Читать книгу The Cowboy Next Door & Jenna's Cowboy Hero - Brenda Minton - Страница 14

Lacey pulled up the driveway to her house and then just sat in the car, too tired to get out. After a long breakfast and lunch shift at the diner, her feet were killing her and her head ached.

She didn’t want to deal with Corry after dealing with Joey back at the diner. She didn’t want to clean the house after cleaning tables all day. It would have been great to come home and sit by herself on the front porch.

Instead she knew she had to go inside and face her sister. She had to face that dinner probably wasn’t cooked, and Corry probably wasn’t any more appreciative today than she’d been yesterday.

As she walked up the steps a car drove past. Jay in his truck coming home from work. She waved and he waved back. He was going to the rodeo tonight. She used to go a lot, but not lately. Lately had been about work and classes, and when she had spare time, she studied.

She opened the front door and walked into the slightly muggy house, not completely cool because the window air conditioners were old. A huge mess greeted her.

“What in the world is going on here?” Lacey walked into her beautiful new living room with the hardwood floors and cobalt-blue braided rugs. From the arched doorway she could see through the dining room to the kitchen with the white-painted cabinets.

Everything was a mess. Clothes littered the floors. Dirty dishes covered the counters and trash covered the floor. A radio blasted rock music and the baby was crying.

“Corry, where are you?” Lacey picked up the wailing baby and hurried through the house.

“I’m here.” A voice mumbled from the back porch.

“What are you doing, taking a nap? You have a baby to feed. The house is a disaster and you were supposed to cook.”

Corry was curled up on the wicker couch, hair straggling across her face. She was wearing the same clothes she’d worn the previous day. Lacey leaned over, looking into eyes that were blurry and a smile that drooped.

“What have you done?” Lacey reached for the phone, ready to call 911.

“Cold medicine. Just cold medicine.”

“How much.”

“Just enough. Get off my back.”

“Did you have to trash my house?”

Lacey walked away, still holding Rachel close. Words were rolling through her mind, wanting to come out. She couldn’t say what she wanted to say. She couldn’t stand next to her sister, for fear she would hurt her. Corry was already hurting herself.

“I’m so angry with you, Corry. I can’t believe you would do this. You have a baby.” Lacey stopped in front of the corner curio in the living room and started picking up the few dogs that had been knocked off the shelves.

“Stop being a prude,” Corry snarled.

“Stop being selfish.”

“I have a friend coming to get me next week.” Corry sat up, leaning forward, her stringy dark hair hanging down over her face.

“How did you call a friend?”

“I used your boyfriend’s phone. His mother let me in.”

“Leave Mrs. Blackhorse alone.” Lacey crossed back to her sister, kneeling in front of her and turning Corry’s face so that they made eye contact. “Stay away from Jay and his family.”

“Why? Are you afraid of what they’ll think of you if they meet me?” Corry smiled a hazy smile. “Too late. I think they were impressed.”

Lacey stood back up. The baby cried against her shoulder, reminding her that it was time to eat. “I can’t have you living here like this, Corry.”

She couldn’t let Corry destroy everything she’d built. Lacey had a life here, and friends. She belonged. For the first time in her life, she’d found a place where she belonged.

“I plan on leaving. I’m not going to stay and live like a hermit.” Corry’s words reminded Lacey of the phone call.

And the crying baby. “You can’t take Rachel back to St. Louis. That isn’t good for her. How are you going to take care of her if you can’t take care of yourself?”

“I’ll manage. Don’t worry about me. Remember, I’m a woman and we know how to take care of babies. It’s easy, right?”

“It isn’t easy, Corry. I know that. But this baby deserves a chance. And it’s her that I’m worried about, not you.”

She walked away because she couldn’t argue. And the baby needed to be fed. She could concentrate on Rachel and let the rest go.

She was heating the bottle when Corry walked into the room. Rachel squirmed against Lacey, tiny hands brushing Lacey’s face. Corry looked through blurry eyes, but maybe she was also sorry. Lacey wanted her to be sorry.

“Corry, this can’t be the life you want for yourself.”

“What’s wrong with my life?”

“It doesn’t include faith. It doesn’t include you wanting a better life for yourself and your child.”

“I’m here.”

“Yes, you are here.” Lacey tested the formula on her wrist and cradled Rachel to feed her. Corry only watched.

