How to Train a Cowboy
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Caro Carson
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17
Chapter One
January 2015
He didn’t belong here, either.
Graham pushed his empty beer glass toward the bartender and abandoned his bar stool. He hadn’t belonged anywhere in a good, long while. He should have known a honky-tonk bar in Texas would be no different.
He’d been seduced by the appearance of this bar, he supposed. Something about the way it stood alone on the side of a rural road had caught his eye. The cinder block building was just old enough to prove the bar knew what it took to satisfy its customers, new enough to flaunt a pre-fab extension, all wood and aluminum. If it hadn’t been the look of the building, then Graham would have stopped because the size of the dirt parking lot meant that the place must see enough business to keep its kegs fresh, even if the parking lot and the bar inside had been nearly empty as twilight set in. He hadn’t expected such a fresh-faced crowd to start filling up the place so quickly after dark, though.
He should have. It was only Thursday, but the University of Texas in Austin was an hour east of here, and the massive army base, Fort Hood, an hour north. The average age inside the bar couldn’t be more than twenty-one, even though it wasn’t yet the weekend. Students and soldiers laughed and drank and tried to shout over a band that played Southern rock far too loudly for the low-ceilinged space.
No, Graham didn’t belong here.
Eighteen months ago—a lifetime ago—he’d been Captain Benjamin Graham of the United States Marine Corps. For eight years, he’d served everywhere he was needed, from Japan to Europe, but after his last deployment to Afghanistan, he’d had the distinct feeling he no longer belonged in the military. His body had taken a beating in those years. The daily wear and tear of backpacks and boots had taken as much of a toll as the bursts of adrenaline that kept a Marine from noticing that he was bleeding while returning enemy fire.
But it was more than that.
Graham had simply known, one average day on an average rifle range while safely stateside, that he was done. He’d proven whatever it was young men had to prove when they volunteered for the service. He’d served his nation and he’d served with good people—but it was time to move on. Graham had submitted the proper paperwork to his chain of command. In short order, he’d gotten his final orders and left.
Those eight years felt like eighty, sometimes. Like now. Graham worked his way toward the exit, leading with his good shoulder as he snaked his way through the impossibly young crowd. He might have felt like the oldest thing around, but he knew he wasn’t. The three-man band kept riffing—endlessly—on a Lynyrd Skynyrd tune that was older than he was. There were clusters of weathered men here and there, men like his uncle, who’d lived most of his sixty years outdoors, working a ranch.
The man ahead of him abruptly cut out of the traffic flow to join a group wearing black motorcycle jackets that matched. The biker lowered himself onto a bar stool as if his whole body ached, a feeling Graham knew too well. But the biker had gray in his beard; Graham was thirty. Maybe Graham had seen too much overseas to have anything in common with the young college crowd, but surely he didn’t belong on a bar stool next to that biker. Not yet.
A woman stumbled into him, one of the college set.
He caught her with one hand as she glared over her shoulder at the girls who had pushed her into his path. Then she turned her attention to him with a flip of her hair. She bit her lip and checked him out from his eyes all the way low to the zipper of his jeans.
“Sorry,” she said over the music, with a smile that said she wasn’t sorry at all. Her top was cut low, her breasts were pushed high and she nudged against him as the crowd pushed them together.
Graham assumed the attention meant he must not look as old as he felt—which changed nothing.
“No problem.” With an attempt at a polite smile, he turned sideways and stepped around her, leading now with the shoulder he’d shattered on the other side of the world. The shrieks of her girlfriends followed him. He was so not into you carried over the music, and was gone.
Graham soldiered on. The traffic flow was hampered by the pool table and a foosball game. He spotted another motorcycle jacket, but it sported a different logo than the bearded man’s club. Bikers, college kids, soldiers and locals—too many people in too small a space, with alcohol thrown into the mix. By the time that mix went sour, Graham would be long gone, but since everyone was peaceful for the moment, he changed his target from the exit door to a side hallway that held the restrooms. He didn’t know how far he had left to drive tonight, maybe sixty miles. Best to hit the head while he could.
