Cowboy Courage

by Carolyn Brown

  “Thank you,” Hud said.

  Luna took the baby from Rose and swayed back and forth with her. “She’s settling down. I’m going to give her a bath. While I do that, the two of you run to the store and get her something clean to wear. There’s a notepad right there on the credenza. Write what I tell you. Start with diapers.”

  He followed instructions. “Are you serious about me staying here?”

  Rose nodded. “There’s five extra bedrooms upstairs. You can have your choice,” Rose told him as she went through the diaper bag. “We need a car seat, and write down this formula.” She held up a sample bottle from the bag. “And four or five sets of clothing in size…” She cocked her head to one side and stared at the baby.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be very good at pickin’ all that kind of thing out,” he said.

  “Three- to six-month size,” Luna said. “I might not have kids, but, honey, I’ve sure helped with a lot of them when I owned the carnival. And when Dixie gets out of the hospital, we’ll go to a local church clothes closet and get her whatever she needs.”

  “I’ll gladly pay for a couple of nights for her.” Hud wished that he didn’t smell like smoke. “She’s got no place to go, no money, and a baby. I couldn’t just let the baby go to foster care.”

  “Of course you couldn’t,” Luna said. “Now get on out of here and hurry back. My shift ends when you two get home. Then y’all can play at being parents.”

  Rose walked beside him to the truck. “The room is empty, and I’m sure Aunt Molly would take care of that poor woman until she could get on her feet, so no problem. This has been a day, hasn’t it?”

  He opened the door for her. “You probably don’t ever want to see me again. I bring bad luck with me.”

  “But there sure isn’t a dull moment when you’re around.” Rose smiled.

  Chapter Four

  Hud followed Rose around Walmart and helped her load the cart with baby things. Lord have mercy! He never realized a child needed so much, and Rose said these were the bare necessities. He marveled at how tiny the cute little outfits were, and wondered if someday he’d be picking out things with ducks and kittens printed on them for his own child. He picked up an outfit with a tractor on the front.

  Rose shook her head, and he put it back on the rack. “How do you know so much about babies?”

  “I was raised in a commune for most of my life,” she said. “I was babysitting when I was eight years old. Of course, I had an older girl around to train me in how to take care of a baby.

  “What about you? Where did you learn about babies?” she asked.

  “I don’t know a damn thing about them. Only time I ever held one was when our foreman’s wife had a newborn. It threw up on me, and I never asked to hold one again,” he said.

  “Well, get ready to learn a few things.” She grinned.

  He didn’t know whether to run for the nearest mesquite thicket and hide out like a scared rabbit, or to bless the stars for giving him an excuse to stay at the B&B with Rose for a couple of days.

  They checked out, drove back to the B&B, and had just gotten everything unloaded when Hud got a phone call.

  “We’ve got a bull out of the pasture, and my brother needs me to come home right now. I can pick up some things while I’m out there, then come back to stay the night,” he offered. “I hate to walk off and leave you.”

  “We’ll take the first shift, and you can have the one when you get back.” Rose got out of the truck and got the two bags from the backseat. “And, Hud, you really don’t have to pay for that girl’s room. Aunt Molly has a big heart, and she’d be real upset with me if I didn’t help out here.”

  “Thanks,” Hud said. “I’ve got an idea about a job for her if she wants to stay around this area for a while.”

  That cowboy has a heart of gold, Rose thought as she stood on the porch and watched him leave the house. When she was inside, she heard Luna singing a lullaby in the living room.

  “I hope you brought this child something to wear,” Luna called out. “She’s a good little thing. I’d guess her at about three months old, and I’ll be willin’ to bet her mama ain’t very big.”

  “Why’s that?” Rose eyed the baby.

  “She’s got a delicate face.”

  “I should call her mama and let her know that Sally is okay. That we’re going to take care of her until Dixie is released.”

  “Good idea,” Luna said.

  Rose found the number to the hospital and in only a couple of minutes she was connected to Dixie’s room. The phone rang three times before Dixie answered.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounded cautious.

