Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) (13 page)

“You guys hear that?” Trace asked.

Damian barely nodded.

“As of right now, it’s in effect for all of you. I’d suggest you learn to get along or it’s going to be a real long week.” He grinned.

Marty grimaced and kicked at the dirt. “Man, that’s cold.”

“Yep, it is.”

Gemma spoke up, “We are making a project in our cabin and tomorrow each one of the girls is to be on the lookout for something small and unique on their trip. You boys might look for something too.”

“Are we making something?” Marty asked.

“Of course. Wouldn’t be camp without a project. We will be making a dream catcher, so think of that while you are out tomorrow.” Trace slipped an arm around Gemma and chuckled. “If they find a horse apple, they’ll think they found a fossil.”

“The trick is to make each one of them think they’ve found a gold nugget no matter what it is,” Gemma said.

Lester touched her on the shoulder. “This week is all about building confidence and character. You’re already doing a fantastic job.”

She shrugged. “I’m just using some of the tricks Momma used on us kids. It ain’t nothing special, but thank you,” Gemma said. “Look at them. They’re actually talking to each other and not fighting. Did you tell those boys that we’re having a dance on Thursday night?”

“God, no!” Trace gasped. “They’d worry themselves to death. Let them get to know the ladies and then they’ll be ready for a dance.”

At eight o’clock Trace took his tribe home and Gemma took her girls inside where she had ten small wooden boxes sitting on a long folding table with chairs lined up around it. Bottles of paint were scattered down the middle of the table along with paintbrushes.

“What’s that?” April asked.

“Projects,” Gemma said. Part of the agenda involved an hour of crafts each evening and she’d come up with the idea of making the boxes as their craft project. She’d sent Hill to town that morning with a list of what she needed and he’d brought it back while the kids were in the apple orchard.

“Don’t look like much to me,” April said.

“That’s because they aren’t finished. We’ll paint them tonight. Any color you want or any combination of colors,” Gemma said.

“Who are they for? I’m not making a present for a boy,” Carly declared.

“You are to do your best artistic work. And while you are on field trips this week, if you find a special rock or leaf or maybe an arrowhead, you could bring it back to go on your project. Make it as if you were going to take it home with you to remember this week,” Gemma answered. “And on Friday morning just before you leave I’ll tell you who it is for.”

“Mine is going to be yellow,” Katy said. “With a hot pink lid that has swirls of yellow.”

“Have fun,” Gemma said and sat down at the head of the table to referee in case one of them started slinging paint like they did barbs. Girls! How did her mother ever survive raising two girls? Trace couldn’t be having as much trouble with his boys. It wasn’t possible.

At the end of an hour the table looked like a tornado hit a Sherwin-Williams paint store, but they were talking and laughing. At nine o’clock Gemma told them to get their brushes washed in the kitchen sink and put the lids on the paint bottles tightly.

“It can’t be time for bed yet,” Angie argued.

Gemma pointed at the clock. “We’ve got an hour every night to work on our craft and it really is bedtime. Top bunkers hit the showers first and bottom bunkers help me set up night snacks.”

At ten thirty when she turned out the lights, Carly was already snoring and Deanna had a pillow crammed over her ears. Gemma slipped out the door to find Trace sitting in a rocking chair on the porch. He patted his leg and she sat down on his lap.

He cupped her chin and turned her face so he could kiss her lips, sweetly at first then harder and more demanding. “So do you want ten daughters?”

“Bite your tongue.” She gasped between kisses.

He nuzzled his face into the soft part of her neck. “You are very good with them.”

“I’m good with horses. That don’t mean I want ten of them right next to my bedroom,” she told him.

“Let’s sneak off to the hayloft,” he said.

“Not on your life, cowboy. Sure as I did, they’d get into an all-out catfight with claws bared and gnashing teeth.”

“Honeymoon is over then?” he asked.

She giggled. “Four nights of wild sex does not make a marriage.”

“How many does it take?”

“A helluva lot more than four. Now kiss me good night. Six thirty comes early.”

He bookcased her cheeks with his palms and gave her a kiss that made her wish she’d gone to the hayloft with him and be damned to the possible catfights.

