Welcome Home, Cowboy

by Karen Templeton

  His stomach cramped. “Are you…scared?”

  “For myself? Not particularly. For them, for this baby…” A soft sigh preceded, “It’s not like I was some sheltered little thing before Lee’s death. Heaven knows I’m no stranger to challenges. But him dying…even until the end, I didn’t believe it. I kept thinking he’d somehow pull out of it, because he was Lee. When he didn’t…it rocked my world harder than I thought possible.”

  “That’s quite an admission, coming from you.”

  “Heh. Just because I don’t crumble in the face of disaster doesn’t mean I’m impervious to it.”

  “And let me guess—nobody knew how much you were hurting.”

  “Not really. Don’t get me wrong—I cried my heart out at first. And I made sure the kids knew it was okay to be sad. Even so, it was like no matter how much I grieved, it was never enough to relieve the pain.”

  Cash paused. “You still grieving?”

  “No,” she said quickly, quietly, not looking at him. “The pain finally went away of its own accord. Mostly. Not that I don’t still miss Lee. Especially now,” she said, stroking her belly. “But what I didn’t expect was that, when the pain went away? It took part of me with it. Like the kids’ innocence, I suppose, but…I don’t know how to explain it. Other than I’m not the same person I was before. And sometimes that makes me sad. If not…more than a little mad. Okay, here’s another one,” she said, gripping the armrest between them and slowly breathing through the contraction.

  When she breathed out that last, cleansing breath, Cash said, “We’ve got another ten minutes, probably, before we get there—”

  “Not to worry. It’s not serious until it feels like somebody’s trying to set fire to your crotch.”

  Cash winced, then said, “It’s early yet.”

  “I know, that’s what I was saying—”

  “I’m not talking about the baby, I’m talking about…Lee.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “He hasn’t even been gone a year. Maybe…maybe that part of you that feels like it’s gone missing is just on vacation. So it’ll probably come back at some point.”

  Probably a good ten seconds passed before Emma said, very softly, “That mean you’re still waiting, too?” He felt her eyes, gentle on the side of his face. “Even after more than twenty years?”

  Cash almost smiled. “How do you manage to turn everything I say back on me?”

  “It’s a talent,” she said, then let out a gasp, followed by some truly vicious panting, and it pained him to see her in pain.

  “Almost there,” he said, even though they weren’t.

  “Good,” she said, even though something told him it wasn’t.

  “They’re both fine,” Cash said to Annie into his cell phone, leaning against the pale green wall outside Emma’s hospital door. Relaxed on the outside, practically vibrating on the inside from the leftover adrenaline. Now he remembered why he generally avoided attachments. Why he was the least likely candidate for “family man” you could name. “Although Em’s real bummed she couldn’t have him naturally.”

  “So the baby never turned?”

  “Actually, he did. But he was so big he got stuck.”

  “How big are we talking?”

  “A shade over ten pounds. They’re both okay, though,” he repeated as another wave of adrenaline shuddered through. “Which is the important thing.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Now.

  “You see the baby?”

  “Sure, they brought him in with her, although they’re both asleep. Damn, Annie…he looks exactly like Lee,” Cash said, choking up. Again. “Blond hair and all.” He chuckled, even as his eyes stung. “Fattest cheeks you ever saw. I got a couple of pics on my phone—”

  “Go ahead and send ’em so I can show the kids. Cash… Emma’s gonna need a lot more help than we’d figured. She’s not gonna be able to get right up after a C-section and haul around hay bales or full bushels of crops. Not to mention taking care of the house. I can cook and all, but I’m not sure I’m up to lugging around a ten-pound baby. And he won’t stay ten pounds for long! So if you could find it in your heart to stick around, we’d sure appreciate it.”

  Cash froze. “Annie, I don’t know a damn thing about babies—”

  “You’d be surprised, how little the baby will care. I know Em wanted her mother to come, but she won’t leave Emma’s daddy. He has that Alzheimer’s, you know.”

  “Yeah, she told me.” He turned, leaning one palm on the wall, staring at his boot top. “How long are we talking?”

