Her Homecoming Cowboy

by Debra Clopton

  “Hey, little buddy,” Colt said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Annie Aunt, he’s my daddy,” Leo said, ignoring Colt, his lip trembling and a big tear rolling down his cheek. “And he don’t want me.”

  The words weren’t a question but a sad statement.

  And it broke Annie’s heart.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “No, Leo,” Colt gasped, kneeling in front of his son, tears springing to his eyes. “I want you. I never meant it like that. I just had something very bad happen and it messed my thinking up. I was going to tell you I was your daddy as soon as I...” Colt’s heart was breaking. Seeing the pain in Leo’s eyes tore at him. He thought of all the children out there whose lives were messed up by parents who didn’t want them or couldn’t take care of them. He couldn’t believe he’d even hesitated in telling Leo that he was his daddy. What had he been thinking?

  “Leo, I love you, son. Can you forgive me?”

  Leo was breathing hard through his tears as a smile, slow and hesitant, spread across his face. “You’re my daddy. I can only love you.”

  Emotions so strong overtook Colt, and he was glad he was already kneeling or his knees might have buckled. He wrapped his arms around Leo and hugged him close. Their first hug as father and son. This was the beginning of their future. The magnitude of it all filled Colt and he gladly took on the magnificent burden, though he still felt unworthy of the blessing. Thank you, God.

  Looking up, he found Annie crying. “Thank you,” he mouthed the words. She smiled, wiping the tears with her fingertips.

  Leo raised his head and grinned. “See, that ol’ Bobbie, he don’t know nothin’. I was right all along. If you’re my daddy then you and Annie Aunt can get married and we really can be a family!”

  Annie groaned. “Leo, you enjoy having your daddy, okay. I like things just the way they are.”

  Helping to redirect Leo’s train of thought, Colt stood. “Come on, son, I think it’s time to head home and let you get some rest. It’s been a long day for you.”

  “Aw, Colt...” Leo paused. “Colt, can I call you...Daddy?”

  Colt nodded. There was going to be some explaining to do around town, but he had no doubt that word would spread like wildfire. Looking at Leo, pride filled him.

  He grinned. “Only if I can call you Son. How does that sound?”

  “It sounds great!”

  * * *

  Now that he knows, what’s next? Annie listened to the distant call of a lone coyote and tried not to picture herself being that lonely. Long after Colt had dropped them off and headed to his house, Leo had continued talking about his daddy.

  And why shouldn’t he? He had every right to be excited. On the way home from the wedding, she’d finally had to tell him that Colt had his home and they had their home, and they would not be getting married and moving in together. It was embarrassing—thankfully, he hadn’t known how his excitement was affecting her. Colt was uncomfortable about it, too, but she’d been the one who’d addressed it.

  And that was the way she wanted it. She surely didn’t want the cowboy thinking she wanted to get married. Not because of Leo, anyway.

  That being the case, she realized that she needed to face reality. There was a possibility that Leo might not want to continue to live with her. The thought put a catch in her heart. The reality was that Colt was Leo’s daddy, and he very well might want his son living with him. Her role stood a small chance of becoming that of the traditional aunt.... It was something she’d known might be a reality, so she’d cloaked the thought in heavy cover and not let herself peek at it until now.

  What was she going to do?

  Pacing the porch, she tried to shake off the chill that gripped her despite the temperature hovering in the eighties, even at midnight.

  She was going to hit this nail on the head with a hard hammer. That is what I am going to do.

  “Colt,” she said out loud, for only the lonely coyote to hear, if he happened to be listening. “I think Leo is right. We should be a family. Why? Funny you should ask, because I love you and...”

  Grabbing hold of the porch pole, she rested her head against the smooth wood and took a deep breath. Just because a man kissed her, was the daddy of the child she loved and made her feel like she was going to suffocate when he looked at her, it wasn’t a reason to fall in love. The suffocating part was plenty of reason to run. But here she was thinking... “Thinking’s going to get you in trouble,” she muttered, and slapped the pole.

