Jessica's Cowboy Daddy

by Melinda Barron

  She made cinnamon rolls, and then decided to make buffalo wings for dinner. She had a bunch in the freezer, and she knew Hawk would eat at least two dozen, so she pulled out three, just to be safe. At first it had been strange to her to keep that much food in the freezer. She and Grant had eaten at his mother’s house most of the time, and even then he didn’t eat that much. Cooking for Hawk was an adventure, that was for sure.

  Once she’d planned the menu she sat down on the sofa with her journal. She’d written for more than an hour last night, and she took this chance to read over her words. Hawk had been so good to her, talking about how she could learn to love, and how he loved her just like she was. But her words were so different. She wrote about how her mother told her never to trust a man, that the only person she could trust was herself.

  But then she read her last words from last night. I have to learn to let go of the need to fend for myself. I let Hawk be my Daddy, which is taking care of me in all ways. Except for the emotional ones that I’ve kept bottled inside. I have to let go. But how do I do that? Maybe I should ask him what he thinks I should do.

  Jessica had struck out those last words, and now she wondered why. If she expected to give herself to Hawk emotionally she needed to ask for his help, didn’t she? She wasn’t sure how to do it on her own.

  Without making a new entry she closed the composition book and got up. After she’d cleaned the kitchen she took a shower. Once dressed she sent a text to Hawk, asking when he might be back. There was no answer, so she decided to do things on her own for now. A drive out to the Spellman farm to look around might give her an idea of what he had in mind for them as a possible living space.

  She got in the SUV and started to back out of the driveway; but then she remembered last night, of how angry he’d been when she’d left without telling him where she was going. So she sent him another text, telling him where she was going. She waited for another answer but didn’t get one. Should she stay home? Or should she follow her original plan and go for a drive?

  Despite what they’d discussed last night, she didn’t think Grant was out to hurt her. If he’d hurt his mother, that was one thing. But hurting her would take away his scapegoat she told herself. Whether she was right or not she didn’t know.

  She was still sitting in the driveway, trying to decide if Hawk would see her trip as disobedience, when her phone buzzed. She looked at Hawk’s text.

  “Stay there. Holt and Aurora are on their way and they will go with you. It wasn’t a wreck, but it was a fatality, and it will take a while to get through.”

  Jessica said a silent prayer for the person, or persons, they’d found, then got out of her SUV and went back inside her house. She didn’t see how going to the Spellman’s was any different than being here alone, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She sat at the table and wondered what Hawk had meant about it not being a wreck, but being a death. Had they found a body? Was it a murder? Her stomach churned as she thought about Matilda Dobbs. She quickly pushed the thought away because, surely, he would have told her if that had been the case. The one thing she knew about life with a lawman was it would never be boring. There was a new thing to deal with every day.

  Holt and Aurora arrived about twenty minutes later. Jessica had spent the time making a marinade for the wings, which were still frozen, then put it all in a plastic bag and left it in the refrigerator to thaw, and hopefully soak up the spices she’d used.

  “Smells good in here,” Holt said as the two came inside.

  “I’m making wings for dinner,” Jessica said. “Shall I pull out more and y’all can stay?”

  “Sounds delicious,” Holt said. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

  He left as Jessica pulled out more wings. She bought a lot because Hawk really enjoyed them. She was glad to have them now.

  “I’m so sorry about last night,” Aurora said when he was gone. “I didn’t mean to get you into trouble.”

  “It was a good thing,” Jessica said. “Hawk and I had a much-needed talk. So I should thank you, really.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that,” Aurora said. “I worried he’d spanked you.”

  “That wouldn’t have been a bad thing.” Jessica giggled as she put the second set of wings in the refrigerator. When it was done they got into the truck and Holt drove them to the Spellman Farm.

  “I like it out here,” Aurora said. “So open and airy.”

  “Airy?” Holt asked.

