Welcome Home, Cowboy Read online

  “It’s okay, Bumble,” she yelled at the dog, who was circling and whining, worried. The dog shot her a “You sure?” look, but trotted a few feet away to lie in the dirt, keeping watch over the man surveying what even Emma had to admit was a sorry state of affairs. Shame and frustration washed over her as she saw Cash take in the pile of wood for the new raised beds she had no way of making, the greenhouse in sore need of repair, the three still-unplowed fields that by rights should at least be under cold frames by now, before his gaze swung back toward the spot on the roof where wind had ripped off a patch of loose shingles a few weeks back.

  At last he looked at her, eyes narrowed in a face that was all unshaved cragginess underneath a cowboy hat, the shadow like his own personal cloud that tagged along wherever he went. The morning sun glanced off a belt buckle that on anybody else would’ve looked ridiculous.

  “Who’s gonna help you fix all this? Get your fields planted?” He nodded toward the goats. “Stay up all night when these gals start having their babies?”

  I’ll manage, she nearly said, because that was how women were programmed, as if a double dose of X chromosomes somehow endowed them with magical powers to make everything right. To make the pieces fit, no matter how jagged the edges might be.

  Except as the sun climbed relentlessly over the horizon, rudely highlighting all the undone stuff blowing raspberries at her, it hit her upside her uncombed head that sometimes the pieces didn’t fit. Like when your husband suddenly dies and leaves you with all his work to do, besides yours, except you were already going full tilt before he died and now you’re pregnant and the economy sucks and your choice is somehow make it work or give up. But this is your home and, dammit, you don’t want to give up. You want to be strong and invincible—

  “How bad is it?” Cash said.

  —and here’s this man standing in your yard who in less than ten minutes has figured out what’s taken you months to realize:

  That, basically, you’re screwed.

  Emma sucked in a deep breath, shoving aside the panic that always hovered, looking for the weak spot. “Bad,” she said, feeling Zoey’s arms slip around her thick waist. “I think this is what you call one of those catch-22 situations. I’ve got seedlings and all started in the greenhouse, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. If I don’t get things hardened off and in the ground fairly soon, there won’t be enough to make good for my shareholders who’ll be expecting returns on their investments come summer. Then again, I couldn’t sell enough to hire on sufficient help to make up for…for Lee not being here.”

  Munching on a piece of toast, Hunter wandered out of the house to stand beside her, his backpack slung over one shoulder. “Who’s that?” he said, blessed—or cursed—with the ingenuous curiosity of a much younger child. Her mama-radar on full alert, Emma slipped an arm around her son’s shoulders, watching Cash for signs of discomfort or awkwardness. Far as she could tell, there weren’t any.

  “Name’s Cash, son. Your daddy and I were friends when we were kids—”

  “Cash Coch-ran?” Hunter sucked in a deep breath. “The… sing-er?”

  “That’s right. Except I’m kinda taking a break right now. So I thought it might be nice to come back home for a while. Think over a few things. And while I’m doing that—” those silver eyes skidded back to hers “—I could lend a hand here.”

  Now it was Emma doing the breath-sucking, as both kids’ gazes locked on the sides of her face. “Excuse me?”

  “Not forever, but until you’re through the worst of it. At least until the baby comes. I reckon I still know how to fix a fence and make a raised bed. Fix that roof,” he added with a nod. “And you tell me what needs planting where, I can do that, too. Don’t know much about goats, it’s true, but I’m pretty sure I remember how to navigate the back end of a cow. Don’t suppose it’s all that much different.”

  Too stunned to cobble together a coherent sentence, all Emma could manage was a strangled, “Why?”

  “I have my reasons,” Cash said, coming closer. Close enough to see there was a lot more going on behind those eyes than Emma could even begin to sort out. “And I’m guessing you’d probably be more likely to accept my labor than my check.” When she started, his mouth pulled into a tight smile. “Although if you’d rather do it that way, so you could hire whoever you wanted…well, I suppose that’d work, too.”

  “Ma-ma?”

  Emma tore her gaze away from Cash’s to look into her son’s soft brown eyes, his beaming smile. “What, honey?”

