Welcome Home, Cowboy

by Karen Templeton

  “Not a problem,” Cash said, even though, suddenly and profoundly, it was. Because letting himself fall for his son had apparently crowbarred that crack in his heart full open. Allowing him not to only see, and accept, those first glimmers of forgiveness for his father, but for Emma to tumble right inside.

  Yeah, there was irony for you. To finally fall in love, only he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  Because for the first time in his life Cash understood why people put their kids’ needs ahead of their own. Even he knew he and Wes still needed time to figure out who they were together. That their relationship was far too new and fragile to introduce a whole other family into the mix. Besides which, for damn sure Emma didn’t need another kid to mother. No, she didn’t.

  So that was that, he thought as they toted their bikes downstairs and set off for their ride in the waning light. Wes’s exuberant, joyful yell as they coasted down a hill? That was worth any sacrifice.

  At least, that was his story and he was sticking to it.

  For Wes’s sake.

  “’Lo?”

  Zoey froze, Mama’s cell phone clamped tight in her sweaty palm. As it was Mama’d have kittens if she knew Zoey was calling Cash, but she just knew if he knew how sad Mama was he’d come back. But she hadn’t expected some kid to answer. Maybe she had the wrong number?

  “Um…I’m looking for Cash? Cash Cochran?”

  “That’s my dad. He’s in the shower. Who’s this?”

  Oh, right. Mama’d said Cash had a little boy he’d never met before. Guess this was him.

  “My name’s Zoey Manning,” she said, sounding all grown-up. “I’m a friend of your daddy’s. He stayed here with my mama and brothers and grandma and me this summer. On our farm in New Mexico.”

  “Mexico?”

  “New Mexico. Between Arizona and Texas. What’s your name?”

  “Wesley. But everybody calls me Wes. You live on a farm?”

  “Yep. How old you are?”

  “Seven.”

  “I’m six. Well, almost seven. In two months. We have baby goats. Ten of ’em. They’re real cute but they make some real stinky messes which Hunter—that’s my big brother, I’ve got another one named Skye but he’s a baby—and I have to clean up.”

  “That sounds disgusting.”

  “It is. Almost as bad as the messes the baby makes in his diaper.”

  “You got any other animals?”

  “No. Well, a ginormous dog, and Granny has about a million cats, but that’s it. Hey,” she said, getting a bright idea, “you should tell your daddy to bring you here for a visit sometime. If your mama’ll let you come, I mean.”

  It got quiet for a while before Wes said, “Mama left. We don’t know where she is. So it’s just me and Daddy. But anyway, I don’t think we could come ’cause Daddy says we’re moving to Nashville next week and—”

  “Wes? Who on earth are you talking to?”

  Hearing Cash’s voice, Zoey nearly slapped down the phone right then. But before she could, she heard Wes say, “Some girl named Zoey, she said you stayed at her farm?” and then Cash’s voice was in her ear, saying, “Zoey? Is everything all right, honey?”

  “Oh, um…yeah, everything’s fine, I just—” She took a deep breath. “Mama misses you, I know she does, she’s been listening to your CDs, the ones Daddy used to play? And she’s never done that before. We all miss you, and Hunter needs a new song to play before he drives us all nuts with ‘On Top of Spaghetti,’ and, and…” She thought. “And Skye’s gotten real big, he smiles all the time now, and Noah and them finally got Granny’s new rooms finished and—”

  “Zoey? Who on earth are you talking to?”

  “Uh…the phone rang and I answered it for you,” she said, practically throwing the phone at Mama and running. But not too far.

  “Hello?” her mother said, and when Zoey saw her face, she knew she’d done the right thing. Even if she knew Mama’d have a few choice words to say when she got off the phone.

  “Emma?”

  Oh, Lord. Hearing Cash’s voice in her head was one thing; hearing it for real was a hundred kinds of bad. She cleared her throat. “Zoey said you called me?”

  “Um…no, actually. She called me. Well, actually she and Wesley have been having quite the conversation.”

  Emma sent an I-am-so-gonna-get-you-for-this glare at her unrepentant daughter, clinging to the door frame to hear what she could hear. “I see.”

