The Cowboy Meets His Match (Fatherhood) Read online

  “You’ve missed a lot,” Trish told Jake. “It’s been a long time.”

  Jake caught a glimpse of Erin, who’d pulled up a chair at another table. She sat with her back to him, and he wondered if she’d done so on purpose.

  He turned back to the group at his table. “Sounds like a lot has changed in the time I’ve been gone,” he said.

  “Are you staying here for good?” Dusty asked.

  “I plan to,” Jake told him.

  “Your uncle’s ranch is yours now?”

  He nodded, thinking of all the paperwork and court motions it had taken to work out the details of his inheritance.

  “What do you plan to do with it?” Dusty asked.

  “Raise horses and a few cattle, train cutting and roping horses, mostly. I’ve learned a lot since those summers I spent here.” His dream hadn’t happened overnight, but he had stuck with it and now he had it all. Or did he? There was still one thing missing.

  He let his gaze wander around the room. Dylan and Luke had gone, leaving Erin behind. If she needed a ride— No, he wouldn’t offer. She would only refuse that, too, and he wasn’t in the mood to be turned down again.

  As the evening grew later, the crowd began to thin. Other people he’d known drifted over to the table to say hello. He enjoyed the company and the evening and looked forward to more of the same in the future.

  He liked Desperation. He hadn’t spent a lot of time in town when he was young, and yet the people had always been friendly and gone out of their way to make him feel welcome. He’d made friends with several of them and valued those friendships. But the night was nearly over. Even Dusty and Morgan had started talking about going home.

  “Kate needs her sleep,” Dusty said, putting his arm around her waist when they both stood. “I’m surprised she’s managed to stay awake past seven.” He placed his other hand on her belly and smiled at her. “Only six more months to go.”

  Jake saw the look they shared, and then it dawned on him what Dusty had said. “You’re expecting?” he asked Kate.

  She nodded. “December for this one.”

  “This one?”

  “We have twin boys who’ll be three next month,” Dusty said. “And we did tell Aunt Aggie that we wouldn’t be late, so we need to get going before she starts calling and begging us to come pick them up.”

  Kate gave him an elbow to the midsection. “Aunt Aggie has never complained about the boys, or Krista, so don’t you have Jake thinking she has.”

  “I remember your aunt well, Kate,” Jake told her. “But who’s Krista?”

  “Krista is ours,” Morgan said, helping his own wife with her chair.

  “And we’re not adding another one soon,” Trish said, a gleam of determination in her eyes. “I have a feeling when we do, Morgan will be getting his boy, and considering how energetic Kate and Dusty’s twins are, I want to rest up a little longer.”

  “Another girl is fine with me,” Morgan said, helping her with her jacket. “Krista liked that Miami Dolphins jersey I bought her, so it’s all good.”

  “She was a newborn,” Trish said, laughing. “She didn’t know the difference.”

  The two couples continued their bantering as they gathered their things, and Jake was sorry to see them leave. Nearly everyone had gone, except for Erin and the man he’d seen earlier, who was probably taking her home. He decided to stay where he was. He’d noticed that she’d left her hat nearby and knew she wouldn’t leave without it.

  It wasn’t long before she walked over to where he sat at the table, her hat on the chair next to him. “Calling it a night?” he asked.

  She didn’t look at him directly as she held out her hand. “Morning comes early on a ranch. You should know that.”

  He shoved to his feet, then picked up her hat, but didn’t immediately hand it to her. “What brought you home?”

  “I decided to spend some time with my brothers.”

  “So you’re staying around?”

  Her gaze moved slowly over him, until she looked directly into his eyes. “Are you?”

  Feeling uncomfortable in places he shouldn’t, he shifted his attention from her eyes to her mouth. Another mistake. He remembered the feel of it on his far too well. Hoping she couldn’t read his thoughts, he managed to answer. “I plan to.”

  “I should have known.”

