Cowboy Bold

by Carolyn Brown

  “You’ve got a very good point,” Retta agreed. “But—”

  Mavis put a finger over Retta’s lips. “No buts.”

  Alice giggled. “That sounded funny. We all got butts.”

  “They hear everything,” Mavis said.

  “Yep, they sure do.”

  “I get it that you have a degree and are capable of a big bank job, but that don’t mean jack squat if you ain’t happy,” Mavis said.

  “What makes you so smart, Mavis? What do you have a degree in?” Faith asked.

  “Tellin’ kids what to do.” Mavis stopped and hugged her tightly. “Now you girls get on out of here and go check on Little Bit. I bet he’s lonely. And you go with them, Retta. Give Cade all the space he needs. He has to mull over things for days before he comes to grips with them. That’s the Maguire in him. His daddy is cut from the same bolt of denim.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Retta said.

  On Tuesday evening Cade started home from an all-day trip to Muenster where he’d gone to a ranch sale to look at cattle. He was in a pissy mood because the bull he wanted had already been sold when he got there and the lot of cows he’d thought he might buy had been a negotiating point with the sale of the ranch, so he’d missed out on those too. He’d come home with nothing in his trailer but a miniature jenny, which would make Levi and the kids happy, but it was a total waste of time as far as he was concerned.

  He turned on the radio to his favorite country station to catch the last song in an hour-long session from the 1990s. Conway Twitty was singing, “I’d Love to Lay You Down,” and he kept time with the beat with his thumbs on the steering wheel. The lyrics said that she had a way of doing things that turned him on and that he’d love to lay her down and tell her all the things a woman loved to hear.

  He slapped the steering wheel near the end of the song and glared at his eyes in the rearview mirror. Of course he’d love to do just what Conway sang about, but it wasn’t happening, and that added fuel to his pissy mood.

  “And now let’s move up to something that’s almost vintage but not quite. Let’s shove off this hour with ‘Home’ by Blake Shelton,” the DJ said. The lyrics said that he understood why she couldn’t come with him because it wasn’t her dream.

  Cade sang the last chorus and every single word hit a spot in his heart. He did want to go home. He wanted to see Retta. He imagined her with that dark hair up in a ponytail, her cowboy hat set just right on her head, and a shirt tied up at waist level.

  That song ended and the DJ announced that they were moving forward and Jon Langston would be singing, “Right Girl, Wrong Time.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Cade said when the words said that they weren’t good at being long-distance lovers. But he was thinking of Julie.

  And you’re judging Retta by Julie and that’s not fair, that aggravating voice said in his head. It could work between y’all if you’d give it a chance. And eventually she might decide on her own that she wants to be on the ranch rather than in the city.

  The last song playing was “H.O.L.Y” by Florida Georgia Line when he drove up into the driveway at the house and eight little kids ran out to the trailer to see what he’d brought home. Retta stood on the porch just as he’d imagined her—tight jeans, shirt tied up, boots, and a ponytail. The only thing missing was her hat, and she was holding it beside her. Through his sunglasses he drank in his fill of her and admitted that it wouldn’t take a very hard shove for him to fall in love with her. The end of the song said that he was healing where it used to hurt. That was the gospel truth, because for the first time, he felt as if he was truly over Julie.

  She didn’t leave the porch when he slid out of the pickup but he could feel her eyes on him when the kids circled around him, squealing about the little donkey in the trailer. Justin and Levi rounded the end of the house and stopped when they saw that the trailer wasn’t loaded with cattle or even a single bull.

  “Not much luck?” Justin asked.

  “Bull sold before the sale even started and that lot of heifers we wanted went with the ranch,” he said.

  “That’s what you get for not going to church,” Benjy said. “God ain’t happy with you.”

  “I reckon you’re probably right.” Cade ruffled the boy’s hair. “But I’ll be sure to be there next Sunday.”

  “Little Bit is going to be so proud of his new friend,” Nelson said. “Can we go out to the corral and see how much he loves her?”

