Loving A Cowboy (7 page)

Lonnie was driving him and his Ford back to the mountains of Colorado, which he now called home. Lonnie had left his truck at Chance’s place when they headed out to the Frontier Days Rodeo together. Once back at the house, Lonnie would be leaving to go back on the circuit, having already lost some valuable time staying with Chance while he was laid up in the hospital. Lonnie was a good friend, his only true friend.

Chance might be well known on the circuit and had received a lot of Facebook and Twitter well wishes, some from other competitors, many from fans he didn’t know, but it didn’t change the fact there was only one person in this world who he seemed to matter to—the guy sitting next to him. It was a sobering thought. And one that had occupied his mind more than once in lonely moments over the last five years.

Maybe that was the attraction of rodeo—at least there, for eight seconds, people cared about what he did. There he wasn’t a nameless, faceless nobody. In the arena, he was somebody.

He thought he’d mattered to Libby once, and then he found out he didn’t. She hadn’t loved him. She’d used him to assert herself with a domineering father. When reality had set in, she’d run—from him.

And yet, she’d come to the hospital every day.

“How are you going to get around and feed yourself when you can’t put any weight on the foot?” Lonnie asked.

“I’ll eat easy things. I’ve made a list of stuff, and we can stop at the store on our way in.” He’d make it work. He wasn’t about to cost Lonnie any more time. One thing he was used to was being on his own.

“Did you contact the visiting nurse service?”

“I made arrangements.” Not that he thought he needed one, but the doctor had been reluctant to release him without knowing someone would be checking on him for a few days at least. “I’m on the mend. I’m not even on the pain meds right now.” And didn’t he know it. The sharp pulses were a sonavabitch.

Lonnie’s phone started ringing, and he fished it out of his jeans pocket, one hand on the wheel.

Libby waited four rings before she heard someone say hello.

“Lonnie? It’s Libby.”

“Hey, Libby.”

“Where are you? Where is Chance?”

“Chance is right here in the truck. The grumpy guy next to me.” She could hear a country tune in the background.

“Can I talk to him?”

“Ah, he’s…he’s sleeping right now.” Lonnie didn’t sound at all convincing.

“Where are you taking him?”

“Home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Colorado.”

“Where in Colorado?”

There was an awkward pause. She could imagine the signals between the two friends.

“Look, Lonnie, who is going to take care of him? You’re going out on the road, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Does Chance have anyone?” She hated the twist in her gut as she asked that question.

“No.”

“Is he hiring someone?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Look, I’ve got to go.”

“Text me his address when you can. Please, Lonnie. Let me help him. I owe him at least that.”

“Bye, Libby.” The line went dead.

“What did she want?” Chance wasn’t sure the pain that shot through to his foot was just from his injuries. “I signed those goddamn papers her attorney sent with some notary lady before I left the hospital.”

“She’s worried about you, is all. She couldn’t have known you were leaving the hospital.” Lonnie glanced in Chance’s direction. “She came every day, you know.”

“For no good reason. She’s planning on marrying someone else.”

“Maybe she was concerned about you. She was always soft hearted.”

He’d thought so until that day she’d left him. The day that changed him. Made him stop believing in miracles. Made him stop believing in people. Made him realize that he had to save himself because no one else would. Made him wonder if he should just lie down and die.

“Yeah, well, she can practice being soft hearted to that suit she’s going to marry. I’ve no use for Libby Brennan.”

“Maybe she feels she owes you something.”

“Girl didn’t love me. Can’t say I blame her. Too bad she found out after the damage was done. She’s moved on. Time I did too.”

* * *

Chance heard the car wheels turning on the gravel driveway and shifted up in the bed. Who the hell could be here now? Must be the visiting nurse. He’d told her not to come back after yesterday. Two days of her checking his blood pressure and asking if he needed to bathe was about all he could take.

He was taking charge of his own recovery
and
his personal hygiene. He already had a message into the guy who’d been his trainer during the off-season. He was getting around just fine on his crutches despite them rubbing his underarms raw and the pulsing pain in his foot and ribs, and he didn’t like strange hands touching his body, at least not unless they were attached to a young blonde.

