The Cowboy SEAL

by Laura Marie Altom

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  What changed? Why the stilted formality?

  She finished scrubbing the calf then let the water drain before rinsing him with the sprayer. Under Cooper’s appraisal, her every movement felt stiff and labored—as if she were under water.

  A growl followed by metallic clanking came from the general direction of Clint’s room.

  “Want me to check on Grandpa?” The whole time Millie had stood hyperaware of Cooper, LeeAnn and J.J. had hovered near the kitchen pass-through. What did that say about her state of mind that she hadn’t even noticed her kids had been in the room?

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  Cooper asked, “What do you want me to do about this guy?”

  “Lee, please grab a couple of old quilts—you know, the ones I put over the garden for frost?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Pile them in the corner by the fridge. It should be nice and warm.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “J.J.—” Millie knelt to his level “—I need you to run down to the basement and get the feeder bottles we used when we had those two calves with scours. They should be somewhere on the shelves by my flowerpots.”

  “Okay.” Her son bit his lower lip while his eyes filled with tears. “Is the baby going to be all right? He’s so tiny.”

  She pulled J.J. into a hug. Her son had already witnessed too many hardships during his short life. She couldn’t bear for him to have one more. “He will if I have anything to say about it.”

  *

  WITH THE CALF nestled in a cozy quilt nest, Cooper ducked his head while taking the ninety-degree turn on the basement stairs. He’d conked his head on the damned rafter so many times as a gangly teen that even his long absence couldn’t make him forget.

  J.J. clomped behind him as they descended into the cool, damp cavernous space. “Did you know my dad?”

  “Sure did.” Cooper swept aside a low-hanging cobweb.

  “Are you like him?”

  Not really. Jim had always been the better of the two of them. Kinder. The sort who volunteered to stay home from a weekend bender to help an elderly neighbor plant her garden. “I suppose we looked a little alike. He was my brother.”

  “Like Lee’s my sister?”

  “Right.” Cooper opened the freezer lid, welcoming the blast of cold air on his heated cheeks. Made him uncomfortable thinking about what a selfish prick he used to be.

  The kid took a scooter that’d been leaned against a wall and rode it across the stone floor. “I’d rather have a brother. Lee’s grumpy all the time. And did you know she talks to boys?”

  Cooper looked up from the freezer. “How old is she?”

  “She’s in fifth grade. My friend Cayden said he saw her kiss a kid who’s in sixth grade. Isn’t that gross?”

  Actually, yes.

  Just a guess, but Cooper didn’t think his brother would be on board with this kind of information. As the girl’s uncle, had he been there for her since Jim’s death, Cooper would’ve felt right at home giving her a stern lecture on staying the hell away from boys until she was thirty.

  “Do you know what sex is? Cayden said his biggest brother got caught having sex on their couch.”

  Though Cooper already had the colostrum, he stuck his head back in the chest-style freezer just to escape the kid’s questioning stare.

  “Well?” J.J. unfortunately persisted. “Do you know what sex is?”

  Cooper coughed. What kind of kids was Millie raising? “Actually, I do know what it is—bad. Very, very bad, and it’s not anything you need to be talking about till you’re thirty.” Would that fall under the do as I say, not as I do form of parenting? Cooper lost his virginity at sixteen to a nineteen-year-old dental hygienist in the bed of her truck.

  “Oh.” J.J. stopped riding. “Okay, well, I won’t do it, then.”

  “Excellent. Glad to hear it.”

  “Do you remember what I was s’posed to be getting?”

  “These?” Cooper had spied three plastic feeder bottles exactly where Millie had described and grabbed them.

  “Yeah! Bottles!”

  Eager to not only escape the gloomy basement, but also his nephew’s questions, Cooper headed back up the stairs, figuring the kid would follow. Only he didn’t. “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I guess.” Cooper furrowed his eyebrows. What did that mean? Was this some kind of trick question? “I mean, your mom told you to help, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Okay, then, come on...” He pressed against the wall, urging J.J. to pass him on the stairs.