“Do you like that cowboy?” Corry leaned against the counter. She shoved her trembling hands into her pockets and hunkered down, defeated.

Lacey ignored the obvious signs of someone going through withdrawal. She knew that was the reason for the cold medicine. Her sister would have done anything for a high at this point.

“He isn’t even a friend, just someone I know from town and from church.”

For a minute it felt like a normal conversation between sisters. To keep up the illusion, Lacey kept her gaze averted.

“I think I could have more luck with him. You’re too pushy.” The normal moment between sisters ended with that comment.

Lacey lifted Rachel to her shoulder and patted the baby’s back. “Stop it, Corry.”

“Are you jealous?”

“There’s nothing to be jealous of. I don’t want him used. End of story.”

“When did you get all righteous? Does he know what you used to be?”

Lacey turned to face her sister. She could feel heat crawling up her neck to her cheeks. “My past is behind me. And it wasn’t who I…” She blinked a few times, wishing there weren’t tears in her eyes. “It wasn’t who I wanted to be.”

She didn’t belong. Not the way she really wanted to belong to Gibson. After all of these years, she wasn’t really one of them. She wanted to be like these people, growing up here, having lifelong friends, family that never moved away, and a place that was all hers.

“Not so easy to be a goody-goody now, is it? Not with me here to remind you of what you used to be. What you still are.”

Take a deep breath, she told herself. She wasn’t that girl from St. Louis, not here in Gibson. Her past was forgiven. She had to remember who she was now, and who she was in Christ. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son.

She was the “whosoever” who had chosen to believe in Jesus. She would not perish, but have everlasting life. They sang a song in church, “My Sins Are Gone.” It was her song. Anyone could ask her why she was happy, how she could smile and go on, building a new life. The answer was simple: because her sins were gone, as far as east from west. Her sister could remind her, but she couldn’t bring back what had been forgiven. Not really.

“I’m a Christian, Corry. I have faith. I have a new life, and that old life is no longer a part of me.”

“Really? You might want to think it’s gone, but it’s still there.”

“I am who I am because of my past, Corry. But God gave me a new life.”

“And what makes you so special?”

“I’m not special. I made a choice that anyone can make.”

“A past isn’t that easy to get rid of.” Corry shook her head and walked off, tossing the words over her shoulder. “You’re the one living in a fantasy world. By the way, someone’s here.”

* * *

Jay knocked on the door because he had promised Cody and Bailey he would. They’d been trying to call Lacey, but she wasn’t answering her cell phone. They were worried. He could have told them that Lacey Gould could take care of herself, but they wouldn’t have listened.

They were a lot like his mom, determined to make sure Lacey was kept safe. As if she needed protection.

From the sounds coming from inside the house, he guessed that right now she wanted rid of her sister. He knocked again.

She opened the door, hair a little shaggier than normal and liner under her eyes a little smudged. She didn’t smile.

“Bailey wanted me to stop and check on you.”

“Why?”

“She’s been trying to call and she can’t get hold of you.”

Lacey reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. She frowned at it and then slipped it back into her pocket. “No signal.”

“Okay, I’ll let them know.” He glanced past her. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head a little, as if she really didn’t understand his question.

“Lacey, is everything okay?”

“Fine.” She glanced over her shoulder, at the mess, at the broken dogs, at the clothes scattered on the floor. “I’m sorry, I’ll get it cleaned up.”

“I’m not talking about the house. I know you’ll get it cleaned up. I’m asking if you’re okay.”

The baby was crying, and the radio played from the kitchen. Lacey Gould’s eyes watered and her nose turned pink.

“Let me help you clean up.” He walked past her, into the ransacked house. “Is she looking for a fix?”

“She is.” Lacey walked away from him. “Let me get the baby.”

“I’ll get a broom.”

“You don’t have to. You have somewhere you need to be and I’m here for the night. It won’t take me long to clean up.” She walked back into the room with the baby cuddled against her. Exhaustion etched lines across her face and her shoulders heaved with a sigh.

Jay offered her a smile that he knew wouldn’t ease her worry or take away the burden. Instead he bent and started picking up the dog figurines that were still intact. The dogs meant something to her. He thought it was more about a life she had never had than a pet she wanted.

“We could get her help.” He offered the suggestion as he put the last dog in place. “We could try for a seventy-two hour hold and maybe get her into a treatment program.”

