The Cowboy's Courtship (8 page)

Or maybe she’d find that she really loved the city and her life was there.

“I think maybe you’re coming out of your shell, Cashmere.” He opened the door and before he could
hop to the bed of the truck, she was there with the crutches. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. And thank you for suggesting a picnic.”

“Been a while?”

“So long I don’t remember the last time.”

He pulled the key out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. After pushing it open, he motioned her inside. The house smelled clean, but deserted. He had Beth to thank for that. The hardwood floors were swept and mopped, the furniture was dusted. His sister, always looking out for him.

“I like your house.” Alyson stood in the center of the living room. The furniture was plaid, and big rugs covered the hardwood. She zeroed in on the piano in the corner of the room. His mother’s.

She crossed the room, forgetting him, but he didn’t mind. He watched as she stood in front of it, her hands hovered over the keys and then dropped to her sides. He joined her, leaning the crutches against the wall and taking a seat on the bench. While she stood frozen in that space next to him, he played something he remembered, that he didn’t have to open a book to play.

She sat down next to him, a frightened foal, not quite ready for contact. He knew that look in her eyes, that longing for something, and fear of reaching for it.

“I didn’t know you played.” Her shoulder brushed his.

“My mom taught me.”

“Your mom?”

He gave her a sideways glance and then back to the keys of the piano, smooth from use. When he played, he
remembered his mom, how it had felt to sit next to her before she got sick.

He played a hymn from church and she touched the keys, playing with him. But then she stopped and he stopped, too.

“Why don’t you play?” He closed the piano up, but they didn’t move from the bench.

“I can’t.” She didn’t look at him, and she didn’t cry. “For twenty-five years the piano has been my life and for most of those twenty-five years, I’ve hated it. The pressure, the practice, the people staring at me. I wanted to be like all of the other girls. I wanted to be like my sister, Laura. I wanted to go on dates, hang out at the mall and dance at the prom.”

“I understand.”

She looked up, her blue eyes penetrating, asking questions, and shadowed with the pain of a life lived for other people. He understood. He’d been an adult his entire life. He’d helped his mother with her medication because his dad had hidden in the barn. He’d held his sister when she cried, because their parents couldn’t. He’d told stories, made people laugh. He’d learned to cook, to teach his sister the things she needed to know about life.

But he’d told jokes to keep people smiling, to keep them from noticing how much they hurt, and how much he hurt.

And now this woman, a woman with her own stories, wanted him to share his.

“We should get ready to go. Before long it won’t be lunch, it’ll be supper.” He grabbed the crutches and she stood, as if she was still waiting for answers.

He wasn’t going there.

He’d take her on a picnic and help her find the kid who should have grown up in Dawson. He’d teach her to ride. He’d even break the buckskin and give him to her. He could do those things.

She followed him through the big dining room with the French doors that led onto the back porch with its stone fire pit and outdoor kitchen. She stopped to look outside and he went on to the kitchen. He was pulling food out of the fridge when she walked into the room.

“What can I do?” She leaned against the counter and watched.

“You can get the chips down.” He nodded in the direction of the cabinets. “They’re up there. And if you could get the basket out of the lower cabinet.”

“You keep food here, even though you don’t live here.”

“I have to eat when I’m over here working.”

“I see.” She had the basket out and she set it on the cabinet. “Do you work over here a lot?”

“Every day. The animals have to be fed. I have horses that need to be taken care of. This really is all new to you, isn’t it?”

“I’ve always lived in cities.” She glanced out the window. He followed her gaze, seeing what she saw, but not the same way. This had always been his life. The cattle, the open land, the rodeos.

She had always been city.

He didn’t want to connect too much, not when it felt as if he wouldn’t want her gone, not tomorrow, or even next week. She reminded him of a bird that just passes through, on its way to wherever it’s supposed to be.

He’d seen one of those birds last week. Beth had pointed it out, asked him if he’d ever seen anything like it. He hadn’t. And the bird hadn’t stayed. It was going north, back where it belonged.

He was a broken cowboy without a career. What did a guy like him offer a woman like her? Why was he even thinking like that?

He had a brain injury, of course. He was thinking crazy thoughts. A man did that when he looked death in the face. It made him think about the future, like he needed to fill it up with something.

She wasn’t the thing he was going to fill his life with. No matter how good she looked in his kitchen. He nearly laughed at the idea of her in an apron, tossing frozen pizzas in the oven.

“You okay?” She was standing close, and he really didn’t need close.

“Good to go.” He grabbed the basket and she took it from him.

“I can get it.” She held it in front of her.

“I’ll leave these here.” He leaned the crutches against the wall and took a painful step without them.

