Caught by the Cowboy Read online

  Olivia

  She drove through the night and into the morning until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore. Then she pulled over to the side of the road and laid down across the seats of her truck to take a nap, just enough sleep so that she could keep going and make it the rest of the way to New York. As she pulled into the typical New York traffic, she realized she didn’t have a single clue where she was going. Her parents weren’t expecting her back, and somehow going straight back to them felt like a failure. Of course her parents would assume that she came back because she decided she wasn’t cut out for farm work, not because her heart was broken by the owner of the ranch.

  Getting out had been her only thought from the second she realized Grant was serious about them not being together. And get out she had, regardless of her lack of forethought.

  When she pulled the truck to a stop in the only available parking spot for three blocks, she found herself outside of Maeve’s house. Like her, her best friend lived with her parents. In New York it was hard not to as a young adult. The difference was that Maeve’s parents weren’t just well off like her parents were. Maeve’s parents were completely rich, with the kind of old money and business connections that netted the family millions per year. Their house sported six bedrooms and two living rooms, along with a den that had been turned into a library for Maeve’s mother. It was way too big of a house for a family of three and Maeve had complained since they were kids that the place felt empty.

  “Olivia?” Maeve’s voice broke through her thoughts and she realized she’d walked up to the door and rung the bell already. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story and I think it needs to be told over shots of whatever alcohol you have in the house.”

  She wasn’t usually one to drink, wasn’t legal to do it either, but Maeve waved her inside. Disappearing into the kitchen she came back with a bottle of vodka and a couple of cans of pop. Then they went upstairs into her bedroom and Olivia told her everything.

  ***

  “Liv, you need to get out of bed,” Maeve didn’t come into the spare room, but her voice echoed around the space.

  Olivia knew why her friend was worried. She’d been back in New York for half a week and hadn’t so much as left the house. Barely talking to anyone meant that she didn’t have to think about Grant, although she wasn’t sure if her logic was completely accurate. She thought about him anyways. “It’s four o’clock, Liv, you need to get out of bed and get ready for dinner with your parents.”

  The short laugh that left her didn’t hold any humour. Her parents were the last people she wanted to see right now, with their judgmental looks and assumptions about everything, but Maeve’s parents had insisted. They’d been happy to have her stay there for the foreseeable future, but her mother was apparently beyond worried about her. As if. This time when she didn’t answer Maeve pulled open the door, hand on her hip as she glared. Olivia had seen the woman glare before, but it had never been trained on her. She realized now why people always listened to Maeve. “Olivia Montgomery,” she strode over to the bed and pulled the blankets off her. “You are going to this goddamn dinner. Not just because my parents are insisting. But because you’ve been locked up in here for four days and you need to do something.”

  “My parents are exhausting,” she complained, but got up and started rifling through her clothes anyways. “They’ll insist I do business school and find a suitable boyfriend and never think about leaving New York again and I can’t deal with that right now.”

  “You could never deal with it.”

  The words stopped her cold as she turned them over and over in her head. What was Maeve saying? “You have never once told them no to anything. Not once. I thought this trip to Tennessee was going to change you, but it might just have made you even more spineless.”

  “Spineless? What the fuck, Maeve?” she shot her friend a glare over her shoulder as she pulled the only suitable dinner outfit out of her bag. “I told them I didn’t want to go to business school.”

  “No, you told them you would rather do a degree in agricultural science. You never once actually told them ‘no, I’m not going to business school’. And then there’s Steven.”

  She wanted to yell and scream at the mention of Steven, knowing exactly what her friend was about to bring up. “The only reason you were dating that absolute disgrace of a human being is because your parents wanted you to. We both know you never liked him. God, Liv, you even let your parents control your sex life.”

  “Well they don’t control my sex life anymore, do they? Considering I went out and fucked my boss at the ranch.”

  “How long is that going to last? You’re heartbroken. You’ll go out tonight and they’ll tell you they have the perfect man to make you feel at home again in New York, and you’ll be too scared of their disapproval to tell them you were in love with the owner of the ranch. You’ll go out with him and hate him just like you hated Steven, but you’ll date him because well, you don’t have anyone else to date. Why not appease your parents one last time?”

  If she was a violent person, she would have punched Maeve in the face by now. But the more her words sank in, the more they made sense. The vicious cycle of her being afraid to tell her parents the truth, followed by her doing exactly what they wanted. She was letting them control her, and that was why they did it. “I hate you, I hope you know that,” she sounded resigned, though, and Maeve picked up on it.

  “Do you want me to go with you to the restaurant? I can pretend not to be there at a nearby table, but then you’ll have some support.”

  Finally finding the bra she’d been rifling for, she stood to her full height and shook her head. “No, I should probably figure out how to do this by myself. After all, you can’t find my spine for me.”

  She tried to smile, but she felt like an idiot. Maeve had been able to see this the whole time — for years, probably. And she’d been fooling herself into believing that she was getting out from underneath her parent’s thumb. Well, tonight she would just have to see if she could get out from under them once and for all.

