The Cowboy's Family

by Brenda Minton

  “You okay back there?” Wyatt’s voice was raspy and way too sexy.

  “I’m good.” Ugh, she was horrible.

  He chuckled, his sides vibrating under her arms. “Of course you are. I promise, Violet isn’t dangerous. She’s overprotective of the girls. I guess I am, too. Maybe that’s why we clash on a regular basis.”

  “They’re your girls, of course you’re protective. I don’t think you’re over…” She sighed.

  “I’m overprotective.” He glanced back at her. “It’s okay, I can handle it. There are reasons, Rachel.”

  “But sometimes…”

  “No, not sometimes.” He reined in the horse. “Okay, sometimes. I know Molly needs to be able to separate from me. The hour or so a week that she’s in the nursery has helped.”

  “I can see that she’s doing better.” Without knowing all of the reasons why Molly was afraid, it was hard to help her.

  She held on as he cut through a ditch and up the driveway to his house. It looked as if every light in the house was on.

  Nerves twisted a funny dance in her stomach as he pulled the horse to a quick stop next to the back door. He didn’t wait for her to slide off. Instead he swung his right leg over the horse’s neck and jumped off, leaving her sitting on the back of the saddle.

  The door opened as she was sliding forward into the saddle, grabbing the reins as the horse started to sidestep. He calmed the minute she held the reins. Wyatt took the steps two at a time and met his mother-in-law and Molly as they walked out the back door. Molly held her arms out to him, no longer crying, just sobbing and hiccupping a little into his shoulder.

  “I’m here.” He spoke softly to his daughter.

  “She woke up and you were gone.” Violet, a woman with soft features and hair that framed a face that was still young.

  “I shouldn’t have left.”

  His mother-in-law shook her head. “Wyatt, there are going to be times that you have to leave.”

  Rachel sat on the horse, waiting for them to remember her. She didn’t want to be the witness to their pain. She didn’t want to be the bystander who got in the way. Violet remembered her presence and turned to stare.

  Emotions flickered across the woman’s face. Anger, sorrow, it was difficult to tell exactly what Violet thought about Rachel’s presence.

  “I should go.” She didn’t really mean to say it out loud. She slid to the ground, still holding the reins. “It isn’t far. I can walk.”

  Wyatt, still holding Molly, came down the steps. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll drive you home, Rachel. Molly and I can drive you home.”

  “Rachel?” Violet walked to the edge of the porch. “Are you the Rachel that my granddaughters talk about nonstop?”

  “I’m Rachel.”

  “Wyatt said you cleaned his home last week. Are you interested in the job on a permanent basis?”

  Rachel shot Wyatt a look and she wondered if that was what this night ride had been about. Had his mother-in-law put him on the spot and he’d used Rachel as his get-out-of-jail card because she had cleaned one time?

  “She makes the house smell good,” said Molly, suddenly talkative. Rachel smiled at the little girl.

  “Well, that sounds perfect to me.” Violet smiled at her granddaughter. “Do you cook?”

  Rachel nodded because she had no idea what to say. She avoided looking at Wyatt because he probably looked cornered. She knew that she felt pretty cornered. Cleaning Wyatt’s house once did not make her a housekeeper and nanny.

  “Perfect.” Violet looked from Rachel to Wyatt. “When do you want her to start?”

  “Violet, this is something Rachel and I need to discuss.”

  “Well, the two of you talk and I’ll go check on Kat.”

  Rachel thought about reminding them that she was still there, still a grown-up who could make her own decisions, but the conversation ended and Violet went inside looking like a woman who had solved a national crisis.

  “That went well.” He walked down the steps, still holding Molly, toward Rachel. Wyatt took the leather reins from Rachel. “Let me unsaddle him and I’ll drive you home.”

  “I can walk. Or call my dad.” She hugged herself tight, holding her jacket closed against the sudden coolness in the wind.

