For a brief moment, I glimpsed a life I’d never known possible, and then it had all gone away again. Like it was always going to. I was stupid to have ever thought of or wanted for more.
Stupid not to have pulled back sooner, walked away, before getting hurt like this.
Days pass.
After the weekend, when the article’s gone live, I half expect to hear from Beau, but I don’t. Instead, Beth texts me, making my heart rip open all over again.
Bailey, the article was fantastic. We all loved it. If you’re ever back this way, you’ll always have a place to call home. Hope to see you again. X
I didn’t reply. How could I tell her that I’d never be back in Arizona if I could help it? I will make it my life’s work to avoid it, and anywhere else there’s a chance I’ll see someone who reminds me of Beau. No more cowboys.
Which makes being in Houston a waking nightmare. Anytime I see a guy in a Stetson, my heart skips a beat, because they’re a dime a dozen around these parts. Like this morning, on my walk to work, I’ve seen at least seven of them, swaggering around in those jeans. Though none has had quite the same swagger, or perfect ass, as my cowboy.
My cowboy, who was never really mine.
I dig my fingernails into my palms, swearing I won’t cry. Not today. Today, I have bigger fish to fry, because this is the beginning of the rest of my life. Life, post-Beau. Post heartbreak. This time, I’m not running away though. Not like with Kirk. This time, I’m running towards something: a future, just not the future I’ve been planning for.
I focus my attention on the glass doors of my office building. Frank, the security guard, is standing where he always does, eyes scanning the street. Beyond him, there’s another cowboy, standing with his arms crossed, facing the front door, staring at it long and hard.
Not quite as hard as my heart’s started to beat though. A large thump, and then another, as I take in the boots, the jeans, the belt, the waist, the broad chest and, finally, his rugged, symmetrical face. And stop walking. Not because I want to, but because my legs all of a sudden won’t cooperate.
My lips part, my mouth goes dry.
This isn’t just another cowboy. I do a double-take to make sure. This is Beau. Beau, in all his glory. Perfect, and beautiful, and just as he is in my mind. Here, in Houston, and right outside my office. I lift a hand to my hair, running over it self-consciously, and maybe the gesture draws his attention because he turnsin my direction, his eyes immediately piercing me with their intensity.
I hate him and love him in equal measure. I tilt my chin, trying to remember the defiant strength I’d shown that last night we were together. But when he starts to walk toward me, my whole body goes into overdrive. I don’t move—I can’t. I just stand there, knees becoming increasingly less steady, mind firing in a thousand directions.
It’s still early in the morning and the area is quiet, but that doesn’t really matter. Even if it was bustling, it would feel like this: as though it’s just Beau and me, in our own little world. Just like it always did. Whatever we were, we existed outside of time and space.
I try to say something, but what? How do you greet the man who broke your heart, without even knowing he held it in his big, tough, bull-riding hands?
‘I read the article.’
He speaks first, and doesn’t greet me either. Just gets right to it.
Confusion spins inside me. I’m still trying to make sense of what he’s doing here. ‘Do you have an event in Houston?’
I know he doesn’t though. He was in Vegas, and then it’s on to Denver. I hate how I’ve committed that to memory, like everything else about him.
‘I’m not here to compete.’
‘Then why are you?’
A frown flickers on his face. ‘To tell you I read the article.’
I don’t know how to react to that. ‘I presumed you would.’
Silence. We just stare at each other, with a whole entire world between us. It’s been ten days since that night. Ten long-ass days, and I can’t even think about the nights, and what they’ve done to me. How much I’ve missed him.
‘Is that why you wrote all that?’
His voice is raspy, the words coated with something I don’t understand.
‘It’s just an article.’ I try to sound professional, dismissive.
His eyes narrow, as though he’s weighing that up, deciding if it’s true or not. ‘I thought we were going to talk, you know, the next morning.’
I blink past him, to the doors of my building, roll my lips together. ‘Nope.’
