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

Chapter Fourteen

O kay, this was crazy.

She missed him. The kid had only been here twice, and she missed him. Missed seeing him so happy, and the look of relief and joy on his aunt’s face—or okay, his father’s—as they watched him.

Or maybe it was just that she’d had a restless night and so had gotten up early and had all her chores for the day done by ten. Then she’d ridden over to Clark’s old house, which they periodically checked on simply because it went against the Baylor grain to just let it go. And besides, she loved the place, the simplicity of it, and most of all the location, atop a rise with a view out over the hills, toward the creek that ran across the northwest corner of the ranch in the distance. A view that she wished the main house had.

The place had been well built and was in good shape. All she’d had to do was dust a little, run some water to check the pipes, and flip on the circuit breaker to make sure the power still worked. That, plus cleaning the windows, and she was done, and it was still only eleven.

That left her too much time to think. That was all that “missing the kid” feeling was.

She thought about taking Sass out for a run, but this was his relax day, and the most she generally asked of him on Sunday was to happily roam the big pasture and roll in the dirt as he so liked to do. It meant a bath for him later, but she didn’t mind that because the horse enjoyed it so much, and would play with the water, most often trying to spray it back on her.

She slipped a halter on Pie and led him out to the corral attached to the barn. He was small enough that that was plenty of room for him to romp in. And he needed to work off the energy that never seemed to fade. As she watched the pony kick up his heels, she found herself back on the original thought she was trying to avoid, wondering if Jeremy would come back. If his father would let him.

Wondering if his father would bring him.

She owed him an apology. Not that she was in a hurry to do it. It would be awkward and embarrassing, but she owed it, and she would do it.

She’d gone back and watched that video of him saving the mired horse again. A couple of times. There was no denying the heroic effort he’d made. No denying that he’d been the only one there who’d even tried.

No denying how utterly hot he looked doing it.

So, you joining the Jackson Thorpe fan club now?

No, she told herself. She was just dropping out of the hate-him-on-sight club.

She heard the wheels on the path her father had built and turned to see her mother heading for her. She handled the chair with the ease of long practice, and Nic wasn’t really kidding when she joked that she’d put Mom’s arm strength up against any hand on the ranch.

“How is he doing?” her mother asked without preamble.

“Fine,” Nic said. “I think he enjoyed being back under saddle. It’s been a while.”

“I can see Pie is fine. I meant,” her mother said rather pointedly, “the little boy.”

“Oh.” Nic felt a touch of heat in her cheeks. If her mother ever ventured one of her rare criticisms, it was about her focus on the animals, to the exclusion of almost everything else.

Someday, Nicole, I’d like some grandchildren of the human variety.

She usually countered that unsubtle request with an offer to go pick up some guy at the Last Stand Saloon. A while back, her mother would have retorted she could do a lot worse than Slater Highwater, but now it was obvious that he and Joey were such a perfect match that no one could imagine either of them with anyone else.

She gave herself an inward shake. “His aunt says he’s doing better since they’ve come to Last Stand than he has since his mother was killed.”

Barbara Baylor nodded as if not at all surprised. “This is a good place. By the way”—Nic tensed, because that phrase from her mother usually signaled an incoming salvo—“I ran into Lily and Shane Highwater in town this morning.”

“With the baby, I’m sure?” she asked dryly, figuring they’d be back to that.

“Of course.” Her mother’s smile widened. “That man is going to be a wonderful father. But Lily mentioned she drove Jackson Thorpe to Fredericksburg yesterday, to pick up a rental car.”

Nic blinked. “Lily did?”

“Slater called her, since he knew she had planned to go to the library there anyway, to look at some historical documents for a piece she’s writing.”

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say, so said nothing.

“Don’t you see what that means?” her mother asked, sounding as impatient as she ever got, which wasn’t much. If her accident had taught her nothing else, it was patience.

“No, what?”

“If he’s renting a car, they’re staying. For a while at least.”

“Oh.” Now she felt silly, because that was all she could come up with.