  She took her hat from his hand and started to move away, but he wasn’t finished. “Don’t go away mad.”

  With a smile, she looked back over her shoulder. “Not mad. It’s just nicer around here when you’re gone.”

  Before she could take another step, he had a comeback. “Is that why you’ve been gone from here almost as long as I have?”

  Facing him, she settled her hat on her head. “I’ve done just fine.”

  “So have your brothers, but they stayed.” He knew he’d hit the mark by the way she glared at him. “They’ve done some great things with the ranch.”

  “So now you and my brothers are good buddies?”

  “We’ve always been friends.”

  She put one hand on her hip and smiled at him again. “I’m not my brothers.”

  As she’d done to him, Jake let his eyes move slowly over her. “No, ma’am, you’re definitely not.” He held her gaze another moment, then looked down to pick up his glass of beer.

  When he looked up again, she was walking out the door. Walking out on him the way he’d walked out on her. He knew she hadn’t forgotten, no matter how much she might want to. He’d hated that he’d had to hurt her—still did—but he hadn’t been given a choice. He’d paid for it then, and now he was paying for it again.

  * * *

  AFTER A DISTURBING and restless night, Erin decided to join her brothers for breakfast. In her case, that would be coffee. She hoped it would clear her mind and sweep out the remnants of the confusing and erotic dreams that had starred none other than Jake Canfield.

  “Did you have a good time at Lou’s Place last night?” Luke asked, as Erin lifted the carafe to fill her cup.

  When she finished, she leaned her hip against the counter behind her and nodded. “It was nice getting together with old friends, but it would have been better if Hayley and Glory had been there and the two of you hadn’t ducked out. What was that all about?”

  “We didn’t tell you we weren’t staying?”

  She glared at Luke, knowing for certain what they’d been up to. “Of course you didn’t tell me, because you knew I wouldn’t go if you did. And then you left me with that...man.”

  “You mean Dean Franklin?”

  She opened her mouth to tell him that Dean Franklin had been kind enough to take her home, in spite of the fact that she’d only spent a few minutes with him, and that the man she’d been referring to was none other than their former—and now current—neighbor. Luckily, the words didn’t spill forth. Her brothers would immediately demand to know what Jake had ever done to her, other than be a good friend, and she wouldn’t be able to tell them. Not in this lifetime, anyway.

  Instead, she said, “Maybe you’ll learn not to try to hand me off to someone I share absolutely nothing in common with.”

  “Broaden your world, Erin. Learn new things,” Dylan told her.

  “The man wouldn’t know a quarter horse from a thoroughbred,” she said with a sniff, “and you expect me to make some long-term commitment to him?”

  Dylan put his coffee cup on the table and grunted. “Nobody said you had to marry him. Just go on a date.”

  “People still date?” she asked as innocently as possible.

  “Well—”

  “Did you take Glory on a date?” she asked, pinning him with a look she hoped would wither him on the spot.

  His brow wrinkled in thought. “We—” He made a face
she took as a concession. “Not a real date. But that doesn’t mean that—”

  “How about you and Hayley, Luke? Did you go on a date?”

  He smiled with superiority. “As a matter of fact, I did take her out to dinner. A real nice restaurant in the city, as I recall.”

  “How did it go?”

  His smile vanished, and he muttered.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “She got sick.”

  Erin couldn’t stop her smile. “Food poisoning?”

  He shook his head. “Too much to drink.”

  “Well, there you go.”

  They both sat and stared at her, until Dylan pushed away from the table. “What’s on your agenda today?”

  When Luke didn’t answer, Erin looked at Dylan. “Me? Are you asking me?”

  “I already know what our plans are.”

  He’d said it as if she was twelve again and he was trying to prove that bigger meant smarter. It didn’t. Being only eleven months older than him gave her an advantage.

