by Lori Wilde
“Preach it, Brother Lockhart,” Pumpkin’s mother said. “Just ’cause we’re poor don’t mean we want their cast-off instructors.”
Rhett growled at Pumpkin’s mother. “You’re what I don’t believe.”
The woman pressed her mouth into a thin line. Looked offended . . . and a little scared.
Rhett didn’t care. He came to stand beside Tara. “Jaime, sit down.”
Obediently, Jaime trotted back to his seat.
Rhett slung an arm around Tara’s shoulder. The weight of it was warm, reassuring. His touch pulled her back into her body, grounded her. Her spirits—which had been squirming around in the gutter—lifted. He smelled so good. Like spray starch and leather.
“The rest of you, listen up! You know nothing about Ms. Alzate. What her life is like, what’s in her heart. She’s giving up her weekend and time with her foster daughter so that she can help you people become better parents. And this is how you act?” He glowered at first one person and then another, his eyes going all around the room until he’d met and held every gaze. “You should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Hey,” some man in the back row said. “I never dissed her.”
“No, but you didn’t come to her defense either, did you?” Rhett said.
The man ducked his head.
“You seem like good people who let the heat of the moment get away from you. But that’s exactly what Ms. Alzate is trying to teach you. You’re going to feel things as parents, and it isn’t always going to be sweetness and light. That’s normal. But you can’t allow your feelings to cause you to treat someone else badly. Next time, it will be your kid. And I know none of you wants to treat those sweet babies with anything but love and kindness.”
He was on a roll, and swimming upstream from his usual anything-goes personality. Challenging the other students, drawing a proverbial line in the sand. Tara loved him for it.
The room went totally silent.
Tara’s heart felt as if it had been sliced wide open. My hero.
“Am I right?” Rhett trod back and forth, pacing the length of the room.
Eighteen heads bobbed in agreement.
“You all owe Ms. Alzate an apology.”
In unison, the class apologized.
Tara smiled and smoothed things over. All was forgiven. She told them to take a short break. Watched her students file from the classroom, her legs weak as boiled rubber bands.
“You okay?” Rhett murmured. His arm went to her shoulder again.
The disturbing thing was, she was in no hurry to step away. “I’m fine. But I could have handled that on my own.”
“I know you could have.” He bobbed his head, tipping his chin down and sliding a sidelong glance at her. “But what kind of man would I be if I’d just sat there and let them gang up on you?”
“It’s not your place to rescue me.”
“Ah, c’mon.” He chucked her chin in an affectionate gesture. “Course it is. You rescued me plenty when we were kids. Remember that time I got lost in the desert?”
“Because you disobeyed me. You were supposed to be taking a nap.”
“I was ten.”
“And I was in charge.”
“Tara knows best?” Humor crinkled his eyes.
“Most of the time, yes,” she said, disarmed.
“You haven’t changed a bit.” He gave her his most beguiling grin, winked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He said nothing, just shrugged and kept grinning.
“What?” Edginess crept into her voice.
He pantomimed cracking a bullwhip.
“Smartass.”
“You were the strictest babysitter I ever had.”
“And you were the most mischievous kid I ever babysat.”
“But you never told on me,” he said. “I do owe you for that.”
“I don’t keep score.”
“Not even a little?” He measured off an inch with his thumb and forefinger.
She wriggled her eyebrows at him. “You did break one of my collectible porcelain dolls.”
“I was practicing my lassoing skills.”
“On my doll?”
“I paid you back out of my allowance,” he said.
“It took you four months.”
“I got really good at lassoing that headless doll,” he mused, stroking his chin.
“Good with a rope, are you?” she asked, and then realized belatedly how suggestive that sounded.
He lowered his lashes, sent a hot glance roving over her body. “Uh-huh.”
Heat tickled her spine. Why did she feel so effervescent?
“Honestly.” His voice lowered. “I’ll never be able to repay you. You’re taking such good care of my daughter. I’ll owe you forever.”
“Okay then. Thank you for the white-knight number.”
“Why, Tara.” His eyes twinkled like stardust. “It was my pleasure.”
They stared at each other. Forging a connection. Bonding in a completely new way. It was a bit bizarre, this strange moment of unity.
“Listen,” she said. “I know you’re busy on the circuit, but just in case you want to see Julie again, we’ll be at the Silver Feather for Kaia and Ridge’s Memorial Day weekend bash.”
“I’m riding that Friday and Saturday.”
“I see,” she said, relieved. She’d felt obligated to offer the invitation, but she was super-glad he hadn’t accepted. The less time he spent with Julie, the more likely it was that he would terminate his parental rights and allow her to adopt his daughter.
“But the event is in Austin. I can leave right after the rodeo and be home before dawn on Sunday morning. The party runs through Monday night.”
“Is that safe, driving straight through?”
“I’ll sleep in on Saturday and drink plenty of coffee. I do lots of night driving.”
Of course he did. Impulsive, reckless, original. Rhett had never been one to play by the rules of normal society.
“See you then,” he said, turned, and walked away.
Leaving Tara wishing she’d just kept her big fat mouth shut.
