Cowboy Courage: Includes a bonus novella

by Carolyn Brown

  The wind whipped her hair across her face. She wore a pair of skinny jeans and a T-shirt that hugged her curves. His mouth went dry just looking at her. When she finally noticed that he was there, she flashed a bright smile his way that warmed his heart and soul.

  She dropped the load of wood in her arms and ran across the yard to meet him, wrapping her arms around his neck and tiptoeing for a long kiss. “I’ve missed you so much,” she said when the kiss ended.

  “Oh, honey”—he breathed into her hair—“this time away from you seems like years instead of days.”

  “Welcome to my new home.” Rose hugged him again. “I thought we might start a fire. Red keeps going to the fireplace and whining. Have you had dinner? I’ve got some chicken noodle soup on the stove.”

  “I thought you couldn’t cook.” Hud picked up the firewood.

  “I can open a can, and I’m a guru at the microwave business.” She grinned as she opened the door for him. “I’ve managed to survive for almost twenty-nine years.”

  “April first, if I remember right from junior high.” Hud unloaded the firewood on the rug in front of the fireplace, stood up and took her in his arms for a long kiss. “I love your new place, but it’s cold in here. We do need a little blaze.”

  “You remember my birthday?” she asked. “I don’t know that I ever knew yours.”

  “That’s because mine is in the summer, and we weren’t in school. Our English teacher used to tell when it was anybody’s birthday, and I wrote yours down. I was planning to give you a rose the next year, but you were gone by then,” he said.

  “That is so sweet.” She rolled up on her tiptoes for another kiss.

  He glanced longingly at the bed, but he’d promised Tag he’d meet him at the barn in thirty minutes. He’d already used up half that time, and he really should start a fire for Rose before he left.

  As if she could read his mind, she said, “We’ve both got work to do, but when the day is done…”

  “My place or yours tonight?” he asked.

  “Mine, to celebrate me having such a beautiful new home,” she replied, “but be forewarned, the shower is too small for both of us.”

  “We’ll see about that when the time comes.” He got to his feet and crossed the room to build a fire. “I’ll show you how…”

  “I know how to build and keep a fire going,” she told him. “We had to use a woodstove for heat and to cook when we lived in Louisiana. Best grilled crawdads in the world came from the top of that old thing.”

  Hud wondered if he’d ever discover all of Rose’s secrets. Maybe not, but he was willing to give it a try—even if it took a lifetime.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It had only taken Rose a couple of hours to get moved into her new little cabin, but within the next few days, more and more of her things got transported over to the ranch house. By the first week in February, she was spending all her time at the ranch house with Hud—at least when she wasn’t at her new job at the hospital.

  That morning was her day off, though, and she’d walked to the cabin to get a book she’d left there. Red ran along ahead of her, and when she arrived at the cabin, he dashed inside.

  She was all but living with Hud, and yet neither of them had said those three words I love you. They’d skirted around them by saying “love ya” in the morning when she left to walk from the ranch house across the pasture to the stile that he’d installed for her to cross over the fence. She’d planned to tell him that she didn’t only love him, but that she was in love with him when she came home from Kentucky, but somehow the moment never seemed just right.

  A south wind whipped through the dormant mesquite trees, and dark clouds began to gather in the distance. When she sat down on the sofa, Red laid his head on her lap and looked up at her with big, brown, understanding eyes.

  “Don’t give me that look.” She scratched his ears. “You’ve never had trouble telling people that you love them. That wagging tail and those big floppy ears let them know pretty quick how they stand with you.”

  Just speak your mind and be honest. Granny Dee’s words came back to her.

  That sounded like good advice, but Rose had never told a man that she was in love with him—not even in the semiserious relationship where she had considered moving in with a guy. Should she just blurt it out over supper one evening? After sex didn’t seem like the right time—being in love went beyond a romp in the sheets.

