A Cowgirl's Secret (The Buckhorn Ranch Book 3)

by Laura Marie Altom

  Mortification didn’t come close to describing Daisy’s embarrassment level.

  Georgina cleared her throat. “Luke, I was just commenting on how my daughter wrangled me into unpleasant household chores when all I promised in regard to this old relic was help in restoring the garden.”

  “And that’s when your name came into the conversation,” Josie said as a quick cover. “We thought you would be the perfect person to help Daisy with her project. Dallas is all the time saying how handy you are when it comes to fixing things around the house.”

  “Nice to know he thinks so highly of me,” Luke said, tugging on the brim of his cowboy hat.

  “Josie, hon…” With a grunt, Georgina pushed to her feet. “Would you be a dear and drive me over to Lucky’s? I have a powerful craving for sweet tea.”

  “That does sound good,” Josie said, already gathering her purse and keys. “Daisy, you going to be all right with your jug of ice water?”

  Daisy shot her so-called loving family the dirtiest look she could muster. They thought they were playing Cupid, but in reality, they were only making her situation worse. She longed for a nice, comfortable friendship with Luke—that was all. She’d grown weary of bickering and just wanted peace.

  Once Georgina and Josie left, Luke said with a slow, sexy grin, “You might look into hiring new help. Those two seem worthless.”

  “Tell me about it.” Sitting on one of the collapsible camp chairs she’d brought, Daisy said, “If you stopped by to see Kolt, he’s not here.”

  “Bummer.” Luke removed his hat, hanging it on the newel post. “I’d hoped we could have a tree fort planning meeting.”

  “He would like that. I’m picking him up from Jonah’s tomorrow at noon. Want to come back around one?”

  “Sounds doable.” Instead of returning his hat to his head, and then leaving, Luke stood around, fidgeting with this and that. He picked up a bottle of lemon oil, read the label. Took a few leaves that’d skittered from the porch through the open door, stashing them in a trash bin.

  “Good.” Grabbing the broom, Daisy avoided eye contact with Luke by working dirt from the nearest corner. “He’ll enjoy spending time with you.”

  Luke had grown uncomfortably aware of how much he enjoyed the company of Kolt’s mom. Had he one iota of smarts, he’d have long since been out the door.

  Daisy glanced his way. In the process, hair escaped her ponytail, spilling into her eyes. In his mind, Luke stood next to her, sweeping it back, making her own escape an impossibility. He’d pin her into her corner, relishing the way he made her heart race as if she were a caged canary. She’d lick her lips. He’d sweep his hands from her cheeks, down her throat, her shoulders, her arms to land on her hips. Then he’d kiss her. Long and leisurely until she begged for more.

  Had things between them not been so complicated, the afternoon might take on a whole new spin. As it was, he felt dirty for even thinking he wanted her. The two of them were over. What was his body’s problem with understanding that message?

  “I’ll be sure and tell Kolt you stopped by.” Dripping it all over the battered wood floor, she took her filthy wash water to the kitchen.

  Luke knew better, but he trailed along behind her, liking the view until reaching the room that had last been renovated in the seventies and featured avocado everything.

  Pushing himself up onto a dusty counter, he noted, “You do know all of your modern stuff from San Francisco is going to look like crap in here.”

  “Did I ask your opinion?” After pouring the dirty water in the sink, she filled her bucket with fresh water, this time opting for warm.

  He shrugged. “Just saying…”

  Daisy added a few capfuls of cleaner to her bucket. “Is there a specific reason you’re still here? Other than to harass me?”

  “Is that the way you think of me? As an imposition?” Why, he couldn’t say, but the notion troubled him.

  She sighed. “Honestly, I try not to think of you. You’ve made it clear how you feel about me and I’m making peace with that.”

  “Good. Great.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he nodded. “Glad we’re on the same page.”

  From the front of the house came the sound of clomping footfalls on the porch.

  “Hello?” Georgina sang out. “If y’all are thirsty, we brought sweet tea!”

  Luke took that as his cue to exit.

