The Cowboy and the Princess

by Lori Wilde

  Her face was round, her jaw soft, and her eyes skeptical. She stood up from behind a desk constructed of a piece of plywood balanced atop gray filing cabinets. There were two plastic chairs in front of the desk. One piled high with papers. Files and file boxes stacked everywhere. An aged computer with a hulking old monitor monopolized the desk. On the wall behind her was a large domestic abuse poster with the picture of a sad-eyed boy clinging to the hand of a bruised, haggard woman. A spiny cactus in a small orange clay pot sat on the windowsill.

  The whole thing made Brady want to turn and run, but then he thought of the child.

  His daughter.

  No sense getting all mushy until you know for sure. Keep it together, Talmadge. This is a fact-finding mission, nothing more. No freaking out. Not yet, not yet. You’re fine. Cool. Charm her with a hundred-watt smile. You know how.

  But the smile froze on his face and his tongue knotted.

  The caseworker lumbered from behind her desk and moved the papers off the second chair. She waved at the chairs, pushed her glasses up on her nose, then as an afterthought, offered her hand. “I’m Mary Jameson.”

  “Brady Talmadge,” he finally managed and shook her hand. She had a drill sergeant grip.

  “Have a seat,” she ordered.

  Feeling like he was a kid who’d been sent to the principal’s office for shooting spit-wads in class, Brady sat.

  Mary Jameson glanced at her office door. “Do you have anyone with you?”

  “No,” he said, as alone as he’d been that long-ago night when he ran away from home. “It’s just me.”

  The caseworker resumed her seat behind the desk. “It took you quite some time to answer my letter.”

  “I was on the road. My address in Jubilee is just a post office box.”

  She picked up a pen, clicked it, and held her hand poised over a yellow legal pad. “Where is your permanent residence, Mr. Talmadge?”

  “I don’t have a permanent address. I live in my horse trailer.” The minute he said it, he realized how it sounded. Like he was a bum. He was just being truthful. He should have lied. Or fudged the truth. Or at least tried to put a positive spin on it. But Brady wasn’t built that way. Honest to a fault.

  “I see.” Her tone could have frosted a four-layer cake.

  “It’s a nice trailer. It’s got a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom. Even a small sitting area.” Why was he yammering about that? Shut up. Shut up.

  “You’re itinerant.” She clicked her pen again.

  “My job requires constant travel.”

  She scribbled something on a yellow legal pad with a blue roller ball pen. He had a feeling it was less than complimentary. “And who is your employer?”

  “I’m self-employed.”

  Her lip turned up as if she smelled stinky feet. “What do you do for a living?”

  “I rehabilitate horses. With a specialization in cutting horses.”

  “I assume that brings you to Jubilee quite often.”

  “Yes.”

  She tapped her pen against her desk. “Well, we can discuss all that in a moment. Before we go any further we need to establish that you knew Kelly Renee Deavers.”

  “We had a short relationship, yes.”

  “A one-night stand?”

  He saw judgment in Mary Jameson’s eyes. “The relationship stretched over a couple of weekends I was in the area.”

  “So there is a distinct possibility this baby could indeed be yours.”

  “That’s why I’m here.” Brady cleared his throat. “Once, the condom broke.”

  “And after you left town, you never thought to call Ms. Deavers? To check on her? See what might have been the outcome of that broken condom?”

  He had not. Kelly had assured him she was on the pill. “I didn’t,” he admitted.

  “Because you assume no responsibility for your life, you go around from town to town planting your seed—” The woman broke off, pursed her lips, and knitted her brow.

  “I’m sorry. That was out of line. It’s just that I witness this kind of irresponsible behavior day in and day out and sometimes it just gets to me. When I see these unwanted kids, thrown away, abandoned, dumped on society to raise . . .” She blew out a deep breath. “So many of them are lost forever.”

  “I am here to make amends,” Brady said, feeling as if he’d swallowed a volleyball. “If the child is mine, I want her.”

  “Do you really?”

