Marry Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo) (5 page)

Maybe it wasn’t...?

Maybe instead it was...?

The look lasted a long time and left her hot all over. She looked down and broke the contact, blinking as if she had something caught in her eye. They needed to get back. They more than needed to get back.

They needed to go back in
time
, to before Chet had dumped her at the wedding five days ago, because she was so extremely comfortable with herself and Jamie not liking each other. She was a lot,
lot
less comfortable with any other possibility.

She retreated into the old script and tried to believe it. Jamie was a yob. Good Australian word, that one. He couldn’t talk to women, and he drank too much, and it didn’t matter a damn how well he filled out a pair of jeans. Or that he was good with horses. And kind to friends. Or how blue his eyes were. Or how delicious his mouth. Or -

Okay, enough.

He stood up right at the same time as Tegan did.

“Should go and - ”

“Have to see if - ”

So once again, they walked together.

CHAPTER FIVE

Chet was a mess. A serious mess.

Tegan stopped in at his and Jamie’s trailer to tell him hi, and that they’d missed him at breakfast, and when Jamie opened the door leading from the horse bay and they both saw him, face haggard, eyes even more bloodshot and red-rimmed than they’d been last night, they both knew at once that something was horribly wrong.

Jamie swore. “What’s up? What the hell has happened, Chet?”

“I gotta talk to someone. It’s time. It’s overdue.”

“Is it your folks? Is someone hurt? Hell, dead?”

“Nothing like that.” He shook his head and closed his eyes, dark stubble on his jaw emphasizing his unkempt state. He was dressed, but barely. Jeans unfastened at the waist, plaid shirt open to show a white undershirt that he must have used to dry something... probably his face... because it was half-transparent in places from splashed water, or tears, and it wasn’t tucked in. “Come in. I need to talk to you. I’ve been awake all night. I’m breaking apart.”

“Chet. Oh, Chet,” Tegan said uselessly. She came forward and pushed past Jamie because he didn’t seem to have a clue what to do - other than shutting the door from the horse bay behind them so that no one could see in.

She engulfed Chet in the biggest hug she had, and he hugged her back until she couldn’t breathe. He was crying into her shirt, big, wracking, silent sobs that shook him from deep in his stomach all the way up to his shoulders. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay.” Although she had no idea if it really was.

He pulled back and clawed himself onto a narrow shelf of control. “I know. I know it is. I think it’s going to be. I’ve made a decision. I’m sick of living a lie, of lying even to myself, and it’s time to stop.”

“Okay...” Jamie said.

Chet was still gripping Tegan’s hands, while Jamie stood at an angle, a little too close. There wasn’t a lot of room in here. He had a look in his eye as if he knew what was coming. Or feared what was coming. Tegan had no idea.

Chet took a huge breath. “I’m coming out,” he said. “It’s time to say it, and live it, instead of lying to myself and everyone around me. I’m gay.”

Silence in the trailer.

Tegan was too shocked to speak. So sudden. So…

And Jamie...

Well, she would never expect someone like him to have the words for something like this. And she couldn’t blame him, because she didn’t have the words, either.

She’d never thought.

Never suspected.

Chet was the last person. Not his voice, not his mannerisms, not his tastes, not any of the clichés. She felt stupid for thinking that the clichés had to be true.

Wow. Wow.

“Chet,” she said. “That’s – I’m - ” She really didn’t know what to say next.

Then Jamie stepped forward and took his friend in his arms. “Good.” He whooshed out a huge breath. “I’m real glad. Good.” He stood that way for some seconds, then loosened the hug, slapped Chet on the back. “It’s okay, buddy.” He grabbed Chet’s upper arms and shook him and punched his hard shoulder with a mix of tenderness and rough cowboy that almost brought tears to Tegan’s eyes. “It’s fine. It’s okay. You gotta be honest. Of course you do.”

She couldn’t believe it. Jamie MacCreadie was
handling
this? Wasn’t running a mile?

Was handling it better than Tegan, truth be told, because she was still too shocked to speak, wondering if there were glaring signs she’d missed.

Chet grabbed a stained handkerchief from his pocket, sniffed and wiped his eyes. “You don’t seem surprised, Jamie.”

“I guess you don’t remember,” Jamie said carefully.