Chapter 8
First go: The preliminary round of a competition.
Rhett aced the PBR event in Austin, leading a fuming Claudio by five points, and leaving the other riders completely in the dust. He was on the hottest hot streak of his life with no letup in sight. His manager was over the moon, and Rhett should have been too.
But an odd uneasiness nibbled at the back of his mind. When he should have been concentrating on Vegas, his thoughts kept creeping back to Julie . . .
And Tara.
For the last few weeks, he’d been unable to think of little else but Julie and the woman who was caring for her.
Ever since he found out Tara was Julie’s foster mother, he’d linked the two of them in his mind. He couldn’t think of Julie without seeing her in Tara’s arms. He owed Tara a debt of gratitude he could never repay. Because of Tara, his daughter was alive.
He thought about how Tara had looked in the classroom, controlled and in charge. Her dark hair arranged in a no-nonsense bun. But things had changed when she’d ordered him into the corridor and they’d been alone. She’d tried hard to cover her vulnerability with crossed arms and a chiding stare, but he saw her yearning underneath the sternness. Understood that by showing up in the parenting class he’d signaled to her that he was interested in filing for custody of the baby.
But was he?
He was no closer to a decision than he’d been that day Lamar had shown up at his trailer. His mind had boggled from the moment his lawyer tossed those paternity test papers on his kitchen table.
He was a dad.
He was also a professional bull rider on target to win the greatest award a bull rider could receive and earn a bucketload of money in the process.
Problem was, he couldn’t make peace with either path. If he went for custody of Julie, he’d have to give up the PBR, and
he just wasn’t prepared to do that. But neither could he bring himself to sign away all parental rights.
His hope was to string things along until he could figure it out. He had time. His daughter was an infant, she wouldn’t know if he was around or not for the next few weeks. But was that fair to Tara?
No, it wasn’t.
On the Sunday before Memorial Day, he arrived at the Silver Feather at five a.m. and grabbed a four-hour nap in the house he’d built on a hundred-acre tract on the south part of the Silver Feather Ranch.
His paternal grandfather, Cyril Lockhart, had left such plots of land to each of his four grandsons when they turned twenty-one, along with enough money to build houses on the acreage. Not a bad inheritance for a twenty-one-year-old kid.
The catch?
And there was always a catch where Lockhart generosity was concerned. None of the brothers could sell their part of the Silver Feather without written permission from their father and siblings. Considering that their father, Duke Lockhart, was an ornery cuss, and darn near impossible to please, they’d all built their houses and then promptly left the Silver Feather.
Except for Ridge, who had come home three years ago, made peace with Duke, and married Kaia Alzate, and now he ran the Silver Feather after Duke’s heart attack.
Ridge was Rhett’s oldest half brother, born to a honky-tonk dancer who’d died in a one-car collision on the same night she’d abandoned a three-year-old Ridge on their father’s doorstep. That was six years before Rhett had been born to Duke and his second wife, Lucy Hurd. As the illegitimate Lockhart brother, Ridge had had a tough row to hoe growing up. But in the end, things turned out great for him. He’d left home right after college when he caught Duke in bed with Ridge’s girlfriend, Vivi. The irony of that was that Duke and Vivi were married now, and they had twin eighteen-month-old boys named Reed and Rory.
Between the twins; Ridge’s kids, Ingrid and Cody; Archer Alzate’s sons, Tyler and Dylan; and now Julie, the Silver Feather was baby-palooza. The ranch was starting to resemble the old days when the four Lockhart boys ran wild and free across the desert with the five Alzate siblings. The nine of them had been pretty close back then.
But now there was a whole new generation, and his daughter was going to be part of it.
If he filed for custody.
The idea of Julie growing up on the Silver Feather charmed him, even though life on the ranch hadn’t always been idyllic. The Trans-Pecos was a tough, hardscrabble land, but there was an undeniable beauty in the rugged wilderness, and the desert toughened a kid up to life’s barbs and bumps. And the sense of community and camaraderie softened and stabilized the environment.
There was something about the notion of legacy that touched Rhett. His great-great-grandfather Levi Lockhart had come to Texas from North Carolina, survived and thrived here. Building the largest ranch in the Trans-Pecos that sprawled across Jeff Davis and Presidio counties.
Julie was part of the Lockhart lineage.
Growing up, he’d spent his summers milking cows, haying, shoveling manure, and mending fences. Work became a pleasurable thing. There was something special about family labor, done in service to the collective.
He’d almost forgotten what that was like.
The house Rhett erected was the smallest of the four brothers’ homes. Mainly because he spent only half the money Gramps left him on the house. The rest went to horses, bulls, and his first travel trailer. It was a simple three-bedroom, two-bath, ranch-style house. Seventeen hundred square feet.
Currently, Rhett and Ridge were in the main barn at the family mansion, checking out the horses Kaia had rescued from an old cowhand who’d gotten Alzheimer’s and had to go into a facility. Rhett, who was bent over shoeing one of the gaunt mare’s back legs, glanced up at his older brother.
“Your wife’s animals are going to end up eating you out of house and home.” Rhett laughed. “How many horses are you supporting now?”
