The Prodigal Cowboy (Mercy Ranch Book 5)

by Brenda Minton

  “Nice,” Colt told his brother. “That’s your way of helping me?”

  “I thought Holly could use the business. It’s called marketing, brother.”

  “You thought you wanted a job washing dishes, that’s what you thought.” Colt grabbed an apron and a pair of rubber gloves, and pushed them into Isaac’s unwilling hands. “Have fun.”

  Isaac’s laughter chased Colt from the room. He might not have experience but he was quick on his feet. Well, not quick. He had a leg that knotted up and a back that had seen better days, but he could peddle a fried chicken special and pour sweet tea.

  Each time he entered the kitchen, he saw Isaac elbow-deep in suds, washing the dishes that either Colt or Stacy brought in by the tub load.

  At one point Isaac stretched and pushed his hands against his lower back. “I know what I’m getting Holly for Christmas.”

  “What’s that?” Isaac asked.

  “A dishwasher, the automatic kind that doesn’t require a man to be on his feet for hours. Is this rush about over with?”

  “I think it is. In fifteen minutes you can have a break. Remember, marketing, brother.”

  Isaac grabbed the sprayer from the sink and turned to aim it at Colt.

  “Don’t do it,” Colt told him.

  “Do you understand I have work to do? I have a job running a ranch. And I’m supposed to be loading up a horse for your daughter.”

  “That’s all pretty nice and I’m glad to hear about the job. Most of us didn’t think you’d amount to much.”

  “That’s low.” Isaac hit the water and sprayed Colt in the face.

  Seconds later the two of them were fighting over the hose, spraying water as they wrestled each other for possession. Sputtering and laughing, they backed away from each other, taking the towels that Jess offered as she ventured back into the kitchen.

  “That was uncalled for.” Isaac wiped his face with a towel and tossed it to Colt. “Uh-oh...”

  Colt wiped water from his face and pushed his hair back out of his eyes. And there was Holly standing in front of him, hands on her hips. He glanced down and saw that her toenails were a pretty shade of pink.

  “Nice color,” he stated before she whacked him with a towel.

  “I’ve worked hard to build up this business. The two of you are not going to destroy it in a day. You’re both fired.”

  “Sorry,” Colt grinned. “But I’m staying. And you’re going. We’ve got this under control.”

  “I. Don’t. Work. For. You,” Isaac stated, as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I can’t stay here washing your dishes. I have a job. Hire a dishwasher.” Isaac pulled a wallet from his back pocket. “I’ll write you a check right now to buy a dishwasher for this place.”

  “That’s a waste of money,” Holly informed him. “I wash dishes when I get a break from working out front. It saves money.”

  Isaac wrote out a check and handed it to her. “Consider it a wedding gift.”

  She gave him a look that sent him running for the door.

  “Isaac, I have the right to refuse service to anyone,” she warned.

  “I’m sorry, Holly. It was a joke, really. I wouldn’t wish anyone tied down to him. He’d be rotten as a husband.”

  Colt wanted her to disagree, but she didn’t. Instead she pointed to the door and Isaac went.

  “You have to dry the floor before someone slips and gets hurt,” Holly told Colt. Standing in front of him, her arms were crossed.

  He started to say something to Jim but realized the other man had disappeared. Smart. Colt started thinking maybe he should have escaped as well. But then, if he had, he wouldn’t be in here alone with Holly.

  Then he noticed something. “You got your hair done,” he said.

  She touched the soft strands, and he was suddenly jealous that he wasn’t smoothing his fingers through her hair. The style wasn’t much of a change, just a trim that left it looking softer around her face.

  “Rebecca said you gave her too much money, so she insisted I get my hair styled.”

  “I’m glad she did.” He took a step closer. “I’m sorry about the floor. Me and Isaac got a little out of control.”

  “I can see that.”

  “How was the mother-daughter bonding time?”

