Cowboy Summer

by Joanne Kennedy

The girl jerked her arm away as if Molly was threatening to haul her off to hell.

  “I can’t go with you. Jess hates me.”

  “You bet she does.” Molly took her arm again, and this time, there was no shaking her off. “And you’d better not go near her. Come with me.”

  Ignoring Cade’s confusion, she marched Amber Lynn back to the Cadillac and opened the driver’s side door. Obediently, Amber Lynn slipped behind the wheel. Slamming the door on her, Molly went to the passenger side and climbed in.

  “I won’t stay in some shack,” Amber Lynn said.

  “It’s no shack, but you’ll need to keep an open mind.”

  They watched Cade come out and pull his truck and trailer up to the barn. Once he went inside, Amber Lynn sniffed, wiped her nose, and backed out of the driveway.

  She followed Molly’s directions, turning toward town. They passed the WELCOME TO WYNOTT sign and the mini-mart before Molly told her to turn again.

  “Oh no.” Amber Lynn stopped the car in the middle of the road. “Not here.”

  There was a brief contest between Molly’s substitute-teacher glare and Amber Lynn’s best pout. Molly won.

  “It’s a trailer park,” Amber Lynn said. “I’ve never even visited here.”

  “It was my home most of my life,” Molly said, “so watch what you say.”

  Frowning, Amber Lynn followed the ribbon of blacktop that curved through the single-wides, braking for the speed bumps that foiled the muscle cars and four-wheelers parked at half the homes.

  The last corner lot held an older trailer, painted glossy white with pretty blue shutters. A blue-and-yellow plywood butterfly gave the siding a cheerful air, and the garden was bursting with salvia, lavender, and pink begonias.

  Amber Lynn pulled into the driveway and parked the car, then folded her arms over her chest and set her jaw.

  “If I live here, Mona wins,” she said. “Everyone will laugh at me.”

  “They won’t laugh, and Mona will lose, because she still won’t have a damn thing of her own. You’ll be the one with the job and the bank account. This wouldn’t be some man’s house. Your job would pay the rent, and it would be all yours. You won’t have to do some man’s bidding like she does.”

  Amber Lynn tilted her chin up. “You have to do Heck’s bidding.”

  “No, I don’t. I had my own life and my own home, so I held out for a man who does mine.” She gave Amber Lynn a considering look. “I suppose you have one other choice.”

  “Like what? A little apartment or a condo?”

  “Not exactly.” Molly did her best to keep a straight face. “I was thinking about that little park behind the bank. There’s a bench you could sleep on, and you could keep your stuff in a shopping cart from the Safeway. Wynott’s never had a homeless bag lady before, but there’s a first time for everything, right?”

  Amber Lynn scowled. “I guess I could look at this place.” Exiting the car, she tilted her nose up in the air. “It’ll be good for me to see how the other half lives.”

  “Honey, right now, you are the other half. You can either accept that or earn your way out.”

  Chapter 26

  After finding Amber Lynn in Cade’s bed, Jess was tempted to spend the day barricaded in her room, eating cookies and watching bad daytime TV while she cried her eyes out, but the thought of the suffering calves forced her to cut her one-woman pity party short. She and Cade had planned to drench the rest of them today, but Cade was obviously busy. She might be hurt by that, but her problems didn’t outweigh their furry little lives.

  After splashing cold water on her face and finger combing her hair, she headed out to the barn and saddled Buster. She considered putting him in a trailer and hauling him partway, but riding would give her time to cool down and stop crying.

  As they topped the rise that bordered the north pasture, she spotted a rider already at work. He had a calf down and was working over it while his horse held the rope taut.

  Jess longed to kick Buster into a pounding lope and bear down on the interloper, but again, the calves’ needs trumped her own. So she walked her horse down the hill and waited a short distance away until Cade—because of course it was Cade—had finished and released the calf.

  He looked up at her and grinned as if nothing had happened. “One down.”

  She looked down at him, glad she was high in the saddle while he was on foot and glad the brief waiting period had given her rage time to simmer down to a low boil.

