Sasha Summers - A Son For The Cowboy

“Good thing I’m a good-looking guy,” Toben said, winking at Rowdy.

Rowdy’s laugh filled the room.

“So you two weren’t married?” Dot asked. “That’s wrong.”

“Mom and Dad say you’re not supposed to do...that...until after you’re married,” Otis offered, poking the pie with a fork as he set the table.

“And they’re right,” Poppy agreed, tension mounting.

“So you were married?” Otis pushed.

“Did you make fried chicken?” Toben asked. “It smells like fried chicken.”

“She did.” Rowdy nodded. “It’s my favorite.”

“Mine, too,” Toben agreed, his blue eyes never leaving Rowdy.

Dinner went well. She and Toben did their best to keep conversation from getting too awkward. Which meant preventing Dot and Otis from saying too much. Her niece was almost twelve and Otis was ten, and they knew just enough to make things awkward fairly often. But once dinner was over and she was loading plates into the rickety dishwasher, Rowdy asked, “Can we go for a walk? Just me and...my dad?”

“You...” She broke off. “Where?”

“The barn and back?” Rowdy suggested. “I can show him where Cheeto and Stormy will live.”

She wiped her hands on the dish towel, hoping it hid her shaking. “Sure.”

“We can have pie when we get back?” Rowdy asked, looking up at Toben.

“Toben might have to go. Work starts early on a ranch—”

“Pie after sounds good,” Toben interrupted, not looking at her.

“I want ice cream,” Otis chimed in.

Poppy stared at her sister’s children, disappointed in their lack of manners. “Ice cream, sure. Feel like playing a board game?”

They looked at her like she was the crazy one.

“No?” she asked. “Okay.”

“I’ll play when we get back, Mom,” Rowdy said, walking out of the kitchen.

Poppy served Dot and Otis ice cream, washed the dinner dishes and half-heartedly unpacked a box—her gaze drifting out the window again and again to see Toben and Rowdy side by side. Plaid shirts, straw cowboy hats, well-worn leather cowboy boots and polished belt buckles. But it was more than their matching getups. Her boy was the mirror image of the man.

And she didn’t know how she felt about that.

Then her attention wandered to Toben Boone’s delectable rear. Those jeans. That butt. It was quite a view. She scrubbed the skillet with renewed vigor.

“Aunt Poppy, can we call Mom?” Dot asked. “I miss her.”

“I’m sure she’s missing you, too,” Poppy agreed. “You can call her.”

“Okay,” Dot said, slipping from the table, leaving half of her ice cream untouched and hurrying to the guest bedroom.

“If she’s not going to eat it.” Otis pulled his sister’s bowl closer.

“Is there anything you’d like to do, Otis, now that we’re here?” she asked, sitting across the table from him. “The river’s at the bottom of the hill. We could go tubing.” If the water was up. Considering how hot it had been this afternoon, she’d sit in a puddle if it helped cool things off.

He frowned at her. “Tubing?”

“Float down the river,” she explained. “In an inner tube.”

“Why would we do that?” He spooned ice cream into his mouth. “Isn’t there a pool?”

She stood again and peered out the window. Rowdy and Toben were almost to the barn. “No, there’s no pool here.” Why would she and Rowdy need a pool when the Medina River was practically in their backyard?

“Man, this place stinks.” His spoon clattered in his bowl.

By the time she’d turned around, Otis had joined Dot in the guest room, the floor squeaking with each step. So the house needed more work than she’d realized. But it didn’t stink. She eyed the stove. Okay, maybe it did stink a little. She wiped down the kitchen counter, trying not to stare out the window.

Her phone rang. “Hello?”

“Hey, Pops.” Mitchell’s voice was low and soothing.

“Hey, Mitchell, what’s up?”

“Figured I’d check on you all. See if Rowdy’s packed his cousins into an empty moving box and shipped them to Australia or something.”

She laughed. “No. They’re bigger than him, you know?”

“And slower,” he argued. “How’s it going?”

She pushed through the front screen door and sat on the porch swing, sighing. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Shoot,” he said.

“No, not right now. I’m too tired.” She yawned.

“You sound it. I’ll be up tomorrow with your babies,” he said. “How’s the town? Land? Just as pretty as the pictures looked?”

Her eyes wandered along the horizon, feathered clouds of cotton-candy pink and vibrant purple streaking across the sky. She stood, perched on the wraparound porch railing, leaning against the thick carved pillar, and stared out over the rolling hills dotted with stubby cedar trees. Sprawling Spanish oaks blew in the evening breeze, a calming sound that eased some of the knots from her shoulders. Rocky outcrops dotted the ground, adding to the rugged beauty of the land. Beyond the clumps of prickly cactus and thistle, Poppy spied the perfect place for a vegetable garden. She had plans for this place—saw a future here for her and Rowdy. “The house is rough but...the property? It’s gorgeous. Prettier than the pictures. I’d have paid a hell of a lot more than what we settled on.”

“That pretty?” He chuckled. “What’s Rowdy think?”

She paused, glancing toward the barn. Rowdy and Toben were talking. Rather, Rowdy was talking, and Toben was listening—wearing a beautiful smile. Her heart twisted sharply, a flare of warning tightening her stomach. Rowdy was her everything. Keeping him safe and happy was her only goal now. She just hadn’t figured on Toben Boone being involved. “He seems pretty happy at the moment.” She only hoped Toben’s interest wasn’t some passing notion. That once the newness of being a father, of having a son, wore off, he wouldn’t break Rowdy’s heart.

* * *

“YOU WERE AN ALL-AROUND?” Rowdy asked.

Toben nodded. In his day, he’d competed in all the rodeo events. And won a pretty penny and more than his fair share of belt buckles in the process. “Used to be. Now only if it’s something I really want to do. A bull or bronc I feel I need to ride. You want to rodeo?”

Rowdy smiled. “Not sure. It’s dangerous sometimes.”

He nodded. “True. You have to be careful. Have good instincts.”

“Ma said her daddy was both and he still ended up dying in the arena.” Rowdy frowned. “She saw it.”

Toben had grown up hearing about Barron White—anyone related to rodeo had. The man was a legend, a true ambassador for the sport. Toben had been at the Houston rodeo the day the man had died, but he hadn’t seen it. To hear about it was bad enough. He glanced at the house, his heart aching for Poppy. She’d seen her daddy gored, trampled in the dirt and dragged from the arena.

“What about your dad?” Rowdy asked.

“Don’t know who he was,” Toben admitted. He looked at the boy, wishing it weren’t true.

“Why?”

Toben chuckled. “My mother won’t tell me.”

“She doesn’t know?”

Rowdy was too young to realize how painful that question was. He meant no offense. But the truth of it stung. “Nope.”

Rowdy nodded. “Sorry.”

Toben placed his hand on Rowdy’s shoulder. “No reason. I’ve got plenty of family to keep me in line.”

“It’s always been me and Mom.” There was no bitterness or sadness, just fact. But his son’s words stoked Toben’s anger. Rowdy was a Boone. He had a family, a big one at that. Something else Poppy’d kept from him.

Rowdy picked up a stick, whacking the thistle flowers as they ambled back down the road. “Aunt Rose comes around now and then but they don’t get along for long.”