The Billionaire Cowboy's Carolina Girl (Contemporary BWWM Romance) (3 page)

"Joseph Wootton. I thought we'd met." He flashed a one-hundred watt smile, and I laughed, trying to pull myself up again.
 

"Anita, you stop. Joseph, please explain yourself."

"It's fine, Dani. This is Billy Joe Wootton... and we knew each other back in college."

"A long time ago," he said. "But you look exactly the same."

"And how am I supposed to know you won't drive my sister to some house of ill repute? Or some such... I have no idea what you mysterious oil billionaires do." Eleni stepped over and tried to slip her body between me and Billy.
 

"Lenny, it's fine," I mumbled, bringing my hand to my head. The pain in my ankle had taken over my body, and I could barely focus.

"Hey, Eleni," said Danielle, taking my sister's arm. "This is
the
Cowboy, I think, isn't he, Nita?" Danielle's eyes registered recognition of Billy Joe's name. After all, she had heard a thousand stories about my summer romance. Eleni looked to me again, and weakly, I nodded.
 

"'The Cowboy,' huh? You still talk about me?" Billy Joe laughed, pulling me up in one swift motion. He had me leaning against his strong, broad body within a second. My leg had joined in the symphony of pain, but I foolishly tried to put my foot down. The throbbing ache turned to a lightning shock of agony. I bit my lip and nodded, the years seeming to vanish between us. "Well, I'll be. I thought you'd forgotten." His smile seemed to light the room around us.

"Stop flirting with my sister and get her to the hospital," Eleni said. She turned to me. "And call us if you need anything. I'm not sure about you running off with our star guest, but I guess if he wants to take you... and if that's fine with you..." She threw her hands up.

"I'm not even sure I need to go to the hospital," I said.

“Your ankle ain't turnin' right,” said Billy, bending down to lift me in his arms. “You gotta go and and least get some pain relief. And I’ll be my best horse that you’ll need x-rays too.

"This is not... this is not completely necessary," I said. He carefully hoisted me so that my foot was lifted and not pinched in any way. I breathed a sigh of relief. Even the little bit of weight I had put on it had made me want to scream in pain. "I don't need the hospital," I said, wincing.
 

"It might be broken," said Billy. "And I promise you, your sister and your friend couldn't carry you to the hospital or take you in a limo with a driver who don't care about California driving laws." I smiled, trying to ignore the throbbing coming back to my ankle. Billy's accent became more Southern whenever he was under stress. He walked forward to the door.
 

"I'll come with you," said Eleni, stepping forward.

“No, Lenny. It's fine.” I may not have seen this man in almost a decade, but I think he can carry me a sight better than you all could. I'll text you and let you know what's going on." Billy was nearly out the door, and I looked back, watching Danielle and Eleni. I knew they'd probably pop up at the hospital, but they needed to be at the event space for clean up and prep for the next day. After all, the millionaires didn't stop coming just because one of the MDM employees had messed up her ankle.

Billy Joe Wootton, man of my many dreams, carried me out to his limo and carefully placed me in the back seat, sitting so that my head rested on his lap.
 

"Donny, get us to the nearest hospital, whatever the hell it is." I laughed.

"St. Vincent, probably." Donny programmed it into his GPS and sped up. And just like Billy had said, he wasn't paying much attention to driving laws. I sucked air in through my teeth, trying to avoid the pain that was building in my bad foot again. That damn thing had caused me nothing but trouble for years, and it had landed me in the hospital on the night my ex had finally come back to me. Well, it was debatable
what
exactly might happen, but here I was, finally with the man I'd dreamed of for so long. The limo bumped over the Los Angeles streets, the orange sun setting over the horizon. I groaned as my foot jumped in the car.

"That foot's no good, huh?" Billy brushed a stray lock of hair away from my face. I shook my head. He looked in my eyes, and I saw the hurt and concern in his eyes. He remembered exactly what I'd wanted for my life, and he understood what my injury had changed. "That's why you're at Million Dollar Matchmaking with Eleni — she's your sister, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you were really accepted to the ballet?"

