The Cowboy's Reunited Family

by Brenda Minton

  “So we’d have to go through the whole process with her and the child involved?”

  “Yes, we would.” Blake leaned against the fence. The mare nibbled at his sleeve and then walked away. “Our daughter is sick. This isn’t the best scenario.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t. Blake, I’m sorry. With everything happening at that time, I lost track of Dad’s cases.”

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “I’ll look into it for you.” He didn’t say anything for a minute. “Blake, sometimes things happen for a reason.”

  How did he answer that? He chose not to. He chose to ignore the comment, ignore the strange sense of wrongs being righted.

  He ended the call and walked away from the fence. He heard a truck and stopped at the door of the barn. His dad’s truck rolled up the drive.

  Tim Cooper stepped down from the truck looking like a man with a full day’s work ahead of him. He wore his typical jeans, button-up shirt and the white hat he favored. A lot of men moved to the country and tried farming on for size. Tim Cooper had been country his whole life. He’d raised his children country.

  It was a family tradition.

  “Dad?”

  “Blake.” Tim looked around. He watched the mare and her mouse dun foal. Yeah, the filly had thick, foal hair now, but in time she’d be a pretty gray-brown, the color of a mouse. “Pretty baby.”

  “Yeah, she is.”

  “How’s Jana settling in?” Tim walked up to the fence to watch the mare and foal.

  “She isn’t settling in my house. I’ll help her find a place in town.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Blake didn’t know what to say. He’d never been one to lie to his dad. He also wasn’t generally the son who wanted to share every detail of his life.

  “We’ve got a problem with the divorce.”

  His dad waited.

  “It seems I didn’t sign an affidavit for Davis to go to court.”

  “Since I don’t speak lawyer, you might have to fill me in.”

  “Jana and I might not be divorced.”

  Silence hung between them for a good long while. His dad finally scratched his chin and then he grinned.

  “Well, I guess God does have his own way of working things out.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the way I planned on working it out. And this doesn’t mean the divorce isn’t final. It could be I didn’t get the divorce decree, but Davis will find it and send it to me.”

  “It could be.” His dad stepped away from the fence. “I came over here to get that roping saddle you haven’t been using. I’m going to help out at Camp Hope, teaching kids to rope.”

  “You’ve been talking about that for a while.”

  His dad shrugged and reached for the door. “Sometimes it takes a man a while to get things right.”

  Blake followed his dad to the tack room midway down the barn. “That’s a pretty big hint.”

  His dad laughed as he flipped on the light and walked into the room that smelled of leather and hay. “Yeah, I guess it wasn’t subtle. I’m not a big fan of Jana’s. She took my granddaughter away, and that’s not an easy thing to forgive. But I’m also a man who can admit when a person has changed. I think she’s changed.”

  That was all his dad had to say about it. Tim Cooper was a man of few words, always had been.

  Blake watched his dad leave with the saddle, and he went back to the barn. He didn’t disagree. Jana had changed. They’d both grown up, and both probably realized a few things about life and about themselves.

  Did that mean they should just go back to where they’d left off? He didn’t see how. If they’d been the same people living the same lives, they would go back and make the same mistakes.

  As older, wiser people with some experience under their belts, it would be like a new relationship with a different person.

  But the past was still there, Blake thought, and the past was a hard thing to let go of.

  * * *

  Blake, Jana and Lindsey drove Teddy to Cooper Creek that afternoon. He got out of the truck, but his hand immediately sought Jana’s. She smiled down at him, hoping to reassure him. It had been difficult, explaining to him that his mom needed to stay with doctors for a while and that he was going to live with Tim and Angie Cooper.

  He’d asked why he couldn’t stay with them and they could be his family until his mom got back. She’d hugged him and promised she would be there to see him and he could visit. She’d caught Blake watching her, and she’d known he doubted as much as Teddy.

  Angie Cooper met them at the front door. She smiled at the little boy holding tight to Jana. He reached for Lindsey with his other hand.

  “Teddy, I’m so glad you’re back.” Angie bent her knees and sank to his level. “I’m going to make cookies. Do you want to see your room or help me make cookies?”

  He bit down on his lip and looked from Lindsey to Angie. “Is Lindsey going to help me make cookies?”

  “Of course she can help. And Sissy is here, too. She got here an hour ago, and she’s been wondering when you would show up. She has the room right next to yours.”

  And that’s all it took for the little boy to be won over. Angie accepted Blake’s outstretched hand, and he helped her to her feet. Teddy dropped Jana’s hand and followed Lindsey and Angie through the house. Jana listened to his excited chatter as he told about a kitten he’d seen in the barn and the pony that he thought he might get to ride someday.

  “Are you okay?” Blake reached for her hand, and she slipped her fingers through his.

  She nodded, because opening her mouth would create a storm of tears that she didn’t want to give in to. Teddy would be fine. She knew he would. He would be with Tim and Angie. They would love him and keep him safe. His mother would get better.

