Who Wants to Marry a Cowboy? (31 page)

Riley looked over his brother’s dust-covered suit and glanced at his own torn dress clothes. “Maybe we better clean up first.”

Seth nodded, but shifted his eyes to the ground. His finger crept up to his tie as if it were strangling him. “I don’t want to go back. I think I might want to take a walk.”

Something in his brother’s face stopped Riley from persuading him to return. Maybe some solitude was what Seth needed right now, not being around happy, laughing people. “That’s fine. Just stay out of trouble.”

“You have nothing to worry about.” Seth grinned as he left the barn, fading as the darkness enveloped him.

Riley pounded the dirt off his clothes the best he could, then washed his hands and face in the barn sink. He wasn’t going back, either. He debated saddling Westley and going for a ride to get away from the celebration. The decision was taken out of his hands when Molly came into the barn. For a place that was supposed to invite solitude, it was doing a lousy job of it.

“I was looking for you,” she said.

He hadn’t wanted to be found, but kept his features neutral and slid around Westley so Molly couldn’t see his messed up clothes. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” She sat on a bench, extended her legs and wiggled her pink stitched boots in front of her. “I think you should talk to Ainsley.”

Riley froze in the act of patting his horse, then brought his hand back down to his side. Her name had been unspoken between them for a month. “Why’s that?”

Molly shrugged. “Female intuition.”

“Your female intuition is what got me into this mess to start with.” He turned back to Westley but his mind wouldn’t quit. That earlier kiss has been one of pure animal instinct, a need to imprint himself upon her and leave her yearning, but he hadn’t been able to get her passionate response out of his mind. Or the sting of her palm off his face. “What would you have me say?”

“Find out what really happened, maybe.” His normally direct, analytical sister lifted her shoulders again. If she was wavering on her opinions, then maybe there was something else to it. She rose and brushed her hands together to get rid of bits of dirt from the bench. “I think she already went back to her cabin. Good luck, big brother.”

Ainsley’s suitcase was the only thing that stood between her and the door. She had changed out of her purple dress and into the familiar comfort of jeans and a t-shirt. All the wedding setup had been taken down, all the flowers artfully placed around the ranch house and cabins, and her friend was married and enjoying the beginning of her new life. There was nothing keeping Ainsley here.

Unless she wanted to torture herself. It had been torture watching Riley dance with Meagan’s sister. Torture that he was only a few feet away and she could do nothing about it. Torture knowing that she was an object of lust and desire, not of affection and love.

“Okay, then.” She grabbed the green handle of her bag and hauled it to the van, flung it behind the driver’s seat and rolled the door closed. Done. Now all she had to do was drive away.

That was easier said than done. She arrived at the cattle guard, staring at the road beyond in the haze created by the headlights. It would take her back to whatever passed for her normalcy these days. But she didn’t want to go.

This was her last chance. If she left now, she was never coming back. And there was too much of her heart here to leave it behind.

Dammit. She put the van in park and slid out of the seat and slammed the door, then kicked it for good measure.

“Are you okay?”

The voice in the darkness jolted her heart and made her cry out. She whirled around, squinting to find the source. “Seth?”

“Yeah.” He took a step closer and she could make out his cowboy-hatted silhouette. “What are you doing here?”

Leaving. “I’m not sure.”

He nodded as if the answer made perfect sense, his eyes taking note of her escape vehicle. “He was a mess without you.” Then he grinned. “He was a mess with you, too. It was fun to watch.”

“I’m glad I could provide you with some entertainment.”

Her tone was dry enough to make Seth laugh and she realized it was the first time she had heard that sound from him. He thumped the van with a fist. “But now you’re sneaking off? Does he know?”

Well, when he put it
that
way… “It’s complicated.”

He snorted. “Yeah, that’s what adults always say when they don’t want to explain things to a dumb kid.” He stepped back into the darkness and his tone went flat. “Go then. Everyone does at some point anyway.”

His averted gaze caused her some concern and she inched a little closer, studying him the best she could. She could make out scrapes that covered his face and bruised knuckles. Who had he been fighting? Her stomach knotted as she searched for what to say. “I came back.”

