by Stacy Dawn
He hauled on the steering wheel, fighting for control. A loud kathunk-kathunk-kathunk echoed through his window as he managed to ease the vehicle to the side of the road.
Wrenching the door open, he turned his head away from the racked-up road dust and made his way around the truck and trailer. There it was on the front passenger side of the truck, a blown tire with the bent rim cutting into the dirt.
“Damn.” He tore off his hat and slapped it against his leg. He’d used his spare last month and hadn’t replaced it yet.
Jaw tight enough to break, he grabbed out his cell phone only to get the annoying beep of a dead zone. “Dammit,” he swore into the sun-blazoned sky.
Grey set his hands on his hips and stared down the highway to where a large building’s sign boasted a neon cowboy rolling off a bull and into a pile of bowling pins.
Replacing his hat, he reached in through the passenger door and grabbed his keys. At least the Ride ’n’ Bowl would have a phone. Hopefully he could get a tire out here, or at least a tow.
Dammit. He’d wanted to get out of town, not stick around longer.
Inside the bowling alley, it took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer lights. A crash of pins permeated the establishment and only provided his head with more ammunition to hurt. On the other side, the high pitched titter of teenage girls trying their hand at the slow-moving mechanical bull didn’t help.
Something crunched under his feet as Grey stepped up to the counter. What looked like a few round cereal pieces littered the floor. He frowned, then glanced around for someone to ask about a phone. Only a half-shelf of faded bowling shoes stared at him from behind the counter.
Music filtered from behind and he turned to find the old jukebox in a far corner behind a grouping of tables. A lady danced a young kid around the old music machine. He spun away, their image replaced in his mind by another mother and child. With a hard swallow, he searched for a telephone.
The song changed to his own “Boots on the Highway.” The squeal of the child involuntarily pulled his head back around just as the woman put the girl down to stomp about on the hardwood.
The bouncing blonde curls pulled him over, and though he spoke to the woman, his eyes remained fixed on the child. “Excuse me. My truck has a flat down the road. Do you know if there’s a telephone I could—”
The child was scooped up faster than he could finish his sentence. Grey raised his gaze to the woman as she held the little girl. One pair of eyes darkened to a scowl while the others stared back like haunting mirrors of his own.
“Oh, look, Gretal,” the redhead said, hiking the child higher on her hip. “It’s your no-good, selfish, coward of a father.”
“Hey, don’t be teaching her things like that,” he growled. Who the hell is she, anyway? And where is Lizzie?
“Why not? Not like you have a say.”
She pushed past him and the kid smiled over her shoulder, innocent glee on her face.
A chubby hand reached out toward him and he raised his, then dropped it. “I still don’t want her to hear things like that about me. That’s not how I want her to see me.”
The young woman turned and stared, one thin red brow high on her forehead. “Why not? What do you care what’s she taught? Not like you’re sticking around to help out.”
Grey fisted his hands. He’d never hit a woman, but there was a first time for everything. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”
Red hair flung over her shoulder and her chin rose. “Paige Mallory. Let me clarify—it was my best friend you left high and dry in front of the salon yesterday, remember?”
Now he recognized her, the one from the parking lot the day Lizzie came back. Grey groaned inwardly. Of all the places he had to break down near. The universe obviously hated him. Get in line.
Paige spun again and headed to the counter. “As I said, what do you care? Looks to me like you’re hightailing it out of town, abandoning those who’d set their hearts on you.”
“Now wait just one minute.” He grabbed her arm before she could round the counter. How dare she accuse me. She doesn’t even know me. “I am not abandoning them.”
“Then what do you call skitterin’ out of town like you are? I hear they call you the Lone Wolf—more like a little weasel. Can you say weasel, Gretal.”
“Wee-el! Wee-el,” Gretal sang.
“Stop doing that,” he scolded Paige and grabbed the child from her arms. “I have every right to make sure she’s brought up right. I’m her dad and...” The words faded off his tongue as Grey stared at his daughter. Like there’d been a kick to the back of his knees, he dropped onto a stool, careful to keep the child secure in his arms as the rest of his body lost all solidity. “I’m a dad.”
“Yes, you are.”
Grey stared at the beautiful little face, the same shape as her grandmother’s. A pudgy hand reached out and he stuck a hesitant finger out, so large against the small hand. Chunky fingers grabbed his, clutching and unclutching, giggling and laughing—and looking right at him.
When she let go to throw her hands in the air, he brought his hand to his chest where she had just stolen a good chunk of his heart. At the rate he was losing it, he’d be a dead man by the end of the day.
Paige grabbed the child away and his arms felt suddenly cold and empty.
“I think you should go now,” she said in no uncertain terms. “You’re not welcome here. Elizabeth is my best friend and a damned good person. I won’t stand for the scumbag who broke her heart to tarnish my establishment. She didn’t deserve to be treated the way you treated her. Nothing she did was wrong or contrived or selfish, as you put it.”
