COWBOY (Unfit Hero Book 5) Read online

I grunt, dropping the shovel as I wrap one arm around her waist and haul her small body against my chest, at the same time, I slam my mouth against hers. Sliding my tongue between her lips, I taste all of her in one languid stroke.

  She whimpers, I swallow the sound at the same time her entire body trembles in my arm. Lifting my other hand, I wrap my fist around her ponytail, twice, tilting her head to the side, positioning her exactly the way that I want her.

  My lips travel down her neck, sucking on her soft skin until I reach the collar of her top. “Ford,” she moans softly when I tug her head back a little farther.

  Lifting my head, I grin up at her as she watches me through lowered lids. “Been dreamin’ of this for seventeen years, honey,” I rasp.

  “Please,” she softly begs.

  Fuck. I want this. Want her so bad I can almost taste her. Something ugly slides through me at the thought of taking her right here in the horse barn. Releasing her, I take a step back as she steadies herself.

  Balling my hands into fists, I place them on my hips as I take a few calming breaths and look down at my boots. I can practically hear her question as she watches me. Lifting my eyes, I look over at her, my breath heaving as I attempt to calm down at the same time, try to calm my raging hard cock, too.

  “That was a mistake,” she whispers.

  Hearing her say those words score me. They goddam hurt, even if they’re right. That was a mistake. It would be a bigger mistake if it would have continued. I can’t go back there, not ever.

  She takes a step toward me, her eyes wide and glassy. “I’m sorry, Ford, I just…”

  “Yeah,” I mumble. “I get it. Hop back in the truck, I’ll take you back to your car.”

  She doesn’t argue with me, doesn’t try to stay, instead she turns around and does exactly what I told her to. I climb in after her, my cock still painfully hard as I drive her toward the exit gate of my property.

  I don’t get out of the truck or help her, instead, I sit there and just watch her as she walks from my truck to her car. I do nothing but watch as she slips into the driver’s seat, starts her engine, and drives away.

  She fucking drives away from me and I do nothing but watch. When her car is out of sight, I get out and lock the gate before I turn my truck around and head back to my house.

  I have a fence to mend today, or at least get started mending.

  I have a woman I need to try to forget about too.

  Though, since it’s been almost two decades and I think about her at least once every day, I don’t think that’s going to be happening anytime soon. Deep down, I still love her, and I always fucking will.

  Chapter Seven

  STEPHANIE

  My hands shake as I drive back to town. I don’t go to the hotel or to the diner, instead, I drive straight toward my childhood home. I don’t know why, but I need to be here. Instead of parking across the street like I did the other day, I pull into the driveway.

  I don’t know what I’m going to find here, aside from scorpions and possibly snakes. But after that intense encounter with Ford, I feel the need to be here for whatever reason.

  Taking the key out of my purse, I unfold from the car and slowly make my way up to the front door. I’m surprised that the grass in the yard isn’t waist high. It’s actually maintained at a decent level.

  Sliding the key into the lock, I suck in a deep breath as I turn the handle and make my way inside. Flipping the light on, I’m also surprised that it works. Apparently, my dad has been paying the electric bill all these years.

  I blink, surprised at the sight in front of me. It’s not a dusty, scary mess. In fact, it looks clean, as if someone has been coming to clean it and often. It also looks as though it’s been frozen in time. It looks the exact same way that it did the day that I left seventeen years ago.

  Taking another step inside, a shiver rolls through me, there are even photographs on the walls. When I moved my father out to Los Angeles, after my mother died, I never paid attention to what he did or didn’t bring with him.

  In fact, I didn’t really pay attention too much to what my dad did, or didn’t do. I was too busy with my life, with my career, and my men. I only saw my dad on holidays, sometimes I’d make time for him if I had a long break between shooting, but generally, I just didn’t have the time.

  I always promised myself when I was able, I was going to carve out a big chunk of time and we’d go on a trip together or something. Then he died.

  My eyes travel the space, then I find the hall. My bedroom is the first door to the right, a bathroom is across the hall from my bedroom, and then my parents’ room is the second door on the left.

