Courting the Cowboy

by Liz Isaacson

  “Time to choose, May,” she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes and said a prayer, focusing on all the things in her life she had to be grateful for. It wasn’t until the very end that she asked for guidance and clear eyes to see the path she should take.

  She waited, almost desperate for the earth to shake and the Lord’s voice to direct her. But only a soft, peaceful feeling came into her heart, causing her eyes to whip open. Then she stood and headed for her car, her decision made.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Kurt kept the harvester right on the line, his time in the hay fields some of his favorite hours. Especially now. He didn’t need to endure any more staring from the other men, and while he appreciated Dwayne’s friendship and the way Felicity didn’t act like he’d sprouted a second head, Kurt was still trying to find his place on the ranch again.

  With the harvest in full swing, he’d pushed his hours back to where they were before he’d started dating May, and Kurt found he liked the hard work. Liked the way he could come home for lunch and just eat, not throw together a sandwich and head back out so he could get off early to go into town.

  The radio on the dash of the tractor flashed with a yellow light, and Kurt lifted it to his mouth. “Kurt here.”

  “You’ve got a visitor,” Dwayne said.

  Kurt frowned as he pressed the button to speak. “Who is it?”

  “She won’t give her name.”

  He couldn’t tell if Dwayne sounded upset or not, but he needed twenty more minutes to finish this field, and it would take ten to get back to the main buildings of the ranch and ten more to come finish the job.

  “I’ll be another half an hour,” Dwayne said into the device. “Ask her if she can wait that long.”

  He wanted the visitor to be May, but at the same time he didn’t. He didn’t know what to say to her, and of course, she didn’t know what to say to him. She hadn’t chatted him through TexasFaithful all those weeks ago. It had been Alicia, who also still had access to him despite his unavailable status. He hadn’t responded to her, because he wasn’t interested in rekindling that flame. Not after May. Not after he knew what love felt like.

  He kept the machine on track while he waited for Dwayne to answer. Whoever it was—May or not—would either wait or they wouldn’t.

  “She can wait,” he said.

  “Great,” Dwayne said. “Thirty minutes.” He’d come in sweaty and covered in dust and hay fibers. He usually got into the shower as fast as he could after mowing, because he couldn’t stand the way his skin itched from all the tiny blades of hay.

  He finished his work and headed into the epicenter of the ranch. Kurt couldn’t help scanning the lanes and lots for cars, hoping to get an idea of who had been waiting for him all this time. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Felicity’s red mustang sat in the driveway of the homestead. Ranch trucks took up the parking lot. Kurt’s heart skipped a couple of beats as he pulled up the equipment shed, but he managed to quiet his pulse as he collected his water bottle and his phone, got down, and went inside to mark which fields he’d mowed and how long it had taken.

  He’d been in charge of the gasoline for the tractors since his first day here at Grape Seed Ranch, and he knew how much it cost to harvest, how much they’d make back in extra hay sales, and how many men it took to tend to the acres and acres of land on the ranch.

  After swallowing the last of his water, he headed over to the homestead. Dwayne hadn’t exactly said that was where he’d keep the visitor, but Kurt wasn’t sure where else she’d be.

  “Hello?” he called as he entered the house.

  Footsteps sounded and then Felicity appeared in the doorway leading to the kitchen. “Kurt.” She sounded surprised. “Dwayne’s still out on the ranch.”

  “Oh, uh, he said someone was here to see me.” He hooked his thumb over his shoulder. “Do you know where he is?”

  “I was just out there with him. I left him in the hot circle.”

  “All right.” Kurt turned to leave, then twisted back. “Do you know who’s here to see me?”

  “No,” Felicity said but her eyes said she did.

  “Is it May?” he asked.

  The half-scared, half-sympathetic look on her face said yes. Her shrug said I don’t know. Her voice said, “No.”

  Kurt chuckled. “You’re not a very good liar, Felicity.”

