Overprotective Cowboy: A Mulbury Boys Novel (Hope Eternal Ranch Romance Book 2)

by Elana Johnson

  He’d spent some time with just Nate and Connor the night before, in the room on the other side of the bathroom. Nate had a small TV on his dresser, and he and Connor liked to watch a cooking show before bed every night. Ted had relaxed in a recliner in the room, and he’d marveled at how simple life could be outside of prison.

  His life before prison had not been simple. He’d been a workaholic, he knew. He didn’t mind it, though, because he’d grown up working. His father owned a dry cleaning shop in a small suburb south of San Antonio, and all of the Burrows kids were expected to learn the business, work at the shop, and more from a very young age.

  Ted had gone on to college and then law school, with the full intention of returning to Clydesdale and the family business eventually. He just wanted some experience first, and then he’d open up his family law firm next door to the dry cleaning shop.

  That had never happened, and it was never going to happen. He’d lost his license when he’d been convicted, and he had no desire to get it back.

  Nate had said he could take Ted to town that day and get some of his personal affairs worked out. Things like a bank account and a cell phone, groceries, personal items, whatever.

  Ted had agreed, and as he padded into the kitchen in his gym shorts, he once again marveled that he could walk around without anyone checking on him. Not only that, but he didn’t have to wear a shirt.

  He started to make coffee, the action so simple and yet so amazing at the same time. He yawned while it started to percolate, and he reached up to touch his jaw. He had stubble there, and his first thought was he better shave before any of the UO’s saw.

  Just as quickly as that thought had come, it left, replaced with, You don’t have to shave if you don’t want to.

  And he didn’t want to. He wanted to see how big and long his beard could become, because for the first time in almost six years, what his facial hair looked like was up to him. He could decide.

  Nate had told him to eat anything in the house that morning, but before Ted could open a single cupboard, another cowboy came into the kitchen. “You’re up early,” he said with a smile. “And you made coffee already.”

  The other man had medium-brown hair with kind, hazel eyes. He opened a cupboard and took out a couple of boxes of cereal. “I know you didn’t have time to go to the store yesterday,” he said. “You can have anything here.”

  “Okay,” Ted said, touching one hand to his chest. “I’m Ted. I’m sorry, I didn’t learn everyone’s names yesterday.”

  The man had a good air about him, and Ted liked him already. “Oh, right. I’m Spencer Rust.” He extended his hand toward Ted, and they shook hands.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ted said. “You’ve worked here for a while?”

  “Oh, at least fifteen years now,” Spencer said, and that surprised Ted. He didn’t look that old, but Ted knew better than to ask such a personal question of the guy. Spencer glanced at Ted and opened the fridge. “I got some fruit cups too. Connor likes those.” He took out a couple of peach cups and put them on the counter too.

  Ted wasn’t sure why. Surely the men who lived here could get their own breakfast.

  The bedroom door down the hall creaked as it opened, and tiny feet came toward them both. Connor, a white-haired boy, appeared, carrying a blue blanket with him.

  “Hey, buddy,” Spencer said. He swooped in to pick up Connor. “I got your breakfast here, and you’re coming with me this morning.”

  Connor grinned at Spencer and then looked at Ted. “What’s Ted doing?”

  “Ted’s going with Jess for a little bit,” Spencer said, glancing at Connor. “And then with your dad to town. When they get back, you’ll go with your daddy, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Spencer put Connor on a barstool and picked up a box of Cheerios. “These?” He touched the Lucky Charms. “Or these?”

  “Yellow,” Connor said, and Spencer started pouring the Cheerios. He opened one of the peach cups and handed it to Connor. The child dumped the peaches—syrup and all—over the cereal and then waited for Spencer to pour on the milk.

  The normalcy of it all astounded Ted, and he looked at Spencer as Connor lifted his first spoonful of breakfast to his mouth. “What time is Jess expecting me? She never said.”

  Spencer glanced at the clock. “Thirty minutes, probably. She’ll want you in the stables. You can’t miss ‘em.”