  “Well, Lee was a section baby and they told his mama she couldn’t strain herself for at least six weeks. I doubt things have changed much since then. Oh, Lord, Hunter’s about to rupture something with wanting to talk to you himself—”

  “Is my ma-ma okay, Mr. Cash?”

  “She sure is—” Surely Emma wouldn’t expect Cash to hang around that long, would she? “—although since they had to operate to get the baby out safely, she has to stay in the hospital a few days. And then…” He shut his eyes. “Then she’s gonna have to take it easy for a while after she gets back home.”

  “Who’s gon-na take care of the ba-by, then?”

  “I guess we’ll all have to help her,” Cash said as the calm mercifully claimed him again, shepherding him gently, but firmly, past the fear. “Hold on, Hunter, I’m sending you a picture of the baby…there. Did you get it?”

  He heard Zoey’s giggle and Annie’s, “Oh, land—he does look exactly like Lee!” before Hunter came back on the line with, “He’s real cute, huh?”

  “I guess he is,” Cash said, interrupted by Zoey’s, “When can we come see Mama?” in the background. “Tell your sister I’ll bring all of you to see your mama and the baby tomorrow, after they’ve both had a chance to rest up some. How’s that?”

  Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Cash wondered, with a bittersweet ache that verged on torturous, how he’d let himself get sucked deeper and deeper into this family that wasn’t his.

  How to extricate himself before any lasting damage was done.

  Because all he was, was a placeholder. A stand-in, like somebody dragged in from the crew to stand on stage while the lighting dudes fiddled with levels and angles when the star wasn’t there.

  Then he ducked back into Emma’s room, and she stirred in her sleep, smiling, and he knew he could no more leave this woman in a lurch than he could have flown.

  “You stuck around?” she said, her words slightly slurred.

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  “Cowboy boots. Nurses don’t wear ’em.”

  Shoving his hands in his back pockets, Cash stood at the foot of her bed. Seeing Emma this vulnerable, in a hospital bed with the IV tube still attached…it was strange. And discomfiting. “Dumb question, but how are you feeling?”

  She laughed softly, her eyes opening, although they seemed a trifle unfocused. “There’s happy juice in that there tube. Any time I want a hit all I have to do is press this cute little button. So right now I’m feeling pretty darned good.”

  “Been pressing the button a lot, have you?”

  Her eyes drifted closed again, a half smile curving her lips. “Mmm-hmm.” Then she waved vaguely toward the baby in the clear-sided bassinet nearby, all wrapped up in a striped blanket like a little sausage. “Bring Skye over so I can see ’im.”

  Cash’s heart jackknifed. “You sure?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” More awake now, she carefully shifted to lie on her side. “You can’t break him. I promise. One hand under his head, the other under his butt. He probably won’t even wake up.”

  He didn’t, although his tiny forehead puckered when Cash clumsily lifted him out of the bassinet. Instinctively Cash tucked the baby against his suddenly tight chest, a million thoughts and emotions bombarding him. He hadn’t signed on for this, when he’d decided to come looking for Lee….

  “You look good l
ike that,” Emma said.

  “Except for the part about not being able to move?”

  She smiled. “Put one foot in front of the other…yeah, like that…hey, there, Bruiser,” she crooned as Cash gently lowered Skye into her arms. Her mouth trembling, she kissed his tiny fingers, then unwrapped the blanket to chuckle at his shapeless feet. “He’s absolutely gorgeous, isn’t he?” she said.

  Right before she dissolved into tears.

  Like he was being shoved from behind, Cash stumbled closer, only to jerk to a stop a foot away, again having no idea what to do. What to say. But, man, it was ripping him apart, seeing her so unhappy.

  “Sorry,” Emma mumbled, trying to reach for the tissues on the nightstand. Cash’s paralysis gave way enough for him to hand her the box. “You’d think eight months would be enough to prepare me f-for…” Tears running down her cheeks, she touched the baby’s face, shaking her head.

  “It’s not right,” Cash finally pushed out past the knot at the base of his throat. “Lee’s the one who should be here. Not me.”

