Cowboy Daddy

by Susan Mallery

  They sat across from each other in a booth at the back of the restaurant. He raised his dark eyebrows. “Pretending what?”

  “That you don’t hate me.”

  Jake leaned back in the booth. He stretched one arm across the red vinyl seat. “I don’t hate you.”

  “You don’t trust me.”

  “In my position, would you be any different?”

  “No,” she admitted. “But we’re going to have to learn to get along. Otherwise the two months will be unbearable.”

  “Agreed.”

  This would be the time to say something conciliatory, she told herself. Instead she was about to throw the fat into the fire. She glanced at him. He looked casual and in control. A lock of dark hair fell onto his forehead. The hollows of his cheeks emphasized the firm lines of his mouth and jaw. He was much too good-looking. If he ever turned his charming smile in her direction, she would melt. Not only because she found him attractive and they seemed on the verge of starting a fire every time they touched, but because he was a cowboy. Everyone had a weakness, she just wished hers could have been ice cream or gin.

  “I’d like to make a detour,” she said, then stared at the table. She began folding her paper napkin back and forth, pleating the white square into a long thick length.

  “A historical site?” He sounded faintly amused.

  “Paradise. It’s a tiny town near El Paso. My cousin Becky Sue lives there.”

  Both his hands slammed onto the table. She jumped. “What the hell are you up to?” he growled.

  She risked looking at him. Fire leapt from his eyes, but these flames weren’t caused by casual contact. They were fueled by rage.

  “I thought—”

  “I won’t allow you to manipulate my daughter for your own purpose. If you think introducing Laurel to a bunch of relatives will further your case, you’re dead wrong. The only reason you’re here today is because I care about my daughter. But don’t push me, lady. I have the law on my side.”

  She fought the urge to shrink back in her seat. Instead she forced herself to stare him directly in the eyes. “Have you ever been to west Texas?”

  He frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Paradise is miles from anywhere. The population is about a thousand. It’s hot, dusty and poor. Most everybody lives in a trailer. Some of them are lucky, because theirs is a double wide.” She paused and glanced down at the table. She was systematically shredding her napkin. She let go of the paper and pushed the mess to the side of the table. “Laurel is still confused about what happened when she was born. I thought if I showed her where I grew up, if she could see that it was poor and ugly, she might be grateful for what she has now.”

  She folded her hands in her lap and looked at him. He leaned his forearms on the table. “That sounds good, but I don’t believe you. There must be another reason you’re doing this.”

  His assumption that she had something to gain pushed all her buttons. Her temper overrode her desire to get along with Jake. “Who dumped on you so badly you can’t recognize a decent act for what it is?” she asked hotly. “What could I possibly gain by this? Even if Laurel falls in love with Becky Sue and her kids, there’s no way I’m going back there to live. I worked damn hard to get out of that town.” She shook her head. “I’m tired of you judging me. You’ve had months to get used to the idea of Laurel wanting to meet me. I’ve had less than two weeks. My entire life has been turned upside down. I’ve risked a promotion that I’ve worked toward. I’ve tried to be fair and do what was best for everyone. I’ve put up with your innuendo and bad temper. Yes, I gave Laurel up for adoption. Yes, I have a certain responsibility to her. I am doing the best I can with what I have. If you can’t see that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought, and you deserve to lose your child.”

  With that, she started to slide out of the seat. Before she could, he reached out across the table and grabbed her arm.

  “Wait,” he said. “Please.”

  Jake didn’t release his hold until she settled back in her seat. Only then did he let go. But even after he’d propped his arm up on the back of the vinyl booth, he could still feel the softness and heat of her skin. As always when he touched her, need flared to life inside him. He hated his body’s betrayal. If only he’d returned to the land of the living with any woman other than her. But he hadn’t. And she was right. He was going to have to get over his problems with her or it was going to be a long two months.

  He shifted to ease the pressure in his crotch. “I don’t mean to be a complete jerk,” he said.

