Toughest Cowboy in Texas

by Carolyn Brown

  “I’d like to hire the kids you had workin’ for you. Reckon you could send them over to my place tomorrow?”

  “Be glad to.” Paul nodded. “They were wonderin’ where they could find some more work.”

  Fred stopped by and laid a hand on Brody’s shoulder. “Did that prize heifer of yours ever throw that calf?”

  “Not yet but she’s been keepin’ me awake,” Brody answered. “I sure don’t want to lose her and didn’t mean for her to even get bred this year.”

  “So that’s why you’ve got dark circles under your eyes. I thought it might be you was worryin’ about something else.” Fred winked and chuckled. “Let me know when that calf is born. I’d sure like to see the critter. Maybe it’ll be one of Sundance’s boys and turn out to be good breeder stock.”

  “Don’t know what bull got in with her but the way Sundance can jump a fence, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Brody said.

  “Y’all ready to get that fun house goin’ for the younguns?” Jace finished off the last bite of food on his plate.

  “Yes,” Emma squealed. “Me and Lila are going to have fun.”

  “Yes, we are, sweet girl. Kasey, is it all right if I take her with me now?” Lila asked.

  “Of course. I’ll come get her in about twenty minutes. She’ll be ready for the kiddy pool by then.”

  “Glad you got that job.” Fred squeezed Brody’s shoulder. “With my arthritis, I’d be moanin’ for a week if I had to crawl inside that bouncy house thing.”

  “We might be groanin’ after today,” Lila said.

  “Oh, so you’re goin’ to help him?” Fred raised an eyebrow.

  “Yes, she is,” Emma piped up.

  “Okay, let’s get the show on the road.” Jace led the way outside.

  Emma tucked her hand into Lila’s and chattered all the way out to the children’s area. “Do you like my granny Hope?”

  Lila wasn’t sure how to answer that question. It was loaded like a double-barreled shotgun. Finally she said, “Of course. She’s a lovely lady.”

  “I like her too. She reads to me like you do and makes the voices.” Emma skipped along beside her. That kid was brilliant. The teachers were going to absolutely love working with her when she got to school.

  “Here we are.” Brody unzipped the house and stepped back to let Lila and Emma in first.

  “You’ve got a bouncy house and the kiddy pools for the little kids. What about the older kids?” Lila crawled inside with Emma right behind her.

  “There’s Ping-Pong and games going on in the Sunday school rooms,” he answered.

  “No poker, though,” Jace teased.

  “You remembered.” Lila smiled.

  “Oh, yeah,” Brody said. “You wiped all us boys out over there under that old lonesome scrub oak tree that summer after our sophomore year.”

  “I’d just finished the eighth grade and thought I was a better poker player than anyone, especially a girl. By the time we went home that day, I was just glad we weren’t playing strip poker,” Jace said. “I’d have lost my socks and everything else. As it was, I lost my lunch money for a whole week. Had to eat in the lunch room.”

  “Poor baby. Did you lose your lunch money too?” she asked Brody.

  “I lost a big chunk of my pride.” He crawled inside behind Emma and Lila. “Jace, you see to it they take off their shoes and know the rules. No shoving or hitting or spitting or fighting. I’ll sit in one of the supervisor’s corners and Lila can sit in the other.”

  Within ten minutes the noise was deafening and Lila couldn’t stop laughing at the antics of the kids. Give them something to jump up and down on and they were happy critters. Too bad adults weren’t as easily pleased. Half an hour later, Kasey took Emma out of the crowd and in a little more than an hour the rest of the children had had their fill and had one by one run off to play in the kiddy pool or to go inside to one of the rooms where popcorn was being served while an animated movie played.

  “Break time,” Brody said from his corner. “Let’s call it a day and go get something cold to drink. It’s hot in this place even with the fan running.”

  “You don’t have to twist my arm.”

  Lila tried to get to her feet but tumbled right over onto Brody. He wrapped his arms around her but still they wound up tangled together like a basketful of baby kittens. Pushing away from him only made her roll toward him more.

