Good Time Cowboy
The fact that she lived here alone was something she preferred not to focus on.
She took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of pine, the cold, fresh smell of the river beyond the grove of trees that enclosed Grassroots Winery.
The sun filtered through the tops of the evergreens, making the needles look like tinsel. Like Christmas in June.
This place belonged to her, not just legally, but in some real, inextricable way. The way that it wound around her soul, the grapevines entwined with who she was... The exhaustion she had felt a moment before when she had been talking to Dane seemed to vanish. By the time she got down to the dining area, it was gone.
Sabrina’s car was already in the parking lot when Lindy arrived, and she pushed the door open to find her friend sitting at one of the tables working on inventory.
“Taking orders down to Copper Ridge?” Lindy asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sabrina said, looking up and smiling. Then, she got a look at Lindy’s outfit and frowned. “You’re wearing jeans?”
“Weirdly,” Lindy said, “it’s only 8:00 a.m. and you’re the second person to comment on that.”
Sabrina’s eyes widened further. “I’m the second...”
“Dane is staying at my house,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking...stop it.”
“Okay. I was wondering if I had missed more not going out last night than I thought.”
“You didn’t miss anything,” she said.
“We were going to come,” Sabrina said. “We got...distracted.” The word was laden with meaning that was impossible to miss.
Lindy rolled her eyes. “Spare me.”
“If you’re jealous, you could always find someone to deal with your physical frustration...”
“I’m not physically frustrated enough to deal with the emotional frustration that comes with having a man in your life.”
That much was true. Anyway, she was so exhausted she couldn’t fathom trying to make room in her life for a lover.
She gritted her teeth, trying to keep visions of Wyatt out of her brain.
Wyatt Dodge, and the fact that she found him attractive, had nothing to do with that.
“Indulge me,” Sabrina said. “Why are you wearing jeans?”
“I’m going out for a trail ride,” she said crisply.
“A trail ride?”
“I know that you are aware of the route and everything that’s going to be used for the ride that Get Out of Dodge is going to conduct on winery property. But I haven’t actually seen it.”
“So, Jamie is going to take you out?” Sabrina laughed. “I would pay to see you on a horse.”
“I do know how to ride. And, Jamie isn’t taking me.”
Sabrina lifted a brow. “Who is taking you?”
“Wyatt,” Lindy said, trying to sound casual.
“So, you’re wearing jeans. For Wyatt.”
“No. I’m wearing jeans to ride a horse, because a pencil skirt would necessitate me riding sidesaddle. Which isn’t happening. I don’t even think they make sidesaddles anymore.”
“I’m sure they do,” Sabrina said, “but that’s beside the point.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“He gets under your skin,” Sabrina pointed out.
“Yes,” Lindy said, “he does. Because he’s that kind of guy. That cocky, arrogant asshole that thinks he can get away with anything. That thinks a smile and his easy charm is going to cover up any mistake he might make.”
“He’s not Damien,” Sabrina pointed out.
That forced Lindy to compare. Damien’s slick charm versus Wyatt’s rough, down-home variety. Damien would never give a woman a hard time, never tease the way Wyatt did. He’d only lie. Pretending to love, honor and cherish while he snuck around.
She couldn’t imagine Wyatt sneaking.
Wyatt was a full-blown hurricane. And hurricanes didn’t sneak.
She didn’t like that they weren’t as similar as she wanted to pretend they were. Because as long as Wyatt was just Damien in different clothes, it was easy to convince herself she wanted nothing to do with him.
Well, easy was a stretch.
“Too similar,” she said anyway.
“Is there any man you wouldn’t think was too similar right now?”
“No,” Lindy said. “I’m not in the market. Like I said, I have too much to do.”
“Right. I mean, I get you. I was you.”
“That’s different. You didn’t date because you fell in love with Liam Donnelly fourteen years ago, and it never changed. Even when he left. I’m not still in love with Damien. I’m not hung up on him. I’m trying to make my way on my own for a while. When I have a handle on that...then maybe I’ll worry about bringing someone else into my life.”
