35. Chapter 35
thirty-five
“Can I see your trailers?” Bowie asks as Tanner carries him inside and I can’t swallow this chuckle. His shirt looks like he lost a fight with the ice cream cone.
Laurel’s in the kitchen, rustling sandwiches.
“Go ask your mom. She’s in the kitchen. She’s going to want to see your shirt.”
“My shirt?” He looks down, frowning.
“You should’ve seen the face.” Mercy laughs.
Bowie toddles off through the living room, determined little steps, the three of us watching him like he’s a wind-up toy set loose. Shit that kid’s killing me. He’s something else.
“How does he know where the kitchen is?” Mercy asks. “Has he been here before?”
“Homing pigeon,” I say, laughing under my breath. “Kid’s got Mommy radar.”
“I’ll help Laurel.” Mercy’s already moving, trailing Bowie like she’s afraid he’ll topple over.
Tanner leans against the door frame with a smart-ass smirk. “Did we give you enough time?”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, but there’s no heat in it. “Yeah. Thanks.”
He chuckles, satisfied, and the house hums around us—Laurel and Bowie talking in the kitchen, Mercy fussing, the smell of bacon drifting through the air.
For the first time since I lost my parents, it feels like a home.
The house still smells like bacon when we finish our B.L.T.’s.
“Wait here,” I tell them, motioning Tanner.
We saddle two horses and walk to the front porch. “Laurel!” I holler. “Bowie!”
When they come to the door, his eyes go wide, pointing. “Horsie!”
Even wider, when Tanner hands him up to me in the saddle. I settle him between me and the horn, his little boots knocking against the leather. “I’m going to take him for a ride. Okay?” I ask her.
She nods.
“He’s so big,” Bowie’s staring at Midnight like he’s sitting on a dragon. My black gelding stands patient and proud. Eight years old.
“You ready?”
Bowie nods, looking up at me under the brim of my Stetson. “I don’t have my hat.” There’s that lip again.
“I’ll get you one you can keep here.” I nudge Midnight with my heels, and we ease around. My arm wraps around Bowie, holding him snug against me. “I’ll show you the trailer Midnight rides in.”
“Midnight?”
“Yeah, that’s his name. You can pat him.”
Bowie reaches down, palm barely big enough to make a print on Midnight’s shoulder. “He’s a giant.”
“Sixteen hands.”
“Hands?”
“That’s how you measure a horse.”
Midnight flicks an ear back at the sound of Bowie’s voice, steady as ever. The kid leans into me without thinking, trusting me completely. And damn if that doesn’t do something to me.
Tanner gallops up beside us, Laurel and Mercy watching from the porch. Copper’s hooves thunder across the pasture, kicking up dust as Tanner leans low over the bay’s neck. “Bowie, watch this!” Tanner hollers as he blows past us, putting Copper into a full run.
Bowie’s whole body goes rigid against me, eyes huge, mouth open. “He so fast!”
I can’t help the grin. “That’s Copper. He’s Tanner’s horse. He likes to race him, ’cause he’s so fast.”
Tanner circles wide, Copper eating up ground like he owns it, mane flying, muscles bunching under that bay coat. Bowie watches every second like it’s the coolest thing he’s ever seen.
His little hand tightens on my arm as he peers up. “We go fast, too?”
“Yeah, buddy,” I murmur, tightening my hold on him. “We’ll go fast.”
Not that fast. Can’t chance my cargo bouncing loose. But I nudge Midnight into a trot.
Bowie lets out a sound—half laugh, half squeal—pure joy, sharp and bright as he bounces, me holding him tight.
I glance down at him, cheeks flushed, eyes shining, hair blowing back.
Yeah. He’s eating this up. I’ve got a cowhand in the making.
“Mommy! I’m a cowboy! A real cowboy!” Bowie yells as we walk up to the porch, where the women sit sipping tea and watching.
“I know! You are!” Laurel moves to meet us, arms out. “Let Calder put Midnight up. We’ve got to go soon.”
“Aw…” His bottom lip pops out again. Why have I never noticed that before?
I feel the same way, buddy.
