The Rancher's Surprise Son (Gold Buckle Cowboys Book 4)

by Christine Wenger

  Laura grinned. “And he’s almost four, going on forty.”

  “I thought you said he’s already four.”

  “That’s what I meant.”

  Right now the little cowboy was singing to himself and swinging the drumstick as if he was a conductor.

  “I’m done eating, Momma. Can I have some pie?”

  “Not yet. Wait until after we eat the main course, sweetie.”

  Laura pulled some small, metal trucks and cars out of her purse. “Wipe your hands and mouth and play with your cars for a while.”

  “Okay.”

  Laura and Cody ate in comfortable silence until Cody started playing cars with Johnny. She watched them, enjoying her two favorite guys interacting. Cody was a natural with kids.

  Would Cody notice that Johnny had his eyes—eyes that were as blue as turquoise? How about the tiny little dimple on the right side of the boy’s mouth? It peeked out when Johnny was smiling, just like Cody’s did, although Cody always denied he had a dimple.

  Johnny’s hair wouldn’t give him a hint. It was a gold-blond, just like hers.

  She’d thought she’d have a plan by now to introduce Cody to his son, but with J.W. and her mother’s attitude toward Cody, she didn’t want to do or say anything that might return him to jail.

  If she told Cody that he was Johnny’s father, Cody would want to be a major presence in Johnny’s life, and J.W. would fight him at every turn.

  Cody would push her into marrying him, and have Johnny and her move into the Double M. That would be the only place in which they could live.

  Georgianna would accept them with open arms.

  Cindy would be delighted.

  But it would mean the fast track to jail for Cody. Somehow, J.W. would see to it that he’d be out of the way, and out of her and Johnny’s lives.

  She was walking on glass shards, trying not to get cut.

  J.W. and Penny would hire a team of the best family court lawyers in the country. Sure, her father loved Johnny, but also he wanted a male heir to take over the Duke Ranch, and, of course, Johnny was in training to do so.

  J.W. knew that she was longing to run things, but unfortunately her father thought that because she was born female, she didn’t know a thing about running a ranch and never would. But J.W. was willing to wait for a decade or so until Johnny was ready.

  However, if Johnny wasn’t interested and wanted to pursue another career path, J.W. would fall apart. Then what?

  Laura sighed. If Johnny wanted to do something else, then Laura would see to it and let the chips fall where they may.

  Everyone has a right to be happy, don’t I? Oops... I mean, didn’t they?

  Chapter Six

  Cody helped himself to another plate of chicken and potato salad and ate as if he was on death row and it was his last meal. Johnny was playing catch with another little boy about his age.

  “I thought you weren’t coming today,” Laura said.

  “I almost didn’t.”

  “What happened? Slim wouldn’t let you out of work?”

  “Slim’s pretty fair, but that’s not it.” Cody scooped more potato salad onto his fork. “My parole officer thought that I was going to shoot him.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll explain,” Cody said.

  “You’re going to have to.”

  Laura held her breath and listened intently as he did just that. “What a close call, Cody. He might have shot you.”

  “I never thought that killing a snake would cause such a ruckus. Bad timing on the snake’s part and mine, I guess.”

  “You weren’t carrying the gun, were you?” Laura asked. She could barely get out the words, her mouth was so dry. She reached for her iced tea and took several cool swallows.

  “No. My mother got it. She knew I could kill the snake, even as rusty as I am.”

  “Seems like you weren’t all that rusty. You saved Cindy from getting bitten,” Laura said.

  Another reason why she couldn’t let Cody into Johnny’s life was that he could be yanked away at any time and returned to jail to do his last two years.

  It’d be just awful for Laura to wait two more years for Cody, but it would seem like forever to a little boy. She couldn’t let Johnny get close to Cody. If he went away, it would hurt the little boy.

  Darn it! She just didn’t know what to do.

  She should tell Cody that Johnny was his. He’d missed out on enough of Johnny’s life, but it would just open a can of worms that she didn’t know how to contain yet.

  Sooner or later, Cody would figure out that he was the guy she’d had a one-night stand with in college. Yes, he was the “college guy” she’d made love to on one very fertile night when he was helping her move into the dorm.

  She could see Cody staring at Johnny, looking him over. Thinking...wondering...doing the math. She could just tell Cody before he asked her.

  So far, the college-guy story had worked on Georgianna and Cindy, as well as her parents. She hoped that it’d work on Cody for a while until she could sort out this big mess.

  Until then, she had to keep Johnny away from Cody, she decided.

  Just let them enjoy this one picnic together.

  She smiled as she watched Cody, Johnny and Johnny’s new friend playing catch. Cody was lobbing the ball to them, and they’d throw it back with all their might. Cody caught their pitches, although he had to work for most of them, due to some wild throws.

  The three of them were doing some good-natured teasing as they tossed the ball.

  Then everything changed.

  “Danny! Daniel Stevenson, get back here immediately.” She and Cody heard the loud shriek coming from a woman standing with her hands on her hips. “Get back here!”

  Danny must have been Johnny’s little friend, because he stopped playing. He shook his head. “I’m playing catch.”

