Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride: Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride

“Sweetheart, if I thought you were a waste of time I would have stopped being your agent when I stopped dating you. I’ll keep you posted.”

“Don’t.” Kade spoke before thinking. But it was the truth. “Just tell me if I make the short list, all right?”

“You got it. Bye, love.”

Kade flipped the phone shut and stuck it in his pocket.

“AND THEN KADE told Jason he could do as he damned well pleased where Libby was concerned. I was right on the other side of the aisle weighing nails. I heard him.”

“Well, don’t announce it to the world, you fool. That could affect the odds.”

The men’s voices were loud enough to be heard at the door when Libby opened it, but they fell silent as soon as she stepped inside the almost empty bar and waited a moment for her eyes to adjust. She found it amazing that anyone was in a bar at 7:00 a.m., but Nevada was a twenty-four-hour state and some people had developed unusual circadian cycles. The only reason she was there at such a ridiculous hour was that she’d picked up a package at the Wesley post office as a favor to the owner and was delivering it on her way to do her Saturday-morning shopping.

Libby set her jaw and went up to the bar. It was dumb to let the dealings of two morons upset her, since nothing happened in Otto without a flurry of betting amongst the local ne’er-do-wells. Marriage, divorce, weight loss. Everything that happened had a few bucks riding on it. Libby was not the betting kind and generally ignored such activity. But she’d never been the subject of it before.

“So, what are the odds?” she asked Julie, the bartender, setting down the box she carried.

“For which bet?” Julie idly pushed the lank brown hair that had escaped her up-do away from her face.

“Which bet?” Libby did her best not to look outraged. She normally didn’t become outraged unless she was dealing with bureaucracy or fuel prices. “How many are there?”

Julie shrugged her thin shoulders, making her tank top slide off to one side, before reciting in a monotone, “Rekindled romance, eight to one. One night of passion, even money.”

Libby’s eyes widened still more.

“And I’m betting against one-night stand, so if you do have one—” Julie made a please-cooperate face as she pulled her top back into place “—don’t tell anyone. Okay?”

Libby slapped her palm on the bar, then headed for the door. She had had enough.

Kade would do as he damned well pleased where she was concerned? She’d see about that.

Libby felt remarkably calm as she got into her truck and drove to Kade’s ranch. They were about to get a few things straight, she and Kade. It was time to meet face-to-face. Get it over with, rather than dying a thousand deaths wondering when she was going to bump into him. Libby wasn’t one to avoid confrontation, but she’d been avoiding this one, which made her feel weak. Time to change that.

Kade’s truck was parked under a scraggly tree at the edge of the yard, but Libby somehow knew the house was empty before her knuckles touched the rough wood of the kitchen door. No one answered, so she peered through the curtainless window in the door. The kitchen was empty—the fridge was gone, the counters were bare and the table and chairs were nowhere in sight.

“Lib—”

She almost had a heart attack when Kade spoke from behind her. She whirled around, angry at her reaction and ready to take it out on him, fair or not. But she hadn’t counted on the impact of seeing him standing there, tall and lean. The same, yet different. And still as sexy as hell, if one went by appearances alone.

He had a bad case of bed head, his wheat-colored hair sticking out in several directions, and a thick growth of stubble on his chin and jaw—which seemed even more chiseled than before. Standing barefoot on the gravel, he rubbed one hand self-consciously over his head as he apparently waited for her to say something.

When she didn’t speak, mainly because she was fighting back memories triggered by his disheveled appearance, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

She looked him up and down, collecting herself, taking refuge in anger once again. Much safer there. “Where’d you come from?”

He pointed at his horse trailer. “I don’t sleep in the house.” He was more muscular than he’d been ten years ago, and there was a new scar on the side of his face, curving close to his left eyebrow. Probably the result of that bronc stomping him just before he’d won his second world title. Libby had read about it in the papers and had been bitter enough at the time to have rooted for the horse.

“Daddy?”

Libby’s eyes jerked toward the trailer in time to see a girl with a mop of tousled blond hair poke her head out the door.

“It’s just a friend, Maddie. I’ll be back in a minute.”

