Cowboy Daddy (13 page)

Doreen knew who she was and what she hoped to do, yet she was asking her over?

She was about to give the very polite young mother an easy out when Justin blurted out, “You have to come, Auntie Nicole. You have to.”

“Please, come. Please,” Tristan added, pulling on her hand as if he hoped to physically drag a response from her. “We can ride with you and tell you where to go so you don't get lost.”

“I don't know—” she hesitated. If she didn't go along, this time in church would be her only time with the boys.

“Come and join us,” Doreen added. “Kip asked me to ask you, but it would be our pleasure if you came.” Her smile held a bit more warmth, and Nicole relented.

“I'd be glad to.” Truth was, the thought of returning to the stark and plain motel room held little appeal. It reminded her too much of the times her aunt would bring her to her father when he was working near the town.

It had nothing to do with the fact that Kip had asked Doreen to invite her. Nothing at all.

Fifteen minutes and some rather convoluted directions later, Nicole was parking her car beside an older house on an acreage outside of Millarville. Trucks and ride-on toys dotted the lawn. Flowers spilled out of pots hanging from brackets on the side of the house and set up against a crooked concrete step. Shrub-filled flower beds nestled up against the wooden siding of the older home. The entire place looked homey and comfortable and welcoming.

“Let's go, Auntie Nicole,” the boys called out as they ran up the walk.

As she got out, Kip pulled up his truck beside her. Mary Cosgrove sat in the front seat.

“You go inside,” she told the boys. “I'll help Uncle Kip.”

The boys didn't even look back as they raced over the lawn to the house.

“Where's Isabelle?” Nicole asked as Kip got out of the truck.

“She rode with Doreen.” Kip pulled a wheelchair out of the back of the truck.

Nicole frowned. “Where's your mom's walker?”

“She said her knee was really bothering her,” Kip said as he snapped open the chair. “So she's taking a break.”

“She'll never heal from the surgery properly if she doesn't keep working her legs.”

Kip gave her an odd look as he wheeled the chair to the door of the truck, and she wasn't sure what to make of it. Then he held her gaze and smiled a slow-release smile. She wasn't sure what to make of that either.

“Why don't you tell her that?” he said quietly.

“I will.” Nicole waited until Kip opened the door of the truck, then watched as Mary worked her way into the chair.

“So you found your way here,” Mary said with a grunt as she settled into the chair. “I thought for sure those boys would try to take you through the shortcut and get lost.”

“We made it okay. Why aren't you using your walker?”

“My knee has been bothering me,” Mary said with a quick glance back at Kip as if hoping he would intervene.

“If you don't keep moving, then all the pain from the surgery will be for nothing and you'll be back to where you started before your surgery.”

“Well, I suppose.” Mary bit her lip, as if thinking. “But I don't have my walker now.”

“Kip and I can help you to the house. You can lean on our arms, and then you can sit on a normal chair and not look like such an invalid.”

“I guess so,” Mary said with a heavy sigh. She looked up at Nicole with narrow eyes. “You're a bit bossy, you know.”

“So I've been told.” Nicole caught Kip's gaze and tried not to roll her eyes. Kip grinned.

They walked slowly up to the house just as Isabelle came to the door. She glared at Nicole, then back at her mother.

“Wow, Mom. You're not using the wheelchair,” she said with an admiring tone.

“Nicole told me I could do it, and I guess I can.”

Isabelle shot Nicole a frown, but then reached out for her mother's arm. “I'll take over from here.”

Nicole relinquished her hold as Isabelle ushered Mary into the house.

Kip blew out his breath and shot her a quick smile. “Thanks for the help. For some reason she won't listen to me.”

“You have to be firm.”

“You sound like a mother,” Kip's smile widened.

“I used to boss Tricia around something awful.” Nicole felt a momentary pang at the memory. “I guess I'm a natural.”

“You are that.” Kip touched her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek.

