Page 8 of One Lucky Cowboy

She wouldn’t be. What she wanted, she worked for, and she’d worked her backside off for this deal. A potential run-in with Jax Marshall was a small price to pay.

What about working with him after that?

She’d cross that bridge when the one she was on flooded.

“Thanks, guys. But I need you to let this go, okay? I mean it. I’ve made my choice, for better or worse.”

“Okay. We said our piece, and you heard us; that’s all we wanted. Good luck, hon. But know we’re here as your parents if you ever need anything.”

“I know. I love you guys, and I’ll call you when I’m heading home this weekend.” She hung up and sighed out almost two decades worth of frustration.

Home. What a complicated word when she was standing atop a ridge that looked like a mirage of everything she’d once wanted—a life spent outdoors with a man she loved and a gaggle of children playing in the open swathes of ranchland, Texas.

But Liam had forced her hand, hadn’t he? He was never going to quit the rodeo, and she wasn’t going to stand by and watch it kill him ride after ride. His last injury, the one that had paralyzed him from the waist down, she’d seen coming from the first broken arm.

Her mother’s parting words echoed in the cavern that was her empty heart. I don’t want to see you get hurt.

It was a little late for that, wasn’t it? She’d chosen safety and security over love. And still, hurt inevitably followed. So did a lingering question—could she have prevented Liam’s paralysis if she’d just held out a few more years?

Don’t do that. Her subconscious was right. She couldn’t have given up her life for him any more than she could do the same for her father now. She’d never wanted to be a Henley, at least not on the employee end of things; her heart wasn’t ever in it. Sure, she could stick it out and make good money with a guaranteed career. But the company and her both deserved more, didn’t they? Steel Born made her heart race, made her want to stay at the office after hours. That was the career she wanted—one that didn’t feel like a job.

She wouldn’t mind a man like that, too, but one thing at a time.

Jill pulled a small, pink Post-it note from her pocket, the sticky part along the back long since worn off. The ink on front was fading, too, the paper soft as a tissue after all this time of being carried anywhere she went. She’d reinforced it with tape, but even that was tearing along the edges.

She ran her fingers over the scrawl, tracing the words she knew by heart.

WE WON’T EVER GIVE UP OUR FUTURE FOR A MAN WHO WON’T DO THE SAME FOR US.

Both Maggie and Jill’s names were at the bottom of the two-inch square, signing into contract their hopes for each other. She gazed over the edge of the lookout and smiled, watching a young woman wrangle a heifer at the base of the hill. That’d been her and Maggie when they’d met just after college, both wide-eyed, stubborn, and hell-bent on roping their dreams. The sticky note came just two years later, right after her break-up with Liam, and for Maggie, her decision to stay in San Antonio and build a business.

Neither young woman wanted to go back to where they’d grown up and neither had. Until last year when Maggie’s dad died. His death had made her the heir to his failing ranch, but it also propelled her back into the arms of her high-school sweetheart.

A small twinge of jealousy fluttered against Jill’s rib cage.

Maggie hadn’t broken their Post-it deal, but the happiness she’d found in Deer Creek and Bennett had left Jill to reconsider her own future.

The shift that followed wasn’t a bad one. She was on her way to owning part of a company she’d helped build from the ground up, a company her family had nothing to do with. She’d built a home in the city and found her groove. Jill Henley was making her own way in life.

She breathed in the moist summer air, smiling as a hint of honeysuckle teased her senses.

This. This is why I’m here, willing to face all my demons. Specifically, the Henley family name that led them into battle in her heart. She could do this without her parents or their help. She had to.

Because of another promise she’d made all those years ago. One that never made it on to a Post-it. Liam might’ve forgotten it under the crushing weight of his own dreams that had turned on him, but she hadn’t. Not for a moment.

All his other promises—that he’d quit the rodeo and come for her when she’d finished school, that they’d build a small, cozy cabin on the southern edge of his property line and have a slew of babies that would force them to add on to the cabin—he’d broken as cleanly as the accident had broken his spine.

But she’d held onto this. Her dignity demanded it, even if the words were more a contract with herself than a promise to any fragment of memory attached to Liam.

“I, Liam Walker, promise to love you, Jill Henley, for my whole life. I’ll help you chase your dreams as soon as I make enough money on mine.”

A rogue tear fell and caught on her lashes. That had been her flaw—allowing his dreams to matter more than hers. An ache welled up as big and deep as the canyon walls in her stomach. All she’d wanted was to believe in this promise and cash in on his love every day for the rest of their lives. Now, though, she supposed she had to settle for the life she’d reclaimed when, after three years of waiting, she’d stopped believing he was ever going to come for her.

He hadn’t, and never would. But she could still chase down the ghost of the dream, even if the deep love and cabin filled with kids was off the table.

She turned back to the car. The problems of the past were behind her. Time to steel herself for dinner with Jax. Guys like him—rodeo men at heart—were the reason living alone was fine by her.

She started her rental, not bothering to plug her destination into the GPS. For the first time in her adult life, she knew exactly where she was going. Despite her misgivings about a certain Marshall brother, she couldn’t help the smile that tugged at her lips or the optimism that pushed all the unwanted memories back where they belonged.

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