Jenna's Cowboy Hero

by Brenda Minton

  “Jenna Cameron, imagine seeing you here.” Adam stood next to Jenna’s table, smiling at the two boys because it was easier than smiling at her, easier than waiting for an invitation to join them and easier than dealing with the reality that he wanted to join them.

  He told himself it was just pure old loneliness, living at that trailer, not having his normal social life. He was starved for company, that’s all.

  “You knew I was here. My truck’s right out front.” She smiled up at him, a mischievous look in eyes that today looked more like caramel than chocolate.

  He laughed. “You got me there. I thought I’d swing in for Vera’s meat loaf and I wanted to tell you something.”

  “Have a seat.” She pointed to the chair on her left.

  He hesitated, but her wide eyes stared up at him, challenging him. He sat down, taking off his hat as he did. He hooked it over the back of the empty chair on the seat next to him.

  The boys occupied the two chairs across the table from him. Blond hair, chocolate milk on their chins and suspicious looks in their eyes, they stared at him in something akin to wonder.

  “So, what’s your news?” Jenna leaned back in her chair, hands fiddling with the paper that had come off a straw.

  “You get your camp.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I’ll be staying, at least through the end of July. My agent thinks I should stay and help get the camp running.” He wouldn’t expand on Will’s words, which had been a little harsher than what he was willing to admit to Jenna. “I called the church that left the message and told them I might be able to get something going in time, or close to it. If they can be flexible.”

  Her eyes widened and he could see the smile trembling at the corners of her mouth. “I can help.”

  “I thought you might.”

  Vera pushed through the swinging doors of the kitchen carrying a tray of food and avoiding eye contact with him. Probably because she’d been listening in. At least she didn’t have a camera or an agenda.

  Or did she have an agenda? Probably not the one he was used to. More than likely Vera had only one agenda. She had matchmaking on her mind. She had the wrong guy if that was her plan.

  “Did I hear someone mention my meat loaf special?” She set down plates with burgers in front of Jenna and the boys and pulled a pen and order pad out of her pocket. “I’ve got that chocolate chess pie you like.”

  “No pie tonight. If I don’t start cutting myself back, you’ll have me fifty pounds overweight when I leave Dawson.”

  Vera’s brows shifted up. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re still in a hurry to get out of here?”

  “Not anymore. I’m going to stay and make sure things are taken care of at the camp.”

  Across from him the boys stopped eating their burgers and looked at each other. It was a look that settled somewhere in the pit of his stomach, like a warning siren on a stormy afternoon. Those two boys were up to more than seeing who could get the most ketchup on their fries.

  At the moment David was winning. He had a pile of ketchup on top of two fries and he was moving it toward his open mouth. Adam held his breath, watching, wanting the kid to win, and maybe to break into that big grin he kept hidden away.

  Just as David started to push the fry into his mouth, the front door to Vera’s opened. David looked up and his fry moved, dropping the ketchup. Everyone at the table groaned, including Adam.

  “That isn’t the reaction I normally get when I walk into a restaurant.” The man stepping inside the door was tall, a little balding and thin. The woman behind him smiled, her gaze settling on Jenna.

  “No, it’s usually the reaction you get when you tell one of your jokes on Sunday morning,” the woman teased with a wink at Jenna, punctuating the words.

  “Pastor Todd, Lori, pull up another table and join us,” Jenna offered a little too quickly and Adam got it. She wasn’t thrilled with the idea of Adam Mackenzie at her table. He sat back, relishing that fact.

  A little.

  Until it got to him that she wasn’t thrilled to be sharing a table with him. Jenna cleared her throat and a foot kicked his.

  “Excuse me?” He met her sparkling gaze and she nodded to Pastor Todd.

  “Could you help him move that table over here, push it up against ours?”

  “Oh, of course.” Adam stood up. And he remembered his manners. “I’m sorry, we haven’t met.”

  “Pastor Todd Robbins.” Todd held out his hand. “My wife, and obviously better half, Lori.”

