Cowboy for Keeps (11 page)

“Thank you very much.” He took the knife and dropped it into the sink. “Let’s go.”

She had no choice but to follow him out to the SUV.

The whole way into town, the tension between them escalated…even though they didn’t say much. Maddening as it was, he seemed relaxed, which made her all the more tense. She was trying to keep her distance from him, but with every piece of new information about him everyone was so keen on throwing her way it was almost impossible. And then there was the issue of him pressing her to find out what was bothering her. The man was relentless.

“You’re in for a treat if you haven’t had Sam’s breakfast.”

He didn’t sound mad or upset, even though he’d forced her to come along. He sounded like he was looking forward to spending time with her—dangerous.

Maybe if he’d been talking to her, she wouldn’t have been
thinking
about how good he looked…or how he’d gotten under her skin in the few short weeks since she’d known him.

What she needed was for him to go back to being Mr. Ill-Tempered and make it impossible to like him, or worse, for her to…to be thinking fairy-tale thoughts about what falling in love with him would be like.

“I’m not much of a breakfast eater,” she said, fighting to fill the holes that were being blown into the barrier around her heart. But oh, what did Wyatt do? He grinned! And it was no small grin. No, this was a wickedly fun grin, that sent mischief to his eyes and an electric shock to her like she’d been hit with a Taser.

“You are determined to be miserable, aren’t you?” he asked, still smiling. Totally enjoying himself!

“I’m only telling the truth,” she snapped.
Now
she sounded like a child pouting!

The amused twinkle in his eyes said he thought the same thing as he opened the door and got out.

With his weak arm, a bad hip, a bad back and a cane to maneuver with, he needed to be more careful.
“Wait!”
she exclaimed. Jumping from the SUV, she hurried around to help him, fearful that he might fall—and she’d have to catch him!

He was standing beside the open door watching her, still grinning. “You could have hurt yourself,” she snapped, closing the door with a snap.

“I figured that was the way to get you out of the truck for breakfast.”

She shot daggers at him. “You are not playing fair.”

“Never said anything about playing fair. One thing you need to know about me is I do what I need to do—”

“Okay, okay, I’ll eat breakfast. But I’m warning you, buster, I can play dirty, too.”

That got her a deep, baritone laugh that made her knees weak. As she followed him up the steps she had a feeling she was in for a rough ride. This Wyatt Turner, the playful one, might possibly be irresistible.

“S
tanley, would ya look at that,” Applegate said, jumping his red checker as he scrunched busy eyebrows together and stared at Amanda and Wyatt entering the diner.

They were sitting at the front window table with a checkerboard between them. There was a five-pound bag of sunflower seeds sitting beside them and on the floor at Stanley’s feet was a brass spittoon.

Staring wide-eyed at them, Stanley spit in rapid-fire succession and the shells hit the spittoon’s mouth dead center. “Wyatt, yor walkin’. That’s a real sight fer sore eyes. I almost didn’t turn around and look cuz I figured ole App was tryin’ ta pull a slick one on me.”

“Are you saying App here cheats?” Wyatt asked as he walked slowly toward them.

Stanley tugged at his ear. “Naw, he don’t. But if he wants ta beat me, he’s gonna have ta start.”

Applegate frowned and cut his eyes at his buddy. “Don’t believe it. I beat him plenty. Might be doin’ it right now if he don’t watch out.”

Despite her qualms about coming, Amanda had to smile at the two friends. She was distracted, though, by the breakfast scents emanating from the kitchen. Goodness, but the place smelled great.

“Well, look what the cat dragged up.” Sam hustled out of the kitchen. “It’s about time you came in and brought this little gal with you. Leave them two ornery coots alone and let’s get this little gal a booth.”

Applegate grinned, his lean face a cascade of wrinkles. “Y’all jest have a seat over thar while I beat the socks off of Stanley here.”

Sam was waiting at the booth all the way across the diner from App and Stanley, and Wyatt led the way to it.

“This is great, Sam.” Wyatt remained standing while she took her seat. There was absolutely nothing romantic about eating breakfast in an old-fashioned diner with three old men watching, but Amanda still got butterflies as Wyatt slid carefully into the seat across from her.

She had to get over this. She had to—had to—had to!

“How you doin’, Amanda? Keepin’ this fella straight?” Sam set two mugs on the table in front of them.

“I’m trying.” She nodded when Sam lifted the pot so she could indicate whether she wanted him to fill her mug.

Applegate grunted loudly from across the room. “That ain’t never been an easy task.”

Amanda thought he had a problem with his hearing.

“It’s good to see you out of that wheelchair. That jest didn’t look right.”

“It shor didn’t,” Stanley boomed, spitting a sunflower seed into the spittoon. “Growing up, this fella never stopped. Always workin’ with his grandpa or his daddy. Or later, with them brothers and on that ranch. Your folks would be proud of you, son.”

“Thank you, sir. That means a lot to me.”

Knowing what she did about him now, Amanda knew this did mean the world to Wyatt. It was apparent that everything he’d done had been to make them proud and to fill the gap their deaths had made in his brothers’ lives.

