One Good Cowboy(29)
Author: Catherine Mann

Ginger’s youngest son had married a princess, no less. Stone looked out at the beach where Ruby splashed in the waves with another dog and a trio of preteens. “So far so good, I would say.”

Ginger nodded, patting the cairn terrier in Johanna’s lap. “I just wish we could take that precious Pearl, too. She’s like a little Toto from The Wizard of Oz. The grandkids would love her and it would be wonderful to keep them together. But we know our limits.”

Johanna set her glass of sweet tea back on the table. “We’re going to be sure Pearl is well taken care of. Just knowing that Sterling is happy is a load off all our minds, especially for Mrs. McNair.” She glanced sympathetically at Stone before looking back at Ginger. “Thank you.”

The family matriarch twisted a diamond earring in a nervous fidget, genuine concern in her eyes. “I’m terribly sorry about Mariah…. There are no words at a time like this.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Stone nodded tightly, emotion squeezing his chest in a tight fist. “You’re offering exactly the kind of help my grandmother needs. Right, Johanna?”

He glanced at her, finding her gaze locked on a mother, father and toddler splashing through the surf together. The look of longing in her eyes slashed straight through him.

Johanna stood up quickly. “We brought a little gift, as a thank-you from Diamonds in the Rough. I’ll just get it out of the car.”

As he watched her race away he realized how their night together had messed with both of them. Last night had been different from their other times together, and his emotions were in revolt. He was starting to accept it wasn’t totally because of his grandmother. His confusion had more to do with Johanna than he’d realized.

Strange how they’d swapped roles here, but he appreciated her interjecting. Talk of his grandmother and seeing this picture-perfect family echoed what he’d already begun to accept. Johanna was right to want this for herself. She shouldn’t compromise for him.

* * *

On the plane headed for Montana for Pearl’s meeting, Johanna struggled to figure out the shift in Stone this afternoon. She thought they’d reached a truce whereby they would indulge in no-strings sex for the week and deal with the fallout later. Yet, something had already changed for him.

And she had to confess, she didn’t feel carefree about things, either. Watching the huge Landis-Renshaw family hurt. She couldn’t lie about that.

The plane powered through the bumpy night sky and even though she knew where they were going literally, figuratively, she was now totally adrift.

She studied Stone sitting on the sofa with a sketch pad, his forearm flexing as he drew. Pearl slept on a cushion beside him, her head resting on his thigh. He was so damn enticing, he took her breath away.

“What happens now?” Johanna asked.

He glanced up. “Well, in about two more hours, we should land in—”

“That’s not what I meant.” Her hand fell to Ruby’s head as the Rottweiler slept at her feet. Johanna would kennel them for landing or if the turbulence worsened, but for now she wanted to make the most out of the remaining time with the dogs before they went to their new homes. “Why are you avoiding talking to me? I really don’t want to think that now that you’ve gotten lucky we’re through.”

His eyebrows shot upward. “You have a mighty jaded view of mankind.”

“You haven’t said anything to change my mind tonight,” she pushed.

Eyes narrowed, he set aside his sketch pad and rolled his broad shoulders to stretch out a kink. “Who gave you such a bad impression of men, and why didn’t I pick up on this when we were together before?”

“Maybe because I always gave you the answers you wanted to hear.” She was realizing she had to accept some responsibility for their breakup and quit blaming him for everything.

“And I accepted them rather than pressing,” he conceded, bracing his feet through another brief patch of turbulence.

“There’s no great mystery to be solved.” She shrugged. The muted cabin lights, with only a reading lamp over Stone, cast intriguing shadows along his rugged face. “My parents were great. My father was a good man. But for some reason, the men I chose to date always let me down. One wanted me to give up vet tech school to follow him right away, no waiting—”

“That was Dylan—”

“Yeah,” she said, surprised that Stone remembered. He’d been intensely into making his mark at the company, so much so she’d decided she needed to get over her crush. She’d been living in an efficiency apartment, training to be a vet tech. It had seemed time to move forward with her life. “He couldn’t even wait six more months for me to finish.”

“Then he didn’t deserve you.”

“Damn right.” She knew that now, and even then she’d felt a hint of relief since she didn’t ever want to leave Fort Worth. “And the next guy I dated when I moved back to the ranch after school—”

“Langdon.”

“You have a good memory.” A part of her had wanted him to notice she’d grown up, had wanted him to see her as a woman rather than the pigtailed kid trailing around in the stables. Hindsight, that had been incredibly unfair to Langdon.

“When it comes to you? Yes, I have a very good memory.”

“Langdon was the jealous type.” And there had been reason for him to be jealous, but that still didn’t excuse him going borderline stalker about it. “No need to say more.”

“I disagree,” he said darkly.

“Don’t get caveman on me. You don’t need to hunt him down. He didn’t hurt me.” She stared out into the murky sky for a moment before continuing, “But a look in his eyes made me uncomfortable. I could go on about the other guys in my life, but I just kept picking losers.”

“Ouch,” he snapped back with a laugh, scrubbing a hand along his five o’clock shadow. “That stings since I’m on that list of exes.”

“One of my exes accused me of entering relationships destined to fail because I was secretly pining for you.” The words fell out before she could recall them, but then, what did she have to lose at this point?

“Was that true?”

“You know I always had a crush on you.” The crush had been so much easier than this.

“Crushing and loving are very different.”

Her stomach lurched and it had nothing to do with the bump, bump of the plane over another air pocket. “I did love you when we got engaged.”