Secondhand Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

  Tyler had a nearly invisible scar under his chin and, though he was just as active as Brandt, he was shy. Levi was a combination of the two and smart as a whip.

  "Will Daddy sleep at the hospital?"

  He'd asked her the same question multiple times. She answered him the same way she had all day.

  "Yes."

  "But won't he be lonely? Can we go there?"

  Now Tyler's chin tilted up so he could read her face too. Were all small children so intuitive?

  Her heart lurched a little as she imagined Callum alone in the hospital bed with nothing but the television for company.

  "We'll visit tomorrow, when he's feeling a bit better."

  And hopefully he would have an ETA for his release, or she could well imagine how grumpy he would be.

  "Promise?" Tyler whispered around the thumb in his mouth. Wasn't three too old to still be sucking his thumb?

  "I promise."

  She read them one story that turned into another until finally their eyes were drooping.

  She tucked them into the double bed she'd used as a teen when she'd spent the summers here. After probate had settled her uncle's estate, Jilly had insisted Iris move into the master bedroom down the hall. Ever since the early days after Jilly's diagnosis, Iris slept most nights downstairs.

  At the doorway, she watched the boys for a long time. Brandt whispered to Tyler. Levi kicked out his legs in reflex as he drifted off.

  Hot tears compressed her chest. She'd wanted a family with Callum. What would it have been like if these were their boys? What must it have been like to hold them as newborns? To witness their first steps?

  Since Callum had disappeared, she'd dated a few men, but none of those dates had turned into anything serious. Some of her friends had married and espoused the newlywed life and their romances. She hadn't been tempted, though.

  She'd been so focused, first on her career—to mask the pain of his desertion—and then after her back injury and Jilly's diagnosis, on getting her sister through the treatments. There hadn't been time to worry about dating. Managing the ranch, even though they hired out the bulk of the work, just added more to her plate.

  But seeing Callum again, being so close to his sons...these circumstances were bringing back all of the might-have-beens.

  And it hurt.

  What was she going to do with Callum underfoot until he could care for the boys or found someone else?

  You are going to suck it up, she told herself, backing away from the bedroom and returning to the living room to tidy up the destruction they'd left behind. Jilly had unearthed a bucket of connecting blocks from who knows where, and its contents were now scattered all over the floor.

  That task finished, she settled on the couch with an afghan wrapped around her shoulders.

  The old farmhouse had its share of character, and one of the hidden blessings had been that from the living room couch, you could hear if someone called out from any of the three bedrooms upstairs. Iris didn't like to think of it as spying on her sister, but if Jilly were in pain during the night or needed to go to the emergency room, she could hear better from down here.

  Jilly was the reason she'd become a paramedic in the first place. There'd been a scare early on in her treatments. She'd been prescribed two medications that had interacted badly. Iris had found her sister comatose on the bathroom floor, pale and barely breathing. And the worst part was, Iris hadn't had one clue what to do about it. She'd dialed 911, almost too panicked to follow the dispatcher's instructions, her brain replaying grief over their mother's death in a shocking, painful loop. Iris hadn't ever wanted to feel that way again.

  According to Jilly, Iris' becoming a paramedic was overkill. Iris had argued that becoming a doctor might've been. Being a paramedic made perfect sense.

  The months of classes and hands-on training had given Iris a goal when the grief and fear over her sister's battle got to be too much. Volunteering with the fire department had strengthened her ties to Redbud Trails after everything had fallen apart in NYC. It gave her purpose.

  That Jilly's doctors had kept her from facing another intense crisis was a blessing, but Iris was prepared, just in case.

  But how was she going to prepare her heart to be in Callum's presence day in and day out?

  That was the real question.

  4

  It was raining again. Iris pulled the minivan she'd borrowed from a friend up to the hospital exit and parked. Raindrops pattered on the roof and windows, creating a cadence that did nothing to calm her frazzled nerves.

