The Twins' Rodeo Rider

by Tina Leonard

  “So you found yourself in a dilemma,” Cosette said. “I hate to see it, of course. Our town prides itself on romance done properly.”

  Suz looked at her longtime friend. “Cosette, I need your advice.”

  “Of course you do, dear. That’s what I’m here for,” she said in her lovely French-accented voice. “Tell me everything.”

  “My husband left BC.” Suz took a deep breath. “We decided it was for the best.”

  “So I heard.” Cosette shook her head. “Very sad situation. Marriages that don’t start off on the right foot can be tricky.”

  “I want my marriage to work out, Cosette. I want it to lose the tricky flavor.”

  “All right.” Cosette poured out tea. “How long is Cisco planning to be gone?”

  “As long as it takes for Daisy to cool off.”

  Cosette gave her a sidelong glance. “That could be never.”

  “So I need to arrange a match for Daisy.” Suz felt that was the best avenue of action. “I feel that I owe it to her.”

  “Why?” Cosette dropped two sugar cubes into their teacups and stirred hers, seeming untroubled by Suz’s plan.

  “Because it’s true that Cisco and I got married and didn’t tell anyone. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but obviously it wasn’t.” She took a deep breath. “I feel bad for Daisy.”

  “And possibly your marriage may suffer because you weren’t up front from the beginning.”

  Suz nodded. “I just wanted Cisco so much.”

  “And you didn’t want to take a chance that the magic might work.” Cosette shrugged. “Because you might have lost him to Daisy, if he’d been the man intended for her.”

  “Not really. Cisco and Daisy weren’t a match, with or without me. Or magic.”

  Cosette looked at her, her eyes huge.

  “Okay,” Suz said. “It’s true I didn’t trust the magic.”

  Cosette nodded. “I think that much is clear. And so it backfired on you.”

  “Which is why I’m here.” Suz sipped her tea. “The only way to undo what I did is to make sure that Daisy gets her own match.”

  “There are no guarantees. It doesn’t mean she won’t foreclose on the Hanging H. Or on our shops, either. It doesn’t mean she’ll ever forgive you,” Cosette warned. “And it doesn’t mean that your marriage is saved.”

  Suz gulped. “Saved? My marriage is going to be fine.”

  “Isn’t that why you’re here? To save it?”

  She nodded, surrendering. “I have to try. Doing nothing isn’t going to undo any of the damage.”

  “Are you doing it for the ranch, BC or yourself?”

  “All.” Suz swallowed, thinking about Cisco. He’d been so disappointed, though he’d agreed it would be better for him to leave BC. The rodeo circuit had been the natural place for him to return, which gave Suz lots of long nights. Seeing your man get stomped by a bull once was a certain way to lose a lot of sleep. “Believe me, I’m not trying to say I’m totally unselfish here. But in the end, I know I caused a lot of people to suffer, and I want to try to fix that.”

  Cosette nodded. “All right, then.”

  “But I do have a question.” Suz sat up. “Why did you have Squint dragged off the Best Man’s Fork trail by Daisy’s gang? Were you trying to make Daisy happy so she wouldn’t take your and Phillipe’s shops?”

  “I did it because Daisy asked for my help.”

  Suz blinked. “Daisy asked for your help?”

  Cosette nodded. “Sat in that very chair you’re sitting in.”

  Suz scrunched her eyes shut tightly for a second, thinking. She opened them when daylight hit. “Daisy asked you to help her with a match!”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she ask you to have her guys waylay Squint?”

  “She said she wanted to make certain that the right man won the race. She wanted to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the man who could love her in spite of her Donovan roots was the one who won.” Cosette put down her teacup and gazed at Suz.

  “But they dragged Squint off. That left only Cisco to win the race. And Daisy’s gang,” Suz said, her voice trailing off as she stared at Cosette. “Did you want Cisco to win?”