“Now, though, you need ta get yourself home where you belong.” Sam set the pot on the burner and Applegate’s face fell into a river of wrinkles. “It jest ain’t right, you bein’ away like you are. Yor a Turner. Turner men belong here.”

Wyatt shrugged his good shoulder. “I’ve been through this with y’all a hundred times. I’m good at what I do. I’m happy in Dallas.”

Sam, Applegate and Stanley all shook their heads. Amanda watched, fascinated. These men were serious. They wanted Wyatt home as much as Seth and Cole.
Everyone
wanted him home. But it was obvious that Wyatt didn’t want it.

“What would y’all like ta eat?” Sam grumbled.

“Ain’t no way yor gettin’ my kinda cookin’ over yonder in that city.”

Stanley jumped a checker and grinned at Applegate’s scowl. “Yeah, you used ta tell Sam he was the best cook in the world when you was knee-high to a grasshopper and yor grandpa would sit you up thar on that bar stool on a stack of
The Farmers’ Almanacs.
”

“Sam’s food
is
the best. I never disputed that. Why do you think I made my lovely physical therapist bring me here as soon as I got this cane? I want my usual, Sam. How about you, Amanda?”

He’d called her
lovely.
Of course he was teasing the older men, but his eyes warmed her blood as they settled on her. Electricity seemed to hum in the air. She grabbed the plastic menu from beside the silver napkin holder and stared at the breakfast menu. A visual of Wyatt as a child sitting at the bar with his grandpa played across her mind’s eye. He would have been a cute little kid. Inquisitive and probably bossy. No probably about it, he would have been bossy. He’d have been a take-the-world-by-the-horns child straight from the womb, she was pretty certain. His children would no doubt be the same.

She met his gaze and he had a mischievous light in his eyes as he watched her. Almost as if he could read her thoughts. The man would probably have been a great poker player—they did say he took after his many-greats Grandpa Oakley who’d won the stagecoach house in a poker game. “I’ll have the Texas French Toast,” she blurted, only because it was the first thing on the menu. Wyatt’s grin lifted crookedly—and she was certain he was looking inside her head and figuring everything out. She swallowed the lump that lodged in her throat and found herself unable to look away.

“How did you do that?” Applegate snapped, his voice breaking the spell like a bullhorn.

Amanda cut her eyes to the checker players and saw he was glaring at the board.

Stanley looked smugly at her. “I pert near get him every time. And he never learns. He was too busy watching you two make goo-goo eyes at each other to see he’d left me a three-jump opening.”

“Goo-goo eyes!” Amanda exclaimed before she caught herself. “I was not doing any such thing.”

“Yup. That’s what I saw. And I’m glad ta see it.”

She stared at Applegate and slammed her mouth shut or she might have said something she would regret. She regretted this breakfast, that was a given. And Wyatt wasn’t helping. Oh, no, he was laughing. His shoulders were hunched over he was laughing so hard.
Shaking.
His shoulders were shaking with his laughter. This was ridiculous.

“I do not, have never and will not ever make goo-goo eyes at my patients.”

“Well, we certainly hope not.” Stanley chuckled right along with Wyatt. “If ya did that, then what would be special about you and our boy here ogling each other? Nothin’, that’s what.”

Amanda was going to be sick. She hadn’t meant to get this sort of talk started. She hadn’t meant to stare at Wyatt like a lovesick puppy right here in front of everyone. But who would have thought three crusty old men—two who were sitting across the room—would start talking about goo-goo eyes. Wyatt didn’t look any happier than she was.

“Hey, fellas, hold off on marrying me and Amanda off. For one, she’s way too young for me. For two, I’m not on the market and for three, Amanda doesn’t like me much.”

Amanda couldn’t believe he’d just come out and said that in front of everyone. Too young. That one really got her. The man thought she was too young. There were only twelve years’ difference in them. “I like you,” she hissed, leaning toward him across the table. “Just not like that. Besides, fellas, I’m not looking for a husband right now.”

Sam came out and set her steaming plate of French toast down in front of her. He grinned as he slid Wyatt’s bacon and eggs in front of him. “And why not?” Sam looked insulted on Wyatt’s behalf.

“Yeah,” Stanley joined in. He had abandoned the checker game and was digging a handful of sunflower seeds. “He’s handsome, funny—”

“And,” App broke in, “he’s got a highfalutin job and owns a bunch of land.”

At that Wyatt almost choked on his bacon. Sam slapped him on the back and scowled at her. “Yeah, he’s a real fine catch. What do you mean too old? He ain’t old.”

Amanda got tickled despite her horror at the situation. “I didn’t say he was too old. He said I was too young. But he is right, there is too big a difference in our ages.”

“Hogwash!” Applegate grunted. “Thar’s plenty of folks married with that many of years between them. It ain’t like y’alls in school anymore. Them years don’t matter a lick after you get past yor teens.”

