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

Chapter Thirty

N ic saw the fancy car leave just after the storm really hit. She half expected to see Jackson in the passenger seat, headed back to his real life. Back to the spotlight, and the fawning adoration of millions. Why wouldn’t he? Why would she ever think the simple life they led here would hold him?

Why would she think she could hold him?

She felt a tightening in her gut and a stinging in her eyes as she tried to fight off assuming the worst. She’d done that in the beginning, and he’d proven her wrong in so many ways, yet here she was, wondering if he was on the phone right now, making travel arrangements.

She felt a bit wobbly all of a sudden and walked away from her front window to sink down onto the couch that faced the fireplace. She’d built the fire now, in case the power went out and she needed it for heat, as her father had taught her. As he’d taught her so many other things. Too bad he’d never taught her to deal with a different kind of man than he himself was.

She tried to picture her life going back to the way it was before, but she had trouble even remembering her day-to-day life before that afternoon when, walking down Main Street, she’d first seen him. Even now, she felt an echo of embarrassment at how she’d misjudged him.

Or had she? Had he been just waiting for this, for them to come looking for him? Was he using his absence as a ploy to maybe get more money out of them? Was it all a plan to keep himself in the entertainment headlines, so his return to the show had even more impact? Was that the reason for the whole thing?

The questions hammered her, countered only by the string of images she summoned up, images of Jackson with Jeremy, the son he so obviously adored. If she had to believe that was a lie, too, that it had all been an act... She could believe he’d been acting with her, but if his feelings for that boy were faked, then she was too stupid and blind to be allowed out of the house.

She listened to the rumble of thunder, close enough now to rattle her windows. It matched her mood at the moment. She sat there, watching the fire, listening to the storm, her emotions taking over and making her think that no matter how destructive each force of nature could be, fire and storm, neither could match the way she was feeling right now.

She was almost grateful for the storm, because it kept her from charging up the hill now that the fancy car had left. She wanted to ask what had happened between the two men, and at the same time, desperately didn’t want to ask, because she was fearful of the answer.

She didn’t want to believe it, but the moment she’d learned that they—that big, amorphous, Hollywood they—had come for him, she’d been hit with the reality of his life, his career. And the feeling she’d never quite been able to fully quash, that this was temporary, just a break, and now that Jeremy was doing better, he’d be back to the bright lights and the fame and fortune, had risen up to swamp her. She’d been afraid of that from the beginning.

It took her a moment to realize the sound she’d heard was not another crack of thunder but a sharp rap on her front door. She knew it wasn’t Mom or Dad, because they would have stayed out of the rain and used the adjoining inside door. Her gut knotted, ending her wondering, because she was suddenly certain who was there. And she thought she knew why.

Jackson, come to tell her he was leaving. Going back to his gilded life in L.A.

She yanked the door open, and there he was. Proving her right, her gut yelled.

“Nice of you to at least say goodbye,” she ground out to the shadowy figure that made her start to reach for the switch for the porch light.

“Say—What?”

“Enjoy life back in Hollywood.”

“I’m not—” She saw him give a shake of his head, then, vehemently, he growled out, “There’s no time for this.”

It couldn’t have stung more if he’d slapped her. “Fine. Consider me notified.”

She had moved to close the door when he said, “Nicole.”

Her full name, not Nic. And something in the way he sounded then made her go for that light switch.

She had never seen the Jackson who seemed to materialize in that flood of light. He wasn’t just soaking wet, and panting as if he’d run all the way down here, he looked... his eyes looked...

Terrified. It was the only word she could come up with that fit. Yes, this was a pretty major storm, but they had thunder and lightning in L.A., didn’t they? Surely that didn’t have him this rattled?

“Jackson?” she whispered.

He sucked in a breath. “I need help, Nic.”

“What you need is a towel.” She pulled him inside and turned to go get one. But he grabbed her arm before she could even take a step and pulled her back.

“Jeremy’s gone,” he blurted out.

She stared at him. “Gone? I sent him up to your place when I got back to the barn, so he’d get there before the storm hit.”

“He did.” Jackson was still breathing hard. “But he hit the middle of the storm inside the house. I heard him on the porch, but I didn’t realize it was him. I thought it was the wind again.”

