Second Chance Cowboy
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Claire McEwen
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19,8K
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22
CHAPTER ONE
EMILY FIELDING SLUMPED on the bench outside the Creek Café. She could move no further until she’d had a few sips of her coffee. The first taste of the rich brew burned away the outer layer of her fatigue, but sitting down like this was a mistake. The bench had its own gravitational force, strong enough to keep her aching body from ever rising again.
She leaned her head back against the café wall and closed her eyes. At least it was Friday. All she had to do was get through today. Saturdays were easier because she only worked a half day at her veterinary clinic, unless some poor animal had an emergency.
“You’re not really going to sleep here, are you?”
Emily forced her eyelids open. Her friend Vivian was standing a few feet from the bench, grinning down at her. Vivian’s dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing a navy blue sweatshirt with the logo of the Shelter Creek Wildlife Center on the chest. “Of course not.” Emily tried to smile, but it came out as a yawn and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Just refueling before I go into the clinic.”
“Let me guess. You had a late-night call?”
“An early-morning one. A breeched calf out at Pacific Pride Ranch.”
“Oh, no.” Vivian was a wildlife biologist, but she lived on a cattle ranch with her husband and understood the dangers of a complicated birth.
“We got him out, but it was a little sketchy for a while there.” That was putting it mildly. Delivering that calf safely had taken every trick Emily knew. “I managed to get back home afterward for a shower and nap, but I’m still sleepy.”
“And now you have to work all day?” Vivian shook her head in dismay. “You work way too much.”
Vivian was probably right, but there wasn’t much Emily could do about it today. She shrugged off her friend’s concern. “I’ll be fine. Who needs sleep when there is coffee?”
“Of course you need sleep! Have you had any luck finding another vet to come work with you? Didn’t you say you’d placed an ad?”
“I did, but no one has answered it.” Emily pushed herself up to sit a little straighter. “I guess there aren’t a lot of veterinarians who want to work in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.”
Vivian waved her hand in a vague gesture encompassing the quaint downtown around them. “How can they not want to live here?”
Emily glanced around. Shelter Creek woke early on a sunny February morning. Shop owners on either side of the café were getting ready for the first weekend tourists. Minnie Layton, who owned Wild Poppy Fashion, was hauling a rack of sale clothing out onto the street. She was chatting with Sally Smith, owner of the yarn shop next-door, while Sally cleaned her front display window.
Over the years, as tourists discovered the sleepy ranching town just a few miles inland from the Pacific Ocean, the cottages and run-down storefronts had been restored. Their clapboard walls were painted in pale greens and blues, whites and yellows. Flowers bloomed in every available patch of soil, and picket fences framed pretty gardens. Wine tasting rooms and restaurants had sprung up, along with boutiques and galleries.
Emily relished another sip of coffee. “It’s a great place to live. Hopefully, I’ll find someone to work with me soon.”
“Speaking of work, I’d better head into the café before all the muffins are gone,” Vivian said. “Maya and I are meeting this morning and I promised her a treat.”
“Gotta keep the boss happy,” Emily teased. Maya Burton ran the wildlife center, so technically she was Vivian’s boss, though she was also a great friend to both of them. “Tell her I’ll be by this afternoon to check on that gray fox.”
Vivian nodded. “I hope it’s okay. The poor thing seemed really lethargic last night.”
“The antibiotics probably hadn’t kicked in yet,” Emily reassured her. The fox had been caught by a local farmer who’d seen it limping across her field of organic kale. Emily had drained an abscess in its paw yesterday and now the little guy was recuperating in the wildlife center’s hospital. “Call me if it’s still sleepy when you get there.”
“Will do. Hopefully it will be grumpy and upset. Then we’ll know it’s on the mend.” Vivian took a step toward the café, then paused. “I won’t see you this afternoon. I’m only working until noon so I can take the kids shopping in Santa Rosa. Get some rest tonight. Okay?”
“I will... I hope,” Emily said. “See you at book club on Wednesday night?”
“Absolutely. Don’t forget, we’re having a dessert buffet. Promise you’ll make your amazing mocha brownies?”
“Sure.” Emily raised her cup. “They have coffee in them.”
