The Cowboy's Twins

by Deb Kastner

The assembly was deathly silent—exactly as Jax had expected. No surprise there. He could hear his own breath, loud and ragged, scratching through the hush of the crowd.

  He wanted to curl in on himself, but instead he straightened his shoulders. He wouldn’t cower, nor would he let anyone know how difficult this was for him. If he stood still long enough, the charade would play itself out and be over in a minute.

  No one would bid on him. He’d swallow his pride and humiliation and go back to his ranch where he belonged. At least there he could find a semblance of peace among his award-winning herd of quarter horses, bred and trained for the rodeo circuit.

  “Don’t tell me there’s not a-one of you ladies out there who needs a few chores done around your houses or ranches—something that requires a big, strapping man? Moving boxes, maybe? Bales of hay?”

  Still nothing. Just the rustling sound of a few awkwardly shifting feet. A cough or two.

  Jax caught Jo’s gaze, silently begging her to shoot him now and put him out of his misery. Honestly, he’d be willing to cough up a couple of hundred bucks out of his own pocket if it meant he could just walk away.

  Jo frowned, lifted her chin and shook her head.

  Stubborn old woman.

  “I know most of y’all already know this about him, but he’s a wonder with horses. Top-notch. Anyone have a horse that needs training?”

  This was ridiculous. Jax had had enough, and no doubt the crowd had, too. They were a nice enough bunch and they were probably feeling a whole lot of sorry for him right now.

  Well, he didn’t want their pity.

  “Five,” came a sweet, soft soprano located somewhere near the back of the crowd. Jax didn’t believe he recognized the woman’s voice, which was odd, since he knew most everyone in the small town.

  “I’m sorry, dear,” Jo said, cupping a hand to her ear. “You’ll have to speak up. I couldn’t quite make out what you said.”

  “Five,” the voice repeated, stronger and nearer to the platform now. “Hundred. Dollars. Five hundred dollars for the cowboy.”

  Half a grand? For him?

  Jax scanned the crowd until his gaze locked on the clearest, most sparkling hazel eyes he’d ever seen. The gaze belonged to a tall, lithe, blond-haired young lady who’d finally managed to work her way to the front of the crowd.

  He’d definitely never seen her before. No way would he forget the kind of beauty she possessed. She looked as if she’d just walked off the cover of one of those fancy New York fashion magazines. Dressed that way, too, with a poofy purple scarf wound multiple times around her supple neck, a silky emerald shirt and designer jeans that emphasized her long legs but had definitely never seen the back of a horse. Most telling were her three-inch spiked heels that sunk into the soft grass with every step.

  The woman actually had cash in her hand—five crisp Benjamin Franklins, which she waved in the air like a flag.

  “Five hundred dollars,” she repeated for the third time. “But please, don’t make me lasso the poor man.”

  * * *

  The woman operating the cash box flashed Faith Dugan a welcome smile as Faith pressed five hundred-dollar bills into her palm. She hadn’t had time to visit the local branch of Serendipity’s bank to establish a checking account, and she felt awkward waving around that kind of cash. Apparently, she looked awkward, too—which she imagined was the reason all eyes were now upon her.

  That and the fact that she was a newcomer in a crowd of people who had no doubt been born and raised in this town. Serendipity, Texas, wasn’t the kind of place folks moved in and out of. She was the exception. And she seemed to have shocked everyone by shelling out five hundred dollars for the brooding cowboy.

  Faith wasn’t trying to impress anyone. She just needed help rebuilding her newly purchased ranch property, which she hoped soon would be a bona fide mustang rescue.

  “You’re new in town?” the woman asked. “Jo mentioned we had a new resident. I’m glad to meet you. I’m Alexis Haddon. You’re going to love living in Serendipity.” To Faith’s surprise, Alexis pulled her into an exuberant hug, as if they were old friends. She’d had plenty of smiles and welcomes in the few days she’d been in town. Folks around here sure were outgoing and friendly. It was nothing like large, busy and somewhat impersonal Hartford, Connecticut, where she’d been born and raised.

