I am Not Your Melody: (steamy cowboy romance) (16 page)

“When are you leaving?” she whispered.

““Bout a week or so. I still need to work out the details of deeding Melody Ranch over to Zach Walker and the guys ‘fore I leave for good.” He paused, as if realizing he might be giving her false hope by saying he wasn’t moving for another week. “But Allie — I am goin’ to help you move to your apartment tonight.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he gave her a look that stopped her cold.

“You can’t say no to this,” Bill said. “You have no right.”

“I don’t care,” she whispered, her throat strained from keeping all of her emotions from bursting out of her. “I’m still saying no.”

“Until I sell Melody Ranch, this is still my house,” he said, his voice cold. Firm. “And I am revokin’ my invitation for you to be a guest in it. You have your own apartment. Get your things together.”

She wanted to scream. To cry. To break things. To pound on his chest and yell at him for being so very cruel. Her beautiful cowboy really was Big Bad Bill, after all.

She lifted her chin, even though it quivered. She strode out of his bedroom, waiting until she was in the privacy of her room — Melody’s room — to cry.

It was over
, over before it began. He didn’t want her…and she couldn’t say no to that, either.

This is my fault
. If she hadn’t gone out in the snow, against the advice of a man who clearly knew more about snow than a girl from Miami who just wanted to look at some stupid new carpet —

Arrgh!
If only she hadn’t gotten into that car crash… If she hadn’t, this wouldn’t have happened.

No
. Allie ran her hands over her face, swiping at the tears. His rejection would’ve happened sooner or later. It was probably best for Bill to stop their relationship now, before they both got in too deep.

He was protecting himself, and in doing so, he was trying to protect her, too.

Only one problem… Allie was
already
in too deep. Bill couldn’t protect her from a broken heart… because he’d just broken it.

Chapter Fifteen

Allie didn’t have much to unpack in her new apartment. Since Bill had dropped her off three nights ago, she’d had plenty of time to put away her clothing, and put up a few pictures that she’d brought with her.

The three boxes of belongings she brought with her from Miami helped make the apartment feel more like home. It was definitely nice to be in a place that she had decorated herself, instead of a room decorated by Bill’s late wife.

Maybe Bill had a point. That house was filled with memories… It was impossible to escape Melody, at Melody Ranch.

Tonight was the grand opening party for Uncle Freddy’s Bar. Allie had her outfit picked out, she had the bar ready, including a playlist for background music and a menu of specialty cocktails written in neon chalk above the bar.

Everything was set, except for the live music. She’d been making phone calls all last week, and even though it was Saturday and now completely last minute, she was still calling around. The local high school in the next town over (some of the locals were bussed over there, since Bear Creek Saddle was too small for its own school district) apparently had two pretty good garage bands, but they couldn’t come into the bar since they were under age twenty-one. So that was out. It was beginning to look hopeless.

No. It’s already hopeless
.

There would be no live music, and Bill would not be attending the grand opening of his own bar. Also her hand was casted past her wrist because her stupid thumb was broken, which meant flipping bottles was probably out, too. Awesome.

I miss him
. None of it worked without him.

Did any of it even matter if she didn’t have Bill by her side?

From the moment they had first begun emailing with each other, Allie had felt that undeniable connection with this man across the country, and she knew… he’d felt it too. With the relative anonymity of the internet, they had been able to get to know each other faster, and deeper, than if they’d just met at… well, at a bar.

How ironic that it was a bar that actually brought them together in the first place.

Yeah, he’d been a major asshole when she’d first arrived. And he was acting like one now, too — albeit for different, more noble reasons. It’d been so silly of her to think that she’d never fall for that handsome cowboy because he was such a jerk. Big Bad Bill had stolen her heart, and now she was at a loss for what to do about it.

I love him
.

The realization struck her hard, and she sat straighter in her chair, setting the phone down.

