Her Homecoming Cowboy (9 page)

Annie was still praying off and on when she picked Leo up at day care. For this child’s sake she prayed all things would work out for the best.

Annie was determined she would do whatever it took to help the situation work out right. In her mind, that was for Leo to know Colt Holden was his daddy.

“I got a big red star on my paper today. I colored a big ol’ fat donkey with me riding her! Annie Aunt, you ever in your whole life seen anything as cute as that fat ol’ Samantha?” Leo asked as he climbed into his car seat in the back. Annie laughed. She loved this kid. What in the world would her life be like without him? What a blessing he was.

Maybe, just maybe, Leo was here to rescue his daddy.

The thought slipped into her head as she drove home listening to Leo’s lively chatter about his day.
Is that what this is about?
She wasn’t going to let him off that easy and say yes...not when she’d once been the kid whose parents had dropped her off on a doorstep and driven away. She knew too well what it felt like not to be wanted. The memory was etched into her soul in bright red. The one thing she hadn’t wanted was for Leo to ever feel that he wasn’t wanted.

But what she couldn’t ever do as long as there was breath in her lungs was forget what her parents had done...and she prayed that one day Leo didn’t hold against her what she’d done in keeping his father a secret for a year. But she couldn’t dwell on that. No, she just had to fix it. She had to get Colt to claim his son.

* * *

“I’m here to work,” Colt said without preamble when he walked into the office to face his brothers. It wasn’t going to be a pretty meeting.

Luke was sitting behind his desk with a logbook in front of him. Jess was pouring a cup of coffee. He looked as surprised as Luke about Colt showing up.

“It’s good to see you coming around,” Jess said.

Luke studied him. “You up to working?”

“I’m up for it. I’ll be here for a few weeks anyway, until I can find a job.” To this point, he’d relied on his earnings as a bull rider to provide his portion of support for the ranch. Jess had a trucking business and Luke had a rodeo stock business. They were building up the new ranch stock and not taking income from it.

Both his brothers were clearly baffled—he didn’t blame them.

“What about your bull riding?” Luke said. “You’ll be good as new when that arm is healed, and you might still be in contention for the championship. Your points are high enough that you may not lose a foothold.”

“It all depends on if the job I get will let me go compete that week. But I’m not too sure I’ll remain up there for long.”

“If you ride some before then, you know you will.” Jess’s brows knitted together. “What’s going on?”

“Yeah, Colt. You know we’re behind your riding one hundred percent,” Luke said.

“Y’all were right,” he admitted. “Leo is mine.” He’d been fighting the joy that thinking about Leo brought him. With that surge of joy also came the reminder that he had no right to it.

“Man,” Jess said. “That’s awesome and unbelievable at the same time.”

“I was pretty sure,” Luke said, disbelief in his voice. “But telling myself I wasn’t right at the same time. How are you doing?”

“I’m angry.” Colt paced the room, rubbing the back of his neck to ease the knot of tension throbbing there. “I have a child and nobody thought it was my business to be told.” He glared at the ceiling, words stuck in his throat. “It stinks.”

Both brothers agreed.

“So, what did Annie say?” Luke asked.

He told them the story. They listened intently, and he felt justified in his feelings as he watched their expressions mirror the emotions that were warring inside him.

When he was done talking, Luke’s brown eyes held his. “Colt, I love you, brother, but I’m going to say this because I need to know your thoughts. You fathered a child with a woman you didn’t know. I’m not sure if you should have expected anything.”

“Don’t think I don’t get that. I messed up. Seems like I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. If I could go back and change my behavior, I would. But that’s not going to change the facts. No, I shouldn’t have expected anything. I take full responsibility. But that doesn’t change the way I feel. I feel cheated.”

“The past is the past,” Jess said, his jaw tensed. “What happens now?”

“I start supporting my son. I take financial responsibility for him, and that means I get a job that’ll pay those expenses.”

Luke looked thoughtful. “How did he take the news that you’re his dad?”

“I haven’t told him.”

“When are you going to do that?” Luke prodded him.

Colt took a deep breath and prepared for the worst. “I’m not.”

Jess cocked his head to the side and his blue eyes narrowed. “Did I hear you right?”

Luke’s eyes darkened like muddy waters but he didn’t say anything, just waited for Colt to explain himself. He had known they wouldn’t understand. “You heard me right. I’m taking financial responsibility, but he doesn’t need to know anything else.”

“Yeah, he does.” Luke stood, a challenge in his eyes. “That boy is yours, Colt Holden. You fathered him and he deserves to know who his father is. He deserves to wear the Holden name. I don’t care if you want him to or not, you need to take responsibility and do the right thing.”

