Cowboy Daddy

by Carolyne Aarsen

  His mother gave him a tired smile. “I know how you feel. I’ve thought the same.”

  Her admission gave Kip some measure of relief. At least he didn’t feel like he was giving up on the boys.

  “You’ve taken on a lot since your father died. You’ve always taken everything on yourself.” Mary put her hand on his shoulder. “Now you’ve got the boys.”

  “Not for long, it seems.”

  He caught a glimmer of tears in his mother’s eyes. “I don’t want to see them go either, but you can only do so much.” She caught his hands in her own, turning them over. “We’ve all depended on you a lot. Depended on you to take care of us. To do what needed to be done. Then Nicole came and it was as if a burden shifted off your shoulders. She seemed to take some of what you were carrying on herself. The boys, me. Even Isabelle.” She released a short laugh and squeezed his hands. “What is more important, I saw you smile. I saw you happy. I saw you falling in love again. That hasn’t happened in a long time.”

  “I was in love with Nancy.”

  Mary shrugged. “I never saw you smile at Nancy the way I see you smile at Nicole, and I never saw you as upset about Nancy leaving the way you have been since Nicole left.”

  Kip eased out another sigh.

  “I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

  His mother squeezed his hands. “You can’t ‘do’ anything anymore. Now, I think you have to let go and let God.”

  The familiar adage had always seemed lame and empty, but now, in the face of a situation that Kip could not control, he knew he had to do exactly what his mother suggested.

  “Can we pray together?” his mother asked.

  He nodded and together they bowed their heads.

  “Please Lord, You know what is in our hearts. You know that we are concerned over what will happen to our boys, but at the same time, You know better what they need. Help us to trust that You will take care of them. Help us to realize that they were Yours before they were ever ours. Amen.”

  Before he raised his head, Kip added his own prayer for Nicole. For his own feelings for her. Because right now he was having a harder time putting her into God’s hands than he was the boys.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The room was everything a little boy could want and, Nicole guessed, no expense was spared. Nicole adjusted the pillows of the bed, shaped like a car, then eased out a sigh. The past couple of days she’d felt as if she were hurtling down a road she had no control over.

  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

  The verse of the Bible resonated through Nicole’s mind. Since arriving here, she had found an old Bible of her mother’s. She had brought it into her room and read it whenever she had the chance. Yesterday she had read this quote.

  Nicole clung to the words. She knew she would need the encouragement she had gotten from reading that in the next couple of days.

  She gently closed the door of the large room and walked down the carpeted hall and down the stairs, her hand trailing over the wooden banister. Tricia used to slide down it, but Nicole never dared be that rebellious.

  She glanced around the large foyer with its sparkling chandelier and windows that stretched up two and a half floors. Her mind slipped back to the jumbled porch of the Cosgrove household, the worn flooring in the kitchen and the faded paint on the outside of the house. In spite of the general air of neglect, that house felt more like a home than this house ever did.

  Her heart faltered. Though she had been gone from the ranch only two days, it seemed like two weeks. She hadn’t dared call Kip, but he had not called her either.

  She missed him so much it hurt her heart. She wondered what he was thinking right now. She wondered if he thought of her. If he missed her as much as she missed him.

  She wanted to talk to him, and chances were good she would one way or the other. The boys still had to be dealt with. But before she talked to Kip, she had to try one more thing.

  Please Lord, help me through this, she prayed, one hand clutching the wooden banister. Then she took a breath, and strode down the long hallway to the sun room where her father waited for her.

  “What do you think of the changes I’ve made for the boys?” Sam asked, looking up as she came into the room.

  Her father sat in a wicker chair, his cheeks shining and his eyes bright. He looked better than he had in months.

  And no wonder. He had a project and a purpose. Making plans and getting the house ready for Tricia’s boys, as he’d been calling them since Nicole came back. He’d already managed to find a school they could attend come fall and had looked into various sports programs they would be able to participate in.

  He was like a one-man freight train, pulling everyone along.

  “I love the playroom, and I’m sure they would too,” Nicole said quietly, settling into the padded wicker love seat across from her father.

  “Would?” Of course Sam would have caught that tiny slip of the tongue. “What do you mean by that?”

  Nicole wound a loose thread around the button on her cardigan, inarticulate words and thoughts piling up in her mind as she tried to sort out how to voice them.

  She was about to speak when her father gestured to the pile of envelopes sitting on the table between them. “Heather brought this for you to look at.”

  Nicole frowned. “I had asked Heather to take care of the mail at the office.”

  “Heather did mention something like that when I asked her to bring it.” Her father frowned. “You know all the ins and outs of the foundation’s correspondence better than she ever will.”

  “I won’t always be around,” Nicole said, trying to lead into one of the things she wanted to talk to her father about.

  “Nonsense. You’re my right-hand man.”

  I would prefer to be your daughter, Nicole thought.

  Instead she picked up the mail and started sorting through it.

  She glanced at the return address of a large envelope, wondering what this was about. The corner was emblazoned with the name of a clinic that was unfamiliar to her.

