How to Handle a Cowboy (16 page)

“Good.” She frowned. “All that to-do last night. That man wasn't our kind. Those boys, they're innocent and deserve a second chance. But I don't hold with grown women who paint their bodies and wear clothes so tight you can see their—well, their
everythings
.”

Had Sierra gone a little crazy after he'd left or what? She had a tattoo, sure, but it wasn't visible—unless, of course, she was wearing clothes that showed her
everythings.

Dang it, he knew he should have stuck around last night.

The thought put a spring in his step as he climbed the porch steps and knocked on the door.

The woman who answered had to be Riley, and he could see Mrs. Carson's point.

She was the palest woman Ridge had ever seen. Gazing at him from the doorway through watery blue eyes, she looked like a ghost. A ghost with a lot of tattoos, wearing a barely there tube top and low-slung jeans that exposed a jeweled belly button between jutting hip bones. A ghost who definitely wouldn't fit in around Wynott.

No wonder Mrs. Carson was concerned. Riley looked like trouble. Heck, she'd already dumped a great big dose of it on Sierra's doorstep. Too bad she hadn't left with the guy in the truck.

“Hi.” She seemed to be addressing her greeting to his left boot. “You must be…” She paused, chewing her lower lip.

“Ridge Cooper.”

“Right. Ridge. I'm Riley. Thanks for—you know.” She edged back a few steps, making room for him to enter.

Hooking his thumbs in his belt loops, he looked her up and down. If she was tough enough to get all those tattoos, why wasn't she strong enough to take care of her own problems? He'd seen how tense Sierra was whenever she talked to Riley. She had enough to worry about with the boys.

He knew he ought to be more tolerant, but something about the girl reminded him of someone he'd known a long time ago—someone who'd brought trouble into
his
life. He had no patience with helpless waifs who waited for the world to take care of them. Other people always paid for their mistakes.

“You're a friend of Sierra's, right?” he said.

She nodded.

He felt words burning in his throat, the heat of his anger building and building, pushing them out before he could think.

“Then why did you lead a guy like that straight to her door? You know she's in the middle of nowhere out here. Why did you let that happen?”

Riley put her hand to her lips, biting her thumbnail while she seemed to seriously consider his question. “I don't know. I didn't think about it.”

“Do me a favor,” Ridge said. “Start thinking.” For once in his life, he couldn't stop talking. “She's here all by herself, protecting these little kids that haven't got anybody in the world but her. She needs people to help her, not more people to take care of.”

He knew the words would get hotter and crueler if he stayed with her another minute. Pushing past her, he headed for the office.

Just as Ridge came around the corner, Sierra appeared at the door of her office.

“Oh,” she said. “Hey.”

Her eyes met his and for a second he was back in that four-poster feather bed, rolling around naked in a fog of sexual bliss. He knew she was there too—he couldn't say how, but he knew. One blink and the feeling was gone, but it had already warmed him and his bad mood drifted away on a breeze of dreams and wishes.

He took off his hat and pressed it to his chest. She was wearing the leather jacket she'd had on the first time he'd seen her, along with her usual skinny jeans and a lacy top that somehow made the whole outfit look feminine.

And sexy.

For a half beat, he completely forgot why he was there and simply stared at her. It took a while to get his mouth moving, but finally the fog in his mind cleared.

“Hey,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

Yeah, he was a genius. How could she resist his scintillating conversation?

“Okay. Come to the office.”

The office. Did he dare follow her there?

Sure he did. In fact, he wondered if there was time to pay Riley to lock the door and turn out the lights. Probably not.

“That guy didn't come back?”

“Nope. You chased him off for good, I think. Thanks.” She sat down on the edge of her desk. “But I'm sorry about that. I probably got you out of bed. I could have handled it myself, but—”

“It's no problem. We take care of our own around here.”

He searched his mind for a new topic of conversation, but they'd covered all the easy ones and the air felt unsettled, shimmering with expectation but empty of inspiration.

“Where are the boys?”

“School.”

“Good.”

