Luckiest Cowboy of All--Two full books for the price of one

by Carolyn Brown

  Love, Aunt Rosalie

  “Well, now what?” She laid the letter aside and threw her hands up in defeat.

  “Now, you can live here until the wreckers come if you want. There’s not much rental property in town that’s fit for you to live in but there are a couple of places for sale if you’re plannin’ to stay.”

  “I’d thought this would be my last move,” she said. “I’m ready to put down roots and I always liked this small town.”

  “We’ll find you a place, I promise.” He reached out as if to touch her but dropped his hand in his lap. “You’ve got my word on it. I should be going unless you’ve got more boxes to carry in.”

  “No, that’s all of them. My house and land are going to be part of the rodeo grounds. I can’t wrap my mind around that.” She had decided to move to Happy so that Tilly could grow up in Aunt Rosalie’s house.

  “Upside is that it gets real noisy around this area when there’s a rodeo or bull riding going on,” he said.

  “You still ride?”

  “Sometimes. Bulls. But saddle broncs are my specialty. I never was any good at bareback broncs,” he answered.

  “Dammit, Jace.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Hey, I remember that look in those pretty brown eyes and you’re mad as a wet hen after a wild Texas tornado,” he said. “Spit it out.”

  “I’m mad about this house,” she said through clenched teeth. It wasn’t a lie. She was furious that she couldn’t even buy it back from Jace. Understanding the whys and wherefores didn’t make it a bit easier to accept. “I thought the place was mine. I was already figuring out ways to remodel it.”

  “Honey, it’d take more than paint and new curtains to make this place livable. The plumbing and wiring would all have to be replaced and the worst thing is that the foundation is termite infested and barely hanging on by the rusted nails. If it don’t fall down around your ears in six weeks, you’ll be lucky.”

  She got up and stomped around the boxes, out into the kitchen and back to the living room to the window, where she stared out at the two vehicles sitting side by side. “There’s no way you can ask the rodeo people to sell it back to me?”

  “Sorry.” He shook his head as he stood. “I should be going now, Carlene. But like I said, it’s no problem for you to stay here until the day before the wreckin’ crew arrives. And if I can help you move or help find a place or anything, call me.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  His heart was still as big and kind as it had been in high school. He’d been witty and charming as a friend and had been an amazing boyfriend. Once they’d discovered sex together, they could barely keep their hands to themselves. But it had been that sweetness about his heart that had drawn her to him from the beginning and made her long for him years afterward.

  She turned around and stepped on a few bits of dead needles from the dried up Christmas tree in the corner. “Ouch!”

  “Let me help you.” He knelt beside her and gently removed the dried debris from her foot.

  His touch sent delicious shivers all the way to her scalp, just like it had when they’d dated in high school. If he reached up and traced her jawline with his forefinger like he did in those days, she’d be ready to drag him off to the hayloft.

  “There now.” He rose to his feet. “Want me to help you get rid of this thing? I can haul it out of here as it stands.”

  “No thanks. I’ll want to keep several of her ornaments, so I’ll take care of it later.”

  He headed for the door and stopped in the middle of the floor. “Mama says you still go by Varner. You ever get married?”

  She shook her head. “You?”

  “I’m still holding on as the most eligible bachelor in the panhandle.”

  “With that much power, surely you could sweet-talk the rodeo folks into selling me this house,” she said.

  “Can’t do it, Carlene,” he said.

  “Hey, look what I found.” Tilly burst into the living room, but stopped short at the sight of Jace. “Who are you?”

  Her hair was all tucked up under a stocking cap with the Florida Gators logo on the front, and big green sunglasses covered half her face.

  “I’m Jace Dawson. And you are?” He stuck out his hand.

  She shook his hand. “I’m Tilly Rose Varner. Look what else I found.” She turned around to face Carlene and held out an official stuffed alligator from the Florida football team. “I haven’t seen him in a whole year. I guess Aunt Bee packed him for me.”

