Best of Cowboys Bundle

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Barbara White Daille, Judy Christenberry, Christine Wenger, Shirley Rogers, Crystal Green, Nina Bruhns, Candance Schuler, Carole Mortimer

Shockingly, she didn’t pursue anything more. She merely allowed him to leave without making him feel guilty about being such a pill.

  So why did he stand there for a couple more seconds than he needed to?

  Damned if he knew.

  Damned if a fool like him would ever know.

  “Can an old man ask for your help?”

  Felicia sat with Rip near the campfire that night, digesting a meal of chili, sourdough biscuits and whiskey.

  The other men were trading good-humored jibes over the fire, letting off steam, yet Jack wasn’t one of their number. He’d already returned to Rip’s study, continuing his perusal of the accounts.

  Although disappointed, Felicia figured he’d probably reached his talk quota for the day anyway. After all, he’d really spent himself during their dishwashing drill earlier, right?

  But…heck. Why was she so frustrated with her apparent lack of results? One step at a time to win him over, wasn’t that the plan? And he was interacting with her voluntarily now. He’d even touched her without having to be roped into it.

  If that wasn’t progress, she didn’t know what was.

  “You can ask for anything, Rip,” she said, palming her mug of coffee and leaning her head back on the lawn chair’s rim. Crickets sang in the night and, in the near distance, oak and juniper trees rustled in a warm, light breeze.

  The rancher cuffed back his hat so it revealed more of his time-grizzled face. It allowed Felicia to see that his gaze was fairly dancing with excitement.

  “You and all those cousins,” he said. “Are you pretty sure you know how to take care of kids?”

  Of course. Bobby again. Rip was chock-full of nerves and anticipation.

  “Sometimes I feel like I’ve helped to raise a passel of them.” She smiled, the corners of her mouth weighed down, her arms feeling so bare without anyone to hold.

  “Well, that’s a balm,” he said, “because I don’t know step one. About the details, I mean. I wouldn’t have accepted Bobby if I thought I couldn’t raise him up just right.”

  She nodded, wondering where this was going.

  “I want him to know he’s come home,” Rip continued, “so…well…I’m just gonna ask. I know you’re doing a lot with the cleanin’ and cookin’, but, if I gave you some cash, could you stand to go into Wycliffe tomorrow? To maybe buy a thing or two for Bobby’s new room so he doesn’t walk into something that looks like a monk’s cell? I ain’t got the touch when it comes to decoratin’.”

  Immediately, Felicia’s mind began to whir. A boy’s room. Toys, games, sports equipment, race cars…

  “I’d love to,” she said, making the old man sink back into his chair with relief.

  They talked about Bobby and what Rip already knew about him: a big Houston Astros fan, a connoisseur of dinosaur facts, a great lover of Star Wars spacecraft models. Felicia grew more enthusiastic by the second, made happy by the urge to nurture and comfort.

  “I’ll take care of everything,” she said, patting Rip on a bony shoulder. “Don’t worry.”

  “Thanks, little Markowski. A million thanks.” The rancher got up from his chair, his joints creaking. “I’ll talk to Jackson about driving you out there.”

  Her mouth opened but no words came out. Oh, boy. Jack was going to love being her chauffeur. This would be one more notch on his complain-about-Felicia belt.

  Before she could croak out an argument, the rancher chuckled. Lowering his voice so the other men couldn’t hear, he said, “I might be fallin’ apart at the seams, but I ain’t blind. Jackson’ll drive you to Wycliffe. And he’ll like it, too.”

  With a saucy wink, Rip ambled to the cabin, then disappeared inside.

  At this point, if Felicia couldn’t get her last cowboy to come around, maybe Rip could give him a huge nudge.

  With Jack, she could use all the help she could get.

  That night, after closing Rip’s books, Jackson had dreamed of fire.

  Always the same nightmare: him, chained to a theater chair in an audience of two. His ex-wife, sitting next to him and applauding as a crimson velvet curtain parted. Onstage rested a TV set, its face seething with late-night static. As they watched, a lick of flame would yawn awake, swirling, growing, leaping into a sturdy column that would hold up the roof. As Jackson struggled, sweated, screamed, heat would creep over those curtains, trace the edges of the roof, consume everything around him while Jenna sat there, her skin like cool marble.