“Remember what?”

“The night you made a pass at me, couple of months ago, and I punched you for it.”

“Wha -?”

“Yeah, I thought you’d drunk too much...”

Chet swore, then sat heavily onto his messy lower bunk. “This is so strange. This isn’t how I thought it would go. I can’t believe I made a pass at you.”

“Well, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure it was a pass, at the time. You do have a habit of telling people you love them, when you’ve been drinking. But then there was… other stuff.”

“It was a pass,” Chet said. “Even if I don’t remember it. But I’m almost over you now.”

“Well, that’s a relief, to be honest.”

And they actually laughed.

Then Chet breathed in and out for a good while, and said, “I’m feeling - I’m feeling - I thought I might want to kill myself after I said it, but I don’t.”

“Aww, man, don’t even talk like that.” Jamie sat down beside him, gave his shoulders another hard squeeze and shake with one generous arm. “You were going to kill yourself if you
didn’t
say it. All the drinking. You don’t think I’ve been worried about that?”

They talked some more, Chet full of confession, Jamie telling him it was all okay.

He was incredible.

Finally, after quite a long time, Chet announced, “I think I need to be alone for a while. You guys have been amazing...”

I haven’t,
Tegan thought.
I really haven’t. But Jamie has.

Who knew?

“This has been a long time coming.” Chet looked across at her. “Tegan, I couldn’t marry you. Thought I could. It seemed like proof. Marrying a woman, even if it was just for the green card. Then I was just yelling and screaming inside about it, and I just couldn’t do it”

“It’s okay, Chet,” Tegan said. “It really is.”

“I still have a lot to work out.” He whooshed out another breath, sounding daunted and exhilarated at the same time. “A lot of people to tell.”

“You really want to be on your own, buddy?” Jamie prodded gently. “You really okay?”

Chet nodded, dabbed at his red eyes some more, and his red nose. “I’ve taken step one. Gotta work out step two. I’m not always going to feel this light and good about it, I know that. But I’m going to live the moment while I’m in it.”

“We’re here for you, okay?” Jamie said.

“You guys have been amazing,” Chet repeated.

I haven’t,
Tegan thought again.

Outside, a few minutes later, Jamie muttered, “I need to get out of here. That was pretty...”

“...intense,” she finished for him.

“Yeah.”

“Chet’s right. You
were
amazing.”

He looked at her in surprise. “Well, I don’t know...”

“I do.”

He didn’t ask how she would have expected him to behave differently, or what she thought he’d done and said that was so good, and she was astonished at how grateful she was for that. She didn’t want to have to specify, spell it out.

She was still too shocked, still combing through her own feelings. Chet had talked about honesty and lying to himself, and she wondered if she’d been remotely honest to herself about Jamie’s effect on her, these past few months.

“Hell, I need to go for a ride,” he said, pressing the heels of his cowboy-hard hands against his eyes and then blowing out a huge breath. “Whew! Shoot, I really do. Just need to get away.”

“You scratching out for today, then?”

“Might. Depends. Saddle bronc’s not on till pretty late. It’s only nine, now. If I miss my events, I’m not going to swear about it. Won’t be surprised if Chet misses his, and there’s no team roping at this rodeo, so we won’t be letting each other down. I can get Dawson to be my hazer for the steer wrestling, if I have to.” He looked at her, then said in an almost hostile drawl, “Wanna come riding with me?”

“Where? Here?” She gestured at the inadequate space that surrounded the rodeo ground. “You and me, Jamie?”

“What, it’s
that
bad that I don’t talk about stuff? It’s that much of a deal-breaker? You wanna talk now? You wanna find a girlfriend and
chatter
about this?”

“No. I absolutely do not!”

“Didn’t think so,” he muttered.

“Okay, you made your point about how much talking sometimes doesn’t help.”

“So? Coming or not?” He was still looking at her. Dear lord, he had beautiful eyes. “Faro doesn’t like going out on his own.”

“Depends where,” she said. “Not sure how much Shildara would take to the railroad tracks. Specially if a train came.”

“We’ll load them up and head out to the ranch. Didn’t you hear me promise my Aunt Kate that I’d visit? But you have to change first.”

“Oh, I do?”

