Page 11 of Ride Me Cowboy

I put my hands on my hips and just stand there, taking it in. There’s just one word that keeps running through my mind, as the water courses over these rocks: rugged.

Rugged like the mesas. Rugged like the fields and plains, the undulations, the trees. Rugged like the men out here. Rugged like Cole Donovan.

My heart beats a little too hard so I shift one hand from my hip to my chest, pressing it between my breasts as if I can forciblystill the frantic tattoo. It doesn’t work, but I ignore it. Or rather, I decide to make it beat for another reason.

I’m wearing jeans, hardly your usual running gear, but I start to move my feet anyway, back over the gravel at first, and skirting round the edge of the house, until I reach the front where my rental car’s neatly parked. I give it a passing glance but keep on running, down the long drive that brought me up here, taking note of things I was too anxious to properly appreciate first time around.

The thick ancient forest to my left, the wildflowers that cover the ground in spots of pink, purple, yellow, red, some spiky, some soft, some round. There’s a soft humming too, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s a whole swarm of bees, feasting on the flowers and collecting their pollen, in the same way I was eating them up with my eyes.

“Morning, ladies,” I grin, remembering learning, somewhere along the way, that all worker bees are female. They don’t reply, but it’s far too glorious a morning to be offended. I crest over the ridge of the drive and my body starts to realize I haven’t gone running in a really long time—Christopher had our treadmill removed about eighteen months ago, just because he knew how much I loved it. Running is something I always did. As a kid, for fun. In high school, I was on the track team. He loved taking that away from me.

Now, I’m running just because I can, because I’m free, but every step hurts. I’m wearing the wrong clothes, the wrong shoes, and I feel it, but I don’t stop, because it’s a luxury. A privilege and delight I’ve been denied, and I’m intent on making the most of being able to do this again.

I run all the way to the wide, white gates of the ranch, with the metal sign hanging overhead that proudly proclaims the name of the property: The Donovan’s Coyote Creek Ranch. I touch one of the fence posts then turn around, breath bursting from my lungs, so I start to walk, hands on hips, back toward the house.

It's further than I realized when I was driving, and when I was running with my back to it. The sun’s crept a little higher in the sky now, grown a little brighter, so I squint as I make my way up the gentle slope of the drive.

I hear him before I see him. The steady clip clopping of hooves—though I don’t immediately recognize the sound—and then the swoosh swoosh of a tail. I glance around to see Cole Donovan astride a huge black beast of a horse. He’s wearing those same faded jeans, cowboy boots, a button down shirt with a bandana around his throat, and a wide brimmed hat. At his hip, he’s got a knife, buried in a leather scabbard. The sight of it makes my throat thicken with something like fear, but I quash it. Cole isn’t Christopher. I’m safe here. I’m safe.

“Mornin’,” he greets, tipping his hat. I realize we haven’t seen each other since the night I made mac and cheese. By design, on my part.

I half expect him to keep riding, but he swings one powerful leg over the horse and hops down with an easy athleticism that takes my breath away, grabbing the horse by the reins and walking the rest of the distance toward me. His eyes roam my face with the same interest I’d been showing the flower covered fields a little while earlier.

“How you doing, Beth?”

Damn it. I really, really wish I didn’t like the way he says my name so much. It’s just a name. My name, that I must have heard said a million times in my twenty-five years, but from Cole, there’s like a deep swoop on the vowel, so it seems full of something…Promise. Concern. Interest.

“Fine,” I say, my own tone clipped. We begin to walk toward the house, him leading the horse, whose tail continues to swish.

“You getting on okay with the accounts?”

“So far, so good,” I say. “It’s all pretty straight forward.”

He nods, but a sixth sense (which I’ve had to hone to needle fine over the last few years) tells me he’s about to say something important. Or he’s holding it back. I wait, curious.

“You don’t have any questions for me?”

Is that all?

I shake my head. “I’ll let you know if I do.”

“Sure.”

My eyes move from his profile to the horse, studying the short hair on the animal’s nose to the deep, dark eyes and long lashes.

“He reminds me of this George Stubbs painting I’ve always loved,” I say. I reach out before I realize what I’m doing, then quickly withdraw my hand.

Not quickly enough, though.

Cole stops walking, pulls the reins in tighter. “You want to pet him?”

I glance at Cole, apprehensive suddenly. “Can I?”

A corner of his lip shifts in a half-smile. “Sure you can.” I lift my hand tentatively toward the horse, but he backs away from me, and I jump too, my heart racing.

“Don’t be scared,” Cole says, voice low, like he’s talking to both the horse and to me. “This here’s Rowdy.”

“Rowdy?” I glance at Cole, wondering if the name is any indication of the horse’s personality.

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