  “This is Rose O’Malley. My aunt and I are helping Hud Baker take care of your baby girl. I just wanted to reassure you that she’s fine. We’ve gotten her cleaned up and she’s had a bottle. Is there anything else we should know?” Rose asked.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” she said. “I’m so grateful that y’all didn’t hand her over to the system.”

  “You just get well, and don’t worry about a thing.” For some crazy reason, Rose thought of her mother and made a mental note to call her later that evening. “If you feel up to it, we could bring Sally to see you.”

  “I’d love that. Can you come now?” Dixie sobbed between words.

  “Be there in half an hour,” Rose answered. The girl sounded so pitiful that Rose couldn’t tell her that she’d really thought about bringing the baby later—like after supper.

  “Be where?” Luna asked as she held Sally up in a cute little pink outfit.

  “Looks like we’re going to the hospital so Dixie can see her child…” Rose answered.

  Once at the hospital, they found Dixie’s room easily enough. Dixie had evidently just gotten out of the shower because her dark brown hair still had water droplets hanging on it, and dark lashes framed her blue eyes. She was thinner than Rose, and the hospital gown hung on her frame like a feed sack on a broomstick, but she was sitting in a rocking chair beside the bed. She stood up and reached for Sally.

  Rose put Sally in her arms and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m Rose O’Malley and this is my aunt Luna.”

  “Y’all are angels,” Dixie whispered. “Look at you, sweet girl,” she crooned over Sally. “You smell so sweet and clean.”

  “How did you get here to Bowie?” Luna sat down in a chair on the other side of the bed.

  “I don’t like to talk about it,” Dixie said. “But you deserve to know, since you’ve been so good to help me and Sally. My real name is Dixie Boudreaux. I ran away from home last year with my boyfriend. We used to live in Louisiana, but Mama moved us to Sweetwater, Texas. I was seventeen when Derrick and I ran off to San Antonio, and we had big plans.”

  She paused and kissed Sally on the hand. “Truth is, I was pregnant, and it all sounded good at the time. We’d run away and get jobs, get us a little apartment and have our baby. But Derrick”—she paused—“he hated working at fast-food joints and that’s all the jobs we could get.” She sighed. “And then I had the baby, and sitters cost as much as I was making, so we was living on his paycheck. He came from a pretty good family. Not rich but real comfortable. Me—not so much. When times got real, real bad, he called his mama, and she sent money for him to come on back home and go back to school.”

  “And the sumbitch went without you?” Luna frowned.

  “He left me a note,” Dixie said. “Said that he just couldn’t do it anymore. I only had ten dollars in my purse, so I used it to buy diapers, and I hitched a ride with a nice couple from San Antonio to Bowie. They even bought me food twice on the trip. I was going to sleep in the park, even though it was cold, but I saw that empty house. It didn’t have heat, but the electricity was still on, so we had light.”

  “And then it caught on fire?” Luna said.

  Dixie nodded. “That nice cowboy, the one who rescued Sally, let me call Mama on his phone, but she said I can’t come home. I don’t know what I’ll do,
but I’ll do any kind of work I can to support me and Sally. I’d scrub floors, and I can do waitress work if I can find a babysitter that don’t cost too much.”

  “We’ll worry about that when they let you out of this place.” Luna stood up and patted her on the shoulder. “Do you cook? Maybe you could work for us at the B&B.”

  “I grew up in southern Louisiana, and I can make Cajun food. My grandmamma taught me before she died. Mama hated anything that had to do with the kitchen, so I did all the cooking”—she blushed—“well, until I ran away.”

  “I’m only going to be in Bowie for a little while longer,” Rose said, “but you and Sally are welcome to stay there until you can find a job. You can pay for your keep by helping us cook.”

  “For real?” Dixie’s face lit up like a little kid’s eyes at Christmas.

  Rose smiled. “I hate the kitchen.”

  “And all I can make is breakfast food,” Luna said.

  “I can’t believe that you’re going to give me a job, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I ain’t never had this kind of luck before in my life.”

