A Real Cowboy

by Carla Cassidy

  He was here with her and Sammy now, but once the danger passed, he would be back out the window and in the pasture, riding the range alone.

  * * *

  Cassie remained in bed even though she was wide-awake. This had been her aunt’s room and it was decorated in a style completely opposite to Cassie’s personal taste. The furniture was big and heavy, the bedspread a brown floral. Cassie preferred bright colors and modern furnishings, but there was no point in redecorating a room she wasn’t going to live in that long.

  When the sun drifted into the window, she looked at the wall that held a dozen photographs, each one of her aunt Cass and the cowboys who worked here. They were twelve men who had obviously loved and respected her aunt very much.

  Cassie didn’t know what it was like to be respected like that by anyone in her life. Even her own parents had claimed her to be weak and silly with her artistic leanings and emotional nature.

  She turned over on her side so that she could no longer see the pictures. Outside the window she could hear the faint sound of chain saws and knew that some of the cowboys were still working to clear felled trees.

  Guilt had become a constant companion as she thought of selling the place, perhaps displacing the men who had been such an integral part of the ranch’s success.

  But she’d never wanted a ranch. She wanted her store and New York City. She wanted artists and the special thrum of energy that the city contained.

  Her head filled with a vision of Adam. He was so sincere, so patient as he continued to teach her everything about ranching and running this place specifically. He wanted her to succeed here.

  She was attracted to him and there were times she believed he was attracted to her, too. But she didn’t want to hitch her star to a cowboy. She didn’t want to muck around stalls and worry about hay storage or feed bins.

  There was no question that he’d loved her aunt, and sometimes she wondered if he was trying to make her into Cass. That wasn’t going to happen.

  She didn’t have the fortitude that her aunt had possessed. She couldn’t imagine owning the strength that Cass had displayed when her husband had died and she’d decided to build cowboys from street kids and create a successful ranching operation.

  Cassie was a city girl and she couldn’t imagine anything or anyone ever changing that. Her decision to get the ranch in order and sell it hadn’t wavered, even though she felt like a Judas in betraying all the people who worked for the ranch.

  The scent of coffee drifted to her nose, along with Sammy’s giggle. That meant that Lucas, Sammy and Nicolette were already up and around.

  Sammy. Who on earth was behind the attacks on him? He was like a beloved nephew to her and she couldn’t imagine the horror of anything bad happening to him.

  Thank God for Lucas, who had managed to chase down Jeff and rescue Sammy. She frowned thoughtfully. She was a little bit concerned about the relationship Nicolette and Lucas seemed to be building.

  When she left here to return to New York she wanted her best friend and partner at her side. She couldn’t imagine Nicolette really wanting to build a life here. Whether Nicolette knew it or not, she was a city girl, too.

  Cassie knew she should get up, but instead she burrowed deeper beneath the sheets and closed her eyes once again, not yet ready to face a day where she was deceiving the men who worked for her and hoping her best friend didn’t find love with a cowboy.

  Chapter 12

  It was just after three in the afternoon when Nicolette sent Sammy upstairs with Cassie to work on his new painting project so that she could make the call to her ex-husband.

  Lucas sat next to Nicolette on the sofa in the great room. She stared down at her cell phone in her trembling hand and her face paled.

  Was she afraid to call the man she’d once been married to? “Was he abusive to you?” Lucas asked, his chest suddenly tight with tension at the idea of her suffering any kind of abuse at the hands of her ex-husband.

  She looked up at him in surprise. “No, never. The only thing Samuel was guilty of as a husband was being neglectful and selfish.”

  “Then why do you look scared to death to make the call to him?” Lucas asked.

  “Because if he doesn’t have any suggestions as to what might be happening to Sammy, then I don’t have any place else to go for answers. I’m scared because he’s my very last hope for figuring things out and I desperately want him to tell me something that would make sense of everything.”