He nodded and leaned against the van, fingering the rim of his hat. “But you’re leaving now. Everybody leaves. Whether they want to or not. My mom probably wanted to. Molly’s husband. You. My dad didn’t want to.”

Something in Seth’s attitude made her think his offhand comment was hiding so much more and she took a guess. “That day must have been awful.”

He shot her a quick glance, but she kept her face neutral. His palpable sadness consumed the light around them. Poor kid.

“It was.” He rubbed a finger over his bruised knuckles. “At least I got to be with him at the…” he swallowed but didn’t finish the sentence.

Hoof beats pounded on the grass and they both turned. Seth stiffened while Ainsley still tried to make out who it was. Suddenly the emotional young man next to her turned into a sullen teenager. “Are you following me? I don’t freakin’ believe this.”

Her heart went wild, jumping from her chest to her throat, when she realized it was Riley. She wanted to rush into his arms, kiss his tender lips, run her fingers through his hair while telling him the three words she had kept to herself in order to protect her heart. But she stayed silent. At least, for now.

Riley stared down at his former lover and his brother from atop his horse. He had thought riding the perimeter of the land would give him the best chance of avoiding running into anyone, but when he saw the white vehicle, he wanted to make sure it wasn’t a neighbor in trouble. So much for his solitude and figuring out what he wanted. He dismounted and patted Westley’s forelock until he could sort out his thoughts. Seth beat him to it.

“I thought after what happened at the barn that you’d trust me to not do anything stupid. What, did you get worried when I wasn’t at the party so you decided to make sure I hadn’t found someone else to bring back to the barn?” Seth’s hands turned into fists, but they remained by his sides. “Make sure I didn’t kill anyone?”

“Okay, now,” Ainsley said before Riley could respond. She slid open the side door of the van and pulled Seth down with her. “Come sit.”

Seth tried to shrug her off, but that didn’t deter her. She tugged on his arm until he sat, his elbows resting on his knees. Instead of draping her arm around him, she lightly rubbed his back, her hand moving in slow circles to comfort him.

It was the kind of comfort Riley couldn’t give him. Not because Ainsley had a woman’s touch, but there was something nurturing and soft about her. He saw it every time she talked about her sister. A pang shifted in his chest. He wanted her to be that way when she talked about him.

“You were about to tell me what happened,” she murmured to Seth.

Was he? It was something his brother hadn’t spoken of in detail, shutting down every time Riley tried to get it out of him. He took a step forward, but Ainsley gave a minute shake of her head and he remained where he was. Without question.

That faith was his surrender. To her, to his heart. The trust that he always found so hard to give knocked him upside the head with the sudden realization he had found the part of his life that he didn’t know was missing.

Seth shot him another glance, but his lower lip quivered like he was seven and trying not to give in to the tears. Riley crouched down so he wasn’t towering over the teen and spoke gently, like he was introducing himself to a new horse. “What happened?”

Seth’s shoulders, still thin and lithe but with the potential for being powerful, shook with quiet sobs. Ainsley cradled his head against her and stroked his hair, murmuring softly to him while letting his emotions run their course. Riley didn't move, afraid to break the fragile atmosphere. Getting Seth to open up about everything that happened that day was something Riley had never been able to do, whether out of discomfort or his lack of ability to handle his brother’s emotions. Yet with Ainsley, it was natural to sit quietly, offering the support of his presence if not his words.

Seth used the palms of his hands to wipe his eyes. “I miss him.”

“I know you do.” Ainsley kept her hand on his back.

“If I had been a little faster. Or been with him when it happened instead of arriving too late.”

Ainsley stayed silent, but shot Riley a questioning glance over Seth’s head. Seth blew out a breath and looked her right in the eye. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course not.”

“It wasn’t.” His tone got stronger. Maybe he believed it this time. “And I got to say good-bye and tell him I loved him. I was the only one.” He whispered that last part, his voice cracking. He put his elbows on his knees and leaned into his hands. “Riley, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I got to have that last time with him and you didn’t.”