  She smiled, and the expression undid something inside him. That look made him want to send her to the salon every day of the week.

  “It was perfect. Thank you for that. I should have thought of it. I just... I don’t know, I thought having her here was enough.”

  “You are enough, Holly. She just needed some special time alone with you. I’d like to have some time alone with you, too. Dinner, maybe a movie?”

  She shook her head. “This isn’t about us, Colt. It’s about Dixie.”

  He disagreed but didn’t say so.

  Instead he reached up, smoothing the soft fall of bangs that swept across her brow. She closed her eyes as he pushed the hair back from her face.

  Slowly he leaned in and kissed her cheek. She opened her eyes, a fleeting smile softening her lips and then disappearing.

  “That was nice,” she said. “But I don’t think you’re supposed to kiss customers. I’m here for lunch.”

  “I’m the boss, I make the rules,” he informed her.

  “Maybe so, but I have my own rules. We’d like two burgers and two orders of fries to go. And make it snappy.” She laughed as she stood on tiptoe and kissed him, quick and easy, as if they did this every day.

  “For you, anything at all.”

  “You can join us, if you like,” she suggested.

  First he had the clean up the floor. “Could you send Jim back here? I think we scared him off.”

  Holly laughed as she headed out of the kitchen. “I guess since I’m fired, you’ll have to find Jim for yourself and convince him not to hurt you.”

  That went better than expected. Maybe, just maybe, they had a chance at being a real family and not just two strangers sharing a child.

  Colt had always been an optimist at heart.

  Chapter Ten

  Holly spent Saturday with Dixie. The two of them worked on clearing out the garden at the house, preparing it for spring flowers. Later in the afternoon, they visited Opal. It ached every time she had to tell her mother she couldn’t go home, knowing that Opal didn’t fully understand. In her lucid moments she was very capable of being at home and she knew it. But those days were growing fewer and fewer.

  On their way home, she and Dixie both shed a few tears over the goodbye with Opal, when she’d pleaded to go home until an aide had redirected her to the game room.

  As they pulled up the driveway, Holly saw that Cooter had been turned loose and Colt’s truck was parked near the barn. Colt was nowhere in sight, but Cooter saw them and hurried to greet them as they got out of the car.

  “Where’s Colt?” Dixie asked as she scanned the yard.

  “Your guess is as good as mine.” She didn’t see him, but she smelled something mouthwatering.

  “What is that?” Dixie asked. “I wasn’t hungry until now.”

  “I’m not sure but I’m guessing if we head for the back patio, we’ll find out.”

  “I hope it tastes as good as it smells,” Dixie said as she hurried ahead. Cooter ran alongside her, licking at her hands as they ran. Holly didn’t have the energy for running. She was feeling better since Colt’s forced vacation, and she could tell that he’d been right. She wasn’t as healthy as she should be. Working full time and caring for Opal had taken a toll on her that she’d tried to deny.

  She should have taken better care of herself. She should have taken days off.

  Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda.

  Instead of walking to the patio, Dixie headed toward the big oak tree at the side of the house, Holly following close behi
nd. They spied a saucer-shaped swing hanging from the tree. Dixie didn’t waste time climbing on.

  “Watch how high I go!” Dixie yelled.

  “I am!” Holly called back.

  She walked toward the back patio, a square of broken concrete that needed repairs. Like everything around here, the patio had been neglected. The table was from the last century, literally. The chairs had been repaired too many times to count, and there was a crack in the glass tabletop. And she’d failed to water her plants. Again.

  Colt came out the back door carrying a spatula, wearing a red apron. He looked silly standing there in jeans, T-shirt, cowboy hat and boots with that red apron hanging almost to his knees. Silly but so attractive her knees felt weak. She shook off whatever feelings were stirring in her heart and refocused on the planters next to the patio, the ones she hadn’t gotten to that day. From the looks of them, she hadn’t gotten to them in a lot of days.

  “Why the long face?” Colt asked.

