Cowboy in Charge

by Barbara White Daille

  “Jason McAndry.”

  Tina’s breath hitched. “You’re kidding. What is he doing home?”

  “Seeing Layne, for one thing. When he stopped in, he’d just come from her apartment.”

  “Have you told Cole?” Coincidentally, Cole was both Layne’s brother and Tina’s husband.

  “No, I haven’t, and for now, I think that’s something we’ll need to play close to our vests. If Cole hears Jason’s back in town, it’ll ruin all my plans.”

  “Plans? You mean...? You’re not thinking about Layne and Jason as a couple, are you?” She shook her head. “You’re a wonderful matchmaker, Abuelo, but there’s no chance you’ll get those two back together.”

  He frowned. “You’re a fine one to say that, after the state you and Cole were in not so long ago.”

  “That was different. Layne and Jason have already been married. And divorced.”

  “And you think as a wonderful matchmaker, I haven’t already considered that?” He reached across the table to pat the back of her hand. “Haven’t you learned a lot yourself about the redeeming power of love?”

  “Yes, I have,” she said softly, “thanks to a little help from my own private matchmaker.”

  “Then trust your old grandpa, won’t you, and return the favor. I want to keep Cole from finding out for a bit. Give these kids a chance for more time on their own.”

  “But you said Jason planned to stay here. He and Cole will see each other at breakfast tomorrow.”

  “No, I don’t believe they will. When Jason left again this afternoon, he was headed back to Layne’s...thanks to a little nudging, I might add. He’d already spent the night with her.” Tina’s jaw dropped, and he laughed. “Not what you’re thinking, girl. I played dumb with Jason, but you and I both know Layne’s down with the flu. He kept an eye on the kids for her so she could catch up on her sleep. Now I’ve got him back there, I need to keep him there. I can’t get you involved, at least not just yet.”

  “That’s true. Not if you plan to leave Cole out of the loop.”

  “And I surely do. We need to get someone else to pull the strings for a bit, while we stay in the background. Someone to be our eyes and ears, at least, and keep us in the loop.”

  “You mean someone to spy for us, don’t you?”

  He chuckled and repeated, “I surely do. I’ve got lots of folks who can do that from a short distance. But we need someone who can get close to Layne. Who’s our best bet?”

  “Well...considering Layne goes in to work at SugarPie’s every day, I would say Sugar, of course.”

  “No, thank you. That woman would want to run the whole show.”

  She laughed. “Like someone else I know.” She thought for a moment. “One or two of the other waitresses might do, but I think Layne’s closer to Shay O’Neill.”

  “Yes.” He slapped his hand on the table. “Shay would be downright perfect. In fact, Jason said she’s over with Layne right now. Give her a call and tell her we need to speak with her.”

  “I’ll be seeing her in town—”

  “Even so. Let her know to be careful what she says around Layne—and the other girls—before we get a chance to sit down with her. And when you all are done with your shopping, make sure to get her out here to see us.”

  “To get her on our side, you mean.”

  “That’s my girl.” He grinned. “I do believe you’re catching on to this matchmaking business.”

  * * *

  “ARE YOU SURE you’re going to be okay on your own with the kids?”

  Layne looked at Shay’s worried frown and managed to nod. “I’ll be fine.” But, despite the afghan tucked around her and the cup of tea in her hands, she shivered. Chills from the flu had combined with what she suspected was a delayed reaction to seeing Jason again.

  She couldn’t have felt more relieved—or more guilty—when Shay had walked in the door and he walked out. “I shouldn’t have called you—”

  “Of course, you should have. I’m your friend.”

  “I know, but you’re busy with work and helping out with the wedding. And with so many other things.” Shay’s grandmother, Maureen, was getting up in age, and Shay did a lot for her. “How’s Mo?”

  “Good days and bad.”

  “And how are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  Shay was pregnant and due in the near future. She would talk about her pregnancy, about her excitement at becoming a mom. But Layne knew better than to mention anything about the dad. Months ago, Shay had confided his name to Layne but sworn her to secrecy. At the same time she had made it clear he wouldn’t be a part of her life.

  Shay tucked a strand of her long blond hair behind her ear and glanced down at her rounded stomach. “I’m getting bigger every time I take a peek.” She eyed Layne again. “And you’re not getting away with changing the subject.”

  “I wasn’t trying to. I was just pointing out that you have a lot on your mind.”

  “So do you.” Shay added quietly, “It’s not every day an ex-husband shows up and spends the night.” From the purse she had set on the coffee table, her cell phone rang. “Sorry, I have to grab this. I’m on call for some extra hours at the Big Dipper, and I sure could use them... Hello?”

  Layne tuned out Shay’s voice but couldn’t stop thinking of what she had just said.

  It’s not every day an ex-husband shows up and spends the night.

  Hearing that, Layne had had to swallow a groan. The truth was, she already had not an ex-husband but two ex-husbands to her credit. Or more like it, discredit. Either way, she certainly had no luck when it came to men.