  When she finally got a grip on his broad chest and was able to sit up, her first thought was that adult toy stores needed to sell these houses. Then two strong hands gripped her around the waist and drew her toward him like she weighed no more than Emma. One second she was floating; the next she was sitting firmly in Brody’s lap.

  She started to thank him but his dark lashes fluttered closed and his lips came down on hers. The kiss started off sweet and tender, then the embers turned into a blaze and the heat came close to melting the bouncy house into nothing but a pile of plastic right there on the church parking lot.

  Her arms went around his neck and her fingers tangled into his dark hair as she pressed closer and closer to him. The entire world disappeared and they were in a special vacuum created just for them. Desire for more than scalding hot kisses filled her body. Then she realized where she was, who she was with, and what was going on. Thank God they were still zipped inside the bouncy house and no one saw them.

  She pulled away quickly.

  “You’re still that famous wild child.” He grinned.

  “But it’s time for me to be something else,” she whispered. “I need a glass of cold water or lemonade. I’ll see you inside.”

  “We should really talk,” he said.

  “About what? This is Happy, Texas, where nothing ever changes, not even when it wants to,” she said as she crawled out of the house.

  Chapter Nine

  Slow days in the café were much worse than busy ones. Time dragged and the tips for the whole day wouldn’t buy an Orange Julius at the mall in Amarillo. But that was Wednesdays—always had been and most likely always would be—especially on rainy days. Molly left six o’clock sharp. It was time to lock up the place and go on back to the cats but Lila was sitting in a booth finishing the last bites of a grilled cheese sandwich when Kasey darted inside out of the drizzling rain.

  “Oh my gosh. It’s closing time for you, isn’t it? I thought I had half an hour, but I guess I lost track of time.” Kasey threw back the hood on her shirt and nodded toward the clock on the wall above the cash register.

  “No problem. Come on in. What can I get you? The grill and grease are still hot,” Lila said.

  “I wanted a burger basket and a glass of lemonade but…”

  “Have a seat and it’ll be right out,” Lila said. “Where are the kids?”

  “Mama wanted them for the day and she’s taken them to Bible school tonight. My brothers drove down to Plainview to talk to a man about the fall cattle sale on the ranch,” she said. “First time in weeks that I’ve had a day to myself.”

  “What’d you do?” Lila called out as she flipped a patty on the grill and dumped a bunch of fries into the grease.

  “Errands that have been piling up. What I wanted to do was spend the whole day at the spa. Adam gave me a gift certificate for my birthday the first year we were married to that fancy place and I’ve always wanted to go back. Believe me, he got lucky that night.” She smiled.

  “I can’t imagine how tough losing him would be. Everything on the burger?” Lila asked.

  “Mustard and no onions. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over it. Crazy talking about food and him at the same time,” Kasey said. “I can say his name now without crying, so I guess that’s progress.”

  “I can’t even imagine the shock,” Lila said seriously.

  “It’s like an earthquake. You know it’s possible, even in Texas, but you never expect it to happen in your area. Then it does and it upsets everything in your life. But it doesn’t end there. There’s the after-tremors that keep
shaking things up. I got used to him being away pretty often. I keep thinking that in two days or two weeks, he’ll be back and things will be fine, but then reality hits, and it hurts all over again.” Kasey’s eyes went all misty but she kept the tears back.

  Lila could relate to that better than Kasey realized. There was the shock of leaving Happy and settling into a new place. Her mother and aunt started working at the new café they bought and Lila and Daisy moved into the apartment above the business. She’d thought that the loneliness would kill her. Then she went to college and found out that being away from her mother and relatives was even worse.

  There were days when she’d walk down the street, see a guy ahead of her and think for a split second that it was Brody Dawson—that he’d come to take her home. Then there were all the nights that she dreamed about him and woke up with a wet pillow from crying. Oh, yes, she could certainly feel what Kasey was saying.

