The Cowboy's Big Family Tree

by Meg Maxwell

  Chapter Seven

  Clementine had been a foster mother for three days. Every time she looked at Phoebe she wanted to hug her. But every time Phoebe looked at her there was this little element of...mistrust? Clementine wasn’t sure what the right word was. The girl was definitely distant with her, though. She didn’t want Clementine’s help with her homework on Monday. She didn’t want to help Clementine set up the dining room for lunch, but she’d jumped at the chance to help Annabel marinade chicken breasts and help clean her station, and she’d asked Georgia if she could teach her how to make a lemon tart, her favorite, then had scrubbed the baking station spotless.

  It was only Clementine she didn’t want to be around. Or get close to.

  “It’ll take time,” Gram said, patting Clementine’s hand as they sat in the kitchen at the round table by the window, taking a tea break after the lunch cleanup on Tuesday.

  Clementine hated when her expressions gave her away. But then again, her gram could always read her. It was just after three o’clock. Phoebe had come racing off the school bus a moment ago, saw Daisy, Annabel’s beagle, in the yard with Annabel after a trip to the nearby vet, and was delighted by a fetch game. The dog raised her head and let out a howling bay and Phoebe did the same, eliciting some stares from passersby across the street. Clementine smiled. She wanted to rush out and ask Phoebe how her day had gone, if she had a lot of homework, if she’d made a new friend at school. But Phoebe looked so happy out there that Clementine stayed put. She was a little afraid that if she went outside to greet Phoebe, the girl would lose her smile.

  This wasn’t exactly how Clementine had been expecting this to go. But hadn’t she herself been slow to warm up when the Hurleys had first fostered her? Her parents and her sisters had been so nice and welcoming and Clementine could well remember being suspicious of them and hanging back, afraid to let herself like them too much. Love them.

  “We could think about getting a dog of our own,” Gram said, sipping her tea. “A Hurley’s mascot. Phoebe could pick one out.”

  “Really?” Clementine said. “That’s a great idea.”

  “Remember Dumpling?” Gram asked. “That sweet cat adored you when you came to live with your mom and dad.”

  Clementine remembered. The orange tabby would settle herself down against Clementine wherever she was sitting and made her feel loved. After her parents died, the old cat had moved into the Victorian with the orphaned sisters, and Clementine had gotten much comfort from that furry bundle.

  Perhaps a dog would work the same comforting magic on Phoebe, help her bond with Clementine too. “I’m going to ask her right now,” she said, rushing out the yard.

  But the idea fizzled. Phoebe stared at Clementine blankly. “A dog?” She shrugged and went back to playing with Daisy. “I mean, I like dogs, but I don’t know. Is it time to go to Logan’s?” she asked, her expression brightening.

  Annabel offered Clementine a look of commiseration, then turned to Phoebe. “Time for the pooch and me to go pick up Lucy from school. See you soon, Phoebe. Bye, Clem.”

  “Do you like being called Clem?” Phoebe asked when Annabel and the beagle had left.

  Clementine smiled. “Sure. My sisters call me Clem, Clementine, Tiny. Nicknames are usually a term of endearment.”

  Phoebe knelt down, opened her backpack, took out her Texas Rangers cap and put it on her head, backward. “My mom used to call me Phoebes. Clyde did too sometimes.”

  “Would you like me to call you Phoebes?” Clementine asked.

  “No,” the girl said. “Is it time to go to Logan’s?”

  Clementine’s shoulders slumped. Was she just...dissed?

  Stop it, she told herself. Phoebe has been here for just a few days. This is a huge change for her. Stop expecting fairy-tale behavior. “Phoebe, I’d like to tell you something important.”

  “Okay...” Phoebe looked around, everywhere but at Clementine.

  And Clementine didn’t demand her attention. She needed to let Phoebe accept her at her own pace. “I want you to know you can say anything to me. I want you to feel safe here, safe to be yourself, to speak your mind. If something is bothering you, if you feel uncomfortable, if you feel worried, I want you to say so. And if you want to talk about your mom and Clyde or your aunt, I want you to know you can. I’m here to listen, no matter what.”

  Phoebe stared at the ground. “Okay.”

