Not Their First Rodeo

by Christy Jeffries

  “Good. Because the Wi-Fi is surprisingly strong out here, and it’s much quieter away from the rest of the family. Plus, the twins already helped me decorate.” Violet pointed to the numerous drawings taped to the shelves that used to hold sunscreen and beach towels, as well as the pine-cone and feather collections lining the wet bar.

  “Those boys are really taken with you.” Freckles plopped herself down on one of the cushioned chaise lounge chairs, extending her feet in front of her. The eighty-year-old woman was wearing five-inch wedged sandals, and Violet wanted to know how she managed to walk in those things. “You know, according to Rider, Marcus has never brought a woman home since Brie passed.”

  “I think we both know he didn’t bring me home, either.” Violet unfolded the napkin and put it in her lap. Besides, just because he hadn’t brought a woman to the Twin Kings didn’t mean he hadn’t dated anyone since his wife’s death. Not that it was any of Violet’s business.

  “Oh, you know what I’m talking ’bout, darlin’. Those boys lost their mama before they even knew her. Now they have you here giving them all your attention.”

  Violet’s hands went all cold and clammy, and she nearly dropped her fork. She was the furthest thing from being a mother figure to anyone and wouldn’t know how to act like one even if she’d tried. She cleared her throat. “They’ve grown up with Finn and Dahlia and even Sherilee taking care of them.”

  “Yeah, but it’s different having a woman here who isn’t related to their daddy. Plus, they’re smart boys. They can tell there’s something going on with you and Marcus. Just like the rest of us can.”

  “Really? Because here I was thinking that their dad and I can’t even stand to be in the same room as each other.”

  “Yeah. About that. The boys’ birthday party is coming up. Sherilee has already blown through her secret stash of ice cream, stress-eating over the event. This is the first party she’s thrown since the funeral, and a lot of townspeople will be here. Any chance you and my nephew can call a cease-fire for the day?”

  Violet was gripping her sandwich so firmly a slice of chicken fell onto her lap. “Actually, I planned to fly back to Texas next week to take care of some personal business.”

  “You know, I always thought that was interesting. You living in Dallas.”

  “What do you mean? Lots of people live there.”

  “Sure they do. But your mama’s family is from San Antonio. You went to boarding school in Washington, DC, college in California and law school in Boston.” Freckles didn’t miss a beat. And she’d once accused Marcus of creeping around the internet. “So why put down roots in Dallas?”

  “I wouldn’t say I put down roots exactly.” Violet had a feeling the canny older woman was trying to steer this conversation somewhere, so she answered cautiously. “I have a nice condo and a good job, but I could be a public defender anywhere. Most of my friends from school are spread all over the globe. I guess Dallas just seemed to be a nice middle ground, so to speak.”

  “You mean it was far enough away from your mama in Washington but also close enough in her home state that she couldn’t give you too much of a hard time. I get it. I did the same thing when I wanted to get out from under my parents’ thumbs.” Freckles arched one orange-tinted brow. “So when are you gonna tell her you’re here?”

  Great. Now the rest of the King family thought Violet was afraid to confront her mother, too. She wasn’t, but that didn’t mean that she could simply handle the senator the same way she handled everything else. Violet sat up straighter. “I’ll see my mom next Friday night, and I’ll tell her then. Unfortunately, I won’t be back in time for the party.”

  “But the twins will be heartbroken if you’re not here.” Freckles clutched one manicured hand dramatically to the left side of her enormous bosom, which was barely contained in a hot-pink velour tracksuit.

  Violet remembered the first time Marcus’s sons had invited her to their birthday party. It was the afternoon of Roper’s funeral. The boys had talked nonstop about it since then, and she’d never told them that she wouldn’t be attending. She sighed. “They’ll be more heartbroken if I’m fighting with their dad the whole time.”

  “Marcus isn’t going to fight with you in front of all the guests.” Freckles stood up easily in her heels and walked to the door. Before she left, she added, “After all, he learned his lesson about getting mouthy with you after his little dip in the pool last week.”

  Ugh.

  Violet had tried not to think of the incident at the rec center. Sure, she’d been impressed with how little reaction Marcus had shown after she’d shoved him into the pool. In fact, he’d been such a good sport he’d stayed in the water and played with the kids, launching them into the air as they squealed in excitement.

  But not before he’d all but done a quasi-striptease for her benefit. Sure, he’d wanted to get out of his wet clothes, and nobody else at the rec center had probably thought anything of it. However, the way he’d watched Violet as he’d slowly peeled off his shirt would’ve been downright provocative if they hadn’t had most of the King family and half the Secret Service team surrounding them.

  She shook her head to clear her mind of the mental image. Instead, she tried to remember the twins’ excitement at having their dad play with them and insisting that she watch them do backflips off his broad shoulders. Freckles was right. Jack and Jordan, for whatever reason, really seemed to enjoy having Violet around. It probably would break their hearts if she was a no-show for their party.

  Okay, so she’d go home, attend her mom’s fundraiser and then come back for their birthday. Maybe a week or so apart—truly apart and not running into each other on the ranch or in town—would give her and Marcus time to cool themselves down enough that a cease-fire wouldn’t even be necessary.