  “Cool!” The kid bolted as if he was on springs. “Do you think the calf’s gonna live or die like my dad?”

  Cooper inwardly groaned. If having rugrats always involved this many awkward questions, he wanted no part of ever having a child of his own.

  Chapter Seven

  By the time the kids had been put to bed and Clint’s evening care had been completed, Millie collapsed onto the sofa, setting the baby monitor she used to make sure he didn’t need her in the night on the coffee table. Every inch of her ached from the exertion of their action-packed day.

  Cheetah, the cat, slinked out from behind the recliner to dart into the kitchen.

  “I don’t even know why I feed you,” she said to the inhospitable creature.

  When the phone rang, she contemplated letting the machine pick up, but on the chance it was one of Clint’s home-health therapists, she mustered the energy to fish the phone from the couch cushions—the spot where LeeAnn typically left it. “Hello?”

  “Well? How’s it going? You were supposed to call me back.”

  Peg. Millie had forgotten she’d been on the phone with Cooper’s sister right before he’d shown up with the calf.

  “What happened?”

  Since the upstairs shower was still running, Millie gave her sister-in-law the short version of the chaotic day’s events.

  “Wait—so why do you still have a calf and chickens in the kitchen?”

  “Because of the storm, the feed store had a run on heat-lamp bulbs. Ernest won’t have more in till he can make a supply run to Denver.”

  “Good grief.” Peg groaned. “I’m working twelve-hour shifts, so I can have long weekends off. Want me to pick one up for you before I head your way?”

  “Thanks for the offer, but the even worse news is that one of the biggest limbs on the cottonwood out back fell on the coop. It’s a total loss. Your brother said he can rebuild it, but who knows how long that’ll take.”

  “You can’t have chickens in your house indefinitely....”

  “I know...” Millie drew the afghan from the sofa back to tuck it around her legs. “Cooper’s rigging a temporary fix in the barn. Since the kids have school tomorrow, we’re driving into Denver for the parts he needs.”

  “Who’s staying with Dad?”

  “Lynette. Plus, the traveling nurse should be here.” After they found chicken-coop supplies, they’d grocery shop.

  “Good. You need a break.”

  “Agreed. Only...” She wrapped one of the afghan’s frayed strands around her pinkie finger tight enough for her nail to turn white.

  “What’s the problem?”

  Upstairs, the shower turned off.

  The thought of Cooper standing there buck naked struck her as disconcerting. The old house only had one and a half baths, meaning...

  Her cheeks flamed.

  “The problem,” she said to her sister-in-law in an effort to get her wandering mind back on topic, “is your brother. He’s everywhere. I can’t think around him. He’s just—”

  Back on her feet, she fished behind a row of Jim’s dusty old civil war history tomes for the Oreos she kept hidden in a Ziploc bag. It wasn’t that she begrudged the kids’ cookies—she made them all the time. But Oreos were her thing. Her grandmother had always laughed about the baking gene having skipped her generati
on. She’d filled their cookie jar with store-bought fare. Millie hadn’t complained. All these years later, the same treat that’d gotten her through her rocky early childhood was still her go-to food security blanket.

  A creak on the stairs had her chewing faster, before tucking the bag back in its hiding place.

  “What’re you stashing?”

  Hand to her chest, she willed her racing pulse to slow. “Cooper. You scared me half to death.”

  “Good thing it was only halfway,” he teased without smiling.

  “Yeah...” Back in school, they used to be friends, so why now did she find herself wishing he’d just stay in his room?

  From the phone she’d cradled between her breasts, Peg’s tinny voice asked, “Millie? Millie, are you there?”

  “That my sister?”

  She nodded.

  He reached for the phone.

  During the hand-off, their fingers brushed, which only flustered her further. What was it about him that had her feeling like she’d returned to seventh grade?

  “Hey, girl. When do I get to see you?”

  Cheetah returned to do a figure-eight around Cooper’s ankles. Traitor.

