The Cowboy Who Broke the Mold

by Cathleen Galitz

  On her way to her first small-town social, Carrie tried to use the forty-five-mile drive to Lander to collect her thoughts. But the prospect of seeing Judson Horn again sent her pulses leaping. What exactly was it about that man’s eyes that defied a woman to break through that thin layer of ice to dive to the bottom of those blue, blue depths? Insanity, she wagered, recalling her prom- ise to keep her distance from all men in the future.

  Carrie arrived right on time at the park with a plate of brownies and a nervous smile. Surrounded by aged cottonwoods and traversed by a brook, Lander City Park was quaint and enchanting. Children climbed happily on the playground equipment as adults mingled around the picnic tables. She stopped momentarily to watch a tennis match between two athletic boys.

  She and Scott had been a strong doubles team, and just watching a short volley made her feel suddenly melancholy. Gently, she reminded herself that it took more than a strong backhand and a killer serve to make a marriage. Strength of character and fidelity headed her list, although she would have been lying to say that sheer physical attraction wasn’t right up there near the top, as well.

  When Judson spied Carrie Raben standing forlornly beside the tennis courts, he felt his heart lurch unnatu- rally against his chest. She looked as pretty as a bouquet of mountain wildflowers. How was it that her looks seemed to grow on him each time he saw her?

  “Whoa,” he admonished himself, pulling hard on his own reins.

  He recognized the feeling that welled up inside him- self for what it was—pure, unadulterated lust. Judson shook his head in self-reproof. He hadn’t been able to get Carrie Raben out of his head for more than a minute since he’d left her yesterday blithely playing on the merry-go-round. Assuring himself that it was simply re- sidual guilt that he was feeling, Judson determined that the first matter of the afternoon would be to set matters straight between them. All things considered, it just might be a lot safer making the truth about the fictitious jackalope known in a public place.

  A deep, resonant voice shattered Carrie’s solitude, plunging her into a pair of clear blue eyes. Judson Horn was wearing jeans and a bright Western print shirt that snapped up the front. Shocked at the way her blood raced through her veins at the sight of him, Carrie at- tempted to insert a tone of nonchalance into her greet- ing.

  “Hello,” she said, uncomfortably aware that he was looking at her as if she were the most delectable sundae around.

  “You look nice today,” he drawled.

  The compliment centered a tight ball of pleasure low in her stomach, which exploded, leaving warm spots of pink upon her cheeks.

  “Thanks,” she managed to say without stammering, and was rewarded with a slow, sexy smile that reached right inside her and heightened her already-keen sexual awareness of him.

  Just then a hefty man wearing a blood-red tie ap- proached with an outstretched hand and stepped be- tween them. “You must be Carrie Raben,” he beamed, pumping her hand up and down. “I’m Bill Madden. I interviewed you over the phone.”

  Grateful for the friendly ease with which her super- intendent seemed to accept her, Carrie smiled warmly.

  “Since you’ve already met the chairman,” he said, pulling her over to a nearby group of people, “let me introduce you to the rest of the school board.”

  Chairman!

  The word rang as loudly as a gunshot, and Carrie felt it hit her between her eyes as surely as if it had been a bullet.

  Judson Horn was her boss!

  Carrie couldn’t believe her ears. What demented pleasure would anyone evoke in purposely leading her to believe he was merely a hired hand when he was, in fact, the chairman of the school board? How could she have ever deluded herself into thinking Judson Horn had a single redeeming quality? Wondering how this devil-in-no-disguise ever got himself elected to the school board in the first place, she somehow managed a gracious smile as her superintendent led her to the table where the other members of the board were seated.

  As each stood to be formally introduced, Carrie sensed the amusement twinkling in Judson’s azure eyes. Leaning his long body against an old cottonwood, it seemed obvious that he was enjoying her discomfiture immensely.