  “Adam Mackenzie.”

  And they acted like they didn’t know who he was. Maybe they didn’t. Not everyone watched football. He reached for the table and helped move it, pushing it into place as Jenna had directed. And Vera still watching, smiling, as if she had orchestrated it all.

  “So, what first?” Jenna wiped her fingers on a paper towel she’d pulled off the role in the center of the table.

  “What?” Adam looked surprised, like he’d forgotten the camp. She wasn’t going to let him forget.

  “The camp. You’ll need beds, mattresses, food…”

  He raised his hand, letting out a sigh that moved his massive shoulders. “I don’t know where to start. I don’t see any way this can be done in a matter of days.”

  “Weeks.”

  He didn’t return her smile. “Yeah, well, my glass of optimism isn’t as full as yours. We have less than two weeks. And then we have kids, lots of them, and they need activities.”

  “Not as many as you might think. I think if you talk to their church, they have lessons planned, chapel services, music. You need the beds, window coverings. They’ll bring their own bedding.” She stopped talking because he looked like a man who couldn’t take much more. “Oh, horses.”

  She whispered the last, in case he was at the end of his rope and about to let go.

  “Horses?”

  “Clint can help you with that.”

  “Is there some way that I can help with this project?” Todd broke in. “I’d be glad to do something.”

  “We’ll need kitchen help, and people to clean the grounds and the cabins.” Jenna reached for her purse and pulled out a pen. She started to write, but Adam covered her hand with his.

  She looked at his hand on hers and then up, meeting a look that asked her to stop, to let it go. He turned to Pastor Todd.

  “Let’s talk about it later, maybe tomorrow. Not now.”

  He was in denial. Poor thing. And so was Jenna if she thought she was immune to a gorgeous man. She moved the hand that was still under his, and he squeezed a little before sliding his hand away.

  “Okay, tomorrow.” But she was no longer as sure as she had been. Adam smiled at her, like he knew what she was thinking. So she said something different to prove him wrong. “Clint will be back tomorrow.”

  With that she let it go, because it hit her that she had just invited this man into her life. He was the last person she needed filling space in her world, in her days.

  The horse tied in the center aisle of the barn stomped at flies and shook her head to show her displeasure with the wormer paste they’d pushed into her mouth. The tube said green apple. Jenna had no intentions of trying it, but she doubted it tasted anything like an apple. She patted the horse’s golden palomino rump and walked around to her side, the injection ready with the animal’s immunizations. Clint stood to the side. He and Willow had come home early and he’d surprised Jenna by showing up this morning to help with the horses.

  “Why are you so quiet today?” Clint slipped the file back into the box of supplies he’d brought in. This horse’s hooves hadn’t needed trimming, which meant he had just stood back and watched as Jenna did what she needed to do.

  And now she wished she had more to do so she could ignore his question. He knew her far too well.

  “I’m not quiet.”

  “Yes, you are. Normally when we get home from a trip you have a million questions. ‘How did Jason do this week?’ He did
great, by the way. Got tossed on his head.”

  She looked up. Leaning against the horse’s back, watching from the opposite side of Clint. “Is he okay?”

  Jason was one of her best friends. She sometimes regretted that they’d never really felt anything more than friendship. He’d make a great husband for someone. He was kind, funny, wealthy. And not the guy for her.

  “He’s fine. And Dolly has gone ten outs without being ridden.”

  “That’s great. I bet Willow is proud.”

  “She is. They’re considering him for the finals at the end of the year.”

  “Great.”

  “And then we flew home in the pickup.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “And you’re not listening to me.”

  Jenna stared out the door at the boys, watching them play in the grassy area near the barn. The dog was sitting nearby, watching, the way he watched cattle in the field. If he had to, he’d round the boys up and drive them to her. They loved it when he did that. Sometimes they wandered away from her just to see if the dog would circle and move them back to Jenna. The nature of a cow dog was to herd. Jenna was glad she’d brought home the black-and-white border collie. It had been a cute, fluffy puppy, and was now a great dog.

