Last Chance Cowboy

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU DIDN’T GET your water heater fixed, Mama?” Shadow stared at her mother, who was stacking dishes and pots on the drain board at the sink.

“I couldn’t,” she replied.

On her way to the local rehab facility to visit an elderly client this morning, Shadow had stopped at the farm. This wasn’t something she did often, but after she’d last seen her mother, Shadow had put a check in the mail. Shadow couldn’t stop her mother from staying at the ramshackle farm where she’d lived much of her life. And if Wanda was determined to stay, Shadow wouldn’t see her without hot water. She didn’t have an appointment with her client, and he wasn’t expecting her, so she could stop in on him after this visit.

As she drove up the rutted driveway she’d tried not to notice the sorry state the place had fallen into—or rather, fallen deeper into. The henhouse now listed to one side as if it might tumble down at any moment, and the hole that some other animal had dug between its floor and the ground underneath was still there, possibly weakening the structure even more.

Her parents’ house looked no better now than the last time she’d come here. It was clean but that was all she could say about it. Even the curtain at the kitchen window—at one time a crisp, white dotted Swiss—now hung limply from the rod. The whole place depressed her.

Shadow sank onto a chair. “Why couldn’t you get it fixed, Mama?”

Shadow expected her to say the heater needed to be replaced, as she’d feared, but her mother wiped her hands on a dishtowel and said, “I had bills to pay. I needed milk and bread. The electric was overdue.”

Shadow picked at a spot on the red-and-white-checked vinyl tablecloth.

“What else did you do with the money I sent?”

Her mother sat across from her. “Derek needed help.”

At the mention of her youngest, and now only, brother, Shadow’s spirits dropped like a stone into a pond, creating ripples all through her body. “He’s still living with you? I thought he was finally getting a place in town.”

“That didn’t work out. He’s not ready to be on his own.”

Shadow tried to control her voice. “Derek is twenty-five years old. He needs to support himself—” Hearing footsteps in the hall, she broke off.

Her brother strolled in and Shadow wondered if he’d been there awhile, listening, but she hadn’t seen his car outside. She’d assumed he wasn’t home.

Wearing faded jeans and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Derek propped a shoulder against the doorframe. He crossed his feet at the ankles and grinned. “Thanks for the sisterly advice. I’ll take that into account next time I look for a job.”

Like their father, he was solidly built, though a darked scruff covered his cheeks and jaw. He’d also inherited their father’s light-blue eyes. Shadow had always found Derek’s eyes disconcerting, as if she might see straight into his brain and not like what she saw there. He’s my baby brother, she had to remind herself.

Wringing her hands, her mother rushed across the kitchen to pat Derek’s arm. “You children shouldn’t fight. We’re family.”

Shadow held her brother’s gaze. “What did you need money for?”

He shrugged. “Things.”

“I sent that check for Mama.”

Her mother’s mouth quivered. “Derek, Shadow. Please.”

“I’m sorry, but I hate to see my little brother follow in Daddy’s footsteps.”

He smirked. “You mean without a job? I make my own decisions.”

“Then you need to make better ones.” Shadow rose. Could she have said that of herself years ago? Or even approached Jenna in a different way only yesterday? She’d never actually abandoned Ava, but they were still apart for now and Shadow ached to be with her. Maybe she could have handled things better. She picked up her bag with a trembling hand. “The next time Mama needs help, I’ll drive her to the store. Pay right there for whatever she needs. I won’t let another dime pass from her hands to yours. Are we clear, Derek?”

He shot Shadow a sullen look. He hadn’t moved from the doorway. Shadow cautioned herself not to let this get any more out of hand than it already had. Derek wasn’t a bad person, but he was still immature in many ways, with a mother who never held him to account. She often treated him as if he were five years old and had been pushed down on a playground.

It was as if Jared’s shooting years ago had frozen Derek at fifteen and, shattered then, he had never finished growing up.

Despite their testy exchange, Shadow still wanted to somehow...save him, as if she could. But she needed to focus on Ava.