  It’ll take time had to be Clementine’s new mantra. Or she’d crumble. And crumbling was not an option. She’d signed on for this and she was going to do what it took to make Phoebe comfortable with her. The girl clearly wasn’t yet. And that was okay.

  It’ll take time, she assured herself.

  * * *

  The moment Clementine’s car pulled to a stop in front of Logan’s house, Phoebe came running out, her hair in a low ponytail under her baseball cap.

  “Hi, Logan! Thank you so much for letting me come see Crazy Joe!”

  Her enthusiasm made him smile. “Sure thing. But I don’t want to disappoint you. He’s not really crazy. He’s pure sweetness. After he got sick and I nursed him, he mellowed out. He loves pats on his nose.”

  Phoebe grinned. “I can’t wait to meet him.” She rattled off the names of several rodeo bulls, a few of whom he had managed to best, and which were the serious buckers. The girl definitely knew her stuff.

  Logan watched Clementine slowly come out of her car, slowly walk over, slowly smile. Hmm. Perhaps things were still a bit strained between her and Phoebe.

  “Hi, Clementine,” he said, tipping his hat at her.

  “Hi. Thanks for having us over.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, dragging his gaze away from the pretty sight of her in her light blue sweater and jeans and cowboy boots. He remembered kissing her, touching her, wanting her so fiercely the other night. He blinked hard to force those thoughts away. “Come on. Crazy Joe’s out this way.”

  They headed out to the large pasture, the beautiful weather—low sixties and abundant sunshine—making jackets unnecessary. The big black bull stood in the waning sun, chewing on some hay on the ground, finally used to the idea that no one was about to sling a rope around him and climb on his back in a tiny chute. As they neared the fence, he noticed Clementine smiling sweetly at Crazy Joe. Though she’d always lived right in town, first with her parents, then her grandmother, Blue Gulch was a ranching community and just about everyone had spent time around livestock. Since Clementine had spent so much time on the ranch as a babysitter for his nephews, she was used to very large bulls, even ones who suddenly let out loud snorts, as Crazy Joe just did.

  “Is that Crazy Joe?” Phoebe asked, looking from the bull to Logan. “You’re right. He doesn’t look very crazy. He looks kind of nice.”

  “He is,” Logan said. “You can go up to him and feed him some hay if you want.” He saw Clementine flinch like the new mama she was. “It’s safe, I assure you.”

  “I’m not scared of bulls,” Phoebe said, barely tossing a glance at Clementine. She returned her attention to Logan and picked up a cluster of hay, stepping closer toward the waist-high wooden fence that separated her from Crazy Joe, her hand gently moving toward the bull’s flanks. “Hi, Crazy Joe. I’m Phoebe. I’m gonna be a bull rider one day.” Crazy Joe snorted again and lifted his head, and Phoebe laughed. “He agrees!”

  Logan chuckled. “I think he does.”

  Clementine seemed to be hanging back. He knew she was a pro at being around kids of all ages, but the way Phoebe interacted with her was clearly making Clementine unsure of how to approach the girl, whether to burst in as she always did or stay back a little.

  Bring her in, he told himself. She needs your help right now. “You can feed him too, Clementine. Or pat him on the side.”

  Clementine’s eyes widened and she glanced from
the bull to Phoebe to Logan and back to the bull. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever touched a bull before. I’d like to pet him, though.”

  “Bulls are so cool,” Phoebe said. “Look how awesome Crazy Joe is.”

  Clementine tentatively reached out a hand and patted Crazy Joe’s side, the bull’s head lifting up in her direction. “He likes me!”

  Phoebe tilted her head. “I think bulls know who’s nice and who’s not. Like Santa.”

  Logan caught the look of happy surprise on Clementine’s face. Clearly Phoebe thought her foster mother was nice, which she was. So if Phoebe was keeping herself at arm’s length from Clementine, it wasn’t because she didn’t like her foster mother. Honestly, he couldn’t imagine anyone not liking Clementine.

