The Cowboy's Little Girl

by Kat Brookes

  “Considering she’s mine and Summer’s,” he continued, “that’s bound to come naturally. But I won’t force my daughter to be someone she doesn’t want to be when she comes to live here.”

  Her averted gaze snapped up to lock with his. “That transition, should it come at all, will be done in a slow, well-thought-out manner to assure Blue suffers no long-term emotional trauma from being uprooted from the only life she’s ever known.”

  What about the emotional trauma that had been done to him? But this wasn’t about his issues. It was about what was best for his little girl. He understood Autumn’s reluctance to turn over custody of her niece after being such an integral part of his daughter’s life, but this was something he wasn’t backing down from. “I agree we need to make the transition for Blue as smooth as possible, but you need to start preparing yourself, as well. My daughter will be in my life and I’m not referring to brief holiday visits.”

  “I could drag things out in court if it came down to it,” she replied.

  “But you won’t.”

  She shook her head, and with a resigned sigh said, “No. I wouldn’t put her through that. If you prove capable of taking care of my niece, I will put my trust in the Lord to watch over her when I’m not here to do so. However, my niece will be in my life,” she said, repeating his earlier words. “And I’m not referring to brief holiday visits.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said honestly, admiring her fire when it came to protecting Blue. “My daughter is your family, too. Is that what you’re worked up about? That possibility that I’ll cut you out of her life?”

  She turned away.

  “Autumn, I wasn’t the one who walked away from my marriage. Summer was.” He frowned. “I’ll be the first to admit that we were both too young to really know what we were getting into, but I would’ve done my best to make things work between us if she had only given me a chance. Baby and all.”

  Her shoulders shuddered, and he knew by her silence that she was fighting back tears.

  “Autumn...” he said, reaching out to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. He understood her pain. She had already lost her sister. She feared losing Blue as well, something he would never do to her.

  She held up a hand, but remained standing as she was. “I’m okay. A little worse for wear after a lot of sleepless nights, but I’ll pull it together.”

  Her conviction was strong, and he imagined she would do just that. Autumn seemed to have an inner strength his wife had never quite mastered. Hers was carefully controlled. Her decisions well-thought-out, where her sister hadn’t always taken the time to consider the effect her words or her actions might have had on those around her.

  He forced himself to let his hand fall away, but he remained where he was. “I can only imagine how hard this has been on you. Losing your sister that way. Suddenly having to take on the responsibility of raising her child. Not to mention the financial burden...”

  She turned to face him. The thick tears looming in her light blue eyes made them appear as if they were liquid silver. “There wasn’t anything sudden about it. I gave up the real estate business I had built up back home in Lone Tree to come to Wyoming and help my sister with her little girl, both emotionally and financially, long before the Lord called Summer home. I found part-time work as a Realtor, planning my appointments around Summer’s waitressing job so one of us could be home with Blue at all times. Everything was perfect until...” A sob caught in her throat.

  His heart ached for this woman who had dedicated so much of her life to caring for his daughter. “They were blessed to have you.”

  “No,” she countered without hesitation. “I was blessed to have them. They filled an emptiness I had inside me that I never knew was there.” Her teary gaze drifted toward the empty doorway. “That little girl is everything to me. I love her with all my heart and I will do right by her.” Her teary gaze returned to him. “So, natural father or not, you’re gonna have to climb a very high mountain to reach the point where I feel she’d be better off with you than with myself and the life she already has in Cheyenne.”

  She’d already made that point quite clear, but he wisely kept that thought to himself. She had a right to feel the way she did. He was a stranger. A man who she had believed for years had done her sister wrong. And while he was the one who had truly been ill-treated, he intended to put his all into winning Autumn over. She deserved that much, knowing now the selfless sacrifices she’d made in her own life to make Blue’s better.

  “Whatever it takes,” he said softly, fighting the urge to brush away a stray tear from her cheek. At that moment, she looked weary and vulnerable. Not at all like the lioness protecting her cub that he’d seen her be.