  She didn’t need to get emotional about this. Cade had killed what they’d had together. It was over, and she needed to be practical now.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What I told you I’d do. Getting the rest of the calves taken care of.”

  He sounded so normal. As if she hadn’t found his ex-wife in his bed this very morning. As if he hadn’t led her on, acting like she was so dang precious, while all the time, he was hiding Amber Lynn at home. She didn’t even know what to say, so she just looked at him, her stomach burning, her heart pounding while she searched for words that fit the situation.

  There weren’t any.

  She nudged Buster into taking a step forward. “You need to go home.”

  He sighed like she was being unreasonable. “Look, Jess, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Amber Lynn was staying at the house. Nothing happened between us, but I should have told you she was there.”

  “Told me? So you’re not sorry she was there? It wouldn’t have made any difference if you told me or not. Facts are facts.”

  “Then let me tell you what the facts are, okay?” His tone was so mild and reasonable, she wanted to scream. “She needed help. That’s all. Nothing was going on.”

  “Then why’d you keep it a secret?” The tears were gone. Jess’s rage had turned to a cold, hard layer of anger that froze her feelings and let her face Cade’s lying eyes without blinking.

  “Look, I apologized for the secret.” Cade stood with his feet apart, arms crossed over his chest. His brows arrowed down, and Jess realized he was getting mad. “But all I was doing was helping someone who needed a place to stay. I couldn’t tell you because—well, because I knew you’d act like this.”

  “How am I acting? Mad? Upset? Betrayed? Because that’s how I feel.”

  “Okay. I can understand that.” All the fight drained out of him, and he stared down at the saddle horn, avoiding her gaze. “Look, I’ll take care of the calves, okay? There aren’t many left, and it won’t take long.”

  She started to protest.

  “Let me do it for Heck.”

  “All right.”

  She turned Buster toward home, wondering where her tears had gone. She felt so cold, so dead inside. Maybe she should go home and put her original plan into practice.

  She should call the real estate agent, but the bedroom, the cookies, and the daytime TV were calling her name. If she could immerse herself in the unlikely plot of some soap opera, maybe she wouldn’t have to think about Cade Walker, the ranch, or her future at all.

  * * *

  The coldness that coated Jess’s heart only hardened on the long ride home, but that wasn’t such a bad thing. She realized she needed to get down to business, not waste her time feeling sorry for herself, so once she’d taken care of Buster, she fired up her laptop and dove into Google. She’d heard about a farm and ranch specialist in Grigsby who’d sold a neighbor’s place for major money.

  Val Hadley. That was the one.

  She picked up the phone and dialed.

  “The Bailey place?” The agent sounded thrilled. “That’s the Diamond Jack, right? You’re selling?”

  “Yes.” Jess’s throat swelled nearly shut as feelings welled up inside again. She needed to have fewer feelings, or smaller ones, or something. These big ones were practically making her sick.

  “
Well, thanks,” the agent said. “I’ll be right there.”

  “What, now?”

  “You want to get it on the market, right? Let’s get this party started.”

  It sure didn’t feel like a party to Jess, but maybe she should get this over with.

  “See you in forty minutes,” the agent said.

  Hanging up the phone, Jess felt her self-esteem tick up a notch. She was doing the right thing in spite of her own needs. Sure, she was gritting her teeth so hard her ears rang. But she was doing her very best to be selfless and look after her dad.

  She hoped he’d notice, and Molly. Cade, too. She hoped he’d choke on it—him and his floozy of a wife. Or ex-wife. Or, if you believed him, his roommate.

  She huffed out a little laugh. No woman she’d ever known would trust a man who let his ex stay overnight.

  Yeah, but it’s Cade. He’s different.

  Nope. Men are men. Don’t be an idiot.

  Jess looked around the kitchen, seeing the house through a stranger’s eyes. Bills from the feed store, the electric cooperative, and the farrier were stacked on the counter. Livestock magazines bearing pictures of Hereford cows were stacked on the table, and her dad had left notes, scribbled on various bits of paper, on every horizontal surface.

