Buy a Cowboy (3 page)

“I'm thirty-four.” She gave a crooked wry grin as she acknowledged the softening in him.

Through the dullness of his medications, intrigue nudged him.

“I have three children and a ranch in Wyoming that I have no idea what to do with.”

“The ranch or the children?” He took another sip of coffee to shut up the hole in his face.

“Both.” Shadows gathered in her eyes.

They stared at each other quietly.

He wondered what she actually saw when she looked at his face. Straight brown hair, so dark it looked black. A strong nose he was proud to claim had not yet been broken, one of the few places on his body that had avoided that state. His mustache needed trimming, but until his right arm was out of the cast, he wasn't about to attempt the job.

He looked into her face again as he ran a hand over his stubbly cheeks and shifted uncomfortably under her steady gaze. Maybe he'd go to a barber; he might need a haircut, anyway. He moved restlessly, wishing he didn't look so bruised and banged up.

Ready Up had made a mess of him, such a mess he'd been told he would never ride the bulls again. It hadn't been just bones that broke this time. He was done riding, without ever winning the gold buckle, without ever making the big bucks. If he looked at it logically, every dime he ever made had gone to repair the bones he broke, the muscles he tore. He was left with just the moment of glory and the rush of conquest that ended with an eight-second ride.

“Tell me why.”

She bit her lip then took a deep breath. “I think I'll order tea,” she stalled.

He raised a hand, and the little black-haired waitress hurried over. “She'd like a glass of tea.”

“Cup. With cream and sugar.”

“Could you please bring the lady a cup of hot tea with cream and sugar. Just fill me up again.” He nudged the coffee mug toward her.

“We have some really great pie.” The waitress suggested as she assessed the cowboy from beneath her eyelashes.

He raised his eyebrows in a question to the woman across from him.

A polite smile flitted over Bonnie's face in answer. “What's good?” she asked.

“This is Florida, ma'am. Try the key lime pie.”

“Sounds good. We'll have two.” She smiled at the waitress and a dimple appeared in one cheek.

“Could be I prefer apple,” his tiger growl rumbled.

“This is Florida. When in Rome…” The woman might be pretty but she had a bossy streak.

The waitress left to get the pie.

His gaze honed in on the blonde, sitting primly with her hands folded neatly in her lap. “You drink hot tea and issue orders right sharp. You're a Yankee.”

“Yes,” she agreed, after a long moment.

“Is that why you are not married?” In his head, out his mouth. He was embarrassing himself here.

A frown gathered between her eyebrows, and the lips drooped a little with a sad twist. “What did Dick tell you?”

“I was sitting in a bar.” Baya saw her back stiffen again. “I kept hearing someone mentioning my name. Finally, I narrowed it down to a table where Dick was roaring on about his issues with ‘buy a cowboy.' I thought he was talking about me so I limped on over and asked why he kept yelling my name. The little
man stared at me with his mouth hanging open.”

She sat even straighter.

“Everyone at the table started laughing, and he shoved out a chair with his boot and told me to sit down. After he sent everyone away, he told me the task he was given. You told him you needed a husband, a cowboy husband who knew how to ranch and liked children. He sweetened the pot by saying you had a twelve-hundred-acre ranch in the Wyoming Mountains that came with the deal, and I would be given half ownership of it. Before I knew what I was doing, or had sobered up, we were driving up to see your place.

“It is a sweet place. A place I would have picked if I had a choice. Dick said I could stay long enough to heal up and see if I would consider the deal. So I agreed to talk to you.

“Why marriage?” He continued watching her.

Bonnie was studying him until the last question. Her lashes lowered, and her slender fingers traced the markings on the table. The waitress brought the pie and tea then, and with the distraction, she took a deep breath and fiddled with the pie before looking up at him. “What did you think would make a woman put the clause in?”

“I figured you were ugly as sin.”

