The Cowboy Takes a Bride Read online

  She went into the small living area, plunked down on the couch. Drawing in a fortifying breath, she gently opened the letter, unfolded it, and began to read.

  Dear Flaxey,

  I’m sorry I came to your school today and embarrassed you. I shouldn’t have done that. I just wanted to see you real bad and didn’t stop to think that maybe you didn’t want to see me. It was selfish of me to just show up like that. I got what I deserved. I’m so sorry for how I left you and your mama. I got no excuses. No reasons that’ll make sense to you. I do love you so much. More than you can possibly know.

  But I got a sickness inside of me I can’t control. It gets in my blood the way alcohol or drugs eats up some folks. Horses are my addiction. They’re a habit I can’t shake. I can’t think of anything but being a cutter. I live it, breathe it, want it with every cell in my body. I tried so hard to be a good daddy, but I failed you. I’m obsessed with horses. Most cutters are. It’s why we clump together. The only ones who understand us are other crazy cutters.

  I realized I couldn’t be a husband and a father and a cutter. I made a choice. I abandoned you and your mama to save you from the burden of my sickness. I’ve regretted that choice every single day of my life, but I can’t say I would have the strength of character to make a different choice if I had a do-over. Anyway, I just wanted to see you and try to explain in person, but I know I don’t have that right. I threw it away when I threw away my family.

  I’ll go to my grave sorry. I hope that someday you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me. I loved you the only way I knew how. It’s not good enough, but it’s all I’ve got. I love you, Flaxey girl, and if there’s one word of advice I could give to you, it’s never get tangled up with a cutter. We’re poison.

  Be well. Have a happy life,

  Dutch

  She had believed Dutch hadn’t cared at all. She’d been wrong. He’d cared so much that he’d stepped out of her life. Not because he loved horses more, as she’d imagined, but because his main concern had been for her. He’d known he couldn’t give her what she needed. The horses had been his consolation prize.

  Mariah’s heart ripped. “Oh, Daddy, I wish I could turn back time. I wish I could have truly known you.”

  A clot of hot tears dammed Mariah’s throat. The entire letter upset her. Smothered her with guilt. Ripped her heart with regret. But the words on the page that kept dancing up and down through the mist of her tears were these: If there’s one word of advice I could give to you, it’s never get tangled up with a cutter. We’re poison.

  It might be wrong to lump Joe in with her father, but she couldn’t help thinking he was as obsessed with cutting horses as Dutch had been.

  Shaking off her gloomy mood, Mariah put the letter back in the stuffed snake and then drove to Will Rogers Coliseum where the final day of the Triple Crown Futurity was being held. She arrived at the ticket counter only to discover the event was sold out, and she wouldn’t have gotten in if she hadn’t seen Cordy in the parking lot.

  “Come with me,” he said, and escorted her in through a side exit. “I’m so happy you got here. Joe’s been a nervous wreck and that’s not like him at all.”

  The place was packed. Everywhere she looked there were cowboy hats. The place smelled of horses, hay, leather, beer, and roasted peanuts. Cordy positioned her in reserved front-row seating. “Watch that door.” He indicated with a nod of his head. “Joe will be coming through there any minute.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Gotta go now,” Cordy said, and disappeared through the door.

  Music played. The announcer got busy over the microphone, ticking off the names of the remaining contenders. From a white iron gate on the opposite side of the arena, cowboys let a herd of mooing cattle into the ring.

  When Joe and Miracle cantered through the entrance, a cheer went up from the crowd. The announcer narrated the event, but Mariah didn’t know enough about cutting to follow the scoring. It didn’t matter, because the man on his horse in the middle of the ring riveted her.

  Riveted everyone.

  Joe and Miracle moved like poetry. The cattle were helpless against the pair. They moved as a perfect unit, complicated in their simplicity.

  A thrill grabbed her and wouldn’t let her go. Joe was the best at what he did. Watching him took her breath. The look on his face was part supreme concentration, part utter bliss.