  How I’d like to wipe that smirk off your handsome face… she thought to herself, extending her hand to a woman with a grin so wide she could have taken it off a jack-o’-lantern.

  “Hi, my name’s Snuffy. I’m your bus driver, and I deliver your mail, too.”

  Her broad smile revealed the reason for her peculiar name: a wad of chewing tobacco tucked neatly between her gum and bottom lip.

  “Glad to meet you,” Carrie said, taking a callused hand into her own. The older woman’s grip was solid, her smile honest. Carrie liked her immediately.

  “Afraid of being so far out all by yourself?” asked a bowlegged fellow whom Bill introduced as Ace. “Be- ing nothing more than a schoolhouse and a trailer, Har- mony can get to be a mighty lonesome place—espe- cially in the winter when you can get snowed in. Those who aren’t used to it tend to go stir-crazy.”

  Duly suspicious now, Carrie looked for a hint of de- rision in the rancher’s weathered features, but all she could discern was genuine concern.

  “I doubt if I’ll go stir-crazy, but I might get a little homesick,” she replied. And, as if to reassure the group that she was truly prepared for whatever emergency that might come up, added quickly, “I’ll be fine once I get used to the area. I’m grateful to Mr. Horn for showing me how to set jackalope snares around the school. Now I’m sure I’ll feel safe when I’m out scouting around on my own.”

  Carrie wasn’t sure what she had said that caused the entire group to burst into laughter, but her cheeks flamed crimson just the same.

  “Jackalope snares, you say?”

  The question caused another roar of laughter.

  “I’d like to market something like that myself!” someone said, slapping Judson on the back in an act of camaraderie.

  Suppressing a chuckle himself, her superintendent hastened to explain. “I’m afraid you’ve been had, Car- rie. There is no such thing as a jackalope. It’s just a traditional Wyoming joke to get the tourists going and to make a few bucks.”

  Had a more perfect idiot ever been born? Carrie asked herself over the lump in her throat. So this is my initiation. Thank you so much for the warm Western welcome! Tipping up her chin defiantly, she turned to Judson Horn.

  His chest tightened beneath her steady gaze. What had initially seemed purely comical now suddenly seemed mean-spirited. Outwardly the new school- teacher was handling all the joshing quite well, but he could easily read the betrayal glistening in those misty green eyes. He himself had long ago learned to control his body’s reflexes so as to hide any sign of pain. The fact that Carrie wore hers so openly only served to deepen his sense of guilt. Despite that plastic smile plas- tered on her face, she looked ready to cry. Kicking him- self for not divulging the truth as he had intended to do the other day, he truly regretted that her humiliation had been so very public.

  For someone who had just pulled off the practical joke of the decade, Judson Horn felt like the biggest jerk on the face of the earth.

  Pushing himself away from the tree, he attempted to explain quietly.

  “I meant to tell you before—”

  “Before I made such a complete fool of myself, Mr. Horn?”

  “Oh, no—” interrupted Bill Madden, anxious to smooth over any tension between the two. “I wouldn’t say that. In fact, I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you how impressed I am with the fact that you’re such a good sport.”

  Her superintendent tried to soften the sting of her embarrassment by telling a story about how the jack- alope had recently caused an international furor when a group of Wyoming businessmen brought along stuffed jackalopes as a gift for some Asian dignitaries on a goodwill visit. They were stopped at customs where of- ficials were certain the creatures should be on the en- dangered species list, and it took several hours to ge
t somebody from the U.S. embassy to clear up the Wyomingites’ practical joke.

  Suffering through the next couple of hours, Carrie endured the ribbing she received from everyone includ- ing the janitor and the city mayor. Despite Bill’s attempt at making light of her gullibility, the social Carrie had been so looking forward to had unfortunately proven to be far less “social” than she had anticipated. As far as she was concerned, the chairman of the board had ef- fectively accomplished what he had set out to do—sab- otage her first impression upon the small community.