  “I should go check on Blue.”

  “Make sure you both wear comfortable shoes,” he called out as she started from the kitchen. “We’ll be hiking up a trail that has bits of stone scattered about it to get to the flowers I promised to show Blue.”

  “We will.” She paused in the doorway and cast a glance back over her shoulder. “Thank you for including me.” Before Tucker could reply, she was gone.

  * * *

  Autumn sat quietly, looking out the passenger-side window of Tucker’s truck as he drove them across his property. Not that she would have had a chance to say much with her niece chattering away from her car seat behind them. Tucker’s warm, husky laughter told her he didn’t mind Blue’s constant barrage of questions and comments one bit. In fact, and much to her dismay, he was doing and saying all the right things where his daughter was concerned, and Blue was eating her daddy’s attention right up.

  “I didn’t think you had any nieces or nephews,” Autumn muttered with a glance his way. That was the only thing that could explain his comfort level around Blue. Yet, Summer hadn’t mentioned Blue having any cousins on Tucker’s side.

  He shook his head. “I don’t. My brothers are as single as they come, with no plans to settle down anytime soon.”

  She frowned at his reply. That meant Tucker was just a natural with children. She should have known that by how quickly her niece had taken to him.

  “I take it one of my brothers caught your interest this morning.”

  The question was so unexpected, Autumn found herself choking. “What?” She turned to find him attempting to smother a grin, that lone Wade dimple that Tucker and both of his brothers had inherited in the family gene pool etched deep into his tanned cheek.

  He cast a quick glance in her direction. “You looked a little put out to hear that my brothers are committed bachelors,” he explained, his gaze shifting back to the road, or, in their case, the pasture ahead.

  Confusion must have lit her features, because he added, “You frowned when I made mention of their firm commitment to bachelorhood.”

  “What’s interest?” Blue piped up from the back seat of the extended cab.

  Autumn cast a disapproving glare his way. Leave it to her niece to lose interest in the scenery outside just when Tucker had made his offhanded comment. “Children miss nothing,” she reminded him.

  “I see that,” he said, that devastatingly handsome grin still intact.

  She had no doubt that his smile was what had first drawn her sister to this man. Rugged good looks aside, it was that playful curve of his lips with that lone-dimpled grin, one that exuded both humor and confidence and put others at ease, which was nearly irresistible. Nearly. But Tucker Wade was the enemy. At least as far as she was concerned, he was. The man was stealing Blue’s affection away with his silly jokes and eagerness to go that extra mile to make his daughter happy.

  “Will you look at that?” Tucker announced, pointing toward a sparsely wooded hillside a short distance ahead, one made up of a few scattered pines, dirt, rocks and splotches of dried-up grass.

  “What?” Blue said excitedly, tipping sideways in an atte
mpt to see out the front window of Tucker’s truck, her view mostly blocked by the passenger seat Autumn was in.

  Glancing up at Blue in the rearview mirror, Tucker smiled. “The rabbitbrush is just over the top of that hillside.”

  Autumn gasped, her head snapping around in his direction. “Are you telling me you intend to drive us up that mountain?”

  Tucker chuckled. “It’s a hill, not a mountain. And a poor excuse of a hill at that.”

  “When it involves my niece’s safety, it might as well be a mountain,” she said sharply.

  “I would never do anything to risk her safety,” he said with a frown. Tucker slowed the truck, coming to a stop along the foot of the hillside. “We’ll leave the truck here and walk the rest of the way.”

  Her skeptical gaze shifted, taking in the rocky outcrop before them.

  “It’s easier than it looks,” he assured her.

  “I think it would be better if we made our way back to the house,” she argued, feeling far less confident than Tucker was about the ease at which they’d be able to traverse the hill.

  “But I wanna see the yellow rabbits,” Blue whined.

  “You won’t see any yellow rabbits,” Autumn reminded her niece. “Only yellow flowers.”

  “I’m hoping she’ll get to see more than that,” Tucker stated as he cut the engine. He turned in the seat, his green eyes meeting hers. “Trust me.”

