Rodeo Father

Cindy’s husky laugh mocked her. “It needs a heck of a lot more than a coat of paint.”

Resentment shot through Rachel. “I would have been happy to have done the work to fix it up.” A fixer-upper was the only kind of house she could ever hope to buy.

A commotion across the road snagged her attention, as the two burly men opened the rear doors of the truck.

Travis didn’t own much. The truck was less than half full. The men unloaded a large dresser and carried it into the house.

Tori marched her fingers up Rachel’s leg, singing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

Rachel glanced down at her three-year-old daughter, gazing into eyes so blue they rivaled the cloudless sky, into Davey’s eyes, the first thing that had attracted Rachel to him. His brilliant, laughter-filled eyes.

She was struggling to replace his laughter in their lives.

The pair of movers came back for a big leather sofa. “Too masculine. That house needs comfortable, cozy sofas and armchairs. Shabby chic. Chintz.”

“Chins,” Tori whispered.

The furniture looked brand-new.

Travis came outside, all traces of leather gone. The cowboy she’d met this morning stood on the front porch.

He leaned against a veranda post, a rugged movie star in worn jeans, a snug white T-shirt, denim jacket, well-used cowboy boots and a black Stetson.

He should have looked out of place on Abigail’s old-fashioned veranda. He didn’t. He looked...perfect.

Cindy whistled. “Good-looking man. He bought that house? Wow. Who is he?”

Rachel didn’t fill her in. She had never, not once in her life, competed with her mom where men were concerned, but she felt a rivalry now with a raging fire.

“What does he need a whole house for?”

Good question. “I don’t know, Cindy.”

Rachel had had time to cool down. Contrary to what she’d thought earlier, Travis was not her enemy. He was only a man who’d somehow managed to do better in life than she had.

His glance swept the countryside, Cindy’s house, Rachel and Tori...and Cindy.

What good looks Rachel lacked, Cindy had in spades. Tori had inherited her blond curls from her grandmother, along with her charming dimples. Somehow those had bypassed Rachel.

All Rachel had were strong features and freckles, courtesy of a father she’d never met.

“I’m going over to meet him.” Cindy squeezed past Rachel and Victoria and stepped down from the porch.

“No!” Rachel didn’t want her mother embarrassing her. “Mom, please. Don’t—”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t flirt with him like you do with every man you meet.”

Cindy wouldn’t just be welcoming Travis to the neighborhood. She would ramp it up to see what she could get out of the man.

“He’s the best-looking man we’ve had around here in ages. If you think I’m going to pass him up, you’re nuts.” Cindy rubbed her hands on her thighs, the gesture telling. “I’m still young. I can flirt with any man I want. It’s none of your business.”

Cindy was pretty enough to turn any man’s head, but she’d been plagued with a neediness that routinely drove her into the arms of the wrong kind of man.

Relentless, she was forever on the lookout for her next conquest.

Her sights had just zeroed in on the one across the way.

“Please, Cindy, no. You want to get your hooks into him.” Rachel knew Cindy’s needs inside and out. The vulnerability in the depths of her eyes was exactly the thing that had gotten her into trouble when she was only fifteen, hitching her pony to a good-looking drifter’s wagon and then getting pregnant. Whoever the guy was, he’d been long gone by the time Rachel had been born.

Rachel was twenty-eight and her mother only forty-three. Rachel guessed Travis to be in his mid-to late thirties. Cindy could conceivably flirt with him, but what a load of trouble it could bring.

“Mom, he’s not a drifter. He’s our new neighbor. He bought the house, for Pete’s sake.”

“So?”

“So...” Rachel said with forced patience. “This could go wrong in so many ways.”

“Everything will be fine. I’m only going over to talk to him.” In Cindy’s voice, Rachel heard the hints of desperation that had been growing stronger since Cindy had turned forty.

“And when the relationship goes sour, as it always does?” Rachel’s displeasure bubbled over. She’d seen this movie too many times and hated the ending. “How good a neighbor will he be then? How good will you be?”

Cindy shrugged. “Maybe this time it will work out.” She started to mosey down the driveway, but turned back. “You could always move into a place of your own, and then you wouldn’t have to watch me talk to men.” She walked across the road.

Mom was right. This was her mother’s home, not hers. Cindy could flirt with whomever she wanted. “Come on, sugar pie, let’s go inside,” Rachel said, urging Tori ahead of her, unwilling to witness Cindy’s performance.

Inside the house, she strode to the kitchen and settled Tori into a chair.

In the bedroom, Rachel chose one of her few maternity shirts and put it on with her good maternity jeans.

She returned to the kitchen where she put the finishing touches to the dinner she’d made to take to work with her, every action staccato and peevish.

She had no claim on the new stranger. Cindy could do whatever she wanted with him.

She packed a quinoa salad and a pint of milk, dropping them into her bag too hard.

Forcing herself to calm down, she took Tori’s tiny face between her hands. Rachel kissed her forehead and her nose. “I love you, sweetie. Come sit on the porch and wave goodbye.”

She picked up her purse from the hall table and left the trailer, making sure Cindy was on her way back before heading to her car.

Tori retrieved her favorite stuffed animal, a furry gray platypus. Rachel shook off dirt before she let her daughter hug it to her chest. “Stay on the porch till the car is gone, okay?”

She approached Cindy who’d moseyed back across the highway with her ultra-sexy, phony walk that Rachel disliked.

Wary of her mom’s Cheshire cat grin, she asked, “What’s up?”

“I’ve got a date,” Cindy said with a whole boatload of smugness.