A Cowboy in the Kitchen

by Meg Maxwell

  “What am I doing?” he said suddenly, pulling away.

  What was she doing? Lord, Annabel.

  “I can’t do this.” He backed up, looking up at the sky, full of stars, distant lights of a plane inching across. “I’m sorry, Annabel. It just... I guess for a minute there I wanted to forget how insane my life is right now.”

  Red-hot anger—and a spiral of sadness—spun around her stomach. She was a placeholder—again. Not.

  She turned around and opened her car door before she could slap him or unleash seven years’ worth of how dare you! on him. His life was insane right now. It had been then. But that didn’t mean he could...use her to forget that crazy life. No way, bucko. He wasn’t attracted to her seven years ago; she wasn’t his kind of girl, and she still wasn’t.

  She was about to let him have it, but when she turned around to face him, the look in his eyes—the worry, fear, torment—softened her ire and she found herself giving his hand a squeeze.

  She looked up at the sky, trying to clear her mind. “I meant what I said, West. You’re a good father and you should be raising Lucy. You. Just show them who you are.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of,” he said so softly she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

  People always show you, tell you loud and clear, who they are, Gram’s favorite saying running through her mind again. It’s up to you to be watching and listening, not ignoring red flags waving in the breeze because of a handsome face or smooth talk.

  Okay, so maybe West Montgomery wasn’t a man to marry. The rebel in the leather jacket who broke your heart never was, right? But that didn’t mean he was an unfit father. That she saw, heard with her own eyes and ears.

  She squeezed his hand again and got in the car, tears stinging the backs of her eyes as she drove away, a glance in the rearview mirror letting her know he was still there, watching her go.

  * * *

  When West woke up in the morning, his stupidity punched him hard in the gut. Why the hell had he gone and kissed Annabel last night? Now he’d mucked things up with her, made things...weird. One minute, he’d been about to hold her car door open for her to say goodbye, and the next, what he saw in her eyes meant so much to him that he’d been overwhelmed and wanted to kiss her, wanted to soak up all that belief she had in him.

  You’re a good father, West. Anyone can see that.

  Those two sentences had touched him so deeply, felt so good, that he wanted more. So he’d kissed her like a fool, when romance and women were off the table. And Annabel Hurley? That cut too deep. She was a reminder of how his parents had felt about him. She was a reminder of the kind of love he could have had if he hadn’t let her go. She was a reminder that if hadn’t dropped her for Lorna, there would be no Lucy. And she was a reminder that not one woman had ever stirred in him the kind of feelings she had and still did. He wanted to talk to Annabel, hear what she had to say and then pick her up in his arms and carry her to his bed.

  And deep down, where things burned in his gut, his feelings for Annabel Hurley were just too...intense for him to deal with, which meant he had to shut them down. His focus had to be on Lucy, on keeping Lucy, on saving his family. Instead he was making out with Annabel Hurley in his front yard. “You’re a bad father,” he whispered, shame settling in his stomach. So forget Annabel. Forget kissing her, forget what you want to do to her.

  The minute he tried to put Annabel and the kiss out of his head, he realized what else was burning in his gut—he had that same cold dread in his heart, snaking up his spine and wrapping around his nerve endings: Lucy wasn’t here. Anytime she slept at the Dunkins’, he was always aware of the lack of her. The world didn’t seem right when she wasn’t where she was supposed to be, which was here at—he glanced at the clock on his bedside table—5:30 a.m. She was on a regularly-scheduled sleepover at her grandparents and she’d be back home after school. But given what the Dunkins had threatened... Suddenly, West wanted his daughter here now, where she belonged. Home.

  Normally he’d get out of bed, throw on his clothes and work boots and head out to the corrals and let the cattle out on the range. Then he’d come back, shower and dress and wake up his baby girl by pretend-cracking an egg over her head—that was her favorite way to wake up—and tickling his fingers down the sides of her face and under her chin to mimic the feel of gooey raw egg white and yolk. He’d give her a big hug and leave to let her get dressed.

