First Kiss with a Cowboy: Includes a bonus novella Read online

  “I’m not exactly sure.” She came back to the table and set the pills in front of him along with a glass of water. “I told myself it was because I didn’t love it here growing up. Especially after my dad passed away.” She took her seat across from him again, gazing over the table with a thoughtful look. “But being here, I’m finding that’s not exactly true. There’s a lot I love.” Jane pushed the pills closer to Toby’s hand as though reminding him to take them. “I think I stayed away because I never felt like I fit in here. Like no one…except for Beth and my dad knew the real me. Though I know a lot of that was my fault. In a lot of ways, I’m the one who didn’t let anyone get to know me.” She looked up at him abruptly, like she worried she’d said too much. “Even if it was my own fault, it’s a terrible feeling not to be known.”

  Forget the pills, he held his whole focus on her. “I’d like to know you.” It might have been the most honest thing he’d ever said, but even to him it sounded…tentative. They were only here for a short time and God willing he’d be back on the road again by fall. He didn’t have much to offer her.

  Doubt filled her eyes. “I’ve spent eight years moving on, building a new life. But then I came back here and seeing the ranch…reconnecting with Beth… it makes me realize how empty my life was back in California. A little lonely.” Looking down, she picked at one of her nails. “When my dad died, I lost my champion. He understood me in a way no one else ever seemed to. When I lost him, I felt like I lost everything that mattered, and I never want to feel that way again.” She peeked up at him. “I guess that’s part of the reason I left. But I didn’t really leave behind the fear or the pain.”

  “Yeah, those tend to stick with you.” No matter what he’d done to stave it off, the fear and pain still followed him around too. “It’s easy to look past them when you’re away though. It’s easy to pretend the fear and pain isn’t there.” He blew out a sigh. “And then you come home and you find it’s still there waiting for you.”

  Surprise parted Jane’s lips. “How do you know?”

  The question edged him closer to the cliff he’d been dancing around since he’d gotten home. Every time he came back it got harder to pretend. Maybe because he’d grown up and he didn’t want to pretend anymore.

  “You need to take the medicine.” Jane reached across the table, picked up the pills, and spilled them into his hand.

  Before she could pull away, he clasped his fingers around hers. “I want to know you.” He’d screwed up when he was a stupid kid. He should’ve considered how her loss had made her want to hide. He knew the comfort hiding could bring, at least temporarily, but in order for him to know her he needed to let her know him too. “You said I’ve never had to deal with anything hard, but that’s not true.”

  Jane didn’t look away from him. She simply waited for him to continue.

  Toby gazed at her, at the tears still glistening in her eyes, at the concern furrowing her brow. He’d never told anyone. He’d never felt the freedom to tell anyone, not when his own parents never discussed Tanner, and then so much time had passed it seemed too late. How could he tell anyone when he’d ignored his brother’s memory for so long?

  But Jane would understand, and he knew she’d never breathe a word of it to anyone else if he didn’t want her to. “I lost my brother.” That was the first time he’d spoken those words out loud, and even though they brought a rise of pain, they also opened up something inside of him.

  “Your brother?” Jane’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “I thought you only had younger sisters…”

  “That’s what everyone thinks.” He adjusted the ice pack, even though he hardly felt it against his skin. “But we lost him before we moved here. Tanner was my twin, he died when we were seven.” Emotion gripped him by the throat and for once he didn’t try to fend it off.

  “Toby,” Jane uttered through a gasp. “Oh, no. That’s…unimaginable.”

  “As unimaginable as losing your dad as a teenager,” he murmured gently.

  Jane nodded, her eyes brimming with tears again. “I’m so sorry.” She let out a sad laugh. “I used to hate it when people said that to me. What good does it do?”

  “Coming from you it does a lot of good.” An ache raced through him, settling in his fingertips. He wanted to touch her, wanted to pull her to him and let the feel of her in his arms dull the pain. “Everything was fine until the year we turned two and then my parents started to notice something wasn’t right with him.” Toby didn’t remember that part. He didn’t remember Tanner always tripping and falling while Toby was able to run as fast and as far he wanted. He didn’t remember his brother’s struggles with speech and motor skills.