“Have you ever been called stubborn?” she asked as he tried to take the picnic basket.

“More than once.” He had the basket and he took another step. She walked next to him. Okay, so he’d done something pretty bad this time. He could feel his knee give with each step.

“Oh, come on, this is crazy. Cowboy or not, you have to use common sense.” Alyson grabbed the crutches and came back with them.

“Cowboys have plenty of common sense.” He exhaled and gave up on strong and whatever else he’d been trying to be.

Idiot came to mind.

“Okay, let’s go, Cowboy.”

She sashayed out the front door, carrying the picnic basket and maybe his heart. But no, he didn’t give that away. He’d never given that away.

Alyson sat next to Jason as the truck bounced through the field in the direction of a copse of trees at the far edge of the field. She’d kept her gaze averted for a minute or two, but now she was watching him again.

She enjoyed watching him, had enjoyed it from the first day when he’d come around the corner of Etta’s house, a cowboy in faded jeans and a sweat-stained T-shirt. He still looked like that cowboy, rugged with that grin that hit a girl in the midsection.

She’d never met anyone like him. Maybe that was the attraction. It was just the experience, the newness of it all. Maybe it wasn’t about the cowboy at all.

Sitting next to him, she felt like the kind of woman who could be strong. She felt like she could haul hay, break a horse, and hog-tie something. She felt like the kind of woman who cooked big meals on a Sunday afternoon.

She wasn’t that woman, but he made her believe that about herself.

“You’re quiet.” He reached to turn down the radio, silencing a Kenny Chesney song about tractors and haylofts.

“I’m just thinking.”

“About?”

Anything but him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t working, this effort at distraction.

“You ask a lot of questions, but you don’t talk about yourself.”

His eyebrows shot up and he grinned. “That’s because I’m a private kind of guy.”

“Is that it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. I don’t like to share my stories.”

“But I want to know them.” She’d get to know him, bit by bit, Etta had said. That’s how you found out a man’s stories.

“I’m sure you do.” He slowed as they got closer to the trees. She could see the creek and hear the crickets, or maybe grasshoppers. He stopped the truck.

They picked their way across ground that was rough, with heavy clumps of grass and a few big rocks. The trees at the edge of the creek were small and some were topped, as if someone had chopped the tops out.

“What happened to the trees?”

“Storms. Tornadoes.” He nodded to a spot near the edge of the creek. “You can put the blanket there.”

He’d pulled a blanket out from behind the seat of his truck and given it to her to carry. Alyson spread the blanket and took the picnic basket that he’d lugged along in his right hand, hobbling with one crutch under his right arm.

“Are there fish in the creek?” She held his arm and he lowered himself down, stretching out on the blanket. And then what? Was she supposed to sit next to him? Or maybe lean against a tree?

“Sit down.” He shook his head and laughed a little. “I don’t know about you, but I’m about to starve and you
want to play twenty questions. No, there aren’t any fish in the creek. My mom was probably one of the kindest women I’ve ever known, and she fought a twelve-year battle with cancer. I’m the oldest of two kids, and my dad is emotionally detached.”

Alyson bit down on her bottom lip and fought the sting of tears, because she understood now why stories should come in small pieces. And she got that sometimes a story didn’t tell anything about a person. It was just facts.

“I’m sorry.”

“Alyson, sit down and relax. This picnic is for you. Enjoy it.”

She sat down next to him, pulling her knees up and hugging them close as she watched the creek. A hand touched her shoulder and she turned to look at him.

“I’m sorry, I’m not good at the whole ‘kiss and tell’ part of relationships.”

“I didn’t expect kiss and tell. I wondered about you playing the piano.”

“How’d you know that I play?” He grinned, probably because her face lost all of its color. “Kidding.”

“Cute.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. I like to think I am.” He leaned back on his elbows, a piece of grass between his teeth.

“I was talking about your sense of humor, not you.” She pulled food out of the picnic basket. “You’re definitely not cute.”

He sat back up. “Really?”

“Really.” She handed him the sandwich with mayo and took the one without for herself. “We should eat.”

“I left the room when my mom was taken off life support.”

His words stole her appetite. She put the sandwich back in the baggie. “I’m sorry.”

“It was my choice. I couldn’t watch her leave. I knew her faith. I knew that she believed she’d go to heaven. But man, I didn’t want her to go. I was so angry with God for thinking He needed her more than us. She was the person who kept our family together. Even when she was sick.”

“Jason, I…”

He shook his head. “Let’s not, okay. You wanted to know. I told you. End of story.”

“I didn’t mean to force this out of you.”