  “No reason,” she fibbed. “What are you making?”

  Colt lifted the grill lid. “Tri-tip. Smoked to perfection.”

  “It smells amazing.”

  “It’ll taste amazing, too,” he told her as he closed the lid. “And you’re not being honest with me. Why are you giving the plants a dirty look?”

  Holly let her gaze slide back to the wilted and dying plants in the earthen containers at the edge of the patio.

  “As far as I can tell, they aren’t much to look at. In fact, calling them plants might be an overstatement.” He grinned, and she found the humor in the situation. Barely.

  “Well, they started out as plants. And I took care of them for a while. And then I got busy, and I found I just didn’t care about them enough. Each day I walked past them and saw that they needed water. And I always thought, ‘Tomorrow. I’ll take care of them tomorrow.’”

  He nodded, his smile disappearing. “Go on.”

  “I put everything off until tomorrow. What if I do that to Dixie? What if I keep thinking, ‘Tomorrow,’ and then I fail to be a mom because I get too busy?”

  “You’re overthinking this, Hol. Just be her mom. Today you were her mom and you did an excellent job.”

  “You think I did, but what if I forget to feed her?”

  He laughed at that. “You’ve met her. Do you think she’s going to let you go more than a couple of hours without feeding her?”

  She watched their daughter swinging, Cooter running back and forth next to her. Laughter rang out as the dog tried to get on the swing with Dixie. She was being a normal little girl of eleven. For the moment everything was good.

  “Stop overthinking,” Colt told her as he lifted the grill lid to check the progress of their dinner.

  Holly leaned in next to him, inhaling the aroma. “That smells so good.”

  “I told you I could cook,” he said, turning the grill to Low, then taking a seat at the table. She sat next to him, both of them watching Dixie on the swing.

  “You did, but I had to see it to believe it.”

  His face fell. “I want you to believe in a lot more than my ability to cook.”

  “I do believe in more than your ability to cook,” she told him. “Why is your truck parked by the barn? Because I also believe that the swing and grill are not the only new things on my property.”

  He laughed. “I was working on the fence and putting a few things in the tack room.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Probably tack,” he countered as he got himself to his feet and returned to the grill.

  “Tack for what?” she asked. He gave her a little grin.

  “Grandpa Jack has a gift for Dixie.”

  “A gift?” she asked. But she thought she knew what it was, and her heart took flight at the kindness the Wests were showing Dixie.

  Colt glanced at his watch and then he winked. “I would say to count to about a hundred and she’ll scream like a banshee.”

  She didn’t have to count. A minute later a truck and trailer came up the drive, pulling past the house to the barn. A horse whinnied from inside the trailer. Colt had been right. Dixie let out a squeal and ran in the direction of the trailer. Colt caught her as she ran past him.

  “Slow down and let him park. You don’t want to be behind the trailer if he has to back up.”

  “There are two horses in there!” Dixie yelled. “TWO!”

  “Two?” Holly walked next to him. “Why two?”

  “Because Jack thought both of our girls need pretty ponies. Not that these are ponies.” Colt kept walking as he imparted that bit of information, Dixie glued close to his side, bouncing as she walked.

  To Holly it seemed like a lot, those two horses. She couldn’t even keep plants alive. Worse, she pictured herself here, alone, two horses grazing in the field, reminding her of what she had and lost.

  But she couldn’t let herself worry about the future of their situation. Best to just focus on what was happening at the moment. It was a hard lesson to learn, to put aside her worries, to focus on the here and now, to breathe and enjoy the journey. Why did it come so much easier to some people? She envied those people. She wanted to be more like them.

  She stepped close to Colt, who was standing to the side, waiting for Isaac to back the trailer near the corral.

  He grabbed her around the waist and gathered both her and Dixie close.

  Dixie stopped bouncing and started wringing her hands. Holly smiled at her daughter. Retraining her worrisome brain would take time but Holly found she wanted to let go of the worries. They weighed a lot, all of those troubling thoughts did.

