Cowboy's Pride (Welcome to Covendale Book 1) (9 page)

“Goodnight, Mr. Thatcher,” Eddie called from what sounded like a distance through the blood pounding in his ears. “We’ll be around next week to collect your first payment.”

“Great,” he rasped. “Looking forward to it.”

Cam stayed on the ground until he heard the engine start and the car drive away. By then he could almost breathe. Wincing, he folded an arm across his aching gut, and out of habit started looking for his hat.

Then he realized it hadn’t been knocked off his head. He’d left it at The Klinker.

Goddamn it, he wasn’t in the mood to deal with the town’s communal hatred again tonight. But he had a feeling if he left it there, it’d be long gone by morning—and that was his favorite hat.

He stood with gritted teeth and moved carefully toward his truck. One more stop, and then he could head home to lick his wounds in private.

Chapter 11

Sydney was so numb with shock that she lost time. One minute she was walking along Main Street, the next she was sitting on a bar stool at The Klinker with five empty shot glasses in front of her. She had no idea what she’d drank, or whether she’d spoken to anyone, or how long it’d been since she found her fiancé fucking another woman in his bedroom.

The place seemed much too quiet. She tried to look around, but her head was so blurry she couldn’t see much more than three feet away. There was a blob on the other side of the bar that might have been a person.

“Excuse me,” she tried to say, but her tongue tripped over the sounds and it came out
scurze
. She frowned and concentrated hard on something simpler. “Hey.”

The blob got bigger and turned into Matt the bartender. At least she thought that’s who it was. “Mmmph,” she said. But that wasn’t what she meant, so she tried again. “Luka. Whereshego?”

“She left with Reese,” Matt said patiently. “I already told you that, remember?”

“Oh, good.” It came out
oguh.
“I’m happy for her. See?” She tried to point at her face and smile, and almost fell off the stool.

“Yes, you said that.” Matt looked extremely concerned. She couldn’t imagine why. “Sydney…do you want me to call someone for you? I could call Tommy, and—”

“
No.
” At least that was clear. “I wanna drink. Big one.”

He sighed. “How about some water?”

“Put rum innit. Lotsa rum.”

She watched Matt turn into a blob again, and then banged her head pretty hard on the counter trying to lay it down and rest. Hard enough to see stars—but it only hurt for a minute. That would’ve concerned her if she was anywhere close to sober. But she wasn’t, so she stayed there staring at a floor that looked a million miles away and waited for her drink.

Then she heard heavy steps coming toward her.

Her body wouldn’t cooperate with an attempt to see who it was until a pair of boots walked into her limited field of vision. Black boots. Black jeans. She could guess the rest. With extreme effort, she lifted her head and blinked a few times until Cam Thatcher’s face came into focus.

“Jesus Christ,” he said.

“No, I’m Cynth…Syd.
Sydney.
I’m drunk.”

“You don’t say.”

“I
do.
” Oh, damn. That made her think of weddings, and she was instantly on the verge of puking again. She fought her surging stomach and said, “What’re you…” She meant to add
doing here
, but the rest wouldn’t come out.

“Forgot my hat.”

A fuzzy recollection of Cam putting his hat down on the bar earlier came to her. He hadn’t been wearing it when he walked out. Part of her was disappointed that he hadn’t come back for her, but why would he? She was engaged to Tommy.

No, she wasn’t.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Tommy.”

Cam winced when the name left her mouth. She wanted to explain the rest, that she only said it because she’d just fully realized what happened. How very over it was. But the crushing weight of betrayal overcame her tongue, and all that came out was a wrenching sob.

“Here you go, Sydney.” Matt’s voice cut through the dizzy roar in her head, still gentle. But it sharpened as he addressed Cam. “What do you want?”

“My goddamned hat,” Cam practically growled. “You’re giving her another drink?”

“It’s water.”

“She doesn’t need water. She needs to go home.” Cam snatched the hat from the bar where Matt dropped it, and jammed it on his head. “Call her fiancé or something.”

“She told me not to.”

“Fine. I’ll go get the son of a bitch, then.”

