Not Their First Rodeo

by Christy Jeffries

  She realized this was the third time he’d referred to her as Miss. Either he was assuming that she couldn’t possibly be married—which was a little insulting—or he knew her marital status the same way he’d known where she was living, which made her wonder what else he knew about her. Suddenly, she didn’t feel like allowing him to have the upper hand anymore. Or dictating her plans.

  “Actually, I’d love a ride,” she told the boys. Then she looked their father directly in the eyes and said, “Thanks for the thoughtful offer.”

  * * *

  Marcus steered his county-issued SUV through the gates of the Twin Kings Ranch, nodding at the Secret Service agents stationed at the front entrance. His family’s working cattle ranch was over fifty-five thousand acres, and it took almost ten minutes to follow the main road past the house where he’d grown up, and then wind up to the private cemetery plot on a grassy bluff overlooking the Snake River.

  His jaw throbbed from the way he’d kept his back molars clamped into place, nearly grinding them together as he tried to ignore the familiar scent of Violet’s jasmine perfume. The same one she’d worn when they’d been eighteen. Or maybe his head was just pounding from his sons’ incessant chattering the entire ride from the church.

  Apparently, Violet’s migraine had eased up. She was facing the back seat as much as her seat belt would allow and patiently answering the twins’ rapid-fire questions about her favorite ice cream (mint chip—no surprise), her favorite superhero (Wonder Woman—again, no surprise), her dog’s name (she didn’t have a pet—somewhat of a surprise considering the fact that she’d always loved animals) and if she played any sports (running—very surprising since she’d always hated going for jogs with him when he’d been training for boot camp).

  The one question that his children didn’t ask was if Violet had any kids. Marcus should’ve been thankful that his normally inquisitive twins weren’t bringing up such a painful subject. After all, he’d tried to put that unfortunate business behind him, even when he’d occasionally hear news about her from his parents or his sister Tessa, who’d interviewed Senator Cortez-Hill several times on her show. But when he’d introduced her to Jack and Jordan, her face had gone completely pale, as though she’d seen a ghost.

  It could’ve been a simple case of her not feeling well, because she’d rushed into the bathroom right after. Yet there had been something else. He could sense it, lurking beneath the tension of their already-uncomfortable reunion. Marcus was suddenly dying to ask her about it. Even if it meant reliving the past.

  He backed into the last turnaround spot on the dirt road leading up to the cemetery. It was unseasonably warm for mid-January in Wyoming. Most of the snow from the New Year’s storm had already melted, but they’d still have to hike a few hundred yards in the uneven terrain to reach the gravesite.

  “I’m sure there would’ve been room for more vehicles up ahead,” Violet said as she tried to navigate around a mud puddle in the middle of their path, her expensive-looking high heel sinking into the damp earth.

  “In case of an emergency, though, I need to be able to get my car out quickly.”

  She made a deliberate show of scanning the dozen or so Secret Service agents surrounding the immediate area, before jerking her chin toward several military personnel dressed in full uniform. “You think you’re the only person here who can respond to an emergency situation?”

  “I’m the sheriff of Ridgecrest County and responsible for the safety of all the residents and businesses. So my duty extends well beyond this ranch.”

  “You’re also Roper King’s son. I’m sure you can take a day off for your father’s funeral,” Violet said, right before stumbling when her heel caught on a hidden rock.

  He quickly grabbed her elbow to steady her, and a current of electricity shot through his hand and up his arm. Marcus nearly released her just as quickly but thought that would suggest he couldn’t handle his response to touching her. Instead, he commanded his brain to think of her the same way he’d think of old Mrs. Crenshaw, who held up traffic for at least five minutes every time she slowly crossed Stampede Boulevard, the main street running through town. “Like my son said, I’m always on duty.”

  She paused to stare at him, and he forgot all about traffic and little old ladies as his pulse picked up speed. To Violet’s credit, she didn’t pull away from him, either. But he could tell from the rosy-bronze hue spreading along her upper chest and neck that she was equally affected by his touch. It was the same way she used to flush with heat when they were younger and he’d kiss her just above her—

  “Why is your skin all reddish like that?” Jack asked Violet before Marcus’s inappropriate thoughts could gain any more steam.

  “It looks like a rash. Do you have any allergies?” Jordan wanted to know, and Marcus silently cursed himself for allowing his young son to spend so much time researching medical ailments.

  Violet cleared her throat, but her blush only intensified. “None that I know of.”

  Marcus felt his mother’s eyes on them and realized the minister was already speaking to the much smaller crowd who’d arrived from the church before them.

  He nudged his sons forward toward the two rows of chairs. “There’s a couple of empty seats behind Gan Gan. Why don’t you guys go sit down? Quietly,” he added. “I’ll be right behind you.”

  Thankfully, Jack and Jordan obeyed, which only happened about 75 percent of the time. Probably because they were too overwhelmed by the sadness of all the adults around them.

  The boys sat next to their young cousin and their Aunt Finn, who was great at whispering jokes and keeping the tears at bay during the most solemn of ceremonies.

