How to Rope a Real Man

by Melissa Cutler

  Emotion tightened his throat. “I’m not leaving,” he said. Jenna flinched, but otherwise her expression remained unchanged. “I’ve got this. And I’ve got you. And I promise I’ll never let you down like that again.” The iron will in his tone surprised him. So this was what it felt like to really be all-in. Whatever determination he’d felt before to make a relationship work with Jenna, it paled in comparison to the resolve pumping through his blood now.

  Wrenching her face away, she hugged herself.

  Matt swallowed. Rebuilding their trust would take time, he knew. Meanwhile, they all had a little boy to worry over.

  He turned his focus to Carson, whose attention hadn’t left Tommy since he’d come outside. Matt tipped his head toward the door. “I’m going to tuck Tommy in bed. You want to come? You might as well start learning ‘The Cowboy Lullaby.’”

  Carson’s gaze shifted to Jenna as though seeking permission.

  Jenna’s statuelike expression cracked. Mashing her lips together, she nodded.

  With a sigh, Carson focused on his feet and shook his head. “I don’t think—”

  But Matt wasn’t letting him off the hook that easily. “I know you have a lot to process, but it’d be good for you to just stand in the hall and listen and start taking it all in.” He shifted Tommy’s weight to his left arm and hip, then offered Carson a hand up. “I’ll help you through this, man. You and me and Jenna, we’re in this together, okay?”

  After a pause, Carson accepted Matt’s hand up and stood. His eyes rolled around with a slow blink, like he couldn’t yet believe the turn his life had taken tonight.

  Tommy squirmed in Matt’s arms to look at Carson. “You’re going to listen to the cowboy song too?”

  “Yeah, I guess I am,” Carson croaked, his gaze flitting to Jenna and back. He cleared his throat and held the door open for Matt.

  Once they were inside, Tommy rested his chin on Matt’s shoulder and looked speculatively at Carson, as though sizing him up. “Matt’s going to be my daddy.”

  Damn, he loved the sound of that. He wanted to ask Tommy what he’d think about him sharing the job with Carson, but it was too soon to know if Carson would do the right thing and embrace the gift he’d been blessed with. For Tommy’s sake, Matt prayed he would.

  “Oh yeah?” Carson managed in a ragged voice.

  Tommy nodded against Matt’s shoulder, his attention still on Carson. “Do you know how to roast s’mores?”

  Carson cleared his throat. “Yes.”

  “Do you know how to ride a horse?”

  “Yes. Do you?”

  “Mm-hmm. My mommy taught me.”

  A stuffed suitcase and an equally full knapsack sat in the middle of the living room. Matt’s gut twisted. Jenna had been ready to run. Alone. That’s how afraid and overwhelmed she’d been. It was a hard pill to swallow to realize what a terrible position he’d put her in by walking away from her like he had.

  “My friend Lizzy has two daddies and two mommies and two houses.”

  Maybe the little man was catching on to the reason for Carson’s presence all on his own. “Does Lizzy like that?” Matt asked.

  “I don’t know. She likes to eat grass.”

  Matt wrinkled his nose at him. “That’s gross.”

  “Sometimes I eat it, too.”

  Carson chuckled. Right then and there, Matt knew they were all going to be okay. It’d take time, but he and Carson and Jenna would figure out their new normal.

  He set Tommy in his bed, then pulled the covers up around him. Carson hung back in the hall, his arms crossed, his expression unreadable. Matt gave him a reassuring smile as he knelt on the floor near Tommy’s head.

  Tommy snuggled Ruff Ruff under his chin. “Are you still mad at Mommy?”

  The little guy didn’t miss a thing, did he? A lawyer in training, perhaps? “Not at all. I’m mad at myself, though. Does that ever happen to you?”

  “Sometimes. When I get in trouble.”

  “Makes sense. Are you ready to teach Carson ‘The Cowboy Lullaby’?”

  Tommy nodded and offered him a sleepy grin. “Kiss first.”

  Matt took his hand and kissed his forehead. Love, pure and bright, shone through him. No matter what happened between him and Jenna or what choice Carson made about his role in Tommy’s life, nothing could change the truth that Matt felt all the way to his core. For the first time in his life, he didn’t just feel like a dad. He was a dad.

