The Cowboy Finds a Family

by Anne McAllister

  “Jenny’s a free agent,” he said aloud for the fiftieth time the next day, slamming the axe into the tree he’d felled and was theoretically splitting into firewood. He’d been working on it for two hours, and if he went on this way much longer, he could probably corner the world market in toothpicks.

  But if a guy wasn’t going to haul off and take a swing at somebody, he had to work off his aggression somehow. Besides, in fewer months than he would like, it would be winter again.

  “Hey.” A voice behind him caused him to jerk upright.

  He turned to see Jed McCall on horseback, looking down at him.

  Warily Mace picked up his shirt from where he’d tossed it over a fence post, and mopped his sweaty face, then regarding Jed over the top of it. “Hey, yourself.”

  So Jed was talking to him now? Taking things back to normal?

  “What’re you doin’ up here?” Mace asked not bothering to hide the suspicion in his voice.

  “Slummin’?” A corner of Jed’s mouth lifted slightly, then drew down again. “What the hell you’re doin’ up here is a better question.”

  Trust Jed to cut straight to the heart of things. Mace rubbed the shirt over his face once more, then wiped the sweat off his chest. “Cuttin’ firewood.”

  It wasn’t what Jed was asking, and Mace knew it. But it was all the answer he was going to get.

  Jed raised one brow. “In July?”

  “A guy can never have too much firewood.”

  “Or too many brains. Reckon you must’ve lost some of yours.”

  No, things weren’t heading back to normal. Normal was Jed talking about the weather or their cattle or the price of feed. It wasn’t a leading statement about Mace’s mental health.

  Mace gritted his teeth and turned back to his firewood. Jed ought to know better. A guy didn’t stick his nose into other people’s business!

  He swung the axe over his head and brought it down with a solid thunk into the log. He’d been doing it so long already that muscles were quivering. He waited a second before hefting it again, hoping to hear the sound of Jed’s horse moving away.

  He didn’t. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see its hooves. It didn’t move an inch.

  Gritting his teeth, Mace raised the axe and brought it down again. And again. And again. Go on, damn it. Get! he urged.

  Jed didn’t move an inch.

  Finally, exhausted and furious, Mace jerked his head around. “Enjoying yourself?”

  “It’s educational,” Jed said mildly, “watchin’ you make a fool of yourself.”

  Mace brought the axe down with a hard thwack. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

  Jed’s shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug. “Always figured you had it together,” he said conversationally. “Better’n most. Better’n me anyway,” he corrected with a grimace. “Far back as I can remember you always knew what you wanted. This land. This ranch. To build a herd. Always went after it. Al—”

  “Some things you can’t have, damn it!”

  Mace’s sharp tone made Jed’s gelding pull at the reins. Jed soothed him but didn’t flinch. Nor did he leave. He looked at Mace with brotherly concern and not a little irritation.

  “Why can’t she?” he asked.

  “What?” Mace stared, not following. “Why can’t she what?”

  “Don’t tell me Jenny doesn’t still love you and wouldn’t be just as good a wife to you! Just because she’s got the college bug—”

  Mace frowned. “What college bug?”

  Jed’s eyes widened slightly. He got off his horse and came across the yard. “You mean, that ain’t it?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Jenny takin’ classes at MSU. English lit and somethin’ else. We thought that’s what you were all het up about.” Now it was Jed’s turn to look confused. “It isn’t?”

  Mace drove the axe into the stump by the fence and jammed his hands into his pockets. He shook his head.

  He should have taken advantage of Jed’s misconception. He should have encouraged that mistaken notion as the reason for their divorce.

  God knew, it could have been. They’d talked about college now and then. He’d always known she wanted to be a teacher. But as far as she’d gone was the AA. Then they put all their money toward the land and the house and building the herd. He’d said there wouldn’t be enough for college, invariably he added, “College costs money, sweetheart. Maybe . . . when we’ve got an extra ten grand or so.”

