The Triplets' Cowboy Daddy

by Patricia Johns

  The drive into town—okay that had been more than official duties around here, but he and Nora had some history. She’d always be special to him. Didn’t they say that a first love was never fully erased? Something like that. She’d been part of his formative years.

  Easton’s cell phone rang, and he glanced at the number before picking it up.

  “Dad?”

  “Hi.” His dad’s voice sounded tight, and sober for a change. “What are you up to?”

  “Working.”

  “Well...take a break. You need to come over.”

  “Why?” Easton looked at his watch. “It’s not a good time, Dad. I have to get up early. You know that.”

  “You’ll want to come by, son,” his father said. “There’s someone you’ll want to see.”

  “Yeah?” He wasn’t convinced. “Who?”

  “Your mom.”

  Easton froze, the rag falling from his hand and landing in the gravel. He tried to swallow but couldn’t. A cold sweat erupted on his forehead, and the breeze suddenly felt chilly.

  “Ha,” he said, forcing the word out. “Not funny. Actually, kind of mean.”

  “I’m not joking,” his father said. “I’m looking at her right now. If you wanted to see her, now’s the time.”

  “Okay,” he said, his heart banging in his chest. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  Hanging up the phone, he fished his keys out of his pocket and headed for his own vehicle. Mom was back? Was Dad hallucinating? Maybe he’d widened his addictive repertoire to include some drug use. Easton scrubbed a hand through his hair and hauled open the door. He had to stop and suck in a few deep breaths because his hands were trembling. There was something in his dad’s voice that told him this was no joke.

  After twenty years’ absence, what could she possibly want? After missing his childhood...after letting him grow up with a drunk of a father and a hole in his heart the size of Wisconsin, what brought her back to Hope?

  * * *

  NORA LOOKED OUT the window in time to see Easton’s truck back out of the drive then take off down the gravel road, leaving a billow of dust behind him.

  That’s weird, she thought. Where was he off to in such a hurry?

  Maybe an evening to herself was better anyway. Flirting with Easton hadn’t really been part of the plan, yet she kept finding herself doing it. Was it habit? A throwback from her teenage years? Or maybe she missed all the control she used to have—a boy following after her who’d do anything she asked.

  “I’m not that shallow,” she muttered to herself.

  Her day had been tiring. The doctor’s appointment itself had been routine. The babies had been weighed, measured and declared to be healthy. It was that encounter with Ethel Carmichael that had gotten to her. It was only an old woman’s gossipy streak, she told herself. Nora shouldn’t worry about it...but she did.

  She sighed and rubbed her hands over her face. Hope, Montana, was a nice town—friendly, helpful, attractive—but it was also a town where not too much happened. Everybody knew everybody else, or just about, and half the town was related to each other by marriage. People remembered each other’s stories because they were a part of each other’s lives. And when people saw the girls in Beauty’s Ice Cream Shop or saw them in church, they’d think of Cliff and the scandal around the triplets’ arrival. These things didn’t just go away.

  Nora could handle some gossip. But these three little girls deserved a happy life. What options did Nora have? She could stay in Hope where the girls would have a distanced grandmother they weren’t allowed to call “Grandma,” and where the story of their grandfather’s infidelity would follow them everywhere they went. That was assuming that Nora could make a life here—get a job, find a place that didn’t cost too much...maybe with enough family about, she’d be able to pull together a decent life for the girls, financially, at least.

  Or she could go back to Billings where she’d have to drop them off at day care every day...and maybe get a second job doing some contract bookkeeping to be able to afford that. They’d have a tired, overworked mom who did her best to keep up with everything. They wouldn’t have many new clothes or the toys they wanted. There wouldn’t be summer vacations, unless you counted coming back to Hope where everyone would look at them sideways and the girls still couldn’t call their grandmother “Grandma.”

  Or—and this was the option that brought a lump to her throat—she could accept that she couldn’t provide the kind of life that these babies deserved. She couldn’t give them a comfortable home with a bedroom for each of them, or summer vacations, or new clothes. She couldn’t even provide a stable family life to make up for those other things. She wasn’t married. There would be no dad to give them that important male influence in their lives. There wouldn’t even be a doting grandma to cuddle them and tell them stories about their family. And she’d never make this town look past the scandal the triplets’ grandfather created...

  Nora sank onto the side of her bed, her heart sodden with anxiety. That was what the visit to the doctor’s office had shown her—she could provide the basics, but she couldn’t shield them from the rest. And if there was a family out there that would adopt these girls together, love them and celebrate them, provide birthday parties and new shoes... If there were adoptive grandparents who would make cookies with them and read them stories, look them in the eye and tell them how loved and wanted they were... Could she really deny these little girls that kind of life?

  Nora looked through the bars of the crib at the sleeping babies. Their lashes brushed their plump cheeks; their hair swirled across their heads in damp curls. Bobbie was making phantom sucking noises, her little tongue poked out of her mouth, and Riley let out a soft sigh in her sleep. Nora put a finger in Rosie’s tiny hand, and she clamped down on it.

