Cowboy Player: Cowboy Cocktail, Book 3 (5 page)

Not waiting for her to finish, he sat up and tucked his shoulders against her calves. Leaning deep against her thighs, he cupped her ass with his hands and lifted her an inch off the soaking sheets. The angle gave him full access to her tight little body.

“I’ve fantasized about this for so fucking long,” he growled.

Her eyes were wild. “Then do it.”

Clark took one last coherent breath and slammed into her, balls-deep. His brain shut down. He became an animal, driven by a desperate need. He pounded into her. He dripped sweat on her. Pleasure overloaded his nervous system.

The springs in the ancient mattress began to chirp like a flock of birds. Riding on a wave a mile high, Clark leaned forward, bending her into a sharper angle that left her completely vulnerable to him. She closed her eyes and tightened around him, her smooth inner muscles crushing the last of his control.

The room pitched. He threw his head back. Every muscle in his body flexed. An orgasm too powerful to be real ripped through him, emanating from the molten-hot point where his body joined hers. He was going to die—death by an overdose of pleasure, injected straight into his bloodstream.

When he was coherent again, he opened his eyes. He’d collapsed onto her, still inside her. She was stroking his cheeks. Her face was wet with sweat and tears.

He panicked. “God, did I hurt you? Are you all right?”

She smiled and sniffled. “Shh. You didn’t hurt me. I’m fine.” Her eyes were luminous as she ran her fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what to say.”

Clark blinked at her, just as speechless. Sex this wild—it didn’t happen between friends. It didn’t happen, period. He wiped her tears away with his hand and did the only thing that made sense. He kissed her again.

* * * * *

A strange muffled sound roused Clark from a deep sleep. He opened his eyes. He was in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar bed. A sleeping girl was nestled against him, soft and warm. Her gentle breaths stirred the hair on his arm where he held her in a tight embrace. The memories of what they’d done the night before came to him slowly, like a remembered dream.

Melody.
He sighed.
Fuck yes.

Under the blanket, he had a boner the size of the Washington Monument.

Blue light filled the room. It was early.

And then he heard the sound again—the buzzing of his phone on the carpet. He willed it to go away. It did. Then it started right back up again.

Probably important.
Stifling a groan, Clark gently untangled himself from the beautiful sleeping woman, stumbled into his jeans and picked up his shirt and the phone. He stepped out of the bedroom and closed the door silently behind him.

In the living room, he answered the call. It was his youngest brother, Caleb.

“What?” he whispered.

“Jesus God, finally.”

“What do you want?”

“Where are you? I need the truck. I gotta take Mom and Dad to Bakersfield.”

“Where the hell’s your truck?” Clark buttoned his fly and buckled his belt.

Impatience flared in Caleb’s voice. “Dean has it again. He’s doing some work at the Singh place.”

A chronic problem. Too many brothers. Not enough trucks. “Then use the van.”

“Godfuckingdammit, Clark, the van won’t start. You run that thing into the ground.”

Clark sat down on the couch and sighed. “Is Dad okay?”

“He hasn’t felt right since his last chemo session on Tuesday. Mom wants him in urgent care.”

“All right. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Hurry.”

Clark hung up. When he looked up, he almost jumped out of his skin.

“You two tie one on last night?” Looking like the devil hocked a loogie on her, Harmony stood at the kitchen counter. She wore an old pink bathrobe with cows and crescent moons on it. She tore open a packet of Alka-Seltzer and dropped the tablets into a mason jar filled with water. “That couch is uncomfortable as hell. You should’ve just crashed with my sister. She wouldn’t have cared.” Harmony watched the trails of bubbles then looked up and winked at him. “My bed’s comfortable too. I wouldn’t have cared either.”

Clark gave her a half-smile. She was a hot little mess but nowhere near as sexy as her sister. He shook out his T-shirt and put it back on. “You are a passel of trouble, ain’t you, Harm.” He got his boots on, located his hat and headed for the front door. “Listen, tell Melody I have to go. I’ll call her this afternoon.”

“Will do, Superman.”

* * * * *

Clark gassed up the truck and drove it home. After he showered and changed, he picked up his phone. He was about to call Melody when his brother Dan cracked the whip.