  “Yes.” He fisted his hand, surprised by the vehemence in his voice and the softness in his heart. “How did you find me?”

  “A bartender at the nightclub where Ms. Deavers worked said that she told him that you were the baby’s father. He did admit that Ms. Deavers had had numerous lovers, so I’ve been trying to contact those men as well.”

  Brady felt like a mule was sitting on his chest. “What happened to Kelly? How did the baby end up with CPS?”

  “She suffered severe postpartum depression and did not seek help.” Mary Jameson’s eyes were accusatory. “Miss Deavers took her own life.”

  Uncomprehending, he blinked. “She committed suicide?”

  “Pills.”

  Funny, wild, warmhearted Kelly had intentionally overdosed on pills? Shock pressed in on him, weighing down his heart, lungs, belly. “I didn’t know.”

  “Why would you? Apparently you were just her sex buddy with a faulty condom.”

  He hadn’t been there for Kelly. She had been alone and suffering and she’d taken the only way out she could find. “I . . . I didn’t know,” he echoed, stupidly, uselessly.

  Silence descended over the office.

  The caseworker studied him and he was surprised to find a tinge of compassion in her eyes. “This must be difficult for you.”

  “I . . . can’t really process it. Kelly’s gone?”

  “She is.”

  Brady sank his head in his hands.

  “You better start trying to pull it together if you’re serious about taking responsibility for your actions.” Mary Jameson’s brief moment of compassion had passed.

  Brady straightened. “Where is the baby?”

  “The child has been in foster care for the past two months.”

  His chest tightened. He could hardly catch his breath. He had a baby. He had to focus on that. “How old is she?”

  “Three months old.”

  Three months. He’d missed the first three months of her life. Brady never imagined anything could hurt like this. A floodgate of emotions overwhelmed him—fear, joy, remorse, guilt. “What’s her name?”

  “Orchid.”

  “That was Kelly’s favorite flower,” he mumbled.

  “At least you knew that much about her,” the caseworker wasn’t even trying to hide her disdain any longer.

  He supposed he deserved it. In Mary’s mind he was no different from any other deadbeat dad. “I’m just human,” he said, and spread out his hands. “But I’m not the kind of man who abandons his responsibilities.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Mary Jameson’s voice softened. “We must establish paternity first.”

  “Let’s do the paternity test. Bring it on.”

  “You can go across the street to the lab as soon as we’re done here.”

  “How long does it take to get the results?”

  “Usually three to ten days. We can ask for it to be expedited, so that you don’t have to be inconvenienced any longer than necessary if the child is not yours.”

  “I do want her,” he reiterated. “If she is mine.”

  “I am pleased to hear you say that, Mr. Talmadge, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be that simple.”

  Alarmed, Brady clenched his hands. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re going to have to prove to me that you deserve this little girl.”

  “What?” He gulped, outraged, and yet at the same time, he understood exactly what Mary Jameson was saying. Who was he to be a father? He had no credentials. No experience. No
thing to deem himself worthy to handle responsibility of this magnitude.

  “If you turn out to be this child’s father, you are going to have to do a lot of changing before you get full custody.” Mary Jameson leaned across her desk and ticked off her conditions on her fingers. “One, you’re going to have to provide a permanent residence. I cannot release her to a man who travels from town to town. A horse trailer is not a proper environment for a child to grow up in.”

  His nomadic lifestyle, the way of life that had been his salvation, was now coming back to bite him in the ass. “Okay,” he agreed without hesitating.

  “Two, you’re going to have to get a real job. No more of this vagabond, spotty employment stuff.”

  “My employment isn’t spotty.” No, but the payment sometimes was spotty as with anyone who ran their own business. It was okay for him to weather the dry spells subsisting on peanut butter and crackers, but kids had needs. Expensive needs. Yes, he had some savings, he didn’t have expensive needs and socked away a big chunk of his salary, but it was tied up in a 401(k).

  “Don’t argue with me,” the woman snapped. “Regular employment.”

  Brady raised a palm. “Okay, all right. I’ll do it. I’ll rent a house, get a regular job.”

