Chapter Ten – Keep Up With A Cowgirl
Chapter Ten
Beckett
KEEP UP WITH A COWGIRL
Performed by David Adam Brynes
FOUR YEARS AGO
HER: Thanks again for coming to my graduation and taking me to dinner. Having Kurt show up was a surprise. Make sure to thank him again for me.
HIM: You already thanked him so many times he’s still blushing.
HIM: I couldn’t be prouder of my Maisey-girl. Fallon and I are both proud of you. What was your dad’s excuse for not showing up?
HER: Rig broke down in New Mexico.
HIM: And Chelsea?
HER: She had an audition in LA.
HIM: When she graduated, it was the middle of your finals, and you still drove six hours to attend, but she couldn’t be bothered to show up for you?
HER: Don’t. I had a good day. I had the most important people with me. It’s your turn next.
HIM: I’m not walking. I just need the paper stating I got my master’s so I can move on to the next task on my list.
HER: Celebrating your achievements is important.
HIM: When I get my captain’s bugles, we’ll celebrate. I’ll let you get me drunk and take advantage of me.
HER: *** eyeroll and puke emojiis ***
HIM: Darlin’, I think something’s wrong with the emojis on your phone. I think you meant to send *** drooling face, jalapeno, and fire emojis ***
PRESENT DAY
I was wrestling with Vader, who kept sticking his nose into the kitten’s crate, making feeding her impossible, when Tejas’s deep, flirty “Hey, Maisey” had me whipping around.
Maisey barely had time to say hello back before Vader abandoned me to go crashing into her. She laughed, the sound filling the air and loosening the knot that had been lodged in my chest since I’d left her at the hospital the night before.
“Well, hello to you too, boy,” she said, brushing her hand over Vader’s head.
I swore my dog quivered at her touch. Lucky bastard.
When her eyes lifted to mine, the beautiful picture she made ripped the air from my chest. Her hair fell in soft, tumbling waves over her shoulders, and all I could think about was how it had felt curled around my finger yesterday—soft and silky—filling me with visions of fisting it as we came apart together.
Today, it wasn’t only her hair but another damn summer dress that did its best to wreck me. Blue and white with buttons tracing a line between her breasts, it taunted me to slowly undo each one. Or better yet, tear them open and feast on her until I sated this new, unrelenting, and reckless hunger.
The yearning I had for her these days felt so wrong. But how could I escape it when she looked like summer skies and weekend delights all rolled into a single, sweet package?
Maisey wasn’t just beautiful. She was a gift to us mere mortals.
A gift I could only sully.
I shoved the cat crate into Tejas’s hands and strode over to her.
“Hey, darlin’. I wasn’t expecting you.”
A flicker crossed her face, something that felt like worry, maybe even a hint of fear, but it all disappeared behind a soft smile.
It was the same one Maisey had given me from the moment I’d met her as a little girl.
Full of affection and friendship. Although it made my body respond in ways I had to shut down, I still savored being on the receiving end of it.
“I just wanted to give you an update on…what we talked about yesterday,” she said, eyes darting around to the rest of my crew lounging on the couches in front of the oversized television.
“Sure,” I said casually, waving toward the hallway.
I let her go in front of me, ignoring the whispers I heard coming from behind me.
My focus was drawn to her hips and the way her short dress swayed around her bare thighs. Muscled thighs that would lock on to a man’s waist and hold tight while—
I jerked my thoughts back to safer ground as I shut my office door behind us. Maisey turned toward me, twirling her keys on a long finger, and I realized she was nervous. Was it because she was going to accept my offer or because she was turning it down? My gut knotted.
“Are you sure you really want to do this?” she asked.
“Yes,” I didn’t even hesitate.
She inhaled, putting a hand to her chest as if trying to calm the racing of her heart.
“Okay, I’ll do it. Dad and I will move in with you—temporarily—and we can say we’re engaged, but I won’t go as far as to actually marry you.
I draw the line there.” She watched me carefully, shoulders tensing as if expecting me to push back.
I couldn’t think about what would happen if Nattingly and the city council said we needed to actually be married before they gave me the job.
We’d have to cross that bridge if and when we got to it.
For now, this was enough. The pressure I’d been carrying around since talking to her yesterday—really, since hearing the chief on the phone—loosened even more.
“Thank you, Maise,” I said softly.
She looked away, twirling the keys some more.
