Cowboy Daddy (11 page)

“Move along, go sit down,” the operator called out. “Four to a seat, please.”

“I want to sit on the outside,” Tristan said, scurrying to the far side of the bench.

“Me too.” Justin added, dropping into the other side.

Which left the middle for Kip and Nicole.

Kip didn't look at Nicole as they sat down. The operator
lowered the bar, they were secured in, and the wheel moved ahead to let the next group of four on.

“We're going to be real high,” Tristan said, his voice full of awe. “It's like we're in another world.”

Kip sat back. Nicole did the same, just as the wheel jerked forward pushing them against each other.

“Sorry,” Kip said, trying to give her some space.

“Uncle Kip, you're hogging my space,” Justin said.

There was no getting around it. He and Nicole were spending the next few minutes sitting close together. He looked over at her to gauge her reaction only to find her grinning at him.

“I guess we're stuck together,” she said.

Kip grinned back. “I guess.” He didn't look away, his mind flicking back to the kiss he had given her. He thought of her hand, encircling his wrist.

Then, before he could change his mind, he slipped his arm around her shoulders. “May as well get comfortable,” he said, and she didn't pull away.

The wheel turned slowly around, each movement bringing them closer to the top. When it stopped there, the boys were speechless. Their seat swung a bit, suspended above the fairgrounds, removed from the noise and music. Like Tristan had said, it was as if they were in another world.

Nicole shivered, and Kip capitalized on that and pulled her closer. Her face, framed by her golden hair, was a pale silhouette against a starry sky.

Everything slipped away and it was as if they were the only two people in this endless space.

He leaned closer and she met him partway. Then he kissed her. Gently. Slowly.

He pulled away, a gentle sigh easing out of him. She didn't look away. Neither did he. Their silence extended the
moment. Then, with a jerk, the Ferris wheel moved along one more time.

Kip kept his arm around her and she reached up and caught his hand, as if anchoring him to her.

“Wow, this is so awesome,” Justin said, still looking over the edge.

“I love this,” Tristan replied from his seat.

“I know what they mean,” Kip murmured.

Though Nicole looked away from him, she tightened her grip on his hand.

The wheel was full and then they were moving steadily and with each revolution, at the top, Kip looked at Nicole and she looked at him. They didn't repeat the kiss, but each time their eyes met it was as if they had.

And each time their eyes met Kip's heart beat a little harder and his optimism burned a little brighter.

Could he and Nicole have a future?

Did he dare think that far?

“H
ere's your cowboy hat.” Kip took the white straw hat he had bought from the kiosk and dropped it on Nicole's head. He lifted her chin with his knuckle, his rough skin rasping on hers. “There you go, Nicole Williams. Now you're an Alberta cowgirl.”

“That sounds official.” Nicole pushed the hat further on her head, wishing her heart didn't jump at his every touch.

“Auntie Nicole is a cowgirl.” Tristan jumped up and down.

“Now she has to go riding horses,” Justin said hopefully.

Nicole didn't say anything to bolster his cause. She'd said quite enough to Kip already. And she had let Kip Cosgrove do quite enough, kissing her on the Ferris wheel.

She tried to remind herself that Kip wasn't her friend.

She had discovered in the past few days, however, that he wasn't her enemy either. He was simply a man doing what he was asked to do. A man living up to his responsibilities.

But the memory of that kiss and the utterly spontaneous one earlier lingered both in her mind and on her lips.

“We're not talking about the horses now,” Kip said with a note of finality. “We're going home. It's way past your bedtime.”

The boys were obviously tired because they didn't even argue as they trudged back to the truck. They got in and settled down for the long ride back.

Nicole tried not to look at Kip as he drove, his face illuminated by the glow of the dashboard lights. She tried to push the kiss to the back of her mind as she pulled herself back into reality mode.

She took her hat off and held it on her lap, as if easing away from the day—turning back into Nicole, the girl who wore business suits and high heels and attended business meetings. Not a cowgirl in blue jeans who let a man kiss her on the Ferris wheel.

“I was wondering if we could discuss my visit tomorrow,” Nicole said quietly after they reached the city limits. “I have a conference call in the late afternoon. Would it be possible to come in the morning?”

“You can't,” Justin piped up from the backseat of the truck. “We go to church on Sunday.”

“Of course.” Nicole tapped her fingers on her arm, thinking. They'd gone last week while she was at the motel sending out flurries of emails about work.

“Why don't you come to church with us?” Justin asked. “Then you can sit with us.”

“I'm not so sure—”

“Please come,” Tristan added. “It's kind of long sometimes, but then we can see you in the morning too.”

Nicole's resistance softened as she looked back at the boys, considering the invitation.