  Jenna left the house quietly, so as not to alert Carson, Matt, and Tommy that she’d been checking up on them. Tenderness and anguish warred inside her after watching Matt put Tommy to bed, singing to him and tucking him in with hugs and kisses.

  She still couldn’t quite believe he’d come back. She’d wondered if she’d ever see him again, yet he’d returned with Jake as backup, guns blazing, and told her he wasn’t leaving again. Did he mean tonight—or forever? If he did want to stay in her life, could she forgive him for his snap judgment of her?

  Jake and Rachel were standing right outside the door. Jake’s gun had been returned to its holster and Rachel’s Colt was nowhere to be seen.

  “Are you okay?” Rachel asked.

  She didn’t know what to think or how to feel anymore. “Not really.” She looked to Jake. “Thank you for showing up when you did.”

  He shrugged. “Matt and I had a hunch.”

  Headlights flashed in the distance, coming down the hill toward Jenna’s house.

  “Who’s that?” Jake asked. In a heartbeat, his gun was in his hand, pointed at the ground in the direction of the approaching car.

  “Vaughn. I called him when Carson showed up,” Rachel said.

  “Good move.” Still, he didn’t reholster his gun until the patrol car had pulled fully into Jenna’s gravel turn-around and Vaughn was clearly visible through the windshield.

  Vaughn’s head was on a swivel as he exited his car, a hand on his holstered firearm. “Jake. I’m glad to see you here. What’s the situation? Where’s Carson now?”

  Jake shook Vaughn’s hand. “He’s in the house, watching Matt put Tommy to bed.”

  Vaughn looked to Rachel and Jenna with confusion. “So he is Tommy’s father, after all?” At Jenna’s nod, he added, “You two sounded scared on the phone. You said he might be dangerous. Is it a good idea for him to be in there with Tommy?”

  “Matt has things under control. Besides, Carson calmed down fast. He’s not going to do anything stupid or reckless now,” Jenna said. She’d seen in Carson’s eyes that learning he’d fathered a child had knocked his anger clean out of him, and, as confusing as it’d been to see him in her house observing Tommy’s bedtime routine, she couldn’t deny the unexpected relief that the truth was out and she could stop fighting so hard to protect herself and her child.

  “We confiscated Carson’s gun,” Jake added. He took it out of his pants, opened the slide, and took out the magazine to show Vaughn it was unloaded, then put it all back together and handed it to him, along with the ammo he’d put in his other pocket.

  The radio clipped to Vaughn’s belt chirped to life. Vaughn listened to the request for backup from the dispatcher, told her he was on his way as soon as he could, then replaced it on his belt.

  “I don’t know how I feel, leaving again. You had me really nervous when you called. I don’t like people threatening you. Not at all.” He kissed Rachel’s hair. “But shit’s hitting the fan in Devil’s Furnace tonight. We arrested a drug dealer there yesterday and all these other lowlifes are fighting for dominance now. It’s a real mess.”

  “We’re okay,” Jenna said. “It’s fine for you to get back to work. Jake and Matt are here, and, anyway, Rachel and I were holding our own before they got here. Thank you for coming so fast.”

  “Of course. Anything for you two.” He snagged Jenna in a one-armed hug, then nodded to Jake. “Thanks again for being here.”

  “Family’s family, right?” Jake said.

  Vaughn slapped his back. �
�You bet it is.” He pulled Rachel into an embrace and nuzzled her cheek. The two of them weren’t into public displays of affection, not like Kellan and Amy, and this rare intimacy made Jenna blush through her happiness for her sister.

  “Good-bye,” Rachel told him, stroking a finger over his cheek. “Give me a call in the morning, okay?”

  Both Jenna and Jake stepped away, giving the two of them a modicum of privacy. After Vaughn had left, Jake turned to Rachel, grinning. “You didn’t tell him to stay safe. Every chick I’ve ever been with has said that to me when I leave for work, especially when we get calls about bad stuff going down with shots fired, like Vaughn just did.”

  Rachel shrugged. “He already knows he’d better come back to me safe and sound. Some things don’t need saying.”