Nicole's heart stuttered in her chest and, cheeks burning, she stepped into the house.

Mary was already settled in a chair, looking quite satisfied with herself, a cup of tea beside her on a TV tray. Isabelle was lying on the couch, reading a magazine.

“Hey, Kip, you made it.” Doreen called out as she came into the living room, carrying her baby. She reached up to give Kip a one-armed hug that he reached down to return. Then he bent over the baby curled up in his sister's arm and touched its tiny head with one finger. “Hey, little one,” he said quietly. “How are you?”

Nicole swallowed at the sight of this big, tough cowboy bent over this little baby, a look of tenderness on his face.

Doreen glanced over at Nicole. “I hope this isn't too overwhelming. Kip told me that you're used to a little more sedate lifestyle.”

Nicole wondered what else Kip had told his sister.

“I'll be fine. I like kids.”

Doreen's gaze flashed from Nicole to Kip. “That's good.” She jostled the now-fussing baby.

“What's her name?” Nicole asked.

“Emily.”

Nicole gave into an impulse and held her arms out. “Can I hold her?”

Doreen's frown was fleeting, but then she nodded. “That'd be great.”

She handed the little bundle over with all the confidence of an experienced mother. Nicole felt a little awkward as the baby squawked a protest, but when Emily settled in Nicole's arms, her tiny mouth stretched open in a yawn. Her delicate fingers stretched and with a sigh as gentle as a cobweb, she drifted back to sleep.

“She's so beautiful,” Nicole whispered, stroking her petal-soft cheek with one finger.

“I think we'll keep her around for a while. At least until the terrible twos. Might have to see if we can farm her out then—” Then Doreen sucked in a quick breath. “I'm sorry…I didn't mean…that was thoughtless.”

“Why don't I help you and Ron get lunch on the table,” Kip said, taking his sister's arm. “Just make yourself at home,” he said to Nicole.

Nicole presumed that Kip wanted to have a “chat” with his sister. She also presumed that he had told her about her past, which surprised her.

“Come sit over here,” Mary said, brushing a stuffed duck and a book off the chair beside her. “Don't worry about Doreen. She tends to talk before she thinks. The hazards of being a mother.”

“That's okay. It didn't bother me.” Nicole just smiled as she slowly lowered herself into the chair. Little Emily
pursed her lips and rolled her head, then settled again. Nicole touched her face again, then let the baby curl her tiny fingers around hers. “Look how delicate her fingernails are. Like little grains of rice,” she remarked, taking in the wonder of this brand-new person.

“Pretty amazing,” Mary said quietly. “It never gets old.”

“Did you want to hold her?” Nicole asked, realizing that she was taking this baby away from her own grandmother.

Mary waved away her offer. “I get to see her enough.”

Nicole was secretly glad. She didn't want to relinquish her precious burden. It had been years and years since she'd seen a baby, much less held one.

As she looked down at Emily, she wondered about her biological mother's love. Wondered how she had felt when she held her. Wondered how Tricia felt when the twins were born.

Her heart contracted at the thought.

She heard lowered voices coming from the kitchen and she presumed Kip and his sister were talking. About her plans? About the boys?

“Don't worry,” Mary said quietly. “He'll be back.”

A flush worked its way up Nicole's neck. “I was just…it's not…”

Mary patted her on the shoulder. “He's a good man, my Kip. Please remember that,” she said, lowering her voice.

Nicole caught Mary's gaze. Did she know what was building between Nicole and her son? “I know he is a good man,” she said, her voice full of conviction.

Isabelle glared at her over the top of her magazine. “Then why are you taking the boys—” Isabelle stopped herself, threw her magazine down on the couch and got up. “I'm going outside.”

But as she left, Nicole caught a glimmer in her eyes. She suspected the glimmer came from unshed tears and the sight tangled her emotions even more.

The longer she stayed here and the more she got to know the Cosgrove family, the more confused she became about what she had come to do. She wondered if, when the time came, she could do it?