  Marcus didn’t want this building tension between him and Violet adding to his sons’ distress on an already emotional day, so he didn’t immediately follow them. But that left him standing beside Violet during the most emotional and intimate part of the funeral proceedings. Not just beside her but mere inches away since his hand was still on her elbow.

  He could hear her soft breathing during the gospel singer’s rendition of “Amazing Grace.” He could feel the rigidity in her arm during the bugler playing “Taps.” He flinched with her during the twenty-one-gun salute. And somehow, he found his own hand intertwined with hers as they lowered his father’s casket into the ground. Just as his throat constricted with emotion, Violet lightly squeezed her fingers around his palm, giving him a boost of strength.

  Roper King’s death had been quite a shock for all of them, but even more so for Marcus, who was still angry at himself for not being more aware. Even though Roper had been bigger than life and damn near invincible, he was also older and they all should’ve been better prepared for the inevitable. Especially coming only a few years after another loss that had been much more life-altering.

  In fact, the family burial plot was the last place he should be holding hands with Violet. Shame immediately washed over him, overshadowing his grief. He quickly untangled his fingers from hers and edged away, unable to keep the gruffness from his voice when he said, “I have to go.”

  His footsteps were heavy and weighted with guilt when he joined his mother and siblings as they filed into a line to pay their final respects to his father—the man who had taught Marcus how to be a man, how to be a husband and, most importantly, how to be a dad.

  Truckloads of flowers had been delivered to both the ranch and the church and were still being silently unloaded behind a cluster of mourners. His immediate family made their way to the cars that would take them back down the hill to the main house and the catered reception his mother had planned for only their closest relatives and friends. However, Marcus grabbed an arrangement of pale pink roses and walked over to a headstone, feeling the weight of his sadness settle deeply onto his shoulders.

  * * *

  Violet stood there awkwardly as the remaining mourners filed past Roper King�
�s open grave. Once, she’d thought of the younger Kings as the siblings she’d never had, but who knew what Marcus had told them after he’d all but abandoned her all those years ago.

  Not that any of them would ever be less than cordial to her if she was to approach them. But at that moment, she didn’t feel right intruding on their grief just to ease the guilt of attending such an intimate service that was clearly only meant for close family and friends—neither of which she could claim. At least not anymore.

  She saw Tessa King walking with a man she didn’t recognize but looked to be Secret Service. A second man she did recognize—a young up-and-coming congressman from California—approached Marcus’s sister, and Violet heard a camera shutter clicking away behind her.

  Only preapproved members of the press would be allowed to be here to document the private ceremony, so Violet didn’t think anything of it. Instead, she tried to focus on how she was going to get back down the hill and possibly catch a ride to the airport.

  There were several men wearing cowboy hats standing around a late-model pickup with the Twin Kings Ranch logo on the door. Roper had been loved by everyone, especially his private employees, so it would make sense for many of the ranch hands to be in attendance. Maybe she could ask one of them for a lift, because she certainly wasn’t going to ask Marcus for one.

  Her palm was still tingling from where his hand had clung tightly to hers during the final moments of the service. She’d seen a tear slip beneath the rim of his dark sunglasses, and despite all the heartbreak he’d once caused her, she couldn’t make herself walk away from him when he’d seemed to need support most.

  Not surprisingly, when everything was said and done, he’d dropped her hand and simply walked away from her. Just like he had all those years ago. Leaving her all by herself, to figure out where to go from here.

  Jordan, the twin with the seemingly encyclopedic knowledge about medical conditions, approached Violet cautiously. “Are you still having your migraine? If your blood pressure feels high, you might need to sit down.” The boy scrunched his nose at the folding chairs now being loaded into the back of the ranch truck. “Or I can walk you back to the car.”

  Actually, Violet’s head had been the least of her worries this past hour. Her medication had thankfully taken effect before they’d left the church, and she didn’t have to force a smile at the sweet boy who seemed to genuinely care about her health. “No, I’m all better. In fact, I was just thinking I feel so great I might walk down to the main house.”

  Then she could ask someone in the stables to call her a cab.

  “But that’s, like, fifty miles away,” Jack, the other twin, said as he approached with much less caution, narrowly missing tripping over an old wooden headstone. “And our aunt says there’s only one chocolate cake at the house without nuts. I hate nuts, so we have to get down the hill fast before all the good desserts are gone.”

  Most of the cars were already pulling away, and she finally noticed that it was just her and the twins left. She looked to her right and left, then asked, “Where’s your dad?”

  “He’s over there with our mom.” Jordan pointed to a spot behind her, and Violet squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to look. Was Marcus still married? He hadn’t been wearing a ring, but some men didn’t wear them. Maybe their mother had ridden here in a family limo. Maybe she’d been sitting in the second row with the boys the entire time.

  Violet slowly turned around, bracing herself for an awkward introduction. But instead of seeing Marcus speaking to a woman, she saw him standing under the shady branches of an old sycamore tree, placing a spray of pale pink roses in front of a white marble headstone.

  Jack slipped his smaller hand in hers, and she was surprised that her fingers reflexively curled around his. “Now Grandpa is in Heaven with Mommy.”