“Don’t!” Panic pulled Sydney’s voice into something approaching clarity. “I don’t…need him,” she managed, praying she hadn’t said anything to Matt about the big-busted waitress during her lost time. “Just let me sit here a few minutes. Then I’ll go.”

Concern replaced the anger in Cam’s expression. “You can’t drive like this.”

“She can’t drive, period,” Matt said. “She came with Luka.”

“Damn it.” Cam crossed his arms and stood there for a long moment, staring fiercely at nothing in particular. At last he said, “All right. I’ll take her home.”

Matt cleared his throat. “I don’t know if I should let you do that.”

“Like you could stop me.” That dangerous note was back in Cam’s voice.

“Would you
stop
?” Sydney said, louder than she’d meant. But she didn’t care. She was so sick of people—including herself—having the same knee-jerk reaction to Cam, when he didn’t do anything wrong. “He’s not a bad guy. He’s fixing the carriage.” That didn’t make as much sense out loud as it had in her head. “He’s just trying to help.”

“Just keep your mouth shut,” Cam said. For a minute she wasn’t sure if he was talking to Matt or her, but she decided he must mean the bartender. He squatted down until his face was level with hers, and stared into her eyes until she got uncomfortably hot. He finally said, “Do you think you can walk out to the truck?”

She felt like laughing, but she managed not to. “Nope. Not a chance.”

“I was afraid of that.”

“Just leave me here to die,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

Cam grimaced, straightened slowly, and let out a long sigh. “All right,” he said. “Here we go.” And before Sydney could react, he’d scooped her into his arm like she weighed nothing.

She probably should’ve been humiliated at being carried out of the bar like a baby. But Cam was solid and warm and not Tommy. And he’d helped her when no one else could—or would. She was already a lot more relaxed than she’d been all night.

When he stepped outside and headed for the parking lot, the cooled air hit her hard. She’d been here long enough for the temperature to drop. She snuggled closer to him and put an arm around his waist for balance. “Cam,” she murmured. “Don’t take me home.” She couldn’t face her parents yet—because she’d have to tell them about Tommy.

He groaned deep in his chest. “Where am I supposed to take you?”

“Just…not home.”

“That’s real helpful.”

Her whole body felt heavy and drowsy, and she was barely conscious. She couldn’t think of a thing. And then she remembered the deal they’d made. “I’m not married right now,” she slurred. “Take me with you. To the ranch.”

He shuddered so hard, she thought he’d drop her. “You’re killing me, Sydney.” His voice was hoarse and low, rumbling against her body. “All right,” he said. It was barely a whisper. “The ranch it is.”

Thank you.
She thought it, but the words never made it out of her mouth as she slid into sleep.

* * * *

Sydney’s bed felt weird. Not bad, just different. It was soft and comfortable, but kind of crinkly. And her bedroom smelled like…hay.

Oh, no.

She forced her sticky eyes open and saw rafters and rough wooden planks above. The crinkly bed was hay under a blanket. She was in a hayloft—in Cam Thatcher’s barn. There was no other place this could be.

And she couldn’t remember a thing about last night.

She tried to sit up too fast, and her head spun. Groaning, she waited a minute and then pushed herself up slowly. A few fragments filtered through her hazy brain. Something big had happened last night, something her mind refused to recall. Then she’d gotten drunk. Really, really drunk. And now she was here.

Cam sat motionless at the edge of the loft, his legs dangling over the drop. He held a mug in both hands and stared straight ahead—back rigid and straight, jaw set. “There’s coffee if you want some,” he said without looking at her.

Coffee was the last thing she wanted. She needed answers. “How did I get here?”

“In my truck,” he said through clenched teeth. “You asked me to bring you.”

“Oh.” Her stomach flipped and twisted. “Did we…”

“Christ, no.” Now he did look at her, and his features were furious. “What do you think I am? You were so plastered you couldn’t even remember your own name. And you didn’t want Tommy-boy to come get you, for some damned reason.”

Tommy. Oh, God, now she remembered. She’d walked in on him screwing Stephanie the waitress—and walked out minus one engagement ring. There was no wedding. No moving to New York. No carriage, no deal.

No reason for her to be here.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For everything. I remember I was going to tell you that.”

