“Okay. I want a hamburger.”
Forty minutes later they were back. Still no sign of Lisa’s car. Sam sat on the top step and watched Joey play in the year. It wasn’t a ranch, but it at least afforded him room to run and play. Better than the apartment he’d seen in Fort Worth.
Where was Lisa?
Had she gone out with someone else?
The thought made him feel sick. He’d tried to talk to her before the accident. She’d made no effort since to contact him. How clear did a man need it?
A lot clearer, he thought. He wanted to see her, touch her, kiss her. Then ask her again. Maybe he should take her to bed and ask in the midst of passion. Or maybe he shouldn’t ask again, just move in with her until she agreed to move out to the ranch with him.
“No, it’s marriage or nothing,” he said.
“What, Daddy?” Joey asked, pausing in his game.
“Nothing, just wondering where your mother is.”
“If she doesn’t come home, can I go back to the ranch with you?”
“Sure, partner.”
If she doesn’t come home, he wanted to know why no one had mentioned Lisa dating anyone. She’d said she hadn’t dated during their two years apart.
Not like him who had tried to drive her memory away by making as many new ones as he could.
But he was determined he was going to see her today. Even if they waited until dark!
* * *
AS THE HOURS ticked slowly by, Lisa grew uncertain. Maybe this had been a bad idea. Obviously Sam wasn’t even around. Had he tried to call her after she’d left that morning to tell her where he and Joey were going?
Finally around two, she gave up and headed back to town.
Turning on her street, the first thing she noticed was Joey running in the yard. Then Sam’s truck. Then Sam sitting on the top step of her apartment house.
Instantly anticipation rose. She licked her lips, knowing she’d worn off all traces of lipstick. Darn the man, what was he doing here?
The carefully rehearsed words fled. Heart pounding, she stopped the car and climbed out, her eyes meeting Sam’s holding as she walked around the front of the car and started toward the porch.
“Where the hell have you been?” he roared, coming up in one swift movement.
Chapter Fourteen
“WHERE HAVE I been?” she asked, stopping and putting her fists on her hips. “I like that. How long have you been here?”
“It seems like forever. Out with a date?”
Lisa almost burst out laughing. “That’s a joke, right? I’ve been sitting on your front porch since nine o’clock this morning!”
He looked at her.
“Hi, Mommy,” Joey ran over to give her a hug, then ran back to his game.
One side of Sam's mouth lifted in a half smile. Her heart skidded began beating frantically. He was a beautiful man.
“We’ve been here since about then. We must have passed each other.”
She blinked. Some of her indignation faded. “You’ve been here? Why?”
He walked down the steps and met her on the walkway. “Why were you at the ranch.”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“About time.”
“What?”
“I said about time. I’ve been waiting for two weeks for you to want to talk to me,” he said.
She frowned. “I don’t think so, buster. I wanted to talk to you at the hospital. I called during the week. Left messages.”
He reached out and brushed a strand of hair off her check, his fingertips gentle against her skin. “I didn’t know that.”
“Nick said you didn’t want to see me,” she said, memorized by the flame in his eyes.
“Oh, I wanted to see you, Lisa. I wanted to more than see you.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Lisa threw her arms around him and held on tight. She kissed him with all the pent up love and heartache and uncertainty in her. This is where she belonged. This is where she longed to be right with Sam. Forever.
Sanity returned slowly. He leaned back and gazed into her eyes.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I want you to marry me again. I’m crazy about you. And you still feel something for me, I know it.”
“Yes.”
“Those days in Houston were as close to perfect as we can get. I didn’t want them to end.”
“Me, neither.”
“And this bit about Joey spending one week at the ranch and one week here is for the birds. He needs both parents and we owe it to him to provide him a safe, secure home.”
“I agree.”
“So no arguments, I want you to marry me and stay with me forever this time.”
“Yes.”
He pulled back and tilted his head to one side. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She laughed joyfully. “Yes, to getting married. Yes, to giving Joey a united family. Yes, to living on the ranch, and yes to being crazy about you. That’s why I went to the ranch. I was going to talk to you about that very thing. I love you, Sam. I did before, I did while we were apart and I still do. It obviously isn’t going to change.”
“I’m crazy about you, Lisa Haller.” He kissed her quickly, then picked her up and spun her around.
Her shrieks of laughter drew Joey’s attention.
“Daddy, swing me, too!” he yelled, running over to his parents.
“Sure thing, partner. Guess what? Your mama just agreed to come to the ranch. We’re all going to live there, what do you think about that?” Sam picked his son up and held the two of them in his arms.
“Really?” Joey’s eyes grew big as he looked from Sam to Lisa.
“Really,” she concurred. “As soon as your daddy and I get married.”
“Not today, huh?” Sam asked, his eyes twinkling.