“S
o the boys tell me you went to the chuck-wagon races yesterday, Kip,” Alex said, reaching across the dining room table for another bun. “That must have been interesting.”

If he only knew, Kip thought, slicing up a bun for Tristan and avoiding Nicole's gaze.

The entire family was grouped around the dining room table, kids interspersed between the adults, and conversations zipped back and forth and through each other.

“Yeah. Mike won his heat.”

“Uncle Kip was so excited that he kissed Auntie Nicole,” Justin piped up.

Kip wanted to elbow the little guy, but that would only draw even more attention to the situation.

“Do you miss it?” Alex asked, feeding another spoonful of soup to his youngest daughter, tactfully ignoring Justin's little outburst.

“What? You kissed Auntie Nicole?” Jenna, one of Doreen's older children, called across the table.

“Yeah. I missed racing the chucks.” Kip ignored Jenna and tried not to catch Nicole's reaction to both the comment and his niece's reference to her as “Auntie Nicole.” She sat
across from him, and it was hard not to look over her way from time to time only to catch her looking at him.

“You beat Mike a bunch of times, didn't you?” Mary said. “Paul, don't blow your nose in the napkin, honey.”

“I tied with him once at the Ponoka Stampede and I think I beat him at a race in Lethbridge.” Kip stood up and helped himself to another bowl of soup from the huge pot in the middle of the table, then served up for two of Doreen's children as well.

As he did, he thought of the pictures of Nicole's home that the boys had found on Nicole's phone and so generously shown to him. The photos were small, but it wasn't hard to see the size of the house and the grounds surrounding it.

He doubted Nicole had ever had soup served to her out of an industrial sized pot plopped unceremoniously on an old wooden table, scarred from the doodlings of seven children.

He doubted she ever ate with a group of kids so noisy and rambunctious that half of the conversation consisted of reprimands and reminders to eat.

“I think you should do it again,” Kristen, Doreen's second oldest daughter, said. “I loved watching you race.”

“Uncle Kip takes us every year, at Christmas, on a sleigh ride,” Jenna said to Nicole. “But he didn't this year.”

Kip wished they could move to the usual topics of conversation. The weather, the kids, the crops, the kids, the neighbors, the kids.

“Have you ever ridden, Nicole?” Doreen said, wiping the face of a little child beside her while she spoke.

“Quite extensively. My parents owned a number of horses that my sister and I rode, though I spent more time with them than Tricia did. We were fortunate enough to have a barn that we could ride in on all year round.”

Some barn, Kip thought, remembering the pictures of the arena and painted wooden fences. That barn looked in better shape than their house.

“You really should take Nicole out on the horses,” Doreen said. “Or at least take her out in the wagon.”

“I don't think I have time.”

“You always had time before,” his mother said.

Kip wasn't going to point out the obvious. That “before” was before Scott died. Before he didn't trust other people around his horses anymore.

Scott made his own choices.
Nicole's comment echoed in his head at the same time as she focused her gaze on him.

“Wouldn't you love to go on a wagon ride with Kip's horses?” Doreen asked Nicole, pushing the point.

“Doreen…” Kip warned.

“I think it would be a wonderful to do something so idyllic.” Nicole spoke quietly, but her subtext was clear as was her choice of words. Idyllic indeed.

Doreen clapped her hands like a little kid. “Why don't you take Nicole out and then, tomorrow after school, I'll drop by with the kids and you can take them on a ride too? To make up for them not being able to go on their sleigh ride at Christmas.”

Kip shot his sister an exasperated look, but she stared him down, looking as innocent as her little baby.

“I think it's a great idea and I'd love to go,” Nicole said, adding one more layer of pressure.

Though he had other work waiting for him, Kip knew what he'd be doing tomorrow.

Unbidden, his gaze slipped to Nicole, only to catch her looking at him. For a moment he couldn't look away. For a moment, it was as if he'd lost himself in her eyes.