He stared at her, and then shook his head with a smirk. “At least you remember something.”

“It’s all coming back now.” There was something different about him, and her fogged brain finally noticed his tousled hair and the dark hollows under his eyes. “Have you been up all night?” she said.

“If you don’t want coffee, I guess I should take you home now.” He set the mug aside and got up abruptly. “Come on.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

He frowned. “I wasn’t tired.”

“All right. Be stubborn.” She managed to get to her feet, and only swayed a little before she felt mostly steady. It was a miracle that she hadn’t started bawling over Tommy. She glanced at the edge of the hayloft, and the barn floor far below it. “So how do we get down?”

“Usually, I take the stairs,” he said. “But you can jump if you want.”

“Stairs are good.”

He smiled a little. “This way.”

She followed him to the back of the loft and down a set of wooden stairs with no handrail. Heat infused her face as she realized he must’ve carried her up them last night, the way he carried her out of the bar. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to go in the house?” she said—right before she remembered that his mother would be inside somewhere, which could’ve been awkward. Mrs. Thatcher avoided town even more than Cam. No one Sydney knew had seen her since the funeral.

But he didn’t mention his mother. “I sleep out here sometimes,” he said. “Already had the blanket up there.”

“Oh.” They’d reached the bottom of the stairs, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask how Mrs. Thatcher was doing. Until she saw the carriage.

It stood uncovered in the same spot beneath the loft, but it was completely restored. No—better than restored. It looked like something straight out of a fairy tale, practically sparkling in the early morning sun that slanted through the open barn doors.

He’d really done it. For her. For a wedding that wasn’t going to happen. He must’ve been working his ass off to finish it, and that was probably at least part of the reason he hadn’t slept last night.

She felt so awful, she couldn’t breathe.

When she stopped following, he turned around and realized what she was staring at. “A deal’s a deal,” he said. “So there’s my part.”

“It’s beautiful.” Her voice broke. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

That was when the tears came.

“Sydney?” He moved toward her with alarm—and cupped a hand to her face, gently wiping the tears away with the rough surface of his thumb. His touch sent a shivering thrill through her that just about made her heart stop.

Then he jerked away like her skin was on fire and stared at his own hand, horrified. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean…”

“Cam.” She had to tell him, if only to erase that awful look in his eyes. “You were right,” she said. “Last night—” She hitched a breath as fresh pain washed through her at the memory, and started over. “Last night I walked in on Tommy and that blonde you saw him with. She’s a waitress at The Klinker, and they…” She couldn’t bring herself to say what they were doing, but she figured he could guess. “The wedding’s off.”

He flinched, like some invisible hand had slapped him hard across the face. She could see him struggling with a hundred reactions, feel the shock rolling off him in waves.

At last he said, “So can I shoot him now?”

Out of all the things he could’ve said, that was the right one. She laughed. And it actually felt good. “I won’t stop you,” she said.

He smiled, but it faded fast. “You’ve got to feel terrible,” he said. “Tell you what. Come on in the house and use the bathroom. Grab a shower if you want. I’ll fix some breakfast, and then I’ll take you home.”

“That actually sounds amazing,” she said. “Thank you.”

When they reached the porch steps, Sydney remembered what she’d been thinking before the sight of the carriage knocked everything out of her head. “Hey, Cam,” she said. “Do you think your mom’s up right now? I don’t even know what time it is. I wouldn’t mind saying hello, if she is.”

He stopped so suddenly, she almost ran straight into him. He turned slowly. His face was a careful blank. “Mom’s not here,” he said in stretched and grinding tones. “She ran off with the foreman, and then all the ranch hands quit. Maybe they ran off with her, too.”

Her face flushed instantly. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “When did she…”

Only his eyes were alive. They blazed from his dead expression. “Two weeks after Dad’s funeral.”

“Oh my God.” The enormity of those five simple words fell like a ton of bricks, directly onto her heart. “Oh my
God.
” Everything fit now—his infrequent trips to town, the cancelled school groups, the cut-off church donations, the neglected carriage. The peaceful silence. And Cam’s depthless fury at the “townies.”