How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides)

by Carolyn Brown

  Gabby nodded as she continued to eat chicken noodle soup. “And Doc Emerson isn’t coming.”

  “Who says?” Mason pulled his phone from his hip pocket and started hitting buttons.

  “Daddy!” Lily wailed. “Mama-Nanny done called him and the drugstore done brought us some pills. We’re big girls, so we don’t have to take that old nasty red medicine no more. And Mama-Nanny says that we can have ice cream if we eat all our soup.”

  Mason put his phone back in his pocket and motioned toward Annie Rose. “A word please.”

  She took her own good easy time in getting from rocking chair out to the landing. By the time he shut the bedroom door, his jaws ached from grinding his teeth.

  Annie Rose sat down on the top step. “What’s your problem? You look like you could eat nails.”

  “First rule of being a nanny is that you call me the minute, hell the second that one of my girls gets sick. And then you call Doc Emerson and get him out here as fast as he can drive,” he growled.

  She stood up and poked him in the chest with her forefinger. “I checked them both then I called Doc. They have allergies to whatever is probably floating around in this part of the world and the drainage has caused a sore throat, which caused a fever. He phoned in some antibiotics and agreed with me that fever reducer every six hours, lots of liquids, and rest today would be good. The fever has already broken, but I want them well by Saturday for their Pink Pistol day, so I’m being overcautious.”

  He slapped at her finger. “They are my kids and you will follow my rules.”

  “Or what?”

  ***

  “I asked you ‘or what?’ Do you intend to answer or stand there in all your self-righteous mad spell and go up in red-hot flames before you answer me?” she asked again.

  He brushed past her, and for the first time, his brief touch on her bare arm was like cold wind whipping across her entire body. When he reached the foyer, he leaned against the wall and made a phone call.

  “Doc, I want you to come out here and examine the girls. They’re running fever and…”

  A long pause.

  “I don’t give a shit if she is or was a nurse. I want your opinion and…”

  Another pause while he listened.

  “I’ll take them to the emergency room if you don’t get in your truck and come out here.”

  More silence.

  “Okay, okay. But I don’t like it.”

  He pushed himself away from the wall just as Gabby yelled, “Mama-Nanny, we’re ready for ice cream.”

  Annie Rose raised her voice. “I’ll go get it and bring it right up.”

  Mason was putting his phone back in his pocket when she said, “You didn’t answer me. Or what?”

  “I’ve fired nannies for less.”

  “Then fire me. I’ll get Skip to drive me to the nearest bus station. You can tell the girls that you fired me,” she said.

  “Their mother…” he started.

  Annie Rose turned around and crowded into his space, her nose only a few inches from his. “Their mother died from an aneurism that had nothing to do with a sore throat or a fever. I’m a nurse, for God’s sake, Mason. If I thought for one minute those girls had something life threatening, I would have called you while I was on the way to the hospital with them. I wouldn’t have even waited for you to make it from the fields to the house.”

  Lily peeked out into the landing. “Mama-Nanny, did you forget our ice cream?”

  “No, darlin’, I’m on my way to the kitchen right now.” She spun around and left Mason on the landing, stewing in his own juices.

  She set the bowls on a tray and took an extra two minutes to pull a pot roast from the oven, a salad from the fridge, and uncover a pan of yeast rolls.

  “You ladies feel free to take a few minutes to eat. There’s plenty cooked and Mason will never eat all of it. Dessert is the cake. Y’all know where the plates are. I’m going back up to the girls before the ice cream melts,” she said.

  “Get on out of here,” Janie said. “I’ve seen those two kids when they’re upset. It ain’t a pretty sight. We’ll enjoy a nice quiet meal right here in the kitchen.”

  “Dinner looks wonderful,” Martha said.

  Mason barely even shrugged when she passed him in the foyer. Fear plus pride made for strange bedfellows, but her mama always said that when a man was in a snit to give him some room. Crowding him would make everything worse.

