said.

They both walked into the living room, and he took a seat on the couch. She took the chair across from him. Probably for the best.

“She’s a good kid,” Alison repeated, keeping her eyes focused on the window, on the view outside. Which was pretty spectacular. His grandfather had had the custom home built a few years ago, if Cain understood the timeline correctly. It was nestled in the center of the mountain, taking advantage of the scenery of the valley and the fields below.

“You said that,” he responded.

“Yes,” she said, “I did. And I mean it. She’s a good kid. But I think she needs to take a little more of her own responsibility. She could be driving herself to work. And she can definitely get herself up in the morning.”

Irritation streaked through him, heat that rivaled the heat of attraction that had been firing in his gut just a moment before. “Excuse me?”

“She can take more responsibility than she is. I understand that you’re feeling protective because you just moved here...”

“Look, I know you think that you know the situation because Lane told you some things, but you don’t. I do feel protective of her. Very protective. She’s been through enough.”

“Yes. But I have a feeling that part of the reason she’s sometimes surly with you is that you’re hovering a little too much.”

“No. That isn’t it. Just ask her. She feels like she doesn’t see me. She’s mad at me because I have a job, and because I don’t talk to her, which she doesn’t actually want. Because she hates me.” He was not going to let this woman, no matter how sexy, tell him anything about his relationship with his daughter.

Because you’re such an expert about your relationship with your daughter?

He ignored that obnoxious inner voice.

“Hovering over her and driving her to work, and coming in to talk to her boss when she’s late isn’t the same as spending time with her,” Alison said calmly.

“How many children do you have, Alison?” he asked, crossing his arms.

She frowned. “None.”

“That’s what I thought. So, you’ll understand if I don’t take your advice on mine.”

“I don’t have any children, but since my bakery essentially functions as job training I see a lot of different kinds of women. And I’ve learned to work with a lot of different personality types. I’ve learned the most effective ways to build different kinds of people up, to give them confidence. I want Violet to understand that she can accept help, and that it’s a good thing to get help. But I also want to see her standing on her own two feet.”

“You think I don’t want that? You think that because you spend a few hours a day with her you know her better than I do? I’ve been raising her for sixteen years. Four of them by myself. You don’t have any right to make commentary.”

She stood up, making her way over to the window, twisting her hands in front of her. “All right. Maybe I don’t. And fine, I don’t know anything about kids. But I do know about women. And she’s almost a woman.”

He didn’t want to hear that, even though he’d been having similar thoughts earlier. He stood too, agitation pouring through him. “She’s still a kid. And she needs certain things done for her. She’s had it rough. Her mother abandoned her and she needs...she needs more from me because of it, okay? She needs to feel taken care of.”

Alison turned to face him, her cheeks pink, this time from anger, and not from any kind of attraction. “If you’re going to purposely misunderstand me, then I don’t see the point of having this discussion.”

She started to walk back toward the kitchen and he reached out and caught her arm. She looked down at where his hand was curled around her, and she jerked away, her expression wary. “Don’t.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Did I hurt you?”

She blinked, her expression schooled into a perfect, blank slate. “No.”

He knew she was attracted to him. And he’d bet money that was why she’d reacted the way she had when he’d touched her.

He expected her to walk past him. To walk away then. But she didn’t. Instead, she just stood there, looking at him. And he forgot what they were talking about. He forgot that they’d been arguing. And the tension—tension that had been associated with anger only a second ago—shifted, changed.

He forgot everything. Except that she looked like heaven. And a little bit angry, but that just made him want to reach out and smooth the crease between her eyebrows, then trace the shape of her face, down to her chin, slide his thumb across her lower lip and see if it was as soft as a rose petal, like he suspected it might be.

He took a step toward her. Again, he expected her to move away. Again, she didn’t. No, instead, she held her ground, and she licked her lips again.

Before he knew what he was doing, he reached out, hooking his arm around her waist and drawing her up against him. She looked startled for a moment, her hands held up like he had her at gunpoint. But that only lasted a moment. Then she softened, her spine curving as she melted against him, pressing her palms to his chest.

“This is a bad idea,” he said.

She nodded slowly. “Yes.”

But she didn’t push at him. Didn’t try to pull away. So he began to lower his head, slowly, those rose-petal lips so close to his own he was already anticipating the taste.

“No,” she said suddenly. “Oh, no.” And then she did push against him, extricating herself from his hold. “I can’t do this. I don’t do things like this. I’m sorry. I really need to go.”

And then, as it seemed to be the pattern in his life, Alison stormed from the room, leaving him standing there to wonder what the hell he had done wrong now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ALISON WAS ALL the way back at her apartment by the time she caught her breath. She hadn’t said goodbye to Violet. Hadn’t stayed to help her frost the cake. She was a terrible mentor. And she felt guilty. Very, very guilty.