“She has to want help.”

“I guess you’re right.” He stood up straight. He hadn’t realized before that she was a good half-foot shorter than his six feet two inches.

He felt as though he towered over her.

“Thanks for stopping by, Jay. If you see Bailey, tell her I’m fine.”

“You could ride along and tell her yourself. It probably would be good for you to get out for a while.”

“Ride along?” She stared and then shook her head. “I don’t think you want to start that rumor.”

“It won’t start rumors.”

“It would, and you really don’t want your name linked to mine.”

He didn’t. She was right. He didn’t want his name linked to anyone else’s name because three years of Cindy had cured him of his dreams of getting married, having the picket fence and a few kids. He didn’t want a woman that would only be a replacement for what he’d lost years ago. Somewhere along the way Cindy had figured that out.

The baby was crying. “I can’t go, Jay. Corry is strung out and I can’t leave the baby here.”

“Bring the baby.”

Her eyes widened. For a long moment she stood there, staring at him, staring at the door. Finally she nodded.

“I will go.” She hurried into the kitchen and came back with a diaper bag and the baby still held against her shoulder. “But I have to change clothes first. I smell like a cheeseburger.”

“Okay.” He didn’t expect her to shove the baby into his arms, but she did. The wiggling infant fit into the crook of his elbow, her hands grasping at the air. “Umm, Lacey, the baby…”

She had already reached the bedroom door. “What?”

How did he admit to this? Honesty seemed to be the answer, but he knew he wouldn’t get sympathy. “I’ve never held a baby.”

“You’ve never held a baby. Isn’t your dad an OB-GYN? And you’ve never held a baby?”

“Never.” He swallowed a little because his heart was doing a funny dance as he held this baby and he couldn’t stop looking at Lacey Gould. And she had the nerve to laugh at him.

“Sit down before you drop her. You look a little pale.”

He sat down, still clutching the tiny little girl in his arms. He smiled down at her, and man if she didn’t smile back, her grin half-tilted and making her nose scrunch.

“Now aren’t you something else.” He leaned, talking softly, and she smiled again. “You’re a little charmer. I think I’d just about buy you a pony.”

“She wants a bay.” Lacey was back, still smiling. She had changed into jeans and a peasant top that flowed out over the top of her jeans. Her hair spiked around her face and she had wiped away the smudged liner.

“Ready to go?” He handed the baby over, still unsure with her in his arms. And as he looked at Lacey Gould, she was one more thing that he was suddenly unsure about.

“I’m ready to go.”

He held the door and let Lacey walk out first, because he was afraid to walk out next to her, afraid of what it might feel like to be close to her when she smelled like lavender.

* * *

Lacey leaned close to the window, trying not to look like an overanxious puppy leaning out the truck as they drove onto the rodeo grounds. Stock trailers were parked along the back section and cars were parked in the field next to the arena.

She had been before, more times than she could count, but never like this, in a truck with a stock trailer hooked to the back and a cowboy sitting in the seat next to her. Riding with Bailey and Cody didn’t count, not this way. If other girls dreamed of fairy-tale dances and diamonds, Lacey dreamed of this, of boots and cowboys and horses.

Not so much the cowboys these days, but still…

“Don’t fall out.” Jay smiled as he said it, white teeth flashing in a suntanned face. His hat was on the seat next to him and his dark hair that brushed his collar showed the ring where the hat had been.

She shifted in the seat and leaned back. “I guess you’re not at all excited?”

“Of course I am. I’ve been living in the city for eight years. Longer if you count college. It’s good to be home full-time.”

“What events are you in?”

“A little of everything. I mainly team rope. But every now and then I ride a bull.”

“I want to ride a bull.” She hadn’t meant to sound like a silly girl, but his eyes widened and he shook his head.

“Maybe you could try barrel racing?” He made the suggestion without looking at her.

“Okay.”

Anything. It was all a part of the dream package she’d created for herself. She wanted this life, with these people. For a long time she’d wanted love and acceptance.

She’d found those things in Gibson. Now she wanted horses and a farm of her own. Jay wouldn’t understand that dream; he’d always had those things.

“Lacey, we’re not that different. This has been my life, but I came home to reclaim what I left behind.”

“And it cost you?”

“It cost me.” He slowed, and then eased back into a space next to another truck and trailer.