  Her heart soared. She was in love with him and she couldn’t do anything to change it. But she loved him too much to ever put him in the position of having to choose between her and cutting. That had been her mother’s mistake with her father, trying to get Dutch to be a family man when that kind of life just wasn’t in him. Like it or not, you had to accept people for who they were.

  What did the future hold for them? For her?

  While Mariah fretted, Joe won the futurity. Won it on the horse trained by her father. Joe had achieved his goal. He’d honored Dutch by winning the Triple Crown Futurity.

  Waves of emotion washed over her—pride, joy, sadness, fear, hope, loss, celebration. The spectators leaped up in the stands, shouting and cheering. Cowboys herded the cattle from the ring. Joe and Miracle entered the winner’s circle, received the trophy, received a check for four hundred thousand dollars, had their picture taken.

  Joe’s eyes were alight as he gave a small speech, then he looked across the arena and met Mariah’s gaze. His grin widened. He talked about Dutch and announced that Mariah was in the arena. Thundering applause followed.

  Then Joe sobered and asked for a moment of silence for Dutch and Clover. Cowboys and cowgirls took off their hats, held them over their hearts. Silence fell over the entire gathering, and Mariah swore she felt Dutch’s presence. Clover’s too. Tears burned her eyes. She blinked hard, fighting them back.

  Cordy led Miracle away and the crowd swooped down on Joe. Mariah tried to get to him, but found herself jostled aside. Whooping and shouting, the throng launched him on their shoulders, moving him along mosh pit-style toward the exit, the group chanting as one voice. “Party. Party. Party.”

  The grin swallowed his entire face. Joe was on top of the world and she wasn’t with him.

  They carried him past where Mariah stood wedged against the wall. Joe spied her, and as impossible as it seemed, smiled even bigger. “I’ll meet you back at the cabin as soon as I can,” he hollered over the noise.

  And then he was gone, whisked away by a tide of victory, leaving Mariah standing in the wake, nothing more than a piece of flotsam on the current of a cutter’s life.

  Happiness over winning the futurity ebbed quickly. Joe was torn in a dozen different directions. Reporters, friends, officials for the National Cutting Horse Association all vied for his time. But all he could think about was how quickly he could get all this celebratory brouhaha over and go share his victory with Mariah.

  He couldn’t wait to wrap his arms around her and tell her how special she was. How much she meant to him.

  It was two hours later before he was able to shake off all the hangers-on and make his way back to Stone Creek. Dutch’s pickup truck was parked out front. He ambled up onto the porch, his heart thudding crazily. He knocked on the door.

  Mariah opened it.

  “Hi.” He smiled.

  “Come on in.” She stood aside, brought her arms up to hug herself, raising her guard, shoring her defenses.

  Were they back to that? He thought last night had changed everything between them. She probably felt left out. He couldn’t blame her. He shouldn’t have left this morning without waking her up. He thought he was doing a good thing letting her sleep in, now he saw how she could have misread his behavior. His mind had been on the futurity and he’d dropped the ball. Hell, he should have told her last night that he loved her, but he’d wanted to wait. Tell her in a nonsexual context.

  “We did it,” he said. “We won.”

  “I know. I’m so happy for you.”

  Okay, he must have really done something
wrong. He could feel an arctic breeze blowing between them. “It wasn’t just for me. It was for Dutch too.”

  “I know.”

  “Is something wrong?” He stepped closer.

  “I found this inside of Stuffy.” She handed him a letter.

  Joe opened it up. Read it. He could feel Dutch’s pain, could understand Mariah’s. He raised his gaze, met her eyes. “I’m not your father.”

  “You’re a cutter.”

  “You don’t really believe that all cutters are poison. Clearly, Dutch was hurting when he wrote this, but he was smart enough not to mail it.”

  Mariah shrugged. “He kept it all these years. It must have meant something.”

  “Little Bit.” He held out his arms. “Come here, we need to talk.”