He took in a deep breath and his expression shifted. With a tenderness deep down in his brown eyes, he touched her cheek and his smile returned. “It isn’t something I like to talk about, but you didn’t force me. I wanted to tell you. I want you to know me.”

She tried to make sense of those words. He wanted her to know him. As she was making sense, he was moving closer.

He slid a hand behind her neck and pulled her to him, touching his lips to hers, holding her there for a moment that felt like forever. It was one of those moments, the kind that felt as if you’d caught a butterfly in your hand, or seen a meteor fall to earth. It felt suspended in time, and yet, not long enough.

The kiss was as soft as a whisper on a summer night. Alyson didn’t plan on it ending, but felt the cold air between them when it did.

“I want you to know me,” he whispered again near her
ear and then grazed her lips with another sweet kiss. She’d never been kissed like that before, not in a way that touched her heart, that changed what she believed about herself, and about the person holding her close.

Her heart was melting.

Cowboys knew the right words. Cowboys were good at making a girl believe they loved her more than anything. And hadn’t Andie warned her about him? Jason Bradshaw didn’t do long-term relationships.

Her phone rang and, dazed, she reached for it, answering it without looking at the caller ID.

“Well, it’s about time you answered.” Her mother’s voice.

Cold water in her face couldn’t have been more effective in bringing Alyson back to reality.

“Mom.”

Jason didn’t move away. He sat next to her, filling their paper plates with food and twisting the top off a bottle of water before setting it next to her. Her mother’s voice, tense and cool, edged out the warmth of the afternoon.

“So, I take it you’re in Dawson?”

“I am.”

“You need to come home. You have concert dates. You have family obligations.”

“Mom, no one wants to hear me play. I’m twenty-eight. I’m not a child prodigy anymore. You don’t need me.”

Her shelf life had expired. Her father had other prodigies on his client roster. And yet, the guilt was still there because it had always been about doing the right thing for her family. Playing, even when playing was the hardest thing in the world to do.

“Alyson, Oklahoma isn’t your life. You’re not one of them. You’re my daughter, not his.”

“He’s gone, Mom. And I’m trying to decide if this is my life.”

Because she was suspended between who she had always been, and this new person she wanted to be, the person who made her own decisions, and kissed a cowboy until she couldn’t breathe.

O
n Wednesday afternoon, the third day of camp, Jason stood next to a little gray mare as a boy with boots a size too big and a cowboy hat falling over his eyes swung himself into the saddle, nearly falling over the other side.

“Careful there, Hoss.” Jason grabbed the boy by the arm and smiled at the gap-toothed kid. “You can’t be like Jell-O. You’ve got to keep your back straight without being stiff and keep your arms tucked to your side. No spaghetti arms, okay?”

The boy nodded and Jason smiled again. The kid was shaking like a sapling in a storm.

“What’s your name?” Jason adjusted the stirrups and then fixed the reins in the kid’s hands. He had probably asked the kid his name three times, but eventually it would stick.

“Bobby.”

“Well, Bobby, this is Cheerio. She’s a pretty good
little horse and she’s never thrown anyone. The two of you are going to be good friends.”

“Okay.”

“But you have to breathe a little, okay? ’Cause if you pass out, you’re gonna fall off.”

“Okay.”

Jason led the boy to the arena where four other kids were already walking their horses around the perimeter of the enclosure. He gave the horse a little pat on the rump, the boy jumped and the horse took off at a sedate walk.

He’d already given them all pointers on commands and how to keep their seat. A few had some experience. Some claimed experience they didn’t have. He leaned on the gate and watched, but his gaze traveled to the dining hall.

Alyson had worked in the kitchen for the last few days. He’d seen her at lunchtime, serving chicken nuggets and salad to the campers and staff. She had smiled at each one of those kids, and he knew how that smile made them feel. It probably made them all feel like a five-yearold with the greatest kindergarten teacher in the world.

But she hadn’t talked to him. Their gazes had connected, but she’d looked away and he’d pushed his tray off the end of the counter. Salad and nuggets had gone everywhere and the kids had gotten a great laugh over the mishap.

He shook his head and gathered his wits, because he had kids on horses and he didn’t have room in his mind for them and Alyson. It was better, thinking about the campers, the sun beating down on his back, and a youth rodeo. Anything but a woman.

“How’s it going?” Adam Mackenzie walked up, his hat off and his hair plastered to his head.

“Hot, isn’t it?”

Adam nodded. “I’ve been chasing two boys around the yard, trying to get some kind of little snake away from them.”

“But you love it.”

“Yeah, I do.” Adam rubbed his brow with his sleeve and settled his hat back in place. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good. I mean, you’re not going to have a lot of problems with horses like these.”

“What about your knee?”