She chuckled. “Men don't want to deal with the children. Three kids are deterrents. Sometimes I am thankful the kids drive away would-be suitors. Because I am divorced, married men think I am lonely and in need of a bed partner.” The white teeth worried her lower lip and her cheeks flooded with color.. “I believe in God. That His standards were set in place to help man. I live by those standards in a world that lives for self-satisfaction. It's not the popular lifestyle. But it's mine.” She skittered a glance at him. “What do you believe about God?”

“When a bull is trying hard to kill you, you get real personal with God.” The thought settled into his head, begging for more consideration. He'd always believed, but he'd not really done much about it. Later. He'd delve into that idea later.

She put sugar and milk in her tea and stirred slowly.

He still had more questions than answers, but waited because he sensed she was organizing her thoughts. He had to wait while she ate a piece of pie and sipped some of the tea. With a sigh, she put down her fork and picked up the teacup.

“I've been divorced three years, and I've been broke most of that time. When Dick hired me on as the token woman for the construction crew I was barely getting by. Even so, there was always some jerk trying to put moves on me.”

She looked up suddenly. The disgust in her voice changed to concern.

“Does this sound conceited?”

He shook his head. The more she talked, the more intrigued he became.

“Dick says I whine too much.”

Baya could hear the man's voice saying it, but watching her, he had trouble seeing how Dick could be his grumpy old self around her. “Well Ed, the ex, is always taking me to court. He's tried to prove that I am an unfit parent. That I am not capable of feeding the kids. That I cannot control the kids. And so on and so forth. I go to court at least three times a year—the last episode was over the amount of income tax I g
e
t back from the IRS.”

He nodded because he could see something was expected of him.

She ate another bite of pie, sipped a little more tea, and continued. “My parents played the lottery and they won a little money. They were so thrilled.” She leaned forward, intent on making him understand
.

“So they took my grandparents on a trip to Hawaii. My grandparents owned the ranch in Wyoming. My grandmother married Carl after her first husband, my paternal grandfather, died. She lived with him in Wyoming ever since, and we only saw them now and then. They must have had a great time on their trip. But they never came back. They were on flight 1274, the plane that went down over the Pacific Ocean.”

Her hands shook as she lifted the teacup to her mouth.

“I'm sorry.”

She smiled, the first true smile, which lit her eyes and warmed her face. “Thank you. I miss them so much. Well, that left me the sole heir of the property in the west and a little bungalow where I grew up in Pennsylvania. My kids are amazing, bright and creative. They are my world, but they haven't adjusted to the divorce well. I need help with them. Placing them in a coal-mining town isn't going to help when I have to work all day. If I worked the ranch, I would be at home. There would be plenty of space between them and the nearest neighbors. I might be able to raise them right. But there are complications.”

“The ex?”

She nodded. “I haven't told the children we inherited the Wyoming property. They've never been there. If I told them, they would tell him, and he'd have me in court trying to dispense with it and get money for himself. Also, the only way I can leave the state is if I am married. The courts would look on my life as being more stable than his and most likely award me out of state custody.”

He thought about that as he washed down another piece of pie with hot coffee. “What about the Pennsylvania property?”

“I was thinking about moving there. But he already said he didn't want me to move there with the children. So why not move to Wyoming instead?”

Baya shared the grin and waved the waitress over to refill his cup. He ate more of the pie and sipped the fresh coffee. “You are formidable. However, you could hire someone to run the ranch.”

“That wouldn't stop Ed from going to court to try to make money off it. With Ed, it is a case of what is Ed's is Ed's. What is mine is Ed's. What is the children's is also Ed's. His selfish greed is what ruined the marriage. As I said before, it would make the courts look favorably on the move if I had a stable home life. It would stop Ed from acquiring it if my husband owned half of it. Besides....”

She was tracing the table again. He realized she was trying to still her trembling fingers. “I want men to leave me alone. I need someone. But how do you weed out the bad ones from the good ones? Why not just make an arrangement, half the ranch for half the work? You know what you are getting going in. This way there are no surprises.”

“Don't you believe in love?” He knew his views about love and clamped his lips tight shut before revealing them. She was one fine looking woman, and here she sat, bartering for a husband.

She gawked at him in disbelief. “I'm thirty-four. I'll be lucky if I get these kids raised in time to die.”