  “Your fault,” she would say.

  As with every dream, the fire would surround the exit doors, pausing, almost as if testing Jackson, daring him to escape, to chase after it.

  But no matter how much he fought, how much he raged, the fire always won, sprinting out the doors in a roar, a screech, a blaze of two children screaming in the night.

  Even now, hours later, as Jackson steered Rip’s rusted green pickup along the dusty road to town, a bead of panic drizzled down his temple. Merely thinking about that damned nightmare brought on the sweats again. His shirt was even soaked to his skin—and it wasn’t in any part due to the Texas sun, either.

  Next to him, Felicia started to fiddle with the air-conditioning instead of asking if he was okay. She probably knew he wouldn’t give her a straight answer, so she was depending on action instead of words.

  Smart, except nothing worked in the pickup besides the engine.

  “We’ll have to make do with the opened windows,” he said, even though they weren’t helping. The weather was sweltering today.

  He couldn’t get away from the heat.

  “I appreciate your driving me,” she reiterated.

  Jackson nodded once, then took care to loosen his hold on the steering wheel. He was white-knuckling it.

  She had to know that Jackson was driving her because Rip had asked. Otherwise, he was supremely discomfited on this shopping trip for Bobby.

  But it wasn’t his boss’s fault. Jackson had never talked with the rancher about Leroy and Lucas, about his anguish at losing the children. It had been so damned unnatural; kids were supposed to outlast parents, tuck them into their deathbeds and cry tears of outrage.

  Each day closer to Bobby’s arrival brought the agony back in fresh waves. Jackson knew the fire dream had returned in full force because of Rip’s nephew.

  How was Jackson going to treat Bobby when he actually got here?

  The question shook him to the core because he didn’t know if he could handle himself day in and day out around another child.

  Felicia seemed to sense his confusion and had been doing her best to put him at ease during this ride. Too bad she had no idea what was bothering him.

  Too bad she kept tripping over the subject because he wouldn’t tell her.

  “I thought we’d start out in the Mercantile,” she said. “They’ve got a big toy department.”

  “Then I’ll head there.”

  The wind blew her hair against his arm and Jackson’s eyes closed, just for the briefest second. The weight of contact stayed with him, buzzing his skin.

  “You know,” she said, sighing, “if you want to drop me off here, I can walk the rest of the way so you can get back to more important things.”

  Damn his taciturn nature. “I’m glad to drive you. Really.”

  If life had a laugh track, that would have been a cue for the audience to chime in.

  Couldn’t he drag himself out of these dumps? Even he was getting sick of the blues.

  “Then I’ll let you drive.” Felicia crossed one skirted leg over the other, her ankle bobbing up and down.

  On the vinyl seat next to him, she tapped her fingers.

  Was she finding him tedious? That bruised. He wasn’t a boring guy. Jeez, he used to be really care free back when his hair didn’t sport a touch of gray. At social functions, Jenna would always have to claim him by linking her arm through his and joke, “He’s mine, girls. Don’t you even think about it,” just before he noticed that he’d been amusing a bunch of women with his la
ughter, his stories.

  What had happened to that Jackson?

  For the first time today, he gave Felecia a look that wasn’t flummoxed, one that took all of her in: the flowing blue sundress, the smooth skin, the silver feather earrings that dangled from her ears. She’d pulled her platinum hair back in a ponytail, emphasizing a face that usually seemed to be thinking of a fun idea.

  “That’s a nice dress,” he offered as a prelude to the new/old Jackson.

  He could be the same guy, dammit.

  She sat up a little straighter, ran a hand over her skirt. “Really?”

  She angled her head, hinting that she had no idea where his compliment had come from.

  “I suppose,” he continued, “I should’ve found it within myself to spiff up, too, going to town and all.”

  “I was just in the mood. Sometimes that happens to women, you know. We like to wear pretty things to make us feel better.” She touched an earring. “But you’d know that, I imagine.”

