Claiming the Texan's Heart

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  A softly whimpering Jenny ensconced in his arms, Wyatt attempted to settle his big frame into the rocker-glider. Not an easy task. The chair that fit Adelaide’s five-seven frame perfectly was at least 30 percent too small for him. Frowning, he shifted Jenny a little higher on his shoulder. “What we need is a man-size rocking chair.”

  No kidding. He looked like Papa Bear sitting in Mama Bear’s chair.

  Adelaide knelt and put Jake in the seat of the indoor baby swing. “Way ahead of you, cowboy,” she said over her shoulder as she strapped the audibly complaining Jake into the seat, then cushioned him at the waist with rolled-up receiving blankets. Rising to her knees, she pushed the button on the top that would provide thirty minutes of gentle uninterrupted swinging back and forth.

  Jake’s expression turned from grouchy complaint to one of surprise as he began to move.

  Back and forth. Back and forth.

  Adelaide sat in front of her son, where he could see her. She smiled encouragingly.

  He smiled back.

  To Wyatt, she said, “I called the online baby superstore and express ordered their largest rocker-glider. It’s supposed to be delivered here today. Once it arrives we’ll be able to rock the kids at the same time.”

  Wyatt looked her over. “Will we have to stay in rhythm? Or be woefully out of synch, like old folks on the porch of the nursing home?”

  Her heart pounding at the memories of when they’d last made love and the urgent need to do so again, Adelaide snickered. “Funny.”

  He waggled his brows in a way that let her know his thoughts were going in exactly the same direction. “Thanks.”

  Noting Jake had stopped fussing entirely, she said, “Want to try this with Jenny?”

  “Sure.” He rose and walked toward her.

  Still on her knees, Adelaide moved the other baby swing right next to Jake’s. With Wyatt’s help, she situated Jenny, too.

  Jenny’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise as she began to swing.

  A peaceful silence reigned. Wyatt extended a hand. “We’re going to have to thank my mom for these.”

  Slanting him a curious glance, Adelaide rose. “So you admit Lucille really does know a thing or two about caring for children?”

  He let go of her palm reluctantly. “Almost anyone would know more than me, but yeah, she was right about this.”

  And maybe other stuff, as well, Adelaide thought.

  Like giving their marriage more of a chance than they had.

  Pushing the unwanted notion away, she accompanied him to the kitchen. Adelaide brought the wheat flakes out of the pantry. Wyatt retrieved the milk and a pint of fresh blueberries. They fixed their bowls. “So how much do I owe you for the rocking chair?”

  Surprised he would turn what had been a thoughtful gesture into a transaction, Adelaide hid her hurt with a smile. “Nothing.” She took her breakfast and slid onto a stool at the counter. “It’s a gift.”

  He lounged against the counter beside her, bowl held against his chest. “A tenth-anniversary gift?”

  “No,” she said dryly, watching him eat with the same appetite he did everything else. “An ‘I expect you to use it frequently to help us all out’ kind of gift.”

  He poured more cereal into his bowl. “I think I can manage that.”

  “So what’s your schedule like for the rest of the day?” Adelaide asked.

  “Troy and Flint are taking care of the horses this morning, but I really want to work Durango myself once my mom and Sage get here.”

  Adelaide batted her lashes. “You don’t want to spend two hours working on the menu for the Welcome to the Family party for the twins?”

  He fed her the last blueberry from his bowl. “I think you know I might have five minutes of patience for that.”

  She fed him her last wheat flake. “I think you know that’s about my limit, too.”

  He set their dishes aside, then pulled her into his arms. “So why not let Sage and Mom babysit the twins and come with me?” He wrapped his arms about her waist. “You probably should ride the horse you’re going to be using during the Chili Festival.”

  “I thought I was just going to be assisting you during the cutting-horse training demonstration at the fairgrounds.”

  “Like Vanna White?” He mimed the graceful movements of the TV game-show hostess.

  Adelaide rolled her eyes. “I don’t think an evening gown will work in the arena.”