  “You do? Because I sure as heck don’t.”

  “It’s about little girls sticking their cute little noses where they don’t belong.” Then they both said, “How are you?” at the same time.

  “You first,” Cash said, then added, in a low voice, like maybe somebody was in the room he didn’t want to overhear, “Damn, it’s good to hear you, Em,” and that sturdy rope tied so tightly around her self-control these past few weeks began to unknot like somebody’d greased it.

  “We’re all doing good,” she said, sounding perky as all get-out. Brother. “Baby’s growing like a weed. The kids, too. The goat kind, I mean. Hunter just got back from that camp I was telling you about. He had a blast. Weather’s been about perfect since you left so the crops are happy, the addition’s finished…” Tears crept into her eyes, anyway. “Ohmigosh, Cash—I can’t tell you how happy Annie is with her new digs. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Oh! And I’m buying ten acres off our neighbors to the south, they don’t need it and the goats do. They gave me real good terms. The neighbors, I mean. Not the goats.” She knuckled a tear off her cheek. “And you? How’s the boy? He look like you? You work things out with your ex about custody?”

  And only about custody, because if you say you worked things out otherwise I will have to kill myself. Or you. Somebody.

  “Wes is great, I don’t know if he looks like me or not, and Francine took herself out of the picture.”

  Emma sank onto the kitchen chair. “You’re not serious.”

  “A few weeks ago, yep. Said she’ll get in touch when she’s ready. We’ve got her new cell number, but she won’t tell us where she is.”

  “Ohmigosh, Cash…” At least now she knew who to kill. One dilemma solved. “How’s the little guy taking it?”

  She heard the whoosh of a patio door opening, the distant drone of what sounded like a plane. “About as well as can be expected. Although truthfully I think it was more about having what he knew yanked away from him than anything. Not that I’m trying to paint Francine as some evil person, because she isn’t—”

  “Um, Cash? Abandoning your child ranks right up there. Sorry.”

  “True. But I honestly think she’d been doing her best. Only her best wasn’t so good. Anyway, it gets a little better each day. Between Wes and me, I mean.” He paused. “I went ahead and told Tess to put the Tierra Rosa house on the market. Since I won’t be needing it.”

  That dull thud was the sound of her stomach free-falling. “You’re moving back to Nashville.”

  “No reason to stay in Dallas. And Wes needs to get settled before school starts. Man…never thought I’d see the day when my life revolved around a kid’s school schedule.” He paused. “When my life revolved around a kid.”

  She could hear the amazement, and fear, in his voice. “How’s it feel?” she gently asked, even though she already knew the answer.

  “Like somebody else moved into my body.” She laughed, even as a second tear trickled down her cheek. “Em?”

  “Y-yeah?”

  “I want you to know…if it hadn’t been for you, I’d be a mess right now. No, I swear,” he said when she laughed again. “Before I met you I thought unconditional love was a crock. That nobody loves without wanting something in return. But the more I get to know my son, the more I understand what that means.”

  She smiled, swiping at that tear. “Kids do that.”

  “Maybe. Except…except you showed me how it’s done. You…”
He hauled in a breath. “Dammit, Em—being around you all those weeks…it opened me up. Made me feel. Whether I wanted to or not.”

  “Scary, isn’t it?”

  “As hell. But…it’s freeing, too.” He chuckled. “You should also probably know that whenever I hit one of those what-do-I-do-now? patches with Wes, I ask myself how you’d handle it.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I sure do. And most of the time I get a pretty good answer. At least, the kid hasn’t run away or reported me to the authorities or anything.”

  “You goof. But you know, all that you’re feeling? It was there inside you all along—”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “That’s what I finally figured out. You planted the seed, Em, and I guess being around Wes—well, he’s either the sunlight or the water, I haven’t quite figured out which. But I don’t hate myself anymore.” She heard him clear his throat. “Or my father.”

  “Oh, Cash…” Her eyes flooded. “I’m so glad.”

