The Cowboy's Courtship

by Brenda Minton

He looked up. “Can I make a suggestion?”

  “Please.”

  “We can call Etta. She always has solutions to problems. I do think that if you’re her granddaughter, she’d want you to stay.”

  “Okay. We can call her.” It wasn’t the homecoming she’d planned, but it seemed like the only option. She’d brought money with her, but not enough to rent a house, stay in a hotel, whatever might happen if Etta Forester couldn’t be reached. Or worse, didn’t want her.

  He stood and walked to an old rotary-dial phone on the wall. He lifted a piece of paper, found a number, squinted and dialed. Each time the round rotary dial swished back into place, she cringed. This was it, time to learn the truth, the depth of her mother’s lies.

  “I’m going to wait in the other room.” She pushed herself up from the chair. “I don’t think I want to listen to you talk about me.”

  He nodded, but didn’t respond. Alyson walked out of the room, walking into what must have been the parlor. A love seat sat in front of a fireplace and a baby grand piano was in the corner of the room, dust covered, ancient, but beautiful.

  Alyson touched the keys and her fingers trembled. She sat down and waited for the fear that always came. But it didn’t, not this time, not here. She played softly, for herself, for no one else, the way she had played as a child.

  She closed her eyes and tried to bring back a memory, one from childhood, of a piano, a woman with a big smile. Had it been this piano, this house? Had that woman been her grandmother?

  It was easy to play this piano, without pressure. Here, in this parlor, she wasn’t the golden one. She was no one.

  “Beautiful. I’ve never heard it played like that. Andie tried, but she had absolutely no talent for anything other than riding horses and getting into trouble.”

  She moved her hands from the keys and turned to face the man who stood in the doorway. He moved his hand, bracing it against the doorframe.

  “It’s a beautiful piano.”

  “Your grandmother is on a cruise. Alana is going to try and get hold of her. She’s sure her mother will be here as soon as she hears. Alana says she’ll try to come as well.”

  “Okay, that’s that. Is there a hotel somewhere?”

  “Not in Dawson. But I’m sure your grandmother would want you to stay here. Alana said the same thing—that you should stay.”

  “I don’t know her.” She ran her fingers over the keys one last time and walked out from behind the piano. “They don’t know me, or if I’m even who I say or think I am.”

  “I’m pretty sure we all know who you are.”

  At least they knew. She wondered how that was possible, since she didn’t even know who she was. She had always been Alyson Anderson, the pianist. That was the box she fit in. It was her sole identity. Now she wanted more.

  Now she had a birth certificate that gave her real name: Alyson Forester. And she had paperwork from the adoption that took place when her mother married Gary. She had her father’s signature, signing away his parental rights. As if she were a possession, something to be passed off to another person.

  Why had he done that?

  “Alana asked me to take you to town to get groceries.”

  Groceries. Well, that posed a problem. “Isn’t there a restaurant?”

  “The Mad Cow.”

  The Mad Cow. She’d learn to cook if that was her only option. But looking at the man in front of her, perspiration-stained and rugged, she thought driving herself would be the best idea.

  “I think I’ll be fine.” She said it with a smile and walked him to the door. He drove away after promising to be back tomorrow to check on her.

  Then she was alone in a house where she thought she might have memories. A house where she might learn clues about herself. And her sister, Andie. Her twin? She wasn’t sure, but couldn’t wait to find out….

  Chapter Two

  “Jas, where are you going?”

  Jason didn’t turn the key in the ignition of his truck. Instead, he waited for his sister to hurry across the drive, coming from the direction of the barn where she’d been doctoring a sick mare.

  He only knew that because he’d just talked to his dad. At least he remembered one conversation that took place five minutes ago. That showed an improvement. He’d take anything at this point.

  “I’m running into town.” He tried to think of something funny, something that would wipe the concern from her eyes. He was used to making her laugh. Beth with her short, no-nonsense brown hair, serious brown eyes and a smile that wiped all that seriousness away.