  So sometimes she’d come downstairs for breakfast in a pink church dress with red tights and her yellow light-up sneakers, and no, he wasn’t going to tell her she didn’t match. She matched fine. He’d try to untangle the knot at the side of her head, but sometimes he just couldn’t get the darned thing loose. So off she’d go to school looking...unique.

  This morning he had no doubt Raina had her wearing some scratchy school-appropriate outfit, her hair tangle free, her lunch box packed with healthful food.

  West sat up and reached over to scratch Daisy, dozing as usual at the end of the bed, behind the ears. Maybe his daughter liked looking more presentable. Maybe she wore green and purple and crazy stripes because she didn’t know better, not because she liked looking as if she’d dressed in a tornado. Lorna had made such a fuss over dressing Lucy just so, and Lucy had been stubborn, shaking her head and pointing at the outfit her mother wouldn’t let her wear. Lorna had always won, of course; she’d been the parent, West realized, with the Dunkins’ constant refrain: You’re the parent, West, ringing in his ears.

  He’d call Raina this morning, they’d talk it out, and she’d back down. He was the parent, damn it.

  An hour later, his two ranch hands had arrived, and the three of them got the cattle out a bit father and the horses taken care of, then checked on the calves. Finally West showered and slurped down a strong cup of coffee, steeling himself for the call he had to make to Raina. He pressed in the numbers, his stomach clenching at the sound of Raina’s hello. The call lasted all of forty seconds: Lucy is just fine, and we’re not changing our minds about seeking custody, sorry, but enough is enough, we just want our granddaughter raised right, goodbye, West. Click.

  That got West stewing for a bit until he hightailed it upstairs, put on his one suit and tie and got in his pickup, heading into town by 8:00 a.m to go see Winston Philips, a shark of a lawyer with a reputation for getting the job done. The man was known for working from 7:00 a.m. to be on par with eastern standard time until 7:00 p.m. He cost a mint, but so be it. If West had Winston Philips representing him, the Dunkins wouldn’t be awarded custody of his daughter.

  Except when West pulled into the parking lot, who was coming out of Philips’s office but Raina and Landon Dunkin.

  West cursed and let his head drop against the steering wheel, then drove over to the Blue Gulch elementary school and sat in his truck and looked for his daughter among the kids racing around the playground before the morning bell. He spotted Lucy and her friends Juliet and Delilah on the tire swing, and he wanted to go over and hug her so bad, but the bell rang and the kids shrieked and raced to line up.

  At the front door of the school, he saw one of Lucy’s little friends heading inside with her parents, each holding a hand and swinging her up. Her dad leaned down for a kiss and then she raced ahead, but her mom called her back, smiling and pointing at her Olaf lunch box still in her hand. The girl came running back, took her lunch box and then off she went.

  At least five times over the past few months, West had gotten a call from the school office that Annabel had forgotten her lunch box and could he bring it down or should they bill him for a school lunch?

  Lucy needs a mother, he thought numbly. Someone who could fix her knotty ringlets and remember to hand over her lunch box and notice if her pants were raggedy or the wrong color.

  A mother.

  West bolted upright, the lightbulb over his head so bright
he had to blink. Yes, that’s it.

  Lucy did need a mother. And West needed a way to keep the Dunkins from taking Lucy from him.

  Annabel Hurley was that way. The Dunkins liked Annabel. With Annabel as his wife, helping care for Lucy, they’d have no reason to sue for custody. Nor would they win as easily.

  Annabel desperately needed money to save Hurley’s. He desperately needed a wife to save his family. They could solve each other’s problems and when things settled down, they could go their separate ways. A business deal from beginning to end, and together they’d work out the details of the middle.

  He was due over to Hurley’s tonight for the lesson on appetizers. Somewhere, between rolling biscuit batter around little hot dogs, he’d ask her to marry him.

  He’d imagined that once before, a fleeting thought in the barn loft seven years ago, when he’d felt things he’d never felt before and never had with Lorna, even when he’d started to actually care for his reckless wife. But now it had nothing to do with feelings and everything to do with making sure the most important things in their lives weren’t wrenched away.