  “Sure you can,” Levi said. “All y’all pile in the back of the pickup. Here, Alice, let me give you a boost. You go on inside, Cade, and fix you a plate. Mavis left it all ready for you to pop in the microwave. She drove into town for some more stuff for the kids’ scrapbooks.”

  “Thanks,” Cade said.

  “We’ll unhook the trailer and have the kids back in less than an hour.” Justin crawled into the passenger-side seat.

  With another nod, Cade started across the lawn toward the house, but Retta was gone. Had she ever been there or was it his imagination? Then he caught a glimpse of her headed toward the bunkhouse, so he changed direction and caught up with her in front of the boys’ quarters.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  “What about? Am I doing my job all right?”

  “Of course.” He took her by the shoulders and looked into her brown eyes.

  “Then what, Mr. Maguire?”

  “You are driving me crazy,” he said.

  “Me? I thought I was doing everything that the contract said for me to do and even beyond that.” She shrugged off his hands and started up the steps.

  “You are doing a fantastic job with the girls. I couldn’t ask for more.”

  “Good. If that’s all, I’m going inside for a cold drink. Would you like one?”

  “No, Retta, I want to talk about us.”

  “Nothing to talk about. Will you be at breakfast?”

  “Probably.”

  “Then I’ll see you there. Good night, Cade.”

  “We will talk before you leave here.”

  “I’m sure we will. Lots of times,” she said.

  Retta went inside and slid down the back side of the door. With every nerve in her body tingling, she put her head in her hands and sighed loudly. Pride was a dangerous thing. The discontent in her heart said she wanted to be on the ranch—if not daily, then at least coming for visits on weekends. But she’d set her heels so strongly that now she felt like she couldn’t back out. She was sitting there when the girls came running in the back door telling her all about the new donkey that they’d named Jasmine for a Disney princess. They gathered round her on the floor as if that were the most natural place in the world to sit and said that Little Bit had sniffed her nose, rubbed his neck on hers, and then walked away.

  “He’s playin’ hard to get,” Faith said. “Kind of like you’re doin’ with Cade.”

  “I. Am. Not,” Retta declared.

  “Yeah, you are,” Sasha said.

  “Then why didn’t you come out to the trailer and see Jasmine and talk to him when he came back? He looked right at you and you just walked away,” Gabby said.

  Alice held up a hand. “We might be young but we ain’t stupid. He likes you a lot and you like him but y’all are more stubborn than my sister, and that’s sayin’ a lot.”

  “I’m not having this conversation.” Retta got to her feet.

  “Okay, then, we’ll put it off until later,” Faith said. “Will you take pictures of all four of us for the scrapbook after we get our showers? We got lots of pictures but we ain’t got any of just us girls in our own bunkhouse.”

  “And I want a picture with you,” Alice said. “Because I’m going to grow up and be just like you but if I ever meet someone as pretty as Cade, I’m not going to be mean to him like you are.”

  “I said I’m not talking about it anymore,” Retta said. “And yes, get into your pajamas and we’ll take funny pictures of all four of you. Or we can have a dress-up evening and fix ha
ir and do nails and have a photo session like you were models.”

  “Yes!” Faith said. “Will you do all of our hair? Do you have polish for our nails?”

  “I’ve got maybe three colors but no black or blue. I’ve got a shade of pink and plain old red and we’ll have to get into my stuff to see if there’s another color,” she said, glad that they’d gotten away from talking about Cade. “And Alice, you can have a bath in the tub tonight.”

  “Yay!” She pumped her fist in the air. “And I want pink fingernails and I want my hair fixed all pretty for my pictures.”

  With all the to-do with hair and nails and getting into their different outfits for pictures, they were up past their bedtime that evening. When Retta went into each of their rooms to tell them good night, she noticed that Faith’s tattoo was gone.

  She reached out and touched the girl’s shoulder. “Where did the heart go?”

