Page 18 of Cowboy Don't Go

“Boys need each other, even if they don’t want to admit it,” Cami said, joining her at the window. “Something happens when boys become men and so many of them think they don’t need each other anymore. But when they put all that lone wolf stuff aside, they really do blossom in each other’s company.”

“That’s a pretty deep insight for a lone wolf teacher,” Shay teased.

Cami blushed. “Okay. But I have a unique view of boys before they get ruined by the world and nine-to-five jobs. Men need friends, too. Even Cooper.”

*

The next day, Shay left town after running a few errands and finishing up an accounting gig with a boutique owner in town. It was nearly dark by the time she’d finished. All of the windows in town were decorated with flag buntings, signs, and banners strung across Main Street advertising the Marietta rodeo the second week of September. The rodeo was a big deal in Marietta, and though they’d often attended, she was secretly glad Ryan wasn’t interested in participating. He was more focused on training horses than riding broncs or bulls. The autumn festival and the Youth Horse Encounter competition that Ryan would be entering would be happening only a few weeks later. Too soon, she worried.

He was behind on the training, and she hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed if Kholá wasn’t quite ready when it came time for the event. Even with Cooper’s guidance, she was afraid Ryan had bitten off more than he could chew, entering this year with both football, school, and the contest. But she wasn’t about to tell him that. She didn’t believe in setting limits about what he could accomplish and often he surprised her. That might have said more about her own boundaries than his.

Yep. It probably did.

She pushed those thoughts aside and cranked up the radio, singing along to Taylor Swift’s “You Belong with Me” as she drove. This stretch of road was empty as usual, so she rolled down her window and belted the lyrics out loud to the Montana countryside, letting the cool evening breeze hit her face and tug at her hair. It wasn’t often she got to let loose, but sometimes, singing in the car was just what she needed. No one could hear out here but the cattle she passed, who eyed her with comical surprise as she drove past them.

Which was when it happened.

A loud bang! sounded at the back of the truck and jerked her wheel hard to the right. Shay practically screamed as she fought the truck to stay on the road, tires squealing and skidding. Nearly a hundred feet later, she managed to pull to a stop.

She turned off the engine and pressed her forehead against the steering wheel for a long minute to gather her wits. Then, she cursed. It was a flat. Pretty sure it was the back right tire, which meant she would have to change it herself, somehow jacking up the heavy pickup. One look at her cell told her she was, naturally, in one of the two dead zones between town and the ranch. No service. No roadside service that she paid dearly for. A good three miles from home here, she was also an equal distance from town.

She sighed deeply as she looked at the rapidly setting sun.

This sucks.

Quickly, she pulled the car manual from the glove box and looked up changing a flat tire. She knew she had a spare, and that it was under the truck, but she had no clue how to detach it from there. Ugh. Where was Liam when she needed him?

She pulled the tire changing kit from where the manual informed her it was, beneath the back seat, then stood staring at the mysterious back end of the truck. Why hadn’t she learned how to do this before? Why hadn’t she at least had Liam explain the rudiments? But more than understanding the situation, getting the thing on would certainly require muscle.

By now, she’d drawn an audience of black Angus cows who had gathered at the fence line to watch her. One of them mooed.

“Oh, you think this is funny, do you? Well,” she said. “I hope this is entertaining, because I have no idea what I’m doing.” She took a bow. “Thank you. Thank you very much. I’ll be here all week.”

The cows just stared, chewing their cud.

“Not helpful,” she muttered, inserting her key inside the little door behind the license plate where there was allegedly a magic place for the rod thingy to go. After fumbling with it for a good two minutes, she managed to insert said rod, crank the spare tire down to the ground and was in the process of figuring out how to get it unhooked entirely when she heard a car pull up on the road beside her.

Scrambling out from under the truck, a hundred awful thoughts ricocheted through her mind before she saw who it actually was.

“Cooper!” The wave of relief that washed over her made her knees suddenly weak. Bracing a hand on the tailgate she tried to look . . . cool. A fail by any standard. “Hi.”

He leaned out his truck window. “Havin’ some trouble?”

“Oh, no. I’m just entertaining the troops here,” she said, pointing to the cattle who mooed at him and started wandering away. Traitors. “You?”

“Just on my way home. But I think you’re losing your crowd over there.”

“Yeah, they were a bunch of hecklers, to be honest.”

He chuckled and pulled his truck over to the side of the road and parked. After taking a long gander at the right rear flat tire that had nearly shredded into ribbons, he whistled. “Lucky thing you didn’t go into that ditch.”

“Yes. Thank you for pointing that out.”

He smiled, tugged off his Carhartt jacket, and handed it to her. It was still warm from his body heat, and she couldn’t help but get a whiff of him. Some delicious, very male scent that belonged only to him. Before she full-on lifted it to her face to get a nose full, she draped the thing over the side of the tailgate, like any sane woman would.

Without a word, he climbed under her truck and released the spare, which probably would have taken her until long after dark to accomplish. He had it off and propped beside the blown tire before she could offer to do more than shine her cell phone flashlight for him. Then he jacked up the back of the truck.

“You ever change a tire before?” he asked, kneeling down near the tire.

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