  “Only half a jerk?”

  Her smile was tentative. She was always willing to meet him partway. He had to give her that.

  “Only half,” he agreed, letting go of his anger.

  “I know you’re afraid.”

  “It’s hard not to be.”

  “You’re not going to lose her.”

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “She might already be gone.”

  “No.” Anne shook her head. “Laurel loves you. You’re a good father.”

  If only that were true. But Anne didn’t know about the last two years. She didn’t know about how he’d withdrawn from his child so that he could mourn Ellen and figure out a way to deal with his guilt. She didn’t know about how he wanted a son to carry on the Masters name. She didn’t know that he was the reason they’d had to adopt in the first place. She didn’t know he wasn’t enough of a man.

  “Not good enough,” he said bluntly, “or she wouldn’t have gone looking for you.”

  “Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing.”

  He studied her. “Maybe not.”

  She wasn’t unattractive, he admitted to himself. Just different from Ellen. Anne had let her strawberry-colored hair go wavy today. A headband held it away from her face with only a fringe of bangs falling on her forehead. Her pale peach T-shirt brought out the color in her cheeks. She had freckles on her arms. Maybe they weren’t so bad, either. He’d noticed her legs were nice. She was more curvy than his late wife had been. His gaze lowered to her full breasts. A lot curvier. The clinging knit of her shirt outlined her shape. She would fill his hands. The thought made his fingers curl into his palm and the ache in his groin deepen. He sighed. There were a few single women not far from the ranch. He was going to have to consider taking up with one of them. He might not hate Anne Baker, but he sure as hell didn’t trust her. The last thing either of them needed was to complicate their relationship with sex.

  “You really think letting Laurel meet your cousin and her family is a good idea?” he asked.

  Anne shrugged. “I don’t see how spending the night in Paradise is going to make anything worse. Hopefully she’ll see that I made the best decision at the time.”

  “You sound as if you regret that decision now.”

  She slid out of the booth. He followed. Before heading for the door, she looked up at him. “I’ve always regretted it. That doesn’t mean I’ve figured out if I did the right thing or not.”

  “You’ve got the job you wanted, and soon you’ll have your promotion.”

  “I know.”

  She started walking. The scent of her perfume trailed after her like a seductive call. It whispered against his skin, making him break out into a sweat. He tried to ignore the sway of her hips in her shorts and the way her hair bounced as she moved. He had a sudden desire to know if her creamy skin tasted like peaches.

  When they stepped outside, Anne slipped on her sunglasses. “I’d like to get sodas for the next leg of the drive.”

  “Fine by me.” He moved into step beside her. “There’s a cooler in the back. We can buy a bag of ice and keep them cold.”

  Before they entered the convenience store, Anne stopped. “What about Becky Sue? Are we going to go by there?”

  He was torn between wondering if it would help or somehow make things worse. “When the two months are over, you’re still going back to Houston.”

 
It wasn’t a question. “I know.”

  “She’s my daughter, Anne. Nothing can change that.”

  Her mouth twisted. “I know that, too.”

  “Then we’ll stop.”

  *

  “So Becky Sue’s five kids are my cousins, too?” Laurel asked from her place in the back seat.

  “I’m not sure. They might be your second cousins,” Anne answered. “I’ve never known how that works.”

  “Dad, do you know?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter, just so long as they’re relatives. I haven’t had many relatives before, have I, Daddy?”

  “Just your grandparents,” he said. And now, not even all of them. He didn’t want to remember what Ellen’s father, Michael, had said and done, but he couldn’t forget.

  They were miles from any large city, in the dusty west part of Texas. Instead of the dirt and scrub stretching out on both sides of the road, he saw the look on Michael’s face when he refused to spend time with Laurel on her birthday.

  “Why would I care about some bastard brat? I only dealt with her for Ellen’s sake. She’s your problem now. Keep her away from me.”

