A Cowboy to Keep

by Karen Rock

  Was she betraying her friend? Yes.

  Did that make her a hypocrite? Yes...considering her own past.

  The door swung open and Tanya appeared in the frame. Her quick smile faded when she glimpsed Jack. She tucked her dark hair behind her ears, slid her tank top strap up her thin arm and fidgeted with one of her leather bracelets.

  “My first visitor. It sure is good to see you. How’ve you been, girl?” Despite her friendly tone, her eyes kept darting to Jack. Knowing him, he read everything into her uneasy expression. Yet Dani knew Tanya. Her friend was the worst liar, one of the reasons Smiley never let her play poker with them on weekends. Her twitchy right eye always gave her away, as did her tendency to repeat herself when she was nervous.

  No.

  Tanya was trustworthy, as was Smiley. But he might be hiding out because he didn’t want to be charged with a crime he didn’t commit.

  Hadn’t she done the same when she’d fled to Colorado to reboot her off-the-rails life and avoid bringing trouble, aka her incarcerated ex and the pending charges against her, to her family’s doorstep?

  The news item that’d shown the composite sketch of her face with her misspelled name flashed before her eyes. And she could still hear her former boyfriend vowing to find her when he got released.

  But the police didn’t have her correct name and she hadn’t talked much about her family back then, so Kevin never knew exactly where in Texas they lived.

  She squashed her sudden spike of fear. She’d left that world. Stood on her own two feet now. Nothing would knock her off them again.

  Please don’t let Jack turn that sharp investigative eye on me...

  “I’m good. I like your hair. Did you get a perm?”

  Tanya shot her a tic-smile and thrust her hands in the pockets of her jeans skirt. “I’m still getting used to it.”

  “It’s great. I, uh, wanted to introduce you to one of our new wranglers. Jack, this is Tanya. Tanya—Jack.”

  “Howdy,” Tanya blurted, but she didn’t step onto the porch to extend a hand. In fact, she hadn’t even hugged Dani, which was unlike her. Did Jack’s appearance scare her? He really needed to stop scowling around people.

  “Ma’am.” Jack dipped his head. He stared steadily at Tanya, his eyes dark, his expression unreadable.

  “Smells like you made some corn bread,” Dani observed when an awkward silence descended. Tanya should have invited them in by now. Strangely, her friend stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind her.

  “Yes. I’m hoping Smiley might stop by. He hasn’t shown up yet, has he?”

  Her shoulder muscles relaxed; Tanya didn’t know anything about Smiley.

  “No. In fact, I thought I might run into both of you here.”

  “I haven’t seen him.” Tanya bent down to adjust a loose strap on her sandal and her hair slid forward, obscuring her face. “I haven’t seen him at all.”

  Unease curled in her gut at Tanya’s repetition. “When’s the last time you spoke to him? I thought he would have shown up today with the rest of the groundskeepers.”

  Her gaze flicked sideways at Jack, who peered through the window beside the front door. Tanya brought her hand up to her mouth and nibbled on her nail. “Didn’t you hear? We broke up months ago, though I’m hoping to get back together.”

  Dani shifted her weight onto her other foot. It bugged her that she felt more suspicious than sympathetic. Jack’s doing. She could trust her own judgment now.

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” When she wrapped her arms around Tanya, she inhaled a familiar whiff of cherry. What did she associate that scent with? “How about I stop by later for a chat?”

  Tanya gave her a big, crinkly smile. “That’d be nice.”

  “Good to meet you,” Jack said, as he followed Dani down the porch stairs and onto the path that swept by parked Gator vehicles, used for off-road carting, in front of a two-car garage.

  “See. I told you Tanya wouldn’t know anything.” She waved to Nan, who rocked on the front porch of the May’s house. Like Dani and the Mays, she lived here year-round.

  The elderly woman stopped petting a calico cat on her lap and waved back. Her bright pink shirt contrasted with her white cloud of hair and brought out her piercing blue eyes.