  Trust him? She didn’t even know him. But there was something about Tucker Wade that made her feel she could do just that. Trusting a man didn’t come easy for her. The last time she’d placed her trust completely in a man, he’d trampled all over it. Her heart, as well.

  “Please?” Blue joined in, drawing Autumn back from her thoughts of the past.

  A soft sigh passed through Autumn’s lips. “Okay, we’ll give it a try. But if the trail gets to be too much for Blue—”

  “I’ll carry her,” Tucker said matter-of-factly.

  Her gaze slid down to his strong arms. He could probably carry the both of them up that rather large hill if he had a mind to.

  “You, too, if need be,” he added, causing her gaze to snap back up to his grinning face.

  Had she voiced her thoughts aloud? She hoped not.

  “I really want Blue to see this,” he added determinedly.

  Autumn cleared her throat and looked away. “I’m perfectly capable of hiking up a hill.” Not that she could remember the last time she’d done so.

  With a nod, he opened the driver’s side door and stepped down. “The offer still stands should you have need of it,” he said with that irresistible boyish grin of his before shutting the door behind him.

  Much to her chagrin, Autumn found herself grinning, too. She immediately wiped it away. She couldn’t let Tucker Wade and his charming cowboy smile get under her skin. Not only for her niece’s sake, but for her own. This man made her feel at ease in a way she hadn’t allowed herself to be around a man for a very long time. Not since she was a naive eighteen-year-old who thought she’d met “the one.”

  Parker Booth, a Texas cowboy every bit as smooth talking as this Wyoming one, had known all the right things to say. Had made her feel like she was the most special girl in the world with his sugary words. They’d dated all summer, and Autumn was certain she had found “the one.” A week before she was to leave for college, Parker let it slip that it was her fun-loving, barrel-racing twin he had really wanted. Only Summer hadn’t reciprocated his feelings, so he figured Autumn was the next best thing. Tender heart broken, and refusing to be any man’s second choice, Autumn had ended things with Parker, and sworn off cowboys altogether.

  “This is supposed to be a fun outing,” Tucker Wade’s deep voice rumbled close to Autumn’s ear.

  She jumped, startled from her thoughts, and then looked up at Tucker. “I never said it wasn’t.”

  “That expression you were wearing on your face a moment ago pretty much said it for you.”

  “This outing isn’t about my enjoyment,” she said, because admitting the real reason behind her frown wasn’t something she intended to share with anyone. Even Summer hadn’t known the truth about why Autumn only dated business professionals. She would have felt somehow responsible for the hurt Autumn had experienced. So while Summer dated ranch hands and rodeo cowboys, Autumn only went out with career-focused businessmen. Men who were not her type. Men she knew she’d never risk having her heart broken by. Men unlike Tucker Wade. It seemed she and her sister weren’t so different after all.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Tucker said as they started walking again. “But I’ll let you decide for yourself once we get there.”

  They continued working their way up and around the somewhat wooded, rocky hillside with Blue chattering away, her busy conversation directed to no one in particular. The trail was decently wide and free of the larger rocks and prickly shrubs and trees that littered the incline on either side of them. It was also a much easier hike than Autumn had first thought it would be. The air was brisk, but it felt good to be outside doing something physical, having spent most of her time indoors with Blue or in her office at work.

  “Owie,” Blue yelped suddenly, her hurried steps halting.

  Autumn nearly tripped over her niece, Blue’s stop had been so abrupt.

  Tucker stepped around Autumn, concern etched in his tanned face. “Blue? What’s wrong?”

  “I got a rock in my shoe,” her niece replied with a tiny pout. “A real big one.”

  He clicked his tongue as he knelt in front of his daughter. “Those pesky rocks. Always trying to sneak back up to the top of the hill in someone’s shoe.”

  Autumn watched in silence as Tucker lifted his little girl with ease and settled her atop his bent leg. Her niece who was normally on the shy side around men, no doubt from having spent most of her life around her momma and Aunt Autumn, had taken so easily to Tucker. She wanted a daddy. Just like all the other children she knew had.