There was a line for the bathroom, but at least the hallway was marginally quieter, since it was out of the direct blast of the band’s oversized speakers. Conversation continued all around him as he took his place in line with the men. Women formed a line on the opposite wall, the sexes as segregated as they’d be at a dance in a middle school gym. Each time a person came out of either of the bathrooms, bright light and the sound of running water spilled into the little hallway.
Graham resisted the reflex of closing one eye at each burst of bright light. This wasn’t a combat zone. He didn’t need to save the night vision in one eye each time the enemy sent up a flare. He let the back of his head rest on the wall and closed both eyes, weary of his own habitual alertness.
“Come on. Just one drink. I’m buying.” A male voice, cajoling.
“No, thanks.” A female voice, polite.
“Don’t be like that. You’re too pretty to pay for your own drinks.”
Spare me from college hormones.
Graham had turned thirty this fall on a college campus while in pursuit of an MBA. Although he’d realized pretty quickly that going back to graduate school wasn’t right for him, he’d forced himself to finish the semester. Most of his fellow students had entered straight from their bachelor’s degree programs, which meant they were twenty-one-year-olds like this guy, who was green enough to try to seduce a girl who needed to use a bathroom.
Graham had quit the MBA program a few weeks ago, at the end of the semester. The university had a nicer name for it; they’d charitably listed him as on sabbatical, but Graham doubted he’d return. He didn’t belong there, with the college boys.
“Come on,” this college boy said. “Dance with me.”
She doesn’t want to dance if she’s got to pee, pal.
If being thirty meant one had lived long enough to gain a few scars, it also meant one had gained some practical wisdom—or at least better control over one’s hormones. Either way, he was grateful that he wasn’t desperate enough to pursue a woman in a bathroom line. Graham opened his eyes and took the burst of bright light as the door opened.
“You gotta forgive me sooner or later,” the young man said, managing to whine and laugh at the same time. “Come on, let me see that pretty smile. You want to smile for me, Em, I know you do.”
Graham glanced at the man: button-down shirt, blond hair, tanned skin that said he’d probably spent the Christmas holidays somewhere tropical. The look on his face wasn’t confidence but cockiness.
The woman whom the man seemed to think owed him a smile had her back to Graham. He let his gaze follow her dark brown hair as it flowed over the large, loose ruffles of her light blue dress, stray curls detouring on their own little paths here and there. Her hair fell all the way to the small of her back, capturing what light there was along the way, lustrous with youth and health.
The door shut, leaving them all in the dark.
Em, the man had called her. They knew one another.
“Why don’t you go back to Mike and Doug?” This Em spoke almost like a teacher, not shrill, no giggles—a teacher whose patience was being tested as she tried to redirect a student’s attention to something more appropriate. “I’ll stop by in a minute and say hi. You don’t want to stand in line here with me.”
“I’m not leaving until you say yes.” The man leaned in closer. “Come on. Say it. One little yes. You won’t regret it.”
Graham felt older than ever. Had he ever been that cocky? At what age did a man learn that persistence was annoying, not charming?
Then the ladies’ room door opened again, the woman turned away from the college guy, and in the sudden bright light, Graham saw her face.
For one moment in time, just one suspended moment, Graham stopped thinking. The Marines, the bar, the MBA, everywhere he’d been, everywhere he was going, everything just ceased for a moment of blessed...interest. He looked at her, and he wanted to know her.
She was beautiful. Of course she was, but there was something about her, something that appealed beyond an oval face and pink lips and the smooth skin of a young woman, something in her expression—it felt like morning, to see her face in the bright light. For the first time in years, something, someone in the world, was interesting.
Their eyes met and held for a fraction of time, but then she blinked and turned back to the man who stood too close to her.
The guy poked the corner of her mouth with one finger. “Smile for me, baby.”
She stepped backward.
Graham stepped forward.
