Page 115 of Ride a Cowboy

“I don’t want to have kids.”

Neither he nor Oakley moved as they let that bit of information soak in. Until she’d said the words, Joel hadn’t realized how much he did want a family. He wasn’t exactly sure how it would work out logistically, but he knew he wanted a baby girl with Sadie’s bright blue eyes and sweet smile. Now that the idea was out there, Joel felt that desire intensely.

Oakley was the first to ask the question left unanswered. “Why not?”

“I’m not mother material.”

It was a vague response at best. Joel knew there was something else at work, something stronger. “Try again.”

He should have known better than to take that arrogant tone with her. Coupled with the fact that he’d crossed his arms, Sadie went off. Her emotions had been riding too close to the surface since they’d entered the closet. Joel had been stupid to push her, to set her off. But he was running on empty too. His heart ripped out, beating painfully in her clenched fist. One squeeze and she’d have him on his knees, begging her to come back.

“You asked for my reasons and I gave them to you. I’m not going to get married and I’m not going to wreck some poor, innocent baby’s life the way my mother fucked up mine!” She was practically yelling at them.

And at last, they’d gotten to the truth.

“You’re not your mother,” Oakley said.

She turned on him, her face radiating pure fury. “You didn’t know my mother.”

Oakley was typically able to hold his shit together, but the tension was causing some cracks in his composure. “I didn’t have to know her to know you would never leave your kid behind. Jesus, Sadie. You can’t seriously believe what you’re saying right now.”

One look in her shattered, terrified eyes told Joel she believed every single word. And there was precious little he or Oakley could do to change her mind.

How did they fight against a lifetime of disappointment and mistrust? Something had broken when Sadie’s mom skipped out of town all those years ago, and there was only one person capable of putting the pieces back together.

Sadly, that person wasn’t him. And it wasn’t Oakley.

“Sadie, if you’d just let us help you,” he began, knowing there was nothing he could offer her that they hadn’t already given. They’d given her love, trust, friendship, everything they had. It hadn’t been enough.

“Please, Joel.” His heart ached at the pain in her voice. It went against everything inside him to hurt her. Yet it was obvious that was what this conversation was doing. It was tearing them all apart. “Please don’t ask me to come back, for any more than we’ve already had. I can’t, I just can’t give it to you.”

Then he looked into her eyes and saw the tears and he knew.

Knew he had to walk away. Even though it would kill him to do it.

“Sadie,” he whispered.

“Please,” she repeated.

He nodded his reluctant acquiescence. Then he leaned toward her and kissed her gently.

Oakley didn’t speak, but the utter devastation in his friend’s eyes told him he understood it was over as well.

Oakley gave her his own sweet kiss and then they left the storeroom together.

Though he walked next to his best friend, Joel had never felt more alone.

Chapter 11

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Sadie closed her eyes and prayed for strength. After tossing and turning, replaying everything she and the guys had said in the storeroom four evenings earlier, she had managed less than an hour’s worth of sleep last night.

She’d seen Lorelie the second the woman had walked into Cruisers. And considering her friend had honed in on her like a homing missile, storming straight to the bar, it was obvious Sadie was in for a few unpleasant minutes.

She didn’t need this shit. Sadie had only been back in Maris a few hours. She’d left the bar after her talk with the guys a few nights ago, climbed on her bike and taken off to San Antonio to recover, hoping the time away would help her get her shit together. All it had done was make her more miserable and lonely and horny—she really needed to get a handle on that last issue.

She’d still be away if her dad hadn’t called her yesterday afternoon and told her to get her ass home before he fired her. She hadn’t given him a reason for skipping out of town without so much as a word of explanation, so she knew—in addition to this ass-chewing from Lorelie—she had that inquisition to endure later.

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