Crazy for Cowboy (10 page)

And he’d never been to Cowboys. Although that fact in itself was odd, now it made sense that no one there recognized him. Still, she’d have thought he would have run into at least one of its patrons in his line of work.

“How long have you been in Calgary?” she asked.

“All my life.”

“Really?” Emily’s chopsticks stopped in midair. “I thought you said you were from Texas.”

“Did I?”

Didn’t he? She must have been mistaken. Thinking back to that first meeting at Eduardo’s, she’d thought he’d had a strong western accent, too. Now it was faded, practically nonexistent.

“I must be losing my mind,” she concluded and brought the mouthful to her lips.

Houston dropped his chopsticks onto his plate. “No, you’re not. In fact, there’s something I want to tell—”

“I’m telling you, Martha,” a female voice interjected, drowning out Houston. “It’s the same guy.”

Emily turned her head in the direction of the two older women. She wasn’t crazy, after all. She did recognize them. They were the same matrons that had been dining in Eduardo’s that day. The odd duo must have been on a scenic tour of restaurants. Either that or they were undercover agents, following her to make sure she didn’t stray from her resolution.

“The hottie from the other restaurant?”

“Keep your voice down,” Martha’s friend hissed.

Emily laughed into her napkin. “I think they’re talking about you,” she whispered to her date. “How does it feel to be a sex object?”

“For older ladies?” He paused a beat before replying. “I feel like Larry King.”

Emily giggled. “Well, you certainly don’t look like Larry King.”

“That’s because I’m not wearing my suspenders. I guess what they say is true. Clothes really do make the man.”

“Everybody loves a cowboy,” she agreed.

“Everybody? What about you, Emily?” He looked at her with such a serious expression, the lightness and easy banter of the past few minutes gone.

“I’ve been in a number of relationships with cowboys,” she admitted, staring at her plate.

There. It was out in the open. If they should run across any of her old flames again, Houston was forewarned. She didn’t need to feel embarrassed any more. Still, she didn’t want to pursue the conversation. Time to switch topics.

“So, Houston, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

“It’ll keep.” He lapsed into silence, chewing his food.

Why had she opened her mouth? Why had she been so damned honest? A number of relationships, she’d said. Houston must think she was some kind of groupie, a woman going for the North American record when it came to dating cowboys.

When the bill came, he plunked a credit card onto the tray without a word. After signing the receipt, he helped her out of her seat and out of the restaurant.

“Feel like a walk along the river?”

“Love to,” she said, thankful that he’d finally spoken.

They made their way north toward the Center Street Bridge, then moved away from the sidewalk and down a path that led to the edge of the Bow River. The Canada geese and the mallard ducks were congregating along the shore. Here and there in the water, Emily could see a group of the birds huddling together. Then one would move off on his own, a mini jet stream trailing along behind him as he swam against the current.

Houston reached for her, just grazing the back of her hand at first, then grasping it firmly in his. That small contact had her heart pounding. If holding hands was enough to give her palpitations, what would it be like to make love to this man?

And why was she thinking about that again? Dating the guy was wrong—she’d already admitted that—so, how could sleeping with him be right?

She looked up to find him gazing at her. She wondered if he was reading her thoughts; wondered if he had similar ideas of his own. Embarrassed she turned away.

Through the trees she could see a number of people sitting on the grass, apparently watching something. “Look. There’s a crowd over there.”

He stopped and surveyed the scene for a moment. “Want to see what’s going on?”

“Sure.”

Still holding on to her, Houston led the way. They emerged on a hill, at the bottom of which sat a two story, open air theater. A group of actresses, dressed in long gowns, were seated around a small table.

Houston picked a secluded area behind the rest of the audience. He took off his jacket, spread it out on the ground, and invited her to sit on it. He joined her there, his arm touching hers; his warmth radiating through her like a crackling fire.

After watching the action onstage for several minutes, Emily leaned in to her date and whispered, “I’m not sure what’s going on."

