To Court a Cowgirl (8 page)

“But you never watched me play.”

“I
think
I've seen you play, but you have to understand that I haven't seen many football games in my life.”

“Your sisters were cheerleaders.”

“And I was studying.”

“And not dating.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I racked my memory about what I did know about you and I can remember now that you didn't date. A couple of my teammates called you Ice Princess.”

Again she felt heat rise in her cheeks. “I wasn't cold.”

“No, you were probably shy and the average horny teenage boy isn't too good at discerning shyness from aloofness.” He reached out and covered her hand with his and Allie felt the urge to turn her hand over and press her palm to his, which was crazy. Totally crazy. She somehow maintained her senses, noting that his fingers were long and elegantly shaped as a way of distracting herself. And strong. She could sense the strength in his hands.

“I'm making my apology now,” he said, startling her out of her finger analysis. “I'm sorry for thinking you were cold and distant.”

“I probably was.” Her mouth quirked wryly. “Still might be.”

The waitress approached the table with the pizza and they both leaned back as she placed it on the table in between them. Allie settled her hands safely in her lap, but she still felt the warmth of Jason's touch. He was simply a warm guy—his expressions and his touch. She felt herself being drawn in and had no idea how she was going to handle it. One day at a time, one encounter at a time, she imagined.

“It's huge,” Allie said, nodding at the pizza.

“No.”

The single word made her laugh again. Jason placed a piece of pizza on her plate and two on his. “We'll factor this by weight,” he said. “I figure you're roughly half my size.”

He was right. She probably was. And there was something about his size that made her feel safe. How long had it been since she'd felt safe? For the past decade and a half she'd been expecting the worst to happen at every turn and she expected to have to handle it alone. She'd hated to lean on her mother, since her mom had so much on her plate caring for the ranch and her three little sisters. She didn't have a father, and when she'd married, her husband had turned out to be a guy she couldn't depend on.

They ate the pizza slowly, neither seeming to be in any hurry. Allie had a lonely ranch to go back to and Jason had his dad. After they finished the last piece by splitting it, Jason paid the bill and then they walked to his truck.

“Did you enjoy ‘just a pizza'?”

“I did.” She met his eyes briefly as they walked. “You're more down-to-earth than I gave you credit for.”

“I don't think you gave me credit for anything. You formed an opinion of me a long time ago and that's the opinion that you're sticking with,” he said as they came to a stop on her side of the truck.

True. Very true.

“Now that you've helped me birth a calf and agreed to help me help a friend, I've revised my opinion.” Allie glanced down at her shoes and gathered her strength before looking back up into his eyes. “I apologize for my close-mindedness.” And she was starting to feel a little too warm, a little too aware of how close they were standing.

“Accepted.” Jason clicked his keys and unlocked the door. “Do you want to go out for real some time?”

Allie felt herself step back at the unexpected question. She hadn't meant to—she'd moved instinctively. “I, uh...”

“That's okay,” Jason said easily. “I got my answer.”

And heaven help her, even though she liked him, that was the answer she was leaving him with.

Because she was afraid of any other answer.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A
NGRY
KID
.

Jason glanced over at the boy silently jerking nails out of boards with a cat's-paw. He wouldn't have been surprised to see steam rolling off the kid's back. He'd shown up late that morning, driving a tricked-out '81 Chevy, and had totally ignored Jason as he stomped up the front walk to the house. About ten minutes later Allie had come out with him and introduced him as Zach. Jason had smiled and the kid had given a cold nod. And things had just gotten better from there. Allie went to work and Jason decided that if the kid was going to act like a butt, then he could pull nails from old boards while Jason pried lumber loose from the standing frame of the barn—after he forced him to wear the extra hard hat he'd brought.

Zach smirked as he put it on, and after that he barely looked up when Jason set new boards in the pile. So Jason worked faster than usual, giving the kid a good supply of boards to work out his frustrations on. He didn't know anything about the kid except that he'd gotten himself into minor trouble and Allie was friends with his mother.

Frankly, he didn't want to know more.

Finally, about midmorning, Jason stopped for a water break, but Zach kept sullenly pulling nails. One of them flew through the air and landed several yards away. The kid ignored it, so Jason said, “You need to get that in the bucket so it doesn't end up in the tire of one of Allie's vehicles.”

Zach met his eyes coldly, then got to his feet and walked over to the nail, picked it up and then walked back to the bucket, where he made a big show of dropping it straight in. It landed with a metallic ping and then the kid went back to work.

“How old did you say you were?” Jason asked.

Another cold look, but this time color crept up from the kid's collar. He looked back down without answering. So it went until lunchtime. Apparently teenage hunger trumped teenage point-making—although Jason really wanted to tell the kid that he was wasting his time trying to make any points to him—because when Jason said it was time for a break, he went to his truck and pulled out a small cooler. Jason wasn't surprised when Zach dropped the tailgate of his own truck and sat on it to eat.