  “I hope we learn something,” he said. He needed this to be over. He was spending far too much time fantasizing about making love to her once again. He spent far too much time thinking about what it might be like to live with Nicolette and Sammy permanently, and he knew those were a fool’s thoughts.

  Even if he acknowledged to himself that he was in love with Nicolette and her son, even if she professed herself to be in love with him, he had no intentions of doing anything about it.

  He wouldn’t believe her if she told him she was in love with him. She was so far out of her element, with danger surrounding her son, and he was simply the rock she clung to under what could be described only as a stressful situation.

  Besides, if he gave her his heart, he knew the ultimate result would just be another abandonment of him. She might be a country girl now, but the city would eventually call her back home.

  He couldn’t believe he was even entertaining these thoughts after knowing her only a week. He needed to stay focused on what was important, and that was the threat to Sammy.

  “Call him,” he said as she moved the phone from hand to hand. “Call him and get it over with.”

  She gave a curt nod and punched a series of numbers into her phone, at the same time hitting the speaker button that would allow him to hear the conversation.

  The phone rang three times before a male voice answered. “Nicolette? Wow, talk about a blast from the past. How ya doing?” There was the sound of a female voice in the background, a muffled noise of rustling sheets, and Lucas could only assume that Samuel was sending somebody out of his bed.

  “Not so well,” Nicolette replied, her voice neutral of any emotions.

  “Don’t tell me after all this time you’re calling me for money,” Samuel replied.

  “That would be the very last thing I’d call you for,” Nicolette replied evenly. Fewer than four sentences out of Samuel’s mouth and Lucas already didn’t like the guy. “Somebody tried to kidnap Sammy.”

  “What? How...when?” Samuel sounded genuinely shocked.

  Nicolette told Samuel as succinctly as possible about the two potential threats to Sammy’s life.

  “A guy snatched him and rode off with him on horseback? In the middle of New York City?” Samuel’s voice was incredulous.

  “I’m not in New York right now. I’m in Oklahoma.”

  “Oklahoma?”

  She proceeded to explain to him about Cassie’s aunt’s death and their trip out to the ranch.

  “So, why are you calling me? What do you expect me to do about it? I’m over a thousand miles away. Are the cops involved? Is there an investigation going on?” Samuel asked.

  “Yes, there’s an investigation.” Again she filled him in on Jeff Bodine’s and Del Hawkins’s arrests, but explained that at the moment the two of them led to dead ends. “What I need to know from you is if you’ve made anyone angry enough that they might seek revenge on you by trying to take Sammy. Or do you maybe owe somebody money?”

  “You know I don’t make people angry. I make people happy. As a matter of fact, last night we had a Hawaiian luau on the yacht. We had hula dancers and roasted pig and plenty of rum punch. As far as the money thing, I don’t owe anyone anything. My pockets are deep enough to stay out of other people’s pockets.”

  Nicolette closed her eyes, her fingers gripping the phone. “So, you can’t think of anyone who might be behind the kidnapping attempts on Sammy?”

  “Not off the top of my head, but if I think of somebody
I’ll let you know,” Samuel replied. “I can reach you at the number you called from, right?”

  “Yes, it’s my cell phone.” Nicolette opened her eyes once again and gave a slight shake of her head. “Think hard, Samuel. There has to be somebody.”

  The call ended but she remained seated with the phone still in her tight grasp. “He didn’t even ask how Sammy was doing. If he was scared or needed his father.” Her voice was dull, lifeless. “I’m embarrassed to think that I was ever married to him.” She finally raised her gaze to Lucas. “What did you think? Did you hear anything ‘off’ in his voice?”

  “Not really. He just sounded like a jerk to me.”

  A quick burst of laughter escaped Nicolette. “And that about sums him up.” She set the phone on the table in front of them and raked a hand through her long dark hair. Lucas remembered too well the feel of those silky strands in his fingers.

  “Maybe he’ll call you back and have a name of somebody,” he offered in an effort to somehow chase away some of the darkness in her eyes.