“What’s the rush?” Tanner asks, pulling Copper up beside me. “Mercy, climb on.” He reaches a hand down for her.
She slips her foot in the stirrup and Tanner hauls her up with one strong yank. “Hold tight,” he says, taking off with her laughing behind him.
I hand Bowie to Laurel and swing down. Taking Midnight by the reins, I tilt my head toward her. “Get on. I’ll put him up.” Laurel knows how to ride.
She steps into the stirrup and swings into the saddle, holding tight to Bowie when I pass him to her.
“You can ride?” he asks, peering up at his Mom.
“I can,” she says, smoothing his hair. “Hold tight to the horn.”
I take the reins, walking Midnight to the barn.
“Did you quit rodeoing?”
“Yeah. Didn’t see myself living on the road like that. I was never going to win a world championship. Just what we did in school.”
“Where’s the trailer?” Bowie asks, looking left and right.
I walk them around to the back of the barn, stopping at the four-horse trailer. “This is his.”
“Wow.” He’s fascinated with everything around him.
This is how it always should have been.
Unsaddling Midnight, Bowie’s voice carries—bright, breathless, still buzzing from the ride. “I’m a real cowboy. Right, Mommy?”
“Yes, Baby. You’re a real cowboy.”
“And so is Calder. And Tanner.”
“Yes, Baby.”
Steeping from the barn—with the sun dropping low in a golden sky, throwing long shadows across the dirt, something shifts in me. Something that feels a hell of a lot like a life I could’ve had.
Something that locks up every muscle I’ve got.
By the time Tanner and Mercy make it in, Bowie’s asleep in Laurel’s lap, his cheek smushed against her chest. I’m beside them on the couch with the TV low in the background, my boots on the coffee table, my arm stretched along the back behind her at my side.
“I don’t know why y’all need to leave,” Tanner says, coming through the door.
Mercy’s hair is a mess and I don’t think it’s from the ride.
I smirk at my friend, who ignores me.
“Let’s grill here,” he says. “I know damn good and well you’ve got plenty to cook.”
Laurel looks up at me. “My parents will be expecting us. I haven’t even told them we’re back.”
“So call ’em.” Tanner’s determined. “Better yet—invite them to come out here.”
Now why in the hell didn’t I think of that?
Laurel peers at me, a question in her eyes.
“I’m more than happy to have them. If they’ll come.” Truth is, I doubt Dabbo’s ready to set foot out here—this place is a hell of a lot less house than they’re used to. And just because he was nice to me once doesn’t mean he’s ready to bury the hatchet.
Don’t think I’ll ever be good enough for his daughter—but that dickhead she married was, just because he went to fucking Rice.
“I’ll ask!” Laurel says, shifting Bowie to lay him on the couch. She’s excited. She doesn’t seem a bit afraid.
Am I the coward of the two of us?
Yes.
“Give him to me.” I hold out an arm.
“You sure?”
I give her a chin tuck. “Wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”
She settles him in my lap, his head resting on my chest and I wrap an arm around him. I don’t know what I expected. But it wasn’t this—him fitting against me like he was made for the spot.
He’s not yours, I remind myself.
Then why the fuck does it feel like he should be?
Laurel and Mercy step onto the porch, and Tanner lifts a brow. “You are so fucked.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
I look down at the kid breathing against me, warm and trusting. So damn vulnerable it takes my breath—this instinct to shield him from everything. And if I feel it this strong, I can’t imagine what it’s like for his mother.
“I think she’s all in.”
And that—that’s a gut punch. “That’s the problem, Tanner. She was all in last time. Didn’t keep her from leaving.”
“For God’s sake, let go of the past, jackass. She’s here now.”
Yeah. She’s here now. And for the first time in a long damn while, I want to believe she’ll stay… but there’s still a knot in my gut that won’t unclench. Because Bowie trusts like breathing—easy, automatic, no fear of falling.
All I know how to do is hold tight and wait for the blow.
And the worst part?
I don’t want to be that man with them. But I don’t know how to be anything else.
