Page 39 of Rogue Cowboy
Rohan blew out a breath, ran his hand through his hair.
“Damn, I know Riley’s a grown woman.Even then she was an adult.Her own agency and none of my business and all that PC BS.”He blew out a hard breath.“I know all that but damn it’s hard.”He hit his sternum.“I feel like there’s something.There has to be something.And it’s growing, consuming.”
Cole’s heart tripped in alarm, but he schooled his features.
“I no longer have a sister,” he admitted, something he rarely did, and the deep sympathy on Rohan’s face reminded him why.“But if I did, she’d definitely feel like my business.”
“So, you never saw her again?”
He understood why Rohan couldn’t let it go.He wanted answers, someone or something to blame, and yet he felt guilty because he hadn’t been there for his sister.
Join the club.
“Rohan, Riley can speak for herself.”Cole chose his words with care.“I’m in Marietta for the Jameson stock-contracting business.I’m out of the service and will need a new career.I’ll help my family whatever they need.But Marietta was my first stop because I wanted to see Riley.I felt a strong connection in LA though she was too young and full of dreams that would take her far from home.”
“Then,” Rohan said sourly, but he looked at Cole with a new respect.“So you really are courting her?This isn’t about trying to corner the Montana stock-contracting market?”
Cole was offended.Jamesons didn’t operate like that, but he let it go for now.“If she’ll have me.”
One beat.Two.Then the familiar smile that crinkled Rohan’s cheeks, and that Cole hadn’t seen in way too long, cut the tension.
“Good luck.Hope you got some mean lasso skills.Riley dodges men like shoppers dodge raindrops in a parking lot.”
Cole knew what he was in for.Easy had never been his path.
“But no one will find your body if you try to take her to Texas,” Rohan said as if commenting on the weather.“Her and my mama are close.But as far as that shiny new career you’re talking about, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Cole tracked a tall, dark and dangerous-looking man walking toward them with purpose.The two girls he’d met yesterday practicing trick riding with Riley—Arlo and Flower, no, Petal—jogged alongside him.
“Remington Cross,” Rohan said watching the man’s approach.“We served together and some of my Coyote Cowboy unit have set up a survival skills and adventure retreat out in the woods and the mountains on land we’ve bought and some we’re leasing from my family.”
Cole turned toward Rohan, taking his eye off the biggest threat he’d seen since he’d hit town, walking with teen girls or not.
“It’s our first year,” Rohan said, and Cole heard the barely disguised pride.“We’ve already got a waiting list and are in the black and need some new blood and investors to expand.”
Cole was rarely surprised.He was now.First Rohan had sounded like he wanted to yank off his head, dropkick it into the bushes then bury his bloody remains deep; now he sounded like an internet pitch man.
“Play nice, Texas,” Rohan advised, “and think about how you don’t want to break my mama’s heart by seducing her baby girl away from her roots with your rusty dancing skills and rustic Lone Star charm.”
Rohan might be laughing at him.Then he stepped forward, did some elaborate handshake that nearly had Cole rolling his eyes before both men leaned back and howled at the sky.
“You get used to it,” Arlo said and rolled her own eyes.
“Or not.”Petal shook her head with superior teenage pity.“Let’s go saddle up Cinnamon and Spice.”
“I still think we should have named the horse Banana Cream,” Arlo said.
“You want to name a horse after a pie?”Cole turned his back on the men’s reunion.It only reminded him of how cut off he was from any of his army colleagues, and his cousins.
“Not opposed,” Arlo drawled giving him a skeptical once-over.“You got a horse to sell?”
“Not yet.”
“To buy?”Petal perked up.“We train barrel racers and cutting horses.Breed too.I’ve started racing.I could give you a demo.”
“I might be interested,” Cole said, wanting to follow the girls, because Riley was a bigger draw than a mountain of a soldier who’d more than likely want to swap war stories.Potential business or not, Cole wouldn’t go that route.There was a reason he didn’t get medical care at the VA hospital in San Antonio or Austin, but had instead had his health checkups at the Last Stand clinic.And though his maw-maw had repeatedly urged him to, he’d never attended Last Stand’s very active veterans’ group.
“I think you’re more interested in the horse trainer than the horse,” Arlo stated, voice flat.
