“Salem, I don’t know Rowdy that well but I can look at that and see someone handing you their heart. I can’t believe you have any kind of question about how he feels about you. What other man since then has tried to offer you what you wanted most? He was just a kid at the time and he was trying to make your dreams come true.”
Well, shit. Put like that, it made my heart lodge in my throat and my insecurity feel pitiful and petty.
“He’s always been a very special guy.”
“Well then, I’m sure he figured out he deserves a very special girl. I’m sure your sister is a lovely person, Salem, but she let him chase after her, let him follow her, let him sacrifice his education and possible future for her without a thought. You left, but you also came back. You left your job, your life, and everything you were building in Vegas once you knew he was here. I don’t think it’s where you go that matters, I think it’s where you end up.”
I finished my wine with a hefty chug. “You did the same thing.”
“I did and I can only hope that eventually he’ll realize that matters. I think he already figured it out with you.”
I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure about that, but when I got home and got berated by my sister yet again for being a no-show when Rowdy came around looking for me, I was starting to believe it more. He texted me twice before I went to bed and I couldn’t justify ignoring him anymore, so I responded that I would see him at work tomorrow and we could talk at some point over the weekend. I didn’t want the entire shift at the shop to be awkward and uncomfortable between us tomorrow when we worked together. I also told him good night and stopped just short of texting him that sleeping alone sucked. Jimbo gave me sad eyes as he climbed up onto Rowdy’s side of the bed and laid his head on my arm.
I patted his rapidly growing head and scrunched-up nose as he licked at my fingers. “I’ll get it together, Jimbo. I promise.” The dog whined and I sighed. “I know. I miss him, too.”
WHEN ROWDY WALKED INTO the shop the next afternoon I expected him to jump all over me and demand answers for my admittedly terrible behavior as of late, but he didn’t. He smiled at me in his normally charming way and went to his station to set up since he had back-to-back appointments scheduled throughout the day. He didn’t look at me, or try and talk to me beyond what was necessary for business for the entire shift. It stressed me out and made me feel even worse than I already did, and of course since I hadn’t seen him for a few days, all I wanted to do was stare at him and remember what he looked like wearing nothing but the battered cowboy hat. It made for a very unpleasant and tense afternoon.
I was going to ask him if he wanted to have lunch with me and by “lunch” meant let me grope him somewhere privately while I tried my best to apologize and explain all the crazy and frantic thoughts that had been hounding me since seeing him with his arms around my sister. He vanished before I could. That put me in a very sour and grumpy mood for the rest of the day. I knew it wasn’t logical since I had been the one playing hide-and-seek all week, but I couldn’t help it. Luckily the first shipment of stuff for the store came in late in the afternoon and I got to go upstairs and paw through T-shirts, tank tops, jackets, thermals, and old-fashioned button-ups to see how everything turned out.
The guys had come through in spades with the designs. Along with Rowdy’s gypsy and Rule’s sacred heart, Nash had given me a brightly designed koi fish and, for Phil, an angel that was done in pinup style with tattooed and pierced wings. The older Donovan would have been tickled pink by his son’s tribute to him. The designs were fantastic and unique. I just knew people were going to eat them up and this was just the start. I fully intended on making these boys have their own brand that could go on so much more than T-shirts. They were all so talented and had survived so much to get where they were. They deserved notoriety and recognition for being some of the best in the business.
I was in clothes heaven and already thinking about the next wave of designs and apparel as well as getting an online retail site up and running when I heard boots on the stairs. I knew it was Rowdy and looked at my phone to see what time it was. I was surprised to see that the rest of the afternoon had passed while I was up here sorting and organizing and it was well past time to do the cash-out for the day and go home.
When he cleared the top of the landing I noticed he had the bank bag in his hand and that there was a determined slant to his normally smiling mouth.
“Everything downstairs is done. This is ready for the safe. Do you have anything else left to do up here?”
I was going to break down some of the boxes the clothes had come in and try and make a path between my piles so Cora could get through, but that wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait until Monday. I didn’t want to squander my chance if Rowdy was finally willing to talk to me after his chilly treatment all day. I hated that I deserved his brush-off.
“No. I’ll finish up on Monday. I’ll come when the shop is closed so I can take my time with it.”
He nodded and stepped around all my piles of goodies delicately to get to Cora’s office. He went inside and came back out carrying a small black bag. He locked the door behind him and walked over to where I was waiting. He wrapped his long fingers around my wrist and without saying a word pulled me after him down the stairs, telling me to hit the lights as we went. As usual I had on heels, so being dragged down the stairs was slightly precarious and he wouldn’t answer me when I asked him what he thought he was doing. He didn’t even let me go to lock the front door of the shop. Instead he told me to dig the keys out of his pocket and do it for him. Not that I minded the task but I still thought he was being weird and evasive.
“What’s in the bag, Rowdy? I told you we could talk after work, so why are you acting so surly?”
“Surly isn’t even the tip of the iceberg, sugar.”
