How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) (16 page)

“And now it’s time to meet the rest of the bunkhouse crew,” Mason said.

“I’m ready, but don’t expect me to remember all their names,” Annie Rose told him.

“We’ll help you, Mama-Nanny. We remember them every one, and you can always use your
How
to
Remember
book. It worked last time,” Lily said.

***

Mason introduced her to cowboys with names like Ryder, Johnny, Jack, Laramie, and Paul. She shook hands with each of them, knowing full well that even the booklet the girls made her wouldn’t help that much.

“I’m pleased to meet you all, and maybe in a few weeks I’ll have names and faces all sorted out,” she apologized.

“Hey, there’s one of you and twenty of us. You’ll get us straightened out by the end of summer,” Ryder—or was it Paul—said. “And, honey, you can call me anything if you’ll bring these cupcakes down here every so often.”

“Deal,” Annie Rose said. “Now I reckon us girls can walk back to the house, and you guys can get on back to your work. It’s after one and I know you are making hay today.”

That evening when Mason came home, she handed him a cold beer and led him outside to the patio. “Tempers were a little warm this afternoon. Arguments followed the chores they had to do. Water is cool, and we’re eating out here. Want to take a dip with them before you eat?”

“No, ma’am, but if you offered to skinny-dip with me, I might change my mind.” His eyes roved down over her body so seductively that she envisioned shucking her clothing and romping in the water, both of them buck naked.

“Right now?” she teased.

He stretched out on a lounge and kicked off his dusty boots. “I could find a sitter real quick. Natalie is always offering to keep them. They love Josh.”

“Hi, Daddy. You ready to eat?” Lily crawled out of the pool and tugged the top of her bathing suit up to its rightful place.

Gabby followed her sister. “Daddy, I did a swan dive off the board. You should have seen it.”

Annie Rose slung her legs over the side of the lounge. “Who’s hungry?”

All three of them raised their hands. The girls rushed over to the table, with Annie Rose right behind them. Brown paper bags and a Crock-Pot sat on the table. She pulled a canned soda pop out of a cooler for each of them and then ladled soup into four disposable bowls before removing the top of a plastic container containing cheese slices, crackers, and pickles.

“I love paper bag picnics.” Lily dug into her bag to find a chicken salad sandwich and a bag of chips.

“Me, too. Mama-Nanny is the best mama in the whole world. Daddy, you should marry her tomorrow if y’all didn’t really get married when she wore the wedding dress,” Lily said before biting into her sandwich.

“Yes, only this time we get to sing at the wedding,” Gabby said.

“Well, you’re not singing RaeLynn’s song,” Lily declared.

“Nope, I’m singing ‘I Cross My Heart.’”

“That’s a boy’s song.”

“Well, I’ll make it a girl’s song, because it says what I want Mama-Nanny and Daddy to say when they get married.”

“You were right.” Mason winked at Annie Rose.

He was back to his old self and that worried Annie Rose, even it if was the reverse of what Nicky had been. He’d been all sweet and honey-pie lovely in public and then treated her like shit when they got home. What in the hell was going on anyway?

Annie Rose set the frosting bowl to the side of the double-layer chocolate cake she’d iced when she heard the squeak of the front door. Lily and Gabby had gone to their rooms to play and Mason wasn’t due to come home for the noon meal for another hour. Strange female voices floated from the front door and the tone was coated with icicles right there in the hot Texas summertime.

“If he didn’t pay so damn well, I wouldn’t even do this job. Those two little heathens…”

“I know, but he does pay well, and it’s only half a day once a week. Just think of what the nanny must face when she has to deal with them every day.”

“Hello. Can I help you?” Annie Rose poked her head into the foyer to see two women wearing jeans and knit shirts.

“Oh, my! You must be the new nanny. How long have you been working? I’m Janie, and this is my daughter, Martha. We’re the housekeepers who usually clean once a week, but we weren’t here last week,” the older of the two said.

“Mason didn’t tell me there were housekeepers. I’ve been cleaning the house, but y’all do whatever you are accustomed to doing,” Annie Rose answered.

Janie was a tall, lanky woman with gray streaks in her light brown ponytail. Martha was a younger version of the same but without the gray hair.

Martha crossed the kitchen in a few long strides and went straight to the utility room. “We’ll get on with our work. Some nannies clean. Some don’t. One thing for sure, they never last too long around here.”

“Mama-Nanny, can I have some milk? I don’t feel so good,” Lily said on the way into the kitchen.

“Hello, Lily. Where’s Gabby?” Martha asked. “You’ve got a sunburn, child.”

“I want ice water,” Gabby said right behind her sister.

Annie Rose motioned for the girls to come closer and touched their foreheads. “That’s not sunburn. That’s a fever.”

“Don’t call Doc Emerson, please. We’ll get well without shots. Promise, Mama-Nanny, please promise. And don’t tell Daddy or he’ll make you call Doc and he’ll say we need a shot,” Gabby whined.

“Mama-Nanny?” Janie’s eyebrows shot up.

“She’s our new mama. Daddy got her for our birthday present and left her on the porch swing for us to find,” Lily said. “Can I have some milk?”

“No, but you can have some apple juice over ice.” Annie Rose opened the freezer and filled two glasses with ice.

“We’ll be well by the time Daddy gets home for dinner, won’t we, Lily?” Gabby declared.

Lily nodded. “I already feel better. I don’t even need the juice.”

“Don’t try to con me, kiddo. Up to bed with both of you. You’ve most likely got sore throats from allergies, because you were sneezing when you came home from Kenna’s on Sunday. I’ll bring medicine up. You carry your juice and go slow so you don’t spill it,” Annie Rose said.