Her back was to him, so he doubted she knew he was standing behind her like some kind of bodyguard, but he stayed where he was. She didn’t want to be touched by that guy. The way she’d jerked out of his reach made that obvious. She didn’t even want to talk to the guy, but she was being too polite about it.
Women were too polite too often, something Graham had realized after playing wingman to an endless number of Marine buddies over the years. The awkward chuckle, the gentle no, thank you, the drink or the dance they ended up accepting although they didn’t really want it at all—these were common ways women dealt with unwanted attention.
They shouldn’t have to. How old did a woman have to be before she skipped right to telling a persistent creep to go to hell?
“Go to hell,” said the woman in ruffles.
Graham looked at the back of her head and almost smiled.
The college guy looked surprised. “Don’t be like that, Em. You’ve gotten all uptight, haven’t you, without getting any—”
“Go to hell.” She didn’t raise her voice. “We’re through. We’ve been through. We’re always going to be through. I don’t want to drink, and I don’t want to dance. Leave me alone.”
She turned her back on the guy, but since she hadn’t known Graham was so close behind her, she nearly collided with him, her cheek grazing past his chin.
“Oh, sorry.” Her apology was automatic, a reflex.
He put a hand out to steady her, also reflexively. But over her head, he locked gazes with the other guy deliberately.
“I heard her,” Graham said. “Didn’t you?”
The guy glanced at the way Graham kept his hand on her arm, and he hesitated—his first smart move. For all the guy’s youth, he was still a grown man, only an inch shorter than Graham, but there was nothing he could do that Graham could not counter, bad shoulder or not. That wasn’t cockiness; that was confidence, earned the hard way, year after year in the Marine Corps.
Think about it, pal, before you put another finger on her.
Graham waited, hand lightly resting on her soft skin so he could get her out of the way if push came to shove.
Another opening of the door, another burst of light. The woman called Em nodded politely at Graham and stepped around him, her ruffles and soft hair whispering past his shoulder. Then she was gone inside, disappearing along with the light as the door slammed shut.
The woman who’d exited the ladies’ room drawled an approving hello in the dark as she rubbed her way past Graham to head back into the crowd. His night vision was shot, but he didn’t need it to know the college guy had made the smart choice and beat a retreat.
Which left Graham alone. Again.
He was next in the men’s line, but when the door opened, he almost turned to let the next man have his place. Graham didn’t want to miss her when she came back out.
Her. Em.
Just as quickly as he recognized that anticipation, that almost hopeful desire to see her again, he pounded it down. Hopeful. Who did he think he was?
She was self-possessed, confident—intriguing to him. But she was still young, a woman who’d calmly set her boundaries while wrapped in youthful blue ruffles.
He was nothing more than a jarhead who’d left the Marine Corps, who’d spent a year after that burning a few bridges in the corporate world, who’d returned to grad school only to drop out weeks ago. He was on his way to take the only job offer he had left, one from his uncle, one that would barely pay minimum wage, but one that would require little to no human contact in the rural part of Texas. He’d given up on fitting in with the world, and he had no business forgetting that tonight, not even for a minute.
Let the beauty live her beautiful life.
He stalked toward the blinding light, straight into the toilet stall, and slammed the door.
* * *
Oh, my gosh. Ohmigosh, ohmigosh—who was that man?
Emily washed her hands quickly, thoughts racing.
Heart racing.
She wasn’t sure what had just happened. She’d taken one look at him and bam! Her heart had started pounding. Then when she’d turned around and brushed against his body, she’d practically melted at his feet. He was hot. Hot in a way that the other men in her world weren’t.
She had the impression he could be dangerous, but she couldn’t say why. He’d just stood there, really. Just said one sentence to her idiot ex and nothing to her at all. But there was an aura about him that left her in no doubt that he was a man with whom one did not mess. An aura and a hard body.