“Not today. But soon?”
“Soon as we can make it. I’ll call about getting a license first thing tomorrow. Wish the courthouse was open today.”
Lisa felt sheltered in the arms of the man she loved. True, he hadn’t said he loved her. But maybe he didn’t know the words. Or the feelings.
“Sam?”
“Yes?”
“Do you like me more than your horse?”
He looked at her as if she’d gone crazy. “What kind of dumb fool question is that? Of course I like you better than my horse.”
“Better than Nick?”
He took a moment to consider the question, his eyes narrowing. “Maybe. Different, that’s for sure.”
Lisa smiled. “How about Joey?”
“Same different, but yeah, maybe a shade better. What’s got into you?”
“Nothing.” He loved her. He just didn’t say the words. ‘Crazy about you’ would have to do. Her love blossomed and consumed her as she reached up to kiss him gently on the lips. “I’m crazy about you,” she whispered.
“Me, too, babe. Me, too!” He hesitated a minute, then set Joey down. “Run play, Joey. I have something else to talk about with your mom.”
“When can we go to the ranch?”
“Later. We’ll go back later.”
Lisa watched as Joey ran across the yard, yelling his delight. How could she have taken her son from his father? She would never leave again.
“Lisa, there’s still the new baby,” Sam said.
“I know. I’ve thought about it a lot. You’re right, I’ll probably fall in love with it the moment it’s born.”
“I’d change that if I could.”
She nodded. “I know you would. But we can’t. And the situation is of our own making. Each has a responsibility to it. But I love you more than I’m jealous of Margot.”
“You needn’t be, sweetheart. I tried to replace you, but couldn’t. Margot is just a wild girl who got caught.”
“Is two kids all you want?”
“I want a house full, how about you?”
Lisa nodded. Things would
work out. She would make sure this time.
Two Years Later....
“MOMMY, MOMMY, DADDY’S coming!” Little Holly Haller jumped up and down on the porch in her excitement as she spotted Sam heading for the house from the barn. Joey ran along side him, talking nineteen to the dozen as usual.
Lisa stayed on the rocker, keeping an eye on Holly so she didn’t get too excited and tumble off the steps. She’d done that once months ago when first learning to walk and scared six months out of Lisa.
“He’ll be here in a minute, honey, don’t get near the edge.”
Holly spun around and ran to Lisa, flinging her arms up.
“Up!” she demanded.
Despite her bulk, Lisa readily complied. She loved holding this child of her heart. Holly was sweet and loving and a joy to be around. The prophesy had come true. Lisa had fallen in love with Holly the day she was born the very moment, she often thought. Margot had graciously allowed both Sam and Lisa to be in the delivery room. She’d signed the adoption papers while still in the hospital.
Every once in a while she’d drop by to see her daughter, but she had no regrets about relinquishing her care to Lisa and Sam.
“So how are my girls today?” Sam asked, stepping up on the porch.
“I painted, Daddy,” Holly said, struggling to get down as quickly as she had to get up.
Lisa laughed and reached up her hands. These days she needed assistance in getting up.
“We had a lovely day, thank you. How about you and Joey?”
“He rode all the way to the property line without a lead, right partner?” Sam asked.
“I did, Mommy. I can ride all by myself now.”
At five, he was growing so fast she could hardly believe it. In September, he’d start school. She’d miss him being around all the time, but by then, his new brother or sister would have arrived to fill up her time. With Holly just two and a new baby, she’d have plenty to do.
And Sam. She spent as much time as she could with Sam. They had so much they liked doing together, she almost resented the time they spent apart. But the ranch and her work did place certain demands.
Which enable their time together to be all the sweeter, she’d decided long ago.
Sam kissed her, rubbing her swollen belly gently. “I’m crazy about you,” he said for her ears alone.
Lisa smiled. It was more than enough.
~ * ~
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About the Author
Barbara McMahon is an award-winning, best selling author of more than eighty novels. Known for warm family type stories, she enjoys capturing the first stage of a relationship and showing how despite obstacles thrown in their way, a man and a woman can find true love and lasting happiness.
Her books have been translated into 23 different languages and sold in more than 50 foreign countries.
For more than twenty-five years she's made her home in Northern California, the last nineteen in the rural county of Amador—in the heart of California's gold rush country.
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Once Upon A Cowboy
The Wacky Women Series
Book 2
by
Day Leclaire
Previously titled: Once A Cowboy
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To our family’s own “Marlboro Man,”
my father, Stephen M. Totton,
who first introduced me to
the wonders of the West.
Prologue
At the A-OK Corral, outside Lullabye, Colorado...
