The Love of a Cowboy
Page 38
“Kathleen says this Texas woman’s smart. Says she’s educated in business. Maybe she could understand all this red tape the government puts us through these days. I don’t know what’s going on with it half the time.”
Luke wiped stray lather from his face and turned to face her. She dug a Kleenex from her apron pocket and wiped her eyes. He stepped to where she stood and looped his arms around her. He hadn’t hugged her in years; she hadn’t allowed it. “What’s this all about, Ma?”
“For God sakes, don’t call me Ma. I don’t need to be reminded how damned old I am.” She wrapped her arms around his middle and hugged him hard and he felt her tears against his bare chest. He fought back a tear himself.
“You’re a good son. You always have been. You’ve always done your duty to this ranch and this family. And you’re a good rancher, a fine stockman.”
“I learned from Dad and you, Mother. I couldn’t have done it without your help.”
She pulled back and wiped her nose. “Yes, you could have. You would’ve found a way. You were always the determined one, the responsible one. Matt was like your dad. Always had his head in the clouds. With all we’ve had to battle through the years, Matt wouldn’t have survived here. He might’ve lost the whole damn place. I always knew that.”
Luke’s chest filled with emotion. “Mom—”
“Don’t say anything.” She shook her head. “A mother knows her children. If you just have to have this Texas woman, then her and her boy will be welcome. Mary Claire’s just being a teenager. She’ll come around soon as she gets over her snit.”
Luke cupped her shoulders and looked into her face. “Our boy, Mom. He’s our boy.”
She nodded and stuffed her Kleenex back into her apron pocket. “You bring your Texas woman and raise your son in this house like McRae men have always done. Gerald’s already quit the ranch and it’s time I did.”
“Dahlia, mom. Her name’s Dahlia.” He smiled as he thought of the night he met Dahlia. “Like the flower.”
“Don’t understand people naming their kids after flowers,” she muttered, thumping away. Luke didn’t try to stop her. Or add to what had been said or implied. Instead, he looked up, waiting for a rumble from heaven. A mountain had moved. He couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else on the planet had felt it.
Dahlia had stayed busy with the rush for Labor Day. She had heard nothing from Luke. The excuses she made for the lack of a phone call varied from hour to hour: maybe he had been injured, he was too busy . . .
Maybe he had lied . . .
The daytime temperature hung in triple digits for the tenth day in a row, dropped no lower than the high eighties at night. On Friday, as she sat at her computer, a tap sounded on her office door. “Come in.”
A female employee entered. “There’s a delivery guy downstairs from Abilene. He’s got a bunch of flowers. You want him to bring ’em up here?”
“Flowers?” That made no sense. She never ordered flowers from Abilene. “No, I’ll come down.”
By the time she reached the grocery store floor, several bouquets of roses in an assortment of colors had been lined up in front of one cash register and the uniformed deliveryman was bringing in more. When he set down the last one, she counted ten. He handed her a card with a message: For every day I’ve been gone and haven’t called. I love you, Dal. I’ll call you at home tonight. It was signed, Me.
Under the scrutiny of every employee in the store, she felt her face flush.
She sailed through the rest of the afternoon, then stopped off at the hospital on her way home and left bouquets of roses at the nurses’ station and with several patients. She fed Joe, played with him and put him to bed. At nine-thirty, the phone had not rung.
Disappointed, weary and hot, she put herself to bed. The phone woke her at eleven. Luke. They talked for an hour, covered Joe’s new feats and she thanked him for the flowers.
“I just wanted you to know I didn’t forget,” he said.
Her chest and head would scarcely hold her joy, but she said, “You don’t think ten-dozen roses was a little overboard?”
“You said I’m not romantic. Just trying to make up for lost time. . . . Lord, I miss you. I think about you all the time, Dal. If I’m eating breakfast, I picture you in the chair beside me, the sunlight showing on your pretty black hair. If I’m working in the barn, I pretend you’re there, sitting on a bale of hay watching me, telling me what to do in that soft Texas drawl. And at night . . . hell, I’m not getting any sleep, Dal.”
She scrunched down into the covers. “No one has ever said anything so sweet to me. Maybe I’ll change my mind about your not being romantic.”
“I told the girls, Dal. That’s why I’m just now getting in touch. I wanted the dust settled. It took a week to smooth Mary Claire’s feathers, but she’s coming around. Mom’s helping me work on her.”
“Your mother?”
“Yep. Told me to tell you you’re welcome at the Double Deuce.”
Dahlia fell silent, letting her thoughts catch up with her heartbeat. Another obstacle removed from her giving him an answer. She couldn’t make the leap.
“If Mom’s on your side, it’s sort of like hooking up with a bulldozer,” he added.
Dahlia could see that picture. “Uh, how much did you tell them?”
“I told them about Joe, that I want us to get married.”
