A Cowboy Summer (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Salonen, Debra

  He poured hot water into a cup and added a packet of powdered mix. “Too hot,” he decided. “Better add some milk. Follow me.” Together they headed for the kitchen.

  Once he had the brew ready for her, he set the cup on the counter near the stove and hefted her to a spot a safe distance away from the gas burners. She was light. Too light for her age?

  Her peal of glee made him smile.

  “Whoever heard of blue dogs?” he asked, poking at one of the much-repeated images on the leg of her flannel pajamas.

  After taking a sip of cocoa, she said, “I like blue sometimes, but pink is my favorite color. What’s yours?”

  Did he have one? “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that. What’s your mother’s favorite color?”

  “Sage green, but she only wears black. It’s a New York thing,” Zoey said with wisdom beyond her years.

  Anne hadn’t been wearing black this morning. Her pajamas were a pale, feminine fabric with tiny sprigs of flowers on a white background, and the peachy robe had hugged her body contours far better than he had any business noticing.

  “Where’s Grandpa?” Zoey asked.

  Will bent over to select a frying pan from the lower cabinet. “He took off about fifteen minutes ago,” he said, searching for a lid.

  When he straightened, he glanced sideways and saw Zoey’s face awash in tears. Her nose was red and flowing and her chest heaved, but no sound came from her mouth. She was in obvious distress.

  Will tossed the pan and lid on the stove as he rushed to her side. “Zoey, honey, what’s wrong? Are you choking?” Suddenly, he remembered: asthma.

  She tried to answer but the words came on a wispy sputter. Her skin changed color to a hue matching her pj’s.

  He picked her up and ran to the foot of the stairs. “Anne,” he hollered. “Come quick. Zoey’s not breathing.”

  Almost before he was done speaking, Anne appeared at the top of the stairs. She looked at the child struggling for breath and disappeared, only to return a few seconds later with a plastic apparatus in hand. Dressed in tan slacks and a white blouse, she raced down the stairs so swiftly her feet barely seemed to touch the carpet.

  “In there,” she said, leading the way to the living room. “The couch.”

  He carefully laid the child down. Anne sat beside her and pulled Zoey into a sitting position on her lap. She held the molded-plastic instrument to her daughter’s lips and coaxed a response. “Breathe, honey. You can do it.”

  Zoey’s eyes were partially rolled back in her head. Will watched in agony, his heart beating as if he’d just gone ten seconds on Little Yellow Jacket, one of the toughest bulls on the circuit. He debated calling an ambulance but didn’t want to interrupt the connection he felt between Anne and her daughter.

  Zoey’s small chest rose; the inhaler made a spritzing sound and a moment later a tiny sigh came to his ears. Anne repeated the process, and as if by magic, Zoey’s color returned to normal. Her face was bathed in tears and sweat, though. Her pajamas stuck to her in places. No wonder she was skinny, Will thought. Asthma attacks were a lot of work.

  Anne looked at him as she gently swabbed her daughter’s face with a tissue she must have had in her pocket. “What happened? Did you spray a cleaning product nearby?”

  He shook his head. “No. I gave her cocoa, but she only took a sip. We were talking. She asked about A.J. I told her he’d already left.”

  Anne made a small sound of dismay. She hugged Zoey and rocked back and forth, crooning softly. “Oh, sweetheart. I’m so sorry. You wanted to tell Grandpa goodbye, didn’t you?”

  Zoey nodded.

  Anne kissed her cheek. “I should have woken you up. But you were sleeping so peacefully I thought you needed your sleep.”

  Will started to withdraw, but Anne reached out and touched his sleeve. “Thank you for your help,” she said.

  “Help?” Will wanted to kick himself for not realizing Zoey would have been upset. “I didn’t do anything. In fact, I probably made it happen.”

  Anne shook her head. “No, you didn’t,” she said firmly. “Zoey did. She knows that her emotions can trigger an attack. She’s worked with a biofeedback counselor and a respiratory specialist. She knows how to handle disappointment, but sometimes—like all of us—her emotions get away from her. Right, honey?”