“Good to go.” Jason didn’t look at the other man. He kept his focus on the kids, on the horses, watching for problems.

“Right. What do you think about this group? Can we pull off a showdeo at the end of the two weeks?”

A showdeo. A combination between a rodeo and a horse show. They would have steer riding, pole bending, egg relay and a Western pleasure class. If he had the kids with the ability, they might try roping.

Jason shrugged. “I think so. I’m going to work with a few of the more skilled riders this afternoon. I have a couple who think they can learn to rope.”

“You’re going to build Rome in a day?”

“I’m going to turn these kids into rodeo stars in two weeks.”

“I don’t doubt you will. Jenna suggested you let Alyson help you out. She looks a little lost in the kitchen.”

“And you think she’ll be better off working with the horses?” Jason knew this game, and he wasn’t playing.

He’d found out a long time ago that controlling situations solved a lot of problems before they happened. Walk away from an argument, no fight. Walk away from
the girl, no problems when she got sick of you or you got tired of her. Walk out the door of the hospital room…

And pretend it never happened, that his mother hadn’t lost her life with the turn of a switch.

He’d been accused of not letting himself feel.

And Sunday afternoon he’d learned that maybe people were right. Because Sunday, he’d felt everything. He wasn’t about to admit that what he’d felt the most was scared to death.

For a guy who rode bulls for a living, that was a little unnerving.

“I think Alyson would like working out here.” Adam cleared his throat a little. “I didn’t really think you’d mind.”

Jason laughed. “Thanks, but no thanks. I have enough problems keeping focused without having to keep her out of trouble.”

“I’ll pass that on. You know your objections are only going to make the women push harder, right?”

“Yeah, I get that.” Jason shifted his weight to his good leg. “But maybe you could tell them to give me a break. No sense in having a woman feel forgotten. That wouldn’t be good for her self-esteem.”

“That’s a good point.” Adam stepped away from the gate. “I need to get a few things done in the office. Yell if you need help.”

“Will do. It’s time for this lesson to end. I’m going to let them trot a little, so they feel like they’ve done something.”

“Thanks, Jason. This program will be better with you involved.”

“I hope.”

Jason strode into the arena and called the kids to the
center. After a few minutes of instruction he turned them loose. Smiles split across serious faces when he gave the nod and they loosened the reins and gave their horses the nudge to move them at a faster gait. He laughed a little because several of them looked as if they’d bounce right off the back end of their horses if he didn’t stop them soon.

But he remembered being a kid and escaping on the back of a horse. And these kids needed the escape, probably more than he ever had.

As he ended their lesson, his gaze swept across the open field, catching sight of movement. Alyson walked down the hill to the chapel and he wondered why.

Alyson walked through the open doors at the end of the chapel and stood for a moment in the dimly lit entrance. The building had a roof and screened walls to let the breeze flow through.

At the front, behind the pulpit was a giant cross. She stared at the cross, not really getting it, and yet…

It ached inside her heart, not understanding what everyone else believed and held on to. And she needed something. She needed something more than herself and something more than her career.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. She pushed the button that turned it off. She couldn’t take another call from her mother, more pressure, more guilt.

Alyson walked down the aisle to the front of the chapel. She sneaked a look around and hoped no one would be upset with her for being here. But when she’d left the kitchen, needing to be alone, to get away, the chapel had seemed like the place to go.

Last night she had sat in here with Etta, at the back, listening to Pastor Todd, the camp minister. He’d told funny stories, drawing the kids in with laughter. And then he’d brought them to a point where they understood faith, understood the point of a Father’s love. An unconditional love.

She sat down on the bench and lifted the cover to expose keys that were faded and worn from use. She loved pianos like this one, the kind that had been played for so many years, by so many people.

She touched the keys, but she didn’t play. Instead, she waited for the fear, the panic. With her eyes closed, she remembered what it felt like to be onstage and be consumed by that fear. But the fear hadn’t been about the piano, it had been about the audience watching her. The fear had been about what they would think of her performance.

When the fear didn’t grab hold she started to play. “Jesus Loves Me.” The words were so simple, the melody was sweet. Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me. Here, in this town, with her grandmother and these people, that love was natural. They all accepted it, as if it were a given. But how did she accept that He could love her that way?

Love her. She tried to remember feeling loved. And the only moment that came to mind was a picnic by a lake and a cowboy. That wasn’t love, though. That was…

She didn’t know what it was. It was more than her limited experience with life could really fathom. The one thing she knew for sure, it was a memory she would hold on to forever.

After walking the kids from his afternoon group back to the dining hall, where they met up with their counselor, Jason headed down the hill toward the chapel. He couldn’t seem to convince himself to let it go.

