Welcome Home, Cowboy Page 5

  “What all you planting?”

  “Bit of everything. Broccoli, beans, several kinds of squash. Melons. A lot of lettuces. Those sell really well, especially to a couple of local restaurants that buy from us. Our CSA clients really like ’em, too.”

  “CSA?”

  “Community Supported Agriculture. Otherwise known as farmers’ angels.”

  Emma moved to a small stone bench nearby, slowly easing herself onto it with a soft groan. The dog roused himself and trotted over, nudging her hand until she shoved her fingers into his thick fur.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. But…as much as I love being a mama, the last month of pregnancy is the pits. Cramps my style. And this one clearly thinks he’s in a lap pool.” She hesitated, then said, “I think this is what you call irony. Lee and I wanted a batch of kids. But we’d figured, when only two showed up in nearly thirteen years of marriage…I honestly thought we were done.” She shrugged. “Surprise.”

  “You regret the timing?”

  “That Lee won’t get to see this one? That my baby won’t ever know his daddy? Of course I do,” she said, shifting. “Every single day. Lee’s dying was definitely not part of the plan. But having this little guy to look forward to…” He saw her eyes glitter before she lowered them to the dog, now prone on the ground beside her. “It’s definitely taken some of the sting out for Hunter and Zoey. For me, too. Silver linings and all that.”

  “You know it’s a boy?”

  “Yeah. The kids and Annie and I argued about a name for months.” She smiled. “Finally settled on Skye.”

  “Skye Manning. Good name.” Cash lowered his eyes to the half-eaten sandwich, waiting for the unidentified feeling to pass. “Bet Lee was a great father.”

  Emma laughed again. “Oh, he stumbled around in the dark about parenthood like any other human being. Loving your kids doesn’t mean you know what you’re doing. But yeah. He was. The kids were crazy about him. Hunter, especially…he simply couldn’t make sense of Lee’s death. And he’s pretty philosophical about most stuff. But he was so angry…” Biting her lip, she averted her gaze.

  “Like his mama,” Cash ventured, and a tight smile curved her mouth. She heaved herself around to get up, startling the dog to his feet, too.

  She regarded the orchard for a moment before asking, “Did you know about Lee’s heart condition?”

  “No,” he said around the rest of the ham sandwich, then scooped up the piece of pie. “I remember him being out of school a lot, always having doctors’ appointments. But that was when we were still pretty little. Elementary school. I don’t recall any problems past that point. Other than the usual, I mean. Colds, the flu, stuff like that. So you’re saying this wasn’t sudden?”

  “For me, it was,” she said, then sighed. “I’ll spare you the medical terminology—which I could never pronounce right, anyway—but something about his heart made proteins slowly build up in his organs. The upshot was, by the time he had his little ‘episode,’ his kidneys were basically gone, which meant he wasn’t even a candidate for a heart transplant. I think he knew his days were numbered. He just didn’t know what that number was. And for some reason he didn’t feel I was on the need-to-know list.”

  “It wasn’t right, him not telling you.”

  Cash wasn’t sure which one of them his vehemence startled more. But it all seemed so stupid. And wrong, and unfair. Lee’s misguided belief that hiding the truth was somehow kinder than being honest, his dying so young, all of it.

  “At the time,” Emma said, “I would’ve agreed with you. And I’ll admit it still rankles, sometimes. Then I think…what if I had known? Would I have still married him? Absolutely. But would I have said okay to having kids? To taking on this farm?”

  A few more pieces of hair escaped when she slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m pretty good about taking things as they come, but I’m also practical. Not a big fan of starting things I can’t finish. Then again, I can’t imagine life without my kids. Without this place,” she said, sweeping out one hand. “Any more than I can imagine what my life would’ve been like without Lee in it.”

  The pie gone, Cash wiped his hand on his jeans. “Even though—”

  “Yes, even though he kept secrets from me. Even though he never cleaned off his boots when he came inside the house, or put the top back on the peanut butter, or that he played a certain country singer’s CDs over and over to the point I thought I’d lose my mind,” she added with a devilish glint in her eyes. “Human beings drive each other nuts sometimes. So what? Lee loved me, and his kids, and the life we’d made together. And he was a good man, the kind of man a woman’s proud to have by her side. So no real regrets. Except for the selfish part of me that wishes he’d stuck around a little longer.”

