Cocky Cowboy: A Second Chance Romance (Cocker Brothers of Atlanta Book 3) Read online

  Pink and gold beams splash across her backside, turning her sandy-brown hair into ginger.

  She’s wearing a slender, silver anklet and I linger on it, thinking of how many times I wanted to call her and didn’t because I knew I had nothing to give her that could compare to her life.

  And here she is looking like heaven in a form fitting, expensive dress that sure as shit doesn’t belong on this ranch.

  This beautiful woman’s world isn’t mine and everything about her is a reminder of that so I keep my mouth shut and wait for her to explain her sudden appearance.

  Fuck I want to touch her.

  Hold her.

  And all I can do is shove my hands in my pockets and wait.

  My gaze travels to the novel as she says, “Tuesdays with Morrie. I loved that book.”

  “Might need some tissues before it’s done.”

  “As if Jaxson Cocker would ever cry over a novel,” she smiles.

  “True,” I smirk and it makes her smile fade.

  She holds my look, both of us with a hundred unspoken questions and wants.

  Tears start to gather in her bright blue eyes.

  In a voice harsher than I mean to use, I ask, “Another fight with your boyfriend?”

  She closes her eyes a moment, turning away from me. The answer is obviously yes.

  So I’m her man-on-the-side.

  I can’t be that.

  Not a day has gone by that something hasn’t happened to remind me of her smile, her laugh, her naked body welcoming me in.

  I had to switch soaps because it drove me nuts to smell the stuff.

  How does one night stick with a man like that?

  It ain’t right. And it sure as hell ain’t fun.

  I don’t want to go through withdrawals all over again, and yet here I am saying she can stay.

  I am going to regret this, aren’t I?

  Her eyelashes drift up and she looks at me over her gentle shoulder, appearing more like the little girl I once knew than a New York socialite. As a tear slips down her cheek she confesses, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m lost Jaxson. I haven’t been right since I was here.”

  Blinking in confusion, I confess, “Neither have I.”

  She stares at me a moment and then whispers, “Oh God. I’m so afraid of what you’re going to say when I tell you this.”

  Cocking my head, I rasp, “Tell me what?”

  Wringing her hands, she shakes her head and stares at the floor. “I’m pregnant, Jaxson. And I don’t know if it’s yours or Ryan’s.”

  The air leaves the room.

  I don’t blink.

  I don’t move.

  She gazes at me, blue eyes filling up. There’s a quicker rise and fall of her lungs now.

  She’s not only scared, she’s terrified.

  Realizing I had this all wrong I clear my throat, my voice hoarse as I rasp, “You need a place to think then.” Blinking hard I go back for her suitcase, my stride slow and steady. “They can test for that.”

  “I don’t know. Can they?”

  “Yeah,” I mutter with my thoughts on an unknown future, one in which this child might be mine. The other where I have to send her back to Ryan for the last time if it’s his.

  With my eyes cast to the floor, I realize I can’t let that happen. “I don’t know the details but we’ll be able to know who the father is before it’s even born.” I meet her eyes.

  “Oh. Well, that’s something I guess,” she mutters, hugging herself.

  I nod, feeling like a sledgehammer has crashed into my psyche.

  And here I thought she was coming for an affair.

  “Stay as long as you need. I’ll sleep on the couch, so you can clear your head.” I stop with my boot on the first stair. “Rachel, no matter what happens, I’m your friend. And I’ll always be here if you need me.”

  Her lips part and I head upstairs.

  I feel oddly calm as I set her suitcases on a table for her ease, making sure the zipper is facing in the right direction. I change the sheets so she has a comfortable place to rest.

  One thing keeps rising to the top of my spinning thoughts – she came to me.

  Downstairs I find her still hugging herself but now in front of one of my long windows, the clouds grey now that the sun has completed its descent.

  Her shaking breath hitches as I walk up to her, wrapping my arms around her from behind. After a pause, she leans into me and closes her eyes. “I’m in over my head.”