“Hey.” Riley got on his knees and wrapped his arm around Seth, hoping to dispell the guilt his brother carried over having something special that Riley and Molly and Jeanne didn’t get to have. “Dad died loved because you were there. I’m not sorry at all.” That last farewell, the last touch, the last breath. No matter how painful it had been to witness.

Seth held on to him harder. The van shifted when Ainsley stepped away, trailing her vanilla scent behind her. A brief touch of her soft hand in Riley’s hair gave him some of her strength and comfort to guide Seth through this.

“Why do I feel so lucky and so cheated at the same time?” Seth asked.

 “Because you were lucky. And cheated. No one begrudges you that moment. In fact, I’m glad you were there. So glad, Seth, that Dad had you and wasn’t alone.” And he meant it. He hadn’t realized before how much.

The sobs came again, fresh pain that engulfed the teen’s body. Riley held on, his own thoughts and memories meshing with Seth’s, and he let himself grieve for all they had lost.

The tears subsided after a few moments, and Seth sat back, then cleared his throat and glanced around him. He shifted a bit away and wiped his face, keeping his eyes averted. Riley took advantage of his brother’s discomfort to wipe his own eyes without Seth seeing him and blew out a breath.

“This sucks, Ry.”

Riley sat on the van next to his brother. “No shit.” Before, his heart had constricted with the pain of loss upon seeing Ainsley with Seth. Now the weight of death had been removed from his brother’s shoulders, and that wouldn’t have happened without her. She belonged with him. He wasn’t going to let her go again. Even if he had to follow her to her flower shop across the country to convince her.

Seth snorted, then peered around in the darkness. “Ainsley? Where’d she go?”

“I’m here.” Her voice came from the other side of the van and she shuffled around to them. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

Seeing her there like a shining angel, knowing that he’d almost lost her to his stupidity and stubbornness, had him crossing the space between them in two large steps. He put his hands through her hair, feeling the silken threads as he brought her close to kiss her.

Her fingers grazed his hands before settling on his wrists, holding him in place while he ravished her mouth, his tongue seeking hers. She sighed and he pulled her closer, enjoying the feel of her body molding to his.

“Um, you guys?” Seth tapped Riley on the shoulder like a pesky little-brother bug. “I’m still here.”

Ainsley stepped back and covered her mouth, her eyes sparkling with suppressed laughter while Riley entertained thoughts of punting Seth over the fence and away from them. “Take the van back to the cabin. We’ll catch up.”

“Wait, he can’t,” Ainsley interjected. “It’s a rental. No one else is on the form as a…oh, screw it. Just don’t crash.” She fished the keys out of her pocket and tossed them to Seth. They watched him drive away.

Riley’s mind sped through everything he wanted to tell her. “You were leaving?”

She nodded.

“Can we talk?”

The muscles in her body that had been so malleable only moments before stiffened briefly before she nodded again. “I think we need to.”

Some of his tension slipped away at her answer. He gave a sharp whistle to Westley, who abandoned the grass around the cattle guard and paced up to him. He took Ainsley’s hand, taking it as a good sign that she didn’t jerk away, and began the slow walk back to the house, the moon providing scant light across the dirt road. “I’m not good at flowery speeches to tell you what I want you to know, and I’ll probably do something stupid that will make you mad, and that’s not my intention. But Ainsley, there are things I need to say, and I’m going to say them. And you’re going to listen.”

She started to pull away, but he tightened his hold. If she looked at him, he wouldn’t be able to speak. “Let me finish, please.” After a moment, she relaxed again. He said nothing at first, his throat raw and thick with the words, and leaned down to kiss her briefly. He kept his eyes closed. Maybe these things were easier said without eye contact.

“I was an idiot. When you were here for that stupid stunt of my sisters’. A bunch of jealous women told me a pack of lies, and I believed what they said instead of believing the one that I loved. This whole thing was my fault. And I'm sorry for being such a jerk.” He brushed his lips against the back of her hand with a light, delicate touch, like she was an orchid and he was afraid of crushing her petals. “I hope you’ll stay at the ranch this time, for a while, anyway. At least until you get tired of me or have to go back to work. And we can figure it out from there.”