  He seriously needed to go on a date. Needed to work out his frustrations with a woman with whom he stood a chance in hell of going the proverbial distance.

  “HEY, LUKE!” KOLT CALLED at the zoo Sunday afternoon.

  Luke had originally planned to invite Daisy, but changed his mind. When it came to spending time with his son, Luke couldn’t get enough, but lately, each time he and Daisy shared space they shared ugly words.

  “Did you see how the mom chimp was looking at me?”

  “What did you do to make her stare?”

  “I was sticking out my tongue and jumping. Like this.” Kolt did his best monkey imitation loud enough to startle a baby who’d been sleeping in her stroller.

  The baby’s mom gave Kolt a glare, but the chimp mother seemed unaffected by his performance.

  “Hey, bud, take it down a notch.” Luke guided his son from the building. “Hungry?”

  “Nah. Let’s look at more animals.”

  After winding their way through forest and swamp-land and even the petting zoo, Luke was beginning to think he’d gotten an Energizer Bunny instead of a kid.

  In front of a giant rope spiderweb, Kolt called, “Let’s climb that!”

  Luke asked, “Do I have to?”

  “Yeah! Come on!”

  They’d climbed around for a while, with Luke finding web-climbing to be not so bad, when two teens strolled by hand-in-hand, doing more kissing than animal observation.

  “That’s gross,” Kolt noted, nodding in their direction. “But my friend Jonah was talking about you and Mom and wondering why you’re not, like, boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  The question had come from so far out in left field that Luke couldn’t think of a damned thing to say other than, “Is that what you want?”

  “Well,” Kolt said, hanging by his knees from the web’s top rope strand. “You are, like, my mom and dad, which means you’re s’posed to be married, so I guess it’d be okay, but it would be better for me if you were married, ’cause that way it’d be easier talking about you guys with kids from school. But then you guys fight a lot, so it’s probably a bad idea.”

  Luke’s chest tightened. It hadn’t occurred to him that in this day and age kids even cared if parents were together or divorced or never married.

  “Why haven’t you talked about this before?”

  Shrugging, Kolt admitted, “You never asked.”

  Marriage. Wow. Luke would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about the notion—especially with Daisy. But that had been back in high school when his most important goals had been passing Chem II and finding something fun to do on any given Saturday night.

  Since Daisy’s revelation about Kolt, Luke would’ve expected his parents to press the wedding issue. Far from it, they’d urged him to keep things casual between him and Daisy.

  Oddly enough, even Georgina, who was a renowned stickler for having all of her offspring wed the moment children became involved, hadn’t said so much as a peep on the topic. At least not to Luke. Did she feel the same as Dallas when it came to the topic of a reunion?

  If so, why did that make him feel about six inches tall?

  Moreover, why did he care what Daisy’s family thought of him? He never wanted her back, did he?

  “I’M CURIOUS,” LUKE SAID to Daisy after they’d both tucked Kolt into bed. They sat on the front porch, cloaked in darkness save for the flickering gaslights. The temperature was, for once, in the comfortable eighties, and crickets sang in conjunction with occasional house-rattling explosions coming from Dallas’s movie room. “Why do you think your m
om hasn’t wanted us to marry?”

  “E-excuse me?” Judging by her expression, Luke’s question took Daisy by surprise.

  “She practically held your brothers at gunpoint to marry Josie and Wren. Should my feelings be hurt she doesn’t want me in the family?”

  “Where is this coming from?” Daisy asked. “Days ago you confirmed you want nothing to do with me. Now, all of the sudden you want to talk marriage?”

  “No. That’s not at all what I said. What I want to know is, does Georgina think that the two of us would be a poor match? Dallas does. In fact, at the cookout, he pretty much warned me to steer clear of you.”

  “Why?” Daisy leaned forward sharply enough to set the frame of her chair creaking. “How is what we do even any of his business?”

  “It’s not,” Luke said, “but I can see how Dallas would feel protective toward you. Especially with what went down with Henry right under his nose.” When she failed to comment, he probed, “What are you thinking?”

