COWBOY (Unfit Hero Book 5) Read online

  She rolls her eyes with a thanks, then makes her way over to the other women. “I kind of didn’t mention that I weighed ten pounds when I was born,” Louis whispers.

  “Fuck,” I groan. “You big bastard.”

  Louis lets out a bark of laughter, Rylan and Wyatt doing the same. “You know you look good with a baby, just sayin’,” Wyatt mutters.

  Shifting Brooks to my other arm, I turn my head to look at him. “Maybe I’ll just keep y’all’s munchkins. Seems like you keep makin’ ‘em and may have one or two to spare.”

  “Get your own,” Rylan snaps.

  We all laugh, I shake my head as Brooks starts to wiggle. “I’m gonna take her back to her mama unless you want her?” I ask Rylan.

  He shakes his head. “Can’t hold her when I’m mannin’ the grill. She gets way too fuckin’ curious.”

  Turning away from him, I head over to where the women are gathered. They are deep in discussion, their heads tipped together. Hutton has joined them and I wonder what the fuck they’re conspiring about now. It’s always something with them.

  They all stop talking as soon as I approach. “Okay,” I drawl. “This one’s gettin’ wiggly, Mama. Reese probably wants to get that pole baited and, in the water, too,” I say.

  “Ford?” a voice calls out.

  Turning my head, my heart stops beating in my chest at the sight in front of me.

  Stephanie LaRue.

  Chapter Four

  STEPHANIE

  Oh. My. God.

  Ford Matthews looks back at me, that same sweet little girl from HEB in his arms. Channing takes the baby from him and my eyes shift from him to her, then back to him again. God. They look gorgeous together.

  Of course, he would have a wife and a beautiful family. I knew he would, but seeing it, damn, it breaks my heart immediately.

  Ford frowns at me, crossing his arms over his chest as he looks down into my eyes. “What the fuck’re you doing here?” he barks.

  My shoulder jerks as though his words have physically assaulted me. Taking a step back, I grip the charcuterie board tighter so that I don’t drop it.

  “Here, let me grab that for you,” a very pretty petite pregnant woman says as she slips the board from my hands.

  I can’t even thank her, my eyes are glued to Ford’s. God, he’s more beautiful than he was seventeen years ago. Time and ranching have been good to Ford Matthews. His once thin, lean, muscled body has bulked. He’s grown too, at least three inches. His jaw is strong, his eyes so dark blue that they almost look black.

  “Um,” I hum, pressing my lips together. “Nothing. I’m just going to go,” I whisper as I turn around to leave.

  “You will not,” Channing snaps.

  Turning my head, looking over my shoulder, my gaze shifts to Channing and I swear my heart aches at the sight of her holding Ford’s baby.

  I didn’t know that it would hurt like this, seeing it with my own eyes is downright fucking painful. I have been avoiding this exact moment for years, and here I am, thrust into the middle of it all.

  “Ford, don’t be rude. I met Stephanie at the grocery store and invited her to hang out with us. She’s only in town for a while and she just didn’t look like she should be alone.”

  Ford grunts, taking a step back. “Fine, whatever.”

  I watch as he lifts his hand, waving it behind him as he turns around and heads toward the water. He walks past the little boy that was in Channing’s store cart, taking his hand, then picks up fishing poles and a tackle box before they walk toward the water’s edge.

  Oh. My. God.

  He’s taking his son fishing. It’s the most breathtaking sight I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what’s more precious, him holding the small toddler girl, or him fishing with the little boy. My eyes water at the sight, I can’t hold it in, not even if I tried.

  “Oh shit,” a voice hisses. “You’re Sterling LaRue, aren’t you?”

  “No, her name is Stephanie,” Channing says, sounding really confused.

  “Yeah, legally her name is Stephanie LaRue, but her stage name is Sterling,” the same voice says, clearing the air and telling my truth.

  “Most of us know her as Stevie,” another man’s voice says, a really fucking familiar man.

