Cowboy, Take Me Away

{8. Brotherly Antagonization}

Beau's POV *surprise*

"Beau! You're gonna get yourself killed!" My brother's voice finds me, somehow over the roaring thunder. "Ma's gonna tan my hide if you snap your neck." Light flashes, momentarily blinding me as I reach for the next branch. My foot, which had been resting on a slick, wet branch slips out from underneath of me. A small yelp leaves my throat as I tumble

"Oh, Lord Above," I can hear my brothers shaky prayer over the roaring rain. I attempt to gulp the breath and pain erupts through me. "Please let him be okay. Beau." Owen grips me by the shoulders rolling me onto my back, and I can't stop the groan that pushes past my lips. "Okay, that's enough." My big brother, my protector, helps me up. "Come on, Beau, I know you love her, but you can't kill yourself for her."

He both know the her he's referring to. The one with hypnotizing hazel eyes, with flecks of gold that was only visible when she wasn't wearing a bonnet in the sun. Her brunette hair that always had a daisy tucked in her braids. Her panic when she saw the damned cat in the tree echos through me ears.

"I can get it."

"Beau!" A hand tightly grips my arm. "Stop! She's not worth-"

"She is!" I yell back at him over the torrential downpour that makes it difficult to even seen. "She is worth it to me. I-I can't tell her, and until I can, I'll keep showing her."

I love her. I love her joy for daisies and sunflowers. I love how much she cares for animals. How hard she works in her parents mercantile- the one we may eventually run together... if I can get this damned cat from the tree.

With that, I grip the branch lowest to the ground and pull myself up again. And I continue until I reach the branch the cat is clawed into.

Angry, feral meowing grates at my ears as I grip the cat my the nape of its neck. It's hissing grows louder and it scratches at my arm in terror.

I start to climb down, with an iron grip on the cat despite the burning on my arm from its claws.

Owen is waiting with a rag when I make it to the bottom the tree. He helps me quickly wrap the wild feline.

"You gotta take it." I tell my Owen, shoving the feral animal in his hand before wiping the warm liquid running down my face along with the heavy rain. "Don't tell her it was me." My brother stares down at me, preparing himself to argue. "Please, Owen, I don't want her to see me like this."

Weak.

Brianna Rosen does not deserve a weak boy. 

-

Silently, Brianna follows Abigail to the house. When she turns to look at me, her eyes show how unsure she is, I nod at her in assurance, she'll be fine with Abigail.

"So, are you going to explain or.." Owen trails off and I can feel his stare as I start to lead Gypsy and Apache to the barn.

"Explain what?" I attempt to remain calm, I've promised Bri I won't reveal how she ended up coming with me, but my brother knows it's not simply because she's fallen in love with me.

'Say, Beau, are you sure you want to buy this farm? What about ya'know..?" His tone is mocking as he repeats his words from last month. Then his empty hands make the motion of crumpling a piece of paper-the imaginary letter from Harvey, the one that told me that Brianna had accepted Wyatt's proposal. Owen's posture suddenly drops in a dejected manner, and I drop the reigns, my fists clenching. 'There's nothing left for me there now, Owen.' His tone portrays someone affected with melancholia and aggravation starts to stir within me. 'She won't have me and fifteen years is a long enough time to wait.'

"Are you done?" I question, stopping the process of un-hitching the horses from the wagon. He's pushing me, mocking the night my heart was ripped from my chest.

"Beau! You married the woman you've been in love with since you were ten years old. And the last a heard, she was in love with someone else and marrying him. Now, you explain this to me so I can help you tame Ma and Pa's concern when why find out." I remain silent, so he sighs before continuing. "Fine, so she realized that Wyatt is the scum of the earth?"

He grins at my silence. "So you confessed your love and..." His grin falls. "Heavens, Beau, are you telling me that she married you without knowing about your feelings?"

"I'm not telling you anything." I remind him and he smirks at me.

"So she ended her engagement with Wyatt and you asked her to come with you." I move to place the horses in the stall and he grabs your arm. "No. She asked to come." His face suddenly pales and I pull my arm back from him. "Is she with child?" Just a moment later he shouts in pain as my fist hits his jaw. "Damn it, Beau, it was just a question!"

"How dare you?" I spit at my older brother. He has insulted my wife, he has insulted me. "It's Brianna."

"I'm sorry." He defensively raises his hands. "So, you finally got her." He sympathetically smiles at me. 

"No." I shake my head, looking toward the house she's in. "But I'm the closest I've ever been to having her." I'm also the closest I've ever been to shattering heart-break, should she choose to leave. The devil on my shoulder reminds me to take her, that I could, and then she'd never be able to leave and it's the most tempting... my eyes squeeze shut, trying to brush the image away.

"So," Owen's eyebrows wriggle like he's a teenage boy discussing his first kiss. "Will my child be having a cousin-"

"No," I interrupt his thought, "Do not start that." Unfortunately, my mind starts to wander to our first night married, when she had finished her bath, I don't think she realized that the candle silhouetted her body perfectly. 

"Have you not-"

"I am not discussing this with you, Owen!" I shout, tossing a hay bale into the stall with Gypsy and Apache. There was no way to explain to him that I had promised to always give her a choice, including the choice of getting an annulment should she want it, even if I thought it may just about kill me. 

"Beau," Ellen holds my hand, smiling up at me with her motherly smile. "She'll need you - as a friend first. You still have Harvey and I's permission to ask for her hand, but let her mourn first."

"I will." I promise her, the golden band in my pocket suddenly burns into my thigh. "And I will make her happy if she accepts."

I will always do my best to make her happy.

***

I'm so excited to introduce Owen, I hope you love him as much as I do. But don't love his as much as Beau, because , honestly, I have heart eyes only for him.