How, after promising herself — no,
vowing
— that she would never fall in love again, how had she let her guard down to the point that she’d let Bill sneak in under the radar?

He was
broken
, he had said so himself. Just because he was handsome, and a good man deep down, and adopted wounded horses… just because he could make her laugh, and was the absolute best sex of her life, making her feel things she’d never felt before… Just because Bill understood her on a deep, personal level — that did
not
mean that she loved him and should be together with him as a couple. That didn’t mean anything at all, right?

No. It meant
everything
.

I’m in love with Bill Edwards
.

Despite her best intentions not to, despite her very real knowledge of how much it hurt to lose someone you love, Allie had screwed up. She’d screwed up by falling in love with the one man who would never, ever, love her back.

Bill seemed so sure that Allie was dangerous the way Melody was. That Allie had the power to destroy him, to break him completely just like he’d told her would happen. She didn’t want that power — to take a strong man and crush the remaining ability to love that he’d held on to.

He could keep that for himself, she would trust him with it. Allie didn’t need it, didn’t want it.

She just wanted Bill. All of him, and all of his heart.

***

Bill stroked Pirate’s face, between his eyes. The black stallion had come to trust him, and Bill felt comfortable with the horse in turn.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to tame you,” he admitted to Pirate. “You surprised me.”

Bill opened the gate, and led Pirate out. Saddling Pirate was no longer a death-defying task. The horse’s wound had healed cleanly, and during that time, Bill and Pirate had gotten to know each other. Pirate wasn’t so quick to freak out anymore. It was like he knew, instinctually, that Bill wasn’t going to hurt him.

If only Bill could feel the same way toward Allie. Allie
could
hurt him. If he let her, she would. It was no wonder he was still wild at heart, escaping to even deeper into the mountains, to live alone.

“You can come with me,” Bill said to the stallion. “We can keep each other company.”

He would be glad to leave Melody Ranch in the very capable hands of Zach Walker, and Eric Hunt, Chris Green, and Jay Thomas. Solid ranchers, all of them. Hopefully, the guys would not take after Bill’s footsteps and live their lives alone forever. They were good guys; they deserved happiness — wives, and children. A
life
. Everything that Bill had thought he would have with Melody, until it was taken from him.

The way he felt about Allie though… it was different. Stronger, somehow, than he’d ever felt even about his own wife. How messed up was that? He was supposed to have loved Melody, his wife, forever.

Until death do us part.

Yeah. Only until “death do us part” — but that was easier said than done. For the longest time, every brief affair he had after Melody was gone — seeking comfort if only for a short while in a woman’s arms — had felt like a betrayal. Maybe it was.

But… he wasn’t hurting anyone, morally, by falling for Allie. Surely Melody, unhappy and depressed as she was during her last few months on earth as his wife, wouldn’t expect him to remain on his own forever. Melody hadn’t planned on being Bill’s wife, and she hadn’t wanted to live on her namesake ranch.

Too many memories, most of them hard to deal with. Really hard. He wished he could seal off his past and forget all about it.

But Allie kept bringing it back up. Just having her there, knowing that he… he loved her.

I love Allie
.

“I’m in serious trouble,” he muttered to Pirate, who looked at him quizzically. Bill finished strapping the saddle on, and hopped up on to the stallion.

“Hup!” he ordered, and squeezed his thighs against the horse’s muscular body.

Pirate responded in return, and Bill urged him toward the trail in the area near the woods. They moved together smoothly, the muscles in Bill’s thighs and calves flexing right along with the horse’s huge body, and soon they were trotting quickly, not quite galloping — not yet.

What had he done?
I love Allie
.

She had almost died. He would’ve had to have gone through everything all over again. Everything that he’d experienced with Melody, only times a million, because Bill felt even more deeply about Allie than he’d ever thought humanly possible. He loved Allie in a way that he hadn’t known existed.

He had thought he had already felt true love in the highest form — yet Allie still superseded everything.