  Well, Mason damn-his-soul Harper could sure have all the room he wanted.

  ***

  “They’re arguing,” Lily reported back to Gabby.

  “Is he going to call Doc?” Gabby whispered.

  “He’s pretty mad. So is Mama-Nanny. It’s not fair. I know he likes her. He’s mad because she didn’t call Doc, but shit, Gabby, she’s a real nurse,” Lily said.

  “What are we going to do?” Gabby asked.

  “We’re going to fix it. Tonight when it’s time to go to sleep, I’m going to cry and say that I’m sicker…”

  Gabby slapped her sister on the shoulder. “If you say that, they’ll call Doc. What are we going to do? Daddy can fire a nanny but not a mama and I love her.”

  “We’re going to get them back together, like on The Parent Trap. Don’t you argue with me when I say that I want Mama-Nanny to sleep in our baby room across the hall,” Lily said.

  Gabby’s eyes twinkled as she threw a hand over her forehead. “But we can’t be too sick or Daddy will call Doc and he’ll give us a shot.”

  Lily shivered. “Okay then. We won’t be sicker. I’ll have a nightmare when we first go to bed. You don’t get shots for bad dreams and I’ll scream and throw a fit and you’ll have to wake me up. Then I’ll cry and say that Mama-Nanny has to sleep across the hall or else Daddy has to sleep on the floor beside my bed.”

  “That’s better,” Gabby said. “We can always lock them in their rooms if they don’t be nice to each other.”

  “We might have to,” Lily said seriously.

  ***

  Annie Rose was happy to see them dig right into the ice cream. “So another movie?” she asked.

  “The old Parent Trap,” Lily said.

  “But you just watched the new version and it’s about the same,” Annie Rose said.

  “I know, but we like to watch them back-to-back to see if we spot anything different. And I like the twins’ accent in that one. Lily and me are thinkin’ about learnin’ to do that, aren’t we, love?” Gabby said in a fake British accent.

  Annie Rose found the version with Brian Keith and Maureen O’Hara and slipped it into the DVD player. “While you watch it, I’ll slip over into Lily’s room and read. If you need me, holler.”

  She nodded at the argument the hero and heroine were having in her brand-new romance book on page ten. It appeared that men were the same whether they were real or characters, and she could relate to the attraction plus the anger that the heroine experienced. It was damn frustrating to want a man to touch you so bad that your skin ached from yearning and then be so mad at him that you didn’t want him to even look at you.

  She had turned the page to find out how the lady in the book handled the roller coaster of emotions when she heard Mason in the next room, teasing the girls. “Hey, I see you ladies ate all your ice cream. So I don’t reckon you are too sick. You want to come outside and help me haul hay this afternoon?”

  “Dadddeee!” Lily groaned.

  “I do, but only if Mama-Nanny can help us too,” Gabby said quickly.

  “I’m joking.” Mason’s voice sounded edgy. “Where is Annie Rose?”

  “In my room, reading her book while we watch the movie. She can hear us if we need her,” Gabby answered.

  Mason went through the connecting bathroom and cleared his throat to get her attention. The words were swimming on the p
ages, but she’d be damned if she forgave him.

  “Annie Rose?” he said finally.

  She answered without raising her gaze to meet his. “Yes?”

  “I’m staying with them this afternoon. I’ve already called Skip, and he’ll take care of things. I don’t leave them when they’re sick.”

  Annie Rose snapped her book shut with a pop. “Good. I’ll call it my day off then. Can I borrow a vehicle to drive into town?”

  He worked a set of keys up from his pocket and tossed them on the bed. “Take my truck. Just be sure that you bring it home by dark.”

  His handsome face was still etched with worry and the little lines around his eyes had deepened in the last hour. She’d like to fix everything for him, but there wasn’t a damn thing in her virtual toolbox that would take care of jackassitis.

  “What if I want to leave it at the bus station in Sherman?” she asked.

