A Cowboy's Woman (23 page)

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Authors: Cathy Gillen Thacker

BOOK: A Cowboy's Woman
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The crowd grew hushed.
The DJ gave the signal and stepped out of the way.
Both men stood facing each other, hands on their hips.
Five heartrending seconds passed. Ten. Fifteen. Later, Greta could never say who drew first. She only knew in a flash both pistols were whipped from their holsters. Aimed. Fired.
The sounds of the guns going off were simultaneous, drowned out only by the screams of the bystanders as both men reeled backward, not just playacting but visibly hit—Shane in the shoulder, Beau in the chest. And then the screams of horror and excitement turned to astonished laughter as vibrant pink and purple splotches appeared on the men's fancy Western shirts.
 
“PAINTBALL!” Greta fumed as Travis McCabe chuckled beside her, amused.
“Shane picked them up during his rodeo days from one of the clowns.” Travis, the oldest of the four McCabe brothers, turned to her. “I figured you knew.”
Greta's jaw clamped shut. Vaguely aware she'd never felt more like decking someone in her life—those two someones being Shane McCabe and his newfound partner in crime, Beau Chamberlain—Greta folded her arms
in front of her and continued to stare at the street. “I never go to the rodeo.”
“A shame,” Travis said, his low voice full of brotherly admiration. “Watching Shane compete is something else.”
“He does like to capture the attention of the crowd, doesn't he?” The way Greta said it, the way she was feeling, it wasn't a compliment. Damn him anyway, for topping her called-off escapade with one of his own. Damn him for involving Beau in it, too! How could they?
Travis nodded, still thinking of his brother and crowds. “He does indeed.”
Greta marched toward the center of the street, as both men met in the center and shook hands. Shane swaggered over, grabbed Greta around the waist, and kissed her cheek. Before she could respond, Beau walked over, too, grabbed Greta by the waist, and kissed her, too. The crowd roared with delight. Then both men swept off their hats and bowed, letting the crowd know it was the end of the show in the street. More hoots, hollars, whistles and applause followed. The music started once again. Greta suppressed an ironic grin at the selection: Garth Brooks's “Friends In Low Places.” How appropriate.
“Looks like you won,” Beau told Shane, indicating where he had been hit—in the heart, as opposed to where Shane had been hit—in the shoulder.
Who cared who won? Greta thought, when she'd just been made the biggest fool ever. Even though she'd been at the center of the dispute, she felt the way she'd felt back in high school—excluded, watching from a distance, while all the popular kids raised heck and had a blast.
Shane shrugged his broad shoulders. “I'd call it a draw,” Shane said.
“And I'd call it a real crowd pleaser,” Dani Lockhart said, joining them, too. Dani sized Beau up with a cynical look, then continued in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “This ought to bring in buckets of attention for your new movie.” She spoke as if his behavior were loathsome.
“Whatever.” Beau shrugged. He paused in the act of blotting the vivid pink paint from his shirt long enough to look at Dani and quip, “In any case, it's bound to be more worthwhile than one of your reviews.”
Dani's eyes glimmered with a flash of temper. “At least I can write,” she retorted silkily. “Now if you could just act.”
Beau rolled his eyes. “Says the lady with the poison pen.” He handed the paint-smeared handkerchief back to Greta, stabbed a finger at Dani and said, “You know what I think? I think you're just a failed actor, masquerading as a critic!”
“Oh, don't you wish!” Dani fumed right back, bright pink color flooding into her cheeks.
Dani and Beau headed off, still quarreling and tossing insults at each other, right and left.
The local television reporter, there to film the opening of Greta's dance hall for a thirty-second time spot at the end of the newscast, rushed up and stuck a microphone in Shane's face. “Tell us the truth, Shane. Was this one giant publicity stunt on behalf of Greta's dance hall, your new horse ranch and Beau's new movie?”
Shane looked at him. He pretended to be dumbstruck by the astuteness of the question. “No use hiding anything from you, is there?” he drawled.
The reporter beamed and cast a look behind him at
Bonnie Sue Baxter, who'd clearly been giving him an earful. Thusly prodded, the TV reporter continued, “Does it mean then you'll be getting your marriage to Miss Wilson annulled?”
Shane looked at Greta.
Greta held her breath. No, she thought.
Please, Shane, say no.
Shane nodded. “You bet.”
Chapter Twelve
“N
ice,” Travis said early the following morning, as Shane led a cutting horse from the stables to the pasture.
“Thanks.” Shane turned the beautiful bay out into grass, then shut the gate behind it.
Travis, who was clearly in big brother mode, accompanied Shane back to the stables. “I'm surprised you're working today,” Travis continued.
Shane went back to get the chestnut quarter horse and turn him out, too. He worked quickly, slipping on a lead, heading right back out, the beautiful animal in tow. He wished Travis would just go away and mind his own business. “What else would I be doing?”
“I don't know,” Travis said sarcastically. “Maybe trying to save your marriage.”
Shane gave his new horse an affectionate pat, then shut the pasture gate. “Why would I want to do that?”
Travis leaned against the pasture fence. He looked as though he'd slept a heck of a lot better than Shane. Travis angled his head at Shane. “Maybe because you've fallen head over heels in love with the woman?”
Beginning to feel increasingly annoyed—why wouldn't his family mind their own darn business?—Shane did what he was sure would tick off his older
brother in much the same way. He turned the conversation back to Travis and Travis's love life. “Just 'cause you're still upset over losing Rayanne the way you did, don't give me any lip,” Shane said. She'd died years ago, before the two of them could make it to the altar, but for Travis the tragedy might as well have been yesterday, his grief over what might have been, if only the wedding-day accident hadn't occurred, was that deep and that profound.
A shadow passed over Travis's eyes. “I'd give anything to be able to live that day over,” he said.
“I know you would, big brother,” Shane said gently, glad he didn't have a burden like that to carry around himself. “But my situation isn't the same.” He hadn't wronged his woman, Greta had wronged him.
Travis pushed the brim of his hat back and slanted him a look. “Isn't it?”
“You and Rayanne were getting married for all the right reasons.”
They'd loved each other from the time they were kids and had always known they would marry someday. “That's not the case with Greta and me.” Briefly Shane explained how and why he and Greta had gone to J. P. Randall's Bait and Tackle Shop in the first place.
“I figured it was something like that in the beginning,” Travis said with an exasperated sigh.
“And the end, too,” Shane grumbled, wondering when he would ever stop feeling so betrayed.
“Now who's still not being honest?” Travis ribbed.
“What do you mean?” Shane headed back to the stables. “I told her I loved her. And she still betrayed me.”
“But that was before you told her you loved her.” Travis watched Shane pick up a pitchfork and begin to muck out the stables.
“Doesn't matter,” Shane said grimly, having never imagined he could feel such gut-wrenching pain over a woman. When things had ended with Bonnie Sue, he'd felt only relief. “Greta still betrayed me.” Seeing her in Beau's arms, for whatever stupidly concocted reason, had made him feel cuckolded all over again. It wasn't a humiliation he suffered lightly.
“So Greta made a mistake.” Travis stood clear of him. “In the end she was trying to set things right before you went off half-cocked and dumped her in front of everyone.”
Shane hadn't meant to say he intended to end the marriage. He hadn't meant to do anything except get the heck out of there after the mock gun battle. He'd figured the dumping of each other could come later. When his temper had cooled and he'd stopped wanting to kiss her and claim her as his all over again. But when the reporter had asked him, calling it quits had just seemed like the thing to do. for all of them.
Able to see how conflicted he was, Travis clamped a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Just remember this. The kind of passion you and Greta shared this week comes along once in a lifetime—
if
you're lucky.” The depth of Travis's own regrets shimmered in his eyes. “Right now you still have time to try to fix things. You wait much longer, little brother,” Travis frowned a warning, “that may not be the case.”
 