  Like that would ever happen. Then he’d swept her up in his arms and made love to her so she’d forget all about the big wide world out there where she might meet someone or something who’d take her away from him.

  And she’d forgotten.

  Then.

  Mace felt a tight heavy feeling in his chest. He sucked in a breath and felt it catch in his throat. He turned it into a cough.

  “You all right?” Jed asked.

  “Just breathed in a little sawdust.”

  “You didn’t know about her takin’ classes?”

  Mace shrugged. “She might’ve mentioned it.”

  “But you didn’t fight about that?”

  “No, we didn’t fight about that. Hell, Jed, what’re you doing? Tryin’ to hang out your shingle as a marriage counselor?”

  The tan on Jed’s cheeks darkened even more. He tugged at the brim of his hat. “Course not. It’s just . . . it doesn’t make sense, you an’ Jenny splittin’. We been worried about you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Jed glanced at the small cabin, then back at Mace. It didn’t hold a candle to the place he’d left—the woman he’d left.

  Jed let the silence speak for itself.

  “I said, I’m fine. You need something?” Mace demanded. “If you don’t, I do. I need to get back to work.”

  Jed scowled at him. “Brenna said to see if you wanted to come for dinner.”

  “So she can pick at me, too?”

  Jed let out a harsh breath. “You really do have a burr up your ass, don’t you? Hell, Mace, we’re your friends. We grew up together! All I’m doin’ is inviting you to dinner!”

  “Like you and Tuck ever invited me to dinner before you got married,” Mace said drily.

  Jed rubbed a hand against the back of his neck and got a rueful look on his face “Yeah, well, didn’t Madger always say I had no social skills?”

  Madge Bowen, the social worker who had been in charge of deciding if Jed was a fit guardian for his nephew, had never given him very high marks in that department. Sometimes she seemed to think him totally lacking in brains, until he’d had the sense to marry Brenna.

  “Thank you for the invitation. I don’t think it would be a good idea,” Mace said evenly now.

  Jed shifted from one boot to the other, looking around at the cabin and the woodpile. “You think this is a good idea?”

  “I think you’ve worn out your welcome,” Mace said tersely, reaching for the axe again.

  Jed backed up, holding his palms up and out. “No need to get violent.”

  Mace just cradled the axe and looked at him.

  Jed shook his head. “I was only tryin’ to help.”

  “Don’t.” Mace said the word through his teeth. Then he turned and began to swing the axe again. It thwacked into the log resoundingly.

  Jed got back on his horse but didn’t leave. Instead he leaned against the saddle horn, watching Mace work.

  Mace ignored him. Sweat trickled down his spine and dripped off the end of his nose. His arms began to tremble again. He finished chopping one piece of log, methodically stacked the wood, then began on another.

  Still Jed watched. Finally he shook his head, straightened up and settled himself loosely in the saddle, ready to ride.

  “Better cut a lot,” he said in that slow, quiet way he had. “Reckon you’re in for a long cold winter.”

  *

  Jed was just the first.

  Apparently since the
cold shoulder hadn’t shaped him up, his buddies had decided that more direct intervention was necessary.

  Taggart took a different tack. He made sure that Mace knew that Felicity’s damn brother, Tom, was perfect for her. It seemed to him that Taggart had taken considerable pleasure in conveying the news when they met at the welding shop in Elmer.

  “You haven’t been around much,” he said, giving Mace a cheerful smile at odds with the scowl he’d fixed on his friend at the last bull-riding weekend. “You haven’t even met my brother-in-law. Name’s Tom. He teaches lit at some college out in Iowa. Nice guy.”

  Mace grunted a reply and turned to the man who was welding a cross piece onto a gate. “If you haven’t got time to do this hitch now, Loney, I can come back and pick it up.”

  Loney Bates, who owned Elmer’s welding and feed shop, pushed his safety glasses up on his forehead and scratched his nose as he regarded Mace who was shifting from one foot to the other. “You got ants in them jeans of yours? Told ya I’d get to it next. You kin cool your heels, you know.”

