Cowboy Cool: Book 5 (Cowboy Justice Association) (23 page)

Would Reed pull away from her again? She’d put off finding out for just awhile longer.

Chapter Twenty-One

R
eed had to tell Kaylee everything and he needed to do it tonight.

Since he had so spectacularly failed to keep his distance it was the only thing that would make any of this remotely right. She needed to understand why this was so hard for him. He wanted her, but he couldn’t have her. Not forever.

He showered and changed in the other bathroom before going into the kitchen and finishing up the pumpkins. He’d heard the shower stop a while ago but he wouldn’t blame her if she never came downstairs or spoke to him again. At this point she was probably just tired of all his damn issues.

“You didn’t have to clean up.” He turned to see her standing at the bottom of the stairs wearing a blue pair of sweatpants, a gray University of Illinois t-shirt, and bare feet.

“It’s no big deal. Do we put these pumpkins on the porch?”

The tension between them was thick but he tried to act natural and at ease.

“We have to put the lights in them first. They’re in the box.”

She came over to the table and started rummaging through the box at the same time he reached in. Their hands brushed and she pulled back as if she’d been burned.

He quickly installed a light in each jack o’ lantern and carried them out to the porch, letting her direct where they were to be placed. He could already see neighborhood kids in costume trick or treating, their sacks empty this early.

“What do we do now?” he asked. Trying to talk to her when they would be interrupted every few minutes by a ringing doorbell wasn’t a good idea. He’d wait until later in the evening. He only hoped he had the courage to say all that needed to be said and then face whatever her reaction would be.

Would she think less of him? Would she be so disgusted she’d ask him to leave? He couldn’t technically leave her without protection until her attacker was found.

She finished setting out the pumpkins just as a group of trick-or-treaters stomped up the steps. One was dressed as some kind of princess with a tiara, one was dressed as a cowboy, and the little one was dressed as a flower. Praising their costumes, Kaylee gave each one a candy bar, not dropping it into their bags but actually handing it to them.

The children’s faces lit up.

She’d been absolutely right about the magic of a full-size candy bar. All three kids grinned, shoved the chocolate in their bags, and then ran back down the porch steps to excitedly tell their parents what they had received. She’d made their Halloween…all with a candy bar.

It was like that for the next two hours. Ghosts, zombies, vampires, fairies, and several Harry Potters all rang Kaylee’s doorbell and yelled “Trick or Treat.” She wore her witch’s hat, chatted with the parents, and handed out candy to the children who all looked like they were hopped up on sugar. Those moms and dads weren’t getting those kids to bed for hours.

At nine o’clock Kaylee turned off the porch light and locked the door. “Another Halloween has come and gone. I guess I can start my Christmas shopping.”

It was time.

“Can you wait until tomorrow to do it? I’d like for us to talk, Kaylee.”

She held the large candy bowl in front of her like a shield. “I don’t think we have anything to talk about. Maybe we should just let things lie.”

He’d been doing that for almost fifteen years and it hadn’t been working all that well. Maybe it was time for a different tactic.

“I want to tell you,” he said simply. “If you still want to hear it.”

Her mouth fell open and her eyes went wide. She nodded and placed the bowl on the kitchen counter. “I do still want to hear about it. What changed your mind?”

“You,” he answered immediately. “I need you to understand why this is so hard for me. Why I pulled away from you last night and today, and why there’s no future with a man like me.”

“Um, where do you want to do this?” She looked more nervous than he felt.

“Why don’t I get us a couple of sodas and we can sit in the living room?”

He needed something to do with his hands so he wouldn’t try and touch her. If he did he wouldn’t make it through this story. He opened two root beers and they settled on the sofa. Kaylee hugged one of the oversized throw pillows and leaned back against the arm of the couch so she was facing him. She didn’t say anything, simply letting him gather his thoughts and try and make some sense of them.

He might as well start at the very beginning.

“I met Julie when we were both twelve years old. She was the daughter of our ranch foreman. Dad had hired him away from a big spread in Wyoming and I remember the day our family met theirs. Sonny, her dad, had three sons and Julie so she was pretty tomboyish. We all hung out together, fishing, riding, getting in snowball fights. I’d like to say it was love at first sight but it wasn’t. For either of us. We were buddies if anything. Julie was one of the guys.”

“Julie. That’s a pretty name,” Kaylee said softly. “What did she look like?”

Reed smiled as images flashed through his mind. The prom. Their wedding. The day they’d gone swimming in the creek and Julie had been wearing that new red bikini. “She was tall. Hell, she had the longest damn legs and the longest hair. Long, straight dark hair and brown eyes. She could have been a model if she’d wanted to.”

She’d never really had the chance to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“After eighth grade, Julie went away to spend the summer with her grandparents in Florida. When she came back in August…” Reed whistled as he recalled how different she’d looked. “Let’s just say she grew up. I guess I must have too because I noticed she was a girl and I was a boy. There was no chasing or game playing. We were just together from then on. A couple. I dated her all through high school and we both planned to attend Colorado State but her parents didn’t want us to live together. My parents weren’t too keen on the idea either.”