  “Nate showed me on the way over here last night,” Ted said. He grabbed the other peach cup as he went back toward the hall that led to his bedroom. “Thanks, Spencer.”

  “Anytime.”

  Ted showered, wishing he could stand in the hot spray for a lot longer. In prison, he got ten minutes, tops, and the water was never hot. Half the time, it wasn’t even warm. He had to wear shoes in the shower at all times, and Ted stared down at his bare feet as the water ran between his toes.

  Twenty minutes later, he left the house and crossed the back deck. The sky held shades of orange and gold, and Ted took a deep breath, getting a nose full of pollen and the scent of freshly mown grass. He sneezed, but he didn’t care.

  He was outside. Free. Alone.

  He walked toward the stable in the distance but quickly pivoted to go back and get his hat. Ginger had said he’d be working outside in the hot sun almost all the time, and he really shouldn’t try to do that without a cowboy hat.

  Properly attired, he retraced his steps toward the stable, but it looked like no one else had arrived yet. All the doors were closed, and Ted honestly had no idea what to do. A ranch wasn’t anything like a dry cleaning shop, a law firm, or a low-security prison facility. Since those made up the bulk of his experiences, he had no idea what to expect from a ranch that housed almost ninety horses on a daily basis, planned riding lessons for every day of the week, and provided physical care for that many animals.

  Jess had said he’d be needed and he’d have to work hard, and he’d said he could do it. He hadn’t felt anything looking at the tall, dark-haired woman. He could admit she was pretty in an exotic kind of way, but one look across the room to Emma Clemson, and Ted’s heart had crashed against his ribcage like a pair of cymbals.

  Emma was stunning, and while Ted felt sure he’d seen her face somewhere before, he wasn’t going to ask again. He’d figure it out eventually.

  One door on the end of the building stood open, and Ted heard a radio playing from inside. He figured he had nothing to lose, so he went through the door and into the stables. The scent of straw and horse flesh met his nose, and while he’d never smelled anything like it before, and it wasn’t exactly pleasant, he took another deep breath. Anything was better than the scent of fifteen other men who’d all been living and sleeping in the same room as him.

  A dog joined him, already panting, and Ted bent down to pat it. “Hello,” he murmured, somehow comforted by the cattle dog. As far as he knew, they didn’t have cattle at Hope Eternal, but this was definitely a blue heeler.

  Someone sat on a low stool halfway down the row, and the light from the doorway entered behind him, casting the person in shadows. It was definitely a woman, because her hair tumbled down her back, and she said something in a sweet voice to the foal in the pen where she sat.

  Ted drew closer to her, expecting her to turn and look up at the sound of his footsteps. She didn’t, and Ted realized it was Emma in front of him. He pulled in a tight breath and stopped.

  “Oh, you’re so hungry this morning,” she said, her voice full of adoration for the baby horse. She turned toward the dog as he lay down in the straw at her feet. “Where did you come from?”

  She looked up and Ted had the luxury of seeing her face in some of the sunlight spilling through the doorway behind him. Fear filled her eyes, and she sprang to her feet, the baby horse’s empty bottle in her hand. She opened her mouth and screamed, launching the bottle at him in the next moment.

  “Whoa,” he said, ducking out of the way. The plastic bottle clattered on the floor, and Ted held
up both hands, shocked at Emma’s reaction. “It’s me. Ted Burrows. It’s okay.”

  Emma looked like she might pick up her stool and fling it at him next, and Ted fell back a step and then another. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry, I thought you heard me.”

  “I didn’t hear you,” she said, her voice still full of panicked air.

  “What’s going on?” someone else asked, appearing in the aisle on the other side of Emma. “Are you okay?”

  It was Jess’s voice, and Ted shrank back another step, as if he’d be able to hide. Jess reached Emma, and the two of them looked at him like he was a monster.

  “I’m fine,” Emma said. “I just got surprised.”

  “Sorry,” Ted said again, though he’d not really done anything wrong.