  She’d come home to clean up the place, and instead, she’d been gallivanting with the boy next door—while he’d been gallivanting with someone else. So that had been a waste of time, and she had work to do.

  She was mopping the front hall when a black Mercedes SUV pulled up next to the barn. The door opened, and a small, slim foot clad in a stiletto heel prodded the earth as if it possessed a blind intelligence of its own. It was followed by an almost child-sized woman who unfolded her angular limbs from the car like a praying mantis emerging from a shiny black egg.

  When Val Hadley stood to her full height, she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. Her skin was the not-quite-real tan so popular in cities, her figure fit and trim. Honey-blond hair framed her face in two perfect curves like matching scythes, and she wore dramatic cat’s-eye makeup. Glossy lipstick completed the look, emphasizing a sexy pout. She looked more like a movie star than a farm and ranch specialist.

  Suddenly, Jess was painfully aware of the rusted hubcaps and broken wagon wheels that leaned against collapsing outbuildings, the broken-down machinery that crouched by the corral, and the generally unkempt air of the place. Since grass struggled to grow in the dry Wyoming summer, the lawn wasn’t mowed more than twice a year, but it was late in the season, and the place looked weedy and neglected.

  She’d change all that, make the place shine so they could get a good price for Heck and Molly so she could go back to Denver, get back to work.

  She closed her eyes a moment and thought of ocean waves crashing on a white sand beach. Hawaii was still the best-case scenario for her future. She needed to get everything settled fast and get back to work before her boss forgot who she was.

  Shoving one of her dad’s little notebooks in her pocket, she strode out to greet her guest.

  “Val Hadley.” The agent thrust out a manicured hand. “Sorry I’m late, but I got mixed up and stopped at the place next door. Caught some cowboy changing clothes, and I have to admit I enjoyed it.” Her grin was so frankly lascivious that Jess almost liked her. “Who is that guy?”

  “Cade Walker.” Jess shook the proffered hand. “Our neighbor.”

  “He said he was a friend of the family.” Val’s high voice and shotgun delivery made it sound like she’d inhaled a helium balloon.

  “He is, I guess. He and my dad are pretty close.”

  “If I were you, I’d get close to him, too.”

  “I was.” Jess shoved her hands in her pockets and stared at the ground. “Once.”

  “Okay.” Val cleared her throat. “Let’s get to work. Buyers for this sort of property are looking for a certain look. Rustic, but not dirty.” She glanced around, and a little line formed between her eyebrows. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. It just has to feel that way. And it needs to be on trend. For starters, that sign?” She pointed to the DIAMOND JACK sign at the foot of the drive. “That’s got to go.”

  Jess scowled. Her brother had been a kid when he’d painted that sign. Sure, it looked a little amateurish, and the plywood layers were peeling. You could barely read it, but it belonged there.

  Sighing, she whipped out her notebook and wrote “sign.” She’d list what Val wanted and make her own decisions later.

  “And those sconces by the door,” Val said. “That shiny brass is out. Folks like the rubbed bronze look these days.” She gave Jess a slit-eyed smile. “You don’t have to buy new. Just spray-paint them.”

  “Isn’t that dishonest?”

  “This is business, honey, not Girl Scouts. Besides, you won’t feel bad once you see the kind of folks who buy these places.” She wrinkled her nose like something smelled bad. “Most rich folks are about as phony as spray paint themselves.”

  Looking at the woman’s obvious spray tan, Jess wondered if she’d called the right agent.

  “We were hoping to sell to a real rancher.”

  “Yeah, right. I got to tell you, that’s not likely, and I know what I’m talking about.” She canted one hip and set her fists on her hips, allowing an unmistakable air of cowgirl sass to shine through the perfect hair and sophisticated makeup. “My father was the fourth generation to ranch our place in Nebraska. I know my business, but I know ranching better, and buying a place like this isn’t in most folk’s budgets.”