He wondered what would happen if he shut the door. Would she be scared? Or would she welcome the privacy as much as he would? He didn't want to risk scaring her, so he eased into the same chair he'd occupied the first time he'd come.

“I almost kept Jeffrey home today,” she said. “He had a rough night.”

“What's wrong?”

“I don't know. You know how he is. But he threw up last night. Really late—after you left. And he was still awfully pale this morning.”

“He saw me,” Ridge said. “Last night, when I was leaving, he was at the window.”

She sighed. “He was probably feeling sick already.” She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, running her fingers through her hair, and let out a deep sigh. Ridge had heard her sigh before, but this was a sigh of defeat. “I really wish he hadn't waited till three a.m. to get sick. I hardly slept at all.”

“Did he come and get you?”

“No. I'm a light sleeper.” She smiled. “This situation, it's a little like being their mom, you know? I've always got one ear open for trouble.”

“How's this situation different from the other ones you've worked in?”

“It's more like a home. Like they're—mine.” He could tell she was almost afraid to say the word. “I've always worked in city shelters, where the kids come and go.”

“Are you afraid you'll get too attached?”

“Afraid, heck,” she said. “I already am too attached.”

“But you're still leaving.”

“Five more weeks.”

“That's a shame. The kids are going to miss you.” So was he, but he doubted she wanted to hear that.

“I know.” She looked troubled. “We're supposed to keep our distance, be warm but professional. But this little gang's really gotten to me.”

“Maybe you should stay.”

He held his breath, waiting for her answer. It surprised him how much he wanted her to say yes. Just like that, yes, she'd stay.

But she shook her head.

“The new job's a huge step up. I'll be making policy for the whole state of Colorado, affecting thousands of kids. I can do some real good.”

“You're doing real good here.”

Her brow creased again. “But it's just five kids. I've always wanted to really change things, and I can't do it from here.”

“You could change this whole town. You said it yourself—give the boys a hometown and revitalize the place, keep it alive.”

“It's not the same.”

He grimaced. He had to admit she was right. Wynott was hardly the center of the universe. But Bill had changed him and his brothers. Wasn't that a worthwhile effort?

The answer to that made plan B even more important. What Bill had done only mattered if Ridge and his brothers passed on the gifts they'd received.

Sierra sighed. “It's going to be hard to leave. This little group—they're so good together, you know? They fight all the time, but they're like brothers already.”

“I know.” He put his feet up on the desk beside her so they lightly touched her hip. It felt intimate but not in a sexy way. Just
close.
“Frankie's the life of the party, Josh is the worrier, Carter's the funny one, and Isaiah's the troublemaker.”

“Exactly. It's amazing you got that, just in one day.” She smiled. “What about Jeffrey?”

“Jeff? He's just a scared little kid now.” He took a deep breath before his cautious first step. “But he's got the makings of a cowboy.”

“You think?”

“I know.” He thought back to Jeffrey's riding, his affection for the horse, his wondering expression when he saw Moonpie.

“Takes one to know one, I guess.”

She smiled at him again. He smiled back. There was that feeling again, that time had stretched out, but then it stretched too far and the magic broke. They both looked away.

He needed to say something more about Jeffrey, about how much good it would do him to spend more time around horses, but the chance slipped away somehow. Were there men who knew how to talk to women, how to keep this kind of thing going? Or was it a mystery to everyone?

She stared down at her hands, laced in her lap. “I'm sorry about last night. It's just that I don't know anyone here, and the sheriff…” She shook her head like she was trying to forget a bad dream.

“I'm glad you called me,” he said. “There were a few neighbors watching as it was, but if you'd called Sheriff Swaggard, that truck driver would have been eight feet tall and bulletproof by morning, with wings and a tail.” He cleared his throat, wondering how she'd take his next warning. “It's a small town, and anything you do here, anybody who comes around, the neighbors are going to notice. In fact…”

He was just about to caution her about Riley's presence when Riley herself walked in and leaned up against the wall beside the bookshelf with her hands clasped like some innocent schoolgirl. Sierra put on the chirpy tone of a party hostess.

“Oh, you guys haven't met. Ridge, this is Riley. We've been friends for a long time. Since Riley was—what were you, hon, thirteen?”