  He rubbed a hand across his forehead and then combed back his dark hair with his fingertips. “If you do, leave the keys under the floor mat in the backseat and lock it up.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Harper. And I’ll even be kind enough to give you a phone call if I make that decision,” she said.

  “Don’t threaten me, woman,” he said gruffly.

  Heart thumping, she stood up and pointed her finger up at his nose. “I don’t threaten. I deliver what I promise.”

  She hated arguments. With her first boyfriends it usually meant breaking up. With Nicky it meant bruises. Her inner voice said to back down or she might be doing both with Mason, but she disagreed. They weren’t dating, so they couldn’t break up. And Mason didn’t slap women around.

  Just when she was about to suggest they talk this thing through, he folded his arms over his chest and said, “Call me when you make up your mind.”

  Evidently, he needed a hell of a lot more room to stew, so she let him have the last word and left by way of the landing instead of telling the girls good-bye.

  Retail therapy.

  That’s what she needed. She jerked the suitcase out of the closet and fiddled with the secret compartment until it was open. She shoved two banded stacks of bills into her purse and then changed into a nicer shirt. She kicked off her sandals, donned socks, and shoved her feet into her boots. Now she was ready for a good therapy session, and Mason could bite her square on the ass if he didn’t like what she bought the girls.

  She might even buy presents for the tomcat and the goats, but by damn, Mason wasn’t getting a damn thing. She checked the gas gauge in the truck before she put it in reverse. It read half a tankful, and she’d be bringing it home that much or more. No way was she going to be indebted to Mason for anything after the way he’d treated her. Hell’s bells, she was a certified nurse, and all the girls had was a simple sore throat.

  Not a single store in Whitewright called out to her to park the truck and come inside to shop, so she caught the highway up to Sherman. When she saw the signs for Walmart, Ross, and Books-A-Million, she had no doubt that she was on the right track to have some serious fun.

  Right behind Walmart was a long strip mall that had far more than she could cover in one afternoon and evening. She parked at the end and went into the bookstore first, browsed around for an hour, and left with two heavy bags. One had all kinds of new authors for the girls and the other was stuffed full of fat romance books for herself. One by Joanne Kennedy had a cowboy rolling up the sleeves of a white T-shirt on the front. Another by an author she hadn’t read, Julie Ann Walker, had reached out and insisted that it was coming home with her, and the dark-haired hunk on the front wore a white T-shirt too. Cowboys or bad boys, those T-shirts reminded her of Mason and the way the knit stretched over his muscles. Then she simply could not pass up the brand-spanking-new Sue Grafton novel.

  She put the bags in the backseat of the truck and drove up to the next place that caught her eye. A children’s clothing store that netted her four bags of cute things for the girls, from Sunday dresses to cute little summer shorts and tops to match.

  By then her stomach was growling, because she’d been too angry to eat, so she drove across the highway to a little catfish place. It was one of those fast-food places where you order at the counter from a menu stuck up above. She ordered the combo platter that had half catfish and half shrimp. What she didn’t eat, she’d take home to O’Malley for his snack. Poor old boy deserved something for getting his ear pierced.

  When her folks passed away, when Nicky was abusive, when she lost a patient, it upset her so badly that she couldn’t swallow. But she had no trouble eating that day as she went over every nuance of the argument she’d had with Mason. She was right, and he was wrong, and she didn’t intend to back down, not even if he put on a snowy-white T-shirt, and his eyes went all dreamy and soft.

  Her phone rang and there was Lily’s picture, smiling up from the swimming pool with her blond hair stringing down in her face. Gabby’s picture was one of her with Djali at the birthday party, her arms around his neck and the goat looking scared shitless.

  “Hello,” she said.

  “You will come back, won’t you?” Lily whispered.

  “Why are you talking like that? Is your throat worse?” Annie Rose was already sliding out of the booth and on her way out the door. What if the sore throats had gone into strep before the antibiotics kicked in? What if she’d been wrong not to insist that Doc come on out to the ranch and check them out himself? What if they needed to be hospitalized?

