Читать книгу A Cowboy For The Twins - Carolyne Aarsen - Страница 13
ОглавлениеThat did not sound good.
Shauntelle’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of her car as the engine’s whining grew louder. She eased off the gas and the ominous racket quieted, but as soon as she accelerated, it got worse.
Definitely not good.
“What’s that noise?” Millie called out from the back seat of the car.
“I think it’s the sound of trouble,” Shauntelle muttered.
And that’s when smoke streamed out from under the hood.
Shauntelle braked, pulling over as far as she dared to the side of the road as the cloud grew. The scent of coolant leaking assaulted her nose.
“What’s going on?” Millie released her seat belt and hung over the front seat of Shauntelle’s subcompact vehicle.
“Why did you stop?” Margaret echoed her sister’s concern, but she stayed obediently buckled up as she looked up from the book she’d been reading.
“My car is not cooperating with my well-laid plans,” was all she said, turning the engine off at once.
Shauntelle hid her frustration from her seven-year-old daughters. According to her budget, this little car needed to last her at least another year. She had bigger priorities.
After her husband Roger’s death in a car bombing in Afghanistan two years ago, Shauntelle had grieved, railed against life and, to her shame, Roger. He was doing a temporary job, working for Doctors Without Borders, a dream of his since he had graduated med school.
He had died on one of those trips.
Shauntelle couldn’t afford to stay in Vancouver and because she couldn’t rent, let alone buy, a place of her own, she moved in with her parents in Cedar Ridge, Alberta. The girls settled into school, and at her brother Josiah’s urging, she started making plans for a restaurant in Cedar Ridge. It had been a lifelong dream of hers, and things were finally coming together.
However, the dream did not include a car breakdown. Especially not when it was full of baking deliveries she needed to finish by the end of the day.
She clutched the steering wheel as she inhaled, practicing what her grief counselor had told her. Pull back. Let go. Focus on the next thing you can do.
And commit everything to the Lord.
Since Roger’s death, Shauntelle had struggled with God. When Josiah died in a construction accident only a year ago, she really felt betrayed by Him.
But she knew she had nowhere else to go, and so she slowly found her way back to God. After the major things she’d dealt with, however, she didn’t think it proper to pray for a car.
She pulled in another breath, a tiny curl of panic starting in her belly.
She opened the hood, then coughed on the acrid smoke billowing out of the engine.
“What are you going to do?” Millie asked, hanging out of the back passenger window.
“Push this car off a cliff,” Shauntelle muttered as she pulled up the strut that supported the car hood and stood back, her arms crossed over her chest as she fought down the panic.
“You can’t do that, Mommy.” Margaret sounded frightened.
“Just having an automotive temper tantrum, honey,” Shauntelle assured her very sensitive daughter. “I’m not driving it anywhere. Besides, there’s no cliff handy.” The road they were on had only three people living on it. An older couple from Calgary only used their summer house from June to September. Carmen Fisher, the manager of Walsh’s Hardware and the T Bar C, was another resident, and then there was the Cosgrove Ranch.
Carmen was working today, so she wasn’t home. And it was the end of April, which meant no one would be at the other house either.
That left the Cosgrove Ranch, a couple of miles down the road.
Not an option.
“Call Grandpa,” Margaret suggested, getting out of the car and walking around to the front to join her mother.
“Grandpa and Gramma are working.” And she was not putting any extra pressure on them.
She didn’t have any cousins or relatives she felt comfortable calling out to the back of the beyond. Nor did she have AMA, so phoning a tow truck meant she had to pay for it herself. And what would that cost?
“Guess we’ll have to walk to the highway,” she said. Some of the deliveries consisted of meat pies, and though they were in a cooler with ice, she didn’t know how long they would stay fresh.
“Will we have to hitchhike?” Millie asked.
“At least it’s not hot today,” Margaret, ever the practical one, said. “So we won’t get too thirsty.”
