The Cowboy's Family

by Brenda Minton

  “I doubt that.” He handed the reins to Molly. “Hold tight, kiddo.”

  “Have fun with the pony.” Rachel leaned to kiss Kat’s cheek and she waved to Molly the cowgirl. “See you at church Wednesday.”

  She turned to walk away, but Wyatt touched her arm, stopping her. She smiled because he looked as surprised as she did. His hand was still on her arm, warm and rough against her skin.

  “All joking aside, I really do appreciate you going with us today. I know the girls loved having you along.”

  She shrugged and his hand slid off her arm. “I enjoyed it as much as they did.”

  And then she stood there, unmoving. The moment needed an escape route, the kind posted in hotel rooms. It should read: In case of emergency, exit here.

  Wyatt remembered the Wednesday evening bonfire fifteen minutes before it started. He pulled into the parking lot of the church and the fire was already going, and people were gathered around in lawn chairs. He killed the engine on his truck and glanced in the backseat.

  “Oh, man, we really should have done something with your hair.” But the girls’ hair had been the last thing on his mind as they rushed out the door.

  He’d spent the day working the new bull, bringing it into the chute and bucking it out with a dummy on its back. He knew that it would buck, he just wanted to see for himself what they’d gotten themselves into. In the next week or two he’d take him over to Clint Cameron’s and let some of the teens that hung out over there give him a try.

  But the bull aside, he’d also had to put out a fire in the kitchen. A cooking experiment had gone very wrong. Good thing he’d remembered the Wednesday evening bonfire. He smiled at the girls. Both had dirty faces, pigtails that were coming undone and boots with their shorts. He was pretty sure this was a real fashion catastrophe.

  At least they were at church. He got out and opened the back door for the girls. They clambered down from the truck, jumping off the running board and then heading off to join Rachel and the other kids.

  She was the pied piper of girls, big and small. Teenagers followed her around, talking as she worked. Sometimes she gave them jobs to do. As he stared she glanced quickly in his direction.

  “She’s our bonus.”

  He turned and Etta smiled at him.

  “What does that mean?” He shoved his keys in his pocket and walked across the big lawn with Etta. He thought to offer her his arm, but she would have laughed and told him she was able to walk on her own steam.

  “I mean, we got a great pastor and pastor’s wife and Rachel is the bonus. She does so much in the church. Our youth and children’s ministries have doubled. That’s why Pastor Waters is thinking of hiring a youth minister.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “In Rachel you mean?” Etta smiled and headed in the other direction.

  “You know what I mean.” He called out after her. She turned and waved, ornery as ever. And he loved her. He thought back to the hard times in his life. She had been there, getting him through every one of them. She’d even flown down to Florida after Wendy died. She’d stayed a month, helping with babies, helping him to breathe. “Wyatt.”

  This time it was Jason Bradshaw and his wife Alyson. The happy couple headed is his direction. There was too much romance going on in this town for his comfort.

  “How are you two?”

  “Good. I’m glad to see you here. We’re going to have music after we eat. We can always use another guitar, if you have yours.”

  “I left it here last week.” Wyatt scanned the yard for his girls.

  He saw them in the playground. Molly had just gone down the slide. Kat had her arms around Rachel’s neck and was being carried to the swing.

  “Then I’ll find you when we’re ready to get started.” Jason followed the direction of his gaze and smiled.

  “Sounds good. I need to check on the girls.”

  “Right, check on the girls.” Jason laughed and shot a pointed look in the direction of Rachel Waters.

  Wyatt ignored the insinuation. He headed across the lawn toward the playground. Rachel sat on a bench, Molly in front of her. She had ponytail holders in her mouth and a brush in her hand. When he got close enough she looked up and smiled.

  “Do you mind?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  But he did mind. For reasons he didn’t get, he minded. It might have been about her, or about himself, maybe it was about Wendy, but he minded.

  She scooted and he got that it was an offer. He could sit down and let people say what they wanted or he could walk away. And people would still talk. It wouldn’t be malicious, the talk. No, it would be pure Dawson. Everyone would be hoping to fix him.

