Jenna's Cowboy Hero

She watched as he shoved a credit card into the door. The boys were in the yard playing with the dog. “Guys, stay right here in front of the trailer. Snakes are probably thick right now.”

“That’s another positive.” He pushed the door open and stepped inside. Jenna followed.

He looked around, focusing on the phone and answering machine. Jenna waited by the front door, not sure what she should do. Maybe she should go home? Maybe now was the time to remove herself from his presence and this situation.

While she considered her options, he pressed the button on the answering machine. Messages played, mostly personal and a little embarrassing to overhear knowing that Billy was gone and this was his legacy. There were messages from a distraught girlfriend, creditors asking for money, and his mom wondering why he didn’t call.

Adam replayed the last message.

“Billy, this is John at the Christian Mission. I wanted to confirm that we have the third week of June reserved for fifty kids. Can you give me a call back?” The caller left a number.

Adam turned. “What’s today?”

“The sixth of June.”

He groaned and tossed his hat on a nearby table. “I can’t believe this.”

The message replayed and he scribbled the number on a piece of paper.

“What are you going to do?” Jenna sat down on a bar stool at the kitchen counter.

“Cancel this camp.”

“And let those kids down?”

“I didn’t let them down, Billy did. I can’t have someone bring fifty kids to this place.”

“But…” She bit down on her bottom lip and told herself it wasn’t her business. Not the camp, not his life, none of it. She was just the mom of the kids who ran him off the road.

“Fifty kids,” he repeated, like she didn’t get it. “I don’t even know if the buildings are finished.”

He sat down on the stool next to hers and it creaked. “Obviously the bar stools aren’t one size fits all. Look, I’m not a bad guy, but this isn’t my thing. Summer camps, Oklahoma, none of this is me.”

“I know you’re not a bad guy. And you’re right, this isn’t my business. You have to make the decision that’s right for you.”

He smiled, and she liked that smile, the one that crinkled at the corners of his eyes. “You’re slick, but you’re not going to work me this way.”

“I wasn’t trying.”

“Of course not.” And his smile disappeared.

“I would help you.” She hesitated, at once sorry, but not. “I mean, it wouldn’t take much to get the camp ready.”

“Don’t you work?”

“I have two boys and ten horses. That’s my work. But with the help of the community…”

She hopped down from the stool, momentarily forgetting, and she stumbled. A strong arm caught her, holding her firm until she gathered herself. Her back to him, she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.

“Are you okay?” He stood next to her, his hand still on her arm. Looking up, she realized that his face was close to hers, his mouth a gentle line.

“Of course I am.”

He laughed, the deep baritone filling the emptiness of the dark and shadowy trailer. “Of course you are. You waited a whole five minutes after meeting me to involve yourself in every area of my life, and I can’t get a straight answer on if you’re okay. I know a knee injury when I see one. Remember, I’ve spent a lot of years getting plowed over and pushed down.”

“It’s an old injury.” She smiled but it wasn’t easy in the face of his unexpected tenderness, the baritone of his voice soft, matching the look in his eyes. “I need to check on the boys.”

He released her. “And I need to check on the barn and the dorms to see how much more money I’m going to have to spend to make this place usable.”

“But I thought you weren’t going to run the camp.”

“I’m not running it. I’m going to get it ready for someone else to run. I’ll let you and my noble agent, Will, run it. Or I’ll put it up for sale.”

Jenna grabbed a tablet off the counter and the pen he had tossed down. “We’ll drive down there. I can help you make a list for what you might need.”

Because she didn’t feel like making the long walk through the brush on the overgrown trail that used to be a road. The boys were sitting on the porch steps, holding a turtle they’d found.

“Can we keep it?” Timmy poked at the turtle’s head.

“No,” she answered as she walked down the steps of the porch.

“Why not?” all three guys asked.

“Because it wouldn’t be happy in a box. It belongs here, where it can travel and find the food it likes, not the food we toss to it every day.”

The boys frowned at the turtle and then at Jenna. “We just want to keep it for a little while.”

David touched the back of the box turtle, fingers rubbing the rough shell. “I like him.”

Adam sighed and walked back into the house. He came back with a permanent marker. “Guys, there is a way you can keep an eye on this bad boy. We’ll write your names and today’s date on the bottom of his shell. When you’re out here, you can find him and see how he’s doing.”

And that’s how he became a hero to her boys. Jenna watched, a little happy and a lot threatened. She couldn’t let Adam into their lives this way.

Herself in his life, that was different. Making sure this place became a camp was important to her. It was important to kids who were living the same nightmare childhood she had lived.

It was about the camp, not about Adam “Big Mac” Mackenzie. She honestly didn’t need to understand his smile, or the way his eyes lit up. It had been easy, imagining his story when he’d been a football player she and the guys cheered for. Now, with him so close and his story unfolding, she didn’t want to know more.

Adam climbed back into the truck. The boys piled in with them this time because it was a short ride across a bumpy drive to the barn. He glanced sideways, catching a glimpse of Jenna Cameron with her sun-streaked brown hair windblown and soft.

He wasn’t staying. He wouldn’t be pushed into this by her, or by Will. They’d have to understand that he was the last person in the world who ought to be running a camp, dealing with children, especially in Oklahoma.

As soon as he could figure out what to do with this place, who to turn it over to, he’d head back to Atlanta, back to his life. Back to what?

He sighed and she flicked her gaze from the road to him. That look took him back more than a dozen years, to pickup trucks and fishing holes, summer sun beating down on a group of kids just having a good time.

There hadn’t been many times like that in his childhood. His dad had always been pushing, always forcing him onto the practice field. He had sneaked a few moments for himself, enough to make a handful of memories that didn’t include football.

And she brought back those memories, most of which he had forgotten.