  She held up the envelope. “What’s this?” she asked. “Test results?”

  Her father looked up from the papers he was going over, then nodded. “I think that’s the DNA test I had to do. The same test that messed up the expectations of that Cosgrove family.”

  Nicole’s heart beat heavy in her chest at the contempt in her father’s voice.

  “That test didn’t mess up that family that much,” Nicole murmured, struggling against years of training that taught her to never, ever talk back to her father either as father or boss.

  “What do you mean?” her father growled, then began coughing.

  Nicole jumped to her feet and handed him a glass of water. He took the glass, took a drink, then stared up at Nicole. “They thought they had a biological claim on the boys, but they didn’t. We won.” He coughed again and took another drink.

  Nicole put the glass back, then returned to her seat. She picked up the letter and stared at it. “Won what?” she asked.

  “What is going on with you? Ever since you came back from Alberta you’ve been distracted. Like your mind is somewhere else.”

  It was, Nicole thought, slitting opening the envelope with her father’s silver letter opener. Her mind was with Kip and Tristan and Justin and Kip and Mary…and Kip.

  “I think you need to do something other than foundation work this afternoon,” her father said. “Why don’t you go out to one of those toy places and buy some kind of jungle gym for the yard,” her father said. “Get something for the boys to play on.”

  Nicole glanced through the windows of the sun room to the yard beyond. Though it was large by Toronto standards, it suddenly looked small and restrictive compared to what she knew Tristan and Justin were used to.

  “Would they love it?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Nicole pulled the letter slowly out of the envelope, still staring at the yar
d. “The only place those boys have known is the ranch. I wonder what it will be like for them to be uprooted from that.”

  Her father waved his hand, as if erasing her concerns. “You said yourself the Cosgroves were broke.”

  “I never said that. I said it didn’t look like they had an abundance of ready cash.” Which, when they thought the Cosgrove family might be willing to fight them in court, had been a concern.

  “You know we can give the boys a better life.”

  “In one way, yes we can, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to uproot them.”

  Her father almost snorted. “You were moved around a lot and you turned out fine. Because we gave you a better place than any of the places you lived before. We gave you the best home you ever had.”

  Something that had been pointed out to her daily.

  Something that never happened at the Cosgrove home. Tristan and Justin would grow up never knowing what Kip had sacrificed to be a father to them and to give them a home.

  She thought of his chuck-wagon racing and her mind ticked back to her ride with him. How his eyes, no, his entire face lit up with excitement and the pure pleasure of working with the horses. He gave all that up for the boys, but she never got any sense of regret from Kip.

  She riffled the papers in her hand, forcing herself to meet her father’s piercing gaze. “I’m not sure we can do the same for Tristan and Justin,” she said, quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Nicole kept her eyes on his, putting voice to the uncertainties that had grown in intensity in the past week. Uncertainty that had grown into a reality. “I’m not sure we can give them a better home than they have in Alberta. I think they have everything they will ever want or need there. They belong in Alberta. With the Cosgroves.”

  “What are you talking about?” Her father looked baffled, as if he wasn’t sure he had heard her properly.

  “They’ve lived with that family for four years. They are the only family they know.” Nicole’s voice faltered as she tried to articulate what she had to say.

  “What does that matter? Those boys don’t even belong to them. Never will, no matter what they may think. They belong here. They belong to me. They’re my only daughter’s sons.”

  Only daughter. Why, after all this time, could those words still hurt so much?

  Because she’d seen something else. She’d seen another kind of love. A kind of love that didn’t depend on biology. The kind of love that was pure gift.

  Just like God’s love.

  “I don’t think Tristan and Justin belong to anybody,” Nicole said carefully. “We have been treating them like they are possessions. They are people. Little boys, who only know what it’s like to live on a ranch, with wide-open spaces, an uncle who loves them and a huge family who cares for them deeply. I think it’s selfish to take them away from all of that.”

  “Are you saying I’m selfish for wanting to have my daughter’s children living with me? Especially after this is what she wanted?” Her father’s voice rose with each question, as if he could hardly believe that she would question him.

  Please Lord, help me find the right words, she prayed. Sam is still my father.

  “I think we have to step back from the situation, and forget about what Tricia wanted, what we want, I think we need to look at the boys’ situation for their sake, not ours.”

  “Are you daring to question me?” Her father struggled to his feet, staring at her as if she didn’t understand who he was talking to. “What kind of daughter does that?”

  For a moment remorse clung to her.

  You’re a good daughter. You’re a good daughter.

  Kip’s words resonated through her mind, washing away the guilt her father could so easily resurrect in her.

  Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

  She clung to those words as she turned to her father.

  “The kind of daughter who thinks she should tell the truth. I can’t support you in your fight to bring the boys back here. I can’t help you with that and I won’t.”

  Her father stared at her, as if he didn’t recognize her. “Are you saying you would fight me?”

  “I’m saying I would fight for what is best for Tristan and Justin,” she amended. “If that puts me against you, then that’s they way it has to be.”

  “You would choose that family over me?”