  “Tanya knows more than she’s saying,” he murmured.

  Two energetic Australian shepherds bounded down from the porch before she could argue the point. She crouched for the hurtling fur balls.

  “Hey, Beau. Hey, Belle.” She laughed as the dogs jostled to give her frantic tongue baths. “Who brought you guys back from the vet’s?”

  “Sam picked them up,” called Nan. “They got all the porcupine needles out. Would you believe some were lodged in the back of their throats?”

  When she gestured for them to approach, they climbed the steps and Dani settled on the porch swing. Jack leaned against the railing, his arms crossed over his chest.

  “Poor puppies,” Dani crooned. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson.” Beau whined and rolled over on his back, presenting his white belly. Belle swerved back down the porch after a butterfly. Her obsession.

  “I’m Nan.” The woman extended a gnarled hand in Jack’s direction, and he shook it gently with an old-school, courtly kind of grace. “My, aren’t you a tall drink of water. Are you single?”

  “Nan.” Dani stopped rubbing Beau’s soft stomach and shot the would-be matchmaker a warning look. Nan approached setting up couples like it was a competitive sport—one she indulged in with gusto every season.

  “Jackson Cade.” To her surprise, he didn’t seem ruffled by her question at all. In fact, he gave Nan a warm smile. “And I’m single.”

  Nan’s rocking chair picked up speed and she returned his smile. “Well, now. Dani here’s single, too.”

  “That a fact,” drawled Jack. He tipped back his broad-brimmed hat and studied her with amused eyes.

  “He’s our new wrangler,” Dani blurted, heat creeping in her cheeks at the shrewd look Nan was giving her.

  Nan’s rocking chair slowed. “Diane and Larry didn’t mention a new hire.”

  “It was a last-minute thing. They should be home soon, right?”

  The cat on Nan’s lap purred loudly as she scratched behind its ear. “They’re about an hour out. Got a nice deal on a seven-year-old finished heel horse.”

  “Good,” Dani observed absently, her mind flashing to Milly. The mare had been one of her best roping horses and they needed a replacement. When they put on their weekly rodeo, she’d always gave a show. Had relished performing as much as Dani did. No, more. She stopped petting Beau and straightened. “Hey. You haven’t seen Smiley, have you?”

  Nan rubbed the side of her nose. “Not that I’m certain.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Thought I might have spotted him a couple of days ago, but haven’t seen him since. I heard rumours that he got into some trouble, though, so I must have been mistaken.” She held up the glasses that dangled from a chain around her neck. “Whatever you do, don’t get old.”

  “Who’s old?” Dani avoided Nan’s playful swat and kissed her soft, creased cheek. “Would you ask Diane and Larry to page me when they get in?”

  “I will. Nice meeting you, Jack. I expect you’ll be at the welcome-back square dance tonight.”

  “Same, ma’am. As for the party, I’m not much of a dancer.”

  “Dani here can teach you, can’t you dear?”

  Dani opened her mouth, thought better of her words and swallowed them. “I’m sure Mr. Cade’s got more important things to do.”

  “Well, now.” The corners of his mouth hooked up, the attractive half smile that got under her skin flashing at her. “Don’t know if I can turn down such a tempting offer.”

  Nan�
�s hand clap shooed the cat off her lap. “Of course you can’t. I knew I saw something between you two.”

  “Goodbye, Nan,” Dani said firmly, then shot her elder a significant look before traipsing down the steps after Jack.

  Bella and Beau wove through their legs and Jack’s hand came up, quick and warm around her elbow, his touch firing along her skin.

  “Nan saw Smiley,” he observed, as they passed an old-time stagecoach, which the guests still got to ride in. Chickens meandered through its spoked wheels.

  “She thinks she did. Beau. Stop.” The rambunctious dog quit jumping and took off after his sister.

  “Tanya’s hiding something.”

  She rounded on him, her patience wearing thin. “How do you know?” Overhead, an American flag hung from its rope in the still air. The fragrance of the newly planted petunias encircled them.