Colt had always idolized his oldest brother. Looked up to him as if he was his dad, because for all intents and purposes Luke had been the one to make sure he was fed, clothed and got to school on time. Seeing the disappointment in him caused a rip of regret inside Colt. “It’s for the best. I killed that family. I don’t deserve to be called a hero, much less Leo’s daddy,” he said, repeating the words he’d said to Annie. Both brothers glared at him.

“Come on, man,” Jess snapped. “What do we have to do to get it through your thick skull that you need to move on? That wreck was a stinkin’ horrible tragedy, but I’m tired of tiptoeing around the fact that it wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t a thing you could have done about it. Do I feel sorry for that family? Yes, I do. But what you’re doing is a waste. You’re taking on something that isn’t yours to carry. You were just as much a victim of that drunk as they were.”

Colt clenched his jaw and held Jess’s glare. “I didn’t expect y’all to understand. The thing is, I don’t need you to. I’m here to find out what I should be doing on the ranch while I figure out what my next move is going to be. I have some job opportunities that I’ve been offered. I just need to decide which is the right one.”

Luke had remained silent, sitting back in his chair. Then he said, “Jess is heading out tomorrow and has several loads scheduled over the next few weeks before his wedding. You can take over feeding the cows.”

“I’ll start this afternoon.” He was glad that at least Luke was holding his opinion to himself. Luke didn’t have to say anything for Colt to know he wasn’t happy. But, unlike Jess, Luke was staying out of it. At least for now.

Chapter Nine

A
nnie took Leo to eat at Sam’s diner for breakfast on Saturday morning. She’d heard it was a really neat little place and had the best breakfast in the area. She’d also heard about Applegate Thornton and Stanley Orr. Having met them briefly when she and Leo had attended church, she was curious to see them playing checkers, which, to quote Norma Sue and Esther Mae, “was all the two old coots did.”

“Aw, wow,” Leo gushed the instant they stepped through the doors of the rustic diner. “That smells awesome!”

Annie’s stomach growled at the scent of eggs and bacon and sweet molasses wafting from the kitchen. At a nearby table a cowboy was coating a tall stack of pancakes with thick syrup. There was no mistaking what Leo was going to order the instant they sat down.

“Howdy there, little lady and little fella,” Stanley said, sitting across from the thin, dour-faced Applegate. “Y’all come fer some of Sam’s home cookin’?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Stanley.” Leo had made fast friends with the plump-faced, good-natured man. “We come to get some pancakes.”

“They’re good, ain’t that right, App?”

“Yup,” App grunted, studying the checkerboard with scowling eyes.

Leo walked over and stuffed his fists to his hips as he studied the checkerboard. App turned his head, and he and Leo were almost at eye level. Annie hid a smile when App’s frown tilted upward—it was impossible to ignore Leo’s bright-eyed curiosity.

“You like checkers?” App asked Leo.

“I don’t play ’em,” Leo said. “But you play ’em good.”

Stanley chuckled. “App wishes.”

Annie took a seat in the booth across from App and Stanley. Leo climbed into the seat across from her and placed his elbows on the table. “Man, don’t them pancakes smell good!”

Sam came out of the kitchen. He was about four foot nine, bowlegged and wrinkled all over. He had a grin that reached in deep, and warm eyes shining from his well-weathered face. “I learned ta make my pancakes from my granddaddy, and since I was eatin’ those pancakes before I was yor age, I can vouch fer the recipe.”

“What’ll you have?” Sam asked Annie.

“I’ll just have a plate of bacon and eggs and some toast. From what I hear, you fix a mean egg.”

“The meanest. Orange juice for ya both?”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“We’re glad y’all have come ta town,” Stanley said, jumping App’s checker with one of his own.

App frowned. “Shor are. We hear Colt had ta save y’all from a mad momma cow the other mornin’.”

“He sure did.” Leo beamed, happy to talk about his favorite subject. “He jumped a fence and ran that mean ol’ cow plumb off.”

Annie had been trying not to think about Colt for the last couple of days. The man had reasons for not wanting to tell Leo he was his daddy, and she’d been trying to justify his actions with those reasons. But she just kept coming up short. Try as she might, Annie couldn’t let him off that easy. After all, he’d seen Leo. Knew what a great kid he was and still turned his back on him. She’d known all her life what it felt like to know her parents hadn’t wanted her or her sister. She just couldn’t understand the man...and she couldn’t forgive him for what he was doing.

Hearing Leo tell App, Stanley and Sam how wonderful he was made her want to scream. It didn’t matter that Colt had just found out about his son. And she’d thought hard about it, and decided it didn’t matter if he was hurting from the wreck. Now that he knew about Leo, he should have embraced his son.

Until he acknowledges Leo, she had no respect for the man. None.