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  It was true—she’d fallen in love with her girls, and if money didn’t matter or if she could wave a magic wand and make everyone forget the pain associated with these children, she’d raise them herself and be their mom. But money did matter, and so did scandal. They were brand-new to this world, and already they were steeped in it. She was the one Mia had designated as their provider, and she had to do what was best for the babies.

  A tear slipped down Nora’s cheek, and she wiped it away with her free hand. She gently stroked Rosie’s soft fingers, inhaling the delicate smell of sleeping infants. She’d remember this, cherish it always. She wasn’t their mother—Mia was. Nora was an in-between person who had to give them her heart in order to take care of them. But she couldn’t keep them, no matter how much her heart broke at the thought of letting go.

  When she’d taken the babies from the hospital, they’d given her some business cards from social workers and adoption agencies. She’d shoved them into her wallet and forgotten about them, but she knew what she’d have to do.

  Tomorrow. Not tonight. Tonight she had to let herself feel this pain and have a good cry. Then in the morning she’d call an adoption agency and see what kinds of options the girls might have.

  Chapter Nine

  Easton’s father, Mike Ross, lived at the end of Hunter Street. There were no shade trees, just brown lawns and old houses—several of which were empty. The Ross house was at the end of the road before asphalt simply evaporated into scrub grass. A couple of cars were on blocks in the front yard, and a chain and a massive dog bowl sat abandoned by the front door. The dog had died years ago, but the reminder of his presence seemed to help keep thieves and religious proselytizers at bay. Which was good when it came to thieves, but in Easton’s humble opinion, a little religion wouldn’t hurt his old man.

  When Easton pulled into the driveway behind a red SUV, all those old feelings of anger and resentment settled back onto his shoulders, too. This was why he never came home—it remi
nded him of things he’d rather leave in the past. Like constantly feeling like a failure no matter what he did, and acting rough and angry to get away from the pity.

  Except he’d longed for his mom every day since she’d left, imagined ways she might return, set scenes in his mind when she’d see him as a grown man and her heart would fill with pride. Those had been fantasies, because her actually coming back would solidify the fact that she’d been able to return all along and had chosen not to.

  He sat in his truck for a couple of minutes, his hands on the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. That was probably her SUV, all new and shiny. So she had enough money for that. Maybe she’d stayed away for the same reasons he did now—because she didn’t like to remember. He undid his seat belt and got out of the truck.

  The front door was never used; in fact, his dad had a bunch of junk piled in front of it from the inside. Easton angled around to the side door. He didn’t bother knocking, just opened it. The kitchen was smoky from his father’s cigarettes, so Easton left the door open to let it clear a bit.

  “Hello?” he called.

  A woman emerged from the living room—slim, made up, wearing a pair of jeans and a light blouse. Her hair was dyed brown now, cut short but stylish. Her face was the same face he remembered, though. Even that one crooked tooth when she smiled hesitantly.

  “Easton?” she whispered.

  “Mom.” Tears welled up in his eyes, and he stood there looking at her awkwardly.

  “Oh, sweetheart—” She came forward as if to hug him, but he didn’t move into it, so she ended up patting his arm a few times. She looked up into his face, and he could see that she’d aged. She was no longer the woman in her early twenties matching his dad drink for drink—she would be forty-seven this year. He’d done the math.

  “So—” He cleared his throat. “Where’ve you been?”

  “Can I hug you?” she asked softly.

  “Not right now.” If he let her hug him, the tears he’d been holding back for years would start, and he couldn’t let that happen. He could cry later, alone, but not in front of her. He needed answers.

  His father came into the room and scraped back a kitchen chair. He was thin and tall, lined and slightly yellowed from nicotine.

  “Should we sit?” she asked cautiously. “Just come sit with me, son.”

  He followed her to the flier-strewn table and sat opposite her. She looked him over then reached out and put her hand on top of his.

  “You look good,” she said. “Really good.”

  “Thanks.” He pulled his hand back as the tears started to rise inside his chest. “You look like you’re not doing too badly for yourself. What took so long to come see how I was doing?”

  “I wanted to—” She looked toward his father. “I talked to your dad on the phone a few times, and he said you were doing really well. He said if I came around I’d ruin things for you.”

  “What?” Easton darted a disgusted look at his old man. “And you believed that lying sack of—” He bit off the last word and sucked in a shaky breath. Profanity was a bit of a habit when he felt cornered. “You left me.”

  And suddenly, he was nothing more than an eight-year-old boy again, staring at the mom who was supposed to be better at this. In that note she’d left on the fridge, she hadn’t said anything loving. Her last words had been “He’s your problem now.” She’d ditched him, left town, and while he’d squirmed his way around those words over the years, trying to apply different meaning to them that would still allow her to return for him, looking at his mother now brought the words back like a punch in the gut.

  “I know...” She blinked a few times then licked her lips. “I was young when I had you—seventeen, if you remember. I didn’t know how to deal with everything. I was so overwhelmed...”