  “This is your day to celebrate. I didn’t mean to make this about me.” She danced away from him, went into the kitchen. “Are you hungry? I’ll make us some sandwiches.”

  “Mariah, talk to me.”

  She opened the refrigerator, started taking out packages of luncheon meat. “I’ve got turkey, ham, and bologna.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Do you prefer mustard or mayo?”

  “Will you forget about the sandwiches?” He moved into the kitchen, went to drop Dutch’s letter on the table, and that’s when he saw it. Some kind of business contract. Quickly, he scanned the opening paragraph, realized it was from her old boss.

  His spirits, which had been so lofty just minutes ago, nosedived. He felt as if he’d been body-slammed by an elephant. With a shaky hand, he picked up the contract. “What the hell is this?”

  “My boss offered me my old job back at triple my salary,” Mariah said.

  “You’re considering taking it.” Joe’s voice iced up.

  “I’ve lost the chapel and with it, my wedding planning business. There’s nothing really holding me here. Especially now that you’ve won the futurity and can buy your ranch back.” She caught her breath, praying he would say that of course she had something holding him here. That he was the reason she should stay in Jubilee.

  But he didn’t say that. Instead, he said, “I see.”

  Okay then. This was what she’d feared. That he didn’t feel as invested in the relationship as she did. Or that he was still too hung up on Becca to move forward.

  She was going to beat him to the punch. Act like their lovemaking had meant nothing more to her than great sex before he could do the same to her. Self-preservation springboarded the lie onto her tongue. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “We had a lot of fun. I really enjoyed being with you, Joe, but I get that I’m the rebound girl. Everyone has to go through that after a relationship ends.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  She stood with her hands behind her back, pressed up against the counter, her gaze on the luncheon meat strewn across the table. “You and I, we could never work. Not really. Your marriage with Becca worked because she was just like you. She loved horses the way you do. You both put your careers before your marriage. And that’s fine, but I can’t settle for that kind of relationship. I need more.”

  Joe’s jaw tightened and his eyes flashed anger. “You don’t get to do that,” he said. “You don’t get to pass judgment on my marriage to Becca.”

  “I’m not passing judgment. It worked for you. I’m just giving you my observation.”

  “No,” he said, “you’re making excuses for why you’re running back to Chicago just when things were starting to get real for us. Last night . . .” He trailed off. Fisted his hand.

  “Last night was funeral sex. Grief creates a lot of emotions. We took comfort in each other. We—”

  “Why are you doing your damnedest to torpedo us before we ever really got started?”

  “I’m not—”

  “You are!”

  She hauled in a claustrophobic breath. “You want to know why?”

  “I do.”

  “I can’t be like my mother. I won’t be like my mother. I won’t play second fiddle to cutting. You’re too much like my father. I can’t live with the fear that my man will take off on me without a moment’s notice.”

  Joe’s eyes turned to flint. “I get that you have daddy issues. I understand Dutch screwed you up. But I’m not him. I want a family of my own.”

  “You say that, but I saw you in that ring. You were on a cutting horse high. I’ve seen that same look in Dutch’s eyes.”

  Joe rounded the table, removing the barrier between them. She had nowhere to go. Her back was against the wall and he wasn’t letting her get away. “Tell the truth,” he said. “You’re not really afraid that I’m like Dutch.”

  “You are like Dutch.”

  “I love cutting and horses, yes that’s true, but be honest with yourself, Mariah, and you’ll discover what you’re really afraid of.” Tension coiled his muscles but his voice was soft and gentle.

  His gentleness unwound her. She hugged herself tight, warding him off with the only defense she had. “What’s that?”

  “That you’re incapable of a long-term relationship.”

  “That’s not true,” she protested.

  “Name your longest relationship, not counting your mother.”