“Mom’s already made supper,” Laurel says, stepping back inside. “But she said they’d be glad to come another time.” The smile on her face makes my shoulders ease. I didn’t even realize they were knotted until they relaxed.
Tanner’s on his feet. “I’ll get the grill going. Steaks?”
“How long will it take?” Mercy asks, brushing her hair with her hands.
I chuckle. “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.”
Her gaze flicks from me to Tanner to Laurel, her cheeks turning pink. “Shut up, you—Mr. Two Hours.”
Laurel laughs. “Both of you quit.” She glances at Bowie in my lap. “I’ll put him on the bed.” Laurel takes him from me with such ease he doesn’t even stir. Safe in his mother’s arms.
That’s what trust is. My arms feel weirdly empty the second he’s gone.
“You can get the steaks from the freezer—I assume that’s where they are. And Mercy and I’ll do the rest,” Laurel says over her shoulder as she heads for the bedroom. “Mercy, there’s a brush in the bathroom.”
I stand and head for the kitchen to pull ribeyes from the freezer, giving Tanner another knowing smirk.
I get the single soldier salute in return as he says, “I need to call the club. Let ’em know I’m not coming in tonight.”
Can’t stop the snicker. “I figure Darla’s figured that out on her own by now.”
Tanner pauses, his thumb on a number. “I hear she’s being a…”
“Yeah. I heard it myself today. I’m going to fix that.”
“You going to fire her?”
“We may have to. I hate to. She’s been reliable as hell up to now, and I trust her with the books, but I can’t have her treating Laurel and Bowie like that. She was downright snarly, even to Bowie. Who the hell can mistreat him?”
Makes my jaw lock just thinking about how she looked down on him earlier.
Tanner shoots me a look I know too well. It’s his pull-your-head-out-of-your-ass look.
“There’s no contest if I’ve got to choose between Laurel and Darla. I just hate to fire anyone.”
“Just tell her to straighten up or hit the road.”
My brow jacks high. “You going to keep the books?”
“Either one of us can. We don’t have to have Darla. She’s a luxury.”
“Yeah? Think about it. If I didn’t have her there, I couldn’t be here right now.”
He aims his phone at me. “I didn’t think about that.”
“You need to do something with her before I pull her hair out.” Mercy’s in the door from the hallway. “I mean she was a fucking snake in lipstick this afternoon. I’ve never been a fan but now—she made herself an enemy.”
I shove a hand through my hair. I’ve got to deal with that tomorrow. If Mercy feels like that—I can’t imagine what Laurel’s feeling. I won’t let Darla or anyone else come between me and Laurel.
My jaw works once, tight.
“Quit grinding your teeth,” Laurel says at my side. “If you two don’t mind me asking…” She hands me a cold beer, cap already removed—then gives one to Mercy and Tanner. “How did you ever pay for a hardware store without financing?”
I almost choke on my swallow. “Who the hell said we didn’t have financing?”
She stares at me blankly. “Mom.”
Tanner and I exchange laughs, both of us shaking our heads. “Of course we have financing. Both our dads were vets. We went through the military credit union. You didn’t think I’d ask Dabbo to finance my business, did you?”
She blinks through surprise.
I can see her recalculating—slotting this new piece of me into whatever picture she’s been carrying around.
“We have a mortgage, inventory, payroll, taxes, insurance, utilities. Neither one of us is getting rich. We’re both working men. I still weld and drill an occasional water well. And Tanner’s got the club. Are we making money? Yeah. But we’re both a long fucking way from rich.”
Tanner and I clink beers.
I watch her over my bottle, taking me in.
Is she disappointed I’m not rolling in money like her ex? Or relieved I’m still just a man who works with his hands.
Still rankles, Darla saying he’s one of the biggest names in music. I didn’t know that. Not that I give a shit. She sure doesn’t seem to.
“You know.” Mercy swings her beer from me to Tanner. “If you two need a bookkeeper, I’m as good as they come.”
“You don’t have time,” Tanner says.
“Well, hell, of course I have time. I assume you’ve got everything on software. How much time does it take? Don’t let Darla hold you hostage.”