But the girl had already jumped to the ground and was heading toward them, the silvery shapes on her pink pajamas glinting in the early sun.

This is the child. Kade’s child. The reason Libby had discovered that he’d been sleeping with someone else while she’d been hundreds of miles away, working on her degree. The girl came closer and hugged Kade’s waist, staring at Libby as she leaned against her father.

Reality sucked. It really did. Libby liked it better when the kid was just some faceless entity, not a flesh-and-blood little girl with Kade’s hazel eyes.

“This is Madison,” Kade said, and it was easy to see that he did not want Libby to do anything to upset his daughter. As if she would—it wasn’t the kid’s fault that Kade couldn’t keep his fly zipped. Libby forced the corners of her mouth up when all she really wanted to do was escape. “Hi, Madison.”

“Hi,” the girl said, obviously as curious as Libby was uncomfortable. “You can call me Maddie. All Dad’s friends do.”

Libby didn’t know how to deal with this. None of her combative strategies applied here, and this was obviously not the time to do battle.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, brushing past Kade and his daughter, not caring what either of them thought. She needed to regroup.

Libby couldn’t remember the last time she’d turned tail and run. Even when Kade had come to her to confess that he’d gotten a woman pregnant and had to do the right thing, she’d held her ground—mainly out of shock, but she’d held it. Kade had been the one to leave.

She was startled when Kade caught up with her as she reached the bumper of her truck.

“Why’d you come, Lib?”

She glanced over his shoulder to see his daughter mounting the steps to the trailer, shooting one last curious glance their way before disappearing inside.

I came because I wanted to get this reunion over with and move on. I wanted to prove to myself that I’ve been losing sleep over nothing.

But the words wouldn’t come. So she hedged.

“They’re taking bets about us at the bar.”

“Of course they are. You must have known that would happen.”

“Listen, Kade. I live a quiet life now. I don’t like to be stared at or gossiped about.” She managed to hold his gaze as she spoke.

“Since when? You’ve never cared what anyone thought.”

So much for hedging. “I cared what you thought, for all the good it did me.”

“I wanted to get married,” he said in a voice so low it was almost a growl. “You were the one who demanded more time. You were the one who said we should make sure before we took the big step.”

“I didn’t think you’d be sleeping with other women, or raising families with them.”

“It happened. I wasn’t going to walk out on her.”

Her. Libby was surprised that she felt a stab of jealousy. She tilted her head back. “You did the right thing. For her.”

“I had no choice.”

“No,” she admitted, “you didn’t.” He couldn’t have come back to her when he was having a baby with someone else. She wouldn’t have had him back.

“I still don’t know why you’re here,” he said.

“You want to know why I’m here? Because, regardless of what you think, I don’t appreciate being bet on and talked about. I’d prefer not to have people watching us to see what’s going to happen next, like we’re some kind of reality show.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked with a perplexed scowl.

“You told Jason you’d do as you damned well pleased where I’m concerned.”

Kade hooked his thumb in his belt and regarded her for another long moment. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounds.”

“Well, it’s what someone heard and it’s affecting the odds.”

“Libby …”

The way he said her name sent a small tingle through her body. And it pissed her off. “Just keep your distance and I’ll keep mine. I think you owe me that much, Kade.” She opened the truck door, putting a barrier between them. “It was nice to meet your daughter.”

Libby got in and turned the key, throwing the truck into Reverse almost as soon as the engine fired and leaving Kade standing in the driveway.

Talk about plans being derailed. She’d come on the offensive and had left on the retreat. That wasn’t the way she normally did things, but it was the way she’d done them today.

And she didn’t know why.

Libby slowed as she approached a corner. No, she did know why, and it was more than the kid being there. Seeing Kade had thrown her completely off-kilter. No matter how many times she’d told herself that she’d moved on over the past few years, it was obvious now that she’d been wrong.

She was still pissed off at Kade. And she still hated him for what he’d done.

“WHO’S THAT LADY, DAD?” Maddie asked as soon as Kade opened the trailer door.

Try as he might, Kade couldn’t say “no one.”