  “I saw two glasses on her coffee table.”

  “So?”

  “She said we were her first visitors.”

  Her mouth opened then closed. Brain cells, get moving, she ordered, but they just rolled in her skull, sluggish. He was too observant by half. “Tanya wouldn’t lie. She must have used both of them.”

  “Is she a sloppy housekeeper?”

  “No...”

  “Food for thought.”

  “Corn bread,” she blurted, not sure if she was doing the right thing, but suddenly needing to speak when the source of the cherry scent came back to her. “It’s Smiley’s favorite.”

  Jack nodded slowly and a smile lightened his eyes to dark amber with gold flecks. “I appreciate that.”

  “And her hair.” Was she really saying this about her friend?

  “Go on.”

  “It smelled like one of his cigars.” Her chest burned at her admission...but she couldn’t hold it back. There had to be reasonable explanations for this...

  But another part of her worried. Was there a chance that she’d befriended the kind of people she’d come all this way to avoid...the sort of friends that brought out her old trouble-making self, the person she no longer was...or wanted to be?

  “Can we get inside Tanya’s cabin?”

  “This doesn’t feel right.”

  “Her employee agreement gives—”

  “Consent to search,” she finished for him.

  “And my search warrant request is just waiting on official approval.”

  “Larry and Diane won’t want a fuss made,” she protested, feeling defensive of her friends. “I’ll think of something when I drop by to see her later.”

  Jack nodded slowly, then chucked her under her chin. “Thanks, partner.”

  “I’m not your partner,” she called to him as he doubled back and headed for the trail behind Tanya’s house.

  He turned and the gleam of amusement in his eyes got her heart thumping. “Right. Thanks, boss.” After a long look he turned and disappeared into the forest.

  She stared after him far too long, then let out a breath.

  Honestly.

  Mooning after a cowboy who was all kinds of wrong for her...and dangerous. Had she learned nothing from her mistakes?

  CHAPTER SIX

  DANI HUNG HER hat on a hook, dropped into her office chair and powered up her computer. Exhaustion pressed on her eyelids until they drifted shut. She stretched out her legs, crossed her boots at the ankle and tipped her head back to rest on the cushion as she waited for the old-school dial-up connection.

  What a crazy eighteen hours. When she’d pictured her first season as stable manager, she’d never imagined everything would go smoothly, but she hadn’t envisioned an undercover bounty hunter, a suspicious avalanche and friends who might be lying to her.

  But haven’t you been deceiving them, too? came the sudden question, echoing in her brain, louder than if she’d actually heard it.

  Her lungs expanded as she took in a deep, stress-management breath. It wasn’t the same thing. She hadn’t actually intended to commit a crime.

  In a flash, she was twenty-one again, double-parked on a busy street in Oklahoma City, finished with her morning jumping competition, excited to see what mischief her boyfriend, Kevin, would coax her into today. Maybe they’d borrow that ATV they’d been eyeing the past few days and take it for a spin. The owners looked like they were away...

  A loud bang on the passenger-side window jolted her out of her thoughts and Kevin’s face appeared in the window.

  “Let me in!” he yelled like some wild carjacker, and she immediately unlocked the door and hit the gas pedal when he hollered, “Drive! Fast!”

  She thought maybe he’d gotten in a fight. He had a quick temper and she’d seen how easily he got riled. She wouldn’t stick around for some offended mountain boy to stomp out and teach Kevin a few manners.

  Her pulse raced as they blew through five intersections before he turned to her with a big grin and opened his duffel bag. At the stacks of cash spilling through the open zipper, she hit the brakes and got honked at by a car that swerved around her.

  “Woooo-hooooo!” Kevin whooped. His eyes darted over her shoulder. “That’s fifty Gs. At least. We’re going to take a vacation. I’ll buy you something special, too. Promise.”

  Her insides froze. Her outside, too, for that matter, her hands awkward on the steering wheel.