  Shifting my gaze to his, I turn my body around and my eyes widen at the sight of Beaumont Griffin and Wyatt Johnson. Then another man walks up behind them, and my breath hitches at the sight of Wyatt’s cousin, Rylan. He looks the same as he did almost twenty years ago, but also completely different. Almost every inch of his exposed limbs, including his neck, is covered in tattoos and they look phenomenal on him.

  “Hey guys,” I say, lifting my hand to give them a wave.

  “Fuck,” Wyatt rumbles.

  “That’s about the long and short of it,” Beaumont snaps.

  The women are looking at me with complete confusion, but Wyatt and Beaumont are straight-up glaring at me, then their expressions soften and they both shake their heads. Beau is the first to take a step toward me. He bends slightly and wraps his arms around me, bringing me in for a small hug.

  “Good to see you again, darlin’, especially without an entourage.” He chuckles.

  I could say the same about him. It seems as though he always has his bandmates near him, anytime I’ve been anywhere around. Beaumont’s band is hugely famous, he’s hugely famous.

  When he started to rise to the top, I couldn’t help but not only be in awe of him, but also a bit jealous. He did it without abandoning his roots the way that I did.

  There were so many times that I wanted to get in touch with him and ask how Ford was doing, but if I talked about him, talked about Gallup, then I knew that I would miss it. Ignoring my old life, that was the only way to cope. At least that’s what I thought, I’m not so sure now.

  “They’re all back in LA. I came to town to clear out my parents’ place before I put it on the market,” I whisper.

  He straightens, then I watch as he slides his arm over the shoulders of a beautiful girl, holding an equally handsome little baby. I remember reading about his wedding, then about the birth of the guitar legends first son.

  “He’s beautiful,” I mumble.

  “Thanks,” the woman says. “I’m Hutton, by the way.” She grins, extending her hand.

  “Sterling,” I mutter.

  Beau snorts. “You ain’t Sterling here. You’re Stevie.”

  “Am I?” I ask.

  Beau shrugs his shoulder. “Up to you, darlin’, but that’s who you’ll always be to us.”

  “You all don’t hate me for what I did?” I ask, shifting my gaze to Wyatt who has his arms crossed over his chest and is glaring at me.

  “Hate?” Wyatt asks. Nodding, I lick my lips before I roll them together. “It’s been a long time,” he says.

  “It has,” I breathe.

  “Disappointed, sad, and maybe a little confused, but nobody hates you, Stevie. Never did,” he says.

  Flicking my gaze from them to Ford’s back, I shake my head. “He does,” I whisper.

  Wyatt lets out a boom of laughter. I swing my head back to him, my eyes following as I watch him. He’s looking down at his feet, his shoulder’s shaking as he laughs.

  “Stevie, if there’s one thing Ford doesn’t feel for you, it’s hate.”

  “He seems pretty mad,” I exhale.

  Wyatt lifts his eyes to meet my own. “Shocked, he’s shocked. But he don’t hate you,” he mutters.

  “Okay, now that that’s done, can we maybe all go back to having a good time?” Channing asks.

  The men all chuckle, then slowly, one by one, they peel off and head over to the grill. I watch them go before I turn toward the group of women. So far, I know Channing and Hutton, but none of the others staring back at me.

  There’s a moment of silence as they watch me, sizing me up, then Channing smiles. “Okay, this is Stephanie, or Stevie, or Sterling, what do you prefer to be called?” she asks.

 
I think about her question, then I decide that the guys are going to call me whatever the hell they want, but I don’t feel like Stevie anymore, even if that’s what they call me.

  “Stephanie, please,” I say.

  “Stephanie it is,” she says with a nod.

  I’m then introduced to a petite pregnant woman named Tulip and a curvy woman holding a little girl named Exeter. I don’t know who is married to who, but they’re all absolutely gorgeous. There is one man standing amongst the others that I don’t know, although he looks familiar.

  “That’s my husband, Louis,” Tulip says, answering my unasked question.

  “Oh,” I say, my brows snapping together as I try to figure out how I know him.

  “He’s a boxer,” she offers.

  Shifting my gaze to hers, my eyes widen. “That’s Louis Kingston, isn’t it?”

  Tulip nods. “That’s him, in the flesh.”