I knew he had to be really mad if he was using one of his throwaway terms of endearment on me. He further perpetuated that belief when he hauled me to his SUV despite the fact I was peppering him with questions and complaining about my car being in the lot across the street.
He literally lifted me up into the passenger seat and buckled the seat belt around me like I was a little kid. He opened the back door and tossed the black bag on the seat next to another one that I noticed was already there. He made his way around the vehicle, and once he was settled into the driver’s seat, he finally turned to look at me.
“Poppy came and got your car when she brought me that bag for you at lunch. Since you’ve been avoiding me all week I’m taking you somewhere where there is absolutely no place for you to run and we’re going to figure this shit out. If you want to ignore me for two more days that’s fine, but you’re going to be bored out of your mind.”
He turned to look out the windshield and I noticed a tic thumping in his strong jawline.
“I told you I was ready to talk.” I crossed my arms over my chest because I didn’t like being ambushed and I hated feeling chastised.
“You also told me you weren’t going to bail on me again and that’s exactly what you did this week.”
It was true and I couldn’t deny it.
“I just needed a minute, Rowdy. I didn’t go anywhere. I was here the entire time.”
He swore and cut me a hard sidelong look out of the corner of his eye. “You were here but you couldn’t have been farther away if you tried.”
The SUV pulled onto the interstate and headed north. I watched the city fade into the background and asked him again where we were going.
I could tell he was debating if he wanted to tell me or not just to spite me but eventually his innate kindness won out.
“Phil owned a cabin out in the woods on a private lake in Boulder that he passed on to Nash. Nash keeps it because he can’t bear to sell it, and I think he wants to convince Saint to take time off this winter and hide out with him for a week or two since they are both so busy working all the time. He told me I could borrow it for a few days until we get our shit straight. There’s no electricity and no modern amenities, so all there is to do is fish, f**k, and talk.” He lifted an eyebrow at me with a leer. “I didn’t bring any fishing poles.”
I looked out the window at the rapidly darkening sky and muttered, “I can’t believe my own sister helped you kidnap me.”
“Something has to give, Salem. Either we’re doing this or we’re not, but I have to know one way or the other. Poppy just wants you to be happy. Hell, she just wants me to be happy after all this time and the road to that place for both of us runs right through you.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that but I did know one thing that was stunningly, perfectly, absolutely crystal clear to be after the last few days without him. “We are definitely doing this, we just might not be doing it right all of the time, and that road might have a speed bump or two.”
At least the tic in his jaw died down after I said that and his hands loosened some on the steering wheel. It must have appeased him some because he turned the radio on and the HorrorPops filled the silence instead of us snapping and griping at each other.
Boulder wasn’t really far outside of the city limits, but once we started to head into the mountains and the roads gave way to things that looked like barely there trails, I realized it was going to be well into the night before we got wherever it was we were going. It was still warm enough out that I could roll the window down and listen to the sounds of the forest and smell the things that made Colorado such a beautiful place to be. The pine, the hint of fall in air, the way everything felt so untouched and natural, even the dust the tires kicked up made it feel like someplace I had never been before and was lucky to be now. The night crickets and the call of the animals in the surrounding woods were lulling and almost enough to put me to sleep, but I didn’t want to miss any of it. I wasn’t a nature girl but the peacefulness and serenity of this place was really welcome after a week spent on the edge of doubt and confusion.
When Rowdy finally stopped over an hour and a half later, I decided calling this place a cabin was being generous. It looked more like a wooden shack in the center of the woods and I would bet my best pair of heels that no woman had ever been inside the ramshackle building. All I could think was that if it looked this bad at night, I really didn’t want to see it in the daylight.
Rowdy climbed out of the SUV and took our bags to the stairs and dropped them in front of the door. He moved around to the back of the vehicle as I climbed down out of it and I watched as he muscled out a big cooler and went to deposit it by the rest of the stuff. He looked at me questioningly, so I sighed and delicately made my way to where he was waiting, careful not to break an ankle on the uneven ground in my tall heels.
“I’m not exactly dressed for this, Rowland.”
He smirked at me and got the door open and ushered me inside the tiny space. I almost turned around and ran back out the door. There was nothing there. Four walls, a woodburning stove, no lights shining, which led to everything being cast in creepy shadows. A beat-up chair that looked like it had dropped from the back of a garbage truck and an old-style army cot were the only furnishings. I balked and turned to tell him flatly, “I’m not sleeping on the floor and there better not be bats.”
He laughed out loud and hauled all of our stuff inside. He disappeared to the back of the SUV again and brought in a giant Rubbermaid container that he set down by me with a thud. He popped it open and pulled out a couple of lanterns that he lit up right away and an air mattress that had an adapter to blow it up off the cigarette lighter in the car. He also produced several blankets and offered to let me dig through the supplies he brought to find something to eat. There was plenty of beer, some bottles of water, and stuff for sandwiches and breakfast. I had to give it to him, he was superprepared for this venture.