  Emma sagged farther into the pillows, her gaze fixed on the baby. “I’d forgotten, how all I want to do is stare at them after they’re born.” She dabbed her eyes with the tissue, blew her nose. Took a deep, shaky breath before cuddling her newborn closer. “Cash…there’d be something wrong with me if I wasn’t missing my baby’s daddy right now. But…”

  She lifted her eyes, her mouth pulled into a sad smile. “But thinking about the ‘shoulds’ is pointless. I loved Lee with all my heart, but he’s gone. And for whatever reason, it is you here with me right now. It was you keeping watch over me and this baby, over all of us, these past few weeks. And I’m more grateful for that than I can say. I think Lee would be, too. You’ve been a true friend. As much to us as you were to Lee.”

  Smiling more easily now, she lowered her eyes again to the baby. “No wonder he talked my ear off about you. You’re no ordinary man, Cash, and that’s the truth.”

  Now a paralysis of a different kind slowed his blood. “That’s the joy juice talking.”

  She laughed, sweeping her loose hair behind her shoulder. Except it slipped right back, half covering the baby. “Maybe the joy juice is giving me the courage to say all that,” she said, curling her fingers around his hand, “but it’s true. Every word. Isn’t that right, Skye? We don’t know how we would’ve made it through without you.”

  “Boy. All kinds of admissions coming out of you today.”

  At last she looked up. “Enjoy it while you can.”

  “Then…” His heart hammered. “I trust you won’t give me grief about sticking around for a while. Annie says it’ll be six weeks, at least, before you’ll be back to normal.”

  Emma frowned. “Annie asked you to stay?”

  “More or less.”

  “And you said yes?”

  “I didn’t say no.”

  The pillows crinkled slightly when she leaned into them again. “She shouldn’t have done that. Don’t you have a life of your own to get back to?”

  “You trying to run me off?”

  “Not at all. But I don’t want you to feel obligated simply because Annie asked.”

  “I’d be doing it for you, not for Annie!” Cash said, not entirely sure why he was suddenly so pissed. “I don’t…” He sucked in a breath. “I don’t break promises—”

  “But you didn’t—”

  “Let me finish, Emma. Please. I’ve never once cut a tour short, or walked out of a recording session, or even stopped working on a song I believed in just because it got hard.” He rammed his hands into his pockets again. “Or been the one to end a relationship, other than the one with my father. The women all left me. I can’t help it, leaving things unfinished drives me nuts.”

  Under Emma’s steady gaze, he took that last step to curve his hand around Skye’s head, all cozy in a little knit cap. Through a barrage of emotions, he said, “I promised to stay until you were on your feet. To be honest, I’m not sure if I made that promise to you or Lee or myself, or maybe even something higher, but I made it.” His eyes touched hers. “That it’s taking longer than anybody figured is immaterial. But believe me…when it’s time for me to go, we’ll both know it.”

  After a long pause, she nodded. “Fair enough, then. And it’s not like I won’t be grateful for the help. See?” she said, grinning. “I can be taught. Although you do realize it means staying in the house?”

  He almost smiled. “I think it’s safe to say the tub incident pretty much put paid to those issues. If I was looking for memories to replace the bad ones, that one definitely did the trick.”

  Her laugh reached deep inside him, tugging him that much closer. Conflicting him that much more. “I suppose…Hunter can bunk with Zoey for a few weeks, so you can have his room. And no arguments. Trust me, Hunter will find it more than a fair trade.”

  “Then…it’s settled,” Cash said, thinking settled was the last thing he was feeling at the moment. Moth to the flame, was what came to mind. “I’ll tell the others what we’ve decided. I already said they can come visit tomorrow, if that’s okay with you?”

  “Of course—”

  “But…I could come back tonight, if you want?”

  A beat or two passed before she said, “You’ve done enough for one day. Especially since we’re going to be seeing plenty of each other over the next few weeks.”

  Apprehension seized his lungs, even as he gently clasped her shoulder, bent to kiss her hairline. Questioning, tired eyes met his, probably mirroring his own. “See you tomorrow, then,” he said, backing away.

