How to Kiss a Cowboy (29 page)

The
father.

The words hit Suze like a jolt of electricity—quick, hard, and painful. She parsed Earl's words in her head, once, twice, three times. There was only one way to interpret it.

“You're not my father.”

“I don't believe so.”

She'd always wondered why beautiful, talented Ellen Carlyle had married an insurance salesman. Now, it turned out she'd trapped him into marriage—trapped him with a lie.

Suze suddenly couldn't sit another second, despite her ankle. She shoved her side of the bench back hard enough to shift Gwen, who clutched the edge of the table. Gwen probably wasn't used to being pushed around.

Suze crossed the kitchen and leaned against the counter by the sink, folding her arms over her chest. She might not be sitting in the corner, but that was how she felt: cornered, by Gwen and Earl and this revelation.

How many times in her life had she wished for a different father, a different life? But now that the dream was real, it looked a whole lot less attractive. She wished she could turn back the clock, pretend she'd never been told.

Bracing her hands on the counter, she glanced around the familiar kitchen. It felt far too small to hold her emotions, but it was all she had.

All
she
had.

She used to think her father was all she had. He was her only family—or so she'd believed. But he wasn't even related to her. She had nothing. Nobody.

An
orphan.

Her mind kept stuttering and stalling, gears grinding, wheels spinning. She looked at her father—at Earl; she should probably call him Earl now—hoping for some reassurance that she mattered to him anyway. He was still staring at the tabletop, avoiding her gaze.

She had never felt so alone in her life.

And then she had a thought. A hopeful thought. One that could change everything.

“So who's my father?”

Maybe he was someone
normal.
Maybe he'd moved on after her mother married Earl. Maybe he'd had another family, a whole pack of kids who would be her half brothers and half sisters. Maybe she wasn't alone at all.

She stared at her used-to-be father. He looked about as defeated and ashamed as a man could look. He'd lied to her all her life. Kept her with him, even though she didn't really belong to him. Kept her from that other life. Surely it would have been better. Surely her real father would have loved her, at least a little.

“Who was he?” she insisted.

Her father got out an ancient and yellowed envelope. “Private” was scrawled on the front in black marker, and the flap was taped down. Suze had seen it before, at the bottom of her father's file cabinet, and been tempted to peek. But she never had.

Her dad dumped out a pile of photos and clippings. He turned away, as if he couldn't bear to look.

“Your father,” he said.

Suze pushed off the counter and sat down to look. They were old photos, most of them candid snapshots. Every one featured a tall, good-looking cowboy with a James Dean slouch. He stared insolently at the camera in every picture. He always had a toothpick or a cigarette stuck in his mouth, and in many of the photos he was shirtless.

The clippings were mostly from old rodeo magazines, although a few were from South Dakota newspapers. They showed him riding bucking horses, heels down, free hand high, the toothpick still miraculously dangling from his lips.

He was handsome, he was young, and despite the faded color of the photos, Suze could see that his eyes were green. Her green eyes were the one thing that set her apart from her mother and from Earl.

He and her mother would have made a stunning couple. Why didn't she marry him?

“He was a rodeo cowboy named Slim Harris,” Gwen said.

Past
tense.

But of course. He wasn't
still
a rodeo cowboy. He was probably a rancher or a stock contractor. A lot of cowboys moved on to jobs like that.

Suze sorted through the pictures. She could see her own face in the shadows of Slim Harris's, like a ghostly imprint. Her full mouth, her strong nose—all the features that didn't match her mother's matched his.

She'd always thought her parents were an odd couple. They simply didn't go together, like dolls from two separate toy companies. As a child, her mom had tried to pass off some Barbie knockoffs as the real thing, but the fake Barbies just didn't look right next to the real ones.

That was how she'd thought of her father and mother: a pair that didn't quite match. As her memories of her mother faded, she had more and more trouble picturing them together.

But she could see her mother with Slim Harris.

“Why didn't she marry him?” Suze asked.

Her father winced as if the words hurt, and Suze wished she'd asked some other way. She hadn't meant to hurt him.