  Shay ended her call and dropped the cell phone back into her bag. “I’m sorry again, Layne. I wish I could offer to take care of the kids for the rest of the day.” She grinned. “I need all the practice I can get. But that was Tina. The bridal party’s meeting for lunch at SugarPie’s and then doing some shopping, and they had invited me along. She was letting me know they’re already here in town. I could cancel—”

  “No, you couldn’t. Go and have fun. I told you, I’ll be fine.”

  Shay smiled. “Maybe you can get Jason to come back. And to stay over again.”

  Layne sighed. “He didn’t ‘stay over.’ At least, not in the way you probably meant when you said he’d spent the night.”

  “Maybe you wish he had?”

  “No.”

  From her playpen a few feet away, Jill let out a surprised squawk.

  Layne lowered her voice again. “I don’t want anything to do with Jason. And I wouldn’t have called you, but I just couldn’t think of any other graceful way to get him to leave.”

  “Why would you want to? It’s been years since the two of you were together. People change.” She hesitated. “Well, some people. Maybe you and Jason both have. And obviously, he cares about you and the kids, or he wouldn’t have volunteered to stay here to take care of them.”

  She flushed, thinking of her comment to him last night, her remark about his lack of involvement with their baby. She certainly hadn’t worried about being graceful then.

  “I’m not trying to pry,” Shay said, “and I know you don’t like to talk about him. And you know just how well I relate to that. But I have to say, in school you two seemed like the perfect couple.”

  “We were. When we were between arguments.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. Last night, she wouldn’t have made that comment to him at all if she hadn’t already had a headful of memories of those battles.

  She wanted to continue to keep conversations about him off-limits, but his reappearance in her life made that impossible. She needed to talk to someone. And she did trust Shay. “We were teenagers,” she said finally. “You know how that goes. Our relationship bou
nced all along the emotional spectrum. Hot-and-heavy romance at one end and cold-war fights at the other.”

  “And kissing and making up in the middle?”

  She laughed bitterly. “Yes. Along with one especially long stretch of peace that got us in front of a judge and put a wedding ring on my hand. But the peace treaty didn’t hold up.” She shrugged. “It was just as well. Things wouldn’t have worked out for us anyway.”

  Considering they lived in a constant state of high emotions, even if they had managed to avoid their final argument, the one that led to her kicking him out, their relationship never would have lasted. She had told him she had reached her limit—he had left her at home alone just one too many times.

  What she hadn’t told him was the reaction his absence always triggered inside her, the sense of abandonment she felt. She could handle that...until they had a baby on the way. If he couldn’t manage to stay home at night when it was just the two of them, how would he handle being a new daddy with a crying infant?

  “Maybe the two of you ought to give things another try,” Shay said.

  “No, thank you. I’m just glad I managed to get him out of my life again this morning.” As she plopped her teacup down on the coffee table for emphasis, a knock rattled the apartment door. A rhythmic quick-tap she had long ago learned to recognize as Jason’s.

  The few times he’d come to her house to meet her, she had loved hearing that special signal just for her. Now, it only made her groan and slump against the couch.

  “What’s the matter?” Shay asked. “Are you okay?”

  “You won’t believe me when I tell you. I’m fine, but I need you to run interference with Jason for me again.” At the confusion on the other woman’s face, she laughed—though there was nothing at all funny about the situation. “I recognize the sound of his knock on the door.”

  Chapter Five

  When the door closed behind Shay, Jason dropped into the armchair he’d begun to think of as his. A dangerous thought, and a useless one. He wouldn’t be in town long enough to get attached. If Layne had her way, he suspected he wouldn’t be around here long enough to keep the seat warm.

  Already he could see her building up steam to blast him in irritation. She’d held back with Shay here, but now she had nothing stopping her. Before she could start in again, he held up his hand. “Look. We’ve been through this already—last night and again just now with Shay. You’ve got no one else to call. She said she won’t be able to stop by again at all today and probably not all weekend, especially with the wedding tomorrow. And you saw how much of a hurry she was in to leave.”

  “Because you bullied her.”

  He snorted. “I said, ‘Fancy meeting you here again.’ She laughed. Then, after delivering the news about her schedule, she was out the door before you or I could open our mouths. Obviously she’s busy. I’ve got nothing on my plate at the moment. And now I’m back here, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Jason!” Scott called. “Play cars today?”

  He shot a glance at the boy. “Yeah,” he said firmly. “We’ll play cars while your mama takes a nap.” He looked back at Layne. His voice pitched lower, he added, “You’ve had your fun tossing me out. Not once, but twice. Do you really need to ram your point home by going for a third try?”

  She glared at him and clutched the afghan more closely around her, but she kept her voice down. “After the way you barged in here, is there any reason I shouldn’t tell you to go?”

  “I guess not. You’d never needed much of an excuse before.”

  She gasped. “If you’re talking about what happened years ago, you’re way out of line. You gave me plenty of reasons back then. And once you’d walked away to go who knows where to spend the night with who knows what little—”

  “Layne,” he snapped.

  Visibly, she struggled to take a breath. “And then the next morning—what? You assumed I would be overjoyed you decided to come back? You never told me what made you think that—”

  “You never gave me a chance,” he began, but she was on a tear, her voice rising with every word.