  Zoey swallowed and nodded. “Sorry I scared you, Will.”

  Will didn’t scare easy, but if he were honest, he’d admit this episode had shaken him badly. “No problem. Who’s hungry for eggs?”

  They followed him, Anne carrying Zoey this time. Will kept up a running discourse to cover the fact that he really wanted to head for the hills. Zoey was a sweet kid. He liked her, but an unschooled cowboy who knew nothing about children—especially asthmatic children—could be hazardous to her health.

  When Anne suggested they meet in A.J.’s office after breakfast to discuss business, Will declined. “I promised Gramps I’d take care of those locks right away. Maybe later?”

  Anne shrugged. Will could tell she saw through his excuse.

  When they finished eating, Anne said, “Zoey and I will clean up. We need to get rid of any toxic cleaning products, so we don’t have any accidents in the future. Most of Zoey’s breathing difficulties are brought on by environmental causes.” She took his plate and walked to the sink. “And it’s so unnecessary,” she said. “It’s amazing what you can do with hot water and lemon.”

  Will gave Zoey what he hoped was an encouraging smile, then left. He really did need to meet the locksmith, but after that he and Anne would set up a division of power. One that would keep Will out of the house and out of their lives.

  “WAIT HERE and I’ll bring the boxes down,” Zoey’s mother said, her hand on the rope railing of the ladder that had unfolded from a trapdoor in the ceiling of the upstairs hallway.

  Zoey loved this house. It was everything their apartment wasn’t—big, and cluttered, inviting exploration. “I wanna go up,” she said, trying to duck under her mother’s arm. “Maybe there’s a ghost.”

  “It’s probably dusty, honey. You’ve already had one attack this morning. Let’s not press our luck.”

  Our. Zoey hated it when her mother acted as if her asthma belonged to both of them. Her mother wasn’t sick all the time. She wasn’t the one who was a freak. Who was so pathetic even her daddy left so he wouldn’t have to hang around her.

  “Please, Mommy…”

  To Zoey’s immense surprise, her mom took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “Okay. Grandma was a pretty methodical cleaner. It might not be that bad. But if you start feeling the slightest bit wheezy…”

  Zoey nodded with exuberance and started to climb. “Can I go first?”

  She heard a chuckle follow her up the steep steps.

  The attic was dim and mysterious, with deep corners and stacks of boxes. A square shaft ran from the floor to the ceiling in the middle of the room. Zoey stood up and turned in a circle, trying to see everything at once.

  No ghosts, unless they were hanging in the shadows of the rafters. Some of that pink cotton candy–looking stuff could be ectoplasm. That was a word she’d learned last week. The thrill of being someplace so new and different made her breath a bit raspy. She slowed her breathing.

  “This is too cool,” she whispered, walking straight to a big trunk with a humped back. It was green, like the color of her friend Brigit’s sister’s hair last summer. “I wonder what’s in…” She opened the latch and pushed up the lid. Pretty stuff. White and silky. Maybe somebody’s wedding dress. “Mommy, come see.”

  Her mother scrambled crablike to reach her. “I swear this place has shrunk since the last time I was here,” she said, looking around with that look, as if she could catch the dust before it got to Zoey’s nose.

  “I feel fine, Mom. Look at all this cool stuff.” She buried her hands in the watery-feeling cloth. She suddenly remembered a time when her daddy had lifted her up to put her hands in a tank
where the lobsters lived. They were kinda mean-looking and she’d been afraid, until her mother pointed out the bands around their claws.

  Later, the waiter brought her father a plate with a strange red object on it. Zoey hadn’t realized what it was until she saw the bands around the claws. Then she’d cried so hard she stopped breathing and ruined the whole night. Her dad left them not long after that. He went across the ocean to live.

  “…your grandma’s wedding dress,” her mother was saying as Zoey put the sad thoughts out of her mind. “Her second one.”

  “Grandma was married twice?”

  Mom pulled the dress partway out of the box and held it to her chest. “You know that, honey. She married A.J. after my daddy died, remember?”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.” Zoey dug a little deeper and came up with a funny hat with a long train. “Look at this.”