“You’re late for chores. Let’s go.” Dan tossed him a pair of work gloves.

For many years, Dan and Clark, the middle MacKinnon brothers, had worked the ranch under their father’s supervision. Now that their old man was sick, it was up to them to run the show. Together, they managed employees, ran operations and handled all of the accounting decisions that made the ranch a viable business. They faced a lot of challenges. This year’s drought was bad. Both brothers worried that the pastures wouldn’t be healthy enough to support their stock.

After six hours working outside and three hours in the office, Clark was dusty and ill-tempered. It was early evening. One of their crew members was butchering some meat to sell at tomorrow’s farmers’ market in Santa Barbara. Clark would have to check in with him to pack the coolers and double-check the inventory. After that, he’d have to figure out what was wrong with the van. He’d be lucky to be done by seven.

The office was tucked behind the mudroom of the farmhouse. Dan had already gone home to his wife and kids, who lived in their own bungalow a five-minute walk away.

Clark leaned back in his chair, stretched and yawned. He’d been up late with Melody. They’d gotten three, maybe four hours of sleep. He smiled to himself, remembering what they’d done instead.

Feeling giddy, Clark pulled out his phone to call her. When he tried to start it up, he realized it had died—he hadn’t charged it last night. He went upstairs, plugged it in and turned on the screen.

Three missed calls from Melody, no messages, no texts.

“Shit.”

He let the phone ring until her voicemail picked up. He cleared his throat, feeling weird even though he called her all the time.

“Hey, Mel. It’s me. Sorry about this morning. My folks needed the truck and then I was out all day with Dan. I didn’t get your calls until now. My phone died because I didn’t charge it…” He trailed off, suddenly afraid that he sounded like he was making excuses for running out on her. “Anyway, I’ll try calling you again later tonight.” He paused, not knowing what else to say. “I hope you’re all right. Okay. Bye.”

After inventory, Clark and Dean jump-started the van and let it run. Caleb and his parents got back from the hospital a little before eight. Dan’s wife made a late dinner for everyone, but Clark’s father went straight to bed. By the time dinner and clean-up were done, Clark was bone tired. After another shower, he collapsed on his bed and checked his phone. One text from Melody.

Call me. I’ll be awake.

Her phone rang three times before she picked it up.

“Clark.”

“Hey.” Clark put a hand behind his head and looked up at the ceiling, a warm feeling settling in his chest at the sound of her voice. “How are you doing?”

She was quiet for a moment. The silence that stretched between them didn’t feel awkward to him. The universe was stretching to accommodate this new thing they’d become. Not friends, not lovers, but something deliciously in between. His body began to tingle. No longer tired, he entertained the thought that he could get dressed, hijack the nearest truck and be back in her bed in about thirty minutes. Who needed sleep, anyway?

“Listen,” she said. “I have something I need to tell you.”

“What’s going on?”

“I won’t be going to Santa Barbara with you and Lucky tomorrow. I can’t.”

He sat up. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s okay.” He heard her lick her lips. He wished he were there to do that for her. She continued, “Actually, I won’t be able to go with you to farmers’ markets any more. At all.”

“What? Why not?

“I talked to Tom Shelton this afternoon. He’s willing to take me on as a cocktail waitress at the Spur. I start training tomorrow at eleven.”

“What are you saying?”

“I have to drop my job with you. I’m sorry, Clark.”

He could sense her skittishness. She was a horse about to bolt. “Wait. Wait right there. I’m coming over. Let’s talk in person.” He stood up and looked around his room for a clean pair of jeans.

“No, no. Don’t do that. Don’t come over.”

“This—you and me—this has nothing to do with our working relationship. I never meant—”

She cut him off. “This new job—it pays a little more. I had to put down a deposit on my sister’s new apartment in Bakersfield. We still have the costs from my mom’s memorial. And I need to get ahead of Harmony’s student loans. It’ll be a while yet before she’s making enough to start paying them off herself.”

“If money’s the issue—”

“It
is
an issue.” She let out a breath. “But it’s not the only issue.” She paused. “Clark, I can’t do this. I can’t go down this path again.”

“What do you mean by ‘again’? I’m not your ex-boyfriend. I’m not Scott.” He made a fist and tapped it softly against the wall. “You know me, Mel. I’d do anything to keep from hurting you.”