"I was. But I came down wrong during a performance of
Swan Lake
, and the bones didn't heal back properly. My ankle twists out all the time now. I withdrew the season after I started. You cant exactly dance point with a foot that gets injured every other day."

"I swear, Anita. I wish you'd told me. I wish I'd heard anything from you." He looked away, his face filled with emotion.

"It never would have worked," I said, closing my eyes and trying to remember all that we'd said to each other... and all of the emails he'd sent in those first few months, wanting to reconnect. All contact had fallen off at a certain point, and I'd never heard anything again. "We're too different. From different worlds. And now you're some kind of oil billionaire, raking in all sorts of cash." I laughed. "That's not me. I wasn't ever able to follow my own dream, and I'm making ends meet... but only with the help of my sister."

"Anita," he said softly, "I never got to live my dreams out either. I'm thirty, and I got no family, no farm... and no wife."

"I find it hard to believe that you couldn't find someone who wanted to marry you. You're the full package... rich, handsome, funny. I mean, your fashion sense hasn't improved with age... but I think you pull off Levi's and a shirt from the army depot pretty well."

"Hey, girl. I'll have you know that this shirt was custom made for me. By L.L. Bean. I graduated from the army depot." We pulled into the hospital, and Billy held me up again, taking me into his arms and lifting me from the car smoothly and surely. His voice turned serious as he carried me into the emergency room doors. "I never found you," he said softly. "I think that's why I'm still looking. It's what brought me here. And I swear if I'd known that you were at this silly little matchmaking agency..."

"It's not silly," I said as he walked through the door. He nodded to one of the nurses, and she helped sign us in, taking us over to a room where they x-rayed my twisted foot.

"Well, regardless, I would have been here a lot sooner. I would have been here with bells on, with a damn ring to give to you."

"You can't be serious," I breathed. My voice was barely a whisper. A nurse whisked us back to another room, moving equipment around, and starting a drip for a mild painkiller. The pinprick of the needle seemed distant and far away compared to Billy Joe's face, so close to mine. The relief and heat of the narcotic washed over me. Billy's face seemed to be backed by a light, glowing with a beauty separate from the harsh fluorescent lights of the hospital. "We dated for three months."

"I didn't care," he said, his voice as sure and confident as it always had been. "I always knew it was you. I loved you from the very first day I saw you." He bent down to the hospital bed, brushing his lips against mine. A shock ran through my system, activating that place in my core that had wanted Billy Joe Wootton for so very long. A flood of memory came back to me... his hands on mine... moving slowing over my body and bringing me to heights of pleasure no other man had been able to achieve. He crushed his lips against mine, and I threw my arms around his neck through the dull haze of the morphine.
 

"Alright, no messing with the patient," came a voice. A doctor appeared in the room. Billy pulled away, keeping my hand in his. The doctor immediately began to work on my foot, using ultrasound to detect any bleeding and showing us X-rays that I barely remembered getting taken. "Looks like this lady has a hairline fracture, and it looks like her tendons never properly healed from an old injury. There's also a slipped bone in her foot, and quite a lot of stress on the toes. Are you a former ballerina, Miss Taylor?" I nodded, biting my lip again. Doctors never liked to deal with professional dancers since we were so likely to power through the pain instead of getting medical help. “We'll get you a boot on this foot,” the doctor continued, “And you'll have to come back for both physical therapy… new cast… all that.”

"Could she do that in Austin?" Billy squeezed my hand. My heart beat fast, my mouth going completely dry.
 

"I don't see why not. Are you her husband? You two live in Austin? It says here you live in L.A., Miss Taylor." I opened my mouth to respond, my consciousness not quite catching up to what Billy had said.
 

"Fiancé," he said. "We're moving back to Austin soon."

"Well then, you're the one who needs to make sure she gets physical therapy. And then she'll be able to do whatever she wants in a few months. None of this original injury was taken care of how it should have been."

"Billy," I whispered as the doctor walked off. "I can't go to Austin. My life is here. Besides, doesn't your family live in Dallas?"

"Screw my family. I'll take you back and marry you before they can say any damn thing about it. By the time you're married, you'll be a billionaire. So they won't be able to get worried about you not having any money."
 

