The Cowboy's Healing Ways (Cooper Creek)

by Minton, Brenda

She looked at him, gray eyes misty, and she didn’t answer.

  His grandmother rushed back into the room, an afghan in her hands. She draped it around her guest’s shoulders. “She’s staying right here.”

  “Gran.”

  She shushed him. “Jesse, I’m a big girl and I have a duty to take care of this young woman. I could be in the morgue right now if she hadn’t run off the road to keep from hitting me.”

  She might have a point, but that didn’t mean she should put herself in harm’s way, taking in a stranger. “Gran, really.”

  Laura White touched his grandmother’s arm. “What your grandson is trying to say is that taking in a stranger is dangerous. Mrs. Cooper, you shouldn’t. You don’t know me from anyone.”

  Jesse’s grandmother looked closely at her. “I’m knocking on the door of eighty-five and I know a good girl when I see one. You’ve had a few setbacks, but I see goodness in your eyes.”

  “I’m not going to argue because I won’t win.” Jesse walked over to the sink to wash his hands.

  Behind him his grandmother and Laura White were having a discussion about Laura staying. He knew how this would go. He squirted dish soap in his palm, lathered up and rinsed under the hot tap water. The towel hanging over the door of the cabinet was damp. He found a clean one in the drawer.

  “Is there a hotel in Dawson?” Laura asked as he turned back around. His grandmother shot him a look.

  Jesse shook his head. “Nope.”

  She started to stand but wobbled, and he caught hold of her arm. He eased her back on the stool and placed his wrist on the back of her neck. Her fever had spiked. He grabbed the thermometer out of his bag and pushed the thick strands of auburn hair behind her ear to slide the thermometer in. She closed her eyes, opening them when he moved his hand and withdrew the thermometer.

  He shook his head. “You need to be in bed.”

  His grandmother smiled big because she knew she’d won the argument. He had to smile, too, because his granny Myrna loved a new project and he could tell she didn’t plan on letting this one slip out the door. His grandmother was dead set on fixing the person who had crashed into her life.

  “Let me get the spare room ready and then you can help her upstairs.”

  “Sure thing, Gran.” He watched his grandmother, still spry in her eighties, hurry out of the kitchen. He heard her singing as she headed upstairs to ready the guestroom.

  “I really can go.”

  “No, you’ll stay. Your car is being towed to the garage. Besides, my grandmother is a determined lady.” He helped her up. “But don’t hurt her.”

  “I’m not going to hurt her. I just wanted to get to my aunt’s house tonight.”

  “I take it you’re not close to your aunt.”

  “We lost contact after my father died.”

  He held her steady and they walked through the living room to the stairs. “And you decided to visit tonight?”

  She sighed, stopping at the foot of the stairs.

  “There was a rift when my mother remarried. I thought maybe if I came here...” She shrugged. “I need a place to start over. I need a job and a place to live.”

  “Dawson is a good place to start over, but there aren’t too many jobs.”

  She shivered in his arms and he pulled the afghan closer around her shoulders. Years ago he would have loved having a woman like her in his arms. He had to admit, it still wasn’t the worst feeling in the world.

  These days he leaned toward caution because he had learned the hard way that people in a relationship weren’t always feeling the same thing. Some people fell hard and fast while the other person sometimes didn’t fall at all.

  They started up the stairs, making it halfway before she paused to rest, a weak kitten, holding the rail.

  “Are you going to make it?” He touched her back, holding her steady.

  “Of course.” She wavered again, turned to look at him and then down she went. Jesse scooped her in his arms, carrying her up the remaining stairs and down the hall to the door where his grandmother waited.

  “Is she okay?”

  “She will be. I think it would help if we got some food in her.” She was light in his arms.

  “I’ll go heat up a can of soup.” His grandmother pulled back the blankets and he placed her guest in the bed, backing away to let his grandmother continue fussing.

  “I’ll make the soup.” He kissed his grandmother’s cheek. “You get her settled.”