  “—you just assumed you could walk right in and find your way to my bed again. I wasn’t—”

  “Our bed. And you weren’t having any of that. Yeah, I know. You made your feelings perfectly clear.” Swallowing hard, he looked away for a long moment, watching Scott with his toys. Regardless of what he could have said back then to defend himself, it wouldn’t have mattered. The marriage was over anyway. It had been long past time for him to leave.

  But now, his son mattered. His son was his purpose for coming back and the only reason he was here in this room at this moment. Layne’s illness simply gave him the excuse to hang around.

  “That’s all in the past,” he said. “History. I’m not trying to find my way anywhere near you now. I only want to help, and only because you’re not feeling well.” Even as she shook her head, her eyes gleamed from the fever she wouldn’t admit to having. “No sense denying it. It’s obvious. It’s also plain to see I’m the last person you want here. Earlier this morning, you couldn’t wait to get me out of the house.”

  “But I didn’t toss you out.”

  He shrugged. “All right, let’s just say you worked danged hard to find a replacement for me. But now Shay’s gone—taking away your last option—and you don’t have a choice.” He sure wasn’t going to let anyone blame him for an emergency he could have prevented. “One weak moment while you’re holding the baby...one second of fade-out when Scott’s near the stove...anything can happen. Let’s face it, you don’t want me here, but I’m all you’ve got to give you a hand with the kids.”

  As if on cue, the baby let out a screech. Layne tossed off the afghan and attempted to stand. Her legs looked about as strong as a minute-old calf’s.

  “I’ll get her,” he said, rising to his feet.

  Gotta hand it to kids for creating a good diversion.

  When he placed the baby into Layne’s arms, she nodded and mumbled a grudging thanks.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked.

  “A fresh cloth. There’s a folded stack in my closet, right beside where you’d gotten the diaper bag.”

  “Be right back.” He headed out of the room, shaking his head.

  Scream fests and sex.

  That had been the story between the two of them after they’d married, although his teenage hormones sure hadn’t found it a problem back then. They would both get all hot under the collar, usually over the stupidest things and always at the wrong times. They liked to fight. And they liked the makeup sex even better.

  The thought of those times left him all thumbs. When he reached into her closet for a cloth, he fumbled and toppled the stack. The cloths knocked over the diaper bag, which fell against a small cardboard box, which went tumbling from the shelf. Reflexes kicked in, allowing him to grab the box before it hit the floor. But the lid fell off midgrab and the box, upended, spilled its contents across the carpet.

  Biting back a curse, he knelt to scoop up the papers.

  And the cards.

  And the photos.

  A lump lodged in the back of his throat, making it hard for him to breathe and impossible for him to swallow. Looked like she had saved every danged card and love note he’d ever given her and every photo they’d ever taken together.

  He froze with his hand hovering over a shot he remembered all too well, a picture of Layne sitting on his lap in a pink-cushioned chair at SugarPie’s. Sugar always kept a camera on hand in the sandwich shop. She had snapped the shot of them just after they had told her they were gonna be a mama and daddy.

  Slowly, he picked up the photo. He had wrapped his arms around Layne and rested his cheek against her soft hair. Her eyes glowed, and her smile stretched as wide as he’d ever seen it. They were barel
y out of the newlywed stage and deliriously happy at their news. And so appallingly young to have a baby on the way.

  Hurrying, he crouched to sweep up everything that had spilled onto the carpet, then shoved it all back into the box. He slammed the lid in place and returned the box to the shelf. Not one of those actions could help him forget anything he had seen or felt or thought. But they all went a long way toward reinforcing what he finally had to admit.

  He groaned, recalling that day at SugarPie’s and feeling a certainty at this moment he hadn’t realized back then. A certainty he didn’t want to think about now.

  He and Layne never should have gotten married in the first place.

  * * *

  THAT EVENING, JED and Tina finally managed to find a quiet place to chat with Shay. Tina had taken her upstairs to the suite the girls had been using for their wedding preparations. Once the coast was clear downstairs, he moseyed on up to join them.

  They were both working on the party favors for tomorrow’s wedding, tying ribbons around small crystal vases filled with foil-wrapped chocolates.

  The minute he brought up Jason and Layne, he knew he and Tina wouldn’t have a problem winning Shay over to their side. As soon as he mentioned the pair, she was with him, confirming his impression those two weren’t as uninterested in each other as they’d tried to let on.

  “I suggested she might have liked having Jason there for the night, and she jumped all over me,” Shay admitted.

  “Protesting too much?” he asked.

  She nodded. “That’s just what I thought. I tried to tell her he could really care about her and the kids, and the idea made her turn ten shades of red. And you should have seen the look on her face when he came back to the apartment.”

  “She wasn’t expecting him again?” Tina asked.

  Shay shook her head. “I don’t want to break any confidences...”

  “And we don’t want you to,” he assured her. He liked her loyalty. He liked the girl herself. As well as being his old friend Mo’s granddaughter, Shay was a valued employee of the Hitching Post and a good friend to Layne. And to all of the Garlands. She deserved happiness as much as his girls did. One day, he’d have to do something about that.