  While Cooper and his sister talked, Millie checked to make sure Clint’s meds had kicked in then wandered into the kitchen with the intent to unload the dishwasher. But when she flicked on the lights, it woke the menagerie, and the rooster quite literally flew his makeshift coop. Having always considered herself a reasonably intelligent person, why hadn’t she thought earlier about devising a way to keep her flock from flying?

  She’d hoped catching Barry would be easy, but he’d landed atop the fridge.

  “When I do catch you,” she said in a singsong voice while easing one of the kitchen table chairs in his direction, “I’m going to fry you.”

  She stood on the chair, slowly reaching for the stupid bird.

  “Need help?”

  Upon hearing Cooper’s voice, Barry was back on the move, finally resting on the rim of LeeAnn’s lopsided volcano that she’d left on the table.

  “I nearly had him, if you’d stop skulking.”

  “Skulking?” He crept toward the bird, and in a ridiculously fast move, had him captured and tucked under his arm.

  “You know what I mean.” What a mess. Everything was just such an awful mess—and she wasn’t just talking about her kitchen, which would have to be fumigated once the chickens and calf got to their temporary home in the barn. She feared the truest source of disarray was her own heart. Having her brother-in-law back in the mix was all at once a godsend and a curse. “You’re always so sneaky.”

  “Mill...” He stroked the side of the bird’s head. And damn Barry for closing his eyes and cooing. “All I did was walk into the room. No sneaking or skulking. Just walking.” He took the phone from the waistband of his black warm-up pants, returning it to the charging stand.

  Whatever! Just stop!

  Like a doofus, she still stood on the chair in front of the fridge and stared at him. Mouth dry, pulse haywire, she felt on the edge of a breakdown and had no idea why! His being there should’ve made everything easier. He’d certainly lightened her workload. So why did everything suddenly seem so hard?

  Maybe because he wore no shirt, and his chest and abs formed a muscular wall?

  “Need help?” he asked.

  “With what?” Flighty hand to her mouth, she nibbled the tip of her pinkie finger.

  “Getting down? Wiping all those Oreo crumbs off your T-shirt? Rigging something to keep old Barry here from another flight?”

  “H-how do you know his name?”

  “Your son told me. He’s a good kid.”

  “The best.” Why was her mouth so dry? Why did her right eye keep twitching every time she looked Cooper’s way? And how did he know she’d been eating Oreos? And why did just thinking about him looking at her chest cause her nipples to harden? Lord, she was a bona fide Texas twister of a disaster!

  “Help?” He now stood beside her. Even with the benefit of her chair, she was only a few inches taller.

  “Thanks, but I can do it.” After scrambling down, she shoved the chair back under the table then brushed crumbs from her chest.

  He took a step back, raising his hands in surrender. “Want me to handle tucking in our escapee?”

  “W-would you mind?” Because honestly, after their hectic day, Millie had more than she could handle with just being in the same close space as Cooper. “I—I’m ready for bed.”

  She retrieved Clint’s monitor from the living room then made her own escape up the stairs.

  The dimly lit kitchen was too intimate.

  It brought back memories of all the nights she and Jim sat at the table over cups of steaming cocoa, plotting and planning the rest of their lives. Whether to sign J.J. up for baseball or steer him toward rodeo. Whether they should let LeeAnn enroll in that hoity-toity Denver art class her second-grade teacher had recommended. When Jim had been alive, everything had seemed so simple. He and Clint ran the ranch, and she cared for them, their children and home.

  Now?

  She wore so many hats that if she sprouted eight extra heads, she still couldn’t wear them all.

  After brushing her teeth in the bathroom, which still smelled rich from Cooper’s musky shampoo, she checked on J.J. to find him sleeping.

  She took the toy truck out from under his flannel pajama-clad legs then tugged the covers up to his chin. She kissed his forehead, whispering, “I love you.”

  From behind LeeAnn’s door came a girly giggle. “You’re crazy...”

  Millie didn’t bother knocking, and upon entering the room, she held out her hand. She and her daughter had done this dance before. “Phone.”