Amanda could only see this conversation going downhill from here. She dug into her toast—not that she was the least bit hungry anymore—and kept her head down. If they didn’t get out of here soon she feared the fellas would grab the visiting preacher and have them hitched before the lunch rush came through the doors.

“Fellas, stop,” Wyatt commanded. “Let Amanda eat her breakfast in peace. My brother is getting married soon. It’s his wedding y’all need to be concentrating on.”

Stanley’s hand holding his black checker hovered in midair. “The ladies have that’un under control. Seth was in here with Susan about an hour ago. Them two is so in love they didn’t even
try
to hide thar goo-goo eyes.”

“Yup,” Applegate barked. “Only thang holdin’ them up is you gettin’ well enough to walk down the aisle.”

Wyatt’s expression darkened and Amanda couldn’t miss the muscle jerk in his jaw. “I told them not to wait on me when I was in the hospital. Now that I’m on this cane, there’s going to be a wedding soon. I can promise you that.”

All three men grinned from ear to ear.

Sam filled Wyatt’s coffee cup up. “Now that right thar sounds like you, son. That’s always been yor strong point, takin’ charge and pushin’ forward. We was plenty worried when all you wanted ta do was sit in that house out thar and mope.”

“Mope. I was doing no such thing.”

Applegate grunted and Stanley spit sunflowers.

“Suit yourself.” Applegate lined his black checkers up on the board. “But when a man is so knotted up with anger that he don’t get out of the house, that thar is moping.”

Stanley stood up. “We’ve got to get over to play practice. Y’all should come out to the theater sometime. We do the lights and the sound. It would be a good date fer y’all.”

“We might do that.” Wyatt took a swig of coffee and met her gaze over the rim of his cup. She’d pretty much decided to keep her mouth shut on this entire conversation. Beside that, she was interested in what they were revealing about Wyatt despite the talk about them…but she even found that fascinating—not that she’d let them know it. No, she’d realized that there were some things you kept to yourself in Mule Hollow.

A little while later, they eased out of the diner to the booming encouragement for Wyatt to take Amanda out on a real date. Wyatt didn’t say anything until they were in the SUV.

“Well, that didn’t exactly go the way I’d planned.”

Amanda laughed so hard her shoulders shook as she drove the vehicle toward home. “It was totally unexpected for me, too.” Boy, was that the understatement of the year. She’d relaxed some during all of the conversation, though, and that was a good thing. Now, however, alone with him again, she started tensing up.

He adjusted his arm, looking for a more comfortable position, and he watched her as he did it. She didn’t look at him but knew he was because she could feel his gaze on her.

“At the meeting with the ladies I went to with Melody the other day, it seemed like the wedding plans were set.”

“Yes. Seth told me that Chance has that weekend off, so he’ll be coming to do the service. With the PBR it runs a pretty hectic schedule, so it’s a good time.”

Amanda knew that PBR stood for Pro Bull Riding organization and had been fascinated at the planning meeting when she’d learned that Chance was a preacher. He was Wyatt’s cousin on his dad’s side and had been raised up with them half their life, whenever his dad hadn’t been able to take him on the rodeo circuit during the school year. “That’s something I never thought about as a career, but it is wonderful.” She really thought so. What a great witness.

“Chance is a great guy. He has a heart of gold and a mission to preach God’s word to those bull riders.”

Amanda liked that. She’d been sharing her witness with the kids when she worked with them. She wasn’t sure what she was doing now. Running?

“I need to check on Melody’s garden. Would you like to ride over there with me?” She was asking for trouble by spending more time with Wyatt, but she suddenly didn’t want to go back to that tiny trailer at the stagecoach house.

“Sure. Maybe you’ll finally tell me why you don’t want to talk about your jogging?”

And there it was. Right back to square one. “It’s no big deal. I like to run, okay. I just didn’t tell you.”

“But why? We both know your running is a big deal. I looked it up. A runner with a leg missing above the knee has a much harder time running with a prosthetic. You make it look easy. You run like a deer.”

Not only had he been watching her every morning, he’d done research on her condition. Amanda’s heart fluttered at the thought. She pulled to a stop beside the green garden. It was surrounded by a tall fence, which Melody had told her was to keep the deer out. The old fence had been described as having some of the original wood from the stagecoach house. Amanda liked the look of the garden, but it wasn’t the garden she was thinking about as she climbed from the SUV.

“Yes, I was fourteen at the time of the accident. And all I wanted to do was keep running.” She stared across the hood at Wyatt. The man was persistent. And the sun gleaming off his dark hair made him look all too dashing—she’d never in her life used that word before, but it just fit. She could imagine him dressed in his tuxedo for a big benefit ball. He would fit perfectly into that scenario. The wealthy rancher/lawyer—that was the image of him she needed to focus on. That was the life she could never fit into.

And she also couldn’t stop thinking about him as a child sitting on the bar stool at Sam’s… Wyatt’s son would do that one day—that is, when Wyatt brought him to the ranch on weekend visits.

“My parents said I loved to run from the moment I started walking. I decided I wanted to do marathons. So that was why I was on the side of the road the day that man drove over me.”