  “All this worry isn’t getting anything done,” she told Red as she picked up the book and headed back to the ranch house. “I guess we’ll both open up and say what’s in our hearts when the time is right.” Red ambled across the yard, his nose to the ground, as if he was checking for vicious grasshoppers or tracking a wild raccoon, and then he belly crawled under the barbed wire fence and took off like he was chasing a wily fox.

  “If reincarnation is real, then I want to come back as a dog like Red or a cat like Rascal.” She sighed. “They don’t have to worry about stuff as much as humans do.”

  “Hey!” Hud yelled from the other side of the fence.

  His voice startled her so much that she stumbled and had to grab a porch post to keep from falling. Hud put a hand on a wooden fence post and jumped over the top strand of barbed wire and then jogged over to the porch. He took her in his arms and kissed her with so much heat and passion that it made her knees weak.

  Without ending the kisses, he backed her across the lawn and into the cabin. Then he sat down and pulled her onto his lap. A loud clap of thunder made both of them jump, and then rain came down hard enough that it sounded like bullets hitting the cabin’s metal roof. “Where did that come from?” She laid her cheek against his chest.

  “Been on the way all morning,” he replied. “We’ve been watching the radar on our phones. We barely got the last of the fencing done when the weather forecast said we had about fifteen minutes before it hit. I decided to jog over here rather than go to the ranch house. It’s going to rain all day and through the night. Think you can put up with me that long?” he asked.

  “I’ll do my best to endure it.” She smiled and pulled his face down for another kiss. “Right now, we’d better have some lunch. You’re going to need your strength if I’m going to take the afternoon off.”

  He kissed her on her forehead. “I like the way you think.”

  * * *

  Hard, fierce wind had joined forces with the rain by evening, but there was about five minutes of relief right around five o’clock. “Here’s our chance if we want to go home,” Hud told Rose. “If we don’t take it, we may be spending the night right here.”

  “Poor little Rascal will be lonely if we stay here.” Rose grabbed up her coat and purse, turned off her laptop, and headed for the door. “I still can’t believe that Lucas left that kitten with you.”

  “He didn’t want to,” Hud said. “But his daddy said the place where they’d be living didn’t allow pets. I told him I’d keep Rascal for him and take real good care of the kitten.”

  “See, you really are a hero.” She tossed him the keys to her car. “You drive. I hate driving in the rain.”

  He caught them midair. “So you’re finally going to let me drive your new car?”

  “Yep, and all it took was one hellacious rainstorm. Lock the door behind you,” she said over her shoulder as she ran outside.

  She opened the door and crawled into the passenger’s seat, giggling the whole time.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked as he got behind the wheel.

  “I was thinking of the first time you came into the gift shop. You stepped in that pan of water, and I sat down in it. I’m surprised both of us ran as far as we did without falling in a mud puddle,” she told him.

  “It’s a day of miracles.” He grinned as he drove down the path, past the Longhorn Canyon ranch house to the road, and made a right-hand turn. In just minutes, he’d parked the car beside his truck. “It’s hard to believe that this house and the cabin are so
close if we walk and yet so far away if we have to go by the road.”

  “Kind of like us, huh?” she asked.

  Lightning streaked through the sky, and thunder rolled over the ranch like a big, lazy freight train. “We’d better get inside before it starts dumping more rain on us.”

  She didn’t wait for him to come around and open the door for her but bailed out and ran to the porch. Red came out from around the house, did one of those doggy shivers to shake the water off him, and ran inside the second she opened the door.

  “At least he did the equivalent of wiping his feet,” she said.

  “He’s a pretty good old boy, but what did you mean when you said that the cabin and house are like us?” Hud ran into the house behind her. He helped her with her coat and hung it on the back of a chair. Then he did the same with his.

  Rascal came out of the kitchen and bristled up at Red like a little gray porcupine. The dog ignored her and went straight to his favorite spot in the living room. Rose picked up the kitten and held her close to her chest.