He rubbed his hand over his face and then leaned on the fist. “What exactly do you mean when you say you need someone?”

“I don't know squat about ranching. I don't even know whether you can make a living ranching. Is it like farming? Farmers are losing money hand over fist. I don't want to make a fortune. I just think it would be a good thing to raise the kids in a rural atmosphere.”

“All this for the children?”

Her nod was a little hesitant.

“Why marriage?”

“I told you—”

He raised a hand acknowledging her need for a stable home life. “You just said you needed someone, but I'm getting mixed signals. You say you want to get rid of the ‘suitors' because you cannot differentiate which are good and which are bad. That means you need a man.” He paused as her look became guarded and she lifted a defiant chin. “You want a man equal to you, who treats you as an equal?” He paused again.

Slowly she nodded. “The kids need a father. I don't have a clue how to raise a boy. I'm afraid I'll have a resentful hate-filled son when he hits the teen years. Ed's contribution to raising them is to blame me if things go wrong, and the kids are beginning to do the same. That's why half the ranch was offered as a—a partnership. I need someone who will help raise the kids properly, with respect and dignity.”

He watched her over the rim of his coffee cup as he took a long swallow. “What do
you
want out of the marriage?”

As she stared into her tea, her hair fell forward, hiding her face momentarily. Pushing it out of her eyes, she stared out the window. His question had evidently caught her by surprise. She leaned her chin on one hand.

He waited, letting her gather her thoughts, as parents with children passed by the window. A young couple walked by holding hands, the girl chatting up at her boyfriend with a glowing face.

Bonnie wiped her hands on jean-covered thighs and sighed. “I liked being married as far as being married went. Only, I never felt part of a partnership. I would like that. I believe in the family unit. I believe it should be a complete unit. I believe God set things up that way. I miss having someone to talk to at the end of the day. I miss the comfort of…of companionship. Sometimes I feel cheated of all that a family could be. There's just me. On the other hand, how can I believe those men who always want me to go places and leave the kids behind? They may like the packaging. They just don't like what's attached.”

When she turned from the window to look directly at him, he was caught between breaths by the honesty in her clear blue eyes.

Shrugging she gave a tired little sigh. “I think I probably have the heart of a grandmother. I'm very good around the house, but pretty sorry at painting the town.”

“Tell me what you think broke up the marriage—I get that your husband was a jerk who loved money. What else brought you to divorce?”

Once again a silence fell while she traced the tabletop designs.

The bell over the door jangled and an aroma of cooking food wafted around them.

Her voice, when she finally spoke, was quiet and filled with disappointment. “Ed wanted to be rich and famous. Initially, we were comfortable, able to afford extras. But he ran us into bankruptcy buying too much too fast. He blamed me, and then began resenting the kids. I gave him the choice of counseling or leaving. He left. Perhaps I let it go on too long. I had three babies to take care of, and he made me feel incredibly guilty because I wasn't working. One day I went grocery shopping after the divorce and came home to no furniture.”

“If he asked would you go back?”

“No!” Her voice hardened.

Breathing began again as she rolled the white mug through the water spots on the table. The relief he felt at her answer made him feel a little weak.

“Maybe I should hear more about the kids.”

Her hands stopped moving as she looked into his face with surprise in her expression. She swallowed hard.

“Faith is the oldest. She is quiet, reads too much, and loves horses. She has been taking riding lessons for three years. She's ten and has her own horse, a papered thoroughbred we bought from racetrack stock in Ocala when we had that money for the extras. My son is seven. He rides the family pony. He started school last year but isn't doing well. I can't get him to stop playing long enough to work. He has no concept of school as anything other than a social event. His name is Daniel. He's funny and sweet but very frustrating. The youngest is Hope. She just turned four. I don't know her as well as the others, because for the last three years, I've worked all the time. A woman in the neighborhood babysits for me. Hope is the main reason I want to ranch. So I have time to be with them all. Faith and Daniel got to be with me when they were little. Hope hasn't had that chance. I…want to be more of a mother than I can be now.” She paused.