A Nanny for the Cowboy Page 14

  “I’ll work on it,” he told her, hoping his voice didn’t reveal what was going on inside him.

  He wasn’t sure how long they stood there, but the moment ended at the sound of a voice calling out to them.

  “Good to see you again, Luke.”

  He looked up and past Hayley to see her oldest brother walking down the steps toward them. “A little later than I’d planned,” he answered.

  “I’m glad it is,” Chris said. “I told Brayden he could help us milk the cows.”

  Hayley turned to grin at her brother before winking at Brayden. “He’s been excited all day about it,” she told Luke. “I hope you’ll stay long enough.”

  “When we leave is up to you.”

  She glanced at Chris before speaking. “I was thinking of staying another night.”

  That was news to Luke, and he didn’t know how to take it. He’d dropped them off at the Brooks farm the day before, and now he’d come back to pick them up so they could all return home, just as they’d planned. “But how would you get back to Desperation?”

  “Chris has to go to Oklahoma City early tomorrow morning, so he said he’d take me.”

  Luke looked from her to her brother and hoped his disappointment didn’t show. “Whatever you want to do.”

  Silence fell between all of them, until Chris spoke. “Doesn’t matter what you two decide, cows need milked. If you still want to get in on it, Luke, we’d better get moving.”

  Luke looked at Brayden, still in his arms. “Do you want to help Chris milk the cows?”

  Brayden’s head bobbed up and down so hard, he would have coldcocked his dad, if Luke hadn’t tipped back his head, laughing.

  Chris laughed, too. “I guess that’s a yes. All right, just follow me, and we’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  Luke suspected Brayden wouldn’t last long, but there was no backing out of it. After a quick look at Hayley, who nodded what he suspected was encouragement, he caught up with Chris.

  “Cow!” Brayden shouted.

  “You bet, buddy.” But even his son’s excitement couldn’t erase the uneasy feeling he had about Hayley’s decision not to go back to Desperation with them. Was she having second thoughts about continuing as Brayden’s nanny? And if that was it, did he have himself to blame?

  Chapter Ten

  Hayley watched Luke set Brayden on the ground, and then they followed her brother through the door of the barn. More confused than ever, she wondered if she’d made another mistake by choosing to send Luke and Brayden back to the ranch without her. It wasn’t that she didn’t plan to return, but she needed time away from both of them to sort through the confusion she’d been feeling since before Brayden’s trip to the hospital.

  With a grunt of disgust at herself, she turned for the house. It wasn’t natural for her to be so unsure of herself. She’d always known what she wanted, and she’d always gone after it, whatever it was. But now, she wasn’t sure. Nothing seemed like the right thing to do.

  Pushing all thoughts of Luke from her mind, she searched for her mother and found her in the kitchen. “Can I help?”

  Sharon Brooks’s hand stilled on the metal lid of the last of the jelly jars she was unloading from a box. “I was just going to look for you and see if you wanted to take a walk with me.”

  “A walk?” Hayley could hardly remember a time when her mom wasn’t on her feet, moving from one place to another as she cared for a family of seven people.

  With a flash of a smile over her shoulder, Sharon placed the jar with the others in the cupboard. “I know what you’re thinking. I walk miles every day in this house. Why more? But life has slowed down, what with you and your brothers gone. Your dad usually goes along to keep me company—or at least that’s what he says—but he had some bookwork he wanted to finish today.”

  “Daddy’s doing all right, isn’t he?” Hayley knew he’d been one of the lucky ones who had not only survived a major stroke, but overcome the effects of it.

  Sharon nodded. “As good as new. Or close, anyway. Neither one of us is as young as we once were, but we’re lucky to have the boys close to help out.”

  “I should—”

  “No, you shouldn’t. You did enough when Dad had the stroke, including putting your life on hold and giving your all to making him better.” She retrieved a pair of shoes from near the back door and took a seat on the nearest chair with a look that told Hayley that arguing wouldn’t be accepted. “Now, let me get my shoes changed—” She looked at Hayley’s bare feet. “You, too, and then we’ll be on our way. Dad will probably be back from town before we get back from our walk, and sorry he missed it.”

  Within minutes, they were walking down the drive to the dirt road that ran for miles before heading into the small town where Hayley and her brothers had gone to school. “Where’d you get that?” Hayley asked her mom, eyeing the hand-carved walking stick her mother carried.

  “Don’t you remember me telling you about the vacation we took to Colorado?”

  “Yeah, sort of.”

  Her mother turned to give her a look that said a lot more than words would have. “Sounds like you need to take a break.”

  Hayley nodded and focused on the road ahead. “You’re probably right. And maybe I will after graduation, but I sure hope I can find a good clinic that will hire me as soon as possible after that.”