Her daughter was right. A soft breeze swirled past them, tossing up stray leaves and pushing away the stinky smoke still drifting from the engine. A few geese honked overhead, the first harbingers of spring. Shauntelle shivered, pulling her sweater closer around her as she weighed her options. The highway was a few miles back, and neither she nor the girls had adequate footwear. They were all so excited for spring that they had put on flip-flops.
“I hear someone coming!” Margaret called out, shading her eyes against the midafternoon sun.
Hope rose in Shauntelle’s heart as she heard the muted rumble of a vehicle. Maybe it was Carmen Fisher.
“They might stop,” Margaret said.
“I sure hope so,” Shauntelle said.
The sound of the vehicle grew louder, and then a large, jacked-up, cherry-red pickup truck crested the hill and came swooping down toward them.
Obviously not Carmen Fisher.
“I hope the driver sees us,” Millie muttered, stepping closer to her mother’s car.
Shauntelle hoped so too.
And then, thankfully, the truck slowed, geared down and coasted to a halt right behind her car. Shauntelle eased out a sigh of relief, but behind that came a niggle of unease. This didn’t look like the kind of vehicle an elderly couple would drive.
Then she saw the driver, and her unease morphed into fury.
Noah Cosgrove stepped out of that ridiculously fancy truck, the sun glinting off his collar-length dark hair, his eyes narrowed, a leather jacket hanging on his broad shoulders and dark jeans hugging narrow hips. He looked dangerous and threatening.
Shauntelle took a step back, shielding herself with the hood of the car, her growing rage boiling up in her soul. Noah was the last person she wanted to see.
Because of Noah Cosgrove, her brother had died.
* * *
“Hey there. What’s happened to your car?” Noah grinned at the twin girls who stood beside the obviously broken-down vehicle. They were thin, gangly and utterly adorable with their high ponytails, matching pink T-shirts and black leggings.
“It’s smoking,” one said, her eyes wide. “And Mom is trying to fix it.”
“I don’t think she knows how,” the other said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Do you think you can?”
“Maybe.” As he looked at the girls, a memory rose to the surface. Twins in Cedar Ridge were not common.
And then his heart thudded in his chest.
Of all the people to run into on the road to his mother’s place, why did it have to be Shauntelle Dexter, Josiah Rodriguez’s sister?
He gave himself a moment to fight the too-familiar guilt, straightened his shoulders and walked around the car. Shauntelle stood by the hood, arms clasped tightly over her chest, head held high, her brown hair drifting over her shoulders. Her flush-stained cheeks were sprinkled with freckles, and her blue eyes were narrow with anger. Clearly she knew precisely who he was.
“Hey, Shauntelle,” he said, keeping his voice quiet. Nonthreatening. So far her reaction was the same as the one he had received only half an hour ago from Shauntelle’s parents at the Shop Easy when he stopped there for gas and some pop. They were both working today, and while Selena Rodriguez acted reasonably civil, it wasn’t hard to see Andy’s fury.
“Hey, yourself,” was all she said, her tone abrupt.
“So. Car trouble.” He sucked in a quick breath and looked into the engine, the acrid smoke telling him everything he needed to know.
“Yes” was her clipped reply.
He gave her a cursory glance, but she was glaring at the engine ticking loudly in the ensuing silence.
“So what happened?”
“It started making a clunking noise and then it got louder.”
“Can you fix it?” one of the girls asked, poking her head around the hood.
Noah shook his head. “Not with what I’ve got in my toolbox. I’m guessing the engine seized up.”
“That sounds bad,” the other girl said with a frown.
Noah took a closer look at the girls, surprised he hadn’t seen the similarity between them and their mother previously. Of course, he’d had no reference point until he realized they were Shauntelle’s daughters.
“It is. But let me see for sure.” He flashed them a grin, then looked more closely at the engine. That’s when he saw the quarter-sized hole in the engine block. He shook his head in dismay. “Sorry. It looks like a rod went through your engine. It’s toast.”
“So it’s done?”
The rusted-out car looked like it had many better days behind it and none ahead. “Probably,” he said, wishing he could give her better news.
Shauntelle pressed her hands to her mouth, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry. Not that he blamed her. From what he knew about her, she’d had a lot to deal with.