Vivian laughed at Emily’s lame joke and headed into the café. Emily reached into her jeans pocket for her car keys and jiggled them in her free hand. What was her first appointment today? It might be Mrs. Crawford’s two Persian cats, big fur balls with pretty blue eyes and razor-sharp claws. Their annual checkup usually resembled a wrestling match. It might require a second cup of coffee. For her, not the cats.
Heaving herself up from the comfortable bench, Emily shuffled toward her white truck with the clinic’s black logo on the door. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any emergencies today. Maybe she could even get home by six and crawl straight into bed. She took one more look around downtown Shelter Creek, so pretty in the clear morning light, and froze.
A tall man in a black cowboy hat was walking along the sidewalk across the street, looking idly at the shop windows. His face was angled away, but still, he looked so familiar. Emily’s ribs tightened around her lungs. Something in his profile, the tilt of his jaw, reminded her of Wes. But that was impossible. Wes had left Shelter Creek when they were in high school. And he’d certainly never worn a cowboy hat.
As she watched, the man turned farther away from her to peer into the hardware store window and she took in his broad shoulders and his long legs in black jeans. He was wearing a worn denim jacket. There was something about this man... An old ache pulsed in her chest. Would Wes have become someone who dressed like a cowboy?
Emily pictured his crooked smile and the sparkle in his eye when he used to come riding with her at the stable where she boarded her horse, back in high school. But Wes had never reached out, never come back. Why would he be here now? Emily took a gulp of her coffee. Maybe she was having hallucinations from lack of sleep.
The man glanced toward her, as if he sensed her watching him. Instinctively Emily ducked down behind her truck. Squatting on the sidewalk behind the cab, she put a palm to her forehead. This was ridiculous. There was no reason to hide. This guy couldn’t be Wes. And even if it was, what was she so afraid of? She wasn’t the starry-eyed kid she’d been back then.
Her truck was parked in front of Hubert’s Collectibles, and fortunately, Hubert, owner of Millicent, a teacup poodle who’d been to visit Emily for a tummy ache last week, didn’t open his shop until eleven. Otherwise he might be wondering why the town’s vet was cowering next to a parking meter.
She should stand up. She should get to work. She set her coffee down and crawled a few paces forward so she could peek around the front of the truck. The man had moved on. He was walking at a faster pace now, moving past Emily’s friend Eva’s art gallery. There was something about his walk, the swing of his arms, the way he kept his body so straight and his weight slightly back... If she didn’t know better, she could swear it was Wes.
Emily picked up her cup and stood up slowly. She’d worked for years to forget Wes Marlow. Not that it had worked, obviously, since she was thinking of him now. But at least memories of their high school relationship had faded, and the hurt he’d caused had turned to tough scars long ago.
She should go. Just get in her truck and drive to her clinic. Instead, Emily started walking, keeping pace with the man, staying just behind him on the opposite side of the street. He was leaving the more touristy shops behind now, passing the auto parts store and the vacant lot with the dusty oak tree in the corner. The next building was the vast Tack and Feed Barn, located, as its name implied, inside an old barn. The man went inside. Emily waited for a few cars to pass before she dashed across Main Street and followed him in.
He wasn’t near the entrance. Maybe he’d gone straight to the back of the shop. Emily set her cup on a shelf by the door and walked the first aisle, running her hand along the rack of fancy dog leashes. The comforting scent of leather, grain and dust brought her to her senses. What was she doing?
Heat rose in her cheeks. Good thing there was no one in the front of the shop to see her making a fool of herself, chasing after a cowboy. But since she was here, she might as well visit the saddle she’d had her eye on forever. Someday she’d buy it, or one like it, when she finally got a horse of her own again. Emily walked deeper into the barn until she came to the cool, dim tack section. She found her saddle and traced her fingertips gently over the floral design etched into the leather.
“Are you finally going to buy it?”
Emily jumped back, her heart in her throat. “Lloyd, you startled me!” Lloyd Layton, owner of the Tack and Feed Barn and brother to Minnie, who owned Wild Poppy Fashion, was leaning on one of the old posts that supported the barn.
He chuckled. “You look like you’ve been caught trying to steal it.” For once Emily wished he’d turn down the volume of his warm, booming voice. She was supposed to be sneaking around, not attracting attention. “You know, Em, I won’t have this one around forever. Someone was looking at it pretty seriously just last week.”