  The two laughed together, and Jessica started to walk around, examining the ranch house and wondering if it would be better to tear it down and start over, or find a different place all together.

  “The house looks like it might fall down in a strong gust of wind,” Jessica said.

  “That’s just the roof,” Holt said. “No, it just needs to be redone. And de-snaked.”

  “Excuse me?” Jessica said.

  “Don’t move,” Holt said.

  Jessica looked down to see a snake slithering past her foot. It took all her self-control to stay still. “Get it away, get it away, get it away.”

  “Take it easy.” When had Hawk arrived? She hadn’t heard his truck, or heard anyone say he was here. She glanced to where he stood, just inches away from her. He had a long stick in one hand, and his gun in the other.

  “Kill it, kill it,” Jessica said.

  “This is his home,” Hawk said. “The gun’s in case he gets mad and strikes. Just stay still and let him call the shots for a few minutes.”

  “A few minutes?”

  “He’s not a rattlesnake, babe.”

  “Are you sure?” It sure looked like a rattlesnake to her. Of course she was a city girl and didn’t really know the difference. Still, she had this awful thought of the slithering snake opening its mouth and sinking its fangs into her ankle, or jumping up to bite her calf, or thigh.

  “I’m sure,” Hawk said. “He’d be coiled and rattling with us this close. Bull snakes won’t strike unless they are threatened. Right now he’s examining things, and whoops, there he goes, off toward the house.”

  “Get it away. Don’t just stand there.” Jessica pointed at the snake. “I’m not living out here with him as a neighbor.” As if he’d heard her the snake started to crawl away. He slithered under the porch and she felt as if her knees would give out. “More than a neighbor, a tenant.”

  “Bull snakes kill rattlesnakes,” Hawk said. “They are a good neighbor to have.”

  “Whatever,” Jessica said. Hawk put his arm around her and turned her toward the trucks. It was at that point she noticed Nate Willis standing there, his hat in his hand.

  “Nate.” She put her shaky hand on the truck. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “You okay?” Nate asked with a snarky smile. She hated men and their superior attitudes sometimes.

  “So I don’t know how to deal with snakes, sue me!” She ran her fingers through her hair, then focused her gaze on the ground as if she expected to see another crawly thing edging toward her. “But yeah, I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

  “Good,” Hawk said, “because we have news.”

  Those words did not bode well.

  “The body we found this morning was Matilda Dobbs,” Nate said. “It looks like she’s been dead for a while.”

  “How did she die?” Jessica asked.

  “Someone shot her, or so we’re guessing,” Nate said. “Like I said, she’s been there for a while. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  Autopsy. That wasn’t a word she wanted to hear.

  “She was found near here?” Jessica asked.

  “About twenty miles down the road, near the creek,” Hawk said. “A couple hiking found her this morning.”

  She glanced at Hawk as he spoke. She didn’t want to talk to him about it anymore. She needed him. Today. She needed her Daddy.

  Hawk sat back in his lawn chair and took a chug from his beer. Holt sat next to him and did the same. The girls sat together on the lawn,
playing jacks. They were laughing and giggling, and it did his heart good to hear the sounds.

  “He killed her, you know,” Holt said.

  “I’m sure of it,” Hawk said. “I’m going to need help from you and the guys to keep her safe. I don’t want her to be alone.”

  “What about at the bakery?” Holt asked. “It will raise more than a few eyebrows if one of us is sitting there day after day until Willis finds a way to charge Dobbs. She may be your Little right now, but tomorrow when the bakery opens and you tell her she has a bodyguard she’s going to go ballistic.”

  “You got that right,” Hawk said. “You’ll probably be able to see the fireworks all over town. Any suggestions?”

  “A vacation in the Bahamas sounds about right,” Holt said. “You can leave tonight.”

  Hawk chuckled. The girls were slapping each other’s hands and reaching for the jacks. Then Aurora held the ball in the air, Jessica got up on her knees in an effort to take it from her.