  “Nothing special,” she answered. Her lack of having something to do was beginning to get on her nerves. She’d always been self-sufficient and kept busy, and she couldn’t tell them that she was as broke as anyone could get without being completely homeless. Between entry fees and living expenses, with money going out faster than it had come in, she’d had to take a break, regroup and hoped to find a way to earn enough money to get back on track. But she wouldn’t take a penny from her brothers.

  “You need to do something,” Dylan said.

  What she needed was a job, but the only offer she’d had was from a man who’d broken her heart. She quickly searched for something to say. “I thought I might drop in at Glory’s shop later and see if there’s anything I can help with.”

  “She’s at the Big Barn at the Commune, finishing the last of the painting.” Dylan got to his feet and looked down at her. “She probably wouldn’t mind if you stopped by. I’m sure she could use some help.”

  Erin nodded but didn’t commit herself. She really liked her brothers’ fiancées and hoped they would become good friends. But that would probably come later, when she didn’t feel as if she were living in some kind of limbo.

  Luke had left the table and joined Dylan at the door, where they both grabbed their hats from the rack on the wall. “We’ll be down at the barn, in case you need anything.”

  She told them goodbye and waited until they were gone, then closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. Going into town for her own coffee to make in her motor home would solve the problem of feeling useless. At least it was something to do.

  Two cups later, she was out the door and headed for her motor home, thinking she’d make a list of groceries she should get. It wouldn’t be much, but enough to get her by, until she had a job. Even though she’d asked everywhere she thought might be hiring—even the day care center that was run by a friend of a friend—she’d come up empty-handed.

  She wasn’t particularly looking forward to a trip into town. Driving her gas-guzzling home-on-wheels in Desperation had proved cumbersome, at best, but unless she borrowed Dylan’s pickup, she was stuck driving it. The thought didn’t thrill her.

  As she reached for the door handle of her small but comfortable home, she stopped at the sound of something rustling in the nearby line of trees. Maybe a rabbit. Probably a skunk, with her luck. Hopefully not anything bigger. Her shotgun was inside in the back of a cabinet.

  She immediately saw she’d been wrong, when the big, hairy dog pushed through the undergrowth and shot into the open. “Well, hello,” she called softly, being cautious so as not to frighten it.

  The dog froze when she spoke. Its long, gray-and-white coat nearly reached the ground. Even its eyes were partially hidden. Lifting its nose higher, it sniffed in her direction.

  Hoping the dog wouldn’t bite, she snapped her fingers and called again. “Come on, pup. Come here. Let’s see what you’re about.”

  She barely had the words out of her mouth, when the dog came running toward her, its furry tail wagging back and forth. Bracing herself for what she suspected might be a lunge—although a friendly one—that would knock her over, she was surprised when the dog came to a skid in front of her, all four feet still on the ground. Most dogs would jump up. This one obviously had some training.

  Kneeling, she put her hand on the back of the dog’s neck, feeling for a collar. “Good dog,” she whispered. “Now let me see if you have a tag or some kind of identification to go with this.”

  She was rewarded with a tag dangling beneath the dog’s neck but had to brush away the thick, long coat of hair to see it. “Solomon?” She leaned back to take a closer look at the dog. “Is that your name?”

  The dog’s tail wagged so hard when she spoke the name that she had no doubt it was his. But she couldn’t find a phone number or anything else that would give her an idea of who the owner might be. Solomon appeared to be well fed and fairly clean, considering the thick brush he’d walked through, and he’d probably come from somewhere nearby.

  “Let’s go talk to my brothers,” she said, getting to her feet. “Come on, Solomon. Stick with me, and we’ll get you home in no time.”

  He walked beside her to the barn, where she found her brothers helping with the birth of a new calf. Luke looked up as Erin and the dog entered, and he shook his head. “Sollie, are you out visiting again?”

  “So you know who his owner is?” she asked, relieved that the dog wasn’t a stray. “Should I call someone?”

  Dylan glanced at them quickly. “No. Just take him home.”

