Cowboys Don't Marry Their Enemy (Sweet Water Ranch Western Cowboy Romance Book 9)

by Jessie Gussman

  Cora waited until he looked back over at her. She wanted him to know she was being sincere. “It’s been worse the last few days. She doesn’t usually drink the hard liquor. But there are four cases of beer on the back porch, and she cracks a can at breakfast.”

  He jerked his chin up without saying anything.

  “I would call her a functional alcoholic. You can’t really tell she’s buzzed all day.” Cora looked down at her plate and drew her bacon through the glistening yellow of her broken yolk. “But that’s what she spends her money on. Rent and beer.”

  “Where are you at in this?” His face was impassive, serious.

  She lifted her chin. She wasn’t sure what his question was for, but she didn’t owe him her life history. “I make sure my kids stay out of it.”

  “You?” he asked again.

  Derrick appeared in the doorway. “Is he your new boyfriend, Mom?”

  Cora steeled herself. It was too early in the morning for her to deal with questions like that, even if it did keep her from having to answer Abner’s inquiry. Plus, she wanted to savor her bacon in peace.

  After one last glance that promised he wasn’t done with her, he rolled with the interruption. “I’ve been hearing a lot about this boyfriend job. What, exactly, does it entail? I might not want it.”

  Cora pressed her lips together and focused on feeding the baby.

  Derrick’s lips turned up, and he looked at Abner with renewed interest. “It’s not hard. You just sit in front of the TV and act like a jerk.”

  Abner stood. “Doesn’t sound like a job I’m interested in.”

  Cora bit the insides of her cheeks while her heart hurt. Did she do such an awful job of picking men?

  She knew she had. But she’d changed. She didn’t need a man. Didn’t want one, either. They only ended up making things worse.

  The baby was content, and Cora lifted a piece of bacon, perfectly crisp and with just the right whiff of honey and smoke, glistening with golden egg yolk on the end.

  “Is that bacon?” Derrick asked, stepping close, his eyes running the length of the piece of meat in her fingers.

  Her mouth had been producing saliva at flood stage. She swallowed and handed the piece across the table to Derrick without saying anything.

  He eyed the other piece on her plate. She kept a piece of bread for Claire and pushed the plate across the table.

  “Sit and eat,” she said, not even watching as he put the bacon in his mouth and pulled a chair.

  She didn’t look at Abner, either, as he walked to the stove.

  “Are your siblings up?” he asked Derrick.

  “Andrew and Summer are both coming down. They were fighting over who got the bathroom first.”

  “Thought I heard some scuffling up there,” Abner said casually, like kids fighting was an everyday occurrence for him.

  But it couldn’t be, since he’d said that he didn’t have any kids.

  “If you stay, are you going to cook us breakfast every morning?” Derrick asked around the partially chewed eggs and bacon in his mouth.

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Cora said automatically. It was a phrase she uttered at least fifteen times a day. Once per child per meal. Claire wasn’t old enough to be told.

  Derrick closed his mouth, but he didn’t stop staring at Abner’s back.

  Cora could hear something sizzling. Maybe he was cooking more eggs. She didn’t look.

  “I’m not staying.”

  She knew he wasn’t. Maybe none of them were. If Aunt Sandy finally did what she claimed to be doing, they were all going to find a new place to live. She didn’t burden Derrick with that knowledge.

  She also didn’t close her eyes and allow the odd curl of Abner’s words to soak through her. He’d always had that different note to his speech, probably from growing up with the Amish. Whatever it was, it was all his, and she’d loved it back in the day.

  Not anymore, of course.

  He set a plate down in front of her. Same as the one before. Eggs and toast and bacon. Steaming.

  She swallowed and inhaled.

  Old Cora would have invited him to move in on the spot. Even if she hated him, a man who cooked breakfast was a keeper in her book.

  But new Cora was pickier. She didn’t fall for a man just because he did one thing right. And his eggs over easy looked exactly right. Almost as right as the bacon smelled.

  She cut off a piece of the egg white, and Claire opened her mouth for it.