  “Sounds good,” she said, and he booked it out of there, his heart thumping as he rode down the elevator, people’s heads turning as he practically raced through the lobby and out toward the parking lot. Deep down, he knew staying and seeing this through was right. Possibly the most right thing he’d ever done.

  But if that was true, why did it feel so very, very wrong?

  Chapter Nine

  Four days after giving birth, Emma gingerly scaled her front porch steps past a very excited Bumble to a welcome-home party that would make any mother proud. Tired to think about, but proud. Hunter and Zoey had even gone all out with a “Welcome Home, Baby Skye!” banner painted in a rainbow of colors on what Emma sincerely hoped was an old sheet. Jewel and Patrice were there, as well as a smattering of church ladies and Annie’s fellow art students, none of whom was under seventy, and they were all wearing party hats left over from—Emma squinted, then laughed, even though it hurt— New Year’s Eve seven years ago.

  There was more food than they’d be able to eat in a month, of course, and presents for the baby, and in the middle of it all Cash, toting Skye in his car seat, seemingly unfazed by his lone-rooster-in-the-henhouse status.

  What am I going to do with you? Emma thought as he steered her toward the living-room sofa, solicitousness personified. And how on earth was she gonna survive another six weeks of his presence? Although there’d been no more of that kissing stuff—impossible in any case since they hadn’t been alone since—something sure as shootin’ had shifted between them the instant his lips made contact. Something she highly doubted was going to make things easier.

  “We have a surprise!” Annie said, and Emma groaned. Once her happy juice supply had been cut off, reality had hit. As in, she was sore and weak and basically grumpy as heck, especially now that her milk was in and Bruiser took her for a 7-Eleven.

  “I’m truly touched, everybody, but I’m not exactly up for a party—”

  “I think you’ll be up for this,” Annie said, then said, “She’s here, you can come out now,” and the next thing Emma knew her mother was walking toward her with her arms out, and all thoughts of Cash went flying right the window. Most of ’em, anyway. Emma gasped, squeaked and started to cry. For at least the thousandth time since the birth. If there was a correlation between tears shed and pounds lost, she’d look like a supermodel by Tuesday.

  “How on
earth—?” she soggily mumbled into her mother’s striped jersey blouse, inhaling the familiar blend of shea butter and Aqua Net. Although less padded than Emma, Gayle Stoddard’s nearly six-foot-tall frame and more-is-more makeup philosophy had been known to give off the occasional drag-queen vibe. Except Mama did not subject her size-12 feet to the torture of four-inch heels.

  Now her mother gave her an equally waterlogged smile. “Never you mind,” she said, patting Emma’s hand. “The important thing is, I’m here. Now let me see this little guy— ohmigosh!” she said, unstrapping Skye from his seat and settling on the sofa with the sleeping baby on his back on her sturdy lap. Then she grinned at her other grandchildren. “He’s bigger than the two of you were put together!”

  Then she went on and on, prattling to the baby, about the baby, like there was nothing remotely extraordinary about her visit. Soon as the shindig broke up an hour later, though, and Cash and the kids went off to do chores, Emma decided Mama had some splainin’ to do.

  “Not that I’m not thrilled,” she said from the kitchen table while her mother wrapped and cleaned and clucked over some of the more adventurous offerings. Beside Emma, Bumble kept looking back and forth between her and the sleeping Skye in his seat on the floor. Have no clue what this thing is, but no worries, I keep it safe, promise. “But barely a week ago you said you couldn’t make it. And now you’re here.”

  “Just for the weekend,” Gayle said, her back to Emma as she half-heartedly shooed cats. “I assume it’s okay if I share your bed? Since Hunter said he’s staying in Zoey’s room while Cash is here?”

  “Yeah…about that. Cash wouldn’t have anything to do with this, would he?”

  Mama turned, munching on a cheesy…something. “I swear, I had no idea you didn’t know. But yes. Well, he and Annie, both. It was Cash who called me, though, right after the baby came, asked if there was any way I could get out there, even if only for a couple of days.”

  “Because he wasn’t exactly down with playing new baby nurse?”