“A physical relationship doesn’t have to intrude on that,” Sabrina said, looking innocent.
“If I want to place an ad online I’ll remember that.”
“Why place an ad?” Sabrina asked, her tone saccharine. “You’re going on a trail ride with Wyatt later.”
“Did you not hear me the first time? I’m immune to men like him. Anyway, I have to work with him. That puts him squarely off-limits.”
Sabrina shrugged. “Suit yourself. But whenever you two are in the same room it feels like there is literal electricity in the air. If I were you... I would be tempted to see where that might end.”
“I know where it ends,” she said. “Divorce court.”
“It was like that between you and Damien?”
It wasn’t a leading question, but a genuine one. And Lindy wished that she could say it had been. That the strange undercurrent that existed between herself and Wyatt was just old hat to her. Nothing she hadn’t navigated before.
But it was like something else entirely. So different that most of the time she tried to pretend it was irritation, that it wasn’t attraction at all.
But then...
Then she was reminded of that first moment she’d seen him. Five years ago. With her husband’s ring on her finger.
They’d been traveling together that year for Damien’s work with the rodeo, and that had meant more nights in honky-tonks than she cared for. But she’d gone anyway.
She’d gone to meet Damien after an event one night. And he’d been there, sitting on a bar stool across the room. He’d looked at her. Which was nothing. Nothing new, nothing extraordinary. People looked at each other every day.
This had been like a lightning strike. Electric. Immobilizing.
Lethal.
She’d had to force herself to keep moving forward, and the whole time he’d stared.
His brown eyes locked on to hers, his expression filled with a kind of intensity she had never seen before.
It had been like her entire body had been hollowed out, making room for this feeling that he had created and placed inside of her. There had been nothing but that. For a full thirty seconds. Nothing else existed outside of it. Not her life. Not her marriage.
Then Damien had stood up, smiled, grabbed hold of her and introduced her as his wife.
It had been like watching a train she had been meant to catch move away from the station, far ahead of her, going somewhere she would never be able to follow.
After that, she felt like she’d been slapped in the face by reality. And whatever feeling she had felt moments before had been replaced completely by anger. Resentment.
At him. As unfair as it was.
“Yes,” she said, her throat dry. “It’s just a little bit of a spark. I’m a woman. He’s a man. It’s nothing...” Again, she flashed back to that first moment in that bar, when the earth had shifted beneath her feet. “Nothing I haven’t felt before. Nothing I won’t feel again. If you don’t catch one train, another will always be by,” she said, in defiance of that earlier metaphor that had passed through her mind.
“If you say so.”
“I do. And I have work to do.”
“Okay,” Sabrina said, writing on the order form in front of her with a flourish. “I have to get down to town. Enjoy your ride.”
Lindy clenched her teeth. “Oh, I will. I will.”
CHAPTER SIX
WELL, HELL. HE had anticipated how much he’d want her if she showed up in a little pencil skirt, the kind he wanted to shove up her hips so he could step between her thighs. He had expected her hair to be in a prim little bun. Had expected that he would want to take it down and run his fingers through it. He always did.
What he hadn’t expected was for her to be wearing jeans. Jeans that molded to her long, slender legs and showcased her figure in a new, tantalizing way, that the styling of her skirts didn’t.
Neither was better than the other. Not really. But it was a new look at her body, and his own body reacted favorably to that.
The damned pervert.
She still looked prim in her way. She was wearing a button-up shirt, and all those tiny little buttons made his fingers itch to undo them. But she had on a pair of tennis shoes, and that made him smile.
He got out of his truck, his boots hitting the gravel in the drive, the rocks crunching beneath his feet. And she was standing there, her arms crossed, her blue eyes sharp and assessing.
She was trying to get a read on him. Trying to figure out what he might do, so she could figure out what she should do.
If there was one thing he’d figured out about her—besides the fact that her ass had the most delicious curve to it—it was that she liked to be in control.
Too damned bad for her. Because so did he.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” she said, affecting an impatient tone.
He damn near shook his head.
