Page 6 of Cowboy and the Convict

Janie rolled her eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh. "Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you." Scooching her seat back, she slowly lowered both feet to the floor, being careful not to clench the muscles of her abdomen too tight in the process. "I probably need a bathroom break anyway." She wiggled her brows at Mariah. "I'll take my time."

Coming out tonight hadn’t sounded even the smallest bit appealing when Mariah made the proposition. Way less fun than her initial plans for the evening—burrowing under a blanket on her couch while lying on a heating pad, suffering through her uterus’s most recent rebellion. But Mariah didn't want to go out alone, and she didn't want to let her go out alone. The people of Moss Creek were nice enough, but there were plenty of fly-by-night ranch hands who couldn't be trusted, and Mariah was a little too innocent for her own good. So she’d popped some pain pills, put on her big girl panties—literally—and sucked it up.

A decision she was genuinely regretting.

The trek to the bathroom was a long one, primarily due to the number of loitering bodies in her path. Everyone and their brother seemed to be at The Watering Hole tonight, and not a single one of them had any interest in getting the fuck out of her way.

She was only about halfway to her destination when a sudden rush in her lower half had her stepping a little faster. By some miracle, there wasn’t a line for the ladies’ room, and she was able to dart straight into a stall and get to work on damage control. An optimistic part of her had hoped the past few months of somewhat normal cycles were an indication that the raging periods she’d suffered through most of her life were finally on the downward swing. But, as it so often did, her uterus reared its ugly head and pissed all over that parade.

After switching out her extra absorbent pad—tampons only made her gut-twisting cramps worse—she washed up and dug another pain pill from her purse, swallowing it down with nothing but spit and determination as she wove her way back to the table.

Only to find Mariah had made the most of her absence.

A strapping young guy wearing the cliched country boy uniform of Wranglers and a cowboy hat was sidled up to her friend, grinning from ear to ear in a way that made him look even younger than he likely was. Unfortunately, young or not, he was still a big guy. Definitely big enough to make him hard to bury if he hurt her friend, but that was a problem for future Janie. Current Janie's problem was that she needed another drink because the Vicodin she’d tossed back was stuck halfway down and felt like a rock in her esophagus.

She turned away from the table, leaving Mariah to flirt unhindered, and elbowed her way to the bar. Shuffling to the end of the line, she shifted from foot to foot, trying to alleviate the ache radiating through her abdomen and lower back. The line was slow-moving, and she was about to give up when Paige caught her eye over the crowd. She shot Janie a wink, and mouthed the words ‘I got you’. Less than a minute later, Paige was coming to where Janie stood, passing a fresh Jack and Coke over the bar. Janie attempted to hand over her debit card, but Paige waved her off. "Don't worry about it." Her head tilted as she looked Janie over. "Are you feeling okay? You look a little peaked."

Janie snorted as she took a long drink, the cold rush of icy liquid flushing the much-needed narcotic into her belly. "Did you really just call me peaked?" She managed a smirk and a chuckle. "Don't use that word around Mariah. She'll call you a grandma too."

Paige swiped a rag across a few water rings marring the bar. "That's fine. I am happy to embrace my inner grandma." She pointed at Janie's drink as she backed away. "Text me if you need another one. I'll have someone bring it to your table."

Janie blew out a breath that fluttered her lips in a loud raspberry. "My table is currently occupied by Mariah and a random cowboy, so I'm going have to go find a new place to loiter."

Paige lifted her brows, looking pointedly around the packed bar. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks." Janie lifted her drink. "And thanks for this."

She continued swallowing down her drink as she wormed her way back through the crowd, searching for a spot to park her crampy, cranky ass. In an excellent turn of events, Mariah and her buckle baby were getting up from their seats as she closed in. Picking up the pace so she didn’t lose the table, Janie shimmied in right behind them as big and brawny hauled her friend out onto the dance floor. Their absence gave her plenty of space to stretch out, so she settled into one of the bistro-height chairs before kicking both feet up onto the one across from her, leaning back against the wall as she waited for the medication—and the whiskey—to take the edge off her pain.

It was something she'd dealt with since puberty, but it still fucking sucked. Especially after a few easy months. The break was great, but the sudden reversion back to how things used to be had her a little concerned that things were getting out of control down there again. She didn't have time for that shit. Not now. Not when she was finally feeling like she was almost getting somewhere in life. Between her mornings working with Mariah at The Inn and her hours at The Baking Rack in the afternoons, she was actually making decent money. After bouncing around from job to job and career path to career path, being able to make ends meet felt really fucking good.

Was she what anyone would ever consider a success? No fucking way. But she wasn't broke. She had friends.

And she wasn't still jumping from man to man, trying to force Mr. Wrong to be something right.

Truth be told, that was probably something she would still be attempting if it hadn't been for Dianna. Her boss at The Baking Rack was one of the sweetest women she'd ever met. She was beautiful and had her life together. She was also currently happily married to Janie's ex, Griffin, proving that chances were high Janie had been the problem in every relationship she'd ever had.

Griffin. A man Janie had been sure was the problem.

Obviously she’d been wrong, because he'd snagged someone amazing and was now fucking father of the year, walking around Moss Creek with his cute-as-a-button daughter strapped to his chest, looking like the perfect picture of domestication.

That meant, in yet another area of her life, she was a failure.

Taking another long draw of her drink, Janie watched everyone around her having a great fucking night as she started a familiar downward trajectory, sliding from feeling relatively decent about herself to crashing into the cold, hard truth. Was she better than she used to be? Maybe. But at this point, if she didn't have her life all the way together, she never would. She would never fall in love or get married. She would never be a mom. Never be more than an hourly employee helping someone else chase their own dream. It was something she would have to come to terms with at some point, and maybe tonight was that night.

If she was lucky, the combination of Vicodin and whiskey coursing through her veins would take the edge off the pain and disappointment the revelation would bring on. Might as well do something since it wasn’t knocking out the anarchy happening beneath her belly button.

"Hey there, gorgeous." A broad frame suddenly blocked her view of the dance floor.

Continuing to suck down more of her barrel-aged cramp control, Janie lifted her eyes to meet the set of baby blues gazing out at her from under the brim of a cowboy hat. She angled a brow—not wanting to waste the energy on any other sort of response—hoping he’d get the message.

As her luck would have it, her new cowboy friend was either undaunted or completely clueless, because instead of tucking tail and running away, he pulled out the chair she had her feet on. Lifting them from the seat, he took their place before resting them across one of his knees. It was a ballsy move. One that should have earned him her wrath. But between the cramps and the crushing reality of her future, she wasn't feeling as bitey as normal.

"You looked kinda lonely sitting over here by yourself." He leaned back in his seat, like he had no intention of leaving. "I saw you and thought it was a shame someone so pretty would be all alone."

She probably should have taken a closer look at her face when she was in the bathroom, because it seemed like between the booze and the Vicodin, the ‘fuck off’ normally written across her forehead must have fallen off. Or maybe this guy wasn't much of a reader.

Either way, he was barking up the wrong tree. Even if it didn't currently feel like her insides were attempting to become her outsides, there was no way this baby boy stood a chance. There was an age limit to get on this ride, and he was nowhere near it.

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