Gemma awoke early the next morning and tiptoed to the kitchen area to make a pot of coffee. While it brewed she studied her sleeping girls one at a time. Carly was tall and lanky for a ten-year-old girl, kind of like a three-month-old colt that was still all gangly legs. She really did snore, but Deanna, bless her heart, had shoved cotton balls in her ears and had turned around in the bunk with her feet toward Carly and her head where her feet should have been. Deanna was one of those blondes with dark brown eyes, heavy lashes that rested like a fan on her cheeks, and high cheekbones. Her face was triangular and her mouth wide.

Fiona was also a blonde, but where Deanna was a diva, Fiona looked like she could take down an offensive linebacker and enjoy doing it. She was a big girl, not overweight by any means, but taller than the rest of the girls and big-boned.

Kelsey was the quiet one of the group, but Gemma didn’t think for a minute that the short girl couldn’t hold her own against even Fiona. It was in her eyes. She didn’t have to smart off to anyone and there wouldn’t be a day when Kelsey threatened. She’d just step up to the plate and deliver.

April, who was partnered with Kelsey, sat back and waited to see what everyone else did before she started. When they were painting boxes she was the last one to pick a color, but she was meticulous in her job. Gemma pegged her for an artist who would enjoy the solitary life if she ever had the opportunity.

Beth and Chantelle, both brunettes, one from Detroit and one from Omaha, fit right into their partnership. They sat together at mealtime and whispered while they were working on their boxes. Neither of them had as much artistic ability as April, but Gemma would lay dollars to grasshoppers that together they could take on the world.

Jessie was the mouthy one. Black hair, blue eyes, loud, and brassy. She’d push her way into whatever she wanted. Being partners with Carly would teach them both a lot.

Angie from New Orleans had a Cajun look about her with her black hair and dark eyes. She and Katy made perfect partners with their love for jazz music and Southern accents.

The coffee gurgled one last time and Gemma left her sleeping beauties to pour a cup. She carried it outside to the porch and watched the sun rise over the mountains. The crickets and tree frogs sounded the same as they did back home in Ringgold and suddenly a whole new bout of homesickness set in.

“Dammit!” she swore under her breath. That’s what she got for even thinking about home and family.

“Dammit, what?” Trace said from the shadows.

She jumped and spilled coffee all over her nightshirt. “You scared the shit out of me. Now I’ve got coffee stains all down my front.”

“Take it off,” he teased.

“I don’t think so, cowboy,” she said.

“I have a name. Why don’t you use it?” he asked tersely.

Until that moment Gemma hadn’t realized that most of the time she called him
cowboy
. In the same moment she realized why she did, but there was no way she was telling him.

“Who pissed in your coffee this morning?” she snapped.

He ignored her question. “As long as you call me cowboy and not Trace, I’m just competition and a romp in the sheets. I’m not a real person who might get in the way of your glory win in Vegas, right?”

She didn’t answer and he pushed on.

“So I’m your one-man groupie for the tour? Is that what I am, Miz O’Donnell? Do you always pick out one lucky cowboy to be your plaything for the circuit?”

She stood up slowly. “If that’s what you think then you haven’t learned much about me at all.”

He held up both palms. “Hey, I’m just asking. You can agree or deny, but be honest and call it what it is.”

She bowed up to him, her nose so close to his that she could see the pupils in his eyes and they were downright angry.

“Don’t you dare put me in a corner and expect me not to fight my way out. I don’t have to explain jack shit to you. But I will tell you one thing, and that is you will not get in my way when it comes to winning.”

“Anyone tell you that you are cute when you are mad?”

“Flattery means less than shit to me right now, and don’t you dare laugh at me. I’m mad and I may not be over it for days. You just made some pretty mean accusations there… cowboy.”

The beginnings of the smile faded. “The truth hurts, don’t it? See you at breakfast.” He took two steps back and the shadow of the cabin swallowed him up as he disappeared around the corner.

Her girls grumbled when they rolled out of their bunks, but when it was time to go to the dining cabin they were wide-eyed and ready for the day.