After Zach had devoured two sandwiches and chugged most of a bottle of water, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and again met Jason's gaze. “You're that football player.”

“I am.”

“What are you doing tearing down a barn? Are things that bad?”

“What if they are?”

The kid shrugged and pulled out a third sandwich. “Nothing.” He opened the sandwich bag. “My dad was a fan of yours. I think you know him. Derek Belfort.”

“Yeah. I remember him. He was older than me. Played cornerback.”

Zach nodded and said nothing else. If anything he seemed even colder.
Fine, kid. Play it your way.
The only issue Jason had with the situation was that he'd enjoyed his time ripping apart the barn up until now. It'd been like a puzzle, figuring what to take down next. He'd made mistakes, but since he'd been alone, who cared?

Now he had a sullen kid watching his every move even though he was pretending not to.

The afternoon passed slowly. Allie pulled in a little after four o'clock and the kid immediately dropped the cat's-paw he'd been prying nails with and headed for his rig.

“You're not done.”

Glacial eyes turned his way. “What?”

“You're not done. We work until five o'clock.”

“My mom told me four.”

“Your mom was wrong.”

They faced off for a tense moment, then the kid muttered a curse under his breath and went back to where he'd been working.

“Another thing. When you get done, you put the tool away.” He almost added, “Didn't anyone teach you that?” but this was about the kid's behavior, not what anyone had or had not taught him.

Zach grunted at him and yanked out a nail. It flew through the air and landed at Jason's feet. Again their gazes connected, then Jason bent and picked up the nail and dropped it into the can.

“Thanks.” Jason didn't know if Zach was being snotty or not, so he gave him the benefit of the doubt. It never hurt to assume the best.

One hour later Zach stood and made a show of taking the cat's-paw to Jason's truck and storing it in the box it had come out of that morning. He took off the hat and Jason said, “Take it with you. Bring it back tomorrow or you don't work.”

“Fine.”

“Thanks,” Jason said. “See you tomorrow.”

He got a curt nod and then Zach strode over to his truck, got inside and fired it up. Loud truck. Jason stood where he was as the kid swung it in a wide circle and then tore out of the driveway. Tomorrow he and Zach would discuss driveway etiquette, but right now he wanted a few answers from Allie.

He stowed all of his gear, took off the hard hat and ruffled his hair, enjoying the feel of air over his bare head. Allie came out of the house and headed across the drive to the barn. She saw him heading toward her and stopped, pushing her loose blond hair over her shoulders, but the breeze blew it forward again. She had great hair. The kind a guy thought about spilling over him at she took advantage of the top position.

Not that he was thinking about sex and Allie. Not a lot anyway. Just the normal amount for a guy who hadn't been laid in a while...and who thought his boss was hot.

“Hey,” he said as he approached.

“How'd it go?” There was a healthy measure of concern in her voice.

“Like working with an angry badger.”

“That good, huh?”

“What's the deal, Allie?”

Allie glanced to the side, obviously debating about how much to say. Jason waited. He wasn't going to push her, but surely she could see that the more he knew, the easier it would be for him to deal with the situation.

“Whatever it is, could I find it out in a local bar?”

Her gaze flashed to his. “Probably,” she admitted.

“I'm not looking for gossip. I'm looking for insight. It'd help to know, in general, why he's so angry. Has he always been like this?”

“No. He used to be a sweet kid. When he was twelve anyway.” Allie gestured with her head for him to walk with her “Zach's mom is a friend of mine. She thought she had a great marriage until her husband left her. Zach was supposed to go to work on the family ranch with his dad during the summer. He was really looking forward to it, then his dad moved his girlfriend onto the place and decided it'd be too uncomfortable having his son on the ranch with his live-in.”

“Okay,” Jason said as he automatically opened the barn door before Allie could reach for it. “Now I get the anger. Which makes it easier to deal with.”

Allie gave a small sigh as she opened the barn door. “Sometimes I wonder if there is such a thing as a great marriage.”

“It's a tricky business,” Jason agreed.

She gave him a sidelong look. “Have you been married?”

“Too focused on my career to get that involved with anyone.” The sad truth. He'd had a lot of girlfriends, but never found anyone that he'd felt like sharing the rest of his life with.

Allie gave a small snort. “I thought I was building a life with someone, only to find out that I was the only one swinging the hammer. Not to sound bitter...sorry. I probably shouldn't talk about Kyle right now.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing. He's out of the hospital, but...” She shrugged. “Nothing.”

Nothing, his ass. There was something about the ex that was eating at her or irritating her. Maybe both.

“Do you think you can continue to work with Zach?” she asked.

He smiled down at her. “Do I have a choice?”

“You could walk.”

“Then who would oversee the kid?”