  Jana felt broken, though. She felt broken for a little boy whose life was falling apart, and she felt broken because her own daughter had been a child whose life fell apart. All of those emotions were swirling, getting confused because of a little boy she barely knew, because he needed them and for some reason they needed him, too.

  “It’s okay to cry.” Blake whispered the words close to her ear.

  She couldn’t answer, but she turned into his arms and he held her as she cried for children whose parents can’t always be what a child needs.

  “Teddy is tough and he knows we’ll be here for him. A caseworker will come by later, and they’ll talk to him and help him understand.”

  Jana nodded against his shoulder, wiping at her eyes as she tried to get her emotions back in control. Blake’s hand stilled on her back and he leaned, dropping a kiss on her temple. She looked up, to tell him something that didn’t matter, and his lips found hers. The kiss, gentle and sweet, filled her heart, and somehow she felt broken pieces coming back together.

  Something triggered in her brain, telling her to go slowly because Blake wasn’t feeling what she felt. He meant to make sure their divorce was final. She wanted forever with a man she’d never stopped loving. She pulled back and took a deep breath.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, afraid to look up and see what might be in his eyes.

  “Don’t be. It’s been a long day already.”

  His phone buzzed. He gave her an apologetic look and pulled it from his pocket. And then he made long eye contact with her and put it to his ear. Tightness spread across her chest as she watched him. He walked down the steps away from her and she wondered why. If the call was from the lawyer, it was a call that affected them both.

  His back was to her. She watched from the porch as he nodded and then glanced back at her. She waited, no longer feeling whole. No longer feeling the sweetness of his kiss.

  He slipped the phone into his pocket and walked back up the steps t
o join her on the porch. She wanted to walk away, to go in the house and bake cookies with the children. She wanted to not hear what he had to say.

  “That was Davis.”

  “And?” Her heart hammered hard against her ribs and it hurt to breathe.

  “The divorce was never finalized. Between his dad’s stroke and employee changes, it seems things were shuffled and lost. I should have paid more attention. I’m a lawyer—I should have made sure. I was just so tired of it all by then.”

  “Okay. So what do we do?”

  He looked away from her, giving her a sweet view of his strong profile. “He wanted us in there tomorrow. He feels terrible and wants to get this done for us.”

  “Oh.” She didn’t know why it hurt so much to hear those words. By all rights her marriage had ended ten years ago.

  Blake stood and looked down at her, not smiling. “I told them we’ll deal with it later. I think Lindsey needs time to adjust. I don’t see how we can do this without her knowledge, and I think we need to explain to her what we’re doing and why. But we need to know that she’s strong enough.”

  A strange hopefulness sparked. Jana didn’t know what to do with that odd lightness. Blake wasn’t going to let it go. It wasn’t as if he was giving them a chance. She shouldn’t be feeling hopeful, not when he was determined to end their marriage once and for all.

  He was giving her a reprieve, that’s all.

  “We should go back inside,” he said in a tone that didn’t let her inside his emotions.

  “Yes, of course.”

  They were still married. She tried to process the information even as Blake seemed to be taking it in stride, as if it didn’t really matter. It was another business deal he had to take care of, another contract to finalize.

  Was that what he truly thought? She reached for his arm, meaning to stop him and ask him.

  He stopped when she touched his arm. Looking down at her, he shook his head. As if he knew what she planned to ask him.

  “Jana, in my mind we’ve been divorced for ten years.”

  “Of course.” She shrugged and managed a smile. “You’re right. This is a paper we need to sign. Nothing has changed.”

  But it should have felt empty, not hopeful. It shouldn’t have made her feel as if God had given her this precious gift. Two precious gifts. Lindsey would get better. She and Blake weren’t divorced.

  She had a second chance. Whatever that meant. Maybe it was a chance to prove to him that she wouldn’t run the minute things got difficult. Maybe this meant she had the opportunity to show him they were meant to be together.

  Chapter Ten

  They left Cooper Creek with a container of still-warm chocolate chip cookies. Sissy and Teddy had waved from the front porch, Blake’s mom standing behind them, a hand on each of them. She’d been smiling big. Blake always thought there would come a day when she’d want a break from having a houseful of kids. So far it hadn’t happened. She’d taken in Jesse’s stepdaughter for a while and Gage’s teenage brother-in-law was a constant guest at Cooper Creek.

  When they pulled up to his place, Jana got out without saying too much. She looked pale and shaken. He wanted to tell her he would do anything to go back and start over. An unsigned paper didn’t change what had happened, though.

  It didn’t, he repeated to himself. But it was getting harder to believe. Jana was walking up to the house, their daughter was in the yard playing with the dog. Everything he’d known about his life for ten years was suddenly undone because of one unsigned paper.

  He got out of the truck.

  “I’m going to the barn. But I’ll stop in before I leave.”

  She smiled but the gesture didn’t change the sadness in her eyes. “Okay.”

  “Can I go with Dad?” Lindsey tossed the tennis ball in her hand, and Sam went after it.