  She wanted to be more like the girl she used to be, the one who knew her family was a little messed up but she wore the unicorn costume, ran barefoot all summer, swam in the creek with her best friend and laughed often.

  “Can I call Daisy?” Dixie had gone still and didn’t look at them, instead keeping her gaze on the horse trailer.

  “Of course you can,” Holly answered, but it took a moment to get her bearings. “I should have thought of that, Dixie. You can call her anytime you like.”

  “Tonight?” Dixie finally looked at her. “Could I call and tell her about the horses and about Cooter?”

  As if on cue, the dog bounded to Dixie’s side and sat next to her, wagging his tail happily.

  “Yes, definitely.” Holly looked from Dixie to Colt, wanting him to say something. Daisy was his sister, after all.

  He gave a quick nod. “I think that should be fine. I’m sure she’d like to talk to you.”

  Dixie didn’t seem to notice the tension. She hugged Colt and hurried off to Isaac’s side.

  “She needs that connection. With Daisy, I mean,” Holly spoke quietly, trying to keep the conversation between them.

  “I know she does. I just...” He met her eyes. “I don’t want to lose her.”

  “Me either, but we’ll definitely lose her if we don’t allow her to talk to your sister. She needs Daisy in her life.”

  “I know.” He turned his attention back to the trailer and Isaac. “I’ve always loved the memory of that baby girl, with her cry that sounded like a kitten and those big dark eyes. But it was a lifetime ago. It’s almost like it belonged to another person. This girl, she’s more than a memory, and I didn’t know I could love her as much as I do. She’s part of us, Holly. She’s all good, like you, and a little ornery like me. I don’t want to let her go.”

  Holly leaned into him, just enough to share the moment because he’d put into words what she’d been feeling. What she couldn’t tell him was that she feared losing them both. The only thing truly tying them together was Dixie—and the possibility of her staying in Hope. With them.

  * * *

  Colt stood there, thinking he’d forgotten something. He glanced at his watch, then jumped. “Our dinner! I’m
going to take the stuff off the grill and wrap it in foil. Be right back.”

  “Why don’t you let me do that? I can’t help Isaac but I can take care of dinner.” Holly started to head in that direction.

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded and hightailed it to the house like her feet were on fire.

  “Are you going to help?” Isaac yelled at him from across the yard. Colt saw Dixie standing on the side of the trailer petting the golden nose that protruded from the window.

  A car pulled down the drive. Jack’s car. Obviously coming to get his fair share of hugs for the gift he’d given.

  “It’s Grandpa Jack!” Dixie hopped off the side of the trailer and ran over to wait for Jack to pull up.

  Colt joined Isaac, who had stepped into the trailer and was backing the first horse out, a big bay with a deep red color and black socks, his black tail flagged, hinting at Arabian blood.

  He took the lead rope from Isaac. “That’s a lot of horse,” he told his brother.

  Isaac shrugged. “He’s got spirit but he’s gentle. Holly can handle him.”

  “I’m trusting you on that,” Colt warned. “I’ll put him in a stall until Holly gets back.” ”

  “Does that barn have a stall that isn’t falling apart?” Isaac asked as he walked back into the trailer.

  “It’s sound,” Colt assured him. “I checked it out, cleaned a couple of stalls and swept out the tack room. Sure, it could use some repairs, but it won’t fall in.”

  He led the horse into the first stall and opened the door of the next stall for Isaac as he led the light gold palomino into the barn. The horse snorted and stomped as he sniffed his new domain.

  Colt looked the animal over. “Is that a kid’s horse? He seems pretty flighty.”

  Jack, Dixie and Maria joined them in the barn, and Dixie hurried over to the palomino.

  “He’s a kid’s horse,” Jack answered. “I rode him myself.”

  Colt’s eyes widened at that. “You rode him?”

  “He did,” Isaac said. “I found out after the fact.”