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

Chapter Twenty-Two

“S o Jackson Thorpe is really working on your ranch?”

Nic was used to the question by now. And her answer, which once might have been snide or snarky, was honest and simple now.

“He is,” she told the clerk at the feedstore as he brought up her special order of grain for Pie, who, with Jeremy, was getting a lot more exercise than he had in a while and needed more than just forage. “And he’s working hard.”

“So it isn’t all fake?”

“Not his willingness to work. Dad says we should be paying him, or at least lowering his rent.” She’d been surprised anew herself at the energy and effort he poured into it.

You’d think you’d be tired of being surprised by now. Why don’t you just admit you’ve entirely misjudged the man from the beginning, and stop?

She pondered that as she loaded the big bag of feed into her truck. She wasn’t usually so resistant to admitting the obvious. Jackson Thorpe was no Hollywood phony who didn’t like getting his hands dirty. He was a loving, caring father who’d upended his entire life and quite possibly ruined a burgeoning career for the sake of his son and ended up working as hard as any hand—and harder than some they’d had—on the ranch.

And speaking of fathers, her own seemed to have developed an annoying habit of picking the man whenever she needed a bit of extra muscle on a task, or suggesting he go with her if she had to head out somewhere on the ranch.

“He appreciates it, Nicky. Both the ranch and the opportunity to ride when it’s not in front of a camera.”

Camera or not, he could ride. She couldn’t deny there was something about a good-looking man who sat a horse the way he did that pleased her in a very visceral way. Not that there weren’t a wealth of them around Last Stand. The police chief, for starters, the Rafferty brothers, and a few others she could name. Yet none of them set her off the way Jackson Thorpe did.

Jackson Thorpe, the man she would have least expected to react to, that way. She’d thought herself immune. And she would have been, if he’d been the kind of man she’d assumed he was.

“Hey, Baylor!”

She turned to see Gary Klausen, who worked at the hardware store. “Hi, Gary.”

“Y’all get that sliding door fixed?”

She nodded. “Once we got the right part, thanks to you.”

He chuckled. “Thank your famous ranch hand. He’s the one who found it. I didn’t even realize we had it in the store. Y’know, he’s a really nice guy. Not at all snobby, like I would have expected. He helped me stack some heavy boxes and even helped Mr. Mason carry out a big load of lumber and tie it down.”

She supposed it was progress, that she was no longer surprised that Jackson had done that. Twice more she met people she knew in town who had had an encounter with “their famous new resident,” as one called him. And no one had a bad word to say about him. There was nothing but praise... and shock that he was so down-to-earth, which reminded her rather painfully of her own misjudgment.

If Jackson Thorpe had set out to charm Last Stand, he couldn’t be doing better. But she knew now, this was simply who he was.

She stopped by Java Time for a coffee for the drive back home, mentally planning dinner since it was her turn to cook. She was contemplating shelving all her ideas and stopping at Valencia’s to pick up a meal, since she had to practically drive by it, when she realized she knew the woman in front of her in line who had just said hello.

Jackson’s sister. She hadn’t realized how late in the afternoon it was, but if she, a teacher, was here, school was obviously out. And a bit to her own surprise, she found herself suggesting they take one of the open tables and sit for a few minutes before venturing back out into the chill of a Texas January. Chill being relative, of course, she knew.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Tris said without preamble. “I haven’t seen either my brother or Jeremy this... calm, this much at peace, since Leah died.”

Nic didn’t think she’d mistaken the shadow that flickered in the other woman’s eyes. “You were close to her?”

“Very. She was the sister I never had.”

“So it was just you and Jackson?”

Tris nodded. “It’s funny. I’d hear my friends complain about their little brothers, what a pain they were, and how embarrassing. And I won’t say there weren’t moments, but for the most part, Jackson was my best friend growing up, even though he’s two years younger. He’s always been there for me.”

Nic smiled, although as an only child, she didn’t really know firsthand about that kind of sibling bond.

“I was a junior when he hit high school,” Tris went on, “and by then, he’d already shot up to nearly six feet tall. There was this guy bothering me, and one day he cornered me, and I nearly didn’t get away. Jackson saw the bruises and guessed what happened. The next day that guy showed up at school with a black eye and a split lip, and avoided me like the plague. Jackson never admitted it, but I knew. I almost felt sorry for the guy, the humiliation of getting clobbered by a freshman. Which was what kept Jackson out of trouble... the clown was too embarrassed to admit what had happened.”