  “If your dad doesn’t mind.” Jana looked to him for an answer.

  “Of course she can go with me.”

  Jana nodded and went inside. He would check on her before he left. A thought clicked in his brain. He didn’t know a lot about depression, but he needed to know that she was okay.

  “I’m going to put a halter on the foal,” he informed Lindsey as they walked toward the barn, knowing she’d love the idea.

  “Can I help?” Lindsey looked up, her hazel eyes big and her smile wide.

  “I’ll get the halter on and you can help me gentle her down a little. We need to get her used to our touch.”

  He walked into the tack room to get the halter, and he glanced back, watching his daughter with the mare. The foal nudged his tiny nose up to the door but then backed away before she could touch him. Lindsey smiled at Blake and then went back to petting the mare and trying to coax the foal.

  He wasn’t looking forward to telling her about the divorce. Not now, when she was getting healthier. Not now, because she was adjusting to her life, to the relationship between her parents. Telling her they were still married but filing for divorce. How would she accept news like that? He looked over the assortment of halters but didn’t really see them.

  Things were definitely more complicated than they’d been a week ago. A week ago he’d been divorced and building a relationship with his daughter. Today he was a married man again.

  Lindsey turned to see what was taking him so long, and he managed a smile, holding up the miniature halter he’d found as he walked out of the tack room, switching off the light on his way out the door.

  “It’s pink.” Lindsey smiled at that. “She’ll look good in pink.”

  “I thought you might like that.” He eased through the stall door. “I should have done this sooner, but things have been a little hectic around here.”

  Lindsey leaned on the door, watching him. “Because of me.”

  “You’re a good thing in my life, Lindsey. I’ll take hectic all day long if it means having you here.”

  “Sometimes I’m still really mad at mom.” Lindsey reached for the mare, sliding a hand down her neck.

  “I guess that’s understandable.” Blake looked up, a quick glance, not taking too much attention from the mare and foal.

  “She should have at least told you where I was.”

  “She made a mistake. Sometimes people make decisions and then it’s hard to go back and undo things.”

  “I guess,” she said without a whole lot of conviction.

  He smiled up at her as he smoothed a hand down the neck of the little filly and slid the halter over her head. She pulled away from him, and her momma gave him a mean look, her ears back.

  “See how this momma horse doesn’t want me to mess with her baby?” He buckled the halter as he talked.

  “Yeah. She’d like to kick you.”

  He had to agree, and he was watching those hind legs as he worked. “Exactly. Moms are protective. Even though I wouldn’t hurt this baby for anything, she’s not convinced. She’ll do whatever it takes to keep her baby safe.”

  “I guess.”

  He guessed, too. It hadn’t been the example he wanted to make, because the last thing he wanted to do was understand Jana and what she’d done to him. He’d meant for this to help Lindsey understand. But Jana had been protecting her daughter, afraid his last name, his money, would mean he’d take their daughter from her.

  “Do you want to pet this baby?” He held the halter, rubbing his hands down the foal’s sides. “Jackson has obviously been working with her, too. She’s not too shy.”

  “Can I come in the stall?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Two of us in here might be too much for her momma. But I’ll open the door a little and you can pet her.”

  Lindsey stepped in the opening and reached for the foal. Her fingers brushed the thick coat and she smiled. “I’ve always loved horses. I
guess I didn’t know why.”

  “You’re a Cooper—you can’t help yourself. It’s in your blood.”

  “Right, I guess it is.” She smiled big, rubbing her hand across the foal’s face. “I hope someday I can ride.”

  “I hope so, too.”

  The door opened. Lindsey stepped back and he released the foal. He guessed they both looked pretty guilty to Jana as she walked up the aisle between the stalls.

  “What are you two up to?” She smiled, but something was missing in that smile.

  “Dad put the halter on the baby, and we’re petting her, to get her used to people.”

  “Of course.” Jana moved back, allowing him room to step out of the stall.

  He had opened the door that allowed the mare access to the corral. The three of them watched the mare and foal leave the barn and then trot across the corral. He would give them a few more days and then turn them out with the other horses. He always liked to keep a new foal up for a time, just to give them a chance to get used to people.

  “Ready to go to the house?”

  Lindsey didn’t look quite ready, but she nodded.

  He turned off lights, and the three of them went out the door.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Jana as they walked to the house.

  “I’m fine. I made pie. Do you want a piece?”

  “I’ll take some. Do you have ice cream?” It was the wrong answer. He should have told her he had to go home. He had work he needed to catch up on. Those were the right answers, but not the ones he wanted to give.

  “I think you have ice cream in the freezer.” Jana walked next to him. “I thought we could talk about Lindsey’s birthday.”

  Lindsey heard that. She came back to walk with them. “I already know what I want.”

  “What’s that?” Blake asked as they walked.

  “It’s a secret. Something I’ve been praying for.”

  Her answer gave him a bad feeling. “We can’t get what you want if you don’t share.”