The Twins' Rodeo Rider

by Tina Leonard

  Suz smiled at him, glowing. “If you approve.”

  “I don’t.”

  They all laughed, but he didn’t care to join in. “We’re not naming our girls Handsome Samuelina and Squintina!”

  They found that hilarious. “The names chosen so far are Samantha and Jennifer. Jennifer is as close to John as we could agree on, which represents John Lopez Squint Mathison, and Samantha is self-explanatory.”

  “All right, then,” Cisco said gruffly. “You had me scared there for a moment.”

  They laughed at him again. Cisco sagged into the sofa. “This baby stuff is hard.”

  “Lightweight,” Sam said, grinning.

  “Weenie,” Squint said, “we’ve done all the heavy lifting for you.”

  “Hey!” Suz exclaimed.

  “Not that you’re heavy,” Squint said hurriedly. “We meant, we’ve done all your work for you, buddy.”

  “And I mean to talk to my wife about that, as soon as you two hit the road.” Cisco reached for another muffin and winked at Suz.

  “I guess we’ll go round up Daze.” Squint got to his feet. “It’s awkward, mighty awkward, going after a lady who wants nothing to do with me.”

  “Thanks, Squint.” Suz smiled at her two messengers. “Tell her everything’s forgiven back home.”

  “I don’t think she cares.” Sam grabbed the platter of muffins away from Cisco, slid them into a bag he commandeered from the kitchen. “Something for the road.”

  Cisco let his friends take off with the treats before turning to his wife. “So what’s really going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She looked far too innocent. “Why are you sending Moe and Curly off to Montana?”

  “Does that make you Larry?” Her gaze was teasing. “Of Three Stooges fame?”

  “That was Ty. I’m my own man.” He went to sit by his wife, leaning down to steal a kiss. A kiss he’d been wanting for far too long. She melted into him, her lips molding against his, and Cisco felt like he’d finally made it home.

  “I wanted them to escort Daisy home to show there are no hard feelings from the Hanging H,” Suz murmured against his mouth.

  “And?” He waited to hear the rest of the plot. In BC, there were always many layers to even the simplest of plots.

  “Maybe I’m trying to give Daisy a chance to see Squint in a hero’s light. He’ll show up to rescue her from evil Branch Winters and your mean prank you pulled. It really was mean,” she said, kissing him again.

  “Not mean enough, considering. Is that all?” Cisco asked, knowing it all sounded too easy to be a BC plot. “Those are all very good points, but I have a sneaking suspicion there’s more. Especially since I can practically discount point number two, as there’ll be two conquering heroes who go to rescue the un-fair maiden. Daisy might just as well see Sam in the hero’s light and fall for him, and then we’d have an even more miserable Squint on our hands.”

  “So you saw through his I’m-over-her story?”

  “I did.” He kissed her thoroughly, his whole soul alive with happiness.

  “They’re bringing Daisy back the long way,” Suz admitted. “I want her gone long enough for me to give birth.”

  He considered his wife. “So peace and quiet can reign in Bridesmaids Creek?”

  “Have you ever heard the fairy tale where the evil queen casts a spell over the baby princess because she wasn’t invited to her birth party?”

  “I wouldn’t let Daisy near my daughters,” Cisco said, his voice flat. “Don’t worry.”

  “This is a small town. We all have to get along. But I’m giving birth while Daisy’s not here to breathe bad karma on our big day.”

  He grinned. “You’re cute when you’re devious.”

  “It’s not devious. It’s practical.” Suz leaned back to look at him. “But I don’t want her stranded, and I don’t want her being held at Branch’s place.” She smiled hugely, looking like an adorable pixie. “So I’m sending representatives to rescue her. Let bygones be bygones is my motto.”

  “Why can’t Daddy Warbucks rescue her? Or her gang of five uglies?”

  “She may have called any of the above. I don’t know.” Suz shrugged. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  He glanced out at the gently falling dusk. A ranch truck rumbled down the drive, which meant his military brothers had departed. “I just don’t know about sending Curly and Moe on such a delicate mission.”