Or rather, a particular young blonde.

For reasons he didn’t care to examine too closely, Libby had been in his thoughts constantly, especially since he had nothing much to do but think. He should have never returned to Cheyenne.

Her coming to the hospital every day had been both good and bad. The good being he saw her, heard her voice, and the bad being he saw her, heard her voice.

Nothing positive could come from pining after something he couldn’t have and shouldn’t want. Not with all the history between them and her having marriage plans. Too bad that kiss had branded him like a hot iron, awakening feelings he’d long denied. But it didn’t change the essentials of their circumstances. She’d moved on. He hadn’t.

The doorbell sounded. A visiting nurse should know to come around back and through the French doors of his bedroom, as he’d instructed. He wondered if it was worth the effort, and the pain, to get up and unlock the door if it wasn’t one of those nurses. The neighbor kid, Billy, had already come by about Chance’s horses. He boarded them at the neighbor’s ranch while he traveled. He wasn’t expecting anyone else. He was supposed to keep his foot raised except for necessities like getting to the bathroom. Otherwise, it throbbed like a sonavabitch.

He yelled out instructions to come around back. There the visitor would see the unlocked French doors that led to his bedroom. Maybe Billy had come back to drop off some dinner courtesy of Billy’s mom, as he had done the night before.

God, how he hated being banished to the bedroom, lying helpless and bored. Really bored. And these days when he got bored…his thoughts turned to Libby.

Not so much Libby now but Libby back then. He and Libby. Naked. Together. Her legs wrapped around him, her back to the wall while he held her, buried deep inside her, and pumping like a machine. She’d liked it hard and fast, just the way he liked to give it.

His blood was starting to stir. Not what he needed to think about, especially when there could be no relief. He needed to focus on getting ready to ride—a horse, not a woman.

A cold shower might help. And something to drink. Too bad Lonnie had left the beer in the kitchen refrigerator. Apparently beer and Percocet didn’t mix. Not that he’d taken the painkiller today. He hadn’t. He intended to use strictly ibuprofen from here on. Too many cowboys got addicted to painkillers, easy enough to do in a business where living with pain was the accepted norm. Chance had no intention of stumbling down that path. Not given his genetic makeup.

Someone now pounded on the door.

Chance again shouted for the person to come around, whoever it could be. Clearly not the visiting nurse. He waited a minute…no more pounding. Could be the person had heard him or had just given up.

Motion at the French doors said the former. He heard the jiggle of the door handle, saw the curtains flutter, and then…

Libby stepped into Chance’s bedroom and almost had a heart attack as she set down the two pieces of luggage in her hands. The place looked like she’d interrupted a robbery in progress, with clothes strewn across the floor and bed, half opened drawers, newspapers scattered about. But that wasn’t what was making her heart rate pound like the hooves of a spooked horse running for its life. Sitting in the middle of the mess, on a king-sized bed with a massive oak headboard, gloriously bare-chested with only a thin satin sheet covering the rest of his nakedness, was Chance.

He was a beautiful man despite the bruises. The pulse hammering away inside her said her body thought so too. Muscles rippled, flexed, and bulged as he pulled the sheet up. Once she had lain beside all that muscle and flesh, had run her fingers along every blessed inch of him. She’d caressed and stroked, kissed and licked and enjoyed every quiver she’d created. Seeing him practically naked had brought it all back with heat-intensified accuracy.

But before she could get too far along in that fantasy, cold slate-gray eyes vanquished the images right out of her head. If looks could freeze, she’d be an ice cube instead of melting all over herself.

“No one answered the front door.” Libby stated the obvious.

“As you well know, I’m not exactly in a position to play host, Libby. What the hell are you doing here?”

She took a deep breath. This wasn’t going to be easy, but then again, he also wasn’t in a position to do anything about her coming. Or staying.

“I know you aren’t up to entertaining, Chance. And that’s precisely why I’m here. To look after you.” The fact no one had answered the door gave her hope that no other woman had stepped into the role.