“Are you team roping tonight?” She looked back, at the pricked ears of the horse in the trailer.

“Yeah, and I think I have to ride a bull. Cody signed me up. He says he needs a little competition from time to time.”

“Because Bailey is keeping him close to home.” She bit down on her bottom lip and looked out the window.

The truck stopped, the trailer squeaking behind it, coming to a halt. The horse whinnied and other horses answered. From the pens behind the arena, cattle mooed, restless from being corralled for so long.

Lacey breathed deep, loving it all. And the man next to her…she glanced in his direction. He was a surprise. He had invited her.

And she had to process that information.

Time to come back to earth, and to remember what it felt like to be hurt, to have her trust stomped on. Lacey unbuckled the baby and pulled her out of the seat, a good distraction because Rachel’s eyes were open and she smiled that baby half-smile. Drool trickled down her baby chin.

“Do you think Corry will stay?” Jay had unbuckled his seat belt and he pulled the keys from the ignition of the truck.

The question was one that Lacey had considered, but didn’t want to. It made her heart ache to think of Corry leaving, not knowing where she would take the baby. Lacey shrugged and pulled Rachel, cooing and soft, close to her.

“I really don’t know. I don’t want to think about that.” She kissed the baby’s cheek. “But I guess I should.”

“Maybe she’ll stay.”

“She won’t. She’s restless. She’s always been restless.”

“I understand restless.” He stepped out of the truck. Lacey, baby in her arms and diaper bag over her shoulder, followed. She met up with him at the back of the trailer. The small glimpse into his life intrigued her. He’d never been open.

“You don’t seem restless.” She stood back as he opened the trailer and led the horse out. Not his horse, he’d explained, but one he was training. The animal was huge, with a golden-brown coat that glistened.

He glanced at her, shrugging and then went back to the horse. He pulled a saddle out of the tack compartment of the trailer. Expertly tooled and polished, the leather practically glowed in the early evening light.

The lights of the arena came on and Lacey knew that the bleachers would be filling up. But she couldn’t walk away because Jay had stories, just like everyone else.

“How could you be restless?” She pushed, forgetting for a moment that he was little more than a stranger.

“Why is that so unusual?” He had the saddle on the horse and was pulling the girth strap tight around the animal’s middle. The horse, a gentle giant, stood still, head low and ears pricked forward.

“You don’t seem restless.”

“Really? And what makes you think you know anything about me?” He straightened, tall and all cowboy in new Wranglers and worn boots. His western shirt was from the mall, not the farm store.

Contradictions. And she loved a mystery.

“So, tell me.” She waited, holding the baby in the crook of her arm, but dropping the diaper bag.

“I grew up on a farm in a small town, Lacey. I wanted to live in the city, to experience life in an apartment with close neighbors.”

“And you loved it?” She smiled, because he couldn’t have.

He grinned back at her. “I did, for a while. But then the new wore off and it was just noise, traffic and the smell of exhaust.”

“So you came home because you got tired of city life?”

“I came home.” And he didn’t finish, but she knew that he’d come home because of a broken heart. Sometimes she saw it in his eyes. Sometimes he looked like someone who had been broken, but was gluing the pieces back together.

“Your parents are glad.”

“I know they are.” He slipped the reins over the neck of the horse. “And Lacey, before you start thinking I’m one of those poor strays behind the diner, I’m not. Cindy didn’t break my heart.”

He winked. For a moment she almost believed that his heart hadn’t been broken. For a fleeting second she wanted to hold him. To be held by a cowboy with strong arms and roots that went deep in a community.

“I didn’t…” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t need to know? Or she didn’t plan on trying to fix him?

“You did. Your eyes get all weepy and you look like you’ve found someone who needs fixing. I don’t. I’m glad to be home.”

He was standing close to her, and she hadn’t realized before that his presence would suck the air out of her space, not until that moment. Her lungs tightened inside her chest and she took a step back, kissing the baby’s head to distract her thoughts from the man, all cowboy, standing in front of her.

He cocked his head to the side and his mouth opened, but then closed and he shook his head. “I need to find Cody.”

“Of course.” She backed away. “I’ll meet up with you later.”

And later she would have her thoughts back in control and she wouldn’t be thinking of him as the cowboy who picked up those silly dog figurines and put them back on the shelf while she swept up the pieces of what had been broken.