And Allie actually wanted to be with him. She wanted to spend time with Bill. She wanted Bill with her, at the grand opening. If Bill could have hand-picked a woman to be the exact opposite of his late wife, in the hopes of avoiding a similar unhappily one-sided relationship, he would have picked Allie.

So why was the fear still there?

Bill looked out at the setting sun. The snow from last week had mostly melted, though still thick up higher in the mountains, where his hunting cabin waited for him. The grand opening of Uncle Freddy’s Bar was the talk of the town. Everyone would be there. Every teenager in town was booked to babysit the younger kids, so the parents could go to the big party. It had been over a year in the making — folks were excited.

And Bill would not be there. He
should
be there. It was Allie’s bar, through and through — no matter what the deed said. He didn’t feel like he should own half of that. He really did want to sell it to Allie, so she could claim the whole thing as her own.

He didn’t care anymore if the bar was out of his family. It wasn’t as if Bill had children, or even nieces or nephews, to pass the bar down to the way Uncle Freddy had done with him.

He had no legacy to leave anyone.

But that could change.

I love Allie Crawford.

And she actually… maybe she even loved him too. He couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t even imagine why somebody as amazing as Allie, someone as smart and beautiful and
good
as Allie would want him. He’d been so horrible to her. The way he’d spoken to her when she’d arrived, it made him sick to think back on it. Hell, it had only been a few days ago that he’d kicked her out of his house and yelled at her.

There was no way Allie could love him back. It wouldn’t make any sense.

Indecision tore him in two. He squeezed his thighs tighter and yelled at Pirate to go hard. Pirate didn’t need to be told twice. Bill pushed forward into a gallop, leaned forward and galloped fast, faster, letting the cold night air run over him.

There were two paths he could take — not the dirt paths in front of him, the ones he could ride with his eyes closed. It was the direction his entire life could go that tormented him.

He could go up into the mountain, go to his cabin and live out his life alone. His heart would be safe. But it would only be safe because he wouldn’t be using it. And what was the point of protecting himself from hurt, if he wasn’t living anyway? What kind of a life would he have if Allie wasn’t in it?

His choice became clear. The scary, unknown path was the only right choice. Whether Allie felt the same way as he did, or whether she wanted him out of her life for good…Bill had to tell her that he loved her.

That future that he had envisioned with her, working at the bar with her, living with each other… sleeping together in each other’s arms, every night.

He couldn’t let all of his fears get in the way of that. Yes, she had gotten into a car accident. And that sure as hell had triggered a lot of bad memories. And brought up a lot of fears.

Allie is not Melody
.

She was her own woman. Bill knew now that he loved her, and he wanted to be with her despite everything that had gone wrong in his past, and that might go wrong in the future. He wanted her.

And God willing, that woman would want him back.

Chapter Sixteen

Allie looked around the bar with excitement. The party was everything she’d dreamed of. The grand opening had drawn everyone in town, it seemed. Well, obviously not everyone —there was no way that 648 people could fit in the space — but the place was packed. The cool thing was, men had brought their wives, men brought their dates, and even Zach and the other ranchhands had some girls from town on their arms.

A young woman with blonde hair and a former-cheerleader smile came up to Allie at the bar.

“I’m Paige,” she said, needing to raise her voice to go over the music and the din of the crowd. “Zach was telling me about how you and Bill were fixing up this place. I love it!”

“Thank you!” Allie said, shaking the girl’s hand. “I’m definitely going for a more female-friendly vibe here.”

“It’s working! I’d totally come here with my girlfriends.”

Paige flashed her a big smile and was sucked back into the crowd, where she attached herself to Zach’s hip. Zach didn’t seem particularly into her, though. And he had told Allie that he was still looking for a girlfriend… for a wife.

Where was that cowboy going to find someone new to date, if he was taking over Melody Ranch and staying put in Bear Creek Saddle? Poor Zach.