“The hell you are.” He closed one eye in a grimace. Pain? All the more reason he needed her.

“Yes, the hell I am,” she said in her firmest voice. “You need to rest and heal, and I’m going to see that you do just that.”

He started to throw back the covers as if to get up, but then he halted, realizing either that he didn’t have any clothes on or that he shouldn’t stand up on his foot just yet. Either way, he stopped before anything more than a hip bone was revealed. Something she was grateful for because one look at his entire body, especially
that
part of his body, and she might just fling herself at him in a shameless, pathetic way, even if he was almost an invalid.

And she hadn’t come here for that.

No, she hadn’t. She’d come because he needed her, or at least he needed someone. And to make amends. Then she could move on. Close the book on Chance, knowing she’d done something good for him.

She’d take care of him, nurse him, and use the time to figure out what she was going to do with her life and where Ben fit into it. All the while doing something for someone who not only needed her but whom she owed big-time for screwing with his life.

“I’m going to kill Lonnie. I don’t need your help.” This time those gray eyes of his flashed hot instead of cold. The temper kind of hot. Chance had a temper. And though he took pride in maintaining control, she’d seen him take out a man with more girth and heft than two of him. But Libby wasn’t intimidated. Not by Chance.

“Sure you do. If just to answer the door. But I’m also going to cook for you,” she said as she took in the small microwave plopped on his dresser. “And clean, and I can even take care of animals if you’ve got any in that barn.” She hadn’t taken the time to peek into the stable, but it looked new or recently painted, given the sheen hadn’t weathered off yet.

In fact the whole scene outside had looked like something out of a western lifestyle magazine, what with the low-slung, timber and stone ranch house, the neat corrals and barn, and the huge swimming pool she’d passed off the patio. A long way from trailer living, for sure.

“First off, I don’t get many visitors, and I board my horses at the neighbors because I travel so much. And I don’t need anyone to take care of me. I’ve got it all set up, if you didn’t notice.” He fell back against the pillows. “I’m not a cripple, Libby.”

She stepped further into the room, even though he hadn’t exactly extended an invitation, and closed the French doors. “No, you certainly are not,” she agreed as she moved to sit on the far edge of his bed.

She’d noticed the mess but also the way it was decorated. Not like the typical bachelor pad. Chance’s room was alive with southwestern colors. Native American saddle blankets hung on the tan walls and mellow, golden oak furniture rested on the wood floors. The fieldstone fireplace, flanked by rich, honey leather chairs, lent a warm, masculine, and substantial feel to the room. It wasn’t her style, but she liked it. And so different from the cool sleekness of her father’s house.

“But you’re not exactly able bodied yet,” she added.

Her gaze settled on the purple, blue, and yellow bruises covering his firm six-pack abdomen, a testament to the pain he’d endured. That thought brought heaviness to her heart and renewed determination to do right by him this time.

“I’m capable of taking care of myself.” He stared at her as if willing her to leave would work. It wouldn’t.

“Look, Chance. If my help enables you to heal faster, it seems worth putting up with my presence. I’m not that bad to live with.”

“Live with?” His Adam’s apple bobbed in a hard swallow. “That ain’t going to happen, Libby. No way.” He sounded like she had some disease he was afraid of catching.

“You need someone. Be reasonable.”

“I am being reasonable. You think you can waltz into my bedroom and make yourself at home? Ain’t happening,” he snarled, just like Cowboy did when he was chasing his tail in frustration. “Besides, how can you afford to tear yourself away from Brennan Motors or that suit you plan to marry? I can’t imagine either of them giving you time off to look after me.”

She bit her lower lip. Her father and Ben were two subjects she did not wish to discuss, especially with Chance, but there was no getting around it. “My father didn’t have a say in it since I don’t work for Brennan Motors. Ben is at a training class for the next two weeks, and we aren’t officially engaged.” She didn’t add the “yet.”

His brow furrowed, Chance shook his head. “This guy Ben must have gotten a great job to let you out of his sight before sealing the deal, and you must have gotten some great job for your father to let you off the hook. You need to get right back to that guy and that job, Libby. I mean it.”