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

Chapter Nine

“I ’ve never seen him take to someone like this.” Nic watched the boy and the black-and-white pinto pony, a little amazed. “He usually has to be bribed with an apple or carrot.”

“Aw, you’re just sayin’ that,” Jeremy said, but he looked pleased, anyway, as he stroked the little pony’s neck.

“If I were you,” said his father, who was leaning against the corral fence, “I’d believe her. I don’t think she says things just to say them.”

And that pleased her in turn. Enough that she had to look away. She did not want to like the guy, but he was making it difficult not to. Especially when the way he looked at the boy made it so darned obvious he adored his son.

Her mother’s words from last night floated up out of her memory.

He left, Nicky. He just walked away. All of Hollywood is abuzz over this. Nobody can believe somebody would walk away from something as huge as Stonewall is right now. The show people are in an uproar, not knowing what to do because they don’t know if he’ll be back.

Her mother had looked both shocked and disappointed when she’d cornered Nic as she cleaned up after dinner last night, Mom’s luscious chicken marsala. She’d obviously been doing some internet searching.

“But he did it for a good reason,” she’d said.

How on earth had she ended up defending the guy she didn’t even like? Because it was true, she answered herself silently. It had been for a good reason. And she had to admit, walking away from the kind of money he was likely getting paid was a sign of true dedication.

“They’re leaving it open, I hear,” Mom had gone on. “Not killing off the character. He’s going to go missing or something.”

“So they’re going with reality?” She’d asked it a little too sweetly, and her mother had given her that look that told her she’d gone a bit too far. “Sorry, Mom. I know you like the guy.”

“And, you should perhaps remember, I have excellent taste in men.”

She’d glanced toward the man coming into the kitchen with the last of the dinner dishes. And Nic could do nothing else but agree. Because her father was the prototype for Nic’s ideal man. So far in her life, she’d never met his match.

And that still held, because this man who pretended to be someone else for a living wasn’t even close.

She suppressed a little shiver now as she remembered how she’d nearly dropped the plate she’d been putting in the dishwasher at the shock of even thinking about Jackson Thorpe in that way. As big as he’d gotten, as fast as it had happened, had to have made him think he could do no wrong. She’d dealt with an ego like that once and was not about to try again. And there she went again, thinking about it as if it were even a possibility. On either side.

My ego may have inflated, but it’s not that huge.

His words came back to her now, as she watched him smile at his son as he stroked Pie’s dark nose. Maybe his ego wasn’t huge by Hollywood standards, but it would probably overshadow anybody she knew. Currently, anyway, and as long as she stayed out of Austin.

“If you want to brush him, he’ll be your friend for life,” she said to Jeremy, who lit up at the idea. She got him the brush, instructed him to follow the way the hair grew, and he got to it.

“Why is his name Pie? Does he like to eat it?”

She smiled at the boy. “No, although he probably would if he got the chance. Pie is short for piebald, which is what they call a black-and-white pinto, as opposed to a brown-and-white one.”

“Oh.” The boy’s serious expression gave her the distinct feeling he was filing that away as important knowledge.

For several minutes they just watched the pair, Nic with amusement, his father with an expression resembling... joy? That thought rattled her a bit for some reason she didn’t want to analyze right now.

Very quietly, so quietly Jeremy wouldn’t hear, he spoke. “I know I’ve said thank you before—”

“And you don’t need to again,” Nic cut him off, but nicely. “Seeing any child this happy is a good thing, but one with his backstory? It’s wonderful.”

“That’s very . . . understanding of you.”

“I was nearly in the same boat. And the thought of losing my mother nearly broke me, even at the age of twenty. I can’t imagine how horrible it must have been for him, so young.”

“We wouldn’t have made it if not for Tris.”

“Your sister?” She remembered the woman who’d been with him that first day by Asa’s statue, the woman with dark-auburn hair, but those same deep-blue eyes.

He nodded. “She essentially moved in with us right after it happened and stayed for nearly a year. I tried to convince her to stay permanently, but she missed this place.” His mouth twisted into a wry grimace that was very expressive, and she couldn’t help wondering if he used that to effect while playing his part. “And she doesn’t much care for L.A.”

“I’m with her on that one,” Nic said dryly.

“I got that impression,” he said, a shade too neutrally. Obviously she hadn’t hidden her distaste very well.

“Last Stand is a great place,” she said. “I wouldn’t live anywhere else.”

“You were born here?”

“Right here in Jameson Hospital,” she confirmed. “My family has been here a long time. Not as long as the originals, but we love it just as much.”

“The originals?”