  * * *

  “I promise to be back before the party,” Violet told Jack when she walked them out to the back porch on Sunday evening after dinner.

  “But what if you’re not back in time?” Jordan wanted to know.

  “Then I’ll call you.” She looked to Marcus for some backup. However, his expression was almost as skeptical as his two sons’.

  “But what if you forget?” Jack asked.

  “Then you can call and remind me.” She knew the boys were fond of her, but when she announced at dinner that she would be going to Texas for the week, she hadn’t expected them to declare that they would miss her. She was touched that they cared so much, and yet she was also sad that they clearly had their doubts about her returning. Of course, they would have separation issues given the death of their mother and, more recently, their grandfather.

  “Can I call you to tell you what we did in our science lab this week?” Jordan asked.

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  Jack squeezed her hand. “Can I call you to tell you how many laps I ran during PE?”

  “I’ll be waiting by my phone.” She squeezed back.

  “Can we call you to tell you how many times Uncle Rider says a bad word?”

  “Maybe that would be better in a text message. I have a feeling he’s going to say quite a few while I’m gone.”

  “Okay, boys.” Marcus bit back a grin. “Give Violet a hug and then hop in the car. It’s a school night, and we still need to hunt down Jack’s missing library book that’s due tomorrow.”

  Violet wanted to hold on to the children and never let go. But their hugs were over too soon as they raced to their father’s patrol vehicle.

  Marcus didn’t immediately follow his sons, and Violet suddenly wondered if he was expecting a goodbye hug, as well. Instead, he asked, “So are you going to tell your mom I said hi?”

  Contrary to his accusation—and Freckles’s assumption—Violet had every intention of telling her mom she’d been staying in Wyoming to handle MJ’s case. Telling her about Marcus would be a whole other issu
e.

  “That might not be the first thing I say to her,” Violet replied. After all, she had to be strategic about when and how the discussion happened. “But I’m sure your name will come up at some point, Marcus. The thing you have to keep in mind about my mother is that she’s a United States senator. She’s been shutting down her opposition on the Capitol floor at the national level and brokering trade deals at the global level since both of us were in diapers. It doesn’t take courage to confront my mom—it takes skill.”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, staring down at his boots. “Look, if something comes up and you can’t make it back before the birthday party, that’s okay. The boys will be fine.”

  The fact that he was already giving her permission to disappoint his children didn’t sit well with her. Were his expectations of her really that low? She used her finger to lift his chin until his eyes locked on hers. “I’ll see them on Saturday. You can bet on that.”

  * * *

  On Monday, she’d spent most of the flight to Dallas going over how she was going to approach the topic with her mom. Then she’d rewritten and rehearsed her speech several more times before Friday’s big event.

  “You look beautiful, angel,” Violet’s father said when she descended the stairs at the hotel ballroom. The black-tie fundraiser was in full swing with hundreds of elegantly dressed guests enjoying the open bar and decadent appetizers, while a ten-piece orchestra played big-band dance tunes. Her dad gave her a tight squeeze, then kissed both of her cheeks. “That mountain air has been agreeing with you.”

  Violet narrowed her eyes. “You know.”

  “I had a hunch something was up when you didn’t leave the funeral with me and your mom that day. That hunch grew when I realized you were only responding to my texts instead of FaceTiming with me like you normally do. Then I stopped by your office last week after my sportscast to surprise you with lunch, and your assistant filled me in.”

  Scanning the room, Violet saw her mother talking to a well-known socialite who was feeding bits of beef Wellington to the Pomeranian in her arms. “Did you tell Mom?”

  “Do I look like a rookie playing in the minor leagues?”

  She reached up and straightened her dad’s bow tie. “No. You look very handsome. As usual. So, do you think she’s going to overreact?”

  “Not tonight. There’ll be too many important donors here to keep her from batting an eye at any curveball you send her way. But don’t be surprised when she calls you tomorrow to lecture you about your life choices.”

  “I already did my scouting report,” she said, easily reverting to the familiar baseball euphemisms of her childhood. “I talked to her press secretary. Mom has a packed schedule the next two days, and then you guys fly to Geneva for that climate meeting with the United Nations.”

  “Smart girl.” Her dad gave her a pat on the back. “You locked in your game-day strategy.”

  “Game-day strategy for what?” her mom asked, having escaped the socialite with the fluffy dog.

  “My new case,” Violet said before kissing her mother’s cheek. “Is that dress from the designer I suggested?”

  Unable to resist a compliment, her mom ran a hand over the red sequins. “Yes. You were right about the color. I needed to update my style.”

  “I usually am right about most things, Mom.” Violet smiled as the conversation began exactly as she’d planned it. But then she saw someone out of the corner of her eye and completely forgot what she was going to say next.

  Congressman Davis Townsend was standing with a gray-haired couple on the other side of the dance floor, but he was staring directly at Violet. The last time Violet had seen him, Marcus had been escorting him from the Twin Kings. Crap. There was no way a kiss up like Townsend wouldn’t make his way over here eventually.