  Wyatt turned, pushing his hat back. He shook his head. “You aren’t walking. You’re not calling your dad. I’m driving you home. Right, Mol?”

  Molly nodded against his shoulder. She looked so tiny in her pink pajamas and her dark hair tangled around her face. The security light caught her in its glow and her little eyes were open, a few stray tears still trickling down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry that Violet put you on the spot.”

  “I understand.” She stepped closer. “Do you want me to take her while you unsaddle Gatsby?”

  He dropped a kiss on his daughter’s brow and nodded. Molly held out her arms. Rachel didn’t know why it mattered so much to her, but it did. In her heart it mattered that this little girl would reach out to her. It changed everything.

  It even changed that truck ride home, sitting with Molly between them and the stereo playing softly. It changed the way she felt when Wyatt said goodbye and then waited until she was in the house before he backed out of the driveway, the headlights flashing across the side of the house.

  And then she refocused because her parents were still up, still discussing something that could change her life forever.

  Wyatt turned up the radio as he headed down the drive and back to his house. Molly was in the seat next to him, curled over against his side. Her breathing had settled into a heavy pattern that meant she’d fallen back to sleep.

  When he pulled up his driveway he could see Violet in the living room, watching for him to come back. His house. His life. His kids. Violet was their grandmother. As much as he cared for her, he didn’t care for facing off with her tonight.

  He definitely didn’t like her trying to make decisions for him. Decisions such as hiring Rachel Waters to be his housekeeper. There were plenty of women out there who could do the job. Women with loose housedresses and heavy shoes. That seemed pretty close to perfect.

  He stopped the truck and got out, lifting Molly into his arms and carrying her up the back steps. Violet met him. She pushed the door open and he stepped into the laundry room, kicking off his boots, still holding his daughter tight.

  “You’re dating her?” Violet followed him through the kitchen.

  Man, he needed peace and quiet, not this. He needed to put his daughter to bed and think before he got hit with twenty questions. He wasn’t dating.

  He’d gone for a ride to clear his head and for whatever reason he’d let that ride take him straight to Rachel. It wasn’t like he’d planned it.

  “I’m going to put my daughter in bed, Violet.”

  He glanced back and she stood in the hallway, her eyes damp with tears but she wasn’t angry. He let out a sigh and walked up the stairs to the room Molly and Kat shared. Twin beds painted white, pastel quilts with flowers and butterflies. It was the perfect room for little girls to grow up in. Until they started fighting like barn cats and needed their own space.

  That wasn’t something he wanted to think about, their growing up. He hoped they would always be close. He didn’t want to think about them in their twenties, having one major fight and pulling away until…

  He didn’t want to go back and he wasn’t going to let his girls be him and Ryder.

  He put his daughter in her bed and pulled the quilt up to her chin. She opened her eyes and smiled softly, raising a hand to touch his cheek. Sleepy eyes drifted closed again and he kissed her cheek. “Love you, Molly.”

  “Love you, Daddy.” She smiled but her eyes didn’t open.

  “I’m downstairs if you need me.” He walked to the door. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  As he walked downstairs, he felt as if he was about to face the judge. Violet was waiting in the den. The TV was turned off. She put down he
r book, a book he knew she hadn’t opened. He took off his hat and shoved a hand through his hair. And he stood there in the middle of the living room, unsure.

  “What’s going on, Wyatt?”

  “There’s nothing going on, Violet. I’m being a dad to my daughters and I’m raising horses with Ryder.” He sat down on the couch and rubbed a hand over his face because he was a grown man and he really didn’t feel the need to answer her questions. But he owed her something. “I’m not dating Rachel Waters. She’s the pastor’s daughter and she takes care of the girls when they’re in the church nursery. She teaches their preschool Sunday school class.”

  “I see. Well, she’s very pretty.”

  “Right.” Was that a trick statement?

  “Wyatt, someday you’ll want to date again. You’ll move on. That’s okay.”