Nic grimaced. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, but that was good of him.”

Tris grinned then. “The best part was after that, Jackson insisted on teaching me how to fight. Just in case I ever had to again, I could get away myself. He told me, ‘Fight dirty if you have to, because only a dirty guy would do that to a girl who said no.’”

Nic grinned back because she couldn’t seem to help it.

She was still thinking about that encounter when she got home. She saw Jackson helping Dad shift some hay bales in the barn, and automatically assessed the number they had left. Plenty to get them through to spring and the next harvesting. Then the scramble would begin to move the remaining bales to the front for usage and stacking the new season’s behind it. It took up a lot of barn space, but not losing a chunk of the supply from spoilage was more important.

For a moment she just stood there, watching her father and Jackson work together. Despite his heart attack, Dad was a tough, strong man used to ranch work, but Jackson seemed to be keeping up just fine. And, she had to admit, she liked watching them work together. She liked watching Jackson work, period.

Which is why you end up watching it at night, in your dreams, so often?

That chiding inner voice did nothing to slow the heat that rose in her, because those dreams she’d been having never seemed to end with just watching him. She’d always thought women who dreamed about celebrities a bit silly, and telling herself it was the real man, not the actor she was making up nighttime scenarios about, didn’t help much.

When they’d shifted the last bale and Dad nodded in that way that told her the job was done, she started walking toward them. But before she could say anything more than hello, Jackson’s phone rang.

“Hollywood calling?” Dad asked, his tone joking.

“Nope, they’re all routed directly to voicemail,” Jackson said cheerfully. “Only my sister and Tucker get through, and I just talked to Tris.”

He’d just talked to Tris? Like just now, after she’d run into her at the coffee shop? She couldn’t stop the stab of curiosity about what his sister might have said.

He’d turned slightly away, but she couldn’t help hearing when his voice powered up a little. “They’re what?” And a moment later, he said, almost fiercely, “No. No, I want him. I’ll transfer the money, whatever it takes. Can you see if Rachel can take him at the rescue until I figure something out?” Another pause. “Thanks, T. Let me know.”

For a moment after he ended the call, he just stood there, clearly thinking.

“Bad news?” her father asked, saving her from having to do it.

Jackson looked at Dad and grimaced. “They were going to rid of Buck. The horse I rode on the show.”

“The buckskin?” Dad asked, startling her. How had he known that? Had he been secretly watching, too, with Mom?

Jackson nodded. “He’s a great horse.”

“Then why get rid of him?” she asked, curiosity overcoming her reticence.

“Apparently, he’s been acting up a little,” Jackson said.

“No surprise,” she retorted. “Whenever I see shows with horses, I always feel bad for them, constantly being burdened with riders who know nothing.” That had come out a little too close to her old prejudices, so she quickly added, “Present company excepted.”

He shrugged, but she thought she caught a tiny smile at her words. “We got along, Buck and I.”

“One-man horse, eh?” Dad said, and he was smiling widely.

Jackson’s mouth quirked at one corner in that way she’d come to like seeing. Face it, you just like his mouth...

“I guess,” he said, looking both pleased and worried.

“So you’re going to buy him too?” she asked.

“He’d probably be okay. He just needs a rider with more experience, but...”

“Probably isn’t good enough,” she said, staring at this man she’d so misjudged.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed.

“Assuming you’re going to be staying awhile, you could bring him here,” Dad said. Jackson looked startled. “Your other one too. You could keep them in the little barn up at your place.”

Your place.

“You’d... be okay with that?” Jackson asked her father, sounding almost as startled as he’d looked.

“You wouldn’t be the first ranch hand to bring their own horse,” Dad said easily. “And son, you’ve been working like one.”

And suddenly, in Nic’s mind, the dreams she’d had about someday making that house on the hill hers collided with him already living there, and she was thinking of what it would be like if both those things came together.

She almost laughed out loud at herself, at the crazy way her brain had put that together.

She wasn’t laughing at all at the way her heart responded to it.