  Her words hit Jenna hard. She and Matt had joked about things that go without saying on the night of Amy and Kellan’s rehearsal dinner. And yet here she was, having to face up to a lot of things she hadn’t thought needed to be said, but had ended up coming out anyway. That was the funny thing about the truth: if you didn’t come clean, secrets would find a way out on their own.

  The front door squeaked open. Matt walked out, followed by Carson.

  Jenna, Jake, and Rachel walked their way and met them in the yard.

  “Is Tommy okay?” Jenna asked.

  “Fine,” Matt answered with a lopsided grin. “That is one sweet kid.”

  “I know it,” Jenna said. “He has his moments, but he’s a pretty amazing little man.”

  “I thought I heard a car,” Carson said. “Was someone else here?”

  “Vaughn, briefly.”

  Carson nodded. “I guess he wasn’t worried anymore about me and Jenna getting into it?”

  Jake folded his arms over his chest. “We told him you weren’t going to cause any more trouble. We were right, weren’t we?”

  His jaw was tight. “Yes.”

  “I gave him your gun, so you can talk to him on your own time about getting it back.”

  Carson’s brows lifted on his inhale. “I suppose I had that coming.”

  Jake scratched his beard. “Rachel, it seems to me that Jenna, Matt, and Carson have a lot to talk about that doesn’t involve you or me. What would you say to giving me a ride back to Kellan’s place? I’ve got a woman waiting on me there.”

  Rachel raised a brow. “Dang, you don’t waste any time. You just got to Catcher Creek a week ago.”

  Matt huffed. “He’s talking about my sister.”

  That seemed to throw Rachel for a loop. “Tara? Really?”

  Given what Tara had told Jenna last week about not wanting a relationship with Jake, she was as surprised as Rachel. Then again, maybe this was just another bed warming, one last fling before Jake left town.

  Jake tipped his nose in Jenna’s direction. “I’ll be leaving for the memorial service on Monday, but I’ll be swinging back through here on my way to L.A. How about I take Kellan’s dog with me to Wyoming so you don’t have to worry about house-sitting? You have enough on your plate.”

  “That would be really helpful, thank you.” Jake was a stand-up guy. Looked like a thug, and she knew he and Kellan had a long way to go before their rift was healed, but the fact that Jake was coming back through Catcher Creek and was willing to look out for Kellan’s dog spoke volumes. Of course, she had to wonder how big a factor Tara was in his decision to return.

  She knew Jake wasn’t into hugging, but she couldn’t help herself. She threw her arms around him and squeezed as hard as she could. “Thank you for being here for me when I needed you.”

  He patted her back. “Likewise. You need anything from here on out, you give me a call, okay? You have my number.”

  He held his fist out to Matt and they bumped knuckles. “Take it easy, man.”

  “You, too,” Matt said.

  “You and me, hunting next weekend, all right? I look forward to beating your ass in the rabbit count.”

  “You’re on. I’d like to see you try.”

  After hugs and thanks to Rachel, Matt, Jenna, and Carson watched in stoic silence as Rachel and Jake embarked on the quarter-mile walk to the big house where Rachel’s truck was.

  Once they were alone, Carson walked to his truck and put the tailgate down. “I guess Jake’s right. We have a lot to talk about.”

  Jenna climbed into the truck bed and perched on the wheel cover, her knees drawn up. Though she was dying to know where she and Matt stood and what Carson expected out of a relationship with Tommy, the idea of talking more left her feeling weary to the bone. She was all talked out for one night, but there was no getting around this conversation. Matt hitched his hip on the tailgate.

  Carson opened the back door of the truck and pulled a bottle of whiskey out from under the bench seat. “For emergencies—and this seems like an emergency.”

  He climbed into the truck bed and offered the bottle to Jenna. She nearly took it, but she had too many memories of her and Carson drinking in the back of a truck just like this for her to do so again tonight. “No, thanks. I don’t drink anymore.”

  Carson’s face registered shock at that discovery, but then he nodded. “That’s probably a good plan. I can see why you’d stop. You and I used up at least six or seven of our nine lives by the time we graduated high school.”

  “Pretty much.”

