by Claire Adams
“Well, I don’t plan to make you cry but…” He turned to look at his son, nodding at him as a signal for him to do something.
I bit my lower lip and wrinkled my brows, thinking of what was happening around me.
“...Vince and I had a man-to-man conversation last night when you were asleep.” I turned my eyes to watch Vince. He opened the tackle box and scrambled for something inside. When he finally found what he was looking for, he threw it to his father.
Hunter caught it. It was a tiny, square box with suede covering it. My heart began to beat faster, my head spinning fast.
“Hunter,” I whispered as he moved to his knee and lifted the box up to me.
I heard Vince squeal his delight from the back, thrilled with the success of their plan.
I spotted Hunter winking at him, approving of his job well done. He stared into my eyes again, his green, captivating eyes stealing my heart. I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks as he spoke, continuing what he had to say.
“Ms. Kylie Tomms. You are the most incredible woman in the world. You’ve stood beside Vince as his mother, and you’ve supported me like you were already my wife. You are the most beautiful woman in the world, and you’ve loved me for who I am. I cannot imagine living even a day without you beside me, Kylie.” He took a deep breath as my heart pounded in my chest. “Be my wife. Marry me, baby.”
My whole body filled with a joy that I could explain. “Yes!”
He put the ring on my finger and stood up, pulling me close and kissing me. “Good. I wasn’t sure what plan B was if you said no.”
Vince snickered behind us.
I pulled Hunter close and kissed him again. “I would never say no to you. I love you with all of my heart.”
“I love you more than you love me, pretty girl.”
Vince ran to embrace us, kissing my cheek after he kissed his father’s. “I have the best family in the world!”
I wrapped my arms around both of them and hugged them tightly. “Yes you do, and I’m glad it’s my family too.”
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COWBOY BOSS
By Claire Adams
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 Claire Adams
Chapter One
Pete
Friday
I kicked back in my chair and put my feet up on the porch railing. This was my favorite time of day: right after breakfast, reading the paper I picked up in town after rustling up some breakfast, sipping on a mug of stale coffee with my scrappy old mutt lying next to me. It was going to get hot and sticky later in the afternoon, but right now, the weather was mild with a light breeze. Just the way I liked it, in other words.
“You ever do any work, Pete?”
I looked up to see Lacey standing on the bottom step up to the porch, grinning like the troublemaker she was. She had on the usual — a worn flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up past her elbows, a pair of blue jeans, and her old brown cowboy boots. Her light hair was pulled back and hidden beneath her dusty cowboy hat, nothing but a thick yellow braid sticking out of the back. She was one of the best riders in the county, male or female, and she knew her way around a ranch.
“A man’s got to stay up on current events,” I said, smiling, too. “There’s coffee inside if you want it.”
She stepped up onto the porch, bent to scratch Riley behind the ear, and took the seat next to me. “I don’t want any of that stale crap you call coffee.”
“Suit yourself.” That meant more for me, anyway.
“You have to be the only twenty-eight-year-old who actually reads the newspaper. My granddaddy doesn’t even read it, and he’s nearly eighty.”
Laughing, I went back to looking at my paper, even though I knew I wasn’t going to get much reading done with her around. “Ain’t nothing wrong with reading the paper. I don’t have time to read anything else with how busy the ranch keeps me.”
She sat back in her chair, stretching her long legs so she could rest her heels on the porch railing, too. “I sure was sorry to see Sandy go.”
“Yep,” I said, dipping my head into a nod. “Me, too.” Sandy was a quarter horse Lacey’d trained from the time she came to the ranch as a gun-shy filly. She'd left a top notch, fearless barrel racer. I tried to keep from getting too attached to the horses we raised and sold here, but Sandy had been a favorite of mine. It had been hard letting her go. But I couldn’t turn down the money she’d fetched. I had to keep this ranch up and running. That sometimes meant making hard choices.
“I’ve got a new one coming in,” I said, looking over at Lacey. She was staring out at the field. It was second thing in the morning, so the horses weren’t out there yet. “I just bought a colt from a rancher outside of Dallas. He’s spirited, I’m told.” I took a sip of my lukewarm coffee. “I’m driving out there tomorrow, if you want to ride along.”
“Hell no,” she replied, that troublemaking grin on her face again, her brown eyes squinting at me as her eyebrows scrunched down. She had a spray of freckles traveling from one side of her nose to the other, but none on her tanned cheeks and forehead. “I have no interest in running up to Dallas and back again in one day, especially not with all the work that needs doing around here. I’ll help train the new colt once you get him, though.”
“I’d hope to hell so. Why else am I paying you?”
She gave a deep belly laugh and reached to sock me in the arm. She was skinny but solid, so her fists packed a punch. “You’re lucky I like you, Pete Gains, or I’d leave you to make the big bucks at some other ranch.”
She really could make a lot more somewhere else, but we’d known each other since first grade. She’d grown up on this farm, same as I had, and we both knew she wouldn’t feel comfortable anywhere else. Our whole lives had been horses and bailing hay. We didn’t know anything else. Lacey could have, if she’d wanted to, but she stayed home instead of going off to some fancy college upstate. I spent so much time screwing off in school that the ranch was my only option after graduation. Not that I minded. I couldn’t have made it through another four hellishly boring years of school.