  “Take him home where?”

  “Sollie belongs to Jake.”

  She narrowed her eyes and looked at the dog. Traitor. Even though her brothers were working, she didn’t want to deal with the dog...and especially his owner. “Why can’t I leave him here with you?” she asked. “Jake can come get his own dog.”

  “Just take him home, Erin,” Dylan said without glancing her way again. “Can’t you see we have our hands full?”

  “Of course I do. Can I take your pickup? I don’t want him in my motor home.”

  “Walk.”

  She started to ask why, but it was clear Dylan’s patience was wearing thin. This obviously wasn’t the first time the dog had come visiting, and her brothers had taken him home. That meant they’d known Jake was back. Why hadn’t they mentioned it?

  “Let’s go, Sollie,” she said, heading outside and blinking at the bright sunlight.

  The walk wasn’t as long as she wanted to make it out to be, and the dog stayed by her side. At one point, not far from the ranch that Jake now owned, Sollie came to a dead stop, sniffing the air, his ears on alert.

  “It’s a rabbit, I’m sure,” she told the dog. “We’re almost home, so don’t you go running off after it.”

  As if he understood what she’d said, Solomon loped along beside her, but now and then he would look off in the distance. She was surprised that anything that had been around Jake could be so well behaved.

  Approaching the ranch from the back side, as she’d always done, she spied Jake on a small tractor with a forklift attached to the front, struggling to move a large stock tank. As she and the dog got closer, she heard the frustration in Jake’s voice, and she laughed at the words he shouted at the galvanized metal tank that kept tipping to one side. She understood frustration well. She’d bought an extra horse, hoping to train it to be as good as Firewind. But she’d had to have Firewind put down, and MacDuff’s training hadn’t gone well. Just one more reason she’d left the circuit.

  “Get under it again,” she shouted over the noise from the tractor. “A little more to the right.”

  Apparently he heard her, because he turned to look in their direction. He shook his head as if in disbelief, and then sw
itched off the tractor before jumping down to the ground.

  “Sollie, you rascal,” he said as he walked toward them, his mouth pulled down in a frown. He glanced at Erin, but his gaze didn’t linger. “Sorry he caused you the trouble of bringing him home. He knows better than to roam.”

  She ran her hand down the dog’s back and patted his rump. “He’s a good dog. Smart, too.”

  “Too smart sometimes. I guess I’ll have to tie him up when I’m working so he doesn’t bother you.”

  “Oh, don’t do that!” She bit her lower lip, wishing she’d kept quiet. It wasn’t any of her business what he did with his dog. Besides, she wasn’t crazy about the idea of having to return Sollie after every visit. “He wasn’t bothering me,” she hurried to say. “I brought him back because I thought you’d wonder where he’d gone.”

  “I had a pretty good idea.”

  “What kind of dog is he?”

  “He’s a bearded collie. Herding dog, both sheep and cattle. He’s pretty good at it.”

  She nodded, not knowing what else to say. Wishing she had insisted her brothers return the dog themselves, she took a step back and realized she’d just met up with her past. If she’d thought there’d been too many memories at home, a single memory of one night here was even bigger than all of them.

  “I guess I’ll be getting home,” she said, feeling uncomfortable.

  “Hang on a minute.”

  She slowed, then stopped and looked back at him. “Why?”

  He stuffed his hands into the pockets of a pair of well-worn jeans that hugged his hips and muscled thighs. No smile broke the serious expression on his face, when he said, “Because we need to talk.”

  Her heart stopped beating and her throat tightened. The moment she’d realized he was back, she’d been afraid he would want to talk about the past. The words fight or flight flitted through her mind, but she was frozen to the spot.

  * * *

  JAKE SQUINTED INTO the morning sunshine, watching Erin closely. Her curly, dark blond hair had been captured in a braid, but pieces of it had escaped around her face, and the sun behind her caused a halo effect.