Natalie Patrick - Three Kids And A Cowboy

Miranda shook her head at the irony. The very things she loved most about Brodie, his untamable animal passion, his mule-in-the-mud stubbornness, even his scruffydog sense of loyalty, made it impossible for her to stay married to him.

Divorce. The very word sank like stone in the pit of her stomach.

She’d found a lawyer—or, in truth, he’d found her. Conrad Harmon III was a Dallas attorney whose work brought him to Tulsa frequently. One rainy morning in the diner where she had waited tables for the past year, she’d shared a cup of coffee and an earful of her troubles with the young man.

He’d patted her hand, dried her tears and promptly offered to handle her divorce free of charge, provided she could assure him that her husband would not contest it. Once she had that assurance from Brodie, the wheels would be set in motion. And even though those wheels would run right over her heart in the process, she knew this was the right thing to do. Brodie would be free.

This way, twenty years from now, she wouldn’t wonder if the man she loved with all her being secretly resented her for cheating him out of something another woman might easily have given him. This way, he could find a woman who could love him and be the mother of his children.

She glanced around the entryway, not seeing anything in particular through her fog of sadness and resignation. Once she was out of the way, Brodie could marry again, buy a big house like this, and start filling it up with energetic, happy children. She could almost hear them now, squealing and thundering through the halls.

“I ain’t taking a bath, and you can’t make me!”

Miranda jerked her head up and glared through narrowed eyes at the still staircase in front of her. “What the—?”

A series of thumps and bumps shook the ceiling over her head. The ancient hinges of the upstairs bathroom door squawked unmercifully as it banged open.

“Catch Katie! Catch Katie!” two young voices chimed in unison.

“Who’s Katie?” Miranda murmured to no one.

“I’ve got her by a wingbone,” a rusty-throated older man hollered.

A wingbone? Maybe she should ask, “What’s Katie?” The image of her parents wrestling an angel popped into her mind. Miranda moved toward the foot of the steps, her head tilted upward. “Mom? Daddy? What’s going on up there?”

“Yeeeoooww!” The older man let out a long howl that drowned out her question even in her own ears. “That little bas—er, darlin’, bit me.”

Obviously, Katie was no angel. Miranda blinked. She pressed her hand to her chest and edged warily onto the first step. She drew a deep breath to call out again, but the sound of bare feet slapping on the floor upstairs, followed by a commotion of voices, cut her off.

“She’s headed for the bedroom!” a child cried out.

“Get her, get her!” another child screeched.

“Grab aholt and hang on,” the older man said encouragingly. “Jest stay clear of them chompers of her’n.”

What had happened here in her absence? Miranda batted her eyes, trying to comprehend what she was hearing. Had her parents started a day-care center, or could they be looking after neighbors’ children?

She hadn’t spoken to her folks in almost three months. She hadn’t dared, because she’d known they would either try to talk her out of her plan or let Brodie in on it. The last thing she wanted was a set of disapproving parents and a forewarned husband lying in wait for her when she rolled into town.

Not that this hubbub was much better. She gripped the smooth, polished wood of the oak banister, deciding the best thing to do was to go upstairs’and see for herself what was going on. Her foot had barely touched the second step when the frantic cries started again over her head.

“She’s too slippery to hold on to, Mr. Crispy,” a child complained at top volume.

Mr. Crispy? Miranda cocked her head. That sounded more like a fried-chicken franchise than someone who belonged in her parents’ home.

“She’s getting away,” the child said again. “Look out, she’s heading for—”

The stairs. Miranda raised her gaze in time to see a chubby cherub—a chubby naked cherub—with a frothy halo of white bubbles encircling wet blond hair flying straight at her. The child’s feet hardly seemed to skim the steps as she streaked down the stairs and away from the two children and one old man running after her.

For an instant, Miranda considered nabbing the fleeing child, but in the flurry of confusion, she couldn’t act fast enough. The little girl whisked past in a blur of arms, legs and suds, leaving a soapy imprint on Miranda’s jeans as she did.

The old man came pounding down the stairs with his knobby knees and elbows poking out at odd angles from his thin body. He pointed to the quivering plops of bubbles that left a trail into the formal living room to the right of the stairway. “She went that-a-way.”

The two children, a young boy and an even younger girl, both dressed in what in Texas would be called their “Sunday best,” stomped down the stairs behind the man. The girl clutched a faded red robe that Miranda recognized as her own, left in her bedroom closet years ago. None of them seemed aware of her presence on the stairs until they were almost on top of her.

Miranda held up one hand, keeping her voice steady as she tried to get the situation under control. “Excuse me, but who are you, and what are you doing in my parents’ house?”

“Whoa!” the old man bellowed, practically in her face. He stopped short one step up from her.

When the two children stumbled into the man’s bony back, Miranda grimaced, but she held on to her composure. “Just what is going on here?”

“It’s her.” A blush of pure awe colored the words whispered by the young girl, who was peering up at her from behind one of the old man’s legs.

“Her who?” the boy asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, and his tortoise-shell glasses bobbled as he crinkled his nose at her.

The old man reared back his head and clamped his hands on his hips. “Well, tuck a feather in my shirt and call me tickled, it is her.”

“Her who?” the boy demanded again. Then, suddenly, his blue eyes seemed to grow huge behind the brown circular frames. “Oh, m’gosh,” he murmured. “It’s the lady whose picture is on the wall in the den.”

“Howdy-do, Miz Sykes,” the man said in a soft voice.

Miranda pursed her lips and cocked her head. How did this odd fellow know her name? Had they met before?

“Who are you?” she asked again. “And what are you doing in my parents’ home?”

“Whur’s my manners?” He let out a quiet clucking laugh. “My name is Curtis Holloman, ma’am, but just every-danged-body calls me Crispy.”

The man dipped his head, his hand raising automatically to his head, as though to tip a hat that wasn’t there.

Miranda noticed something else that wasn’t there—two of the man’s fingers. She made a quick study of him, from his thin gray hair to his bowed legs, and felt certain that if she had ever met this man before, she would not have forgotten it.

She nodded stiffly and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr.—”

“Call me Crispy, ma’am.” He pressed a hand to his chest.

Miranda realized he probably did that because there were people who felt uncomfortable about shaking hands with him. Sighing, she wished she could smack some sense into whoever had made him feel he had to shelter them from his injury. She thrust her own hand out. “Nice to meet you, Crispy.”

He glanced down at her hand, then into her eyes, and then he seized her hand with outright enthusiasm. “Pleasure to meet you, too, Miz Sykes. Been mighty curious to make your acquaintance, if you don’t mind my saying so.”