In the past two years she’d lost her husband, moved in with her parents and then, to bring it all to a tragic trifecta, lost her brother only a year ago.
Noah shoved that memory down. Josiah Rodriguez had been working for him when he fell to his death off a scaffold. And no matter how many times Noah went over the situation, how many times he tried to remind himself he wasn’t to blame, he still felt at fault. He should have trained Josiah better. He should have been at the job site that day instead of chasing that other job, trying to make a few more bucks and keep his huge crew of guys busy.
“So where were you headed?” he asked, fighting the blame and self-loathing that always accompanied thoughts of Josiah. “Can I give you a ride?”
“That would be awesome,” one of the twins piped up. “We’re doing deliveries.”
“Of what?”
“Baking and stuff,” the other one put in. “My mom makes bread and buns and all kinds of goodies for the Farmer’s Market. We go every Saturday, but Mrs. Fisher is in Calgary and my mom promised her and some of her other customers that she would get their stuff to them.”
“I’m sure Mr. Cosgrove has other things he needs to do,” Shauntelle said, a sharp tone to her voice. It wasn’t hard to see she preferred he be anywhere but here.
“But he’s the only one who stopped.”
“Millie.” The tone grew harsher as Shauntelle shot her daughter a look of warning.
Millie glanced away, her hands fiddling with the bottom of her T-shirt as she pouted.
“I’m calling a tow truck,” Shauntelle said, pulling a phone out of her pocket.
While she did that, Noah took another look at the car in the faint hope he had misdiagnosed the problem. He turned on the flashlight function of his cell phone, but it only showed him the full extent of the irreparable damage.
“Is it bad?” the one named Millie asked.
He gave her an apologetic glance and nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“My mom always said this car was a beater. I thought she meant like a mixer, but my grandpa said that it meant it wasn’t reliable. My grandpa is kind of smart. Just like my dad was.” Millie sighed and gave Noah a wistful look. “My dad is dead. He died in the overseas. Two years ago.”
“Two and a half,” her sister corrected, her mouth pursed as she clutched her book. “And it’s not in the overseas, it’s just overseas. It was in Afghanistan. He was a doctor without borders. We used to be sad, but now we’re not so sad anymore. My name is Margaret and my sister’s name is Millie.”
“I’m sorry for you,” Noah said. He’d heard bits and pieces about Roger Dexter from Josiah whenever Noah stopped by the work site. Josiah had been proud of Roger, and when he was killed, Josiah was devastated. Noah gave him a week off to be with his parents and sister.
Now Josiah was gone as well.
Noah wondered again about the wisdom of coming back to Cedar Ridge. But he had made a promise to his mother and his cousin Cord, whose wedding he had come to attend, and he couldn’t back out now.
“My daddy was a hero,” Millie put in. “That’s what my grandpa says. A genuine hero.”
Noah experienced a tinge of melancholy at the girl’s admiring words. A doctor working selflessly for other people. That was the very definition of hero. “He sure was,” he agreed.
“Not for two hours?” Shauntelle’s annoyed cry broke into the conversation. She clutched her cell phone in one hand, the other grabbing her head. “Okay. I guess I don’t have a choice.”
She slid her phone in the back pocket of her blue jeans, her hands clasped around the back of her neck. It wasn’t hard to read the frustration on her face.
“That’s a long wait,” Noah said.
“Yep.” Shauntelle massaged her neck with her hands, then dropped them on her hips. “Well, girls, guess we’re stuck here for a while.”
An awkward silence fell at that. Noah knew he couldn’t leave Shauntelle here. The road dead-ended at his mother’s ranch. If Carmen Fisher was in Calgary, she wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours. There was only one other family who lived down this road.
“Do you know if Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are home?” he asked.
“They only come in the summer,” the other twin said with a tone of resignation. “No one else will come down this road.”
And his mother couldn’t help them out either. She hadn’t been feeling well the past few weeks, which was one of the reasons he’d made the trip back to Cedar Ridge. She hadn’t been diagnosed with anything specific. Some vertigo, some headaches, low iron. Just worn and weary, was all she would tell him.