  Slowly, I make my way toward my bedroom. I don’t know what I’m going to find in there. I do know that it will be haunted with the memories of the past, of Ford. Because at the end of the day, Ford is Gallup, he is this house. There is no getting away from him, not here. Not ever.

  Wrapping my fingers around the doorknob, I twist, then push it open. Standing at the entrance, I wait for some kind of vortex to suck me in. When it doesn’t, I force myself to take one step slowly, then another.

  My eyes land on my old bed, immediately, tears fill them and fall down my cheeks. I don’t even try to hold them back, because my mother, my fucking mother. She didn’t touch a single thing in here. Not even my wedding dress that is, seventeen years later, still neatly laying across my made bed.

  Running toward the dress, I fall down at the bottom, gripping the hem of the fabric in my hands, I cry. I full-on cry, pinching my eyes close tightly, I allow the images of that day, images of me, in this dress, to flash in my mind.

  Then, I do something that I hardly ever do, I allow myself to think about the look on Ford’s face when he saw me at the end of the aisle on my daddy’s arm. He was in awe. He looked as though he couldn’t believe that I was going to be his forever, like he couldn’t wait.

  What did I do? I turned around and ran as fast as I could from him.

  He’s not married, doesn’t have any children, and it’s because of me. I broke something inside of him the day that I left, and if I’m truly honest with myself, I broke that same piece of something inside of me as well.

  I’m a fucking bitch. That’s what I am—I am a fucking bitch.

  I don’t know how long I stay on the floor crying, minutes, hours, I’m unsure, but my ass falls asleep. The house that I’d imagined finding, dusty, and scorpion riddled isn’t what I find at all. Instead, it’s a shrine to the past.

  Perfectly preserved, in every way, the life that we, as a family, had before I ran off to California. Before I broke Ford’s heart and my own. Before I became a movie star, before I abandoned everything and everyone that I once held dear, and I did.

  I haven’t even talked to the two girls who were my best friends since I left, either. I don’t even know where they are, I’ve never even tried to find out. I just fucking left. I abandoned my entire family.

  No longer did I look forward to the holidays like I once did. Christmas was just a day where I didn’t work, one where I wrote checks for bonuses to my staff. A season of extra parties to be seen, to mingle and network under the guise of socializing.

  That’s what the holidays have become to me, and I hate it. Now, my father is gone and I regret all those years I stayed away or begrudgingly went to visit him for only an hour or two. I can’t get any of that time back, they’re both gone and I’m completely alone.

  Standing, I shake off the tingly feeling in my ass cheek and thigh as I decide to brave the rest of my room. I have a feeling that I know what I’ll find if I look around. Memories of my teenage years, of Ford. Walking over to my small bulletin board, I snort at what stares back at me.

  Actual printed photographs of high school. Dance pictures, homecomings, but looking harder, I see what truly stares back at me.

  My life in pictures.

  There’s a shot of me on the front of Ford’s horse, Ford with his arm around my waist, both of us
smiling. Me and Ford sitting on the tailgate of that same truck I rode in today with him, both of us with a red Solo cup in our hands, both of us in tank tops and shorts, grinning because we were most likely drunk.

  Reaching for one picture, my breath is stolen. Ford is leaning his ass against the truck. He’s in tight-fitting Wrangler jeans, boots, a tight white t-shirt, and a baseball hat. He’s tan, really tan, so I assume it’s toward the end of summer.

  I’m standing right in front of one of his thighs, leaning back against him. One of his arms is wrapped around my chest from behind, the other is around my waist, holding me tight against his front.

  My hair is long and down, my face bare of makeup, but tanned just like Ford’s. I’m wearing a pair of short cut-off shorts, a bikini top, flip-flops, and a smile. We look so young, both of us smiling widely, both of us happy to be right where we are and nowhere else.

  There’s a knock on the wall behind me and I scream, turning around, coming face-to-face with Wyatt and Rylan. I blink, my lips parting as I stare at the men who are standing in my parents’ house.