Her heartbeat escalated again. “Luke! You didn’t.” The statement came out louder than necessary. “I haven’t said—”
“Now don’t get upset. I’m not saying rush into anything. I told them I wanted you to come up—”
“I can’t do that.”
“Bring Joe and come just for a visit. When you’re ready. I’ll see that you get plane tickets.”
“I can’t leave. The fall season is too important to sales in the Handy Pantry.”
Silence. Then, “Dal? . . . You know what we talked about—about more kids and stuff?”
Her heartbeat suspended altogether. “I remember.”
“It’s been on my mind because I told you I’d think about it. And well, I’ve always felt like I was a good dad and it’s not like I can’t afford to take care of more kids. I guess I should ask just exactly how many is it you’re wanting?”
Her heartbeat picked up where it left off and a tear spilled down her cheek. “Considering my advanced age, I would settle for two more. I want Joe to have siblings who look like him, who share his ancestry.”
“We’re talking three total, counting Joe?”
She wiped her eyes. “Before I’m forty.”
“Lord, those gossips in town will be saying Luke McRae screwed himself out of a seat at the table.”
“That’s an old joke, cowboy.”
“I guess it’s not much more trouble having two or three babies around than having one. I’ve already done it once. I guess I haven’t forgot how.”
She relaxed and made a low chuckle into the mouthpiece. “If you were here right now, Luke McRae, I would say yes and we wouldn’t waste another minute getting started.”
He laughed. “Look out your window, sweetheart.”
Epilogue
Sitting astride Roanie atop the long ridge overlooking the Double Deuce home pasture, Luke McRae was a contented man. For the first time ever, going into winter, he had enough hay in the barn.
He could see the ranch house in the distance. Dahlia and Ethel would be cooking supper and his eighteen-month-old son would be into everything and driving them nuts.
Dahlia had married him in Reno on Valentine’s Day. She had made up with her old friend, Piggy, so she and Bill Porter had come up from Texas for the wedding. Morgan and Brenna had been there, too, and Morgan stood up with him. He guessed his brother-in-law was the best male friend he had.
The logistics of getting Dahlia to the Double Deuce had been a challenge, but with determination on her part as well as his, they had managed it. She had sold her grocery store for an admirable sum and in
vested the money. Her dad’s old house and her car had been gifted to Piggy. As far as he could tell, Dahlia McRae had left Texas with no regrets.
He couldn’t believe the change that had come over the ranch since her arrival. The whole place was somehow happier. It had taken only a few weeks for her to win the hearts of his mom and dad. Without a qualm, his mother had handed over the Double Deuce’s records to Dahlia and moved into the house on the ridge that had been built for Brenna and Morgan. His parents had even made up with each other. Now they were on a trip touring farms in Europe.
Dahlia was teaching Mary Claire to cook gourmet food, which played right into his older daughter’s creative streak and at the same time, the two of them were having deep discussions about relationships and sex. He was grateful because he sure didn’t think he could handle that himself.
Annabeth was giving Dahlia horseback riding lessons and if they could con Kathleen into watching Joe, they sometimes spent a whole afternoon with the horses. He suspected they, too, had those “girl” conversations.
Both his sisters had given birth to daughters and with so many little kids around, the ranch house had started to look like a nursery again, as it had when his two grown daughters had been babies.
He reached the barn and unsaddled, then made his way to the house. Dahlia met him at the door with a big, lush kiss.
“Hi, cowboy. Need a room for the night?”
He smothered her with a hug and kissed her neck. “What I need is a good meal. What are we eating?”
“You don’t want to know.”
That was probably the truth if Mary Claire had planned it. He released her and headed for the bedroom to change clothes and wash up. She followed him and as he reached the sink and began to unsnap his cuffs, she wrapped her arms around his waist.
“Guess what.”
“Uh-oh. What have those girls been up to now?”
“Not the girls.” She raised to her tiptoes and whispered in his ear. “I’m pregnant.”
He couldn’t describe the emotion that shot through him. He turned and drew her close. “Oh, yeah? How’d that happen?”
She laughed and looked up at him with eyes that shone like emeralds. “This cowboy wandered through and I let him have his way with me. A girl like me would do anything, you know, for the love of a cowboy.”
He laughed, too. “I’m glad.” And he was, he found, as the news settled inside him. Besides the fact that it made her happy, he shared her wish for Joe to grow up with brothers and sisters close to his age.
Her eyes grew serious “I hope you mean that. I appreciate it was a hard decision for you.”
He kissed her long and deep, then rested his forehead on hers. “Nah. Not that hard.”
When she told him more kids was what she wanted, he had balked at first, but it meant so much to her, in the end, he had agreed. He asked her to wait until Joe was at least a year old for the sake of her own health. Otherwise, he had made no attempt to dissuade her.
“I love you,” she whispered. “You’ve given me everything I’ve always wanted.”
“I love you, too, Dal. You’ve changed my life. All our lives. Even Mom’s and Dad’s.”
THE END
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