How to Handle a Cowboy

by Joanne Kennedy

  “Brady, get in here,” he hollered. “I’m tired of cleaning up your mess.”

  Their younger brother wandered down from upstairs with his jeans half-zipped and his hair tousled from sleep. Instead of helping with the dishes, he started opening cupboards and drawers in his endless search for victuals. He was the baby of the family but calling him that was a sure way to earn a punch on the jaw. A rookie bronc rider, he had all the attitude of a seasoned rodeo veteran and the appetite of a grizzly bear fresh from hibernation. Finding a box of Cheerios, he poured some into a soup bowl.

  “I’ll get to the dishes, Shane,” he said. “I just need a bite to eat first.”

  “Got a danged tapeworm,” Shane grumbled under his breath.

  Brady opened the refrigerator door and grabbed a carton of milk. Gulping a long slug out of the carton, he eyed Ridge. “So it’s a no go on Phoenix House?”

  Ridge nodded. “You listening at doors now?”

  “No. But I saw his face.” He aimed his thumb over his shoulder at Shane. “Figured you’d spoiled his plan.” Sidetracked from the cereal by the refrigerator’s largesse, he peered into a plastic tub that contained what was left of the previous night’s cowboy stew and sniffed. It must have smelled okay, because he set the container on the counter and removed the lid.

  “So, Brady,” Ridge said. “Why do you do rodeo?”

  Brady grinned. “Buckles and babes. Why? Is there some other reason?”

  Ridge shook his head. He knew better than to seek worldly wisdom from his shallow little brother.

  Brady shoved the lid toward the sink. “So you’re not going after the hot chick that runs Phoenix House? Women need to be educated in the cowboy way, you know. The cowboy way of ridin’, the cowboy way of livin’, and most of all, the cowboy way of makin’ love.”

  He drew out the last word as he opened a drawer and fished out a spoon then grabbed another bowl from a cupboard. But by the time he got back to the stew, Shane had clapped the lid back on.

  “That’s dinner.”

  “What, the chick?” Brady winked at Ridge. “That would be okay with me. If you’re not interested, I might stop on over there and get acquainted.”

  Ridge felt a hot churning in his gut. He might not be interested in Sierra Dunn, but he wouldn’t let her become one of Brady’s many casualties. The kid mowed through women like a McCormick reaper, leaving them flattened in his wake. Ridge might not be good at relationships, but at least he never deliberately hurt anyone.

  Brady didn’t either, he supposed. He just expected women to have the same attitude toward sex as he did. It was a recreational activity in his eyes, no more significant than a game of pickup basketball.

  Ridge shoved his chair back and stalked over to the refrigerator to investigate the stew container while Brady doused the cereal with milk until it floated.

  “Well, if you’re not interested, she’s up for grabs, right?”

  Ridge slammed the refrigerator door and spun around, jostling Brady so that the cereal bowl flew from his hand. Cheerios and milk splatted onto the floor. Brady looked down at the mess and laughed.

  “Guess you are interested.”

  Ridge grabbed a roll of paper towels and handed it to Brady. “Clean up the mess,” he said. “And then you need to do those dishes. Shane and I are sick and tired of cleaning up after you.”

  Brady knelt and began cleaning up the cereal, grinning the whole time. “I’m thinking you’re the one who’s a mess, big brother. There’s finally a woman worth chasing in this town, and you’ve got all the time in the world to do it, but are you going to go after her? Nope. You’d rather go out there and play with that damned feebleminded horse.”

  “Moonpie’s not feebleminded. And what I do is my business,” Ridge said. “But Sierra’s a nice girl. Way out of your league.”

  He strode out of the room, surprised and relieved that Shane hadn’t had anything more to say about the volunteering issue. But when he snuck a glance over his shoulder, his older brother’s eyes were on him, dark and contemplative. Something was going on in his bossy big brother’s scheming brain.