He went to speak but a hand shot out in front of his face.
“Elizabeth told me everything—everything. So don’t get your pride all up in a wedgie because you don’t have enough guts to stay and hear her out. She may kill me for saying this, but you need a good smack in the head and better me than her. She’s been through enough.” Paige took a step closer and jabbed a finger into his chest with each point. “Yes, she wanted a child. Yes, she had an appointment with a sperm bank. Then lo and behold there you were, and bing-bam-boom no clinic needed.” She leaned back and brushed his daughter’s curls. “What choice did she have by then? For her, none. Elizabeth chose to brave the snickers about a sperm bank rather than live with the whispers and ridicules that she was going down the same path as her mother. But don’t worry, I’ll help her get over you good and quick—and boy, let me tell you something else. You just lost the best thing you would have ever had.” She stood straight and hiked Gretal more securely in her arms. “Make that two. Now, get out. There’s a pay phone around the side of the building. Use it fast and then get off my property.”
The muscles in his brows threatened to seize, so hard was he frowning. He blew out a breath and stared at the child—no, not the child, my daughter.
How many times had he smiled along with Dusty and Free, watching their father head off to another rodeo? They were lucky if they got one call over a two-week period. And when he was home, he was too tired or too busy with a new “aunt” on his arm to pay them much attention. He’d held a hard grudge against his father all this time, swearing he’d never do that to his own kid. Yet here he was, riding out of town, leaving behind a daughter—one that he had already missed seeing born, and her first steps, her first words.
What the hell am I doing?
The lady was right. He’d been running out of town—couldn’t get out fast enough, right? Abandoning his beautiful daughter, abandoning Lizzie.
He’d already missed so much; did he want to miss more? Her first day of school, her first ride on a horse? Her first scuffed knee, watching her baking cookies with Lizzie, sharing lazy Sunday afternoons together, kissing her goodnight—kissing her mother goodnight...
Grey stopped....set their hearts on you. That’s what Paige had said. That had to mean he had Lizzie’s heart at one point. The thought buoyed him, but then threatened to
drown him again, for after all he’d said, what chance did he have of getting them back?
A snort of irritation brought his head up just as Paige rounded the counter.
“Wait,” he said.
She turned, her body language saying she didn’t want to hear one word, but he planned to try anyway. It just might be the biggest competition of his life, right here and now, the fight for his own family.
“Wait, please.” Grey clenched his jaw. “I know about her mother.”
Paige stilled then looked back slowly over her shoulder. “She told you about her mother? Whoa.”
He took his hat off and wiped his brow. “I don’t want to abandon Lizzie, or Gretal. Please, I don’t know how to fix this, but I want to, I swear.”
Paige walked back to where he sat. “It’s not me you need to convince.”
He dropped his chin and stared at the crumbs of cracked and broken cereal pieces. Don’t they just about sum me up? “I know.”
Tiny fingers smacked his head and pulled his hair. He winced and detangled himself from the fingers. When he looked up, the redhead was smiling.
She passed him the giggling ball of toddlerhood. “It may just take you the rest of your life to make up for it,” she said with a grin.
He smiled at Gretal, his mother’s eyes and her mother’s lips smiling back with the freedom of pure innocence. His heart lightened. “Yeah, it just might.”
Paige set her hand on her hip and chuckled. “If you’re planning on sticking around then there is one thing you better get used to right now: I’m always right.”
He grinned, truly liking the lady for the first time. “Yes, ma’am.”
Gretal dug her hand in and out of his shirt pocket. He laughed at her concentration and kissed the top of her head. “What do you say you and me go find your mama?”
Bright eyes widened. “Mama?”
“Yes, Mama. Damn—I mean darn,” he said, correcting himself quickly in front of his daughter—just one of many things he’d have to get used to. “My truck’s out of commission.”
Paige reached into her pocket and jangled keys in front of him. “Take mine. Red Ford on the other side of the building. It already has her car seat in it.”
“Car seat, right...”
Paige laughed. “Come on, cowboy. I’ll show you how it works.”
She hefted up a pink, checkered bag and hung the strap over his shoulder as she passed. He glanced down at the diapers and toys and frowned.
Sure hope you know what you’re getting into here, Grey, he told himself. Then he thought of Lizzie holding Gretal and round with another child, and there were no doubts—a shit-load of fear, but no doubts.
Chapter Fourteen
“Okay, that should do it. Just make sure you give the paperwork to auditor in this order and you should be good.” Elizabeth finished putting the receipts together and returned them to the accordion file before sliding the mass across the desk to Henry.
The manager of the rodeo swiped a long finger in the collar of his shirt, a bead of sweat evident on his temple.
She put a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, Henry. I-R-S doesn’t mean doom and gloom like everyone thinks. Most of the time it’s a simple process and everything works out just fine, trust me.”
