The Cowboy Finds a Family

by Anne McAllister

  “Yes,” Mace lied because Shane would never believe in his form of altruism. “And Jenny’s.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie.

  “She doesn’t agree with you.”

  “Someday she will. She probably already does,” he said after a moment’s reflection. “She’s already goin’ out with somebody else.”

  “What? No!”

  “Yep. Felicity’s brother.”

  “And you let her?”

  Mace lifted his shoulders. “Not up to me. It’s her choice.”

  Shane kicked a chair so hard it fell over. “You are seriously crazy, you know that? You divorce the one good thing that ever happened to you, and you act like you don’t friggin’ give a damn!”

  Mace’s jaw locked. He stared straight ahead and didn’t answer.

  Shane jerked the chair upright and plopped down in it. He didn’t speak right away. In fact he seemed almost to be tamping his emotions down, drawing himself together. Then, after a long moment, he rested his forearms on the table and stared across the table at his brother. “Why?”

  All the flame was gone from his voice now. The fire was banked, but no less intense. He fixed Mace with an intense stare, the one that demanded answers.

  Resolutely Mace shook his head.

  Shane made a grinding noise with his teeth.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so upset about it,” Mace said finally, not quite able to keep the edge off his voice. “It’s not like you’re on the fast track to wedded bliss. Hell, you haven’t come within a mile of getting engaged. You’re always off running somewhere.”

  “That’s why I care,” Shane said. He pulled his chair closer and leaned toward Mace. “Because you an’ Jenny are all the family I’ve got. Yeah, I run around. Just like you said, ‘I’m always off somewhere.’ But when I go home, I come here.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “To you. And Jenny.”

  “Might’ve known it was pure selfishness.”

  “Like hell it is. I want you guys to be home to me, but that’s not all I want. I want what’s best for you, damn it, Mace—and it isn’t divorcing Jenny!”

  Mace didn’t answer. He bent his head and studied the tack in his hands. Shane never listened anyway. Never had. He just went off half-cocked and did what he wanted, thought what he wanted.

  And he was the last person Mace could tell the real reason to. He’d spent the better part of his life trying to be an older brother that Shane could look up to—a real man.

  He had a very good idea what his brother’s opinion of a guy with a zero sperm count would be.

  Shane just sat there staring at him. Minutes passed. Mace lowered his gaze, went back to repairing the bridle.

  “You’re serious,” Shane said at last. His voice was flat and fatalistic.

  “I am.”

  “And you’re never gonna tell me why.”

  “I’m never gonna tell you why.”

  “You are one cold son of a bitch.”

  Mace’s fingers curled into fists. He forced himself not to react more than that.

  Shane pushed himself up from the chair and stood staring down. Then he shook his head and walked to the door. There he turned and took one last shot.

  “I looked up to you, Mace. All my life. We were different, yeah, but to tell the truth, I always thought you were better.”

  Mace’s eyes flicked up to meet Shane’s in astonishment.

  Shane didn’t even pause. “Someday, I hoped I could be like you,” he said. “I thought if I was lucky I might find the right girl and settle down—be like my big brother.”

  “You never—”

  “I did. But I’m sorry I did. Because frankly, Mace, now I think you’re an ass.”

  *

  “She went out with him again.”

  It was never-ending.

  He’d survived Shane, had thought that had to be the end of it. And now two days later, Becky was back.

  Mace fixed his eyes on the bridle he was still trying to mend and didn’t even look up.

  “I know you think you don’t want to hear it, but it’s getting serious.” Becky had turned the chair Shane had kicked around backwards and was resting her chin on her fingers as they gripped the chair back.

  “You’re right. I don’t want to hear it,” Mace said.

  “They went to Livingston for lunch and to look at this new art gallery,” Becky went on as if he hadn’t said a word.

  Mace’s eyes focused on the leather. His mind didn’t. He didn’t want to know. Didn’t. Want. To. Know.

  “What art gallery?” Since when had Jenny taken up going to art galleries?