  “You were right, huh? You said…God wouldn’t let us down, that He…al-ways gives us what we need, as…long as we don’t tell Him how to do that.” Her son’s grin broadening, he pointed to Cash. “And look!”

  Biting her lip, Emma looked, thinking it would take a whole lot of humility to see Cash Cochran as the answer to her prayers. Because while she had cause to feel bad for the man, she had even more cause to be wary. For her children’s sake, if not for her own.

  Although she knew better than to trust what you read in the tabloids, it’d broken Lee’s heart when he’d seen Cash’s photo alongside some sensational headline slapped across the cover of this or that rag in the Walmart checkout, about the stints in rehab, the failed marriages. True, it’d been a while since she’d read or heard anything untoward. But for all she knew, his “people” had simply gotten better at keeping that stuff from getting out. Or, more likely, that Cash had slipped off the paparazzi’s radar.

  Still, she thought as Cash stood with his arms crossed over his chest, the picture of patience, if she truly believed everything happened for a reason, maybe now wasn’t the time to start picking and choosing. A realization that provoked a deep sigh.

  “Guess there’s no point in pretending I’m not in a bind,” she said. “Normally I’d have more help, but this was the spring everybody picked to move or retire or find other work or join the army… It would’ve been a trick to get everything done, even if Lee was still here. The kids do what they can, but… they’re kids. And the midwife more or less ordered me to take it easy for the next couple of weeks. But you don’t owe us anything, not your labor and certainly not your money—”

  “And maybe I think I do,” Cash said, his eyes locked in hers. Then he glanced away, blowing out a half laugh. “God knows, nothing’s happening here the way I expected, but…it’s been a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to be of any real use to anybody. And maybe for old times’ sake…”

  He looked back at her. “It nearly killed me, watching this place die under my father’s hand. And I can see what you and Lee started here. How you salvaged whatever was left. I don’t know why, but I can’t stand the idea of it going under a second time. Any more than you can, I’m sure.”

  She blinked back the sudden scald of tears. But when they cleared, she caught a glimpse of at least part of what was going on inside his head. Not in any detail, certainly, but enough to sweep aside what few shreds of useless pride she had left.

  “You two need to go on,” she said to the kids, “or you’ll miss the bus. Zoey, no, get your coat, it’s still cold. I know, it’ll warm up, but I don’t want the nurse calling me to come get you in an hour ’cause your nose starts running again. So go on.”

  While Zoey fetched her jacket, Hunter solemnly marched down the porch steps toward Cash. He extended his hand; Cash took it, the wordless handshake apparently cementing something Emma couldn’t begin to understand. Then, grinning, her son trooped back to the porch to pick up his backpack; a second later Zoey streaked from the house and slipped her hand into Hunter’s to walk to the bus.

  Not until the kids were out of sight, however, did Emma face Cash again. “Why do I get the feeling you want to do this as some sort of penance or something?”

  The muscles around his eyes twitched before he crunched across the dead grass to the sagging wire fence edging the neglected flower garden. “I think what I’m aiming to do,” he said quietly, skimming one palm over th
e top, “is erase the bad memories. Or at least exchange some of them for new ones. I don’t want the land back, don’t even give that a second thought. But I want…”

  Turning, he pushed out a sigh. “For twenty years I’ve been running, from this place, from all the bad stuff in my head. Didn’t do me a lick of good. For twenty years I’ve thought about nobody but myself. That hasn’t done me any good, either. Apparently. I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a real human being, Emma.” Another dry laugh. “If I ever knew. So helping you…it would kill a couple of birds with one stone. You need the help, and I need to get back to basics. To somehow return to that time before everything went wrong. To maybe find the kid I once was. Because deep down, I think that kid wasn’t so bad, you know?”

  His honesty shot straight to her heart. But the hard set to his mouth, the challenge in his eyes, made it more than clear her sympathy would be unwelcome. After a moment, she nodded.

  “So what, exactly, are you proposing?”

  “My services for…” He rubbed his chin. “Let’s say six weeks. Or until you’re on your feet again after the baby comes. Sunup to sundown, if you need it.”