Riley nodded.

“And Riley, this is Ridge. He's my best friend in Wynott, obviously.”

Riley gave him a thin smile and a nod. Her fragility probably sparked the same feeling in Sierra that the boys did. He had a feeling Sierra tried to save baby birds that had fallen out of their nests, and pound puppies and crippled kittens.

Maybe men too—the ones who'd lost their direction and couldn't find any meaning in lives derailed by disaster.

“So what did you want to talk about?” Sierra asked.

He wanted to talk about foster kids, about how he wanted to close a circle that had started years ago. He wanted to talk about the rest of his life, but there was Riley, blinking as expectantly as Sierra, and he wasn't about to talk about his hopes and dreams and dumb ideas in front of this so-called friend of Sierra's—the friend who drew a homicidal maniac biker dude to her house, the friend who had set the neighbors to buzzing about the “city girls” at Phoenix House.

He shot a glare toward Riley, but for all her fragility, the girl stood firm. She was like some weird chaperone out of a Tim Burton movie. He probably wouldn't get Sierra alone as long as Riley was around.

This called for desperate measures. He cleared his throat and faced Sierra. “I was wondering if you'd want to go to lunch.”

Riley looked up from her perusal of her fingernails. “There's no place to eat around here.”

What would it take to shake this girl? “I'm sorry, but I was talking to Sierra just then.”

“Oh. You mean a date,” Riley said, flustered. “Sorry. I didn't realize…” She clapped both hands over her mouth. “Geez, I'm a goofus, aren't I?” She fled the room.

Great. He'd totally misjudged that situation, which wasn't too surprising since it involved women. Now he could talk to Sierra alone, but he'd already committed to lunch. If he laid out his case now, he'd have nothing to talk about later and it really
would
be a date. Which might be a good thing or might not. As usual, he had no idea.

The two of them stared at each other, each unwilling to restart the conversation. When the old landline phone on Sierra's desk rang, they both jumped.

“Phoenix House,” she said. There was a pause while she waited for the caller to speak, but it wasn't long. “He isn't?” She thrust her fingers into her hair, and he wondered again how she managed to have such thick hair when she manhandled it so much.

“I put him on the bus this morning,” Sierra said. “Did you check the bathrooms? He wasn't feeling good.”

There was more chatter with assenting grunts from Sierra, who was tugging at her hair with increasing viciousness as the conversation continued. “Thank you. We'll find him,” she finally said and hung up.

“Jeffrey's not at school,” she said. “He didn't come in after recess. One of the town kids said they saw him slip out the gate.”

She looked down at her desk and rearranged a few items that didn't need rearranging.

“What are you thinking?” Ridge asked.

“I don't think he was sick last night,” she said. “I mean, he was sick. He threw up. But something about the way he acted—I think he was scared.”

“How scared?” Ridge asked.

“He clung to me. He let me hold him. That's not normal for Jeffrey—Jeff.” She liked Ridge's idea about names, but she had a hard time thinking of serious little Jeffrey as just Jeff. “It's not normal at all.”

“You think that jerk that brought Riley here scared him?”

She wasn't about to let him blame this on Riley. “Maybe just the confrontation.”

“Well, he can't have gotten far.” Ridge shouldered his way back into the denim jacket he'd been wearing and headed for the door. “Where's his family?”

“Denver.”

“So you figure he'd head south? Try to join 'em?”

“No way.” Jeffrey would run away from, not toward, the family he'd left behind.

“So where do you think he went?”

She thought a moment. “The ranch.” She was surprised he hadn't figured it out. “He's probably thinking he'll steal that magic horse you've got that fascinates him so much.”

Ridge dug in his pocket and came up with his truck keys. “I'll drive.”

Sierra headed for Ridge's truck without a word of protest. If she had any doubt about which way Jeffrey might have gone, she would have taken her own car to cover more ground, but she knew she was right about the ranch. With Ridge driving, she could play lookout.

