Page 35 of A Cowboy in the Streets

I shoved open the door to my office, kicked it closed behind me, and looked around. The desk, probably. I set the box of Emily’s stuff in the corner and went to investigate.

Before I had taken over Lodestar Ranch, this had been Dad’s office. He had put on a good show the first couple weeks after Mom’s death, showing up here every day to “work.” By evening, he would stumble home, smelling of liquor, and pass out on the couch. I was willing to bet there was still a bottle or two somewhere.

The bottom drawer was the obvious answer. It was locked, and I had never opened it. I located the key from the middle drawer, turned the lock, and bingo. Whiskey. And a nice glass to go with it. Good ol’ Dad.

I poured a finger’s worth into the tumbler and tossed it back in one gulp right as the door opened and James slid inside. The whiskey burned, but its heat couldn’t reach the coldest parts inside me. I needed more. Two fingers, this time.

“You here for a drink, buttercup?” I didn’t look at her as I poured.

She glanced at the clock on the wall, registering the fact that it was not yet noon. “No.”

I shrugged. “Suit yourself. I don’t mind drinking alone.”

“You’re not alone.” She closed the door quietly behind her.

I leaned my hips against the edge of the desk, crossed one leg over the other, and eyed her over the rim of my whiskey glass as she came closer. “You offering to keep me company?”

There was an invitation in my tone that shouldn’t have been there. Fucking whiskey.

For once, she wasn’t smiling. She took the chair in front of me, folded her knees up to her chest, and looked at me with those big brown eyes that saw far too much. “What was that all about? With Deacon?”

I grunted into my whiskey. I never talked about Emily. Never. Out of respect for Ben, I kept my mouth sealed tight. But fuck, I had a lot to say. And right now, I wanted to say it to her. I could probably blame that on the whiskey, too.

“We were high school sweethearts, Emily and me. She was…shit, she was the love of my life. From the moment I saw her, I knew I was going to marry her. That was when I was fourteen. Same age my dad met my mom, so that made sense to me. When we graduated high school, I stuck around here in Aspen Springs. She went to the University of Colorado in Boulder.”

James propped her chin on her knees, listening, with nothing but compassion in her eyes even as I took another sip.

“I had my whole life planned out, and I was thrilled about it. Work the ranch with my dad. Take over the breeding program. Marry Emily when she graduated. Have a couple of kids. Live happily ever after. Step by step, I did all that.” I laughed. Not a happy sound, judging from her flinch. “Well, except the happily-ever-after part. I didn’t do that.”

I stared at the amber fluid, swirling it around the glass, seeing how it caught the light. “I used to visit her on weekends. She had a friend. Deacon.”

James sucked in a breath.

“Yeah.” I shook my head. God, how stupid was I? Thinking they were just friends. “We hung out a few times. I could tell he had a thing for her, but I was so sure she loved me. So sure our story would be just like my parents. I didn’t doubt her for a second.”

I fell silent, remembering what Deacon had told me only moments ago. She wasn’t unfaithful to me physically. She hadn’t slept with Deacon while we were together. But still…she had loved him even then, hadn’t she? Why hadn’t she made a clean break back then, before marriage and a kid made everything messy? I glanced at the box in the corner. How badly did I want to know?

Not enough to find out, I decided. Why torture myself by reading how my wife fell in love with another man?

“She graduated. We got married. Deacon moved to town right when she got pregnant with Ben. It was a hard pregnancy. She was sick for most of it, but her doctors told us it was perfectly normal. It wasn’t until after Ben was born and she kept right on feeling sick that we discovered the cause wasn’t pregnancy at all. It was cancer.”

“Oh, god, Adam. I’m so sorry.”

James leaned forward and touched the outside of my leg, right at the knee. I stared down at her hand, so tiny against my leg. It was an oddly intimate gesture, but it felt right somehow. I could feel the heat of her palm through my jeans. It sank into my skin, burning as hot as the whiskey in my throat.

She squeezed and then released my knee, leaving me cold again. I frowned.

“Stage four. There was no question it would kill her. It was only a question of when. The doctors told us it could be weeks or months or, if she was really lucky, a year. I spent the next month dragging her to specialists all over the country, but they all told us the same thing. Finally, she put a stop to it. She didn’t want to spend what time she had left searching for a miracle. She wanted to spend it living. With the people she loved.”

I could tell from the way James’s entire body tensed that she suddenly understood where this was going.

“I came home one day to find her bags were packed and ready by the door. She told me…” I gripped the glass so tightly I could almost feel it start to give way beneath my fingers. “She told me she couldn’t die as my wife. Her heart belonged to Deacon, and it was time the rest of her did too.”

Her plush mouth went slack. “What did you do?”

“I drove her to Deacon’s, of course. I sure as fuck wasn’t going to let that asshole step foot on my property. She lived another fifteen months. Long enough to get that divorce she wanted and die with his name. She wanted Ben with her full-time for as long as she could have him. I agreed to that, knowing what was coming.”

I paused, remembering. That had damn near killed me, parting from Ben. Deacon, being a decent human being despite his wife-stealing tendencies, had made it easier on me by bringing Ben to a park every day so I could spend an hour or so with my boy.

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