The Cowboy’s Bullfighter (Foster Ranch #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

“ C oop? Coop, I need your help. Please.”

Cooper Adams sat straight up in his bed, blinking the sleep out of his eyes and trying to figure out who the hell was calling him in the middle of the night in hysterics and what they needed.

“Sure, sure. Okay, what do you need? How can I help?”

Who the heck are you? What time is it?

“Broke my pelvis, man. I was working, and a bull got me. It’s bad, and the kids are at home. They’re at the trailer, and I don’t know what to do. Somebody’s going to find out that they’re all alone.”

He started getting dressed, putting the phone on speaker. Benji Whitehead. Of course it was Benji.

That kid was an accident looking for a place to land. Eighteen years old, and the junior bullfighter just couldn’t catch a break.

“Where are you? Do you need me to come get you?”

“No. No. I need you to go get them. Ricky called me today and told me that the social worker from school was asking questions. About little Mina. And they say I’m going to be in here at least a day or two more, maybe longer.

I need you to go get the kids before someone takes them away. Ricky’s only sixteen.”

“Okay, Okay, no problem. No problem. You’re riding with the Chiara company, yes?”

“No.”

Of course not. Dammit.

“I’m working for the Benes right now. But I’m not—I’m. I’m up in Raton. I’m not terribly far—three, four hours out. But I cain’t drive like this, and you know…”

“I know. I’ll go get them.” Okay, old man, focus. You’re retired, not dead. So it’s still o’dark thirty. So what? “Uh, get hold of Ricky, have him start packing everybody up. I’ll get my… Well, I’ll get my truck out there, and then we’ll get them all over here. It’s going to be all right.”

He’d grab the kids, get them settled. He needed to talk to Ryder Chiara, and see if he didn’t know somebody who could run out there and take care of Benji until Coop could get him home.

“I’m sorry, I don’t. I don’t mean to keep calling and…”

“Ain’t no thing.” He was a bullfighter, retired or no, and he wasn’t going to let any one of the guys he’d trained swing in the wind.

“Coop, it’s two o’clock in the morning, and I’m calling and asking you to pick up five kids from my travel trailer. It’s a big deal.”

No, it was going to be a big deal when this one came home to him and he ended up having to deal with Benji’s broke-ass self while he was in traction with five more kids besides. He chuckled softly. “Have they got you on some good pain pills at least?”

That was important.

“Yeah, they’re fixing to surge on me in the morning. I’m kind of scared. The other guys had to move on. ”

“Don’t worry, someone will be there before you have surgery, all right?” And he was going to call Wacey Bene and give the man a piece of his mind, dammit.

He thought he heard a soft sob that was quickly swallowed. “Thanks, Coop. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d be fine, kiddo.” But Benji didn’t have to do without him. He was right here, loving life. “Don’t forget to call Ricky and get him started packing. I’ll be there within the hour.”

He hung up the phone, yanked on his hoodie so his bad shoulder stayed warm, and grabbed his wallet as he dialed up to the house. He hated waking the guys, but it had to be done.

“What is it?”

“Hey, boss. Coop. Little Benji got his pelvis broke out riding for the Bene company. I gotta go pick up the kids in Chama.”

“Where’s he?”

“Raton. He’s having surgery in the morning, and he’s real scared.” He whistled up Thor and Loki, the beagles always up for a ride in the truck. His heeler Suki would rather stay home and chase coyotes.

“Goddamn it, that kid.”

“I don’t think God has anything to do with what’s going on with that kid, boss.”

He was a believer, but poor Benji Whitehead had lost his parents to a car accident, gained five siblings to raise on his own, quit high school, and was trying to hold everything together.

And he was fixin’ to be nineteen and working cowboy protection where he could, and riding roughstock when he couldn’t.

And now he’d got a broke pelvis, which for a rodeo man this early in his career, was tough .

“Now if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’d cursed him somehow,” Ryder said.

“Yeah, there’s no accounting for taste. Can you get somebody out there? I’m going to run out to pick up the kids.”

“They going to fit in your truck, all five of them?”

Fuck. “No.”

“That’s what I thought. I know folks in Raton.” Of course Ryder did. Ryder knew everyone. “I’ll have somebody out there at the hospital in an hour to go sit with him. Bene, you say?”

“Yessir.” Someone should have stayed with Benji, dammit.

“I’ll have Kase call in the morning and read him the riot act. I bet he don’t know. He’s a good, good man. Come over here to the house, I’ll follow you in the Suburban, and we’ll head out. I don’t know where the trailer’s parked.”