  Jess looked back and forth between him and Emma, and she said, “We’re meeting around the corner in about ten minutes.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  Jess nodded and left the two of them standing there. Ted turned and took a few steps to where the bottle lay on the ground. He stooped and picked it up, turning back to Emma. He approached her slowly and asked, “Why do they have to be fed with a bottle?” He took in the three foals in the makeshift pens and looked at Emma.

  Every moment brought more light into the stables, and someone opened the door on the other end of the aisle, and Ted could see her clearly then. She took the bottle from him, though it was empty, and said, “This one is a twin, and his brother is a little bit of a bully, so he doesn’t get as much milk as he should. So he just needs some extra. His name is Second Best.”

  “Oh, wow,” Ted said. “Harsh.” He chuckled, glad when Emma smiled. She was just as made up this morning as she’d been at lunch yesterday, but Ted felt like he could see her more clearly.

  She moved down the row and looked at the next horse, a brown and white animal that Ted felt an instant connection with.

  That surprised him, because while he’d always liked dogs, he’d never thought of himself as a horse person.

  “This one’s name is Patches,” she said. “He just didn’t take to his mother. So we still put them out together every day, but he has to be hand-fed.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “And this is Ruby,” she said, smiling down at the red-coated filly in the next pen. “She’s just hungry all the time, and her momma didn’t have enough milk for her.” She reached over the fence and stroked the horse’s nose. “She’s almost weaned though.”

  “And you take care of them?”

  “I only do this little bit for the babies,” she said, looking up at him. “Yes. Twice a day. Jess’ll have someone else take them out with their moms and teach them how to ride and all of that.”

  “What if there are no babies on the ranch?” he asked. “Then what do you do?”

  “I’m the ranch manager,” she said. “I do all the behind-the-scenes stuff that keeps the ranch going.”

  “Wow,” Ted said. “How long have you been doing that?”

  “Ten years.” Emma tucked the bottle under her arm as Ruby started sticking her tongue through the holes in the fence to lick it. “You’ve had yours,” she told the horse.

  Ted looked down as the blue heeler passed him. “And what about the dogs? How many of those live on the ranch?”

  “Oh, five or six,” she said. “They roam with the horses and help herd the boars in when we have our boar hunt.”

  Ted had no idea what planet he’d landed on. “Boar hunt?”

  Emma smiled at him, and everything in the world got a little brighter. “It’s a long story, and I think your meeting starts soon.”

  “Right,” he said. “Okay, well, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I know,” she said, and she seemed ten times softer now than she had even a few minutes ago.

  He reached up and tipped his hat, something he’d done yesterday as he’d left too. He hadn’t even known how to do it, but the motion had been natural then, as it was now. “All right, well, I’ll see you later, Emma.” He looked down at the dog. “And….” He looked up at her, expecting her to fill in a name.

  “Oh, we don’t name the dogs,” she said.

  “What?” he asked. “You name the horses, but not the dogs?”

  She shrugged with another perfect smile on those lips. “Ginger loves horses.”

  Ted crouched down and scratched the blue heeler, feeling the dirt in his hair. “Well, he deserves a name too. I’m gonna call him…” Nothing came to mind, and he looked up at Emma for help.

  “Don’t ask me,” she said, giggling again. “I’m not having any part of this.”

  “I’ve never named a dog before,” Ted said, and he couldn’t believe how hard it was. He looked at the heeler again, and blurted, “Simon.”

  “Simon?” Emma asked, and she burst out laughing.

  Ted straightened, and he couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You think that’s funny, huh?”

  “Why Simon?”

  Ted shrugged, not wanting to say that one of the shows he knew about from his mother was American Idol. She loved Simon Cowell, and maybe Ted wouldn’t feel so lonely if he had a dog here named Simon. Maybe then, it would be like his mother was close by.

  “Seems like it fits,” he told Emma, because he didn’t need to get into all of his emotional issues with the woman. “I better go. See you later.”

  “Yeah,” she said, backing up a couple of steps so he could move in front of her. “See you later, Ted.”