  She took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, taking the keys with her. The boys threw imaginary lassoes from their car seats, but she didn't expect them to stay seated for long after being sedentary for the forty-five minute drive to the hospital.

  She'd learned the hard way that the ornery boys could unbuckle their seatbelts and liked to crawl up into the drivers' seat. Yesterday she'd been dropping off a care package to a friend, and the boys had climbed up front, beeped the horn, and turned on the wipers before she'd run back to the car to stop them.

  At the curb, a nurse stood behind Callum in a wheelchair. His hair was rumpled, and he wore a pair of scrubs, a look so unnatural on him that she had to look twice to verify what she'd seen.

  His face was a thundercloud. He'd been antsy and irascible when she'd brought the boys to visit him yesterday. They had been wild, climbing all over everything in the room and darting down the hall until she'd been on the verge of pulling her hair out. She hadn't wanted to put the boys in time out in front of Cal, afraid of doing the wrong thing, and he'd been too weary and hurting to deal with them.

  They hadn't stayed long.

  And she'd gotten a phone call this morning that the doctor had agreed to release Callum, and could she please pick him up?

  It had made her remember the independent teen boy who had hated asking for help.

  She didn't want those memories. Not anymore.

  She slid open the rear door closest to the curb, reaching out one hand when Brandt attempted to leap on his father.

  "Good catch," came a low mutter behind her.

  "Get back in your seat, okay?" She injected a cheerful tone into the order. "We need to get your daddy in the car."

  Thankfully, the mention of Callum had the boy scrambling back to the booster in the third row.

  "Nice minivan," he muttered as the nurse wheeled him to the very edge of the curb.

  "Thanks," she said, as if he hadn't shared his sarcasm with her. "I borrowed it from a friend."

  She moved past him to pick up the duffel resting on the ground beside him. It was light. He hadn't had many belongings with him in his short hospital stay. She tried to ignore the pang that hit her at seeing the pain lines around his mouth.

  He grunted as he pushed out of the chair and awkwardly backed into the bucket seat, hissing once in pain.

  The nurse started folding up the wheelchair.

  "I don't need that," Callum said with a stubborn tilt of his chin that took her right back to high school.

  The nurse looked at Iris, who smiled, thanked her, and loaded it into the back of the minivan.

  She moved forward to make sure Callum had settled in before she closed the side door. The boys chattered, happy to have their daddy as a captive audience.

  She checked that the boys were buckled before slowly easing out of the parking lot, careful of the slick roads. Callum's leg was propped on the passenger seat beside her, and he shifted. She heard the low groan he couldn't totally suppress.

  "Are you hungry? We've got a bit of a drive before we get home."

  "No, thanks."

  She couldn't help glancing in the rearview mirror before she turned into traffic. Lines around his eyes showed he hadn't slept much. She'd sat next to Jilly during long nights in the hospital. She knew what that was about.

  "We'll stop by your place to pick up some things for you and the boys and then head out to the ranch. I know you must
be tired. I've set you up in Joe's old office downstairs. Hopefully it will be quiet enough you can get some sleep."

  Even rambling, she couldn't ignore the waves of unease coming off of him.

  But before he could say anything, Brandt piped up from the back row. "No sleeping, Daddy. Sleep no fun."

  "Hmm. Maybe not for you, but Daddy likes to sleep."

  Without any segue, Levi added, "I want nuggets!"

  "We just had breakfast," Iris said in a sing-song voice. She checked over her shoulder, flipped the blinker on, and took the exit for the state highway.

  "What'd they have for breakfast?" Callum asked.

  "Eggs and toast. And orange juice. Tyler ate his and about half of Brandt's. Levi finished his plate."

  Rowdy yapped and poked his head out of the black leather shoulder bag she'd tucked him into that morning. It sat between her seat and the passenger seat. It was a wonder he hadn't gotten crushed by Callum's cast during all the jostling to get the big man in the vehicle.