Jeffrey had run away before. All the boys at Phoenix House had, and by the time the state sent them to Wynott, they'd run so many times their files actually contained information on patterns in their escapes. Jeffrey tended to stick to the roads, though he'd take off running for whatever hiding place he could find if he thought he'd been spotted.

“What time did recess end?” Ridge asked.

“I think recess is about ten, so it hasn't been long.” She scanned the road ahead, praying for the sight of a small, unhappy figure plodding along the shoulder.

Ridge scanned the road too, but every once in a while, he'd shoot her a questioning look, as though he was trying to figure something out.

“What?” she finally asked, irritated.

“What's with Riley?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Who is she? She drags that guy here, causes all this trouble—why do you put up with her?”

“I ‘put up with her' because we've been friends for years.”

“But how did a straight-arrow like you wind up with a friend like that?”

“I wasn't always a straight arrow,” she said. “There's a reason why I help these kids. I know how it feels to be unwanted, to be cut loose before you're ready.”

“What were your parents like?”

She shrugged. “My dad, I don't know. He left when I was six. I barely remember him, and what I do remember is all rosy and perfect. I suspect time wore off the rough edges and just left the good parts.”

He wanted to put an arm around her. He wanted to tug her over beside him on the bench seat, so they could sit close while they searched the fields for Jeffrey. But she sat so straight, with her hands clasped so tightly in her lap, that he knew she'd push him away.

“What about your mom?” he asked.

“She stuck around, at least. She did her part—bought my school supplies, my clothes. But after my dad left, she got bitter. For a while, when I was around thirteen, I rebelled. I could have ended up like Riley, but I pulled myself out. That's why I thought I could help her.”

“Who helps you?”

“What?”

“It seems like you're always helping people. Who helps you?”

She stared out the windshield, unblinking. “I help myself.”

He kept driving, one hand on the wheel, the other on the sill of the open window. He rarely put both hands on the wheel, she'd noticed, and he always drove with the window open. That had been fine when they were at the ranch, but she'd actually tried to do something with her hair this morning, and the wind was ruining it.

“Could you roll your window up? It's messing up my hair.”

He grinned. “I like it messy.”

“I know you do.” She immediately blushed. That was the closest they'd come to talking about what had happened between them.

They drove a long time in silence, passing the school and heading toward the ranch. They traveled a surprising distance before Sierra's prayers were answered by the sight of Jeffrey's slight form trudging through the grass by the side of the road.

Ridge braked and pulled the truck onto the shoulder. At the sound of tires on gravel, Jeffrey took off running straight across what had once been a field of sugar beets and was now an obstacle course. The rows of withered plants seemed to be spaced perfectly for Jeffrey's running stride, while Ridge could leap two rows at a time. Sierra was left to struggle along behind them.

After tripping countless times and falling to her hands and knees twice, she stopped and watched the man and the boy tearing across the field. She had no doubt Ridge would catch Jeffrey. She'd seen the boy run a lot faster.

He wanted to be caught, she mused. Ridge really did have a way with these kids.

When Ridge got to where he could reach out and grab the back of the boy's shirt, Jeffrey simply stopped running. The man and the boy exchanged a few words, and Jeffrey turned to plod back to the truck. After a while, the cowboy draped his arm over the boy's shoulder. Miraculously, Jeffrey let it lie.

When they reached the truck, Sierra dropped to her knees to give Jeffrey a hug. It was like hugging a wooden doll, but he didn't push her away. But when she opened the door to the crew cab truck's backseat, though, he stood stolidly unmoving.

“Get in, sport,” Ridge said.

Jeffrey looked up at Sierra then shook his head and returned to immobility.

“Phoenix House is where you live right now.” Ridge set his hand on the boy's thin shoulder. “Maybe someday that'll change. For starters, I'm going to see if you can come out more often and help me with the horses, okay? But for right now, you have to go back. Sierra will keep you safe, and I'll help.”

Sierra almost stopped Ridge. Did he realize he was handing the boy false hope? Anything could happen in this kid's life. He could be moved. He could even find a family, though that would be nothing short of a miracle.

But when Jeffrey spoke, she forgot all about Ridge.

“He was there last night.” The boy's face twisted with fear. “He came to get me.”

