In the sitting room, she settled into her favorite chair and pulled the afghan from the back of it into her lap. Less than three feet from her, Cole took a seat on the floor in front of the couch. The boys hurried to the corner where they had left the plastic horses.
To her dismay, all four of the hotel’s guests crossed the reception area without even a glance into the sitting room. A moment later, they closed the front door behind them. Then she heard Jed in the hallway directing Jane and Andi to his den.
She had expected Jed, at least, to come in here. Instead, she was alone with the two boys and Cole.
From the cubby built into the coffee table, he pulled out a wicker basket filled with her son’s building blocks. Idly, he stirred through them.
The chunking sound caught Robbie’s attention. Leaving the ponies behind, he and Trey came to kneel beside Cole. Robbie tilted the basket, spilling blocks onto the floor.
“We can make a dungeon,” he said. “Or a castle or a fort.” He tilted his head and looked at Cole. “But no corral, okay?”
“No corral, pardner. If that’s the way you want it.”
He sat watching Robbie and Trey.
Cuddled beneath her afghan, Tina watched Cole. Again.
Occasionally, he would offer the boys a helping hand when a block got away from them or their fort threatened to collapse.
Right now, she felt about as shaky as their structure. She prided herself on her logic and ran her life based on careful analyses. But like the boys’ blocks, her emotions were getting away from her.
The sight of Cole and Robbie smiling at each other made her chest tighten and her eyes prickle. Made her think how much different things could have been...if Cole hadn’t walked away from her, causing her to pull her reserve around her like the afghan she now had tucked nearly under her chin.
Things could have been different, too, if Cole hadn’t left.
But he had left—first his job here at the ranch and then Cowboy Creek altogether—without giving her time to find a way to tell him about her pregnancy.
Yet in all honesty, how could she put one hundred percent of the blame on him?
Suppose you’d given me the news a long time ago? he had asked. How do you know I wouldn’t have stayed in town then?
He’d said nothing about staying with her.
She was the one with the long-held dreams of settling down with him someday.
Dreams it seemed she couldn’t forget even now.
Until this week, she hadn’t spoken to Cole for so long. She had no idea what kind of man he had become, except the kind who would help two small children build a fort from wooden blocks. The kind who would reassure a frightened little boy who cared about animals.
After Cole had left town, she and Ally had never worked up the nerve to question his sister about him. They hadn’t felt they could ask Sugar or even Abuela. As a result, she had never known his reasons for leaving Cowboy Creek.
She also knew nothing about what he had done in all the time he’d been gone. But now she had both the nerve and the need to ask. For Robbie’s sake.
Cole looked at the chime clock on the wall, then up at her from his seat on the floor. “I’m not keeping you from anything important, am I?”
“No. Why?”
“Just thought you might have something better to do than supervise this construction site.”
She couldn’t miss the edge in his voice. “Nothing better than keeping an eye on things. In case you suddenly decide to break free of this corral.”
Robbie looked up. “No corrals, Mama. Not for the ponies.” He turned to Trey. “The ponies!” he said, as if suddenly remembering the herd they had left in the corner of the room. Within seconds, the boys had abandoned the blocks for the horses.
His eyes narrowed. “You heard me say that the other day.”
“I did. Is that why you left town in the first place? You wanted to break free?”
He stayed quiet for so long that she thought he wouldn’t answer.
“One of the reasons,” he said finally.
“Layne never mentioned what you’ve been doing since you’ve been gone.”
“Cowhand.”
The same work Jed had hired him to do, now and years ago.
She could envision Cole in those high school days as if no time had passed at all.
While she rode the county bus home, he had driven his pickup truck, which meant he arrived at the ranch much sooner than she did. So many times, Abuela had scolded her for running right to the barn once the bus had dropped her off when she should have gone inside to tackle her homework and chores. But she had lived in hope that she could steal a few minutes to talk with him before he started his assigned job for the afternoon.
“Did you go somewhere in particular?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I didn’t want to get tied down.” For a moment, his eyes looked bleak. He set one of the building blocks on top of another and batted it off again. “A rolling stone, that’s me. Meant to roam. I stayed in the South, though. Spent the last two years in Texas. It’s a big state.”
“As nice as New Mexico?”
He laughed. “Talk to my friends in Dallas, and they’ll tell you everything’s bigger and better in Texas.”
“Nothing’s better than being home.” When he didn’t respond, she asked, “What are your plans now?”
He shrugged. “To give Layne a hand.”
Not the most definitive answer. She couldn’t push without being willing to give in return if he pushed back. And she wasn’t ready for that. Instead, she said, “This was the first I’d heard about her having to move.”
“She didn’t get much warning, either.”
His grim expression made her wince.
“I don’t see her very much anymore,” she admitted, “not even at SugarPie’s. Abuela and I stop there when we go into town to grocery shop. But it always seems to be a day Layne’s not there. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for her and Terry.”
“She’s better off.”
“From her situation with Terry or from marriage in general?”