  “Shhhhh. It’s okay. There’s no rushing anything, not on my land. It’s against my religion. Are you tired?”

  “So tired,” she whispers.

  “Why don’t you go lie down and get some rest?”

  She touches my hands and I release her, watching her head for my bedroom.

  There’s a baby growing inside of her, and it might be mine. A Cocker boy or girl who might look at me and call me daddy.

  Jesus.

  A deep frown cuts into my brow as I watch Rachel slip out of her heels and leave them behind the couch. It’s where we found them in the morning when she was here last, but I don’t think she’s aware of that right now. She looks out of it.

  As she touches the staircase railing I call over, low and steady, “I’m glad you’re here.”

  She turns her head and holds my calm gaze, her spine melting a little as she sees I mean it. Another tear slips down on her sad smile, “Thank you. This means so much, you don’t even know.”

  “Well, I tormented you enough when we were kids. Figure I owe you a bit of rest.”

  On a small laugh, she pads upstairs like there are weights on her legs.

  It’s only seven thirty now, but I don’t expect her to come back down tonight.

  Leaning against a wood beam, I gaze out at my ranch seeking answers only nature’s beauty can provide.

  Rachel

  I slept really well last night, surprisingly. It’s so quiet here. No sirens or honking or construction. And Jaxson was so kind considering what I’m going through – what we’re going through – that it set my mind at ease just enough to allow exhaustion to pull me into sleep as soon my head hit the pillow. When you don’t feel like you’re under attack, it’s easier to exist.

  What will this baby be like, I wonder as I touch my bare abdomen.

  Will you be a boy or a girl?

  Don’t worry. I don’t have a preference.

  I’m just asking.

  I’ve always wanted children, and while I didn’t want them this way I feel it’s time to get stronger and face the music, but strength feels impossible to reach.

  I don’t want him or her to feel unwanted.

  “Would be nice to know who your father is, though” I whisper, touching my stomach as I move my abandoned dress so I can rifle through the suitcase Jaxson was considerate enough to lay on a table.

  A small whisper inches into my mind. The chances of those condoms being old enough to not work aren’t high. It’s much more probable that the man who slept on the couch last night, the boy I climbed trees with, is this child’s father. Standing up I run a hand through my hair because the idea of that feels a little too good.

  But that doesn’t mean Jaxson feels the same. How could he? He never once reached out to me. And here I am thrusting myself into his life with a dilemma a weaker man would run from.

  I won’t ask him for anything. I just need to rest and get my head and heart in a better place.

  Tugging on white jeans that soon won’t fit me, and a pale blue cotton t-shirt I wear around the apartment back home, and my running shoes, I tiptoe downstairs to get some water.

  Jaxson’s throw blanket is strewn over an empty couch, and the guest bathroom door is open. The kitchen is also silent and empty.

  I look for him on the porch and exhale as I spot his Jeep still parked where it was when I arrived.

  That means he didn’t run screaming into the night, thank God.

  Loud mooing in the ba
rn pulls me there. I find Jaxson detaching some kind of contraption from the cow’s udders. He’s in a cowboy hat, faded jeans, work boots, shirtless, with latex gloves protecting him – or maybe the cows? – from germs.

  Hearing me, he glances over his wide, naked back and holds my eyes a beat, then goes back to what can’t be paused, his tattoos and muscles rippling with every move he makes.

  I feel like I’m taking advantage of him by showing up here and start to turn away.

  The cow objects and he soothes her, “Hey, Con, easy girl. She’s got nothing on you.”

  Laughing under my breath, I stop and say, “Thanks a lot.”

  He flashes me a handsome grin, but remains focused. “Grab that bucket for me?”

  Suddenly I’m helping, following his instructions and trying to keep up. One after the other we bring the milk to a tank, and detach udders from a vacuum-milking machine. One thing I can say about it, you’re not thinking of anything else when you’re doing this. I completely forget for a while the drama I’m in, and soon I’m smiling.

  “What’s this one’s name?” I ask, pointing to a sweet-eyed, spotted cow. “She seems to like me.”

