Cowgirl Come Home (3 page)

She wiggled a colorful scrunchy adorned with shimmering silver and brass beads—what he’d assumed was a bracelet—from her wrist and whipped the dark brown locks into a messy pony.

“I’ve missed the air in Montana.”

Is fresh air the only thing you missed?

Paul knew
he
wasn’t on that list. Not given the way they’d ended things.

But he meant every word of his apology. He’d learned a lot about human nature from managing Big Z’s. He could see why he’d been drawn to her—she was unattainable—an ideal he could never have. And that hadn’t changed. He’d agreed to pick her up as a favor to Louise—and, maybe, to satisfy an old curiosity. That was all.

As he turned to look over his shoulder to back out of the parking space, his hand accidentally brushed her shoulder. The touch did some kind of crazy loop faster than if he’d stuck a wet finger on a live wire. When he started to apologize, he noticed her color—or lack of it.

“Are you feeling okay? You don’t look too hot.”

She turned her chin his way, one perfect light brown brow lifted in a pure Bailey gesture that stopped his heart mid-beat. “Always a smooth talker, weren’t you, Paulie?”

A nickname he hadn’t heard in fifteen years. Why it should hurt even the tiniest bit baffled him?

Luckily, she didn’t give him time to dwell on his crazy out-of-line thoughts. Her smile flattened and she dropped her chin to her chest. In a voice that reminded him of Chloe, she said, “I need a pain pill. Can’t take them on an empty stomach. But I can make it home.”

Or not.
He’d been a dad long enough to spot the signs of hunger. A simple fix. Even if it meant spending a few more minutes with her.

No problem.
He dealt with strangers every day. Troublesome, needy, frustrated, hardware-challenged adults who taxed his patience beyond measure.
All these years in retail were simply training to prepare me for handling Bailey Jenkins. Who knew?

He paid the parking fee, ignoring Bailey’s outstretched hand with a ten-dollar bill it. Once they were on the road, he tapped the digital dashboard to turn on the satellite radio. His favorite “station” devoted to Indie Singer/Songwriters filled the cab, easing the need to make polite conversation.

Jason Isbell’s
Traveling Alone,
a song Paul had decided was written specifically for this time in his life, came on.

Paul hummed the melody. He never pictured himself as a divorced, single dad, running a business alone. Never.

As he headed toward the highway, he glanced at his passenger. Eyes closed. Asleep? Exhausted?

Depleted.
That was how she appeared to him. And he felt absolutely no satisfaction in seeing how far short of her triumph she’d fallen.

If anything, he felt guilty for wishing her ill in the first place. But a seventeen-year-old boy’s hurt pride knows no boundary. He remembered writing a stack of letters. Hurtful. Bitter. Hateful.
Thank God I never mailed them
.

Ten minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of the local pizza chain he thought a California girl might like. He parked and used the controls on his door panel to close her window. The noise woke her.

“Are we home?”

“I missed lunch,” he lied. “Thought we’d grab a slice of pizza on the way. Unless you think your mom will be waiting for you.”

Her foggy blink told him she wasn’t quite awake. “She’ll be with Dad. Like usual.”

A telling admission. Bailey often criticized her mother’s blind devotion back when they were dating. Paul never understood what about the man inspired such loyalty.

He got out and hurried around to help. Typical Bailey, she was already standing by the time he got there. Swaying just the tiniest bit in the steady Montana breeze.

He offered his arm.

She hesitated before accepting the gesture. “Are you sure you’re hungry? I could have waited. I’m trying to cut back on my pain pills. I think sitting without moving my foot was harder on my ankle than I expected. My therapist warned me but I…”

“You did it Bailey’s way.”

He expected to see her get her back up, but she surprised him and laughed.

“More a case of being blocked in by a human obelisk. I lost my powers to levitate a few years back.”

His laugh seemed to surprise her. It sure as heck did him.

Her expression softened. Her smile one he remembered far too well and the response it triggered deep inside was nothing short of preposterous.
Oh, man.

When she accepted his proffered arm to maneuver around a poorly placed planter-slash-light pole, her touch confirmed his initial suspicion.
Holy cow.
Bailey Jenkins was back and so were his feelings for her—or, rather, they’d never died in the first place.

He’d tried to hate her with every ounce of his being, but hate and love skated so close to the same line. The line he just crossed over.
Love.

He’d loved her with every fiber of his being. And, now, she was back—broken and in pain. Even if he’d wanted to hate her, how could he? She needed help. She needed home. If she stuck around long enough, maybe he could convince her she was meant to be here…with him.

*

“You have to
eat something, OC. The doctor won’t let you leave until you have a bowel movement.”

Oscar Jenkins double-fisted the thin, scratchy sheets at his side. He hated everything about this so-called hospital. The thin plastic mattress, the crappy sheets and pilled, nappy cotton blanket. But worst of all, he detested the crappy slop they tried to pass off as food.

“Honey, please. Bailey’s coming. She’ll be at the house when I bring you home…if you eat and…eliminate.”

“Shit. Say it, Luly. For once in your life, call it like it is.”

Louise Billingham Jenkins. His wife of nearly forty years blushed like the innocent she was when they first met. Sweet. Caring. Still was. Even after all this time in constant contact with him—the lowest piece of scat that ever rolled off Copper Mountain.

“Don’t be coarse.” She advanced on him with a spoon and a palm-sized cup of something beige. “Try the pudding. You said you liked it.”

He snarled and pressed his head and shoulders into the skinny foam pillow. “Must have been the drugs.”

She held the shimmery, flesh-tone glob a few inches from his lips. The tiny quake of her hand compromised his resolve. He opened his mouth, clamped down on the spoon and wouldn’t let go. Louise frowned sternly, but he could tell she was fighting back a smile.

“Baby.”