If she had given herself time to think, she would never have spoken. Why bother, when she already knew what his answer would be? But now she had asked the question, she wouldn’t back down.
* * *
KNOWING—AND NOT LIKING—the direction their conversation had suddenly taken, Cole stared back at Tina. “What does that mean?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“The first day you came in to the hotel, you made a comment about swearing off marriage and kids.”
“Yeah. I made that statement about me, not Layne. And before I knew I had a son. That changes part of the equation.”
He stacked a couple of blocks in front of him. He’d barely spent any time at all with the boy. Certainly not enough time to figure out how to break the news to him. And right now he wasn’t thinking beyond that.
Obviously, she wasn’t any more prepared.
One of them needed to redirect this conversation.
“Speaking of changing things,” he said, “how are you feeling about all the excitement around here?”
At yesterday’s brunch, when Andi had arrived and Jed had made his big announcement about the hotel, he could tell Tina hadn’t liked the news at all. He felt sure no one else had noticed. But he had sat right beside her, close enough to hear her breath catch. Close enough to see the way she had clamped her hands together beneath the edge of the table.
From Jane and Andi’s comments at supper tonight, he knew she was doing her part, keeping track of ideas for the hotel in order to gather estimates for the work.
Still, she seemed quieter about the project than he had ever known her to be about anything.
And she hadn’t responded to his question. She probably never would, unless he could break through that reserve of hers. He knew what would do it. And—what the heck—it wouldn’t hurt to make clear how he stood on a subject she had raised herself.
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“To tell you the truth,” he said, “I don’t see a problem with the hotel the way it is. But then, I’m not much for weddings, especially after what happened at mine.”
Her eyes opened wide. “You’re married?”
“Was, almost.”
She frowned. It didn’t take long for her analytical mind to figure out the answer. “You mean, you were engaged?”
“Yeah, for a short time. Until I found myself standing in front of a Las Vegas preacher with no bride.”
“Someone left you at the altar?” She sounded stunned.
“Truthfully, I don’t think the place had an altar. But yeah, she stood me up. And I deserved it. I should have known better.” And he’d learned from the experience. It had been his first—and sure as hell his last—attempt at marriage.
“That,” he said, “explains why I’m not much into the idea of turning this into a honeymoon hotel. What’s your objection?”
“What makes you think I object?”
“Call it a reluctance, then. A difference of opinion. An unwillingness to take one for the team.”
She winced. “I’m not unwilling. It’s just that...I was raised here. The Hitching Post is more than a hotel. It’s my home. And I don’t like the idea of making drastic changes to it.”
Suddenly, he felt an urge to smile. That statement of hers took him back quite a few years.
Tina had never liked change or anything that upset her carefully thought-out plans. From kindergarten till now, she had held the same interests, going so far as to turn her favorite school subject into her full-time job. She had kept the same hairstyle, that long braid she hadn’t let him unravel the night they’d...
Well, no sense thinking about that.
The point was, she had stayed the same quiet, reserved Tina she’d always been. An all-business bookkeeper with a soft heart when it came to houses and kids.
Even if he forgot the secret she’d kept—as if he could—she wasn’t at all the kind of woman a man who had sworn off marriage should be thinking about.
* * *
“YOU’RE DOING FINE, SCOTT,” Tina told Cole’s nephew the next afternoon. She led him on horseback in a slow walk inside the corral.
“It’s bumpy,” he said with a nervous giggle.
“I know it is. But you’ll get used to being on Bingo. Then it will feel as easy as riding in Uncle Cole’s truck.” After mentally shaking her head for bringing up the man’s name, she attempted to forget him and just enjoy the sunshine soaking into her shoulders.
A failed attempt, since the tingling between her shoulder blades made her certain he was watching her. Again.
She hadn’t been a bit happy when she had come out to the barn that afternoon and seen Cole and another hand leading their more seasoned horses into the corral.
When she asked him about it, he told her Pete said Jed had made some changes to the day’s roster. Jed had told his manager to pass along the message that Cole should help with the riding lessons.
Her suspicions about Abuelo flared again. But if she asked him, she knew she would get only another seemingly innocent explanation.
The pony tugged on the lead rope in her hand. “Be careful with your feet,” she reminded Scott. “If you kick Bingo, he’ll think you want to go faster.”
He nodded, but then his lower lip trembled.
Her heart went out to him.
Though they had given him the smallest mount in Jed’s stable and she had walked his pony for a good hour, he still hadn’t gotten comfortable. He glanced enviously at Robbie and at Pete’s five-year-old daughter, Rachel, both trotting their horses around the perimeter of the corral and obviously at home in the saddle.
Riding lessons at the ranch included a list of instructions. Their guests watched as their horses were saddled up and learned how to adjust the girth and stirrups, with everything double-checked by the wranglers, of course, before anyone was allowed to ride.
Cole had worked with the adults and now was patiently leading the nervous Mrs. Dunbar on horseback around the corral.
Tina gave the woman an encouraging smile.
As she glanced at Cole, his gaze met hers. For a moment, the several dozen yards between them seemed reduced to a handful of inches.