  ***

  At five minutes to six, Olivia walked up to the hostess stand at Rudolfo’s with a wide smile on her face. It was fake, of course, but she was trying to put up a facade of happiness and confidence when she saw her parents for the first time since her return to New York. “I’m with the Montgomery party,” she said, holding her little clutch purse with both hands to avoid tapping her fingers against her leg.

  “Wonderful, the rest of your party is already here. Right this way.”

  Rudolfo’s was her parent’s restaurant of choice, and there was a reason for that. The ambiance screamed of decadence, with low lighting and classical music playing low over the speakers. Some nights they had a live classical artist perform, but they never came on those nights. For all their posturing, both her parents hated the sound of classical music. As she walked past the tables she was reminded of how under-dressed she technically was for a high-end place like this. A skin-tight black dress with the red clutch she’d borrowed from Maeve may seem at first glance to be a perfectly acceptable outfit, but when people looked closer they would notice that the dress wasn’t from a brand that people wore here. From what she could remember, the tag that was scratching the back of her neck claimed this dress was from a fast-fashion outlet, and she hadn’t even gotten it new. It came to her second hand.

  Some people shot looks in her direction but for the most part no one noticed, and for that she was grateful. It was going to be annoying enough when her mother saw the dress and realized it wasn’t from Gucci.

  Both her parents were facing away from her when they walked up, and the hostess gestured to the bench seat opposite them. “Jennifer will be right with you to take your drink order.”

  Her parents didn’t even bother to turn around to greet her, waiting until she was seated in the booth to speak. “Olivia, what are you wearing?” as expected, her mother noticed
the dress right away. Eyebrows coming together, she stared at the fabric before glancing around the restaurant as if to see if anyone else had noticed. “You have plenty of acceptable brand names to wear out.”

  Olivia didn’t want to sigh audibly, because her parents might realize that she wasn’t being their perfect daughter anymore. And she didn’t particularly want that to happen until they’d at least gotten a little further into the dinner. “I didn’t have anything else with me, Mom. I’m sorry.”

  As per usual, Marianna Montgomery was wearing an outrageously expensive dress that called attention to her. Sometimes people assumed she was some kind of celebrity and she took it as a compliment, even though she was nothing more than an executive at a company. The jewelry she was wearing may have cost more than the dress, which was saying something, and she was wearing so much that it was bordering on gaudy. Her father was much the same, wearing an expensive business suit and a watch that cost more than a year of rent for some people. Lucky for her, he was more of the strong, silent type, and didn’t spend much time getting into her appearance and how she should present herself to the world.

  That didn’t mean he didn’t care about appearances just as much as her mother did. She’d learned the hard way when she was young that he was on her mother’s side all the way, even if he didn’t say anything about it himself. And he was the one pushing hardest for her to go to business school.

  “So have you reconsidered our offer of putting you through business school?” her father’s voice broke through her thoughts, proving them right in the process.

  Closing her eyes for a second, she contemplated how to respond. She hadn’t wanted to get into this yet. In her head she’d hoped they could have some semblance of a normal parent-child dinner together before she rejected their lifestyle and they inevitably cut her out of their life. She’d forgotten that such a thing wasn’t possible. “I’ll never be going to business school,” she decided to just go for it, and as her father’s jaw dropped slightly the waitress walked up and asked what she wanted to drink. She asked for water, knowing that this dinner probably wouldn’t last long enough for her to finish any kind of drink, and watched as the woman walked away.

  They all stayed silent until her parents were sure they were alone again, the waitress gone. “Olivia, you know that business school is the best choice for you,” her father insisted, bringing his glass up to his lips to take a swig. There was almost certainly more than just pop in that glass.

  “No, you think that business school is the best choice for me. I know it’s not, and I won’t be going.”

  “We’re not going to be paying for your ridiculous agricultural science degree.”

  She was surprised her mother had even remembered what degree she wanted to get. Maybe they’d been listening a little bit more than she’d thought, but still not enough to realize that she was dead serious. “I know. Between the two of you, you’ve mentioned it about a thousand times. I’ll find a way to pay for it myself.”

  Her father laughed at her. Actually laughed, a deep belly laugh as if she’d made the funniest joke in the world. “You’re never going to be able to pay for it yourself. You’re a sheltered little girl who doesn’t understand how much things cost.”

  Blood starting to boil in annoyance, she shifted discreetly towards the edge of the booth seat, ready to leave at any opportunity. “I know how much things cost and I know that people pay for their own schooling all the time. I’ll move to some smaller town and go to a smaller school to get my degree.”

  Moving hadn’t been something she’d consciously thought about but when she said it, it felt right. Ever since she’d been back in New York something had been off. She hated it here. The traffic, the business. Like Grant had said that night at the inn, no one ever stopped. There were no breaks in New York City and that wasn’t the kind of life she wanted to have. “No daughter of mine will be going to some second rate school in the boonies,” her father said. “And you can’t afford to go to a school in New York by yourself. You’ll be going to business school and that’s final.”