  He had no idea if Annabel would go for it. But he’d vowed to do anything he could to save his family and he was going for it.

  In fact, forget about waiting for class tonight. There was no time to waste. It was a three-minute walk from where he was parked now to Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen. Which meant he had three minutes to figure out exactly how he was going to propose a business deal of a marriage to a woman who might not even be speaking to him anymore.

  Chapter Four

  In the restaurant kitchen, Annabel was mashing potatoes for garlic smashed potatoes—every smash a reminder to squash her feelings for West. Across the island, Hattie added onions and homemade bread crumbs to a big bowl of ground beef for meat loaf. Five loaves were already in the oven for the lunch rush, which began at eleven in a ranch town, and the smell, even at eight-thirty in the morning, was delectable. Annabel had grown up on cold meat loaf sandwiches in her brown-bagged lunch, packed by her mother and then her gram, and it would always be her favorite comfort food.

  Hattie glanced out the window and upped her chin. “Looks like someone’s moving into the old take-out place.”

  Annabel squinted against the morning sunshine and looked across the street to the formerly empty storefront between the Blue Gulch Bakery and Yoga For You. “Coming Soon! Clyde’s Burgertopia!” she read.

  Annabel’s stomach dropped. Everyone knew Clyde Heff made amazing burgers on his grill at his exclusive annual backyard Fourth of July parties. The key was apparently some kind of “secret ingredient” dating back five generations, and Annabel was pretty sure the secret ingredient was a mixture of bourbon and dill. But the man could make a mean burger, and now he’d be pulling lunch and dinner customers away from Hurley’s. Granted, that little storefront with the small back room couldn’t handle more than a counter and take-out business. But still. It was competition. Competition Hurley’s didn’t need. Worse, Clyde’s daughter, Francie, had been part of Lorna Dunkin’s posse back in middle school and high school.

  Laughter, then: Oh my God, Geekabel, those suede flats are like from the ’80s. Get a clue. Those suede flats had been her mother’s, and Annabel cherished them. Or she’d find herself behind Lorna and Francie and their friends on the lunch line at school and hear, I’d kill to be as skinny as Geekabel but only if I could keep my 32-Cs and my tiny waist. I mean, what’s the point of being a rail if you look like a boy? Then laughter, firm agreement and discussion. Annabel couldn’t imagine snooty Francie Heff eating something as common as a burger, even at her father’s own restaurant, so maybe she wouldn’t have to see much of her old tormentor. If she did, Annabel would just stare her down and give it right back to her.

  Eyeing the sign announcing the Burgertopia again, Annabel thought of the bills and the amount left in Gram’s business account. Plus, a quarterly loan payment was coming due soon. Her stomach churned and panic crawled up her spine. “Between Sau Lin’s noodle shop, the new steak house and the Burgertopia, we’ll have a trickle of customers. I’m all for new businesses opening in town, but we’re in trouble.”

  If only there were money to build the back patio the way Gram had always dreamed, surrounded by the beautiful oaks and the wildflowers. They could put a children’s playground back there and hire a sitter so people could eat dinner in peace. They could break down the wall to the too-big hallway and add five tables to the main dining room. They could spruce up the place with warm yellow paint and new dishware and cutlery. They could hire a full-time cook to take the pressure off her and Hattie, someone as great as Essie’s former longtime assistant cook, Martha, who knew the recipes inside and out but had long ago moved to Austin.

  These were all ideas that couldn’t come to fruition. There was barely money to pay the bills. And with the loan coming due in a month and very little hope to pay it...

  Hattie covered Annabel’s hand and patted it. “Listen, all we can do is make the best food we know how and keep folks coming in.” She added Worcestershire sauce to the meat loaf, Annabel comforted by the fact that Gram’s century-old recipe, handed down from her mother, was the best meat loaf anyone had ever had.

  Yes. Focus on making the best chicken-fried steak and meat loaf and braised short ribs and garlic mashed potatoes and po’boy sandwiches—like the ones that West loved so much—in the county, she told herself. That was what Gram had always said. Just focus on being the best you you can be and don’t worry about anyone else.