  A flush of something akin to envy washed over Cash as he picked up the PB&J. Envy, and a dull, reawakened sense of hopelessness he hadn’t indulged in a long time. Not about Emma, but for what she and Lee had obviously had. Although to be truthful, considering how badly he’d botched his own relationships, it all sounded like far too much work, if you asked him.

  Besides, women like Emma—the kind of woman who saw her man’s imperfections but still loved him anyway—were pretty damn rare, in his experience. Then it hit him, how his mother had stuck by his father, no matter what, and look how that had turned out.

  He bit into the sandwich; a burst of sweet fireworks went off in his mouth. Chewing, he peeled up the top layer of bread to see generous chunks of fruit embedded in ruby-red goo. “This homemade?”

  “Yep. Strawberry preserves. Annie’s specialty. We sell a lot of those, too. Especially to a couple of the local B and Bs. Peach, raspberry, blueberry. Cherry. Hot-pepper jelly, too.”

  “Lord, I haven’t had that in years.”

  “Doesn’t work real well with peanut butter, though,” she said, and Cash felt a grin shove at his cheeks. Then he frowned again. “How the hell are you so calm? I know how hard it is to work a farm,” he said, dodging the inevitable platitude. “Even with help. And you’ve got two other kids, and Annie—”

  “I’m well aware of my obligations without you listing them for me,” she said in that maddeningly even tone. “I’m not in denial. Never have been. But like I said, I’m good at taking things as they come—”

  “And what would’ve happened if I hadn’t shown up?”

  “But you did.”

  Keeping the apple for later, Cash got to his feet and handed her the empty plate. “Okay, then what about when I leave? What then?”

  The plate clutched in one hand, Emma crossed her arms over her belly. “If you walked away right now and we never saw you again, I’d still be ahead of where I was yesterday. You pruned my fruit trees,” she said, nodding toward the orchard. “One less thing for me to worry about. Look, I’m grateful for any help I can get. Whatever your motives, I’m not proud. Well, I am, but not too proud to accept assistance—”

  “And you still haven’t answered my question. How are you going to manage?”

  “I have no idea. But I will. Somehow.” She shrugged. “It’s called trusting that things will work out. Like they always have.”

  The obvious spiritual undertone grated. Not that Cash cared one way or the other what, or who, people chose to believe in, but far as he could tell the only thing a person could count on was himself.

  “You don’t have doubts?”

  A short laugh erupted from her mouth. “Oh, honey, I’ve given them names, they hang around so much. I didn’t say it was easy, trusting that hard. I also didn’t exactly shrug and think, Whatever, when Lee died, believe me. But wrestling with the doubts is what keeps me from getting too big for my britches.” She almost smiled. “Although I guess it’s been too late for that for some time.”

  Then she walked away, her hair blazing in the sun no match for her radiant dignity. Of course, all that stuff about trusting was a crock. Far as he could tell life was more or less about making
sure you were smarter and faster than the other guy.

  But he had to hand it to Emma—she sure talked a good talk. In fact, for a second or two there, she almost had him listening. Nowhere near believing—hell, no—but listening was the crucial first step, wasn’t it?

  Yeah. The first step, Cash thought as he went after a branch like it’d personally offended him, down a road that led to nothing but disappointment and heartache.

  A road he had no intention of ever going down again. Not in this lifetime, or any other.

  Amen.

  Chapter Four

  “Mama!” Zoey yelled, stomping through the front door, soooo glad this totally, completely stinky day was over. She’d forgotten her spelling homework, lunch had been some disgusting sandwich she couldn’t even eat, and jerkface Jaxon Trujillo would not stop bugging her. And then she tripped getting off the school bus so she landed on her hands and knees in the dirt, and all the kids still on the bus laughed at her. Not even Bumble’s sloppy kisses when she hugged him made her feel better. “I’m home!”

