A Cowboy's Homecoming

by Leigh Riker

  Kate led the mare into the barn, Noah behind with the foal, which seemed stronger yet not as much as she would like to see.

  “I can’t imagine rejecting my own child, but then I’m not inside her head. She may win Mother of the Year next time, who knows?” Kate saw the open stall door at the end of the aisle. Gabe had been wise to separate their guests in that quieter spot. “It’s possible she thinks your little guy is too small to survive and she’s keeping her distance, not to get attached.” Just as Kate had advised Teddie to minimize his contact with Noah.

  “Not my guy,” he said. “He belongs to the WB.”

  No surprise. Noah might look the part of a cowboy, with his cream-colored Stetson set just right and wearing a red plaid shirt with his jacket, but he wasn’t. He’d made his choice. That he’d pushed it on Rob, too, was a definite sore spot for Kate. She watched Noah urge the foal into the big stall.

  “The vet gave him a thorough exam,” he said. “His only problems seem to be size, his early arrival—and that his mama wants little to do with him.”

  “We’ll let them settle in before we introduce them to my mare and her filly.”

  “Who, Mommy?” Teddie had stayed outside the stall but peered around the door frame, his eyes fixed on the foal.

  “Miss Sarah and her daughter, Janie.” Teddie had insisted on using the name of his favorite character in the cowgirl book. “I think they’ll be good teachers for these two.”

  “Are they going to play together?”

  “Let’s hope.” The WB’s mare stood placidly in the corner by the window. “My mare has had three foals,” she told Noah, “so she’s pretty experienced. Let’s cross our fingers that this works.”

  Satisfied that the WB’s mare had sampled the water in her bucket and the colt was now lying safely against the wall to nap, she turned toward the barn entrance and saw that Teddie had reached for Noah’s hand. “Bunny, let’s go up to the house. It’s almost lunchtime.”

  He dug in his boot heels. “But N—Mr. Bodine and I have to name the baby.”

  Teddie started to reel off his latest choices, and Noah had grasped his hand as if that was the most natural thing in the world.

  “We do,” Noah agreed, practically daring her to say no. “Besides, I’m going to stick around until you feel it’s a good time to put your visitor out in the field with—who is it?—Sarah—”

  “And Janie,” Teddie said. Then he was off on another tangent, telling Noah all about his favorite story. A smile played over Noah’s face, lighting his eyes as he glanced at Kate.

  Feeling torn, she stood for another moment, watching her son, his hand tucked trustingly into Noah’s, happiness written all over him. What a picture they made—the sort of image she cherished of Rob with Teddie. She would never have envisioned Noah playing surrogate dad, as she’d feared, just as he’d appeared to be a cowboy this morning... Kate marched toward the doors. She needed to nip this in the bud before Teddie came to depend on Noah more than he already did. “Come on, Teddie Bear.”

  He didn’t seem to hear. Or didn’t want to, more likely.

  She was about to make a stronger case when Meg walked into the barn.

  “I thought I saw your truck. Hi, Noah. Nice to see you.” She glanced at Kate, then at him again. “Kate, I came to tell you lunch is ready.” Another look at Noah. “Please join us.”

  “Yay!” Teddie cried. “We can name the baby while we eat.”

  * * *

  “BROWNIE OR SPENCER JUNIOR...” With his mouth full, at the kitchen table Teddie continued to rattle off names for the WB’s foal.

  “Swallow before you talk,” Kate said.

  He gulped down his food. “Or, hey, maybe Lollipop—”

  Noah couldn’t stop smiling. He cut into his chicken pot pie. “Sounds like a girl’s name to me.”

  He knew practically nothing about kids, no more than he seemed to know about women, especially Margot, yet Teddie brightened his day just by being...Teddie.

  Meg caught his eye. “Sorry you accepted our invitation?”

  Her invitation, not from Kate, who picked at her meal. The question didn’t require an answer.

  “How about something more boyish,” Noah suggested.