  You sure acted like it last August, he reminded himself. Which was something he should rehash with Clementine. People, kids included, acted in all kinds of ways for all kinds of reasons and it often had nothing to do with the person on the receiving end. He knew if he told her not to take it personally she’d slump her shoulders and he got that; how could you not take something personally when it was you on the receiving end of the cold shoulder? But the thing was, oftentimes, that cold shoulder wasn’t about you so much as it was about the person giving it.

  “Well, I think Crazy Joe is pretty nice himself,” Clementine said. “So he used to be a rodeo bull?”

  “Logan didn’t win on him, but he bested lots of others,” Phoebe said. “Isn’t it super nice of Logan to let Crazy Joe live here when he didn’t last eight seconds on him? He obviously treats Crazy Joe like a king. He has this big pasture and bull friends and all that hay,” she added, pointing to the trough near the barn.

  “Well, now that you mention it, that does sound super nice,” Clementine said, smiling at Logan. She patted Crazy Joe’s side again. “Logan knows you didn’t mean to make him lose the event—you were just being a bull, weren’t you, Crazy Joe? Doing your thing.”

  Huh. Talk about not taking something personally, he thought, remembering the last time he’d ridden Joe and gotten thrown hard on his side, his biggest rival walking away with the purse. At least Logan could say he practiced what he preached, when it came to bulls, anyway.

  “Yeah, Crazy Joe,” Phoebe said, biting her lip. “You were just being a bull.” She looked up at Clementine with a sweet expression on her face, and Logan was hopeful that this shared experience and Clementine’s wisdom had worked a little magic on their relationship.

  “So right now Miss Karen, the twins’ sitter, is giving the boys a bath,” Logan said, “but she’ll be leaving in about five minutes and I promised them ‘make your own sundaes.’ Would you two like to stay and have some?” Logan asked.

  “I love sundaes!” Phoebe said. “Can we?” she asked Clementine.

  “I never say no to ice cream sundaes,” Clementine said.

  That earned her another smile from Phoebe, and they said their goodbyes to Crazy Joe.

  They headed in just as Karen was coming down the stairs, the boys racing ahead in front of her, their blond mops damp from their bath. Logan could smell their sweet baby soap from where he stood. Both boys wore blue sweatpants and white T-shirts and their favorite socks with red trucks.

  “Yay, it’s Phoebe!” Henry said, rushing over.

  “Want to see my favorite monster?” Harry asked, holding up a rubber toy with three heads and seven eyes.

  “He’s awesome,” Phoebe said, kneeling down. “I love monster toys.”

  Logan glanced at Clementine, his turn to be happily surprised. The boys obviously liked Phoebe, having gotten to know her a little from the Christmas show rehearsal. After introducing Karen and Phoebe, the sitter hugged the twins goodbye and left.

  A half hour later, ice cream sundaes consumed, Phoebe offered to help the twins practice “Jingle Bells,” which morphed into reading a storybook about a little mouse who couldn’t find his way home for Christmas. Then they all wanted to play tag, so they went into the backyard, and Logan made coffee for him and Clementine. They sat down on the brown leather couch that faced the sliding glass doors to the backyard, the kids in full view.

  “Maybe Phoebe’s coming around,” Clementine said, her expression wistful as she looked out at Phoebe playing with the twins. “She said I’m nice. Indirectly, anyway. And she seemed to like what I said about a bull just being a bull.”

  He sipped his coffee. “You are nice. And you were very right about the bull thing. A rider just can’t take that personally,” he threw in, hoping she’d take that nugget for herself.

  She nodded, her expression softer. Huh. Who knew that inviting Clyde Parsons’s ex-stepdaughter here, which was harder for him than lasting eight seconds on any bull, would lead to so much good for Clementine? He was glad he’d gotten over it and let them come out.

  He glanced out at the twins chasing Phoebe, all three of them smiling. “The boys seem to adore her.”

  “That seems mutual. And she definitely adores you.”

  He stiffened. And wanted to change the subject. But before he could think of something to ask about rehearsal or what the specials were at Hurley’s tomorrow, she added to the subject.

  “She has a poster of you up on the wall over her desk,” Clementine said. “A rodeo poster. And she keeps Clyde’s scrapbook of your rodeo accomplishments on the center of the desk.”