  “Maybe,” she said without any real enthusiasm.

  “Nicolette, Dillon is going to continue to investigate the case. Just because Del Hawkins isn’t talking doesn’t mean that Dillon won’t be doing everything in his power to find out everything he can about Del. He might be a small-town chief of police, but he’s smart and his investigators are equally as smart. He’ll reach out to everyone and anyone he needs to in an effort to get answers.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her eyes swimming with gratefulness.

  “Thank you for what?”

  “For reminding me that we aren’t in this all alone. You’re right. I need to give Dillon a chance to do his job, to hopefully find the clues that will lead to an end to this.”

  “You definitely aren’t alone,” Lucas replied. “You don’t just have the entire law enforcement of Bitterroot taking care of business but you also have me and eleven other men whom you can count on to help keep Sammy safe.”

  “I feel better already,” she said. “And now, I think I’ll head upstairs and see how the art lessons are going.”

  Lucas watched her leave and then walked back into the kitchen and pulled his cell phone from his pocket. It took him only seconds to connect with Dillon.

  “Anything new?” he asked.

  “We’ve been digging into Del Hawkins’s background, but haven’t found much of interest other than the fact that he’s underwater financially. I’ve requested his phone records, both cell and home phone, and hopefully we’ll find a number that will lead to somebody else involved. It’s possible Del was the end of the line and thought he could get a ransom for Sammy.”

  “Somebody paid for his high-priced lawyer,” Lucas reminded Dillon. “Nicolette doesn’t believe the motive was ransom money.”

  Dillon gave a dry laugh. “We’ve got two men without two nickels to rub together. Maybe Jeff and Del figured if Nicolette didn’t have any money, then your team of cowboys and Cassie would all pool together enough money to make them happy.”

  “But that doesn’t answer the question of who gave Jeff Bodine two thousand dollars with the promise of two more. As you just said, Del didn’t have that kind of money.”

  Dillon was silent for a long moment and then released an audible sigh. “That’s why we’re just at the beginning of investigating.”

  “I’d like you to see what you can find out about Samuel Kendall.”

  “Nicolette’s ex? She was pretty adamant that he wouldn’t have anything to do with this, that he has plenty of money and no desire to have his kid.”

  “She called him a little while ago and he seemed genuinely surprised about the kidnapping attempts, but no stone left unturned, right?”

  “Right. He’s in New York City?”

  “Nicolette told me he spends a lot of his time on a yacht in the Hamptons. He also has a beach house there and an apartment in Manhattan.”

  “I’ll make contact with some local authorities there and see what they can dig up. The only real news I have is that Del’s lawyer is going around and telling everyone within hearing distance that his client was just an innocent diner who got arrested because a drugged-up dopehead told the police a lie.”

  “Let’s hope the prosecutor has a better story,” Lucas replied. The last thing he wanted was for Del Hawkins to walk away from all this unscathed. There was no question in Lucas’s mind that he was part of a scheme to take Sammy somewhere and to someone. Jeff hadn’t just invented a man in the diner in a black-and-red shirt.

  The two men talked for a few more minutes and then ended the call. Lucas wandered around the lower level of the house, trying to escape the scent of Nicolette that seemed to linger in every room.

  She would haunt him long after she’d left here. He would hear the echo of her laughter as he rode the fence line, remember the silkiness of her skin, the heat of her kisses as he polished leather or stacked hay bales.

  His hand would occasionally burn with the memory of Sammy’s smaller hand in his. The secret that Sammy had told him of wanting Lucas to be his dad would forever burn inside his soul.

  They had managed to find parts of his heart that weren’t scarred, that had been defenseless, and he hated that. But he knew that Nicolette’s cute dusty-rose cowboy boots didn’t make her a cowgirl.

  She could pull on jeans and muck out stalls, but he’d never believe that when push came to shove she’d make a decision to remain here in Bitterroot.