  LeeAnn sighed with majestic preteen aplomb. “God, Mom, I’m almost twelve, and everyone on the planet has a cell but me.”

  “Gosh, Lee, you may be right, but that doesn’t give you permission to take my cell from my purse. You know we only have it for emergencies, and those minutes are expensive.”

  “I hate you, and I hate being poor!” Back in bed, her daughter finished her performance by tugging the covers over her head.

  This probably should’ve been the moment when Millie nipped that sass by grounding LeeAnn for the rest of her life, but she didn’t have the strength. After perching on the bed’s edge, she ran her hand along her daughter’s side. “Know what? I’m kind of sick of being poor myself, only you might find this hard to believe, but hon, we’re actually pretty rich—and blessed. We have a nice, solid roof over our heads and plenty of food in our bellies. We have each other and love and—”

  “Stop!” LeeAnn sat up, letting the quilts fall around her waist. “You say we’re so rich and blessed? Then how come Daddy died and Grandpa had a stroke? And our barn’s so crappy that the chickens have to live in our kitchen?”

  “Lee...” Millie’s throat tightened. She’d asked herself the same questions countless times, and was fresh out of fortifying platitudes. “Look, since you’re sooo old, I’ll be straight with you. No one’s more tired of our temporary cash shortage than me, but it is what it is. I wasn’t raised to be a quitter and neither were you. When times are tough, we just have to dig in our heels and fight harder. We—”

  “Mom, seriously, please stop. Our life sucks. Everything sucks, and sometimes I just want to run away!” She was crying, and the sound of her child’s sobs shattered what little remained of Millie’s heart.

  “Okay, yes—” she drew LeeAnn into a hug “—at the moment, there’s not a whole lot to be happy about, but you know what?”

  “What?” Sniff, sniff.

  “On the bright side, things can’t get much worse, right?”

  Millie kissed the crown of her daughter’s head, then tucked her in, longing for simpler times back when Jim had been here to coparent. J.J. she could still handle, but with her daughter, Millie felt about as in control as if she were juggling boiling water.

  In the hall, she’d just
shut LeeAnn’s door and turned for her own room when Cooper reached the top of the stairs.

  When their eyes locked, she stopped breathing.

  Had she really just noted that things couldn’t get worse?

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  She wagged the cell. “Just putting on my sheriff hat. Guess I’m not ready for her to be acting this old so soon. When we were her age, no one had phones.”

  “True. But then to her way of thinking, we probably seem old enough to have been riding dinosaurs to school.” He cracked a smile. “Pretty sure your old Chevette could’ve technically been from the Stone Age. That thing was nasty.”

  “Oh—” she raised her eyebrows “—like your truck was much better?”

  “At least it was a Ford.”

  “Watch it...” Lord, Cooper and Jim used to battle for hours over the merits of Ford versus Chevy trucks. She’d forgotten. In the hall’s chill, her throat knotted under the guilty weight of how much else of her husband’s daily quirks she’d forgotten.

  Outside, the wind had once again picked up and rattled the shutters.

  “I really am sorry about Jim. I would’ve come to the funeral, but didn’t even know he’d died until a month after he’d been gone. By then...” He shrugged. Rammed his hands into his pockets. “Well, I couldn’t.”

  “Sure. I understand.” But she didn’t. Which was no doubt a big part of the reason why she found it so difficult being around him.

  *

  COOPER HID OUT from Millie until she’d shut herself into her room for the night.

  Once the coast was clear, he handled the half-dozen chores still needing to be addressed, then was too keyed up to sleep. He tried boning up on the latest deep-dive recs, but his job felt a million miles away. What he really needed to think about, but didn’t want to, was the mess he’d made of things here.

  He sat on the sofa, leaning forward to cradle his forehead in his hands.

  In the short run, he’d soon enough get the ranch in ship-shape order, but what about long-term? Would Millie and he ever again be on friendly terms? Would he grow as close to his niece and nephew as an uncle rightfully should?

  Then there was Clint...

  Cooper rose, heading toward his father’s room, careful to avoid the creakiest spots in the old wood floor.