In Love With A Cowboy (BWWM Romance) (12 page)

Over what? A stupid man that hadn’t been part of my life for more than a few weeks. Over a stupid relationship that was so perfect it couldn’t have been real. Over a life that I’d said no to because I’d been terrified of change, terrified that I was going to make another mistake. Keisha hadn’t been able to remember the first mistake. What if Tanner was wrong for me? She wouldn’t forget him now.

I wished I could forget. I wished I could erase the time he was here and pretend like it hadn’t happened at all. It had just been a few weeks. Somehow it felt like it had been a lot more. In that short time I’ve changed completely. I’ve become someone else, and when I looked at my life now, I didn’t recognize the woman that used to live it.

“When are we seeing Tanner again?” Keisha asked me from the backseat one morning when we were driving to her play group. I froze at the sound of his name.

“He hasn’t been visiting,” she said again.

“I know, baby,” I said. “Tanner had to go home. He was only visiting for a short while.”

“Like a vacation?”

“Something like that,” I said.

“I liked it when he came to visit,” Keisha said, and when I glanced at her in my rearview mirror she was looking out her window. I couldn’t see if she was happy or sad about the fact that he was gone out of our lives forever. That he hadn’t even said goodbye to her.

“Me too,” I answered. I thought back to the night he’d stayed for dinner, the way he just fit into the house and it worked. Dean had never fit like that. I’d always felt like I had to fight to make a space for him where he belonged. With Tanner it was just… easy.

I felt his fingers on my skin again, his lips on mine in the dark room, his deep voice in my ear telling me it would be alright. I felt his hips against mine, the strength and the passion and the reassurance that flowed out of him, and it was like he was here again , a ghost of himself left behind. I’d said no to that. To the best thing that I’d ever known.

I glanced at Keisha again. What had it been for? It had been to keep her happy. Even if I had to sacrifice my own happiness? That was what he’d asked me. And at the time it had seemed like the right thing to do. But was it?

I stopped in front of Keisha’s play group and helped her get her bag out of the car. She kissed me on the cheek and ran into the building. At the door she turned around and waved. I waved back and stood staring at the door where she’d disappeared long after she’d gone inside.

I’d given up everything for her to give her the life she deserved. Everything.

When I got back in my car I drove to the café and unlocked. Christine arrived minutes after me and started pulling up the blinds and taking down the chairs.

“Do you think I’m selling myself short?” I asked her. She stopped what she was doing, her hands on the back of the chair she’d taken off the table, and frowned.

“Are you talking about the café?” she asked. She glanced at the board behind me with the prices of what we offered. I shook my head.

“I meant in life.”

She bit her lip and looked around the café, thinking. I looked around it too. It was beautiful, homely, safe from the outside world. But sometimes safe could be a prison.

“Hey, I just think that you were happier a while ago than you are now, and it had nothing to do with this place and everything that happens in and around it.”

“It was Tanner, wasn’t it?”

Christine nodded. I sighed.

“Honestly though?” Christine said and I looked at her. She was standing just on the other side of the counter. “Seeing that you hardly ever ask my advice, I figure I should take my chance to be frank.”

“Go ahead.”

“I think you can do so much better than all of this. Yeah, the sheriff is the baby daddy, and you have to keep this place alive for Keisha. But kids are mother-proof, and they are happy wherever they are as long as they know they’re safe and you’ll always be there. This is nice and all, but is it what you want?”

I looked down at my hands.

“A while ago it was exactly what I wanted,” I said.

“And now?”

“I still want it. I mean, I love the café. But it’s so empty now.”

“So make a plan to fix it,” she said matter-of-factly and turned away from me. The first customers came in, and we didn’t talk anymore. But she’d gotten my mind to work.

After lunch time I picked Keisha up from play school and dropped her off at Mrs. Cole’s house. She was only two houses away from me, and Keisha spent time there sometimes to watch television. Instead of going back to the café, I drove to Dean’s office.

I stepped inside, the shade of the building a stark contrast against the heat of the sun outside. I could see Dean through the door in his office. He looked up when I came in.

“Do you have a moment?” I asked. Dean’s glance slid across his desk and over the stacks of paperwork, making his point. I ignored him and closed the door. He raised his eyebrows.

“What is it, Jada? Keisha sick again? Low on cash?”

I was irritated with his condescending tone. I didn’t like it when he spoke to me like I was just a burden. We’d made this baby together, it wasn’t like I’d done him in.

“Nothing like that,” I said. “But thank you for asking,” I added sarcastically. “I wanted to talk about us.”

“Us?”

I nodded and sat down in the chair on the opposite side of the table. I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves.

“I’ve been thinking..."

“That’s never good,” he cut me off. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“Can you just let me speak?” I asked. He snapped his mouth shut. The arrogant expression was still on his face and I sniffed, trying to smell if he’d been drinking. Surely it was too early for that? I couldn’t smell alcohol on him.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Really,” he said. It wasn’t the response I’d expected. I’d expected questions about why, or what I meant, at least.

“You know, this sounds a lot like it did the first time.”

“What?” It was my turned to ask.