  “I had nothing to do with the magic. The magic moves itself. You have to understand how these things work in BC. People often manifest their own magic, their own hopes and dreams, either by prayer, fervent hoping—wishing—or focusing on their goals. These things are all possible. It’s not woo-woo stuff.” Cosette picked up a pink-edged cookie, nibbled at it. “All I did was tell Daisy’s gang that whoever won the race that day was going to marry Daisy. Whatever happened after that was beyond anything of my powers. Er, control.”

  “Like the time Justin won Mackenzie. And Ty won the race for Jade.”

  “Exactly. Magic can’t be cheated.”

  “Did you know Cisco would go back for Squint? That he wouldn’t win the race?” Suz hated to think of what might have happened if Cisco had sprinted on to the finish line. He was a competitive guy—he might have.

  Thankfully, he’d cared about his brother-in-arms more than winning.

  “I knew nothing, except that the right man would win.” She gave a delicate shrug. “I believe he did.”

  “Is Squint Daisy’s true love?”

  “Time will tell.”

  Suz shook her head. “I’d feel better if you arranged a match for Daisy. I don’t know if I can rely on magic that may have backfired. There were too many people with their own agendas that day, including me.”

  Cosette laughed, a cheery sound in the small room. “You want to hire me to make a match for Daisy to clear your conscience, dear. You’re going to have to do that all on your own.”

  “It just doesn’t explain why Daisy did, in fact, win Cisco the first two times.” She took a deep breath. “There’s nothing you can do?” Suz wasn’t sure that the matchmaker wasn’t being slightly uncooperative in her darling Cosette way.

  “The better thing to do might be to make a match for her father, Robert Donovan,” Cosette said, smiling mysteriously as she sipped her tea, and Suz gasped.

  “Can you do that?”

  Cosette looked slightly irritated. “I’m a matchmaker, ma petite! Don’t be silly!”

  Suz thought fast. Could she trust Cosette, who’d been known to thrown a curveball into matters from time to time? Things always worked out in the end, but it was the beginning and middle where matters got tricky. Suz tried to see Robert happily settled, and failed dismally. No one would want the curmudgeonly man.

  Suz shook her head. “What do I have to do to help your magic wand work its magic?”

  Cosette shuddered. “Ugh, don’t speak of such pedantic things. Magic wands indeed. Just because I’m a romantic does not mean that particular Cinderella fairy tale is how I run my business. I don’t do magic tricks, either. These young kids,” Cosette muttered, puttering off into her shop. “They think everything is done the old-fashioned way. Like genies steam out of my teapot or something.”

  Suz stared after her friend, realizing she’d been dismissed. It was all in Cosette’s hands now, for better or worse.

  Suz shivered a little as a strange feeling of something hit her. She put a hand over her mouth for a second, wondering why she all of a sudden felt so off.

  It was this shop, with its dainty decor and potpourri and tea smells.

  She hurried out into the bright sunlight of the cold February day, feeling very much like something had just shifted precariously in her life.

  * * *

  “YOU’RE PREGNANT,” THE doctor told Suz a week later, on Valentine’s Day, smiling hugely. She hadn’t felt right since that day in Cosette’s parlor, and could no longer wonder if perhaps a cookie hadn’t set right with
her.

  Mornings had been really bad.

  Suz shook her head at the doctor’s pronouncement. “I can’t be pregnant.”

  “You are.” She looked at the test results. “Confirmed by blood and urine tests.”

  A soft glow shone on Suz’s world, suddenly lifting the dark clouds away that had been hovering ever since the night she and Cisco had unceremoniously announced their marriage. “I’m pregnant,” she murmured. “I’m pregnant!”

  The doctor nodded. “Yes. I’ll see you in another month to check your progress, but for now, I want you to start taking prenatal vitamins. Congratulations to you and Mr. Grant.”

  Mr. Grant. Suz started.

  She went home, trying to decide how best to tell Mr. Grant. It was a wonderful, wonderful Valentine surprise they’d gotten. Suz smiled, putting a hand on her stomach as she did.

