Barbara Dunlop - The Last Cowboy Standing

She froze, every nerve ending in her body focusing on the gentle touch. Pings of awareness and desire shot out, sending signals of desire to every corner of her body.

“Dani,” boomed Randal’s voice. He wrapped a hearty arm around her shoulders and gave her a pat. “It looked like things went well?”

Travis’s hand fell away. “Hello, Randal.”

“Oh, Travis.” Randal pretended he’d just noticed him. “How’re you holding up here?”

“Managing just fine,” Travis responded.

Randal turned his attention back to Danielle. “What did they say? More importantly, what did you say?”

“She hasn’t made up her mind yet,” Travis put in.

Randal sent him a glare. “I asked Dani.”

“Well, Dani told me first.”

“Travis,” Danielle warned.

He was entitled to whatever theory he concocted, but that didn’t give him the right to pick a fight.

Randal drew back his shoulders, lifting his chin. “She did, did she?”

“They offered me a South American division,” she quickly told Randal.

“That’s great.” His shoulders relaxed. “I’m going to head up Europe, starting in September. We’d be at exactly the same level, on the partners’ floor. I don’t have to tell you, that’s an impressive way to enter the firm.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Danielle agreed.

“The expense account is unlimited. The benefits are top-drawer, and the work is some of the most intellectually stimulating—”

“Randal?” she interrupted.

“Yes?”

“I’ve been listening to the sales pitch all night.”

Travis stifled a chuckle.

Randal’s attention immediately flew to him. “You got something to add here?”

“Not a thing,” said Travis, polishing off his beer. “You’re doing just fine all by yourself.”

Randal glared a moment longer, but then something caught his attention across the room. “There’s old man Nester.” He squeezed Danielle’s shoulder, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial level. “Give me three minutes to break into the conversation, then come over and join us.”

He walked away.

Travis looked at Danielle, and she stared back.

“Well?” he asked.

She was all schmoozed out. Her feet were swelling. Her makeup was about to crack. And the last thing she wanted to do was humor the wheezy, narcissistic Edger Nester through what she’d heard tended to be half-hour-long discourses on the flaws in judicial procedure. If she took the job, she’d have to put up with it. But she wasn’t there yet.

“I’m out of here,” she told Travis.

His hand went immediately to her elbow, helping her down from the high stool, before turning them to a nearby side exit.

They came out into the gardens, quiet in the late hour. The breeze had picked up, cooling the air, and Travis quickly shrugged out of his suit jacket, draping it around her shoulders. They started down a winding flagstone walkway.

“That was a quick decision,” he noted.

“I’ve only met Mr. Nester once, but I’ve heard tales of his boring orations, and I’m tired.” She reached down and peeled off her sandals, moving to the soft grass at the side of the path. “My feet are killing me.”

“You want me to carry you?” he offered.

She shook her head, though the thought of being held in his arms gave her a shiver of excitement. “This is nice.” She curled her toes into the dense blades of grass.

He took up a slow pace, along the edge of a narrow brook, in the general direction of a purple lighted pond, leaving the music and laughter behind them. “If you resign, what will happen in Chicago?”

“You mean, what will happen to Active Equipment?”

“And your other clients.”

“They’ll be assigned to other lawyers.”

“Does that worry you?”

“I’d feel guilty,” she admitted, switching her sandals to the other hand. “But I’m not the only lawyer in the world. My firm has many other people who are perfectly capable of servicing my clients.”

“So, there’s nothing unique about you?”

She smiled at that. “I’d like to think there was. I’d like to think I was irreplaceable. But that would be a little conceited, right?”

His voice was low, sounding almost annoyed. “Some people do have to stay where they’re needed.”

“Do you think I’m letting Caleb down?”

“I wasn’t talking about you.”

She paused, tilting her head to peer up at him. “Who?”

He stopped walking, seeming to hesitate for a long moment, as the babble of the brook rose around them, the scent of the flowers sweetened the air. “I was talking about me.”

“You’re leaving Lyndon Valley?” She could hardly believe it.

In her mind, Travis was Lyndon Valley. While the Terrells and the other Jacobs siblings might come and go from the ranches, Travis was the stalwart, always there, always available, always taking care of anything and everything.

He shook his head. “My point was, I can’t leave Lyndon Valley. The ranch needs me.”

“And you need the ranch.” She thought she understood.

“Something like that.” There was an edge to his voice.

“You think I’m abandoning the people who count on me.”

It was hardly the same situation. Just because she’d gone to law school and started in a particular job, didn’t mean she had to stay there forever.

“If you were abandoning them. If they told you, you were abandoning them. If you knew it would hurt them, would you stay?”

“That’s a hypothetical situation.” She’d like to think she’d done some good work for Caleb and the others over the years. But she’d hardly cripple anyone’s business if she moved on.

“Hypothetically speaking, and I’m not going to hold you to it, if you knew it would hurt them, would you leave anyway?”

She searched his expression. “What are you getting at, Travis?”

He gazed at the lighted trees. “Responsibility, I guess—the kind of responsibility that paints a man into a corner and limits his choices.”

She stepped forward, still not pinning down where he was going with this. “You’re getting very philosophical on me, cowboy.”

He gave a self-conscious smile. “Just trying to help you make a decision.”

“You want me to stay in Chicago.”

“I want you to understand the true details of your options.”

A door banged shut on the pavilion, and several voices rose in the garden.

“He wouldn’t come looking for me,” Danielle said, more to herself than to Travis.

“Oh, yes, he would.” Travis snagged her hand, striding across the sloped grass, tugging her toward a dark corner where they’d be screened from the path.

She had to trot to keep up.

They made their way behind a hedge, beyond the orange glow of the walkway lanterns, to a secluded corner where blue light filtered weakly through the maple leaves. Her mind went back over his words. He’d said it limited a man’s choices, not a woman’s choices, not a person’s choices.

He abruptly stopped, and she nearly ran into him.

“Your feet okay?” he asked, turning.

“Travis, do you want to leave the ranch?”

“No.”

She pondered a second longer. “But you resent that you can’t. Or, wait a minute, you resent that you don’t have the choice.”

This time he hesitated before answering.

“You should tell them,” she said.

“Tell them what?”

“That you—”

“That Katrina can’t be a ballerina?” Travis spoke right over her, annoyance in his tone. “That Seth should give up being mayor? That Mandy can’t be in Chicago with Caleb? Or that Abigail should force Zach to sell his brewery?”

Danielle definitely saw his point. It didn’t make it fair, but she understood how he must feel.