“She figured I was a better bet,” he said. “I had a job, and I didn't have anything to do with rodeo.”

“And Slim?”

“He was a wild one.” Gwen smiled as if she'd liked Suze's father. “He rode like a demon and drank like a fish. Your mother knew he'd make a terrible father, if he'd even marry her.”

So much for that ray of sunlight. She doubted there'd be any joyful reunion with her real father.

“Was she right?”

Gwen nodded. “He found out she was marrying your dad and went on a toot that lasted for months. Rodeo to rodeo, bar to bar. They finally took his PRCA card away because he showed up drunk so many times. Then all he could do was small-town stuff.” Gwen's brown eyes sought Suze's, and the sympathy in them made her feel even worse. “He rode a bronc at a ranch rodeo he'd saddled himself while he was drunk. The cinch was loose, and when the saddle slipped—well, he didn't make it.” Gwen shook her head sadly. “You weren't even a year old.”

“So she tricked my dad into marrying her. And broke my real father's heart so he self-destructed.” She put a fist to her mouth as emotions threatened to overwhelm her. Did you cry for a father you'd never known? Or for a mother you suddenly did?

“She didn't mean to hurt people,” Gwen said. “She had no idea the destruction she left behind when she went on to her next win, her next triumph.”

Suze's mind was a whirl of spinning thoughts, truth and lies blending together until she couldn't tell one from the other. A question for her father finally flew out of the mix.

“Why were you mourning her, then? She lied to you. She cheated. Why did you stop living when she died?”

“She was a different person when she got sick. She was good to me then.” He shook his head, chuckling softly as if he couldn't quite believe what had happened. “We fell in love. We really did. And then she died.”

It took Suze a while to grasp what he was saying. Finally, she said, “You were mourning what could have been.”

“What should have been,” Earl said. “Her illness made her realize how precious even the most ordinary life is. Even the most ordinary love.”

Gwen had slid over on the bench so she sat across from Earl. As Suze struggled to sort out her feelings, Gwen reached over and clasped her father's—Earl's—hand. The gesture was simple, but there was so much affection in it that Suze suddenly wished, with all her heart, that her father would have the sense to see the bright-eyed girl inside Gwen's body. It was obvious she cared for him.

Suddenly, two pieces of information came together for her, like pieces of a puzzle. “The man who broke your heart,” she said to Gwen. “He was…” She suddenly realized she might be outing a secret. “Never mind.”

“No, you're right. He was me.” Earl turned his hand over to clasp Gwen's. “I was a fool.”

He looked like a fool, the way he was looking at Gwen now. She'd never seen her father's face soften like that. All the hard lines and creases relaxed, and he looked like a different person.

Good for Earl. Good for Gwen. But it was hard to celebrate their long-delayed love affair when she'd just discovered everything about her life, from her birth to her mother to her father himself, was a lie. There were hidden reasons behind every hurt, and nothing was as it seemed.

“No wonder you never loved me.” The words came out flat and emotionless. She felt numb, stupefied by the sudden onslaught of truth. “I wasn't even your child.”

“I did my best,” he said.

“You made me feel so bad. Comparing me to her. Making me feel like I was never good enough. Why did you make her out to be so perfect when you knew she wasn't?”

“I didn't realize how you'd take it. I was trying to make sure you knew she was special, that's all. She wanted you to be a champion, like her, and I thought I should push you.”

“Men don't get it,” Gwen said. “They don't understand emotions unless you run them over with a tractor. Then they understand what pain is.” Her brown eyes met Suze's. “He didn't realize you thought you weren't good enough. He just wanted to give you an example to live up to, that's all. And he wanted you to love your mother.”

Earl ran a shaky hand over the thin strands of his comb-over and cleared his throat. “I wanted you to have one parent you could look up to.”

A new truth flooded into Suze's heart. If Earl wasn't her father, then he owed her nothing. Once her mother died, he could have walked away. With her father long dead, she would have been an orphan for real.

