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

  Damn, she was so…so…Felicia. One of a kind. Beautiful without even seeming to know it. Kindhearted and open.

  Much too good for him.

  But, still…God, he needed her.

  They were sitting around a table with Rip, Carlota, Emmylou and Deston Rhodes after having been invited to dinner while Bobby played with Joel and Noel—the twins from hell—again. Right now, the boys were with the twins’ mother, bless her soul.

  In the meantime, Felicia had translated all of Emmylou’s damned good dishes into layman’s terms for Jackson: beef Bourguignon, fava-bean paste over pasta, an eggplant dish, salad and fresh-baked bread, plus a selection of handmade chocolates for dessert.

  As a bonus, they were also being treated to a quaint view of Oakvale—something most people never got to see. In the near distance, across a meadow, abandoned dude cabins stood as a reminder of a business the Rhodes family had turned their backs on decades ago. As Emmylou served coffee—strong and dark for Jackson—he imagined city folk riding around, falling off their horses, dressing in Western costumes and pretending to go on cattle drives.

  Emmylou poured the last cup for her husband, Deston, the wealthy CEO of his family’s corporation, a man women would no doubt fall all over themselves for. Brown spiky hair with green eyes, a build that hearkened back to his days of playing quarterback for the Longhorns. Jackson couldn’t help thinking that Felicia should have been with someone like Deston: successful, handsome, able to give her anything she wanted.

  At the moment, Rip and Deston were chatting about beef prices while everyone else listened in. Even though Jackson could detect an undercurrent of anxiety in the old rancher’s lackadaisical attitude, he couldn’t get involved in the conversation. Not with Felicia putting a casual hand on his thigh.

  Not with her working him up with just a single touch.

  He must have wandered off into a sexual la-la land, because before he knew it, there was silence at the table.

  Everyone was staring at him as if he should be answering some question.

  Felicia squeezed his leg, holding back a smile at the same time.

  “Sorry,” he said, trying to put the sweet smell of her hair and the soft feel of her body out of his mind. “I was off in the clouds without a wagon to ride in.”

  “I’m only noting to Deston,” Rip said, a twinkle in his eyes, “that you’ll be in charge of getting a good haul for them beeves this year. If you can keep your mind on it.”

  It was let’s-poke-fun-at-Jackson hour. Every time he worked with the old man anymore, he never heard the end of how joyful Rip was to see a crank like Jackson finally come around to noticing Felicia’s charms.

  Dammit. It was too hard to hide what was going on between them, and Rip was no dummy anyway. That made having a personal life on the Hanging R next to impossible.

  “My mind’s where it needs to be,” Jackson said, wondering if the same could be stated about his Johnson.

  “At any rate,” Carlota said, brown eyes showing her amusement, “I think you all make a cute couple.”

  Jackson slipped down in his chair. She hadn’t just said that.

  “Carlota.” It was Emmylou. His savior? “Can’t you see he’s embarrassed? It’s not nice to make fun of a man in love.”

  Nope, not a savior. And…er…love?

  Jackson wanted to say something—anything—but Felicia came to his rescue. “Stop, you all.” To the women, she said, “You promised to stay off the subject, thank you.”

  Emmylou grinned. “You’re right. No need to shout out the truth when it’s as big as day anyway.”

  Another inch lower in his chair.

  Why was it that he couldn’t find a word to say in his defense?

  “Now, now.” Rip held out his hands, looking for all the world like a judge on high in a cowboy hat and whiskers. “Jackson here shouldn’t get all ruddy-faced about this. Right, Romeo? After all, he made a hell of a choice in our girl Felicia. In fact, I can already hear wedding bells clanging….”

  Everyone laughed and shot Jackson fond looks—especially Felicia, who seemed so damned giddy that he almost didn’t mind suffering for her smile.

  Almost.

  However, Deston finally took pity on Jackson, who was about ready to kick a hole through the gazebo floor and dig his way back to a place where cupid didn’t come in the guise of an old-man busybody with a matchmaking complex.

  “So…” Deston’s voice boomed over everyone’s hilarity. Attention captured, he leaned back in his chair, nodding at Jackson in a show of male unity. “How about those Astros?”