Thank God for Ryder Chiara. The man was like Batman with a Stetson. “I’ve got an address. I’ve not been there.”

“All right, I’ll see you in a few. You got coffee making?”

“No, sir, I was asleep.”

“Yeah, me too, but there’s always coffee going here. I’ll bring you out a cup.”

“Black as my soul.”

“That’s what I thought, and Coop?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t call me boss. You’re a fucking legend, and we’ve known each other for twenty-five years.”

He cracked a smile at that. A legend. Him. Shit. “Sure, boss.”

Ryder didn’t bother to say goodbye, and that was fine with him. He needed to wake his ass up and get over there and pick up some kids. “Come on, beagles. Let’s ride.”

Jesus, the travel trailer was parked on a piece of dirt that had what added up to six hookups, and the thing was made for maybe two people. Coop studied it, shaking his head. There wasn’t even room for them to put a propane grill outside and have some lawn chairs.

In the dark, it probably didn’t look as shabby as it was, and that was saying a damn lot.

“Christ.” Ryder scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “If social services saw this…”

“I know. We need to get them out of here for good, boss.”

Ryder gave him a sideways look. “Coop, I am going to kick your ass.”

“Promise?” He snorted. “If a two-thousand-pound bull couldn’t, neither can you.”

“Yeah, yeah. You go talk to Ricky, and I’ll start unhooking. Tell me when everyone has flushed.”

“You got it.” Coop walked up to rap on the door.

“Who is it?” That suspicious voice made him smile, because those kids had been told over and over not to open the door to strangers.

“Coop, Ricky. Y’all about ready to go?”

Ricky opened the door, his expression a little panicky. “Yessir. I don’t—If we lock up the trailer, do you think everything will be safe?”

He glanced around. “No. But I’m gonna hook the trailer to my truck and take it with us. So why don’t you go ahead and make sure everything that might fall or break is put away.”

“Okay.”

“Is the sewer line hooked up?”

Ricky grimaced. “They turned off the water hookup yesterday because I couldn’t pay the space rent. So we’ve had to use the little composting toilet that Benji got us since there were so many of us. I cleaned it already.”

“Okay, let me tell Ryder. ”

Ricky nodded, ducking back inside, and he could hear Ricky calling to his sibs. “Tie it all down. We’re moving out.”

“Boss! Unhook the sewer line. They turned the water off on them yesterday.”

“Fuckers,” Ryder snapped. “They’re just kids.”

“I know. You got a business card? I’ll leave that and a couple of twenties for the space for today.”

Ricky poked his head out the door. “The manager is in space six.”

“Even better.” Coop marched his ass over to knock on the manager’s door. He didn’t give a shit that it was still pre-dawn.

“What the fuck do you want?” A guy in shorts and a tank top answered the door, scowling.

“Space three is leaving. Here’s forty bucks for the day they were over.”

The man’s eyebrows went up. “You’re not the renter.”

“I want a receipt. The renter is in the hospital and you just turned off the water on his brothers and sisters. Not gonna have you saying they owe you.”

Coop could tell no one ever stood up to this son of a bitch.

“You can just?—”

Ryder appeared at his elbow. “Receipt, you sorry sack of shit. Now!”

The asshole sputtered but took the twenties and then scrawled out a receipt.

“Sign it,” Ryder said.

The man sighed, but signed the receipt, and Ryder took a picture on his phone of the jerk doing it.

Fuck, Coop adored him.

When that was all taken care of Coop headed back over to where the kids were.

The littlest one, who was just about kindergarten age—in fact, he reckoned she’d be starting in the fall—was standing there, thumb in her mouth.

Her eyes were about the size of saucers, and she had on a Little Mermaid nightgown and a pair of rainbow galoshes and was holding a stuffed penguin that had seen better days.

“You just about ready to go, baby girl?”

She glanced at Ricky, then held her hands up to Coop and burst into tears.

He scooped her up. “Oh now, don’t be like that. We’re going to go, we’re going to take your little trailer, and we’re going to go to my big house, okay? You’ve been there. You remember when Benji came and helped me paint, and we worked on the kitchen. I got me the beagle dogs? Thor and Loki.”

“Loki!”

“That’s right. They’re in the truck. I brought them with me. They love to go in the truck.”

She sniffled as he jabbered at her, and she cuddled right in. “I can go with you.”