  Jake had been stunned by his father-in-law’s dismissal of his only grandchild. But Laurel wasn’t his by blood. Michael had taken great pains to remind Jake of that fact. So Jake had lied to his daughter and told her that her favorite grandparent was out of town on business the day of her birthday. With his father dead and his mother remarried and living in Florida, it had been up to Jake to make the day special for his daughter. There’d been a pool party with friends, but the happy event had been marred by sadness. It had also been a going-away party. He and Laurel had moved to Colorado the following week.

  Even as he listened to Laurel and Anne talking about her “new” relatives, he wondered what kind of reception she would get from Anne’s family. Would they welcome her with open arms or would they hold back and hurt his child?

  Laurel leaned as far forward as her seat belt would let her. “What about—?” She paused. He glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her troubled expression. “What about your old boyfriend?”

  What about my real father. She didn’t have to say the words. He heard them pounding in his head. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Anne looked at him, but his sunglasses hid his pain from her. He swallowed. What if that boy—no, he would be a man now—staked some claim on Laurel? He didn’t want to hear what she would tell Laurel, didn’t want to know that another man was his baby’s real father.

  “He didn’t have much family,” Anne said. “I think they’re all gone. Either passed away or moved somewhere else.”

  That was something, Jake thought grimly. That only left the man himself. He shook his head. Funny how all this time he’d been grateful that Ellen wasn’t around to hear Laurel talking about her birth mother. He’d never thought about himself. About the man who had given life to his child. About the man who might now take her away. What good was the law when this stranger might steal her heart?

  He should have left, he thought with sudden clarity. He should have left the marriage and taken Laurel with him. Those last years with Ellen had been horrible for all of them. The fights, the stony silences. Her bitter accusations that he had better not leave her, not after she stayed all those years, not when she’d adopted a child when she could have easily left him and had her own baby with another man. How many times had she thrown his sterility in his face? How many times had he raged at God for depriving him of a son?

  “Is B-Bobby still there?” Laurel asked quietly, stuttering over the name.

  Anne turned in her seat and smiled gently at Laurel. “A couple of months before you were born he was killed by a bull at a rodeo.”

  The relief was sweet. Jake let out the breath he’d been holding and relaxed.

  “Oh.”

  Jake watched Laurel in the mirror. She dropped her chin to her chest and flopped back in the seat.

  “At least I’ve got you,” she said.

  “And your dad,” Anne said quickly.

  “I’ll always have him,” she said matter-of-factly, then slipped on her headset. She flipped on the tape recorder and started bouncing with the beat of the music.

  Anne shifted to face front. She reached out her fingers and gently touched his forearm. “You okay?”

  “Fine.” Except for the heat boiling between them.

  “I probably should have told you about Bobby sooner. I didn’t think that you’d worry.”

  “I wasn’t worried.”

  She chuckled. He glanced at her.

  “You’re a lot of things, Jake,” she said. “But not a very good liar.”

  He checked the mirror, but Laurel was involved with her music. “Maybe I was a little concerned about having to fight some rodeo cowboy for my kid.”

  “Bobby burned too bright to live very long. I always thought he was destined to die young. I think that was part of his appeal.” She looked out the window. “The turnoff is in about twenty miles.”

  “We’re really in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Tell me about it. I grew up here.”

  As they got closer to Paradise, he could feel her tension growing. Soon they turned off the highway onto a two-lane road. It was late afternoon, but the sun beat down unmercifully. The car’s air-conditioning was set to high, but the temperature inside continued to climb. Up ahead he could see a cluster of tired buildings, surrounded by dirt and a few lowlying bushes. There was an elementary school, a diner, a gas station. The general store looked about a hundred years old. An old couple sat on their front porch rocking. Several of the side streets were paved, but some weren’t.

  “Welcome to Paradise,” Anne said. She held herself so stiffly, he wondered if she would snap if he touched her.

  “You want to keep going?” he asked when he saw a sign pointing back to the highway.