  “That’s not all.” She ticked off the third condition. “You’re going to have to have a support system if you want anything more than supervised visitation.”

  “Support system. What does that mean?”

  “Do you have friends and family who can help you with child care? Who will be there to support you emotionally? Because believe me, you will need support. Single parenthood is the toughest thing you’ll ever undertake. Do you have someone that can provide your daughter with a positive female role model? A mother? A sister? A girlfriend? A fiancée? A wife? Any kind of stable relationship? Because if the answer is no, then you better start building long-term relationships and building them quick.”

  Annie worried.

  That morning, Brady had gone to see Mary Jameson and he hadn’t called her. He’d promised to call her as soon as he found something out. He’d been gone hours. He hadn’t called and Annie was worried. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through, but it had to be life changing.

  Why do you care? It is not as if you had a future with this man. Still, she could not help feeling melancholic.

  “Where is your head today?” Mariah asked kindly, putting a hand on Annie’s shoulder. “I just called your name three times. Daydreaming about that handsome cowboy of yours?”

  Annie sat in front of the computer at The Bride Wore Cowboy Boots, arranging the seating chart for an upcoming wedding reception. Prissy was in the back, stocking the supply room. Seating arrangements were tricky when the bride or groom’s parents were divorced and feuding. In this case, it was both the bride’s and the groom’s parents. Given all the hostility brewing, Annie had her doubts whether this marriage could go the distance.

  Oh well, you won’t be here to see it anyway.

  “Please forgive my inattention,” Annie apologized.

  Mariah winked, leaned against the counter with her arms folded over her chest. “Hey, I know what it’s like to be in love.”

  She was not in love. She liked Brady. Yes. She liked him a lot. He was a nice guy and a good friend. And he was sexy. So very sexy, but that was not love. That was like and sexual attraction and friendship and . . . All right, so she was enamored, but that wasn’t the same thing as love. Right? Just because her heart skipped a beat when Brady walked into the room, it might not be anything more than her hormones calling to his and vice versa. They had chemistry. That was a given.

  “I’m not in—”

  The door opened, interrupting Annie in mid-denial. Melinda Messing walked over the threshold followed by a lanky man with a ponytail and a big professional digital camera hung around his neck.

  Mariah spun away from the counter and hurried to meet the woman, hand outstretched. “Good to see you again, Mrs. Messing.”

  Annie stood, straightened. They had not heard from Mrs. Messing since the day she had shown her around the ranch and Annie couldn’t help feeling that she had somehow made a misstep with the wealthy woman.

  “I’m back,” Melinda Messing said.

  “We’re so happy.” Mariah pumped her hand. “Welcome, welcome.”

  “Hello again.” Mrs. Messing smiled at Annie.

  Out of habit, Annie gave her a regal wave, rather than the local five-finger wiggle. “Good afternoon.”

  Melinda Messing was dressed in Ralph Lauren today. Tailored white blouse, starched dark wash jeans, Jimmy Choo kitten heels.

  “Mrs. Messing,” Mariah exclaimed. “It’s good to see you. How may I help you?”

  “Congratulations,” Melinda Messing told Mariah. “The Bride Wore Cowboy Boots is on our shortlist.”

  “What can we do to convince you that we’re the right wedding planning service for you?” Mariah asked.

  Melinda Messing’s eyes met Annie’s, but it was to Mariah that she said, “You would become the front-runner if you could convince your assistant to pose as Princess Annabella Farrington and host a Victorian-era high tea for the wedding reception.”

  “What?” Mariah frowned.

  Annie pulled a hard breath of air down deep into her lungs, curled her hands into soft fists. Had Melinda Messing somehow put two and two together and figured out that she actually was Princess Annabella? Was her whole wonderful charade about to end?

  Melinda Messing broke into a wide smile. It was the first time Annie had seen a genuine smile on the woman’s face. “Peyton and I have reached an agreement. I’ll concede to the cowboy wedding shenanigans if she’ll agree to make the reception a high tea. It was easy to convince her when she heard you have a Princess Annabella look-alike working for you.”