I shook my paper to straighten it out and kept on reading while Lacey reached to scratch old Riley behind the ears again. He didn’t even lift his head, but his tail thumped once on the floor, letting her know he appreciated her.
“What do you have planned for today, old man?” she asked.
“I need to go by the feed store.” I thought a moment, staring hard at the paper without reading a word of it. “The lumberyard, too. The fence fell near the rear of the property line.”
She turned to stare out at our view of the farm, the pointy front of the barn and the grassy paddock beyond it. “What time are you leaving for Dallas tomorrow?”
I dropped my boots onto the wood floor of the porch and leaned over onto my knees, the paper hanging down from one hand so it was almost touching the floor. “First thing, probably.” I grinned over at her, meeting her eyes when she turned her head. “Well, after I go by the Texan, of course.” I’d been going there for breakfast as far back as I could remember, riding the distance into town in the back of my daddy’s old pickup. The morning just didn’t feel right without their biscuits and gravy.
“Of course. You have to see what the other old timers are doing before you head out. You have more in common with them than you do men your own age.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I replied, lifting my chin a little.
The smile she gave me reminded me that I shouldn’t take anything she said as a compliment. She’d played the part of the th
orn in my ass since we were both knee high to grasshoppers. Not that I didn’t rain on her parade whenever I thought she was getting too big for her Stetson. What else were friends for?
“You’re never gonna find yourself a wife if you keep hanging out with the old timers at the Texan every morning.”
I wrinkled my nose, making like I’d just tasted something I didn’t agree with. “What use do I have for a wife?”
“She could teach you how to dress, for one,” Lacey said dryly, one sandy eyebrow cocked high.
I looked down at myself — long-sleeved chambray shirt, faded jeans, a broken in pair of cowboy boots — and then back up at her. “What’s wrong with what I have on?”
“It ain’t just what you have on,” she said, going on without really answering my question, which was her way. “It’s everything. Acting like you’re about to turn eighty-three instead of twenty-nine. Your ratty clothes. Your messy place looking like a tornado just ran through. Oh, and your hair, too. That needs serious help.”
“Damn, Lacey, tell me how you really feel.” I currently had my terrible haircut tucked under a cowboy hat. I’d worn it the same way since high school. If something was working for you, why change it? And, anyway, I wasn’t interested in finding a girlfriend. Why advertise if you aren’t looking? I didn’t need any more complication in my life than I already had with keeping the ranch up and running and dealing with Lacey’s smart ass.
“You know I love you, Pete,” she said, shooting her pointy grin over at me as her giggling started up again.
“I’d hate to see how you’d treat me if you hated me.” But I was laughing, too. I couldn’t help it.
“You’re too damned silly for a wife right now, anyway. Even if you did stop hanging out with the old timers. Who would want to put up with your ass?”
Now it was my turn to reach over and shove her, so hard she nearly pitched out of her chair and onto the floor next to Riley.
“Pete!” she hollered, struggling to keep her balance, her arms going around in wild circles.
Before she could regain her feet, I sprang from my seat, jumped down the porch steps, and ran off around the side of the house towards the barn. I’d always been faster than her — on my feet, at least, as no one could beat her on a horse — but I could hardly run with how much I was laughing.
She didn’t come after me, just screamed from where she stood on the porch in between laughing herself. “You better keep running, boy! Don’t let me catch you!”
I slowed down right outside of the barn, not wanting to spook the horses. Since I was over there, I figured I might as well see about feeding and watering them. I’d been putting off hiring someone to take care of them full time for a few months. Between Lacey and me, we were doing okay. But the new colt was going to take up a lot more of her time. And, I had the rest of the ranch to worry about. As much as I didn’t want to put out the money, I was going to have to deal with finding someone sooner rather than later.
Chapter Two
Emma
Friday
I brought the skillet of eggs to the table, serving Daddy before I sat down myself.
“Looks good, Emma,” he said. His clear blue eyes met mine for a long second, his thin lips pressed into a calm line. We’d been communicating this way — with heavy, meaningful glances — for years, starting right after Mama died.
I nodded once, then put a biscuit and a few slices of bacon on his plate before Kasey could take all of it.
Kasey reached for the bacon, taking all but a slice of it, the way she always did. The girl could put away some pork. “What?” she asked when I shot her a look. “I’m a growing girl.”
She flipped her shiny brown hair over her shoulder with one hand while she poked at her eggs with a fork. She liked them sunny side up, but Daddy preferred eggs fried all the way through, so that was how I made them. I had my own brand new place a few miles up the road, but Kasey struggled to boil water without burning it, and I knew Daddy appreciated a home-cooked meal whenever he could get it.
When I was in high school, the three of us used to switch off nights, and Kasey’s nights were always something we had to suffer through. The girl couldn’t cook to save her life. But, damn, could she eat. The only thing she ever showed up with at a potluck was her appetite.
