Jane Porter - My Cowboy Valentine

“How expensive?”

“Could be anywhere from six hundred to nine hundred dollars.”

“Nine hundred?”

“Provided you don’t need a new engine.”

Panic flared in her eyes. “Seriously?”

Cade jutted his jaw, feeling like hell. “Not what you want to hear, huh?”

“No. Accountants might be busy this time of year, but not wedding-cake folks. We slow after Valentine’s Day and, yes, it’ll pick up late April, but...” Her voice trailed off and then she shrugged and forced a smile. “I’m going to go check on Tommy.”

Down the hall in Tommy’s room, Rachel leaned against the doorway watching him line up his miniature LEGO figurines. Pirates and ninjas and little Harry Potters. She loved watching him play and how engrossed he became in his activity. And he’d always loved his room. From the time he was a toddler, it’d been his sanctuary. He’d miss this room, and so would she.

She was still watching Tommy when Cade came to find her a few minutes later. “Everything okay?” he asked.

Her skin prickled with awareness as he came up behind her. She might not want to be attracted to Cade anymore, but her body certainly knew he was there. “Yes,” she said, flashing him a quick smile. “Just thinking. I’ve lived in this house ever since Tommy was born.”

“There must be a lot of good memories here.”

“Hundreds,” Rachel agreed, thinking of the green-and-white nursery she’d decorated for Tommy and the cheerful Beatrix Potter quilt Grandma had sewn for his crib before making a matching quilt to hang on the wall.

“What’s your new place like?” Cade asked.

“Nice,” she said quickly, maybe too quickly, because she saw the lift of Cade’s eyebrows. “Of course it’ll need a little TLC. Every place does. But it’ll be good once we’re all settled.”

“You’re taking the furniture?”

Rachel glanced past him, back down the hall, toward the kitchen with its solid, scratched oak table, but it was a table she loved more than anything, and then to the dining room and living room beyond.

“As much as I can,” she answered, her fingers curling into a fist that she pressed against her ribs. She wouldn’t be taking the kitchen table with her. She couldn’t. It wouldn’t fit through the narrow apartment doorways. And yet that table represented her grandmother more than anything else in this place. Grandma Sally sat there every morning with her coffee and every night at dinner with her iced tea. And it was home. And maybe it was silly, because it was just a piece of furniture, but it made her feel loved. “It’s an apartment, not a house,” she added, huskily, “so not everything will fit.”

If Cade heard the break in her voice he gave no indication. “When do you move?”

“The new people are moving in on the sixteenth, but I have to be out by the fourteenth so they can clean on the fifteenth—”

“You’re moving on Valentine’s Day?”

She rolled her eyes. “Valentine’s Day isn’t a big deal to me, and Tommy doesn’t care, so it’s not something we focus on around here.”

“Can I help you with the move?”

“I’ve already got that handled.” She glanced around Tommy’s room, which would be the last room packed since he didn’t like his things disturbed. She needed to go through his toys, too, and donate the things he’d outgrown or didn’t play with, but she was so sentimental. Many of the toys symbolized the early years. The years when she hadn’t known what was wrong with Tommy, only that something was wrong with Tommy, even though doctors just told her not to worry so much, that boys were often developmentally delayed, that many little boys struggled with speech...

But she’d known. She’d known that something wasn’t right when a baby wouldn’t look at his mother. She’d known in her heart that it wasn’t supposed to be like this...her baby should smile...look into her eyes.... Tommy did neither.

Cade frowned. “Won’t that be expensive?”

“I’m doing it as a barter. A wedding cake in exchange for two guys and a truck for three hours.”

“That’s smart.”

“Mmm,” she agreed, unwilling to let Cade know how hard it’d been to find someone who would barter the move. Rachel had never had a lot of money, and paying for Tommy’s specialists and therapists was a constant strain, but it was worth it. Already the weekly speech and occupational-therapy sessions had made a difference.

“Where is his dad, Rachel?” Cade asked quietly.

Rachel glanced quickly at Tommy before moving away from his door and walking back to the kitchen. “Calgary,” she said, picking up the plates Cade had rinsed and adding them to the dishwasher.

Cade drew out a chair at the table and sat down. “He’s Canadian?”

“No. David’s from Dallas. I met him at a bar in Fort Worth one night when I was out with Mia and some of the other girls.” She added the root-beer glasses to the top rack, closed the dishwasher door and faced Cade. “From far away David looks like you—tall, dark, handsome. But he wasn’t you.” She grimaced and shrugged. “Definitely wasn’t you, and we only went out a couple times, but I somehow still managed to get pregnant.”

“And David doesn’t want to be part of Tommy’s life?”

“He gave me money for an abortion before leaving town.” She lifted her chin, looked Cade square in the eye. “I didn’t love David. He was a rebound thing, but there was no way I could get rid of the baby. So I took the seven hundred and fifty dollars he gave me and opened a savings account for Tommy’s college education. And maybe Tommy won’t go to college, but he’s going to have an amazing life. I’ve given up on a lot of dreams these past few years, but I’m not giving up that one.”

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