  He held the bottle out to Matt, who took it, indulged in a brief swig, then returned it to Carson. She wished she knew what Matt was thinking about her, about them. She wished she knew what he’d meant when he said he wasn’t leaving.

  “Is my name on his birth certificate?” Carson asked in a pensive voice.

  The question snapped Jenna’s attention away from Matt. Carson rolled the whiskey bottle between his boots.

  “No.”

  He sniffed, rubbing his chin. “Is there any reason I should doubt you about this—I mean, get a paternity test or something? Don’t be offended by that, please. It’s just that this is so crazy, I don’t know where we go from here.”

  “I’m not offended. It’s a legitimate request. If you want a paternity test, I’ll support you about that, but I know with a hundred percent certainty that you’re his father.” In her mind’s eye, she thought about the bewilderment in his eyes while he’d watched Matt put Tommy to bed. Was he asking about the birth certificate because he wanted a way out of the situation? Maybe. If he wanted to be part of Tommy’s life, she’d welcome him, but he at least deserved the choice to walk away.

  She swallowed and her heart rate picked up its pace. “You know, Carson, you could walk away from this right now and never look back. I’d never ask you for anything, no money—nothing. And I’d never breathe a word about you being Tommy’s father. Let the people of Catcher Creek speculate. Nobody else has to know and the people who do know won’t think any less of you.”

  Staring vacantly at the floor, Carson took a hit of whiskey. In her peripheral vision, she saw Matt shift. She quelled the urge to look at him, to see if his expression gave away his thoughts. She’d probably disgusted him all over again with that offer. He, of all people, wouldn’t understand why a father might walk away.

  “I’m not going to beat around the bush, Jenna,” Carson said. “I almost didn’t come here tonight. I thought about skipping town without a word. Your life would be easier without me in it, that’s for sure. And, hell, I never wanted to be a father in the first place. I never even considered it for myself. Even if someday I fell in love with a man who wanted kids, that’s such a distant possibility and so far down the road it’s not worth thinking about.”

  Now that his hard, angry visage was gone, Carson looked young. Technically, he and Jenna were the same age, but studying Carson, she felt old. Tired. So much so that she nearly told both men to leave. She wanted to be alone again. Not that being alone was easy, but it was predictable. Predictability sounded really damn good at the moment. The bottle of whiskey drew her attention. If ever there was a night she needed a drink,
this was it.

  “You’d regret that,” Matt said in a tone of restrained emotion.

  Jenna tore her focus from the whiskey to look at him.

  He sat with his back against the side of the truck bed, his elbows propped on his knees and his hands clasped together. He wasn’t talking to her, but to Carson. “It’d eat you up. Maybe not right now, but someday.” His eyes were dark and intense, his jaw tight. “I have a medical condition that makes it so I can’t have kids of my own. You might not understand how lucky you are, but I’d give anything to be in your position right now. Anything.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re already a great dad to Tommy. You’re what he needs, not me.”

  Matt gave a slow shake of his head. “He needs you, too. He needs to know his biological father is a stand-up guy and cares about him. I know it must be scary as hell to take this step, but my dad always told me that nobody ever said doing the right thing was easy.” He paused and pressed his lips together hard, his eyes unfocused, as if some dark thought was passing through his mind. “That’s . . . uh . . . I’m not sure I truly understood that adage until tonight.” He cleared his throat. “I told you I’m going to help you through this transition and I meant every word. As far as me being Tommy’s dad—” He rolled his eyes to Jenna and pinned her with an inscrutable look. “Jenna and I are going to have to talk about that.”

  She wrenched her face away to stare into the darkness. Goddamn, did they have to? Jenna didn’t think she had it in her to explain herself or be berated any more tonight.

  Carson toed the bottom of her shoe. “You might find it interesting to know that Matt told me before we came back outside that he’d shoot to kill if I ever pulled a gun on you again or scared you in any way.” He offered Jenna a contrite, tight-lipped grin. “I’m so sorry I did that. I had no idea why you’d made the choices you had. I was so pissed at you and this town that I wasn’t in my right mind. All the shit I went through here, all the rage I felt, it came rushing back to me and I did a lousy job controlling it.”