She pushed past Derek into the short hall that led to the front door. “I meant what I said about Mama. For now, until the water heater gets fixed, which I’ll pay for, you’ll have to take a few cold showers.”

* * *

WITH A CUP of coffee in one hand and juggling a paper bag in the other, Jenna called up the stairs. If Ava didn’t hurry, she’d miss the bus. With only a few days left in the school year, her niece’s motivation seemed to be lacking, and on such a blue-sky day Jenna knew she must already be thinking of playing with her friends all day at camp. Or, at least, that’s how it had been last summer and the summer before.

“Ava! The bus is turning the corner. Get a move on.”

A moment later, footsteps clattered down the stairs. Ava streaked into the front hall wearing a pair of patterned leggings and a bright blue tunic, and Jenna pushed her lunch bag into her hands. She wore her dark hair in a ponytail. Her eyes shone with determination.

“Why can’t I buy lunch? Like the other kids.”

“Because this is healthier for you. As a treat, I packed the chocolate pudding you like,” Jenna said in a tempting tone.

“I don’t like chocolate anymore.”

Ignoring the faint display of rebellion, Jenna kissed Ava’s forehead. There had been worse changes of heart lately from Ava, times when even Jenna had wondered at the wisdom of trying to parent Shadow’s child, even part-time—and part-time was the operative word now. Although Ava had always been a sweet girl, the preteen years were rapidly approaching.

“Don’t be a goose. Have a good day.”

“Last week,” Ava announced. “Then I’ll be a fourth grader.”

To her that must mean impending independence, but to Jenna it meant pulling away. And she hadn’t forgotten her talk with Shadow. In fact, that was all she’d thought about ever since.

The bus had stopped out front and Jenna stood in the doorway, watching the still-little girl she loved race toward it. Jenna waved at the driver. When she was satisfied that Ava was on the bus and safely in her seat, she turned back inside.

David stood there in his three-piece suit, briefcase in hand. Her husband shot a quick glance at the departing bus. Jenna wondered if he’d delayed leaving for the office to make sure he didn’t run into Ava this morning. She looked up into his serious gray-blue eyes then noticed the set of his mouth.

They’d talked well into the night again last night, and this morning he seemed as weary as she felt. Jenna had tossed and turned for hours, replaying her conversation with Shadow and considering David’s ambivalence, envisioning one emotional scene after another to come. All of them ended with Ava sitting in Shadow’s red Mustang as she backed out of the driveway with Ava’s suitcases in the trunk.

And Jenna’s heart shattered.

Setting her cup on the entry hall table, she smoothed a hand over her husband’s dark hair. He had it trimmed every two weeks at a high-end salon in Kansas City. In their suburban neighborhood Jenna used an equally pricey shop for her style, and she liked having nice things. She glanced down at her gray cashmere robe. She had no doubt he’d heard her exchange with Ava.

“What if she has to start school next fall in Barren instead of staying here?” she asked.

David eased away from her touch. “You know how I feel about that. Let’s not talk it to death.”

She followed him onto the porch. The morning air smelled sweet with the flowers that were beginning to bloom, not only in her yard but in others across their development. All around her were well-tended gardens and expensive homes like hers that were immaculate inside as well as out. No more falling-down house, no more chickens in the yard, even though having them was trendy now.

“I still can’t believe Shadow wants to take Ava.”

“Maybe three years with Ava was enough,” David said. “I know how much you like having her here, but Shadow’s right. She isn’t ours. We don’t have a legal leg to stand on—and I’m not sure I would want to if we did. I hope you won’t bring up the idea to adopt again. Shadow would never agree. And where’s the father? He has rights, too.” He turned on the top step. Jenna had never told David about Grey Wilson. That had been for Shadow to share, and she’d remained silent. “Enough of this, Jen.”

“But did she really think we wouldn’t become this close to Ava?”

“She’s a great kid, but she should be with her mother. You became too close.” He continued down the steps.