  “Careful there, young lady, you’ve got stitches, you know,” Hawk called out.

  “Aurora, give her the ball,” Holt said.

  “But it’s my turn!” Aurora said.

  “We’d best break this up, fast, before one of them gets hurt,” Hawk said. He stood, and then he turned to his brother. “I think I have an idea.”

  “I’ve heard your ideas before,” Holt said. “They don’t always work.”

  “This one will.” Hawk punched his brother. “And don’t be an ass.”

  “I’m the oldest, that’s my job,” Holt said. “Do you need my help on this plan?”

  “Yes, I do.” Hawk laughed. “I just hope she doesn’t find out the truth.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  Hawk turned his back on the girls as they continued to play. “What’s your schedule like tomorrow?”

  “Why do I think I’m not going to like this?” Holt asked.

  “Because you’re not,” Hawk said. He laid out his idea.

  “That might work for tomorrow, but what about Tuesday?”

  “One day at a time, brother. One day at a time.”

  In keeping with it being Little play, Hawk and Holt deep fried the chicken wings while Jessica and Aurora watched TV, centering on reruns of 60s sitcoms. Jessica knew they were supposed to be enjoying their day, but she couldn’t help but wonder why Hawk was cooking. Even on Little days she took a break to cook, because Hawk wasn’t the best at it.

  “They’re up to something,” she whispered at the same time Holt called out, “Aurora, come in here, please.”

  Aurora got up and practically skipped into the kitchen. Now Jessica knew they were up to something. Aurora could barely make packaged macaroni and cheese, unless she’d been getting help from Becky. Jessica was supposed to help her learn, but things had gone by the wayside in that department. They needed to get back on that track. Aurora had been gone several seconds before Hawk appeared in the living room.

  “Is dinner ready?” she asked.

  “Nope.” He sat down next to her. “Holt and Aurora are making a few packages of macaroni and cheese to serve.”

  Jessica couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “Just the idea of Aurora cooking,” she said. “And macaroni and cheese, which I’d just thought of.”

  “While they’re in there we need to talk about your punishment for last night.”

  “You going to spank me while they’re boiling noodles?”

  “No spankings on this one,” he said. “I want you to have a day of doing what I want.”

  “So sex,” she said. “That’ll work.”

  “No, you’re going to have help at the bakery tomorrow,” he said.

  “Oh no, my bakery is off limits. We’ve talked about that in the past.”

  “Just one day, with you talking cooking and baking with Aurora.”

  “Mondays are always busy,” she said. She didn’t want to bring up the fact that it would be a week ago tomorrow that Matilda Dobbs showed up to call her a thief. She thought a moment. What other excuse could she come up with? Nothing, really.

  “It’s not fair to bring our personal life into my work.” Had she already said that? She wasn’t sure, but even if she had it helped to say it once more.

  “It’s just one day,” Hawk said. “She’ll have a notebook and while you have downtime you can teach her how to make—lasagna.”

  “Excuse me?” She narrowed her eyes. So much for Little time. “Something’s fishy here.”

  “She loves it, and she wants to know how to make it.”

  Jessica put two and two together, and she shook her head. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Aurora is my babysitter?” She clicked off the TV. The professor wouldn’t come up with a plan that would get her out of this situation. “Aren’t you afraid for her safety? After all, if Grant would kill his own mother, he would kill me, and her. Plus, I don’t need babysitting. I have Natalie and Lizbeth at the store on Mondays.”

  “They work in the back,” he said.

  “Oh, there’s the rub. You want someone in the front with me.” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask if he was going to leave a gun with her, because he knew Aurora would use it. After all, she’d killed her abusive husband years ago. She was glad he’d given up on the premise that having Aurora in the store tomorrow was punishment for Saturday evening.

  “Fine, I’ll take her as punishment.” Because she wasn’t really punishment. Spending time with Aurora was fun. Maybe she could teach her a little about baking while she was there, although it wouldn’t be about lasagna.