  Lila threw the burger together, shook the fries from the basket, and put them into two separate baskets. “You said lemonade, right?”

  “I got my own and refilled your tea glass. Hope that’s all right,” Kasey said.

  Lila sat down at a table and propped her feet on an empty chair. “Ever want a second job, I’ll hire you as a waitress.”

  “Don’t think I can fit another job into my schedule. Thank you for doing this. Other than church dinners, I can’t remember the last time I sat down by myself and had a burger,” Kasey said. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  “Shoot,” Lila said.

  “What was it like when you moved away?”

  Lila swallowed hard. Putting emotions into mere words was near impossible. She’d left part of her heart behind in Happy, Texas, and found out that it was impossible to get it back anywhere else.

  “Different,” Lila finally whispered. “And a little intimidating. I knew who I was in Happy but…” She paused. “It’s hard to explain. No one knew me or anything about Happy, Texas. I was just another waitress in my aunt and mama’s café and then I was just another student at the college. I felt like a real fish out of water until I reinvented myself.”

  “I know exactly what you mean.” Kasey tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear. “I became a different person. I was an army wife, not Brody and Jace’s kid sister. I had responsibilities even before I had a family. New friends with the same lifestyle I had and we all stuck together when our guys were out on a mission. We worried together, shopped together, babysat each other’s kids, and then Adam was gone and I had to start adjusting to something different again. I’m sorry for unloading on you like this.”

  Lila reached across the booth and patted Kasey on the shoulder. “Don’t be. I can so relate to what you’re saying. I didn’t lose a husband but when I got to a different state I was a new person. It took me a while to know that girl. I felt like a shell, a walking, talking person who smiled and did what she was supposed to but had no heart.”

  “And now we are back and we are the same as when we left. You’re in this café and I’m living on a ranch with my brothers. It’s like there’s two women fighting inside me and I’m not sure which one I want to win,” Kasey said.

  Lila couldn’t have stated it any better than Kasey did. That’s exactly what she was fighting against these days. The two attitudes inside her were so very different. But when it all burned down to ashes, it was actually kind of simple. One had a beating heart in her chest and the other one was a walking, talking shell.

  “One is the wild child and the other is a responsible schoolteacher,” Lila said softly.

  “You got it. Only with me, one is still an army wife who organizes lawn picnics and car pools and then there’s this kid sister who’s trying to be as smart and as tough as her two older brothers. Which one will conquer?”

  “You ever hear the story of the old rancher and the coyote?”

  Kasey shook her head.

  “Coyote had ribs showing and was plainly starving, so the old rancher tossed out some scraps for the poor thing. Coyote came back the next night and the next and the rancher didn’t want him there because it was time for spring calves to be born and coyotes can’t be trusted. So he asked a friend what he should do.”

  “And?” Kasey squirted ketchup on her fries.

  “Friend said, ‘Stop feeding him if you don’t want him around.’ I expect it’s the same with us. With me, if I want to be the respectable schoolteacher, I have to stop feeding the desire to be the wild child.”

  “But what if we want to be both? I love the ranch and living around family but I’m tired of them all bossing me around like I’m still a teenager,” Kasey said.

  Lila frowned. “Is that possible?”

  “Don’t know but I intend to find out. And it’ll take some severe putting my foot down with my brothers and my mother,” Kasey said.

  Was it possible to pick what she wanted from both personalities? She was mentally making a list of what she’d keep and what she’d trash when she realized that Kasey was staring at her.

  “Sorry, I got lost in my thoughts,” Lila said. “Will you let me know how that turns out?”

  “You bet. I owe you that for keeping the café open and cooking for me.” Kasey nodded. “I admired you so much when you were in high school. Lord, I wanted to grow up and be just like you.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. You had it together.”

  “Oh, honey, I didn’t have jack squat together.” Lila shook her head. “Still don’t.”

  Someone in Happy had believed in her after all. Kasey might have been five years younger, but knowing how Kasey felt put something indescribable into Lila’s heart.