  “It flew away in the shower a couple of days ago. It wasn’t real, Retta. It was a fake one, and I just didn’t get water on it, but I got tired of it and washed it away.” Faith grinned. “You don’t have one, do you?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m terrified of needles, but don’t tell Cade,” she whispered.

  “I won’t.” Faith grinned. “Good night Retta. Tomorrow we get to talk on the phone.”

  “Yes, we do.” She eased out of the room and sent the whole huge file of pictures to Cade with a note asking if he could print them by Friday, when the girls would be working on their scrapbooks again.

  She got a message back a few minutes later with one word: Yes.

  Cade’s phone awoke him on Thursday morning. Groggily, he answered it without even checking to see who was calling.

  “Cade Maguire, I’m not one to meddle, but I don’t like this iceberg between you and Retta.” Like always, Mavis dived right into the problem without an ounce of sweetness beforehand.

  “Yep,” he said. “And why are you callin’ on the phone? Aren’t you in the kitchen?”

  “Because it’s hard to talk to you when the house is full of kids or even when Justin and Levi are around,” she answered. “So are you going to melt it or just let it sit there and freeze you to death?”

  “Not much I can do. What’s for breakfast?”

  “Don’t you try to change the subject. And there is something you can do if you want this to work,” Mavis said.

  He slung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up. “And that would be?”

  “Women don’t like to be told what to do, Cade. They like to be in control of their own lives and follow their own dreams. So she’ll live in Dallas. That’s only sixty miles from the ranch. You can go visit her through the week and she can come to the ranch on weekends.”

  “But—” he started.

  “She’s not Julie!” Mavis said emphatically. “And y’all have more in common than you and Julie did. Retta loves the ranch. Give her wings, Cade. She’ll fly away, but pretty soon she’ll come back and light on the ranch and never leave.”

  He started to pace around the room. “That’s not a guarantee.”

  “Life don’t come with guarantees, cowboy, but it’s a start,” she said. “Go down to that bunkhouse and get this iceberg melted today or else I’m goin’ home to stay after breakfast.”

  “Mavis, are you blackmailing me?” he asked.

  “Call it whatever you like but I mean it.” Mavis hung up on him.

  “Melt an iceberg with one conversation,” he muttered. “Impossible.”

  “What’s impossible?” Justin rapped on the door and then poked his head inside the room.

  Cade got to his feet. “I just talked to Mavis or rather she talked—but she wasn’t meddling.”

  Justin leaned against the doorjamb. “She was fussin’ at you about Retta, right? I was actually comin’ in to do the same thing, but since she beat me, I’ll just add an amen and leave.”

  “Why?” Cade asked.

  “Because you’re in love with that woman and she makes you happy,” Justin told him bluntly.

  “I like her, admire her, appreciate her, but love? I’m not sure about that.” Cade started to pace again.

  “Yep, you are and it’s deeper than what you had with Julie. Levi is out of the bathroom so it’s my turn. Good luck, brother, but I’ve got faith in you.” Justin hurried off for his turn in the bathroom.

  You got to let a woman think it was her idea, Skip’s words came back to him.

  A smile started as a twitch and then spread over his face. He could hire someone to do Mavis’s job. It wouldn’t be a surrogate grandmother like Mavis had been all those years, but there would be food on the table. Someone could come in once or twice a week and keep the ranch house clean and he could continue to do the book work. What he really wanted in his life was a solid relationship—with Retta. And dammit! Justin was right. He had begun to fall in love with her.

  Melt the iceberg? That could be simply bringing back the heat between them.

  Her idea? Pray that Skip was right.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Retta picked up her pen and paper on Sunday night while the girls were writing home. How to start, what to say—finally she wrote:

  Dear Mama,

  It seems strange to write to you and yet something seems right about it tonight. I wish you were here to give me some advice about my life. Sometimes things that you said in the past come back to me when I need them. I wish it happened more often and I sure wish that you could appear before me right now and tell me what to do.