Glancing regretfully at the delicate silver lacing at the edge of the seat, Emily sighed. “I don’t need it. I don’t have a horse.”
“You will, once you slow down a little at that job of yours. Buy it now and you can display it in your living room until you’re ready.”
She had a little extra in her bank account, but she’d only recently finished paying off her vet school loans. “I don’t know, Lloyd. It’s such an impractical saddle. I won’t need something this pretty.”
“Suit yourself.” Lloyd held up both his hands as if proclaiming his innocence. “I’m not trying to make a sale, here. I just don’t want to see the look on your face when you walk in here one day and this saddle is gone.” He smiled. “Though, you know, if you keep at this, you might just break the world record for time spent contemplating a purchase. So that’s something.”
Emily grinned. “That certainly is.” She gave the saddle one last glance. “I’ll think about it.” She shot him a wink. “A little more. Meanwhile, I’d better get to work.” She’d forgotten for a moment about the man she’d been following. Good. It was her lack of sleep that had her acting on such a strange whim. “Take care of my saddle.”
Lloyd’s laugh rang out behind her as she stepped back out into the pet section of the feedstore. And there he was, the man she’d followed, standing directly in front of her, examining a selection of dog bones. A small squeak escaped from deep in Emily’s throat. This close she could see that under the brim of that black cowboy hat it was him. Wes Marlow. The boy who’d gone missing and broken all their hearts.
Wes looked up at the sound, and for a moment he didn’t move a muscle. Then he took a step in her direction, peering down at her from a height he didn’t have back in high school. “Emily?”
“Wes.”
His eyes were still the green she remembered, but it was impossible to read the expression in them. He had a slight smile on his face, but he didn’t look happy. Instead he looked wary.
Well, he should look wary. If she hadn’t set her cup down she’d be tempted to dump her coffee right on top of that fancy hat of his. But the changes to his face distracted her. He still had thick, black hair, long enough to hang in shaggy edges below the brim of his hat. But the dark stubble lining his jaw was unfamiliar, and his face had lost any boyish softness. It was more defined, more lined, more lived-in.
Emily swallowed, trying to hold down the panic that suddenly flooded her system. She’d followed him in here on a vague instinct. She hadn’t considered what she’d do if the mystery man really was Wes. Words. You need to think of words. “Why are you here?”
He gestured toward the rack of dog treats. “Getting a few things for my dog.”
That wasn’t what she’d meant by her question. But maybe small talk would give her a chance to recover. Her ears rung with a buzzing sound and her hands had started to shake. “What kind of dog?”
He cleared his throat. “A husky.”
“Oh.” He had a husky. It was just about the only thing she knew about Wes Marlow right now and she used to feel like she knew him better than anyone else. But that was a long time ago. She straightened her shoulders and plastered what she hoped was a neutral expression on her face. “What brings you to Shelter Creek?”
He looked at her, right at her, with a steady gaze she remembered far too well. “I’ve wanted to come back here for a long time. I couldn’t, until now.”
“You couldn’t. Because you were what...a secret agent on a mission? Prevented by some invisible force field from crossing the Sonoma County line?” Oops. So much for neutral. Maybe she hadn’t buried her hurt feelings quite as deep as she’d thought.
His smile curled into something more genuine. “I didn’t notice any force field on the way in.”
“Oh. Good to know.” Emily waited for Wes to elaborate more, to finally explain why he’d waited so many years to come back. He was silent, smiling at her, studying her, as if taking inventory of the changes in her.
Picking up the nearest dog bone, pink rubber with white spots, Emily fidgeted with the toy, trying to hide her shaking hands. She didn’t want shaking hands. She didn’t want any reaction to him whatsoever. So what if he was back now? He’d made his choice all those years ago, and over and over again with every year that went by without a word from him. She set the pink bone back on the rack, accidentally squeaking it in the process. She started at the unexpected noise, her face blazing as Wes chuckled softly.
“You all right there?”
Emily tried to muster the remains of her dignity. “I’m fine. But I have to go. Enjoy your visit.”
“Stay.”
“What?” For a moment she thought he was asking her to stay and talk to him, and the flutters in her stomach undermined all the years she’d spent trying to feel nothing.