  If history was anything to go by, she’d be on her feet within twenty-four hours of the birth. She’d often imagined herself as one of those pioneer women who pushed out a baby a year with no sweat. “What about your career?”

  He let out a little hunh. “I imagine the music world will get along just fine without me for a few weeks.”

  The baby shifted; Emma rubbed his spine. “If you’re sure…”

  “I am.”

  “Then, all right. I can at least offer you three meals a day—”

  “No! I mean, thanks, but this isn’t about…” Cash looked away. “This isn’t about getting close. Nothing personal, but that’s part of the deal. You tell me what needs doing, and I’ll do it. But that’s it.”

  Emma was tempted to point out that if part of his goal was to rejoin the human race, staying aloof from the family might not be the best way to go about that. Then again, maybe it was just as well, for many reasons. Like, oh, for instance, the kids getting too close. Especially Hunter, who glommed onto everyone he met. Who’d cried for a week solid after his father’s death.

  “One thing, though,” Emma said. “First time you show up drunk or high, you’re gone. I absolutely will not tolerate any of that tomfoolery around my children. Understood?”

  Cash’s jaw dropped for a second before he let out a laugh. “Emma…I swear I’ve been squeaky clean for more than seven years. Ever since I wrapped my car around a tree on a back road in North Carolina and realized how bad off I was. You’ve got nothing to worry about on that score, I swear. So…I was thinking you probably want some of these fences repaired first so the critters can’t get at the plantings. Or maybe get those fruit trees pruned?”

  “You know how to prune fruit trees?”

  “Yes, ma’am. First winter after I left, I ended up at a ranch in east Texas. Small operation, everybody did everything. Aside from the cattle, they also had a decent-size orchard. Peaches and pecans, mostly. So I know my way around a pair of loppers.” He grinned, and Emma’s chest clutched. Seeing that smile on video was nothing compared with seeing it in person. “You can watch me do the first tree, how’s that?”

  Finally she laughed. She couldn’t help it. There were a quadrillion reasons why his being here was a bad idea, but none of them trumped her relief that the cavalry had apparently arrived.

  “When can you start?” she asked, and the grin brightened to the point where it nearly sparkled. Oh, dear.

  “I take it there’s tools around here somewhere?”

  “In the shed behind the greenhouse. Mr. Cochran—”

  “And you can forget that ‘Mr. Cochran’ stuff,” he said softly. “Name’s Cash.”

  “Cash, then,” Emma said, having no idea why she was blushing. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said with a short salute, then strode off, leaving Emma to wonder what she’d gotten herself into. Not to mention what on earth had gotten into Cash. She went back inside to find Annie, dressed now, feeding cats in the kitchen. The old woman looked up from the writhing, furry mass meowing at her feet as she dumped something stinky into a large, flat bowl.

  “I take it we’ve got us some help?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Turned my ears on high,” Annie said, tapping one hearing aid as Emma lowered herself onto a kitchen chair. “Heard everything clear as a bell. Especially through that pathetic excuse for a window. Wind leaked through my bedroom window so bad last night I thought I’d freeze.” Carefully she bent over to set the plate on the floor, dodging the feline swarm attacking it. Much hissing and swatting ensued. That, Annie ignored. Emma’s conflicted expression, however, she didn’t. “You havin’ second thoughts?”

  “Heh. God knows we need the help, but I don’t need the complications. And trust me, Cash Cochran is the definition of complicated.”

  Annie poured herself a cup of coffee, poured in a hefty helping of cream and three spoonfuls of sugar, then shuffled over to sit across from her. The Red One immediately jumped up into her lap, giving Emma a smug kitty grin.

  “Honey,” Annie said, over the cat’s slit-eyed, Ohmigodyes! purring when she started scratching his head, “God made humans complicated to keep himself amused.” At Emma’s groan, the old woman leaned over to grasp her hand, her expression earnest. “That young man needs us, Emmaline. Probably a lot more than we need him.”

  Yeah, Emma thought on a sigh. Exactly what she was afraid of.