  She sighed and chuckled. “I’m really not, am I?” She took a couple of quick steps forward. “Just be…just listen to her.”

  “I’ve always listened to her, Felicity.”

  She nodded, a smile quirking her lips. “I know you have, Kurt. Good luck.”

  “So where is she?”

  “I think Dwayne let her into your cabin.”

  A jolt of surprise darted through him. What May could glean from thirty minutes alone in his cabin, he wasn’t sure. But she had keen eyes and she’d probably seen the empty shelves in his fridge and could feel the staleness in the rooms where he slept. Because he certainly wasn’t living in his cabin, not the way he used to.

  His footsteps started out quick, his pulse galloping along with them. But the closer he got to his cabin, the slower he moved. Time seemed to pause, and he could see the dust hanging in the very air.

  He had one foot on the bottom step leading up to his porch when May stood from the chair he sat in every morning. “Do you leave your coffee cup out here every day?” she asked, curling her fingers around the pillar at the top of the steps.

  “Yes.” He couldn’t seem to lift his leg to take another step. May was so beautiful, everything inside him tightened and his desire to rush into her personal space and trace her fingertips along the lines of her face skyrocketed. He had them memorized, and he was glad his memory remembered the depth of her eyes, the slender angle of her neck.

  She wore a pair of black slacks and a black-and-white blouse with big, patchy flowers. Her black heels completed the look, and told him that she was supposed to be at the restaurant, not standing on his front porch.

  He licked his lips, already anticipating kissing her.

  Stop it, he told himself. He also keenly remembered sitting for hours on her couch, waiting for her. The loss he felt when he’d decided to give up his cabin here on the ranch and live with her after they got married. The way he’d asked her three times to go buy an engagement ring and she hadn’t made the time.

  He searched for the necklace now and couldn’t find it around her neck. So she hadn’t come here to make up with him. He settled both feet back on the ground and folded his arms. “What do you want, May?”

  She startled away from the post and retraced her steps back to the table that yes, still held his coffee cup from that morning. He hadn’t come in from the fields all day, and thus hadn’t put it away at lunch the way he normally did.

  “So I was shopping this morning, and I found this shirt.” The rustling of a paper bag sounded, and then May clicked back over to the top of the stairs with a shirt in her hands. She held the purple and white plaid garment up to her body. “I was hoping you’d tell me if it was the right thing to wear on the ranch.”

  Confusion riddled Kurt’s thoughts, and he grunted. It sounded like a scoff, and May’s expression fell. “I just don’t want to stick out like a sore thumb,” she said.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Kurt said.

  May came down one step, then another. “Dwayne hired me,” she said. “I’m going to be feeding horses.” A look of fear came across her face. “Or something like that.”

  Kurt didn’t give her an extra inch, and May stopped on the second stair, the same height as him now. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Dwayne hired you to feed horses? What about Sotheby’s?”

  May looked straight into his eyes, and Kurt tried really hard not to lose himself in the gorgeous depths. He tried, and failed.

  “I gave up Sotheby’s,” she said. Just like that. No hitch in her voice. No turmoil in her eyes. “The restaurant cos
t me what I wanted most, and that was you.”

  Kurt’s whole soul sang with her words, and his fingers twitched toward her. Felicity had told him to listen, and he was going to keep listening.

  “I’m miserable without you,” she continued. “I can’t sleep, and I don’t want to keep pasting on a smile and asking people how their steak is. I want to be waiting right here on the porch when you come home, just like I was tonight. I want to make your coffee in the morning and kiss you good-night.” Tears splashed her cheeks, and still Kurt stood there, saying nothing.

  She swiped at her eyes. “I wear this ring every day, and I dream of when I can trade it in for a real engagement ring.” She shook her head, her long hair brushing her forearms. “I don’t want Sotheby’s, Kurt. I want you. I want—”

  “Enough, May.” Kurt swept his arms around May and brought his lips closer to hers. “I’ve listened and heard enough, May.” He kissed her, everything in him rejoicing to once again be hers.