  He closed his eyes because it seemed like a real good way to avoid this discussion. Instead he got smacked upside the head with a vision of Rachel Waters. Facing Violet was easier than facing the image taunting him behind closed eyes.

  Never in his wildest dreams would Violet have been the person telling him to move on.

  “Hire her, Wyatt. She’d be perfect for the girls. They need someone like her in their lives.”

  “They have me.” He twisted the gold band on his finger. Someday he would have to take it off. “No one can replace Wendy.”

  “She was my daughter, Wyatt. I think I know that no one can replace her. But I lost a husband once and I do know that we can’t stop living.”

  “I haven’t stopped living.” Okay, maybe he had for a while.

  He hadn’t expected it to hurt when the grief started to fade and life started to feel like something he wanted to live again. Moving on felt like cheating.

  “Wyatt, you’re a good dad. You were a good husband.”

  He had wondered for a long time and never been able to ask if she blamed him. He sure blamed himself. He still couldn’t ask.

  “It’s the hardest thing in the world, moving forward. But…” What else could he say? Moving forward meant accepting.

  She leaned and patted his arm. “Don’t beat yourself up too much for having good days.”

  She had lost her husband years ago. Wendy’s dad had died at work. A sudden heart attack that took them all by surprise. A few years ago Violet had remarried. He admired her strength, even if she did try to run his life from time to time.

  “If you don’t hire Rachel, do you have any thoughts on who you would like to hire?” Violet picked up her purse and dug through it, pulling out a small tablet and pen.

  “Someone capable.” He pictured Rachel and brushed the thought aside to replace it with a more suitable image. “Someone older.”

  Violet laughed a little and wrote down something about unattractive older woman. Now she was starting to get it.

  Chapter Seven

  The new lambs frolicked next to their mothers. Rachel leaned against the fence and watched, smiling a little. And smiling wasn’t the easiest thing to do, not after the previous evening’s conversation with her parents.

  This was her place, Dawson, this house and the sheep she raised. Working for Etta, that was another place where she fit. Finally, at twenty-nine she fit.

  That meant something because growing up she’d been the misfit, the overweight rebel always compared to her older sister. Cynthia had been the pretty one, the good one. Rob, her older brother, had been the studious one.

  Rachel had set out to prove that she had a mind of her own.

  “Thinking?” Her dad appeared at her side.

  She glanced at him, wondering when he’d gotten those lines around his eyes and that gray in his hair. As a kid, she’d always imagined him young and capable. She’d never imagined her mother in bed for days, fighting a lupus flare-up that attacked her joints and caused fatigue that forced her to rest more often.

  Parents weren’t supposed to age.

  “Yes, thinking.”

  “Rachel, if we get this church, you don’t have to go.”

  She stepped back from the fence and turned to face him.

  “If you go, I go.”

  “I know that’s how you feel, but we also know how you feel about Dawson. In all of the years of moving, there’s never been a town that became your home the way this town has. We want you to be happy.”

  “I’d be happy in Tulsa.”

  “No, you won’t. But we will. We love the city and we need to live closer to the hospitals and doctors. We’re not getting any younger.”

  She didn’t want to have this conversation. She turned back to the small field with her six ewes and the three babies that had been born so far this spring.

  “You’re not old.”

  Her dad laughed. “No, we’re not, but there are things we need to consider. Promise me you’ll pray about this. I don’t want you to make this decision based on what you think we need.”

  “I’ll pray.” She sighed and rested her arms on the top of the gate. “When do they want you to take the church in Tulsa?”

  “Six weeks. And remember, nothing is set in stone, not yet.”

  “But that isn’t a lot of time for the church here to find a pastor.”

  “It isn’t, but there are men here who should pray about stepping into the role. Sometimes God moves us so that others can move into the place where He wants them.”

  “True.” She turned to face him. “But then I question why He brought us here just to move us.”