“I don’t—”

“I think he heard us. Me and Swiff, I mean. The noise came when he was telling me, loudly, that I had to come back or I’d be in legal trouble.”

She felt a little shock. She’d barely thought of that, only a passing curiosity if there could be legal ramifications of him walking away. Enough to make him go back? The very thought gave her a chill. But right now, that didn’t matter. Only Jeremy mattered, and she fought down a wave of nausea at the thought of the little boy she’d come to love out in this storm.

“Look,” Jackson said, sounding desperate now, “all I know for sure is I can’t find him. I’ve looked all around our place, the house, the shed, clearing out back, all of it. Then I came down here, figuring he might be in the barn with Pie, but not only is he not there, neither is Pie.”

She shoved aside all the frantic emotions that were battering her, told herself however she felt, Jackson felt a hundred times worse. “Come with me,” she said, grabbing her rain slicker and hat as she belted over to the interior door without waiting to see if he followed. She yanked the door open, calling for her father. He must have been in the living room and heard her immediately, because he was there before they even stepped into the adjoining residence. She explained hastily.

“How long ago?” her father asked sharply, looking at Jackson.

“Nearly an hour.”

“Should have come to us sooner, boy.”

“I never should have come here at all,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “I’m not tough enough for this, I’m just a guy who fakes being—”

“You want to stand here blaming yourself or find your boy?” Without waiting for an answer, he called out Mom’s name, only to turn and find her already approaching.

“I heard,” she said, then looked at Jackson. “We’ll find him,” she said reassuringly.

“Chuck and Mike are in the bunkhouse. I’ll roll them out,” Dad said.

“I’ll make the calls, get things started,” Mom said, spinning her chair around and wheeling quickly toward her computer setup.

Nic nodded. Her father grabbed his own rain jacket, looked frowningly at the drenched Jackson, and pulled another one off the rack. “It’ll be a little short on you, but better than nothing.”

“We’ll start at the barn,” Nic said. “The rain will likely have wiped out any tracks, but we might be able to tell what direction they headed out.”

She put a hand on his arm and squeezed gently. Then looked at her father. “We’ll take the northwest corner.” She knew Jeremy liked the grove of pecan trees out that way, because of all the critters that tended to hang out there. “Since there’s the road all the way to the fence line, we’ll take my truck and check that first, then come back for horses if we need to.”

Dad nodded. “The hands will take the southeast and southwest corners. I’ll take the northeast.”

Mom was already back. “The tree’s activated.” Jackson looked blank, but she’d explain about the phone tree of Last Stand, a way for a network of locals to reach each other in an emergency, later. “Shane’s mounted up and on his way, coming from the north side, and Kane’s bringing Lark in their car in case she can help. I spoke to Maggie, and she said Chance got back home this morning, so she’ll come with him, and they’ll bring one of the dogs that might be useful.”

“Let’s get,” Dad said.

*

Jackson was reeling. Panic about Jeremy threatened to overwhelm him, so he tried to focus on the information Nic’s mom had poured out as he and Nic ran down to the barn. Pie’s stall door was still open, and Nic thought to do what he hadn’t—check the tack room.

“He didn’t saddle him up,” she said. “Just the bridle’s missing.”

Great. He’s out there riding bareback?

“Don’t worry about that too,” Nic said, as if she’d read his thought. “We haven’t done a lot of bareback, but we’ve done some and he’s getting the feel of it. And,” she added, “we know now he went that way.”

She was gesturing toward the far end of the barn, which faced north. “We do?”

“Yes. Because I secured that door from the inside myself, and it’s undone now.”

He let out a long breath. “Thanks,” he said quietly. “For having a brain that’s still working, I mean.”

She reached up and cupped his cheek, but only said briskly, “Let’s go.”

They ran back to her place and got into her truck. He would have preferred to drive only because he needed to do something, but he knew it would be foolish. She’d grown up on the ranch and knew every inch of it, and he... he was just that faker who pretended to be a cowboy in front of a camera.

Finally, because he had to vent some of the roiling emotions inside him, he asked, “Your mother said Shane... as in the police chief? He really rolls out just like that?”