  “Knew were the hide-a-key was, saw your car in the drive. Dropping Rylan off at home, it’s getting late, wanted to make sure you were okay,” Wyatt says.

  “How’d you know where the hide-a-key was?” I ask.

  Wyatt smirks, shaking his head once. “Bought the house down the street. Before your dad left, he asked me to keep an eye on the place. He’d call me every now and again to check on shit,” he informs me.

  “They kept it like a shrine,” I whisper.

  Neither of them speaks right away, their gazes roaming over my face from the bedroom doorway.

  “It was your mom, she’d always say you’d come home and want your things when you did,” Wyatt says with a shrug.

  Shaking my head, I pinch my eyes closed when they fill up with tears, again. Inhaling deeply through my nose, I try to take a few calming breaths before I open my eyes again and look at the two rough men standing across from me.

  “Did you talk to them often?” I ask, needing to know.

  I’m not sure why I need to know, but I just do. It’s not as though my guilt will disappear, it will most likely only grow, but I just can’t not know. Wyatt lifts his hand, running his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends slightly.

  His gaze finds mine and he smiles, though it’s hard to tell beneath the beard, but I can see it in his eyes.

  “I would stop by and visit if they were on the front porch, or if your mama was in her flower garden. She’d always have some fresh-brewed sweet tea for me. When she passed and your dad left, he asked me to keep an eye on the place. Wish I woulda had more time to keep up the place, but seems the girl he hired to clean has done a good job on the inside. No dust or anything.”

  Pressing my lips together, I roll them as I think about what I want to say or ask next. I’m not sure. I have a million questions that I could ask Wyatt about my family, about Ford, but it all seems too late.

  “Learned a while ago, Stevie. You can’t go back. What’s done is done. But you don’t know what can be until you stop living in the past. Wasted fifteen years living back in high school, repeating it every fucking day and making myself miserable. You gotta move on, darlin’. It ain’t healthy to stay back there, you can’t change a damn thing.”

  Snapping my brows together, I think about his words. He’s not wrong, not at all. He’s absolutely right, but why does the thought of leaving the past, in the past, terrify me? It shouldn’t. I should be happy to move on, in fact, I thought that I had.

  “I tried to apologize, I messed it all up. Probably made it worse,” I whisper, speaking more to myself than to Wyatt and Rylan.

  Rylan clears his throat and I lift my eyes to meet his. “I didn’t know you well in school, but I have to say that Wyatt’s right. I spent a lot of years feeling like I was destined to be something, and then I spent five years in prison.

  “I came out ready for a change and it wasn’t easy, but I did it. If you want something to change, Stephanie, you have to make it happen. Look at all of us. None of us had it easy, not Wyatt, not Beaumont, none of us.

  “Sometimes the journey to get to where you want to be is fucking rough, but you won’t regret it, not a single fucking second of it. Staying in limbo, missing out on what could be, that’s something to regret.” Rylan turns and walks away without saying another word.

  “He’s going to go home to his wife, his kids. Something he never thought that he would have. I’m going home to my wife and daughter too. What about you, Stevie?” Wyatt asks.

  “I’m staying in a hotel,” I say quietly.

  I know what he’s asking, but admitting it aloud feels really fucking pathetic. Wyatt arches a brow, waiting for me to say the pathetic words aloud, forcing them out of me. Looking down at the ground, I slowly lift my gaze up to meet his.

  “My fiancé was an asshole, and I didn’t love him when he asked me, or when I accepted his proposal. He cheated on me, constantly. I haven’t been in love since Ford. When I leave here, I’ll go home to my house in Malibu, my empty house in Malibu, and I’ll be completely alone, as always.”

  Wyatt takes a step backward, his eyes scanning mine. He shakes his head once. “You know, you don’t have to go back to Malibu and you don’t have to be alone. The women officially love you, they’d love to have another female in their pack.”

  “How would Ford feel about that? Not happy, I’m sure.”