Ridge glanced at Sierra, and she nodded, letting him know she'd heard. But she was confused. There was only one “him” for Jeffrey—his father, who had abused him. And Delivery Truck Man was not Jeffrey's father. The father was in jail, where he belonged.

“Who?” she asked.

“Him.” Jeffrey bit his lips, as if he wasn't going to let another sound out ever again.

“But who is he? Is he a friend of your father's?”

The child refused to even look at her.

Ridge knelt down on the gravelly shoulder of the road and put both hands on the boy's shoulders. Looking him straight in the eye, he lowered his voice and said, “I will never let him get you. Never. I promise you, it's safe to go home.”

Sierra would have stepped in if she'd only known what to say. Ridge couldn't keep that promise. Giving the kid a sense of security was good, but hadn't the cowboy said he believed in telling the truth? What was he going to do—set up a 24/7 vigil outside Phoenix House? There was no way he could protect Jeffrey all the time.

Jeffrey's normally expressionless eyes searched Ridge's, as if making sure he could trust him. Ridge never looked away, and finally the boy nodded. Turning away from Ridge, he climbed into the truck's narrow backseat and tugged the seat belt across his small body.

“
Never
,” Sierra heard him whisper to himself. It was barely a breath, but she wondered how often the boy would repeat the promise to himself in the days to come. Some kids had a bit of blanket from home that made them feel safe; now Jeffrey had a word—and he'd carry it with him like a security blanket for months, maybe years to come, until it wore out.

When would that be? It seemed inevitable that it would wear out. These kids' lives changed so fast, so frequently. But Ridge was a man who kept his promises. She suspected he'd find a way.

She wouldn't want to be Mitch right now.

***

The other boys were hanging out with Gil in the kitchen by the time Ridge got Sierra and Jeffrey back into the house.

“Hey, look, it's the man from Mars,” said Isaiah. “He came back to his home planet.”

Jeffrey walked past him without a word. Sierra let him go, waving an admonishing finger at Isaiah.

“Watch it with the name-calling, mister,” she said. “You know better.”

She turned back to Ridge. “Looks like everything's back to normal here. Thanks.”

“That's all you have to say? Thanks?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing. I don't like chatty women.” He grinned and looked so charming, with his five-o'clock shadow and battered hat, that she couldn't help smiling back. “But now that I chased down your renegade kid for you, I could really use that lunch.”

“Oh. Lunch.” She'd obviously forgotten all about the invitation. He could almost see smoke coming out of her ears as her mind cranked up excuses. “It's kind of late for lunch.”

“Dinner, then.”

She stewed a little while longer and finally came up with another excuse. “What will Riley do while I'm gone?”

Riley appeared in the doorway so fast she had to have been eavesdropping.

“I left some stuff in Denver. I need to go pick it up,” she said. “If I could borrow your car…”

Score one for Riley. Surprisingly, she was on his side for some reason.

“Sure,” Sierra said. “I should go with you, though.”

“You don't trust me?”

“I trust you,” Sierra said. “But come right back. Okay?”

“Sure.”

Sierra turned to Ridge. “I have to go wash up a little.”

Riley looked so uneasy at being left alone with Ridge that he felt sorry for her. Perching on the edge of one of the chairs, she kept glancing at him and looking away. He wondered what had happened in her life to make her so frightened of men.

“You don't have to babysit me,” he said. “If you have things to do…”

“No. Well, yes, actually. I do have things to do.” She took a deep breath and straightened her spine. “I'm not just going to get my stuff. I'm going to find Mitch and figure out what he's up to. He lied about knowing Sierra. He used me to get to her. And I want to know why.”

“That could be dangerous.”

“Maybe.” Riley looked him straight in the eye for the first time since he'd met her. “But I don't care. I'm not a total loser, you know. I'd do anything to help Sierra.” She glanced down at her feet, the brief tough-girl facade fading. “I'll do it smart, don't worry. I'll pretend I'm on his side, like I'm mad at Sierra for not letting me stay.”

“That sounds smart,” Ridge said. “But it still sounds dangerous.”