  “Just thought I’d make it easier for you,” Mace muttered. “I got things to do.” And no desire at all to stand around and shoot the breeze with Taggart.

  If Jed, who never said anything, felt compelled to put in his two cents’ worth, there was no telling what a guy who could recite the Gettysburg Address on the back of an eight-second bull, could take it in his mind to say.

  “Get a cup a coffee an’ wait,” Loney ordered, then dropped his glasses again and went back to work.

  “Here.” Taggart thrust a full mug of hot coffee into Mace’s hands.

  “I gotta—”

  “You gotta drink this or you’re gonna make Loney mad, and then you’ll have to go all the way down to Livingston to get your hitch welded the way you’re already goin’ down there for groceries.”

  Mace flushed. Did every damn person in the country know his whereabouts at every moment and the reason for it?

  “Prices are cheaper,” he muttered into the coffee. But he took the mug and held it with both hands against his belly like a shield.

  Fat lot of good it did.

  “They are,” Taggart agreed. But his penetrating green eyes told Mace that the argument held no sway.

  Mace clutched the mug in a death grip and felt like a B-western cowboy trapped in a box canyon with sharpshooters all around. The hero always got out alive. Mace had the feeling he wasn’t playing that part.

  Taggart, oblivious to the melodrama going on in his friend’s head, hooked out a rickety folding chair and sat, then shoved one in Mace’s direction. Mace looked at it warily.

  “Sit down. I’m not going to badger you,” Taggart said. “So relax.”

  Uh-huh.

  Mace took a swallow of Loney’s bitter black coffee and waited for the assault, but Taggart had turned his attention to Loney and was watching him weld as if he was studying his competitors in a National Finals bull-riding round.

  Finally Mace slumped into the chair. He didn’t look Taggart’s way. He didn’t say a word.

  “He teaches eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British lit,” Taggart said, never taking his eyes off Loney. “Creative writing. Every now and then poetry.”

  It wasn’t Loney he was talking about.

  “I thought you weren’t—”

  “I’m not.” Taggart’s voice was hard. “I’m just telling you. So you’ll know.”

  Mace sighed. Poetry. Swell.

  “He teach Baxter Black?” The New Mexico veterinarian-turned-cowboy-poet was the only poet Mace knew.

  “Likes his stuff.” Taggart grinned faintly. “Doubt if he’s taught it yet. Not sure they’re that enlightened back in Ioway.”

  Mace shrugged his shoulders against the cold metal of the chair and watched the sparks fly off Loney’s welding torch. “Your wife doesn’t mind when you malign her home state?” he said after a moment, easing his way into conversation carefully, as if it were a swift-moving river full of rocks and shoals.

  Taggart shook his head “I’m bigger’n her.”

  “But I bet she knows you’re ticklish.”

  “Didn’t take her long to find out,” Taggart agreed. He sighed, then stretched, arching his back. “Not that we have a lot of time for that sort of thing these days.”

  “Tell your company to go home,” Mace suggested.

  “It’s not him. He’s helping out, actually. Gives us time to breathe now and then. Takes a turn with a colicky kid. Keeps Becky out of trouble. No small task that,” he added.

  “Hey, don’t pick on my shadow,” Mace protested.

  Taggart grunted. “Don’t get me started on your ‘shadow.’ She’s as contrary as they come these days. Never just does what you say. Has to discuss everything.”

  “She’s growing up.”

  “You’re telling me. And I hear it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”

  “Be glad you’ve got her,” Mace advised. He’d take her in a minute if Taggart was offering.

  “I am. She just drives me crazy, that’s all. But, if Becky is a handful, she’s a piece of cake compared to twins.” He tipped the chair back, balancing it on two legs, and scratched the back of his head, then readjusted his hat and sighed. “I reckon the workload increases geometrically every time you add a kid.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  Mace’s knuckles were white on the mug and he stared straight ahead, watching Loney work as if he was Michelangelo.