Unsettled, she turned away.
Last night, his announcement about being left at the altar had shaken her more than it should have, too.
She focused again on the boy astride the pony. “See, Scott,” she said, “in the beginning everybody has to learn how to ride. You’ll get there.”
She spent another few minutes walking him and Bingo inside the fence. Anything to keep her away from Cole. Yet she couldn’t resist another peek across the corral.
He had helped Mrs. Dunbar dismount and was handing her horse’s reins over to one of the stable hands.
Though her emotions were in a whirl, as she watched him the cool, analytical side of her brain couldn’t help taking over, making a quick tally of what she saw.
To the credit column, she added blue eyes the color of a springtime sky. Brown hair as soft as the silk of her favorite nightgown. A generous mouth she unfortunately from time to time still dreamed about. And the entries went on and on.
Too bad the single item in the debit column canceled everything out.
“Hey, Mama,” Robbie called, waving from his seat on Shadow.
She waved in return.
“Looking good,” Cole called.
He might have meant the compliment for Robbie or Scott or anyone else in the corral. But when she turned, he was striding in her direction. His gaze was firmly on her, making her conscious of her comfy but too-snug jeans and scruffy boots.
Suddenly, she had trouble taking a deep breath, as if the old T-shirt she’d thrown on to wear had shrunk in the wash.
Grinning, he looked her up and down.
Darn Cole.
He was the same irrepressible playboy she had known since grade school, and she had reacted automatically like the love-struck girl she’d been then, too. As she brought Scott and Bingo to a stop beside the corral fence, she gave herself a swift, silent reprimand. The sight of eagle-eyed Jed standing in the barn doorway and the guests nearby also helped focus her.
When Cole reached her, she forced a smile. “He’s getting the hang of it,” she said. “We’ll have him on a trail ride before he knows it.”
“I see a rodeo win in his future.”
“A champion belt buckle, for sure.”
Scott gave a shaky laugh.
“Great riding, pardner,” Cole said.
To his credit, he seemed to be doing his best to be a good uncle to his nephew...and to form a bond with both Scott and Robbie. The thought touched her heart at the same time it threw her into a tailspin.
She swallowed hard and looked at the little boy. “Ready to stop for today?”
When he nodded, Cole lifted him out of the saddle, then swung him to the ground on the other side of the fence.
“I ride like the big kids, Uncle Cole!”
“Just like them, all right,” he agreed, removing the boy’s riding helmet.
Giggling, Scott ran to join Robbie at one of the low benches set a few yards from the corral fence.
She had to swallow hard again before she could speak. “For someone who claims he swore off kids, you’re doing a good job.”
“I’ve had a great example to follow.” He smiled, his dimples flashing. “Seriously, Tina, I’ve never seen anyone as good with kids as you are.”
She grimaced. “I’m betting you haven’t had much experience watching anyone interact with kids.”
“I’ve seen enough to know you’ve got a lot of patience.”
Giving the lie to his statement, impatience ran through her.
Confusion did, too. She blamed that on the mixed messages she was receiving—from herself.
She didn’t want to talk with Cole about her skills with kids. At times, she didn’t want to talk to him at all... Inwardly,
she winced at that echo of the final night of their long-ago weekend together. The old memory and her fresh guilt made her wish for an escape.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jed watching them, giving her another much-needed reminder she had a job to do. She forced herself to meet Cole’s eyes, the same shade of blue as the sky above them. The same shade as Robbie’s.
“Scott did very well,” she told him. “He said it was his first time on horseback.”
He looked over toward the boys. “I guess Layne never had much time to take him riding.”
“It’s a shame he isn’t comfortable around horses, since he lives in a ranching community. You could help change that.”
“Maybe.” He kept his focus on the kids. The brim of his Stetson shadowed his eyes, but she could see his profile, the strong curve of his jawline, one corner of his mouth...
She wanted to move closer. Close enough for a kiss.
Instead, she grasped the pony’s rope and got a grip on her pride—before it could desert her entirely. “He was starting to enjoy himself, I think. It helped that Pete made sure to give us Bingo.”
“Nice Shetland.”
“And well broken-in. Rachel and Robbie usually ride him.”
He nodded. “So Pete said.”
“Well, I think we’ve wrapped up the lessons for today.” As she turned, Cole reached out to stop her.
The temperature that afternoon had risen high for mid-March in New Mexico. Still, she couldn’t miss the added warmth from his hand on her arm. She turned to face him again, at the same time managing to slip free of his touch.
“Thank you,” he said.
She frowned. “For...?”
“Scott was all fired up this morning about going for a pony ride—till we got here. I saw the panic on his face as we led the horses from the barn. And then I saw how he relaxed when you brought the kids into the corral.”
She had noticed Scott’s expression, too, and had immediately gone to Pete’s house to get Robbie and Rachel. “No problem. Neither of them put up a fuss about riding with the guests. I thought it might help Scott to see the other kids on horseback.”
“It did. But I don’t think he would have gotten up on this pony without you. Thanks for that, too.”
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