  Luck, Rose thought. Was winding up in the same town with Hud, who’d been her teenage crush, her bit of good luck?

  * * *

  “Here comes the Montague County Hero,” Tag teased when Hud reached the ranch. “I’ve been trying to get this damn bull to cooperate for an hour. You get back in your truck and herd him to the pasture. Then we’ll fix the broken fence.”

  Tag and Hud were twins, but not identical. They were both six feet tall, but Tag’s eyes were blue and Hud’s were green. Hud was a little more muscular than his brother, but Tag had always been the daredevil and the ladies’ man.

  When Hud found the bull, the critter was eating grass in a ditch, and no amount of honking fazed him. Finally, Hud got out of his truck and ran at the big black fellow. The bull lowered his head, pawed the ground, and took off after him like he was starving and the cowboy was supper. He managed to keep ahead of him and yelled at his brother when he saw him on the other side of the fence.

  “I’m bringing him in. Get that post ready to sit up straight. He’s pretty mad,” Hud hollered.

  The second the bull cleared the hole in the fence, Tag drove the new metal post into the ground. The poor old animal didn’t realize he’d been penned until he saw the rest of the herd. He lost his momentum, snorted a few times, and glared at Hud.

  “Guess you got your exercise for the day.” Tag chuckled as he helped Hud stretch the barbed wire. “First you go rescuing a woman and a baby, and now you’ve played matador.”

  “How’d you know about that burning house?” Hud asked.

  “Nikki called me,” Tag said. “And it was on the radio news at noon out of Bowie.”

  “Are you kiddin’ me?” Hud asked.

  “Nope,” Tag shook his head. “So where’s the baby?”

  “Rose and her aunt are helping me out while I came to get the bull.” He removed his cowboy hat and mopped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his jacket. Then he went on to tell his twin brother the whole story. “And now I’ve got to pack a bag and go back there to help until Dixie gets out of the hospital.”

  “Don’t forget to pack your cape,” Tag laughed. “According to the news, everybody’s singing your praises and hailing you as the volunteer fireman of the year. You might as well be Superman. Look.” Tag held out his phone. “You’re all over YouTube.”

  Hud hit the PLAY button. The audio was grainy, but the commentator said the fire chief praised Hud for what he’d done and warned homeless people about staying in abandoned houses. The fire had started in the attic, he thought, when rats had chewed through electrical wires, so no arson charges would be filed against the woman who’d been in the house.

  Hud handed the phone back to his brother. “I just did what needed to be done.”

  “So what happens to the woman when she gets out of the hospital?” Tag asked.

  Hud shrugged. “I was wonderin’ if maybe Claire still wants to hire someone at her quilt shop.”

  “She mentioned it last week,” Tag said. “You could ask her.”

  “All jokin’ aside, brother.” Tag clamped a hand on his shoulder. “We’re proud of you. It took courage to go into a burning house to save that baby.”

  “Thanks.” Hud didn’t tell them that it took far more courage to walk into the Rose Garden Bed-and-Breakfast and see Rose for the first time than it did to run into a burning building and rescue Dixie and Sally.

  * * *

  Rose was rocking the baby when her phone rang that afternoon. She picked it up from the end table right beside her and smiled when she saw her mother’s number. “Hello, Mama, great minds must think alike. I was going to call you this evening.”

  “You are still coming to Kentucky when Aunt Molly gets home, right?” Echo asked.

  “Plannin’ on it. Bet you can’t guess what I’m doin’ right now,” Rose chuckled.

  “I hear a squeaky rocking chair,” Echo replied. “Are you reading a book or studying another language?”

  “I’m rockin’ a baby,” Rose said.

  “Yours?” Echo gasped.

  “No, Mama, I wouldn’t do that to you. When I have a baby, you’ll know all about it before it’s born.” Rose told her and then gave her the full story from the first time Hud came into the shop until that moment.

  “If she’s interested in a commune, I’ll take her in,” Echo said. “I miss having a daughter in the house.”