“I just wanted to be sure before I talked to Randy about getting out of the lease on my studio. Then, I can tell the bank I’ll be paying Dad’s mortgage from here on out.
I can use my savings to try to catch up on the amount that’s due now.
The hospital isn’t going to release Dad until Thursday or Friday, but I want to have everything in order before then.
” She was rambling—another sign she was still a bundle of nerves.
I closed the distance, pulled her hand into mine, and she looked up at me with beautiful eyes that still held uncertainty in their depths.
“Stop,” I told her.
“Stop what?” she asked, breath as choppy as it had been yesterday when I’d twirled her hair in my fingers.
“This is me, my Maisey-girl. Just me. Just two friends sharing a house and helping each other out. So what if the town puts a label on it? You and me”—I waved my hand between us—“know the real deal.”
She swallowed hard and looked down before pulling her hand from mine.
“That’s one.”
I frowned at her in confusion.
“Hands to yourself, Fireball. That’s what you promised. You owe me a romance book.”
A laugh burst from deep inside. “Fine, but for the record, I want it known you finally accepted a bet.”
It was her turn to frown. “Did not. You told me it was a promise.”
“We can call it that,” I said, leaning in closer, and she tried to back away but got caught by my desk. My lips coasted close to the shell of her ear as I said, “But we both know the truth.”
I had the perverse pleasure of seeing her eyes flare before I stepped back so I wouldn’t break my promise a second time.
She cleared her throat, shifted around me, and headed for the door.
“I’ll let you know when we’ll be moving in. We’ll try not to get in your way too much.”
“Neither of you will be in my way. My house is your house.” I meant it from the bottom of my heart.
I wanted Maisey and her things there. I wanted the house to feel like it was full of family again.
Since moving Dad and his belongings out to the ranch, the house had felt decidedly empty.
“If you can wait until Thursday, when my shift is over, I can help with the heavy lifting. But feel free to move whatever you want while I’m at the station. ”
I grabbed a ring from the hook by the door, pulled off my house key, and handed it to her.
Her throat bobbed as she took it. “How will you get in?”
“You can bring me the spare from the utility drawer in the kitchen.”
She didn’t say anything else but slipped out the door and headed down the hall. Vader was waiting for her with the kitten in his mouth again. He pranced over to her, showing the thing off and preening like a damn parent.
“What’s this?” she laughed.
“Vader, the cat-savior-of-the-world, found another stray,” I said with a sigh.
Maisey bent over to pet both animals. “Aw. What a sweetie.”
Vader thumped his tail and pushed the kitten into her hands. Maisey took the little thing, brought it to her face, and rubbed her nose in the fur, and damned if I wasn’t jealous of the cat now.
She turned to me, her expression opening in surprise. “Are you keeping this one?”
“No.”
“Maybe if you keep one, Vader will stop bringing you more. Maybe he just wants a friend. Someone to care for,” she said softly, and her words hit home in ways I couldn’t quite describe.
My crew had moved from the couches to the table with lunch in front of them and were being unusually quiet, absorbing every word.
Tejas made a choked noise at Maisey’s idea, and Kasey didn’t even bother to hide her laugh.
The probie looked confused as normal, but it was Captain Mike Stone, standing at the head of the table, who actually responded.
“Yeah, Romeo. Maybe you should keep this one.”
Stoney wore an SRFD baseball hat turned backward and had a Metallica T-shirt stretched across his chest. The outfit's youthfulness was at odds with his brown hair, which was turning gray at the sides.
“Stoney,” I said with a chin nod in his direction. “What dragged you in today?”
He wasn’t due for another three days, but there was a grimness to him, regardless of the tease he’d just dropped, that made me think he’d come to discuss the rumors about the fire chief position.
While I could change my marital status, Stoney had no way to fix his lack of education in time to get the job. It had to be eating at him.
He could argue his experience surpassed my degrees and certificates, and it did.
But he’d also made a few enemies on the city council last year, fighting the change to the ordinance on livestock within the city boundaries.
It would be a toss-up which way the politicians would vote when it came down to him or me.
“I wanted to talk to you about the schedule,” Stoney said, which we both knew was a lie.
Maisey bent over to put the kitten into the crate, and her dress rose in the back, teasing the curve of her ass and making my body go rigid.
When I saw both Tejas and Leon shift to get a better look, I grabbed her by the waist and hauled her toward the exit.
“I’m going to walk Maisey out. I’ll be right back. ”