  Ridge headed for his bedroom. The house hadn’t changed much since they were kids, so he, Shane, and Brady still had their boyhood rooms. His was a festival of all things cowboy, including old rodeo photos signed by past stars like Jim Shoulders and Jim Charles; a rope and a riding glove hanging on the back of his desk chair; and a pine bedstead that looked like it was made from a wagon wheel.

  Shelley’s cowboy novel lay on the bed. He thought about picking it up and giving it another try, but instead, he pulled an old-school composition book from a desk drawer. It fell open to a numbered list penned in the painstaking printing of a teenaged boy who took himself way too seriously.

  He’d enumerated all his goals at fourteen, just three months after arriving at Decker ranch. He remembered the night he’d written them out. Up to then, his only goal had been to survive each day, and he hadn’t even been sure why that mattered. That night, he’d been overwhelmed with the excitement of finding something he loved, something he was good at.

  The list started with learning to ride a horse “as good as Bill” and ended with winning the PRCA All-Around Cowboy title at the Wrangler National Finals, which Bill had told him was the pinnacle of cowboying. Beside each goal was the age when he meant to accomplish it and a box to be checked off once it was accomplished.

  Shane and Brady were wrong. Rodeo wasn’t about buckles and babes.

  It was about Bill. About giving back to the man who’d believed in him when he was a skinny, rebellious kid nobody cared about. Bill was gone now, but that didn’t matter. Ridge still wanted to make him proud.

  He ran his finger down the list. He’d actually won two championships before he was thirty, in bareback and saddle bronc. All the items were checked off but the last one, and until the wreck that destroyed his hand, he’d been on track to accomplish that too.

  Looking down at his hand, he opened and closed the fingers, opened and closed. It looked like he was barely moving, but he was giving it his all. There was no way he’d ever win the All-Around now.

  His biggest accomplishment of the evening was resisting the temptation to slam his injured hand into the desk and cripple himself some more.

  Chapter 11

  Sierra felt like she’d spent her morning managing a herd of rampaging bull calves. It was such a relief to finally put the boys on the school bus, she thought she might melt into a puddle of exhaustion and relief right there on the sidewalk in front of Phoenix House. That would get the neighbors talking.

  Not that they weren’t already. Instead of assimilating into their new school in the nearby town of Grigsby, her boys were clinging together as a group, creating a city kids versus country kids dynamic that inspired talk of gangs in town. It didn’t help when Isaiah encouraged the other kids to put on exaggerated “gangsta” walks and tell wild lies about big-city life. In return, the country kids teased her boys about their parents—or lack thereof. There was no doubt that hurt and made the situation even worse.

  Sierra had been worried about getting the community to buy into her hometown idea, but it turned out it was the kids who refused to cooperate. Of course, the administration at school wouldn’t cooperate either. The vice principal, who seemed to be the only authority figure willing to meet with her, insisted the kids would work out their differences among themselves, without adult intervention. Sierra disagreed. These weren’t puppies play fighting in the backyard. These were children, and every cruel word poked a hole in their fragile self-esteem.

  The massive old Victorian house felt a little spooky in the absence of the cheerful chatter of the boys. Her footsteps echoed as she headed down the hall to her office, and she nearly jumped out of her skin when the doorbell buzzed.

  She really needed to get that thing changed.

  The man at the door was dressed in a uniform that somehow managed to be neither brown nor green nor gray, and it wasn
’t quite khaki either. He stood militarily erect and weirdly motionless. Her first impression was that he was the most respectable man she’d ever seen. Possibly the best-looking as well, but in a Ken-doll way that just didn’t work for her. Sierra had taken a Sharpie to her own Ken when she was a kid, giving him a mustache and some tattoos. She didn’t like perfect men.

  Maybe that explained the string of failed relationships she’d left behind when she’d moved to Wynott.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  But she knew who he was and probably what he wanted. She’d seen him pedaling around town on a black Schwinn bicycle, doing his best to look officious. He was the town police—or the sheriff, as Ridge had called him—and he probably wanted one of her kids.