“We’ll be picking green beans this morning and right after that we’re taking a sack lunch on a long hike up toward those mountains in the distance, so you might want to braid your hair or put it in a ponytail,” she said.

It wasn’t easy keeping her voice calm when she wanted to yell and kick something, but she managed with lots of effort.

Deanna picked up Carly’s brush and began to work the tangles from her long, red, kinky curly hair.

“Ouch. You pull on purpose. You are worse than my granny,” Carly said.

“Well, sit still and stop trying to squeeze your neck down into your backbone,” Deanna said.

“Enough bickering this morning.” Gemma took the brush from her hands and deftly braided Carly’s hair while the rest of the girls looked on.

“Who are you mad at?” Deanna asked.

“None of you,” Gemma answered.

“That cowboy, Mr. Coleman, been mean to you?” Angie asked.

“No, he hasn’t. We just had a little disagreement this morning.”

“He throw his coffee on you?” Jessie asked.

“No, I spilled my coffee,” Gemma explained.

“I’ll put a Cajun curse on him if he’s not nice to you,” Angie said.

“It’s just fine. Really. Now let’s go to breakfast and then go show the boys we can work a garden better than they can,” Gemma said.

The minute she walked into the dining room she spotted Trace talking to Hill, who was on cooking duty that day. He said something to Hill who turned around and waved and motioned toward the buffet.

“Breakfast is ready. Help yourselves. Don’t be shy. I’ll be flipping pancakes in the kitchen as long as you kids want to eat them. Remember you are gathering your supper right after you get done with breakfast. I checked the vegetable garden this morning and there’s more than green beans, so your counselors will divide you up into partners. One will pick ripe tomatoes. One will pick cucumbers, but only those that are at least six inches long. Others will pick the green beans, and then there is squash and okra.”

“And we get to eat all that for supper?” Carly asked.

“Along with fried chicken and hot biscuits,” Hill said.

“We have to kill the chicken and pick the feathers too?” Damian asked.

“No, we wouldn’t expect you boys do that,” Jessie yelled across the rectangular dining cabin. “We did it last night before we went to bed so you wouldn’t get all sick and upchuck at the sight of blood.”

Damian glared at her.

Fiona threw up a hand and high-fived her partner.

Gemma smiled.

Trace looked the other way.

Gemma sat with her girls at breakfast and listened to Jessie and Fiona plot about how to get ahead of the boys even more. Little did they realize that on Friday night they’d want those same boys, even Damian, to dance with them—but then, maybe not! Jessie and Fiona were a force when they walked into a room. They might just form a big circle like Gemma and all those rodeo ladies did after the St. Paul rodeo and dance by themselves.

But
who
will
I
dance
with
if
Trace
is
still
acting
like
a
jackass
over
me
calling
him
cowboy
instead
of
his
name?

“Why are you having breakfast with us? You and Mister Sexy Cowboy fightin’?” Jessie whispered across the table.

“He is a sexy hunk, ain’t he?” Fiona said out of the corner of her mouth.

“Oh, yeah, if he wasn’t so old I’d kiss him,” Angie said in her deep Southern drawl.

Katy poked her on the arm. “Angie!”

“Don’t be actin’ all high and mighty. You were the one who said he was sexy last night, and besides, I know he’s too old for me. But if he had a son that looked like him then I’d kiss him for sure,
chérie
,” Angie said.

“My name is Angie, not Sherry.”

“I didn’t say Sherry, I said
chérie
. That’s what we say in New Orleans instead of darlin’,” Angie told her.

Gemma caught Trace’s movement from the corner of her eye. He’d loaded his plate with sausage and pancakes and was headed toward her, but then he made an abrupt turn to the right and went into the kitchen.

“See, he’s avoidin’ you. What happened? Yesterday he couldn’t keep his eyes off you,” Jessie whispered.

“We had an argument,” Gemma said. These were street-savvy girls who’d smell a lie a mile away and call her on it. If she wanted their trust she had to be honest.

And
you
have
to
be
honest
with
Trace
if
you
want
his
trust
too.

“What about?” Jessie pried.