  “Shh, child, your mama’s taking a nap,” Granny Annie said as Zoey wriggled out of her backpack and let it thud to the floor. Except Granny gave her one of her looks, so she picked it back up and hung it on the peg by the door as she was supposed to. “Tryin’ to, anyway. Where’s your brother?”

  “It’s Thursday. He always stays after school to work with Miss Winnie, remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right, I forgot. There’s a snack on the kitchen table. Then come look at this painting, tell me what you think.”

  A bunch of cats followed Zoey into the kitchen, where she sighed. Peanut butter graham crackers. Blech. Mama’s cookies and cakes and stuff were scrumptious, but Mama’d said she couldn’t bake too much right now on account of the baby made it hard for her to stand for very long.

  Which made Zoey feel all tight inside if she thought about it too hard, so she didn’t. Especially since Miss Rollins, her Sunday-school teacher, had told her it wasn’t—she wrinkled her nose, trying to remember the word—charitable to think about herself when Mama had so much on her mind. But she’d sure be glad when the baby was on the outside and she could have Mama back, and she didn’t care who knew it.

  Well, except for Miss Rollins.

  She carefully poured herself a glass of milk, nibbling on one of the crackers while she watched, through the kitchen window, Cash talk to the goats as he fixed their fence.

  Zoey could hardly wrap her head around Daddy and Cash being friends. They were just so different. Like, for instance, Daddy smiled all the time, where Cash mostly looked like he had a stomachache or something. But then, Daddy always had something good to say about everybody. Even people who did bad things, he’d say they were probably like that because nobody had ever shown them how to be good. That if they knew how to be better, they probably would be.

  With lots of clanging, Cash dropped the tools into Daddy’s beat-up old metal box and headed back to the greenhouse. He certainly seemed normal enough. At least when he talked to the goats. But she got the feeling he liked them better than he did people. And that was just wrong.

  Carefully holding the glass of milk and two graham cracker sandwiches, Zoey tiptoed past Granny—even though she couldn’t hear her, anyway—down to Mama’s room to peek in. She was lying on her side on the big bed, her hand over the ginormous lump where the baby was, frowning in her sleep. Except then she said, “I know you’re there, Jelly Bean, you may as well come on in,” so Zoey went over and kissed her forehead. Then she brushed off the graham cracker crumbs, and Mama laughed and pulled her up onto the bed beside her to lie down, all curled around the baby.

  Zoey squirmed. “It tickles when he moves.”

  “You should feel it from the inside. Like he’s making pizza dough.” Smiling, Mama smoothed back Zoey’s crazy hair, which was all curly, like Daddy’s. Mama’s hair was smooth and shiny over her shoulders, and she smelled like the fancy candles at Hobby Lobby. But sometimes it felt hard to breathe from Mama’s loving her and Hunter so hard, like she wanted to make up for Daddy being gone.

  “How was school?” Mama asked, like she did every day, and Zoey shrugged and said, “Okay,” because she wasn’t gonna tell Mama about her troubles. Because that wouldn’t be charitable, either, probably. Although if Jaxon Trujillo called her barfhead one more time, she was gonna pop him one. Maybe.

  Mama pushed herself up, stealing one of Zoey’s graham cracker sandwiches and taking a big bite. “Hey!” Zoey said, giggling, then remembered she did have some good news. She stuck her fingers in her mouth and shoved up her top lip. “’Ook!”

  “Hallelujah, it’s about time.” Mama wiped her crumby hands on her jeans and put her hands on both sides of Zoey’s face to open her mouth wider. “Looks like they’re coming in straight, too, praise be. Okay, move over, punkin’—I gotta pee.”

  After Zoey scooted out of the way, Mama got up and slowly walked into her bathroom, half shutting the door so Zoey couldn’t see her do her business. “When I got off the bus,” she called, “Cash was fixing the goats’ fence.”

  “Really? I didn’t think he’d get anywhere near that today—”

  “He was talkin’ to ’em, too.”

  Mama laughed the same time the toilet flushed. Then she pushed open the door, watching Zoey in her mirror as she brushed her hair. “We all talk to the goats, what’s so strange about that?”

  “But we don’t talk only to the goats.”