  Option one seemed like the best bet. He sat down next to her. Kat hurried to him and climbed on his lap. Her hair had already been fixed. He hadn’t noticed from across the lawn.

  Molly sat quietly. She never sat that still for him. Rachel talked about their pony, talked about s’mores and ran the brush through his daughter’s tangled brown hair. When it was smooth she pulled it back, brushed it smooth again and held it tight. She had placed the ponytail holders on her wrist and she took them off, wrapping them around the ponytail, holding it firm at the crown of Molly’s head.

  “There you go, sweetie.” Rachel kissed her cheek.

  “You make it look easy.”

  She smiled at the comment. “It takes practice. You’ll get the hang of it.”

  He wasn’t so sure.

  After cooking hot dogs and marshmallows in the fire, Rachel sat with the kids, making a circle around Jason, Wyatt and some others. The men started with a few praise songs and then switched to contemporary Christian music. The teens clapped and sang along.

  Molly and Kat climbed into her lap, both of them snuggling close. She held them tight and pretended it didn’t hurt. But it did. The other children had gone off to their mommies.

  Molly and Kat had turned to her while their daddy sang. She wrapped them in an extra blanket her own mother had brought and the two dozed in her lap. Firelight flickered. The songs were softer, sweeter. She closed her eyes and listened.

  When she opened her eyes her gaze sought another, connecting, holding. Wyatt looked away first, shifting his gaze down, to the strings of his guitar.

  Etta moved from her chair and joined Rachel on the ground. She lowered herself onto the blanket and reached for Kat.

  “Let me help you with that little sweet thing.” Etta held the child close. “I do love these babies.”

  “Me, too.” Rachel exhaled and a chill swept up her back. The night was getting cooler, the air was damp. The fire was burning out and the heat no longer reached where she sat.

  “We should wrap this up.” Jason Bradshaw put his drum down and looked around. The crowd had seriously disappeared. “Wow, where’d everyone go?”

  “It’s almost ten o’clock,” Alyson informed him, smiling, her eyes revealing that she adored him.

  “Wow.” Jason leaned to kiss his wife.

  Wyatt stood up, putting his guitar back in the case. He carried it to where she sat and leaned it against a chair. He towered over her and she breathed easier when he knelt next to them.

  “Thank you for watching them for me.”

  Rachel held Molly close. “They were watching me.”

  “Let me get her and then I’ll come back for Kat.”

  “I have an idea. You take her, I’ll take Kat from Etta and carry her over for you.”

  He stared down at her and after a minute he nodded. But he had that look on his face, the same one as the other day when she’d opened the gate.

  He took Molly from her arms, leaning in, his head close to Rachel’s. She waited for him to move away before she stretched her legs and then stood. Etta smiled up at her, brows arching. But she didn’t comment. Rachel loved that the other woman knew when to keep her thoughts to herself. Sometimes.

  Rachel took Kat and held her in one arm. She extended her free
hand and Etta took it, pulling herself to her feet.

  “That ground isn’t as soft as it used to be.” Etta kissed Kat’s cheek and hugged Rachel. “See you in a few days, Rachel Lynn.”

  “Let me know if you need me sooner.”

  “Will do, honey.” And then Etta headed for Alyson.

  Rachel headed toward the parking lot with Kat. When she reached Wyatt’s truck Molly was already buckled in and his guitar case was in the front seat. He opened the driver’s side back door and reached for Kat. His hands slid against Rachel’s arms. He caught her gaze, held it for a second and then moved away.

  Rachel backed up a few steps. “They’re easy to love.”

  He smiled at that. “Yeah, they are.”

  She took another step back, trying not to think too much. He leaned against his truck, always the cowboy in his faded jeans and worn boots. He had on a ball cap tonight, though, no cowboy hat.

  Time to make her escape.

  “I’ll see you in a few days.” She backed up, tripping over the curb.

  A hand shot out, grabbing her arm, steadying her. He laughed a little and winked. “You might want to work on that walking thing.”