“With this new lot?” Ridge looked happily sheepish. “Sixteen, but two of the mares are pregnant.”
Gak! More babies.
“You’re making that face again,” Ridge said.
“What face?”
“Like you’re gonna throw up. Are you all right?”
“Just thinking about Julie.”
“It’s a big deal.”
“Hell, man, a month ago my life was perfect. Everything I ever dreamed of was within reach. The world championship was mine to win. And now . . .”
Ridge nodded. “It’s upside down.”
“Topsy-turvy.”
“Exciting—”
“Terrifying—”
“Fatherhood is—”
“Crazy—”
“Fun crazy—”
“Scary crazy—”
“Like bull riding?”
“Scarier.”
They stared at each other. He saw in his brother’s eyes a sense of contentment he’d never felt. Was it fatherhood that made Ridge look so happy?
Ridge rested a hand on his shoulder. “Brother, the best things in life scare the living hell out of you.”
“Shit.” Rhett exhaled, swept off his Stetson, and jammed a hand through his hair. “If fear is any indication, then Julie is the best thing ever.”
“Yep, she is.”
“How do you get ready to be a father?”
“You don’t. You just do it.”
“I’m trying to wrap my head around it, but it’s too much for me. I—”
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
“Quoting Yoda to me, man?”
“He was a Jedi Master.”
“He was also a fictional nonhuman character.”
Ridge gave a smug shrug. “Wise words are wise words no matter who utters them.”
“Meaning?”
“It’s time to do your business or get off the pot.”
“Excuse me?”
“Either file for custody of your daughter or let her go.”
Ridge was right. Dragging this decision out was eating him up inside. But he wasn’t about to admit that to his oldest brother. Rhett had perfected his easygoing reputation and he was sticking by it.
“Hand me that rasp.” Ridge extended his palm. “And I’ll shoe her front hooves. You look as if you need to sit.”
Rhett slapped the tool into his brother’s hand and sank onto a nearby milk crate turned upside down, feeling as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him.
Ridge worked in silence for a few minutes, the steady whisk-whisk of his rasp against the horse’s hoof the only sound in the barn.
Ridge straightened and met Rhett’s eyes. “You’ll regret it.”
“Regret what?”
“Signing over your parental rights.”
“You think?”
“Yeah.”
“But if Tara gets to adopt her, I’d still see her.”
“And what will you tell Julie when she’s old enough to ask why you walked away? That you picked bull riding over her?”
His brother’s words were a stone in the pit of his stomach. Rhett hadn’t thought that far ahead.
“Your career will last, what . . . five years more at best? Ten at the absolute max. Julie is here forever.”
“But the championship is within reach. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve lived and breathed rodeo for over a decade.”
“You’ve got something more important now.”
A truculent stubbornness grabbed hold of him. “Why can’t I have both?”
“Your job is damn dangerous. Every time you climb on the back of a bull, you’re rolling the dice with your life.”
“Not that many people die riding.”
“Tell that to Lane Frost’s family,” Ridge said, referring to one of the greatest bull riders of all time, who’d died in the arena from injuries sustained by a bull. “And it’s not just death. Brain injury is not uncommon.”
He couldn’t argue that point. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy from
head trauma was a very real threat. He dealt with the risk by taking the necessary precautions and then not giving it a second thought. “Most jobs have some kind of risk,” he mumbled.
“Bull riding is one of the most dangerous sports in the world.”
Not a newsflash to Rhett. Danger was part of the appeal.
“You have to decide,” Ridge went on. “What’s more important? Julie or your ego?”
“My ego?”
“That’s all this is. Your drive to be number one at any cost. Big, fat ego stroke.”
“And money. Lots of money.”
“You’ve got plenty of money without the win.”
Anger flared through him, hot and aggressive, and Rhett didn’t anger easily. He glowered. Felt blindsided and betrayed. “Oh, and you competing against Dad to become richer than he is and flying your own private plane isn’t all about your ego?”
“I’m not denying my ego got the better of me, little brother. That’s how I know what’s driving you. If you let it, pride and ego will lead you down the wrong road fast.”
“You say that as if you know everything there is to know about me. You have no idea what I’ve been through. What life is like on the road.”
“Simmer down, kid. I’m not judging you.”
“No?”
“I’m merely pointing out that it’s time to grow up and realize what’s truly important. It took Kaia and Ingrid to do that for me.” Ridge shot him a meaningful look. “Julie can do that for you if you let her.”
“I’m not ready to be a dad.”
“So get ready.” Ridge’s stern tone brooked no argument.
Fear played up and down his spine. “I have no idea how to take care of a baby.”
“Learn.”
His brother made it sound so simple. “Tara wants Julie more than anything, and she’s prepared to be a parent.”
“Sounds like you want to take the easy way out,” Ridge scoffed.
Did he? That question had been bouncing around in his head for the past three weeks.
“With Tara as Julie’s mom you get to have your cake and eat it too, but is that fair to Tara? Or Julie?” Ridge didn’t meet Rhett’s glare. He’d finished up with the first horseshoe and was reaching for the mare’s other leg.