“Thank you, sweetpea. Come on, y’all. We’ll put everybody in the big vehicle here, and then we’re going to hook the trailer up to my truck, and we’re gonna all head to the house. Maybe we’ll stop and get doughnuts.”

“I like doughnuts.” The youngest boy stared up at him with huge dark eyes. “I like doughnuts a lot.”

“Good deal. Doughnuts it is. Get in the car.”

The oldest girl who was about as thin as a rail, her eyes haunted, came out and started getting the three little ones into the Suburban.

As she did, Ricky came up to him, chewing on that bottom lip like he was fixin’ to get oil from it. “Mr. Coop, is Benji going to be okay? I mean, for real.”

Coop nodded, knowing that all those kids were listening to him. “Lord yes, he’s gonna be fine. Brother has got himself a broke pelvis. It happens. Happened to me about ten years ago. It makes walking hard for a bit, but that’s about the extent of it.”

Left a couple of pretty scars in private bits, but that was it. “He got stepped on. He’ll come to the house and be with y’all in a couple of days, soon as he gets himself stable and then? Y’all will all stay at the house.”

“There’s a lot of us, so we can stay in the trailer, if you want.”

Not on his fucking watch, they wouldn’t.

“You seen my house, son? It’s huge. Y’all are all welcome.

There’s enough rooms for everybody to have their own space if they want it.

It’s going to be great. Be like a big slumber party where you can slumber in a bed that’s actually yours and not on the floor. ”

And there would be showers and a heater for the night and a swamp cooler for the day and food and a safe place to play…

“Okay, um. I got my license, if you need me to drive,” Ricky offered.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to be a thing.

You’re tired, and we’re gonna be hauling the travel trailer and all.

” Ryder winked at Ricky. “If you want, you can come ride next to me in the truck. I’m gonna take Cooper’s truck, and Coop’s going to drive the Suburban with all the kids.

” Ryder gave him a shit-eating grin. “And he can stop and pick up the doughnuts since he said he would. Make sure and get, oh I don’t know, maybe twelve dozen? ”

“Yes, boss, I’ll even call ahead so that they know I’m coming.” Fucker.

Poor Ricky didn’t look like he knew whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt. He kept looking to the kids and then looking to the truck. Looking to the kids and then looking to the truck.

“And if you want to ride with Ryder where it’s quiet and just get some sleep, you can.

Or you can ride with me and the kids. It don’t matter.

We’re going to the same place.” Coop just wanted to get these babies on the road.

He was tired, and they were exhausted. “The only thing that I’m going to do any different is stop and get those doughnuts. ”

Ricky nodded to him, smiled. “Okay. I think I’ll go in the truck, then, to the house. I got the phone.”

“Good deal, you leave the phone out and that way if you need to get hold of me, you can. We’ll make sure Mr. Ryder’s number is in your phone too. Fair?”

“Yeah.” Ricky took a deep breath. “Yessir, I got this.”

Oh, these poor babies. He hated this shit.

Nora and Andy had been good folks. Solid.

Nora had been a nurse, and she’d worked every event that Andy did. He’d rope, and she’d work at sports medicine patching cowboys back up and having babies one after another.

Everybody had laughed as the babies came, because he’d be damned if any of them looked like the other one.

The only thing they had in common? They each had their dad Andy’s dark eyes.

There were blonde ones and redheaded ones and dark-headed ones.

Some who were darker-skinned and some who were pale-skinned, and some who were freckled and some who weren’t, but each and every one of them had those Whitehead eyes.

They looked like holes burned into a blanket staring out. And they’d all been born with them too—not blue-eyed like most babies were.

It was wild.

He slid into the Suburban, Lucy watching him. “Your brother’s gonna go with Mr. Ryder and the trailer. We’re gonna go get doughnuts, and then we’re all going to go to the house. That work for you?”

She nodded. She didn’t say a word. Just watched him .

“I talked to Benji, and I made sure that somebody’s gonna be there at the hospital with him. I didn’t want him to be alone. As soon as they’ve knit him back together, we’ll have him brought up to the house. He’ll be able to get better there, okay?”

She nodded, and Mason, who was short and built stocky and strong like a bulldogger, piped up. “We gonna stay with you too, Mr. Coop?”

“Yessir. Y’all will be safe as houses.”

“All of us?”

“I swear to God. All six of you are welcome as the flowers in May.” And he meant it.

This little family had been floundering worse than he’d known, but he knew now. They would be safe with him.

He had promised, and his word was his bond.

Coop grabbed his phone, ready to call the bakery. “Now, y’all tell me what kind of doughnuts you like.”