  “That’s Flo. She does like you. But then again, she likes everyone.”

  “No, I think it’s just me.”

  Jaxson grins, so good-looking it’s almost too much. “Nah, she likes everybody because she’s a slut,” he jokes.

  My smile vanishes so quickly that Jaxson rises up from his stool. To avoid him I drag the final bucket to the cooling tank and pour the fresh milk in.

  Frowning, Jaxson opens the gate and touches each cow as she passes him on her way out onto the open range. “Alright, ladies, eat all the grass you want out there. No one’s selling any of it today.”

  That caught my attention, but I’m too shy around him right now to ask what he meant by it.

  Strolling over, he checks the cooling tank to make sure it’s shut tight, pushing a couple buttons before pulling off his gloves.

  I follow his lead and pull mine off, too, also tossing them in a can marked for recycling.

  As I turn to face him, my breath hitches.

  Jaxson’s casual and friendly manner is gone and his dark green eyes are intently set on me with a look that is at once fierce and protective. “Your boyfriend called you a slut when you told him, didn’t he?”

  I can’t look away. “Yes.”

  Jaxson’s nostrils flare like a bull’s. “Fucking asshole!”

  “He was really angry, Jaxson.”

  “And he had a right to be. But he never should’ve called you that!”

  My voice is gentle as I ask, “Shouldn’t he?”

  A crease slices into Jaxson’s forehead and he leans in to tell me, “No. He shouldn’t. It’s not what you say to someone you love.”

  Filled with guilt I argue, “I don’t know about that. People say things all the time they don’t mean.”

  Jaxson’s calm demeanor returns and he nods once like he’s figured something out. He heads for the door and mutters, “You still love him.”

  “Jaxson…”

  “You came here to rest.” That his voice is more distant does not go unnoticed by me as he adds, “I won’t bring it up again.” As I follow him silently outside his volume shifts like he doesn’t want to upset me anymore. “Ever have eggs fresh off a farm, not from a store?” I shake my head. “Let’s go say hello to more of my girls.”

  He leads the way to a beautifully constructed chicken coop off about ten yards, but again, I’m bad with distance. Its east wall is golden under the rising sun, the fiery outline making the large structure even more impressive. “Did you build that?”

  “I did.”

  “All on your own?”

  He laughs. “Yes.” When he turns and walks backward after his horses nay in the distance, Jaxson cocks his cowboy hat back on his head to see them better, and as I drink in the golden outline on his body I catch sight of the tat that doesn’t really match the one that runs the length of his arm.

  I’d seen it the last time I was here and had traced the letter and thorns, but I hadn’t asked about it. Now, so I can keep the air light, I point and ask, “What’s the C for?”

  He smiles and flips around, walking like only a man can. “Stands for Cocker. My brothers and I all have this tattoo, some on our chests, others, our arms.”

  “When did you get them?”

  “When we were eighteen. Actually I was twenty, Jett was eighteen, when he and I designed them. The younger brothers had to wait until they hit legal age, when Dad couldn’t bitch.” He smirks over his naked shoulder at me as he reaches for the latch to the coop. “But I think he wants the tat for himself. He feels left out. We all think that.”

  “I can’t imagine a congressman with a tattoo.”

  His eyebrows go up. “So you know my dad’s a congressman?”

  “My mom told me. She secretly hates it.”

  “Why would she hate it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  He laughs in his subtle way and grabs a carton for today’s eggs. “Hello Gertrude. Now now now, calm down.” Feathers have gone everywhere. I start laughing as two other hens join her to fly around his head and make him duck with his calloused hands up for cover.

  He loves this farm, that’s plain as the feather that just landed on my shoulder. He comes alive here, green eyes sparkling like crazy. I can’t help but feel lighter the more we keep away from the subject of me and Ryan…and me and him.

  “You miss Hank? Is that what you’re tellin’ me?” he laughs as the hens fly.

  “Is Hank the rooster I heard this morning?”