  “I was with my boss Destiny for eleven years—”

  “That’s a work relationship. And you’re accusing me of being obsessed with my work? I’ve been married and happily monogamous. I’ve loved deep and held on tight. But you? You have no idea if you have what it takes to make a love relationship work. You tell yourself you don’t want to be like Annie in Sleepless in Seattle, that you’re not going to sell yourself short, you’re not going to settle, but that’s not the real truth, is it?”

  Miserably, Mariah shook her head. He was right about everything.

  “The truth is you’re afraid that you’re just like Dutch. That you can’t be in a committed relationship because you have no idea how one works.”

  That was it. He’d unmasked her one hundred percent. He knew her better than she knew herself. Stunned by his insight, Mariah stared at him, openmouthed.

  “Well, you know what? I’m not going to settle,” Joe said. “I need a woman who’s going to love me one hundred percent. So go on back to Chicago if you think that will make you happy. I’ll have Art Bunting draw up the papers buying Stone Creek back from you and I’ll write you a check for the full purchase price.”

  Then with that, he turned and walked out of her life.

  For a week Joe wandered around in a daze. The morning after the night he broke up with her, Mariah packed up and moved back to Chicago.

  The last time he’d had felt pain this bone-deep had been in the hospital emergency room two years ago when the doctor had come out to tell him and Ila that Becca hadn’t made it. That moment had been horrible. The worst moment in his entire life. But this moment? This pain? He’d caused it. He’d broken up with Mariah for being scared when what he should have done was hold on to her for dear life until she realized he was never ever going to walk away from her the way Dutch had done.

  But in the end, he’d been the one to send her away. It had the same results.

  It’s got to be this way. It’s better for it to be like this. She didn’t belong in Jubilee. She can have the world. All you’ve got to offer her is the cutter’s way of life.

  Except nothing felt logical or right about this decision. It felt wrong on so many levels.

  It was all he could do not to book a flight to Chicago and tell her he was the world’s biggest ass, that he loved her more than he loved breathing. That he’d give up everything. Sell everything to be with her. The ranch. Miracle. Everything.

  Because she’d been right about his marriage to Becca. It hadn’t been a true partnership. It had been two people merged in common interests. But he wanted more than that. With Mariah, he knew they could have more than that if they could both just get past their fears.

  Crippled with emotional pain, he drove to Jubilee, to the Silver Hor
seshoe. Ila was there playing darts with Cordy. He wasn’t letting her win. Joe ordered a tequila. He knocked it back.

  Bobby Jim raised an eyebrow.

  “Another,” Joe said.

  Ila frowned and came over. Cordy got a little twitchy, so she went back, bent over and gave him a kiss, then returned to sit on the bar stool beside Joe.

  “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You should look good. You won the fricking Triple Crown Futurity.”

  “Yay for me.” He downed the second tequila.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Mariah’s gone back to Chicago.”

  “What the hell did you do to her?” Ila glared at him.

  Joe shrugged. “I bought the ranch back from her.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “It was the arrangement we’d made. Miracle and I win the futurity, I buy the land back.”

  “But she was building a wedding planning business here.”

  “The chapel burned down. Her ex-boss offered Mariah her old job back in Chicago. There was no reason for her to stay.”

  “I thought you two were an item.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” He shrugged. So did I.

  Ila shook her head. “I don’t get you.”

  “What?”

  “You sent away the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  “Um . . .” Joe saluted Cordy. “I think you did the same thing with my ranch hand.”

  “I realized what a huge dumbass I was. That’s why I get to call you on your dumbassedness.”

  “I’m just holding Mariah back. She can be so much more successful in Chicago.”

  “Bullshit!” Ila exploded. “Mariah is the best thing that ever happened to you, bar none. She was good for you too. She called you on your bullshit. Not like Becca, who just went on her way and did her own thing. You might have loved my sister, and God bless her, I loved her too, but we both know Becca could be pretty spoiled and selfish.”

  Joe glanced down at his hands. “Another one, Bobby Jim. He was working hard on numbing himself.

  “You love Mariah.”