  Another few days, Cash thought, squinting at the fruit trees as he yanked on a pair of heavy-duty work gloves, and it would’ve been too late to prune them. Waiting until April was pushing it as it was; any farther south, they would’ve already bloomed by now. But the stubborn winter had actually worked in Emma’s favor, keeping the trees dormant.

  Almost like they’d been waiting for him.

  Oh, hell, no, Cash thought as he hefted the pole saw and trudged across the muddy field to the first tree. Destiny, fate, divine intervention, whatever you wanted to call it…nothing but people’s ways of trying to find purpose in coincidence.

  “I could die a happy man,” he said to the giant dog, who’d tagged along—out of boredom, Cash supposed, “if I never heard ‘It was meant to be’ ever again.”

  The dog seemed to shrug, then plunked down in the dirt where he could keep one eye on the goats. Or ear, maybe, since his eyes closed almost immediately.

  The high, bright sun quickly burned off the morning’s chill; by ten Cash had shucked both his jacket and long-sleeved shirt. By noon sweat plastered his T-shirt to his back and chest, even though it was probably barely above sixty degrees. But at seven thousand feet there was a lot less atmosphere to buffer the sun’s rays.

  And absolutely nothing to buffer his thoughts as he cut out the dead wood, opening up the trees to coax a better yield. It’d been ages since he’d worked this hard. No doubt he’d be paying for it tomorrow, he thought as he took a break for another swallow of now-warm water from a liter-size bottle, in time to see Emma headed his way with a towel-covered plate and a thermos.

  “What’s that?”

  “Food.” She stripped the towel from the plate to reveal a couple of sandwiches, an apple, another piece of pie. “One’s leftover ham from Sunday’s dinner, the other’s peanut-butter-and-jelly. Since I didn’t know what you liked.”

  “I thought I said—”

  “You said you didn’t want to eat with the family. Not that I couldn’t feed you. Oh, and that’s sweet tea. Annie insisted I bring you some.”

  Cash’s stomach growled. He’d figured on going back into town to get something, but refusing her offering would be rude. Not to mention dumb.

  “Thanks,” he said, removing the gloves to take the plate. “Appreciate it.”

  “I used mustard on the ham, I hope that’s okay—”

  “It’s
fine. Picky, I’m not.”

  One side of her mouth lifted. “You want me to leave?”

  And, oh, he wrestled with that one for a good long while. Because God knew he really was in no position to be forming attachments. Especially with his best friend’s widow. But, damn, it’d been forever since he’d simply enjoyed the company of another human being. At least, not without there being a million strings attached.

  “No, it’s okay, you can stay. I guess.”

  Cash realized his mistake the instant humor sparkled in Emma’s eyes. She tried to wrap up more tightly in a long sweater that didn’t come anywhere near to covering her belly. “Should I feel honored?”

  “Doubt it,” he said, and she laughed. A rich, from-the-belly laugh that took him by surprise. Still chuckling, she surveyed his work, nodding in what he took for approval. She’d combed her hair—it’d been a tangled mess before, probably because he’d shown up earlier than was socially acceptable—but instead of leaving it down she’d bunched it all up at the back of her head in a sloppy bun. If it hadn’t been for the freckles, or her eyebrows being nearly the same color, he wouldn’t’ve believed that color red really existed in nature. But somehow he didn’t see Emma as somebody who faked anything, least of all her hair color. He found it hard not to stare at it.

  To stare at her.

  He lowered himself onto a dry patch in the dirt underneath one of the bigger apple trees, chomping off a huge bite of ham sandwich. Even through the tart burst of mustard, he could taste the sweet-smoky, thickly sliced ham. Damned if that didn’t take him back, too. But not to the bad times, to a place before that. A place he’d missed.

  Emma twisted around, a soft smile on her lips. A piece of hair had worked loose, curling lazily around her cheek. She shoved it behind her ear. “Looks good.”

  “Thanks. Should be finished by the end of the day. Figured I’d get to those fences tomorrow, then start on the raised beds the day after, if that’s okay.”

  “That’ll be fine. I’ve already started hardening off the greenhouse plants, so they’ll be ready to go in the ground in a few days.”