Chapter 21
Maggie
For the first time in my life, I have a problem hard work and smarts won’t solve. I tap away on my laptop in my room at home in the lodge, only to backspace the entire thing into nonexistence.
Groaning, I slam my eyes shut.
Specifically, my problem entails a handsome-as-hell cowboy who’s not only taken me by surprise . . . he’s taken up permanent residence in my brain. Despite my best efforts to concentrate on the article in front of me, the only topic my grey matter is interested in is Hadley damn Jones.
I mean, there are worse problems to have.
But it’s a problem when I can’t concentrate long enough to finish a sentence, let alone an article.
And it’s due today.
In an hour, to be precise.
I snap my eyes open.
To a blank screen and the mocking cursor with its little rhythmic dance.
Writing was never my favorite part of being a photojournalist. That’s why I went the imagery route in the first place. Right now, my lackluster skill in this area is biting me in the ass.
Big time.
No matter how much I try, I can’t focus, and I can’t piece together an article about Kade Knox.
He gave me almost nothing to work with. What the hell was with the secrecy and limited answers?
Something tells me there is much more to Kade than he lets others see.
It has me intrigued, in a curious kind of way.
There must be a story behind all that arrogance.
Brady and Spencer are practically open books and always going out of their way to help me. Why couldn’t my first article be on one of them? Or better still, the man my mind is hung up on ever since he protected me from my worst fear and then hauled me to the front seat like I weighed nothing.
Stupid, swoon-worthy, damn dark-haired, brown-eyed man.
Not to mention the little slip up on the bunk. I don’t know what on earth came over me, but I was more than ready to be all over Hadley.
I drop my head into my hands with a groan.
This is not happening.
No rodeo men.
No cowboys. Period.
I won’t live the trauma my mother lived. I won’t be stuck in some backwater small town and give up on my dreams. I saw firsthand how Mom’s life fell apart. I still remember, even though I was little.
So, as handsome as Hadley is, and as much as I feel a connection and one hell of an attraction . . . No. Nothing serious.
If anything.
I’ve worked too hard and been through too much to toss away my career for a cowboy and his ranch. I steel myself against the unease the thought brings.
It’s for the best.
Have some fun, don’t get attached.
I can do that, right?
Pushing away from the desk on the office chair, the wheels scoot over the hardwoods and I spin round, rising to my feet.
Going through every speck of information Knox painstakingly doled out, I try to patch together an article the folks who follow the Pbr circuit, the sport, and its riders in general will enjoy.
Knox certainly didn’t make it easy.
I pace by the bed. I need an angle.
An unbiased but interesting angle. Piece of cake. I hang my head and walk up to the bed, shins connecting with the side as I belly flop onto it.
Fuck my life.
I catch the self-pity and force my mind back to the moment in the Humvee. The look on Cap’s face as he told me not to be sorry, to make a difference.
How the hell am I supposed to do that shooting rodeos?
I sigh into the covers.
A hard knock startles me, and I scramble off the bed. A throat clears.
A sound I know well after hours of driving together.
I cross the bedroom and open the door to find Hadley, hat in hand, smile scrawled over his handsome face.
“Hi!” I glance behind him, but Mom’s nowhere to be seen. “Who let you in?”
He chuckles. “Nice to see you too, Sunshine. And it was Brad. Nice guy.”
I smile. “Yeah, he is.”
He shifts on his feet, a hand running behind his neck. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure you’d want me up here, but Bra—”
“You know what? Why don’t we grab some coffee downstairs?”
“Yeah, sounds great.” He sounds relieved.
I can’t wipe the damn smile from my face. I pluck my button-down shirt from the hook by the en suite and throw it over my tank and fasten a couple buttons before walking from my room and closing the door. “Come on, I’d love you to meet Mom.”
I hedge my bets and take his hand, leading him down the stairs and through the restaurant.
Sure enough, we find her in the kitchen with Terrance, her back to us as she plates up.
Jill-of-all-trades, my mom. Stopping in the doorway to the oversized commercial kitchen that turns out the best food in three counties, I give Terrance a wave.
“Meredith, you have a visitor.” Terrance beams at me and says a quiet hello to Hadley.
Who waves and waits with his hat still in his hands.
Mom glances over her shoulder. Excitement explodes over her face when she notices the cowboy standing beside me.
“Oh!” She waves her hands around before delegating to one of the other kitchen staff. Wiping her hands on her apron, she tugs it over her head and dumps it in the linen cart as she rushes for us. “You must be Hadley.”
He smiles, warm and—
Shit.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says, extending a hand. He towers over my tiny mother. It’s the first time I’ve seen her beside a cowboy since . . .
A stone closes over my airways.
Mom shakes it and glances at me. “You two need something to eat?”
“Just coffee. We’ll grab a table,” I manage when I’ve recovered from whatever strangled me.
“Sure, take whichever one you like, it’s pretty quiet today.” Mom scrunches up her face, exuding happiness.
Hadley nods. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
All this ma’am talk is going to have me needing some air. Or maybe a cold shower.
Scanning the dining room, I spot an empty table by the big bay window. “Come on, before she invites you for a tour or makes you stay for supper.”
