Choose Me, Cowboy

by Barbara Ankrum

  “I’m your sister. Okay, but...not about him, six years ago, or the other woman or, more importantly, the fact that you’re still in love with him now.”

  “No, I’m not! Not even close. We’re water under the bridge, Olivia. We happened a long time ago and now he’s got these children and another whole life.”

  “A life that includes you.”

  “Just temporarily.”

  “And you expect to skip away from this whole affair scot-free? Pardon the pun. No harm, no foul? C’mon, Kate. What if you fall for the kids? What if you fall for him again, and he doesn’t fall for you? What if he breaks your heart?”

  “I don’t fall, Olivia. Not anymore. And he can’t break my heart twice. I won’t let him. Clearly, he was just grasping at whatever female was near enough to keep his head above water with the court and his ex-wife. I’m just...convenient. But in his defense, I was the one who proposed marrying him this way. Not him.” Sort of.

  “Interesting. He didn’t seem to be looking at you like you were just ‘convenient’ last night.”

  “What do you mean? How was he looking at me?” Like he wanted to run when her family had shown up? Like he wished he could disappear?

  “Like he’s crazy about you. You’d have to be a blind person not to see that in his eyes. Even Jake commented about it after we left. And he’s a guy.”

  Had he been looking at her that way? No doubt he was simply flushed with embarrassment at having been caught at that restaurant by her family. Yes, he’d kissed her. But lusting and choosing were two different things. And they both knew, when push came to shove, whom he’d chosen and why.

  “So you have no feelings toward him.”

  Feelings? Oh, she had plenty of those. Like feeling her legs go weak when he’d dragged his mouth up her throat last night at her door. Or the dumb, impossible feelings running through her as she watched him with his children—children that he’d had with Melissa.

  And just thinking about him now made her nipples harden into tight little buds. But that didn’t constitute...love. Love was that thing that bound two people together through thick and thin, and made a person recognize the right person when they were standing in front of them. A feat she’d been incapable of, even six years ago, when she’d suggested they take a break while she went abroad. That had been her fault. Sleeping with Melissa had been his.

  “I might hate him. Or want him.” She took her last bite of scone. “Or hate him.”

  Olivia tilted a headshake at her. “Oh, Katie...”

  “But a long-term relationship? No. Falling in love is just not in my DNA anymore. I am, as you so rudely pointed out, a serial dater. I date frogs, flawed princes and drunken musicians. But potential husbands? No.”

  “Yeah,” Olivia said, “Need I point out that you already have one of those and a ring?”

  Kate brushed the crumbs from her hands and tossed the waxed paper bag into a nearby trash can. “Fake and flawed.”

  “Flaws come with the territory, babe. Men are flawed creatures. So are we, come to think of it.”

  “What about your Jake? He’s gorgeous, successful and free of glow-in-the-dark skeletons in his closet.”

  Olivia smiled a little dreamily and sighed. “Well, Jake... He’s the exception to every rule.”

  “Okay, now you’re just making me nauseous.”

  Olivia giggled and took Kate’s arm, walking toward the intersection of Main Street again. “You know I’m kidding, right? We both had our issues when we met up again. God knows, I did. And Jake has his stuff from his time in Afghanistan. It’s getting better, but he still deals with it. And there’s scaring the pants off me in that helicopter of his, as he defies gravity. And then, there’s toothpaste cap thing...”

  “You cannot equate toothpaste caps with pregnant buckle bunnies set on ruining your life.”

  “I know. There are problems and then there are problems,” Olivia agreed. “Now Kyle, my ex, was a Problem with a capital P, which is now, thankfully, finally behind me. But whatever my or Jake’s issues are, they’re footnotes in a relationship that’s overwhelmingly good. Yours and Finn’s? What happened between you is like a rockslide that came out of nowhere, but maybe those rocks are not so insurmountable. Maybe they could build a bridge between you two.”

  “You’re saying the children are rocks.”

  She shook her head. “The children are the bridge, built with the rocks.”