  “You’re going to get splinters in your forehead if you keep that up.” Colt’s warm, husky voice caused Annie to jump.

  “Don’t do that!” she exclaimed, glaring at him as he moved with stealthy grace the last few feet to where she stood.

  Her forehead stung and she rubbed the spot. “What are you doing?”

  He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep. Just like you. I think we need to talk—without Leo controlling the conversation.”

  Boy, was that an understatement. “I couldn’t agree more.”

  She’d been cold before but now she felt the heat of the night dampening the edges of her hairline. Colt had changed into a T-shirt and well-worn jeans. He was also hatless, his hair a mess, as if he’d worried it to death as he’d traipsed across the pastures. Behind him, a flash of lightning splintered across the sky and two beats later thunder cracked, threatening that the heavens were about to split wide open.

  “That tore me up today, Annie.”

  She nodded at his quiet words. “Me, too.”

  “My childhood haunts me, Annie.”

  “Mine, too.” She took a deep breath, her nerves settling a bit as she forced herself to focus on Leo and not on the way Colt stirred up her emotions. “I want so badly for Leo to know the love of—” Her words broke off. If she said what she wished for more than anything, it would be that she really wanted the three of them to be a family, just like Leo kept going on about. However, that would be saying too much.

  “I want him to have more than I had,” Colt said, moving to stand closer to her. His eyes were almost black in the moonlight. “I want him to know the love and security of a family.”

  “I do, too—I want that so much,” Annie blurted before being able to stop herself. “But having us both love him, and having us living so close, is going to work so much better than before. He’s going to have security...and then there’s your family. All living here right close,” she rambled on, the intensity of Colt’s expression rattling her. “I wish there was more we could do—I don’t know what, though.”

  “Marry me.”

  Annie’s heart stopped. The breath in her lungs slipped away.

  “Excuse me?” she gasped at last, her heart kicking in with a vengeance.

  Colt grabbed her by the arms. “Marry me, Annie. We can give Leo everything you said. We can do this for Leo. I’ve thought about it, Annie. I used to think I didn’t want a family—after my childhood. I just didn’t have a desire for one. Leo has changed all of that and I honestly never knew I could love someone like this. We could give him a good life. We could make a home life like we both missed out on. We both love him—this would be the best.”

  Annie’s eyes narrowed. Her heart chilled. She pulled one arm, then the other from Colt’s easy grasp, and she took a step back from him.

  He wasn’t asking her to marry him because he felt anything for her. It was for Leo.

  It was for practical purposes.

  Traitorous heart that she had, she was tempted to say yes just to be close to him. Couldn’t Colt loving Leo be enough? Couldn’t living in one household be enough?

  She would not cry. She would not cry... She blinked hard. “I—” she said, the word croaking from her like a frog with a bad cold. “I need to think about this.”

  “I know
there should be more, Annie. But this is all I can give.”

  Those words cut deeper than anything he’d said. Love wasn’t something to be controlled, she’d learned. She’d thought she could do it by putting up shields around her own heart, yet it had happened despite all the shields and fear.

  It had happened to her, and sadly hadn’t happened to Colt.

  “I understand,” she said, keeping her own heart’s secret closely hidden. She forced a smile she didn’t feel. “I’ll let you know soon. For Leo’s sake.”

  Looking as if he had more to say, he remained silent, nodded, then turned and walked away. Lightning cracked in the distance and the thunder boomed.

  “Do you need a ride?” Annie called, even though riding with him right now was not where she wanted to be. Distance and time. That was what she needed.

  “I’m fine. I want the walk. Good night, Annie.”

  She wondered how it was that he’d hurt her so, and yet watching him go, she felt as though she’d hurt him. Had he really, really expected her to say yes on the spot to his marriage of convenience? Because that was exactly what he’d just proposed. Funny how in movies and books it always seemed like such a romantic kind of setup.

