Not Their First Rodeo

by Christy Jeffries

  Chapter Ten

  “My mom said she and Aunt Freckles brokered a temporary truce with you for the day,” Marcus told Violet Saturday afternoon as he tried to wrestle a disposable paper tablecloth into place without tearing it.

  “I believe Freckles’s word was cease-fire,” Violet said, lunging to catch the cardboard dinosaur centerpiece before it hit the ground. “Maybe you should use some tape to keep the wind from blowing stuff all over the place?”

  “Or maybe we should’ve just had the party at the Pepperoni Stampede like we do every year?” Marcus looked up at the deceptively clear blue sky, hoping the forecasted March rainstorm wouldn’t arrive a day early. “Nobody hosts a kid’s birthday outdoors in Wyoming until after spring.”

  “The boys wanted an inflatable obstacle course and a Jurassic Park theme. That’s kind of hard to pull off at the local pizza place.” Violet used a toy brontosaurus as a paperweight to hold the flimsy centerpiece in place. “Besides, your mom needs something to focus on besides MJ’s court case.”

  “Oh, is my mother driving you nuts?” Marcus couldn’t help giving her an I-told-you-so look. “Who would’ve ever imagined that?”

  “Mrs. King tried to invite the new judge to the party, Marcus. It’s totally inappropriate.”

  “So is letting MJ have Kendra Broman here as his plus-one,” he pointed out. “I heard you were the one pushing for that.”

  “They’re under strict orders to stay in plain sight under the party tent at all times. Besides, there’ll be at least a hundred people here watching them.”

  “Like that ever stopped us?” Marcus said.

  Her shoulders gave a little shudder, as though a shiver of awareness had just raced down her spine. Instead of taking the bait, though, she moved on to the next table with the decorations blown into disarray. Marcus jogged over to the box of party supplies Finn had delivered earlier and found a roll of tape.

  “Here,” he said, passing the tape to her before holding the blue paper tablecloth steady. “Let’s try your idea.”

  They worked together quietly for several minutes, and it felt almost...nice. By the time they got halfway through the decorations, though, Marcus couldn’t stop himself from asking the question he’d been dying to know. “So how was your trip to Dallas?”

  “It was productive,” Violet replied, studying his face. “But what you really want to know is if I spoke to my mom. I did. She admitted that she’d purposely misled you after you got out of boot camp.”

  “You didn’t believe me?”

  “No, I did. But I still needed to confront her on it.”

  “Did she apologize?”

  Violet crinkled her nose as she focused on untangling a plastic T. rex from the strings in the Happy Birthday banner. “Of course not. Nor will she. My mother will always think she acted in my best interest. But at least now she knows that I’m aware of her interference and that you and I are moving past that.”

  “Moving past that?” Marcus’s hands stilled and his throat constricted. He had to swallow several times before he could ask, “As in getting back together?”

  “I meant moving on and getting closure.”

  “Oh,” he said, surprised at the sudden hollowness inside his rib cage. That couldn’t be disappointment, could it?

  Violet met his eyes across the table, her grin somewhat mischievous. “But I might’ve let her believe that we were getting back together.”

  His chest pinged back to life, yet he refused to sound as hopeful as he felt. “And why would you do that?”

  “Because it’ll serve her right to think her efforts to keep us apart all those years ago were in vain.” Violet knelt to tape a corner of the tablecloth to the leg of the folding table. She was still on her knees when she smiled up at him. “Plus, every so often, I need to remind her that she isn’t in control of my life.”

  Oh, man, Marcus was a sucker for that smile. It was infectious, and he couldn’t help but grin in response. “So let me get this straight. You’re using me to piss off the senator?”

  “Do you mind?”

  “It depends,” he said, squatting in front of her. He heard the breath catch in her throat, and he lifted his hand to push a strand of hair behind her ear. “What do I get out of this deal?”

  “Hey, Dad,” Jack hollered as he zipped through the open field and toward the tables at a full run. He tripped, then got back up and resumed his breakneck pace. “The inflatables are here!”