“We grew up together,” he said as he shut the door behind him. He glanced into the mirror that was visible through the door of the small bathroom and he grimaced. He looked like a derelict. He didn’t usually sleep this late, but Maddie had been wound up the night before and she’d talked well into the small hours before he convinced her to slide her folding door shut and get some sleep.

“Why’s she mad at you?”

“Because I hurt her feelings once.” He headed for the coffeepot.

“A long time ago?”

“Yep.”

“And she’s still mad?” Maddie blinked as she asked the question.

Kade poured coffee into a mug, took a sip. Then another. “Some people stay mad a long time, sweetie.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re lucky. Come on,” he said, jerking his head toward the stove. “I’ll make breakfast. You set the table.”

“Pancakes?”

“You bet.”

Maddie set the tiny fold-out table while Kade whipped up pancakes from a mix and started cooking dollar-size cakes in a cast-iron frying pan. Maddie loved the trailer because everything was small. She thought it was like living in a dollhouse, whereas Kade was getting a bona fide case of cabin fever after only a week. But he wouldn’t sleep in the house. He hated the feel of the place, could still feel his father’s malevolent presence.

“I want to see the blue horse before I go.”

“He’s not really blue, Maddie,” Kade replied as he flipped pancakes. His nerves were still humming from his encounter with Libby. She hadn’t changed much. She was still full of fire. Still beautiful with all that long curly hair and those flashing blue eyes. And she had obviously been unnerved by meeting Maddie.

Not that there was a chance in hell that her feelings toward his child would matter one way or the other. Libby was not, by nature, the trusting kind, and he’d done more than break her trust. He’d decimated it. But she’d also done a number on him, too, when she’d told him she wasn’t sure she wanted to get married.

“I know he’s not really blue,” Maddie replied airily, bringing his attention back to her. “He’s a blue roan. He has black and white and gray hairs mixed, and it looks like he’s blue.”

Maddie had had blue roans on the brain ever since Kade had told her about Blue, the stud his grandfather had given him when he was fifteen. He hadn’t told her about setting the horse free, since that was both illegal and frowned upon, instead letting her think that Blue had escaped on his own and joined a band of mustangs.

“And he’s far away. It’s a long ride.” Kade slapped half a dozen small pancakes onto a red plastic plate, handed it to his daughter, then started pouring more batter into the frying pan.

“I can make it,” Maddie said as she covered her pancakes with syrup.

“Maybe you can, but can Sugar Foot? You’re getting pretty big and riding double might be kind of hard on the old girl.”

“Da-ad.”

Kade smiled in response to her disgusted tone. He hated what his long-ago mistake had done to Libby, but never for one instant had he regretted his child. And he was doing the best he could to be a decent father, even though he didn’t have a lot of experience in that area. At least he’d hung around with his friend Menace’s huge family and Jason Ross’s smaller one enough to have some experiences of what a real family was supposed to be like.

“Maybe when I get my other horse we can ride out and see if we can find Blue.”

“Cool. When are you getting your other horse?” Maddie asked, practically bouncing in her seat. They’d been over this before, but Kade patiently repeated himself.

“As soon as I sell this place.”

“And then you’re moving back up by us, right?”

“Yeah.” I hope. It was also possible he’d have to go wherever he could find a decent job or—and he’d just started playing with this idea—where he could go to school. Get some training.

“And then I can ride the new horse all the time. Whenever I ask Mike for a horse, he says we don’t have room.”

“He has a point there, kiddo. Not many horses like living in a small backyard.”

“We can board him.”

“That’s expensive.”

“Mike’s rich.”

Not really, though compared to Kade he was. Kade refrained from commenting.

“Maybe when you move back, I can keep my horse with you?” Maddie held out her plate for seconds, having inhaled the first batch of pancakes.

“It may be a while before I get my own place.”

“I thought you’d be rich when you sell the house. You know, like you used to be.”

Or had thought he was.

“I wish,” Kade said. But if all went well, he should have enough to invest in a smaller property and pay for some kind of training. It just might not be in the immediate Elko area. “But no matter what, I’ll be close enough that we’ll get our time together, right?”