“When you dumped me. You also said that.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t really thought about it. Hell, I couldn’t even remember what I’d said, but then again, I wasn’t the one that had been dumped. Maybe I would have remembered if he’d been the one to end it and I had been the one that had wanted it for the rest of my life.

“So, you don’t want this anymore,” he said. “What is this?”

“This thing that we’re doing. The weird thing where I have to run to find you whenever there’s an emergency, and pay for the café when you should be giving me the money, and you running back and throwing yourself at me again every time you’re drunk. I don’t want to keep playing these stupid games.”

He folded his arms over his chest and it reminded me of the times he refused me money when I asked, like a dad who put his foot down instead of an ex-lover that had commitments.

“So what now?” he asked. He looked a little like he didn’t believe I was being serious.

“I want to buy the café from you, eventually. I can’t give you the money now, but I’m not going to keep paying you rent. I’m going to use that money for other things we need instead. And you can’t keep throwing yourself at me. I don’t want a relationship with you, and I’m tolerating you for Keisha’s sake.”

“You’ve become very demanding all of a sudden,” he said.

“Well, it’s about time,” I said. “So, you got it? You pay child support, I pay the rest, but no rent. I’ll buy it from you one day. Okay?”

“What’s gotten into you, Jada?”

“This is something I should have done a long time ago.”

“You know you can’t keep Keisha all the time then. If you’re going to demand child support you need to let her stay with me every other weekend.”

The idea of it left me cold. I felt like my stomach dropped to my shoes and blood drained out of my face.

“There’s no way you’re taking her,” I said.

Dean smirked. “Legally you can’t keep her away from me.”

I didn’t want to take out the big guns, but he was leaving me no choice.

“Legally, Dean, I can report you for alcohol abuse and have you declared unfit to be a parent by the court. We’ll see how well your sheriff title holds up with that in motion.”

He paled. I had him by the balls and for the first time in my life I wasn’t going to be sympathetic and let go. I got up and walked toward the door.

“You can’t do this to me,” he said and his voice sounded strained.

I paused with my hand on the doorknob. “I can, Dean. You’re not the only one that can make threats. Start treating me right and be a good dad to Keisha and maybe we can work something out. Until then I will do what I need to, to keep Keisha safe.”

I left Dean behind gaping in his chair. And I felt like I was on fire. I should have done this ages ago. I got in my car, called to make sure Keisha was ok with her babysitter, and let her know I would be gone for a few more hours. Instead of driving back to the café, I got onto the only road that led out of town, the one road that led straight to Houston.

Chapter 12 - Tanner

My phone rang and I answered it while I took milk out of the fridge.

“There is a lady at the door for you, sir,” Carl, my doorman said over the speaker. I groaned, I didn’t want anything to do with Nicole. After I’d gotten back I’d tried to see her again, and all I saw when I looked at her was how much she wasn’t Jada.

“I’m not interested, Carl. Tell her I’m not home.”

“I can’t, I’m talking to you right now.”

Right. Dammit.

“Just tell her to go away.”

The doorman agreed and I hung up. I poured milk into my coffee and stirred it. I took a sip just as my phone rang again.

“Yes?”

“She won’t take no for an answer, sir,” he said. The coffee tasted like crap so I poured the contents down the drain. Everything had been tasting like sand or cardboard since I’d gotten back from Westham.

“Tell her I’m in a phone conference.”

The doorman sighed. It wasn’t fair of me to ask him to lie for me. “It’s fine, Carl. Let her up. I’ll sort it out with her.”

Carl sounded relieved and hung up. I found a shirt and pulled it on so I wouldn’t just be wearing boxer shorts. I didn’t want Nicole to think that we would be sleeping together. We used to do it all the time. I’d liked the no-strings-attached thing with her, the meaningless sex. Now I wanted meaning, and she wasn’t the girl for me.

Someone knocked on the door and I steeled myself and opened it.

“Look, babe. We’ve been through this..."

I froze. It wasn’t Nicole. Jada stood in front of me, her skin like chocolate, and her hair in new braids, strings that hung loose from her head. She wore jeans and a white shirt and she looked like a vision.

“Oh, have we, babe,” she mocked me, but the corners of her mouth tugged up in a smile. “Can I come in?” Her voice was a lot more her own with the second question. Shy and demanding all at the same time. I nodded, still speechless, and stepped to the side. She walked into the apartment, looking around.

I saw it as a stranger would. Big, expensive, well designed and completely impersonal.

“I can see why you would want to come back to Houston,” she said. She stopped in front of a large abstract painting with blues and reds and greens.

“Really? It’s lost its appeal,” I answered, finally having found my voice again. “How did you find me?”

“Oh, you know. I asked Barbara what information she had on you, and she gave me your company’s name. I phoned them for your home address.”

“Who’s Barbara?” I asked. Jada made a face.

“The receptionist at Lazy Eye.”

I nodded. Right. That was her name. “Since when does the firm give out personal information?” I asked.

Jada grinned. “Since I told them I was a pregnant girlfriend and I needed to find you to sue you. I told her I thought maybe one of the other partners could take on the case. Then I started crying and she almost shouted at at me.”

She looked like she enjoyed the drama. I watched her grin, and I wondered how I’d managed the past week without her.