  Jordan was a few paces behind his brother. “I think we should have rules for the bounce house. Like only one person at a time. So nobody gets hurt.”

  “Are you sure you’d rather be a doctor instead of a lawyer?” Violet asked the boy.

  “Why can’t I be both?” Jordan replied, causing a burst of pride in his dad.

  “I’m gonna be a monster-truck driver when I grow up,” Jack said, then both boys sprinted back toward the driveway.

  Marcus stared at Violet as she watched his sons. Her soft expression could only be described as smitten. She sighed. “It’s hard to believe they’re only seven.”

  “Tell me about it.” He jerked his thumb toward the party-rental trucks. “Anyway, I better go see about the delivery. Maybe make sure nobody brought a dunk tank. I wouldn’t want you to send me into the water again.”

  “Are you kidding?” Violet chuckled as her eyes scanned the length of him. A current of awareness raced through him as she made her appraisal. “I never get to see you in anything other than your uniform. I plan to take a break from arguing with the sheriff today and simply enjoy watching you in your dad jeans.”

  “These aren’t dad jeans.” Marcus feigned outrage as he rose to his feet. “They’re actually quite fashionable.”

  “I meant that they’re jeans and you’re in dad mode today. I’m going to sit back and appreciate both.”

  “In that case, I’ll try to give you something worth watching.” Strutting away, he did his best impression of strutting down an imaginary runway, relishing the way her laughter echoed in his ears as he moved on to the next task.

  * * *

  It turned out Violet didn’t simply sit back during the party at all—either as a spectator or a guest. She finished decorating the tables, read over the waivers for the inflatable course before ensuring each parent signed one as soon as they arrived, helped Freckles carry out platters of food and then took a turn as the line judge during Finn’s impromptu dodgeball contest.

  Marcus didn’t get a single second to talk to her because there was constantly something that needed to be done. Anytime he did get a chance to slow down for a second, there was Melissa Parker trying to corner him and invite him to yet another Social Singles event. In fact, he’d just escaped her when he passed the empty bounce house and noticed one of the stakes had come out of the ground. That couldn’t be good. He fixed it, then poked his head inside the safety netting and was surprised to see Violet sitting cross-legged in the corner.

  “Vi?” he asked as he awkwardly climbed inside toward her. “Are you okay?”

  “Yep.” She held up her canvas sneaker. “This went missing during the potato-sack race. Amelia told me she saw Keegan Parker throw a bunch of shoes into the bounce house. It was so quiet in here, I figured I deserved a few minutes of downtime after getting trampled during the piñata.”

  “Yeah, standing in front of the rope line at the exact second the candy busts out is a rookie mistake.” Marcus plopped beside her, causing Violet to bounce into him. She didn’t immediately straighten so they ended up leaning against each other. Or sagging against each other, depending on who asked. “It’s almost as dangerous as taking the stick away from the blindfolded kid who won’t stop swinging.”

  “Are birthday parties always this much work?”

  “Only when my children invite half the town and Finn organizes the games. As soon as that first mi
nivan full of guests arrived, I was already cursing myself for not taking my mom up on her offer to hire a professional event planner to do everything.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because it was supposed to be a simple seventh-birthday party, and I’ve always wanted my kids to have as normal a childhood as they could. Unfortunately, their Gan Gan doesn’t seem to have any concept of what constitutes normal.”

  Violet chuckled. She leaned her head back against the netted wall behind them, and Marcus caught a glimpse of half of her face. He did a double take, then lifted his hand to her chin. “What happened to your cheek?”

  “Oh, I was going for prehistoric fairy, but the face painter ran out of glitter for the scales and went back to her car to get more supplies. The water-balloon battle broke out behind me, and I decided it was every person for themselves at that point. I made a run for it and have been hiding in here ever since.”