  I’ve got a complicated dilemma going on in my heart. Cade offered me a job right here on the ranch. I turned him down but now I’m having second thoughts about it. There’s such peace here and it’s the first place I’ve been that I can almost feel you and daddy with me. But then you both loved the ranching life so I shouldn’t be surprised.

  There’s a connection between me and Cade that I can’t explain. I could so easily fall in love with him. He’s everything you told me to look for in a man when I was ready to settle down and start a family. But I’m not sure I’m ready to settle just yet. I need a sign to help me, Mama.

  She put the end of the pen in her mouth and chewed on the cap for a full minute before her phone rang. Cade’s picture showed up on the screen and she hesitated before she answered it. Could this be her sign?

  “Hello,” she said cautiously.

  “We really need to talk, Retta. I’ve got some things I want to say but not on the phone.”

  “My girls are writing letters. Meet me on the porch at ten?”

  “Mavis is on her way to the bunkhouse with a platter of fresh cookies to share with the girls and to baby-sit. Would you please meet me in the barn right now?”

  “Okay, but—”

  A knock on the door interrupted her sentence and then Mavis was in the room with a huge plate of warm cookies. “Thought the girls might like some cookies right out of the oven.”

  “Hey, Mavis!” Faith was the first one out of her bedroom. “Those look so good.”

  “All of y’all take a break and come on in here. I’ll pour up some milk and we’ll have a visit. I try to get to each bunkhouse during the time y’all are here. Haven’t been to the boys’ yet but maybe next week I’ll find time to do that.” Mavis talked as she made her way to the refrigerator and poured five glasses of milk.

  “There’s six of us,” Alice said.

  “Nope, just me and you girls. This is my time with you and it gives Retta time to take a little walk and get away for an hour or so. She’ll be back by bedtime. Now tell me, Faith, has your opinion of this place changed since you first got here?” Mavis asked.

  “Bunches and bunches,” Faith said. “I wish I wasn’t already twelve so I could come back next year but Retta and all the girls say that we can keep in touch. Will you write letters to me and call me too, Miz Mavis?”

  “Of course I will.” Mavis pointed toward the door. “Get your boots on and get hustlin’, Retta.”

 
; “I’ll be back in an hour or less,” Retta said.

  “Don’t rush.” Mavis shooed her out the door with a wave of the hand.

  The walk from the bunkhouse to the barn wasn’t much more than a couple of football fields long, but that night it seemed like twenty miles. At times she took long strides and then she’d realize that she needed to think about what she’d say when she got there and slow down.

  “Is this your sign, Mama?” she asked.

  That old Mark Chesnutt song, “Old Country,” started playing in her head again. Seemed like every time she and Cade got together she thought of the lyrics again.

  “Okay, Mama, I get it.” She lengthened her stride.

  She was listening to the part of the song that said they kissed and held each other tight when she walked into the barn. A beam of light shot down from the loft so she climbed the ladder. When she reached the top, Cade was standing between her and the moonlight coming through the wide open doors at the end. She stopped and stared at his silhouette, so tall, so strong, so bold—and then he turned around and whispered her name.

  She took a step forward and he did the same. He opened his arms and she walked into them. “Dallas is only sixty miles away and I’m not Julie,” she said.

  “I realize that.” He buried his face in her hair.

  “I love the ranch but…”

  “It’s okay.” He tipped up her chin and she barely had time to moisten her lips before his closed on hers.

  When the kiss ended, she took a step back. “I hated the way things were this week.”

  “Me too.” He hugged her so tight that their hearts seemed to be beating in unison.

  “I’m torn between two worlds. I want to get my old job back but I love the peace on the ranch,” she admitted.

  He pulled her down to sit beside him in the scattered hay. “I would love to hire you to help me with books and give this thing between us a chance to see where it might go. But I realize that’s not your dream and you’d always have regrets. So I’ll support you in whatever you decide, but please give us a chance, Retta.”