Untamed Cowboy
“I’m fine,” Bennett said.
“Right. So you’re fine if I take a stack of your cash and light it on fire? And you’re fine with Olivia being pregnant?”
He really wasn’t fine with any of that. But since Wyatt wasn’t going to burn a stack of his cash, and Olivia was going to remain pregnant regardless of his feelings on the matter, he didn’t see the point in rising to Wyatt’s bait.
“Doesn’t worry me,” he said, grabbing a beer out of the fridge. He had every intention of drinking more heavily here. But he didn’t want to expose the fact that he was bothered by all of this. He really should have stayed with Kaylee, who would have imagined that he was heartbroken or wounded in some way. He wondered if that was what his brother thought too. That Olivia had broken his heart. She hadn’t. It was dredging up a past he didn’t like to think of.
He wondered if it would be like this if he ever had his own children.
That was a strange thought. Because of course he had been planning on having children with Olivia. But it had seemed an easy thing. Part of that normal life he was planning for.
He hadn’t anticipated that it would make him think of his first girlfriend and the baby that they had lost all that time ago. The baby that nobody knew about.
Nobody but Cole Logan—Olivia’s father and Quinn Dodge’s best friend. He’d been like an uncle to Bennett, and far enough removed from the situation for Bennett to feel like he could go to him for help without being terrified of being seen as a disappointment.
Not even Kaylee knew.
There was no point talking about something that had never become anyone else’s problem. He had intended on bringing the issue forward with his family when it had become something they couldn’t deny. But he’d been sixteen, and he’d been an idiot. He’d been caught up in feelings, and he sure as hell hadn’t been thinking.
The acrid, burning shame of failure still sat in his gut all these years later. For that loss of control.
He had never acted like that ever again.
He had gotten caught up in passion, and he hadn’t taken care of Marnie. Hadn’t protected either of them.
And after all the emotional turmoil of going over what they were going to do, of deciding that he was going to put all of his dreams, his life on hold, so that he could do the right thing and marry her and make a home with her, she had lost the baby. Then she had broken up with him and left town, unable to handle the pain of what had happened.
He hadn’t heard much about her since. She didn’t stay in touch with her parents. He’d heard once through the grapevine she’d been arrested.
She hadn’t been that person before. Not when they’d been together.
He blamed himself, in part. For the fact that what had happened seemed to have damaged her in ways she couldn’t come back from.
So of course when Olivia said she didn’t want to have sex until they were engaged he had honored that easily. He would never, ever pressure a woman into doing something she didn’t want to.
And he would never act out of control again in his life. The consequence for that kind of thing were too grave.
But nobody knew about that. They would all think he was acting weird because his ex was pregnant. They had no idea he’d nearly been a father once. And that this made him think of the baby he would have had fifteen years ago. That it made him wonder about what that might have been like. What that life might have been.
It hadn’t even been a life he had wanted. It had just been the life he was coping with.
But it was hovering there now. And he couldn’t even explain it to anyone.
“Well, maybe at the barbecue I can set up a free vet check booth,” he said drily.
“Yeah, not sure we want you doing any of that near the food.”
“Like having hayrides near a barbecue is any less problematic? I don’t think it is.”
Jamie sniffed. “Horses are not dirty.”
“Just because you love horses more than you love most people doesn’t mean other people love them near their burgers.”
“Well, then, they’re not people I want to know anyway,” his sister said.
Sometimes Bennett wondered if Jamie had suffered the most from losing their mother at a young age. Jamie had been a newborn when their mom had died, and their dad had done his best with her—with all of them—but he’d had four kids, a working ranch and a shedload of grief to contend with.
Ultimately Jamie had been left to go a little bit wild, running around outside and doing her best to keep up with her brothers from the time she was barely knee-high to a grasshopper. But then, Jamie was happy. Normal shouldn’t matter.
But it did to him. That was the problem.
It clearly did, because his entire set of goals had centered around having some version of a normal life. The house, the job, the wife, the kids.
And it had all crumbled down around him and he didn’t know how he felt about it.