* * *

The church service was already halfway done when Colt slipped into the back pew beside App. He’d tried hard to talk himself out of coming and he’d almost succeeded. It had been out of honor for the Eversons that he’d come. And to see Leo.

Colt had stayed away from Annie and Leo for almost a week, but it had been hard to do. To his surprise App didn’t give him a scowl for his lateness, but instead he grinned and held out his hand for a handshake.

“Good to have you here,” he said, his greeting so loud due to his hard hearing that several heads turned his way. Leo was one of them. As if drawn to the little eyes peeking over the pew three rows up, Colt zeroed in on Leo almost instantly.

His son yanked on Annie’s shirtsleeve. “Colt’s here,” he whispered. “I can see him.”

“Shhh, Leo, the preacher is about to speak.”

Colt pulled his gaze away from the back of Annie’s glossy hair. Her shoulders had stiffened when she’d realized he’d sat down somewhere behind her. He knew she wasn’t any happier with him than he was with her. She tilted her head slightly and whispered into Leo’s ear. Her lips curved into a soft smile as she spoke.

He wasn’t here to think about her.

He was here because, since learning he was a father, he’d been rethinking some things about his life. He had no right to feel the pride and joy that he felt thinking about Leo being his child. But he felt it, and with that he also felt a sense of responsibility. He’d not cared if he lived or died since the wreck, but Leo’s appearance had given him a reason to start living again. He needed to support his son. He needed to provide a good life for him. He’d come here today not only to search for answers, but also because he wanted to see Leo.

Colt wasn’t up to telling Leo who he was yet, but as a man Leo looked up to, Colt knew it was time to step up and meet that challenge in a positive way. Coming to church was a step in the right direction.

Did it matter that he had lost confidence in God’s reasoning? That was a question Colt couldn’t answer right now. Or was it more important to be here, showing Leo that he did have faith? Shaky faith right now, but faith all the same.

Chance Turner, a former bull rider and rodeo preacher, was now the pastor of the tiny church. He met Colt’s gaze from the pulpit and gave him a tip of his head and a smile. Colt knew that Chance understood some of what he was feeling. Colt had talked with him when he’d first come home after being stomped by the bull. He’d urged Colt to hang on to his faith with his fingernails if that was what it took, but not to turn his back on God. That was what Colt was trying to do. His fingernails felt broken and bleeding at times—it was so hard to cling to something when there seemed to be nothing to latch on to. What God had allowed to happen was still impossible to understand.

But he was here. Hoping God was trying to hang on to him just as hard.

* * *

“Heya, Colt,” Leo called the minute the church service ended and everyone started moving from their pews and heading outside.

Annie watched helplessly as Leo shot past her and chased after Colt’s rigid form. All she could do was follow the crowd out into the sunlight and the inevitable meeting. She’d struggled to listen to Pastor Chance the entire service, because she knew this meeting was coming soon after Adela began playing the benediction.

“Colt, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Norma Sue said, barreling into Colt’s path—halting his forward movement and causing Annie’s insides to knot. There was no way Norma Sue and Esther Mae had made it down the aisle that fast. Nope, the two ladies must have spotted Colt, busted out the side door and raced down the sidewalk in order to cut him off at the pass, in order to stop him before he reached the parking lot.

“Coming out to visit you has been heavy on our minds,” Esther Mae said, patting his arm and grinning. “We just can’t let a strong, good-hearted cowboy like you waste away out there, so we were going to bring you some food this afternoon.”

Leo was beaming up at them like a beacon of fluorescent light that matched the canary-yellow dress Esther Mae wore. Annie couldn’t very well walk on by and make a run for her car—no matter how much the thought appealed to her.
Waste away
—Annie caught those words and her eyes zeroed in on the hard biceps Esther Mae had hold of. The man was brokenhearted and hardheaded, but he was surely not wasting away. Yes, he was thinner than his pictures but not withered...not by a long shot. The thought almost had her tripping over her own feet, but she managed to stumble to a halt right before she reached them. She tore her eyes off where they’d locked on to his biceps and instantly met Colt’s stare. A heated blush rose up, stinging her cheeks at the realization that he’d caught her staring at his muscles. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen a man’s muscles before.

The twinkle in Esther Mae’s eye told Annie that the matchmaking posse hadn’t missed her interest in Colt, either. Literally swallowing a groan, Annie thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse—until Leo proved her wrong.

“Colt, I want to learn to ride a bull. And I want
you
to teach me.”

Annie choked, coughing real hard and wheezing in just enough air to inflate her suddenly airless windpipes. “No...” she sputtered, looking from Leo to Colt.

As if to reassure her, Colt’s eyes softened when they met hers. “That’s not something a little boy your age needs to think about right now.”

“Why not? I want to learn to ride like you.”