  Mightily relieved, Jackson was the first to chime in with his opinion about the baseball team, having garnered information from Bobby during numerous discussions about the boys of summer. Jackson hadn’t given a second thought to bats and balls for years and getting back into the former habit—the comfort of statistics and wins—soothed him, somewhat.

  Thank goodness this particular conversation had swayed away from Jackson and Felicia and taken a safer course. One in which he had better footing.

  Barely.

  But near the end of it, when Felicia nestled her hand into his, Jackson went to mush all the same.

  Yup, a touch was all it took.

  He chanced a peek at her and their gazes locked, sending a rush of white-hot light through him.

  He grinned back at her, feeling the flames, the rumble of longing and awareness.

  But when he smelled the smoke, it only took him a moment to realize that the fire was all too real.

  Chapter Twelve

  O ut in the old dude cabins, Bobby had been watching Joel and Noel do something he knew was wrong.

  After telling their mom they were just going to hang around outside on the lawns, Joel and Noel had actually brought Bobby to the biggest cabin, a place where they weren’t allowed to play. The one where a ladder let them climb to a high room and dangle their feet over the ledge so they could look down at all those dusty chairs and a spider-webbed bed.

  Joel and Noel’s mom had allowed them to wander around only if they stayed out of trouble, she’d said, but Bobby knew that wasn’t what was happening right now.

  Bobby glanced away from Joel, trying to pretend his friend wasn’t doing what he was doing. He tried to take his mind off the trouble they could get into, tried to think of a way to be Joel and Noel’s pal and still make Uncle Rip proud of him. His great-uncle trusted Bobby, and Bobby liked that. It made him feel like a grown-up. Besides, Uncle Rip had promised that Mrs. Krauss would give him a treat if he was good.

  In his efforts to think of something to get out of the mischief he would no doubt get into, Bobby peered around the cabin.

  Everything smelled weird here, like his parents’ basement. The one they used to have.

  Bobby swallowed and tried to be a tough guy, just like Jackson said he was. He thought about Mom and Dad all the time but didn’t like to show how sad it made him. Crying was for babies.

  “Watch this,” Joel said.

  Without thinking, Bobby looked.

  Joel was holding a match right in front of his face and Noel was shrinking back from his brother.

  “Mom’s gonna kill you,” Noel said.

  “She’s not gonna know.” Joel was eight, so he could probably get away with a lot. “Not unless you tell her, tattletale.”

  “I’m not a tattletale.”

  “Then shut up.”

  Bobby didn’t think a match was a good idea. Once, when he’d found a lot of them in the guest bathroom and lit one, his dad had spanked him. Bobby never got spanked, except for that time.

  Still, he didn’t know how to tell Joel to stop it. Especially now that his friend was sticking his finger in and out of the fire.

  “Ouch!” Joel breathed in through his teeth and dropped the match.

  Bobby leaned over the ledge, watching the flame flutter to the wooden floor. It floated to somewhere below where they were sitting, right in back of the ladder, so Bobby los
t track of it.

  Joel and Noel were watching, too, laughing.

  “She-et,” said Noel, who’d learned to say those kinds of things from the estate’s gardeners.

  Fear started to niggle at Bobby’s stomach, stirring it up. It got like that when he knew there would be heck to pay, like the time he’d pinched Jo Ann Green near the eye after she’d kissed him. It’d left a big, red mark.

  The boys watched the floor for a moment, but nothing happened. All that stayed behind was the smell of smoke from the match.

  Bored now, Joel stood, hopped onto the upstairs bed then started jumping up and down on it.

  “Come on,” he said. “I ain’t got any more matches! Mom used the rest of them on her ciggies.”

  Bobby finally spoke up, even though he felt stupid about it. Uncle Rip wouldn’t want him hanging around Joel and Noel if he knew they were the type of kids who stole matches from their mom’s purse.

  “Let’s go,” Bobby said, standing. “I want to play outside.”

  While the twins stared at him, he thought he smelled smoke. Real smoke.