“That’s what I call the families who have been here since the last stand. The Raffertys, the Valencias, the Highwaters.”

“Highwater. That’s the guy who runs the saloon, who’s married to the librarian.”

She nodded. “And his oldest brother’s our police chief, and a fine one. The other brother’s a detective. Their sister runs their ranch, which is one of the bigger ones in the area.”

“As big as yours?”

She had to tell herself he didn’t know, couldn’t know, how that stung, but it hurt, nevertheless. “Bigger, now. Much bigger.”

It came out stiffly, sourly, but she couldn’t help it. It was a very sore spot with her and probably always would be.

Jeremy ran over and looked up at her. “Nic, do you think... is he... could I ride him sometime?”

She’d expected that would come, eventually. Fortunately, the little pinto was good-tempered and amenable enough to even ignorant riders, which was why she’d chosen him for Jeremy to meet first.

“Well,” she said, drawling it out, “let’s see here now. You’re both about twelve hands high, so that’s a good fit.”

The boy’s brow furrowed. “Hands?”

“Yep.” That was all she said. And she admitted she wanted to see if his father would—could—answer him. He did.

“That’s how they measure how big horses are,” Thorpe said after a moment of silence, giving her a sideways look, as if he’d guessed what she was doing. What was she doing? Testing him? Why the heck would it matter? “They’re measured at the withers, which is like their shoulders.”

Jeremy turned his head to look, and at the right spot, she noticed. “But what’s a hand? I mean I know what a foot is, for measuring, but...?”

“Same principle,” his father said. “But back in the old days, they didn’t have measuring tapes handy. So what do you suppose they measured with?”

It only took a matter of seconds for Jeremy’s eyes to light up. “Their hands!”

“Yep,” he said, and she wondered if he was echoing her on purpose. “It wasn’t exact, because people’s hands are different sizes, but it was at least a way to get a good idea.”

“And nowadays a hand is generally considered four inches,” Nic put in, trying to suppress her approval for how he’d done that, made the boy think it through and get to the answer himself. She didn’t want to like anything about this guy, and it bugged her that she did. “So was I right? Are you about four feet tall?”

Jeremy nodded. “Someday, maybe, I’ll catch up to my dad.”

“I don’t know. He’s pretty tall.”

She glanced at the man just a couple of feet away. Even as she looked, he was turning away. He took a couple of steps to his right and stopped. She watched, puzzled, until she saw him take a swipe at his eyes. And realized he’d stepped away to be out of his son’s line of sight. So the boy wouldn’t see him cry? And why was he, anyway?

She wasn’t sure what made her do it, but after a quick look to see that Jeremy was engrossed again in his task of brushing Pie, she followed him. “He’s enjoying this,” she said.

He didn’t look at her, but he answered. “Yes. He is.”

“And that upsets you?”

He did turn then. “If by upset you mean I feel like my heart’s going to explode, then yes. He used to say things like that all the time, but not once since...” His voice trailed off, and he looked away again. She gathered that simple exchange about Jeremy someday being as tall as his father had really struck home. She saw him swallow, hard, and his voice was beyond rough when he finished it. “Leah used to tell him all the time he would be as tall as me someday. It’s so linked to her, it’s...”

“Painful?” she asked.

He nodded, still not looking at her. She chose her next words carefully, because this was for the boy’s sake. All of this was for his sake.

“Don’t you think it’s painful for him too?”

His head snapped around. “That’s what I meant. Do you think I can even register how much anything about her hurts me, when I see him in such pain?”

It took some effort on her part not to cringe away from his anger. And more effort to say, quietly, “I only meant that it might be a good thing, for him, if he sees that he’s not alone in his pain. That you’re hurting right along with him.”

“Oh, he knows that,” the man said bitterly. “I’m the father who went off the edge and on a month-long bender after she died. If Tris hadn’t snapped me out of it, I don’t know what would have happened.”

She wondered how his sister had managed that, if it had taken some kind of sibling connection she didn’t have, or understand, to do it. But she didn’t ask, said only, “Good for her, then.”

“She’s been there. She gets it. And she saved us both.”

“Using her own remembered pain,” Nic said, marveling a little at the strength that must have taken. She had the feeling Trista Thorpe Carhart was someone she’d like to know.

“Yes. Compounded, because she loved Leah too. Hell, everyone did.”

His late wife must have been a heck of a woman. She found herself wondering more about her, but didn’t want to ask. She didn’t stop to analyze why, just dropped it.

“Let’s get that fledgling cowboy geared up for a ride,” she said.

And as she headed for the tack room for the pony’s gear, she tried not to wonder why she’d wanted to know more about a woman who’d died two years ago.