  When she smiled. Which wasn’t that often.

  “Could you get antibiotics for the mare? I called the feed store. They have some in stock.” She pulled a tablet out of her pocket and scribbled a note. “Stick that to your nose so you don’t forget.”

  He took the note and nodded. “Will do, Fancy.”

  “Don’t call me that.” She socked his arm.

  “We’ve always called…”

  She shook her head. “Not since I was ten. Okay?”

  “Okay, Beth.”

  “Thanks.” She jumped up on the running board of the truck and kissed his cheek. “Where were you going, anyway?”

  He glanced down at the paper on the seat next to him. “Grocery store and I’m going to check on Etta’s house, feed her horses. I think I need to mow.” He sighed. “I think there’s something else, but I don’t know.”

  “Me, neither. But it’ll come to you.” She squinted. “Weren’t you mowing at Etta’s two days ago? Are you graining her horses? With all the grass they’ve got?”

  “I mowed already?” Of course he had. “I wish I could tell you what I need to do there, Sis, but I can’t. I just know that I have to run by her place.”

  He was suddenly five. Man, he hated this. He’d never had a temper, never wanted to be the guy hitting walls when a ride didn’t go well, when the bull won and he lost.

  He’d always been the one keeping the family together, making them smile when they wanted to cry. He was the guy who had found faith and shrugged off his old ways.

  At least God’s memory wasn’t lacking the short-term program. Even if it did occasionally feel as if He’d forgotten Jason.

  “It’ll get better.” Beth’s hand was on his arm. She was six years younger than him, and she should have been loved by someone who would cherish her.

  “Yeah, it’ll get better. I have my name and number pinned to my shirt in case I get lost. I’ll see you later.”

  She laughed a little, but he knew she wasn’t sure if she should. He grinned and winked, “Laugh, Beth, that was funny.”

  “Okay, yeah, funny.”

  “Don’t forget to pray for me.”

  “Right, now I know you’ve lost it.” She walked away and he finally started the truck and headed down the drive.

  Toward Etta’s. He rubbed the back of his head, still feeling the place where one month ago staples had held his scalp together. He had his long-term memory. Etta wasn’t a blur or a memory he had to dig up. He laughed a little, because who could ever forget Etta? But the reason for driving to her house, that one was lost somewhere in his scrambled brain.

  Scrambled. He didn’t remember the ride that had put him in the hospital. He barely remembered his stay there and then rehab where he’d learned the coping techniques he was still using.

  One month and he still couldn’t get from point A to point B without a note to tell him why he was going. He could leave the living room and walk into the kitchen, and in the one minute that took, he would forget what he needed. He’d had to move back in with his dad and sister because he couldn’t remember to turn off the stove, or that he’d put something in the oven.

  He was thirty-one years old and he didn’t know how to get his life back. He gripped the steering wheel a little tighter because it felt good to have that control back—at least that.

  At least he could drive. He could still ride a horse. He could work cattle. It migh
t hurt a little, but he could cowboy through the pain.

  He still had his life. His career, not so much. But maybe it was time to make some decisions about the future. He had a ranch that he hadn’t spent nearly enough time on. Maybe it was about time to raise cattle and settle down.

  The drive through Dawson didn’t take five minutes. There was the one stop sign at the intersection of Main Street and the highway that led to Tulsa. A half-dozen cars were parked in front of the Mad Cow Café and the feed store was busy the way it usually was when the men around town took a break to get out of the afternoon heat. They’d spend the afternoon sitting at the feed store, drinking Coke out of a bottle and telling stories about each other.

  He turned and drove down the side road to Etta’s. What he’d known before the accident wasn’t lost. He knew that Etta was out of town. So why was a car parked in the drive? Why was the front door open?

  He parked next to the house and sat there for a minute, staring at the back end of an Audi convertible with Massachusetts plates. Time to think back, to try to retrieve the memory. He pulled his notebook out to see if he’d written himself a note, something to tell him why he would feel the need to check on Etta’s house. Nothing.