  “Thank you.” Faith hoped her response to Alexis’s hug didn’t appear as awkward as she felt. “I’m Faith Dugan. I just bought the Dennys’ old property.”

  Excitement bubbled up inside her every time she thought about her plans for the place, but she bit her tongue to keep from bursting out her intentions. Now was hardly the time to get into her reasons for settling in town.

  Alexis blew out a low whistle. “I’d heard that someone had picked up the place. You sure chose a fixer-upper. I hope you enjoy a challenge. Old man Denny was an eighty-five-year-old widower, and his health got so poor that he couldn’t work the place himself for the last ten years of his life. He didn’t have any family, and he was in a senior center in San Antonio for the last couple of years. His ranch just sat there vacant. Such a shame.”

  Despite her eagerness for the project, Faith cringed inwardly at the reminder of the size of the task ahead of her. She’d been evaluating the ranch for repairs, but she’d hoped it wasn’t in quite as bad of shape as it seemed. Apparently, her assessment had been fairly accurate. There was a reason the asking price for the property had been well under market value. It was going to take a lot of work to get her new ranch into running condition so she could host the herd of wild mustangs she intended to save.

  But that was fine—she was up for the challenge. She wasn’t going to let a little hard work put her off her dreams.

  “People like Mr. Denny are the reason we’re holding the auction today,” Alexis went on. “So we can build a senior center and hospice here in town. Poor Mr. Denny wouldn’t have had to have spent his last years so far away from the town he was born and raised in if we’d had a facility available. It wouldn’t have made any difference to the state of his ranch, of course, but he could have come to church, spent time with some familiar faces. Serendipity folk like to take care of their own.”

  “It’s a good cause,” Faith agreed, offering up a silent prayer for Mr. Denny, the poor man who’d died alone, far from his home. She knew what it felt like to be lonely.

  “We appreciate your generosity, bidding in our auction,” Alexis continued with her vibrant, upbeat chatter, “especially since you’re a newcomer. I’m sure your neighbors will be around to introduce themselves to you if they haven’t already. Everyone is a friend here. As an added bonus, you’ve won Jax. You’ve made a good choice. He’s a big ol’ brute, but don’t let that scare you off. He has a heart of gold and those muscles of his were earned through hard labor. He knows ranching backward and forward. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of uses for him at the ranch.”

  Faith wasn’t certain how Jax would feel about Alexis’s summation of his capabilities and value. Faith had a hard time picturing Jax with a heart of gold given the sheen of ice obscuring his dark brown eyes.

  She didn’t require his heart for this job, nor did she have any interest in what color it was. What she needed was a pair of strong arms and maybe some good advice from someone who knew his way around a ranch. Jo had mentioned Jax was good with horses. If he could also pound nails and mend fences, so much the better.

  She would have had to hire someone to do the work, anyway. How awesome was it that her money would be doing double duty? She’d get the help she needed—for a little while, anyway—and the town would get its senior center built.

  Win, win.

  Though poor Jax sure didn’t seem to think he’d won anything.

  He definitely hadn’t looked as if he’d wanted to be standing on a platform hawking himself
, but she was sure he hadn’t been able to say no to gregarious, winsome Jo any more than Faith had. It was Jo who had convinced her it would be worthwhile to attend the auction today, to bid for one of the local men to help her clean up her run-down property. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but in hindsight, she now decided she must have been clean out of her mind to have bid on a perfect stranger—one who had looked large and intimidating even from a distance.

  Jax exited the stage, taking the stairs one slow step at a time, his gaze narrowed onto her and he frowned. The reluctance with which he moved to her side was palpable.

  Now, as he approached her, intimidated didn’t even begin to cover what she was feeling. At five feet ten inches in her bare feet—and three inches taller than that at the moment, thanks to her heels—Faith wasn’t in any way diminutive. She was taller than most women and many men, but Jax towered over her.