And that was a dangerous place to be.

 

“Are you sure you're okay with this?” Nicole glanced over at Kip as they walked to the corrals. She didn't want him to feel pressured, but at the same time the thought of going out on the wagon with him created a little thrum of excitement.

Kip sighed. “When my sister starts bossing me around, I just pull my hat lower, and smile and nod.”

“Seems to be your default position around the women in your life.”

Kip laughed. “That and keep a low profile.”

Tristan and Justin were back at the house with Mary and Isabelle. To Nicole's surprise, Isabelle had been willing to watch the boys while Nicole went with Kip to get the horses and hitch them up. She suspected it might have something to do with the comment she made at Doreen's on Sunday. As if she suddenly realized what the implications of Nicole's presence would mean to the boys she had grown up with.

Seemed she wasn't as self-centered as she came across.

“I feel like you were railroaded into this,” Nicole added, “Are you sure you're comfortable with the idea?”

“I wouldn't be comfortable working with my horses with anyone else,” he said, surprising her with his comment.

She tried to read his expression, but he was looking ahead, his eyes shadowed by the brim of his cowboy hat.

“I haven't worked with horses for a while,” Kip added. “If things don't go the way I want right off the bat, then we're not doing this at all.”

“I understand,” Nicole said. “Though I don't have my heart set on going out, I do think it's a good thing for you.”

Kip pushed his hat back and glanced at her. “And you care for my welfare because?”

Nicole stopped, looking directly at him. “I care because I saw how much racing those horses meant to you. I care because I have the feeling you're not complete unless you've got a team of horses ahead of you, leather reins threaded through your hands, and the wind in your face.”

Kip slowly shook his head, smiling at her. “You seem to spend a lot of time looking out for other people.

Nicole shrugged. “Not really. I just…care.”

“Do you ever look out for yourself?”

“Of course I do.” Nicole released a short laugh.

“That's why you're doing conference calls on Sunday afternoons and trying to juggle your work at home with your time here.”

“It's my reality.”

“And you worrying about my mom? Is that your reality? And the way you're not afraid to tackle Isabelle? And how you're always fussing about the boys?”

Nicole frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

Kip's expression grew serious. He tapped her on her forehead. “Doesn't this ever get full of other people's things, other people's stuff, other people's problems?”

“I'm not sure…”

Kip released a slow smile. “Of course you're not. And that's part of the problem.”

“What problem?” She wasn't sure what he was talking about.

He brushed her cheek with his knuckles, sending a frisson of pleasure up her spine. She gave into an impulse and caught his hand by the wrist.

What are you doing? You're playing with fire.

Nicole dismissed the accusing thoughts. Being with Kip
felt right and good. She had never felt this way about any man before, and that had to mean something.

“I get the feeling that you have a hard time thinking about yourself, Nicole Williams. Sometimes I think you should.”

His words wound around her heart creating a gentle warmth but she wasn't sure how to reply.

He gave her an enigmatic look, then stepped back.

“Let's go get those horses,” Kip said quietly.

Thankfully the horses were already in the corral when they came, so it took no time to bring them into the barn. Nicole held them at the head, while Kip began harnessing. When he had the first buckle done up, the horses sensed what was happening and they stamped and snorted with impatience.

“It's like they missed all of this,” Nicole said, steadying the one horse.

Kip grunted as he got out from underneath the horse. “I hope they settle down once we get them going.”

He looks worried, Nicole thought.

“I trust you completely,” she said quietly.

Kip gave her an enigmatic look then he shook his head lightly. “I sure hope you're right.”

The horses danced around, jingling the harnesses, while Kip backed them up to the wagon. A couple of times Nicole was sure he was going to call the whole thing off, but she said nothing, quietly following his instructions, soothing the horses when she could.

“You're pretty good with the horses,” Kip said as he clipped and fastened.

“I like horses, and I think they sense that.”