  Discreetly checking her watch, Carrie counted the minutes till she could slip quietly away. She thought no one noticed her collect her empty platter and head for the parking lot, but just as she was opening the door of her pickup to take her leave, she felt a hand upon her bare shoulder. Without looking up, she knew who it was. No one else in this world had such sexy, electric hands capable of setting her on fire and befuddling all her senses at once.

  “Could you wait a minute?” Judson asked in a tone so deep and mellow it could qualify as a purr.

  Removing the hand from her shoulder as if it were some sort of disgusting insect, Carrie responded dryly, “Sorry, I’m running late—got to rush home to check my traps for those treacherous jackalopes, you know.”

  Her withering glance seemed to bounce right off Jud- son’s thick skull. In fact, the only effect her sarcasm seemed to have upon him was to deepen the dimples on both sides of his mouth.

  “I’d be glad to help,” he offered with a lopsided grin.

  Ignoring the fact that he looked appealingly like a naughty little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Carrie brushed him aside.

  “You’ve helped more than enough already, thank you very much,” she snapped, climbing into her pickup and slamming the door shut.

  Tears pricked at the back of her eyelids. The absolute last thing she wanted to do was to let her new boss see her break down and cry. Peeling out of the parking lot, she was gratified to see the chairman of the board in her rearview mirror brushing dust from his black felt hat.

  Carrie reprimanded herself for such a silly, juvenile outburst. A woman who generally prided herself on her composure, she couldn’t explain the effect Judson Horn had on her. Just because he was a class-one jerk didn’t necessarily mean she had to go out of her way to alien- ate the man who would be signing her paychecks.

  She was surprised at how deeply his treachery hurt. Despite the fact that Judson had made it quite clear from the first that he didn’t think she belonged here, Carrie had nevertheless thought the man had felt a tiny mea- sure of tenderness toward her.

  Dismissing the ache in her heart as disgust toward all men in general, she told herself that it was truly a bless- ing the way things had worked out. Having solemnly sworn to never, ever again become romantically in- volved with another employer—particularly one who deliberately went out of his way to make her look like an idiot—Carrie was glad for a good reason to end those foolish fantasies that had plagued her since the first time she laid eyes on this workingman’s cowboy.

  Right now she assessed the chances of anything de- veloping between her and that despicable practical joker as being on par with her chances of having the Sweep- stake Prize Patrol waiting on her doorstep when she got home. Even if at some point in the distant future she could overcome the embarrassment of being so thor- oughly duped, Carrie wouldn’t make the same mistake again. She wasn’t up to risking her heart anew, to any man, and especially not to a brooding loner who acted as if she had single-handedly brought smallpox into his ancestors’ villages.

  Still if there was any way of getting along with the chairman of the board, Carrie knew she would simply have to find it. One thing was for certain. She wasn’t up to another year like Scott Ballson had just put her through. Neither her heart nor her career could stand it.

  Chapter Four

  Carrie looked out at the freshly scrubbed faces and excited, squirming bodies that filled the small school- room on the first day of school. She had prepared her- self to encounter the same apathetic, hardened expres- sions that the children of Chicago public schools donned as a matter of daily armor. These sweet, eager faces looking expectantly up at her came as a complete surprise. Any one of them could easily adorn a cereal box touting old-fashioned Americanism.

  To someone used to following a detailed, mandated curriculum it was disconcerting to obtain a class roster by simply passing around a piece of paper and having each child sign his name and grade. Carrie collected the class roster and studied the list. Two names jumped off the page: Brandy and Cowboy Horn, both in sixth grade.

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Cowboy?” she queried out loud.

  What kind of parent would saddle a child with such a name?

  One glance answered that question. Wearing brand- new jeans and looking up at her attentively was a min- iature replica of Judson Horn—right down to blue eyes the color of a clear mountain stream.

  “Is Cowboy your nickname?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am,” the child said, setting his jaw in the selfsame manner of his father. “It’s real enough.”