  "Not you too," she mumbled under her breath, reaching out one hand to soothe the Boston Terrier.

  "What is that?" The disbelief in Callum's voice was thick.

  "Issa dog, Daddy," Brandt said.

  Iris pinched her lips to stifle a smile. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. It was awkward with Callum, to say the least, but if the boys were there to distract them from any tension that might remain from the past... "This is Rowdy. He's a Boston Terrier." At the stoplight she glanced in the rearview mirror again, this time to see Callum's skeptical raised brows. "A dog," she said, echoing Brandt.

  "Toad ya it was a dog!" the boy cried.

  "That's not a dog. If it can fit in a purse, then it's an accessory."

  Iris wrinkled her nose, even though he couldn't see it from behind her. "Rowdy has a big personality."

  There was a pause. Then a quiet question.

  "I take it you're still afraid of dogs?"

  "I'm not afraid of Rowdy."

  Callum mumbled something under his breath, but the boys diverted his attention again, talking about Uncle Joe's ranch.

  He remembered she'd been afraid of dogs? By bringing it up, he'd made her remember how he used to tease her about it, using Joe's old farm dog as a chance to flirt.

  This wasn't good. Even with the boys as a distraction, there was too much between them. How was she going to make it through weeks in his presence?

  * * *

  She was still afraid of dogs. That little black and white thing in her purse didn't count.

  He remembered long-ago days where she'd skirt the barn to avoid her uncle's friendly farm dog, because she'd been scared of it.

  Was she still addicted to hot chocolate? Did she still hate coffee? Did she still love riding as much as she had back then? She'd loved galloping with her long hair flying behind her. And he'd loved being beside her.

  Seeing her again, realizing how much he didn't know about her now...it was painful.

  He sensed that he could know those things about her again if he put a little effort into it. He could regain the friendship he'd lost when he'd abandoned her. Why else would she have helped him with the boys at the hospital? Why offer her home for them to stay in?

  Hung up in the past, Callum hadn't realized the boys were waiting for his response until a pair of little feet kicked the back of his seat.

  "Daddyyy," Brandt whined.

  "Sorry—what?"

  "Miss Iris's farm has horses and cows but none of them come in the house like Rowdy."

  He acknowledged the boys and listened as they chattered on about the ranch. Iris asked for directions to his place, and he gave them with only half attention. Too caught up in thoughts of their final destination.

  Uncle Joe's place had been first his job, and then his refuge. It was the place he'd fallen in love with Iris.

  How was he going to go back there again? It would be completely different without Joe there. Not that he had a choice.

  Being immobilized would be hard, but maybe there was a benefit—it would keep him away from places that would be laden with old memories.

  "How come...ah—" He cut himself off, his curiosity stalling in his throat.

  Iris's chin lifted, and her gaze cut to his in the rearview mirror, and then swung back to the road. "Yes?"

  "I was wondering why you're living on Joe's place instead of with your dad?" He remembered her love of horses, but he also knew how much work the ranch entailed. It had been a lot for Joe to handle, so it was probably more than two women could handle.

  And while Wade Tatum had always been a conniving, two-faced snake charmer, Iris had worn rose-colored glasses when it came to her dad.

  Just like she had with Callum.

  In the rearview, he saw a flicker of emotion cross her face, gone as quick as a summer shower. "Joe left us the ranch."

  Nothing more, even though he sensed that there was more.

  It just wasn't his business.

  He forced his gaze out the window only to realize she was taking the exit into Redbud Trails. Forcibly jarred back to the reality of where exactly they were going, his place, he forced himself to speak up. "The, ah...the house isn't much."

  "Our room is blue and red!" Brandt shouted, pounding one palm against the car window.

  "Brandt, don't interrupt. Iris, the house isn't much—"

  This time all three boys pounded on their windows, shouting gibberish.

  By the time he'd gotten them quieted down, she'd pulled up in the holey drive in front of a double-wide mobile home and cut the engine.