  “It’s not about choosing, Father. It’s about doing what’s best for the boys.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed and his expression grew thunderous. “After everything I’ve done for you, after all I’ve given you, this is how you repay me?”

  “Repay you?” Nicole spoke quietly. “I didn’t think love came with a cost.”

  Her father looked taken aback, but changed tactics. “You’ve done much damage to this family—”

  “Tricia made her own choices, Father,” Nicole said quietly, drawing on the words Kip had told her. Words she had held close in the past few days.

  “You pushed her.”

  “You pushed her too,” Nicole snapped back. Her outburst surprised her as much as it surprised her father judging from the shocked look on his face. “I think she was leaving regardless. My fight with her was simply bad timing,” she continued, suddenly tired of her father’s endless condemnation.

  In the shocked silence that followed Nicole’s outburst she looked down at the letter she still held in her hands. She skimmed over the words, giving herself something to do other than face her father’s anger. She came to the end of the letter.

  What in the world?

  She read it one more time, to make sure she had read correctly.

  “What’s wrong?” her father asked, obviously distracted by her puzzlement. “What’s in the letter?”

  She cleared her throat and looked at her father. “It says that the DNA from you doesn’t match the boys’, either.”

  Sam snatched the papers from her hand, his eyes racing over the letter. Then again. “I don’t understand.” He looked up, his once ruddy face, ashen. “The boys didn’t belong to that man Tricia was living with and we know they are Tricia’s. The detective’s reports showed that.”

  Nicole frowned. “Detective’s reports?”

  “I hired a private detective to find a few more things out about Tricia and Scott.”

  This was news to her. Not that it mattered anymore. Now they were faced with an entirely different puzzle.

  Sam looked down at the papers, shaking his head. “I don’t understand. I simply don’t…” His voice faded as he read the papers again, his hands clenching.

  Then his face grew hard, his eyes glinted and his nostrils flared as his head moved back and forth as if in denial of facts he couldn’t absorb.

  He flung the papers to the ground, glaring at them.

  “Norah, how could you?” he called out.

  “What are you talking about?” Nicole asked, catching him by the arm. “What’s going on?”

  He spun to face her, his eyes glittering with anger, his breath coming in short spurts. “I should have confronted her. But no. I thought Norah and that Bart fellow were just friends.”

  Nicole’s confusion grew with every word. “I don’t know what you mean. I don’t know who Bart is.”

  Her father looked everywhere but at her as he seemed to gather his thoughts. He took a few breaths, then, as if the life was sucked out of him, his shoulders sagged down, his head lowered.

  “Just before we adopted you, we found out I wasn’t able to father a child. But Norah wanted a child so badly. I didn’t. Then she started spending time with Bart and his wife. Finally, I gave in and she adopted you. Then, a few years later, when Norah had Tricia, it was like a miracle. That happens sometimes.” His hands trembled as he dragged them over his face. “She told me Bart was just a friend and I believed her. Turns out, if this report is true, it seems he was a whole lot more.”

  “You can’t know that for sure,” Nicole said, stroking his
shoulder, her pity for him coming to the fore.

  “I always suspected.” Sam pushed at the papers with the toe of his slipper. “This proves it.” He stumbled back to his chair and dropped his head in his hands. “How could she have done this to me?” Her father sighed, then looked up at Nicole. “If my DNA doesn’t match the boys, then this means that Tricia isn’t my daughter either.”

  The “either” was like a small, indifferent slap.

  “That means those boys don’t belong to me.”

  Nicole was set back on her heels, trying to absorb everything she’d heard in the past few minutes. Tricia not her father’s biological daughter. Her mother cheating on her father?

  She couldn’t put it all together.

  Sam sighed, pushing his hands through his hair. “Tricia wasn’t my daughter. She wasn’t my daughter and I raised her. Paid for everything she had. What a waste.”

  On one level Nicole felt sorry for him and tried to realize that he was speaking from his pain, but on another level his words underlined the insecurity she’d felt ever since coming to this family.

  He had paid for everything she had done. Was she a waste too?

  Sam took another breath, then straightened and looked directly at Nicole. “So you said you would fight me over those boys?”

  Puzzled as to where he was going with this, Nicole could only nod.

  “You would really choose them over me?”

  “It’s not a matter of choice, but if that’s how you want to put it, then I would put their needs over yours because I think Kip Cosgrove is the best person to be taking care of those boys.” She still wasn’t sure what was going on, but she stuck to what she knew to be right and true.

  Sam emitted a bitter laugh. “That cowboy? What could he possibly give them?”

  Anger surged through Nicole at the contempt in his voice and she stepped away from her father. “That cowboy has made more sacrifices for Tristan and Justin than you ever have for me or Tricia. That cowboy is a kind and considerate man who I respect more than I’ve ever respected any man, including you. That cowboy is the best example of a father’s love that I could ever imagine. I’m jealous of those boys because that cowboy is the best thing that has ever happened to them. Right now I wish I was with Kip, that cowboy as you call him, instead of here with you.”