  “Poor baby,” she crooned. “It’s a tough job having to hold down a house when we leave, and we appreciate you takin’ care of that for us.”

  The kitten snuggled down into her arms and started to purr. Rose carried her to the sofa and sat down close to Hud.

  “Now to your question,” she said. “We’re close. We love spending time together, and we’re fantastic in bed.”

  He nodded. “I hear a but, though, and it kind of scares me.”

  “I didn’t know anything could scare you.” She smiled.

  “Losing you terrifies me,” he admitted.

  “I feel the same about you.” She looked up, and their gazes caught somewhere just above the cat’s tiny head. “But there’s a barbed wire fence between us. I’m practically living with you and neither of us…” She paused.

  “Rose O’Malley, I love you,” he said without blinking, “and not only do I love you, darlin’, I’m in love with you. I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you in the Tulia Junior High hallway. But it’s only been the past few weeks that I realized that I also love you. Does that take down the fence?”

  “No, but this does.” She set the kitten on the floor and cupped his face in her hands. “I’ve held you in my heart and loved you for years, but now I’m in love with you too. You complete my heart and soul.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The church Valentine Day’s potluck was held on Wednesday night. Rose made two pecan pies, and Hud carried them in with pride.

  “Hey, those really look good,” Tag yelled from the corner of the fellowship hall. “If you were a good brother, you’d sneak one out into my truck.”

  “Guess I’m not a good brother,” Hud teased.

  When he’d set the pies on the table, Levi clamped a hand on his shoulder. “We haven’t seen much of you this past month. What’s been going on?”

  Hud put his arm around Rose’s shoulders and drew her to his side. “We’ve moved in together.”

  “Well, good for you,” Levi said and moved on.

  “Surprise!” Luna tapped Rose on the shoulder.

  Rose shook loose from Hud and gave her aunt a hug. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

  “Me and your daddy had us a knock-down, drag-out fight. I figured it was best if we put a little space between us for a few days, so I came to see Molly’s new house,” Luna said. “So you and Hud are living together? I just got one thing to say about that.”

  “And what’s that?” Rose stepped back.

  “It’s about damn time.” Luna giggled.

  “What did you and Daddy get into it about?” Rose asked.

  “Two things.” Luna pushed her braids over her shoulder. “One was when he told me I had to get rid of my new phone. I told him that I owned half that damned commune, and what I did on my half was my own damned business. Then little Jennifer got pneumonia, and I took her to the doctor for medicine. He called a meeting and said that I should have asked permission. I told him that if he had a cell phone in his pocket, I might have given him a call.”

  Molly walked up beside them with a Bundt cake in her hands. “Luna’s just traded her old sumbitch for a new one.” She set the cake on the table.

  “Ahh, he ain’t that bad,” Luna said. “He just needs a little bit of trainin’, and I’m the one to take over that job. In a few years, he’ll be downright likable.”

  “Well, we’re glad you’re here for a little while.” Hud patted Luna on the shoulder. “You’ll have to come out to the ranch and visit with us some evening. I’ll grill some steaks.” He walked away to talk to Levi, leaving the three ladies alone.

  “I’ll bring the dessert,” Molly said.

  Luna raised an eyebrow at her sister. “You can be my plus one if you’ll bring mama’s bread pudding with caramel sauce.”

  “That sounds good.” Rose tucked her hand into Hud’s. “Granny Dee used to make it, and I haven’t had it since she died. Want to share the recipe with me?”

  “No, she won’t.” Luna tipped her chin up defiantly. “She got Mama to give her the book with all our grandmother’s famous recipes in it before Mama died, and she’s selfish as hell with them.”

  “But not with you.” Molly smiled sweetly at Rose. “I’ll even show you how to make it.”

  “You’re an old toot.” Luna waggled a finger at Molly.

  “I may be, but I’ve got the recipes and you don’t,” Molly said.

  Rose giggled at the way the two of them bickered. “Give us a call when you’ve got a free evening, but not this Friday. This old cowboy is taking me to a fancy place for a Valentine’s Day candlelight dinner.”