  “No, me and Gabby are okay. We miss you, and we have to whisper. Daddy is in the bathroom, and we don’t want him to hear us callin’ you.”

  Annie Rose sat back down with a thud. “Why?”

  “Because y’all were fighting.”

  She could hear Gabby fighting with Lily. “Give me that phone. It’s my turn. Tell her that if she leaves, we’re going to be awful, and tell her that nannies can leave but mamas can’t…”

  “I hear the water running, so Daddy is coming back. Just come home, Mama-Nanny,” Lily said.

  Damn men! She fumed as she found a couple of plastic bowls for ice cream. She was still having an inner hissy fit when something colder than ice water flushed through her veins. She knew the feeling well. She’d lived with it for years, both while she was in a relationship with Nicky and then the two years she’d been on the run.

  Fear!

  That’s what Mason dealt with every time Lily or Gabby sneezed. Because Holly had died so young, he was terrified of losing one or both of his girls.

  ***

  Mason was bored out of his mind, more miserable than he’d been in years and ready to climb the walls if he had to watch one more kid movie. Even Janie knocking on the open door to tell him that they were through cleaning and ready for payment was a good distraction.

  “I’ll be right back,” he told the girls.

  “Can you bring us some frozen pops? I want a red one and Gabby wants a yellow one,” Lily said.

  “No, I don’t. I want purple. You don’t know what I want,” Gabby argued.

  They were definitely getting tired of being cooped up and every bit as tired of movies as he was. He missed Annie Rose even more than the twins did. The whole house was empty without her, and every time he blinked he got another picture of her. There she was in the kitchen with the girls helping her cook. And there she was stretched out on one of the lounges by the pool. But the ones that stayed the longest was when she was curled up in his arms on the swing or when their lips met in a fiery kiss that rocked his world.

  Janie poked her head out from the utility room where she’d been moping. “Had a little spat with the new nanny, did you? That’s a different twist. Usually it’s the twins who hate the nanny, but they really like this one. And she cooks like a dream. What’s the matter with you?”

  Mason wrote a check from the big black business book and tore it out with a f
lourish. “I don’t have many rules, but when it comes to the girls being sick, I want to be told, and I want the doctor to come out here immediately.”

  Janie put the check in her pocket. “Well, shit! Did you tell her that when you hired her?”

  “Now I know where Lily gets her nasty mouth,” he said.

  Janie leaned across the desk until she was looking right into his eyes. “I been cleanin’ this house since long before she was born, and you knew I cussed when you hired me to stay on after your mama moved out. Hell, boy, I helped raise you, so don’t be givin’ me no lip. And you’d better listen up. That woman loves those girls, so you’d best make things right with her.”

  Mason managed a tight smile. “She is pretty amazing.”

  “Amazing don’t even begin to cover it. I’d swear she was those girls’ real mama the way she is with them…”

  Mason held up a hand. “Okay, I was a jackass. You don’t have to keep reminding me, but it worries me when they’re sick.”

  “A sore throat is just a sore throat and Annie Rose had it all under control. I’ve sent my kids to school when they were worse off than those girls.”

  Mason sighed. “I guess I owe her an apology.”

  “Honey, you owe her more than that. I ain’t never seen no one control them girls like she does. Martha is in shock. And Lily said that Annie Rose is a nurse, to boot? Man, you ain’t never had it so good or shit in your nest so bad, either. We’re leavin’ now. We got another place to clean this afternoon. Tell the girls I hope they’re all better by next week.” Janie waved over her shoulder as she left.

  Mason dragged his phone from his hip pocket and hit speed dial for Annie Rose. It rang five times before she picked up.

  “Are they running fever? It’s time for their next dose of medicine. I forgot to tell you what time to give it and I was fixin’ to call you,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, and I don’t want you to leave,” he said.

  A long pregnant pause made him hold the phone out from his ear to see if it had gone dark.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Good, because I’m on my way back, and I’m too damned tired to pack or go anywhere tonight.”