  “Yeah, I might.”

  He let go of her arm. “Good night, Rachel.”

  She watched him drive away and then she hurried back to the leftover embers of the fire.

  Chapter Five

  Wyatt never would have imagined that one little pony would be so much trouble. But a few days after they brought Prince home, Wyatt was starting to see what he’d done. The night before, the girls had ridden the poor little animal until sunset. Wyatt had finally insisted they go inside and eat something quick before they crashed.

  This day had been more of the same. The sun wasn’t going down, but it was suppertime and the girls were hungry and beat. He wasn’t too far behind them. Wyatt herded them into the laundry room, trying to ignore the massive pile of laundry that needed to be done. He kicked off his boots as the girls sat on the floor and pulled theirs off.

  “What are we gonna eat?” Molly sat on the floor, her arms crossed over her raised knees. “Are you gonna cook?”

  The cookbooks. He bent to help Kat get her left boot off. Her cheeks were a little pink from the sun and her hair was tangled from the wind. They needed a bath and an early bedtime.

  “I can try another recipe. I have hamburger.”

  Molly covered her face. “Not hamburgers.”

  Kat imitated her sister. “Not burgers.”

  “I don’t mean hamburgers. I’ll cook something with hamburger.” He picked them up and walked into the kitchen. He put the girls down and Molly looked around, her face nearly as pink as her sister’s. She opened the cabinet with cereal.

  They’d had cereal the night before. And the night before that they’d eaten at the Mad Cow. He’d never been much of a cook. For the first year or so it hadn’t seemed to matter. He’d been numb and food had just been food. Ryder had shaken him out of that way of thinking.

  He really needed a housekeeper. He needed someone who could cook. He glanced at his girls sitting on the stools where they were waiting for him to cook something wonderful. Molly’s braids were coming undone. She pulled it loose. They needed someone who could put ribbons in their hair.

  Rachel Waters’s image interrupted his thoughts and he pushed it aside as he reached into a drawer for the apron he’d bought a few days ago. He tied it around his waist and winked at his girls. They giggled and Kat covered her eyes.

  Rachel Waters was not on the short list of people he could hire. He wasn’t going to let her do this to him. She wasn’t going to be traipsing around the place, smelling it up with her perfume, invading his peace and quiet.

  “Okay, we need food.”

  “We need Rachel,” Molly said, the voice of reason. He wasn’t convinced. He had an apron. He could cook.

  “Why do we need Rachel?” He stood next to his oldest daughter. Her arms wrapped around his waist and she held him close.

  “She sings.”

  “Right, she sings.” He didn’t know if that qualified her to be their housekeeper. They needed a grandmotherly woman who knitted scarves. Yeah, that would be perfect.

  “I’m hungry.” Kat rubbed sleepy eyes with her pudgy fists.

  “Right, and I’m cooking.” Something quick and easy. He opened the casserole cookbook and found a recipe that included tater tots, soup and hamburger. Man, what could be easier than that?

  Molly stared, her expression skeptical as he tossed the thawed hamburger into a heated pan and then turned on the oven to preheat. He glanced at the cookbook. To four hundred degrees.

  “I can do this, Mol, I promise.”

  “Promise?” Kat covered her eyes again and peeked between her fingers.

  “Kat, it isn’t going to be that scary. Why don’t you go wash up and it’ll be ready soon.”

  Kat was drooping like some of the plants in the den. He guessed he had about ten minutes to get something in her before she crashed. They’d been having so much fun on the pony he hadn’t paid attention to the time.

  Eighteen long months of trying to make the right decisions. Eighteen months of wondering what he could have done to change the course of their lives. He should have noticed something that day when he left Wendy and the girls for a youth retreat.

  He stirred the hamburger until it turned brown.

  Instead of noticing the look in Wendy’s eyes, he’d kissed her goodbye and wondered why she held him so long before he walked out the door. Even now, eighteen long months later, the memory shook him. He started to slam his fist into the wall, but the girls were there, watching. They kept him sane. They kept him being a dad and living his life.