He covered her hand with his tenderly, before prying the handle free. The banana-flavored slop lodged in the back of his throat and nearly gagged him, but he forced it down.

“I can feed myself.”

She turned away—probably so he couldn’t see her smile of triumph. Louise wasn’t one to gloat. Not that he’d given her many opportunities for jubilation during their years together. When he looked back at his life—and he’d had plenty of time for retrospection since his body started falling apart, he couldn’t say for sure why she’d put up with all his crap for so damn long. He sure as hell wouldn’t have stuck around if the shoe had been on the other foot.

I’d have lit out just like Bailey did.

His gaze fell to the flat stretch of covers where his left foot should have rested. His appetite disappeared. His mouth turned dry.

Life as he knew it was gone. And despite his pissing and moaning about the skyrocketing costs of fishing licenses and gas and idiot clients and the government’s nose in his business, OC loved hunting and fishing and teaching even the dumbest flatlander how to catch a trout or two.

And, now, thanks to his cussed orneriness—and some poorly timed budget cuts at the library, he and Louise were looking at serious financial problems.

Louise had tried to keep the worst of it from him. But yesterday, she’d tearfully admitted her fears.

“We’re in bad shape, Oscar. The County changed insurance companies last year and our co-pay went up. Plus, they’re trying to disallow one of your surgeries. If I miss any more work, I might not even qualify for the library’s policy. And with you not being able to work, our savings are pretty much gone.”

“The company can’t be bankrupt,” he said. “Jack told me we lost a few bookings, but he’s been out with clients every day—even on Sunday.”

Jack Sawyer had worked for Jenkins’ Fish and Game off and on for sixteen years. His wife, Marla, handled the company’s payroll, bookings and website.

“Jack’s good, but he’s not you, Oscar. And even if he were as good as you, people don’t pay big bucks to go fishing with Jack Sawyer. They want the Fish Whisperer.”

OC took another bite of puke pudding to keep from sneering. The name was a joke, of course. Tossed out in Wolf’s Den one night for some dumb reason. To his chagrin, the name stuck. And bookings picked up.

Apparently, the
Fish Whisperer
even had a blog—whatever that was.

Now, thanks to OC’s ridiculous so-called fame, Jenkins’ Fish and Game, was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy. And, to make matters worse, his daughter was coming home.

As badly as he’d screwed up his health and finances, both were small potatoes compared to the mess he’d made with Bailey. “Who’d you say is picking her up at the airport?”

“I didn’t.”

Louise glanced at her watch surreptitiously. Bailey’s plane had landed thirty minutes earlier. Paul would have been there to meet her. A shock her daughter never would have seen coming, but not the worst she had in store.

“She hasn’t been cleared to drive, has she?” Oscar asked.

“I don’t know.”

She took a calming breath—to prepare for the explosion to follow. He’d find out eventually, and certain news was better coming from her. “I asked Paul Zabrinski to pick her up. He had to take Chloe and Mark to their mother’s. He said it was no problem.”

“No problem? Woman, are you out of your mind? Bailey’s probably back on the airplane by now.”

Louise pulled her smart phone out of her pocket. “The next flight to Fresno isn’t until tomorrow morning. She isn’t going anywhere.”

Oscar shook his head from side to side, slowly, as if the effort took every last ounce of his energy. No surprise since he ate barely enough to keep a fly alive. Just one of the many reasons Louise needed Bailey here.

Louise had tried everything to reignite the spark in her husband’s eyes, but nothing helped. And from their phone conversations, Louise knew Bailey was skating perilously close to the edge of her own demon-filled pit of depression. The two people she loved most were giving up, and Louise would use every resource available to spark a fire. Even asking Bailey’s oldest “frenemy,” as the kids at the library might say, to meet her plane.

“That took balls, Luly.”

She nibbled on her thumbnail…until she caught herself and shoved her hand into the pocket of her lightweight sweater. As tempting as it was to savor the small rush of pleasure Oscar’s praise brought her, she needed to be frank while she had his full attention.

“Bailey won’t stay in Marietta as long as she thinks Paul hates her and the whole town is judging her.”

Oscar sniffed—a pale imitation of the sort of reaction he normally would have shown. “What makes you think Paul doesn’t hate her? He barely makes eye contact with me when I go into the hardware store. His dad’s civil enough, but I don’t think young Paul and I have exchanged more than a ‘hello’ in fifteen years.”

Louise dragged the hard plastic visitor chair closer to his bed and sat gingerly, her side tingling slightly. “Well, what do you expect? In his mind, you talked his girlfriend into having an abortion. Who’s he supposed to blame?”

Her husband’s big, calloused hands curled into a fist. His shoulders bunched—a sad mockery of the power that once emanated from what was reputed to be a killer right hook. “It was the right thing to do, Luly. I don’t want to hear any more about it. You should have asked someone else to give her a ride.”

A ride. As if that was the sole purpose of asking Paul to pick up Bailey.

Louise rocked back, her gaze dropping to her hands clenched in her lap. Her world was a nanosecond away from imploding. Diffusing a few of the land mines she and Oscar had laid so carelessly during their years of childrearing was her only chance to save them all.

She’d come to that conclusion at two a.m. two nights before. Sleeplessness—her new reality. Desperation and fear could overcome any reluctance to open a proverbial can of worms, she now realized. And this particular can was well past its expiration date.

Luckily, when Paul came to finish the new ramp she’d hired Big Z Hardware to install, he arrived alone. He and his crew had knocked out the majority of the work in a single day, but he’d run out of material for the handrail and had promised to return this morning.

A man of his word who didn’t let old grievances keep him from making money off people he hated. Although Louise knew some of the credit for mitigating the weight of the grudge he no doubt still carried was due to her efforts to help his daughter with her reading skills.