She thought of the kids at Phoenix House, fatherless and motherless because no one cared enough to take them in. Maybe Earl had made her feel bad about herself, but how bad would she have felt if he'd dropped her off at some adoption agency and left?

She needed to think, and she couldn't do that with Gwen and Earl staring at her. Opening the refrigerator, she faked interest in the scant supplies on the lighted shelves. The thought of eating made her gag, but once she regained her self-control she knew what to say. Everything had changed, nothing was as it seemed, but there was one truth at the heart of this mess: Earl had taken care of her when he could have walked away. He wasn't made to be a father. It didn't come easy for him. But he'd tried.

She closed the fridge and turned around.

“If I'd known the truth, I would have looked up to you, Dad.” She felt tears building up, hot behind her eyes. “You didn't have to take care of Mom when she got sick. You didn't have to raise me. You could have walked away from both of us as soon as you found out about my father.”

“I couldn't.”

“I know.” Suze set a hand lightly on his shoulder. They rarely touched, and now she understood why. Raising a teenaged girl who wasn't your kin was a delicate operation. “You might be a grumpy old cuss, but you took care of me.” She put her other hand on his other shoulder and squeezed.

It was as close as she dared come to a hug.

Suze woke the next morning with her hair looking like a bird's nest gone terribly wrong. She had a habit of playing with it when she was emotionally distraught, and evidently she'd been distraught even in her sleep.

As she tugged a brush through the tangles, she winced at the pain and thought about the revelations of the night before. Oddly, she wasn't that surprised by the truth about her mother. Something had always seemed off about her father's grief.

She picked up the photo of her mom that sat by her bedside. She could see nuances in that face now, where once she'd seen only perfection—a shadow, maybe, deep in her eyes. Had she loved Suze's father? Had she mourned his death?

She tugged at a knot in her hair and looked at herself in the mirror. Who was that person? She wasn't Earl's daughter or the child of a brilliant, saintly barrel racer. She was herself, a woman alone. Her strength, her will to win, and her smarts were all she had.

Except…

She looked down at her little dog and sighed. “I miss him, Dooley.”

Dooley sat at her feet, gazing up at her with unaccustomed gravity.

“But how can I trust him? He had another woman's underwear in his truck. I'd be a fool to call him. Wouldn't I?”

The little demon in her heart nodded yes. Dooley whimpered. Picking him up, she held him close. He needed a good brushing too. But first, she needed to solve the Brady problem.

“I can't help it. I just can't believe he'd lie to me. I mean, he's Brady. You wouldn't think he'd be
able
to lie.”

She kissed the dog and set him down. “I need facts. Hard, cold facts. Maybe I could go to the reservation and find this Teresa person.” She looked down at the dog, who was panting with excitement. “Is that what I should do, Dooley? Should I go out there? Should I find out?”

Dooley punctuated her questions with a tremendous leap that landed him on top of the vanity. Well, that explained the recent disappearance of her toothbrush—and the minty-fresh scent as Dooley panted in her face.

“You think I should, don't you? You think I should find out.”

Jumping off the vanity, Dooley squatted at her feet and peed on the floor.

“Oh,” she said. “You think
you
should
go
out.”

Grabbing a paper towel from under the sink, she cleaned up the mess. She didn't scold the dog. It wasn't his fault he'd had an accident. She'd been so involved with herself and her troubles she hadn't even realized the dog had been shut in her room all night with no access to his doggie door.

Just another example of what a crappy person she was. She couldn't even take care of a dog.

But she could walk now, and she didn't see why she couldn't drive. To hell with what the doctor said. She was heading out to the rez, and she was going to find out the truth about that bag of size-four, sexy clothes.

* * *

By late afternoon, Suze was losing her enthusiasm for her fact-finding mission. She didn't know where Teresa lived. She didn't know the woman's last name either, so she couldn't look her up or ask for directions. And she'd forgotten how big the reservation was—how many roads there were, how many little houses. Teresa could be anywhere.

She wasn't sure she wanted the truth anyway.