  She put it on her head, fluffing out the net stuff so it fell over her shoulders like the long hair she dreamed of having one day. “Isn’t it pretty?”

  Her mom got a funny, sad look on her face. “You are so beautiful, Zoey Elizabeth Fraser. This dress might be back in style by the time you get married. Let’s put it away and find those other boxes A.J. mentioned.”

  Zoey thought the dress looked more like her mother than her. It was simple with little pearls that sparkled. Zoey planned to wear something much fancier than this when she got married. After she finished veterinary school and explored Africa. “Maybe you could use it, Mommy, the next time you get married.”

  Her mother laughed—not so much a happy laugh as a like-that-will-ever-happen laugh.

  “You could, Mom. You’re not that old.”

  “Thanks, dear,” she said, reaching for another box. “Wonder what’s in this one.”

  Ignoring the obvious attempt to change the subject, Zoey said, “Brigit’s mom dates.”

  “Brigit’s mom doesn’t work my hours.” Her mother pulled out a denim hat, the kind that drooped on the sides like a long-eared dog. “I remember this hat,” she exclaimed. “Mom embroidered the flowers on it. I thought I was so cool.” She put it on.

  Zoey cocked her head to study it. Her mom was cool. Not everybody could wear a silly hat like that and not look stupid.

  “Brigit said her mom might marry this new guy. He’s a doctor. Not the gross kind, but the kind who fixes people’s ears or something.”

  “Good for her,” Mom said, returning to her search in the box. “Oh, here you go. This is right up your alley. Très chic.”

  She produced a sleeveless dress with wide diagonal stripes of blue, green and orange. The slinky material slipped right over Zoey’s head. “And look—shoes to match,” she said, holding up a pair of white, patent-leather sandals on top of four inches of cork. “Platforms. I wonder where she got these.”

  Zoey kicked off her tennis shoes and put her left foot into the shoe. It was too big, but her mother tightened the straps across her toes and tied the rough, leather thread around her ankle. She had to use her mother’s shoulder for balance when she tried on the right shoe. “Neat,” she said, feeling grown-up. “Where’s a mirror?”

  “Downstairs. Let’s haul these boxes down to your room so we can really go through them. There may be a ghost or two around here, yet.”

  Zoey knew Mom didn’t mean it. She was talking about the memories the clothes brought back.

  Impulsively, she put her arms around her mother’s neck and hugged her. Hard. She was starting to tell her she loved her, when a deep voice said, “What’s going on up here?”

  Zoey let out a little yelp and tried to spin around. Her shoes wobbled sideways, and she dropped into her mother’s lap. Anne pointed to the hole in the floor that led down the ladder. Will’s head was poking out like a ghost without a body—or maybe God. He looked serious. Maybe he thought she might go into another coughing fit.

  Then he looked at her mother and his face changed. The lines around his eyes went sorta soft and fuzzy; he tilted his head like he wanted to see more of her. He smiled.

  He likes her, Zoey realized. Her heart speeded up.

  She looked at her mother and saw that her cheeks were pinker than usual. “Wow,” Zoey whispered. She didn’t know what this meant, but for some reason, the weight on her chest felt a little lighter.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “FIRST, the lawyer, then the bank. Right?” Anne asked as Will’s ostentatious yellow truck neared the edge of the unincorporated crossroads community—dead center in the path of urban sprawl inching its way south and west from Reno.

  The area had changed dramatically since Anne had lived here. Not only did new businesses dot both sides of the roads, but so did housing developments that seemed to have sprung up overnight. The crush of cars as they approached the Galena Junction Shopping Center made her want to turn around and race back up the mountainside.

  Anne’s mother had lamented that growth was as inevitable as death and taxes but had better side effects, like first-run movies and a new school. “Mom told me there’s a new high school around here,” she said, trying to spot any familiar landmarks.

  “Yep. Galena High. No more long bus rides for these kids,” Will said. “Esther sent me a clipping.”

  Anne turned in her seat. “She kept you apprised of local news?”