  As the birds calm down, Jaxson fills up the carton with eggs from large nests. “You heard Hank? You didn’t last time.”

  I yelp as a hen comes running at me. “Yikes! Let me outta here.”

  “They’re not used to a woman being with me. They’re jealous. Just like Connie was.”

  The stunning glint of mischief in his eyes makes me slow to reply.

  I want my child to have that.

  Glancing away I mumble, “The rooster was here last time?”

  “He’s been with me two years. You didn’t hear him because you were…kinda wiped out.” Jaxson winks, dips out of the coop, and holds the door for me. “Hurry before they get out. Oh shit. Hold these.” I take the carton from him as he chases a stray chicken around, catching it by the legs and murmuring to it as he puts it back inside.

  We walk back to the house in silence and he opens and holds the door for me there, too, his arm up high so I can walk under. “You always do that.”

  “What? Open the door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Doesn’t every man?”

  On a sarcastic smile, I whisper, “Nope.”

  Jaxson takes his cowboy hat off and sets it down. His sandy-brown hair, the same color as mine, is mussed up. He doesn’t go to fix it. He just gazes at me with intense concentration. Then he takes my chin in hand. “You should have every door opened for you.”

  With uncertainty growing inside my womb, this sweetness makes me want to cry. On a sharp intake of breath, I force the tears back. “You’re being very good to me.”

  He leans in and kisses my nose then touches his forehead to mine like he wishes he could kiss me in a less friendly manner. “You should wash the latex off your hands before we have breakfast.” How the hell did he make that sound sexy? “I’m going upstairs to change. Tilly got my jeans all muddy.” As he heads off, he adds, “And I can see you staring at my chest, so I’ll put a shirt on so as not to distract you.”

  Gaping at him, I cry out, “Cocky jerk!”

  Jaxson grins. “Tell me you haven’t been staring at this.” Both his index fingers point at his chest.

  “Nope. Not interested in the slightest.”

  “Yeah, right,” he scoffs. At the bottom of the stairs he stops, jaw ticking as he stares at the floor. “I don’t know what I want, Rachel.”

 
; With my heart twisting up, I tell my best childhood friend a lie. “Me neither.”

  Slow and steady, he walks out of my sight.

  Jaxson

  “No, you sit. You’re my guest,” I motion to one of the tall stools next to my kitchen island. The stove is embedded in it so she can stay nearby while I cook, right where I want her to be. I believe it’s my job to put her at ease.

  She came here for rest.

  I can give her that.

  And I want her to feel safe with me.

  Morning sun streaks in through the windows as I grab bacon, butter, Himalayan salt and a homemade, unsliced loaf of bread.

  “What’re those green things?” Rachel asks when I set it down by her hand.

  “Rosemary. She makes this with virgin olive oil. Fucking delicious.”

  “Who does?”

  Pulling out a cast-iron skillet, I turn up the gas stove and start separating the bacon to ready it. “Patty and Lou live up the street. He grows grains. She bakes bread.”

  “Perfect combination,” Rachel smiles.

  “They’ve been together thirty-one years last month. Never seen ‘em fight. But then again, I don’t live with ‘em.” A smirk flashes on my face and I glance to find Rachel staring at me like I’m a ghost.

  I know the feeling.

  Having her here without the sex clouding everything is feeling a little too good.

  Like she’s always been here. Like my loner days are over and somehow I don’t mind.

  Ignoring this feeling, I explain, “I buy as much from the locals as I can. We support each other. With Patty and Lou we just exchange bread for eggs and milk. Which they use to make more bread. Keeps going on like that.”

  Rachel lazily watches me cracking eggs into a bowl to add a little milk and cream cheese to. She leans on her elbow and wistfully says, “In New York I don’t even know who lives right next door to me in the same apartment building.”

  I mutter, “Sounds lonely.”

  “You never know who they could be. A lot of crazies,” she explains.

  On a shrug I disagree, “I tend to trust people until they show me otherwise. People usually rise to the occasion when you treat them like they will. If they don’t, I deal with them then.”