Page 15 of Rogue Cowboy
That first night he’d taken her to dinner—fish tacos on the beach and some kind of California-inspired twist on horchata that had been almost as delicious as the taste of her skin after she’d shocked him stupid peeling off her dress and running into the ocean in her bra and panties.
Riley had been unlike any woman he’d ever met.Pure spirit and magic, and he’d been a goner before he’d even managed to introduce himself and tell her that her brother Rohan had sent him to check on her as he’d been delayed.She’d been a young woman, playing at being a grown-up, and he’d been as fascinated as he had been protective.She’d been the sun to his cool night, warming and waking him to a whole different way of seeing the world.
He’d wanted her more than his next breath and yet had known he wasn’t the man for her.Not only had he been too old at twenty-six for her bright-eyed, idealistic nineteen, but her dreams would take her far from him, and he wanted the world for her.
The days they’d had together before her world had imploded, he could count on one hand, and yet in all the dark, empty days after, he still remembered her laugh, the way her eyes lit up with mischievous mystery when she’d stripped and run toward the Pacific, looking back and smiling, challenging him to join her.
And he had.
Riley opened her eyes, sighed heavily, and then reached inside the bag to unwrap his bacon, egg and cheese breakfast sandwich on a bagel and handed it to him along with a napkin.Then she unwrapped her sandwich—egg, avocado and something that looked like mutated grass called arugula poking out.
She placed the sandwich beside her, tilted her head back and closed her eyes again while the morning sun bathed her in a golden light that highlighted the myriad of blondes in her hair—silvery white, gold, honey, summer straw waved down her back and brushed the rock.
He took a bite of his sandwich to remind his body how to function since he was stunned stupid by her ethereal beauty and furious by the pain that radiated from her.He’d taken her home because she’d asked.He thought home, family, time would help her to heal, yet his fears that her recovery had stalled seemed justified with just an hour in her presence.
Her texts over the years had often held a touch of reflective sadness that he hadn’t been able to convince himself were grounded in her maturing.He’d been right to worry.And wrong to not have come sooner.Nearly six years later Riley seemed half alive, miles from the young woman he’d first met.
She hadn’t processed or healed.She’d hidden.And that was going to stop now.
Yeah, he was here on business for his family.He didn’t particularly want to be a stock contractor, though he’d be what his family needed.But he was here for Riley.Yes, it had been a marriage of convenience to protect her, but in his world, marriage was forever.Family was everything to the Jamesons.You sacrificed and bled for it, and it fed you.And Riley was family.She came first, starting today.
She sighed and slid her feet into the water and began humming, a melodic tease that brushed his senses.He took another bite of his breakfast sandwich and chewed.Wished she’d eat.She’d been in the last vestiges of her teenage years when he’d first seen her, broke all his rules by kissing her, their last night together.She felt more off-limits now than then.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?How did he fix someone who didn’t want to be fixed?
“What is that song?”
“New Jason Isbell—‘Bury Me.’”
He took another bite, so he’d shut down the swear word that poked to get out.“That sounds cheerful,” he spoke with his mouth full.
“That’s what Rohan said this morning,” she said.
He looked for the telltale whisper of dimples he remembered when she’d been about to say something to try to make him smile.Or laugh.She said he didn’t laugh enough and now that made two of them.
“You still look like a mermaid.”
She sat up, kept her gaze across the Marietta River that should really be called a creek this time of year.
“Always pictured you in the ocean.”
“I loved the ocean,” she said.“It’s the only thing I miss.”
Past tense.Not performing.Not singing.Writing songs.His chest felt the same as when he’d been hit by the hoof of a bull when he hadn’t rolled quick enough at fourteen.
“Night swimming.”
“I’ll take you to whatever ocean you want to swim in,” he promised.“Delayed honeymoon.”She deserved that.
She jerked, eyes and mouth wide.Yeah, he’d be the jerk who pushed.
“Don’t say stuff like that.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”Now her voice had energy, and her eyes glittered.
Hallelujah.A spark of the girl he had to find and drag out kicking and punching in protest.