  “Are you still hoping to practice somewhere in Oklahoma City?”

  Hayley nodded again but said nothing. She knew her mother’s feelings on the subject, but it wasn’t what she’d dreamed of when she made the decision to go into medicine.

  To her relief, her mother didn’t comment, much less give her a sermon on how smaller communities needed medical care more than those in the city did. And it wasn’t that Hayley wasn’t aware or disagreed with that, but she’d spent most of her life near a community of less than a thousand people, and she wanted more. More people, more things to do, more chances to help. There would always be people in the city who might not otherwise have access to the kind of medical treatment others normally did. If she could find a clinic in an area that catered to the less fortunate, she’d be happy to work there.

  They’d walked in silence for some time, when her mother turned around to start back for the house. Hayley hadn’t felt uncomfortable in the quiet. She had too many things on her mind. One of those was the way she felt about Luke and what she should do about it. She was weighing her many options, when her mother’s steps slowed.

  “Something is bothering you, Hayley.”

  Hayley pressed her lips together and tried to think of the best way to respond. “Why would you think that?”

  “Maybe because I know you so well.”

  Telling her mom might be a way out of the mess she found herself in, but she needed to deal with these things on her own, to make her own decisions, without the input of family. She needed to be her own person. After all, she was twenty-seven years old. She hadn’t been a child who needed her mother’s guidance for a long time.

  “There’s nothing to talk about, Mom.”

  “Really?” A hint of sarcasm lay buried in her mother’s question. “It isn’t like we expected you to visit yesterday.”

  “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

  “Why is that?”

  At least the answer was easy. “Luke had some business to take care of in this direction, and I thought it would be nice if you met Brayden.” She thought about the li
ttle boy and his fascination with the toys she’d brought him that first day. “It’s a treat for him to see the cows, too. You should see him, Mom. He’s always putting the cow in the back of the toy pickup I gave him that had belonged to the boys.”

  “He’s adorable,” Sharon agreed. “But why are you thinking of spending another night, after Luke and Brayden have gone home? Why have your brother drive you back tomorrow? What good will staying here do?”

  Hayley hadn’t expected her change of plans to stir up so much attention, especially from her mother. She wasn’t quite sure how to answer, but she had to try. “I just— I have a lot on my mind. You know, with school and the future.”

  “And Luke Walker and his son.”

  Sliding a quick look at her mother, Hayley saw that she was being closely watched. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean, there’s something going on between you and your employer.”

  “There’s not!” Hayley immediately cried, then wished she hadn’t. Her mother knew her too well, and Hayley was sure she’d now left no doubt in her mother’s mind.

  “Does he know?”

  “I don’t have a clue. Sometimes I think—”

  “That he must sense something?”

  “Yes, that’s it! But other times...”

  “What about him? Has he said anything? Done anything to let you know that he’s feeling something, too?”

  Hayley really didn’t want tell her mother about the kiss that had nearly gotten out of control during the storm. It might have just been the letdown from the stress they’d been under or the storm that drove them together and eventually into each other’s arms.

  “I can’t tell,” she finally answered. They walked a few steps before she added, “I’m so confused. It was so easy in the beginning, but now...” She shook her head. She didn’t even know how to describe all that had happened in such a short time.

  “So you haven’t told him.”

  “No.”

  “Then maybe it’s time you did.”

  Hayley stopped and turned to her mother, her heart pounding with apprehension at the very idea. “I wouldn’t know what to say. And sometimes I think...”

  “What?”

  She met her mother’s gaze. “That some morning, soon, I’ll wake up and realize that we never wanted the same things.”

  Her mother’s smile was soft and understanding. A little sad, too, in a strange way. “You can’t keep doing that, Hayley. It isn’t fair to him or to you. And it certainly isn’t fair to that little boy.”

  “But—”

  “Are you running away because of something that happened in the past?”

  More confused than ever, Hayley tried to answer. “I don’t know. Maybe knowing how he feels would make a difference.” But would it? “Or maybe not.”

  “Then find out.”

  Hayley stared ahead, where she could see the farm in the distance. “All right. I’ll try.”

  “Soon. Very soon, Hayley.”

  Knowing exactly what her mother meant, she nodded. “I’ll let him know that I’m not staying here tonight, after all.”

  Her mother put an arm around her. “You’ll be glad you talked to him, no matter what the outcome. Nothing is worse than not knowing. Keeping your feelings to yourself isn’t fair to either of them.”

  Hayley knew her mother was right. Sharon Walker had always been wise, and except for the time with Nathan, Hayley had always listened. This time was no exception. “All right.”

  By the time they finished their walk and had returned to the farm, Luke and Brayden were waiting for them. “We probably should get going,” Luke told them. “I don’t want to get home too late. With Dylan gone— Well, we need to be up early tomorrow.”