  He rubbed his jaw. “You look mighty fetching in a pair of jeans and boots, though.”

  She blushed at his sexy once-over. “Seriously...”

  “Seriously.” Catching her hands once again, he reeled her in. “I’d really like you to join me out on the ranch this morning. It’ll be good for both of us. Getting some fresh air.” He pointed to the now happily snoozing twins in their matching baby swings. “And you know the Lockhart women can handle it.”

  Was this a date?

  It felt like a date.

  “Consider it our date morning,” he drawled, reading her mind.

  She hesitated.

  “PG rated.”

  The twinkle in his eyes was irresistible. When was the last time she had played at anything? “All right,” she agreed recklessly. “I confess... I’m dying to get back in the saddle again.”

  “Go get ready. I’ll handle things down here.”

  By the time they had both dressed for the excursion, Sage, who had the morning off from her bistro, arrived. Once again, looking a little wan and definitely tired.

  “Before you two head out to work with the horses, I have a favor to ask,” Sage said. “You two really should have anything you want for the party.”

  “But?” Adelaide prodded.

  Sage inhaled. “I’d really like it if you vetoed everything involving shrimp.”

  Adelaide was as shocked as Wyatt looked. It wasn’t like his little sister to shy away from any ingredient. In fact, the cowgirl-chef liked to joke she could put a southwestern spin on any dish.

  Sage held up a palm. “I got sick on it in early January, when I had that really awful stomach flu...and just the thought, the smell, anything to do with it. I can’t...”

  “Fine with me,” Adelaide said cheerfully.

  “Me, too,” Wyatt agreed.

  Sage sent them looks of gratitude and relief, just as a car engine sounded outside. Adelaide glanced out the window. “There’s your mother now.”

  “So what do you know about Sage that I don’t?” Wyatt asked after the preliminary menu had been approved—sans shrimp—and the two of them went out to the stables.

  Oh, dear. She had been hoping he wouldn’t ask. “Nothing,” Adelaide fibbed.

  Wyatt blocked her way to the tack room. “What do you intuit, then? ’Cause something is sure as hell going on.”

  Adelaide bit her lip. Reluctant to betray.

  “Fine.” He brushed by her, blanket and saddle in hand, and entered Buttercup’s stall. “I’ll ask Sage directly when we get back to the ranch house.”

  Adelaide watched him put on the halter, secure the reins. “No. Don’t do that. I have a feeling your mom already suspects anyway.”

  Wyatt brushed past her and went back to the tack room. “Suspects what?”

  Adelaide followed. “That Sage’s life, like ours, is about to become a lot more complicated.”

  “How?” Wyatt carried the gear to Durango’s stall. “She’s not dating anyone.” He sent Adelaide a sharp look over his shoulder. “She hasn’t since she finally called it quits with TW and left Seattle for good.”

  “I know.” Adelaide lingered in the aisle. “But she’s become really good friends with Nick Monroe since she moved to Laramie.”

  Wyatt adeptly saddled the big black gelding. Taking the reins, he led him out. “Isn’t Nick intent on getting out of
here?”

  “Taking his family’s Western-wear business public via venture-capital expansion? Yes.”

  Wyatt motioned for Adelaide to go into the courtyard, then paused at the next stall to get Buttercup, too. “So why would Sage get involved with him if he’s leaving Laramie? Maybe even Texas altogether?”

  Adelaide put her left foot in the stirrup, her hands on the horn, and swung herself up into the saddle. “I didn’t say that she had.”

  Wyatt watched as she got settled, then handed her the reins. “But...?”

  “Every time I go in The Cowgirl Chef, Nick’s either just coming in for a quick cup of coffee or just leaving.”

  Wyatt moved lithely into the saddle. “So? Their businesses are both on Main Street.” Bypassing the arena next to the barns and heading toward a pasture the size of a football field, he swung down to open a gate, then proceeded to hop back on his horse.

  “It’s more than that,” Adelaide insisted. “She’s close to him.”