She hadn’t considered this until now, and her fear of it must have shown in her face, because everyone began telling Leo why he was too young to even think about riding a bull.

“Can you teach me to rope then? I really wanna learn.
Please,
” Leo begged.

Colt swallowed hard, meeting her glare. Her stomach turned over looking at him, and her anger at him not admitting that he was Leo’s dad shot it through the roof. Did that stop the hard-nosed man from toying with his child? Oh no, it did not.

“Sure,” he said in the next breath. “I can teach you to do that.”

If the whole town, and especially the sharp-eyed posse, hadn’t been milling about, Annie might have stomped his toe with the heel of her shoe. Instead she clamped her mouth shut, and locked her arms across her middle, instead of punching him in the arm.

“That sounds like a plan, little man.” Norma Sue slapped Colt on the shoulder. “Colt might make his fame and fortune on the backs of bulls, but he used to make a lot of rodeo winnings roping, too.”

“Can you teach me today?” Leo persisted. “I can come over and we can practice on your roping dummy.”

Annie wanted to protest, but before she could get so much as a squeak out, Colt was telling Leo that coming to his house sounded like a great plan.

Annie wanted to hit the man with her purse.

“What time should they be there?” Esther Mae asked, shocking Annie by her question.

“Yes,” Norma Sue added. “We’ll bring our casseroles out either before or after y’all have your roping lesson, so that we don’t get in y’all’s way.”

Lacy Matlock, who’d been in conversation with another group of ladies, walked over toward Annie. She’d obviously overheard the conversation going on between Colt and the ladies and Leo, because her blue eyes were twinkling with mirth.

“You know what’s going on, don’t you?” she whispered, a grin spread across her friendly expression. “They’ve found their new match. And it looks good from all of our viewpoints.”

Annie’s mouth fell open. “A match,” she gasped in a strangled whisper, turning to Lacy. “But what do I do?” She didn’t need the ever-persistent matchmaking posse of Mule Hollow latching on to the idea of her and Colt as a possible love match! It stole her breath, even as an unwanted tremor of awareness swept through her.

“Not sure there is anything to do but be aware of what’s going on. I have to say, though, that you and Leo seem to be bringing Colt back to life. And that has nothing whatsoever to do with the posse’s shenanigans.”

Annie opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it and clamped her lips tight. She couldn’t tell anyone that Leo being his son was affecting Colt this way. “He likes Leo,” she whispered urgently. “It has absolutely nothing to do with me.
Nothing
. Why, we fight most of the time.” She was ready to fight the man right now.

Lacy chuckled. “That’s called sparks—and the posse can spot a spark from miles away.” She winked and went back to her prior conversation, leaving Annie frustrated.

Annie’s stomach roiled furiously in denial. But she knew some of it was true. At least on her part. But sparks or no sparks, disagreeing about Leo put out any fires that the sparks might cause.

She turned back to the conversation. Colt’s warm brown eyes met hers and Annie felt as if she were melting inside.

Suddenly she knew she was in big trouble in more ways than one. Because this was not at all what she wanted to feel. But she did.

* * *

It was a perfect summer day—if you called ninety degrees in the shade perfect. And Colt did, especially since he had Leo standing beside him in his yard.

“That’s good, Leo,” Colt said, watching Leo’s loop fly toward the roping dummy six feet away.

“I can do better,” Leo said when it missed. With determination in his voice, he pulled his rope back and coiled it as Colt had shown him.

His son had a good eye, great coordination and an insatiable persistence to be good at what he did. At his young age, if harnessed and focused it could take him far. Pride warmed through him like sunlight rolling from behind a cloud.
My son.

“You keep practicing. I’m going to go over there and talk to your aunt for a few minutes. Is that all right?”

“Sure it is. Annie Aunt looks kinda sad today. I don’t think she wanted to come watch me chunk this rope.”

Colt had noticed the way Annie looked, though, and it wasn’t sadness that he was seeing. It was pure and simple anger. She’d been cold to him ever since he’d given her that check and told her he wanted his identity kept secret.

She stiffened when he sank to the steps beside her. He needed to get some decent outdoor chairs for the small porch, but he’d been fine sitting on the steps when he came outside. A woman would like a chair, he figured—not that Annie planned to be coming over all the time. He had a feeling Leo had been absolutely correct when he’d said she hadn’t wanted to come.

She scooted away from him on the step, and it was all he could do not to move closer to her. He’d been thinking of Annie a lot. As much as he’d been thinking about his newfound son. There was no denying that he was mad at her, purely aggravated that she’d kept his son from him. But late into the night, when sleep evaded him and he’d been sitting here on this very step listening to the sounds of the forest at 2:00 a.m., he’d admitted to himself it was more. Annie drew him; something about her spoke to the unrest in his soul.