  “Look. I’m not sure if you got the memo, but I’m not a child anymore. I’m nineteen which means that legally, I make all my own decisions. I’m not going to bow down to everything that you want me to do anymore,” her tone was filled with annoyance and her mother brought a hand to her heart in shock.

  “Olivia, we just want what’s best for you-”

  “No, you don’t. You want what’s best for your image, and that’s not what I want. When you’re ready to accept me for who I am and not try to mold me into some perfect doll, I’d love to have a relationship with you again. Until then…” she trailed off, her eyes going wide. She’d stood up halfway through her speech and started sliding out of the booth seat, which gave her the perfect view of a confused hostess walking a man up to their table.

  A man in a plaid long sleeve and ripped jeans that looked like they’d seen better days. A man who didn’t belong in this restaurant or this city at all but was somehow here anyways. Grant.

  Both her parents turned to look, her mother giving him a once over with a frown on her face. As expected, they didn’t approve, but she didn’t care. Grant was here, in New York, at her family dinner. There had to be a reason for that. She could only hope he hadn’t come just to sadistically rub in his rejection of her. The hostess faded into the background, but her father spoke to Grant. “I’m sorry, this is a private family dinner. Who are you?”

  Grant barely spared her father a glance, gaze focused exclusively on her. Her heart started pounding in her chest, waiting to see what he would say next. When he did speak, her heart dropped right out of her chest. “It doesn’t matter who I am. All that matters is that I’m madly in love with your daughter.”

  Chapter 13

  Grant

  Silence descended on the table, making it sound like the horrible classical music had been turned up on them. The man he could only assume was Olivia’s father went a shade of red that he didn’t know humans could go while her mother’s skin went ghostly pale in shock. But he spared them only a small glance, looking instead at Olivia. As usual, she was gorgeous, wearing a tight black dress that he wanted to peel right off her. But that wasn’t what mattered. What mattered was the look in her soulful eyes, the ones that projected everything she was feeling even when she was trying desperately to hide it. Right now she looked at him with doubt and hope, which was good enough of a sign for him.

  “Olivia, I’m in love with you,” he said, stepping closer and taking both of her hands in his. “I pushed you away because I thought you’d leave me. My appetite for risk disappeared after Bri left me. But as soon as you left I realized that I couldn’t keep living like that. Everything has a little bit of risk and I know that there’s a chance you’ll leave me one day because of my stupid attachment to the ranch, but I want the chance to cherish our time together before then. I want to give us a chance to work our plans around each other like you wanted to from the start. I want you to come back to Tennessee and live with me on the ranch and go to whichever school is closest because hell, it’s Tennessee. We’re all about agriculture anyways.”

  He could see tears beading into the corners of her eyes, but he couldn’t assume he was forgiven. That would be too easy. An apology probably wouldn’t be enough after how badly he’d hurt her. He should have at least brought her flowers or something, maybe even a necklace to show he was serious about this. About her. Just as he was about to drop her hands and back away, he nearly lost his balance from the force of her throwing herself onto him. Then their lips were pressed together and he was kissing her like she belonged to him all over again, his hands going down to rest on her hips. “Your attachment to the ranch isn’t stupid,” she laughed a little bit when she pulled away, breathless from the kiss. “Your parents lived their whole lives together there. And I want us to live our whole lives together too. At the ranch.”

  Grant could hardly believe what he was hearing, fingers
gripping her hips harder as if to remind himself that she was real. That he’d actually come to New York to apologize, Maeve had actually given him Olivia’s location, and the woman he loved was actually in his arms right now. “Seriously?” he asked dumbly, reading up to run a hand through that beautiful red hair.

  Laughing again, she nodded. “Seriously. I love you, Grant. The fight that we had didn’t change that. I was never expecting you to come all the way here just to apologize. There’s no way I could not believe you were in love with me after this.”

  A throat cleared behind them and he turned, reminded of the fact that they weren’t alone. Olivia’s father was looking up at them both with an angry expression. “Olivia will not be going anywhere with you. You’re way too old for her and she has a life here.”

  His mouth opened to argue, his protective side not wanting Liv to be controlled by these people anymore, but he heard Olivia’s voice before he could speak. “Dad, we just had this discussion,” her tone was unexpectedly cold, and he realized that he must have walked into an argument. “Even if Grant hadn’t come here, I was not going to be living in New York anymore. What I said before all of this still stands. When you’re ready to accept me for who I am and accept who I’m in love with, you’re welcome to come to visit me in Tennessee. Until then, I don’t want to hear from you again. You can ask Maeve’s parents for details on how I’m doing, but I’ll be blocking both of your numbers and not accepting any calls until Maeve informs me that you’ve had a change of heart.”

  She pulled him away from the booth then and straight out of the restaurant, leaving both her parents with their mouths hanging open. When they got out into the crisp evening air she pulled in a deep breath and started laughing again. “What’s so funny?” he questioned, tempted to start laughing with her.