He heard the piano before he got there. The tune was simple, “Jesus Loves Me,” but it was sweet. Of course it was Alyson. He had watched her walking down there thirty minutes earlier.

He walked up the back steps and stood in the open doorway. She was sitting in front of the piano, playing with one finger, her eyes closed.

While she played, he stayed at the back of the chapel and watched. When she didn’t notice him, he sat on the back pew and waited. Her hand came up and she wiped at her cheek.

He should go. Common sense told him that. There were a million things he could be doing. He had kids who wanted to learn to rope. He had cattle of his own that needed to be taken care of.

And instead of doing those things, he sat there, waiting, in case she needed him.

What made her cry? “Jesus Loves Me”? Or playing the piano. Maybe both?

She stopped playing but she stayed on the bench, her head bowed over the keys. He stood, not sure which door to exit from, or how to get away from her.

A sane man would have left, would have ignored her tears, would have called Jenna to talk to her. Calling Jenna was about the only thought he’d had that made sense.

He couldn’t remember what he was doing half the
time, and he had never been accused of making all the right choices. With her shoulders shaking gently, he moved forward, because he couldn’t leave her there alone. And he didn’t want anyone else at her side during this moment.

For a guy who knew when to exit a situation, he seemed to have lost all sense of timing.

When he sat down beside her, she did the unexpected; she turned into his arms. He sat there for a few seconds, unsure, and then he wrapped his arms around her and held her as she cried. He tried to tell her it would be okay. He whispered the words through emotion that settled in his throat, and he rocked, back and forth with her in his arms, waiting for her to tell him what she needed.

Strong arms wrapped around her and Alyson had never felt so safe. Jason held her against his solid chest, rocking her gently, his lips brushing against her temple as he whispered that everything would be okay.

After a few minutes, she pulled back and she knew that she had to be a mess, with tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes. Her nose was probably red. She never looked good when she cried.

Jason smiled and then he wiped her eyes with his hand.

“Should I ask what’s wrong, or just give you a shoulder to lean on?” His words melted her eyes into another round of tears. She brushed them away and leaned, resting her forehead on a shoulder that was strong.

“I guess that’s your answer,” he whispered.

She moved out of his embrace, even though staying would have been good. But that was the problem. If she
stayed in his arms, she would want to stay in his life. And how did she do that?

A breeze picked up, and she closed her eyes. How did she explain a lack of faith to a man who had grown up here, surrounded by faith? How did she explain that her life had never been like his? For every moment that his father wasn’t invested in his life, Alyson’s mother was consumed with hers.

“You were playing the piano.” He encouraged, nudging her with his shoulder as they sat side by side on the bench.

She touched the keys again. “Yeah, ‘Jesus Loves Me.’”

“It’s a good song.”

“Is it a song, or does it mean more? ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’ I don’t know, Jason. I sat there this morning listening to the chapel service for the children, to a story so simple, and I’ve never heard it before. I’ve never heard these stories, about Jesus. Greater love hath no man than this, that he would lay down his life for a friend.”

“For you.”

She looked up, still conscious that her eyes would be swollen and her nose red. “Excuse me?”

“For you. He laid down his life for you. If you were the only person who ever accepted. If everyone else said a collective ‘No, thank you,’ He still would have done it. For you.”

“It’s like accepting that the world is round after years of being told it is flat. How does a person change everything she’s ever known or believed?”

“Baby steps. You start by opening the door to faith,
and you let that faith grow. You take steps. You test it. It tests you. And you change. Your ideas about God change.”

“You make it sound easy, maybe because you’ve always lived here, always heard the stories. But my world is so far from here. My world…was flat until today.”

She couldn’t explain it any other way. Her mother. The anger her mother had with the people here, with their beliefs, with their faith. How did Alyson reconcile those two worlds?

“I can’t imagine myself in this world, with this faith. I don’t know how to be this person.” She played the song again. “Jesus Loves Me.” “Why would He love me?”

“Because He created you.”

She was trying to reconcile that morning’s sermon, about a God who loves unconditionally with a mother whose love always seemed to have conditions.

Her lawyer had told her to walk away, to find a new manager and break that connection with her parents that gave them control of her career. And she hadn’t known how, because she’d known what it meant to them, to her sisters, and to the other performers connected to them.

If it had been about her—her alone—it would have been easy.

She closed the lid down over the piano keys. Gift. It wasn’t a gift; it was a curse. It was always having to be what other people thought she should be. It was performing because people expected it of her, even when she hated it. It was the stares, the lack of friends and relationships, because people didn’t understand. They didn’t get that she was just a person who played the piano.