The Bull Rider's Baby

by Brenda Minton

  Keeton walked up to them, cowboy cute in faded jeans and a short-sleeved button-up shirt. He tipped his hat and nodded at her dad before looking at her. “They found a hot spot at the back of the house. Looks as if someone used gasoline. They didn’t leave the cans this time.”

  “It still doesn’t make sense. Your house and now this. What are they trying to do?” Sophie hadn’t thought of giving up, not once. But today going forward wasn’t as easy, not with the entire frame of the Tillers’ house gone. But people were counting on her. She couldn’t walk away from this project. It meant too much to too many people.

  But she really could use a break.

  * * *

  Keeton found it a lot easier to look at the charred remains of the house rather than at Sophie. She wouldn’t give up, but she looked like a person who might be having serious doubts.

  “It could be the two places aren’t connected.” Keeton had been thinking that since they rolled up the drive and saw the house on fire.

  “Then what other explanation would there be?” Sophie walked arm in arm with her dad. They got close to the burned house and could feel the heat from the still-smoldering fire.

  “We’ll just have to keep digging.” Keeton pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. “This is a real shame.”

  “Yeah, it is.” Sophie walked a little closer and her dad reached for her arm, holding her back. “I won’t get too close.”

  “I need to get Lucy home.” He held the fussy little girl in his arms. Sophie had given her back to him when her dad showed up. It seemed to him the more Sophie was around, the more his baby girl wanted Sophie and not him.

  Sophie nodded but her gaze had drifted to the burned house, her expression shadowed with sorrow and anger. “I have to stay and talk to the police.”

  “Let me take you out later.”

  She opened her mouth, closed it and smiled. “You almost caught me at a weak moment.”

  He laughed. “No bull riders.”

  “No.”

  “That’s a dating rule. Did you ever stop to think a bull rider could make a very good friend?”

  Tim Cooper said something neither of them caught and he walked away. Keeton watched Sophie’s dad put his arm around Jackson, then the two talked and then walked around the charred remains of the house. Keeton focused on the woman standing in front of him, her head turned so that he caught her profile, the sad smile.

  “Keeton, you scare me.” She shrugged one shoulder. “We keep doing this dance, pretending we’re friends, pretending nothing has ever happened, and we both know it’s a lie.”

  “Then stop pretending and let’s maybe reconsider a few of your rules. Or break a few.”

  “I can’t lose you.”

  “You won’t.” He reached for her hand and she looked up, meeting his eyes.

  “I lost you once before. I lost your friendship. I didn’t see you for years.”

  “You’re not going to lose me.” He took a step that put him next to her, he looked over her shoulder at the crowd of people, some watching them, some not. Her dad turned and then looked away.

  “I’m not going to take that chance.”

  “So even friendship is off-limits?”

  She pulled her hand free. “Of course we’re friends.”

  Good, that gave him something to work with. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she’d left a door open.

  “I’ll see you at your place.” He turned, just feet away from her. “Do you want me to feed that mule, and then chase him out of your corral before Lucky drives past and sees him?”

  “That would be good.” Her smile beamed, chasing shadows from her eyes.

  He nodded once. “See you at home.”

  See you at home. The words bounced between them. Yeah, he’d like for that to be something he could say for the rest of his life. While he had those thoughts, Sophie looked as if she had a bunch of regret piling up.

  He winked as he walked away, hoping to keep the mood light. Sophie walked to where her dad stood. He saw them talking as he got his dad and Lucy in the truck. Sophie nodded when he waved.

  An hour later he had settled Lucy in her baby swing, his dad was watching her. He’d gone down to the corral to let the mule loose. He watched as the big, red animal walked calmly out of the gate, took a few running steps and jumped the fence to trot off down the road.

  Amazing. No wonder mules were so popular with hunters. He’d always been a quarter-horse guy himself, but he might consider getting a mule after being around Sophie’s. Make that Lucky’s. As he watched the animal trot down the road, Jackson’s truck pulled in the drive and Sophie got out.

  He started to walk down to greet her, but on second thought he stood his ground, willing to let her make the next move. She talked to her brother for a second through the open truck window and then she turned to walk up the path to her back door. She looked tired. She actually looked beat. At the porch of the big, stone house she stopped for a minute. She looked up at the steps, as if they were more than she could handle. He waited. She didn’t seem to notice him.

  Something about her slow steps worried him. It would be easy, to go back to his little apartment, to his dad and his daughter, but something stopped him. That same something acted as a force to push him to her house, to knock on the front door.

  She didn’t answer. He knocked again. After a few minutes she appeared, pale, shaking.

  He opened the door and she backed away.

  “I’m sick.” She turned and ran down the hall. At the bathroom door she stopped and turned. “You should go so you don’t catch it.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’d say you caught it from Lucy. If I was going to catch it, I’m guessing I’d already have it.” He walked into the bathroom with her, the last place he probably really wanted to be.