  Andrew appeared in the doorway. “Smells good.”

  He’d always been a little quieter.

  He looked around the kitchen. “Is this your new boyfriend, Mom?”

  Cora clenched her jaw. Her kids didn’t mean to embarrass her. They were only speaking from experience. They didn’t know she was determined to change.

  She forced a smile that felt more like wolf teeth and said, as casually as she could, “Nope.”

  Andrew moved to the table. “Is that bacon?”

  She pushed her plate across, watching the golden crispy pieces move away from her. She should have shoved them in her mouth as soon as Abner set the plate down.

  “Sit and eat.” She broke off another piece of toast for Claire.

  Summer appeared in the doorway as Abner set another plate down in front of her. He paused this time and seemed to watch as Summer rubbed her eyes, her blanket trailing on the ground but the corner held firmly in her left hand.

  “Come here, sweetie. Hop up in your chair.” She didn’t even look at the bacon as she passed her plate over.

  Abner was going to run out soon.

  He might as well make a plate for Kohlton because she could hear the steps creaking and little thumps as he jumped from one down to the next.

  Abner didn’t even bother setting the next plate in front of her.

  “Get up here and eat your breakfast, kiddo,” he said.

  Kohlton’s sleepy eyes widened, going from Abner to Cora, who nodded.

  “Does he live here now?” Kohlton asked as he climbed up on his chair.

  “No,” Cora said firmly. She wasn’t getting her kids’ hopes up. He might stay a few days, for the funeral and his mother, but he was leaving.

  Maybe her “no” was a little more bitter than it needed to be. She’d had at least eight pieces of bacon sitting in front of her, and she’d given them all away. No normal person would be happy about that, except it had been for her children, who were all happily eating. A sacrifice that was worth it.

  A plate clanked down beside her. It had golden yellow scrambled eggs on it.

  “Those are for the baby.”

  Another plate settled directly in front of her. “This is yours, and no one else eats any of it.”

  Two eggs and four pieces of bacon along with toast. Cora wanted to cry. Not one of the men she’d had here over the years had cooked breakfast. None.

  None had given a flip about kids that weren’t theirs, which had been the reason several of them had been kicked to the curb.

  And Abner was the only one who’d not only cooked but made sure she ate. And bought bacon.

  He sat down again in front of the plate he’d left when the kids started straggling in, stepping over Sporty, the neighbor’s dog who had wormed his way into the house. Again.

  Abner’s food had to be cold, but he picked up where he’d left off, the chatter of the kids not seeming to bother him.

  She wished he’d leave. It was hard to hold on to her hate when he was fixing stuff and feeding her kids and her.

  But she needed to keep a hold of it. If she didn’t, she’d forget her resolution of more than a year ago, after Luna’s and Claire’s father had left. Luna had been two months old. And Cora, not even knowing she’d been pregnant with Claire, had resolved, no more. No more men.

  “Where’s your car?” Andrew asked.

  “Drove my bike,” Abner answered easily, like he wasn’t offended that a preteen was interrogating him.

 
“You mean rode it,” Derrick said.

  Cora bit down on her crispy, perfect bacon, the smoky, salty taste exploding in her mouth, and tried to ignore the conversation. She also tried to not close her eyes while she chewed. It probably wasn’t becoming, let alone normal, to have such a reaction over bacon.

  “It’s a motorcycle. I drove it.” Abner’s food was almost gone. Even the eggs, which had to have been cold.

  “Where’s it at?” Andrew narrowed his eyes, like he thought Abner might be lying.

  “I parked it at the church. I’ll move it before the viewing tonight.” His head turned to Cora, and his eyes, unshadowed by a hat brim, caught her gaze. “Is that where the viewing is?”

  She looked down, not wanting to have even that much contact with him. She couldn’t be mean to him after he’d just cooked her entire family breakfast, but she could hug her hate tighter. He’d left her.

  Suddenly, she wasn’t sure she even wanted to finish the food on her plate.

  “Yes.”

  “What time?”

  “Seven to nine.”