“You're welcome to come,” Kip said quietly.

The last time Nicole had been in church was for her
mother's funeral. That service had been full of sorrow, regret and a heavy layer of guilt.

Though attending church would mean she'd see the boys, it would also mean seeing Kip.

That's a dangerous place to go, she reminded herself. This evening was supposed to be a blip on your radar. An experience—a date—that she could put away in the memory chest.

“I'd like it if you could come,” Kip added, his voice quiet.

His comment, combined with his tender smile, swept away her resistance. “What time does the service start?”

“Ten o'clock.”

“I'll see how my morning goes,” she said cautiously.

It was just church, she reminded herself as she sat back in the truck. Going back to church could be a good thing.

“I'm bored,” Justin said from the backseat. “And I don't want to play I Spy again.”

Nicole twisted in her seat. “Do you guys know any songs? Maybe you could sing them for me.”

“I don't like to sing,” Tristan said.

“I'm really bored,” Justin repeated.

Nicole pulled out her phone. “If you guys can share, I can show you a game that you can play on my phone.”

Their eyes grew to four large circles of surprise. “Really?”

“Cool.” Justin had his hand out for her phone.

“You can't have it, I want it.”

Nicole hesitated looking from Justin to Tristan.

“You started something now,” Kip said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

“You'll have to take turns,” she said. She turned on
a timer function, started up the game and handed it to Tristan. “When this bell dings, then it's Justin's turn.”

“How come he gets to go first?” Justin whined.

“Because we love him more,” Kip said.

Nicole shot him look of shock. What was he doing? What was he saying? She was about to reprimand him when she heard Justin's giggle.

“No, you don't, Uncle Kip,” he said, completely unperturbed by the comment.

“Oh, yes, I do,” Kip said, glancing in his rearview mirror at his nephew.

“You love us both the same,” Tristan chimed in, quickly figuring out how to play the game.

Nicole tried to absorb what had happened. The boys were so utterly confident of their uncle's love that his outrageous statement was greeted with humor.

Did those boys have any idea of how blessed they were,
Nicole thought, her heart contracting with envy?

“Oops. I think I pushed the wrong button…hey, is this your house?” Justin held out the phone to Nicole. Somehow he had gotten into her picture file.

“Yes, that's where I live. Here, let me find that game for you again.”

“Uncle Kip, look at Auntie Nicole's house.” Justin held the phone toward Kip who dutifully glanced at it.

“Very nice. Very impressive,” he said in a tone that implied anything but.

“Do you have any other pictures?” Justin asked.

Nicole thought of the one photo she had of her father on her phone but felt a surprising reluctance to show them. Some of that had to do with the man sitting across the truck from her, frowning now. The other part was a reluctance to bring that part of her life into this moment.

“I'll get you the game again,” she said, taking the phone and getting them back on track.

The boys took a couple of turns with her phone, their chatter slowly fading away. Half an hour later the phone lay between them and the only sound in the truck was their deep, rhythmic breathing. Nicole glanced into the vehicles passing them, the stores beyond the traffic—everywhere but at the man driving the truck.

The man who had kissed her twice.

She'd been kissed before. It was nothing new. She'd be kissed again. Someday by the man she would marry.

Which wouldn't happen anytime soon, she reasoned. Not when she had so much happening. The boys. Her father. Her job.

“I want to thank you,” Kip said, his deep voice breaking into her thoughts and pulling her attention back to him.

“For what?”

Kip was looking ahead at the flow of traffic, his face illuminated by the glow of the streetlights.

“For what you said about Scott and about guilt.” He turned his head, his eyes catching her gaze. “I guessed you know a bit about that too.”

Nicole sighed. “I do, or rather, I did.” What happened between her and Tricia was in the past.

“I'm guessing you're talking about your sister.”

Nicole nodded.

“How did you two get along?” he asked, gently prying.

Nicole shrugged. “Tricia and I got along really great when she was a little girl.”

“And later?

“That's when we started fighting.”

“About the usual girl stuff?”

She wished. “No. It was bigger than lipstick and borrowed blue jeans.”

“I'm guessing she was a rebellious person.”

Nicole shifted down into her seat, her eyes following the road. Against her will, scenes from the last time she saw her sister edged into her mind. The angry words she'd said. The accusations. Things she should never have said. “We had a nasty fight, and the next morning she was gone. I never heard anything from her after that.”

“She didn't write your parents either. That must have been hard for them.”

“It was. My mother cried every night for months after Tricia left.”

“And your father?”

“It was especially hard for him. Tricia was his daughter and she was gone.”

“You make it sound like she was his
only
daughter.”