  Her eyes had turned glassy. Was she tearing? “God’s honest truth, I love the idea of us being a family. An official family. But we both know there’s more to it than that.”

  “You think?” He hoped his half smile sent the message he was teasing.

  “You know what I mean. Loving the idea of something isn’t enough to sustain a marriage for the next fifty years. Let’s say we were to put aside our differences in order to stay together until Kolt leaves for college, then what? Would we still want to be with each other?” When he didn’t answer, she noted, “Now you’re the quiet one.”

  “Guess I have a lot on my mind.”

  “I’m sorry Kolt mentioned what his friends at school have been saying. While I hate his being given a hard time about anything, let alone an issue that’s in our power to fix, that’s not a good enough reason to marry. Agreed?”

  Though Luke nodded, stress knotted the base of his neck. He didn’t want to marry Daisy, but he resented like hell having first Dallas, then her tell him it would be a bad idea. He hadn’t thought of it before, but aside from taking Daisy to court, marriage would be the most certain and relatively painless way to ensure Luke got to spend as much time as possible with his son. It was the perfect solution for all concerned parties.

  Too bad from the sounds of it Daisy would never agree.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You are so welcome,” Daisy said to her client Jane Richmond, who’d just received her first child-support payment in over two years. After returning Jane’s hug, Daisy walked her out of the office, closing the door behind her.

  Moments like these made her glad she’d chosen this path.

  As opposed to Sunday night’s awkward conversation, during which she’d wished she could hide beneath her chair. Yes, she would like nothing more than for Luke and her to become an official family, but she wouldn’t beg.

  Back at her desk, she lost herself in a file Barb had sent. The case was a meaty corporate cover-up that took her mind off Luke.

  At least until he walked in the door.

  Dressed in jeans, a dirt-smudged white T-shirt, boots and what she knew to be his favorite cowboy hat, he looked good enough to kiss until she was too weak-kneed to stand. “Hey,” he said with a tip of his stupid, sexy hat, “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

  “Nope.” Yes. She had at least another three hours before she should even think about taking a break. Too bad for her, Luke looked so damned gorgeous.

  “In that case, how about taking a stroll? It’s the kind of day Weed Gulch only sees a few times a year. Not too hot. Not too cold. No wind. No ragweed. I’m pretty sure it’s a criminal offense not to be out there enjoying it.”

  His argument was ludicrous, but at the same time, sadly true. Laughing, she pushed back her chair. “Yes, Luke, I will stroll with you, but only if we head toward ice cream.”

  “Done.” He crooked his arm, and she slipped hers through it.

  Outside, Daisy tipped her face to the sun. “Wow. I’d forgotten how good it feels not to run from place to place in the eternal search for air conditioning.”

  “You really are something,” Luke said.

  She glanced his way to find him staring. “What did I do?”

  “You’re beautiful. After all this time, I still feel like a geeky freshman checking out the hottest cheerleader.”

  “Luke Montgomery,” she chastised, “you were never a geek. More like a god.”

  “Your history’s a bit skewed,” he said with a devilish grin, “but you won’t hear me complaining.”

  When Luke shockingly held out his hand for her to hold, Daisy eased her fingers between his. The simple touch hit her with an erotic jolt. Pulse racing, it was all she could do to keep from skipping like a giddy little girl.

  They got ice cream—Luke chocolate and Daisy had a vanilla twist—and chose a picnic table well away from the others on the grassy lawn. Again Daisy was struck with the pleasant and rare sensation that nothing needed to be said. They’d known each other for so long that they knew each other’s highlights. All they were missing were the gaps from the past ten years. Those could be filled in easily enough. Assuming Luke wanted them to be.

  Finished with his cone, he wadded his napkin and tossed it basketball-style into a rusty trash barrel.

  “Nice,” she said when his shot made it in. “That was well within the three-point range.”

  “Thanks.” He grinned at her before sharply looking away. “Look, I feel rotten about buying you ice cream under false pretenses.”

  “Oh?” Just when her heart had resumed its normal sedate pace, his new, pensive expression set her on edge.