  “They’re SEALs. They’ll handle it. I didn’t want them here for the birth, either.”

  He perked up, recognizing for the first time that he’d been a little bit jealous of the time his buddies had gotten to spend with Suz during her pregnancy. “I should have thanked them for taking such good care of you. I was too jealous to man-up.”

  She laughed. “You were jealous of little ol’ huge-as-a-house me being taken care of by your brothers, when I had to look at photos of you and Daisy in the altogether? Who’s jealous here?”

  He wasn’t buying it. “You’d never be jealous of Daisy.”

  “I certainly didn’t want her in a dental-floss thong near my husband.” Suz giggled. “You looked like you were dead to the world. I actually felt sorry for you.”

  “Not nearly as sorry as I felt for myself.” His insides cramped up. “Damn, Suz, when she told me you were having quadruplets, I’m pretty sure all the blood drained straight out of my head.”

  “Obviously.” She laughed again. “You’re going to have to make this right with Daisy eventually.”

  He bit the inside of his lip. “Pretty sure I can’t. And I don’t care to. In fact, I’d rather stick a hot flaming marshmallow in my eye than ever speak to her again.”

  Suz’s fingers wound into his. “You’ll feel differently when you hold your daughters for the first time. You’ll want everyone to get along.” She looked at him, her eyes huge. “After all the years my parents spent trying to fight off Robert Donovan, I’m determined to keep working on Daisy until she’s given up every idea of taking our home. In fact, Daisy doesn’t know it yet, but one day, she’s going to think the Hawthorne girls are the closest things to real sisters that she’s ever had.”

  That would take a miracle. Then again, who would have ever thought that Ty Spurlock would discover that he was Daisy’s brother? Strange things happened in Bridesmaids Creek.

  “Of course, I suppose this plan is contingent on how much guff Branch gave her for trespassing,” Cisco said, more worried than he wanted to let on.

  “You didn’t really tell your friend that she was trespassing, did you?”

  “I did,” Cisco said. “I might have even told him that she was a stalker I couldn’t get rid of.”

  His wife’s mouth fell open. He didn’t get a chance to explore it. “Cisco!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “All I could think about was the fact that my heart would break into a thousand pieces if she upset you. Hurt you in any way. Damn, Suz, she is a stalker. At least from my point of view.” She’d kept him away from his wife for months. How would any normal red-blooded man feel about that?

  Like he wanted Daisy kept nicely—comfortably—chained to a cactus in a faraway place for a year or two. He looked at his delicate, heavily pregnant wife. “I’ll call him,” he offered grudgingly.

  “Thank you,” she said, softening. “You’re my hero.”

  And then she kissed him, and he totally felt like a hero. “I missed the hell out of you. I don’t care what happens after this, I don’t care what mayhem Daisy wreaks, I’m not leaving you again. The whole town can go bounce itself and Robert Donovan can groan all he likes, but I’m not spending one day without looking into your beautiful blue eyes, Suz Grant. Just so you know.”

  * * *

  SAMANTHA AND JENNIFER made their way in
to the world, right as planned. Everything went smoothly, much to Cisco’s vast pride. He was so proud of his wife he felt like his heart might pop any second. Just gazing at her as she cooed over her newborn daughters was enough to give Cisco a case of love-struck that wasn’t ever going to go away. Every single day of their lives he knew he’d feel just like this: amazed by the petite, adorable woman who’d been brave enough to go against the BC grain to marry him.

  “What do you think about your daughters?” Suz asked him.

  “I think they look just like their mother, thankfully. And I see a lot of potential in them.” He considered his daughters as the nurses tended them carefully. “Could be champion barrel racers, could teach high academics. The world is their oyster,” he bragged, his heart swelling with love and pride in his daughters and beautiful wife.

  It was more heaven than he deserved.

  But hellfire blew into the room the next day. Daisy showed up in Suz’s hospital room, bearing gifts. Or so she claimed.

  “Daisy!” Suz exclaimed.