  The woman stomped over, grabbing Danny’s hand and half dragged him away. He started to cry. “Why do I have to go? I want to play with Johnny and Cody.”

  “You are not to go near Cody Masters!” his mother yelled.

  Laura stood up. She remembered Liz Stevenson now. She was a vocal member of the church, but hadn’t seemed to grasp the idea of charity and tolerance to her fellow man.

  Cody waved Laura back. “Let it go.”

  The picnickers dotting the lawn and sitting along the creek craned their necks or stood to see what was happening.

  Laura didn’t want Johnny to be part of some kind of scene that was transpiring, so she motioned to him to come to the blanket.

  “I wanna stay and play catch. I like Cody. He’s teaching me how to pitch,” Danny yelled.

  Laura turned to Johnny. “Stay here, sweetie.” She walked past Cody. Just as he saw her, he held out his arm to stop her.

  “Skip it, Laura. It’s not worth it.”

  She wasn’t going to listen to Cody and stay put. If he wasn’t going to stick up for himself, she’d stick up for him. She jogged over to Liz Stevenson and Danny.

  “Mrs. Stevenson, what seems to be the problem?”

  “You darn well know, Laura Duke. I don’t want my Danny exposed to a criminal.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “A murderer.”

  “Cody Masters won my basket.” Laura tried to be as polite as possible. “And he did his time, and Danny’s having a good time playing catch. I’ve been watching, and Cody has taught both boys a lot. Don’t take Danny away from having fun.”

  “Danny, go sit down on our blanket. Now, where’s your dad? Oh, he’s over there.”

  Danny’s father was having a beer with a couple of other men at a picnic table. He wasn’t paying any attention to his son at what was a family event.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Mrs.
Stevenson, Cody Masters is a good man. Let Danny play with Johnny and him.”

  “He’s a criminal, pure and simple. I’m just surprised that your father and mother aren’t objecting...or don’t they know?”

  She was so loud, as if she was preaching to the crowd without a microphone.

  “As I told you, Cody won the bid on my picnic basket, so we are eating together. That’s all.”

  Laura bit her lip, feeling like a fraud. She was no better than Liz Stevenson because she was lying to Cody about Johnny’s paternity. Because she was ashamed about his label as a murderer and afraid that she’d lose her son.

  “That’s all? Who are you kidding? I wasn’t born yesterday, Laura. You and Cody Masters have been sneaking around for years.”

  “Mrs. Stevenson, our conversation is over.”

  “I never wanted it to start in the first place.”

  Oh, that was a major slam, and that didn’t sit well with Laura. She was going to get in the last word no matter what.

  “You are so narrow-minded, I can’t reach you,” she said, then turned and walked back to Cody, who was sitting cross-legged with Johnny.

  “Cody, I’ll cut us some pie now.”

  “No, thanks, Laura. I’ve lost my appetite.”

  * * *

  Johnny sat for a while, eating a slice of apple pie. Then he went over to the edge of the shallow creek and was shooting stones into it.

  “Cody, are you going to let a nutcase like Liz Stevenson bother you?” Laura said. “Then you’re not the man I thought you were.”

  “She’s right, you know. I am a criminal. A killer. Even if I did it to defend my family, I will always be a murderer. Kids shouldn’t be hanging around me, and vice versa.”

  He was only playing catch, but he loved being with the boys.

  Just when he’d been having such a great time. He hated to be reminded about his past. Well, it had only been his past since about three days ago.

  “I should really get back to work,” he said.

  “It’s Sunday,” Laura pointed out.

  “I’m talking about the Double M. It’s my one day off from your place.”

  “I see.” Laura nodded. “And you want to get out of here. Right?”

  “You know it.”

  “It’ll look like you’re running scared, Cody, and the Cody I know never runs from anything. Is that what you want?”

  She was right. He was so beaten down by his stint in the can that it was hard to remember the man he used to be.

  But the man he used to be should have eloped with Laura after their high school graduation.

  They would have made it somehow.

  But now he couldn’t leave the Double M or his mother and little sister, and he couldn’t leave Laura—or even Johnny. The boy was the cutest, and Cody loved him already because he was Laura’s.

  Was he the college guy? Was he the one that she’d made love with and gotten her pregnant with Johnny? He was her first, he knew that.

  No, absolutely not. He couldn’t be the boy’s father. He dismissed the thought.

  For sure, Laura would have told him.

  “Johnny,” Cody shouted. “Would you like to toss the ball around again?”

  “Sure!”

  Laura packed everything away, then watched them for a while.

  “What do you want to be when you get older, Johnny?” Cody asked.

  “A rancher, just like my grandpa. I want to have a lot of horses like he has, and I’ll ride Pirate whenever I want, and I’ll have cows, too, but I only want chocolate cows.”

  “Chocolate cows?”

  “For chocolate milk.” Johnny laughed.

  “Oh.” Cody chuckled. He fell for that old chestnut.

  “I wanna give away money like my momma, too.”

  “That’s a noble profession,” Cody said.

  “Huh?”

  “That’s a nice thing to do. I’m sure your mother likes doing that.”