“I’m not having you on my family’s ranch dressed like a Las Vegas rodeo queen.”

Tegan rolled her eyes, but saw his point. “Fair enough,” she said. “I warn you, I’m going to put on the oldest shirt I’ve got.”

CHAPTER SIX

Tegan was quieter than Jamie had ever seen her.

She’d obeyed his order about changing her clothes, and had taken off the blingy belt, boots and shirt, and put on plain riding boots and a pale blue collared polo shirt with a Pony Club Association of New South Wales logo on the front and the words
2005 State Camp
on the back, above a whole list of names grouped into categories - Dressage, Eventing. He found hers under the heading Mounted Games.

She really had put on her oldest shirt. It seemed wrong that she looked so cute in it. It was faded and thin and hugged the lean curves of her figure. Yeah,
those
curves. The ones he’d had his hands all over last night in the dream, he remembered suddenly, all bare and warm and soft and wonderful.

Hell, he needed a cold shower.

They tracked Kara and Dean down at the coffee stand, still looking very smoky and happy about each other, and Tegan asked if taking the trailer was okay. Kara said yes but wanted to know why.

“Jamie and I are going out to his family’s ranch. We’re taking the horses and going for a ride.”

“Scratching?”

“If I’m not back in time.”

“You came all this way to scratch?”

“Something’s come up.” Something in her body language apparently warned Kara not to press for details.

So Jamie grabbed Faro from his yard and Tegan collected Shildara, and both horses walked onto the trailer without a peep or a misstep, and the four of them - two human, two horse - headed for the MacCreadie family ranch, which Jamie hadn’t been back to in nearly two years.

It would be just the same, he knew.

Oh, maybe there would be some new machinery, or some upgraded fence, but the essentials wouldn’t have changed. There’d be the big red and white barn and a cluster of sheds and feed silos, a wooden house painted the same red and white as the barn, some bits of garden that never really did what they was supposed to do – like, produce flowers or vegetables. Meanwhile, Dad would still be working his guts out in the open air, with RJ’s help and some casual hands occasionally. Mom, inside the house, would still be... Mom.

“I need to let you know,” he said abruptly to Tegan. “My mom is a little different. Don’t think that she’s drunk, or medicated, or had bad news, or something. She’s always like that. Vague and scatty and - She can’t help it. It’s just her.”

“Oh, okay.” She gave him a quick look of surprise, but she was driving the pickup, tricky with the long gooseneck trailer pulling behind, so she couldn’t look for long.

He wondered about trying to explain further, but it was too hard, so he just sat back and stayed quiet and hoped Chet was doing okay.

“Wow, this is so beautiful,” Tegan said as they drove up Paradise Valley.

“Pretty harsh in winter. That’s the Absarokas.” He gestured to the left. “And this is the Gallatin Range.” To the right, where they were headed.

“Beautiful then, too, I bet.”

He stopped trying to pretend he didn’t notice the landscape of his home, with the fall yellows and reds bright against the mountain blue. “It is. Not even what you can see, so much. But the air.”

“Beautiful air.” Was that sarcasm?

“Air can be beautiful.” He really needed some beautiful air, right now.

“No, I know,” Tegan said. “It can. I’m agreeing with you. It is. We have beautiful air in Australia, too.”

The ranch was a half-hour drive from Marietta, the route turning off the highway after ten minutes or so and heading away from the river, up into the foothills of the Gallatin Range. “Beyond our place is the Sheenan spread. Then the Carrigans’ Circle C. Both pretty big places, like ours.”

“We had 4,000 acres.”

“That’s a decent size, too.” Smaller than his own family’s place, but still he liked that she knew what it was like to grow up on a good piece of acreage. Not that everywhere around here was as big. He added before he stopped to think, “Then there’s the Douglas spread, but that’s smaller, tucked away back. Land isn’t as good up there. They had a terrible time, that family. There was a home invasion. The parents and two of the five kids were killed, and the kids were little. Four and eight or something. They never did find out who did it, either.”

Tegan gave a shocked hiss and he realized he’d have to tell her more. Dumb of him. Why had he brought it up? He went on, trying to keep the details as brief as he could, “For awhile they thought one of the older boys – Rory - did it. He didn't. But people talked."