Cowboy in the Making

by Julie Benson

  “So you couldn’t find a teaching position?” Jamie asked, returning to their previous conversation.

  “No. I considered giving private lessons, but that takes time to find enough students to pay the bills.”

  “And I suppose you were stubbornly attached to luxuries like hot water, electricity and food.”

  His comment made her smile. She liked how he made her do that. “Call me crazy. So when I heard the shelter needed a volunteer coordinator, I thought, I love animals and this could be a way for me to pay the bills while I help take care of Mom. It’s not what I want to do forever, but don’t get me wrong. I don’t regret my decision. Mom died eight months after her diagnosis.”

  “Living with no regrets is worth a lot.”

  Too bad she couldn’t say the same for other areas of her life. At least she was working on her career regrets.

  The puppy whimpered when the comb stuck in his tangled fur. “Hang on, pal,” Jamie said as he scratched it behind the ears. “I know you feel lousy right now, but things are gonna get better from here.”

  Good-looking. A voice that could melt the hardest woman’s heart, and he took care of kids and small defenseless animals.

  Where was Avery? She could really use the cavalry showing up. A girl could only hold out for so long.

  Chapter Eight

  “I see you’re taking care of the fleas,” Avery said when she walked into the room, and Emma almost sighed in relief. Much longer and her self-control would’ve disintegrated like a child’s snowman on an unseasonably warm winter day.

  After Avery introduced herself she moved around the room opening drawers and cupboards, collecting the supplies she needed to treat the puppy’s issues.

  “You’re going to need all this for him?” Jamie said as he stared at the materials spread out on the table. “This has to be expensive.”

  “It’s not easy balancing animals’ needs with our donations.” Avery filled a syringe with saline and delivered the liquid to the puppy under his skin. As she squirted another liquid into the animal’s mouth to deal with any internal parasites, she glanced at Emma, her eyebrows raised, and nodded slightly toward Jamie as if to say, Here’s our opening to ask him about the fund-raiser. Go for it.

  Time for her, as the perfect employee, to put her money where her mouth was. “Speaking of donations, we’ve got our major fund-raiser coming up. Avery and I were talking about a way you could help us.”

  “We’re having a Pet Walk at Stanley Park. Last year we added Emma’s band giving a concert to the event,” Avery said. “Since you’ve created such uproar online, we wondered if you’d sing with Emma’s band at the event.”

  He laughed, as if he thought they were joking. When Emma and Avery didn’t join in, he froze and stared at them. “Don’t tell me you’re serious.”

  They both nodded. The guy really didn’t have a clue how amazing his voice was? That seemed hard to believe.

  “You think my singing will help the shelter raise money? I can’t believe anyone would buy a ticket for that.”

  “Obviously you haven’t seen the online video of you at Halligan’s or read any of the comments on Facebook.” Or looked in a mirror. Women would come out in droves to watch him stand onstage and read War and Peace.

  He shook his head. “I’ve been enjoying being unplugged since I got to Colorado.”

  “Then let me fill you in,” Emma said. “I swear half of the single women I know who saw the video today contacted me. They wanted to know if you’re available and how they can meet you.”

  “You’re kidding.” A blush crept up from his neck into his face.

  “She’s not,” Avery said.

  “As long as you’re sure. Singing with the band sounds like fun.”

  For one of us, maybe.

  “Fantastic. I’ll let you two work out the details about the performance while I see to publicity. Now back to this little guy.” Avery patted the puppy. “We’ll put out the word about our friend tomorrow. Hopefully we can reunite him with his mom, but we need to figure out what to do with him tonight. He’ll need to be fed every two hours. I hate to call any of our volunteers this late. Can you take him, Emma?”

  “My apartment doesn’t take pets, remember?”

  Jamie stared at her. “Isn’t that like an atheist working at a church?”

  “Ha-ha. That’s a good one. It was the only affordable place I could find with an opening. What about you, Avery?”

  “If I bring home any more animals Reed is going to make me sleep on the couch. We’ve got Baxter, and we’re watching Thor for Jess. In addition we’re fostering Molly the Doberman mix and Mumford the ninety-pound Lab. The apartment is overflowing with dogs. I don’t dare bring home a puppy that needs feeding every two hours. You sure you can’t take him for the night, Em?”

  “With Arlene Rogers living next door? That woman has Vulcan hearing, and after the last time I got caught bringing my work home, so to speak, my landlord threatened to evict me.”

  “I’ll take him,” Jamie said. He turned to Emma. “That is, if you’ll help me get him settled in and show me what to do.”

  She tried to think of a reason to say no and then thought, what was the point? The saying “she’d be closing the barn door after the horses had already escaped” popped into her head. “Since I have to take you back to the ranch anyway, I might as well stick around to help with the first feeding.” The calm and steady tone of her voice, despite the knot in her stomach, surprised her.

  Something told her she’d be smarter pressing her luck with the landlord than spending any more time with Jamie. The things she did for her day job.

