Single Dad Cowboy

He cut her off. “How much did you pay for him?”

“That’s a business deal, Mr. Cooper. I don’t sign checks and tell.” She turned away from the horse and made slow, painful steps back to her car.

He opened the car door for her. “That was real nice of you.”

She slid into the seat and looked up at him. “Why not do something for someone if you have the chance? That’s what you’ve been doing, isn’t it?”

He rested his arm on the top of her Audi and looked in at her. He knew she was referring to Cash and Callie, Katrina’s kids. “Yeah, I guess we’re all grown-up now.”

“Right, of course we are.” She started her car and reached for the door, forcing him to back up. “I’ll see you this afternoon.”

He watched as she closed the door, and took off down the drive. Bill Tanner was standing on his front porch. The old guy walked down the steps, a little bow-legged from years in the saddle. He’d been a saddle bronc rider back in the day, one of the best.

He’d taught Dylan a thing or two about the sport. Dylan and Terry had both ridden saddle bronc, before Terry had signed up for the army. Dylan glanced at the rangy horse and smiled, because Terry had bought the animal from a stock provider who had intended to use him in rodeos and then decided the horse didn’t have enough buck.

But he still had plenty of buck, and if Harmony Cross gentled the animal down, she deserved a medal.

“Well, I guess Terry’s horse is going to have a good home.” Bill walked up to the round pen. “I should have sold him a long time ago. I’m just a stubborn old man who doesn’t like to deal with reality.”

“It isn’t easy, this reality stuff,” Dylan admitted.

“Take the girl her check back.” Bill held out the check with the flowery signature and four digits.

“Nah, Bill, I think she’d be real upset if you sent that back. Keep it and take Doris to the beach.”

Bill grinned. Probably one of his first real smiles in a long time. “It don’t seem right, to have this much money in my hand. But the beach would sure be nice.”

“Go. Have a good time.” Dylan adjusted his hat to block the sun. “She ain’t gonna miss the money, Bill.”

“No, I reckon she won’t. She was sure determined to get that animal. I guess she’ll be good to him. I just didn’t want to sell him and have someone put him back in the arena. Terry thought there was more to the horse than that. Something about his eyes.”

“Maybe she sees it, too.”

“Maybe.” Bill wore a baseball cap with a big fish emblem on the front. “Guess I’ll go fishing.”

“Don’t forget to do something with Doris.”

“She won’t let me forget.” Bill started to go back inside but stopped, and looked from the truck to Dylan. “You’ll get through this, Dylan.”

“Yeah, I guess I will.”

When he got in his truck, he looked at the two kids in the backseat. Cash was in his car seat. Callie was sitting in her big-kid booster seat. She reminded him often that she was four and Cash was just a baby.

She was holding tight to her kitten and the thing looked like it might be about ready to let loose with its claws.

“That kitten isn’t happy, Callie.” He grabbed a jacket and handed it back to her. “Wrap him up before you get scratched.”

“He’s happy,” she insisted as she wrapped the jacket around the hissing feline.

“Of course she is. You know I don’t like cats, right?” He glanced in the rearview mirror as he pulled onto the road. And he also didn’t like getting involved in Harmony Cross’s life. He had enough on his plate.

“You’ll like this one, Dylan,” Callie informed him with a big smile.

“What do you think, Cash? I need a guy on my side.”

Cash, not quite two, responded with one of his drooling, toothy grins and said, “Cat.”

“Yeah, cat.” Dylan shook his head and headed for town. One of these days he’d have to figure out how his ability to say no had gotten broken to the point of no repair.

If he’d figured it out sooner, he might not have offered to haul that horse for Harmony Cross.

The one thing, actually two, that he didn’t regret were sitting in the backseat of his truck. Cash and Callie, the children of his late friend. She’d lost a battle with cancer, and he’d done the only thing he had known he could do for her. He’d agreed to raise her kids because there hadn’t been anyone else.

One year ago he’d decided to help out a friend. Now he was a single dad.

Chapter Two

Harmony stood in the old barn that had been a part of the Cross Ranch for as long as she could remember. Her parents had bought the place twenty years ago, when her dad had first made a name for himself in Nashville. They’d wanted a place to go where life was still normal. Where the Cross kids could be kids and the family could do what other families did. Attending church on Sunday, rodeos and the local diner.

And because Harmony needed to find that part of herself that still believed in something, in who she was, or wanted to be, she had returned to Dawson and to the old farmhouse with all of its good memories.

She loved this place because it hadn’t changed. No matter what else happened in life, this house remained the same. Her parents had updated it, but they’d kept it as original as possible. The barn was solid with red-painted wood siding, a hayloft, a few stalls and a chicken pen off the back. The chicken pen was empty, and there hadn’t been animals in the barn for years. There were cows in the field only because the Coopers leased the land.

Even though the barn had stood empty, it still smelled of cedar, straw and farm animals. Today there would be a horse. She smiled as she opened one of the few stalls. It had a door that led to the corral and it was roomy.

She’d found one bale of straw, probably left over from the fall decorating her mother had done the previous year. She broke up the bale and scattered a few flakes in the stall for bedding.

After she’d left the Tanner’s she’d stopped at the feed store in Dawson and ordered some grain and hay to be delivered. It was already stacked in the feed room. She was all set. But her heart was a little jittery as she thought about what she was taking on and why. She knew the dangers of getting involved with Dylan Cooper. Her heart couldn’t handle his charm, and she knew he was best left alone. Her dad used to say the same thing about poisonous plants and poisonous snakes. Leave well enough alone and you won’t get hurt, he’d warn.

In the peaceful country stillness she heard a trailer rattling up the driveway. She stepped out of the stall, closing the door behind her. When she walked out of the barn, Dylan nodded a greeting as he pulled past her.

He backed the trailer up to the gate of the corral. The horse stomped and whinnied his displeasure at being moved. Harmony stepped a little closer as the truck stopped moving. The horse pushed his nose out of an opening of the trailer and whinnied again.

“It’s okay, boy, we’ll get you fattened up and you’ll be happy to be here.” She reached to pet his nose and he pulled back. She got it; look but don’t touch.

“You think he’s going to be all happy that you rescued him?” Dylan walked around the trailer and opened the gate. “Because all men fall at your feet, Harmony Cross?”

“Maybe I was wrong, maybe you haven’t changed.”

He smiled a little and she saw the lurking sadness again.

“Oh, I think we’ve both changed.” He swung the back of the trailer open. “And I’m sorry for baiting you that way. Old habits and all.”

“You’re right. Maybe we should call a truce?”

A truce? They’d had an adversarial relationship for years. He’d once loosened the cinch on her saddle just to watch it slide as she tried to get on her horse. She’d put mud in his boots. All in good fun. But it had gone a long way in cementing their relationship.

A truce would mean, what? Being friends? The idea felt a little bit dangerous.