Cowboy in Charge (10 page)

“All right,” she said at last. “I’ll...accept your offer. As a loan.”

“We’ll discuss that angle another time.”

“Jason, help.”

At Scott’s plea, he looked away, turning his attention to her son, giving her another moment to herself. She sagged back against the couch and exhaled heavily, hoping she hadn’t just sold her soul to her ex.

There were bound to be catches to this arrangement, complications she couldn’t foresee. But what was done was done. Resolutely, she sat up again. “Since you’re here for another night, I’ll get you a proper pillow and some bedding. I didn’t mean for you to go without them all this time.” She flushed. “I guess I was too out of it to think about that before.”

“No worries. I slept in the chair, anyhow.”

“You didn’t. Every night?”

He shrugged. “It’s a comfortable chair.”

“Like a
truck
?” Scott asked.

He laughed. “Even better.”

“Speaking of sleeping, honey,” she said to Scott, “it’s time for little boys to be in bed.”

“No. Wanna play cars with Jason.”

“I think you want to listen to your mama,” he said.

“Read me story?” Scott held up his arms.

“I can do that.”

Before she could say anything, Jason had scooped him up and set him on his shoulder. He brought her son over to her and leaned down so she could give Scott a kiss. She wanted to protest. But Jason had handled bedtime for the past few days now. How could she tell Scott Jason couldn’t read to him tonight?

Worse, what was she going to face when she had to tell Scott Jason wasn’t there to tuck him in? The thought made her heart hurt, both for her son and for herself. It made her wonder if she wasn’t protesting the events unfolding around her nearly as strongly as she should.

She swallowed hard and kissed her son’s cheek. “You behave and go to sleep for...for Jason. You hear me?”

Scott nodded.

Heart in her throat, she watched them cross the living room. Jason ducked down to clear the doorway. Scott laughed and scrunched his fingers in Jason’s hair.

When they disappeared from view, she sat staring at the empty doorway, her thoughts shifting to another apartment very much like this one.

So many nights, she had run her fingers through Jason’s hair, too, feeling the contradictory crisp yet smooth sensation against her palms, inhaling the scent of his aftershave, tasting the salt of his skin as she kissed his shoulder.

She rubbed her palms across her eyes to blot out the memories.

They were too much to think about.

This entire situation was too much, too family-like, too special. Too close to the life she had expected to have with Jason.

* * *

W
HEN
J
ASON
ENTERED
the kitchen a while later, Layne turned to look at him. She had just run some water in the kettle. Raising her eyebrows in question, she held up the kettle, catching his attention.

“Yeah,” he said. As she ran more water, he went to the cupboard and took down a couple of mugs, then reached up to the shelf for the tea canister.

It was as if he’d always lived here with them. As if they were a team.

Suddenly, she wondered what
she
would face when he wasn’t there to tuck Scott in. The thought made her shiver. Maybe she should have put her foot down and read tonight’s bedtime story.

“Cold again?”

“No.”

He rubbed her upper arm as if to warm her. Instead, his touch only sent a series of shivers racing through her. He tilted his head, giving her no option but to meet his gaze. “Having the chills this bad has to mean something.”

If he only knew.

“I just haven’t shaken off this flu yet.” She sidestepped him and went to the refrigerator for the milk pitcher.

At the stove, the kettle began to whistle. He poured their mugs and set them on the table, then took his usual seat. She settled in her chair and stared down at her mug.

“I knew you weren’t up to speed,” he said. “You probably ought to hit the hay as soon as you’ve had your tea.”

A vision of them together in her bed flashed before her eyes. She blinked it away. Why was she responding to him like this? He had already been here for days, and she hadn’t had a reaction.

Her fib about the flu gave her an inkling of the truth. While she’d been down and out, the flu must have suppressed her hormones. But there was nothing stopping them from working at full strength now.

“You need to move to the Hitching Post,” she said abruptly.

He looked at her in surprise.

“I mean, you can’t keep sleeping in a chair. And my couch won’t be any better. It was too short for Cole when he used it, so it will certainly be too short for you.”

“Trying to kick me out?”

“No.” But she could feel the telltale flush spreading up her neck and over her jawline.

“Layne.”

She tensed. “What?” He had used the tone she recognized from years ago. The one meant to convince her of something. To sway her to his point of view. To win an argument.

“Jed said there might not be a room for a day or two. I hope you plan to let me bunk down here till then.”

“Do I have a choice?” she said irritably. “All right, fine. But I hope you don’t plan to spend all your time in the apartment.”