  Wyatt frowned. “Hooking up close?”

  Aware how good it felt to be out in the cold, crisp winter air, Adelaide shrugged. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on between them, Wyatt. Maybe Nick and Sage are just good friends, the way they keep telling everyone.”

  “And yet...?” he prodded.

  “She seems different somehow and she’s gained weight, despite having the stomach flu several times over the last few months. Then there’s her new aversion to shrimp. When I was pregnant, I couldn’t handle the smell of Swiss cheese for some reason. It just made me want to barf every single time. In fact, I still can’t handle it.”

  Amusement flickered in his eyes. “I’ll make an effort to keep it out of our fridge.”

  She returned his droll look. “Much appreciated.”

  Now if she could just keep him from breaking her heart again...

  Where had that thought come from?

  Misinterpreting her frown, Wyatt continued, “Back to Sage. If she is pregnant and is finally getting the baby she always wanted, why haven’t she and Nick told anyone? I mean, he seems like the kind of guy who would step up whether it was planned or not.”

  Adelaide shrugged and adjusted her flat-brimmed hat against the late-morning sun. “Who knows? Maybe it isn’t his. Maybe Nick doesn’t know. Maybe it is their baby, and they just don’t want to get married or do anything that would in any way complicate or interfere with his business plans right now.” She sighed. “Or maybe she decided to have a family the way I thought I had, via artificial insemination, and then got involved with Nick...and now it’s all too complicated to figure out.”

  Wyatt paused. “You really think Sage got inseminated, too?”

  “All I can tell you is that last summer, when she and your mom and I were investigating the foundation scandal, and driving back and forth from Dallas to the ranch, we had a lot of time to talk about other stuff, too. I had just started my second trimester, and I was over the moon about finally becoming pregnant. Sage asked me a ton of questions about where I went and how it all worked, and confessed she had been thinking about going that route, too. Your mom blew up at her because she wanted Sage to find her own knight in shining armor and fall in love first, and then have kids.”

  Wyatt’s gaze narrowed. “How did Sage react to that?”

  “She just stopped talking about it. And your mother never mentioned it again, either. But if this is what Sage has done, then my sense is your mom is not going to take the news well. Especially if Sage is also falling for Nick. Because that would go back to your mother being right, that your sister should have waited.”

  Wyatt scowled, as fiercely protective of his family as ever. “Should I talk to Sage? Or Nick?”

  “No! To both! And don’t you dare tell Sage I suspect anything, either. This is her news to tell, in her own time. Assuming it’s true. It might not be.”

  Wyatt directed his horse to do a right turn and motioned for Adelaide to do the same. “On the other hand, if Sage is pregnant, she can’t hide it for long. So why doesn’t she just tell Mom?”

  “Probably because she’s feeling hormonal and vulnerable and doesn’t want this to become yet another family crisis.” Adelaide brought her horse to a halt next to Wyatt’s. “And she’s probably right to protect Lucille, since we aren’t out of the woods yet with our own Texas-size scandal. Speaking of which...” Adelaide scanned the countryside. “Do you think Marco Maletti is out there somewhere right now, taking photographs of us?”

  “I can’t spot him, but he’s sure supposed to be.”

  Adelaide studied the vast acres of yellow winter grass, the strands of cedar and live oak. “I can’t see anyone, either,” she murmured, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being constantly observed.

  For reasons she didn’t dare reveal.

  Wyatt mistook the reason behind her unease. “Relax, sweetheart. This is going to be easy. Buttercup—the mare you’re on—is fully trained as a cutting horse. Durango,” he said, petting the two-year-old gelding’s neck, “is still a work in progress, but he’s coming along.”

  Happy to have something else to concentrate on, Adelaide held the reins and smiled. “What exactly are we going to do today?”

  “First order of business is to take them straight and forward. Get them comfortable.”

  He waited until she drew up beside him, then moved Durango, taking care to keep them at the same steady easy pace. “We’re going to speed up just a bit,” Wyatt explained. “And then slow down... A little more...”

