Kissed by a Cowboy (4 page)

He was proud of the place. It wasn't new, not
by any stretch, but he'd replaced the roof a couple years ago, and
it was clean and the animals were well-cared-for.

"You know, I think I only ever came out here
once when I knew..." She paused and seemed to shake off the words
"Back in high school. The place looks totally different."

"Good." He ran a much tighter ship than his
father ever had, and it showed.

"Uh, the junior high principal called again,"
Ryan said as they headed toward the barn door.

"Something about Livy?" Haley asked.

Maddox shook his head. The man wanted Maddox
to teach a class and coach the junior high football team. Mostly
coach.

And Maddox might have considered it if he had
the college degree everyone in Redbud Trails thought he did. The
job wouldn't make him rich, but it would be better than traveling
all summer, and it would be a steady supplement to the income they
got from the cattle and small crops they were able to raise.

They left the barn behind and crossed the
short field toward the house. He noticed the fifteen-year-old Ford
she'd parked in the drive, her aunt's truck.

"How big is this ice cream thing?" he asked.
He'd cleared a spot on the counter, but maybe he should have asked
for dimensions before he agreed to house it in his kitchen.

"Well, it took three college guys to load it
in my aunt's truck."

"Sounds like you need me, too." Ryan winked
and flexed a bicep.

Maddox rolled his eyes. He might have been
worried about Ryan moving in on Haley, except he knew his cousin
was hung up on his high school crush. She'd joined the military and
had been stationed overseas when she was injured. Now she was in a
military hospital stateside. Ryan had been in love with her since
high school. Never really looked at another woman.

Haley rounded the truck on the opposite side
and threw back a brown tarp, revealing a plastic-wrapped stainless
steel box about the size of an ice chest.

"That's it?" he asked. "The
magic machine?"
Which cost so much
money...

"Yep. You guys got it?" She didn't wait for
an answer. She opened the cab door and stuck her head inside the
truck.

The machine was heavier than he thought it
would be, and Ryan hopped in the truck bed to push it toward the
edge.

When they hefted it between them, she met
them carrying a cardboard box.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Early birthday gift for Olivia."

He opened his mouth to protest, but Ryan
shifted the machine, jiggling it. "Mad, c'mon. This is heavy. Let's
move."

He ground his back teeth and headed for the
house.

She trailed them toward the porch steps, a
couple steps behind.

"Do you really call him that?" she asked.

"Everyone else calls him Mad Dog. High school
football nickname," Ryan grunted. "Why?"

"It seems like it would be a
self-fulfilling prophecy. Like if you expect him to be
Mad
, he will be. Why not
something like Joy or Sunshine?"

She said it with such a straight face that at
first Maddox didn't catch that she was joking.

Ryan burst out laughing.

She quirked a smile at Maddox, and he almost
missed the first step. He bobbled but caught himself with only a
knock of one knee on the porch post.

"I suppose it is kind of a
natural evolution from
Maddox
. But still...what's your middle
name?"

Maddox wasn't saying.

"William," Ryan offered.

They finally cleared the stairs, and Maddox
realized she would have to open the door for them. He moved
forward, shoving the machine into his cousin's chest in retaliation
for making fun of him.

Ryan's eyes danced.

"Hmm...you could've been a Will. Not a
Billy," she said as they carried the machine past her and through
the living room and on into the kitchen.

"Why not shorten it
to
Ox
?" he
muttered. "That's what I feel like right now.".

Ryan froze, bringing the two of them up
short, and looked at him over the top of the machine with an odd
look on his face. Olivia, who was sitting on the far side of the
counter, dropped her jaw.

Then his cousin laughed, a surprised burst of
sound. "Did you just crack a joke?" Ryan asked.

Maddox ignored him as they maneuvered around
the island to the space he'd cleared on the back counter. Finally,
he put the machine down, arms aching, and turned to see Haley
smiling down at the countertop.

"Who told a joke?" Justin asked, limping into
the room, one crutch under his arm. He'd actually come out of his
seclusion to watch the spectacle?