“In or out of it, I want to spend the time with Scott.”

And
there
was the first catch to letting him stay. The first complication she hadn’t foreseen—but should have figured out long before this. Could she blame her dull wits on her flu symptoms, too?

Feigning a calm she didn’t feel, she sat back and sipped her steaming tea.

“You’re keeping him home from day care,” he reminded her in the same tone.

“What does that have to do with anything?” But she knew his answer before he said it.

“He’ll be around and so will I.”

But for how long?

She sighed. She had agreed to take financial help from the man. The obligation already weighed her down. She didn’t need to let that force her into anything else. Even so, she knew the situation had turned into something more.

She wanted the best for both her kids. What mother wouldn’t? Yet Jill’s father ignored her existence, just as Jason had ignored Scott’s...till now. She couldn’t deny her son time with a daddy who wanted to see him—no matter how short a time that interest would last.

“You can’t be with him every minute,” she said slowly. “I don’t want him getting any more used to having you around than he’s gotten already.”

He shrugged. “I’ll find something to keep me occupied for part of the day.”

“And I don’t want you alone with him, either.”

His jaw set and his lips thinned as if he were fighting to hold back his response. For a moment she thought he would refuse to accept her terms. But finally, he nodded.

“All right, then,” she said. “You can see Scott, as long as I’m there with you.”

To her dismay, she realized
that
was the second complication her muddled brain had let her get tangled up in. She had just negotiated a deal that would force her to spend more time with Jason.

Chapter Ten

The early-morning sun blazed through the kitchen blinds, making Layne’s eyes water. Yawning, she covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Tired?” Jason asked.

She blinked. He had been standing at the refrigerator with his back to her. She hadn’t realized he had turned in time to catch her midyawn. “A little,” she told him.

A lot
, she confessed to herself. Between Jill’s midnight feeding and her own restlessness, she had barely gotten any sleep.

“I could take Scott off your hands for a while this morning,” he said as he poured orange juice into a plastic cup. He fit the cover in place with a crisp snap.

“Nice try,” she snapped almost as briskly, trying to keep from glaring at him. At her tone, Scott looked up from his coloring book. She smiled at him and stroked his hair. As he returned his attention to his book, she gave Jason a level stare over her son’s head.

Was he going to force the issue on their agreement already? Was this her chance to call their verbal contract null and void? And wasn’t that what she wanted? Yet, why did all those questions make her heart thump, and not in a good way?

When Scott held up the coloring book to show Jason, she had her answer. Her son and his daddy had formed a bond that Jason’s departure would break.

“Nice job, buddy.” He set the cup of juice on the table at Scott’s elbow and looked at her. “If it’s not too early to run the washer, how about we throw in that load of clothes you talked about?”

“I can take care of it later this afternoon.”

“I’m out of clean socks.”

“Oh.” If that was what he needed to be on his way, she would have run a load with a solitary pair of socks—because
she
needed him to be on his way, at least for a while. She needed time to think. “All right. We can start the machine now.”

While he went to the living room for his bag, she crossed the kitchen. That morning, she had deposited a half-filled basket of the kids’ clothes on the floor near the closet. After she finished loading detergent into the machine, she turned back for the basket—and nearly collided with Jason.

He stood bare-chested in front of her, the shirt he had been wearing dangling from his hand, a pile of other clothes held in one arm. A scattering of dark hair covered his chest. Below, hard abs and a narrow waist drew her gaze downward to the worn-soft waistband of his jeans. The sight left her heart pounding. A jolt of memory stole her breath.

“I just saw I’m out of T-shirts, too,” he said.

Mouth dry, she nodded, snatching the shirt from his hand and taking the pile of clothing from him. After tossing everything into the washer, she closed the lid and tried for a steadying breath. Then she edged a half step away from him. “I’ll get you one of my sleep shirts. They’re just plain T’s, extra-large.”

“Thanks.”

She nodded again and left the room, trying not to look as if she were on the run. But she hurried down the hall at double-speed, one hand flapping near her face to cool herself. No worries about chills now. No way.

The only thought in her mind at this moment centered on what else the man had in his duffel bag.

If he discovered he was out of clean underwear, she was in big trouble.

* * *

J
ASON
KILLED
A
couple of hours and a half tank of gas roaming the outlying roads around Cowboy Creek.

He passed ranches where he’d once thought he might settle in as a wrangler, and eventually he slowed the pickup to a crawl when he neared the gates of Garland Ranch.