  Hayley understood that Luke was now in charge of everything and would be doing the chores on his own. She’d been selfish not to think of that.

  “Then I’ll tell you both goodbye,” Sharon said, bending down to give Brayden a hug and kiss. “You come back and see us again real soon, Brayden.”

  “See cows!”

  “Yes! To see the cows.” She straightened and glanced at Hayley before facing Luke. “Thanks for bringing them. We don’t get to see Hayley as much as we’d like to, and it was pure pleasure to meet your son.”

  “The feeling is mutual,” Luke replied, and put his arm around Brayden. “Are you ready?” he asked his son.

  Before Brayden could answer, Hayley spoke. “I’ve changed my mind,” she announced. “I’m going back with you.”

  By the look of his elevated eyebrows, it was clear Luke was surprised. “Okay,” he said, slowly. “Whatever you want to do.”

  “Good.” At least that much was settled.

  But an hour later as they drove back to Desperation and Luke asked if there was some special reason she’d changed her mind, she wasn’t quite ready to follow her mother’s suggestion. “You’re going to need to be up early in the morning, so I need to be there.”

  “But Chris planned to leave very early in the morning, or at least that’s what he told me.”

  “Well, yes,” she hedged, “but this way there isn’t any chance I’d be late.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “That does make sense. Good thinking.”

  With no answer, she simply smiled. Maybe tomorrow she’d feel more like bringing up the subject of...What? That she’d fallen in love with him and didn’t know what to do about it?

  Leaning back against the headrest, she closed her eyes and prayed that somehow she’d find a way to say what needed said.

  * * *

  BY LATE MORNING ON FRIDAY, Luke had to admit that he would have to give in and hire some extra help. Another storm earlier in the week had meant even more work than usual—more than he could handle on his own. At least there hadn’t been a loss of power, he thought, as he climbed on the utility tractor to distribute another large bale of hay to the small herd of cattle.

  And then there was Hayley. She’d been acting strangely and avoiding him like the plague. He knew it was his fault, but other than apologizing, there wasn’t much he could do. And who would be crazy enough to apologize for kissing someone they cared about? He finally decided to stay out of her way as much as possible, hoping her mood would pass. That didn’t prove so difficult to do, thanks to the weather and the need for more help. He’d spent more time at his brother’s place than he had at home.

  Could that be Hayley’s problem? He didn’t think it was, but they’d seen so little of each other all week. When he made it home each evening, he spent as much time with Brayden as he could. Suppertime was a battle to stay awake, so once his son was in bed, Luke turned in, too. Then he was up at the crack of dawn the next day. Not exactly the best of situations.

  He’d finished feeding the cattle and had started for the barn when he heard the sound of a vehicle turning into the drive.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Watching as the dark green pickup pulled in and parked close to the house, he wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or a bad one. If the latter, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. For the past two months, his life had been turned upside down. Some of that was good, but this stuff with Dylan was getting to be more than he could take. Even so, he was happy to see his brother step out of the pickup, wave and head his way.

  “Back already?” he asked, as Dylan drew closer.

  Dylan almost smiled. “Yeah.”

  Luke wasn’t sure
what to think. “Is this a visit? Or what?”

  “I’m here to stay.”

  Relief spread through Luke. At least he wouldn’t be interviewing high school kids, who, if hired, would probably last a few days and then quit, because the work cut into their social lives. On the other hand, he worried that Dylan still hadn’t dealt with his problems, and they’d be repeating this crazy cycle forever.

  “I mean it, Luke,” Dylan said, as if he knew what Luke was thinking. “I’m here to stay and ready to get back to work. Where do you want me to start?”

  For once, Luke decided he needed to be honest, instead of simply going along with whatever Dylan said or did. “Why don’t you start by telling me what’s been going on with you.”

  Dylan stared at him, long and hard, and then finally nodded. “You’re right. I owe you an explanation. Big-time.”

  Nodding, Luke waited. He didn’t expect much. For years, Dylan hadn’t been able to talk about a lot of things, yet Luke still held on to the hope that someday the devils that were chasing his brother would turn tail and run.

  Dylan grabbed a nearby empty feed bucket, turned it upside down and settled on it. “It’s been fifteen years since the accident,” he said, without looking at Luke.

  “I know.”

  With a shrug, Dylan continued. “I guess it’s been weighing on me more, and lately it’s gotten hard for me to handle.”

  Luke wished with all his heart that Dylan would stop blaming himself for something that had never been his fault. But he also knew that telling his brother that again would be useless.

  “I saw Erin and talked to her,” Dylan said.

  Luke tried to hide his surprise. “What did she say?”