Cathy Thacker - One Wild Cowboy and A Cowboy To Marry - One Wild Cowboy / A Cowboy to Marry

Dylan shook his head. “Not even then.”

* * *

“I’VE NEVER SEEN IT so deserted in here,” Hank remarked, when he came into the café the next morning, accompanied by a debonair gentleman she didn’t recognize.

Emily looked at her older brother. Since he’d gotten married, the ex-Marine had become as hopelessly romantic as their parents. Like Greta and Shane, Hank wanted to see everyone he loved happily paired up. Unfortunately, Emily thought, thinking back to her own love life—or sudden lack thereof—such a fate was not in the cards for everyone. Especially not her and Dylan Reeves, the spectacular sex they’d had notwithstanding...

“The Cowtown Diner is having its grand opening this morning,” Emily explained.

“Yeah,” Hank commiserated. “The line was around the block when the doors opened at six this morning.”

Emily bristled, the betrayal she felt as unexpected as it was intense. “Did you and Ally eat there?” she asked her older brother.

Hank frowned. “Of course not. But I probably will at some point. Got to support all the businesses in town, you know. And speaking of business...I’d like you to meet Aaron Markham. He’s a tax attorney and CPA from Dallas.”

Emily welcomed the nice-looking man in the gray suit. “Nice to meet you.”

“Since you’re not busy, maybe you could sit down for a few minutes and chat with us,” Hank suggested.

“How about I bring you-all some coffee and a few menus first?” Emily suggested.

She gave them their choice of tables and hurried off.

Aaron Markham seemed like a pleasant and personable man. Her brother meant well. She could not have been less interested.

Until the door to the café opened and closed and Dylan Reeves walked in, that was.

Their eyes locked.

Emily felt a thrill go through her, followed swiftly by anger.

She carried the coffeepot over to the table. Hank tracked the direction of her gaze. “Yeah...” he murmured. “I heard what happened at Dylan’s ranch last night.”

“Then you also know how wrong he was!” Not waiting for her brother’s take on the situation, Emily stalked over to Dylan’s table. “A word with you, please?”

Dylan gestured to the other side of the booth. “Have a seat.”

He only wished she were that malleable! Emily gritted her teeth. “I’d prefer to take this outside.”

Dylan rose with exaggerated chivalry. “After you.”

Emily ushered the incorrigible rancher through the back door, into the alley. She didn’t know why she was still so angry with Dylan. She had disagreed with others plenty of times, on a variety of subjects, and never been this emotional, but somehow this felt intensely personal. As if she should have been able to talk to him and effect some change. Instead, he’d been as immovable as a two-ton boulder and, from the looks of it, still was.

“Simone had to post bail last night to get Andrew out of jail,” Emily reported.

“It might have been better had she let him stay the night in a cell.”

She should have known Dylan would say that, Emily thought, with quickly mounting aggravation. And when had he gotten to be such a hard case?

Emily huffed and went on, “The arraignment was held this morning. Thanks to your statement and the recommendation of the sheriff’s department, the district attorney charged Andrew—and his three accomplices—with trespassing and third-degree burglary. His friends all had previous records and have been sent to juvenile detention. Only Andrew, thus far, has been released to parental custody. And rather than be relieved, he was resentful about that, too.” Emily paused, shook her head. “I’ve never seen Simone so upset.” She had told her to take a few days off—with pay—until she could get things straightened out.

Dylan listened quietly. “How’s Andrew taking it?” he asked finally.

“He’s angry and ashamed.”

“Remorseful?” he pressed.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Dylan nodded, not at all surprised.

Where was his compassion? Emily wondered in frustration. She knew he had it—he showed it to the horses he trained. He’d also bestowed it on her on more than one occasion.

“And don’t say I told you so,” Emily grumbled, actually as shocked as Simone that the trauma of being arrested hadn’t been enough to shake some sense into the fifteen-year-old boy.

Something inscrutable flickered in Dylan’s expression as he folded his arms across his chest. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

Emily studied Dylan, not about to let him off the hook for his part in this mess.

For a moment she thought he was going to put up the usual barrier to his private thoughts. Instead, something in his gaze shifted, became more intimate which, in turn, prompted her to admit, “I’m afraid this is going to backfire on everyone.” Emily sighed. “That all it will do is make a bad situation worse.”

“That’s up to Andrew.”

Emily wasn’t used to feeling this helpless. She wrung her hands. “I feel I should do something.”

Dylan placed a steadying hand on her elbow. “The best thing you can do is stand back and let it play out. This is Andrew’s life. These are his choices to make, his consequences to deal with.”

Emily forced herself to remain calm. “He hasn’t made the right choices thus far,” she warned.

“Let’s hope that changes,” Dylan said. “And soon.”

* * *

EMILY WAS NOT CONTENT to leave everything up to fate—or the impulsive emotions of a teenage boy in crisis. As soon as the café closed for the day, she drove over to the sheriff’s department, to see what she could do.

Luck was with her. Deputy Rio Vasquez, the officer who’d arrested Andrew the night before, was just coming on duty. Her cousin, Kyle McCabe, was also on shift.

The two deputies shared the same outlook. “Dylan was right to call us and take a hard line,” Rio said.

Kyle nodded. “I know it seems like it isn’t that big a deal. But it is. Pranks like this are gateway crimes. The kids don’t see it that way, of course. They think they’re just messing around and accepting dares and having fun.” He sighed heavily. “But things have a way of getting out of control—fast—with kids this age and before you know it, someone is badly hurt. Or there’s a fatal car accident. And then lives are really turned upside down.”

“Dylan knows this better than anyone,” Rio added.

Emily did a double take. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Rio and Kyle exchanged wary looks.

Whatever they knew, Emily realized in disappointment, they weren’t going to share.

“The point is,” Rio continued, sidestepping her question completely, “Dylan takes the situation very seriously. And that’s good. The worst thing any of you could have done is used your influence with the district attorney to try to have the whole matter dropped, before any real consequences were felt.”

Dylan had said as much, but somehow it helped hearing the same thing from two such experienced lawmen.

Emily thanked them both, and Kyle walked her outside. Because he was her cousin, and they’d grown up together, he knew her pretty well. “So does this mean it’s over with you and Dylan Reeves?” he asked curiously.

Emily could confide in Kyle the way she couldn’t confide in her brothers. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I could date anyone who is as intractable as he is, for very long.” Maybe it would be best to cut her losses while the potential damage to her heart was still small.

“So it’s not like the two of you are in love or anything?” Kyle teased.

Emily blushed. “Heavens, no!”

“You were just kissing him on the green, the other night....”

“You saw that?”