  “Wow, I went to his last fight in Vegas, it was amazing.”

  Something unreadable crosses her face and a smile twitches on her lips. “It was really amazing. It was the first time I’d seen him fight.”

  The women and I spend a few hours chatting amongst ourselves, I keep waiting for Channing to show me just how much she hates me for leaving Ford at the altar, but she doesn’t. In fact, she’s the nicest of all the women.

  I just don’t understand it, if it were me and my husband’s ex-fiancée was standing in front of me, I’d hate her. I can’t deny that I feel a pang of jealousy when I look at her and her children with him, myself.

  FORD

  Fuck.

  Stevie is here, right here, and I can’t even bear to look at her. Reese and his love of fishing has saved me from being forced to be around the one woman I loved and lost. Inhaling a deep breath, I cast my line, then help Reese do the same.

  “You okay?” a familiar voice asks.

  I grunt, not ready to evaluate if I am, indeed, okay. “Big thing, seeing her again.”

  “Yeah,” I finally admit.

  Turning my head, I look up to Wyatt. He’s broken away from the group and is now standing at my side. I can’t really read the expression he wears because his beard is so fucking burly, you can’t see anything but his eyes, but I’ve known him my whole life and I know he’s concerned.

  “I don’t even know in what kind of fucked up law of karma this is happening, or why,” I mutter.

  Wyatt snorts. “No shit, right?”

  Neither of us says anything else right away. Inhaling a deep breath, I let it out with a long sigh as I flick my eyes between my bobber and Reese’s. The silence draws on longer than it should, but I don’t mind it, I’m used to the quiet.

  “She was as shocked to see you as you were her,” he finally says.

  “And? I haven’t laid eyes on her in ten years, but she hasn’t seen me in almost twenty.”

  Wyatt doesn’t say anything for another long moment. “She’s scared we all hate her for what happened. Worried you hate her.”

  “Hate is not what I feel for Stephanie, couldn’t if I tried.”

  “Maybe you should tell her that.”

  “Maybe,” I whisper. “But I won’t.”

  “Why?”

  Keeping my gaze ahead on the water, on the bobbers, I shrug a shoulder. “Why should I? Why should I make her feel better for walking away from me? For never telling me why she left me. For refusing to talk to me, not giving me closure? Why?”

  “Because, Ford. You ain’t a bitter asshole. You’re pissed, but don’t be ugly. She did what she did. You were both eighteen, you ain’t the same people anymore.”

  “Yeah? You and Sammie, all those years, you pissed off at her and her feeling guilty every minute of every fucking day. You have the right to lecture me?”

  I expect Wyatt to lash out, to argue with me, but he doesn’t. “Yeah, I don’t really have the right to lecture you, but at the end of the day, I truly forgave Sammie. We were young and made decisions that impacted our entire lives, Stevie did the same.”

  Pressing my lips together, I nod my head. “Yeah,” I mutter. “She did. Now, instead of living the life I always dreamed of and having a family, I have my dream career with a nightmare of a personal life. Every fucking day I’m in hell, Wyatt.”

  Holding my breath, I wait for him to walk away and I’m surprised when he doesn’t. “Lived that life too, Ford. For a long fucking time. That was my life, a living fucking hell.”

  Only then, does he turn and walk away from me. Reese asks me to help him reel in a big one, and that’s what I do the rest of the evening, effectively ignoring Stephanie’s presence. When it’s time for dinner, I leave without a word to anyone.

  I know that my friends will understand, but I can’t be around her. I can’t be anywhere near her, not like this. I didn’t think it was possible. Didn’t think that after this long I would feel anything when I looked at her.

  I’ve seen her in pictures, watched her movies, hell, I’ve fucked other women with her movies playing in the background. For a while, that’s the only way I could actually get off with another woman. Then, just yesterday, I saw the nude picture of her being fucked by her fiancé, her tits on full display and pierced.

  Fuck.

  I can’t be around her.

  I still want her.

  Every part of her.