  Mama twisted her hair into a big old curled-up snake at the back of her head, then stuck a giant barrette in to hold it. “Cash talks. When he wants to. He just prefers to keep to himself.”

  “How come?”

  “I suppose you’d have to ask him that.”

  Zoey pushed out a breath. How was she supposed to ask him anything if he didn’t talk? Honestly. “Do you think he’s happy?”

  Mama came back into the bedroom, rubbing lotion into her hands. “Where on earth did that come from?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t ask for this stuff to show up in my head, it just does.”

  Laughing real softly, Mama sat back on the edge of the bed. “No,” she said, hugging Zoey’s shoulders. “I don’t think Cash is happy at all.”

  “That would be my take on it, also,” she said, then frowned. “You’d think, with him being famous and rich and all, he’d be smiling all the time.”

  “Oh, honey,” Mama said, her breath warm in Zoey’s hair. “Being famous and rich might make you feel good for the moment, but if you don’t feel right on the inside, nothing on the outside is going to make you really happy.”

  “And Cash doesn’t feel right on the inside?”

  “No,” she said quietly, like she’d been thinking about it, too. “A lot of bad stuff happened to him when he was a kid, and that’s left him with a whole bunch of confusing thoughts he’s having trouble sorting out. It’s like…he’s spent so long staring at what he thinks he sees, he can’t see what’s really there.”

  Zoey wasn’t even gonna try to figure that one out. Instead, she said, “Daddy said you were real good at helping people see the light. So maybe you should give Cash a shot.”

  Mama made a funny choking sound, then said, “Unfortunately, that only works if the person wants your help. Cash wants…” Her forehead all pinched together, she combed her fingers through Zoey’s messy hair. “Actually, I’m not entirely sure what he wants. But it’s not my help. And anyway, he’s only here until after the baby comes—”

  “But if Daddy was Cash’s friend, don’t you think he would’ve wanted us to make Cash feel better?”

  “Except we don’t know Cash like Daddy did—”

  “But aren’t we supposed to love everybody, even if they don’t love us?” Except maybe for Jaxon Trujillo. Zoey thought probably even the Lord Jesus might have trouble with that one. “Maybe Cash just needs somebody to love him. Like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree.”

  That made Mama laugh again. “Very true,
Miss Smarty Pants. But you can love somebody without getting in their face about it. And to be honest, I’ve got enough to think about right now without taking on somebody else’s troubles. But I’ll tell you one thing…his showing up right now couldn’t’ve come at a better time. Like Hunter said, he’s an answer to a prayer. Oh, there’s Granny calling—you better scoot.”

  With that, Mama quickly kissed Zoey on the mouth and shooed her out of the room before Zoey said something stupid. Like how Cash was the strangest answer to a prayer she’d ever heard tell of, and that was the truth.

  Then she went out to the living room where Granny’s sun-catchers in the windows threw rainbows all over the walls, and her painting was all happy and colorful, even if Zoey didn’t have a clue what it was supposed to be, and two of the kitties ran over to be petted, and she could barely remember why she’d thought the day was so stinky.

  Sure, she missed Daddy, and she knew they didn’t have a lot of money to “throw around,” as Mama said, but it wasn’t like the world had ended or anything when he died. Also, she knew if Daddy was here he’d do something to make Cash feel better.

  Then Hunter walked through the front door, grinning in that way that always made Zoey feel good. He went over to hug Granny, then Zoey, like he hadn’t seen her in a million years, and Zoey got one of her Bright Ideas.

  “You busy, Hun?”

  “Uh-uh,” Hunter said, wagging his head. “What’s…up?”

  “Then come with me,” she said, taking him by the hand and leading him back outside.

  Because this was what Daddy would have wanted, she was sure of it.

  Cash heard the kids before he saw them, bearing down like a pair of giggling, heat-seeking missiles, the dog plodding alongside as though mildly annoyed at being called to action.

  He tensed. A kid person, he wasn’t. Never had been. Kids moved too fast, talked too much, and asked way too many questions. He supposed there’d been a time when he might’ve thought about having children of his own, but that moment had passed a loooong time ago, never to return. Especially once he realized he’d make as lousy a father as he had a husband.