I served myself last with the rest of the eggs, the remaining strip of bacon, and a piping hot biscuit that I broke open and slathered with butter and jam.
“What are you going to do now that you’ve finally finished college?” Kasey asked, mouth half full of biscuit. Everyone had missed my big breakfasts while I was off getting my degree in agriculture in Austin. “Did you decide on a job yet?”
I waited until I’d chewed through my own mouthful of biscuit before I answered. “I need to find something.”
“Do you know what you want to do?” she asked. She was dressed for work in a pair of tight black shorts, red company t-shirt with Murdock’s on 6th Street! printed on the front, and comfortable tennis shoes. She had a full face of makeup on, too, with extra sparkling color on her eyelids and bright red lipstick to match her shirt. She drove all the way out to Austin every day for work, but she managed to make pretty decent money in tips. It was nice when I was in school over there. I saw her all the time.
“I’d like to be outside working with animals if I can.”
Daddy was listening to all this as he slowly ate his breakfast, his light eyes traveling from one side of the table to the other. “There’s plenty of work like that around Round Rock,” he said and left it at that.
I nodded to show I agreed with him and then filled my mouth with a bite of cooling eggs. I was going to start looking on Monday. Graduation was only last week. I needed a little down time before I jumped right into the next part of my life.
“I can’t believe you moved all the way back to Round Rock after spending the last four years in Austin!” Kasey said. She flipped her hair again. She’d cut it since the last time I saw her, donating more than twelve inches. But she wasn’t used to it. She kept batting it away from her face. It was cute on her, though. She had it curled this morning, adding extra wave to what had come naturally from Mama. I got Daddy’s hair — bone straight and shiny, with a little tint of red at the bottom, but mostly solid brown.
“I like it here,” I said, simply.
“No place is better than Austin.” She pointed her wide green eyes at me. They were a shade or two lighter than mine. “You should come up with me this weekend. I’m staying over at Amanda’s apartment tomorrow night. She has room for you too. We could party on Sixth Street to celebrate your graduation!”
The last thing I wanted was to go out drinking with Kasey and her wild friends. They got up to all kinds of trouble that I just wasn’t interested in. Even at school, I left the partying mostly alone. Not that I didn’t have fun. It was just that my idea of fun didn’t often match with Kasey’s.
“I have some things to do around the house,” I said. “And after all the excitement of graduation last week, I just want to relax before I start looking for jobs on Monday.”
Kasey rolled her eyes, looking extra dramatic with all the mascara and eyeliner she had on. “You’re so boring, Em. You just graduated from college, but you’re acting like you’re forty years old or something. Why would you ever go buy a house immediately when you could just keep on living with Daddy?”
I didn’t dignify that with a response, just took a bite of my biscuit and let Kasey take the conversation wherever she wanted it to go. Daddy wasn’t even bothering to follow along, or it didn’t look like he was. His eyes were on his rapidly disappearing breakfast. It did my heart good to see him grab another biscuit. I’d brought his favorite blackberry jam from the farmer’s market in Austin. I’d sure miss that market. But it was only a thirty-minute drive from my place in Round Rock if I ever got the hankering.
“I’m never moving out of here!” Kasey exclaimed in a loud voice that echoed in the dining room. We were used
to her outbursts. She’d been loud since the cradle.
Daddy and I exchanged a look, his light eyes suddenly weary, but his mouth twitching into a small smile that he swallowed back as quickly as it appeared. Mine lasted a little longer.
“Unless I move to Austin, that is,” she added.
“What time do you need to be to work?” I asked to bump her off the subject of me returning to Round Rock.
She looked down at her watch. “Oh, shit! I have to go.” She jumped up from her seat, ran around the table, and gave Daddy a hug. “Bye, Daddy! Bye, Em.” She waved at me before hurrying from the room without clearing her plate. We listened to her footsteps running back to her room to grab her purse and whatever else she needed for the day before running out the front door. It slammed behind her.
Daddy let out a long breath after the worst of Tornado Kasey blew through the house.
“She hasn’t changed a bit,” I said, still smiling. She’d always been unable to keep quiet for more than a few seconds and cleaning up after herself had never been one of her strong points. It wasn’t that she purposely avoided it. Her mind just moved so quickly that it never occurred to her to double back to take care of the messes she routinely left in her wake.
Daddy made a noise to say he agreed with me, but wasn’t going to comment on it. “You have an idea where you’ll look for jobs?”
“Not really.” I meant to spend the morning combing the internet. I didn’t have many friends left in Round Rock that I could ask. Most everyone had run off to colleges all over the state after high school. Not everyone had come back. But I liked Round Rock and couldn’t imagine wanting to live anywhere else.
“I’ll keep an eye out in the Register,” he said.
I bit my tongue. The Round Rock Register was the local paper. They did have a help wanted section, but most places listed their job openings online now and had for a number of years. I didn’t bother telling Daddy that. He was old school. He didn’t even have a computer. It had taken a lot of coaxing to get him to buy a cell phone a few years back. He still only carried it half the time, never seeing the reason behind keeping a phone on him for the twenty-minute drive into town to get to work.