Yes, maybe she had, but other than getting out of her parents’ home years ago and making a new life for herself with David, the only thing she’d ever wanted was to be a mother. Nature had apparently decided that wasn’t to be—at least, until Ava had come to stay. Jenna didn’t want to lose her. She and David could provide far more than Shadow could, even now. Not that money made the difference. Ava was part of their family. It would break her heart to leave this house, her school, her friends...

Somehow, Jenna hoped to bring her lawyer husband around to her view.

There must be something they could do to keep Ava with them, at least for a while longer. Until she could help her niece accept the situation. Until Jenna got used to the idea of letting her go—if she ever could.

* * *

SHADOW GLANCED AT the sky. No wonder it looked so dark at the end of the day, the gathering clouds like an omen when only that morning the sun had been shining. She hadn’t seen Grey since she’d told him about Ava, or at least a small part, and she’d just stepped out of her office when she ran into him on the sidewalk.

“I was coming to see you,” he said. “I almost stopped yesterday but I wasn’t ready to talk again. Now I am.”

She held the bulky canvas envelope she carried closer. “I’m on my way to the bank. To make my weekly deposit.”

He frowned. “You should do that every day.” He cocked his head, viewing her from beneath the brim of his Stetson. “You shouldn’t leave cash in your office every night. If I were a thief, I’d wait for Thursday when the receipts would be highest from the week before your deposit on Friday. I’d clean you out. Voice of experience.” His scowl had deepened. “I got robbed.”

Shadow squeezed the envelope even tighter, as if the agency was, indeed, at risk. “Robbed?”

“Rustlers cleaned out half a dozen head the other night. Took off before I could get a look at their faces—three of ’em.”

She took another step. “I’m sorry to hear you’ve had more trouble—”

“I need to talk to you, Shadow.” He looked around to make sure they were alone on the street. “Now. About...the baby.”

She took a few more steps, her back to him, and sensed him following. “After I do my banking, I have to interview several new caregivers then drive out to the rehab center. Ned Sutherland had a stroke a few weeks ago and he’s there now. I want to assess his situation.” Since she’d stopped at her mother’s house earlier and come back to town after her run-in with Derek, she hadn’t gone to see Ned when she intended. She knew she was babbling now. “He may need our services.”

“I see what you’re doing. In a way I don’t even blame you, but we’re going to talk. It can be wherever you like, but we will talk. I won’t be put off, Shadow.”

“Then I guess you’ve done your thinking,” she said.

She reached the main doors of the bank, leaving Grey to stand on the sidewalk, she assumed, but then he reached around from behind and caught the brass door pull, so close she could smell the soap he must have showered with that morning. “What happened after you went to Doc? And he gave you ‘options’?”

“As I said, I spent the night at his house.”

“Which option? You didn’t—” for a moment he couldn’t go on “—do something drastic?”

Shadow felt the blood drain from her face. That next morning, when she’d wakened at Doc’s house, she’d known what to do. She’d already begun to love Ava. “No,” she murmured, barely able to push out the words. “That choice might be right for some people but it wasn’t for me.”

She watched Grey relax. “Then, what option did you choose?”

Shadow hesitated. “I decided to give her up for adoption.”

Another look of alarm crossed his features. “So, she’s not...with you?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Let me tell you what I did after I left Doc’s then. You’re right, I was trying to stall because I don’t know how to say all this now, and you left my office before I could tell you.” She looked around. “Can we talk in your truck? I hate to stand here like this where anyone could see us.”

Grey nodded. He waited while she made her deposit then guided her to his silver pickup with a light hand at her lower back. Shadow felt his warmth through her summer dress. In that instant, she remembered other days and nights when they’d been inseparable, when she and Grey were in love, when she’d loved everything about him: his voice, his hands, his laughter, even the way he’d loved Wilson Cattle...because that told Shadow there was at least a different kind of family there, a different kind of home.