  Reality was not fiction, though. Annie’s heart ached and no romanticism in the world could make it feel better. She prayed that with time God would heal her heart—for Leo’s sake.

  * * *

  Colt knew he’d hurt Annie. It had been clearly written in her eyes the moment he’d explained his proposition. Oh, clearer than that he’d recognized the joy—disbelief—but joy, that illuminated those gorgeous pale eyes of hers when he’d first said, “Marry me.”

  Like the clashing emotions warring inside him, the distant storm rolled in fast. He’d gotten halfway between his place and Annie’s when the skies opened up and a furious downpour hit.

  Colt was drenched before he could look for cover. It didn’t matter anyway; he knew better than anyone there was none in either direction, except his house and Annie’s....

  Quickening his step, he ducked his head against the pelting rain. Rain that was blowing sideways because the wind was so violent.

  Less than a hundred feet away lightning cut through the sky and struck a tree. Colt saw the explosion and felt the sizzle beneath his feet the same instant he was blown into the air....

  * * *

  Annie stared through the pouring rain. Colt hadn’t been gone long when the sky opened up. For months, Texas had suffered and shriveled up from lack of water, and of all times for God to decide to bless them with a flood!

  Sometimes she had to wonder what He was thinking! Of course, Colt was the one who’d walked across the pasture in the dead of night while thunder rolled in the background. Despite not having had rain for ages and ages, Texas weather was unpredictable.

  Maddening as he was, she was worried silly about him. When the distant sky ignited after a lightning bolt struck something, Annie couldn’t stand it any longer. Colt could not have made it home before that had happened. Giving up, she hurried to check on Leo. He was sleeping right through the storm—unbelievable, but good. She grabbed her raincoat and car keys and headed out after Colt.

  Her car was not a truck. That became apparent within the first few feet. The parched earth’s lack of moisture, combined with more areas of dried-up grass with no roots to hold the dirt in place, did not play well with the enormous amount of water rushing from the sky. Why, in the twenty minutes she’d wasted deciding whether to go after Colt, ruts and mud holes had appeared that threatened to bog her down. Or worse, sweep her off the disappearing gravel road completely.

  Her heart was thundering harder than the thunder and her pulse was more erratic than the lightning. Please, God, let him be okay.

  Lightning flashed and lit up the night. She saw him. He was half up on his knees, as if he’d just been thrown from a bull and was disoriented as he struggled to gain his feet.

  Not far away was a huge oak tree split down the middle by a mighty bolt of lightning. Even in the rain it sizzled, and smoke rose up from the fire that burned in the splayed open portions of trunk.

  Annie slammed on her brakes. The car slid and came to a halt not far from Colt. By the time she got out of the clunker and made it to him, he’d stumbled to his feet. She grabbed him around the waist and held on when it seemed as if he might fall back down. Annie was praying fiercely. “I’m here, Colt. Hold on.”

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, even as he struggled. Rain poured down on them like a waterfall.

  “I’m here to help you, you big goof.”

  He chuckled. “You know you came because you love me.”

  “That lightning messed you up, didn’t it?” she stated as they headed toward her car. As if to acknowledge that it could do more, the sky lit up once more. Annie jumped and Colt’s arm tightened around her.

  “It’s not that bad. I’ve been thrown off bulls that hurt worse.” His voice held a cocky grin that sent shivers of gladness through Annie.

  “I’m sure you have. But I haven’t, so let’s hurry!”

  By the time they reached the car, Colt wasn’t as stunned—a fact that had her feeling better about the whole situation. Once he was inside, she raced around to the driver’s side, slipping and falling in a mud hole face-first!

  “I’m fine.” She sputtered mud as Colt moved from the safety of the car to help her. Grasping her by the arms, he pulled her up out of the mud. “Sure you are, but we’re in this together.”

