Brokedown Cowboy

CHAPTER FIVE

BY THE TIME Connor got back to the house Sunday night he was tired, dirty and grumpier than a bear with his ass stuck in a beehive. All he wanted to do was grab a beer, sit in front of the TV and pass out.

The damn cows had collapsed the fence on the far end of the property and had ended up scattering into BLM land. It had taken multiple four-wheelers and men to get the craven beasts back where they belonged.

Steak. He wanted steak. That was the other thing he wanted.

He had a feeling it wasn’t a coincidence, considering how obnoxious the damn cows were.

He remembered the list he had left on the counter for Liss that morning, and he perked up slightly. With any luck, the kitchen would be cleaner, and his paperwork would be done. And probably, just because she was Liss, she would’ve made dinner, too. After all, she had to eat, and she had worked all day.

By the time he walked through the entryway and into the kitchen he was almost smiling.

But there was no warm, inviting smell of a home-cooked dinner. Neither was Liss in the kitchen, prancing around in an apron and high heels. He had no idea why he was picturing her wearing that, since he had never seen her wear any such thing; he only knew he had pictured it.

What he had not imagined was Liss storming into the kitchen, barefoot, and wearing jeans and a T-shirt, scowling at him like he’d just voiced his desire to have found her cooking in high heels out loud. “We need to talk.”

“Do we?” he asked, walking to the fridge, opening it, hunting for a beer. He was in trouble, and he wasn’t sure why. He was rarely in trouble with Liss, and Lord knew he had probably earned some that she had never doled out. But as far as he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong today. In fact, all he had done today was work hard and come home to a frowning woman. That was one thing about marriage he had not missed.

“Yes, we do. I was doing that paperwork that you asked me to take care of.”

He arched a brow. “You got a paper cut?”

“I wish, Connor, I wish.”

“I told you it was going to be a pain. You said you wanted to do it.”

“The thing is, Connor, it was not a pain.” She was saying his name a lot. The amount of times she used his name in a sentence seemed directly related to how pissed she was. “Connor, it took me about five minutes to deal with. There were just a few things that needed to be clarified and refilled out. In order for you to get your insurance money. You got the paperwork more than a month ago. I saw the date that was stamped on it. Why didn’t you send it?”

Well, that explained why he was in trouble. He hadn’t realized a whole month had passed since he’d last spoken with the claims office. But in his defense, he hadn’t really thought it was a simple fix. In fact, every time he thought about doing it, a hard knot of stress started to form in his stomach, and he broke out into a cold sweat. So he went and did something else. Anything else. And okay, it might have been easier than he’d imagined it would be, but there was no way it had taken her only a few minutes to do the task.

“I don’t know,” he said, because right then he honestly didn’t.

“That’s not a very good answer. In fact, it isn’t the answer.”

“It’s an answer. It’s the only one I have. I don’t know why I didn’t finish it. It just... Every time I thought about doing it, I didn’t.”

“Connor, this is the only way you’re going to get your barn built. You led me to believe, me and everyone else, that the insurance company was dragging their feet. But they didn’t have all the paperwork because you didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t ask you to get in my face about what you found in the house. I just asked you to take care of it. That too difficult?”

Liss crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Yes, it is too difficult. I want to understand what’s going on.”

“There isn’t anything going on. I just didn’t get it done.”

“That’s bullshit, Connor. You even had it signed. You just needed to finish the body of the paperwork. All I had to do was fax it over today, and it’s being processed. It was that simple.”

“It wasn’t simple.” He slammed the refrigerator door shut and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Obviously, if it was simple I would’ve done it.”

“But you didn’t. Somehow, I managed.”

“Yeah, well,” he said, throwing his arms out, “I guess I just wonder what the point is. Everything I build, every single thing, just ends up getting destroyed. If I get the money it would just burn, too. Or maybe I would rebuild the barn, and then what? Is it going to be safe?”

His heart was thundering hard, his hands feeling a little bit shaky. He hadn’t realized the outburst was coming until it was over. But he realized, as soon as he had said the words, that they were true.

This ranch had been in his family for generations. And if there was one thing every generation of Garretts had in common, it was loss. When they loved someone, that someone left. When they loved something, it got destroyed. Connor had loved a lot of things. He had added one major bit of himself to this operation, the barn, and it had burned to the ground.

How many more signs from God did he need before he just stopped trying? A guy would have to be a damn hardheaded fool to not realize when things just weren’t going to grow where he planted them.