But then, when push came to shove he hadn’t proposed to Olivia.
Now that her pregnancy news was rolling over him slowly, and he was dealing with various ghosts from the past, he wondered if that was why.
If, in the end, his past was part of what had held him back. The fact that he had known marrying Olivia and making a family with her was going to dredge up things he didn’t want to think about.
But when it came to Jamie, he only cared about her happiness. And that much was easy. When it came to himself, it was a lot different.
Sometimes he wondered if he deserved to be happy.
Whatever, he had to quit sitting here feeling sorry for himself. He needed to go home. Now that he had given up on the idea of getting blind stinking drunk, he needed to get his ass in bed so that when tomorrow morning’s wake-up call came it didn’t feel like such an assault.
“Well,” he said, “thanks for the... This little version of support that you all are able to give.” He tilted his half-consumed beer bottle upward. “I think I’m going to call it a night.”
“You’re not too drunk to drive,” Grant said, his tone dry, “are you?”
“I don’t know how you’re ever not too drunk to drive,” Bennett returned.
“I might not be,” Grant said. “But, seeing as I live here, it doesn’t really matter.”
A couple of years ago Grant had sold his house in town and moved back onto the ranch. There were so many outbuildings and dwellings on the property that it was easy for them to all cohabit there and not see each other.
Bennett preferred to have his own space.
“Fair enough. Now you can just stagger across the property.”
At least Grant wasn’t drinking alone. He wasn’t going to say that, but he was grateful for that. They all worried about Grant. They had thought that in a year, two years, five years, he would have done something in the way of recovering from Lindsay’s death. But Lindsay had been his high school sweetheart, his first and only love, and the fact that he had married her even knowing their marriage wouldn’t be a long one, knowing that eventually her terminal illness would take her, had made them a kind of tragic love story for the ages in Gold Valley.
And unfortunately, Grant, it turned out, excelled at existing in tragedy.
“I’m sure I’ll see y’all tomorrow,” he said. “If you end up needing any help on anything specific let me know.”
He stood up and went back outside, feeling a little bit like an unsettled boomerang not sure what target he was hoping to return to.
His hand itched, and he wanted to reach for his phone to call Kaylee.
But it was late now, and she had probably gone to sleep.
He had already interrupted her date, he didn’t need to wake her up too.
Part of him wondered if she had called her date back, if they were resuming activities now. At her home. In her bed.
He gritted his teeth. What the hell was wrong with him? He didn’t think about Kaylee and sex. He didn’t think about Kaylee showering. Didn’t imagine pale skin and her curves. Never.
He blamed this whole thing on Olivia because he didn’t think of Olivia as being the mother of someone else’s children either.
She was supposed to be the mother of his.
And whether or not he had a broken heart, he felt...
Well, thwarted plans were never fun.
Having built an entire life in his head that was now permanently crumbled around him was not fun.
He had encouraged Luke to go after Olivia, when the man had shown up at the ranch looking brokenhearted and generally hangdog. Because Bennett hadn’t felt that broken when Olivia had left him. And he knew that Olivia deserved a man who did. When push came to shove, he felt like he had done the right thing.
But he kind of wished that he hadn’t now. And in this moment, by himself, he was going to go ahead and feel petty.
Yeah, and he was going to take that home by himself. All of his anger, all of his unsettled feelings. All of the weird thoughts he had about his best friend tonight.
Tomorrow would be a new day. And he would start making a new plan. There wasn’t another option.
CHAPTER THREE
BEFORE TEN O’CLOCK Kaylee had already dealt with a parakeet that had a fever, a ferret with a bad skin condition and an old dog that had gotten into some foxtails.
Business was never slow at Valley Veterinary, which was a good thing in many ways.
But at the moment Kaylee would kill for another cup of coffee and a moment to sit down.
And that was when Bennett walked in, looking like her salvation with his strong hands wrapped around two cups of coffee from Sugar Cup.
“Thank God you’re here,” she said, stretching her arm out.
“That’s quite the greeting.”
“I didn’t mean you. I meant coffee. Hand it over, Dodge. I’m dying.”