  “The doctors diagnosed him with Duchenne muscular dystrophy when we were three. I don’t remember him before that. I don’t remember him ever being healthy.” His brother had already been in a wheelchair full-time by the time they turned four. “He was my best friend though. I pushed him around in his wheelchair. I helped him eat. I played catch with him. And I read to him. He loved that. He loved cowboy books.”

  Jane pressed her hand to her mouth, and brushed away her tears, but she said nothing. She simply waited for him to continue.

  Talking about Tanner made a burn rise in his gut. But he had to tell her. He needed to. Like Jane had said, it was a terrible thing not to be known. Tanner deserved to be known. “When we’d go out, everyone would stare at him, but he was just my brother.” Toby hadn’t thought of him any different. “He couldn’t do the physical things I could do, but he was smarter than me, and he was funny too. He always had a joke to tell.” He smiled, remembering, and Jane smiled too. “I never thought…I didn’t realize he could die. But one night his heart just stopped.” He couldn’t say more. Not without losing it, and he couldn’t lose it. He’d never been allowed to lose it.

  Jane rested her hand over his, not even trying to hide her tears now. A few tears may have slipped down his cheeks too. He couldn’t be sure.

  “I think I was in shock. Because I hadn’t considered he would die, but my parents…I think they’d been preparing for it all along.” They must’ve because they’d so quickly and efficiently planned his funeral and packed up the medical equipment. In just days, it was like Tanner had never existed at all. “They were sad and they were different. Almost angry all the time.” They’d seemed short with him and impatient. Now he understood that was just their grief but at the time… “I felt like I had to make them happy. Like it was all up to me. I did everything I could to make them smile and to be okay so I could keep them from getting upset.”

  “That’s too much,” Jane said, touching her hand to his cheek. “That’s too much for a child to carry.”

  It had been too much. Too heavy. “A few weeks after Tanner’s funeral, my parents told me we were moving. That we were starting over. Moving on.”

  “But you never really move on.” Jane scooted to the edge of the chair so that her knees touched his.

  “No. You never really move on.” He set the ice pack on the table and stretched out his shoulder. “My parents still won’t talk about him. We don’t have any pictures in the house. And yet I still see him everywhere.”

  “Because he was an important part of your life,” Jane said. “Which means he’s a part of you.” A light went on in her eyes. “That plaque. The one on the outside of the library. It says ‘In Memory of Tanner.’”

  He didn’t bother to look away. She knew. Jane was not only smart, she’d always been intuitive. “He loved books. It was one way I could think to honor him.”

  “It’s the perfect way.” Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms around his bare shoulders and held on.

  * * *

  With her arms wrapped around Toby, Jane couldn’t stop picturing him as a grief-stricken seven-year-old unsure of how to mourn his brother’s death.

  Her heart broke for him, for that little boy who never got to be a cowboy. Her heart broke for his family, for their desperation to move on a
nd simply get past it. In all the pain she and her mom and Wes and August had gone through, never once did her mother try to shy away from their dad’s memory. She kept all of their family pictures exactly where they’d been. Her mom kept her father’s memory alive for all of them, and she’d never expected them to be okay. They’d talked about her dad, they’d all acknowledged what they’d lost. But Toby hadn’t been allowed to do any of that.

  She wasn’t sure how long they sat that way, Toby’s forehead resting on her shoulder, her cheek brushing his hair. He was quiet and she stayed quiet. She already knew words didn’t matter. In the unspeakable aftermath of loss, it was the being there that mattered. After her dad’s funeral, Beth would sometimes come over and simply sit in the chair that had been in the corner of Jane’s room doing her homework. A lot of times they wouldn’t speak at all, but Jane knew her friend was there and that had mattered more than anything.