“He probably doesn't need overseeing once the beams are laid down,” Allie said. “He worked beside his dad on the ranch since he was eleven or twelve.”

“So you're saying that I'm the superfluous member of the demolition team?”

Allie's smile touched her eyes and lit her face, and made him want to kiss her...just to see what she tasted like. “Maybe,” she admitted.

“I'll have to up my game.”

“By the way, Zach's mom is glad that you're making him wear a hard hat.”

“I had that drilled into me since I could walk. If you're carrying a tool, you need to have a hard hat and boots.” He took the bucket of grain she'd just filled. She didn't relinquish hold of it easily. Jason was about to give up to circumvent a tug-of-war when she let go.

“You know I can do this?” she asked with a cool who-the-hell-are-you-to-do-things-for-me? lift of her eyebrows.

“I'd be pretty thick if I didn't.”

“Then—”

“It's a courtesy, Allie. It's something that I do. If it makes you uncomfortable, I can stop.”

“It makes me uncomfortable.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like I owe you.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “This isn't tit for tat. No one's keeping score.”

“I am. I kept score for years and now it's a habit I'm having a hard time breaking.”

“What do you mean you kept score?”

She walked out of the barn and over to the fence, where she motioned for him to dump the grain into the trough. For a few seconds he thought she wasn't going to answer.

“With Kyle. I kept score with Kyle. I didn't start out doing that, but after several years of making excuses, I started to realize there wasn't an excuse. Not one I could live with anyway. I did all of the day-to-day stuff and he started things. If I didn't finish them, they didn't get done.” Her mouth flattened for a moment. “You know how I said I wasn't bitter? I lied. I'm totally bitter.”

His hands settled on her shoulders before he even realized he'd moved. He felt her muscles go tense, but he didn't take his hands away. “Recognizing it is the first step to letting go.” She pulled back ever so slightly and he let his hands drop away. It wasn't what he wanted to do. He wanted to pull her up against him and hold her. Try to soothe the tension out of her stiff body.

“Thank you, Yoda.”

“Anytime.”

She took the grain bucket from him and started back toward the barn. “I don't talk about Kyle with my sisters anymore. For a long time it was all I could talk about and, even though they're patient, I could see that it was hard for them to keep listening to my bitching.”

“You can't let this guy continue to control you.”

“He doesn't—” She broke off, then her mouth twisted a little at one corner. “Maybe he does.” She gave a small sigh, then looked out over the pasture. “I need to finish chores.” She held out the bucket. “Would you refill this while I throw hay to the cows?”

“You bet.”

* * *

A
LLIE
SAT
ON
the porch step and watched as the dust from Jason's truck settled. He was gone for the night and that feeling of lonely isolation once again settled over the ranch. But tonight she was glad he was gone.

Way to pour out your guts, Allie.

There was something about Jason that allowed her to pour her guts out and she couldn't figure out whether or not that was dangerous.

And if so, what was the danger?

All of her instincts said
keep your issues to yourself
and then she'd gone against instinct.

Probably because there was something steady about Jason, but despite that steadiness, she had a feeling that he was just as leery of strong feelings and commitments as she was. Or maybe it was just that he was fighting demons of his own, so that when the conversation turned to his issues, he became cagier.

Jason with issues. She'd always assumed his life was perfect, but apparently even golden boys had their difficulties... Although, despite her past prejudices, maybe she needed to stop thinking of him as a golden boy. Privilege had rendered him clueless in some regards, but he was also a good guy. Intuitive, empathetic, easy to talk to and he called her on her bullshit. Definitely not the person she'd judged him to be, but that said, she didn't need further complications in her life, such as those that might arise from being attracted to an ex-football player. Not when she wasn't fully recovered from her last failed relationship.

And not when she didn't know what she wanted to do with her life.

The thought was absolutely depressing and Allie pushed it aside as often as possible...but sometimes she couldn't. Like now.

Allie pulled off the top of a wilted bachelor button and played with the feathery blue flower, twisting it between her fingers as she watched the cows happily toss hay in the air as they looked for the good bits.

She enjoyed the library, but couldn't see working in a school for the rest of her life, and that was a scary thought considering how much time and money she'd put into training. She liked kids, but didn't feel comfortable taking command of them. She felt almost trapped at the school...but she hadn't minded working in the accounting office while she'd been supporting herself and her husband. She'd been glad for the income, glad to be around other people. So what was the deal here? She'd put all of this time into an education degree and she didn't feel any kind of excitement to go to work.

It'll be different when you're full-time and not just subbing
.

But what if it wasn't?

Then you'll suck it up and figure something else out.

What else could she do? Start over? Ha.

But she hated the feeling that she was spinning her wheels yet again and that she'd wasted time and money training for a career that didn't satisfy her. Allie tossed aside the flower and pushed herself to her feet. The interior of the house echoed as she walked inside and closed the door behind her. Lonely, lonely house.