He had expected better from her. She had gone and shown her hand. She was already eager to get this over with. And he didn’t have anywhere else in the world to be. Which meant he was gonna take his sweet-ass time.
He closed the door to the pickup truck slowly, then made his way around the back to the small horse trailer that was hitched up there. “It’ll take a couple of hours to do the whole trail,” he commented.
“I know,” she said. “When Sabrina and Jamie worked out the route, they discussed that.”
He nodded. Also slowly. “Right.”
Only a man who’d made a study of Lindy Parker would have any idea how agitated she was. But, he was a man who’d made a study of her.
The way her blue eyes flashed when she was angry. The way she pursed her lips together and pressed her mouth into a flat line to keep from displaying any emotion she hadn’t damn well chosen to display.
The particular set of her shoulders, the way she squared her hips. Like she was ready to face an opponent in battle.
He saw all those things contained in her still form and placid expression.
Because he was a fool.
A fool who was really enjoying drawing all this out.
He undid the latch on the horse trailer, then slid it open. He climbed up inside and encouraged the two horses they were taking out on the ride—Emmy Lou and Trixie—out into the lot.
All the while very aware of the fact that Lindy was standing there, stiff-necked and anxious. Her very noncasual mood at stunning odds with the outfit she’d chosen to wear today.
No. She was not more relaxed than usual at all. But then, he wondered if that was him, more than it was anything else.
Unless it was Grant.
Annoyance kicked him in the gut.
He didn’t believe that she wanted to date Grant. But, clearly she wanted him to think that she did.
Mostly, he was confident in the fact that she did not. Mostly, he was confident in the fact that the kind of heat and fire he’d felt when their skin had made contact last night could not be one-sided.
He wasn’t sure if that was a victory or defeat, but he was certain of it nonetheless.
“Grant says hi,” he mentioned offhandedly, getting the tack out of the horse trailer and beginning the process of readying the animals.
“Does he?” she asked, keeping her tone as smooth and placid as the expression on her face.
She was a beautiful, accomplished little liar, that woman.
“Yes,” he said. “I told him that you...expressed some interest last night.”
“Did you?” There was a small break in her composure. A slight twitch to her brow, a little hitch in her breath.
If she wanted to lie, then two could play that game.
“Yes. He was very interested.”
“Well. That’s...good. Very good. Because, I also am very interested.”
He stood there for a moment, the lead rope to the horse in his hands, his eyes fixed on hers. And he watched as the color mounted in her cheeks. Pink. Tempting. He wanted to kiss those blush-stained cheeks. Hell, he wanted to kiss her everywhere.
He had a feeling that that was written on his face as clearly as the blush was written across hers. “You are shameless, Lindy Parker,” he said, bending down and tightening the girth on the horse’s saddle. Gratified when he could feel her eyes moving over his body as he worked.
“I am not,” she snapped.
He straightened and turned to look at her. “My brother is a grieving man. And you would use him to get at me?”
Lindy’s mouth dropped open, then closed, like a fish. “I am not trying to...get you.”
“I mean to irritate me.”
She sniffed. “Well. If you didn’t think that I wanted to go out with him why did you tell him I did?”
“I didn’t,” he said. And then he winked, because he knew it would enrage her. “But, this was a fun little play we just acted out.”
She treated him to a very teenage facial expression and he couldn’t help but smile, imagining how she might have been when she was younger. Less polished. Less careful. “You’re such an ass.”
She reached into the small purse she was carrying and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, jamming them over her eyes.
As if that would protect her.
He could read her every emotion on that pale skin. He wondered if she knew that. He wondered if anyone had ever told her that anger made her flush a certain shade of rose, that desire made her flush creep down her neck, intensifying the color.
He knew.
He knew, because he had been watching her for the past five years.
There was no way on earth that didn’t sound creepy as hell, but it was the truth.
“Sure. I never said I wasn’t.” He kept staring her down, even while he got the second saddle on the other horse, while he bent down to tighten the girth. “And you started it. You were the one who asked me about Grant.”
“I have a feeling you think there’s something going on here,” she said, her shoulders going even stiffer. “But there isn’t. I wanted to make that clear.”