  “Surprised to see me?” Daisy smirked. She was tall and her beautiful dark mane was wild and sexy—to Cisco it looked like she was just missing a broom to be any man’s version of Bad Girl Finds Her Inner Sexy Witch.

  She was the type of woman men would find spellbinding.

  Cisco backed up a foot, peered at the shopping bag she carried with some approbation.

  “I’m not exactly surprised to see you,” Suz said, her tone a little annoyed. “But no one told me you were planning a visit today.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want to take a look at Bridesmaids Creek’s newest angels?”

  Something slithered over Cisco’s skin. Daisy had far too wild a look in her eyes for his liking. “Did Squint and Sam manage to catch up with you?”

  “They did,” Daisy cooed. “So did Branch Winters.”

  Uh-oh. He glanced at Suz, who shrugged at him. Clearly Daisy wasn’t happy that he’d had her waylaid. Cisco shrugged. “Did you have a nice visit with Branch?”

  “I did.” She smiled at him. “Very nice. I think he may be in love with me.”

  Cisco took that in. “Branch?”

  “Mmm.” She sat in the only chair in the room, considered him. “He’s not the world’s most sociable person, is he?”

  “Maybe not.” Cisco waited for Daisy’s punch line—it was coming, he knew it was. “How does one go from trespasser and breaking and entering—into my room, by the way—to thinking that the ranch owner is your love slave?”

  “Branch quickly realized that you weren’t being entirely honest with him, after I explained that you had completely not recognized my truck.”

  “I see.” He glanced at Suz, who shrugged. “Anyway, where are Squint and Sam?”

  “They decided to stay a little longer at Branch’s place. So I drove on back by myself. I was anxious to get home to Bridesmaids Creek.” She smiled at Suz. “It’s not every day we have a special delivery!”

  Something was off but he just couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Suz seemed in the dark, too. Daisy reached into her shopping bag, pulled out two identically wrapped white boxes with pink bows on top. “These are for your precious bundles of joy, Suz.”

  “Thank you, Daisy.” Suz took the boxes, glanced at Cisco. This time the shrug came from him. Neither of them had any idea what was up Daisy’s sleeve, so all they could do was paste on the polite smiles and hope for the best.

  Suz unwrapped the first box, pulling out a beautiful glass bottle. Cuts in the bottle shimmered in the light, revealing what looked like water inside. “It’s lovely, Daisy. What is it?”

  “A crystal bottle filled with water from Bridesmaids Creek.” Daisy smiled. “A keepsake. A memento of the magic that brought your little ones’ parents together.”

  Something cold ran over Cisco’s scalp, but as gifts went, it could actually be called thoughtful. Couldn’t it? He couldn’t judge by Suz’s careful expression whether she was as unsettled as he felt.

  She unwrapped the second beautiful box, holding up an identical lovely crystal bottle. This one was filled with dirt. Suz looked at Daisy. “I’m guessing dirt from Best Man’s Fork?”

  Daisy nodded happily. “A memento for your daughters! And now I must be off. I really just came back to BC to get my motorcycle.”

  “Where are you headed?” Cisco asked, not that he cared and not that he wanted to keep her from flying—er, leaving. But it seemed the courteous thing to ask, under the circumstances. And he was so perplexed by the gifts she’d given his daughters the question popped out before he could censor himself.

  “Back to Montana.” She grinned at Cisco, a temptress in one sizzling package and well aware of it. “I have a real yen to see those mountains from my bike.”

  Which meant Branch was under siege. But he was a big boy, he could handle himself. “Have fun. And thanks for the gifts.”

  “You’re so very welcome.” A smile that wasn’t altogether open and charming crossed her face. “Best wishes to you both, and your new little angels.”

  She swept from the room. Suz looked at her husband. “Will you go get Cosette, Cisco? And bring her here as fast as you can?”

  “Cosette? Why?”

  Suz shook her head. “I can’t tell you everything right now. But tell her it’s urgent.” She laid back, closing her eyes, and Cisco hurried off, aware that something was going on in BC that, as an outsider, he just couldn’t understand.

  But he understood that Suz was upset about something, so he made tracks.