  Faith found it hard to believe that Jo had had the audacity to call him out by his given and middle names together, reminding her of the way a mother would scold an errant youngster climbing a tree. And right in front of the whole town, to boot. Jo and Jax must have a special relationship, because Faith had been shocked down to her shoes when Jax had turned around and returned to the platform just as Jo had asked.

  Yet he was no wayward child. Far from it. If she had to guess, she’d put him a few years older than her own twenty-seven years. Thirty-ish. She judged him to be over two hundred pounds of raw muscle and a good six feet four inches tall, cartoonishly huge next to Jo’s five-feet-nothing. He dwarfed the friendly redhead.

  Unlike the guy who’d come before him, he hadn’t even needed to flex for her—er—for the crowd to appreciate the strength of his broad shoulders and powerful biceps. Now in closer proximity, she inhaled the smell of him—all leather and raw man. Just the way he looked. The crazy thing was, that heady scent wasn’t unpleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact.

  If it weren’t for the scar on his face, she’d have thought he’d walked right out of an advertisement for aftershave or something else meant to be rugged and manly. Though honestly, the ragged, puckered scar that slashed across the man’s temple didn’t bother her as much as the fact that he appeared to be glowering. Not at her, thankfully, but at a couple of sturdy cowboys standing together near the other side of the stage. The guy who’d been bid on first was there, his arm curved familiarly around his wife’s waist. The other fellow, a big bear of a man whom Faith immediately dubbed Grizzly Adams, was grinning as if he’d triumphed in a race.

  Jax’s brothers, were Faith to guess. The family resemblance was striking in their similar strong features—the dark wavy hair and chiseled jaws.

  Alexis gave Faith’s shoulder an encouraging pat and turned back to the auction, where the next bachelor had broken into an impromptu round of “Home on the Range,” presumably to impress the ladies with his vocal capabilities. Faith thought perhaps the guy should have chosen another talent to display. Singing in tune didn’t appear to be part of his skill set. To Faith’s ears, he sounded a bit like a crowing rooster, but she supposed it was the thought that counted. For some inexplicable reason the crowd was encouraging the poor bachelor, which only made him bellow all the louder.

  She turned her attention to Jax. He was watching the guy on stage, but he didn’t appear to care one way or another about the assault on his ears. She observed him quietly, hoping to discern what he might be thinking by the look on his face. She could read nothing in his expression. It wasn’t empty so much as—hard. Frozen solid, like the frost in his eyes. His body language was equally as closed off, with his arms crossed over the bulk of his chest.

  “So,” she said, not at all certain how to start a conversation with him. “I brought a picnic basket full of goodies so we can share lunch together.” She knew she was rambling but didn’t seem to know how to stop. “I thought Jo’s idea was a clever twist to the event, allowing everyone to participate in one way or another. Men, women, singles and married alike. Don’t you think?”

  He didn’t respond, not even to acknowledge that she’d spoken to him. He hadn’t even bothered to turn his head in her direction.

  “Jax?” She touched his elbow to get his attention.

  He turned, his piercing, chocolate-brown eyes shifting to hers and widening in surprise, as if he’d forgotten she was there.

  Maybe he had.

  “I—er—” she stammered. “Did you want to stay and watch the rest of the auction?”

  Jax snorted. “Thank you, no. I am so done with this stupid event.”

  Faith smiled. “I thought you might be. I certainly wouldn’t want to have to put myself up for display on the auction block, but I appreciate your sacrifice for the sake of the senior center building fund.”

  “Oh, believe me, I felt like a sacrifice. The lamb-to-the-slaughter kind.” Jax grinned, his smile made slightly crooked by the tension created by his scar, which pulled the left side of his mouth higher than the right. It would have looked a bit like a grimace, except that his eyes were gleaming with amusement. “Thanks for rescuing me.”

  “My pleasure.” Her cheeks warmed. She couldn’t imagine why his words would make her blush. She swallowed and quickly recovered her composure. She pointed down the lawn. “I set my picnic basket under that oak tree over there. Are you hungry?”