Kade’s cell phone rang just as he sent Maddie off to shower. She lingered at the door, shamelessly eavesdropping.

“This is Joe Barton of the Zephyr Valley ranch,” the man on the phone said without bothering to include a hello. “We met at the feed store.”

“I remember.”

“I apologize for being brusque then, but …”

“I understand,” Kade said. “Zero tends to be enthusiastic.”

“Yes. Exactly. And I didn’t know you from Adam. Didn’t connect the name until later. Anyway, would you be interested in riding some colts for me? I have three that need some miles.”

“I’m waiting to hear on a job.” Or three. “I’m not sure how much time I’ll have if it pans out.”

“I’m flexible. I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Zephyr Valley—” it almost hurt Kade to call the old Boggy Flat by that name “—is quite a drive from here. I’d want to have the colts here at my ranch while I’m riding them.”

“What are your facilities like? I don’t keep my horses in barbed wire.”

“Then I guess you won’t be keeping them here, unless they all stay in the one corral and you provide hay. My pastures have wire fences.”

“Do you mind if I stop by and see where you’d keep ‘em? Maybe iron out some details?”

“Sure. I’ll be home all day.”

“What do you charge a month?”

“A grand per animal,” Kade said without hesitation. He had a feeling Joe Barton wanted to tell people that world champion cowboy Kade Danning had finished his colts. And he’d discovered over the years that some people didn’t feel as if they were getting quality anything unless they paid through the nose.

“Nine hundred, if I provide the hay.”

“Agreed.”

“Who was that, Dad?” Maddie asked from the bathroom doorway.

“A guy who wants me to ride some colts for him.” And a nice surprise bit of income.

Maddie’s eyes widened. “Then I get Sugar Foot all to myself next time I visit.”

Kade smiled. “If he brings colts, you can ride Sugar Foot.”

“I wish Sugar Foot was all coal black with a white star. That’s what my next horse is going to be. Or maybe a blue roan.” She swung the door back and forth as she talked, then suddenly she stopped moving. “Hey. When you get the colts, then we can go see Blue with the wild horses.” Her eyes got even rounder as the idea began to gel. “We can camp out! And put ropes around our sleeping bags to keep snakes away and hobble the horses, like in my Phantom Stallion book.”

Kade fell back on one of those parental phrases he found he used over and over again. “We’ll see.”

“It’ll be so much fun.”

As much fun as horse camp? Somehow he thought not. A trip to the mustangs would be one or maybe two days at the most. Horse camp was three weeks. Hard to compare the two.

He couldn’t wait until he had this place sold and he could move closer to Maddie—close enough to fight for the time that was legally his.

Libby would probably organize a parade to celebrate his departure.

CHAPTER THREE

JILLIAN AND MIKE PULLED into Kade’s yard around four that afternoon. Mike was an accountant for one of the big mines in Elko. Quiet and unassuming. Kade had to admit that Mike was better for Jillian than he had ever been, but when Maddie ran and gave him a big hug Kade found it a little hard to take. She really did have two dads, and Kade sometimes had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t number one.

But he wasn’t giving up. Maybe he had some stuff to make up for, but for the most part he’d been there for his daughter—and he would continue to be there.

Jillian eyed the house, with its peeling paint and dirty windows, while Mike loaded Maddie’s purple suitcase in the trunk of the car. Her expression was pained.

“We stayed in the trailer,” Kade said.

“Good. I don’t want her exposed to hantavirus.”

Like he would let his kid be anywhere near mice. “Give me some credit, all right?”

Jillian sniffed. “When Maddie comes back here in June, will she be staying in the trailer? Or will the house be ready for habitation?” She smoothed her wind-ruffled hair away from her face as she spoke. It was a lighter brown than it had been when they’d been married. And streaked in a classy kind of way.

“I plan on having the house done by the time she gets here. If not, well, we’ve stayed in the trailer before.”

“But not for weeks, Kade. And when are you going to tell her she won’t be going to horse camp?”

“I’m not, Jillian. You’re the one who set that up—you explain it to her.” Kade was in a lose-lose situation, thanks to his ex-wife, and when they’d finally discussed the matter over the phone she hadn’t been one bit repentant.