But she’d had to get away from Cain.

What had she been doing? She had nearly... She had nearly kissed him.

She went over to the cupboard by her stove and opened it up. She took out a bottle of wine and poured herself a generous portion.

She took a sip, trying to get a handle on her shaking hands. But she couldn’t. She had to... She had to process all of this. She hadn’t been that close to a man in four years.

When he had reached out and grabbed her arm, it had scared her. It had felt like a flashback to something else. Back to someone else. But then he let go of her, easily and quickly. He’d been worried that he’d hurt her.

And then, well, then he had looked at her like she was something amazing. Something he’d never seen before, and all she had wanted to do was lean in to that.

She knocked back her glass of wine, taking a long, strong sip, her other hand braced on the counter. Was this a relapse? All it took was one burning look from a gorgeous man and she was ready to lie on the ground and write welcome across her chest?

No. It wasn’t the same thing. Not even remotely the same as the reasons she had hooked up with guys when she was in high school, why she had married Jared. That hadn’t ever been about physical desire, unfortunately.

That had been about her pathetic need to feel loved by someone. Anyone. In whatever shape that love would take.

This was different. She didn’t want Cain to love her. She had wanted him to press her down on that couch and kiss her until neither of them could breathe.

She took another gulp of wine.

It was difficult to figure out, right then, why kissing him would have been a bad idea. Why letting him lay her down on the couch and drive them both crazy would be such a terrible thing.

He was gorgeous. Like, honestly the hottest guy she had ever seen. She had never before wanted a guy just because she wanted him. Because she wanted to feel his hands on her skin. Because she wanted sex, not some kind of connection. Not some kind of solution to that howling, empty thing inside of her.

She wasn’t empty now. She had her bakery. She had all of the women that she had helped so far, and the women she was helping now. She had a good group of friends. She had her own apartment that she kept in exactly the manner she wanted.

She bought the kind of wine she liked and the kind of food she enjoyed. She no longer had to cook dinner promptly at five o’clock or face the possible ramification of having a dinner plate thrown at her head if it was too cold, or if she had done something wrong.

She could eat at eight if she wanted to. And she could cook whatever she wanted. Or she could go to a restaurant.

Yes, her life was in an entirely different place now than it had been a few years ago. She was a different person. Or, more accurately, she was the person that she should have been all along.

Too bad that person was starting to want sex.

She closed her eyes and thought back to that moment Cain had looked at her. The way he had touched her. The problem was, she wanted sex, and not an entanglement. It seemed to her that Cain’s life was a giant entanglement right now. Particularly with her own.

He was definitely the wrong person to experiment with. What she needed was an actual stranger. A man who would be in town only for a night. Someone she couldn’t possibly have any obligation to. Somebody whose life she couldn’t get drawn into.

She didn’t trust men, that much was true. But even more, she didn’t trust herself.

She wasn’t going to involve herself quite so personally in Violet’s affairs. Not anymore. She would not be taking any more trips up to the ranch. She needed to get some distance between herself and Cain Donnelly, that much was certain. Otherwise she was going to make a very bad decision that she would regret later.

Sure, it might be much later. After the heat and fire in her skin had abated to a slow burn. But, regret it she would.

She had too much regret in her life already. She wasn’t in the market for more.

* * *

CAIN REACHED THE top of the stairs and wished he had brought a bottle of whiskey up with him. And his brothers—damn them—were never around when he wanted them to be. They’d all gone out, and there had been no buffer between himself and Violet.

The night had been a disaster. Violet had ended up angry with him because Alison had left, and she had blamed him. Not incorrectly, but he wasn’t going to explain to his teenage daughter exactly what had happened.

Better to let her think he’d been unfriendly than...too friendly.

But all of this had resulted in an extremely sullen meal, followed by her storming off to her room a couple of hours ago.

He had done what he always did. He ignored it. He stayed downstairs until he was ready to collapse, and now he was headed to bed. He sighed heavily.

What he really wanted to do, more than anything, was call up Alison. Say screw responsibility and pass out after having an orgasm, instead of passing out after drinking too much. Alone.

But he couldn’t do that. First of all, because Alison had been the one to pull away from him—almost like she was afraid of him—before she had run out the door like she was most definitely afraid of him.

Also, because running away from home to go get laid while his daughter was pissed off at him was probably not the most adult or responsible thing to do. Of course, he’d just about had it with responsibility.

Still, there were no vacations from it when you had a child. Even if that child was close to being an adult, as Alison had so irritatingly pointed out to him earlier.