  “Except you weren’t seventeen when you left. You were twenty-five. That’s a solid adult.”

  “Yes.” She didn’t offer any excuses.

  “And the note—”

  “I wasn’t in a good place when I scratched that out,” she interrupted. “I don’t remember exactly what I said.”

  “I do.” Easton glanced at his old man. His dad would remember that note, too. “You said you were sick of this life and I was Dad’s problem from then on.”

  She winced. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Sure you did. Or you would have come back.”

  She swallowed, glanced at his father. What was she looking for, some kind of united front?

  “So you figured you’d leave me with him.” Easton jutted a thumb toward his father. “He was a more suitable parent?”

  “He had the house,” she said. “I just drove away one day. I wasn’t thinking about the future—just about getting some space.” She was quiet for a moment. “And I knew I wasn’t much of a mom.”

  Yeah, that was evident. With her sitting in front of him, he was able to separate the fantasies of the gentle mother stroking his hair from the reality of the emotionally distant mother who’d spent hours a day smoking in this very kitchen.

  “I tried to see you,” she added.

  “When?” he demanded. He found that hard to believe.

  “The summer you were fourteen. I was in the area and I called your dad. He said he got you a job at a local ranch and you were doing really well. He said you were happy, and you didn’t remember me.”

  “You said that?” Easton glared at his father across the table. “I was happy, was I? I didn’t need her?”

  His father shrugged. “We did okay. She’s the one who left.”

  That had been his father’s mantra over the years—she was the one who left, as if all their problems had been caused by the one who walked away instead of the parents who hadn’t done their job to begin with.

  Easton turned back to his mother. “I was doing okay because Cliff Carpenter hired me and took over where Dad left off. I wasn’t happy. I was making do. And Dad didn’t get me anything. I waited outside the ranch and feed store and asked every single rancher that came and left if he’d hire me. Cliff was the only one to say yes. Dad didn’t do squat for me. He drank every day, ran this house into the ground and smacked me around if I was within reach.”

  “Hey—” his father started.

  “Shut up, Dad.” Easton wasn’t in any mood to argue about facts with his old man, and his father seemed to sense that, because he subsided back into a brooding silence.

  “I—” His mother swallowed hard and dropped her gaze. “I didn’t know all that.”

  “I’m a ranch manager now,” he added. “I own my own home. I have a life, and I steer clear of this dump.”

  “Maybe I could—”

  “No!” He knew what she was about to ask—to see the life he’d built for himself. And while he’d dreamed of that opportunity since he was eight years old, he realized that he didn’t actually want it now. She didn’t deserve to feel better about how he’d turned out. He wanted to hurt her back—make her feel the rejection he’d felt his entire life. “You aren’t welcome in my home.”

  They fell into silence for a few beats. He could take all his pain and anguish out on her, or he could get some of those answers at last.

  “So what have you been doing all these years?” Easton asked. “You’re dressed pretty well.”

  “I’m—” She looked down at her hands splayed on the tabletop, and his eye followed hers to the wedding ring. “I’m married again. His name is Tom. He’s very sweet. I’m a recovering alcoholic, so I don’t drink. It took a few years of hard work, but I got there.”

  “So where’d you find...Tom...then?” The name tasted sour on his tongue.

  “Church,” she replied. “We’ve been married sixteen years now. He’s a good man.”

  Sixteen years of marriage, and she’d stayed away from
him. There had been a home she could have brought him to, a cupboard full of food... He did the mental math, and he’d been twelve when she’d gotten married—plenty of time to have given him some sort of childhood.

  “What does Tom do?”

  “He’s an electrician.”

  Blast it—so normal and balanced. His mom walked away and got to marry some utterly normal Tom, afford new clothes—something he’d never had growing up—and drive a new SUV... And he’d been left in addiction-induced poverty, dreaming of some fantasy mother.

  “Where do you live?” he asked.

  “Billings.”

  “Three hours away?” he asked incredulously. “I was here missing you, longing for my mom to come back for me, and all that time you were a mere three hours from here?”

  Easton rubbed his hands over his face. He’d dreamed of a chance to see his mother again, to try to mend this jagged hole in his heart that she’d left behind. Some days he wanted answers, and other days he wanted comfort. Today he had the chance to hug her and he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was finally face-to-face with his mom again, and he felt something he’d never expected—he hated her.

  “I’m so sorry—” Her voice shook and she wiped a tear from her cheek. “I thought you were doing well, that if I came back I’d ruin things for you. I was so ashamed of the woman I used to be. I was mean, drunk most of the time and just a shell of a person...” She shook her head. “I thought you’d remember all of that.”

  “Not really,” he admitted. “A bit, I mean. But I was young. I think Dad remembered that more. I...uh...I kept your Led Zeppelin T-shirt under my mattress. I remembered the smell of your cigarettes in the morning, and the sound of your laughter.”

  “My T-shirt—” The look on her face was like he’d punched her with those words.