  “We’re goin’ to the American Legion for a few drinks and some square dancin’,” Luna said. “So it’ll have to be the first of the week. Oh, there’s Dixie. I’ve got to go talk to her and see the baby.”

  “I hope Luna and Paul make up soon. I can only take her for a few days, and then I’m ready to strangle her,” Molly sighed. “When she came before, I lived in the B&B, and there were lots of places to hide from her when I’d had enough of her shenanigans. I can’t very well sneak away from her in my new house, not even for a thirty-minute nap. It’s too small,” Molly said. “But on a more positive note, I’m glad that you and Hud are officially together. Love is a good thing. Don’t let it slip away, and don’t let it die in its sleep.”

  “I already lost her once.” Hud walked up behind Rose and slipped his arms around her waist. “I’m sure not plannin’ on doin’ it again.”

  “That’s the right attitude.” Molly waved as the Fab Five entered the room. “I need to talk to Patsy about the dance on Friday night. Y’all excuse me.”

  “It’s amazing how these folks have taken me in,” Rose muttered.

  “Welcome to small-town Texas.” Hud gently squeezed her hand. “And welcome to our extended family.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “I’ve been looking for my place in the world ever since I was a child. I’m glad that it’s here in Sunset, Texas.”

  “Well, darlin’, I’m sure happy that we found each other again, and that we’re together,” he whispered.

  Dixie crossed the room with Sally on her hip. “I wanted to let y’all see how much she’s grown and how happy we are. I still feel like I climbed up out of hell and found heaven.”

  “I know a little of that same feeling.” Rose smiled. “Let me hold that baby a minute before the Fab Five get over here. I heard that they’ve all but adopted her.”

  Dixie laughed out loud. “They’re spoiling her rotten. They drop by the shop nearly every day to play with her, and most days they bring a cute little outfit or a toy for her. I can’t tell them no because it brings them so much pleasure.”

  “She’s got lots of grandparents,” Hud said. “Let them dote on her. Before long Claire’s little boy will be here, and then Sally will have to share.”

  “I doubt it,” Dixie said. “They’ll just spoi
l them both.” She motioned toward the other side of the room. “You better get your lovin’ now. Sarah is on the way, and then they’ll fight over how long each one gets to be the grandma.”

  “Wonderful, isn’t it?” Rose said.

  “Amen,” Dixie answered.

  * * *

  By the time the party was over and the fellowship hall was put to rights, it was well past ten o’clock. Rose could tell that something was on Hud’s mind because he was so quiet. Usually, he shared everything with her, but that evening, he didn’t even turn on the radio.

  “Okay, spit it out,” she said. “We promised when we moved in together that we’d never have secrets, and we’d be open and honest about everything.”

  He turned into the lane to the ranch house and shook his head. “Let’s talk about it in the house. I want to be able to see your face. Did anyone ever tell you that you’d make a lousy poker player?”

  “I’ve played poker a few times and was pretty damn good at it,” she argued.

  “Your expressions tell me everything you’re thinking,” he said.

  “Oh, honey.” She got out of the truck as soon as he parked it. “If you really believe that, then I’ve got the best poker face in the whole universe.”

  “Really?” He held her hand as they climbed the porch steps and didn’t let go until he had to unlock the door.

  “Yes, sir.” She removed her coat, hung it up, picked up Rascal, and carried her to the living room. “Sit down here beside me and tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “When Sarah came over to take Sally from you, it was like you were relieved to get rid of the baby.” Hud eased down close to her. “Don’t you like kids?”

  Rose burst out laughing so hard that Rascal jumped out of her arms and hid behind the recliner. “I love kids, but Sally had a very smelly, dirty diaper, and I was glad to turn her over to Sarah, so she could be the one to change her.”

  “Ever have any experience with babies and small children?” he asked. “You were an only child, and Tag and I were the babies of the family.”