  If that was a cue to talk about women—like his ex-wife—as easily as she’d mentioned her ex-boyfriend yesterday, he wasn’t up to the bait.

  “Ah, well, wranglers don’t know much about fancy dressing, I’m afraid.”

  See, talking was easy. Loosen the hardened bolts and let it flow. Even the tension in his shoulders was starting to ease up.

  “Wranglers?” Felicia turned her body toward him, leaning an elbow on the back of the seat. “I’ve seen some cowboys put on the sparkle. Rhinestones, belt buckles…”

  Jackson laughed.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Cowboys. You know they don’t actually exist anymore? Figments of the American dream.”

  “Strange thing to say, especially coming from one.”

  “Me? I’m no cowboy. A wrangler? Sure. But the myth disappeared with the end of cattle drives and the introduction of cross-country trains.”

  As Jack relaxed his palm on top of the steering wheel, Felicia propped her head against her hand. Somehow, they’d fallen into a regular discussion, and she liked what it was doing to him.

  His rugged face had grown a little more youthful, the squint lines around his eyes smoothing out. This close to him, she could take in his musky-leather scent and pretend he’d chosen to drive her to Wycliffe himself.

  And that’s what she did, just for a moment. Imagined.

  “A lot of people who call themselves cowboys will be startled when they realize they’re not what they think,” she said.

  “They can call themselves whatever they want while they two-step in their honky-tonks or ride their mechanical bulls. Wearing boots or knowing how to ride a horse doesn’t make you a cowboy.”

  “Maybe I’m confused.” She tugged on his shirtsleeve, hoping she wasn’t overstepping her bounds in her quest for levity. “What is a cowboy?”

  Donning a thoughtful expression, he didn’t jerk away. See, progress. The whir of tires over cracked pavement and wind through the windows sounded reassuring now, soothing.

  Finally, he lifted his chin a bit, narrowed his eyes. “Being a cowboy means having a sort of code, I guess. A nobility that went out of style. Someone who loves open spaces and the sound of grass blowing at night while he drinks coffee by the campfire. Someone whose heart is as wide as the ranges used to be and is too naive to realize that he can’t be that way in a modern world.” He paused. “A cowboy can stand and face anything that shows up to beat him down.”

  Felicia wanted to touch him again, to make sure he was real, to make sure she wasn’t conjuring a guy who thought in simple poetry and believed in old-fashioned values.

  In the end, Jack waved his commentary away, as if embarrassed to have spoken. “Show me someone like that, and you’ll show me a real cowboy.”

  She wished she could tell him her definition, too: a man who had the power to give her everything she’d always yearned for.

  As they pulled onto Wycliffe’s Main Street, they passed those honky-tonks. Passed tourists from nearby dude ranches who were combing through Western boutiques and diners. Passed feedlots, supply stores, churches and a lone motel.

  Jack’s comments still filled her mind and, while parking at the curb in front of the Mercantile, Felicia couldn’t help asking one more question.

  “So there’s no hope left for the myth, the cowboy?”

  Because if there were no more, how would she find hers?

  Jack cut the engine, stared straight ahead, a smile forming on his lips.

  “Maybe there’s one left.”

  Is it you, Jack North?

  Before she could ask him to elaborate, he was out the door and around the cab to help her out.

  As he took her hand, she tried to contain her giddiness, her pulse-pounding excitement. He grinned—that’s right, yet another one—and tipped his hat as he let go and took a step away from her.

  “You’re not coming with me?” she asked.

  Jack’s grin disappeared and he looked into her eyes a beat too long, digging deep inside her for some reason.

  Could he see that she was as anxious about Bobby as Rip was? That she was dying to make the boy feel at home?

  Something seemed to pop in his gaze, not because he’d been broken. Because of a change. A snap in the wind. He seemed to be steeling himself against something.

  Then resolutely, he placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her toward the store.

  Her heart beat double time.

  “Okay, Felicia,” he said. “Let’s go inside.”

  Chapter Six

  A ll too soon, the day came.