  “Do we have to go?” Summer asked. Just like a little kid. She’d been the closest to Gram, but of course she didn’t want to have to get dressed up and sit quietly for two hours.

  “Yes.”

  Abner pinched his lips closed like he’d wanted to say more but wouldn’t in front of the kids.

  The kids argued about who would get to sit beside Cora at the viewing while Cora finished her food, not even enjoying it, ashamed of the way she’d treated him when he’d been so nice to her. No matter how good she thought her reasoning was, it wasn’t right to act the way she had.

  Eventually, she wiped faces and fingers and sent the older kids up to get dressed.

  She had cleared the table and was wiping Luna’s face and fingers when Abner said, from the stove where he was cleaning up, “Seems like the kids are used to a parade of boyfriends coming in and out.”

  Anger made her arms tense and tingle. How dare he judge her? He’d left. She set Luna down before she allowed any words out from between her clenched teeth. Trying to remember that he’d been nicer to her than anyone had in a while, she was only partially successful in modulating her voice. “What I do, or have done, is none of your business.”

  He didn’t turn around, but his hand stopped scrubbing for a few moments. It started up again, harder and faster.

  But he was quiet, so she assumed he agreed with her. But she couldn’t stop the guilt that tightened her throat.

  “If you leave your clothes in the bathroom, I’ll make sure they get washed.” It was the least she could do.

  “Thanks.”

  Something told her he was more than capable of washing his own clothes, but she was more than capable of cooking breakfast, too.

  She hadn’t gotten Claire out of the highchair when there was a pounding at the door.

  Visitors from church, probably, at this hour in the morning. Maybe someone bringing them supper or flowers.

  She left the rag on the table and wiped her wet hands against her jeans as she walked down the hall to answer the door.

  Her feet would have dragged and her heart would have been a lead weight in her chest if she had known who was on the other side.

  She yanked on the knob, still uncomfortable over what she was feeling for Abner but pasting what she hoped was a sweet smile on her face.

  The door popped open.

  Her half-sister, Erin, stood on the porch. Their children, two teen boys, stood with her. Her husband, Jason, stood behind them, his hands on a shoulder of each of his boys. He was thicker through the middle and more jowly than he’d been the last time she’d seen him. Still, looking at him was like looking at an older version of Andrew. Made sense, since he was Andrew’s father.

  Chapter 5

  Abner’s hand squeezed the rag he’d been scrubbing the stove with. Cora had waltzed out of the kitchen to answer the door, and not even the coffee still sitting in the pot could overpower the faint scent of sweet woman that drifted past his nose.

  She didn’t want to like him. Not any more than he wanted to like her.

  He wouldn’t like her, although he could admire a woman who gave up her breakfast to feed her children. He couldn’t deny there was still an attraction.

  He thought she felt it too. But she was fighting it as well. It kind of made him mad, because, obviously, there’d been a lot of men she hadn’t fought her attraction to.

  Losers.

  It was almost like she was angry at him, which didn’t make sense. She was the one who had lied about him.

  The baby, Claire, had started fussing when Cora walked out of the kitchen, and after about two seconds she’d gotten more serious about crying. Abner left the rag on the stove and unbuckled the baby, picking her up and holding her easily in one hand while he grabbed the rag, wiped the tray, and shoved the highchair back against the wall.

  Claire grabbed baby fistfuls of his cheeks and tried to gum his chin. He had to laugh when her head jerked away, obviously not expecting the prick of his two-day-old stubble. Her expression was adorably confused. So, he was grinning when he looked up to see Cora walking like she had a stick running up each leg and out her shoulder blades, leading a couple and their two boys down the hall and into the living room.

  Her posture couldn’t scream discomfort any louder. He looked at the couple closer out of the corner of his eye as Claire tried to put his chin in her mouth again.

  He recognized Jason, his half-brother, and jerked his head.

  Jason’s footstep stumbled, and he glanced around at his family before breaking ranks and going to the kitchen rather than the living room where his aunt was. “Abner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re the new boyfriend?”