“HONEY, YOU LOOK TERRIBLE,” Tillie said fretfully as she set a plate of bacon and eggs in front of Greta. “Did you get any sleep at all?”
Greta took a deep breath, and through sheer force of will, pushed back the tears she could feel gathering behind her eyes. “Not much.”
Bart put his newspaper aside. “It looks as if you cried all night,” he said.
“That, too.” Greta hadn't known she could hurt this much. She hadn't known she could love so much, and she would love Shane, forever and always, even if he didn't really love her back. She knew that now. Silence rebounded at the breakfast table.
“I'd like to wring that Shane McCabe's neck,” Bart grumbled.
“What happened last night is not Shane's fault,” Greta told her parents wearily, knowing it was past time to put everything—and she did mean everything—on the table. “At least not entirely. I'm to blame, too.”
Bart and Tillie exchanged confused looks. “What do you mean?” they asked in unison.
Briefly, Greta explained how and why she and Shane had really decided to elope.
“You know, in the beginning, we all thought the two of you might just be playing a prank on us to teach us a lesson about interfering in your love lives,” Tillie mused. “But then when we saw you two together—the way you looked at each other—when we saw those sparks, we thought you really were in love with each other.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “And we were so happy for you, darling.”
“Which is why we gave you the real wedding of your dreams,” Bart continued, nodding, “because we wanted you and Shane to get your marriage off on the right foot.”
“And it almost worked,” Greta admitted wistfully. “Maybe it would have, if Shane had just told me he loved me a little bit sooner. But he didn't, and I thought he wanted to stay married because it was convenient, and I got upset, took a page from Shane's book and
decided to use clowning around instead of straight talk to solve my problems. So I concocted a compromising situation with Beau, so that Shane would think I was using him and had been all along and would want to let me go. But before that could happen,” Greta admitted wistfully as all the feelings she'd had in that wonderful tumultuous moment came pouring back, “Shane confessed his real feelings.” In what had undeniably been the happiest moment in her entire life. “And I told him I loved him, too.”
Bart poured more coffee for all of them. “But you didn't tell him about your plan with Beau.”
Greta shook her head sadly, her regret about that boundless as the universe. “No,” she said as tears filled her eyes again. Her hand trembled as she lifted her coffee cup and took a sip. “And I couldn't get to Beau in time to cancel the ruse.” Shame and frustration warred within her. “Shane saw us together. Jumped to all sorts of conclusions. Lost his temper. Challenged Beau to that silly duel, and well—” Greta sighed again, heavily this time “—you know the rest.”
To Greta's surprise Tillie looked more thoughtful than upset. “Maybe he's cooled off by now, too,” she suggested gently.
Greta recalled the look on his face when Shane had told the TV reporter their marriage was going to be annulled. “I rather doubt it.” There was only so much damage any man's pride could take. Greta pushed her bacon and eggs around her plate, sure she couldn't eat a single bite.
Tillie reached across the table and patted Greta's hand. “Honey, if you love him, don't let your pride stand in the way,” she counseled softly.
Bart nodded. “It's possible, you know, that Shane
may have no greater clue about what's in your heart than we did.”
 