Reed paused as he remembered arguing with his mom and dad. Even then he hadn’t liked anyone telling him how to live his life.

“But you did anyway?” Kaylee prompted, pulling him out of the past.

He shook his head and smiled. Their solution to the problem hadn’t been ingenious but it sure as hell got the job done. “We got married. We figured that married people lived together so our parents couldn’t say anything. We drove to Seattle and got hitched in some wedding chapel two weeks after high school graduation.”

Kaylee smiled and pushed a few stray hairs back, tucking them behind her ear. “How did Mom and Dad take it?”

“They were livid at first.” Reed chuckled at how bullheaded he’d been back then. He had much more patience now but a teenage boy in love was entirely ruled by hormones and emotion. “But they got used to it. By the holidays it seemed like everyone had forgotten about it and we were happy. We were going to school and having fun just like every other young couple does.”

Those halcyon days when you’re too young and stupid to know it couldn’t last. They’d thought those happy times would go on forever.

“It was the summer between our junior and senior year of college. We were having a rough time as Julie seemed to be irritable quite a bit, not feeling like herself. I wrote it off to my being so busy. I was working on the ranch and trying to save money for the school year and the work was from sunup to sundown.” Reed took another drink of his soda, his mouth suddenly dry as memories of that day crowded in. “I got a call one day that Julie had been in a car accident and was in the hospital. Of course both families went, not just me and the doctor said she’d had a seizure while driving.”

Reed could still see that doctor’s face in his mind as if it happened minutes ago, not years. That doctor had known then how bad it was but hadn’t wanted to say anything until he’d done more tests. But he’d known…and Reed had seen the painful knowledge in his eyes.

“Brain tumor.” Reed hadn’t uttered those words for fifteen years and his voice sounded shaky and rough saying them. “Inoperable. They gave her six months to a year.”

He heard Kaylee suck in a breath. “Oh Reed. God, I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”

“Thank you. It was hard news to hear. No more so of course than for Julie. She was so young.”

“So were you,” Kaylee said gently. “It couldn’t have been easy for you either.”

Had he ever been that young? He sure as shit didn’t remember it anymore. That innocent feeling. It was strange knowing he’d once been that naïve, thinking the world was on his side, but he couldn’t recall the actual way it felt. That was lost forever.

“I wasn’t the one dying.”

Although at times it had felt like it. Julie had been such an integral part of his life for so long he hadn’t known how to function without her. After she’d gone, he joined the military and volunteered for every dangerous assignment he could. What he’d learned was that the will to survive, at least in him, was strong.

“You don’t have to say anything else if you don’t want to.”

He didn’t want to but he needed to. Kaylee deserved to understand that he was the one lacking, defective. She deserved better than a man who didn’t know how to love the right way.

“The doctors sent us to a bigger hospital in Denver. They offered chemo and radiation to slow down the tumor growth and extend her life.”

Reed remembered the look of horror that had crossed Julie’s face when they had talked about shaving off her hair and the side effects from the chemo.

“Did those things help?”

“We’ll never know.” Reed shrugged, trying to shake away the images that had taken up residence in his mind. “Julie said she didn’t want to extend her life but not have any quality to go with it. The doctors warned her the chemo would make her sick, and it wouldn’t cure the cancer. In the end, she turned them down.”

Reed had pleaded with her to do the treatments. He’d been selfish but he’d wanted more time with her, as much as he could get. He’d promised to be there for her every step of the way but she’d resisted pumping her body full of toxic chemicals. When Julie put her mind to something she could be very stubborn.

“So you went back home?”

“No, we stayed in Denver with the specialists. Her parents convinced her to stay there to manage the disease and her pain.”

“I think I understand more now.” Kaylee reached out and placed her hand over his. “You must have loved her very much. I can see why you wouldn’t be able to love anyone else or make a life with someone.”

He couldn’t help himself letting his fingers tangle with hers, her touch warm and reassuring. “Honey, I don’t deserve to have a life with anyone else. I don’t know how to love. I failed Julie when she needed me most and I won’t do that to another woman.”

Her brow knitted and she leaned forward intently. “I can’t imagine how you could fail anyone. I’m sure it was hard to watch her suffer and die. Were you not there when she passed on? Is that why you think you failed her? I’m sure Julie wouldn’t want you to do this to yourself. She’d want you to forgive yourself.”

Reed swallowed the lump that had formed in his throat and blinked back the moisture in his eyes. “Julie is the one that told me I’d failed her. Julie was the one that said I didn’t love her enough. And I guess I didn’t, if she believed that. I couldn’t do what she needed me to do.”

“I can’t believe she said that,” Kaylee denied, shaking her head and squeezing his hand reassuringly. “You could never fail anyone. What did she want you to do?”

He’d never told anyone his secret, not even his or Julie’s family. No one.

“She wanted me to help her die. She begged me to end her life so she wouldn’t have to linger and suffer. She told me that if I loved her I would get my gun and pull the trigger.”

Chapter Twenty-Two