  “She probably found him under your bed,” Carlene said. “Surely you aren’t finished unpacking all those boxes.”

  “Nope, but I’m hungry. I’m going to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You want one?” She laid the stuffed animal on the sofa and started toward the kitchen.

  “Your little sister or niece?” Jace asked Carlene.

  “No, I’m her daughter,” Tilly giggled as she whipped off the stocking hat and a cascade of curly red hair fell to her shoulders.

  An icy chill chased up Jace’s backbone. “How old are you, Tilly Rose Varner?”

  “I’ll be nine on February twenty-fourth.” She removed the oversized sunglasses and looked up at him with gray eyes sprinkled with gold flecks. Eyes that were exactly like his.

  Suddenly, there was not a single doubt in his mind that Jace Dawson was staring at his daughter.

  Chapter Two

  Jace had trouble looking away from Tilly but when he did, Carlene was shaking her head. He was totally speechless as his gaze shifted from the petite blond girl he’d known in high school to the red-haired little girl not five feet in front of him. When he found his voice, the only word that came out was Carlene’s name and that was barely a raspy whisper.

  “Later,” she mouthed.

  He barely nodded. “Well, I really have to go now. If you need me to help with anything”—Jace put a lot of emphasis on anything—“my number is still the same, and if you’ve forgotten it or anything else…” He picked a pen out of a cup on an end table and grabbed her hand. Touching her skin for the second time that morning jacked up his pulse a few beats. He wrote his number on the palm of her hand and then blew on it to dry the ink. “I’ll be expecting your call real soon.”

  “Sure thing,” she said.

  Jace stepped out onto the porch and pulled his jacket tightly around his broad chest on his way back to the truck. When he got inside, he slammed the door and slapped the steering wheel. He’d known since Christmas that Carlene was coming back to Happy to teach fifth grade. His mother, Valerie Dawson, was on the school board and everyone in town knew she’d been hired.

  Despite her windblown hair, dark circles under her eyes, and looking like a bag lady in baggy sweats, Carlene was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. She was a little curvier than she’d been in high school but that would come with having a baby—his baby—that she didn’t bother to tell him about. Full, kissable lips were still the same as well as that thick blond hair that floated on her shoulders in big waves even if it did look like it did after a night in the bed of his truck.

  A vision of her the morning after their graduation materialized as he started the truck engine and backed out of the driveway. He’d awakened in the hayloft to find her wearing his shirt and looking out across the fields toward the sunrise. That night had been the only time they had taken a chance on sex with no protection. It was crazy but they both wanted to see what it was like with no barriers and he’d planned to pull out before that final moment. Just one time of complete and utter abandonment because they were so much in love—or he thought they were at the time. He shook his head and replaced the visual with the one of that little girl looking up at him with those stunning gray eyes and long lashes.

  His big hands shook as he started the truck engine and drove back toward town. He pulled over in front of the bank and parked because he couldn’t focus on anything, not even the yellow line in the middle
of the road. Using his fingers and counting at least eight times to be sure he was right, he knew beyond even a faint shadow of a doubt that Tilly Rose was born exactly, to the day, nine months after that night he and Carlene had laughed at the idea that one time could never get them into trouble.

  “And she didn’t even tell me.” His hands clenched into fists. “I’ve got a daughter and she never let me know? Does that little girl even know?”

  He pulled out his phone and dialed Rosalie’s landline. Carlene answered on the fifth ring.

  “She belongs to me, doesn’t she?” he asked bluntly.

  “She’s mine and always has been.”

  “Does she know about me?”

  “She knows that we dated in high school. That’s what I told her when she asked after you left,” Carlene said.

  Jace threw his hat into the backseat and nervously raked his hands through his hair. “We need to talk about this, Carlene.”

  “I suppose we do,” she sighed. “I knew when I came back here to live that we’d have to address it, but can I at least get unpacked and settled first?”

  “No, I want to talk about it today,” he said.