“You don’t really think that’s going to happen, do you?” Liss asked, her eyes full of concern. She’d looked at him like that twice in the past couple of days. Like he was crazy, like she wanted to hug him and slap him at the same time.

“There are no guarantees.” And she couldn’t argue with him about that. Because he knew it was true. He knew it was true more than anyone. “That barn was something that Jessie and I both wanted for this ranch. I dreamed about something like that. I hated that I had to get it through tragedy. With the money from my old man dying. Hell, who would want that? But I had it. Eli, Kate, they gave their share so that I could have that. So that we can take this ranch and make it better. And then Jessie died, and all of my plans went to shit. Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”

It was hard to describe the kind of desolation he had felt when he lost Jessie. The way the future felt as if it had been erased. But then, there was more to all that than he could tell Liss. More to all of it than he could ever tell anyone.

Because everyone had grieved with him over Jessie’s death. He didn’t want to add to it.

“Connor, I know you’ve been through hell. I remember what a big deal it was to you to have that barn built in the first place. How bittersweet it was, because of your dad. I was there. I remember how excited you were, how excited Jessie was. I remember all of your plans. I know all of those dreams that you had are still somewhere inside of you.”

Pain washed over him, through him. Because he wished what she was saying was true. The simple fact was that those dreams were gone. Dead and buried. He was just doing his best to get through the day. To work the ranch.

The fact that he got up every morning and did his work was about the only thing that separated him from his dad.

The thought was like spikes of barbed wire pushed under his fingernails. He wasn’t like his dad. Michael Garrett had checked out of his children’s lives completely when his wife had left. Leaving the ranch to rot, leaving his kids to take care of themselves, while he drank himself into a stupor on the couch.

Connor took care of the ranch. Connor didn’t have children to neglect.

He rubbed his hand over his heart, trying to ease the intense pain that was spreading from there and moving outward.

“I don’t really have dreams anymore,” he said, feeling stupid talking about this. He wasn’t the kind of guy to drag his feelings out into the open and examine them. He didn’t even like to examine them by himself, under the cover of darkness.

“That’s not what I want for you,” she said, her tone all sad and desperate.

“I can’t... I can’t.” She looked down, blinking rapidly. Great, he had made Liss cry. “Don’t cry for me, Liss. I don’t even cry for myself.”

“Then somebody should cry for you,” she said, looking back up at him, her eyes shining.

“No way. Cry over something that’s worth it. Cry over puppies that are left in the pound, and ice cream scoops that fall off ice cream cones. But don’t cry over me.”

“I can’t make any promises. Connor, the money is going to come soon now. Promise me that you’ll get the barn rebuilt. Or go to Hawaii.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “No, get the barn rebuilt.”

“Why, because Jessie wanted it?”

“No, because you wanted it.”

He had wanted it, though he could barely remember wanting much of anything. Could barely remember being the man he’d been three years ago, ready to start a new phase of his life, everything stretching ahead of him all bright and sunny and new. Instead of a wasteland of routine, of loneliness and grief that never seemed to ease no matter how much time passed, no matter how much he drank.

“It’s hard to remember back that far. Or at least it’s difficult to remember why I cared.”

“You cared because this ranch is in your blood. It still is, Connor. I know it is.”

“Right now the ranch is just under my skin. I spent hours trying to get damn cows back into their pens. Not coincidentally I want to eat a hamburger.”

Liss clapped her hands together. “Right. So let’s make the hamburger happen. The question is, do we want to go to Ace’s? Or the diner?”

“I sort of feel like throwing sharp things at a corkboard. So I vote for Ace’s.”

This was good. If they went out, there would be no more chance for talking. Because there would be too much laughing, and drinking and interacting with people who weren’t him. So Liss wouldn’t be able to hold him under the microscope to the same degree she just had. Their conversation had gone to way too much of a navel-gazing place.

Liss pulled a bright pink rubber band from around her wrist and quickly swept her hair up into a ponytail. “I should just go put some makeup on.”

“What do you need makeup for?”

“If the barn needs painting, you have to paint it, right?”

He stood and stared at Liss, standing there fresh-faced, and damn pretty in his opinion, and puzzled over why she would need painting. “Natural wood is good, too,” he said, somewhat lamely. He was bad at complimenting people. He was out of practice. Not that he’d been all that good at it even when he was in practice.

“Thank you,” she said, her cheeks coloring a little bit. “I think I will at least add a little bit of stain, though. I don’t know. This metaphor has gotten weird.”