  The smile faded. If Cisco knew she was pregnant, he’d come barreling home. He would never agree to being away from her. But she had support here with her sister, Jade and her mother, Betty, and all their friends. The best thing for now would be to let Daisy cool off—and hopefully, a cooled-off Daisy might mean she’d relent about taking Cosette and Phillipe’s shops, not to mention her own family home.

  This was one secret she had to keep.

  Chapter Nine

  Cisco lay in bed in Montana, staring at the ceiling, pondering the small, spare bunkhouse room he’d been given by the cantankerous owner of the Triple W ranch, Branch Winter. Branch was his age, but didn’t care for rodeo. Didn’t care for much of anything. Lived on his own out here in the middle of the Montana ranch land, silhouetted by beautiful purple-hued mountains that seemed almost unreal if you were used to the flatter land of Texas.

  Which Cisco was. He missed BC, he missed the hell out of his wife. It had been a long seven months without her.

  Suz took up a lot of space in his brain. He wondered for the thousandth time if they could have done things better than they had. Impulsive sure hadn’t played well in BC—and he’d known it was risky business tinkering with the town traditions. Maybe he was selfish. “So what if I jumped the gun by asking Suz to marry me,” he muttered, staring at the rough wood beams in the ceiling. Could anyone blame him? Suz was the kind of woman you grabbed at the first opportunity, and one thing he’d learned very well over the years, Opportunity was a selfish witch. Opportunity gave out her chances very sparingly. In retrospect, he probably had jumped the gun by convincing Suz to marry him. The fact that the odds were long against his secret marriage idea hadn’t been all that much of a surprise.

  The thing was, he’d wanted her so badly. “Go ahead and pour Selfish Bastard Sauce all over me, because I don’t have a single regret,” he assured the ghosts of regret he figured were probably hanging around somewhere.

  Seven months away from her was too damn long. He was in his own personal exile, his personal hell, all because the woman of his dreams came from a little town with big expectations of how life was supposed to run.

  Lying low sucked.

  But he understood why he was here, and he was determined to show Suz that he could live up to the challenge. If his absence made his marriage stronger because it got Daisy off everyone’s backs—and if it meant Suz and he could have a normal marriage, and if it meant Daisy forgave Suz and decided not to foreclose on the Hanging H, exile would have been worth it. The heaping of Selfish Bastard Sauce would have been worth it. He’d go home a hero. What man didn’t want to be a conquering warrior?

  But every time he’d talked to Suz on the phone, it sounded like matters hadn’t cooled off a bit back in BC-town. Cosette and Phillipe had lost their shops, and a divorce quickly followed. They now lived at opposite ends of the town, which was all very awkward for the town denizens. Madame Matchmaker had tried fixing up Robert Donovan, which hadn’t gone swimmingly, if the pun could be used. Madame was convinced her magic had deserted her for good. Between the missing magic and the loss of her shop, Suz said Cosette was truly down in the dumps. She didn’t show up in town very often, preferred to lie low. He of all people knew how much lying low sucked, because he was low from lying low. Not that he was the complaining type, but he was ready to ride high again.

  He was especially low because he’d gotten the daylights stomped out of him, which was why he was convalescing here at Branch’s place. He hadn’t told Suz because she’d flip out. His little darling was quite sensitive about these types of things, and since this time he’d actually broken a few ribs, Suz would really protest him bull riding. Probably consign him to the kiddie calf catch. There were some secrets a man had to keep, right?

  Cisco stared at the red-checked curtains flapping in the breeze. He’d opened his window to get some air, cool as it was outside. The coolness kept him alive, because he was starting to molder from lack of activity. Lying in bed in black boxer shorts, as he had for the past three days, only getting up to shower and eat, was driving him crazy.

  Chances were pretty good he’d turn into the abominable snowman before he was back in his wife’s arms. If he was lucky, he’d be invited home for Christmas.

  Snowmen. Santa would take over the haunted house in December, turning it into Winter Wonderland.

  And I’ll be the grouchiest, most abominable, love-starved snowman in history.

  A knock on his bedroom door startled him. “Door’s open!”