She shivered as her soapy fingers slid together, but it was a delicious shiver. None of that danger had been directed her way, but she’d felt it. And it had triggered just about every primitive response she was capable of. More than she’d known she was capable of. She’d never met a man like that, not on her college campus, not even among the cowboys on her family’s ranch. She’d grown up here in cattle country, so she knew plenty of men who were plenty masculine, but none had ever been so...dangerous.
No, he wasn’t dangerous to her. What was the word she was looking for?
Sexual.
Maybe it was just sexy to have a man step in to defend her.
Him, Tarzan. Me...Jane?
No way. As long as Emily could remember, she’d always been able to rope and ride and keep up with the boys in her life. Unlike poor helpless Jane, Emily would never stand still in a frilly dress and scream uselessly, waiting for a man to swoop out of the jungle to save her.
Maybe that’s why no man ever has before.
She hadn’t known she could feel like Jane, body set all aflutter because a physically powerful man had brushed against her dress. Emily barely dried her hands before using the paper towel to yank the door open.
Too eagerly.
Slow down.
Had she learned nothing in her twenty-two years? Had her sisters’ dramatic love lives taught her nothing? Her mother’s three marriages?
Slow down.
She, Emily Dawn Davis, was not going to have her life derailed by a man. She was no Victorian miss, no helpless paragon of femininity waiting for a man to complete her. In fact, she’d prefer not to have a man in her life at all right now. She had plans. Things to do. Places to be. Goals to accomplish.
But not tonight.
She was going to have to obey her family and return to Oklahoma Tech University in three days whether she stayed at this bar another three minutes or three hours. She’d intended to leave when she’d realized her ex was here at Keller’s and her friends were not, but now...
A dangerous man had appointed himself her bodyguard. For once, she understood the appeal in having a man take care of everything. What would life be like as Jane, not having to stand up for herself as long as Tarzan was around? She could just look pretty in her new blue dress and—and—
And not be in charge of my own life.
Her mother was controlling enough. Her older sisters, too. This entire winter break had been one frustration after another as they put roadblocks in her path. The last thing she needed was a man to give her his opinions on where to go and how to live.
It was time to leave. There was nothing she needed from a man, not even from a bodyguard.
The men’s room door opened, and Tarzan stepped out in a blaze of light.
Sex.
Well. There was that.
She took in all the vivid details as the door slowly swung shut behind him. He wore a navy blue knit shirt, long sleeves pushed up his forearms. Snug jeans, not new. Boots, but not cowboy boots. Maybe he was a biker? His dark hair was just a shade shorter than most of the guys. Maybe he was from Fort Hood. A soldier?
She wanted to know. She was wild to know more about him.
In the last sliver of light before the door shut, their eyes met. The man had honest-to-goodness green eyes, a warm green, like the grass in autumn when she went riding, happy in her world.
Emily stared at him, mute. Had Jane been struck speechless when she’d first laid eyes on her uncivilized man?
We don’t do helpless. Snap out of it.
Emily forced herself to move. She stuck out her hand to shake his, as if she were back at the James Hill Ranch, meeting a new cowboy whom the foreman had hired for the season. Not the most feminine move, but it was better than staring.
“Hi there. I’m Emily Davis.”
“Graham.” He took her hand in his without taking his gaze off her face. He looked so terribly serious about a handshake, as if they were closing a business deal.
It occurred to her that she was accosting someone in a bathroom hallway, just like her ex had done. Just ugh. She was classier than this. More mature than this. Really, she was. But that electricity she’d felt when she’d first brushed against Tarzan was all there, that thrill in the air as warm palm met warm palm. Every crude line her girlfriends used to describe a sexy man, every purr about a man who could make a woman want to drop her panties at one smoldering look, all of them suddenly made sense.
Even his hand feels sexy.
He let go, gave her the slightest of nods and the smallest attempt at a smile, and then he started to shoulder past her.
No! Don’t go. In sudden desperation, words popped out of her mouth, the oldest pick-up line in the world, the one dozens of men had used on her. With a jerk of her chin toward the bar, she raised her voice over the music and the crowd.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