“I get Maddie for two months every summer. It’s part of the agreement,” Kade continued.

“It’s not in her best interest. I thought you would understand that. Whatever happened between us, you always put Maddie’s well-being first.”

That’s it, Jillie. Slap down the guilt card.

“I allowed you to reduce child support,” she said with a tilt of her head.

“That was temporary. And I made it up.”

“But I cooperated.”

“Jillian, I want to see my daughter for the summer, as per the agreement. I don’t want to have to get a lawyer.”

He couldn’t afford a lawyer, and unfortunately, due to his having to temporarily lower his child-support payments while he’d fought his way out of the financial bind his crooked ex-accountant had left him in, she knew that.

“Do what’s best for Maddie, Kade. I’ll give you a couple days to think about it and then we’ll talk again. Oh … you really don’t need to send the support checks this summer, if it’s a burden.”

“Are you trying to buy me off?”

“I’m trying to do what’s best for my daughter.”

“Our daughter.”

“Do you have a means of support?”

“I’m doing all right.” Kind of.

“Well, if you’re working, then who’ll take care of Maddie?”

“Damn it, Jill …”

She started walking. “I’ll call in a few days, Kade, and we can discuss this some more.”

She got into the car, where Mike was waiting behind the wheel and Maddie was arranging her nest of blankets and pillows in the backseat beside the twins, leaving Kade seething. He faked a smile and raised a hand to wave to Maddie as they drove away. Mike waved back, too. Jillian didn’t.

Okay, maybe he wouldn’t go to work until after Maddie left. That was the way things would probably pan out, anyway, since he’d checked with every place he’d sent an application to and there were no bites so far. But on the bright side, riding colts for Joe Barton would help immensely, plus it was something he could do while Maddie was there and he’d still have time left to work on the house. Besides that, Maddie would only be there for a matter of a few weeks, unless he got tough with Jillian. But what kind of father kept his daughter from going to horse camp? Even he wasn’t delusional enough to imagine that riding with Dad would be as much fun as spending three weeks with other girls and lots of horses. There’d probably be campfires and marshmallows and girl talk.

Was Maddie old enough for girl talk?

It kind of tore at him to think that even if she wasn’t now, she soon would be. Kids grew up fast—faster than he’d ever dreamed. So why had his childhood seemed to last forever?

Must have been the fear factor.

Kade stared at the evil house in which he’d planned to spend the day, then turned his back on it and walked to his truck. The house would keep. Right now he was going to attend to some other unfinished business. Libby might not want to hear what he had to say, but he needed to say it.

LIBBY HAD JUST finished filling her horses’ water troughs when she heard a vehicle pull into her yard. Buster and Jiggs, her Australian shepherds, shot around the side of the barn at the sound of tires on gravel.

Libby wiped her damp hands down the sides of her jeans and followed the dogs, hoping she was about to come face-to-face with a traveling salesman—anyone other than Kade.

No such luck. Kade was crouched next to his truck, petting her traitorous dogs, who were taking turns licking his face.

“To the porch,” Libby ordered. The Aussies slowly obeyed, slinking away from Kade and casting Libby dark canine glances as they headed for the house.

Kade stood up. A good ten feet separated them. It didn’t feel like enough space. “You fixed the place up nice,” he said.

And she had, pouring all the work into it that her parents never had, due to their addictions. The barn had a proper roof now, and the pastures were well fenced. Her small house wasn’t the greatest, but she’d planted flowers all around it and someday she’d redo the inside. Someday.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Libby shoved her hands into the back pockets of her worn jeans. One of her fingers poked out of a hole that had worn through because of her fencing pliers. “Why are you here?”

“There’re still some things I want to straighten out.”

Libby shook her head. “I believe that everything between us is as straight as it’s going to get.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Differ all you want. And while you’re differing, maybe you could get into your truck and drive away.”

He advanced a couple slow steps forward. Libby held her ground, which wasn’t easy since every nerve in her body seemed to be screaming at her to back up.

“You came to see me,” he said in a reasonable tone once he’d come to a halt.