  An alarm sounded, and it had nothing to do with memories, or lost moments. He threw the door open and jumped out of the truck. As he ran up the front walk, windows went up in the living room. The alarm continued to squawk.

  He opened the door and the woman in the hallway turned. She glared at him and ran on, into the parlor. She pushed at the bottom of the window.

  “Those won’t open.” He leaned against the doorway, watching her, knowing her, but not. The stench of some thing burnt clung to the humid air.

  She turned, her hair in her face, her cheeks pink. Blue eyes flashed shards of anger, like shattered glass.

  “Why won’t they open?”

  She grabbed a magazine and fanned her face.

  “Painted closed. The glass is old and thin. Opening them might break it, so Etta painted the windows closed. Do you have the kitchen windows open?”

  “Yes, and the window in the screen door.”

  He flipped a switch on the wall and an instant rush of air swept through the house. The woman in the pink T-shirt and white Bermuda shorts shot him another look and then she tossed the magazine back on the table.

  “What’s that?” She walked into the hall and looked up, squinting at the louvered opening.

  “Attic fan.” He thought he was clueless. “It’ll have this cleared out in a minute.” He sniffed. “What is that lovely aroma?”

  “My lunch.”

  “Smells, um, appetizing.” He followed her down the hall. “What are you doing in Etta’s house?”

  She stopped, stood frozen for a minute and then turned.

  “Excuse me?” She shook her head a little. “You’re the one who let me in.”

  He had let her in? Well, at least he remembered that he had unfinished business here, even if he didn’t remember what it was. That was an improvement. “I let you in?”

  “Yes, you let me in. You called Alana and then told me it was okay if I stayed here.”

  “That’s good.” He could honestly hide his own Easter eggs and not find them.

  She made a little growl and walked into the kitchen. When she opened the door to the oven, black smoke rolled out. She sputtered, coughed and grabbed a towel to put over her face.

  “I think you’re not going to be eating that.” He opened the drawer where Etta kept oven mitts and pulled the smoldering box out of the oven.

  “No kidding.” She pointed to the sink and he tossed it in with dirty dishes and a half-eaten bagel.

  “You know you’re supposed to take it out of the box, right?” He turned off the water she had turned on to put out the still smoldering pizza.

  “But the frozen dinners that I bought go in the oven, box and all. She doesn’t have a microwave.”

  Jason cleared his throat and focused on the window over the sink. He had a feeling that laughter might provoke some kind of really bad reaction from the woman standing in front of him.

  “Yeah, so, pizza has to be taken out of the box.” He explained. “It can go on the rack or on a baking sheet, but it definitely has to be taken out of the box. And the plastic wrap has to be removed.”

  “Great. Okay, you’ve had your laugh, you can go now.”

  “Look, don’t be mad. You have to admit, it is kind of funny.” He winked, hoping he still had a little charm left.

  She smiled and then she laughed, not a lot, but enough for him to see that she looked a lot like Etta’s grand daughter, Andie.

  “Yeah, okay, it’s a little funny. But…”

  “But now you’re hungry.” He opened the freezer and pulled out another frozen pizza. “We can try it again. I’ll help, if you’ll tell me who you are.”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “I really don’t know.” And he no longer felt like laughing. Even the class clown had his moments.

  Alyson watched the cowboy standing in her grandmother’s kitchen. Maybe he wasn’t a cowboy, but he looked like one, in faded jeans, cowboy hat and boots. He unwrapped the frozen pizza, opened the oven door and slid the pizza onto the wire rack.

  He turned around and she didn’t know what to do now, because he didn’t seem to know her and she couldn’t forget him. Last night as she wandered through this big house, discovering her family for the first time, she’d thought of him.