  “Did you really give up the restaurant?”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “And I’d do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, if you’ll just take me to buy an engagement ring.”

  Kurt pushed her hand off both sides of her face. “What changed your mind?”

  “You did, Kurt. It’s always been you.” She touched her lips to his again and pulled back almost immediately. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see it. I think I always knew, but I was afraid.”

  Kurt held her close, enjoyed the heat of her body pressed against his though the end-of-summer temperatures were stifling. “There’s no way you can survive out here,” he said.

  “You’ll slowly suffocate at my house in town.”

  “And you’ll be miserable without your restaurant.” Kurt stepped back, his helplessness of the past several weeks returning almost as fast as it had disappeared. “How are we gonna make this work?”

  “This makes me happy,” she said. “You make me happy. Just sitting here while you worked, I’ve been more at peace than I have been since you walked out of my house for the last time.”

  “May.” Kurt backed up a few steps, trying to make everything line up in his head. “I’ve seen you at that restaurant.”

  “Not since you left, you haven’t. I can’t have both, that’s been made really clear. So I chose, and I choose you.” She smiled at him, edging a little closer. “Are you telling me you don’t love me? Because I’m in love with you, and I don’t care about anything else.”

  Kurt couldn’t help the grin that popped onto his face. “You think you can live out here at the ranch?”

  “You have a kitchen where I can bake. There’s lots of privacy out here, which you know I like. I’ve already talked to Juan Carlos and Beth about taking over the restaurant, so that’s all set.” May checked the items off on her fingers. “I love you, and you love me. Oh, and Char would be in pure heaven out on this ranch.”

  “May.” Kurt shook his head, still unsure about taking her from everything she’d known for the last four decades of her life.

  “Are you saying you want to keep courting me?” she asked, her tone flirty and fun. “Or do you want to go get engaged?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  May looked up at Kurt, hoping and praying with everything she had that he’d stop thinking so hard about things. “Kurt, I’m not giving anything up,” she said. “And even if I was, I’m gaining so much more.”

  He pulled her into a tight hug and held her close. “You’re sure? Like one hundred percent sure?”

  “One hundred percent.” And May had never been so happy to say such a thing. The indecision had nearly killed her these past several weeks, and she was so glad she knew now. Without a doubt, she wanted Kurt in her life more than a restaurant.

  “Then let’s go buy a ring,” he said, slinging his arm around her shoulder and leading her toward his truck. After helping her up, he leaned into the doorway. “So did you snoop around my cabin while I was out mowing?”

  “Of course.” She grinned, sobering quickly. “And I really think I can live out here. Patches stayed right by me the whole time, and he’s such a sweetheart.”

  “He’s an old dog,” Kurt said. “Partly blind.”

  “Stop it.” She shoved his shoulder playfully, and he fell back a few steps. Once he joined her in the cab of the truck, she couldn’t help looking right at him. “I really do love you, you know.”

  Kurt’s whole face burst into a joyous smile. “And I love you, Miss May.” He put the truck in gear and set it toward town. “Do you want to go to a shop in town? Or should we go over to Austin or down to San Antonio?”

  “Something here is fine,” she said. “I like Wren’s shop.”

  “Wren Monroe?”

  “She selects every diamond herself, and her family’s come to the restaurant for years.” May scooted across the seat and tucked her arm into his. “She said she’d give me a discount.”

  “You mean she’ll give me a discount.” He cut her a look out of the corner of his eye.

  May giggled and hugged his arm. “Right. She’ll give you a discount.”

  Kurt laughed with her, and May couldn’t believe it had taken her so many sleepless nights and so much misery before she’d done what everyone had counseled her to do.

  Better late than never, she told herself.

  “I turned thirty-nine this summer,” she said. “And we’ve never talked about one very important thing….”

  “Oh yeah?” Kurt asked. His fingers squeezed hers. “Sorry I missed your birthday, sweetheart.”