He sat against the driver’s door while she pressed against the passenger side. And tried to think how to begin. The direct way seemed best.

“Doc and I discussed my choices that next day. He encouraged me to do what I thought best for her and for me, but he didn’t pressure. You know he wouldn’t.” She studied the stores along Main Street, the bank, people passing by. “Please try to understand—I had no means of support, Grey, I hadn’t finished high school, I didn’t know how I could possibly care for a helpless baby when I could barely care for myself—Doc called his lawyer. We arranged a private adoption and I went to stay with the Merritts.”

“Where? I don’t recognize the name. Who were they?”

“A middle-aged couple, lovely people, who lived in Farrier. They still do. They agreed to pay all my expenses, the doctor there, the hospital...”

She told Grey about waking up there each morning, rolling over in bed in the sunny room she’d been given, feeling the baby kick against her palm. “When I saw a sonogram, I was able to make out fingers and toes and a snub nose. It was a little girl.” Shadow laid a hand over her stomach. “‘Good morning, Sunshine,’ I always told her.”

Grey’s mouth tightened. “You should have called me.”

“I still didn’t feel I could. I’d left home, my family, you...all my friends behind. My parents hadn’t changed their minds. The only people I saw were the Merritts and my obstetrician.”

She kept her gaze on her lap. “I was so lonely, but for the first time in my life I didn’t have to share a bed—except with the life growing inside me. She was so precious, but for her sake I knew I had to give her up.” She paused. “Every morning Mrs. Merritt called up the stairs that breakfast was ready. She was a wonderful cook.”

And every morning, still lying there for another few minutes, Shadow would cry softly into the blanket. Hormones, she’d thought. They were all over the place and she never knew which mood would come out next.

“They had no other children?”

“No, Mrs. Merritt was only forty but she couldn’t have her own babies. Neither can my sister Jenna, and I know how that hurts. If I couldn’t take care of my baby, I wanted to be happy that the Merritts would love and adore her.”

“I’m glad they were kind to you,” Grey said.

Shadow managed a smile. “Mrs. Merritt was so excited to have a baby. So was her husband. They couldn’t seem to do enough for me. After breakfast, Mrs. Merritt and I always took a walk around the neighborhood. They live in a nice area with old but well-kept houses and big green lawns for children to play on.”

They had really wanted her baby. Ava would have a good life with them, she’d told herself.

“What did they tell everyone else?”

“That I was their niece from upstate New York who’d come west because my pregnancy had worsened my lifetime asthma.” Shadow lifted her gaze. “That was ten years ago and Kansas is pretty traditional, or was then. Now we could probably tell everyone the truth.”

Shadow paused to steady her voice. She couldn’t tell Grey that every day she’d thought that if Jared hadn’t died, if she and Grey hadn’t broken up and her father hadn’t turned his back on her, maybe she and Grey would have woken each morning together, talked about their baby in low, happy tones. At times she’d yearned so much for that, she almost couldn’t breathe, as if she really did have asthma.

But, instead, in the view of many, he had killed her brother, and Shadow still had her own doubts. Was Grey innocent, as he claimed? Or guilty? Certainly she’d resented the fact that Grey had gone back to finish college as if nothing had happened, that he would take over his father’s ranch...marry someone else. She was still surprised that he never had.

“So, after the baby was born...” His gaze flickered. “Where is she now?”

Shadow swallowed. “In school, staying at my sister Jenna’s.”

“You didn’t give her up,” he said, looking more than surprised.

“No,” she murmured.

His mouth had that stubborn set she’d seen so many times before. “Then I want to see her,” he said in a tone that didn’t allow for her refusal.

“Grey, I’ll need to talk to her first. We can’t just show up and say, ‘Hi, honey, this is your father.’”

He frowned. “I didn’t exactly plan to do it that way.”

She glanced at the darkening sky again. The thunderheads looked close enough to touch now. And a little frisson of doubt ran through her. If only Jared wasn’t gone and she and Grey were still together. If only she could believe, like Blossom and Logan now, in happy endings and having the family she still yearned for.