  Back and forth, they moved across the pasture. Their horses alert and eager to please.

  Eventually, Wyatt led them to a small wooden bridge, where they worked on stepping up and down, and backing. Buttercup responded to the lightest touch of reins and leg. Durango was a little less sure of himself, but Wyatt was swift to offer gentle pats to the neck and murmurs of encouragement.

  By the time their work session at the bridge was over, Durango was stopping and starting and moving over and around it with the same ease as Buttercup. Better yet, it was clear the horse not only trusted Wyatt to keep him out of trouble, he adored him.

  “You’re really good at this,” Adelaide said, admiration in her tone.

  Wyatt tipped his hat. “Why, thank you, Addie.” His eyes twinkled as they rode toward a stand of trees. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

  “A little rusty.” Especially at love. Not that her husband seemed to notice...

  They stopped next to the pond, then dismounted to let their horses get a drink.

  “How long since you’ve been on a horse?” Wyatt asked curiously.

  Adelaide’s inner thigh muscles were humming with the tension a long neglected workout brought. “A decade.”

  “You used to love to ride when we were kids,” he recalled. It was how they had gotten close. Taking riding lessons every weekend. Later, when they’d both become old enough, they’d assisted with classes of younger kids. She’d focused on Western pleasure riding; Wyatt had taught cutting, reining and barrel racing. And competed in rodeo events, too.

  Adelaide glanced at the wintry clouds, looming on the horizon. “After we broke up, I didn’t want to go to the riding academy anymore.”

  He caught her gloved hand in his. “I figured you just changed your teaching times to avoid me.”

  Shrugging, she turned back to face him. Even through the leather, she could feel the warmth and strength of his fingers. A shiver of awareness swept through her. “No chance at all of us crossing paths if I didn’t go there.” She sighed and leaned back against the trunk of a live-oak tree. “It was bad enough seeing you at school.” Every time she had seen him, it had felt as if her heart would shatter.

  He lifted her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “Yeah, the end of our senior year pretty much sucked.”

  Adelaide let him p
ut both arms around her. “Big time.” They’d both skipped their prom and barely made appearances at post-graduation parties.

  He smoothed the hair from her face. “I was surprised when you went into accounting. You’d always said you wanted to teach riding.”

  Adelaide rested both her hands on his chest. “I did.”

  “Then...?”

  She breathed in the masculine fragrance unique to him. “There was a lot of pressure on me to follow in my dad’s footsteps.” She pushed back the ache of disappointment her father’s crime had brought, and moved to get back on her horse. “It seemed like a way to get close to him, which was something I had always wanted.”

  Wyatt got back in the saddle, too. Reins in hand, he guided his horse through the beginning of another set of training exercises. “And did you?”

  Adelaide followed his lead, taking Buttercup in a straight leisurely line, moving her mare’s front end, then her rear. “Yes and no. I’m not sure anyone ever really knew my dad.”

  Wyatt worked Durango in a circle. “What do you mean?”

  “He always resented the success of people like your parents. The hedge fund they built gave them wealth beyond their wildest dreams. My father felt he worked just as hard, managing the money, and doing the books for people like your folks. Yet, his net worth was so much less.”

  Wyatt pointed toward the windmill at the far end of the pasture. They rode off, side by side, adapting another easy, well-controlled pace. “Paul’s resentment never showed.”

  “He had excellent social skills.”

  Wyatt slowed even more. When Durango showed fear and uncertainty as they neared the windmill, he guided his horse away in a smooth easy motion.

  They rode a distance away, then turned and started back, this time from a wider, even easier vantage point. “Did you see what happened at the foundation coming?” Wyatt asked.

  The unexpected question brought the heat of shame to her face. “No.” With effort, she met Wyatt’s searching gaze. “I was as shocked by the disappearance of the funds as everyone else. In fact, that’s the real reason I headed up the initial forensic investigation for your mom. I was sure I’d exonerate my father.”