  Maybe Branch had come to visit him. Not that Branch did that much—he was far too busy, and far too independent to do much socializing. But he’d proven himself a friend once again by giving him shelter, so Cisco sat up, trying to look sociable.

  His jaw dropped when Daisy Donovan walked in like his worst catsuited, sexy-as-fire nightmare. “Daisy! What the hell?”

  “You are not easy to find, Frog Grant,” she said. She’d tied her dark hair into a long ponytail that swept over one shoulder as she flounced over to the only chair in his room, sitting down and making herself far too comfortable. He could feel sweat breaking out all over him.

  This was bad. Very bad. Hellish, in fact.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Cisco stated. If the gossips back in BC got wind of this—and he’d bet a year of pay that’s what Daisy intended—there’d be trouble in Paradise.

  “How did you find me?”

  Daisy smiled. “Sam told me, eventually.”

  Of course. Handsome Sam, his dear friend who could always be trusted to throw a wrench into matters. Cisco cursed Handsome Sam and wished for a wart the size of a quarter to grace his buddy’s nose. “Whatever you want, a phone call would have sufficed.”

  “There’s nothing like being up close and personal, is there?”

  Oh, God, she was after him. Planning something devilish. Clearly she hadn’t forgiven him, not one whit—as Suz had warned. Suz had said Daisy was still a ball of fire, and there was no good reason to return while the fire was still flaming.

  He creaked out of bed, tugged on a T-shirt, wondered what the hell he’d done with his jeans. “Daisy, you have to leave. Now.”

  “Not until I say what I’ve come to say. And you’re hurt!”

  “No. Not a bit.” He was lying like a rug, but, with his luck, Daisy would nominate herself his nurse and then there’d be all kinds of hell to pay. “I’m fine. Say whatever’s on your mind and toodle on. I’ve got to get to work.”

  She approached, putting a gentle hand on his ribs. “You are hurt. That’s why you’re standing up like an old man.”

  “Everything’s fine.” He backed away from the soft hand, putting a couple feet between them as he went to his door. “Out you go.”

  “Suz is pregnant,” Daisy said, and his world dropped to his feet.

  “What?”

  “Suz, your darling wife,” she said, her voice taking on a little edge, “is expecting. Didn’t she tell you?”

&
nbsp; He gulped. Felt a little more sweat break out all over him, and a case of chills. “Ah, sure she did.” Daisy was here on a mission, and she was searching for his weakness, like any good enemy combatant. He wasn’t going to show her his weak flank—which was that clearly his little wife was keeping secrets from him.

  Daisy would take that to mean their marriage wasn’t all that rock-solid, and would begin to brew trouble. “Sure she told me.”

  Daisy laughed. “I know you didn’t know, Frog. The question is, why has Suz been keeping you on the road? The Hawthorne sisters are always plotting, they always have a plan.” She went back to the chair, which made him breathe a lot more easily, and seated herself with a teasing, delighted smile. “And not just one baby, either.”

  Chills hit him, very much like when he’d been wounded, chills that swept all over him. “I know all this, Daisy. You’re not telling me anything new.”

  Daisy looked at her elegant hands, studied her fingernails, drawing out the moment. “It’s crazy that Mackenzie had quadruplets and Suz is, too. Who would have thought it could happen twice in one family?”

  And with that, he hit the floor.

  * * *

  WHEN CISCO CAME TO, he was lying across his bed. Daisy was next to him, undressed down to a pink lacy see-through bra and a matching thong that showcased way too much of her long, fit body. His head instantly cleared and he jackknifed out of the bed. “Daisy! What the hell?”

  She laughed. Put her clothes on. “That was fun. We should do it again some time.”

  His throat dried out. He watched her walk to the door, his heart hammering. The enemy had scored on him, he knew it; he just didn’t know how. He realized his T-shirt had somehow left his body. His blood went colder than winter.

  “We didn’t do anything,” Cisco stated. “Now get out.”

  Daisy stood in the doorway, tossed her hair. “Call me,” she said, blowing him a kiss, waiting for his reaction.