  He used his thumb to caress her jaw, which was smeared with greenish-brown face paint. “You are such a good sport. A lot of the other moms decided to hang back under the heat lamps in the tent drinking Dahlia’s Irish coffees. Yet you’re out playing with the kids and getting your hands—and face—dirty in the process. No wonder my sons adore you.”

  Something flashed in her eyes, but she quickly blinked it away. “If I’d realized cocktails and heat lamps were an option, I might’ve planned my day differently. But I’m not a mom, so I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into.”

  She’d tried to make a joke out of it, but he heard the sadness in her voice and wanted to kick himself. “No, it has nothing to do with you being a mom or not. And I shouldn’t have made an insensitive comparison like that. It was more of a reflection on who you are as a person. You treat the twins as though they’re on the same playing field as you. You never talk down to them or make them feel as though their opinions don’t matter just because they’re children. But you also don’t expect them to be perfect little adults all the time. They know you respect them as individuals, and that makes them want to be around you even more. What I’m trying to say is...” He paused long enough to swallow down his own emotion. “Thank you for being yourself with my children and for letting them be themselves with you.”

  Her lashes grew damp, and she wiped the corner of her eye. “I appreciate you telling me that. Most of the time, I feel like I’m just trying to keep up with them. They’re so smart and so compassionate, and I love how everything is black and white with them. I know this is weird, but sometimes it feels as if they’re the ones teaching me how to be a better version of myself.”

  “Well, I already like this version of you,” Marcus said as he lowered his face to hers. But before his lips could touch hers, something thumped the back of his head. It was another avalanche of footwear.

  “Stop stealing all our shoes, Keegan,” Jack yelled as he chased a bigger boy across the field.

  “Hey, Dad, Miz Parker is looking for you again,” Jordan said as he popped his head inside the bounce house. “Oh, hi, Violet. I didn’t know you guys were playing in here.”

  “We weren’t really playing, we were—” Marcus got cut off when several more kids tumbled into the bounce house and sent him and Violet careening into the air. She managed to get to her feet before Marcus did and shot him an unapologetic grin before hopping in sync with the other kids.

  “Popcorn in the middle,” someone cried out as the group formed a jumping circle around him. The higher they got, the more he flipped and flopped like a kernel of corn in a hot pan of oil, unable to get himself upright.

  “Pop! Pop! Pop!”

  Violet’s smile was wide, and her voice joined the chants a bit too eagerly.

  Marcus would’ve rolled his eyes if he wasn’t already so dizzy. Yeah, she seemed to be keeping up with his sons just fine.

  * * *

  “How are you still standing upright?” Violet asked Freckles as she padded into the kitchen an hour after the birthday party had ended. The older woman was still buzzing around the counters, putting leftover food into storage containers and loading the dishwasher. Violet couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this exhausted. How did the children have so much energy?

  “Because I know how to pace myself, darlin’.” Freckles handed Violet a glass of cabernet and a chocolate cupcake. “You were running around with those kiddos nonstop today. Did you even sit down once?”

  She flashed back to her ten minutes alone in the bounce house with Marcus. But before she had time to give their near kiss too much thought, Uncle Rider spoke up from his slumped position on one of the kitchen chairs.

  “How ’bout me? I ’bout threw out my damn back lifting dozens of little buckaroos on and off the ponies all afternoon. Or maybe I hurt it when I went down that blasted slide on the inflatable obstacle course.”

  “I’m surprised you could get that—” Freckles pointed a serving spoon directly at Rider’s very prominent belly “—ten-pound belt buckle of yours over the rope wall.”

  “Figures you’d know how much this buckle weighs, considering how many times you’ve taken it off—”

  Violet quickly interrupted Rider. “One nice thing about a small-town community is having most of the guests stay after the party to help clean up.” She took a long gulp of her wine, letting the liquid relax her from the inside out.

  “You can say that again.” Freckles snapped a lid onto a plastic container full of smoked brisket. “Speaking of cleanup, I see you were finally able to get that face paint off.”