  “I’ve never told anyone.” Toby’s voice was muffled by her shoulder. “I didn’t even know how to talk about it, where to start.” He slowly raised his head. “But I knew you would understand.” His eyes found hers. They were red around the rims, but any tears he’d shed seemed to have already dried.

  Her eyes, however, filled again. “I do.” The crack in her heart deepened. How had he kept that a secret all these years? How had he carried it all alone? “It helps to talk about it, actually. It hurts too.” She could see the pain in him. “But it helps.”

  “Yeah. It does.” His face had centered on hers, those eyes of his so magnetic and full of energy. The intensity of his gaze quickened her pulse. She remembered seeing that look a few other times. The night of the party back in high school. Last night at the brewery when he’d caught her in his arms. And then earlier when he’d kissed her in the soft grass.

  “I probably shouldn’t kiss you,” he half whispered.

  “Probably not,” she agreed. When he’d kissed her earlier she’d gotten caught up in the moment, but he’d still been Toby the good-time cowboy. He’d still been the man who didn’t take anything too seriously. Now, though, she’d seen so much deeper into him, and she wanted to be there for him, but she couldn’t let her emotions overpower her.

  She’d meant what she’d said about love. For someone like her, someone who felt so completely and deeply, it only ever seemed to end in heartache. And, despite what he’d told her, Toby still lived his life on the edge. He lived for risk, thrived on it, and she knew herself too well; she couldn’t stand another loss. She wouldn’t survive it.

  “We should get back to the shower,” she said before she gave in to the desire to kiss away his pain. Before one of them started something that would be impossible to stop. Sitting with Toby had opened her emotions, bringing her to the same raw, vulnerable place he was in right now, and this wouldn’t end well for either one of them.

  He closed his eyes and nodded as though trying to convince himself. She couldn’t seem to move either. Something in her wanted to wrap her arms around him again, to lose herself, to let him lose himself, but crossing that line would bring too many complications for them both. “I think you should talk to your parents,” she murmured instead of touching him. “They should know how you felt, Toby. How you still feel.” She knew how important that was, how much healing it could provide.

  “I’m not sure I can. But I’ll try.” With a sad smile he stood and pulled his T-shirt back over his head like he couldn’t stand to sit there anymore without touching her.

  It was only then she realized she was still wearing his flannel shirt over her dress. He’d slipped it onto her shoulders outside so casually and effortlessly, that she hadn’t even realized he was doing it until she was wrapped in his woodsy scent. At the time she’d still been annoyed with the Aubrey situation, so she hadn’t even acknowledged it for the thoughtful gesture it was. Two weeks ago, if someone had told her Toby Garrett had a thoughtful sincerity hiding deep down, she would’ve laughed, but now she’d seen it for herself.

  Forcing herself to her feet, Jane slipped the shirt off her shoulders and handed it back to him. He wasn’t just the charming sweet-talker she’d always thought he was…maybe he never had been. Maybe he’d always had a depth he’d hidden from the world. But now that she’d seen it, now that she knew, she had to be careful not to lose her heart to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Anxiety locked up Toby’s chest the second he walked into the medical building adjacent to the hospital. He’d become too familiar with this place over the last three months, spending a whole lot more time than he would’ve liked to with his orthopedic surgeon. He stepped into the elevator, his knees buckling under the weight of the what-ifs. What if he ended up back in the operating room? What if he had to give up everything he’d worked for?

  The doors rolled open to the sterile hallway he’d walked so many times before. The doc hadn’t given him good news from the start, but throughout his recovery, their visits had grown more optimistic. If the pain in his shoulder was any indication, he was about to have a major setback.

  Damn. Toby paused outside the office, taking a minute to get it together. All that work he’d put in, all that pain he’d gone through to get where he was now, and he might have to hang it up for good. A sudden anger fisted his hands. He should’ve never climbed onto the mechanical bull. He shouldn’t have been showing off, trying to entertain the crowd.

  A door across the hall opened, and Toby turned to walk into the office, fighting for a smile to greet the receptionist.

