Her Kind of Cowboy

by Charlotte Douglas

  “So who’s the little girl?” He pointed to the photo she’d brought with her.

  “Hannah. Her mother died last spring, and Eileen had agreed to be her foster parent, so Hannah could be near her brother Daniel, her only remaining relative, who lives at Archer Farm.”

  “The rehabilitation center for boys Eileen told me about?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “That must be the short version.”

  “What?”

  “Of the long story you were going to tell me.”

  She looked so distressed, he had to muster all his self-control to keep from moving next to her and taking her in his arms.

  “Eileen had a feeling she wouldn’t be able to fulfill that commitment,” Caroline said, “so before she died, she left a letter, asking me to take Hannah.”

  His heart sank at the implications in her words and tone of voice. “Which you can’t do because you’re moving out west.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But you’re obviously not happy about it.”

  “About moving? It’s what I’ve dreamed of for almost fifteen years.”

  “Then why the long face?”

  “Because there’s no one else to take Hannah.”

  “What about Rand, the attorney, and his wife? The ones who live across the highway?”

  “They’re newlyweds. And they just adopted Rand’s orphaned nephew, Jared. Even if Rand and Brynn were okay with fostering Hannah, Jared doesn’t need any more changes to adjust to right now. He’s only three.”

  “Any other neighbors?”

  “The Mauneys. But they’re up in years. Good people, but somewhat dour. I don’t know how they’d adjust to a nine-year-old, or vice versa. Hannah’s life to this point has been dismal. She needs a more upbeat atmosphere.”

  “And there’s no one at Archer Farm who could take her?”

  “Jodie and Jeff—he’s the executive director—have their hands full with the resident boys and Jodie’s teenage daughter Brittany. Not to mention that a facility for delinquent teens isn’t the best surroundings for a fragile child.”

  “Maybe someone in town—”

  “Gofer—Archer Farm’s psychologist—has tried everyone.” Her deep blue eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. I’ve waited so long to fulfill my dream, but how can I abandon a little girl who has no one?”

  “Maybe I could take her.” The words tumbled out unexpectedly. Like Caroline, his heart had been touched by Hannah’s sad face.

  “You?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. I have a kid sister. And I have lots of memories of when Amber was nine. She was a wild child as I recall, but Jerry and I—” he coughed to cover up the embarrassing break in his voice at his brother’s name “—we loved her to pieces.”

  Caroline appeared to consider his offer, then shook her head. “Despite your big brother experiences, I doubt social services would place a young girl with a single male. And a girl that age needs a mother figure.”

  “You’re right.” His offer had been impulsive and unrealistic, and he was relieved at its rejection, even though he felt for Hannah, whose expression in her photo made her appear so unhappy and vulnerable. “So you’re back to square one.”

  Caroline propped her elbows on her knees and buried her face in her hands. “Why can’t life be simple?”

  “It seldom is.” Ethan knew that fact too well. His life the past few months had been filled with excruciating loss, physical and emotional pain, and a heavy burden of guilt. Like Caroline, he was searching for simplicity, the main reason he’d come to Pleasant Valley, but he’d found instead one complication after another: first, the discovery of a woman who’d made him feel alive again, then the unexpected death of his friend. And now, to his disappointment, the woman who’d revived his numbed psyche was determined to leave town.

  Caroline sat up and stared out across the deep-pink crepe myrtles blooming profusely in the lush green lawn. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “What did your mother suggest?” Ethan had met Agnes Tuttle at the bed and breakfast. She’d seemed like a kind woman, although a bit ditzy, unlike her capable and down-to-earth daughter.

  Caroline frowned. “Mother was no help. Once I told her I was moving out, she dissolved into hysterics. I had to call Dr. Anderson to prescribe her a sedative.”

  “She didn’t know about your plans to move out west?”

  “Mother knew, all right. She was just counting on them never happening.”

  Thinking back to his stay at the Tuttles’, Ethan recalled that Caroline had done all the work. Her mother Agnes had hovered, playing hostess, but never lifted a finger to help. “Is she worried about running the bed-and-breakfast on her own?”

  “I’ve already hired Rosa Ortega to help out. Mother’s mainly upset because she can’t run my life any longer.” Caroline clapped her hand over her mouth and her eyes widened. “I can’t believe I said that.”

  “Is it true?”

  Caroline nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother, but I’m not blind to her faults. She’s manipulative and self-centered, has been ever since my father died. It’s how she coped with missing him.” She fell back in the swing and shook her head. “And why I’m confessing to a stranger what I’d never admit to anyone in town I have no idea.”

  “It’s like sitting next to someone on a plane or a bus. You figure you’ll never see them again—” he felt a twinge of sadness at those words “—so you can speak without censoring.”

  He finished the last of his tea and set his glass on a wicker side table. “Maybe your mother could take Hannah. Then she wouldn’t be so lonely with you gone.”