  Tucker smoothed back a tendril of reddish-brown, baby-fine hair from Blue’s face. “What do you say we have your aunt Autumn take a look?” he suggested, his tone low and soothing. One she imagined he used when one of his horses needed to be gentled.

  Blue gave a tiny nod and then stuck her leg out.

  Autumn brushed a couple of stones from the path before settling onto her knees in front of them. “We’ll just shake those troublesome little stones right on out of there,” she said with a tender smile as she untied and then slipped Blue’s tennis shoe from her foot. Turning it over, she gave it a small shake, sending two offending pebbles back to the ground below.

  “All gone,” she said as she slid the sparkly, cotton-candy-pink tennis shoe back onto Blue’s foot. Then she promptly worked its rainbow-colored shoestrings back into a neat bow. When she looked up, she found Tucker’s green eyes watching her with a mixture of curiosity and something she couldn’t quite put words to. And then he smiled, that lone dimple cutting deep into his tanned cheek. The effect that single gesture had on her was unsettling.

  It would be easy to blame the unexpected quickening of her heartbeat to be the result of their brief hike up the hill, but she had never been one for mistruths—even to herself. Springing to her feet, Autumn took a hurried step back, her boot skidding on the miniscule pieces of stone that covered the trail.

  Tucker was on his feet in an instant, Blue firmly ensconced in one arm as he reached out to steady her. “Careful there,” he said in a low rumble. “Don’t want you twisting an ankle.”

  She was normally very alert, but Tucker Wade was so... She struggled to find the right words, finally settling for thoroughly distracting. This man, no matter how charming or handsome, was her niece’s daddy. Reason enough to fight this pull he seemed to have on her senses. But even more troubling was the fact that he had been her sister’s husband. The last man on Earth she shoul
d ever find herself attracted to.

  Keeping her gaze averted, Autumn managed a quick, “Thank you.”

  “No thanks necessary,” Tucker replied as he bent to set his daughter back on her feet.

  Blue clung to his neck, refusing to be put down. “I think you need to carry me.”

  “Blue,” Autumn gently admonished.

  “That so?” Tucker said with a chuckle, making no attempt to free himself of the adorable little burr clinging to him.

  She nodded. “So no more rocks try to sneak up the hill in my shoe. Their family would miss them if I took them away,” she added, a mix of worry and sadness in her tone.

  Like Blue misses her momma, Autumn thought with a painful tug at her heart. She wanted to reach out and pull her niece into her arms in a comforting hug, but held back giving Tucker a chance to respond. To show he wasn’t prepared to deal with the fragile emotions of the young daughter who had been thrust unexpectedly into his life.

  “I would never take you away from your aunt Autumn,” Tucker said as he started back along the trail, Blue firmly attached to his side. “She’s a very important part of your life, and when you come to live with me we’ll be sure to visit her often. And, of course, she’ll always be welcome here.”

  He thought Blue was referring to her? She considered correcting his misconception, informing him that it was the loss of her mother that had stirred her niece’s concern for the rock’s “family,” but Blue’s next comment as she and her daddy crested the hill had the words faltering at the tip of her tongue.

  “Could Aunt Autumn come live here with us, too? So she wouldn’t miss me.”

  Tucker’s response was lost to Autumn as he and Blue disappeared over the other side of the hill. Not that she needed to hear the words being spoken to know he’d had to explain to his daughter that her aunt’s joining them at the ranch wasn’t a possibility. She only prayed he’d done so with soothing words, reassuring her niece that Autumn would still be a very active part of her life if Blue ended up living with him. And Autumn was determined to cling to that if, because she wasn’t anywhere close to being emotionally prepared to let her niece go. There was still a chance Blue wouldn’t want to come to live there with her daddy on his ranch filled with horses. If that were the case, Autumn would, without a moment’s hesitation, do everything in her power to keep custody of her.