  “I thought Becky was teaching her to cook.”

  “She is,” Hawk said, and then he laughed. “Okay, so it’s not punishment. Which means I have to think of something else. I was going to let it stand with that, but since you’re pushing it, what happens will be on you.”

  “Oh crap,” she said softly.

  Hawk chuckled. “Shall we go help before they ruin the mac’ and cheese?”

  “Definitely,” she said. “There’s nothing quite as disgusting as burnt macaroni and cheese.”

  Chapter 10

  Jessica didn’t know that accepting Aurora at the bakery meant having Holt under foot, too. Except that wasn’t really the best explanation. Holt set up shop in a corner table with his laptop, typing away faster than Jessica would have thought possible. Every once in a while he’d stop and look at his phone, and she imagined he was answering a text from Hawk to see how things were going.

  Hawk had to be on patrol, but there was no way he wasn’t checking in on what was happening here. Natalie and Lizbeth had been concerned when Aurora had started working behind the counter, so worried they asked Jessica to come to the back room.

  “Are we being canned?” Lizbeth asked. “You’re training your future sister-in-law to do our jobs?”

  “Not at all,” Jessica said. “I lost a bet, that’s all.”

  “A bet?” Natalie looked confused.

  Oh good heavens this was becoming a royal pain in the butt. If Hawk was so concerned about Grant showing up here she needed to tell her workers to be careful. They deserved to know the truth.

  “Yeah…” Jessica stopped talking and took a deep breath. “There was no bet. You should know what is happening. My ex’s mother came here a week ago Monday and accused me of stealing the family ring, which I didn’t. Now she’s been found dead. Hawk thinks my ex killed her and wants to blame it on me. Holt and Aurora are here to babysit me.”

  Her two workers, both ladies in their early twenties, glanced at each other.

  “Should we be worried?” Lizbeth asked.

  “No,” Jessica said. “Listen, Hawk is just being overprotective. Things will be fine.” She thought about it for a few minutes. “But if some guy comes in asking about me, tell him I’m on vacation or something.”

  “Are Holt and Aur
ora going to be here all week?” Natalie asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Jessica said. “Like I said, Hawk is being overprotective, and if he spends all day here, people will think he’s not doing his job.”

  “I wish I had someone who loved me that much,” Lizbeth said.

  “Well there are four Coleman brothers without a significant other,” Jessica said. “Take your pick.”

  “Only three from what I hear,” Natalie said. “Rumor around town is Mercy and Kyle are, well, tight.”

  Jessica didn’t know that. She’d have to speak to Hawk about keeping her up to date on the gossip surrounding his brothers. Mercy was the den mother of the cabins where the abused women stayed before she had to quit because of a cancer diagnosis. Aurora had taken her place, then fallen in love with Holt. Now Becky had the job, and it looked like she was “getting tight” with Nate Willis, the Texas Ranger.

  “Better hurry up, Lizbeth, before all the Coleman men are taken,” Jessica said.

  Lizbeth laughed.

  “Good thing I already have someone like that, since I’m married.” Natalie poked her friend in the side. “On a more serious note, we’ve got your back, Jessica. Do you have a picture of the jerk so we know who to look for?”

  “Not on me,” Jessica said. “I deleted them all. I’ll see if I can find something online and get back with you.”

  Jessica went back into the main part of the bakery and stopped in her tracks. The retirees were there for the first time since they’d spread gossip about her all over town. They already had coffee and donuts, and she was so tempted to go over and clear the table and tell them to get the hell out.

  “We missed you,” Frank called out. He got up from his chair and came toward her.

  “I can’t say the same thing,” she responded.

  As Frank neared her though, she saw he had a yellow rose in his hand. He presented it to her and said, “We’re sorry.”

  “Not us,” Marty said. “Steve and I weren’t here when these guys went off the rails. Dumbasses.”