  Jesse walked down the stairs and back to the kitchen where he found Laura White’s purse still hanging on the stool. He picked up the leather bag with frayed seams and thought about snooping. After a minute he listened to his better self and set the bag down on the counter.

  He wouldn’t snoop, but he’d stay and make sure his grandmother remained safe. And he’d make sure Laura White recovered.

  After that, he’d let his grandmother take over. She was good with projects. His plate, however, was pretty full.

  Chapter Two

  Morning sun soaked the room in bright light and warmth. The rain had ended. Laura stretched in the softest bed she had ever slept in, but her relief didn’t last. Her head ached and she felt as if lead weights had been placed in her arms and legs. She rolled over and squinted to look at the clock.

  She was in Myrna Cooper’s home. She had made it to Dawson. But now what? She had nowhere to go. She had no money and no real friends.

  Dressed in the same clothes she’d worn the day before, she tried to run her fingers through her hair and make herself presentable. Her suitcase was in the trunk of her car, wherever that happened to be. She shivered and reached for the afghan that Myrna had draped over her shoulders the night before. Light-headed and achy, she walked down the hall to the wide stairs.

  As she walked through the living room a quilt-covered lump on the couch moved. She paused as he rolled over, flopping an arm over his face. He had stayed. Not because he wanted to make sure she was okay, but because he’d been worried about leaving his grandmother alone with her.

  Laura didn’t blame him. Instead she liked that he was the kind of person who would stay, spending the night on an old Victorian sofa just to make sure his grandmother was safe.

  The aroma from the kitchen pulled her away from the good doctor and back to her goal. Food. She could smell coffee and bacon. As she walked through the door, Myrna turned, smiling. She flipped a pancake and pointed to the coffeepot.

  “Help yourself to coffee and the pancakes will be done shortly.”

  “Thank you.” Laura turned and coughed. “Is there anything I can do?”

  “I’ve got it handled. How are you feeling this morning?”

  “About the same.” Her body still ached, and her throat burned. She was looking forward to the coffee. “I should make arrangements, though. To go somewhere.”

  She needed a plan and she didn’t have one. This had been it for her. This had been her last resort.

  “You’ll do no such thing.” Myrna handed her a plate of pancakes. “Sit down and eat.”

  She took the plate, her hands trembling as she moved to the counter. She spread butter and then poured syrup across the golden-brown cakes. Her mouth watered as she thought about the last time she’d had pancakes, good pancakes.

  From the living room she heard shuffling, mumbling and then footsteps. Myrna shook her head and then poured more batter on the griddle. A moment later Jesse walked through the door, disapproving but gorgeous with his chocolate-brown eyes still sleepy, and shadowy whiskers covering his lean cheeks. His straight, dark hair went in all directions, and he must have known because he was trying to brush it down with his fingers.

  Laura took a bite of pancake and looked away from the barefoot cowboy in his faded jeans and flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. She glanced quickly at her faded jeans and fuzzy sweater, both from a decade or two past, trying hard not to make comparisons.

  “How are you this morning?” He walked straight to the cof
feepot and grabbed a mug from the cabinet. He looked at her and pulled out another one. “Want coffee?”

  “Please.” She glanced in Myrna’s direction. Myrna flipped another pancake on the platter and then scooped bacon out of a skillet.

  Jesse turned from the coffeepot. He set a cup of coffee on the counter next to her. “You can sit in the dining room.”

  “I’m good.”

  He shrugged one shoulder and turned away from her. With an ease that she envied he walked up behind his grandmother, gave her a loose hug and pulled a plate from the holder on the counter.

  “Do you have anywhere to go?” He leaned against the counter, watching her.

  She swallowed a syrupy bite and shook her head. No time like the present to just get it all out there. She wouldn’t hide her story or her life from them, not after they’d been so kind. Well, Myrna had been kind. Jesse... She watched as he poured syrup over the stack of pancakes on his plate. He didn’t look at her.

  Jesse had been kind, too.