  He looked away. The rodeo felt like a lifetime ago. “Well, those days are over.”

  “Do you miss it?” she asked, tucking her legs underneath her. She was slightly facing him now, and he was so aware of her, too aware of her, the scent of her shampoo catching him every now and then.

  He leaned his head back against the couch and stared up at the ceiling, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “Sometimes, more than anything. But most of the time, I hear the crowd chanting Handcuff Cowboy and I want to disappear in a bull chute. I—” He stopped talking and shook his head, grabbing his mug of coffee.

  What the heck was wrong with him? Why would he bring that up? There were two sore subjects in his life. Parsons and the Handcuff Cowboy nonsense. And he went and mentioned one of them to someone who knew nothing about it at all. He sat up straight and called himself a fool three times. Idiot.

  Maybe she wouldn’t ask.

  “Why would they call you the Handcuff Cowboy?” she asked. Of course she did. “I remember Phoebe mentioning that at our lunch in Tuckerville, but it was clear she didn’t know why you were called that.”

  Thank God, he thought. That wasn’t something fit for a kid’s ears.

  Just tell Clementine and get it over with. Maybe if he told her the cruddy story she’d understand why he was so...prickly on top of everything else.

  He sighed and launched into it. “I was headed for the championships and the woman I was dating turned out to be the sister of my biggest rival. She lied about who she was, though. I had no idea she was related to the guy.”

  He thought of Bethany Appleton, who’d told him her name was Kayla Clark and lied about where she was from, why she was always at the rodeo, why she was dating Logan. How could someone look you right in the eye, kiss you, share such intimate experiences with you and be lying the whole time?

  “Oh no,” she said. “I don’t like where this is going. The sister of your biggest rival?”

  He let out a harsh breath and nodded. “I never drink before a championship, for obvious reasons, but one day, before a championship I’d worked hard to prepare for, she spiked the iced tea she made me and the next thing I knew, we were in bed and I was handcuffed to the posts. I was so buzzed I fell asleep. When I woke up, she was nowhere to be found, the championships were long over and I had to call the front desk to help me out. Word leaked. A total embarrassment.”

  She grimaced and put her mug on the coffee table. “Logan, how awful.”

/>   He nodded. “Yeah. She’d dated me only to do exactly what she’d done. Make sure I never made it to the championships so her brother would win and walk away with the purse. That’s exactly what happened.”

  “How the heck could someone do that?” she asked, staring at him. “She...spent time with you only to trick you?”

  He nodded, leaning his head back on the couch. “I liked her too. Before that, I mean. I thought she meant everything she said. And every word out of her mouth was a lie.”

  She shook her head. “All to make sure her brother won the championship. Unbelievable.”

  “Yup. The day after she came up to me and tried to apologize, to tell me she really did like me and that it was too bad I had to be her big brother’s biggest rival, but family was family.”

  “Wow,” Clementine said. “Some apology. I hope she got hers—comeuppance, I mean.”

  He shrugged. “I never said anything about her. I trusted her and I got burned. I just wanted to forget it and try to get back my standing in the rodeo and live down the whole thing.”

  “Did you?”

  He thought back to those days right after he unintentionally forfeited the championships, some of the worst of his life. “Well, the crowds would chant out ‘Handcuff Cowboy’ and it’d distract me. I never won another rodeo. Then a few weeks later I got the call from the Blue Gulch police about my brother and his wife. Nothing really mattered after that.”

  She reached a hand over and touched his arm. “I know.”

  “You do, don’t you?” he said, putting a hand over hers, holding her gaze for a moment. He leaned closer, dying to kiss her, to let his whole conversation fall away.

  For a few moments, they both watched the kids playing, Phoebe clearly being purposely slow as she “chased” the boys in a game of tag, the twins shrieking with delight as she neared one of them, only to “miss” them. He relaxed, appreciating how sweet the girl was being with Harry and Henry. He took a sip of his coffee, all thoughts of the rodeo and The Liar and a former life receding.

  “Do you plan to tell Phoebe that you’re Clyde’s biological son?” Clementine asked, and she might as well have poked him with a cattle prod. What the heck? Parsons hadn’t even been on his mind for once.