  Kate sniffed. “You’re supposed to be the voice of reason here, dragging me back from the edge. Weren’t you the one preaching relationship abstinence to me just last week?”

  “I was saving you from certain ruin with Beelzebub Malone. I was not talking about a gorgeous, long-lost love who actually put a ring on it.”

  “This is not at all how I imagined this conversation going,” Kate said. “Are you going to keep my secret or not?”

  She considered. “Yes, because you need some time to sort things out. But eventually, you’re going to have to tell Dad and Jaycee. You and I just walked the entire bounds of Marietta. In other words, cough and someone will hear you. Your secret is bound to get out. But what’s done is done. You married him. You agreed to help him. Maybe this was all just Fate’s way of intervening. Maybe,” she suggested, leaning in close for the whisper, “you two are really perfect for each other.”

  Chapter Six

  Finn and the twins had the morning set aside to work on the tree house they’d been designing for weeks. Cutter and Caylee had given him a few dozen crayon pictures of what they wanted and he, in turn, had turned those drawings into real designs until they’d all agreed. Carpentry was a secret hobby of his, something he’d learned at the side of a next-door neighbor, growing up.

  Tom Landin was an unmarried, string-bean of a career carpenter who’d probably felt sorry for the boy growing up next door without a father. For reasons Finn could hardly fathom until much later in life, Landin had made a point of inviting that lonely boy to join him on Saturday projects at his house to learn how to handle wood. Thinking of him now, he could still remember the sweet scent of pipe smoke and the tang of freshly cut wood-shavings that clung to him like a spring rain and the easy smile that nearly always lingered on his lips as he hummed some tuneless song while he worked.

  Mr. Landin had fondly called him Huckleberry and, together, they’d built everything from fences to rabbit cages to treasure chests.

  His favorite project, by far, was the simple treehouse Tom had helped him construct in the woods near their mobile home, which he and a group of friends christened as their clubhouse several years later. But none of those days spent high in that old tree meant more to him than the time Mr. Landin had spent building the treehouse with him. Time he’d given freely to him for no other reason than to fill that vacancy in a lonely boy’s life. He’d been a surrogate father to him for many critical, lonely years before passing suddenly of a heart attack one ordinary Friday night, when the world wasn’t watching and Finn had been busy with other, teenaged things.

  Nothing—until the loss of Kate six years ago—had ever hit him as hard. He’d worked most of the summer to build the miniature facsimile of the treehouse Mr. Landin had built for him, which he’d placed beside his grave in the crook of an overhanging tree. In the years since, no one had touched the model that still stood, watching over that solitary plot in the ocean of unadorned headstones in that Helena cemetery.

  He shook off the thought, watching his own children sort through the stack of wood he’d had delivered from the mill as he measured and cut it. If he could leave his children with memories half as rich as the ones he had of his old friend, then he’d know he’d done something right.

  His throat felt thick as he watched them crawl around the pile of lumber, finding the right pieces and delivering them to his table saw. They were growing so fast. Seemed like just yesterday they were bawling babies that needed everything he had to give. Now, they were independent little souls who conspired and found their own tro
uble together, but still, thank God, loved a good story at bedtime. Still came to him for a Band-Aid and a hug.

  He looked away, in an attempt to contain the inevitable emotions that rose at the thought of losing them, even part-time. Melissa had no idea who these children were and he doubted she’d have any clue what to do with them if she won them. Certainly they had no idea who she was.

  Wrestling with the decision to tell them or not to tell them still kept him up at night. Was it fair, if she managed to win, to spring such an earthquake on them suddenly? Fair to worry them needlessly if she lost? He hoped somehow, the answers to those questions would become clearer in the weeks to come.

  Just like he hoped he’d get clear about Kate.

  As if he’d conjured her with his thoughts, he turned to find her standing at the side of his house holding a pink box tied with a string. She smiled as the children abandoned the lumber pile and ran up to her. She gathered them up in a hug and reached out to fluff their hair.