  She had sat on the floor and she leaned against the cabinets, her knees pulled up, her head resting on them. He thought about being a hero and picking her up and he laughed at the image that came to mind.

  “Is this funny?” She looked up, pale, unsmiling. Her mascara had smeared. He reached for a washcloth and kneeled to wipe her face.

  “No, this isn’t.” He wiped the smudges of mascara, not an easy task. “I considered being a hero and picking you up. In my mind it made sense, to carry you to the living room.”

  “You couldn’t pick me up, you’re old.”

  “I’m not old.”

  “You have a bad knee and I’m not some petite woman a man sweeps off her feet.” She moved fast. “Leave, I’m going to be sick again and I really don’t think you standing here is romantic.”

  “Gotcha.” He was starting to feel a little queasy himself.

  He wandered to the kitchen and found tea. Hot tea would have to be good. And crackers. He had a cup of water in the microwave and crackers on a plate when she walked in, looking a little shaky on her feet.

  “Sit down.”

  She nodded and complied, sitting at the little table in the center of the kitchen. He guessed that table got a lot more use than the massive oak table in the formal dining room. When he finished the tea and took it to her, her head rested on her arms and her hair covered her face.

  “You sleeping?” He set the cup and plate in front of her and took the seat next to hers.

  She looked up, eyes watery and face flushed. “No, just trying to make things stop spinning. Didn’t I tell you just a few hours ago that we aren’t going to work?”

  “You said we could be friends. And friends take care of each other.”

  She reached for the cup of tea. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. And I’m even going to forgive that statement about me being old.”

  She smiled over
the rim of the cup and took a sip. When she put the cup back on the saucer he touched her cheek.

  “You’re hot.” He guessed she probably knew that.

  “Yeah.”

  “You should go lie down.”

  “I don’t want to. It’s early. I have things to do.”

  “I let the mule out for you. Go lie down. I’ll run over and get Lucy and be right back.”

  “Keeton, you don’t have to. I’m a grown woman. I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time.”

  “I know I don’t have to. I want to.” He didn’t tell her that he couldn’t leave her alone. The idea of him sitting in her guesthouse while she was here alone didn’t sit well. Not just because she was sick, but because someone seemed pretty serious about burning down houses.

  “I’m going to stretch out on the couch and watch TV.” She stood, wobbling a little.

  Keeton slid an arm around her waist and she didn’t protest, instead she leaned into him. They sighed at the same time. Resignation?

  Sophie settled on the sofa and he pulled an afghan off the back of a nearby rocking chair and pulled it over her. She reached for the remote and smiled up at him, a sleepy smile. “Go take care of Lucy and your dad.”

  “You’re very bossy and I don’t boss well.” He leaned to kiss the top of her head.

  As he walked across the yard a few minutes later he had a real moment of wondering when and how this had become his life. A month ago he’d been living his own life, making decisions for himself. Today he had a daughter, his dad and now Sophie. Connections that kept a guy grounded.

  He hadn’t expected all of this when he came home to Dawson. He’d had plans that included his land, maybe helping his dad get his life back. Sophie might have been there, lingering in the back of his mind, but he hadn’t allowed her to be his reason for coming back.

  Now he realized she was very much a part of his return.

  Chapter Ten

  Soft lamplight glowed, casting shadows on the living-room wall. Sophie rolled to her side and jumped a little, her heart responding to the man across from her by kicking into fast forward. She hadn’t expected him to be there when she woke up. But he was. Keeton sat in her big chair with Lucy curled in one arm and a book in his other hand.

  She watched him for a long minute, stretched out in her chair, his soft, white button-up shirt, faded jeans, and his dark hair a little messy from running his hand through it, or from his hat. He looked up, smiling when he saw that she watched him.

  “How are you?” He put the book down on the table next to the chair. She smiled because he must not have found the bookcase. He’d picked up a romance novel she’d been reading.

  “Good. Are you enjoying the book?”

  He grinned and raised a shoulder in a slight shrug. “I’m learning a lot. There are lines I didn’t know a guy should use. And things I should notice that I haven’t.”

  “Like what?” She scooted up to a sitting position, pulling the afghan around her shoulders. A glass of water had been placed on the table next to her. She reached for it.

  “Sophie, when I look into your eyes, I see forever.”

  “Really, because I think you see scorn.”

  He laughed and reached for the book again. “Maybe I said that wrong.”

  “Maybe you should stop while you’re ahead.”

  He put the book back on the table. “I probably should. But it doesn’t hurt a guy to learn what women want to hear. I’d say if it’s in a romance novel, then that’s what women expect.”

  “It’s fiction. Real men smell bad when they sweat, say the wrong things and aren’t there.” She stopped at the unfairness of the last statement. “No, real men are there when you need them. Thank you for staying with me.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.” His grin so cute she wanted to forget reservations, that part of her brain that triggered when he was around, telling her to hold back, don’t get attached.