  * * *

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, when Jamie and Emma stood in Mick’s small outdated kitchen, Jamie almost smiled at Emma’s determination to stay all business with him. If he moved closer to her, she backpedaled. She failed to make eye contact. Her voice remained devoid of emotion. As she explained what he’d need to do to care for the pup through the night, the harder she tried to remain detached, the more intrigued he became. She was just trying too hard to put him in his place, to show him he couldn’t get under her skin. That had to mean something, didn’t it?

  He dug into a drawer, found a can opener and handed it to Emma. While she opened the can of puppy milk replacer and filled the dropper, she explained that every two hours he’d feed the liquid a little bit at a time to the pup.

  When she went to hand him the dropper, he picked up the carrier containing the puppy and headed for the living room instead. He looked at her over his shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to sit down before I fall down.”

  “It’s been a long night, hasn’t it?” she said as she followed him.

  He nodded toward the pictures scattered around the living room. “I love this house. It’s the kind of home that should be filled with family and friends. Looks like it used to be that kind of place.”

  “Before Mick’s wife died they entertained all the time. My grandpa G says Mick’s been so lonely since Carol died. You coming into his life has been a blessing.”

  “It’s been that for me, too.” A calm port in the storm his life had become. After he and Emma settled onto the worn brown couch, Jamie retrieved the puppy. Wide sleepy eyes peered up at him as he accepted the dropper from Emma. He squeezed some milk into the puppy’s mouth. “He’s a cute little guy. He won’t have any problem getting adopted if we can’t find his mom, will he?”

  “He shouldn’t have any problem finding a home.”

  “I always wanted a dog.”

  “How come you never had one?”

  For a few days he had. In fourth grade he’d written a persuasive paper on why his parents should let him have a dog. He smiled thinking of his arguments. He’d get more exercise walking the dog and play fewer video g
ames. Having a pet would teach him responsibility. People who had pets were healthier because petting a dog lowered a person’s blood pressure. He’d shown his parents his paper. They’d knuckled and had taken him to the local shelter.

  He’d been so excited when they’d brought Rocco home. He’d crawled out of bed a half an hour early to walk him before school every day and then walked him again first thing when he got home. They’d been inseparable, the pup even sleeping on the foot of his bed at night.

  “My sister had asthma so we couldn’t have a dog.”

  Of course they hadn’t known that until his sister had suffered a severe attack, ending up in the emergency room the third night they’d had Rocco. The first thing the E.R. doctor said was having a dog in the house would make Rachel’s condition worse. The next day they gave Rocco to a couple across town, and Jamie cried himself to sleep for a week.

  When he graduated from college he’d considered getting a dog, but the time never seemed right. He’d been focused on his career and didn’t feel it would be fair to the animal to bring him into a home where he’d spend so much time alone.

  “You have a sister? Is she older or younger?”

  “I have two, actually. My oldest sister is only a year younger than I am. My parents tried for seven years to get pregnant and went through all kinds of fertility treatments before they adopted me. Then, boom. They got pregnant with my sister. Three years after that they had my other sister.”

  “Was that hard, being the only one adopted?”

  No one had ever come right out and asked him that before. People hinted at the subject and hoped he’d indulge their curiosity, but he’d always ignored the implied question. For the first time he wanted to tell someone what it had felt like. No, not someone. He wanted to share what it had been like with Emma. “Everyone in my family is very analytical. Very left-brained. I’m the opposite.”

  Emma nodded, and understanding flared in her soft gaze. “I’m the only girl in my family. All my brothers are outdoor types, and two of them are ranchers like my father. The farthest any of them has ventured is to the other side of town when they purchased their own spread. You know the Sesame Street song that goes ‘one of these things is not like the other’? That was my theme song.”

  So that’s why she understood. He’d never have guessed she was the odd one out in her family, too. She seemed so confident, so at ease in the world, but then people probably said the same about him.

  “Noncreative types find people like us hard to understand. Sometimes it was like I was speaking a different language.”

  He started to deny what she’d said, even though he’d thought it more than once, but stopped himself. Looking into Emma’s expressive face, he knew she wouldn’t judge him as being disrespectful to the couple who loved him when the woman who gave birth to him refused to. “I know what you mean. My parents were supportive. They went to all my orchestra events. They volunteered at school and in Cub Scouts. They are great parents, but it was weird at times. My sisters would do something that reminded them of someone in the family.” He stopped. And I didn’t have that genetic link.

  “And you didn’t have that connection,” Emma said, summing up his sentiments. “Is that what made you search for your birth family?”

  Would he have been so anxious to find where he’d come from if his siblings had been adopted, too, or if he’d been an only child? Would he have been more content? “The genetic link my sisters shared, the fact that people saw bits and pieces of our parents or other relatives in them, made me think about who I was. I wondered what part of me was because of my DNA and what came from the people who raised me.”