"Uncle M, I think," Olivia piped, her face
scrunched in confusion.

The tips of Maddox's ears got hot. Had it
really been such a long time since he'd made a wisecrack?

Luckily, Olivia's excitement seemed to
distract his brother and cousin. She rushed to the machine, bumping
past Maddox's elbow in the process. He overheard Haley murmur a
soft 'hello' to his brother as she set her box down on the island
counter.

Olivia started tugging at the plastic, but it
wasn't coming off easy.

"Do you have some scissors? A box knife?"
Haley asked.

"I'll do it," Ryan said cheerfully, digging
in his jeans' pocket and coming up with a pocketknife. "Then I've
got to get to the Reynolds'."

In moments, the plastic was shredded around
the stainless steel box.

"It's awesome," Livy breathed.

"It's a hunk of metal," Maddox argued. It
pretty much was, with a small door on top and some buttons and a
dispenser on the front.

Haley wrinkled her nose at him. "Just wait
'til you taste the magic that comes out of this baby." She started
removing the plastic wrapping and crumpling the pieces between her
hands.

"I'm out," said Ryan with a wave. He slipped
through the back door, the girls chorusing "Bye," behind him.

Maddox leaned against the far counter and
watched as Haley and Olivia made over the machine, Haley focusing
as much on the girl as on the machine in front of them. Maddox
wondered if she even remembered he and Justin were in the room.
"We'll need to clean it first," she said.

Maddox was surprised his brother was still
here. Justin had been a bull rider until that accident. It was one
thing to get thrown from a bull, but to be trampled by one, too? It
had resulted in a career-ending injury—a fractured pelvis. Now,
Justin was all but a hermit, limping around the house and battling
depression.

But here he was, easing himself down into a
kitchen chair and watching the two girls as they disassembled the
guts of the machine and dunked them in a sinkful of hot, sudsy
water.

"What flavor are you going to try first?"
Haley asked.

"I was thinking about something fun, like
this recipe I created for banana split." Olivia's voice sounded
metallic as she leaned in close, her arm inside the machine as she
extracted its guts.

"But then I thought for the first try, maybe
I should go with something standard, like vanilla."

"Can't go wrong with a longstanding
favorite," Haley said. She scrubbed one of the parts, then rinsed
it and set it on a dishtowel to one side of the sink. She'd made
herself right at home. She and Olivia were two of a kind, Olivia's
dark curls at Haley's auburn shoulder, both of them washing up.

He'd thought she would drop off the machine
and be in a hurry to leave. Apparently he'd been wrong.

And then she looked over her shoulder, right
at him. "So what's for supper, boys?"

He hadn't thought she would stay. But
Olivia's face was all lit up, and he found himself saying, "I can
fire up the grill..."

"Uncle Justin makes a mean barbecued
chicken," Olivia said, then sent an uncertain look over her
shoulder, as if she might've blundered by saying so.

Justin had been so closed in his own little
world since his injury, temper close to the surface and frequently
boiling over.

Maddox had shouted louder than a coach from
the sidelines after he'd let Olivia ride off to town the other day.
The younger man hadn't even noticed she'd been gone, too dazed and
drugged on pain meds.

But now Justin met Olivia's gaze squarely,
his expression clear-eyed for the first time in a long time.

"If I can get a pretty girl to hold the
platter for me, I'll give it a shot."

Haley laughed, drying her hands. She threw
her arm around Livy's shoulders. "Do you think he was talking about
you or me?"

She wasn't quite the shy girl he remembered.
She'd matured, but her gentle spirit was still there. He watched as
the girls shifted from the now drying equipment to Olivia's
notebook and bent over it.

He could almost feel himself falling for her
again.

But that was dangerous.

He wasn't the same boy he'd been back then,
either. He was a college dropout whose dreams had been put on hold
forever.

He didn't know how to dream anymore.

#

Even though
Justin flirted with Haley under the guise of teasing Livy, she knew
he was harmless. There was something broken behind his
eyes.