“And,” her mother added, “she said he agreed to let her tell Mr. Diaz why he was here, which of course will activate the grapevine.”

She blinked as the image of the feedstore owner formed in her mind. He told Lily to tell the biggest gossip in town? That surprised her, but she supposed it shouldn’t have. She’d been foolish to think he truly wanted a low profile here. He was a Hollywood star. Of course he wanted the word out, so he—

“Lily, of course, made it clear to him that he needed to include the reason Jackson was here, for the sake of his little boy, and for everyone to back off and let them alone. Or at least treat them like anyone else in town. And you know not even Samuel Diaz is going to cross Lily Highwater.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “No, he wouldn’t. Lily would write a profile of him that would run him out of town in embarrassment. Not to mention Shane would want a word or two with him.”

“Exactly.” Her mother gave her a sideways look. “So, when is he coming back?”

“Want to be sure you’re here?” she teased.

“It will give me something to talk about at the next Daughters of LS meeting,” Mom said, and she was grinning.

Emotion flooded Nic, that this strong, indomitable woman was her mother. “I love you, Mom. And I really don’t know if he’s coming back. I hope so, for Jeremy’s sake. It was good for him.”

“I love you, too, Nicky.” The grin flashed again, lighting up warm brown eyes. “Just let me know when you do find out, okay?”

“What if Jeremy’s coming with his aunt again?”

“Still let me know. She sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”

Nic nodded. “I really like her.”

“Good enough for me. It’s the one you don’t like I disagree with.”

“Yeah, well,” Nic muttered. “I’m rethinking that. He really does love that boy.”

“And you thought he wasn’t capable of that?”

“I thought he was an actor.”

“Even in his personal life?”

“I guess so,” she admitted. It sounded pretty silly out loud.

But then, a lot of her assumptions about Jackson Thorpe seemed a bit silly right now.

It was Nic’s turn to fix dinner that night, and since she was in no mood—okay, she was too distracted—she instead went into town to pick up their favorite meal from Valencia’s, the best Tex-Mex restaurant in town, if not the county. She clearly wasn’t the only one with the same idea this Sunday night, because there were three other people ahead of her when she arrived. One was Hannah Roberts, one of the sales staff at Yippee Ki Yay, who greeted her with a smile.

“Well, here she is, the topic of much conversation in the store today.”

Nic blinked. “What?”

“Had a certain... very famous customer today, with a little boy who couldn’t stop talking about you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’d mention the name, but word is out to be hush-hush.”

So the Last Stand grapevine was alive, well-oiled, and functioning according to command. But that realization was nothing compared to Hannah’s pronouncement that she had been a topic of conversation.

“You’re going to explain, I presume,” she said dryly.

Hannah did, and the account of the famous star buying a pair of cowboy boots for his little boy, along with a pearl-snap shirt and a bandana—“Pretty much anything he wanted,” Hannah said—made her smile.

“I tried to talk him into a new hat, or a pair of boots for himself, but he wasn’t having any of it. They were here for Jeremy, he said. But you know the best part?”

Not until you tell me. She knew this was part of Hannah’s makeup. She just loved to gossip, but in her own, hold back the best part until the end, way. “What?” she asked, playing along.

“He put back the Stetson I handed him and said he knew he had no business pretending to be a cowboy here, where so many real ones live.”

Nic blinked. The hat don’t make you a cowboy...

“He said that?” she finally got out.

“He did. You know, I’ve always liked him, and I love the show, but that was... a wonderful thing to say.”

“Yes,” Nic said. “Yes, it was.”

“And I’m jealous. He’s already been to your place and stayed the whole afternoon.”

“Yes,” she said, but what he’d said about the hat was still rocketing around in her brain.

“I went back and read about his wife’s accident after they left. So sad. I mean, we drive fast here, but they drive crazy. And just think, if it had been fifteen minutes later, Jeremy would have been in that car with her, since she was on her way to pick him up from school.”

Nic’s breath caught. She hadn’t known that.

She hadn’t known a lot of things, it seemed.