“He’s not coming as the police chief, he’s coming as our neighbor. They’re just over the big hill to the west.” She shot him a sideways look. “And he always likes a chance to take a horse out and jump a couple of fences.”

Jackson’s eyes widened, looking out at the pouring rain. “He’s riding over, over fences? In this?”

“Saves a half an hour cutting across the neighbors, and nobody in Last Stand is going to deny him permission. Not Shane Highwater.”

He knew enough about the man now to know that was likely true. He sure as hell wouldn’t want to try to face down the guy who seemed to make heroics a habit.

“And,” Nic added before he could ask, “Kane’s no soft, studio-type music star. He’s had a hell of a life, and he’s as tough as he needs to be. And his Lark’s a treasure, and I feel stupid because I didn’t think of her before, when Jeremy was so... withdrawn.”

“Why?”

“She used to be a child services officer, but she was too good at it.”

He blinked. “Too good?”

“As in, she poured her heart and soul into it, and it ended up eating her alive. So now she works for a local adoption agency. But she hasn’t forgotten a thing about dealing with scared kids, so she’s coming with Kane.”

A flash lit up the sky to the east, and Jackson found himself mentally counting down to the first rumble of thunder, even though he couldn’t remember the formula for telling how far away the lightning had been. But even without that, it was too close for comfort.

“She’s coming out in a thunderstorm? But... she’s never even met us.”

She gave him another look, but this time it was with a gentle smile. “You’re part of Last Stand now. That’s all it takes.”

He gave a slow, wondering shake of his head. “This place...”

“Yes, it’s pretty special.”

He lapsed into silence, because he didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say. He’d never known this kind of feeling before, this sense of... community. He and Tris had always been tight, but that was different. That was family.

Back in L.A., he hadn’t even known his neighbors, even before Stonewall had launched and they’d been living in that apartment in Burbank. And after, when they’d bought that place with some property around it—a couple of acres didn’t mean much here, but it had there—it had been much the same, strangers among strangers. Whether it was ranch life, or simply Texas, he didn’t know, but he did know it was utterly, completely different.

And Jeremy had taken to it like he never had anything else. For that alone, he had been ready to risk whatever legal hammer Swiff might bring down on him. But now there was Nic, and he could no more see himself walking away from her than he could see dragging his son away from this place where he’d found such peace and happiness.

Where he himself had so unexpectedly found those things... and more. So much more than he’d ever expected.

He didn’t know how to feel when their foot-by-foot check of the pecan grove turned up nothing—glad that there was no sign Jeremy had been here, or afraid that he had been and all trace had been wiped out by the heavy rain. But there was no sign of Pie, either, and at least the bright white on the pony would be more visible. Assuming anything would be in this downpour.

This dangerous downpour, he corrected, as another flash lit up the sky. This time the thunder was quicker, sharper, and even to him, obviously closer. And there were people he barely knew, people he hadn’t even met, risking themselves out in this, for Jeremy.

When they got back to the barn, there were a couple of new vehicles parked over at the house.

“That’s Chance’s SUV, with the open horse trailer,” Nic said. “He must be already out there. And that’s Maggie with Mom on the porch, making more calls. And if Maggie Rafferty calls, the whole town will answer.” Jackson felt like he should go over and thank them, but the ticking of time was pounding in his brain. And again, as if she’d read his thought, Nic added, “Time enough to talk later. Let’s get mounted up. We’ll need to stop by your place and pick up something of Jeremy’s for scent, because I’m guessing Chance brought a dog.”

In the barn, saddling up her Sass and the ever-willing Shade, he kept glancing at her. There was no hesitation in her, no indication that she was wary of riding out into that storm. Instead, she was gathering up anything that might be useful, from a flashlight to a first aid kit, and loading them into the saddlebags she’d tied on behind her saddle.

And finally, he simply had to grab one of those precious ticking moments.

“Thank you,” he said, not even trying to keep the volatile tangle of tension, fear, and gratitude out of his voice.

Nic paused in tightening the cinch and looked at him. “I love him, too, Jackson. Now let’s go bring him home.”

And in that moment, Jackson Thorpe knew he’d been very wrong about something.

Not only could he love Nicole Baylor, he did.