  A laugh that sounded a little bit like a growl emerged from deep in his chest. “I’m always hungry.”

  Well, duh. She should have guessed that. Put fur on the guy and he could probably pass for Bigfoot. Of course he was hungry.

  “I hope I packed enough.”

  His right brow arched and the strained half grin returned.

  She was already blushing, but now heat rushed to her face and spread to her cheeks like a wildfire. Had she just said those words out loud?

  Open mouth, insert foot. Way to go, Faith. Insult the man ten seconds after meeting him.

  She quickly tried to recover, feeling as if she were scrambling backward as she stammered her way through her sentence. “Oh, n-no. That’s not what I intended to say. My words didn’t come out right at all. I—I only meant—”

  He held up one large work-calloused hand to stem the flow of her sputtering words. “It’s okay, ma’am. Whatever you’ve brought will be just fine, I’m sure. I’m not a difficult man to please.”

  “Please call me Faith,” she urged, brushing her suddenly sweaty palms against the denim of her designer skinny jeans.

  Acquiring new, more practical boot-cut jeans was on her priority list of things to do now that she was finally here in Serendipity. And as much as she loved her Jimmy Choos, her good pair of cowboy boots would have been much more sensible for the occasion. She was practically aerating the park grass with her three-inch spikes.

  “Faith,” he repeated, his rich, lyrical voice making her name sound like a musical note. “I’m Jax McKenna, and apparently I am at your service.”

  “It’s nice to officially meet you, Jax.” She held out her hand and he dwarfed it in his own. Again she had the impression of hard work and calluses, a complete contrast to her own lotion-softened, office-cubicle working hands.

  That will change. Soon.

  She’d spent the last few years working in accounting for a non-profit organization to save up the money for her horse sanctuary. Mere months from now she hoped and prayed that her palms would likewise carry the blisters of hard country labor. She could barely wait for that day, anticipating it like a child would Christmas morning. She was a city girl with a country heart.

  “Here we are,” she said, gesturing to a rather plain-looking brown wicker basket lingering next to the trunk of an oak, shaded from the glare of the sun by the old tree’s branches. As she looked around at the other baskets dotting the lawn, she couldn’t help but feel a little bit embarrassed. Her own meager offering looked so bare and ordinar
y next to the others. Many of the women had decorated their baskets with colorful plumes and ribbons. She wished she’d thought of that—especially because the man she’d be sharing a meal with looked as if he could use a few kindhearted gestures. But on the other hand, he didn’t seem like the sort of man who’d really be comfortable with something dolled up and fancy. Maybe plain was best, after all.

  Without speaking, Jax crouched over the basket, withdrawing a blue-checked plastic tablecloth that had been the best Faith could do under the circumstances. She’d arrived in Serendipity only two days ago and hadn’t learned of the auction until the day prior.

  How she’d come to bet on this particular tall, sturdy cowboy was a mystery even to her. It was nothing more than a gut feeling, but she’d learned over the years to follow those silent promptings.

  Thankfully, the man with the rooster voice had stopped singing, but the crowd was still hooting and hollering in the background. Jax didn’t seem to notice, nor, apparently, did he want to wait for the rest of the town to finish with the auction before he and Faith started on their picnic.

  He spread the tablecloth across the grass and gestured for her to sit. Then he pulled out plates and silverware and popped the top of a cola can before offering it to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, dropping onto the far corner of the plastic and folding her legs under her. “Although I feel like I ought to be doing the serving,” she said as he inspected the club sandwiches she’d made for the occasion. At least she’d used foot-long sub buns and loaded the sandwiches with meat, cheese and veggies. Dagwood would be proud of her creation.

  Jax glanced up at her, and the unscarred side of his lips curled upward. Close to a smile, at any rate. Faith would take it.

  “You paid for my time,” he reminded her. “I figured now is as good a time as any to start working off my—” He paused and bent his head as he considered how best to finish the sentence.

  “Community service?” she suggested, chuckling at the double meaning.

  “Yeah. That.” He wasn’t laughing.