  He wanted to stay near her too and ask her all kinds of things about herself. He’d tell her anything she wanted to know too—including how he’d gotten six years in prison—but he forced himself to keep walking.

  Just because Nate had fallen in love at Hope Eternal Ranch didn’t mean Ted was going to. In fact, he was fairly certain Emma’s scream was really how she felt about him, and he didn’t need to put himself through anything unnecessary.

  He needed to be here for three and a half months, and then he could return to Clydesdale with his head held high.

  Chapter Four

  Emma watched Ted round the corner, his stride straight and sure. How he possessed so much confidence, Emma didn’t know. When she’d looked up and seen the tall, broad-shouldered, shadowy figure….

  The scream had been instant. So had the bottle throw.

  Ted had some good reflexes too, and Emma was very lucky that bottle was made of plastic and not glass.

  Embarrassment squirreled through her, getting into the really tight corners and making her mood turn sour. How did she keep running into him? She couldn’t get up any earlier to come feed the foals, and she shouldn’t have to.

  “Maybe you should start later,” she mumbled to herself as she walked over to the industrial sink in the corner. She washed out the bottles and set them to dry for later. “All right, guys,” she said to her babies. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She left the stables, and the pink and yellow in the sky made everything sweeter. The last time she’d seen the sky like this, she’d been sitting with Missy out at the Frio bat caves. The sky was getting darker and darker then, not coming to life, but the feeling was the same.

  There was a time between dawn and sunrise, and dusk and sunset, where the earth held its breath. Everything was calm and peaceful, and Emma had no worries, no doubts, and no insecurities.

  She’d placed a kiss on Missy’s temple, and not ten minutes later, thousands and thousands and thousands of bats had come pouring out of the caves. Emma had never seen anything like it, and she’d stood there with her daughter in complete awe.

  It had been a great experience for both of them, and when Emma had driven away last Sunday night, it was one of those times that she cried a lot on the winding roads back to Sweet Water Falls.

  Thankfully, Ginger had been out on a walk with Nate, and Emma had managed to sneak through the house while Jess and Michelle shared a bowl of popcorn in the living room. By morning, her tears were dried up, the redness in her eyes g
one.

  A week and a day later, Ted had shown up, asking questions he had no right to ask.

  She couldn’t believe that had just happened yesterday afternoon. It felt like he’d been on the ranch for a lot longer than that.

  Emma returned to the homestead and poured herself a cup of coffee while the house cat, Frisco, wound between her ankles. She got out the sugar-free chocolate syrup and squirted in a healthy amount. With added cream, her cup no longer steamed, and it was more like a mug of hot chocolate with some slight coffee flavoring. Just the way she liked it.

  The hot chococoffee was all she had in the morning, and since she wasn’t spiking her blood sugar, she counted it as if she’d eaten nothing.

  She went into the office and pulled the cord to open the blinds, Frisco mewing behind her. The sunshine had started to stream over the Gulf of Mexico, and while there were a few islands between the ranch and the actual Gulf, Emma stood in the golden glow and fed off the energy of the sun, the sea, and the sky.

  Another sip of her hot chococoffee, and Emma sat down at the computer. She had processed all of the invoices yesterday, and she needed to go through accounts receivable this morning, as well as look ahead to Friday, which was payday.

  She had paperwork to process for Ted, now that he was here, and she’d need to meet with Ginger to make sure the Bureau of Prisons got the packet back they wanted, by the deadline. That ensured the ranch got the promised checks from the BOP, and Ginger would stay in good standing with them.

  Emma got to work, only marking time by how restless she became the closer noon got. When her stomach gave one mighty growl, she allowed herself to glance at the clock in the corner of her computer screen.

  Almost noon. Praise the Lord.

  She got up and went into the kitchen, Frisco right behind her, intending to put together a shredded Caesar salad and pull out one of the leftover mini-sandwiches from yesterday. She did just that, and sat at the bar. She could take her food back to her office, but she’d made a pact not to eat in front of a screen, because then each bite was mindful.