With Ava home again, maybe she would. But that family didn’t include Grey.

The first drops of rain began to fall. Soon the sky would open up, and unless she moved, they would still be here, eye to eye, at odds with each other.

Shadow said, “I’ve been planning to bring her back to Barren—but to introduce you that abruptly? No,” she said again. “That’s not in her best interest.”

His voice was close to a growl. “I think it is. You’ve had nine years, Shadow. She’s my daughter, too—and you’ve lied to me. All this time. No more.”

CHAPTER FIVE

SHADOW HAD CUT short her work hours several days ago after she’d told Grey about Ava then gone to see Blossom. After talking with her mother and Derek, she’d meant to visit her client at the rehab center, but instead went back to the office. Then she’d told Grey about Doc and the Merritts and fallen even further behind. She needed to catch up. However, earlier today, she’d finally called Blossom to say she could be in the wedding if Blossom still wanted her. Even to avoid Grey, she couldn’t disappoint Blossom. How many true friends does a person have? To be honest, she also felt guilty about him.

He was right. For too many years she’d kept Ava from Grey. The least she could do was stand with him while their mutual friends got married, a happy ending she couldn’t picture for herself. Other than that she didn’t know how to atone for what she’d done. To Ava, too.

Clearly, she’d made mistakes. Had it been easier to go about her life with Ava in Kansas City and Shawnee Mission rather than face Grey? If she’d never come back to Barren, would she ever have told him? She’d always planned to—at some point—but the opportunity never seemed to arise, and she’d tried to tell herself maybe that was for the best, that Grey had his own life without her. Now she knew that had been another error on her part. What if he’d simply run into Ava somewhere? She couldn’t risk that.

Today, as the next step before he met her, she was going to see Ava. She wouldn’t mention Grey just yet, although Ava had asked about her father over the years. Shadow had always kept it vague, telling Ava he couldn’t be part of their lives but that, of course, he loved her. Another reason to feel guilty now.

But first, after dealing with the morning emails and texts at the office, she had an appointment at the rehabilitation center to finally check on Ned Sutherland, the elderly rancher who had suffered a stroke. Shadow had provided a caregiver for him before that and he would probably need one again.

“You’re doing well, Mr. Sutherland. When do you expect to go home?”

For a moment, he didn’t answer. Their visit had been punctuated by long silences and the obvious frustration she saw in his weathered face. His speech halting, Ned covered his first stumbling attempt to speak with a discreet cough.

“I...go...prob’ly next...week.” His mouth leaned a little to the right and he gripped his weak hand in his lap with the other. The staff here had done their work, though. They’d gotten him on his feet and walking again, although he seemed to prefer staying in his room. That wasn’t good. He needed cheering up.

Shadow had found him sitting by the window, his bony shoulders slumped, looking out toward the babbling brook on the lush green property. Several rough wooden benches were arranged along the bank for patients to enjoy the view and listen to the rushing water. For a man who’d spent most of his life outdoors on a horse or a tractor, like Logan’s grandfather Sam—like Grey—Ned’s enforced confinement had likely been more than difficult.

“You’ll be back in the saddle before you know it,” Shadow said, leaning down to pat his joined hands. He had bowed his head over them, the circle of bare scalp at his crown, which was normally covered by his hat, appearing larger than before. In the past months, the rest of his hair had gone from gray to snowy white. She bent her knees to peer into his weary dark eyes. “I’m sorry I missed seeing your granddaughter today, but please tell her I said hi.”

“I...will.” He blinked up at her. “Nice place...but I’m pretty homesick.”

“I don’t blame you.” When she straightened, Shadow glanced down and saw the well-broken-in boots on his feet. Those he hadn’t left behind. Putting the bouquet of yellow freesias she’d brought for him in a pretty blue vase on his nightstand, she said, “Enjoy those magazines. Keep your chin up, Mr. Sutherland. I’ll check on you again the next time I’m here.”

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