“All you had to do was say it,” Wyatt said, except, that was a lie too. Because he knew, whatever she said, that she felt this thing that existed between them.
“Okay. There’s nothing happening here,” she said, waving a well-manicured hand, her eyes still shielded by the large, dark glasses.
“All right,” he said. “Saddle up, cowgirl,” he said, gesturing to Trixie, the more placid of the mares.
“All right,” she said, snippy. She placed her foot in the stirrup and hauled herself up on the back of the horse. She wasn’t an experienced horsewoman, not as far as he could see, but she’d definitely been on the back of one before.
With ease, he put himself in the saddle, and maneuvered himself so that he was in the lead position. “How long has it been since you’ve ridden?”
“Oh,” she said, sounding slightly thrown at the change of topic. “I don’t know. Not since I was in high school probably? So...a long time.”
“It’s like riding a bike,” he said. “I assume. I’ve never gone a significant amount of time without being on the back of a horse. Also, I imagine you’re a hell of a lot more saddle sore than you are when you pick up bike riding after a good number of years.”
She huffed out a laugh. “Good to know. I look forward to the screaming muscles. And as I limp around the house, I’ll remember that you’re the reason I can barely walk.”
He thought about letting the moment pass by. But then, he thought no. He was going to take it. “Honey, you are not the first woman to say that to me.”
He couldn’t see her face, but if stiffness was something you could feel in the air, he was certain he felt it now.
“You’re disgusting,” she said.
“That is not the general consensus.”
“See, this really does make me want to go on a date with Grant,” she commented, keeping her tone light. “Because I doubt he would ever say things like that to a lady.”
“Grant has barely spoken to a woman in eight years. I’m not sure he knows what he would say to a lady at this point in time.”
That little bit of unexpected honesty made his chest turn a little bit.
“So he hasn’t... He hasn’t gone out with anyone since his wife died?”
“No.”
“I can understand that,” she said, slowly. “I imagine any experience with marriage makes you think twice about jumping in again.”
“You don’t want to get married again?”
“Right now? No. And I can’t imagine ever willingly submitting myself to that ever again.”
“I don’t think his reasoning is quite the same as yours,” Wyatt pointed out.
“No. I expect it isn’t. But it’s just... More than even the not trusting someone else, it sounds like a lot of work. I was married. I was married for a long time. It’s like, I’ve done it. I’ve seen what that life is like. I’ve seen what it can give me. I’m not really interested in checking it out again.”
“Been there, done that?”
“Yes,” she confirmed.
Damien had a lot to answer for, and that was the damned truth. No, Wyatt wasn’t any more interested in marriage than Lindy was, but she was the kind of woman who should be. The kind of woman who deserved better. Who should have gotten a hell of a lot better than she had. If she didn’t want marriage, it should be because there was something better and brighter out there for her. Not because she was exhausted emotionally. Not because her heart had been battered, ground into the dust underneath the heel of some jackass’s boot.
“I’ve always thought marriage seemed pretty overrated myself,” he commented.
She surprised him by continuing the topic. “Why is that?”
“One woman for the rest of my life,” he said, the lie slipping out easily. “I don’t think I could handle that.”
As if it all came down to him being afraid he couldn’t control his dick. As if it didn’t have anything to do with the hard, sharp truths he learned about himself when he was seventeen years old. The hard, sharp truths about what it cost to care for someone. Loss and betrayal and defiance, all mixed up together.
“Well, I admire you for knowing that about yourself.” She didn’t sound admiring in the least.
“So, we figured we would take the guests down by the river,” Wyatt said, changing the subject.
All of this was getting a bit too close to places he kept well guarded for a reason. It was one thing to try to get under her skin a bit. It was another to cut his own skin away from the bone and scrape it raw.
Anyway, the sun was shining and he was out on a horse, in the middle of a Tuesday. Another thing that drove home the fact that he had made good decisions in his life, in addition to a hell of a lot of bad ones. But, for now, he was going to go ahead and enjoy the ones he’d made that weren’t terrible.