She immediately regretted her words. Sure, she expected him to agree, to say that he didn’t have a clue either. But then the inevitable would follow. He’d suggest they leave. Instead, he put his arm around her and began speaking in a hushed voice.

“They’re performing Shakespeare’s
Love’s Labour’s Lost
. It’s about four guys. For one year they vow to study, fast and—here comes the tricky part—stay away from women."

Emily didn’t believe that Houston knew anything about the play. Not for a minute. It was a typical case of cowboy machismo. He just couldn’t admit that he didn’t have an inkling about the show. And he was doing such a good job of making it up on the spot that she decided to play along. “For a whole year?”

He grinned at her. “Silly, aren’t they?”

“Very silly.” She snuggled closer. “What happens then?”

“The inevitable. Four women show up and wow them.”

“The women who are talking now?”

“That would be them.”

Man, he was good at this. The guy could have sold bacon to a pig farmer. “So, do the men break their vow?”

“Well, they don’t want to be obvious about it. They’ve already told the women about their pact. They don’t want to appear foolish by declaring their love openly.”

“So what are they going to do?”

He was quiet for a moment. Emily wondered if he’d run out of ideas. Then he moved closer, his breath tickling her ear and sending goose bumps cascading down her arm. “They’re going to appear to the women in disguise.”

Emily smiled. Houston had risen to the challenge and come up with an explanation. The game was still on. “So the guys decide to play a trick on the women, trying to make them look stupid?”

Houston jerked back. “Well...I...I suppose you could look at it like...”

She nodded, challenging him to get himself out of his new predicament.

“No,” he said, finally. “No, that’s not what they’re doing...exactly...you see, before this, the men have given each of the women a token.”

“You mean a gift?”

He nodded. “That’s what’s happening in this scene. The women are discussing what they’ve received. It’s jewelry mostly, although poor Katherine gets a glove. I guess her sweetheart isn’t as well off as the other three gentlemen.”

Emily giggled. This cowboy had a great imagination. “So what happens with the tokens?”

“The women will use them to turn the tables on the men.”

“How?”

“They’ll switch the gifts around so the guys will end up wooing the wrong woman.”

Now she had him. There was a definite flaw in his logic. “How will that work? The men will still be able to see their faces, won’t they?”

“Not once the women are masked. See?”

Emily looked up to view the action. The four actresses traded the tokens amongst themselves then covered their faces with masks, beautiful feathery disguises gleaming with sequins. Then four men, masquerading as Cossacks, exploded onto the stage and began prancing about in a big dance number. The play was going along exactly as Houston had predicted. How the heck had this cowboy known what was going to happen?

She stole a glance at him. He was focused on the performance, an amused smile on his face. Emily pondered the anomaly beside her. A cowboy with an interest in the Bard? Who’d have thunk it?

They didn’t talk during the rest of the play. Now that Houston had explained the background of the story, everything else made sense. Another group of characters came on and acted out a show for the Princess, one of the four ladies they’d first met. The frivolities were interrupted by a messenger, who told the guest of honor that her father, the King, was dead.

Emily thought back to the conversation she’d had with Jackie earlier that day and wondered about her own father. Was he still living? Did he have other children? She wasn’t sure if it was the quiet despair that the actress used to portray the moment, or her own thoughts that left her holding back a tear. Houston, seeming to sense her emotion, reached out and held her hand, tenderly caressing her fingers with his own.

The play ended strangely. Not like most romantic comedies with a happily ever after. Instead, it left a question in Emily’s mind as to whether or not the couples would actually end up together. It started, true to form, with each of the men vowing their love. But after all the games the gentlemen had played, the women doubted their sincerity. They gave each of the men a task to prove their affection. If, at the end of a year, they had accomplished their assignments and remained true, the women promised to accept them.

At the curtain call, the audience broke into thunderous applause and shouts of approval, the loudest of which was reserved for the young actor who played Berowne. When the performers finally left the stage, the spectators stood, retrieving their jackets and stretching their legs.