  “Dunno. Some Indian art one. And tomorrow they’re drivin’ down to Yellowstone for the day.”

  Mace pushed the awl into the leather.

  “They’re gonna go see Mammoth Hot Springs. And take a nature hike.”

  “’Cause we don’t have nature around here?”

  “That’s what I said. Dad told me to mind my own business.” Becky sighed. “I could go with ’em.”

  Mace frowned. “What? Why?”

  The look she gave him said he wasn’t too bright. “Because if I was there they couldn’t, you know, do anything.” There was a world of ten-year-old knowledge about adult behavior in those last two words.

  It set Mace’s carefully reined thoughts running wild.

  “They aren’t gonna—” His voice rose irritably, then fell. He sucked in a sharp breath. “It doesn’t matter what they do.”

  He could say it in his sleep. It was getting to be a litany. It doesn’t matter what they do.

  “Of course it matters!”

  “Not to me.” He jabbed the awl through the leather and narrowly missed putting it through his own hand.

  “Liar, liar. Pants on fire,” Becky chanted.

  Mace’s head jerked up, a scalding flush rising on his neck. “What!”

  “You heard me,” Becky said defiantly. “It does matter. You do care. You just don’t want to. You’re a chicken.”

  “A chicken?” A ten-year-old girl was calling him chicken?

  “Well, go ahead. Be that way.” Becky got up and thumped the chair around frontward, then shoved it under the table. “See if I try to help you anymore. Sometimes I think maybe it’d be better if Jenny did marry Uncle Tom.”

  This time the awl did pierce his hand.

  “Damn it to hell!” Mace dropped the awl and grabbed his hand to stanch the blood. “Sorry,” he muttered at the sight of Becky’s stricken face. For the language, he meant.

  “’S all right. Daddy says worse than that when the twins start crying.” She dug in her pocket and pulled out a Band-Aid. “Here.”

  “What’m I supposed to do with that?”

  “Use it.”

  “I don’t—”

  “It’s not sissy if that’s what you’re worried about.” She thrust it in front of his nose. “Hurry up, before you bleed to death.”

  “I’m not gonna bleed to death.” But he was sucking blood out of his hand and looking for some place to spit it.

  “Spit in the sink. Then wash your hand.”

  “God, you’re bossy.” But Mace hauled himself to his feet and ran his hand under the cold-water faucet.

  “Use soap.”

  The only bar of soap, so far as he knew, was in the shower. His glance around the sink must have conveyed that notion.

  Becky let out a long-suffering sigh, twisted the cap on the dishwashing liquid and squirted it on his hand. “Rub it in. Good.” The last word wasn’t approval; it was a command.

  Mace tried, as best he could with one hand.

  Becky sighed. “Here. Let me.” She took his hand in hers, poked it under the water again and scrubbed it like she was sanding a floor.

  “Ow!”

  “Don’t be a baby. You gotta get the dirt out.” She cast a hard glance at the offending awl. “You don’t know where that thing has been.”

  Mace knew exactly where it had been, but he kept his mo
uth shut as she gravely rinsed his hand under the faucet—hot, this time—almost hot enough to scald him. Then she towed him into the bathroom, where she got a clean towel and dried his hand with a gentleness that belied the rough scrubbing.

  “Do you have any antiseptic?”

  “I travel light.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Men,” she said, disgusted. Then she took his hand and very carefully put the bandage in place.

  “Women,” Mace said, gently teasing with the same tone of mocking disgust.

  Becky’s eyes flicked up to meet his, and a very elemental electric awareness arced between them.

  All the years that they’d been friends—since the moment of her birth practically—all the years he’d been aware of her crush on him—which seemed scarcely shorter than her lifetime—all the years he’d watched her grow and develop and had wished someday he’d have a daughter as wonderful—all her worrying about him and Jenny now—seemed crystallized in this moment.

  And the moment went on. And on.

  Neither of them looked away.

  Becky’s eyes were awash with unshed tears. He found himself blinking back his own.

  And then she surged forward, and her arms went hard around his waist and she hugged him so tight he thought she might squeeze the breath right out of him.