Working outdoors, being able to spend the day out in the wilderness, with a beautiful woman... Well, it wasn’t all bad.
He maneuvered his horse down the narrow trail that cut through the thick, green grass and behind a copse of pine trees that shielded the river from the rest of the winery grounds. He knew—because Jamie had given him a map to look at last night—that the trail would take them to where the grapevines grew.
On the other side of the river was a thicker, denser grove of trees, and back in the distance, shaded beneath the firs, he thought he could see a little cabin.
“Is that your property too?”
“What?”
Clearly, Lindy had been thinking about other things too. “There. Across the river.”
“Oh,” she said. “Yes. Right now, Bea lives in the little cabin.”
“Really?” The spread was bigger than he’d initially thought. Which made Lindy’s ownership of the place even more of a triumph than he’d realized. “So, your in-laws lost all of this land. To you.”
“For the want of a better prenuptial agreement, yes.”
“Do you ever feel guilty about that?”
He turned and looked behind him, examined the stricken expression on her face. “I’m not suggesting you should,” he added.
“No,” she said. “I don’t feel guilty. Because Damien had ownership of the winery at that point, not Jamison and his wife. I think, if they’d had it still... Well, first of all, it wouldn’t have gone to me. Second of all, I might feel bad. But the fact of the matter is I was doing a good portion of the work when Damien and I were married. I was the one trying to lead new initiatives, initiatives that I’ve put in place now. He was mostly preoccupied with his work for the rodeo. And that’s fine. But this was my passion project, not his. And I don’t know...maybe it’s not...strictly fair. Maybe assets should be divided directly in half. But he wasn’t left with nothing.”
“Do you wish he had been?”
“What kind of question is that?” Her tone was sharp.
“An honest one. He cheated on you, Lindy. How long were the two of you married?”
“Ten years,” she said softly.
“Ten years,” Wyatt reiterated. “Ten years you gave to that man. He cheated on you. He ruined it. And somehow, managed to walk away with enough of a dent in his pocketbook that he looks like a victim. I think that’s messed up. I want to know what you think. Honestly.”
For a moment, she said nothing. The only sound was the plodding of the horses’ hooves on dirt, and the rushing river alongside them.
“I think... Yeah, I think he should have lost everything,” she said finally. “My honest answer. I’m angry that he was able to walk away with anything. Not because I wanted it all. Just because I wouldn’t be that sorry if his life had been reduced to rubble. Or...maybe that’s more how I would have felt two years ago. I don’t really care now.”
“Really?”
“Mostly,” she said. She sighed heavily. “I’m not heartbroken anymore. I mean, how much time can you waste feeling heartbroken over a husband who slept with other women?” She laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “I guess you could waste a lot of time on it, but I don’t want to. He’s not worth it. The man I loved doesn’t exist. I think that’s the hardest thing to come to terms with. The person I thought I was married to... If he was ever that man he’s not anymore. I can’t waste my time grieving over someone who’s basically dead. Wondering what I did to make that happen? That’s another story. And anger... Anger over wasted time, over wasted tears. That’s something else entirely.”
“Makes sense.”
He might not know about the dissolution of a marriage, but he’d experienced heartbreak. And he sure as hell knew about regret.
“Maybe it does,” she said. “Maybe it doesn’t. But it’s true enough.”
They rode on in silence for a while, as the trail wound around the riverbank, and then separated from the water, heading a different direction, where the trees thinned out and the sky opened up, the sun shining down on row after row of twining grapevines.
“This is a helluva place,” he said. “You should be proud of it.”
He meant that. He might be an asshole of the highest order, he might find it tough to be sincere at the best of times, but she had done a great job here. She was a damn fine businesswoman. And she was right about what she had said about Damien. She had done more with this place. She had done better. In his opinion, she deserved everything she got.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, her voice suddenly soft. “I remember the first time I saw it. The first time Damien brought me out here. And I just... I didn’t think that I was the kind of person who would ever be allowed to have something so lovely.”
Something twisted inside his chest. “Why not?”