  Shoot. The boys had been out of her sight for five minutes, and there was already a cop at the door.

  What had they done? And how had they done it so fast?

  Could Jeffrey have shimmied out a bus window and taken off running? Could Isaiah have gotten in a fight already? She pictured skinned knees, bruised elbows, irate bus drivers, lawsuits from angry parents.

  She held the door open and the sheriff stepped inside, executed a military turn, and introduced himself.

  “Sheriff Swaggard, ma’am.”

  ***

  Jim wondered why the woman seemed so horrified at the sight of a lawman at her door. Guilty conscience, probably. Well, he’d figure out why eventually. He was good that way. He knew human behavior like the back of his head.

  He gave the woman his best handshake, manly and firm. Hers was weak, a little cautious. He was willing to bet she had something to hide.

  She was a cutie, though. Tiny little thing, blond hair, pretty green eyes that looked wide and innocent. She looked more like a woman who needed protection than any kind of criminal.

  He pictured himself rescuing her from a burning building. Saving her from bad guys at a bank robbery. He didn’t know how that last one would happen, since Wynott didn’t have a bank, but he could picture it clear as day.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t know.” He arched his eyebrows. “Do you think something’s wrong?”

  That was a sure way to get at the truth—put the suspect on the hot seat.

  Not that she was a suspect. Not yet.

  “Nothing’s wrong that I know of.” She gave him a cute little Kewpie-doll smile, the kind of smile that made him hope to God she wasn’t guilty of anything. It would be too bad if the first pretty girl to come to Wynott in over ten years turned out to be a criminal.

  But you never knew. He’d learned that at the academy. You never assumed anything.

  “I just figure when the sheriff comes to call, he’s got a reason.”

  He smiled his best smile, showing off his straight, even teeth. He knew he checked off all the boxes when it came to male attractiveness. Broad-shouldered physique? Check. Rugged features? Check. Blue eyes, blond hair? Check. A fine suit of clothes with creases straight as a Wyoming highway running up the legs? Double check. And his shoes were as shiny as a snake’s beady eye. He didn’t see how any woman could resist him.

  But this woman did. She didn’t even smile back.

  It was his business to know what went on in this town, and he knew she’d spent hours with Ridge Cooper the day before. Ridge Cooper, with his torn jeans and dirty boots. There was just no comparison.

  So why wasn’t she smiling?

  Evidently, she liked the Western type, so Jim leaned against the wall and crossed one leg over the other, the way he’d seen that sheriff on Longmire do it. “You’re from the city, aren’t you, honey?”

  She still didn’t smile. And he’d even called her honey. What was wrong with the woman?

  “I’m from Denver,” she said.

  Oh. Well, that explained it.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, here in Wynott, the law doesn’t wait until something’s wrong to show up. We believe in a preventive approach.” He pretended to pause on purpose while his mind scrambled around, searching for the words in the training manual he’d gotten at the academy. “It’s a new concept called community policing. We make an effort to get to know the citizens we protect.”

  He supposed the “we” part was a bit of an exaggeration, since he was the only law in the whole town. But it sounded better that way.

  “Would you like to talk in my office?” she asked.

  Did he catch a little wink there, or did he imagine it? He tipped his hat, just in case. “Sure, ma’am.”

  It wasn’t much of an office. It looked more like a closet. But she sat down behind a big, old metal desk, so he settled into the chair in front of it. The chair was broken, with one leg held together with a C-clamp. The whole place looked like a scratch-and-dent sale.

  He pinched the legs of his trousers as he sat down, tugging them up over his knees to avoid straining the fabric. It was time to get down to business.

  “Now,” he said, “I know you’ve got your hands full, and I aim to help you all I can.” He smiled again, encouraging her to trust him. “You tell me which boys are the biggest troublemakers, and I’ll keep an eye on them.”

  Was it his imagination, or did she look kind of grim? That cute little smile was nothing but a memory. Evidently, keeping an eye on these kids wasn’t nearly enough.