He patted her hand. “Well, you do know your numbers there, darlin’. I trust you.”
After one more squeeze, she let him go and stood. “If they have any questions, give them my card.” Though she’d put one in the file, she handed him another for safety’s sake, or more for comfort’s sake ’cause the poor guy looked like he was going to the Spanish Inquisition.
Headed to the door, she stopped. Out of all the photo frames plastered to the wall of his office, her eyes caught on one and only one. A cowboy elongated on the back of a curved bronc, his hat boasting Viking horns.
She’d almost made it; almost made this visit all about business, and not about the massive hole in her chest that widened when she drove by and saw Grey’s campsite empty. She swore she would wait until she got home, wait until the dark hours when everyone was asleep and no one would hear the sobs she knew rode so close to the surface.
“Whatcha lookin’ at there?”
Elizabeth felt Henry’s presence behind her. She couldn’t look at him, yet didn’t want to look at the picture before her, either.
From the corner of her eye she saw him dip his chin and the crinkles around his eyes deepen.
“Wulfsen.” He chuckled and tapped the picture. “He sure was a character. Got good kids, though. Grey, the middle boy, rides broncs just like his Daddy.”
Eyes burning, she bit her lip against the vocalization of his name. With a quick nod, she reached for the door.
A hand fell heavy on her shoulder.
“You okay there, Elizabe—Liz. Well, I’ll be...Lizzie?”
Her gaze darted to the manager’s face where his lip quirked in a grin. Her chest constricted.
“So you’re the one Grey’s been looking for—”
“I have to go,” she squeaked out through a thick throat. Sanity slowly evaporated and she needed air, desperately.
Elizabeth shoved the door open and hurried out into the late afternoon sunshine. She gasped in a lungful of air and used every ounce of self-control her Granny had ingrained to keep the tears behind her eyes. She had a daughter to raise, a business to run. Heart be damned, it would just have to deal.
She ducked her head and headed straight for the parking lot. A few short steps from escape, her heart rebelled and exploded at the sight before her.
Grey.
Her heart slammed back into rhythm, the sight of him holding their daughter almost more than it could hold.
She didn’t even remember him moving, simply one minute Grey was across the pavement and the next, right in front of her.
“Mama, Mama!” Gretal let out a giggle and threw chubby fingers toward her.
Automatically, Elizabeth reached out for her daughter and held her tight as she stared up at the cowboy. “What are you...I-I don’t understand—”
Grey captured her mouth with his, consuming her confusion in one long kiss. Large, warm hands framed her cheeks and the connection only fueled the emotions threatening the surface. Desperation, fear, sorrow, apology, and more all blended in the taste of his ardent kiss.
He pulled back and rubbed the pad of his thumb over the moisture on her cheek. Lips bruised from his kiss yet yearning for more, she stared up into steel-gray eyes full of everything she battled with herself. Fear...apprehension...acceptance...love.
Grey wrapped one arm around her, Gretal cradled between them. With the other, he brushed her hair as he studied her face. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to do with all this, with us. I tried to find the right words the whole way over here—you’d think it’d be easy for a songwriter,” he added with a chuckle. “But the only thing that I could think of is that I have to rewrite the song.”
Song? What song? And what does that have to do with him being here...with Gretal...and that kiss? Though her hopes for all of them pressed against the surface, she shook her head in wary confusion.
“If the world came to an end, Lizzie, I’d die a miserable man.” His smile grew and he held her chin, his gaze locked to hers. “I don’t want just one starlit night with you. I want hundreds, thousands, as many as I can possibly get in our lifetime together.” He kissed a tear from her cheek. “Please, say you’ll give me a chance.”
Above their daughter’s head, she smiled in amazement at the man who owned her heart. The cowboy who wasn’t about to run off with it. The one willing to stay and fight for her, for them.
She covered her hand over his, not bothering to hide the tears that no longer stung, but rained down in pure bliss. “I love you.”
“God, I love you, too, Lizzie.”
And then Grey kissed her again, long and slow as her heart rejoiced in the sweetest song she’d ever heard.
A word about the author...
I found out that dreams don’t always come quickly, but they do come true. My stories reflect the same persistence and need to believe. My heroines may not always have an easy time of it but, in the end, they always get their man...just like I did.
www.stacydawn.com
Other Titles by this Author
The Apple of His Eye
Wanna Make A Bet?
Finding Their Way Back
Corvette Confessions
Karaoke Cowgirl
Standoff at the Waterin’ Horse Saloon
Disco Angel
Love Floats
Luck Be a Cowboy
Cheatin’ Hearts
A Matching Fancy
Sold!
Shadows of Moonlight
The Theory of Love
Marry Me, Cowboy (free read)
~*~
Christmas in Noelle series:
Reindeer Games
Christmas on Parole
A Cinderella Christmas
Santa’s Elves (free read)
Oh Holly Night
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