“Well, we can’t have that, Kay.” He thrust the cup into her hand, and she took it greedily, taking a cautious sip. It was scalding hot. Just the way she liked it.
She looked up at the clock, and then looked at the schedule sitting on the desk. Unless there was another emergency, she was clear for the day.
“Have you been out to check on the calf?”
“Yep,” he said, “first thing I did this morning. Everything looks good. But it’s just the start of busy season for me.”
“Right,” Kaylee responded. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year. The time of year where you spend half your time shoulder deep in cows.”
He chuckled and lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “It’s a living.”
“Indeed. Not jealous of you, just FYI. I prefer the small and fuzzy to the large and smelly.”
Usually, she didn’t have to assist with many births. Occasionally there were some breed-specific issues, and she would have to do something like give a bulldog a C-section, but that wasn’t very common around here.
“Did you end up finishing your date last night?” Bennett asked.
It was a weird question, and there was something weighted in his voice.
“Did I end up...finishing my date?” She blinked. “I didn’t go back to the restaurant at 9:30, if that’s what you’re asking. My steak would’ve been cold.”
“That’s not what I’m asking.”
Heat flew into her cheeks, her heart slamming against her breastbone. “Bennett, are you asking if I brought the man home?”
His expression was overly bland. Overly casual. “Just out of curiosity.”
“I have never asked you such question in my life,” she pointed out.
“Well, no. And you probably never would.”
Because the idea of Bennett with another woman burned her with jealousy, and she would have maybe had a blackout and stabbed him with the nearest medical instrument, but she wasn’t going to say that.
Bennett was not asking out of the burning jealousy of his heart. Not even a little.
In fact, that Bennett was asking at all proved how much the thought of her being with someone else didn’t matter to him.
She blamed Olivia Logan for all of this. Yes, him being with her had hurt. Knowing that he was probably going to marry her had hurt. But she had also seen...the end.
If Bennett were married then there really wouldn’t be a them. Not like part of her stupid heart had hoped there would be since junior high. If he married another woman then it really wasn’t going to happen between them. So yes, it had been indescribably painful to know that was finally coming.
But it had been a relief in some strange ways. A relief because it would finally kill her hope dead.
And then the golden couple of Gold Valley had broken up.
Bennett being single forced her to ponder all the what-ifs again.
Which was why she had gone out on that date.
She hadn’t been on a date in forever—it had been even longer since she had been with anyone, and she had just been...tired of that. Tired of the fact that her emotions, her body, seemed to be completely held hostage by a man who didn’t want them.
“Normally I wouldn’t,” he said, “but the whole thing with Olivia has me thinking.”
Everything inside Kaylee drew in tight, the breath in her lungs, her stomach, even her pulse seemed to narrow down to the tip of the pen, stabbing at her with each beat.
She swallowed hard. “You mean, you’re looking for someone else to marry?”
She had survived the selection process of Olivia. Had survived that relationship and near-marriage. She wasn’t sure if she was going to survive it again.
The corner of Bennett’s mouth tipped upward, the expression on his face turning wicked, which was not an expression normally present on Bennett’s face. “Or maybe I just need to hook up.”
Their eyes clashed and held over the tops of their coffee cups, and something seemed to spark the air, to catch and hold. They both took a sip of their coffee, as if to prolong the moment or let it settle, she wasn’t sure. But it was something. Something to do. But she didn’t look away from him. She felt like she couldn’t. Like there was a magnet holding her gaze to his, and she couldn’t fight it. Didn’t want to.
The door to the clinic opened, and they both looked over quickly. A rush of breath left Kaylee’s body, a strange dizziness washing over her as the tension broke.
It was Beatrix Leighton. Her sister-in-law Sabrina Parker ran the tasting room for Grassroots Winery in the neighboring town of Copper Ridge, and Bea lived on the winery property, which was owned by her other sister-in-law, Lindy. Both Sabrina and Lindy were polished and immaculate. Beatrix was...not.