  Teddie beamed. “You mean like me? Or Seth? He’s my friend, but I don’t get to play with him very often—unless he comes here with his new dad. Did you know kids can have more than one daddy?” He looked at Noah as if he were being given a test.

  “Uh, yeah, I did know that.” And he noticed Kate was frowning.

  Meg explained, “Seth is a bit older than Teddie, so he’s usually in school.”

  The conversation ping-ponged between Teddie’s talk of names for the colt and Meg filling Noah in on everything that had happened in Barren since he’d left the last time, after his father’s funeral. Teddie finally won out.

  And... Lancelot it was. Noah had gone through a similar knights-and-dragons phase as a boy. Apparently, Teddie’s interest in astronomy had been shelved for now. Noah was still grinning to himself after lunch when he followed Kate back down to the barn. He wondered how Zach would react to Teddie’s name choice as he told Kate, “Meg’s pot pies and salad were terrific—if not the kind of rancher’s meal the WB has at noon. Mom always lays out the heavy protein and carbs.”

  Kate took a moment to answer. “Meg’s a great cook, too, but we don’t feed our hands every day. Thus, today’s lighter meal. Whenever we do, she makes fried chicken for them instead, or a roast. Stick-to-your-ribs food—like Jean’s.” She glanced at him. “You could have refused, gone home to eat.”

  Noah stopped smiling. “I wasn’t complaining. It was kind of Meg to invite me.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” Kate murmured, as if she had a bone to pick with Meg too.

  He didn’t want to examine that. Most likely, it involved him. “I enjoyed talking with her during lunch while you seemed so intent upon not talking.”

  Her gaze fell. “I figured she and Teddie could carry the conversation. I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome.”

  She’d sure made him feel that way, though. “Then what did you mean, Kate?”

  “My mind was on other things.” She led the way into the barn, to the stall near the end, and took a lead rope from the hook by the door. “I’ll take the mare. You bring the foal.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She didn’t react to his dry tone. For the time it took them to walk the horses into the nearest pasture where her mare and filly were waiting, he knew he should let it go. Finish settling this pair from the WB, then hightail it back to his family’s ranch and hope Willow had answered his text by now about her return.

  “In the open air, with room to run,” Kate said, “the horses should be fine.”

  “I appreciate you doing the WB this favor. I hope this won’t be too much of a burden. Of course, I’ll pay for their board.”

  Kate closed the gate. “I won’t take your money.”

  Noah’s irritation grew. He was being dismissed. “Why not?”

  She studied the horses. The two mares were nosing each other in greeting. The filly danced up to the colt’s side, her tail swishing. “Because it’s no trouble to add the WB’s two temporarily to my herd, and if you’re lucky, a miracle may happen with Lancelot’s mom.”

  His mouth tightened. “I’d still like to pay my share.”

  “Your share? Then perhaps I haven’t been clear.” She turned to lean back against the fence, shaded her eyes against the sun and squinted up at him. “You’re going to force me, aren’t you? Make me spell it out, as I’ve tried to do before?”

  “Guess I am.”

  “I don’t want to deal with you, Noah. As soon as Willow drives through the gates onto the WB, you will pack your bags, then get the...heck out of Dodge—or rather, Barren.”

  “I
see. Which really bothers you most? Me not leaving soon enough to please you? Or the implied part about New York?” Noah couldn’t avoid this subject any longer. “I live in constant fear with you of accidentally mentioning Rob again. I did not cause his death, Kate. I only wish I could have sav—”

  “Then who was it who offered him that job in your cybersecurity firm?”

  “Me,” he admitted, then looked at the ground. “Rob and I talked a lot by phone when he was still here at Sweetheart Ranch. I knew you were having financial troubles then. I also knew that he—” He broke off. “Scratch that. Our conversations were between us, as the close friends we always were...” He couldn’t go on.

  “Until you convinced him to leave here.”

  Noah sighed. “I expected Rob to bring you and Teddie with him.”

  “Really? I was supposed to turn my back on this ranch, uproot my son and destroy the only security he has? Move to a huge city that shreds my nerves—give up Teddie’s heritage?”