  Kasey stuck her fingers in her ears in a dramatic gesture. “Don’t ruin my memory. Let me keep it.”

  “Sure thing.” Lila smiled.

  The fingers came out and Kasey finished off her burger. “This has really been the best part of my day. Most of my friends left Happy. Let’s be honest, if you’re not a rancher or, in your case, own a café, there’s not much here to come back to. It’s nice to sit and talk to someone who knows the way things are, and yet…”

  Lila took Kasey’s glass to the fountain for a refill. “And yet what?”

  “It’s more of a feeling than it is something that can be put into words. I guess I just need to stop overthinking things and stop feeding that particular coyote. Can you put that in a to-go cup? I’ve got to get to the church or Mother will start calling every thirty seconds. And tally up how much I owe you.”

  “It’s on the house. We’ll call it payment for a therapy session,” Lila said.

  “Thank you,” Kasey said. “Sometime we’ll have to take a swim in Hope Springs and call it a spa day.”

  Lila handed her the cup and followed her to the door. “I’d like that.”

  Kasey stopped at the door and turned around. “You’re welcome anytime on the ranch, Lila. Come have a glass of tea with me or, better yet, we’ll have a cold beer.”

  “That is so sweet. I might do that sometime.” She flipped the sign around from OPEN to CLOSED, locked up, and turned off the lights. She had an invitation to Hope Springs without breaking the law by jumping the fence where a NO TRESPASSING sign was posted.

  She crossed the kitchen and went through the storage room into her apartment. The kittens were playing a cat game of hide and scare each other around the coffee table. She removed her shoes and stretched out on the sofa. The conversation with Kasey had been both wonderful and yet strange at the same time. She was Brody’s sister and the two people inside of her were different than Lila’s two but the feelings were the same.

  “Kind of like y’all are as different as night and day,” she muttered at the cats. “Black and white and yet both of you are still kittens.”

  Would this summer be the turning point in her life? The meeting point of that wild girl and the responsible one? She stared at her surroundings and got to her feet. Pacing from the living room, through the kitchen, and b
ack down the hall, she tried to get a handle on all the emotions.

  She grabbed a long-sleeved chambray shirt on her way past her bedroom and in a few minutes she was roaring out of town on her motorcycle. She turned to the east at the first opportunity and had gone only part of a mile when she saw a white truck in her rearview. It got closer and closer and then started to pass her before she realized that it was Brody. When he was right beside her, she flipped up the face shield and winked at him. Then she sped out ahead of him.

  He stayed right behind her all the way to the T in the road, where there was a stop sign. She turned on the left blinker. The highway would take her right down into the Palo Duro Canyon and then up on the other side not far from Claude. From there she’d ride to Amarillo and then south to Happy.

  Brody didn’t stop at the sign but pulled right out in front of her and skidded to a stop. He jumped out of the truck and swaggered back to where she’d stopped. “You weren’t kiddin’ about havin’ a bike. That’s a pretty piece of machinery. But…”

  “But what?” She jerked her helmet off and shook out her black hair.

  He took two steps forward, bookcased her cheeks with his calloused hands, and then his lips were on hers in a hungry, fierce kiss. She dropped her helmet on the ground and wrapped her arms around his neck. His tongue teased its way past her lips to make love to her mouth. The sun’s heat was nothing to the fire in the kiss that came close to melting the paint off his white truck as well as the stop sign.

  He took a step back and she almost fell off the bike before she could catch her breath. “I missed you, Lila.”

  “You missed the wild Lila. You barely know the responsible Lila.” She picked her helmet from the ground and slapped it back on her head. “Now if you’ll get out of my way, I’m going to Amarillo.”

  “Good God! Not down the canyon? You could get killed on those turns and curves.”

  “If I do, your mama will dance a jig on the church altar. You want to go with me?” She patted the seat behind her.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I watched you ride that mean bull, so I know there’s some daredevil left in you. I guess you’re too macho to ride behind a woman. I suppose you could ride on the handlebars.”