Making A Texas Cowboy (Home at Last Texas #1)

Chapter Eight

J ackson knew that some people disliking him without even knowing him came with the territory. And it happened often enough that he’d grown able to recognize the signs. He’d known from the moment Ms. Baylor had looked away from him there on the main street of Last Stand that she was one of them. Whether it was his success—it had come so fast a lot of people thought he didn’t deserve it—or his profession in general, he didn’t know. And frankly, didn’t care. All he cared about was the look of gentle, kind compassion that had come into those ocean-colored eyes when she looked at Jeremy.

And the fact that now his son was peering out the car window with every evidence of excitement. You’d think they were on their way to a major amusement park or something. Back when such things had been able to excite the boy.

He slowed down, glancing at the map on Tris’s car’s display. They should be there, or very close, but he didn’t see a house or anything that—

“Dad! Is that her?”

He looked in the direction Jeremy was pointing. Saw a horse and rider. The horse was a reddish brown with a light-colored mane and tail, almost the shade of the hair of his rider. Because yes, there was no doubt in his mind that was Nicole Baylor. She sat a horse with the same ease as Tucker. The ease that came from riding since childhood. He himself was a pretty decent rider, thanks to Tuck, although he always felt like he needed to get better. But he flat-out loved horses and hoped that made up a bit for what he might lack.

And this horse was almost as gorgeous as his rider, with that flaxen mane and tail flying as he moved in a steady, ground-eating lope. Ms. Baylor—he’d found it best to think of her that way, to rein in his unexpected response to her—barely moved in the saddle, and he had the feeling that if something spooked the horse and he went crazy sideways, she’d stay put as if part of the animal. But then, from what Joey at the library had said, he kind of doubted any horse she’d trained would go haywire unless it was something serious.

Like a rattlesnake or some other charming resident...

“She rides really good, like you and Uncle Tucker, doesn’t she?” Jeremy said as she waved them to the north.

“Probably better than me, at least,” he muttered as he turned his attention back to the thankfully empty roadway.

He saw what looked like a gate up ahead and thought he must be right when she headed that way. When they got there, he saw it was definitely a turnout to a gate, marked with two simple signs, Baylor Black Angus and Nicole Baylor Horse Training . Nothing fancy, but then perhaps they were so well-known for each vocation, they didn’t need fancy signs. Tris had said Nicole certainly was. Even she, who didn’t dwell in horse circles, had heard her name.

She reached the gate just as he was slowing Tris’s car to a halt. She dismounted and in one smooth, continuous movement, pulled the reins over the horse’s head to drop on the ground.

“Why did she do that?” Jeremy asked.

“It’s called ground-tying,” Jackson answered, although he never took his eyes off the woman who was now unlocking the gate. “They train the horse not to move when the reins are on the ground like that. So they don’t have to tie them to anything.”

“Wow,” Jeremy said.

“Yeah,” Jackson said. Then, as it suddenly occurred to him, he got out of the car and went to help with the big gate. He’d been so busy watching the graceful way she moved he’d completely forgotten everything else. But as it turned out, she didn’t need any help. The apparently counterbalanced structure swung open easily.

“Slick,” he said.

She smiled. “My dad’s a bit of a genius with stuff like that.”

Funny, he thought. She seemed more... something today. Maybe she’d just resigned herself to the fact that doing this incredibly kind thing for Jeremy meant putting up with his father too. Because that negative look she’d given him in town was nowhere to be seen—or felt—today.

“Head on up,” she called out to him. “Just veer right at the split and that’ll take you to the barns.”

He nodded, then said, “Thanks again for doing this. He”—he tilted his head back toward the car and Jeremy—“is happier about this than he’s been about anything since his mother was killed.”

“I’m glad,” she said, and there was no doubt in his mind that she meant it.

She walked back to the horse, and she was aboard before he even turned around to go back to the car. He wasn’t sure her left foot had even touched the stirrup. He had a sudden vision of her doing one of Tucker’s stunts, one he had gladly turned over to his friend, where he mounted a horse already at a dead run. He had little doubt she could pull it off, and probably had.

And he focused on that, so he didn’t spend time thinking about how good she looked in those jeans, or how much he’d like to see her hair out of that braid that ran halfway down her back.

The farther they went up the drive, the more excited Jeremy got. “Do you see Nic?” he asked, looking in all directions.

He glanced at the boy. “Nic?”

“She told me to call her that,” Jeremy explained. “Back at the library.”

“Oh.” It was all he could do not to laugh out loud at himself for even wondering why Jeremy was allowed that while he was still in the “Ms. Baylor” zone.