  “I need to apologize for Sunday, as I wasn’t entirely honest with you.”

  “In what regard?” Daisy managed to ask even though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “When you made me agree that we have no business marrying, I meant it. But then I got to thinking…what if we did? But not for love or anything like that, but custody?”

  “Please tell me you’re kidding?”

  His earnest expression said he was dead serious. “I’d be lying if I said I haven’t toyed with the notion of having a lawyer write up something to bind Kolt to me legally, but this is even better. And cheaper.”

  “Are you insane?” She had never been more insulted. So much so that if they hadn’t been in public she’d have pitched her ice cream at his ridiculously handsome face!

  “AM I FORGIVEN?” LUKE ASKED when Daisy picked him up at his cabin to go on a combined trip to Tulsa. The first order of business on the crisp, second Saturday in October was selecting kitchen cabinets at a custom shop. Then they’d hit up a few Halloween specialty stores for costumes.

  Kolt lightly snored in the backseat.

  “The jury’s still out,” Daisy said. With her hair in a ponytail and face scrubbed clean of makeup, she looked even prettier than the last time he’d seen her.

  “I’m sorry. In hindsight, I realize the whole marriage-for-custody thing wasn’t one of my better ideas.”

  “You think?” Her glare confirmed his suspicions that it might be a long day. Kolt had been the one who’d invited him, and as he’d gradually warmed toward his father, no matter what Daisy thought, there was no way Luke was going turn his kid’s invitation down.

  “What’s with the message on your back window?” he asked while climbing into the passenger seat. “‘I See You’ is written in the dust.”

  Shaking her head, she pointed to their sleeping child. “Kolt thinks it’s hilarious how I never can get all of the dust off my car. Our budding artist enjoys drawing faces and messages in the dirt.”

  “He shows promise,” Luke teased, hoping to lighten the mood.

  “I’d rather he became familiar with a soapy rag and bucket.”

  Fastening his seat belt, Luke leaned his head back, settling in for what he guessed would be a not-so-entertaining day.

  “I WANNA BE A SLASHER, chainsaw-killer guy,” Kolt announce
d at Ehrle’s. Though it wasn’t the biggest costume store in Tulsa, Daisy remembered shopping there with her dad and brothers when she was a little girl.

  “Sweetie,” Daisy said, trying to keep her calm while a cajillion other kids darted down the aisle. “You’re a little young for that degree of violence. How do you even know what that is?”

  Raising his chin, he said, “We watch slasher movies with Jonah’s big brother. They’re cool. I’m gonna carry Uncle Dallas’s chainsaw, too.”

  “No, you’re not,” Daisy said.

  “Why not? Everyone else is.”

  Daisy tried counting to ten in her head, but only made it to three. “What have I told you about that argument not holding up in court?”

  “That it won’t?” Kolt rolled his eyes.

  Stopping on the monster aisle, Luke said to their son, “If I were you, I’d consider going with a Frankenstein theme. Not only do you get to paint yourself green, but you wear ripped clothes, have bolts sticking out of your forehead and carry a big club you can use to hit your friends.”

  “Cool!” All smiles, Kolt soon had everything he needed to become a classic monster. More importantly, in Daisy’s mind, he’d gained yet one more reason to grow closer to his father.

  THE NEXT SATURDAY, rain fell in gust-driven sheets, making for the perfect movie day. Luke had originally invited Kolt, but they’d voted that if Daisy didn’t nag about eating healthy food, she could join them. She’d held up her end of the deal by fixing cheese dip and pizza rolls. Luke had already laid out a full supply of candy: Twizzlers and M&M’s and Milk Duds.

  “This is nice,” Daisy said, curled under a blanket into the far corner of the sofa. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve lounged an entire day.”

  “Me, neither.”

  Midway through Jaws, Kolt fell asleep in Luke’s armchair. Something about seeing his son in his favorite chair felt deeply satisfying, as if a part of Luke had been filled that he hadn’t even realized was empty. If only he could figure out how to manage his growing feelings for Daisy.