He didn’t want to go chasing Jed down so soon when he’d just seen the man the day before. And he sure didn’t want to barge in on the man’s family and friends, all of them hanging around to visit after the wedding...and one of them, at least, sleeping in the room meant to be his.

No matter. Layne’s couch had suited him just fine.

Last night, he’d have taken the armchair again without a word of protest, if need be. He tried not to think what that meant.

He didn’t want to go back to Layne’s at the moment, either. He checked the dashboard clock. Eleven fifteen. It had been a while since breakfast and was close enough to lunchtime to look for something to eat. The snack bar inside the Bowl-a-Rama opened early.

Back in town, he pulled into the parking lot of the bowling alley and slammed the driver’s door shut as if he could slam a lid on his memories of what had happened in Layne’s kitchen.

The sedan he had parked near sported the bumper sticker: My Grandchild’s an A+ Student at Cowboy Creek Elementary
.

He laughed derisively. No one would catch
his
grandmother with that sticker, or his mother, for that matter—even if he’d gotten the grades to earn it.

Lack of interest more than lack of brainpower had made him slack off in classes when he should’ve been applying himself. He and Layne had already been a couple long before high school, but it wasn’t till then that he’d started walking that fine line between pass and fail. She had tried to help, and he’d eagerly signed on for their study sessions. But his enthusiasm had nothing to do with the homework assignments. Still, he’d left school with a diploma in his hand.

Scott was a bright kid. With luck, he’d take after Layne with her interest in learning and do well in school.

Inside the Bowl-a-Rama, he went directly to the Lucky Strike. The snack bar was overlaid with the familiar scents of frying grease, coffee left on the burner too long and bowling shoes that had been worn by too many feet. Behind the counter stood a man wrapped in a once-white bibbed apron already streaked with grease and ketchup.

“You still slinging burgers here, Mel?” He rested his crossed arms on the edge of the counter.

The older man squinted at him, then shook his head. “Jason McAndry. Jed told me you were back in town.”

What else had the man said? Was everyone in Cowboy Creek now aware he’d come back? Were they talking about his shortcomings and blaming him for the way he’d left Layne? “And I don’t just sling burgers,” Melvin was saying. “I own the place now. So, what are you up to these days, chasing the girls or the bulls?”

He laughed. “Both. Every chance I get.”

“Then what the hell you doing in Cowboy Creek?”

The smile slid from his face. “What are you talking about?”

“Layne. That’s
who
I’m talking about. She’s the only girl in town you ever chased. She brings her boy in once in a while on half-price days, if she’s got time off from SugarPie’s. That’s more than anybody sees you doing.”

Damn.
He gritted his teeth. Sugar Conway and Shay O’Neill and now good old Mel. What kind of story had Layne told the folks in this town?

Then again, the true story was bad enough. And after four years of skating on his responsibilities, he should have expected everyone to rally around Layne.

“You want something from the grill?” Melvin asked.

“Burger. With fries. And a large sweet tea.” He’d already been condemned. He ought to be entitled to a last meal.

Melvin turned away. Jason took a deep breath.

Earlier that morning, he had made a quick stop at the sandwich shop for a fresh doughnut and a coffee to go. At that hour, he’d known Sugar would be tied up with the bakery half of the business and unlikely to step foot in the adjoining shop. Not that he would have run from a confrontation with the woman, if it had come to one.

No, it was thoughts of Layne he was trying to outrun. Thoughts of how she’d taken one look at him with his shirt off and hightailed it out of the kitchen and down the hall. Thoughts of how hard he’d struggled to keep from following her down that hall and into her bedroom.

He needed some time away from her. Some distance from the familiar look in her eyes and the flush in her cheeks and especially from the hitch in her breath that had always revealed what she was thinking.

Things he’d been thinking much too often, lately, too.

But he had to keep his focus on his goal. He needed to earn her trust, not find his way back into her bed—no matter how enticing that idea had become.

Melvin set a tray with the tea he’d ordered on the counter in front of him. “I remember the days you two used to come in here. Other than the fights, you looked like a sure bet to me. I’d’a thought you both coulda worked things out.”

He wasn’t the only one who’d thought that. “Yeah...well, I guess you’d have gotten it wrong.” His first taste of the tea was sweet, cold and unsatisfying.

With a flourish, Melvin slid the paper plate containing his burger and fries onto the tray. “Then I’ll say what else I’m thinking, and I’m not wrong about this. Your mama’s long gone from town and I don’t know why else you’d come back, unless it has to do with Layne. That girl’s got lots of friends here, and they’ll be watching out for her.”