  “More than you know. There’s something about coming back that makes me feel—” She gave him a quick smile. “Ghosts. Can’t seem to shake ‘em. It’s through here.” She pointed to a narrow lane that dead-ended in a trailer park.

  A few limp trees grew in the dust. Rusting cars sat on blocks. Barefoot kids played around a scraggly bush. His new Ford Explorer was as out of place as a Thoroughbred at a mule sale.

  He heard a burst of music as Laurel pulled off her headset. “You grew up here?”

  “I spent seventeen years in Paradise. All I ever dreamed about was getting away. Becky Sue’s trailer is at the end.”

  He drove slowly to avoid the children and dogs crowding the dirt trail. Jake had assumed Anne wanted Laurel to see where she grew up as part of some master plan to steal her away. Now staring at the sun-bleached trailers, the frayed curtains and dirty children, he knew he’d misjudged her. He thought about her big office and her hopes for a promotion. He thought about her white-on-white condo, another lifetime from here.

  “Park over there,” she said, pointing to a spot past the last mobile home. A lone tree provided a fair amount of shade. As he came to a stop, a group of people rushed out of the trailer. A woman about Anne’s size led the way followed by several children and two mangy-looking dogs. He opened the door and got out slowly. Anne and Laurel followed suit.

  The woman stopped a couple of feet away. Her hair was several shades darker, a true auburn. It was pulled back in a braid, revealing features much like Anne’s, but a little older. Her smile was wide and genuine. A clean but faded sleeveless blouse had been tucked into a loose skirt. He wondered if she’d dressed up to meet them. “Annie Jo Baker, you are lookin’ mighty pretty. Is this beautiful young lady your little girl?”

  Anne took Laurel’s hand and led her forward. “Laurel, this is my cousin, Becky Sue.”

  “Laurel. Ain’t that a lovely name.” She moved closer, then touched her cheek. “Oh, my. You’ve got Aunt Rose’s eyes.” She held open her arms.

  Laurel looked at him for guidance. He felt as if some
one had sliced his belly open and was now twisting the knife. He wanted to drag Laurel into the car and drive so far that they both forgot about Paradise and Anne Baker and birth mothers and being adopted. But he couldn’t. He nodded his approval and his daughter stepped into Becky Sue’s embrace.

  “Welcome home, Laurel Baker. Welcome to the family.”

  Chapter 6

  “Now are you sure you don’t want another piece of pie?” Becky Sue asked, rising from the table.

  “Not for me,” Anne said. “I’m stuffed. Jake?”

  The man beside her shook his head. He’d been silent through their meal. Not that she blamed him. It was hot and sticky; even talking was an effort. The air conditioner in the mobile home had long since given up. Even though she’d showered and changed before dinner, Anne could feel the sweat dripping down her back. Her normally curly hair was lying flat from the heat. Jake’s tailored white shirt clung to him in patches. Only Becky Sue looked comfortable in her loose floral print skirt and blouse.

  The three adults sat at the old table in the kitchen. The six kids were scattered throughout the trailer. Two dogs and an assortment of cats wove between their legs and generally added to the heat and din.

  Anne glanced at the cherry pie sitting in the center of the table. Becky Sue would have gotten up early to bake it herself. The fried chicken and biscuits had been from a family recipe, the corn picked that morning. This was the home she remembered. It was all the same; she was the one who had changed.

  “I’m sure sorry J.T. couldn’t get home early,” Becky Sue said as she cleared the table. Anne rose to help, but her cousin pushed her back in place. “Now I know you’re family, darlin’, but today I’m gonna treat you like company.”

  Her familiar open smile eased the pain in Annie’s heart. Becky Sue could always put her world right.

  “Anyway, he wanted to meet your little girl, but he can get to it in the morning. He’s got an extra half shift down at the gas station.” She looked around the trailer. “We sure could use the money to fix up this place.” She moved efficiently around the small but clean kitchen. When one of the dogs walked in front of her, she easily stepped out of the way.