Wendy Warren - Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride - Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride

Almost over. Duty almost done. And then she could go back to her place and get on with her life. She had problems of her own to sort out. Kade wasn’t one of them. And except in a professional capacity, neither was Blue. She couldn’t do a thing for either of them.

It was a long drive home. They were both tired and Kade remained quiet. Preoccupied. Neither of them spoke until he pulled into the driveway.

Kade turned off the ignition and then once again Libby said, “Sorry about Blue.”

“I knew what I was getting into when I decided to find him.”

He might have known, but he hadn’t been prepared.

Neither of them made a move to get out of the truck. Kade leaned his elbow against the door, propping his head on his hand as he stared at the sorry old house.

“What now, Kade?” Libby asked softly. She’d thought he’d talk about Blue, but he didn’t.

“I’m selling as soon as I get it into some kind of selling shape.”

Good. She was almost ashamed of the thought. Almost. But it would make her life so much easier if he just left. “Why not sell it as is? There’s a market.”

“I have to get as much out of it as I can.” He continued to stare at the house, his expression troubled, as if he expected his dad to come bursting out of it at any moment.

Libby opened the truck door, but she didn’t climb out. “Because of the IRS?” She’d heard the rumor that he was stone broke because of back taxes. And even though it was none of her business she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d done with all his money, why he hadn’t had enough to pay his taxes. Had he gambled his money away? Drunk it away? Did his ex-wife have most of it?

She wasn’t going to ask.

“I settled that debt, but I had to sell almost everything I owned. Now I need enough money to tide me over while I get some job training. Apparently there’s not a lot of call for washed-up rodeo cowboys in today’s job market.”

Divorced, broke and unskilled. Quite a résumé.

“Has anything gone right for you?” Libby asked without thinking.

“Yeah.” He glanced up at her then, his expression surprisingly intense. She’d seen that look before, couldn’t believe she was seeing it now, and tried to convince herself she wasn’t by playing it cool.

“What’s that?”

“You’re not married.”

It took Libby a moment to assure herself she’d heard correctly. She pulled in a deep breath. “There will never be anything between us, Kade. I mean it.”

“I know you do.”

“Then you’d better damned well believe me.”

“Oh, trust me, Lib. I do.”

She didn’t believe him. Not when he was wearing his determined face, the one he’d worn whenever he was facing a particularly challenging bronc.

She gave him a long hard stare before saying what was in her heart. “I might feel for you, Kade, but the very last thing I will ever do in this life is trust you.”

YOU’RE NOT MARRIED. Kade had no idea why he’d said that, but it was true. He was glad Libby wasn’t married. That didn’t mean he thought he had a chance with her—it had been a flat-ass stupid thing to say and now she had her back up again, just when it had looked as if they might be on the healing road.

But deep down, maybe he wanted her to have her back up. Maybe he preferred that to indifference.

No maybe about it. He did prefer it to indifference.

Well, Libby had been anything but indifferent when she left today. She’d been steamed and had left no illusions to the contrary. It had taken her almost three minutes to unload her horse from his trailer, load the mare into her own and drive away.

And as he thought about it, Kade realized he wasn’t all that unhappy about saying what he’d said. Sometimes a guy had to speak from the heart.

YOU’RE NOT MARRIED.

One whole day had passed and Libby was still pissed off that Kade had said such a thing. She frowned down at the industrial-gray floor tiles in the break room.

“Ahem.” Stephen got up from the long table where he’d been eating his lunch and tossed his wadded-up paper bag in the trash. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“You seem, oh, I don’t know, preoccupied?”

Libby frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“You’ve been standing there stirring your coffee for about five minutes, staring at the floor.”

“So?”

He pointed at her cup. “You didn’t put anything in your coffee to stir.”

Libby looked down. Sure enough. No creamer. “Old habits,” she said, gamely sipping the coffee black and somehow managing not to make a face. She hated coffee without cream.

“You gave up creamer?” Stephen asked dubiously.

“Too much palm oil.”

“Right.” Stephen boosted himself onto the counter, the backs of his boots clunking on the cabinet doors.

Libby gave him a narrow-eyed appraisal. “I’ll bet there’s something in the rule book about that. I just can’t believe having your butt on the counter is correct protocol.”

“Yeah? Well, Queenie can—”

A door opened and closed out in the hall and Stephen’s mouth snapped shut. Libby smirked at him as he got off the counter.

“On second thought, it’s not worth crossing her.”

“I hear you,” Libby said, although she believed that crossing Ellen was inevitable. “I’ve got a few more items to finish up on my report.”

When Libby started down the hall, Ellen was coming back down the hall from the copy room.

“Did you enjoy your weekend, Libby?”

“It was great,” Libby said before walking into her office and shutting the door, something she’d rarely done when Glen had been her boss.

She brought up her word-processing screen, put her hands on the keyboard and stared at the computer, her concentration shot because of Ellen’s inquiry.

Oh, yeah. Her weekend had been great—right up until they’d found Blue injured and limping behind his herd. And then Kade had had to top things off by making that comment. She’d give him this—he had balls. To say something like that after what he’d done … She’d never questioned his integrity when they’d been together, and it had ripped her world apart when she found he’d slept with another woman.

And truthfully, she’d been devastated almost as much by her own naiveté and blindness as by his screwing around. She’d felt foolish. So the bottom line was that she couldn’t trust him, and she couldn’t trust her own judgment. What kind of a basis was that for anything?

“ARE THERE ANY KIDS around where you live?” Maddie asked when Kade called to make plans for her next visit, which was coming up soon.

Kade hadn’t thought about that. Of course Maddie would want to play with other kids. Jason and Kira had a year-old baby boy, Matt, but that wasn’t what Maddie had in mind.

“I’m sure there’re some kids here.”

“With horses?”

“I’ll, uh, have to ask around.”

So he did. He didn’t find any kids with horses, but he learned there was a weekend craft class at the public library and a family swim at the community pool. Both good places to meet other kids. He signed Maddie up for the next class, which was lanyard braiding, paying the small fee. He didn’t know who had kids and who didn’t, so he also called the woman who’d run the 4-H program back when he’d been in it and found out she was still in charge. Maddie couldn’t join a club, but she could attend the local horse group as a guest.

Three for three. Kade went home feeling like a real dad. And he actually had the house to the point where they could stay in it if she wanted to, although he had a feeling she’d want to stay in the trailer. If she ever wanted to become a rodeo rider, she was more than prepared for the lifestyle—news that wouldn’t exactly thrill her mother.