  “Oh, we’re not going to spend the next few hours apologizing for every little thing,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you about having children. Because I think if we want kids—and let me say up front that I do—we’ll need to do that pretty much right out of the wedding gate.”

  Kurt sucked in a breath, but May continued. She honestly didn’t have time to waste. “So, cowboy, do you want children?”

  His answer came in that low, husky voice she’d missed so much. “I’m almost fifty years old, May. You think I’m capable of being a good dad?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  His fingers tightened on hers, almost to the point of pain. “I want kids, May.”

  She smiled and leaned her head against his bicep, happier and more content than she’d ever been in her whole life. Even standing in her father’s shadow as he taught her how to make cheesecake. Even wearing her chef’s jacket as she baked.

  She’d never been as happy as she was when she was with Kurt, and she never wanted to be without him again.

  Six Months Later:

  May hummed as she moved from the island in the cabin to the stove and dropped a handful of onions in the melted butter. She picked up the wooden spoon and stirred them around and turned back to the cutting board to get the garlic.

  Though it was still spring, it wasn’t really soup weather. Didn’t matter. Today called for Kurt’s favorite meal, and May was going to give it to him. Since they’d gotten married three months ago, May had adapted to life on the ranch quite well, in her opinion.

  She knew all the men’s names now, and they greeted her with kindness whenever she went out on the ranch. She’d learned all the names of the horses and dogs that hung around too, and there were more of them than people. She liked spending Sunday lunches with Dwayne and Felicity, and when she needed a moment with just her and the Lord, there was plenty of space for that here at Grape Seed Ranch.

  So maybe she missed Sotheby’s sometimes. Most days, in fact. But after she’d left, she found she only missed the people at Sotheby’s. Ally and Juan Carlos. The patrons that came in every week. Mingling and talking with the townspeople of Grape Seed Falls, and sitting in the family’s corner booth.

  She didn’t miss the eighteen-hour days, or her aching fingers from pressing pie dough into tart tins, or the constant stress of thinking about schedules, and menus, and the cost of food.

  So she’d ta
lked to Kurt, and they’d decided to eat at Sotheby’s every Friday night. She’d reserved the family booth for them, and they hadn’t missed a week in months. Juan Carlos and Beth joined them sometimes, and even her parents had as well.

  The door opened, and Kurt walked in, about an hour earlier than May was expecting him. “Hey,” she said, some surprise in her voice. “What are you doin’ here?”

  “The wind’s kicked up,” he said. “This spring is really giving us a run for our money.” He wrestled the door closed and leaned his back against it. “Is that garlic I smell?”

  May giggled as his bootsteps came closer. “Sure is, cowboy. I’m making chili and cornbread. Your grandmother’s recipe.” Her fingers twitched toward the ring she still wore around her neck, and she glanced away from the pot of sautéing vegetables to look at the diamond he’d bought her only six months ago.

  Her heart pounded, knocking against her ribcage and rebounding up her throat. “I have some news,” she said.

  Kurt’s arms snaked around her from behind, and his lips touched the soft skin just behind her ear. “News? You haven’t left the ranch today.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Spies.” He chuckled, their running joke continuing. As foreman, Kurt seemed to know everything that happened on the ranch, no matter who it involved and where it happened. He claimed to have spies, but May just thought he was superhuman.

  “No, I haven’t left the ranch.” But May didn’t need to leave the ranch for this kind of news. She’d never said the words pulsing against the back of her tongue, and she felt slightly sick.

  She turned into Kurt’s arms and gazed up at him, her smile instant—and not just because of his handsome face. “Kurt, we’re gonna have a baby.”

  He blinked, his own smile spreading slowly across his face. “Yeah? That’s great, sweetheart.” He laughed as he buried his face in her neck, as joy coursed through her. She giggled with him and held onto his strong shoulders as he spun her around, right there in his cabin kitchen.