“Can you help us do deliveries?” Millie asked. “You have a big truck.”
“Mr. Cosgrove is probably busy.” Shauntelle’s voice held an undertone of condemnation. “I’ll try Leanne. Maybe she can help. She’s got a big SUV.”
She punched in another set of numbers, which was followed by a few seconds of silence. Guess that was a no-go too. He saw the battle on Shauntelle’s face, and he knew she fought her anger with him and the reality of her situation.
“I don’t mind helping,” he said.
“Okay. Fine.” She tossed out the words like they were poison. “I need to make a delivery to Mrs. Fisher’s place. If you could bring me back to my parents’ house after, that would be great.”
“But what about all the other stuff?” Millie put in. “You said we need to deliver them to get enough money for the eggs in your nest.”
Noah repressed a grin at the mash-up of the term.
“Can you help us deliver those too?” Millie asked, turning to Noah and giving him a mournful look.
He shouldn’t give in. Shauntelle didn’t want to go with him any more than he wanted her to.
“If we don’t get them to the customers they’ll be no good,” the other twin said. “Some of them are perishable. Like the meat pies.”
“Mr. Cosgrove probably has far more important things to do.” Shauntelle spoke quietly, but there was enough of a sting in her voice to bother him. “And my nest can manage without the extra money.”
“But that would be wasteful,” Millie wailed.
“I’m just going to my mom’s place,” Noah said. “I don’t have much else planned.”
“Does your mom live just before Mrs. Fisher’s?” Millie asked, her eyes suddenly wide. “Does she own the place with the big gate?”
“That’s it. The T Bar C.” His father’s ranch. As a young man, he couldn’t leave it fast enough. He had returned from time to time but only for a quick visit. He hadn’t come back for the past year. Since Josiah Rodriguez died working for him, shame and guilt had kept him away from the ranch and Cedar Ridge.
But his cousin’s wedding had brought him back. He knew he couldn’t get out of that obligation. While here, he hoped to convince his mother to finally let go of the ranch. Sell it and move with him to Vancouver. After Josiah died on his job site, Noah had hung on to the business long enough to deal with the inquiries and inspections. Then he sold it. He currently had a line on a new business he wanted to start, a small trucking company. It would be a fresh start in a different business.
He knew his mother hoped he would come back to the ranch, take it over and keep the Cosgrove legacy going. That wasn’t happening. To him, the ranch had always been a symbol of relentless, backbreaking work, a demanding father who was never satisfied.
Cedar Ridge didn’t hold any special memories for him.
“That’s such an awesome place. I love it,” the little girl said excitedly.
“It is a nice place.” He was surprised to hear a faint note of melancholy in his voice as he looked at his childhood home through her eyes.
“So, can you help us out by driving us around?” Millie asked. “So we can get more money in our nest?”
He glanced Shauntelle’s way. He saw she wasn’t keen on the idea, but at the same time he didn’t feel right leaving her stranded here.
“Sure. I can help you out.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Millie said, shooting her mother an expectant look.
Shauntelle blew out a sigh of resignation. “I guess we don’t have much choice.”
“Just one thing, though,” Noah said. “I’d like to stop in and see my mother. Make sure she’s okay before we head out.”
“Of course,” Shauntelle said.
“So first off, let me know what you need from the car,” Noah said.
Shauntelle walked to the hatchback, yanked it open and pulled out one of the three coolers, indicating the other two with her chin. “I need all those, and there’s a carrier with muffins as well.”
Noah nodded and hefted one cooler out, set the second one on top and carried them both to his truck. “We can put them in the box or the back of the truck,” he said.
“Box is fine.”
“I’ll drive slow. That way you won’t have to worry about your baking getting squashed. Don’t want you to have to give anyone a discount.” He added a grin to show he was kidding, but she didn’t smile.
While he hadn’t been in the same grade as Shauntelle growing up, he knew enough about her. Knew that she had a keen sense of humor and was quick with a comeback.