  He grinned wryly. “Not exactly. The article was on the same page as a photo of a buddy’s wedding. I think it was to remind me that life was passing me by.”

  His tone was sardonic, not critical, but in her mother’s defense, Anne said, “She was a big believer in marriage.” Another reason Anne had felt like a failure after Barry left.

  “Tell me about it. If she knew ahead of time that I was coming home, she’d invite some single girl over for dinner.”

  “Really?” She never tried setting me up.

  Anne studied his profile. In the bright, early-afternoon light, she could see evidence of his physical and often dangerous job: a crescent-moon scar above his right eyebrow, a silvery line along his jaw. Despite—or perhaps because of—the flaws, he’d matured into a truly handsome man. No wonder her mother had tried fixing him up.

  Scanning first left, then right, he said, “I can never remember which way to turn. My memory sucks.”

  He made an apologetic grimace and looked in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, Zoey. I gotta watch my language.”

  “Huh?” Zoey’s head popped up at the sound of her name. Anne could tell she was too engrossed in the book about horses that she’d found in A.J.’s library to pay attention to the adults in the truck.

  “Nothing, honey. The town’s grown so much, neither Will nor I know where we’re going, but we’ll stumble across the lawyer’s office eventually.” She leaned forward to peer out the window. “Isn’t it the next street up? By the light? Wait a second. Did that sign say Community College?” she exclaimed. “When did that go in?”

  Will filled her in on what he knew of the area’s progress, but Anne didn’t listen too closely. She was still curious about her mother’s matchmaker activities. Whom among the local populace had Esther considered right for Will? And why had she bothered plotting? He didn’t seem overtly lonely or pathetically single, like a few of the men she’d dated.

  “This is where we turn,” she said as they neared an intersection.

  “All right,” Will said with a nod. “Good navigating.”

  The praise pleased Anne more than it should have, especially considering Will’s quick escape after breakfast. Some men didn’t handle illness well. Barry, for instance. As Zoey’s attacks had worsened, her father had found ample reasons not to be around.

  Anne didn’t plan to get involved with any man who couldn’t make her daughter’s welfare a priority—a high price to pay for a wife. Which was why she didn’t expect to marry again until after Zoey went off to college.

  College. Her new position at WHC would provide the kind of financial security that would allow Anne to plan for her daughter’s future. Although Anne earned a decent
salary, the cost of living in New York and having a nanny left little extra.

  She turned in the seat. “Hey, Zoey, after I get the reservation system organized and hire our staff, we’ll make a trip to the library to check out some books,” Anne said, raising her voice to be heard over the country music on the radio. “Your teacher passed out a summer reading list, right?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” Zoey mumbled, lifting her book to block their connection.

  Was she pouting because I cut short our dress-up party? Anne wondered. This trip had been Anne’s idea, not Will’s. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision based on her reaction to the look he’d given her in the attic. That glance had left her flustered and in need of an escape. Signing papers in town had seemed like a safe diversion.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t realized that they’d be riding together in his truck. A.J. had given Anne the keys to her mother’s almost-new Toyota Forerunner, but he’d neglected to mention that it had a manual transmission. Anne had driven a rental car on recent visits, and Esther had been too sick to drive, so the subject hadn’t come up. Now, Anne realized she had two choices: ask Will for driving lessons or hire him as their chauffeur.

  Will hadn’t seemed to notice her dilemma, apparently assuming that since he needed to sign the papers, too, they’d ride together. But Will’s truck was proving more claustrophobic than the attic. The extended cab was bigger than a full-size car, but every square inch exuded testosterone—like its owner. In the built-in cup holder sat a sixteen-ounce insulated mug from “Joltin’ Joe’s,” which sported red kisses and risqué slogans she hoped Zoey couldn’t read from the back seat. A visor organizer held a pen, an empty case for sunglasses, a map and a metal tin of mint candies. A dusty cell-phone charger was clamped to the dash. As far as she could tell, the unit wasn’t turned on.

  “Doesn’t your phone work in the mountains?” she asked, reaching for hers to check the signal. She hadn’t tried using it at the ranch.