That pissed him off.

That she was right, mostly. That it didn’t erase the fact that he felt like he’d done the right thing earlier going in and trying to smooth things over for Violet, because she had obviously needed him to.

Alison was coming at it from the point of view of a boss, as somebody who helped people with training and independence and stuff. He just wanted his daughter to look at him like he wasn’t horrible.

He looked down the hall, toward Violet’s room. Maybe he had to talk to her. Maybe this whole giving her her space thing wasn’t the answer. He was so hesitant to make more waves, but it didn’t seem to be working.

Maybe he needed to make some waves. Maybe, in that way, Alison was right. Maybe he needed to push Violet harder, expect more from her.

He began to walk toward his room, then redirected. Tonight. They were going to talk tonight. He wasn’t going to tolerate any more of this silent treatment. He wasn’t going to accept any more of this being frozen out. No. It ended now.

He stopped in front of her door, hesitated for a moment and then knocked. There was no answer. “Violet?” He knocked again. Nothing.

Immediately, the image of her having some kind of medical episode flashed into his brain. Even if he had no idea what kind of medical episode it might be. He could see her, in his mind’s eye, crumpled on the floor, unable to answer him or move for some reason. He pushed the door open, fully unreasonable panic rioting through him.

And the bedroom was empty.

Her window was open. Up on the second floor.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” He made his way over to the window, looked out, looked down. And he didn’t see anything. Didn’t see anyone. He had no idea where she could be, who she would have gone with. He didn’t even know why she would sneak out.

Suddenly, he felt like an idiot. Of course, he had imagined that she was hurt, or sick, or something. It had never occurred to him that she might sneak out. He didn’t think she knew anyone here in Copper Ridge, but he didn’t know that for certain. Of course he didn’t. He had never asked. He assumed that she was always texting friends back home, but for all he knew she was texting other kids here.

He didn’t know how many other times she had done this. He didn’t know what she was doing.

He tore back downstairs. “Finn!” He realized that his brother might already be upstairs, and he should have rattled some doors up there.

Alex came out of the living room, Liam following close behind. And Finn came down the stairs behind him. Finn was only half-dressed, and was likely coming from bed where Cain was reasonably certain his brother had left Lane.

“What’s up?” Finn asked.

“Violet’s gone.”

“What?” Finn asked, immediately looking concerned.

“What do you mean gone?” Alex asked.

“I mean I opened her bedroom door to check on her, and it looks like she climbed out the window. I don’t know where the hell she could be. I didn’t even know she knew anyone here.”

“Damn,” Liam said. “I guess things haven’t changed very much since I was in high school.”

Cain felt absolutely grim. “That’s not exactly comforting.”

“Okay, the first thing we should do is look around the property. The barn, and that kind of thing,” Finn said.

“I don’t know,” Cain said. “If she’s on the property then she’s safe enough. But what if she’s out somewhere else? And who’s driving? Who’s she with? What’s she doing?” None of the potential answers to those questions were any good, as far as he was concerned.

“I’ll tell you what,” Finn said. “Lane and I can canvas the ranch, you can go down into town.”

“We’ll go too,” Alex said.

“Yeah,” Liam added. “Actually, if there’s one thing I remember about spending summers here it’s where we used to party.”

“That’s actually helpful,” Cain told Liam. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“As soon as we’re done looking, we can join you in town,” Finn said.

“Great,” Cain said. “Text me.”

His brother nodded, then went upstairs, Cain assumed, to collect a shirt and his fiancée.

Outside, Cain waited impatiently for his brothers to climb in the truck, then started the engine and tore off down the driveway without any real sense of direction. “There was a barn that we used to party at,” Liam said. “On somebody’s property. But they didn’t use it anymore. We can always look there.”

“She doesn’t know anybody,” Cain said. “Nobody except for her boss.”

Alison. He had to call Alison.

He didn’t have her number. Great. He just had the bakery number. He didn’t know enough about his daughter. That was the refrain that played over and over in his mind while he drove down to town.

He dialed the bakery, let it ring. All he got was the machine.

“Text Finn and ask for Alison Davis’s cell number.” He barked the order at Liam.

Liam complied and about thirty seconds later, Cain dialed the mobile number and got a voice mail. Which wasn’t that surprising, considering she probably had to get up about as early in the morning as he did.

He bit back a curse and left a brief message all while driving down the main street scanning every building—for what, he didn’t know.

“Just keep driving,” Liam said. “Trust me. I’m pretty sure we can figure out where everybody congregates these days.”

“You really think nothing has changed since you were here getting drunk and banging local girls?” As soon as he said that, he cringed. Because his daughter could very well be getting drunk. And at this point, she was a local girl.