  Why did she have to bring West into the equation? A man who kissed and took it back. A man who broke her heart so irrevocably she felt split in two for over a year. A man who’d hurt her so badly she’d been dumb enough to let her heartbreak control her, keeping her away from home, from her gram, from Clem, for so long.

  She’d never let that happen again. She might still believe in love, but she’d never be a dummy about it again—that was for sure. Though she wondered if a person could help it, if you were swept away and caught up and couldn’t control it. There were people like her friend Sally from Dallas who specifically looked for a husband she liked who met her long list of criteria, including big salary and lack of family history of cancer and male pattern baldness. Annabel had gone to her wedding, and Sally had looked awfully happy with her wealthy husband with his head full of thick hair, a man Sally liked and admired but didn’t love. Then there was Annabel’s cousin Susannah clear across Texas who’d fallen madly in love with a hilarious, kind bull rider with no money, married him in a whirlwind wedding three weeks later and was madly in love ten years later, with two little cowboys and three dogs.

  Annabel let out a deep sigh. She had no idea how love worked or was supposed to work.

  Ugh, what was she doing? She had to focus on saving Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, not worry about her love life or lack thereof. When it came to West Montgomery, she had to protect her heart and keep her lips at a distance. Two feet away at all times. That way, if he tried to kiss her again, he’d fall over and land flat on his face, as it should be.

  “Now, that’s a much better sight than a new sign going up across the street,” Hattie said, winking at Annabel.

  Huh? Annabel glanced out the window and there was the man himself crossing the street, looking very...serious. West, in a suit and tie, strangely enough, was about to pass through the open gate leading to the restaurant, but then he turned tail, jogging back across the street, paced from the yoga studio down to the Blue Gulch Public Library and back again. He stood there, across the street, hands on hips, as though he was working something out with himself.

  Good Lord, was he about to come in here and tell her he wanted his money back for the lessons, prorated for the breakfast and lunch ones he’d had, that he’d hire someone else?

  Or maybe something had progressed with the Dunkins in their threat to
try to get custody of Lucy. Maybe that was what the suit and tie was about. Had he already been to court his morning?

  “Interesting,” Hattie said, eyebrow raised as West paced down to the library again, then back, crossing the street with a look of pure determination in his face, as though whatever was yanking him around inside his brain wouldn’t win out. He stood by the window and glanced in and when he spotted Annabel, he held up a hand, then jogged up the steps.

  Annabel shrugged at Hattie, wiped her hands on her apron and went out the front door to the porch.

  “Do you have a few minutes?” he asked. “Maybe more than a few minutes. I need to talk to you.”

  “Let me just tell Hattie to cover my potatoes.” In moments she was back, apron off.

  They walked down Blue Gulch Street toward the town green with its pretty wood gazebo and American flag. He stopped in front of a stone bench, and gestured for her to sit down, then sat beside her, loosening his blue-and-red-striped tie.

  “I’m in this getup—” he gestured at his suit jacket “—because I’d planned to go see Winston Philips this morning, to hire him as my attorney to fight the Dunkins. But when I pulled into the lot, the Dunkins were coming out of his office. They mean business, Annabel.” He cleared his throat. “And so do I. So I have a proposition for you.”

  She stared at him. “A proposition?” What proposition? Just then, a couple walking their little dachshund strolled by, so she had to wait until they said their hellos and asked West how his daughter was and if he had any ponies for sale, which he did, and get through five more minutes of them setting up a date and time to come out to the ranch. Finally they waved and walked away, the little dog stopping to sniff something, and Annabel wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, Move along already, people!

  West took her hand and led her over to the narrow cobblestone alley between the park and Blue Gulch Coffee and Treats. “Just so there are no more interruptions.” He glanced down, then up at her. “You’ve said Hurley’s is in big financial trouble. I’m willing to take care of the bills, payroll, the loan in its entirety and flesh out the business account with enough capital for improvements. I’ll make sure Hurley’s stays open and give you the breathing room so that the restaurant can start turning a profit again.”