  “I don’t have anywhere to go.” She sighed and pushed the plate away, unable to eat the last few bites. A place to go, a job, she needed those things. Had to have them in order to fix her life.

  The headache she had thought gone returned with a vengeance, pounding behind her eyes and in the back of her head. She rubbed her forehead.

  “I had hoped Aunt Sally would give me a place to stay until I could get back on my feet.”

  As she’d talked, Jesse opened a cabinet door and pulled out a bottle of pills. He shook a couple into his hand and handed them to her. Laura took them, smiling her gratitude and washing the medicine down with her coffee.

  “Well, now, honey, why don’t you tell us what knocked you off your feet?” Myrna turned from the stove, wiping her hands on the corner of her apron. “And we’ll see if we can’t make a plan. Sometimes everything looks dark because we haven’t had friends to help us put our situation in a better light.”

  “I’ve been living in a halfway house for the past month.”

  “And before that?” Jesse asked as he leaned against the counter, his plate in his hands.

  “Before that I was in jail.”

  “Jail?” Myrna’s eyes understandably widened and she glanced from Laura to Jesse. Of course he had an “I told you so” look on his face. His dark brows arched and he frowned.

  Laura scraped her plate in the sink and turned on the water and then the garbage disposal. She gave it a few seconds and flipped the switch off. That gave her a little time to gather her thoughts and prepare herself.

  How much did she tell? Did she tell the truth or the court’s version of the truth? A jury hadn’t believed her, so why should anyone else? Evidence, beyond a shadow of a doubt, pointed to her guilt.

  “I was in jail on a drug-dealing and possession charge.” She looked away. She wanted to pretend this wasn’t her life and that people didn’t look at her with surprise, disgust and every other emotion she’d seen in the past month.

  From now on this would be her story.

  “You sold drugs?” Myrna scoffed and shook her head. “Now, I might be old, but I’m not naive. I’m having a hard time picturing you selling poison.”

  Laura raised her chin a notch and blinked back the sting of tears the well-meaning words brought to her eyes. Myrna Cooper clearly wasn’t like everyone else. She was a tall woman with every gray hair in place. This morning she’d donned jeans and a sweatshirt, not the pretty pastel suit she’d worn the previous evening.

  Laura wanted to think of everything but the three months she’d spent in jail. She could still hear the clank of metal doors. She could still imagine herself surrounded by gray and steel. Three months of being alone and trying to tell herself she’d survive. And she had. Somehow she’d survived.

  “Laura?” Myrna stepped to her side and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

  A quick glance in Jesse Cooper’s direction and Laura knew he had no intention of giving her a pass. His brown eyes were no longer sleepy or soft. She had never wanted this to be her life. He’d obviously grown up here, in a safe and loving family. He had no idea.

  The “ifs” would drive her crazy. If her mother hadn’t died. If her stepfather hadn’t been abusive. If she hadn’t let her stepbrother stay in her apartment when he showed up six months ago. That decision had cost her her freedom, her good reputation, her job and her apartment.

  Because no one believed her when she said her brother had put the drugs and the money in her purse as she got pulled over that day. He’d bailed on her, running down a side street and disappearing. She’d reached into her purse to grab the bag and the police had caught her as they walked up to her car. More drugs had been found in her apartment.

  “I need to go now.” She slid past Myrna Cooper.

  “Wait a second, young lady.” Myrna’s voice held a commanding tone that Laura couldn’t ignore. She turned, her vision swimming. She leaned against the wall and waited.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Cooper. You’ve been very kind to me. Now I need to go.”

  “Your car is at the local garage, so you really can’t go anywhere unless you plan on walking.” Myrna sighed. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I was convicted of felony possession and distribution. There’s really nothing more to tell.”

  “That isn’t an answer.”

  “It’s the finding of the court and the ruling stands.” Laura stood, holding the back of the stool. “I really need to get my car.”

  “I think you need to sit back down.” Jesse moved away from the counter he’d been leaning on. He moved with power and ease, and she felt very weak and small.