  “Jenna, is everything okay?”

  “Of course it is. I’m just tired.” She smiled back at her brother. “Let’s get this horse out of here and bring Jinx in.”

  “Who is that?” Clint walked to the door as the low rumble of an engine and crunch of tires on gravel gave an advance warning that they had company. And then the dog barked.

  Dog. She really needed to name that poor animal. It was probably too late. The boys called him Puppy and Jenna called him Dog. He came to either name so it seemed wrong to call him something like Fluffy or Blue.

  “I don’t know.” Jenna tossed the used needle into the trash.

  “Big, blue truck.”

  She groaned and Clint shot her a look. “You know who it is? Did you sell that roan gelding?”

  “Jenna?”

  “It’s Adam Mackenzie.” She untied the horse, rubbing her neck. “Come on, girl.”

  “That’s it? Adam Mackenzie is pulling up to the barn and you act like you expected him?”

  “He’s the mystery owner of the camp.”

  “Adam is building a youth camp?” Clint followed her to the barn door with the mare. “The mystery deepens.”

  Jenna laughed. “It isn’t a mystery. Billy was his cousin and he convinced Adam to buy the land and start this camp.”

  “Sis, you know he’s trouble, right?”

  “I don’t think he’s trouble. I think he’s confused.”

  Clint shook his head. “Remember when you thought a baby skunk would be a good pet because it didn’t spray you?”

  “I remember.”

  She laughed at the memory. Because eventually the skunk did spray her. She gave it to a zoo and missed school for a week. She really did learn by her mistakes. Sometimes it just took a few tries before the lesson sank in.

  Men were included in the list of mistakes she’d learned her lesson from. The father of her boys had walked out on her. He went back to California, and she let him go because she knew she couldn’t force him to stay and love them. The soldier she’d fallen in love with, he’d written her a Dear Jane letter after her surgery.

  She would never again own a pet skunk. She would never again fall for a pretty face and perfect words. She had a five-year plan that didn’t include falling in love.

  “He’s getting out of his truck,” Clint warned as he took the halter off the mare and slapped her rump to send her back to the field with the rest of the horses.

  Jenna nodded. “He wants to talk to you about buying horses. And since he’s here to see you, I’m going to the house.”

  “Are you running?” Clint followed her to the front of the barn. And the twins were no longer sitting in the grassy area with their toy cars.

  “Nope, just leaving.”

  “Are you afraid of him?” Clint caught hold of her arm. “Jenna, did he say something to you?”

  “No, and I’m not afraid.” Much. “I have to check on the boys. They’ve abandoned the road they were building for their toy trucks. I need to see where they went.”

  “That’s because they’re showing Adam something.” He nodded in the direction of the blue truck that was parked a short distance from her house.

  “Great.” She watched the boys open their hands. Two blond-headed miniatures with sneaky grins on their faces, and dirt. They needed baths.

  The giant in front of them jumped back from their open hands, either feigning fear or truly afraid. The boys laughed, belly laughs, and then they ran off.

  Adam Mackenzie turned toward the barn, his smile a little frazzled. He wasn’t used to kids. She had to give him points for trying. And she wasn’t going to escape because he was heading their way.

  Who could escape that moment when they felt as if their insides had jelled and their breath caught somewhere midway between lungs and heart?

  All due to a cowboy in faded jeans and a T-shirt. Not a cowboy, she reminded herself. A football player with a life so far removed from this small community that she couldn’t imagine what it was like to live in his world.

  “Adam.” She greeted him with a wavering smile.

  “Jenna.” He held his hand out to her brother, his white hat tipped down, shading the smooth planes of his suntanned face. “Clint Cameron. I haven’t seen you since we played against each other our senior year.”

  “Fifteen years.” Clint shook Adam’s hand. Jenna waited, wondering what came next. “Jenna said you’re back to take care of the youth camp.”