  “You’re glad?” he said on a rough laugh. “Took me half a lifetime, but it’s over. I’m free. Whoa—is that Skye crying?”

  “You mean the tornado siren?” she said, beyond grateful for her child getting her off this phone before she turned into a blubbering fool. “Because, you know, I never feed him.”

  “Won’t keep you, then,” he said, laughing softly. “Great talking to you, Em.”

  “S-same here. You take care, okay? And, hey—let me know when you get to Nashville!”

  Emma hung up practically before he said goodbye, too full of emotion to even fuss at the girlchild responsible for her mutilated heart.

  Cash shoved aside the patio door and stepped back inside, his head ringing. Because even before Emma hung up, he realized…well, hell—if he’d spent half his life trying to figure out where he belonged, what earthly sense did it make to walk away, now that he’d found it?

  He looked at Wes, AKA the fly in that particular ointment, who was sitting with his arms crossed, staring at the TV. Which wasn’t on.

  “Mama’s not coming back, is she?” he asked. Not sadly, though. More like…resigned.

  Cash closed the patio door, leaving his fingers curled around the handle as he shook his head. “Highly doubtful.”

  “You don’t want really to go to Nashville, either, do you?”

  His brows crashed. “What makes you say that?”

  “’Cause your smile looks all fake every time you talk about us living there.”

  A huge breath left Cash’s lungs as he crossed to the sofa beside his boy, his hands clasped between his knees. “Not really. Not to live, at least. I’m not the same person now I was when I lived there before. It would kinda feel like…taking a step backward.”

  “I know what you mean,” Wes said, nodding sagely. He twisted on the couch, his face crumpled. “So what do you think we should do?”

  Pile our crap in the SUV and head west at the earliest opportunity?

  He slid his arm around Wes’s shoulders and tugged him to his side. “You know the girl you were talking to? And her mom, who I was talking to?” Wes nodded. “They live in the house I grew up in. A place that had a lot of bad memories for me—”

  “Because of your dad?”

  “Yeah. So I went back there a couple months ago to see…” He faced the boy. “To face down the bad stuff, prove to myself the memories couldn’t hurt me anymore.”

  “Like a bad dream?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Sort of. Although I didn’t know how much until after I left. Just like I didn’t realize…” He leaned his cheek on Wes’s prickly hair. “That I’d fallen in love with the woman who lived there.”

  Wes groaned, but he recovered quickly enough to ask, “With Zoey’s mom?”

  “Actually, with the whole family, but…yeah. With Zoey’s mom. Who’d been married to my best friend, before he died. But I’d spent so long feeling like…like a fake, I couldn’t wrap my head around what it was like to feel real. Does that even make any sense to you?”

  A moment passed before Wesley slithered off the couch and went into the kitchen to pour himself some apple juice. That done, he came back into the living room and sat on the coffee table opposite Cash.

  “You want to be with her, huh?”

  Cash sighed. And nodded.

  “So why can’t you?”

  “My own boneheadedness, for a long time. But now? You.”

  Wesley’s forehead crumpled. “Me?”

  “Yep. Because you and I are just getting to know each other, for one thing. And for another you yourself made me promise, no girlfriends. Remember? And the last thing I want to do is make you unhappy, pork chop. Or hurt you.”

  His gaze eerily steady, Wes took a sip of juice, then said, “You know what? I’ve wanted to live on a farm my whole life.”

  A smile pushed at Cash’s mouth. “You serious?”

  “Yep. Someplace where I can jump and yell and run all I want and nobody’s gonna tell me to be still?” His shoulders bumped. “Sounds good to me.”

  Cash laughed. “Sounds good to me, too.”

  “So when can we leave?”

  “You’re really up for adding—” Cash counted “—five more people to this family?”

  “I think the question is…are they up for adding us?”

  “Probably so. But—”

  “Dad. It’s all good, okay? And you should’ve seen the look on your face—” he pulled an exaggerated happy face that made Cash choke out a laugh “—when I said I wanted to live on a farm. Which is totally true, by the way. And I could probably have a dog, huh?”