It was Maddox's sometimes-hot,
sometimes-angsty gaze that she couldn't ignore.

It sent prickles up the back of her neck and
made her fidgety as she and Olivia reassembled the blast freezer.
At least she could pretend her fumbling was because the machine was
new to them.

Finally, they got it back together.

"This is a great spot for it," she told
Olivia. It really was. A wide swath of bare cabinet halfway between
the stovetop and sink, with access to the island in the middle of
the kitchen.

"Uncle Maddox moved some stuff around so it
would fit."

"Oh, he did?"

Now that Olivia had mentioned it, the
microwave was a newer model that didn't match the rest of the worn
appliances. The microwave had been mounted above the stove, and
freshly cut wood showed on the cabinets where he might've cut them
to make it fit.

Haley flicked a gaze to Maddox. The tips of
his ears had gone pink, just like Olivia's had the other day. An
adorable shared family trait.

"Kitchen needed updating," he muttered
beneath his breath. "Got to start the grill." He moved away,
slipping out the back door.

Justin stayed, pushing himself slowly out of
the chair and shuffling around the counter on his crutch. "Outta my
way, cuties."

"But we have to start our base," Olivia
protested. She was practically vibrating with excitement, bouncing
on the balls of her feet.

"If you want my special chicken you've got to
let me marinate it for a few minutes, Livy-Skivvy."

"Uncle Justin!" Olivia's token protest and
giggle showed she wasn't too old yet for the silly nickname.

"I've got something for you first anyway,"
Haley said, drawing Olivia away.

A small alcove made a nice breakfast nook,
and Haley well remembered sitting at the small, round table with
Katie in the wee hours of the night, talking about boys. Dreaming
about Maddox.

She shook away the memories and moved her box
from the island to the table.

"You brought me something?" The hesitant hope
in Olivia's voice pinched Haley's heart.

She sat down and motioned the girl next to
her. Olivia stepped up to the table.

"The restaurant was liquidating, so I grabbed
them for a great price. You've got to have the right tools, don't
you?"

Olivia exclaimed over the stainless steel
pans they could use to make an ice bath, the industrial whisk and
strainer, and the two pots, all of which Haley had tucked into the
cardboard box.

The restaurant owner had given it to Haley
for a steep discount, happy to be rid of them.

"Here's the best part," Haley said. She took
out the small white gift box she'd tucked in the bottom of the
bigger cardboard box.

Olivia unfolded the lid almost reverently.
"Is this...what I think it is?"

She took out the child-sized apron that Haley
had sewn for her. White with vibrant red flowers all over, ruffled
on the edges. Similar to the adult-sized one Olivia had worn at
Aunt Matilda's last week, when they'd first bonded over their
shared love of food.

And the most important part, in the center of
the midsection, an embroidered logo. Olivia's ice cream logo.

The little girl was silent for a long moment,
and Haley wondered if something was wrong, until Livy spun and
threw her arms around Haley, burying her face against Haley's
shoulder.

Haley blinked back the hot moisture that
wanted to pool in her eyes. She hadn't meant to get emotional.

"Happy birthday," she whispered.

"Thank you, thank you!" Olivia came away,
slipping the apron over her head and reaching behind to tie the
bow. She danced over to her uncle at the counter. "Uncle Justin,
look!"

He smiled his approval.

Olivia ran outside, calling, "Uncle
Maddox..." her voice faded as the screen door slammed behind
her.

And Haley was left alone with Maddox's
younger brother.

She let her eyes skim around the room. It was
much the same as she remembered, the pale green walls, the same
cabinets and countertops. The womanly touches were gone. There was
still a dishtowel hanging from a towel rack where Katie's mother
had always kept it, but all of her knickknacks were gone.

It was plain, but homey, too.
Comfortable.

And then she had nothing else to look at but
Justin. He continued working with the raw chicken breasts on the
cutting board, but he must've sensed her perusal.

"Nice gift," he said. "Nice of you to give
her the machine, too."