Serious Cowboy (Cowboys of Duncan Ranch #2)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER NINE

She did wish she knew. So much. Yet, since she didn’t, the least she could do was answer Aaron’s questions. Her thoughts waded into the whole mess. The whirlwind first days of their marriage. The setbacks. His serving job and her becoming a stylist. All their combined hopes and when those hopes were dashed. Then, the nitty-gritty.

“But I can’t talk about it. Not now.” She glanced toward the bedroom where her daughter would be settling in. Probably not sleeping yet. Probably listening.

“I get it.” He peered around, saw his plate at the table and started to wash it in the sink.

“You don’t have to do that. You’re a guest.”

“I don’t mind. Besides, I’m more family than guest, anyway, right?”

She nodded, even if she didn’t know how to think of Aaron. Was he a guest? A friend? Family? A love interest?

But he couldn’t be that. Not for her. Not even after all their kisses.

Kisses she both desired tremendously and knew she shouldn’t let happen again. She wiped the table off as Aaron did the dishes. Even at his best, Wayne had never bothered with housework. He’d never done chores of any kind. Looking back, she wasn’t sure why she’d been all right with him saddling her with all the work day in and day out.

Aaron wiped his hands dry with one of her best towels, one that even then was awfully ratty. Good thing he was unlikely to judge her for that.

“Well, I should be going.”

Joy followed him to the door, stepped outside with him. “Thank you for coming over.”

“Thank you for having me.” He leaned in, and it might’ve been for that sweet peck rather than another of those incredible seals of his lips over hers, but she pulled back, anyway.

Aaron didn’t seem upset by this, though. Instead, he opened his arms for a hug. She gave him one, keeping it short.

They continued to text during their lunches the following week, and when he asked her out again for the next Saturday, she agreed. She simply had to put a box around how they were together. As long as it never escalated beyond friendship, she could be with him.

Unlike the rather informal date they had during those first few Saturdays, Joy was shocked to discover that their date this week would be happening at the ritziest of all Rocky Ridge locales, The Aviary.

Once they arrived, she felt uncomfortable. Not due to being underdressed or due to the price of this place—okay, it was a little due to the price of this place—but because of his expectations. The Aviary wasn’t a place a man took a woman he just considered a friend.

It tended to be a restaurant people patronized for special occasions. The kind of eatery where birthdays and anniversaries were celebrated. Where you’d take someone who was graduating or to propose.

And she would never be celebrating any of those events with Aaron.

“Is something wrong?” he asked her once they were seated in such a plush booth it was probably cushier to sleep in than her own bed.

She shook her head no, even went so far as to mumble, “Nothing.”

Yet she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that what he wanted from her was more than she could give. They ordered—she purposely asked for the least expensive meal on the menu—and she tried to eat what was set before her but felt so guilty. To make matters worse, she realized that Aaron had been trying to carry the conversation all by himself.

“And then Bessie let out this crazy noisy moo, letting us know she’d be okay,” he finished up, but she hadn’t been listening to a word he’d been saying. “Why do I feel like you’re not enjoying tonight? Do you not like what you ordered? If so, we’ll get you something else.”

She wasn’t enjoying tonight. But not due to anything that was his fault. And ordering something else on top of what she already had would only compound the issue.

“Look, you’ve gotta give me a hint or something because I feel like I’m failing tonight, and I don’t even know why,” he continued, and a sore spot the size of a grapefruit developed in her chest. Like someone had hauled off and slugged her there.

Maybe it was her conscience.

“You’re not failing at anything,” she attempted to reassure him, gripping onto his arm. But as fast as she clasped at him, she let him go. Couldn’t be sending the wrong signals. At least not more than she already was.

“Think I have the solution…” His face brightened as the server approached with what turned out to be dessert. “Strawberry cheesecake ice cream. It’s your favorite, right?”

It was. It so was. Yet him stabbing her through the heart might’ve felt better. Still, she felt touched that he remembered and tried so hard to think of that and only that.

“Remember that pumpkin patch you guys tried to grow that time,” she said, relieved that she could come up with a topic of conversation for once tonight.

Aaron talked animatedly about the pumpkin patch, the corn maze, and his family’s attempt at pumpkin juice, none of which worked. The pumpkins were too small and few of them reached the size of a softball when they should’ve been more like basketballs. The corn had been so patchy that people could see through the “walls.”

And the pumpkin juice tasted horrible. Like a mix between cough syrup and a spiced pumpkin latte that had soured.

For a moment, Joy felt more upbeat, especially when they left the restaurant without him making any sort of declaration or grand gesture. It made an argument that they were still just friends. That they would be staying just friends.

Until he escorted her to her door. Kara was at Joy’s parents’ house, so she couldn’t use her daughter as an excuse to not welcome him in. And when he kissed her, she forgot to protest it.

At first, everything felt right. She became caught up in the feel and taste of Aaron. The one hundred percent of focus he gifted to her as he united their lips together. But in the next instant, guilt again landed on her like an anvil, making her yank herself away.

“Aaron, I’m sorry, but I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t do this.”

“Can’t do what?” He looked utterly baffled, and she couldn’t even blame him.

“I can’t… I need to talk to you about Wayne.”

Aaron seemed perfectly receptive. Open, even. “Okay. Tell me whatever you need to tell me.”