She was heading home when a cloud of dust in the road ahead cleared to reveal two small riders on fat spotted ponies tearing down the road like Butch and Sundance running from the law. She slowed as she passed them in case a horse spooked. The little outlaws looked as if they barely had the animals under control.

She'd left them behind before she remembered what Brady had said about Teresa of the sexy lingerie.
Two
little
boys…hard for her to handle…new ponies…

She jerked the truck to a screeching, dust-raising halt and rolled her window down, watching in her rearview mirror as the riders approached. They slowed, then stopped, staring curiously at the strange truck.

They probably knew better than to talk to strangers.

Just as she was about to drive off, one of the boys nudged his pony into motion and strolled up alongside her driver's side window with all the dignity of a state trooper making a traffic stop.

“Ma'am.” He tipped an incredibly dirty cowboy hat.

Suze rested her elbow on the car door. “Howdy.”

It was hard for her to keep a straight face. The kid was covered with dust from the top of his hat to the scuffed toes of his boots. He looked like a seasoned cowhand who'd been riding drag on a miniature cattle drive.

The other boy eased closer, hanging behind his brother. At least, she assumed they were brothers. They looked enough alike to be twins.

“You fellas know Brady Caine?” she asked.

The boy's serious face creased into a huge smile, showing two missing teeth that made her realize he was even younger than she'd thought. He must be seven, maybe eight at the most.

“Sure do,” he said. “He's teaching us to ride Apocalypse and Doom.”

“Apocalypse and Doom?”

“These horses, here.” He patted his mount's shoulder like a born cowboy. “This here's Apocalypse. My brother's horse is Doom.”

Apocalypse nodded his head as if acknowledging the introduction, then blew a massive raspberry, decorating Suze's elbow with horse snot.

“Brady's teaching you guys to ride?”

“Not really.”

Ah. Here came the truth.

“We already know how to ride.” The little cowboy's chest swelled with pride. “He's teaching us to ride like
champions
.”

There. That line had Brady written all over it. He'd told the truth; he was just teaching the woman's kids to ride. This Teresa might have put the clothes in Brady's car to spark his interest or to stake a claim. But Brady himself, like so many men, might be too dense to see what she was up to.

Why had she doubted him? Brady was right; love couldn't survive without trust and respect. He wasn't the one who was lacking in this relationship; she was.

Her mind backpedaled through their relationship, as off-balance as an amateur unicyclist on a downhill slope. She'd behaved so badly she couldn't help wondering about her own feelings. Did she love him? She didn't trust him, and that meant she didn't respect him. Without trust or respect, what was left? Sex. Sex and ownership. She wanted to
own
Brady, and that wasn't what love was about.

“Excuse me. Ma'am? Are you all right?”

She jerked out of her reverie to see the little cowboy staring at her. “Sure,” she said.

“Can we help you with something?”

“No,” she said. “No. I just—I bet Brady's a good teacher, huh?”

“He sure is.” The other boy edged forward with eagerness, his pony jockeying the other one aside. “And he's gonna marry our mom and be our new daddy.”

Oh.

Suze felt like the kid had whipped out a gun and shot her in the chest.

Looking from one boy to the other, she prayed for some sign of wishful thinking or outright lying, but all she got was great, gap-toothed grins of absolute certainty and a whole lot of nodding.

“You're sure about this?”

“Yup,” said the first boy. “He's gonna make an honest woman of her.”

Suze felt the jolt of this new knowledge like a knife in the heart.
An
honest
woman.
Then they'd already done the deed.

Only then did she realize that she hadn't really been on a fact-finding mission. She'd been hoping to discover Brady was telling the truth. But the real truth about Brady was something she didn't want to hear.

She waved good-bye to the little renegades, who took off at a gallop on their ponies. Putting the car in gear, she thought about where she should go from here.

Home. She'd go home—back to the barn, back to her horses and the only world she could trust. Her thoughts came back into balance, as if that unicycle rider was pedaling, smooth and steady, in a straight line. Brady might have taken away her hopes for love and a family, and he might have done a number on her confidence, but soon she'd be able to ride again.

She'd take a good horse over a man anyway. You could always trust a horse.