  “Laura, sit down.”

  She nodded and did as he commanded. “I should have called before coming to Dawson.”

  “Well, I for one am glad God put me in your path last night.” Myrna hugged her tightly. “We’ll figure this out.”

  “No, I really should go.” Laura glanced at Jesse and then back to Myrna. “I should go because having me here is the last thing you need.”

  “Jesse, you’re the doctor—tell her she can’t leave in this condition.”

  Jesse smiled and shook his head. “I’m not getting in the middle of this argument. Gran, you’re right—she needs to rest. Laura, you have to do what you think is best. My opinion probably won’t count for much.”

  Laura folded the afghan and placed it on the stool. “Myrna, thank you for everything.”

  “Where do you think you’ll go?” Myrna asked.

  “I’ll find a place.” Laura wanted to hug the older woman, but she couldn’t. She thought she’d fall apart if Myrna comforted her in any way.

  It had been too long since anyone in her life had cared. She picked up her purse and stood for a moment in front of Myrna, wishing she’d had someone like this woman.

  “I don’t like this, not one bit.” Myrna shook her head, looking from Laura to Jesse.

  “Thank you for letting me stay the night.” Laura turned away and headed for the front door, walking fast and blinking furiously to clear her vision.

  * * *

  As Laura left, Jesse hugged his grandmother, the sweetest woman he knew. She stood stiff in his arms, her mouth in a tight and unhappy line.

  “Gran, we don’t know her. You don’t know the whole story.”

  “She told us the whole story and I know her aunt. Jesse, people have stories. That doesn’t mean they are stuck in that story. People make mistakes. They do what they have to in the situations they’re in. Now, how can we call ourselves Christians if we aren’t willing to give someone a second chance? You’ve had second chances.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  His grandmother’s eyes filled with tears. “She needs help and a place to stay.”

  “I can get her a room in Grove and then we’ll see if we can get her some assistance. You’re right—no one knows better than I do about second chances. The other thing I know is how dangerous the drug trade can be.
People get angry. They get revenge.”

  The front door clicked, ending their conversation.

  “Go after her, Jesse.” His grandmother put a hand on his back, moving him forward.

  “I have to get my shoes.”

  “Well, you’d better hurry. She’s sick with nowhere to go. If something happens to her...” His grandmother’s face paled and she shook her head a little. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He slid his feet into his boots and grabbed his jacket. “I won’t let anything happen to her. I’m also not letting anything happen to you.”

  He hurried out the door, putting his coat on as he went. Laura White stood at the end of the drive, a tall woman with auburn hair blowing in the light breeze. She shivered and hugged herself tightly, turning to look at him with a wan smile on her pale face.

  Okay, he wouldn’t get the Samaritan of the Year award. But what in the world was he supposed to do with her? He walked to the end of the drive, thinking through options and not coming up with much. He guessed he could take her to his parents.

  As he approached, Laura’s chin came up a notch, a little pride coming to the surface. He remembered being a kid, digging deep to find that pride to get past his own humiliation. He knew what it took for a person to find that strength.

  “I can walk. I’m just not sure where I’m going or how I’ll get my car. I can’t afford to pay for repairs.” She turned, coughing into her shoulder before facing him again. The cold weather made her nose red and her gray eyes sparkle. “I don’t have insurance.”

  “I’m sure Gran is going to pay for the repairs. She did pull out in front of you.”

  “She didn’t see me. The rain was unbelievable.”

  “She really wants you to stay here.”

  Laura shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Then I’ll drive you to Grove. We’ll get you a hotel room and find some way to help you get back on your feet.”

  She looked past him, her eyes damp with unshed tears. “You really don’t have to do this. I can get a ride.”

  “No, you’re not okay. You’re sick. It looks like we’re going to get more rain and you have nowhere to go.” Jesse adjusted the hat he’d put on before walking outside. “I’m going to be honest. I’m not crazy about my grandmother bringing in strangers. But I’m also not about to let you walk off without help.”