  There’s one thing about an old landline with a corded phone—when a person hangs up, it’s with a bang. With ears still ringing and his mind going in circles, he tossed his cell phone onto the passenger seat and drove home to Prairie Rose, where he found his brother Brody in the kitchen making a fresh pot of coffee.

  “I hear that you didn’t waste any time going over to Rosalie’s to see Carlene. It’s gettin’ colder and colder out there. Wouldn’t be surprised if we get another snow or two before spring.” He turned around to face Jace. “Good Lord, brother. What’s happened?”

  Jace slumped down in a kitchen chair and laid his head on the table. “Carlene didn’t know that I bought that place. She had all these dreams of fixing it up and living there.”

  Brody poured two cups of coffee and joined his brother at the table. “So what are you going to do? That land has been promised to the rodeo association for over a year.”

  Jace ignored the coffee and went to the liquor cabinet in the dining room, poured a double shot of Jack Daniel’s, and carried it to the table. Rather than sipping it, he threw it back like a cowboy who’d bellied up to the bar in an old Western movie.

  “I told her that she could live there until the wreckers came and that I’d help her find another place. I was thinking about that cute little brick house about two blocks from the school, but property is the least of my concerns right now.”

  “What in the devil happened over there? It must be bad to have you drinkin’ at this time of the day,” Brody said.

  “Bad or good is a matter of opinion,” Jace said.

  “Spit it out,” Brody said. “Did you just figure out that you still have feelin’s for her and she’s married or something?”

  “Sayin’ it out loud ain’t easy.” Jace rubbed his chin and shook his head.

  “I remember Carlene being a smart girl in high school. Is she still as pretty as she was back then?” Brody asked.

  “She’s beautiful,” Jace said hoarsely. “Even in baggy gray sweats and her hair all windblown and no makeup, she’s still gorgeous.”

  “But? I think I hear a but,” Brody said. “Stop dancin’ around it, Jace. Did your little cowboy heart skip a beat when you saw her?”

  He took a sip of his coffee. “Yep.”

  “Maybe you’ll get a second chance like I did with Lila.”

  Jace sighed. “She lied to me. I guess it was a lie, anyway. Do sins of omission count the same as a lie?”

  “About what?” Brody asked. “Just tell me what in the hell is going on.”

  Jace hardly knew where to start or how to say the words. “You know we stayed in touch for a week or so after she left, and then she cut me completely out of everything. No phone calls or emails—nothing.” There was a long pause before he went on. “I tried. Honest to God, I tried. I really liked her a lot. I even asked her aunt Rosalie about her. It was the week before I went to college. I remember it because you and Granny had a little party for me at the church fellowship hall and I asked Rosalie if she had Carlene’s new number.”

  “And?” Brody asked.

  “She told me that sometimes it’s too late to do what you should have been doin’ all along. Never did figure it out until today,” Jace said.

  “And what did you figure out today?” Brody asked.

  “I have a daughter.”

  Brody set the coffee mug down with a thud and stared at Jace as if he’d grown a third eye right in the middle of his forehead. “You have a what?”

  Although Brody was a little taller than Jace, there was no doubt that they were brothers. They had the same chiseled jawline, the same dark hair and swagger. The only difference was that Brody had inherited the clear blue Dawson eyes and Jace’s were gray with little yellow flecks like the gold in peppermint schnapps. Just exactly like the eyes of a little girl who’d looked up at him when she whipped off that hat and sunglasses.

  “Wait until you see her,” Jace whispered. “She has my eyes. It don’t take a genius to know, Brody. She didn’t even tell me.”

  “Are you sure? Maybe Carlene has a red-haired ancestor,” Brody whispered.

  “There’s no doubt. Her age matches up exactly to that one night…” Jace trailed off, heat rising in his cheeks. “We didn’t use protection that one night and with that red hair, she’s got the same Dawson genes as Kasey and little Emma.”