So she launched into the briar patch that was her marriage and how it eventually fell to pieces. She discussed the series of disappointments they’d each suffered and the habits her husband had unfortunately developed.

“I didn’t know about the drugs initially. I suspect now that he’d probably been doing them for a while when I discovered him with them. He was getting sloppy, started caring more about getting high than the subterfuge needed to hide them. There was the lost job he didn’t inform me about, and it all was spiraling. Then, he simply didn’t come home one day.”

Joy explained about all the avenues she took to try and locate him, and when she finally gave up. When she decided the best thing she could do was come home. Back to Rocky Ridge.

Aaron had been sitting on her couch, but now he pushed to his feet. “I’m sorry you went through all that, but you’ve listed him as missing, right?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s been missing for over a year.”

“Nineteen months at this point.”

“So, did you divorce him?”

Joy swallowed, and it hurt to do so. “No.”

“ No ?” Aaron sounded incredulous. His eyes went wide as he put out his hands as if to steady himself. “Wait, you’ve been dating me, kissing me, and you’re still married ?”

“He’s gone, Aaron. Chances are that he’s dead.”

“But if he’s not dead, we’ve been…” He halted his words midsentence, dragging his hands through his hair. Hair she herself had been cutting for him.

“You could consider us separated if nothing else,” she said, needing to alleviate the pain that had started in her chest and now radiated through her entire torso. Her stomach had become this icy pit. “And no matter what, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“No,” Aaron agreed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve been making out with another man’s wife.”

He covered his mouth with his hand as if to take back what they’d already done, his complexion pale. Backing out her door, he vanished, and she could hear him as he took missteps that almost led to a bad tumble down her stairs.

Hurrying outside, Joy saw him right himself in the nick of time before storming away from her staircase. She made to follow him, but when he peeked up and saw her, he waved her off, shaking his head.

Then, in a cloud of dust from the bare earth of her driveway, he disappeared.

Joy felt horrible about what happened with Aaron. They’d reestablished a friendship and maybe even more, and she blew it out of the water like a torpedo. She had to calm down before driving over to collect Kara. After taking an hour to pace and attempting to plaster on a calm expression, she arrived at her parents’ place.

“I don’t mean this to sound bad, Joy, but you’re looking a little peaked. Are you feeling under the weather? I’ve got chicken noodle soup, if you do. Ginger ale, too,” her mom offered.

The gentle way she stated this, the pure kindness with no rebuke of her words, made that pain inside of Joy lessen. She peered over into her mother’s eyes and her father’s face as he placed some of Kara’s drawings on their fridge, and suddenly, the distance that had been between them for so long faded into nothing.

“I don’t know where my husband is, or even if he’s alive,” she confessed while her daughter was playing a video game in the other room with her earbuds in, going into details about how he’d failed her and Kara. “And then when I told Aaron that I was still married, he freaked out.”

She anticipated her parents railing on Wayne, but they didn’t.

“Who else knows about Wayne?” her father asked.

“The LAPD, and I’ve listed him on missing persons sites. I even put up posters at one point, asked everyone at the restaurant where he worked. I’ve done everything I can think of.”

“And did you leave your information with the police?” her mom inquired next.

“Yes. Also, with my friend Debbie. She was the production assistant on the soap Wayne auditioned for, and then I was able to interview with her. Thanks to her, I held gainful employment the whole time I was there. She knows I’m here with Kara and has my number.”

“I think it’s time to pursue a formal separation from your husband,” her father said. Neither of her parents liked saying Wayne’s name.

“Yes,” her mom agreed. “Find out what you have to do to pursue divorce proceedings despite not knowing his whereabouts. Then, explain to Aaron what you’re doing. I’m sure once he sees that you’re making strides to change your marital status, he’ll be desperate to spend more time with you.”

“Desperate?” Joy scoffed. That sounded really extreme.

“He was always in love with you, you know,” her dad intoned quietly. “That’s likely why he was so taken aback. He thought he had another chance with you, but you’re still tied to this other man. The same man. Aaron wouldn’t feel like pursuing you would be the honorable or respectable thing until you do. He’s a very principled person.”

“I know.” Joy did know that. She’d always known that about him.

On her way home, with a sleeping Kara in tow, she noticed a billboard for the Stewart Family Law Practice. Pausing for long enough at a stop sign to type their number into her phone, she made a note to contact them.

Going to her appointment set up for the next Tuesday, she discussed the steps necessary to file for divorce in the state of California. There were plenty of official hurtles to jump to legally separate herself from a person of unknown location, but it felt good to gain some forward momentum where Wayne was involved. This had been coming for a long while, and it was past time she got the ball rolling.

With that out of the way, she contacted Aaron and left a voicemail. When he didn’t immediately answer, she sent a text, as well. She needed to apologize. She was certain that her parents were right, that Aaron had been blindsided by the thought of dating a married woman, no matter what the state of her marriage might be.

Her day at work passed without any messages from Aaron, and she couldn’t help but feel down about it. Still, if she’d permanently burned her bridges with him because of not coming clean up front, she’d just have to accept that outcome for what it was.

Yet when she arrived home, it was to find Aaron waiting for her in person. And the second she came up to him, he kissed her.