"Billy," I said with a frown, pushing through the strange haziness of the painkillers. "I said eight years ago that it wouldn't work. I'm not going to join a family that doesn't want me."

"What about joining a
man
who does want you and making your own family?" I gulped, grateful that the doctor had come back into the room. Billy was all I'd wanted for years, and here he was, ready to take me back to Austin and build the life we'd dreamed of so long ago. The nurse brought us the papers to sign out, and Billy helped me into a wheelchair, tenderly brushing my hair back over my neck. He began to push me out to the limo again, winding through the blank, sterile halls.
 

"You can take me home," I said, trying to keep my voice devoid of emotion. He either ignored me or didn't hear what I'd said.

"There's a ranch outside of Austin I've had my eye on. I'm in a big ass house downtown right now, but that ranch... The house has eight bedrooms, and there's two hundred acres of land. For cattle and horses. And goats... you always wanted to learn how to make goat cheese."

"Billy..." I said. I closed my eyes, seeing that old vision swirl before me.

"It's Joseph now. Or Joe. Billy is my father's name, and I ain't that type of man. I'm the type of man who wants to buy a ranch for the most beautiful woman in the world, the only woman I've wanted for the better part of a decade. And fill that whole damn house with kids. And I'll build you a dance studio right out front so we can teach all those kids how to dance. And you can do whatever kind of lessons you want. We can probably even bring a physical therapist out to the studio to get you all healed up. The ballet might not want you, but I do. You hear me?" He rolled the wheelchair up to the side of the limo and lifted me again, looking me in the eye.

"Billy... Joe, I mean. This is all a little much."

"Well, you were always a little much, Anita. Let's be a little much together." I stifled a laugh. He kissed me again, as if trying to absorb that laughter in his body. That shock ran through me again, and my body began to remember just how much I'd always wanted him... and how good those strong, rough hands could make me feel. He set me down in the limo, brushing my long skirt to the side so that the fabric didn't get caught on the bulky boot. His lips parted from mine, and he moved into the seat next to mine, bringing me close to his body and putting his arm around me. "Just tell me you'll consider it."

"I'll consider it," I said, sighing. Something about the faint buzz of morphine and the darkness overtaking the city had brought the romance back to me. I would never have guessed that this would all happen so quickly. My head swam with the thought of it. Before Billy Joe could say another word, I gave Donny the driver my address and told him to hightail it. I couldn't leave my foster pets for the night, no matter how fabulous this cowboy billionaire's hotel was. And I was betting it certainly was.
 

"You takin' me to your digs, Nita Lee? Do I get to see the fabulous Los Angeles home of the famous dancer and millionaire matchmaker?"
 

"Sure," I said. "You can even stay for five or ten minutes."

"Hell, that's no way to treat an old friend." He drew me closer into him, making my body ache with need. It had been so long since a man had touched me. And eight years since it was the man I loved had taken me and made me scream with pleasure. Donny drove up into the hills, turning around a corner.

"That's my tiny little house." I smiled at the look of the stucco. One dog and one cat were sitting at the front window, probably wondering where my car had been for the last few hours. "You can drop me here, and we can talk after you get back to Austin."

"If you think for one second I'm letting an injured woman stay by herself overnight, you've got another think coming. Donny, you can go back to the rooms, and you can have my suite if you want." Joe tossed Donny a set of keys.

"No, Billy... I mean, Joe. I want to be alone. I have a lot to think about..." I let my voice trail off, fully aware that Billy Joe Wootton intended to stay at my place for the night. I hoped he liked animals as much as he used to. Without another word, he opened the car door and hoisted me out. In all the times he'd lifted me in the past several hours, he hadn't even made a sound. I wasn't exactly a lightweight ballerina anymore -- my curves had filled in over time. But it seemed that Billy Joe was just as strong as he ever was. And just as prone to sweep a girl off her feet. He placed me gently in the wheelchair and pushed me up to the house.

"I don't want to hear another word about it. You can make me sleep on your little porch there if you want. But I just found you... and I'm not about to leave you."