  Wyatt snorts. “Don’t mistake his emotions, Stevie. If he didn’t give a fuck about you, you’d feel that.”

  “Oh, I feel his emotions alright. His hate is fucking strong,” I snap.

  Wyatt’s eyes widen as he lets out a chuckle. “Whatever you have to tell yourself. But, just remember that line between love and hate is hairline thin. Plus, known the man my whole life, he couldn’t hate you if he tried. He feels hurt, betrayed, and confused, but hate? Never.”

  Just like his cousin, he turns and walks away from me abruptly and without another word, leaving me with only my thoughts. I don’t know what to think. What to do. Looking down, I realize that I’m still holding the picture of me and Ford in my fingers.

  Lifting the photograph, I take another look at it. I really look at our faces, not just the surface, but I look deeply. Yes, I look happy. But I also look like I want more, and I did then, I was so hungry to see my name in lights. Ford though, he looks completely content.

  Wyatt and Rylan are right. I can’t live in the past, and neither should Ford. I don’t know what I need to do to move past this thing between us, this hurt and pain, but I need to try. Licking my lips, I decide that I’m going to try starting tomorrow.

  Lifting my fingers to my mouth, I can still feel his lips on mine, the way he kissed me, it was better than I ever remembered. Ford kissed me like he was a man dying of thirst and I was the only thing that could quench that need.

  I’m not sure what the future holds for us, if there even could be one, but I do know that neither of us is living a happy life this way. We’re both completely stuck in limbo, just like Wyatt suggested.

  I don’t want to be in limbo anymore. I don’t want to watch the rest of the world living their lives around me from my fancy-assed empty house. I don’t need to be surrounded by hundreds of people, all I need are a few real ones and I’m not sure I’ve been around anyone real since leaving Gallup.

  Nodding, I turn back to my wedding dress. Taking my time, I neatly fold it, placing it in the middle of the bed. I’ll never wear it again. It was made for a different person. I’m no longer the girl who put this on, then ripped it off in a panic and ran. That doesn’t mean that I despise the dress or the girl who once wore it.

  Once it’s folded, I place the picture of me and Ford down in the center of the dress then turn toward the closet. I know without a doubt that this closet will hold all of the demons of the past.

  There are at least three shoeboxes of keepsakes in here, and another full shoebox of letters
that Ford and I would pass in the halls between classes. I can’t read those, my heart wouldn’t be able to handle it.

  Sliding the closet door open, I let out a giggle at the sight that greets me. My clothes, all of them, including prom dresses, my graduation cap and gown, everything down to my old worn out flip-flops are exactly where I left them.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon going through my bedroom, taking the time to separate everything into keep, donate, and trash piles. I don’t open the keepsake boxes, but I do put them in the keep pile, along with all of the photographs on my bulletin board.

  It takes me until midnight to finish going through the first eighteen years of my life, but by the time that I leave and head back to my hotel room, I feel a lot better, as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders—a heavy one.

  Tomorrow, I’m going to get up, dress in my jeans, and head out to Ford’s property. I’m going to help him with his chores for the day and hopefully talk to him. I want the bad air between us to be gone, we both need to move on from this place of limbo and find our happiness. Even if I don’t, he truly deserves it.

  Chapter Eight

  FORD

  I belly up to the bar, giving Lucy-Dawn my card to open my tab. I’m getting fucking drunk tonight. I could have stayed home to get wasted, but the last thing that I wanted to do was sit at home, drinking alone, and think about the past.

  Seeing Stephanie, being that close to her, fucking kissing her, and then her telling me it was a mistake, it just set the fucking tone for the rest of the afternoon and took me back seventeen goddamn years to a place that I really didn’t want to revisit again, ever.

  Lucy hands me a couple of beers and instead of going over to a table in the corner, I plop my ass down right at the bar. Tilting one drink back, I swallow half of the beer in one gulp. I am on a fucking mission tonight and nobody is going to stop me.

  “Hey there, cowboy,” a voice says from beside me later in the evening.