But the weary-looking woman in front of him bore no resemblance to that fun, spunky girl. And he felt that he had contributed to the faint lines bracketing her cheeks and marring her forehead.
He set the coolers on the ground by the rear of the truck, popped open the tailgate and slid them all in. He hopped on board in one easy motion and pushed them to the front of the box. He shifted his heavy toolbox to keep two of them from sliding around, though he was sure they’d be okay.
Then he jumped down.
“You’re really good at that,” the other twin said, her voice full of admiration.
“Doesn’t take much skill,” he returned with a half smile. “But I’m used to climbing ladders and jumping off roofs.”
Millie frowned in confusion. “What do you do?”
“I’m a contractor. Carpenter,” he corrected.
Millie nodded, her frown deepening. “Our uncle Josiah was a carpenter too. But he died when he fell down. My mom said his boss was a greedy man, and that’s why my uncle died.”
Her innocent voice spelling out the reasons for Josiah’s death hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest.
“I’m sorry about your uncle,” was all he said.
At that moment, he happened to glance at Shauntelle. The sorrow on her face was replaced by a tightening of her lips, a narrowing of her eyes.
He shouldn’t be surprised. During all the inquiries and investigations and follow-up by the various boards and organizations, he had occasionally run into Shauntelle’s parents and got a clear idea what they thought of him.
But Shauntelle’s reaction bothered him more.
He spun around and headed to the car to close the hatch just as Shauntelle walked in the same direction. They almost collided, and instinctively he reached out to steady her.
For a split second, she stayed still, getting her balance before jerking her arm away. She ducked inside the car, coming out with two booster seats.
“Do you want me to put those in the truck?” he asked.
Shaking her head, she walked back to his truck to do the job herself. A few minutes later the girls were buckled in, the car was locked up—even though Noah doubted anyone would steal it—and they were headed down the road to Mrs. Fisher’s.
The drive to Carmen’s place was quiet. What do you say when a young girl inadvertently accused you of being greedy and the cause of her uncle’s death? Trouble was, he felt it was true in spite of what the reports had said.
Might-have-beens crowded into his mind, creating their own regret and pain.
He eased out a breath, trying to ignore the woman on the seat beside him. Shauntelle sat as close to the door as physically possible, as if giving herself maximum distance between them.
“This is a really nice truck,” Millie said from the back seat of the crew cab. “Lots of room.”
“I like the color,” the other twin said.
“Red is Margaret’s favorite color,” Millie put in authoritatively. “She wants to paint her room red when we get our own house. But Mom said we can’t until the restaurant is finished and it starts making money. I want to paint my room pink.”
“That sounds nice,” Noah said, going along with the conversation. Anything to break the awkward silence between him and Shauntelle.
“So are you Mrs. Cosgrove’s son?” Millie asked.
“Yes I am.”
“Are you Noah Cosgrove?”
“Guilty as charged,” he returned, then realized how that sounded. Too on the nose, he thought.
Another beat of silence followed his comment.
“Our uncle Josiah worked for you.” This came out sounding like an accusation.
“Yes. He did.” Noah shot a quick glance in the rearview mirror at Millie, who sat behind her mother.
She frowned, as if absorbing this information. Then she looked over at Noah. “You don’t look like an evil man.”
“Millie, that’s enough,” Shauntelle said quietly.
“But he doesn’t. He looks like a nice man and he’s helping us.”
Shauntelle turned to the girls, and Noah caught a warning glance sent her daughter’s way. Millie got the hint and looked out the window.
They pulled up to Carmen’s place and Noah got out, the girls’ innocent words hounding him. “What do you need?” he asked.
“I’ll get it myself.” She sounded tired, so instead of listening to her, he got out of the truck as well and climbed up into the box.
“Tell me what I should grab,” he asked, opening the coolers.
“The muffins and the two loaves of bread from the box and the meat pie from the cooler. They’re marked with Carmen’s name.”
Noah found what she described and handed them to her.
