Page 2 of Home to the Cowboy

“Of course. Come on, I have a bed and food for her. As she gets older …”

Cooper was still talking, but Dylan wasn’t listening anymore. The puppy had fixed her big brown eyes on him. In that moment, something warm opened up inside of him.

It wasn’t a familiar feeling, and if he hadn’t been working and eating with his cousins for the last few months, he probably wouldn’t have known what to call the emotion welling up in his throat. He was happy.

Grinning, he lifted the puppy closer to his face. “Hi, Daisy.”

Yelping, Daisy licked his face.

*

June knocked but when no one answered, she opened Jonathan, her boyfriend’s apartment with the key he’d given her a while back. She’d texted him about ten minutes ago to say she was close by and wanted to see him. They should talk.

Jonathan had dropped the words moving in together and sharing their living expenses a few times, but she hadn’t been ready to give up her own apartment just yet. He’d even mentioned getting engaged a couple of times. Her reaction to that was the reason she was here.

She’d met Jonathan when a client had insisted she wanted her lawyer present at the signing of her first book deal. The lawyer was Jonanthan. He was nice and easy to talk to and when he’d invited her for dinner, June had accepted. After a while, they were dating.

That was what people did, right? She wouldn’t really know. She’d grown up in the foster care system and had no idea how these things really work. From what she saw around her, it seemed you met someone, you dated, and then at some point you moved in together or you got engaged and eventually got married—for the rest of your life.

The problem was though, over the last few weeks she’d gradually realized the idea of spending a lifetime with anyone, including Jonathan, wasn’t something she was looking forward to. Love was supposed to last forever, at least according to all the love stories she’d read, and she’d read thousands. She was proof, though, that that particular story was another myth.

She liked Jonathan and being with him was nice, but nice didn’t seem like a good enough reason to move in together. Shouldn’t something rock or explode or at least stir, albeit ever so slightly, when you were with someone you love? And shouldn’t your blood heat and your heart beat faster?

Okay, yes, she knew love didn’t work in the real world like it did in books and the movies, but surely there should be something, otherwise what was the point?

For the life of her she couldn’t imagine staying with Jonathan for the next week, let alone living with him for the next fifty years. They were good friends, that was all. What was more, she had an idea Jonathan felt the same way. He’d been more than a little distant lately.

As she closed the door, a noise from the direction of the bedroom caught her attention. So he was already here.

“Jonathan!” she called out as she walked toward his bedroom.

No answer.

The door was open and as she came closer, she heard the sound again. Only this time it was much clearer. Someone was moaning. Was he hurt? Frowning, she stepped into the room and froze.

Jonathan was in bed with another woman. A blonde whose world—if the sounds she was making were anything to go by—was actually rocking.

“Hi, Jonathan,” June said and crossed her arms.

The two on the bed scrambled to cover themselves.

Jonathan looked horrified. “What are you doing here? I … This is not what it looks like …”

Turning around she left the room without a backward glance. She threw the key he’d given her on the kitchen counter and walked out of Jonathan’s apartment for the last time.

As the elevator doors were closing, she heard his voice, “June! Wait, damn it—”

Fortunately, the doors closed, cutting off his voice.

In the parking garage, she got into her car and drove away. Shouldn’t she be upset? Cry? Be angry? She wasn’t any of these feelings, so what was this strange sensation inside of her?

As she approached her own apartment building, a weight lifted from her shoulders and she grinned. She was relieved. So, so relieved. That was the emotion she was experiencing.

At least now she knew why she kept making excuses not to move in with him. She didn’t love Jonathan, and he obviously didn’t love her either. Why hadn’t she seen it before? Maybe it wasn’t possible for someone growing up like she had to actually fall in love, how would she know? What she did know, though, was that she didn’t want to be with a man who hopped into bed with someone else when he was still dating her.

In her apartment, she kicked off her shoes, grabbed her laptop, and curled up on her couch. Over the past few months, an idea had been circling around in her mind, one she’d been trying to push away because she might move in with Jonathan and she had a life here in Seattle. Now the thought was back, and this time she could do something about it.

When she’d signed the very talented artist, cartoonist, and writer Becket Weston the previous year as a new client of the publishing house she worked for, she’d wanted to meet him in person. When she’d heard he lived on a ranch outside the small town of Marietta, Montana, she’d flown to Bozeman and then, following the GPS in her rental car, drove the last twenty-five miles to the quaint town.