HOLT WINSTON FLIPPED through the stack of resumés cluttering his desk, his expression growing darker by the minute. Why the hell had he waited so long to fill the last remaining wrangler position? Procrastination wasn't his usual style. But it sure had grabbed hold on this particular task.
He glanced at the next resumé and tossed it aside with a practiced flick of his fingers. He knew damned well why he sat here as stubborn as a mule asked to jump the Grand Canyon. It was for one reason and one reason only.
Gwen. As usual, he could trace the root of his recent woes straight to his city-loving ex-wife. When she’d waltzed out the door, she’d scooped up and pocketed every last penny in his bank account. She’d even cleaned out the spare change under his couch cushions. She’d come as close to bankrupting him as he’d ever care to get.
Turning the A-OK Corral into a dude ranch offered his only chance for salvation. Not that he liked it. No way, no how. Unfortunately, it didn’t change a damn thing. What was done was done. What remained as a result… Well, he’d just have to swallow it down like some sort of foul tasting elixir.
He turned his displeasure on the stack of resumés. Even so, hiring hands for a dude ranch gnawed at him, twisting in his gut like a blunt-edged knife. Being good with rope, horse, and cow didn’t count for much anymore. To be worth their salt, wranglers who worked dude ranches had to be good with people, too. A sorry state of affairs, that's what it was. But one he'd put up with until he'd got himself back in the black. And the only way to accomplish that involved opening his gates to outsiders.
Now because of his little aversion, all the good wranglers were taken. Which left him a day late, a dollar short, a man shy and knee deep in cow— Hold the horses!
He snatched a resumé from the pile and tipped back his hat. Well, now. If that didn't beat all. Here in the middle of this heap of manure, he'd found a gold nugget. A gold nugget by the name of Tex Greenbush. A natural born cowboy who, if the people recommending him weren't exaggerating, could "sweet talk the rattle off a diamondback."
Considering the strange and varied "city slickers" who visited each year, a sweet talking wrangler was one he couldn't afford to pass up. Hell, he couldn't afford to pass up a wrangler who could string more than two words together.
That decided, he yanked his standard contract from a drawer, scrawled his signature on the bottom, and stuffed it into an envelope with a brief acceptance note. A lick and a stamp and it was ready for the post office. With a practiced snap of his fingers, he sent the envelope spinning lazily through the air. It landed smack-dab in the center of the "outgoing" box on the far edge of his desk.
Then he tilted his oak swivel chair to a reckless angle and lifted a mud-spattered boot, dropping it square on top of the remaining resumés. Settling his hat low over his eyes, he grabbed his chipped mug and took a deep, satisfying swallow of coffee as thick as molasses and black as tar. Yep. Now that he’d taken care of that minor detail, he could enjoy the re
st of his day.
Life was perfect.
* * *
A few days later in Richmond, Virginia...
CAMI GREENBUSH WHOOPED for joy. "I did it! Holy mackerel, he hired me!" Tossing the letter, envelope, and contract she'd received into the air, she rushed to the window and flung it open, leaning out farther than caution dictated. "Hey, everybody!" she shouted, thick black curls tumbling about her flushed face. "I'm not just a cowboy, any more. I'm Tex Greenbush. A gen-u-ine, hired-for-the-season, employed cowboy."
Enthusiastic applause greeted her announcement. "Way to go, Cami," one neighbor yelled.
"We knew you could do it!"
"That's our girl."
She grinned at the well-wishers. "This calls for one heck of a celebration. Texas style, of course. You're all invited. Tonight. Up here. Seven o'clock. And fair warning, the chili's gonna be tongue-blisterin' hot."
"Er, Cami," her roommate, Diane, interrupted. "Have you read this acceptance letter?"
Cami retreated from her precarious position at the window. "Sure I have. It said, 'You're hired.' What else is there to read?"
Diane sighed, studying the papers. "Well, the contract for one thing. It stipulates a two week trial period."
"No problem."
"No problem, unless this Holt Winston decides you can't do the job. Then, according to this, he can fire you."
"He won't," Cami reassured, crossing to the kitchen. "Did I buy extra chili peppers last time I went shopping? I'm sure I did. We'll need lots for tonight."
Diane trailed after her. "Will you please pay attention? Once Mr. Winston realizes you can't rope, haven't been near a ranch in more than twenty years, and the last horse you rode was made of plastic and connected to a carousel, he'll have you on the next plane out of there."
Cami poked through the refrigerator. "Train. Real cowboys use two, and only two, forms of transportation. Their horse. And, when they absolutely must, a train."
"Girlfriend!"
"What?"
"He's going to discover you lied on that resumé and that's going to make him very angry."
Cami rocked back on her heels and glared indignantly at her roommate. "Lied? What lies are you talking about?"
"Your roping skills for one," Diane said pointedly.
Love Me Some Cowboy Page 52