  This time Adam smiled at her, that slightly boyish yet wicked grin that made his blue eyes dance. “Yeah, something like that. It looks as if I’m in charge, and I need horses. Maybe a dozen or so, with tack.”

  “Got it. I think I can round them up. It might take a few weeks.”

  “I don’t have a few weeks.” The edge was back in this voice.

  Jenna looked up. She watched as her brother considered the words of the other man. And she made a way to escape.

  “I need to get supper started. I’ll let the two of you take care of business.”

  Chapter Four

  Adam watched Jenna go, surprised that she was leaving. Let down? No, of course not. He wanted space, time out from relationships. He wasn’t let down by her walking away.

  He was surprised, and a little bruised by her lack of interest. Typically she was the kind of woman he ran from. The kind that was looking for a husband and a father to her kids. She didn’t seem to be looking, though.

  Horses. Clint’s one word brought Adam back to his surroundings, and his gaze shifted back to the man standing in front of him, away from the retreating back of a cowgirl.

  “A dozen, at least.” He followed Clint into the barn. “She runs this place by herself?”

  “She does.”

  “Impressive.”

  Clint shrugged and walked into the tack room. He hung up halters and lead ropes that were tossed on a shelf. “She’s always been strong.”

  “It has to be tough, raising two boys alone.”

  “It is, but she has family and friends who help.”

  Adam picked up a currycomb and ran the sharp metal over his hand. “High school was a long time ago, Clint. If you’re still holding a grudge about Amy, I’m sorry. I didn’t know she was playing a game with the two of us.”

  Clint turned, smiling in a way that felt a lot like a warning snarl from a dog. “Amy is fifteen years of water under the bridge and I have no regrets. I have a wife that I love and a baby that we adopted a few months ago. My concern now is for my sister.”

  “You don’t have to be concerned on my account. I’m here to get this camp mess cleared up, and then I’ll be leaving. I’m not here looking for a relationship.”

  Clint shook his head and walked out of the r
oom, switching the light off as he went, leaving Adam with just the light from outside. When he stepped out of the tack room, Clint was waiting.

  “Adam, Jenna’s an adult. She’s also my sister. Don’t use her. Don’t mislead her. Don’t hurt her.”

  “She’s not a kid.”

  Clint took a step closer. “She’s my kid sister.”

  Adam lifted his hands in surrender. “I don’t plan on hurting your sister. I don’t plan on getting involved with her at all. She’s offered to help me get this camp off the ground so I can leave. Believe me, my only goal is to get this done and get out of Oklahoma.”

  “Okay, as long as we understand each other.” Clint grabbed a box and walked out of the barn. “I’ll get back to you on the horses.”

  “Thanks.” Adam watched Clint Cameron drive away and then he turned toward the two-story farmhouse, a small square of a house with a steep, pitched roof. The boys were playing in the front yard and a sprinkler sprayed a small patch of garden. The few trees were tall and branched out, shading the house, a few branches brushing the roof.

  The boys. He couldn’t remember their names, and he’d had dinner with them yesterday. He walked in the direction of the house, thinking about their names, and not thinking about why he was still here. Timmy and David. He remembered as he walked up to them.

  He smiled when the bigger boy looked up, a suspicious look on a dirt-smudged face and gray eyes like his uncle Clint’s. The little boy, wearing shorts, T-shirt and flip-flops, sat back on his heels. He picked up his toy soldiers and nudged his other brother.

  Adam knew their names, but couldn’t remember which was which. “One of you is Timmy, the other is David.”

  “I’m David.” The one who sucked his thumb. The little guy wouldn’t look up.

  “I’m Timmy.” The bolder of the two. “And we still don’t talk to strangers.”

  It was a long way down to the ground. Adam sighed and then he squatted. “I’m not really a stranger now. Aren’t we sort of friends?”

  David looked up, gray eyes curious. “Are you friends with my mom?”

  “I guess.”

  “Did you know her in the army?” The little guy pushed his soldiers through the dirt. “Were you there?”