“I’m hoping to stay here. In Shelter Creek.”
Emily swallowed hard. Her lungs seemed to have lost the ability to process oxygen. “As in...live here?”
“It’s what I’ve always wanted.”
“Could have fooled me.” She took a few steps back, trying to find a spot in the store with a little more air. “What exactly are you planning to do here?”
“Work, I hope.”
“Work?” Images filled Emily’s mind, of running into Wes while out grocery shopping, seeing him at Shelter Creek’s many holiday events. Saying hello in passing, just like any other resident of her town. The pastry she’d eaten earlier swam in her stomach.
And her parents. She had to tell them. Her dad was recovering from a heart attack. Seeing Wes unexpectedly might trigger another one. “What kind of work?”
“I’m a veterinarian.”
The dog treat rack between them seemed to move. Everything else went slightly out of focus. “Wow. Good for you.” Emily had never fainted, but she might now. She had to get out of here.
“It’s good to see you again, Emily.”
“Yes, it is.” What was she saying? “I mean, it’s good to see you. Also.” She flapped her hand in an awkward wave as she turned away, forcing herself to walk calmly out of the store. To keep her balance. To keep her breakfast where it belonged.
As soon as she was safely on the sidewalk, she put a hand on the outside wall of the feedstore to support herself. The rough texture of the wood under her palm grounded her. She pulled in a few deep breaths. A veterinarian? He had to be aware that she was a vet, too. They’d spent so much time helping her father at the clinic when they were young. She’d always planned to follow in her father’s footsteps.
What was he going to do? Set up a practice here? Steal her clients? Was he serious? After sneaking away in the middle of the night without a word to anyone all those years ago, he was going to just move into her town? Except it had been his town, too, for a few years there.
Breathe. Focus. Those questions would have to wait. Right now she needed to make sure that her father didn’t get a shock that might put him back in the hospital, or worse. She had to get to her parents’ house and give them a heads-up that Wes Marlow was back in town.
WHAT HAD HE EXPECTED?
Wes picked a dog chew off the rack, examined the unappetizing rawhide, and put it back again. No dog toy could distract him from the disappointment curdling in his stomach. He’d known that coming back to Shelter Creek would be complicated. But he hadn’t prepared for the horror splashed over Emily’s features, or the way she’d tried to get away from him as fast as possible.
Somehow he’d been delusional enough to imagine that he’d arrive in Shelter Creek, get settled and then go to find Emily, dressed well and driving his nice truck. He’d show her how successful he was. He’d explain himself in an articulate speech, prepared and rehearsed. She’d forgive him, and welcome him home.
Ha. She’d caught him completely off guard and he’d made a mess of it. And there hadn’t been any welcome in her wide, blue eyes.
But maybe Wes had set himself up for the disappointment he felt now. He’d held this town up as such a perfect place for so many years. Treasured it in his mind like a talisman to reach for whenever it felt like he couldn’t keep going. Every cramped room he and his brother, Jamie, had shared, every low-paying job he’d had, every run-down neighborhood they’d inhabited had been bearable because it had been a step toward the day he could come back here and belong, not as some nice family’s charity case, but because he was a hardworking professional who could bring something to the community.
Wes ambled toward the cash register, still lost in thought. So his first meeting with Emily had been awkward. That didn’t mean that coming here was a mistake. Yesterday, after four days on the road from Houston, the sight of the sun slanting through the redwood trees—the hazy rays of light dappled with summer dust—sure hadn’t felt like a mistake.
Wes had stopped the car and he and Rex had run out into the forest, bounding on the thick layer of fallen needles that carpeted the ground. While the dog wandered, Wes had looked up at the redwood branches reaching impossibly high into the blue sky. He’d breathed in the earthy scent and felt like he was finally home.
But being here wasn’t going to be as simple as that moment in the forest. He’d hurt Emily, the girl he’d held so close in his heart for so long. He’d hurt her parents, who’d been so kind to him. They might not forgive him. They might not want him here. Yesterday was the last blissful moment of a fantasy he’d clung to for years. Now he had to deal with reality. And Emily’s reaction to him just now was a warning that reality might not include the happily-ever-after that he’d always imagined.