  He felt his stomach drop at the sight of her, all windblown and beautiful from the car ride out here. She had on bling-y sandals, one of those long, flowy skirts and a silky tank the color of sunshine.

  The fire he kept banked inside him flared like an oxygen-fed flame as he walked toward her. “Hey,” he said, smiling and stopping a few feet from her. He dropped his hands on Caylee’s shoulders.

  “Hey,” she replied a little breathlessly, her nerves showing. “What are you building over there?”

  “Our treehouse! You want to help?” Cutter said, waving his casted green arm.

  She laughed. “A treehouse? You lucky ducks. Do I want to help? Are you kidding? Of course! I just didn’t know your daddy was so handy.” She gave him a look that stirred up all kinds of handy thoughts.

  “A man has to have a few secrets,” he said. “What’s in the box?”

  “Yeah, what’s in the box?” Caylee begged.

  She lifted the pink container with a smile. “My own secret...that I will share once we all find a seat on the grass.”

  The twins laughed then raced each other back to the tree-shaded patch of grass.

  “Once a kindergarten teacher...” he teased.

  “That’s right.” She handed him the box. “Never let it be said that bribes and five-year-olds don’t mix. You couldn’t very well christen your new house without cupcakes. Consider them my version of a salt and bread housewarming gift with a little bribe on the side.”

  “All cupcakes and graft are welcome.” They turned to follow the children back to the cool shade of the three-trunked cottonwood. Finn untied the box and peeked inside. “Who wants dessert for lunch?”

  The cupcakes in the bakery box were chocolate with frosting ladybugs decorating the top and the four of them settled onto the grass to partake.

  “So,” he began, as the children licked the chocolate from their lips. “Miss Canaday is going to be staying with us awhile. She’s going to be your new nanny.”

  Cutter tucked his chin in, in that cute, wide-eyed way he had. “What’s a nanny?”

  “That’s a fancy way of saying ‘babysitter,’” Kate explained. “I’ll be taking care of you while your dad works hard on your new ranch.”

  “But you’re a teacher,” Caylee pointed out. Always the practical one.

  “True, I am. But the regular teacher in my class, the one I was helping, is coming back early. So for now, I’m just going to take care of you.” Those simple words, coming from her own lips, resonated in a new way, despite the fact that she’d practiced them over and over before coming. To say them to these two little human beings, whose hearts were so visible in their wide eyes, made the whole thing suddenly real.

  “For a while?” Cutter asked, suddenly anxious. “But how long?”

  Kate’s eyes flicked to his. He addressed his answer to her with a questioning lift of his brow. “Umm...well, let’s not worry about that just yet,” she said.

  The boy’s troubled gaze fell to the blades of grass that poked his bare calves and he ripped out a handful, spreading them in his chubby palm. “Did you know birds make their nests out of dried grass?” He held the sprinkle of grass out to show her.

  “They do?”

  He nodded. “They weave the grass together and glue it with mud. So the babies don’t fall out and get lost. There’s one in this tree. See it?” He pointed to a branch up high.

  The September leaves still clung stubbornly to the branches and she couldn’t spot the thing, but she pretended to as he spilled the grass into her hand. “We’ll have to keep an eye out to see what kind of bird made it.”

  “Okay.” Cutter jumped up and turned to the wood pile. “Are we gonna build the treehouse or what?”

  “What about Izzy?” Caylee asked, unpeeling the last of the paper sleeve from her cupcake with deliberate care.

  “You know Izzy,” he said, “she’s really busy with school right now. Don’t worry. We’ll still see her sometimes. Maybe when Daddy and Miss Canaday want to go out to dinner.”

  “On a date?” Caylee—whose mind was no longer on the source of her soon-to-come sugar rush, but now wholly on Kate—eyed her with a spaniel-like head tilt.

  “What? No! Not on a date.” Kate simultaneously laughed and shot Finn the evil eye. “We’re not dating. I’m just your nanny.”

  Caylee, female to the core, reserved judgment with an assessing glance between the two adults. “But you can if you want to,” she said, with a coy smile, then jumped up to join her brother.