  “I could give ’em a good talking to if you want,” he continued. “Show ’em the jail cells in the old municipal building, do a Scared Straight kind of thing.”

  She sat back and folded her arms over her chest. It sure was a nice chest.

  “I thought the jail was shut down years ago,” she said.

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Jim said. “Place looks downright spooky, and they don’t have to know we don’t use it.”

  “It would probably give them nightmares.”

  There, now she was getting it. “Exactly.”

  “You think that’s a good thing?”

  “Sure do. Prevention is nine-tenths of the law.”

  She stared at him as if she was confused. Maybe she’d never heard that expression before. He did have a way with words.

  “Sheriff, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but these are not bad kids. Their parents couldn’t take care of them for one reason or another, so they ended up in the foster care system through no fault of their own. Their parents might have been in trouble with the law, but the kids are innocent.”

  Oh, so she was one of those. She must not have dealt with juvenile delinquents for long. “You know what they say,” he said. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the pear.”

  “The apple—what?”

  “It’s an expression,” he said slowly. The woman seemed kind of dimwitted to be running a halfway house.

  “Did you go to school here? In Grigsby, I mean?”

  “Sure did. And then right to the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy in Douglas.” He crossed his legs. “But I’m not here to talk about me,” he said. “I’m here to talk about your boys.”

  “Right. We were talking about giving them nightmares by showing them the old jail cells.”

  “It would be a start.”

  “It would be a disaster.” Her voice got all hard and shrill. “Sheriff, these kids have seen far worse places than those jail cells. Their lives have already been nightmares. What they need is normalcy. And they need people to believe in them.”

  Another bleeding heart. He’d seen it before. “Oh, I see.” He chuckled, as if they were both in on a joke. “I realize it’s your job to defend the children, but if we work together, we might be able to minimize the impact of this institution on the other residents of Wynott.”

  “It’s not an institution. It’s a home.”

  “Well, whatever it’s called, you should probably know, the neighbors are concerned.”

  She frowned. That made little lines form between her eyebrows, and lines bracketed her mouth. If she kept that up, she wouldn’t be nearly so pretty in a few years.<
br />
  That was the trouble with women working. It was too stressful and ruined their looks.

  She took a deep breath, like she was about to say something important, and he braced himself for a lecture.

  “Sheriff, I know it’s important that you and I have a good relationship.”

  At least she had that part right. He wondered what kind of relationship she meant. He wasn’t sure he liked her much, but she sure was pretty.

  “If we’re going to work together, I need you to believe these boys are worth saving. If we love them and trust them, they’ll do their best to rise to even the highest expectations. I’ve seen it happen.”

  He doubted that, but she was on a roll, so he wasn’t about to interrupt.

  “My goal is to make Wynott a hometown they’ll come to care about, and I’m hoping the community will help. Certainly you, as our local law enforcement, can make a big difference. I’d be very, very grateful if you’d assure folks that the kids aren’t going to be a problem.”

  She had a point. Without his leadership, she’d never succeed in her little project. But he wasn’t sure he could get on board. After all, there had to be some reason these kids’ families had given up on them.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I need to meet the kids, I think. See what they’re all about.”

  Was that panic he saw on her face or just a little anxiety? In either case, he was pretty sure she didn’t want him to meet the kids. His instincts were right. They were probably a bad bunch, rude and uneducated.

  She smoothed her hair and got ahold of herself, flashing him a smile he could tell had nerves behind it.

  “I think that would be a great idea,” she said. “Someone like you could be a really good influence on them.”

  “Right.” And it was. He was the kind of guy every boy should aspire to be. He’d been a pretty good student, even if some of his teachers were a little stingy with the grades. And he’d been good at sports—a football hero in high school and danged good at baseball too. And now? Well, now he was sheriff of a whole town. Those kids would probably be in awe of him. He’d have to find a way to help them relax around him, treat him like he was just another man like any other.