“Okay, you go paint. I’m going to hop in the shower because I smell. I’ll only be about five minutes.”

* * *

THE BAR WAS CROWDED, as per usual on a Sunday night. It was very likely most of the town had gone from church straight to drinking. But likely it was needed to get them through the workweek that lay ahead.

But in spite of the impending doom of Monday, the atmosphere was exuberant. Country music was playing over the jukebox, almost every table filled, a small crowd gathered by the dartboards. Some people were still in coveralls, wearing the evidence of the day’s labor, while some were still in suits and ties, evidence of labor of a different sort.

All the bits and pieces of Copper Ridge collided here, and it was easy to see why.

The whole bar had a rustic feel to it, knotted wood on the floor and on the walls, exposed beams on the ceiling. There was half a red rowboat mounted to the ceiling, old fishing nets spilling out of it. It was everything a coastal hole-in-the-wall needed. And, in defiance of its hole-in-the-wall appearance, it had darn fine food.

“You know what you want?” Connor asked.

“Fish-and-chips. Tartar sauce and malt vinegar.”

He nodded once. “Snag a table, will you?”

“Sure. Just a Diet Coke to drink.”

He nodded again, walking over to the bar. She couldn’t help but watch him go. He had put on a plaid button-up shirt, pushed the sleeves past his elbows, revealing that tattoo that fascinated her so much, and the muscles that fascinated her equally.

Only Connor knew what the tattoo meant. He’d come back home one Saturday with the start of it and finished it over the next few weeks. But he’d never said anything about it. And she had never asked. Because the omission was so glaring, it had to be purposeful.

So she let him have it. But after today, she was starting to think she let him have a few too many omissions.

She’d been livid when she’d discovered the paperwork. But then he’d said all those things, and her heart squeezed tight, and all the anger had sort of leaked out and drained away.

And it was impossible to be mad at him now, as he was ordering her food and standing there with his broad back filling her vision, slim waist tapering down to slim hips and... Well, there was no use denying the fact that it was a damn fine ass.

Her cheeks got hot, and she looked down at her hands. She was not going to keep staring at him. Not like that.

She looked up again when he pulled his chair out and sat across from her. He set her Diet Coke down in front of her, his own hand wrapped around a dark brown beer bottle. “Food will be up in a minute.”

“Good,” she said, “I’m starving.”

She looked up, behind Connor, and saw a group of three women, all bleached blonde, all much more made up than she was, staring Connor down. Blonde number one leaned over and whispered something to blonde number two, who then turned her focus to Liss, her frosted-pink lip curling upward into a sneer.

Well, Liss had clearly been measured and found wanting.

Blonde number three tossed her hair over her shoulder and stuck her chest out, as if she was gearing up to go on a mission. And her mission seemed to pertain to Connor.

Oh, dammit. They were headed this way. All of them were headed this way. They made their way up to the table, one moving to Connor’s left, the other two standing on his right. “Hi.” The one Liss had arbitrarily dubbed number three spoke first. “My friends and I had a question.”

Connor looked up, a crease between his brows, his lips pulled down into a frown. “Yes?”

He looked so confused, it was almost cute.

“We were just wondering if your table mate here is your girlfriend or your sister?”

Liss sputtered.

Connor’s frown deepened. “You came all the way over here to ask me that?”

Number three, whom Liss clearly should’ve named number one, reached out and touched Connor’s forearm. Ran her manicured fingertips over the vines of his tattoo. Rage burned in Liss’s chest. She’d never done that. She had never touched his tattoo, and some random woman was trailing her fingertips over the ink on his skin.

“It seemed important,” she said, winking at him. Her eyelashes were fake. Liss was certain.

“She lives with me,” he said, turning his attention back to his beer.

“Doesn’t really answer my question,” Blondie said.

“I don’t see why I should,” he said, his tone uncompromising.

The woman rolled her eyes and gestured to her friends to move on. “Sorry you aren’t in the mood to play, honey,” she said, her parting shot as she wiggled back over to the other side of the bar.

Liss snorted. “Can you believe that?”

“What?”

“Obviously, they did not think I was pretty enough to be your girlfriend.”

“I don’t see why they cared.”

She arched a brow. “Do you really not see?”

He shook his head. “Not really.”

Liss looked closely at his face to see if he was being serious. “Because she was hitting on you. Now, I don’t think my being your girlfriend would’ve deterred her, but I think she wanted to insult me first.”