The Cowboy Rescues a Bride (Cowboys of Chance Creek) (8 page)

“And you figured this is the way you’d go about getting that chance? By making me look like an idiot? Grow up, Luke.”

“Grow up? Damn it—that’s what everyone says. What I want to know is how the hell can I grow up if no one is ever going to give me any responsibility?”

Ned heard the note of desperation in his brother’s voice and had a flash of insight. “This isn’t about the ranch at all, is it? This is about Mia.”

“No, it ain’t.”

“Yes, it is. She’s the one telling you to grow up, isn’t she? Why? What did you do to her?”

Luke lifted his hands up in air. “I didn’t do anything! She’s been acting weird for weeks. Friendly one minute, cold as ice the next. It’s your fault, too—it’s that baby thing.”

“Baby thing?”

“Mia was fine until you spilled the beans about Hannah being pregnant—back when we thought she was pregnant. That’s when Mia got all crazy.”

Ned thought back to when all three women had moved onto the ranch. Hannah and Jake had had an incident with their birth control and thought there was a chance Hannah had gotten pregnant. Since Hannah had just decided to go back to school, the news caused an uproar—an uproar he’d made use of to try to unseat Jake from heading up the ranch, in the same way Luke was trying to unseat him now. Ned grimaced at the irony, but what could you expect with his family? They were always at loggerheads for this exact reason—all of them wanted to be in charge.

“You’re blaming me because Mia got upset about Hannah being pregnant?”

“I’m blaming you because if you hadn’t announced it, I wouldn’t have said—” Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away.

“What did you say?” Something stupid, by the look on his brother’s face.

“When it looked like it wasn’t going to be true after all, I said, ‘No baby, no problem.’”

Ned chuckled. “Hell, you dug your own damn hole, then. Even I know better than to say something like that.”

“She’s held it against me ever since. I just said it—I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“But let me guess. Mia wants kids and now she thinks you don’t.”

Luke looked surprised. “How did you know that?”

“I’m not the idiot here.”

Luke let that go. “Now she won’t even date me. She won’t even let me touch her.”

No wonder why Luke was so cranky these days. “So tell her you want kids.”

“Just how in the hell am I supposed to start that conversation?” Color crept up Luke’s face and he kicked a can of paint sitting on the floor.

“Watch it.” Ned thought a minute. “That happened weeks ago and Mia is still living with you. If you’d screwed things up for good, she wouldn’t have stuck around this long. She must want to be with you. You just gotta get past this.”

“How?”

“You know people with kids. Talk to them. Play ball with them. Hold a baby. Mia will get the picture. And then talk to her, too. Even if it’s hard.”

“You think that will work?”

“I don’t see why not.”

After a moment, Luke nodded. “All right. I’ll do it.” Now he seemed as eager to leave as Ned was to have him go. He hesitated, then picked up the folders he dropped on the workbench earlier. “I’ll take care of this, too.”

Ned was relieved he’d taken the tax documents with him, but he hated the knowledge that here was another task related to the ranch that he couldn’t handle on his own.

The thought of approaching someone for help learning to read after all this time filled him with dread.

The alternative seemed little better.

“You work fast,”
Mia said several days later, studying the menu Fila had written up for her restaurant on her laptop.

“What do you think about it?” They were seated at the table in Mia and Luke’s cabin. Fila had to hide a smile every time she came over. As soon as she’d moved in, Mia had redecorated the place in bright pink. Everyone laughed when they saw it, but Mia didn’t seem to care. She simply declared her undying love for the color and told people if they didn’t like it they could leave.

No one did.

Like Camila, Mia was one of those women who seemed supremely self-possessed. Her tiny size, fashion sense and waist-length ponytail all combined to make her look like a wayward teenager, and her bubbly personality and ringing laugh turned heads wherever she went.

Why couldn’t she be like that, Fila wondered for the hundredth time. Mia was right—she should run the front of the restaurant. She’d be far better at dealing with customers than Fila ever would.

“I don’t know what all these dishes are. You need descriptions for each one. If you tell me about them I can help you write them up.” She wrinkled her nose. “That’s a spelling error. And here’s another one.” She went through the document and made corrections.

“I’m bad at spelling.”

“Well I’m not blaming you, I’m not much better,” Mia laughed. “How were you supposed to learn living in those mountains? I had a hard enough time here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Do you need any help with the food safety course?”

Fila had filled her in on the online course she was taking. “I don’t think so. I don’t think spelling counts.”
Thank goodness.
Her spelling wasn’t quite on par with her reading ability. “The materials were easy enough.”

“Good. What about a business plan? Are you going to make one of those?” At Fila’s blank look, Mia pulled up a search engine and typed in some words. “Here’s one—look.” She showed Fila a long document that asked many questions about the business one was trying to run, in order to find out whether or not it was likely to succeed.

Fila quickly became overwhelmed as she tried to read through it. “I don’t even know what half of these terms mean. What’s a benchmark?”

“I think it’s a fancy way of saying
goal
.”

“Then they should just say goal.”

Mia chuckled. “We could do it together. I’d really like to. My job is so boring. It’s just the same thing every day. I know I can do more than that—so you’d be helping me as much as I’d be helping you. You know I’m dying to work with you so I can quit the hardware store. Together we can make sure we do this right so the restaurant succeeds, you know?”

At Fila’s questioning look, Mia went on. “Look, I don’t make a lot of money at Dundy’s. I’m kind of stuck. I can afford to live with Luke because the rent is so cheap, but if I have to leave I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“You and Luke aren’t getting along?”

Mia sighed. “I don’t know. Sometimes I think we’d make a great couple. Other times—he’s such a man!”