  “It’s been ten years,” Rose reminded her.

  “Once a mother, always a mother,” Echo said. “But now tell me more about this cowboy. Is he that young boy you had a crush on in Tulia? I still think that’s why your dad made us move to Daisy. He always had it in the back of his mind that you’d marry someone at the commune.”

  “That’s the same one,” Rose told her. “Seeing him again doesn’t mean I’m going to marry him.”

  “You never forget a first love. If you could, I wouldn’t be living where I am today.” Echo’s laughter seemed more than a little brittle.

  “Speaking of the cowboy, I hear him out in the foyer. Got to go. Call you again in a couple of days. Love you, Mama,” Rose said.

  “I hear your dad coming in for supper. Love you right back.”

  The call ended abruptly. Rose didn’t even have to shut her eyes to know that her mother was in the bathroom, hiding the cell phone in among things that her father would never, ever look inside.

  “Hello?” Hud called out.

  Rose stood up and headed toward the foyer. He’d smelled like a smokestack when he left. Now that he’d cleaned up, something woodsy with a slight hint of musk floated across the room toward her. His dark hair was combed back, and he held his hat in one hand and an army-green canvas bag in the other.

  “Where do I put this?” he asked.

  “Drop it over there by the credenza. I’ve ordered a pizza for supper, and then we can talk about Dixie’s future. Aunt Luna and I took the baby to see her. They’re probably going to release her tomorrow, so we went by Aunt Molly’s church closet and then the Walmart store to get her a few things.” Rose led the way back to the living room. “I’ve offered her a job here until I leave.”

  “I think I’ve found her a job working in a quilt shop with…” He paused.

  “With who?” Rose wondered if the quilt shop lady was one of Hud’s old girlfriends. Not that it was any of her business, but still she did wonder.

  “Levi is the foreman over on the ranch next to mine—where Emily lives—and he’s married to Claire, who has a quilt shop and is pregnant. She’s been looking for help, like in not temporary, but if…”

  “Hey,” Rose said, “I just want her to not be homeless. She can stay here until she and Claire talk.”

  “Thank you.” Hud stood in the middle of the floor.

  “If we’re going to be parents for a day, then you can make yourself at home,” she said. “In your wildest dream
s, did you ever figure you’d find yourself in this situation?” Rose put the baby on a pallet on the floor.

  “Not one time.” Hud sat down beside Sally. “You sure are a pretty little girl.”

  Sally gave him a big grin.

  The doorbell rang and Aunt Luna yelled, “Supper is here. I’ll bring it on back to the kitchen.”

  Passing the evening with a baby and an old aunt full of sass, Rose and Hud had little time to talk to each other. She was able to steal several long looks at him, and for a cowboy who didn’t know anything about babies, he was pretty dang good at making Sally giggle. When bedtime came, he looked over at Rose with those deep green eyes that had mesmerized her even back in junior high school.

  “Whose room is Sally sleeping in tonight?” he asked.

  “You brought her in, so she’s all yours for the night.” Luna yawned. “I’m going to bed. See you kids in the morning. I’ll make breakfast and then maybe we’ll get the call to go get Dixie. So don’t worry, Hud, it’s only for one night.” She waved good night to them as she left the room.

  “You’ve got that deer-in-the-headlights look.” Rose laid a hand on his arm. “How about we both watch her through the night right here in the living room?”

  Hud wiped his brow. “Thank you—again—only this time from the depths of my soul. I’m not afraid of snakes, spiders, or wild women, but babies terrify me.”

  She giggled. “Okay, then, let’s do it this way. I’ll take the couch and you can have the recliner. We’ll…” She threw up a hand when Chester came out from his little igloo home behind the sofa. “I forgot about the cat.”

  “We should’ve bought that little bed-thing with a zippered net over it. Walmart is open twenty-four hours. I can go back and get it. Then we can put her in it, and she’ll…”

  “That sounds great,” Rose said. “You can be there and back in the time it takes me to give her a night bottle.”