She had a tangle of carrot-colored curls that always seemed to move independently of the rest of her, her cheeks often pink from the sun, her nose peeling because she had spent too much time outdoors. Kaylee had the vague idea that Beatrix was in her early twenties, but her slightly feral nature made it difficult to say.
In Beatrix’s arms was a box. And in that box was what looked to be a mass of blankets.
“Can I help you?” Laura the receptionist asked Beatrix, who looked from her to Kaylee and then to Bennett.
“I found him this morning on the side of the road,” she said, her eyes looking incredibly round and dewy.
“Found what?” Kaylee asked.
“Him,” Beatrix said, setting the box on the counter and revealing the contents.
A tiny baby raccoon nestled down beneath the pale blue blanket, his little claws wrapped tightly around the woolen fabric like it was his safety.
“His mother was dead,” Beatrix said. “And another baby. Hit by a car. But he was all right. I thought I saw movement, so I pulled the car over and got out. I think he might be injured, so I thought I should bring him to you.”
Beatrix had dropped by the clinic often over the past few years for just this very thing. She was a chronic rescuer of wild animals. And Kaylee could never bring herself to charge for the service of helping the younger woman rescue them. Anyway, usually Beatrix ended up doing most of the work, as long as Kaylee could provide an antibiotic or set a broken limb.
She shot Laura a glance. “Your schedule is clear right now.”
Kaylee looked at the mournful little creature, and then back at Beatrix. “Let’s get a look at him.”
Bennett was watching the entire thing with a kind of bemused expression on his face. Bennett was a veterinarian who cared deeply about saving animals. But Bennett was also a rancher from a long line of ranching stock, and when it came to offering medical aid to varmints, his opinion on the subject was more neutral than that it was a necessity.
Kaylee had spent a lot of her life feeling helpless. Useless. She hadn’t had resources to control or help anyone or anything when she’d been growing up. And now that she could? She could no more turn down the raccoon than she could Beatrix.
“Let’s take him into an exam room,” she said, picking up the box and leading the way back to one of the enclosed patient rooms.
Beatrix followed, and Bennett followed slowly behind her.
Now his presence was just starting to irritate her. That weird moment from earlier was making a mess of her insides, combined with the fact that she had it in her head now that Bennett wanted to...hook up. With some woman. Any woman but her, clearly. That always seemed to be the case.
What’s the alternative? He hooks up with you and then what? He’s going to marry you? What will happen to your friendship?
All those typical questions came tumbling down on her head. The questions that she always asked herself when she got into a Bennett loop.
But she didn’t just have a wayward heart and an overly excitable body. She had a brain.
And her brain knew a few things about Bennett Dodge. The first being that if he wanted her at all, he would have made a move. He was decisive. Honest. Not the type to sit and stew about hidden feelings.
The second being that she didn’t really know how to have a long-term relationship. Her attempts so far had been unsuccessful.
A recipe for disaster.
And anyway, they had made the decision years ago to go into business together, which further complicated...everything.
Bennett was deeply ingrained in her life. Her friend, her business partner and a staple in the community.
They were tangled around each other. And untangling even one portion of it had the potential to unravel her entire life.
A good thing to remember whenever she got a little bit too wistful about him.
She had made her choices a long time ago.
What she needed was a man to tangle all up in her personal life.
What she needed was to call Michael because he had left that door open, and she needed to walk through it.
Kaylee got some gloves and carefully ensconced the tiny raccoon in a blanket before lifting it up and examining it. He was in fact a he, as Beatrix had stated upon first entry. Kaylee looked up from the raccoon and at Bennett, who was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed, his muscles shifting interestingly, displayed nicely by the tight black T-shirt he was wearing. His typical uniform, and one that was really getting to her today.
“If you have commentary on my treatment of a baby raccoon, Bennett, I will thank you to take it in the other room,” she said pointedly.
Beatrix turned to look at him. “You don’t think we should treat the baby raccoon?” Her tone was almost comically accusatory.
Bennett looked somewhat thunderstruck by that. It was the complete lack of guile in Beatrix’s question, the absolute shock that he might not think a raccoon was worthy of saving.