  What it came down to was control. What he had the ability to change about himself and what was his genetic blueprint. He glanced at the puppy who’d fallen asleep curled up on his lap now that his belly was full. He lifted the animal and placed him inside the carrier on an old towel they’d put inside.

  “When I met Mick, so many things made sense. Like where my musical talent and my ability with numbers came from.” He smiled thinking of his grandfather. “Mick’s amazing with numbers, too. He knows what his costs are for everything, salaries, overhead, utilities, food. What his profit margins are. Once I understood what came from him, I could appreciate everything my parents did for me more. What I am because they raised me.”

  The dim light of the table lamp bounced off the tears in Emma’s eyes. He reached out and placed his hand over hers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s not your fault. I asked you because I wanted to know.”

  All those years ago, he’d felt an instant connection with Emma, but he hadn’t appreciated the fact. Now, after all the women that had come and gone in his life, he knew what a rare thing they shared. The question was now that he was older and wiser, what should he do about it?

  * * *

  LISTENING TO JAMIE, Emma wondered if she was getting a glimpse into her son’s future. Would some of the same uncertainties and questions that plagued Jamie haunt her son? But unlike Jamie’s birth mother, she wouldn’t turn her son away if he knocked on her door. She’d hug the stuffing out of him and get down on her knees to thank God for sending him back into her life.

  “What did you decide to do about contacting the people who adopted your son?”

  “I called the agency and told them if the parents expressed any interest in talking to me, I’m open to that. Right now I don’t think doing more than that is good for anyone.”

  “Did you ever consider keeping the baby?”

  Emma stared at Jamie, trying to decide if she should tell him the truth, something she’d never told anyone. Her chest tightened and she knew. Now was the time, here in the quiet stillness with this man, to let go of some of the pain she’d carried for far too long. Resentment that she thought she’d let go of.

  “I did. That was why I came home when the baby’s father and I broke up.”

  “Where had you been living?”

  His question caught her off guard. She kept forgetting he didn’t know all the details. She explained how she and Tucker had left for Nashville soon after Jamie had returned to Juilliard that summer.

  She’d been lonely when Jamie had left and nervous about going to college. Then Tucker had dumped Monica and told her he wanted to get back together. He’d been so apologetic and full of dreams. He’d told her they could have a career together in country music, and she’d been naive enough to believe him.

  “When things fell apart, I came home. I needed my parents’ guidance and support.”

  She’d received the advice, that was for sure. She could almost remember her mother’s lecture verbatim all these years later. Some words never left a person.

  If you decide to keep this baby, you can’t live here. Your father and I won’t help you financially. You’ll have to earn enough to pay for your living expenses and for day care. We’re not going to keep your child all day while you work. Think of what life would be like. Is that really what you want for your child?

  “Did they help you?”

  “They felt my giving the baby up for adoption was the best solution.” Who was she kidding? They thought it was the only solution. “They said if I kept my child I’d have to support myself. They wouldn’t help with money or day care.”

  “That seems harsh.”

  At first his comment surprised her, but then his words worked their way inside her, making her take another look at what had happened. At the time she’d told herself their tough-love approach had helped her grow up and face reality, but had they needed to be so cold? So judgmental? She’d been a good kid, who’d never caused them trouble. She was an honor student who, unlike her brothers, never drank or did drugs in high school. Her parents never had to remind her to do her chores. She’d been the model child.


  Until she’d gotten pregnant, and even then, she’d been acting responsibly. She’d been on the pill and had taken it faithfully. She was just one of the unlucky 8 percent.

  Her mother’s words rang in her ears. People will think we didn’t raise you right. That we were bad parents. And her father had just sat there.

  They’d never really supported her career, and when she’d come home feeling like a failure, they’d reinforced that. We knew nothing good would come of your going to Nashville.

  “There were options between financially supporting you and not helping at all,” Jamie said, pulling her away from her memories.

  He was right. There were. Unless you were more concerned with what your neighbors thought than your child. Part of why they’d wanted her to give her child up had been because then they could pretend she was still that perfect child. “I never thought of that before.”

  Her mother had been so unbending, so unwilling to try to understand, but when she’d gotten sick, who had she called? Her daughter. “I need you to come home. There are things I can’t do for myself. I need another woman here to help me.”

  And what had Emma done? She’d put her life on hold and rushed home to help a woman who’d never supported her dreams.

  What did any of that matter now? She couldn’t change the past. “They wanted to make sure I considered what raising a child entailed. At nineteen, with nothing but a high school education, what kind of life could I give a child? If they’d bailed me out financially when things got tough or provided day care I might have made a different decision. It would have been so easy to be selfish.”

  “What about the baby’s father?”

  “He made it clear he didn’t want anything to do with fatherhood.” Or me. “He didn’t have any money then either, so he couldn’t help financially. He was living in Nashville, playing small clubs for dinner and drinks.” At least until he’d gotten the recording contract with her revamped song, but it had taken years for him to move to easy street.

  “You’re amazing. What you did couldn’t have been easy.”