“He likes you.”

“I know.” But Mia didn’t look happy. “I have to be sure of him before I make up my mind. I can’t make any mistakes.”

Fila wasn’t sure she understood. American women seemed to have no trouble dating a few men before settling down with one. Why would Mia be any different?

“Anyway, my love life doesn’t matter.” Mia pushed her ponytail over her shoulder and hunched over the laptop again. “Should we work on your menu or on the business plan?”

‡
Chapter 10

N
ed couldn’t remember
the last time he’d sidled into his mother’s kitchen with so much trepidation. Probably not since the time he’d been busted at sixteen for stealing the high school principal’s car and doing donuts in the Wright’s hayfield with it. He’d settled down a lot since those days, and he figured this errand would please his mother, but he hated the thought of the fuss she’d make just as much as he’d dreaded her reaction back then.

“Ned. What are you doing here this time of day? Everything all right?” His mother was bent over one of the cookbooks his grandmother had passed down to her. She pushed it aside and gestured to another chair at the kitchen table.

“Everything’s fine. Just had a question.”

“Want some tea? I was just about to pour myself some.” She got to her feet and bustled about the kitchen in her usual fashion.

“Juice is good.” Ned didn’t bother to try to get it himself. She’d just wave him back into his seat. His mother had always liked to take care of her family and he got the feeling sometimes she still saw him and his brothers as the little boys they once were. She’d be in heaven once she had some grandkids.

“What’s the question?”

He waited until she was sitting down again. “If I wanted to—” Now that it was time to ask, he didn’t know what words to use. His mother waited patiently. “If I wanted to try it again. Reading. What would I do?”

“Ah.” Lisa sat back and nodded, her hands cupped around her steaming mug of tea. She didn’t seem surprised by his sudden question. Had she anticipated it now that he’d taken over managing the herd? “Given you’re past school age, I think you’d need to find a literacy tutor.”

“Where would I get one of those?”

Lisa thought a moment. “I think I might know. Mind if I make a phone call?”

“Have at it.” Now that it was out in the open, he just wanted things sorted as fast as possible. Lisa stepped away and made a call after looking up a number. He heard her describing what she wanted—someone to meet with him one on one to work on his reading skills—and after a few moments jotted something down on a piece of paper. Five minutes later she was back in her seat pushing the paper across the table at him. “Go to 5454 Third Street. Second floor. Room eight. Monday at two o’clock.”

“What is it?”

“A volunteer bureau. They’ll assign a literacy tutor to you. The program is free, so you won’t see a specialist, exactly—just someone trained to work with people with dyslexia. I imagine you’ll go once a week and they’ll give you homework in between.” She must have seen his expression. “Ned, you and your father like to act like you’re the only ones with this problem, but you’re not. It’s so common you can’t throw a stone in a crowded room without hitting someone with dyslexia. I know they can help. I’m glad you’re going to give it a try.”

“Don’t tell Dad.” He stood up and shoved the scrap of paper into his pocket.

“I won’t tell him. But if he does find out somehow, you don’t listen to what he says. You can do this. It kills me I let him talk me out of getting you help years ago.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I think I must be the worst mother in the world.”

Ned snorted. “You’re the best and you know it. You’re just fishing for compliments.”

She gave him a wry smile. “Not in this case. In this case I think I did you a disservice. I hope you can forgive me.”

He nodded. “Of course. I know why you didn’t push.”

“That doesn’t make what I did right.”

He dropped a kiss on her head. “You get to be human, too, Mom. What’s done is done.”

“Get yourself to that appointment and undo it, you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

When Fila entered
the Cruz Big House with Ned later that night, most of the pool and poker players had already arrived. As usual, her stomach filled with butterflies as she geared up to walk into the crowded living room, but shedding her coat and entering the fray wasn’t nearly as difficult as it normally was. She carried a basket of
bichak
—a kind of pastry with a cheese filling—for everyone to try. She was considering them as an appetizer on her menu, but wasn’t sure if they’d be popular. She figured she would simply set them down on the counter between the living room and kitchen. If they were gone by the time they went home, she’d add them to the menu.

In the end, they were gone before anyone even sat down to play cards, and Fila had to endure a throng of enthusiastic eaters thanking her for bringing them along and pressing her for more. She bore up under the friendly assault, however. With Ned standing quietly at her back, she found she could handle the attention. When it began to overwhelm her, Ned said loudly, “When are we going to get started? I plan to take home some cash tonight!”

That diverted everyone’s attention and the players soon settled down at several tables Autumn and Ethan had set up for just this purpose. As people were knocked out of the Hold’em game, they generally wandered over to the pool table to try their hand at that.

Usually Fila sat on the outskirts or busied herself in the kitchen during the games, but today Ned caught her hand and tugged her to the table. “I’m going to teach you how it’s played tonight.” He wouldn’t listen to her protests and soon she found herself seated between him and Morgan.

When Ethan dealt the cards for their table, Ned told him they’d share a hand. “It’ll take you a bit to get the hang of it, so for now you watch,” he told Fila. As he walked her through the game, at first she could barely concentrate on his words. She was too aware of the others at the table—too aware of the men mixed in with the women, something that seldom happened in the village back in Afghanistan. She found herself plucking at a burka that wasn’t there, wanting to hide her face.

“Hey. No one’s going to hurt you here,” Ned said in a low voice. “Look at the cards, not at the crowd.”

She did as he said and he started his explanation over. After a few minutes, she got caught up in the game. She watched what Ned did and noticed how the other players reacted. Several minutes later, when it was Ned’s turn to make a move, she pointed to the card she wanted him to discard and he nodded. “Now you’re getting it.”