“Not many women would feel comfortable handling four horses at the same time,” Kip said taking the reins from her. “I've got them now.”

Nicole stroked the neck of one of the more jumpy horses, spoke a few soothing words, then carefully climbed onto the seat of the creaking wooden wagon.

She realized too late that the seat was small and narrow, and she would be sitting right up against Kip.

The horses stamped and tossed their heads, as if eager to get going. Kip climbed onto the wagon, holding the horses back.

“It's been a while since I've taken them out,” Kip said as if apologizing for their behavior. His lips were pressed together, and his eyes narrowed. “Last chance,” he said adjusting the reins in his hand.

Nicole gave into an impulse, and squeezed his knee. “I'm not worried at all.”

Their gazes met and held. Kip lifted the corner of his mouth in a gentle smile. “Thanks for that.”

He eased off on the reins, and with a jerk the horses took off, though Kip held them back to a trot.

The wooden wagon had no suspension, and every bump on the ground vibrated up through the wagon seat. That didn't matter. Nicole felt exhilarated watching the four horses move in unison and watching Kip controlling them. He made it look easy, but she could see by the whiteness of his knuckles and the way his elbows locked that he was using a lot of strength to hold them back.

“Why don't you take them onto the tracks?” Nicole suggested. “Maybe they need to get rid of some energy.”

Kip shot her a nervous glance. “Are you sure? If they hit the track they'll try to go flat out.”

“Like I said, Kip. I trust you to take care of these horses.”

Kip drew in a long slow breath then turned the horses toward the beaten oval track on the other side of the horse corral.

As he eased off the reins a bit, one of the leading horses tossed his head and with a jump headed out, the other horses going along.

Nicole grabbed onto the side of the wagon with one hand as the horses gained speed, the beat of their pounding hooves coming closer and closer together. Then they were thundering on the packed ground, manes flying, tails up. Nicole's hair whipped back from her face, and dust roiled around them. Kip narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.

As the horses gained speed, the grin on Kip's face grew wider.

Though she wanted to watch the horses, Nicole could not keep her eyes off him. It was as if he transformed right before her eyes and she saw yet another part of him.

Then, on the second time round the track, she saw Isabelle, Tristan, Justin and Mary standing by the fence watching. Their faces were a blur as they ran past, but she saw the boys waving at them.

They went another time around the track and Kip eased the horses down to a trot, his grin a white flash against his dusty face. “You okay?” he asked Nicole.

“That was fantastic,” she said, pushing her hair back from her face.

“Looking good,” Mary called out giving him a thumbs-up.

“Can we go for a ride?” Justin yelled.

Kip shook his head. “Nicole and I are taking them out for a bit more. They're still kind of antsy.”

Justin pushed his lips out in a pout, Tristan crossed his arms over his chest as if expressing his frustration, but Kip didn't seem moved by the display.

Nicole felt guilty that she was the one to take the first ride out. The grim look on Isabelle's face told Nicole the young girl felt the same. But Mary was grinning. It wasn't
hard to see how happy she was to see her son driving the horses again.

“We'll be back in a couple of hours,” Kip called out as he eased off on the reins and the horses headed out again, but at a slower pace than before.

Fifteen minutes later, Kip had them eased down to a gentle walk. The creaking of the wagon and the steady plod of the horses hooves filled the silence that sprang up between them.

Nicole was content to simply look around, and enjoy the space and the quiet in his company. That the swaying of the wagon bumped her shoulder up against Kip's from time to time was a nice benefit.

“I'm surprised how much I've missed this,” Kip said quietly, finally breaking the silence.

“I can see why. This is beautiful.” Nicole's gaze shifted to the mountains edging the field they rode along. “So peaceful. It will be difficult to go back to the city.”

Kip sighed lightly and Nicole glanced over at him.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

Kip's only reply was to pull back on the horses, bringing them to a stop. He pushed on what she assumed was the brake of the wagon, then wrapped the reins around the handle of the brake, holding the horses back.