  Chapter Three

  Marcus was seriously looking forward to grabbing a bottle of sixteen-year-old single barrel bourbon and heading straight into his own wing of the house to zone out in front of the television with the boys as they rewatched one of their favorite movies. It had been a hell of an afternoon and they all needed a comforting, yet familiar distraction. But first he needed to figure out what to do with his ex-girlfriend.

  After a silent ride down the hill from the cemetery, the boys eagerly ran inside the main house to join their Uncle Duke, who’d been waiting for them on the porch. His brother must’ve seen them together before leaving the cemetery and known Marcus would need a few moments. Now it was just him and Violet standing in front of his SUV in the wide parking area near the steps of the kitchen porch.

  “Uh...do you want to come inside?” he asked against his better judgment. After all, his mother would give him hell if she knew that Violet was here and he didn’t at least extend an invite.

  “I really shouldn’t,” she said. “In fact, I already missed my flight back to Dallas and should get to Jackson Hole soon if I’m going to try and get another connection tonight.”

  He nodded, equally disappointed—and oddly relieved.

  “Listen,” she started, then tilted her head and paused. As though she was thinking better of whatever she’d been about to say. He lowered his chin and was about to encourage her to keep going when her soft lips parted. “I’m sorry about your wife. I saw you,” she explained when he blinked several times, clearly startled. “You were placing flowers on a grave, and one of the twins told me—Jack, I think. I know it’s none of my business, but how did she pass away?”

  “He told you?” Marcus experienced the sour taste of dread every time someone mentioned his wife. Part of the reason he hated funerals so much was because it not only reminded him of what he and his sons had lost but how everyone had treated them afterward. Marcus hated reliving all the pitying looks and tut-tuts about how tragic it was for him to be a widower so young and for the boys to be without their mother. While he wanted to appreciate their well-meaning sympathy, all it did was reinforce his own doubts about his ability to be a single father. Over the years, though, he’d found the best way of dealing with questions about Brie’s death was to be as matter-of-fact about it as possible.

  “She had a brain aneurysm. The twins were only eighteen months old, and yeah, it was quite a shock. One of those freak things that nobody can explain. I think that’s why Jordan is so obsessed with medicine. He’s naturally curious and started reading at a young age. He had all these questions about his mom and why she died, and I guess none of our explanations made sense to him. So he started looking for his own answers.”

  “Your sons are very caring and kind and thought...thoughtful.” Her voice quivered, and she drew in a deep breath before she continued. “You’re very lucky to have them.”

  “That’s what everyone told me after Brie died.” He lifted his face to the afternoon sky, the sun starting to make its way closer to the Teton mountain range. “How lucky I was to still have a piece of her.”

  “No, I meant you’re lucky to have them, period. Even if your wife was still here, I would tell you the same thing. Your children are a blessing. You’re a very fortunate man, Marcus. Not everyone will get to have that same experience, let alone twice.”

  His heartbeat stopped before picking up speed. “Back at the church, right before you uh...threw up...you seemed really surprised that I had twins.”

  She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him, as though the answer should have been obvious to him. “Because we were supposed to have twins. There were two babies when I miscarried.”

  Marcus’s knees buckled, and his hand propped against the hood of the SUV was the only thing that kept him from going down.

  “You...miscarried?” His voice was much louder than he’d expected, and one of the caterers carrying a stainless-steel tray from their van looked across the driveway at them.

  “Of course I miscarried.” Violet blinked several times, her black spiky lashes like tin
y daggers to his heart. “Wait. You didn’t think I...that I had an abortion?”

  Marcus scrubbed a hand over his face in frustration. “I didn’t know what to think because I never heard from you. All I knew was that you took the pregnancy test right before I left for boot camp, and then nothing else. At my graduation, I asked my parents if they’d heard from you, and my dad said your mom had gone out of her way to talk to him on Capitol Hill. She wanted to pass along a message that you’d made a tough choice—” he used his fingers for air quotes “—but were so glad you did because you were loving college life and could finally focus on your future. At first, I was so pissed, and then the betrayal set in. Not at your decision, but at the fact that you couldn’t even bother to tell me yourself.”

  Her tone grew steely. “I did make a tough choice, Marcus. I chose to have your babies. But in the end, the decision was out of my hands. Either way, how could you think that I wouldn’t have told you what happened?”

  Confusion snaked through him, making everything go blurry, and he shook his head to clear his thoughts. All these years, he’d assumed Violet had changed her mind about him and the future they’d discussed. He’d believed she’d moved on with her life, and even though he’d been hurt, he hadn’t judged her. They’d only been eighteen, after all. “Then why didn’t I know?”

  “I knew they’d taken away your phone in boot camp. It wasn’t like I could call you and talk about it. The best I could do was send you a letter right after it happened.”

  A letter? He began pacing as he absorbed her words. He’d gotten only a few letters from his parents, but none from anyone else. Not even his friends back home.

  His hands flew up in the air in frustration before clasping on top of his head as he stretched out the tension exploding in his shoulders. “I never got it. I swear, Violet, if I had known you’d miscarried, I would’ve gone AWOL to be by your side.”