  “That’s not true. You could have kept the ranch, leased it to someone or left your foreman in charge. Once Rob grew into the job there, I would have promoted him, later made him a partner if he wanted to be. You and Teddie would have had financial stability—”

  “Except that Rob’s life ended on the street!”

  “I wasn’t responsible for that attack. Some knife-wielding guy out of his mind was. If it gives you any comfort, I see that same scene in my head every day. I wake up sweating.”

  “You wake up alive.” Her voice shook. “My husband is still dead, and Teddie no longer has a father! Just last night, he cried again, which still happens more often than I can bear. Obviously, he likes you—too much—which can only hurt him eventually. For me, that’s a dangerous combination.”

  His stomach lurched. “You’re right about one thing. Teddie and I took to each other from the start. He reminds me of myself at his age and while I was growing up. I can see that he needs more of a mental challenge than he’s been getting. Social stimulation too. He needs to explore the larger world beyond the gates of Sweetheart Ranch.”

  “That’s all fine, but not everyone has your view of New York.”

  He decided to just go for it. “I happen to like the city, the museums, restaurants, the constant bustle. The opportunities. If not there, maybe—for Teddie’s sake—you might consider seeing different places yourself. And frankly, I think you should reconsider your plan to homeschool him, maybe take another look at that special gifted program offered in Farrier—the same one I went to years ago.”

  “I can’t afford such a fancy program, and I don’t want Teddie spending that much time away from home. I understand, believe me, that he has taken to you, but you can have no real place in his life. I won’t have him regard you as some kind of superhero when tomorrow, for all I know, you may be gone. I won’t let you co-opt my son, and you certainly won’t be Rob’s replacement!”

  Noah hoped the flash of hurt didn’t show in his eyes.

  But, wait. Was this only about Teddie? Had Kate seen Noah’s attraction to her? When he wouldn’t acknowledge it himself? He sure wouldn’t do so now. His voice sounded hoarse. “I was only trying to help. I get a real kick out of your kid, Kate, but from what I just heard, I know when to back off.” He gestured toward the WB fence in the distance. “From now on, for the rest of the brief time I’m here, I’ll stay on my side of the line. You and Teddie should stay on yours.”

  What was Kate so afraid of? Not just him regarding Teddie. It seemed obvious that she only left Sweetheart Ranch when she absolutely had to. Teddie had said during lunch that he only saw Seth when his friend came to the ranch. Kate had locked herself and Teddie inside its gates.

  To Noah, that seemed no healthier than her resentment of him.

  “Noah,” Kate began as if she knew she’d said too much again.

  “No, I understand.” He glanced at the field, where the two mares were wandering across the snow-covered grass as if holding a friendly conversation, and the colt and filly were lying on a bare patch of ground in the shade of a cottonwood tree. Noah turned toward the truck. “Thanks for keeping the mare and...Lancelot.”

  Sweetheart Ranch was an idyllic setting, and he couldn’t blame Kate for wanting whatever peace she found here.

  Sadly, though, to Noah, it wasn’t a life.

  * * *

  KATE HADN’T BEEN able to forget her after-lunch argument with Noah. “In the end, I tried to back pedal a bit,” she told Meg that night, “but he was already upset.”

  “You think?”

  Meg had a point. “I meant what I said, though. I won’t have Teddie holding Noah’s hand, looking up to him—”

  Meg glanced up from the book she’d been pretending to read. “How could that be a bad thing? You and I see every day how Teddie misses Rob. He had a good dad, but now he’s gone. In those last six months, I know you had troubles before Rob—”

  “It’s hard enough carrying on without him.” Kate suppressed another sad memory of her husband. Many of their talks then had been by phone. “Please don’t remind me about those disagreements. And now, while I’m still grieving, Noah had to come along—”

  “Why despise him for what happened? Whenever I’d come to visit as a kid, I loved watching you with those two guys. The laughter, the pranks they played on you, the earnest conversations you all had... Why not remember those good times instead?” Meg stuck a bookmark in the page where she’d stopped reading. “It seems to me, Noah’s still on your mind. Take lunch today. You didn’t say two words, but I saw you steal a few glances at him. I saw him do the same to you. Maybe there’s something more here that you’re trying to overlook. How sure are you that he’s nothing to you now except a constant reminder of Rob’s loss?”