Because she doesn’t like you or what you do. Best remember that.

Under other circumstances, with other people, he might try to charm her. He’d learned a lot in his world about how to do that, and even pulled it off now and then. It was easier there, though, where he had some standing. Where—as his thankfully out-of-the-country-at-the-moment agent kept telling him—he was the hottest property in town.

All of which meant nothing to this woman whose life was utterly based in reality. He wondered if there was anything produced in his industry that she did like. Old west westerns, as opposed to those set present day, like Stonewall ? Or maybe she went for thrillers, or science fiction, or history-based things. He couldn’t quite see her being enamored of rom-cons, but he didn’t know her well enough to be sure.

Face it, Thorpe, you don’t really know her at all.

And it didn’t matter that he didn’t. It didn’t matter that she didn’t care for his work, or he himself. All that mattered was that she was kind enough to worry about a little boy she’d just met enough to invite him to her home to meet her horses.

He pulled the car over next to a black pickup truck that had a logo painted on the door for Baylor Black Angus, figuring that was a safe enough place to park. He’d barely stopped before Jeremy was opening the car door.

“Be careful,” he said as the boy scrambled out. “We don’t know if the animals are used to having kids around.”

Jeremy muttered something he was probably better off not hearing. He got out of the driver’s seat and found Ms. Baylor, already dismounted, watching him. He couldn’t interpret her expression, except that it held a touch of surprise. Did she think he was that ignorant of horses and cattle that he didn’t realize a small, quick, unknown creature they weren’t used to could startle them? Or did she just think he was an overprotective father, a helicopter parent, or whatever they called them these days?

He almost laughed at himself again, then. He sounded so old, even in his head. But he’d aged a hell of a lot in the last two years, and not by choice.

“Something funny?” she asked.

“Just me, feeling like I’m a hundred and ten.”

For some reason that made her smile. But then she turned to Jeremy and proceeded to formally introduce him to the horse she’d been riding, her own personal mount.

“This is Sassafras, which is what they originally called what’s now root beer. I just call him Sass, because he’s full of it.”

Jeremy grinned. And once more Jackson felt his eyes begin to sting and he had to look away. For this, just for this simple thing, a grin from his little boy, he didn’t care if she hated him down to the bone.

When he lifted his gaze, she was watching him again, and this time there was a touch of that warmth he’d seen yesterday in her eyes.

“Come on,” she said, turning back to Jeremy. “Let’s head to the barn, and I’ll introduce you to Pie. He’s just about your size.”

As they walked toward the big wooden building, Jackson noticed a narrow, paved pathway that led from the barn to what he guessed was the ranch house, a rather sprawling, metal-roofed single story that looked as if it had a couple of wings that had been added on. It was tidy, clean, and well kept. There was a big porch that ran the width of the building, with expansive steps leading down to a raised garden bed he imagined was quite something in the spring. And at the far end of the porch was a ramp of some kind.

“It’s for my mother.”

His gaze snapped back to the woman walking almost beside him; Jeremy was dancing—there was no other word for the excited quick step he was doing—ahead of them.

“The ramp, and the path,” she said. “It’s for my mother. She’s in a wheelchair, but she likes to keep an eye on things, so my dad did it for her so she could get around.”

He didn’t know what to say about her mother, so he stuck with the other option. “Your dad must be really handy.”

“He’s the best,” she said simply. “But by way of warning, my mother will probably show at some point if you bring Jeremy back.” Her mouth quirked. How had he not noticed how luscious it was before? “She’s not here today, but she is a Stonewall fan, as I’ve just learned yesterday.”

“You just learned?”

She shrugged and looked away from him, as if embarrassed. “She never told me because she knows how I feel.”

So he’d been right. He hadn’t imagined the negative vibe he’d picked up that first day in front of Asa Fuhrmann’s statue. She didn’t like him. Maybe even disliked him. Or the character he played. These days he didn’t know which, not that it mattered much. To a lot of people, the two were inseparable. Even more so since this was the first major role he’d ever had, so there was nothing to balance it out, nothing for people to say, “I hate him in this, but he was good in that,” about.

The realization made his own reaction to her even more unsettling. Then again, maybe it was better this way. He had no business thinking about things like how much he liked those eyes, or the way she moved, any of that. Not when Jeremy was so deeply mired in his grief Jackson was afraid the bright, loving child he’d been might never surface again.

And she was helping with that. No matter how she felt about him, she’d immediately picked up on Jeremy’s distress and moved to help. That told him all he needed to know about her. And that’s what he needed to focus on, not his totally unexpected attraction to her.

He had no time for—or right to—that.