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Wyatt and Samuel looked at each other, then at me. Wyatt said, “Is that you talking or Wolf?”
“What difference does that make?” I asked.
Wyatt shook his head. “Yeah, I guess there is no difference, is there? You and Wolf might as well be the same guy.”
“That’s not fair, Wyatt, and you know it.”
“What’s not fair is I’m spending all my days and nights here; I finally meet a girl I like and you tell me she can’t come round. That’s what’s not fair.”
I sighed. This conversation would go so much better without the heatwave.
“Look, Wyatt,” I said calmly. “There will be lots of girls when the rodeo starts, so many girls your head will spin.”
“My head’s already spinning,” said Wyatt under his breath.
I sighed again. It was a lost cause. There’s no getting through to a love-sick cowboy.
15
Ruby
All dressed up and nowhere to go. In my case, it was skimpily dressed and somewhere to go, but Wyatt texted me saying we’d have to put off the late afternoon riding session we’d planned. He was sorry. But he offered no explanation beyond that. My ‘somewhere to go’ had gone. So, that’s how I felt: all dressed up and nowhere to go.
Not a feeling I was used to. I’d been with Lincoln all through high school and university. And in New York, Aiden was always around, or available. This was my first last-minute cancellation, and I wasn’t taking it very well.
I had been looking forward to seeing Wyatt again. He’d told me he had a special horse he wanted to show me. He even agreed to let me take pictures of him—though, I hadn’t told him I was auditioning him for my sexy cowboys’ calendar.
What got to me wasn’t what I was missing out on, but why I might be missing out.
I thought things were going well between us. He didn’t seem freaked out by the group sex. And even if he was, why hadn’t I heard from Grayson or Samuel?
I was reminded of what my mom had said to me my first day back: “...foolish girls and wayward women and handsome cowboys, then who do you think’s left holding the baby?”
“I have been quite a foolish girl, haven’t I?” I said out loud. “But at least I’m not pregnant.”
Reflexively, I put a hand to my belly and the other to my mouth.
Don’t jinx it.
My thoughts were flying a mile a minute, turning into wild theories about what the boys might be thinking or feeling and what I might be thinking or feeling. My mind was making such fantastical leaps and stretches that I even, for a moment, entertained the notion that maybe Mom was right. Maybe rodeo cowboys have so many women throwing themselves at them that I was just another fish in the pond, a drop in the bucket, a notch on the belt.
What would be worse: getting my heart broken or having to admit Mom was right?
I glanced at my phone for the umpteenth time: no missed calls; no new messages.
The phone can be a dangerous thing—so can a lonely country girl. Before I knew what I was doing, I had plopped down on the couch and dialed Aiden back in New York.
“Taking a break from whittling driftwood on the porch, wanted to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m doing fine,” he said. “It’s good to hear your voice.”
“It’s good to hear you too, Aiden.”
“You sound so close.”
“I’m not.”
“I know.”
The sadness and disappointment in his ‘I know’ had my already weak heart aching that much more.
“What are you wearing?” he asked with mock mischief.
“Overalls, a straw hat: standard Wyoming uniform. It’s mandatory here, you know?”
“You’re making fun of me for the stupid things I said?”
“Not subtle enough?”
He chuckled. “Ruby, when have you ever done subtle?”
“Fair point.”
There was a long moment where neither of us said anything. But it wasn’t awkward. It was like how it used to be when we’d be lying on the couch together, both of us in our own daydreams but being together, nonetheless.
“I miss you, Ruby.”
“I miss you too,” I said, and I was surprised to feel that it was true.
“When are you coming back to NYC?”
I didn’t answer but bit my lip and let my mind wander away with the idea.
“What time should I pick you up at the airport?” he said.
“Pick me up? You don’t have a car.”
“But I can still meet you at the airport. Help you carry all the cowskins or whatever you’re bringing back from Wyoming.”
“They’re called cowhides.”
“My mistake.”
“You know, Aiden, for a Wyomingite, offering to carry a girl’s cowhides is a serious step in a relationship.”
“For a New Yorker, it’s a humble and sincere apology mixed with desperate groveling.”
“Exactly what I said: a serious step in a relationship.”
He chuckled then there was another lull. I imagined him lying on the couch, one foot propped up on the air conditioning unit the other on the floor, his hands behind his head. Maybe it was so hot in New York that he was shirtless.