  Besides, how many times could a man put his heart on the line and get it kicked and battered beyond repair? His mother’s abandonment of him had forever changed him, forced him to be guarded...to be afraid of personal connections.

  He’d let Cass in but only after years of working with her. He simply refused to let anyone else into his heart, into his very soul.

  Eventually life would go back to some sort of normal. Hopefully when Cassie sold the ranch, the new owner would see that he had a group of men already in place who could take care of business and he’d keep them all on.

  When this was all over the best he could wish for was that Sammy would no longer be in danger, he and his partners would still have their jobs here and he could say goodbye to Nicolette without his heart involved in any way.

  * * *

  The afternoon seemed agonizingly long. Lucas paced the floor like a caged tiger and Sammy bounced off the walls with boredom. Cassie had left once again with Adam to head into town, where he could show her the places they ordered their supplies from, and they planned on eating dinner out.

  Nicolette, unable to stand the growing tension, escaped to the kitchen to think about dinner preparations. She decided to throw together a quick sauce and make spaghetti. She opened cans of tomato sauce and grabbed a handful of spices, and while she worked she tried to keep her mind empty.

  She knew if she allowed it, her brain would fill with chaos...the danger to Sammy, her desire for Lucas and the uncertainly of the future.

  She chopped up cloves of garlic and tried not to be discouraged by the fact that Dillon had so far uncovered nothing that might move his investigation forward.

  Time. She just needed to give the officials time and surely they would come up with an answer. Time. She’d heard Cassie talking to Adam before they left and they had set a day next week to start work on the damaged shed. And that would be the beginning of the end of time here if she stuck with Cassie and her life before now.

  Could she build a life here in Bitterroot without Cassie and without Lucas? It would be difficult to start all over again, to build a new support system, a different kind of lifestyle from those she’d ever led before.

  She threw the garlic into the sauce and then added parsley, sweet basil and onion. When it was simmering, she gave it a stir and then sank down at the table and rubbed the center of her forehead. She felt as if she’d had half a headache since the night she’d seen the masked man at Sammy’s bedroom window.

  The sauce hadn’t been cooking l
ong when Lucas and Sammy came into the kitchen. “We thought maybe we could help with dinner preparations,” Lucas said.

  Nicolette got up from the table. “It’s going to take the sauce a little while to cook, but I guess Sammy can set the table and you could make a salad.”

  “Salad duty it is,” Lucas replied at the same time Sammy headed for the cabinet with the plates.

  Nicolette stirred the sauce and got out a pot of water to use to boil the spaghetti noodles. She tried not to focus on Lucas’s nearness as he brushed against her with a handful of lettuce and veggies.

  He grabbed a chopping board and set up his workstation right next to where she stood in front of the stove. Despite the tangy scent of the sauce she could smell his scent, that slightly wild, slightly spicy fragrance that evoked such a longing inside her.

  “Forks on the left, Sammy,” she reminded her son as he began to lay out the silverware.

  “Right,” he replied.

  “No, left,” she said teasingly, a desperate attempt to break the underlying tension with laughter.

  Sammy’s giggles were her reward. “You’re being silly, Mom.”

  “Somebody needs to get a little silly,” she replied. “We’ve all been far too serious all day.”

  “Maybe we could have a spaghetti-slurping contest,” Lucas said and sliced through a green pepper. “Whoever manages to slurp the longest piece gets a prize.”

  “What kind of a prize?” Sammy asked with excitement.

  Lucas frowned thoughtfully. “The winner gets his or her boots polished by the other two.” He looked at Sammy and then at Nicolette, the gleam of challenge in his eyes. He then glanced down at his boots. “And mine could sure use a good shine.”

  Sammy looked down at his own boots. “Mine are worse than yours,” he said to Lucas and then grinned. “And I’m a good slurper. Just ask Mom. Sometimes I slurp when I’m not supposed to.”

  Those simple words spoken from a six-year-old effectively changed the mood of the day. Challenges flew fast and furious among all three of them as they finished preparing the meal and then sat down to eat.