“I know she wasn't…” Nicole shifted in her seat, wishing he would stop this line of questioning. “But I was his adopted daughter. Tricia was his natural child. Of course it would hurt that she chose to leave.”

“What are you trying to say?” Kip sounded like he really wanted to hear what she had to say.

Nicole paused, searching for the right words to formulate her thoughts. “I was eight years old when Sam and Norah adopted me. I know it's hard to bond with children that aren't yours. I experienced that with my aunt and in most of the foster homes I stayed in. That's the reality. Tricia was Sam and Norah's biological child. Of course it would hurt my father more when she left.”

“What…why would you say that?”

Tricia was surprised at the thread of anger in his voice. “Like I said, it's reality, Kip. If you found out that the boys…” she paused as she shot a quick glance over her
shoulder. Thankfully both Justin and Tristan were still fast asleep, heads at awkward angles, mouths slightly open. Utterly innocent and utterly adorable. She cleared her throat and tried again. “If you found out that the boys weren't Scott's—” and he would, she thought “—weren't your nephews, wouldn't that make a difference for you?”

“What? Are you kidding?” Kip sounded incredulous. As if he couldn't believe she would even speak those words aloud.

“No. I'm not.”

Kip leaned forward, a deep frown furrowing his brow. “I love the boys. They were always as much mine as Scott's, even though they were his boys.” He thumbed his hat back on his head and shot her a frown. “They're woven into my heart. They're a part of me that I can't imagine living without. That's not because of biology. It's because I made a choice to take care of them and to take them in, and weaved through that choice came love.”

Nicole's heart stuttered at the sincerity in his voice. At the intensity of his gaze.

“Even if I found out they weren't Scott's boys that wouldn't affect how much I love them. That wouldn't change anything.” He sighed and turned his attention back to the road. “I love them. With all my heart.”

Tears pricked her eyes at the sincerity in his voice. Each word he spoke dove into her heart and attached itself, creating another connection to this man. A connection that she had yearned, since she was a little girl, to have with her own father.

“I don't want to turn everything into a battle over the boys,” Kip added, his voice growing quiet. “You know where I stand on that matter.” He sighed. “You need to know that these boys are a part of me that I can't live without.”

He looked at her again and she held his gaze a moment. She gave into an impulse and covered his hand with hers. “I know that.” She gave his hand a light squeeze, then drew away before he could see the tears threatening in her eyes.

She blinked, reasoning the moment of sadness away. She had always accepted that as the adopted daughter, she wouldn't have the same connection to Sam as Tricia had.

However, in spite of her practical reasoning, the lonely-little-girl part of her wished that for even a moment, she could have heard Sam say about her what Kip had said about his nephews. That she could have received even a particle of the affection Kip lavished so freely on children that weren't his.

As Nicole stared out the window, her thoughts drifted back to her father. To the moment she had with him before she left for Alberta.

He had clung to her hand with a strength she had never felt before, the frustration with the illness that kept him in bed burning in his eyes. He would settle for nothing less than the boys' coming to Toronto and he would do what he could on his end to ensure that happened. At the time she'd taken on the cause, feeling it was another opportunity to atone. To earn his love.

And now?

Nicole wasn't so sure of the rightness of their claim anymore.

You know what it's like to be uprooted.

But she also knew what it was like to yearn for a place where she belonged, body and soul. A place where she was a blood relative. Because no matter what Kip might say, she knew from personal experience that blood truly was thicker than water.

Tricia had been blood. Nicole had been water.

Nicole's mind drifted back and forth, her thoughts wearing on her as she slowly spun down into a half sleep. Her mind drifted from thoughts about her father into vague thoughts of Ferris wheels and Kip's kiss…that wonderful kiss…

“Hey. Nicole. We're here.” Kip's voice came from far away and Nicole blinked, trying to orient herself. Her mouth felt dry and her eyes full of sand. She blinked as she looked up at Kip's face as he stood in the open door of the truck.

He touched her cheek and with her dreams still clouding her mind, Nicole caught his hand. His eyes were softly lit by the half moon above and she couldn't look away.

“You were sleeping,” he whispered, his hand cupping her cheek.

“I'm sorry,” she mumbled, struggling to pull her thoughts back to reality. She shivered as the cool night sifted over her. Then she looked up at him and smiled. “Thanks for a fun evening.”

Kip's fingers caressed her cheek. “I enjoyed it. A lot.”

She should look away and end this connection, but the moment seemed surreal. Ethereal. Then, with the kiss he had given her on the Ferris wheel still vivid in her mind, and with her soul yearning for the closeness she'd experienced, she leaned forward and brushed her lips over his.

Kip whispered her name, then drew her into his arms and they kissed again. A kiss born of longing and connection. A kiss that anchored them in a way that nothing else had.