  This wasn’t going well at all. Kate went on the offensive. “You’re a fine one to talk. You say you’re over Mac—but are you, really?”

  For an instant, Meg looked shocked. “You heard me on the phone.”

  “When you sounded more scared of your feelings than of him.”

  “Kate. Don’t think I failed to notice how neatly you just tried to change the subject again. You may not be wild about the choice Noah made to leave Barren, but you can’t deny he’s made a life for himself in New York. Noah isn’t Rob, but he seems just as solid in his way, steady—”

  Kate said in a harsher tone than she intended, “Meg, I’m not looking for another relationship any more than you say you are.”

  Meg picked up her book, then set it aside. “But what’s the real harm in him being friends with Teddie? Those two looked so sweet at the table today. Noah didn’t ignore Teddie, he paid close attention to what he was saying. He let him pick that colt’s name even when Zach will probably have a fit that it doesn’t suit the WB. Noah seems to understand your boy who can, let’s face it, be a challenge to other less-brilliant people.”

  “True, Teddie’s like the brainy kids at school who were set apart from the rest of the class when all they wanted was to belong.” Was that why Noah had pushed her about Teddie and the gifted program? Because, years ago, he’d been one of those kids himself?

  “Is that why you want to homeschool Teddie?” Meg asked.

  “Partly, yes.”

  “But you can’t wrap him in cotton, Kate.”

  “That’s what Noah tried to tell me. I don’t want to keep Teddie from having friends. He’s so happy when Seth comes to play, and of course he should have the best schooling he can get, but how could I drive him to Farrier every morning for school? Even if I could afford that program? Send him off with a backpack and his lunch? Worry about him the whole time he was gone?”

  Meg gazed at her. “All parents worry,” she said gently.

  Kate swallowed hard. “Yes, but I already watched Rob leave for New York after his last visit home. We quarreled up to the minute he slammed the door of his c
ar, then shot down this same driveway. I never saw him alive again.”

  “Which was a tragedy. My heart breaks for you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ever be happy again—with someone else. Maybe not right now, maybe not with Noah, but you shouldn’t deny yourself that happiness. You shouldn’t keep Teddie from having a normal kid’s life, either, Kate.”

  Her heart was beating like a steel drum, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. When she did, Kate could guess how absolutely neurotic she must sound. “But what if...something happened to him too?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “KATE LANCASTER. IS it really you?” Jean Bodine had rushed from the house to meet her as soon as Kate came up the WB’s driveway the next morning and got out of the truck. She wrapped Kate in a bear hug. “You’ve actually left that ranch again?”

  “Not often,” Kate admitted, remembering the night the colt was born. She hadn’t hesitated to help then but, “Sweetheart takes up all my time. With Rob gone...” She looped an arm around Jean’s waist as they walked toward the porch. “Anyway, I’m here on a mission.”

  “Ooh, that sounds interesting.”

  “I doubt Noah will think so.” Last night’s talk with Meg had preyed on her mind until Kate had to set out for the WB. She had treated Noah badly and felt rightfully ashamed of herself.

  I was only trying to help, he’d said. She would have driven straight to the barn, where he must be this time of day, but clearly Jean wanted to visit, and Kate had spent the short trip between her ranch and the WB trying to think what to say to him. She still didn’t know.

  “Ah,” Jean murmured, leading the way inside, “now I know why he was like a bear with a thorn in his paw at breakfast. And that scowl...”

  “My fault.”

  After Jean had poured coffee for them, they sat in the living room. The air smelled of furniture polish and showed Jean’s pride in her home. Kate said, “I came to apologize, but that’s between me and Noah. All I can tell you is that I let my resentments get out of hand. Obviously, I have issues to resolve.”