  She looked over her shoulder at him with her eyebrows raised in question, but he just shrugged, his jaw hard. He handed her the key to the front door. She would see as soon as she stepped out of the car.

  The boys' chatter echoed in his ears. He paid no attention, focused on Iris as she climbed the two worn wooden steps.

  Her little lapdog panted softly, watching Callum. He ignored it.

  She fumbled the key before she got it in the doorknob.

  Her designer skirt and heeled sandals looked so out-of-place on his doorstep. The double-wide trailer looked dilapidated from the outside, but the inside was clean and updated.

  He could just imagine what she saw as she stepped through the doorway. A jumble of boxes, half-unpacked. He'd been so busy trying to juggle harvest plans with Buck and find a nanny that he hadn't got as far as he wanted to in organizing the house.

  It was small compared to the house she'd grown up in. He'd been in her father's house once as a teen.

  But this was his place. He owned it outright.

  And he had plans. He'd sunk all his winnings into the partnership with Buck. He had five years to buy out Buck, and then he would be a business owner free and clear. By the time the boys were in third grade, he'd be a business owner. He could give them what he'd longed for as a child—a steady life never having to fear where their next meal would come from.

  But Iris wouldn't see any of that. She would see a jumble of boxes and belongings and his double-wide.

  And he hated the flare of pride that wished she wasn't in there.

  He hated that she was the one seeing him so weak.

  * * *

  Iris tiptoed into Callum's home like a trespasser. Could this be any more awkward?

  He'd told her she could find the boys' things in their bedroom. She'd had to pull out of him what he wanted for himself.

  She'd walked into what must be the living area. There was a couch buried beneath piles of little-boy laundry, neatly folded except for an avalanche of socks that had spilled onto the floor. Boxes were stacked against one wall, some open. A television had been set up and several children's DVDs sat on the floor. The walls were bare of pictures.

  An open kitchen was to her left. Everything was neat and tidy except for two cereal bowls and spoons in the sink. And the jumble of crayon drawings that hung lopsided on the refrigerator.

  Callum had said she'd find the boys' favorite character
cups in the cabinet. The first one she opened yielded white plates, stacked neatly, and coffee mugs on the top shelf. Next was the spice cabinet with medicines put at the very top shelf, where tiny people couldn't reach them. The cups were in the last cabinet, next to the microwave. The kitchen was rather small—Callum would fill it up by himself.

  She felt like an intruder, prowling around this home. Quickly she grabbed the cups and moved on.

  In the boys' room, she piled several sets of clothes and shoes on the bed and wrapped it all in the blanket, grabbing the other two blankets off the bunkbeds as well, figuring they'd want something comforting. Twin teddy bears rested on the pillows—Brandt carried his everywhere—and she grabbed both before making a run out to the car. Callum's jaw was stiff when she passed his window to open the back hatch and put the bundles inside.

  The boys were out of their car seats. Tyler held Rowdy on his lap—she'd have to treat the dog to something special this evening in apology, if he weren't too traumatized. Brandt tried to crawl out over the back seat.

  "I wanna help," he called out.

  "I'm almost done. You better stay there. I've just got to get a few things for your daddy." She shut the door before he could escape.

  She waved over her shoulder to the four guys as she passed the car on her way back to the trailer. The acreage was smaller than her uncle's ranch, but well-tended. The summer crop had been put in and swayed green in the summer breeze. It would be a good crop for him.

  She dawdled at the living room window, letting her mind wander to the space out back. Would he put in a barn? Have horses?

  She shook he head. None of her business. She made her feet carry her to the master bedroom.

  Talk about feeling like a cat burglar or something. She stood for long moments on the threshold of the room that was obviously Callum's. Masculine sheets and a solid comforter graced the queen sized bed, which took up most of the floor space. A dresser in one corner and a small closet in the other framed the bathroom door.

  Sunlight streamed through the half-open blinds, illuminating the space.