  “How’s the day going, Gloria?” he asked the middle-aged woman who was always so polite to him.

  “Can’t complain.” She typed on a computer while she answered. Her ability to multitask and still hear everything he said amazed him. “Saturdays are always good. Much quieter around here.” Her fingers paused on the keyboard and she smiled up at him. “The doc will be with you in a few.”

  “Thanks.” He wandered to a straight-backed chair against the wall dragging the weight of failure behind him. It wasn’t only the mechanical bull idiocy that had gotten to him. It was what had happened after.

  Emotions surged through him the way they had four nights ago when Jane had wrapped her arms around him—grief and pain but also what felt like a fragile hope. She hadn’t thought he was a terrible person for keeping Tanner a secret. She hadn’t asked why he’d never said a word about his brother. Instead she’d pulled him in and had offered a reassurance that had somehow made his grief easier to carry. The empathy, the physical contact had roused that craving in him again. But the fear in her eyes when he’d raised his face to hers had told him everything he needed to know. She didn’t want him to kiss her. She deserved more than someone who’d come and go in her life.

  “The doc just buzzed me,” Gloria said, still typing away. “He asked me to apologize. He’s running a few minutes late.”

  Big surprise there. “Thanks.” A weight seemed to press into his shoulders. Trying to ignore it, Toby opened the book he’d checked out from the library, ready to lose himself in the story again. That was better than losing himself in thoughts about Jane.

  Flipping through the pages, Toby found his place. He’d made it about halfway through and he still couldn’t see why Jane had gotten so weird about him checking out the book. The story was well written. Intelligent. But it also had these witty undertones. The characters seemed familiar to him somehow. Maybe it was because the main dude was a cowboy, but Toby couldn’t shake the feeling that the guy seemed like someone he knew.

  “I loved that book,” Gloria called. “There’s supposed to be another one coming out next year. I tried to find the author online, but it’s like they don’t exist.”

  Toby studied the book cover again. “Yeah, sounds like whoever it is writes under a pseudonym.” Which made no sense to him at all. If you’re that successful and that talented, why hide it? Unless…

  “Whoever it is must be real shy.” Gloria’s fingers clacked the keyboard. “More of a behind-the-scenes p
erson than someone who likes the spotlight.”

  “Exactly. It has to be someone who doesn’t like attention,” Toby added. Someone a lot like Jane…

  “I can’t imagine not liking attention,” Gloria half muttered. “If I wrote a book like that, I’d enjoy the accolades.”

  Toby thought about Jane’s reaction when he’d picked up the book. Her face had gone white. And she’d tried to talk him out of reading it. It’s not your kind of book. She’d seemed pretty damn sure when she’d said it.

  “Toby.” Dr. Petrie appeared in a doorway on the other side of the waiting room. “Why don’t you come on back?”

  Tabling the thoughts about Jane and the book, he trudged to the door to face his fate.

  “Good to see you.” The doctor greeted him with a handshake. “Although I wish the circumstances were different.”

  “You and me both.” He’d been so careful since the surgery, still working hard, but favoring his right side. And all it had taken was the chant of a crowd to make him stupid. He never could say no to accolades himself, but he’d better learn how.

  The doctor led him down a short hallway to an open exam room. “Have a seat.” He gestured to the chair instead of the exam table and closed the door.

  Toby did as he was told, prepping for another lecture. Not like the other ten had done him any good, but this time he’d do his best to make it stick.

  “So, you want to tell me what happened?”

  “I was at a wedding shower and there happened to be a mechanical bull there.” Enough said. There was no way to make that sound good.

  To his credit, Dr. Petrie didn’t laugh. “So, you tweaked your shoulder?”

  “I fell on it,” Toby corrected. “Felt a small pop. Nothing crazy, but afterward I experienced pain and swelling.” He’d been experiencing pain and swelling ever since.

  “I’d imagine you did.” The doctor walked over. “Why don’t we take a look?”