  “After quite a bit of scrubbing and a lot of hot water,” Violet replied before biting into her cupcake. Freckles had given her some industrial-strength makeup remover and insisted she go take a shower while Marcus loaded all the unwrapped gifts into his SUV to take back to their cabin. She wondered if he was still at the main house or if he’d already gone home. She took another drink of wine, then said, “I saw the boys and Amelia setting up their sleeping bags in the den. Are they staying the night?”

  “Yep. They were so hyped-up on sugar and overstimulation I told Marcus to leave them here for a sleepover so he could go on back to his cabin and enjoy a little bit of peace and quiet. Oh, no.” Freckles frowned. “I can’t believe I forgot.”

  Normally, the woman was all smiles and sassy comebacks, so seeing creases of concern rather than laugh lines around her mouth immediately made Violet pause. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just realized I forgot to send Marcus home with any food. I didn’t see him eat a thing today at the party, and Lord knows what that man has in the fridge at that cabin of his. Rider, grab the keys so you can run some leftovers to him.”

  Rider made a grumbling sound as his hefty frame slouched even lower in his chair. “Woman, I don’t think I could walk to my truck right this second, let alone climb inside it.”

  “Well, I can’t drive in the dark with my sense of direction,” Freckles replied.

  “You don’t seem to get lost finding my cabin every night,” Rider mumbled before clearing his throat. “But, yeah, I guess Marcus’s place is a little farther out.”

  Both pairs of eyes swung toward Violet, and she held up her palms. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know how to get there.”

  “Rider can draw you a map.” Freckles batted her false eyelashes. “Please, darlin’. You know I’m gonna worry myself sick if one of my kiddos goes hungry.”

  Violet swallowed down the remainder of her wine to keep herself from pointing out that the so-called kiddo in question was a grown man who knew how to get himself to the market in town. But Freckles was the same woman who insisted on bringing a tray of food to Violet every day in the pool house whenever she worked through lunch. Plus, a small part of her wanted to see where Marcus lived.

  “Fine,” Violet said before stifling a yawn. “Let me go get my boots and jacket.”

  She had to act at least a little
put out, otherwise they might get the impression that she was eager to see Marcus. When she returned to the kitchen, she picked up the very detailed map Rider had somehow managed to draw in a short amount of time, as well as a large brown paper bag loaded with enough food to feed half the cattle hands on the Twin Kings. On her way out the door, she grabbed the keys to one of the ranch trucks because there was no way she wanted anyone seeing her rental car coming or going from Marcus’s place.

  The sun had set over an hour ago, but even the star-filled Wyoming sky couldn’t hide the fact that Marcus’s cabin wasn’t a cabin at all. It didn’t have a single log or river rock making up its architecture like most of the other buildings on the ranch. Rather, it was a large one-story spread in a modern hacienda style with high arches, white stucco walls and a red tile roof. It reminded her of her grandfather’s estate outside of San Antonio.

  The front door opened before she’d even made it out of the driver’s side, and the sight of Marcus standing there shirtless on his porch took her breath away.

  Nope, those certainly were not dad jeans.

  “Are the boys okay?” he asked, his eyes searching the dimly lit interior of the truck as he crossed the cold ground in his bare feet.

  “Yes! Sorry to worry you. Freckles sent me to deliver some dinner. She was convinced you might starve to death if I didn’t come straightaway with barbecued ribs, smoked brisket and what feels like ten pounds of corn bread.”

  “Well, that was very thoughtful of my aunt,” Marcus said as he easily took the heavy bag from Violet, “considering she just stocked my freezer yesterday with a tray of lasagna, a tub of beef stew and at least eight chicken pot pies.”

  Violet squeezed her eyes shut before shaking her head. “Why do I feel like I’ve totally been played?”

  “Because Freckles is just as crafty as my mom and twice as subtle. Especially when she gets Rider to play along with her schemes. Did you eat dinner yet?”

  “I didn’t even have time to eat lunch today. I’m operating on half a cupcake and a glass of wine, which probably explains why I so easily fell for your aunt and uncle’s ploy to get me out here.”