  Chapter Five

  STEPHANIE

  Ford just walked away from his friends, because of me. I tried to leave, but they wouldn’t let me. They were all so nice, even Channing. Later in the evening, I found out why she didn’t despise me, because she’s married to Rylan, not Ford. When I told her what I’d thought, that I thought she was Ford’s wife, everyone laughed.

  Now, I’m lying in my hotel room bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering how I can make amends with Ford. He’s obviously still hurt by what I did and I can’t blame him, hell, I think about the way I walked away from him at least once a day, every day. I just don’t know how to make it right. I do want to at least try though.

  Maybe I need to tell him why I left, why I ran the way that I did. Maybe he wouldn’t fucking care. I let out a heavy sigh, turning to my side and reaching for my phone.

  It’s two hours earlier in California, I could call Grace to see how the rest of the day of pierced boob pictures went over, but I don’t want to talk about that or the PR nightmare that it’s most likely become.

  Instead, I decide to call Damion. He knows everything, and since I pay for him to be my friend, he has no choice but to listen to me talk about my pathetic life.

  “Hey girl, hey,” he says softly.

  “You’re busy,” I mutter.

  I hear him clear his throat. “I’m not actually. Are you okay, after all that media nightmare?”

  “I actually haven’t paid any attention. I don’t know what’s going on with that. I called about something else,” I groan.

  There’s a moment of silence and then I hear him squeal on the other end of the phone. “You ran into Cowboy?”

  I moan, pinching my eyes closed, wishing that I had never told him that I called Ford, Cowboy. “I did, and I thought that he was married with a family, but he isn’t. He’s single and he is still pissed off at me. He hates me,” I blurt out.

  “I highly doubt he hates you and even if he thinks that he does, I think that he still loves you, but doesn’t want to admit it.”

  I snort. “Doubtful. I do want to have peace between us though, I feel like we can’t move on until there’s that.”

  Damion lets out a chuckle. “Girlie, you have tried to move on. With douchebag after douchebag. You aren’t going to find anyone who is as good as your cowboy, at least that’s how you feel. Not a single man can measure up to him, because…”

  “Stop,” I moan.

  “Because you still love him.”

  Sitting up, I shake my head a few times as though he can see me. “I don’t, it’s been seventeen years.”

  Damion snorts. “Sterling, it could be
a hundred years and you still won’t be over him. He won’t be over you either, apparently. Maybe you should go and visit him, talk to him?”

  “Do you think he’d slam the door in my face? He wouldn’t even look at me tonight. He actually ditched all of his friends, didn’t even say goodbye.”

  “What’d they say?”

  Pressing my lips together, I roll them around as I think about what they said. Nothing. “They said absolutely nothing. They continued to just socialize as if nothing had happened, and they were really nice to me.”

  “Some of them you’ve known from back then too, right?”

  “Two of them were groomsmen,” I whisper.

  “If Ford hated you, they’d feel the same way, girl. He doesn’t hate you. I’m telling you. Get in your car, drive out to his ranch, and mount that cowboy.”

  “Oh my God.” I giggle.

  We spend the next few minutes laughing, then I let him get back to his evening and I go back to staring at the ceiling, wondering if Damion is right. Maybe Ford doesn’t hate me as much as I think that he does.

  Though I’m not sure how he couldn’t. I literally ran from him, on our wedding day, while everyone we knew watched and I refused to ever talk to him again. I wasn’t even mature enough to talk to him about how I was feeling.

  I would hate me.

  FORD

  Driving down the road and up to my place, I pause at the sight in front of my gate. After yesterday and the complete clusterfuck that it was, I didn’t plan on ever seeing her again, but here she is, in the flesh.

  Stephanie and her fancy black sedan are next to my gate. She’s standing at the side of her car, her ass leaning against the hood as she watches my truck approach. Today, I needed to breathe and pick up supplies for the fence in town.

  I chose to take my dad’s 1970 Ford F-250 4x4. I was feeling nostalgic, but right about now I’m regretting my choice.

  This truck was my daddy’s who handed it down to me.

  This truck is what I drove Stevie in on our first date, we lost our virginity to one another in the bed of this pickup truck. I took her to prom in it. Everything that happened in our lives, this truck was involved somehow.