  “Well, they are,” Taggart went on, oblivious. “If one cries, the other cries. I don’t know why it doesn’t work that if one sleeps, the other sleeps. And then they spit up. And need changing. And have dirty diapers. And need changing again.” He sighed mightily. “I hear things get better when they get older. But in fact, I reckon the problems just change—if Becky’s any indication.”

  “My heart bleeds,” Mace said. He gulped down the rest of his coffee and stood up.

  “Wha—?”

  But Mace couldn’t listen any longer. He thumped the mug down on the cluttered desk and started toward the door. “I gotta go, Loney. I’ll pick up the hitch on my way back. You don’t know how goddamned lucky you are,” he said over his shoulder to Taggart.

  Then he banged out the door and he didn’t look back.

  *

  Brenna found him at the grocery store when he came in to buy a loaf of bread. It was the one thing he’d forgotten on his trip to Livingston. He was in town for maybe five minutes Wednesday afternoon.

  But there Brenna was.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” she said to him in the checkout line.

  “Buying a loaf of bread.”

  “Don’t be a wise guy, Mace Nichols. You had the best woman in the world and you’re throwing her away.”

  Mace shut his mouth and opened his wallet. He paid for the bread and said, “I know what I’m doing,” to Brenna and went on his way.

  Tess got him in the dentist’s. Noah tried his luck in the hardware store. Even Felicity said, “You better think twice, Mace.”

  One way or another, he figured he’d met them all now—all the people who had a stake in his past, in his marriage, in trying to rattle him, irritate him, provoke him—even unintentionally—but basically to make him change his mind.

  He’d weathered them all.

  He’d forgotten about Shane.

  It was easy to forget about Shane. His younger brother by three years, Shane blew in and out of Mace’s life like the wind. He was a professional rodeo saddle bronc rider, who rarely spent two nights in one place.

  Mace would have hated his lifestyle. Shane loved it. And the best part, he’d once told his older brother, was that it was just “one big party goin’ down the road.”

  Life was only worth living, in Shane’s view, if he could be here, there and gone again. In Mace’s view, only his brother’s unpredictability was predictable.

  So why was he surprised when a week after his encounter with Taggart in the wel
ding shop, four days after running into Brenna at the grocery, three days after seeing Tess at the dentist and Noah at the hardware store, to have the door to the cabin burst open and Shane stand there, demanding, “What in hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Mending tack,” Mace said from where he sat at the table. He made no move to get up.

  “Mending tack,” Shane spat. “Don’t be an ass, Mace. I’m talking about the divorce! Divorce!” He spat that, too, and slammed the door for emphasis, then stood glaring at his brother. “What the hell are you doing, getting a divorce?”

  “We’re separated.”

  “Splittin’ hairs,” Shane said accusingly. “You want a divorce!”

  Mace scowled. “Who told you?”

  “Who do you think?”

  A bar room gossip, he’d hoped. Some nosy rumormonger Shane just happened to run into as he traveled down the road. But he knew from the hard look on his face just exactly who his brother had been talking to.

  “You saw Jenny.”

  If it had been the rumor mill, Mace could have done a little damage control, laid his own groundwork, told things his way. But there was no controlling the damage if the news had come from Jenny.

  “She told me you moved out. I didn’t believe it. Then she showed me the papers some fancy lawyer sent and—”

  “He’s not a fancy lawyer. It’s Anthony Hollis from Livingston. A standard, run-of-the-mill—”

  “I don’t care who he is! What the hell are you doing, divorcing your wife?”

  The small cabin wasn’t big enough to contain Shane’s intensity. He was like a self-propelled cue ball, caroming off the walls. Mace just watched him, not saying a word.

  Finally Shane stopped and came to loom over him. “Answer me, damn it!”

  Mace shook his head. “It’s not any of your business.”

  “The hell it’s not! I’m your brother!”

  “And this is between me and my wife.”

  “Your wife doesn’t act like it’s her idea!”

  “It’s not.”

  “Then—”

  “It’s for the best,” Mace said stubbornly.

  Shane slapped a hand against one of the cabinets, making the dishes rattle. “Whose best? Yours?” he sneered.