  He thought it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

  His own arms wrapped her thin shoulders, hugging her, too. His lips rested atop her silky brown hair.

  “Care about her, Mace,” she urged fiercely into his shirt front.

  Anguished, he shook his head. “I can’t, Beck.”

  “You got to.” She looked up at him, then, her green eyes beseeching. “Try. Please. Then it’ll be all right. I know it will.”

  Do you? he wanted to ask. How?

  He didn’t ask.

  He ought to have told her she was wrong. He ought to have told her nothing would make this all right. But he couldn’t.

  So he shut his eyes and prayed for the optimism of youth.

  *

  “Why don’t you come to dinner here?” Jenny found herself saying when Tom called to ask her to go out on Saturday night.

  It seemed like a good idea at the time.

  She’d gone so many places with him in the last couple of weeks that she was afraid things were moving too fast.

  They’d had a wonderful time at the art gallery. Other than attending Brenna’s shows, she’d never really gone to one. It wasn’t nearly as culturally daunting as she’d feared. And if Tom had taken the lead there, explaining things about art that she didn’t know, a few days later when they went to Mammoth Hot Springs, it was her turn.

  He seemed to enjoy the hot springs and the nature hike as much as she’d enjoyed the art gallery. They had things to teach each other, and on the way back to Elmer from Mammoth that afternoon, she’d said so.

  And Tom had smiled over at her and said, “I have a lot of things I’d like to teach you.”

  Jenny might not have been on a lot of dates, but she wasn’t entirely unused to innuendo.

  She’d flushed scarlet, and Tom had laughed delightedly and squeezed her hand. “All in good time,” he’d promised. “All in good time.”

  But when he called to ask her out for Saturday, Jenny didn’t think that was the time for it.

  “Why don’t you come here?” she said.

  She thought a casual dinner at the ranch house would be smarter—make them less of a couple, give them more space.

  It was a mistake.

  Chapter Eight

  Mace was not having a good day.

  “You start out with a chip on your shoulder,” his mother always told him, “and it won’t be long before someone knocks it off.”

  Mace didn’t think of that at the beginning. At the beginning he simply showed up at Taggart’s. It was a bronc-riding school Saturday. He’d weathered the cold shoulders of bull-riding school and then all the more active interference that his friends could throw at him.

  What else could they possibly do?

  It didn’t take him long to find out.

  He’d only been there half an hour, had just helped Jed and Tuck sort out the horses for the first round of rides while Noah was in the classroom with his students, when Taggart came out of the house with a man Mace didn’t know.

  Jed took a look at Taggart and the man who was accompanying him across the yard, took another at Mace, who was just shutting the last gate, and said, “uh-oh,” under his breath.

  “What? Didn’t you get ’em all in?” Mace said, glancing around for a stray horse.

  But before Jed could answer, Taggart said, “Hey, come meet my brother-in-law.”

  Mace heard the words like a blow to the gut. He drew a careful breath, then finished putting the chain through the clasp before turning to take his first good look at the new man in Jenny’s life.

  He’d thought of him as “the professor.” A sort of weedy, balding, goateed nearsighted jerk. And those were the kindest terms Mace considered him in.

  The guy beside Taggart was taller than Mace, an inch or so over six feet. Lean, but not really weedy. Clean-shaven, not bearded, with a healthy head of straight blond hair brushed back from his forehead. If he was nearsighted, he had the misfortune to wear contacts.

  But as far as Mace was concerned he was still a jerk.

  Mace’s jaw tightened. His gaze narrowed.

  Taggart cleared his throat, giving him a steely look—one that warned him to act like a grown-up. Mace tried.

  Taggart smiled. “Tom, this is Mace Nichols whose ranch runs alongside ours. Mace, I want you to meet Felicity’s brother, Tom.”

  Mace waited to see if Taggart would add, “The man who’s dating your wife.”

  Taggart, for once the soul of tact, did not.

  The two men stood assessing each other. Sounds of conversation around them rose and fell and stuttered . . . and stopped.