  Man, he’d thought the kids were being kids when they’d asked him that. It had made his heart squeeze every time. Now Jason. The squeeze was harder with him.

  “No.”

  “Thought maybe you came back to claim your kid.” He grinned and laughed like it was a joke.

  Abner’s chest tightened, but he didn’t allow a single emotion to cross his face.

  Jason’s smile didn’t fade. “So, you’re just back for Gram’s funeral?”

  Doug, Abner’s brother, had been the one to call. Jason hadn’t made the effort. Abner wouldn’t hold that against him, but he wasn’t laughing with the man, either. Not about Cora.

  “Coffee?” Abner asked.

  Jason nodded. “I haven’t been back much. Too cold up here.”

  Jason fidgeted, running his hand over the back of a chair and shifting his weight, unable to make his eyes stop twitching around the kitchen, which, of course, made Abner wonder why. Especially since Cora had a big smile on her face, but her posture screamed that she wanted to be anywhere else.

  With Claire in one arm, Abner poured a cup of coffee.

  Jason was a few years older than him. Cora had been living with Erin, her half-sister, and Jason for the time Cora and he had been a couple. Well, for the time that Cora had used him to try to catch the eye of his cousin, Stephen.

  “Are you the family that’s living in North Carolina?” he asked, wondering if he could somehow bend the conversation to Cora and try to figure out why Jason was nervous and Cora miserable.

  “Yeah. Moved there not long after you left.” Jason took the coffee Abner offered.

  “Thought Cora was living with you then? Funny she didn’t move with you.”

  Jason jerked, and hot liquid splashed out of the cup and onto the table. “Ah, got my finger.” Jason put the cup down and stuck his pointer finger in his mouth.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “My fault.”

  The TV had been muted, and sounds of the kids playing and chasing each other came from the hall and living room. Abner still held Claire in his arm, and she didn’t show any signs of wanting down.

  “No, I’ve gotten clumsy in my old age.”

  “You’re
not that much older than me.” Abner didn’t want to allow the subject change. At the risk of being obvious, he said, “You were telling me why Cora didn’t move with you.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I guess you ran out on her and never found out. She and Stephen got married at the courthouse not long after you left. We moved later that month.” Jason said it casually, like it wasn’t a big deal. But there was more to the story. They both knew Cora was pregnant when Abner left. Abner knew the baby wasn’t his.

  Something gave him the feeling that Jason suspected that too.

  One of his boys wandered into the kitchen. Abner nodded at him. “Sean?”

  The kid nodded.

  “Man, you’ve grown. You were just maybe kindergarten or a little older when I knew you.”

  “You remember Abner?” Jason asked Sean.

  Sean scrunched up his face and shook his head. “No.”

  Normally, Abner would engage the kid in conversation. But right now, he was more concerned about what was going on with Jason and, more importantly, Cora.

  Before Abner could figure out anything to ask, Jason took a sip of his coffee and said, “Aunt Sandy is coming back to North Carolina with us. She’s got a friend who lives nearby, and she’s moving in with her. I figured you were up here, gonna shack up with Cora.”

  Abner’s neck hairs bristled at the crudeness of Jason’s words and the implied insult to Cora.

  “No.” He finished wiping the table, Claire’s hands pulling on the short hairs of his neck, reminding him he should have gotten a haircut. It hurt, but it was a pain that grounded him. “You staying here tonight?”

  “Heck no. We’ve got a hotel in Huntingdon. There’s no room here. Not with all the rug rats Cora has running around.” He lowered his voice, like they were buddies or something. “She’s a good-looking girl, but someone needs to tell her how babies are made.” His grin was lascivious.

  Abner turned without saying anything and grabbed the butter off the counter, sticking it in the fridge.

  He supposed Jason was right; Cora was completely to blame for the fact that she had six children and no man. Being that he was a big proponent of personal responsibility, if he were Cora, that’s what he’d say. But the men who’d fathered those children owned just as much responsibility. If any of those children were his, he’d sure as heck wouldn’t have left her to raise them on her own.