  “What did you do?” she asked dumbly, her thoughts tumbling over each other as she resumed driving, her body on a tense sort of autopilot. Sure they liked raising hell, but this...?

  She wasn’t that kind of person.

  Later on, as she’d agonized over what to do, she’d seen a picture of herself on TV. A wanted woman with a misspelled name—in some ways anonymous. She’d vowed to turn herself in, but was stopped by a call from Kevin. After she’d dropped him off to meet his cousin, a bank employee who’d been Kevin’s accomplice, the two men had been apprehended.

  “You won’t do me any good locked up,” he’d said after he explained that he hadn’t clarified the correct spelling of her name or given any details about her. “When I get out, I’ll need a place to go, someone to help me out, and that’s you.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  “Well. You won’t have a choice because you’ll owe me.”

  Muffled words sounded through the phone, as if he’d put a hand on it, and then his voice returned, sharp as a knife.

  “Look, my time’s up. Just remember what I said,” he’d hissed. “You owe me.”

  The line went dead before she could speak.

  At the gargled shriek of her connecting hard drive, her eyes flew open, rocketing her from her past and into the present that didn’t feel so very different.

  A whirring overhead fan stirred the muggy air in the cramped space and didn’t cool her burning cheeks one bit. She needed to distract herself, and checking through her guest preference sheets a final time wouldn’t cut it.

  A thirst to know more about Jack took hold. Technically that wouldn’t be procrastinating, since she needed to know about her employees—real or otherwise.

  Ahem.

  Oh, who cared if she justified her actions? She was curious and no one would know.

  She opened her browser, typed his name in and drummed her fingers beside the framed family photos on her desk, waiting...waiting...waiting...for the toddler-sized brain of her ancient hard drive to figure out what she wanted.

  Her gaze drifted over her eclectic picture collection. There was her father at age five in black-and-white, pulling a wagon with a droopy beagle in it. Beside him was a photo of her younger sister, Claire, her glowing face bent toward her newborn son, Jonathan, now ten, cradled in her arms. That fiercely tender expression always made a lump rise in Dani’s throat when she looked at it, remembering the miracle of that day
.

  Next to the photo of her sister was her much younger self atop a brown-and-white pony, her short legs just barely hitting the stirrups, reins gripped tight in her small hands, her huge smile scrunching her nose and eyes so that she was all freckles and teeth. Brownie... She traced her first mount’s nose, nostalgia rising, the sense of loss increasing as her eyes drifted to a last picture: her mother at Port Aransas.

  Her mom perched on the rear deck of a fishing boat they’d chartered, her arm slung with casual abandon over Papa’s. Mama was laughing at the camera, at Dani, who’d been making crazy faces to get her to smile while Claire snapped the shot.

  Remembering the I-love-you-you-fool look her mom usually wore around Dani, how her mother had always called her “baby girl,” wrung her heart right out. She’d never be anyone’s baby girl again.

  She tore her eyes away and studied the monitor, the muscles on either side of her mouth tense as she kept her lips from wobbling, her mother dying again and again and again, as she did every time Dani looked at that photo. She wished she could step into it and have another one of her mama’s lilac-scented hugs that warmed her right through.

  Her bangs lifted at the force of her exhale, and as she scanned her computer’s search results, a Forbes headline on the computer caught her eye.

  New Heir to Cade Ranch: Jackson Cade.

  Puzzled, she swirled her mouse on her Pride and Prejudice pad, brought the cursor over the words and clicked.

  A picture of a beautiful vista, Rocky Mountains rising over grassy planes dotted with grazing cattle, appeared. Cade Ranch, the article chronicled, one of the biggest cattle ranches in Colorado, had been visited with tragedy when its owner, Jackson Sr., was killed in a private jet crash, leaving the firstborn of six kids, Jackson Jr., to step in as CEO of this beef corporation at the tender age of twenty-one. The article went on to talk about business facts that made her eyes cross. She closed the tab, wondering.