  To Annie’s surprise, Colt swung her up into his arms and carried her to the passenger side of the car. Apparently, there were no life-threatening injuries to the man.

  After depositing her into the seat, he gave her a swift kiss on her muddy lips. “Thanks for coming to my rescue,” he said, then closed the door and hurried around the car. Thankfully, he was safely inside once again within seconds.

  “You okay?” he asked, taking hold of the steering wheel.

  “Y-yes.” Her teeth chattered despite the warmth of the night. There was a chill in the air from the storm. “Are you?”

  “I am now. There’s nothing like a lightning bolt to clear a man’s head.”

  Annie groaned. “Only a daredevil like you would think that.”

  Colt reached for her hand. “Not think. Know. Annie, please hear me out. I’ve been so torn up over the death of the Eversons and my part in their deaths. No...” He placed a hand gently over her lips when she’d started to protest. “No. It doesn’t matter how many times everyone tells me it wasn’t my fault. I know in my heart that, even if it wasn’t, I was too worn out to have helped prevent it if there had been the slightest window of opportunity. That fact alone will always be with me. That, plus the fact that I can’t remember the moments before the impact, will always make me wonder if I was asleep when I was hit. Or if I simply blanked out the trauma of the event. Unless I remember one day, which the doctor tells me I most likely won’t, then it’s a question I will go to my grave wondering.”

  “I understand.” Finally knowing it was true, Annie felt some of the heavy burden of responsibility he would always carry.

  “I’ve struggled with the ability to feel joy. The guilt when I look at Leo has, at times, torn me down. I’m not worthy of the gift of that child, and yet he’s mine. Even though God knows I’m not worth one strand on that little boy’s head, He gave him to me anyway... It’s just like—”

  “Grace and forgiveness,” Annie said, seeing the truth.

  “Yes. I’m still not worthy of that, but God gave it to us. But Annie, I was laid out in that mud, stunned and unable to move from the jolt of electricity that had traveled through my body. While I was sprawled there realizing I was still alive, I thought only of you.”

  Annie’s heart dared to hope.

  “I love you, Annie. I
just wouldn’t let myself feel it. Or admit it. How could I deserve Leo? And then you, too? I don’t know why I’m still here, but when I was lying there, I started praying that you loved me, too. Do you...?”

  Annie stopped his question with a kiss—mud and all. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed and Annie couldn’t have cared less. She was in the arms of the man she loved. And the man who loved her.

  “I guess that’s a yes?” Colt asked when she turned him loose.

  She chuckled. “For a bull rider, you’re one smart cowboy.”

  “I’m one blessed cowboy, undeserving as anyone and yet blessed beyond comprehension.”

  A lump lodged in her throat. “I love you, Colt Holden. I really do.”

  With a tender look in his eyes, he pulled her close and kissed her. “Then marry me like I asked earlier...except, know that it will be so that we can make a home full of love for all of us.”

  Annie could only nod, her heart was so full. Colt smiled in understanding. He touched her cheek, his fingers warm as they trailed across her skin.

  “I love you,” she said at last. “Always.”

  His eyes darkened with emotion. “I like the sound of that.”

  “I do, too.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Then, future Mrs. Colt Holden, let’s get this boat turned toward home and tell our boy.”

  Annie closed her eyes and let the sensation fill her with all the joy she could handle. “Lead the way, cowboy—I’m here for the full eight-second ride and beyond.”

  Colt chuckled and pressed the gas pedal. The car bolted forward. “That’s my girl. I knew you were going to come to love my sport.” He grinned. “Just wait till I tell Leo.”

  His girl. She liked the sound of that very, very much....

  Epilogue

  Colt straightened his hat and stared at his reflection in the mirror of Luke’s guest bedroom. Behind him the door slid open, letting in the laugher and chatter from the other side.

  “You nervous, little brother?” Jess asked as he and Luke entered the room.