“They already are,” he confirmed. He nodded his goodbye and found a table at the far end of the snack area. The burger was just the way he liked it, hot and loaded with ketchup, and yet as unsatisfying as the tea.

He could blame that more on Melvin’s attitude—and Sugar’s and Shay’s and Layne’s—than on the food and drink. But he had to be honest. His dissatisfaction stemmed from a whole other source.

When he’d woken up that morning, he hadn’t intended to leave Layne’s apartment. He had planned to stick to his guns and spend the time with Scott, regardless of the part-time and supervised arrangement she’d forced him to agree to. Yet, as soon as her dryer had spit out his load of clothes, he had done some hightailing of his own.

He’d put space between them—just what she had looked for all along. She wanted the kids to herself. Or at least, not near him.

It still burned him to know Layne wouldn’t let him see Scott on his own. All right, he hadn’t talked to the boy until this week. But despite what she’d said at the Big Dipper, surely considering the days he’d spent with her and the kids, he ought to have earned some level of her trust.

That looked to be a long shot since even the whole danged town seemed unwilling to give him any benefit of the doubt.

The longer he stayed here, the more he was coming to realize folks had cause for thinking the way they did. Still, he’d hang in there and keep trying. Because he wanted to earn Layne’s trust—and more.

He wanted her to forgive him for what he had done.

* * *

A
FTER
LUNCH
, L
AYNE
and Scott had just put their jackets on to go for a walk when Jason turned up again. While he’d been gone that morning, Scott had asked about him several times. She had assured him Jason would come back. In a way, she might have been reassuring herself. She couldn’t bear the thought of him treating her son the way he had treated her—walking away and then staying away for years.

Overjoyed to see Jason, Scott demanded he go along with them. In turn, Jason insisted on pushing Jill’s carriage. She knew when she was outnumbered. Besides, their matching stubborn expressions nearly broke her heart.

“We seem to be establishing a routine,” she said to him as they left the apartment. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

“Routines are for old folks,” he said. “Isn’t that what we always used to say?”

“Old married folks,” she said, trying to hide her dismay at his offhand reminder of their past. Back then, she had imagined them staying together and becoming that long-married pair. She had always thought he wanted that, too.

“Go to the park?” Scott asked.

“Not today,” Jason said flatly.

Prepared to give that same answer, she had already opened her mouth. She snapped her jaw closed again. His expressionless tone had been more of a giveaway than if he had stressed the words. He was thinking about her unwillingness to let him take Scott to the park on his own.

Maybe the opportunity to be with their son had meant more to Jason than she had thought. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, either. And yet she couldn’t deny how much it bothered her that he refused to go the park with them as a...as a group.

When they reached the corner, Jason turned in the opposite direction.

The sun was hot on her head and shoulders, making her overly warm in her jacket. Reluctantly she admitted to herself she was glad he’d taken the reins of the carriage...so to speak. She felt stronger than she had the day before, but she certainly wasn’t up to running a marathon. Or even pushing a baby carriage for more than a few hundred yards.

They walked for a while in silence, except for Scott’s occasional questions. Eventually, they turned down a street of A-framed houses with small yards in front.

“You used to live down this street, didn’t you?” she asked. She had never visited Jason at home. He hadn’t come to her house much, either, for that matter. They would hang out at SugarPie’s or the Big Dipper. Less often, they would meet at the library, where she would try to coax him into studying while trying to resist his plans of stealing kisses in the book stacks.

She had met his mother and her boyfriend shortly before she and Jason were married and had only seen the woman a few times after that. Once he left town, their brief connection ended abruptly, too.

“It’s the blue one at the end,” he muttered.

They walked slowly down the block. The house before Jason’s was painted lemon yellow with white woodwork and lacy wooden trim along the edge of the porch roof. It looked like a house from one of Scott’s storybooks. The woman who stood sweeping the porch looked like a storybook character herself, with her wire-rimmed glasses, soft white hair arranged in a bun and a calico apron worn over a pale blue cardigan. She saw them, waved and smiled. “Hello, Layne,” she called. “And Scotty.”

“Hi, Mrs. Browley,” she said.

“I heard you weren’t feeling well, you poor thing. Why don’t you come on in and sit for a while? I’ve got cookies fresh out of the oven. They won’t hold a candle to Sugar’s, I know, but a chocolate chip is a chocolate chip any day, I always say.”

“Cookies, Mommy!
Please?
”