He chuckles but follows behind as I wind my way through the tables to the one I want. When we reach the table, Hadley leans around behind me, pulling out my chair.
“Seriously?” I give him a look.
“Yeah, this is my spot.” He makes to sit in it. When my mouth falls open, he spins me around until the back of my legs hit the chair. “Ma’am.”
Now I lose it. Sitting down, I’m laughing.
I don’t really know why.
I’m happy.
Nervous.
Overwhelmed.
Having him turn up here is—
“How’s your week been, Sunshine?” He bends down, sliding his hat under his chair.
I lean to the side and glance at it on the floor behind his boots. “It’s been okay . . .”
“Just okay? You need me to make it better?”
I narrow my eyes at him and fold my arms over my chest playfully. “And how are you planning on doing that?”
The happiest grin spreads over his face.
“How about you show me these mountains you love so much.”
“Don’t you have a ranch to work?”
“Yeah, but not for the rest of the day. Kayley and I were over at the cattle sale. She’s hauling till sundown, and she’s my ride home.”
“Oh, you have cattle in the sale. You didn’t want to ride with your sister?”
“Most months, yes. And ride with Kayley for eight hours? No, I can think of a much better way to spend the time.”
“Of course. Sorry, I forgot that’s your income.”
“Well, my lousy bull riding ain’t going to cover ranch expenses.”
“Does it help, though?”
“Yeah, now it does. Which I have you and Levi to thank for. Terminator, too, I guess.”
I lean forward and slide my hand under his. “You earned that spot, Hadley. With hard work, taking risks, and persistence.”
He swallows, his throat bobbing as he winds his fingers through mine. I smile up at him as one of the waitstaff appears at our table.
I retrieve my hand and order a pot of coffee and mugs.
“Sure thing, won’t be long.” She leaves with a glint in her eyes.
Oh, I’m sure the kitchen is buzzing with talk of my surprise visitor.
Some of these people I grew up with. By the way the waitstaff and some of the cooks have mysteriously found jobs to do out here in the dining room, I’d say they’re overinvested in whatever they think is happening between Hadley and me.
“You want to bring that camera of yours? Maybe you can teach me how to take your picture in the wild,” Hadley says.
“You want to shoot photos?”
“Maybe just ones of you.”
I chuckle. “Prepare to be bored to death.”
“You could never bore me, Maggie. I’d never tire of looking at you or listening to you. Or just being where you are.”
My throat is all of a sudden drier than a desert.
What was that, cowboy?
I open my mouth to respond, but my plummeting chest steals the air from my lungs as fast as it comes.
He dips his head, huffing a strangled sound. “I know I’m light-years ahead of where I’m probably supposed to be.” The words almost sound desperate.
The coffee arrives, and I pour the salvation into our mugs. Hadley sips his and I stare into mine like the world just imploded around me. We drink our coffee in silence, and I hate that I’ve made this awkward. We’ve never had this kind of angst.
Annoyed each other.
Had fun . . .
Been more intimate than I ever thought we would be, but not this.
This feels wrong.
The confusion and uncertainty between us. I hate it.
Hadley’s staring out at the mountains towering over us, his gaze set on the peaks as he drinks his coffee.
My mind runs a million miles an hour as I try to find the words that will bridge what he said to what I need to tell him.
That this is just casual for me.
That I’m never going to choose him over my career.
. . . I’m the world’s biggest asshole.
The coffee burns all the way down. So it should.
I swallow the last mouthful and close my eyes, hands still cradling the mug.
I roll my lips together, and my heart starts a frantic dance against my ribs as I try like hell to form the words.
Fragments of what I want to say fling through my mind, and I have no chance of catching them and stringing them into something coherent.
“It’s real pretty here,” Hadley finally says. The first words out of his mouth after his last ones make my gut sink. He may as well have started talking about the weather.
“Ha—”
“It’s okay, Maggie. Got carried away, I guess.”
No.
No . . .
“Hadley,” I rasp.
“Let’s disappear into those mountains of yours, hey?” He downs the last of his coffee. I do the same, and we make for the exit.
“Just let me grab my stuff.” I take the stairs two at a time up to my room and grab up my phone and am back down before Mom or Brad ambush us.
I swipe up my keys for my tiny little car, Buzzy, and take Hadley’s hand. “We’re out of here.”
Crossing the parking lot, I reach Buzzy and unlock her before holding the door open for Hadley.
He’s shaking his head.
“How is it your cars are getting smaller and smaller?”
“You’ll fit.”
He raises a brow.
With a chuckle under a somewhat heated gaze, his hat slides off into his hands as he folds himself into the passenger seat of Buzzy.
The car dips with his weight as I shut the door.
Turning the key over, she starts straight away.
We wind our way along the Trans-Canada Highway until we come to the turn off for my favorite hiking trail.
Hadley’s looking out the window and up as I turn into a parking spot and shut Buzzy down.
“Ready?”
Hadley’s brows fall. “We forgot your camera.”
I slide my phone from my back pocket. “This will do.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, then I can look at them when I’m not working, you know.”
His smile sends my heart racing, as he slides his hat on.
“Come on, I have so much to show you.”
“I can’t wait to see your world, Sunshine.”