Taking them, she turned and walked away. Noah got out of the truck box and watched her as she strode up the graveled path to Carmen Fisher’s house, her thick brown hair shifting and bouncing on her shoulders. She had an easy grace and presence. He remembered being vaguely aware of her in school.
And then, one summer, it was as if she had blossomed, and she had really caught his attention.
Trouble was he was dating Trista Herne, and Shauntelle was four years younger than he was. While that meant little now, in high school it was a vast gulf he couldn’t breach. So he kept his distance. And then, as soon as he had the diploma in his hand, he left. The first time he had come back was for his father’s funeral six years later. By that time, Shauntelle was gone.
“That’s a cute house too,” Millie said, hanging out the window she had opened. Clearly she didn’t mind that he was “an evil man.”
“It is,” Noah agreed. “It’s part of the T Bar C. The ranch foreman used to live there.” Noah adjusted his hat, dropping his hands on his hips as his mind shifted back to times he had tried to erase from his memory. Long days and nights working until he could barely stand. Fencing, building sheds, herding cows, baling hay and stacking bales. There was always work to do.
He remembered one evening he had been baling in a field just past this house. The tractor broke down at the far end of the field. Terrified of what his father would say, he stayed with the tractor. Then Doug and Julie had come home early from their outing. They brought him supper, and while he ate, Doug repaired the tractor. Then he sent Noah home and finished the baling himself. His father, however, was furious that he had made Doug work on his day off.
“Why doesn’t the foreman live there now?”
“My mother doesn’t need a ranch foreman,” he said as he got back into the truck.
“Why not?”
“The ranch doesn’t have as many cows as it used to.” He wished his mother would sell them. She had to hire someone to feed the cows and the horses that she wouldn’t sell either.
Noah suspected it was a way of recognizing the hard work his father had done to make up for the way Noah’s grandfather ran the T Bar C into the ground with his poor management. Though his father had struggled to bring it back to its former glory, low commodity prices had made it almost impossible. He worked like a dog and made sure Noah did as well. He’d died from a heart attack when he was feeding the cows. Noah often felt that the hard work, stress and his father’s personality had combined to cause his death.
Shauntelle came back and got into the truck, giving him a tight nod. “Thanks.”
“So you’re okay with stopping to see my mom?” Noah asked.
“I can hardly complain,” Shauntelle said with a note of asperity.
He sensed it was difficult for her to spend time with him, but she had no choice.
They drove just half a kilometer back down the road and under the imposing gate of the T Bar C.
“That’s an awesome gate,” Millie said, craning her head to get a better look.
“It should be,” Noah said. “I helped build it.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Took me and my dad two days and a lot of stress to get it up.”
He stopped as he heard the bitter note that entered his voice. Too well, he remembered being perched on the top of the upright, reaching for the cross beam his father was raising with the tractor. The near miss as the beam swayed and almost knocked him off. The anger his father spewed at him even though it wasn’t his fault.
No, the T Bar C held no memories he wanted to nurture.
They drove down the winding drive lined with elm trees his great-grandmother had planted in a fit of optimism. To everyone’s surprise, they flourished and now created a canopy of shifting shadows that teased the sunshine filtering through.
“Wow. This is beautiful,” the girls breathed.
Then they turned a corner, and the log ranch house came into view.
It was perched on a hill with a small creek flowing in front of it. A wooden bridge arched over it. Flower beds, in various states of neglect, stair-stepped up the side of the hill toward the imposing log house.
“That’s the coolest house ever,” Margaret breathed, unbuckling and leaning over the seat.
“Did you build it?” Millie asked.
“No. My grandfather did. He was a carpenter as well as a rancher.” Noah shot a sidelong glance at Shauntelle to gauge her reaction. Though she had lived here most of her life, she had never been on the ranch, to his knowledge.
Her eyes were wide and her mouth formed an O of surprise. Then, as quickly as that came, her features shuttered and her lips pressed together.
He guessed she was comparing his place with her parents’, a place he had seen from time to time.
And though his parents’ financial circumstances had nothing to do with him, he couldn’t get rid of a sense of shame.
And, even worse, guilt.