GRETA STAYED THROUGH breakfast with her folks and continued her heart-to-heart talk with them. She told them how pressured she felt to be the very best at everything, the entire time she'd been growing up. They were stunned, but willing to talk about it, as openly and honestly and calmly as she was. “We only wanted the best for you,” Tillie told her, when Greta had finished. Greta looked into their eyes and knew it was true. Relief, that she had been good enough for them, after all, and that they hadn't been as constantly disappointed in her as she'd always thought, filled her soul and left her with a blessed feeling of peace.
“We just wish you'd leveled with us much sooner,” Bart said gently as tears of reconciliation spilled down all their faces.
“In any case,” Tillie said firmly, “we promise not to push or pressure you again.”
Bart nodded affirmatively. “But you have to promise to level with us, too, about everything,” he cautioned. “Because we do want to understand. And we can't read your mind, much as we often try.” He grinned.
“I will,” Greta promised emotionally as Tillie passed the tissue box around. “This keeping everything to yourself is for the birds.” Feeling so much better, at least as far as her parents were concerned, Greta glanced at her watch, noted it was already mid-morning. “I've got to get going.”
“Is there anything we can do for you?” Tillie rose and began to clear the table.
Greta shook her head as she and her father pitched in to help. “No.”
“If there is, you let us know,” Bart said sternly.
Greta promised she would, then, having been assured they did not need her help with the dishes, she gathered her things up and headed for the dance hall. There, at least, Greta was relieved to discover everything was in perfect order. The night janitorial firm she had hired had already been in and left everything sparkling clean, and ready to go for the second evening's festivities. All she had to do was tally the previous night's receipts and check the messages on her machine.
She had just gotten started doing both when Beau Chamberlain came in, bouquet of pink and white carnations in hand. “I thought I might find you here.”
Greta looked up from the old-fashioned adding machine and ledger on her desk. She still had a bone to pick with her old friend. She sat back in her desk chair. “If those are by way of apology to me—”
Beau attempted to hand them over. “They are.”
Greta refused to take them. “I'm not sure I accept.” She regarded Beau sternly. “You about gave me a heart attack last night, when you agreed to that shoot-out with Shane.”
Beau shrugged, sat down on the edge of Greta's desk and dropped the nowers—which still held a grocery store sticker on them—to her lap. “What can I say... I felt for the guy? His pride was at stake. To him he'd been publically humiliated and, being the ultimate competitor he is, figured he had to do something just as public to end up on top again. Besides, how was I to know he wouldn't carry you off in the end? I figured after the shoot-out, he'd either pretend to die in your arms or emerge the victor and claim you as his woman all over again. You know—make a huge deal about kissing you and letting everyone know the romance was still
on, hot and heavy as ever. I had no idea he was going to win the shoot-out and then dump you.”
Greta grimaced as she fingered the cellophane enclosing the flowers. “Nicely put.”
Beau looked at her over the rim of the sunglasses he hadn't yet bothered to take off. “That is what happened, isn't it?” Beau demanded, sliding the glasses even farther down his nose.
“Unfortunately, yes.” Greta sulked, wondering why she had ever considered this nosy parker a friend. Unlike her parents, he wasn't making things better, he was making them worse.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Beau asked.
“I don't know,” Greta said. She frowned at Beau in annoyance. She'd been thinking about her options.
Without warning, another set of footsteps sounded in the hall. Shane stepped into Greta's small cubicle of an office. Tense seconds passed as the three of them regarded each other. Although Greta was tempted to jump up and frantically explain once more that this was not what it seemed, she stayed put.
Shane noted the flowers in Greta's lap. “Those from Beau?”
Greta nodded, aware her heart was beating triple time, even though, to her relief, she saw no jealousy or resentment on Shane's face.
Beau rose. “Well, I know when I'm no longer needed,” he stated meaningfully. “I'm headed back to Los Angeles. I've got preproduction meetings on my next movie to attend.” Beau leaned over, kissed Greta's cheek, then walked over to shake hands with Shane. “You be good to her, you hear? Or you'll be dealing with me.” The door slammed after him.
Tears glistening in her eyes, Greta picked up the flowers and dropped them onto her desk.

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