  Jess nodded, swallowing. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “Now, this house.” Val considered the place a moment. “It’s sure…interesting.”

  Jess sighed. The crazy, cobbled-together look of the place wouldn’t appeal to everyone, and when she remembered all the repairs her dad hadn’t done, she wondered if they’d ever manage to sell it.

  “Hey, some buyers like character.” Val tapped one high-heeled foot and frowned. “Let’s start in the barn.”

  As they walked, Jess asked, “You don’t have buyers who’d want to work the ranch?”

  “Oh, they’ll say they want to work it. And maybe they do, at the start. But they overestimate their abilities. Since they’re rich, they think they’re good at everything, so they don’t ask for help until they’ve gotten themselves in trouble. Then they pay somebody to haul ’em out of the hole they dug.” She sighed. “Clients looking for ranch property these days only wear cowboy boots for show. They want to play cowboy, not be one.”

  As they entered the barn, Jess glanced back at the house where she’d grown up, the land she’d loved all her life. The red dirt driveway wound into the distance, reminding her she had to leave, drive off into an unknown future. At its foot, the dyspeptic jack of diamonds her brother had painted on the ranch sign stared unseeing toward the horizon, his worn brow furrowed, his painted hands clenched as if he knew his days were numbered.

  Chapter 27

  Unlocking the front door of her trailer, Molly turned to Amber Lynn.

  “This was my home for most of my life, and I loved it. You know why?”

  Amber Lynn shook her head.

  “Because it was mine,” Molly said. “Nobody could tell me what to do or how to live my life.”

  “I guess.” Amber Lynn sounded doubtful. “It’s just that I’m used to my dad telling me…” She didn’t have to finish the sentence. The poor thing was so used to having men run her life that she couldn’t make her own decisions.

  The interior of the trailer was dark, but Molly moved quickly to open curtains. Amber Lynn stood poised on the doormat as if ready to run, but as daylight revealed more and more of the room, she slowly relaxed. The overstuffed sofa had chintz upholstery, the china cabinet was full of pretty dishes, and the tidy kitchen had faux marble counters. A silk flower arrangement st
ood on a neat round table in front of the bay window.

  Amber Lynn turned in a slow circle.

  “This is nice.” She sounded dazed. “I didn’t know a trailer could be like this.”

  Molly led her through the living room, flicking a button on the stereo and filling the place with the mellow voice of Frank Sinatra. Opening the bedroom door, she revealed a queen-sized bed covered with a frothy, lace-edged duvet. Pillows lay in flowery abundance against the headboard.

  “Wow.” Amber Lynn’s eyes were wide. “This is so much nicer than Cade’s place.”

  She inspected a graceful antique dresser, then wandered into the hall and flicked on the light in the bathroom, revealing the oval tub Molly had blown a month’s salary on. Bottles of fancy bubble bath lined the edge, along with an assortment of scented candles.

  “This looks like heaven.”

  “It is, after a long day’s work.” Molly smiled. “You want to know a secret?”

  Amber Lynn turned quickly, her eyes bright, and licked her lips like a greedy child who’d just been offered ice cream. Secrets were currency to people like Amber Lynn. Molly needed to be careful, but a little truth telling might help the girl change her life.

  “Sometimes I miss it,” she said. “I love my husband and my new life, but it’s nice to have a place that’s all your own.”

  “I’ve never lived by myself.” Amber Lynn spoke slowly, her eyes drinking in the little luxuries all around her. “I moved straight from Daddy’s house to Cade’s, and then—well, then I had another, um, friend I lived with.” She looked down, suddenly shy. “That was a mistake.”

  “That’s the good thing about living alone.” Molly led her back to the living room, where they sat on the sofa. “You don’t make those mistakes. You don’t have to, because you can take care of yourself.”

  “But you’re married now. Why do you still have this?”

  “I can’t bring myself to sell it,” Molly said. “I’m so used to having my own home, and it’s not easy, trusting a man. But it’s time for me to move on and rent it out.”