  “To everything there is a season, a purpose. God doesn’t make mistakes, Rachel. If we’re here for a year, there’s a purpose in that year.”

  “I know you’re right.” She stepped away from the gate. “I have to run into town to get grain. Do you want lunch from the Mad Cow?”

  “No, we’re going to have sandwiches.” He kissed the top of her head the way he’d done when she was a kid. He hadn’t changed that much. He still wore dress slacks and a button-up shirt. He still parted his hair, though thinning, on the side.

  He was still the person she turned to when she needed advice. And sometimes she recognized that her parents were a crutch. They were her safe place. This was easier than getting hurt again.

  She drove the truck to town. Not that she couldn’t put feed in the back of her convertible, but she liked the old farm truck her dad had bought when they moved to Dawson. When she’d thought this would be the last move.

  She’d been moving her entire life. From place to place, in and out of lives. She’d learned not to get too close. Either the friends would soon be gone, or they’d find out she was human, not at all the perfect preacher’s kid.

  But she was no longer a kid. And this time she’d gotten attached.

  She parked in front of the black-and-white painted building that was the Mad Cow Café. It was early for the lunch crowd. That meant time to sit and talk to Vera, the owner. Maybe they could have a cup of coffee together.

  A truck pulled in next to hers. She glanced quick to the right and nearly groaned. Wyatt Johnson in his big truck. He saluted with two fingers to his brow and grinned. That cowboy had more charm than was good for him.

  Or anyone else, for that matter.

  She guessed it would be pretty obvious if she backed out of her parking space and went on down the road, so she opened the door and grabbed her purse. Wyatt met her at the front of the truck. The girls weren’t with him.

  “How are you?” He pulled off the cowboy hat and ran a hand through hair that was a little too long. Dark and straight, it looked soft. She thought it probably was soft.

  “I’m good. Where are the girls?”

  “Andie and Ryder are home after a trip to the doctor in Tulsa. Andie is on the couch for the next month or so till the babies come, and she thought the girls could keep her entertained.”

  “That’ll be good for all three of them.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “And your mother-in-law?” She walked next to him, his stride longer than her own.


  “Interviewing housekeepers.”

  “Oh.”

  It shouldn’t hurt, that he was going to pick someone else. Of course she didn’t want a full-time job as anyone’s housekeeper. She didn’t even know that they’d be here for her to take such a job.

  “It will make things easier,” he explained it in a way that made her wonder if he wanted to convince himself.

  “Of course it would.”

  “Do you have any suggestions?” He opened the door to the Mad Cow and she stepped in ahead of him, brushing past him, trying hard not to look at him, to look into those eyes of his, to not see the faded jeans, the scuffed boots or the buckle he’d won at Nationals back when he team roped. Before marriage, before horse training. He still roped in local events.

  A few weeks ago she had watched from the bleachers. She had watched him smile and avoid the women who tried to get his attention. Those women rode horses and they understood his world.

  She was still breaking in boots she’d bought when they moved to Dawson. And now she’d have to put them back in the closet like most forgotten dreams. She’d pack them up with childhood books, love letters she’d never sent and pictures of ranch houses she’d dreamed of owning.

  Wyatt was a cowboy. He was the real deal. He even held the door open and pulled out a chair for her when Vera pointed them to a table in the corner.

  And he did it because it was what men in Dawson did. It was the way they lived. Her heart ached clean through and she told herself it wasn’t about him, it was about leaving.

  “You know, I’m not used to seeing you without a smile on your face.” He drew her back with that comment and she managed a smile. “Oh, that’s not better.”

  She laughed. “Sorry, just a lot on my mind. What about Ernestine Douglas?”

  “What? Ernestine’s smile?”

  She laughed at the pretend shock on his face. “As a housekeeper.”

  “I hadn’t thought about her. Yeah, I might give her a call.”

  “She’d be great with the girls. Her kids are grown and gone.”