  Bobby’s gut squirmed even more.

  “Ah.” Joel continued to bounce. “Don’t listen to the baby.”

  “Baby Bobby,” Noel said, following his brother’s lead and climbing onto the bed.

  Giggling together, they jumped and jumped.

  Bobby stood there, wondering what to do. He wasn’t a baby. He was a tough guy, and he wasn’t about to let Joel or Noel prove differently.

  Still, tough guys could be smart, so Bobby sucked up all his courage and headed toward the ladder so he could go to his uncle Rip.

  “Baby!” both the twins yelled.

  But Bobby barely noticed because the flames were already licking their way up the ladder.

  All he could do now was scream.

  While Emmylou called 9-1-1 on a cell phone, everyone ran to the cabins.

  Jackson got there first, but he was so distraught he could barely see the wooden dwellings, the smoke pouring out of one of them in particular.

  And when he thought he heard the shouting—little voices crying for help—he almost stopped functioning altogether. The only thing that seemed to work in his body was his heart, which was thudding so rapidly that Jackson thought it was about to jump out of his throat.

  Leroy. Lucas.

  The flames of a never-ending nightmare.

  Felicia and Deston skidded to a halt beside him. They had carried a cooler here, after emptying it of drinks and keeping the ice, a lot of which was melted.

  Emmylou was making another rushed call, this one to Joel and Noel’s mother.

  “God, please let the boys be with her,” Felicia said.

  An emphatic shake of Emmylou’s head almost slammed Jackson to the ground.

  Bobby. He hadn’t been imagining voices at all.

  Without another thought, Jackson took hold of the shawl Felicia was wearing, tugged it off her shoulders and dipped it in the ice water.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked, frantic.

  What I failed to do all those years ago with my sons.

  God, he only hoped he could do some good this time, hoped he wouldn’t be responsible for more lost lives.

  “You know CPR,” he said, remembering her stories about Oakvale from the Hanging R campfires.

  “Yes.”

  “Then you, Emmylou and Carlota need to stay out here.” He doffed his hat and threw it to the ground. “Those kids are in there and they’ll need help when we come out.”

  “But—”

  “Stay here, Felicia.”

  When he looked at her, it seemed to last an hour, although he knew he could only afford a second. He tried to tell her everything he was too damned stubborn to say, tried to apologize for not being the man she needed, even though he was doing his best.

  But he couldn’t wait any longer. Couldn’t pour out his heart to her when he should have done it long before now.

  With a final glance—one he hoped would convey everything—he whipped around, raising the dripping shawl to his face.

  The fire was roaring by now, a low rumbling invitation for Jackson to come and get it.

  To make up for what had happened to Leroy and Lucas, his two little babies.

  His biggest regrets.

  As he sprinted toward his own special hell, he thought he heard Felicia call out from behind him, her voice hoarse and terrified.

  “I love you!”

  Her words, imagined or not, almost tripped him up, but he couldn’t turn around, couldn’t go back to her like he wanted to and fall at her feet to say he was sorry.

  Sorry for not opening up his heart.

  And what exactly is in your heart? he thought. Just how do you feel about her, Jackson?

  Adrenaline scrambled his body, his brain, making it almost impossible to think, to sort through questions that would have to wait.

  As he approached, smoke surrounded him, embraced him with the acrid sharpness of the past. It closed him off from the world he was running from, stung his eyes and made time drag by in slow motion.

  His worst enemy was back to claim him.

  Nearby, Deston had shrugged out of his own shirt and dampened it. In silent agreement, both he and Jackson jogged up the cabin’s stairs—

  —until someone grabbed the shawl away from Jackson.

  “What the…”

  Rip McCain didn’t stop to apologize, but merely put the material over his own face, blocking the smoke from entering his lungs, darting on ahead of Jackson into the wall of hazy, seething gray.

  “Goddammit!” Jackson made a grab for the old man, but he was too late. “Get back here, Rip!”

  He knew the rancher loved his nephew, but he wasn’t using his head. He wasn’t in any shape to be risking his life.

  Not like Jackson, who would give his soul to fight fire with everything he had.