  They kept him in church when he would have liked to walk away. They kept him from being so angry that he couldn’t go on.

  “Hey, you girls going to go clean up?”

  He turned and Kat’s head was on the granite top that covered the kitchen island. A chef’s kitchen for a guy who could barely manage a bowl of cereal. Pretty crazy.

  When he talked to the contractor last fall, he had this idea that a great kitchen would inspire him to cook. Instead, it inspired him to spend as much time as possible in the barn.

  Molly stared up at him, her dark eyes seeing too much. She wasn’t even four years old. She needed to chase butterflies and ride ponies, not spend her days worrying about her dad or what they’d feed her little sister. He hugged her.

  “We can have cereal, Daddy,” she whispered in his ear.

  “No, we’re not going to have cereal. We’re going to have a casserole. Kat can nap while I cook.” He glanced at the clock. It was almost seven. “Let’s go wash your hands and I’ll put your sister on the couch. We’ll straighten up while the casserole cooks.”

  “You’re a bad cleaner, Daddy.” Molly leaned her head on his shoulder. “And you even burned our grilled cheese.”

  “I know, pumpkin, but tonight will be better. I have a cookbook.”

  Fifteen minutes later the smoke detector was going off and Kat was screaming the house down. He ran down the hall to grab a broom and he knocked the offending alarm off the ceiling. Smoke filled the kitchen and someone was banging on the back door.

  Just what he needed. No reason to call and warn a person that you planned to visit.

  “Come in.” He could hear the girls crying. The upstairs smoke detector was now going off and the backdoor banged shut.

  “Do I need to call the fire department?”

  He was pouring baking soda on the flaming hamburger meat when his mother-in-law appeared at his side and sat a lid on the fiasco that was supposed to be dinner. His baking soda had already worked to put out the flames. He’d remembered that much from something he’d read years ago.

  “Grandma.” Molly and Kat in unison ran to Violet and hugged her legs. She hugged them back.

  “Girls, get your shoes on, we’re going to the Mad Cow.” He ignored Violet and smiled at his daugh
ters. And he hated ignoring Violet. She’d been more of a parent to him than the two he’d been stuck with at birth.

  “This was their dinner?” Violet stood and flipped on the exhaust fan before opening the window over the sink. “Honestly, Wyatt, this isn’t what I wanted to see when I showed up here.”

  “Well, Violet, I’m not sure what to tell you. Accidents happen.”

  “Of course they do.”

  Okay, so she was making him feel like a ten-year-old kid who had gotten caught writing on the bathroom wall. He jerked off the apron and tossed it on the counter. “Look, Violet, we’re fine. The girls are fine.”

  “I know you’re fine.” She fiddled with the diamond rings on her left hand. “I’m not here to grade your progress. I’m here to see you.”

  “I didn’t know you were going to be here today.”

  “I wanted to surprise the girls.” Her arms were around his daughters again.

  “I see.” It felt like some kind of snap inspection.

  “Let’s take the girls to the diner and later we can talk.”

  “Talk about what, Violet?” He shot a look past her, to his daughters and he smiled a little softer smile. “You girls go find shoes and wash your hands and faces before we go.”

  Molly took Kat by the hand and led her out of the kitchen, down the hall. He could hear their little girl jabber and once they were out of earshot, he turned his attention back to Violet. He hadn’t noticed before that she had dark circles under her eyes and more gray in her dark hair than the last time he’d seen her.

  But then, he wasn’t the most observant guy in the world.

  “What is it we’re going to talk about?” he reminded her when she didn’t say anything.

  “About the girls coming to spend time with me.”

  “Violet, I’ll bring the girls to see you. Maybe in a week or two. We’ll spend a couple of nights.” He knew that wasn’t what she wanted.

  He pretended it was as he walked out the door to the laundry room and slid his feet into his boots. Violet followed him. She didn’t belong here. She wore designer dresses and diamonds. Wendy had worn jeans and T-shirts.