  An errant whisper floated through the room. “Crazy fool greenhorn!”

  Carrie spotted the culprit immediately. A beautiful child of dark hair and complexion, the boy’s twin sister was surrounded by a tangible aura of anger.

  The teacher’s bright smile was lost on the girl. Sul- lenly turning her eyes to the top of her desk, Brandy refused to make eye contact. Reminded of the biblical passage about the sins of the father being passed on to his children, Carrie could tell this girl had a chip on her shoulder the size of the Grand Canyon.

  Knowing the unflattering outburst was simply par- roted from home, she tried not to hold the girl’s surliness against her. There was no reason whatsoever that the school year had to stretch into an unproductive bat- tle of wills. Besides, it wasn’t hard to imagine the type of home life a man like Judson Horn would provide. The very names of his children suggested a conception that occurred when one mixed cowboys with brandy….

  Curbing her highly inappropriate thoughts, Carrie di- rected the children to her name written upon the black- board. Just as the empty grade book presented the small group assembled here with a fresh start, Carrie once again regarded her own life as a clean slate.

  “Do any of you have any questions for me before we get to work?”

  Immediately Brandy’s hand shot up.

  “Did you really set jackalope snares around the school?”

  The room erupted into nervous snickers at the im- pertinence of the question.

  So much for starting out without any preconceived notions, Carrie thought to herself.

  “I most certainly did,” she admitted with chagrin, countering yet another burst of tittering with complete candor. “As you know, I’m not from around here. So when someone pulled that trick on me, I fell for it. And even though it might seem funny to you, it hurt my feelings.” She paused and looked directly at each one of them. “I’d like to ask you all a big favor.”

  This was a new turn of events. Every eye was on the lovely new schoolteacher.

  “Since I’m new around here, I’m going to need your help to learn all about your beautiful state. I’d like very much for us each to learn from each other. I promise you that I won’t ever pull such mean tricks on you. I won’t allow anyone to be made fun of, say, for not reading as well as someone else, or maybe giving the wrong answer to a question. You don’t have to be afraid of not knowing something here. I think school should be a safe and a fun place for you to come each day.”

  The children looked suspiciously at one another. Seemingly this sharing of the teaching task was a strange and exciting concept to them.

  Cowboy broke the uncomfortable silence by raising two fingers in the air.

  “Yes?”

  Blushing furiously at the new teacher’s ignorance, he explained, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

&nb
sp; “Oh,” Carrie responded with a smile. “Then you have my permission to leave the room.”

  As he made his way around to the back of the build- ing to get to the bathroom that had been added onto the old structure when indoor plumbing had become avail- able, Cowboy stooped to open his pocket to let a water snake slither away in the long grass.

  Despite the fact that it was a heck of a lot easier to simply let the kids catch the bus home, Judson delib- erately arrived early that first day of school to pick up his children and check on the progress the new school- teacher was making. He had no intention of any ill will between them affecting the way Ms. Raben treated his children.

  “What the hell?” he muttered, rubbing his eyes in disbelief.

  Decked out in their best back-to-school clothes, the entire group was sprawled out beneath a stand of as- pens. In their midst was their teacher, looking cool as a southern breeze in a pink seersucker suit, her matching heels tucked neatly beneath her long, folded legs. Cheryl Sue used to wear expensive, out-of-place outfits just like that. Judson remembered how that pretty pack- aging had disguised the shallow, insecure girl inside. The one who preferred holding on to her daddy’s money over the twins she had borne her half-breed husband.

  Accepting a bunch of dandelions from a pupil, Carrie flashed the child a smile so genuine that even from a distance Judson could feel its warmth. Assuring himself that it was nothing more than sheer indignation that caused his heart to lurch so unnaturally against his chest, he wondered how school could have changed so drastically from the way he remembered it.

  Parking his pickup at the edge of the playground, he proceeded to amble over to the assembled group.