  In the next instant, while Deston followed Rip inside, Jackson tore off his own shirt, sprinted back to the cooler to wet it, then zoomed back to where Rip had disappeared.

  At the threshold.

  It all came back to him in a flashing second: walls of heat keeping him from his babies. Wails that were drowned out by the rumble of destruction. A choking needle prick in his chest as the smoke sewed him up in a midnight shroud.

  Dammit, it wasn’t going to beat him this time.

  He charged inside, the world going from the peace of a mild Texas sunset to a raging, crackling lower level of nightmare. Pressing the shirt to his face, he weaved around fallen, flame-speared furniture, a slanted piece of timber that had fallen.

  Then he saw it.

  Felicia’s shawl pooled on the floor in a heap of crimson.

  Rip? Where was he?

  Cries of desperation caught his attention and Jackson glanced up to the loft. Three boys looked down at him, their T-shirts pulled up to cover their mouths, the whites of their huge eyes visible against the grime of their faces.

  Bobby, Joel, Noel.

  Sweet Jesus, they were still alive. A sob wrenched through Jackson but he conquered it, fueled with new energy.

  Just you try to beat me up again, he said to the flames. Just you try to take these boys from me.

  Deston was attempting to climb up to the loft, but the area was catching fire, leaving him without anything to hold onto. No success there.

  Taking a different approach, Jackson stood beneath the kids, tying the shirt around his face bandanna style and opening his arms. He signaled for one of them to jump down.

  Even though the loft was raised, it wasn’t so high that Jackson couldn’t handle a little flying body. He could save them, break their falls, even if it involved playing Superman.

  Joel and Noel were sobbing, shaking their heads, but at Jackson’s gesture, Bobby stood, his fists clenched at his sides.

  Come on, Jackson thought. Please, dammit, jump.

  And Bobby, the toughest of the tough, did.

  The impact sent the
air whooshing out of Jackson as he caught him, and he stumbled backward, clamping Bobby to him.

  Safe. Finally.

  Saved.

  Just like one of his own, come back to life.

  But he knew he didn’t have this luxury. Clasping Bobby, who was shuddering with coughs, Jackson shuttled him outside where Felicia was waiting like an angel with welcoming arms, too. In the back of Jackson’s mind, he heard sirens.

  He had just enough time to run a hand over his son’s hair…no, Bobby’s hair…to assure himself that the coughing child was really okay.

  When he smiled up at Jackson, it was almost enough to bring a man crashing to the ground in thankfulness.

  And in…something Jackson didn’t know how to describe.

  Oh, God, thank God.

  “Hang in there, Bob,” he said, voice thick with emotion and smoke.

  Then, readjusting his makeshift mask, Jackson ran back inside to find Deston, who handed off either a bawling Joel or Noel to him. The other man pointed toward a corner of the room and Jackson knew what he was saying.

  Rip.

  Jackson made quick work out of getting the twin into Carlota’s waiting arms while Deston took care of the other child still inside the burning cabin.

  Then Jackson made his final trip into the disaster, passing Deston and the other twin on their way out.

  By now debris was flaring down from overhead, chunks of flame burning toward the floor like tiny falling meteors. Jackson scooped up Felicia’s shawl—he wasn’t sure why—and searched for the old rancher.

  He found Rip pinned under a slab of timber, his leg mangled and caught.

  Jackson yelled, angry at the world. A bolt of horror surged through him as he pushed at the sizzling wood. The momentary singe of fire on skin made him curse at the top of his lungs, but Jackson ignored the blinding pain.

  Rip. Dammit, this was Rip, the man who’d taken Jackson in like a son. A good man with an unshakable moral code and a heart as big as the sky.

  Straining, Jackson pushed at the timber. It finally gave way. As Rip moaned, Jackson slung him over his shoulders then sped toward the exit, bobbing around all the obstacles fate had put in his way.

  When he got outside, he was greeted by the fire truck. Uniformed men and women were hopping off the vehicles, preparing to douse the cabin. Felicia, Emmylou and Carlota were grudgingly sacrificing their nursing duties to a couple of professional medical workers.