  Kate exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Leave it to a five-year-old to strike at the heart of the matter.

  “That went well,” he said to her when his daughter was out of earshot.

  “Did it?”

  “You won them over with the cupcakes.” He grinned at her with a look that she felt all the way to her toes, then told the twins, “Let’s help Miss Canaday get her things out of the car before we get back to the treehouse. Who wants to show her where her room is?”

  ***

  At the end that long, first day of treehouse building, barbequing and dancing around the realities of Kate’s arrival, Finn read stories to the twins and kissed them goodnight. A glance around this room, though, reminded him that their room needed a fresh coat of paint, as practically every other room in the house did. All he needed was a few dozen more hours in his day.

  By the time he flipped off the light switch, Cutter was already asleep, but Caylee sat up in the dark. “Daddy?” she whispered.

  He moved back to her bed and sat down. “What is it, darlin’?”

  “Do you like Miss Candy?”

  “Sure I do. Very much. Or I wouldn’t have asked her to... to be your nanny.”

  “No, I mean, do you like her?”

  It was a grown-up kind of question for this child to be asking. Inside that, was the longing he often saw in her eyes for a woman in her life. A mother. She was just getting to the age where she’d begun to realize that not all families had only daddies. The question stabbed at him, because what she was really asking was, “Is it her?”

  “Sure, I like her. But we’re just friends,” he lied, sticking to the script that would be the easiest for them to swallow. The one that would cause them the least amount of heartbreak.

  “Oh.” Caylee spun a strand of hair around her finger, brushing the lock against her cheek, her lifelong way of comforting herself. “Like Izzy?”

  “Not exactly like Izzy, no,” he admitted, brushing a kiss on the child’s forehead. “Izzy is very young. Miss Candy is...”

  “Pretty?” she finished.

  He grinned, recalling Kate’s playful smile as she handed up the lumber to him in the tree today. “Yeah, she is pretty, isn’t she?”

  “I wish...” Caylee began, then called back her words. “Never mind.”

  “What do you wish?”

  “Nothing. Night, Daddy.”

  “G’night, you. See you later, alligator.”

  Caylee yawned
. “In a while, crocodile.”

  Kate was outside on the covered porch when he found her sitting on the rickety porch swing that had probably been hanging there for twenty years. She had a beer in her hand and another one already cracked open for him.

  “I thought you could use one of these after today,” she told him. “I know I can.”

  He took the beer and tested the chain with a little tug before sinking down beside her. The swing creaked as sat and he stared out at the land that had so recently become his. The early September moon was rising against a darkening, deep blue sky. In the distance, the shadowy Absarokas blotted out the bottom half of the sky where they fingered up from the horizon. Stars were beginning to twinkle and bats had come out to play.

  He took a gulp of beer, still shaken by Caylee’s questions.

  “You look exhausted,” Kate said.

  He sighed. “You, too.”

  “Your kids...” she said, tilting a smile at him, “they’re great. And it’s been all you. You have done an amazing job with them.”

  It might have been the first time someone had actually said that to him. The words meant even more, coming from her. “This is only your first day,” he warned. “You may be begging for mercy before long.”

  She nodded. “Single parenting is not for wimps.” After she said it, she glanced at him quickly. “I-I mean—”

  “I know what you meant. And you’re right. Kinda felt nice today, sharing the job.” Before she could remind him of the temporary nature of her position, he pointed up at a shooting star, trailing across the darkening sky. “Ahh, did you see that?”

  Kate followed his finger with her gaze and shook her head. “I missed it.”

  “Keep watching. There’ll be another along soon. This is the season for them.”

  And though she kept her eyes on the star-smattered sky, the twinkling lights denied her. The evening had cooled off the heat of the day and that sweet Montana smell perfumed the air.

  “You never told me you were a carpenter,” she said, turning to him. “That treehouse is going to be amazing. I wish I’d had one like that. But my father was a lawyer, not a treehouse builder.”