“I know. I just need a little space,” she said quietly. “After some time, maybe…maybe we can be friends again. Maybe we can come back from this.”

Maybe?
“Is this because I left this morning? Mel, I
had
to go. Caleb needed the truck to go to the hospital with my folks. The other stuff, it just piles on top. On the ranch, there’s just no way to get out from under it, you know that.”

“I know. I know that you have a lot of responsibilities.”

“Jesus.” Clark sat back down on his bed. He never let himself get close to other women like this. Never close enough to get burned. Now he knew why. Powerless, he grasped at words, not sure what he was saying. “I’m serious. I won’t hurt you. I’m not like your ex-boyfriend. I swear.”

“This situation is just too complicated for me right now. I’ve got a lot on my plate.”

Her broken heart, her mother, her sister and their bills—Clark knew the battles. He had no intention of adding to them. “Let me help you. Let me stand by you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Like you said, I know you. You don’t do relationships. Never have.” Her voice wavered. “And I don’t want to be that annoying woman who forces you to pretend to be someone you’re not. You’d come to hate me.”

“Mel, come on.”

“Besides, you said it yourself. ‘One night’s not forever.’ Right?”

He cursed under his breath. He’d tossed that line out there because he was dying to go to bed with her last night. Sometimes he couldn’t believe the stink of his own bullshit. “You’re looking for reasons to run away,” he said slowly. “If that’s what you really want—”

“Yes. That’s what I really want.” Her voice broke. “Good-bye, Clark.”

And just like that, she hung up.

Clark lay down and looked blankly at his phone. He never realized that such a banal object had the power to crack open his rib cage and incinerate everything in his chest cavity like napalm.

* * * * *

Two weeks passed.

Lucky never asked why Melody stopped doing the farmers’-market runs with them. In Oleander, the grapevine had great reception. Clark just assumed Lucky’d heard the whole story or some version accurate enough to know that Clark didn’t want to talk about it. So they didn’t.

On the ranch, Clark worked with his brothers and spent time in the office feeding spreadsheets and running reports. As he expected, Melody didn’t call or text. After a dozen calls, he gave up.

With each passing day, he was becoming a moody asshole. Dean, his oldest brother and the moodiest asshole in the family, even remarked on it one afternoon while they were doing some yard work for their mom.

“You okay?” he asked.

Clark shrugged. “Yeah. Why?

“You don’t seem like yourself.”

“Like myself? How?”

It was Dean’s turn to shrug, cowboy-speak for
you know how
. Out loud, Dean said, “Want to grab a beer at the Spur?”

“I thought you were hanging out with the Singhs again tonight.”

“I am. That’s why I said
a
beer and not
some
beers.”

Clark had been avoiding the Silver Spur. He didn’t know which nights Melody worked, so it made the most sense not to go at all. “Maybe another night,” he said.

“Suit yourself.” One last shrug from his brother meant that the conversation was done but a point had been made. Clark had to shape up. In his very laconic way, Dean was right. What happened happened. Clark couldn’t change these circumstances. He’d just have to get used to the new order of the universe and maybe the big sucking wound in his chest would eventually heal up on its own.

The next morning, Clark had just gotten off the phone with a bank about a loan application when his cell phone rang.

“Hey, bro, long time no see.”

French surfer-dude accent. Clark smiled. “Hey, Jerome. How’s it hanging?”

“Loose,
bien sûr
.”

They talked a little about Jerome’s restaurants and all the recent foodie buzz in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Jerome’s publicist had gotten him a spot on a local TV news program to promote the food truck. Jerome was thrilled to be making his Hollywood debut. He was contemplating getting a new tattoo.

Then he said, “Clark, my friend, I have a problem.”

Clark’s ears perked up. “What’s going on, bro?”

“Beef. Beef is my problem.” Jerome made a sound, halfway between a
tsk
and a hiss. “I’m having trouble with my supplier. He’s in Northern California, and he says the drought has damaged his pastures to the extent that he needs to dry lot his animals. I can’t go with that product. Not with my restaurants. And especially not with this new food truck—burgers made with 100 percent grass-fed beef is the whole concept.”