  Caroline narrowed her eyes, thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Nope. Wouldn’t work. Since Daddy died, Mama’s forgotten how to give. In her grief and fear, she became too needy. Hannah needs nurturing. Mama was great while I was growing up, but now she’s no longer capable of providing what a lonely child needs.”

  Caroline stretched her legs and gazed at him with bottomless blue eyes. “Do you think I’m awful? Talking about my own mother like that?”

  He shook his head. “Not awful, just perceptive. It’s hard to reach such objectivity about the people you’re closest to.”

  “Eileen deserves the credit for any insight I have.” Her smile softened when she mentioned her late friend. “Heaven knows, she listened to enough of my griping over the years. And she taught me how to put people and things in perspective. I wish she were here now to advise me on Hannah.”

  “If Eileen were here, Hannah wouldn’t be your problem.”

  Caroline gazed out across the front lawn with her forehead wrinkled in worry.

  “What’s your hurry?” he asked.

  She jerked around to face him. “Hannah will be here in four days!”

  “That’s not what I meant. What’s your hurry to leave Pleasant Valley?”

  Her delicate nostrils flared with indignation. “I’ve been waiting almost fifteen years. I wouldn’t call my desire to get out a stampede.”

  The cowboy term made him smile. “Have you picked out your new home?”

  She spread her arms against the back of the swing, and pushed off with her toe. The chains creaked as the swing swayed. “I haven’t even chosen which state I want to live in yet, but I’m leaning toward New Mexico.”

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I thought you had a plan.”

/>   She shook her head, and a pale pink flush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “Only generally speaking. I don’t want to make specific plans yet. Having a particular place in mind would make waiting to leave even harder.”

  “So why don’t you take time to do your research? You can check out almost everything online. Narrow your options. Maybe take a few short trips to check things out. And in the meantime, you could get Blackberry Farm ready to sell. Make it a showplace. Repairing the cottages is one of the terms of my lease. The more I have completed, the better price you’ll get.”

  She frowned, and he feared he’d offended her. What right did he have to butt into her business, anyway? As far as she was concerned, he was a stranger she’d never see again, someone with a lot of nerve to suggest what she ought to do.

  Just when he’d decided he should leave her alone with her dilemma, she smiled with the brilliance of the sun coming from behind a cloud.

  “You’re right.” Her face lighted with a healthy glow that accentuated her beauty. “I’d been planning to strike out and travel where the spirit moved me, but what you’re suggesting has its good points.”

  Encouraged, he added, “And you can keep Hannah in the meantime—”

  “—and search for another foster family for when I leave.” The worry lines on her forehead had completely faded.

  “You’ve already done the hardest part,” he said.

  “I have?”

  “Making the break with your mother.”

  Caroline scowled. “We’re just a few miles from town, and there’s only the telephone and a good road between us. Mama will be burning up the highway and the phone lines once she’s over her initial shock, begging me to come home.”

  “You can handle her. Eileen’s given you this marvelous opportunity. She wouldn’t want you to waste it.”

  Caroline nodded thoughtfully. “You give good advice.”

  He shrugged, but her comment pleased him. “It’s always easier to come up with answers to someone else’s problems.”

  She slanted her head and looked at him with an intensity that made him uncomfortable. For a moment, he expected her to ask what his problems were, but she rewarded him instead with another dazzling smile.

  “Now that we have Hannah settled for the time being, how about that lunch I promised you?”

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE FOLLOWING EVENING, Caroline relaxed in a corner booth in the back of Ridge’s Barbecue where she’d come for her girls’ night out with Jodie, Brynn and Merrilee. All four were devouring Ridge’s famous ribs, coleslaw, hush puppies and French fries.

  Only yesterday Caroline had moved out of her mother’s house, and the intoxicating sense of freedom was going to her head. If not for the heavy responsibilities that tethered her firmly to the ground, she’d be flying.

  Jodie raised her glass. “Let’s toast Caroline’s newfound independence. I thought this day would never come, but I’m happy for you. No more slaving away at the B and B. You’re on your own now, girlfriend.”

  The others lifted their glasses and clinked them together. “To Caroline’s new adventures.”

  Caroline raised her glass. “To Eileen, who made it all possible.”

  “To Eileen,” they said in unison.

  Brynn licked barbecue sauce from the corner of her mouth and fixed Caroline with a piercing look. “So? When are you going to tell us?”

  Caroline blinked. “Tell you what?”

  Brynn shook her head. “When are you going to tell us about your new tenant?”

  Caroline wasn’t sure she wanted to share her thoughts about Ethan Garrison, especially since she hadn’t figured out exactly what those thoughts were.

  “The artist?” she hedged.

  “What artist?” Merrilee asked.

  “Eileen rented Orchard Cottage before she died,” Caroline explained, “to an artist.”

  “And?” Brynn prodded.

  “And he moved in yesterday.”

  Her companions had stopped eating and were watching her closely.

  “Aren’t you forgetting a few salient details?” Brynn asked.

  Jodie raised her eyebrows. “Who is this artist?”