  Tom stuck out his hand. “Mace. I’m pleased to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  From my wife? Mace wanted to say. But he, too, could manage a bare minimum of tact. He gave Tom’s hand a brief clasp. “Likewise.”

  “Taggart says you’ve done the very nearly impossible, building a ranch up from scratch in this day and age.” Tom’s tone was warm and admiring.

  Mace might have basked in it if he hadn’t wanted to punch the guy’s lights out. He shrugged. “I’ve done all right.”

  “You’re doing very well,” Taggart said.

  Mace thought it sounded more like a comment on his present behavior than on his ranching ability. He shot a dark look in Taggart’s direction and tugged down his hat down a little tighter on his head.

  He gave Tom a curt nod. “Gotta get some more horses moved.”

  “I’m glad to have met you,” Tom said genially.

  Mace grunted. Taggart was glaring at him, but he ignored it and turned back to the holding pens. What was he supposed to do, say he was glad to have met Tom, too? He wasn’t that good a liar.

  Obviously Tom was. He seemed to be everything that Mace was not. Civilized. Couth. Polite. Educated.

  Fertile.

  Mace slammed his boot against the metal of the fence. The resulting thunk was embarrassingly loud.

  Taggart and Jed and Tom turn to see what had happened.

  Mace felt hot blood rise in his face. He turned away, stumbling slightly to try to make it look like an accident. Then, hauling himself up on the fence, he hollered louder than necessary at Tuck. “Open the gate and let those horses in!”

  *

  The day seemed to go downhill from there.

  He stayed away from the stands during the bull rides. But all the while he worked, he was aware of Tom sitting at the top of the bleachers. Halfway through the second round of rides, he was joined by Felicity, babes in arms. Tom scooped up the one who was fussing, jiggling it and bouncing it in his arms like that sort of thing came natural to him.

  Probably it did, Mace thought
sourly because after a few minutes he couldn’t hear its cries anymore.

  So he was good with kids, too. Becky had said he was. He shot a glare in Tom Morrison’s direction. Felicity saw him look that way and waved at him.

  Gritting his teeth, Mace lifted a hand in return, then dropped his gaze and his hand and focused all his attention on the horses he was putting in the chutes.

  Well, almost all.

  Behind him, he could hear Mick Hamilton and Warren Crosser, a couple of Noah’s bronc-riding students, in earnest discussion.

  “Wouldn’t mind goin’ out with her myself,” Warren said as he began to unfasten his chaps after his ride.

  “You’re too late,” Mick replied. “She’s already got another fish to fry.”

  Mace wondered idly which buckle bunny was no longer available.

  “Yeah? Who?” Warren asked.

  “Taggart’s brother-in-law.”

  Mace almost slipped on the fence and bit his tongue. Jenny? They were talking about Jenny?

  “Must be gettin’ pretty cozy,” Mick went on. “Larrabee saw ’em in Bozeman a couple of times and I hear tonight she’s having him over for dinner.”

  Mace’s fingers tightened on the rail at the top of the chute.

  Warren made a doubtful sound. “How do you know?”

  “Asked her out myself.”

  “I didn’t even know she was gettin’ a divorce until today,” Warren said enviously.

  “Neither did I.”

  Warren grinned. “Talk about fast workers.”

  Mick grimaced wryly. “Yeah, well, the brother-in-law was faster.”

  “Wish I’d known,” Warren grumbled. “Had my eye on her for years. Thought she was hitched to Nichols for life.” He finished unbuckling his chaps and snapped them against his leg to smack the dust out. “Just goes to show, I guess, ain’t nobody in it for life anymore.”

  “Coulda blowed me over,” Mick agreed. “If I was Nichols, I wouldn’t let her get away. Hell, I’d’ve kept her barefoot and pregnant for years.”

  “Would you?” Mace’s voice dripped ice as he glared down at them.

  The two cowboys looked up for the first time.

  “Oh, hell,” Mick said under his breath. He swallowed helplessly. “Sorry, Mace, I didn’t know you was—I mean, I didn’t think—”