  She’d thought of him all day yesterday, when she’d been alone in this big house, not knowing anyone, and not really knowing herself. Two days ago she’d found out she had a sister. She was still reeling from the depths of her mother’s deception.

  “You were going to tell me your name.” He leaned against the counter, arms crossed over his chest, the cowboy hat on his head cocked a little to the side.

  “Alyson Anderson. I’m Etta’s granddaughter.”

  “You’re Etta’s granddaughter?”

  “I am.” And she had a sister who looked so much like her, it ached in her heart to know that she’d missed out knowing her all these years, and she didn’t know why they’d been separated.

  Instead of the answers she thought she’d find here, she had more questions.

  Last night she had looked at photo albums of a family she couldn’t remember, a family she had been taken from. She had cried because the father who had held her in those pictures, pictures taken when she was a toddler, was gone. And she had been denied the opportunity to ever know him.

  “Alyson, Etta’s granddaughter.” He nodded, still leaning against the counter. “And Andie must be your sister.”

  “I’m assuming that’s the case.”

  “Assuming? You don’t know?”

  She shook her head and turned away from him, concentrating on the pitcher of tea she’d made that morning, pretending she stood in country kitchens every day, pouring iced tea into glasses shaped like kegs with wooden handles. The mugs were the most normal thing she’d found in the kitchen.

  Her grandmother was a little different. Or so she’d decided in her exploration of the quaint Victorian. Her grandmother had shelves of books. She had Bibles and she had books on living off the land in the sixties. There were pictures of a commune in one photo album. She’d found a spinning wheel upstairs and wool. She was wearing a pair of socks she’d found in a basket next to the spinning wheel. Itchy wool socks, but they were somehow comforting.

  And too hot for late May. But she didn’t care.

  “What are you doing here?” He opened the oven door and peeked in at the pizza. “Almost done.”

  “I’m here to see my grandmother.”

  “Right.”

  He said it in a way that implied he didn’t believe her. And she guessed he was right. She wanted to meet her grandmother, but she had more reasons for showing up in Dawson, Oklahoma.

  She was running away. Did twenty-eight-year-old women run away? Did they pack up w
ithout telling anyone where they were going and take off without saying goodbye? Did they ignore the phone when it rang, refusing to talk to family? Her younger sister had done something similar, but Laura had taken something important with her.

  Laura had taken Dan.

  That was hard to forget. She could work on the forgiving part. That was the consensus—she needed to forgive. People said it as if she should be able to sweep the vastness of her pain under a rug, along with the dust she’d shaken out of her mother’s box of secrets.

  That was something no one knew—that she’d found that box. They assumed that all of her pain had to do with Laura and Dan. But that box had pushed her to finally leave. She had packed up her clothes, left the key to her apartment with the doorman and walked away.

  Jason rummaged through the cabinets, pulling out a baking sheet and a spatula. She watched as he opened the oven and slid out the rack. It seemed easy for him, sliding the baking sheet under the pizza and pulling it out. Of course she could have done it.

  She would do it next time. And next time she wouldn’t burn the house down.

  “Do you want me to cut this?” He opened a drawer and pulled out a knife.

  “Might as well. Why didn’t you remember me?” Should she be afraid of him? But her grandmother seemed to trust him. He was mowing her lawn and he had a key to the house.

  He had probably known her grandmother his entire life.

  He pushed the knife into the pizza and glanced up at her, smiling. “I had an accident.”

  She nodded and watched as he worked the knife through the pizza, not as easily as he should have, or as easily as she would have imagined. She thought about offering to help, but she didn’t because he seemed to be the type of man who always wanted to be strong.

  “What kind of accident?” She took a step, putting herself next to him.

  “A bull.” He gave her a sideways look and went back to work on the pizza. “I’m a bull rider.”

  “I see. Wouldn’t it be better to ride a horse?”

  He laughed and turned, pushing up the cowboy hat that had kept her from getting a good look at him, at his brown eyes. He had eyes that were a mix of laughter and pain. He had stories.