  “Ethan Garrison,” Caroline said.

  Merrilee leaned back against the bench with a grimace. “We need more than a name. Is he nice? How old is he? What does he look like?”

  Caroline was trying to decide how much to divulge when Brynn, her eyes shining with mischief, spoke up. “He’s a former firefighter from Baltimore. About Caroline’s age. Handsome as sin. Sculpts in metal. And will be having lunch and dinner with Caroline every day.”

  Jodie’s eyes widened. “The good-looking guy who was staying at the bed-and-breakfast earlier in the week?”

  Brynn nodded. “One and the same.”

  Caroline felt her jaw drop. “How do you know all that? I thought Rand kept his client’s business confidential.”

  “He does. Rand is a professional whose lips are sealed.” Brynn’s devilish grin widened. “So I sent in my undercover agent.”

  “Who?” Jodie asked.

  “Lillian. She heard from Mrs. Mauney that we have a new neighbor at Orchard Cottage, so she baked a cake and took it over this afternoon. Lillian would have found out more—she’s a great listener—but he was busy unpacking, so she got out of his way.”

  Merrilee turned to Caroline and shook a sauce-stained finger at her. “You have a gorgeous tenant you’re cooking for and you didn’t tell us?”

  “I haven’t exactly had a chance. You guys are doing all the talking. Besides, Ethan’s being there is irrelevant. As soon as I find a home for Hannah—”

  “Whoa! Back up,” Merrilee said. “Now I’m really confused. Who’s Hannah?”

  “Daniel’s little sister,” Jodie volunteered. “Their mother died, and Eileen was going to foster Hannah so she could be near her brother.”

  Merrilee’s blue eyes lighted in admiration. “Wow, Caro, I have to give you credit. You may wait to make your moves, but when you finally act, you don’t mess around. Leaving home and getting a man and a little girl, all at once. Making up for lost time, sugar?”

  “I don’t have a man, I have a tenant. And I need to find a foster family for Hannah before I leave.”

  “Leave?” the three shouted, loud enough to be heard above the conversations of the restaurant’s other customers and the wail of Keith Urban on the jukebox.

  “You’re not staying at Blackberry Farm?” Jodie asked with a frown. “I was looking forward to having you as a neighbor.”

  “Me, too,” Merrilee said. “You’re not really leaving the valley?”

  Her friends’ distress warmed her heart and made her recognize for the first time how sorely she would miss these women in her life. “I’m moving out west.”

  “You’re serious?” Brynn said. “You’ve always talked about buying a ranch, but I thought that was just a fantasy.”

  “I’m serious,” Caroline insisted.

  “How can you leave the valley?” Merrilee asked.

  “You’re a fine one to ask,” Caroline said with a smile to soften her words. “You’re the one who took off to New York City for six whole years.”

  Merrilee flushed. “Yes, but I discovered what I wanted was here all along.”

  “You mean Grant,” Jodie said. “My brother’s a great guy, if I do say so myself.”

  Merrilee nodded. “Grant, my parents, my friends, the town. I
was crazy to leave this place. I’m glad Sophia will be growing up here.” Sophia was Grant and Merrilee’s six-month-old daughter, named after her paternal grandmother. “The world’s a scary place these days, but the valley remains this island of calm in the midst of a storm.”

  “Maybe you need to experience the storm to appreciate the calm,” Caroline said. “Although the kind of place I have in mind is a lot like the valley. A tiny ranch in a peaceful rural setting, surrounded by mountains.”

  “Sounds like Blackberry Farm,” Jodie said.

  “But there’re no cowboys at Blackberry Farm,” Caroline said with a dramatic sigh.

  Brynn laughed. “Who needs a cowboy when you have a hunky firefighter?”

  Caroline sighed in frustration. “I don’t have a hunky firefighter.” But she couldn’t help grinning. “I have hunky tenant.”

  Jodie lifted her glass of water. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your eye for a good-looking man.”

  “What I need,” Caroline said, “is a foster mother for Hannah, so I can sell the farm and make my move.”

  “I’d take her,” Jodie said, “but I’m going to have my hands full.”

  “You already have your hands full,” Brynn began, then stopped and eyed Jodie closely. “You passed on the coffee.”

  Jodie nodded with an uncharacteristic flush. “No caffeine for me. Not for the next seven months.”

  “You’re pregnant?” Merrilee threw her arms around Jodie for a bone-crushing hug. “That’s great. Sophia will have a playmate close by.”

  “Jeff’s hoping for a boy.” Jodie glowed with pleasure and good health.

  “He already has sixteen teenage boys,” Caroline said.

  “And four overgrown ones who call themselves Marines,” Brynn added.

  Happy tears glistened in Jodie’s eyes. “But none of them call Jeff Daddy.”

  Realizing she wouldn’t be here when Jeff and Jodie’s baby arrived, Caroline felt a pang of regret. The West might hold all kinds of adventures and new friends, but none like these women whom she’d known as long as she could remember.