  “What the hell are you goin’ to do?” Brody asked.

  “The first thing is talk to Carlene as soon as possible. I didn’t want to bring it up right there in front of the little girl. After that, I don’t know,” he answered. “What would you do? How on earth does a man start to be a father to an eight-year-old girl?”

  Brody chuckled.

  Jace pushed back the chair and began to pace around the room. “This isn’t funny in any sense of the word.”

  “You been moanin’ ever since Kasey moved back here with her kids that you wished you had children. Looks like you got your wish,” Brody said. “I can’t wait to get home and tell Lila.”

  Jace groaned. “What am I going to do, Brody?”

  “You’ll figure it out. I sure enough did.”

  “This is different. You were always in love with Lila.”

  “You sure enough moped around after she left and have brought her name up enough that I kind of thought you were in love with her,” Brody said.

  “I got over it,” Jace replied. “You never did get over Lila.”

  “Nope, I didn’t and I don’t really think that you completely got closure when it comes to Carlene, either. This will make you start up things again or end it for good.”

  Jace put his hands on the back of a kitchen chair. “Sharing a child means it will never be completely over, now, doesn’t it?”

  “You can both be good parents without being together. Folks do that all the time in this day and age,” Brody said as he pulled his phone from his hip pocket. “Got a text from Lila. The news is out that Carlene is at Rosalie’s place, so she’s on her way over there to welcome her back to town. If what you say is true, I won’t have to tell her anything.”

  “I swear it gave me chills to look at that little girl and I’m still trying to process the whole thing.”

  “Talk to Carlene in person, not on the phone,” Brody said.

  “No worry about that,” Jace said with a jerky nod. “My ear is still ringing from when she hung up on me last time.”

  Carlene was still in shock and stunned practically speechless for several minutes after she’d slammed the phone down in Jace’s ear. He had no right to demand that she talk to him that very day. Hell’s bells. She’d just gotten into town and found out that the house she thought she’d owned was about to be demolished. She had to be on the job on Wednesday and she had to find another place to live, get banking done, and all kinds of things—and he w
anted to talk.

  Hey, back up. If you were in his shoes, how would you be reacting right now? There was Aunt Rosalie in her head and it wasn’t a bit difficult to imagine her with her hands on her hips and her eyes drawn into mere slits.

  “I’d give him time to catch his breath first if the roles were reversed,” Carlene argued, and then whipped around to make sure Tilly hadn’t heard her. She eased down into an old wooden chair with rockers worn so smooth that the chair would hardly even move back and forth. She shivered when the north wind rattled the glass in the window behind her.

  Maybe it was because she was sitting in Aunt Rosalie’s favorite chair, but there was that sassy voice loud and clear in her head again. Catch his breath, nothin’. You’re lucky he didn’t drop dead of a heart attack.

  “I thought I was over it, but I’m still angry, and I’ve got a right to be. I’m angry at you because you didn’t even have a funeral so we could have closure and because you didn’t tell me you were selling the house. And I’m mad at Jace because he still affects me the same way he did when we were in high school and I thought I was over him,” she confessed.

  She stood up and moved through the living room and kitchen. The house would be gone soon and memories would be all she had of the little place. She’d stayed with Aunt Rosalie more than she’d stayed home those two years they’d lived in Happy—the best years of her life. She ran a hand over the chrome kitchen table set where she’d gotten her homework done and ate many meals. There were always cookies or brownies or something for an after-school snack and the sounds of Aunt Rosalie bustling around with her dust rag making sure everything was shiny.

  Tears flooded her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Aunt Rosalie had been her stability those years. Her mother was in Amarillo working every single day and her dad—well, he was gone all the time with his military position. They’d planned to move to Amarillo when her father got transferred there, but Aunt Rosalie talked them into renting a place in Happy so she could help watch over Carlene. Not that she needed babysitting. After all, she’d been sixteen, but Rosalie thought she might get into trouble if she was left alone all day and half the night.