“I’m not a counselor all the time. I’m a hairdresser in Ringgold, Texas, and I grew up on a horse ranch, not totally unlike this one. But I also ride broncs in the rodeos and I’m on the rodeo circuit right now. So is Trace and we are in competition with each other for the right to ride in the finals in Las Vegas in December,” she explained.

Jessie nodded. “And you can’t let him get under your skin or you might let him win.”

Gemma nodded.

“But he wants to get under your skin, don’t he? He was lookin’ at you yesterday morning like he could kiss you,” Angie said.

“That’s tough,” Katy whispered.

“Well, I say forget the sorry sucker. There’s lots more cowboys in the world. Come on to Nashville if you want to find one even sexier than him,” Jessie told her.

Hill appeared at the end of the room and shook a cowbell to get everyone’s attention. “Hey, listen up. Here are the picking chores.”

Trace joined Hill at the end of a long table and looked over his boys. “For the contest, Damian, you are with Tyrelle.” And he went on to pair them into five different groups.

“Ahh, man! I don’t like the idea of a new partner,” Tyrelle said in a heavy Boston accent.

“I’ll trade with him,” Chipper, a kid from Texas, said.

“No trading,” Trace said sternly.

“But—” Damian started to argue.

A look from Trace ended the whole thing before it went one word further.

Gemma bit the inside of her lip to keep from smiling. He was teaching the guys to accept change. She thought about that, but her girls were doing so well that she didn’t want to upset the apple cart. Trace would make an excellent father someday. A pang of jealousy flared up hotter than pure acid at the idea of another woman bearing his children.

She looked at Hill with his blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. Not one hormone even wiggled. She looked back at Trace and her whole body hummed.

“Okay,” Hill said. “I’ve got the chores in this hat. Each team picks one and then they can decide how they’re going to go about gathering supper. My suggestion is that one partner picks vegetables and the other one carries the harvest bucket to fill up, but you can figure out how to get them from the garden to my kitchen. Be sure and put your slip of paper on the top of your bucket when you bring them in. Points will be taken off for unripe vegetables or for broken plants when Harper takes a walk through the garden. Be gentle, kids. That’s your supper out there.”

Carly and Deanna drew out a paper that had beans on it and Deanna looked at Gemma. “Do they grow on trees or what?”

“They grow on low vines. You pick the ones about the size of your index finger or larger,” Gemma said quietly.

“Do we measure every one of them?” Carly asked.

“No, just do a guesstimate,” Gemma answered.

Beth touched Gemma on the arm. “We’ve got tomatoes. Will you show us what to do?”

Gemma nodded.

“Okra! What is okra?” Fiona’s eyes widened.

“It’s this stuff that is wonderful fried, but I never saw it in anything but a plastic bag from the freezer at the grocery store,” Carly explained.

“I’ll show you how to harvest it,” Gemma said. She hated cutting okra. It made her hands itch and there were always bugs around the plants. Big old flat ones that hung on the leaves and wanted to crawl up her arms.

“Is it horrible? You are snarling your nose,” Fiona said.

“We’ll have a huddle-up after breakfast and I’ll explain,” Gemma said.

“Like in football?” April asked.

Gemma nodded.

All ten girls finished their food, carried their disposable plates to the trash can, and headed for the front porch. Gemma followed right behind them and stopped on the front porch of the girls’ cabin. The boys were still polishing off pancakes so she didn’t have to whisper, but she did huddle them all together just like a football team right outside the dining room door.

“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said.

“Blue forty-two?” Carly whispered.

“No, bugs eight million,” Gemma said. “Gardens have bugs. They try to keep them under control, but they are still there. If you scream and stomp around like you are afraid, those boys will be in heaven. They’ll catch them and throw them at you and they’ll act all superior and macho. So if you see a bug, kill it and be quiet about it.”

“How?” April’s eyes widened.

“There is no wrong way to kill a bug,” Gemma said.

“Stomp the sumbitch like a cockroach,” Carly said.

Gemma started to fuss at Carly for using foul language, but it was the same thing that she was thinking so she held her tongue and nodded. “And there could be a little snake or spider.”