A Cowboy To Come Home To. Donna Alward

best buddy—was having an affair. And he hadn’t said a single, blessed word to her about it. No heads-up. No…nothing.

      The joke had totally been on her, and she’d never forgotten it. Even now, as she took the steps to truly move on—alone—his betrayal stung. There was sticking by your friend and there was doing what was right. Cooper didn’t choose right.

      “I missed my mother’s birthday,” he replied, putting his weight on one hip and hooking a thumb in his jeans pocket. “I was out of town all week. But it was her sixtieth and so now I’m trying to make it up to her.”

      Once more Melissa felt foolish. She didn’t like Cooper. Actually, the truth was more that she didn’t trust him. She didn’t respect him. She should just let it go, like water off a duck’s back, as the old saying went. She definitely should not let him get to her, especially after all this time.

      “Oh,” she answered. “Then I’m sure I can help. Do you want it in a vase or paper?”

      “Paper,” he answered. “She’s got a million vases around the house. And no roses. They’re too formal and old-ladyish. Something mixed.”

      Melissa tended to agree. Not that roses weren’t great, and they were definitely a classic—elegant and timeless. But she secretly preferred something simpler, more wildflowerish and whimsical. “Colors?”

      “Yellows. Maybe with some red and blue in it? Colorful and, well, large. It’s a big apology.”

      He smiled down at Melissa and she nearly smiled back before catching herself. “Give me fifteen minutes or so,” she replied, jotting the order on her notepad. “You can come back and pick it up, yeah?”

      He nodded. “It’ll give me time to go to the pharmacy and get a nice card.”

      “Gee, nothing says ‘Happy Birthday, Mom’ like a last-minute card,” she replied drily.

      He didn’t answer.

      “Okay,” she said, putting down her pen. “Fifteen minutes.”

      “Thanks, Mel,” he said, putting his hat back on his head.

      Mel.

      No one had called her that in ages. Certainly not Cooper, who she avoided as often as possible, which took some creativity in a town the size of Cadence Creek. Thankfully, he felt the same way, and even if they ended up at the same functions, they steered well clear of each other. Opposite ends of the room sort of thing. Definitely no eye contact or chitchat.

      But hearing the shortened version of her name—Mel—took her back to the old days. The days when she’d thought she was happy, and she’d really been living in a fantasy world.

      The bell chimed as he left, a cheerful sound that was out of key with her current dismal mood, a good portion of which had nothing to do with Cooper at all. She was getting tired of taking her temperature every darn day. Of getting her hopes up, only to be faced with disappointment. Of spending her savings on trying to get pregnant the nontraditional way. She was going to give it one more try, but she wasn’t holding out a lot of hope. Maybe she’d be better off filling out the paperwork for the adoption registry.

      But deep down, she wasn’t ready to give up. The end of her marriage had also marked the end of her plans for a brilliant life. Plans that had included starting a family. Why should she give that up just because circumstances had changed? She’d done so many things on her own since the divorce, like start her own successful business. She was absolutely certain she could manage this, too.

      She would be a good mom if given the chance.

      But first she had to look after Cooper’s order. She was just getting out the red gerbera daisies when Penny arrived for her Friday-night shift. Penny was in eleventh grade at the high school and was the best worker Melissa had on staff. Most of the time she wished she could have her for more shifts, but Penny and her parents were firm on the eight-hours-a-week rule. Melissa got her Friday from five to nine and Saturday morning from nine to one and that was it.

      Melissa hoped that if the planets aligned and things finally went right, she could offer Penny a lot more hours next summer—especially if Melissa was spending more time at home with a baby. Between Penny and Amy Wilson, who covered a lot of the day shifts, Melissa had some breathing room in the schedule.

      Penny’s arrival meant Melissa wouldn’t have to wait on Cooper when he returned. All she had to do was finish making up the arrangement before he came back.

      Her fingers plucked bright yellow yarrow a little quicker at the prospect. Cooper Ford had nothing to do with her current life.

      She made her own way now, and that was exactly how it was going to stay.

      Cooper let out a breath when he was out on the sidewalk again. He’d finally gathered up the courage to go into her shop. This nonsense of avoiding each other had gone on long enough. Surely after three years she might have mellowed where he was concerned.

      But nothing had changed, had it? Melissa still looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her heel. It had been a long time since she and Scott had split. But the truth was she still hated Scott, and she still hated Cooper’s guts because he’d known about the affair and hadn’t said a word.

      He walked away from the flower shop, his long legs eating up the concrete as he made his way to the drugstore. The problem with Melissa was that she didn’t know the whole story. She thought Cooper had kept his mouth shut because he’d been looking out for his best buddy. “Their little club,” she’d called it. And she’d called him a lot more than that, too, words he would never have imagined coming out of that sweet little mouth. He’d taken all the verbal slings because she’d been right. Not in her interpretation of how it all went down, and definitely not right about his motives. But she’d been right that he should have had the guts to say something. God knows he wanted to. He’d come close so many times… .

      But all his life he’d been a coward where Melissa was concerned, and the day she’d walked in on Scott with another woman hadn’t changed anything. Cooper had had no right to her friendship after that. He’d failed her, and she would never know how badly he felt about it.

      At the drugstore, he headed for the greeting card aisle. Without too much trouble he picked out a birthday card for his mother, but he paused as he passed by a smaller section of cards. Close to the thank-you notes were half a dozen with I’m Sorry messages on the fronts. They sported sappy pictures of flowers and cute puppies and kittens. He gave a dry chuckle as he picked one up and opened the flap. There were no words on the inside, just a blank space to write in a personal message.

      He imagined what he’d write to Melissa. “I’m sorry for keeping the truth from you all those years ago,” maybe? It was true. But it wouldn’t be enough. Not for her. And there was no way in hell he was going to write “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about your husband’s infidelity, but I was in love with you and didn’t want to hurt you.”

      Even if he were stupid enough to confess such a thing, it didn’t even scrape the surface of what had really happened.

      He’d been between a rock and a hard place and it had marked the end of his lifelong friendship with Scott. Not that that mattered one bit to Melissa, he thought bitterly. Not once had she considered how he might be caught in the middle, between his two best friends.

      He put the card back in the slot and went to the cash register. Once outside, he headed back to the flower shop, gearing himself up for another few minutes of pretending they didn’t have any past history at all.

      But when he went back inside Foothills Floral, there was no sign of Melissa. Instead, a teenager with braces smiled at him and rang up his purchase.

      He left and got into his truck, a crease forming between his brows.

      It appeared he wasn’t the only coward.

      The early September sky was the clear, deep blue that Melissa particularly loved, and it seemed to go on forever. As she got out of her car and