  Plus, her dad had now slipped away to the buffet table and she might not get another one-on-one opportunity like this tonight. She needed to explain the Twin Kings situation to her mom before the congressman brought it up. Instead, she blurted, “Did you tell Marcus’s father that I had an abortion?”

  “Violet,” her mother admonished between clenched teeth. “Now isn’t the time to discuss this.”

  Crap. She’d been saving that topic for later in the conversation, but now she’d have to adapt and forge ahead. “Well, we could have discussed it fourteen years ago, but you took matters into your own hands then. So now we can talk about it on my terms. I’ll start. You shouldn’t have lied about what happened. Even if you thought you were doing it for my own good.”

  “For the record, I never used the A word,” her mom said as she smiled at someone across the room and did a finger wave. “It’s not my fault the boy chose to believe what he wanted.”

  “Why would he believe anything else? He never got any of my letters at boot camp.” Violet narrowed her eyes. “Or did you have something to do with that, as well?”

  This time, her mother did gasp before quickly recovering her composure. “Of course I didn’t have anything to do with that. In fact, I picked up the phone several times to call the base commander and demand that they put Marcus on the phone immediately. I almost flew out there in person to knock some sense into him for ignoring your letters like that. You think I wanted to see my only daughter suffering?”

  “Well, you certainly didn’t want to see us together. You were ultimately responsible for his silence afterward and didn’t do anything to change that. Why didn’t you ever approve of him, Mom?”

  “Because no matter how well-connected his family was, I knew he was going to hold you back. He made no secret that he hated politics and desired nothing more than a small-town life. I wanted so much more for you.”

  It was turning into the same argument they’d had a million times before. Violet sighed. “But I wanted him.”

  “I know you did, angel.” Her mom reached out and gently stroked Violet’s bare upper arm. “You don’t think I remember how devastated you were? I was there. I saw what you went through. If I could’ve taken on that heartache for you, I would’ve traded spots in a second. But there was nothing I could do to ease your pain. The next time I ran into Roper King, I wasn’t about to give him or his son the satisfaction of thinking you were still pining in agony for some childhood crush. So, yes, I implied that you’d handled things and moved on with your life.”

  “He was a lot more than a childhood crush, Mom. Marcus loved me and was just as devastated as I was.”

  “Then why didn’t he come and see you? Why didn’t he fight for you?”

  “Probably the same reason I didn’t fight for him,” Violet admitted, her heart still heavy as she wrestled with that truth. “We were young and hurting and didn’t know how to overcome the obstacle of someone who was trying to keep us apart.” She looked at her mother squarely. “Just keep in mind neither one of us are children anymore.”

  Her mother straightened, once again schooling her expression from concerned mother to perfectly composed senator. “I know. I saw him staring at you at Roper King’s funeral. He’s still handsome, I’ll give you that. But if I hadn’t intervened back then, you’d be living on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming right now with no hope of a judicial career, let alone a political one.”

  Violet took a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing server. “Funny you should mention that, Mom. Because I’m currently living on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming with absolutely no intention of doing any other job than the one I’m currently doing.”

  For the second time of the evening, her mother gasped, and she whipped her head toward Violet. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Senator Cortez-Hill.” Davis Townsend had finally descended on them. “What a beautiful party.”

  “Congressman.” Her mom quickly recovered with a forced smile. “Have you met my daughter, Violet?”

  “We saw each other a couple of weeks ago at the
Twin Kings, but we weren’t formally introduced.” The man’s smirk suggested he wasn’t as embarrassed as he should’ve been, which meant he was hoping to gain something by bringing up their unfortunate meeting now. “Although, you didn’t look quite as...put-together in the stables that day as you do tonight.”

  There it was. The man was trying to establish some sort of pretense of a friendship with Violet that would get him one step closer to her very powerful mother. His mistake was in thinking that Violet would be so embarrassed by being caught in a compromising position with Marcus, she would feel resigned to play along with his little game.

  “Oh, was that you?” Violet blinked innocently, enjoying the way his fake grin faltered at thinking someone didn’t recognize him. “Normally, the Secret Service provides those of us living on the Twin Kings with a daily list of authorized guests expected to visit. I don’t remember your name ever being on it. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see one of my former law-school professors over by the bar, and I wanted to consult with her on several federal trespassing statutes I’m currently researching.”

  Violet lifted her head victoriously, walking away just as another donor approached her mom. She’d gotten thrown off her course for a second back there, but she was leaving the fundraiser having accomplished what she’d set out to do.

  Overall, her trip to Dallas had been a success. Violet had spent some time in her office updating her cocounsel on several outstanding cases. She’d watered the plants at her condo and sorted through the mail that her neighbor had been putting aside for her. She’d even had after-work drinks with a few friends from work. But most importantly, Violet had confronted her mother about interfering in her relationship with Marcus all those years ago and made it clear that she would be in Wyoming for the foreseeable future.

  Now all she had to do was fly back to Twin Kings and get through a birthday party for a couple of seven-year-olds without shoving their father’s head in the cake.

  How hard could it be?