  * * *

  COSETTE STARED AT the two beautiful bottles, as did Jane Chatham, whom Cosette had brought for backup. “This isn’t good.”

  “No, it’s not.” Jane’s eyes were huge and Suz felt sick.

  “But the babies are so healthy.” Cosette glanced at her friend. “Samantha and Jennifer came in at almost normal weight. The nurse said they won’t be in the hospital long, and Suz can go home tomorrow most likely.”

  Cisco held Suz’s hand, strong and warm fingers enveloping hers. “What does it mean?”

  “We’re not exactly sure.” Cosette didn’t take the stoppers off the bottles, Suz noticed. In fact, both Cosette and Jane seemed content to view them from six inches away, even though they peered at them closely. “Daisy would like you to think that these are gifts that say let bygones be bygones.”

  “But bygones are never gone,” Jane added. “We saw the babies in the nursery, and they’re not fussing or anything. Just resting happily, without a care in the world.”

  “What the hell is a bygone, anyway?” Cisco demanded.

  “If you’d had any of Phillipe’s tutoring sessions, you’d know it’s of English derivation, circa the fourteenth century, meaning to forget past quarrels. That’s a bygone,” Cosette said. “It’s very important to know your language history. We French are very aware of history.” She pondered that for a minute. “Times like this I really miss Phillipe,” she said on a sigh. “In fact, I miss him most of the time.”

  They all stared at her. Suz felt tears jump into her eyes. “Cosette! I’m so sorry!”

  “No, no, I shouldn’t have brought him up. The old donkey,” she said, wiping her eyes as Jane handed her a lace handkerchief. “Talking about idioms and medieval history always makes me a little misty. He’s so brilliant with all the dustier subjects, you know. My dusty little unmatchmaking husband. He just didn’t have much business in this town, and spends too much time with his history tomes.”

  Their finances had to be in rough shape. They’d mostly relied on Cosette’s income from the tea shop. Her matchmaking efforts were largely propaganda—though effective propaganda. “I’m going to empty these stupid bottles and put them up in the kitchen window where the sunlight can hit them,” Suz said. “That’ll kill all the germs and whatever
may be lurking inside Daisy’s scary gift.”

  “Scary?” Cisco looked at her. “Is dirt and water scary?”

  “It is when it comes from Daisy. The outside of the gifts are elegant crystal, the inside is just plain weird.” Suz shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dragged you down here, Cosette. I don’t usually let superstitions unnerve me. Surely it’s my raging hormones.”

  Robert Donovan walked in, his big frame overwhelming the room. “Hello, ladies, Cisco,” he said, his voice booming.

  Jane jumped to her feet. “What are you doing here, Robert?”

  “I came to bring flowers to the new mother.” He smiled, handing Suz a giant bouquet of beautiful lilies and roses. “And I sent two white rocking horses with the girls’ names on them over to the Hanging H. Suz, I hope you’ll accept these small tokens.”

  “Thank you,” Suz said, not sure what else to say.

  “Donovan,” Cosette said, “I don’t know that I trust this benevolent side of you. Aren’t you trying to foreclose on the Hanging H and its business, the Haunted H?”

  He nodded. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with welcoming two new members of Bridesmaids Creek society, does it?”

  “It does,” Cisco said. “I think Suz would rather you leave her alone than pretend to be a friend.”

  “Well, I can afford to be generous these days.” Robert smiled. “I just put an offer on all the land where Bridesmaids Creek and Best Man’s Fork are, and even as we speak, there are plans to put federal buildings there.” He looked really pleased about that. “So all this worrying about luring folks to BC for a small-time haunted house won’t be necessary anymore. Soon we’ll have more people here than BC knows what to do with—which was the goal all along, right?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Now what do we do?” Suz asked Cisco after Cosette and Jane departed, taking Daisy’s gifts with them. The ladies had been completely shell-shocked by Robert’s announcement, though they hadn’t said much about that. They’d told Suz they would take care of emptying out the offending “offerings” of Daisy’s gifts, and Cisco had been relieved.