Emily’s hands stung from so much clapping. She was busy rubbing them together when she caught sight of a lone fellow in the audience, waving in her direction.

She stepped forward to get a closer look at the man. She was certain she’d never seen him before, yet here he was, waving at her. The man nudged several people gathered near him. They all looked her way and waved.

Emily turned to Houston, to remark on how odd the occurrence was, only to find the cowboy returning a wave back to the group in question. “You know those people?”

“Yeah, some old friends.”

Some other Shakespeare-lovin’ cowboys? “Did you want to go and say hello?”

“I’ll catch up with them another time. It’s getting late.”

And it was. Night had settled in, bringing with it a cool Prairie breeze. Houston draped his jacket around her shoulders, letting his arm linger there.

He escorted her back to his car, opening the door for her. Slipping into the driver’s seat, Houston started the engine and turned the heat on low. Then he headed back to the riding stables where Emily’s vehicle was still parked.

“Did you enjoy the play?”

“Very much,” she replied. “I was surprised you wanted to stay and watch.”

“Why?”

She didn’t want to insult him, but wasn’t the answer obvious? “The arts aren’t something that usually interest men. Especially cowboys.”

“I go to the theater regularly,” he told her, surprising her again.

Here was her opening, an opportunity to unravel the enigma called Houston Saveloy. “Well, you certainly knew a lot about the play. Have you seen it before?”

“Actually...I’ve been in it.”

“No way.”

“Yeah, I played Berowne.”

Emily smiled at the simplicity of it all. The mystery was solved. “Wow. That’s a big part. I was in a couple of high school plays, too. Never the lead, though. I was usually the maid that came in to announce another guest or to clear away the tea things.”

Her mouth seemed to have a motor of its own. She prattled away in a slightly hysterical manner, feeling that if she kept talking the evening wouldn’t end. “My friend Jackie was always involved in drama. You met her at the restaurant, remember? Anyway, she was the one who convinced me to audition, otherwise I never would have had the nerve.”

It didn’t work. No matter how much she babbled, her time with Houston was drawing to a close. While she’d been busy talking, he’d pulled into the parking lot and brought the car up beside her truck, the only other vehicle in sight. There was no reason to delay the inevitable parting. Nor her drive home. Alone.

Houston turned off the ignition and got out of his car. As usual, he came around to her side, opening the door. He held her hand as she emerged, then stepped back, leaning against her truck, his arms folded across his chest, the moonlight reflected in his eyes.

“We never did Shakespeare,” she rambled on. “We had to read it for English, of course, but we never staged any of it.”

“That’s too bad. It’s easier to understand if you act it out.”

“It would have to be. Some of his plays left me totally confused. Especially the comedies. The characters always did things for the weirdest reasons.”

He looked at her as though she’d just insulted his best friend. “Like what?”

“Well, take the men in the show tonight. I mean, what did they think they were doing, appearing to those women in disguise?”

Houston looked down at his feet, shuffling them in the dirt. She was obviously boring him. Why couldn’t she just stop talking?

“I think the women were right to make the men wait for a year and prove their love,” she continued. If only her mouth had been equipped with a zipper. “How did those guys ever think they were going to form a lasting relationship when everything was based on tricks?”

The shuffling stopped. His eyes met hers. “Uh...I guess maybe those guys were feeling a little...insecure.”

She stuffed her hands into the pockets of the jacket he’d lent her. “Oh, please.”

“You don’t think a man can be insecure? Well, I have a news flash for you. We’re just a bundle of uncertainty.”

“Really?” she asked, sure that he was teasing her and that his next words would be a punch line.

“You bet. Like right now. Say, I want to kiss you. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

Her heart gave a thump against her ribcage. That was one hell of a punch line, all right. “Of course.”

“I don’t know how you’ll react. Maybe you’ve been waiting for me to kiss you again. Or maybe you’ll scream and slap me across the face.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” she assured him, then silently scolded herself for answering too quickly.