  Stoverson had already set off with Rip to the airport so they could pick up Bobby, and at the Hanging R itself, the rest of the ranch hands were fixing themselves up for the express purpose of greeting the young boy.

  Even Jackson had donned his best pair of jeans and a once-worn button-down. As he wandered out of the bunkhouse where Dutch and Carter were passing time by playing a round or two of poker, he caught sight of Felicia talking on the sunset-lit porch with Mrs. Krauss. She was the new housekeeper/cook Rip had brought on, a widowed family friend he’d managed to sweet-talk into helping him a few days ago.

  A few days. It seemed more like a lifetime.

  When Felicia had persuaded him to enter the Mercantile to buy Bobby toys, Jackson had taken his first step on a road that stretched into a different direction.

  A road where every step frightened him because he’d been there before—and he knew what was probably waiting for him at the end.

  Heartbreak? Soul-tearing regrets?

  He’d feared both possibilities as they’d entered the store, Felicia smiling up at him every few minutes. It’d almost seemed as if she sensed his trepidation and had unconditionally offered encouragement.

  In one of the toy aisles, she’d caught him off guard by firing up a green water gun and challenging him to a showdown like an old-school sheriff. Even though the old Jackson would’ve grabbed his own plastic weapon to engage in some fun nonsense, too, this Jackson wasn’t quite there yet. Sure, he wanted to be, but stepping into this place for Rip’s nephew was all he could manage today.

  Still, he flashed a grin, and from the pleased look on Felicia’s face, it was enough.

  For now.

  As they’d loaded toys and room furnishings into a cart, Jackson gained confidence, thinking that staying away from everything that reminded him of Leroy and Lucas was actually far worse than confronting it.

  But that was when they’d turned into the aisle with the miniature race cars.

  He lost his ability to take in oxygen, visions of Lucas and his car collection blindsiding him.

  All he could feel was Felicia’s hand on his arm, her voice soothing him.

  “Meet me outside?” she’d asked, obviously noticing his sudden change in willingness to be here.

  Mutely, he’d nodded, then gone to the car to wait in the heat, bathing in sweat and memories—drowning, stifling, all-consuming.

  Yet
—woudn’t you know it—when Felicia came back to him, she didn’t prod for answers. And damned if he didn’t feel a sight better as they drove away with her smiling over at him.

  With her help, he’d taken the first step back toward a part of himself he’d been mourning. He couldn’t avoid feeling that maybe, just maybe, Felicia Markowski might not mind walking with him on this new road inch by inch, day by day, backing him up in case he should fall.

  Depending on her in this way mortified him. Still, since the shopping trip, he’d gained some serenity. There hadn’t even been any fire dreams.

  Until last night.

  Jackson approached the porch, the orange-blue tint of a day’s end burnishing Felicia’s unbound hair. She was favoring a different sundress today, one that reminded him of the first time he’d seen her, reminded him of pure prairies and wide skies. In contrast, Mrs. Krauss, the new housekeeper and cook, wore her gray hair in short, loose curls. Well-padded through the hips and stomach, she had a grandmotherly cast to her, smelling of gingerbread and wearing a long apron to cover a paisley housedress and knee-high panty hose. But her sensible shoes revealed her true nature: that of an iron-fisted kitchen goddess.

  “Mr. North,” Mrs. Krauss said, greeting him with a clipped nod and a heavy Germanic accent.

  “Evening, ma’am.” Then he smiled at Felicia. “Hi, there.”

  As always, she beamed at him, once again making him wonder what it was that always made her so happy to see him. Of course, he’d been spending more time with her since the Mercantile: helping her every night with the dishes, scooting closer and closer to her at the campfire until he was actually sitting a heart-thumping five feet away now.

  Yeah, Felicia had invited him onto a different road, all right, but jeez, he hoped he wasn’t going to be dependent on her in any way. That in itself presented a new problem, one he wasn’t ready to face yet.

  However, in the meantime, he’d enjoy her presence. After all, today was her last on the Hanging R since Mrs. Krauss was officially taking over cooking and cleaning duties. For the next few hours, at least, Jackson was somewhat relieved to know that Felicia would be around when Bobby got here.