  “Maybe you should take that book home with you.” She leaned against the arm of the couch. “I feel very bad for Lucy. I had no idea how cruddy she felt.”

  “I’m sorry you got sick.”

  “I’ll be fine. It isn’t your fault.” She started to get up, but he was on his feet ahead of her.

  “What do you need?”

  She held back laughter. She hadn’t been taken care of like this since she left home years ago. And he was the last person she’d expected to play nursemaid, the cowboy in his scuffed boots and well-worn jeans. But then, he’d been surprising her a lot lately.

  “I wanted to get some aspirin. And maybe a sandwich.”

  “You know there’s no food in this house other than peanut butter.” He leaned over the playpen and laid Lucy down. The baby rolled to her side and kept sleeping.

  “I happen to like peanut butter.” She thought again. “Maybe not tonight.”

  “I brought a can of chicken soup from my place. If I heat it up will you eat it?”

  “I would.” She sighed. She couldn’t keep doing this. “Keeton, you don’t owe me. You don’t have to take care of me like I’m one of your responsibilities.”

  He turned but didn’t walk back to her. The lamplight cast him in a warm glow of light, his face in shadows. He didn’t smile as he stared at her.

  “What do you think, Sophie, that I’m here out of guilt, because of something that happened years ago that neither of us could have stopped?”

  “I don’t know.” She brushed a hand across her face and tried to make thoughts stop swirling through her brain. “I don’t know. There’s a part of me that thinks there’s an ‘us.’ And then I think that we are just products of what happened and that you’re here in my life out of a sense of duty to Kade. And I don’t want to always question that.”

  He stood in the center of her living room, his hands behind his back, his head down. He let out a long sigh and shook his head. “I’m going to be real honest with you, Sophie. There are times that I question myself and wonder if that’s why I’m here. But I’ve never thought you needed to be taken care of. If that was the real reason for my being here, wouldn’t I have been here all along?”

  “Have you forgiven yourself?” Because years ago he’d told her he would never forgive himself. And never is a long time.

  He looked up at the ceiling, and then he nodded. “Yeah, I have. It ate at me for a few very long years. Eventually I realized I had to stop blaming myself, blaming God, blaming the stupid bull. Kade was doing what he loved to do.”

  “I know he was.”

  Dark eyes held hers. “Have you forgiven me for pulling that bull rope?”

  She had hit him. Over and over again when they’d told her Kade was gone, she’d hit Keeton. As if he could have stopped it from happening. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Have you forgiven me?”

  She nodded. “I forgave you a long, long time ago.”

  They both knew what was between them. They knew their past. They knew what separated them. And now she knew he wasn’t here out of guilt. So where did that leave them?

  It left them here, with Keeton still chasing a dream that had never been his. Sophie had gotten used to life by herself and gotten used to not taking chances with her heart.

  Guilt was between them, though. Because they’d turned to each other after Kade’s funeral. And for years she’d told herself that what she’d felt in his arms had been comfort. They’d comforted each other. Nothing more.

  She looked up at him as he turned to walk away. If she accepted what she felt as more than comfort, where did that leave them? With her still not wanting to take chances, and still afraid of the sport he wouldn’t give up? She couldn’t take that chance.

  While he was in the kitchen she reached for h
er laptop. She needed to think about something other than Keeton, the fires were a good distraction. Who felt this strongly about a housing development, so strongly they’d burn homes? She sighed and leaned back on the couch because her head pounded and her stomach still rolled.

  “What are you looking for?” Keeton handed her a tray with a bowl of soup and slices of apples. He’d definitely been reading her romance novel for a while. She smiled up at him.

  “I really don’t know. I just can’t stop thinking about the land and who would want to burn down those homes.”

  “Maybe it isn’t about the land.” He pulled the ottoman from the chair close to the sofa and sat down. “Maybe this is just about arson. Maybe someone is getting kicks by setting fires.”

  She hadn’t really thought about that. “Okay, maybe.”

  She picked up the spoon and he took the computer from her lap. He didn’t go back to his seat. He lowered himself to the edge of the couch and sat next to her. “Think about it. My house isn’t attached to what you’re doing.”

  “So it has to be about who wants the land?”

  “I’m not selling. Are you?” He typed in some information on the search engine.

  “No, I’m not going to be run off this way.”

  Keeton closed the computer and set it on the table. “I don’t think there’s an easy answer. But I want you to be careful.”

  Sophie did not want to kiss him. She did not. She told herself a couple of times, in case she didn’t get it the first time. But he was sweet, and no longer a boy looking for himself, for who he wanted to be. She wasn’t a girl, trying to find a way to heal the hole inside her heart.

  All of that added up made her more afraid than she’d been all of those years ago. Because what was there to stop them, to come between them? And she didn’t want another broken heart. Broken probably hadn’t been the right word. Shattered was more like it. The years that most girls her age had spent dating and falling in love, she’d spent getting over a broken heart.