  Oh, Lord—Al was gonna blow a gasket. But you know what? If something’s right, things have a way of working themselves out, and whoever’s voice that was in his head, Cash didn’t know and didn’t care. Because for the first time in his life he was going to something.

  Not running away from it.

  “How fast can you pack your bags?” he said, and Wes grinned so hard his ears looked like they were gonna pop right off his head.

  “Ma-ma! Ma-ma!” His face flushed, Hunter crashed through the screen door, Bumble’s crazed barking nearly drowning out his words. “It’s Cash! He’s back! And he’s got… some kid with him! And a pup-py!” He grabbed her hand and jerked her off the sofa. “Come see!”

  Sure either Hunter was hallucinating or she’d heard wrong, Emma grabbed her old sweater off the arm of the chair and followed him outside. A thundershower had passed through earlier, leaving a damp chill in the air and a tumble of clouds to catch the sun’s final, brilliant color of the day. But that wasn’t why she clutched the lightweight sweater to her neck, or shivered in the faint breeze.

  That was because her blood had come to a complete standstill in her veins.

  Cats scattered as Zoey streaked past, shrieking, “Cash! Cash!” and shrieking even louder when Cash swung her up into his arms to give her a huge hug. Then he set her down and introduced her to his son—a skinny little thing with sticky-up hair and a grin exactly like his daddy’s, bless his heart, and Emma’s heart turned right over in her chest. The kids, of course, already “knew” each other from their phone conversation, so Zoey then introduced Wes to Hunter before the pair dragged the kid off to the see the goats, trailed by Bumble and a bouncy, blissful ball of fur who looked like it might eventually grow up to be some kind of shepherd dog.

  Then Annie opened the screen door to see what all the fuss was about, and Cash came right up on the porch to give her a hug, or she gave him one, it was hard to tell, saying she figured he’d eventually come to his senses, and then she went back inside like prodigal sons came home every day.

  I’m dreaming, I’ve gotta be, Emma thought, right before Cash looked at her, and smiled, then stepped closer to lift a hand to brush the tears off her cheek she hadn’t even known were falling.

  Then he wrapped her up in those big, strong arms and kissed her like he would
die if he didn’t, and she thought, Nope, not a dream.

  “You brought me a dog?” she said when they came up for air.

  “Nope. Dog’s for Wes.” He grinned. “Did bring you myself, though.”

  Emma smacked his arm. Not hard. Just a little swat to help settle her emotions, before she tromped down the stairs and out into the yard, those emotions trailing behind like lost puppies, where she finally found her voice between the sunflowers and the cosmos.

  “What…? Why…? You…?”

  Okay, her voice, maybe. The words, not so much.

  Cash shrugged. “Kid said he always wanted to live on a farm. Figured this one was as good as any.”

  Her brain on overload, Emma swiped at her hair, turning to watch her children with Cash’s son, three peas in a pod after, what? Two minutes? She heard him come up behind her, her eyes closing on a sigh when his arms circled her waist from behind, and she thought, Yes. This.

  “You said I’d always have a home here,” he whispered into her hair, his breath warm where the pine-scented breeze was cool, and every bit as sweet. “Unless you’ve rescinded the offer—”

  “Not a chance,” she said, and he hugged her tighter against his chest, his chuckle rumbling through her, warming her soul.

  “Then I’ve come home. To make a life with you, and the kids, if you’ll have me. If you’ll have us. The boy needs this,” he said softly, kissing her temple. Driving her crazy.

  “I can see that—”

  “I need this.” Gently, he turned her, his smile, his eyes full of everything she hadn’t dared hope for. “I need you. You’re my home, sweetheart. You and the kids and all this…it’s where I belong.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Where the real me apparently was all along.”

  Tears pooled in her eyes. “You sure?”

  “More sure than I’ve ever been about anything. Except how I feel about that scrawny kid over there.”

  “But…what about your music? Your career?”

  He let go, but only to sling an arm around her shoulders and lead her back to the porch, where he lowered himself onto the steps, taking her with him. “From somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, I remembered some passage in the Bible, about when a man finds a treasure in a field, he goes and sells everything he has in order to buy that field?”