He looked between Beatrix and Kaylee.
“Treat the baby raccoon if you need to,” he said, putting his hands up.
“The baby raccoon needs to be treated,” Beatrix pointed out.
“Yeah, Bennett,” Kaylee said. “The baby raccoon needs it.”
Bennett suppressed what looked to be an eye roll, but continued to stand there and watch as Kaylee conducted an examination on the tiny creature.
“He looks like he’s in decent health,” Kaylee said. “All things considered. Though, I’m sure he’s a little bit shocky. Was he behaving like he was injured when you took him home?”
Beatrix shook her head. “I haven’t taken him home yet. I just pulled him off the road. I keep a blanket and a box in my truck just in case.”
Of course she did.
“Well, I think he can probably go to your house. If you’re up to round-the-clock feedings. I would assume that you could treat a small raccoon like a runt puppy. A little bit of evaporated milk and an eyedropper might help him pull through.”
“That’s reassuring,” Beatrix said.
“Do you want me to give him some vaccinations?”
“Can you?”
“I don’t see why not,” Kaylee said, working her way through her supply. “I’ll just make sure he gets his rabies shot, and then I’ll send you on your way. Hopefully he makes it through.”
“Well, if he does, then I’ll have a rabies-free raccoon as a pet,” Beatrix pointed out. “Lindy may not appreciate a raccoon living at the winery.”
Kaylee suppressed a smile. “That is between you and your sister-in-law. I’m just going to treat the raccoon.”
Kaylee took care of the vaccination under the watchful eye of Beatrix and the overly amused Bennett. Then she bundled up the tiny animal and put him back in his box and handed the box back to its owner.
“Good luck, Beatrix,” she said.
“That was nice of you,” Bennett said once Beatrix had left.
“It wasn’t nice of me,” Kaylee said. “It’s my job.”
“No, your job is to work on people’s pets for profit. You don’t have to patch up every sickly critter that Beatrix Leighton brings in on a whim.”
“Why not? It’s a small thing. But it’s something.”
“I suppose so.”
“I’m very giving,” she said. “The kind of woman who leaves her date to help a baby calf.”
He chuckled. “Yes, you are. And I do owe you a massive thank-you for that.”
“You’re soft too, Bennett Dodge. Maybe not for raccoons. But for other creatures.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’m less soft toward animals that are going to make themselves nuisances because Beatrix ends up turning them loose once they grow up, and they view people as their natural source of food. If I have to pry that raccoon repeatedly out of my garbage cans I’m going to be irritated.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Kaylee said. “First of all, Beatrix is probably going to keep it. Second of all, it will wreak havoc at the winery, not your place.”
“Well, Wyatt will be happy about that.”
“Why would Wyatt care?”
“He has some kind of uneasy alliance with Lindy. Funneling business between the places.”
“Uneasy?”
“They do not like each other. But then, Wyatt used to be buddies with Lindy’s ex-husband. He did PR on the rodeo circuit back when Wyatt was still riding. So they used to be friends, and I think Lindy wants to castrate him.”
“I can see where that would cause a rift.”
“Yep.”
“Wyatt wants to drive business to Get Out of Dodge so badly that he’s willing to work with a woman who hates him?”
Bennett chuckled. “My brother used to ride bulls for a living. Drooling, angry, two-ton monsters that wanted to rip his guts out. I think one ragey blonde who wants to gut him doesn’t scare him much.”
“Well, that must be fun to be around.”
“Fortunately,” Bennett said, “I have my own business to keep me busy. And I’m about to go out on a call, so I will see you later.”
“See you later.”
When Bennett walked out of the clinic, her stomach bottomed out, the aftershock of everything that had happened in the past hour moving over her in a wave.
Why was it like this? All the time.
Why were there these moments? Thunder and lightning without the rain. A storm brewing that never seemed to break open. Tension. So much tension and nothing to ease it.
Maybe the tension was only on her side. Because it wasn’t coming from him. And it all felt so big and real and raw to her, and he didn’t seem to feel a thing.