  “She said that it makes her feel good.”

  He’d feel good giving away J.W.’s money, too.

  “She gave away a roof to Mrs. Georgie next door. And Cindy. I call her Cindy Lou Who. She’s my friend.”

  “Whoa. She gave away a roof?” Cody paused. “How do you know that, Johnny?”

  He shrugged.

  “Oh, I’m going to have to be more careful around little children with big ears,” Laura said.

  “Mrs. Georgie’s roof was falling down. What if she got wet? What if Cindy and Mrs. Georgie got hurt?” He shook his head solemnly.

  He looked over at Laura. Her eyes were as wide as one of his gold belt buckles and her mouth was pinched tight.

  So J. W. Duke’s money had funded the Double M’s new roof, huh? He didn’t know whether or not he should laugh or be mad, so he decided to laugh. They all did.

  “Does my mother know...uh...that?” Cody asked.

  “No way. I told her that it was a grant for historical ranches.”

  Cody laughed until his sides hurt. He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d laughed that hard, but it felt good.

  When he finally stopped, Laura asked, “Ready to go, gentlemen?”

  “Do we have to?” Johnny sang the words in a perfect whine.

  “You heard your mother, partner,” Cody said. “Always listen to your mother.”

  “I do.” Johnny picked up his ball and tossed it in the air.

  “All the time?” Cody asked.

  “Most of the time.”

  Laura grinned as they approached. “I’d agree with ‘most of the time.’”

  Funny, Cody thought, how I could picture the three of us as a family. How could Johnny’s father miss out on such wonderful times? What the hell was wrong with him?

  Johnny reached for his hand, and Cody felt his jail-hardened heart turn to mush. The little guy’s small hand in his made him feel...invincible.

  He’d let the Liz Stevensons of the world think what they wanted to about him. He’d let the J. W. Dukes of this world work him like a rented mule. He’d break his back on the Double M, if only he could be with Laura and Johnny like this again and feel as though time hadn’t passed him by.

  They walked to the parking lot and split company. Laura was in the front of the paved lot; Cody was way in the back in the unpaved desert.

  She offered him her hand, and in front of everyone, he briefly shook it. Then he shook hands with Johnny and headed for his truck.

  He noticed that Liz Stevenson was watching them, and he couldn’t help waving at her. She turned her back on him.

  “That was a dumb thing to do,” he admonished himself later as he climbed into the Double M’s ancient truck. It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, but he couldn’t help himself.

  He hoped that Mrs. Stevenson wouldn’t run to J. W. Duke and tell him that he’d been with Laura and Johnny. There’d be hell to pay.

  * * *

  Laura didn’t know when she’d be able to see Cody again. It had been difficult just getting him to go to the picnic and to bid on her basket.

  But everyone who ever saw Cody and her together in the past, especially Liz Stevenson, could see through their plan.

  So would her parents.

  After she tucked Johnny into bed and answered nonstop questions about Cody being in jail, he finally went to sleep.

  Tired herself, she poured herself a big glass of lemonade and headed for her room.

  The phone rang and she answered. “Laura, I’d like to see you in my den, please. I’ll send Clarissa over to watch Johnny while we talk.”

  Please? Her father never said "please,” least of all to her.

  A half-hour later, she knocked on the open door of his den
. “Yes, Dad?”

  “Sit.”

  “Am I a dog?”

  “Please, sit.”

  Laura always liked his office/den. It smelled of old cigar smoke—even though her mother wouldn’t let him smoke in the house anymore—and leather. Bound first editions decorated the shelves on three sides of the room. She’d read them all. J.W. hadn’t read any, with the possible exception of Moby Dick.

  She slid into a plaid armchair with a high back and took a sip of lemonade that she’d brought from her cottage.

  “What’s up, Dad?” she asked, holding her breath. Liz Stevenson, or some other busybody at church, must have called him.

  “How was the church picnic?”

  “Fine. I had a good time. So did Johnny.”

  “And what about our gift?”

  “The parishioners were overjoyed, and Reverend Pangburn had tears in his eyes.” Laura smiled.

  “Good. Good.” J.W. chuckled. “I would have loved to see everyone’s face. Dirt-poor cowboy makes it big and rubs their noses—”

  “Dad! Is that what all your charity is about? And here I thought that you enjoyed giving—”

  Her heart sank. How much more could her father disappoint her? She liked it better when they had been poor. They’d had a great time as a family. Even Penny didn’t spew vile things the way she did now.

  Oh, well. At least his money was doing some good.

  “You could have gone in my place, Dad. You could have stood before all the church people and gloated, if that’s what you wanted.”

  “Of course that’s not what I want. You aren’t listening to me, Laura. You’re just like your mother.”

  “Should I take that as a compliment?”

  “Take it any way you want.”

  “Dad, I’m tired. And I don’t want to play any more games today. Everyone accepted your gift with happiness and joy in their hearts. The church roof will be like new and the organ will play joyful music again thanks to you. I think that’s what they are going to do with the matching funds.”

  He nodded. “Laura, there’s something else I want to speak to you about.”

  “Yes. I know. Liz Stevenson got to you.”