  “What?” Mariah repeated, slanting an odd look in Annie’s direction.

  “You’re right,” the photographer put in, saying something for the first time. “She could be Princess Annabella’s twin sister.”

  “Really?” Mariah narrowed her eyes. “I don’t see it.”

  Feeling like a bug under a microscope, Annie shifted her weight from foot to foot and forced a pleasant smile.

  “Peyton adores Princess Annabella and this way we’ll at least have something classy and elegant for my friends and family to enjoy.”

  Annie did not know how classy hiring a fake princess was, but it did not sound particularly patrician to her.

  “So let me see if I understand this correctly,” Mariah said. “Instead of the traditional wedding reception, you want an elaborate tea instead.”

  “Not just any tea, but a high tea.” Melinda Messing raised her eyebrows when she said the word “high.” “We’ll have to schedule it for the official tea time. Four in the afternoon.”

  “Then you mean low tea.” If there was one thing Annie knew, it was tea ceremony. Ten percent of her princess duties entailed going to or hosting charity teas.

  “Oh, no, no.” Melinda Messing looked at her as if she was an uneducated hick. “I mean high tea.”

  “Then you’ll want tea service at six or seven P.M.”

  “Official tea time is at four P.M.,” Melinda Messing insisted.

  “For low tea, yes.”

  “That’s incorrect.”

  “Low tea is traditionally held at four P.M.,” Annie explained patiently. She probably should have let it go, but of tea she was certain. “In Victorian times, the upper crust took their tea at four P.M. High tea was in the evening for the workers when they came home from the factories and fields. Heartier fare is served for high tea because it combines low tea and dinner into one meal.”

  “You have your facts wrong,” Melinda Messing argued. “High tea is for royalty. Low tea is for the lower classes.”

  “Nope,” Prissy said cheerfully. “Just Googled it on my smart phone. Annie’s right. Low tea is the elaborate tea ceremony. High tea is just a fancy way of saying early su
pper with tea service.”

  “That can’t be right.”

  “Check it out.” Prissy passed Melinda Messing her iPhone. To Annie, she leaned down to whisper, “Girl, where did you learn so much about flippin’ tea?”

  Mrs. Messing looked down her nose at the phone, used her fingers to make the font bigger. “Well,” she said. “So it is.”

  Annie waited for an apology.

  “Then low tea is what we want,” the snobbish woman said to Mariah.

  “Low tea it is,” Mariah said.

  Annie raised a hand. “Actually, if the tea ceremony is to be a substitute for the traditional reception, then perhaps you should consider making it high tea served later in the day. It’s at a more traditional time and you can serve heartier food.”

  “No.” Mrs. Messing shook her head. “The wedding day is going to be plain enough. We want to go all out with the tea.”

  “Because it’s all about the show,” Prissy put in.

  “Exactly.” Mrs. Messing passed the iPhone back to Prissy. “We won’t hold it in that horse barn either. There’s some lovely Victorian homes in this town, I’m sure you can find one that could host a tea-party wedding reception.”

  “That can be arranged.” Mariah nodded.

  Melinda Messing clasped her hands together like a prizefighter who had just won the bout. “Excellent. Now let’s talk menu. We want this as authentic as possible. Have any of you ever been to a Victorian high . . . er . . . low tea?”

  Annie and the cameraman both raised their hands.

  Everyone turned to stare at the cameraman.

  “What?” He shrugged. “I like tea.”

  “Linen tablecloths and tea napkins are a must. We’ll need china and silver service for a hundred.” Melinda Messing paused, stroked her chin, and rolled her eyes upward as if searching her memory for the details of teas she’d attended.

  “You’ll have a hundred guests?” Mariah blinked.

  “Yes, we’re keeping it small.”

  “Small?” Prissy muttered just loud enough for Annie to hear. “I’d hate to see her idea of a big wedding.”

  “A hundred guests aren’t going to fit in a Victorian home,” Mariah pointed out.