Gabby shook her head emphatically. “Mine ain’t sore.”

Lily touched her throat. “Mine ain’t sore, either.”

Annie Rose pointed and they obeyed.

“How long have you been here?” Janie asked.

“Little more than a week.” Annie Rose found fever reducer in the cabinet above the utility-room sink, along with a coffee cup holding a digital thermometer, tongue depressors, and alcohol swaps.

“That’s amazing,” Janie said.

“What?” Annie Rose picked up the whole thing, along with liquid medicine.

“That they mind you,” Martha answered. “You might last longer than the rest have.”

“I hope so,” Annie Rose said.

She found them both sitting on the side of Gabby’s bed, sipping juice.

“Put on your cotton nightshirts and cover up with only a cool sheet. No blankets or fluffy throws that will make you hotter. Open your mouth, Lily, and let me look at your throat.” She set the supplies on the bedside table and tore the paper from one of the tongue depressors.

“Say ahhhh,” she said. “Tell me the truth, girls. How long have you had a sore throat?”

Lily glanced over at her sister and shook her head.

Gabby snapped her mouth shut.

“Truth, or I tell Doc that we’re coming in to see him. You choose,” Annie Rose said.

“In church Sunday,” Lily spit out.

Gabby glared at her.

“You need antibiotics, but I bet Doc will call them in for us,” Annie Rose said.

Gabby latched onto her hand and squeezed.

Tears welled up in Lily’s eyes. “Don’t let him come out here and give us shots. Please, Mama-Nanny.”

“Hey, are you the same girls who pierced a tomcat’s ear?” she asked.

Lily stiffened her upper lip and wiped away the tears. “But that didn’t hurt like a shot in the heinie.”

Fear did have its advantages. Any other time Lily would have spit out
ass
.

She drew them both close to her side. “Let’s call before we panic.”

***

Mason couldn’t keep the smile off his face all morning. Tonight he was breaking out a bottle of wine, thawing out a cheesecake, and if he had time after work, he was making a run into town for roses. Annie Rose was an amazing woman and she deserved to be courted properly. He whistled as he kicked off his boots at the back door and headed to the sink to wash up for dinner.

“Well, hello.” Martha folded sheets in the utility room.

“Oh, I forgot this was cleaning day. How are things going?” He turned on the water and picked up the soap.

“You got sick kids. The new nanny is upstairs with them. She left a note on the countertop about your dinner,” she said.

Mason quickly washed his hands, didn’t even stop to read the note but took the stairs two at a time. He burst into Lily’s room to find the twins propped up in bed with a tray in front of each of them and Annie Rose sitting in a rocking chair right beside the bed.

“Hi, Daddy, we’re sick,” Lily said.

Gabby nodded as she continued to eat chicken noodle soup. “And Doc Emerson isn’t coming.”

“Who says?” Mason pulled his phone from his hip pocket and started hitting buttons.

“Daddy!” Lily wailed. “Mama-Nanny done called him and the drugstore done brought us some pills. We’re big girls, so we don’t have to take that old nasty red medicine no more. And Mama-Nanny says that we can have ice cream if we eat all our soup.”

Mason put his phone back in his pocket and motioned toward Annie Rose. “A word please.”

She took her own good easy time in getting from rocking chair out to the landing. By the time he shut the bedroom door, his jaws ached from grinding his teeth.

Annie Rose sat down on the top step. “What’s your problem? You look like you could eat nails.”

“First rule of being a nanny is that you call me the minute, hell the second that one of my girls gets sick. And then you call Doc Emerson and get him out here as fast as he can drive,” he growled.

She stood up and poked him in the chest with her forefinger. “I checked them both then I called Doc. They have allergies to whatever is probably floating around in this part of the world and the drainage has caused a sore throat, which caused a fever. He phoned in some antibiotics and agreed with me that fever reducer every six hours, lots of liquids, and rest today would be good. The fever has already broken, but I want them well by Saturday for their Pink Pistol day, so I’m being overcautious.”

He slapped at her finger. “They are my kids and you will follow my rules.”

“Or what?”

***

“I asked you ‘or what?’ Do you intend to answer or stand there in all your self-righteous mad spell and go up in red-hot flames before you answer me?” she asked again.

He brushed past her, and for the first time, his brief touch on her bare arm was like cold wind whipping across her entire body. When he reached the foyer, he leaned against the wall and made a phone call.

“Doc, I want you to come out here and examine the girls. They’re running fever and…”

A long pause.

“I don’t give a shit if she is or was a nurse. I want your opinion and…”

Another pause while he listened.

“I’ll take them to the emergency room if you don’t get in your truck and come out here.”

More silence.

“Okay, okay. But I don’t like it.”

He pushed himself away from the wall just as Gabby yelled, “Mama-Nanny, we’re ready for ice cream.”

Annie Rose raised her voice. “I’ll go get it and bring it right up.”

Mason was putting his phone back in his pocket when she said, “You didn’t answer me. Or what?”

“I’ve fired nannies for less.”

“Then fire me. I’ll get Skip to drive me to the nearest bus station. You can tell the girls that you fired me,” she said.

“Their mother…” he started.

Annie Rose turned around and crowded into his space, her nose only a few inches from his. “Their mother died from an aneurism that had nothing to do with a sore throat or a fever. I’m a nurse, for God’s sake, Mason. If I thought for one minute those girls had something life threatening, I would have called you while I was on the way to the hospital with them. I wouldn’t have even waited for you to make it from the fields to the house.”

Lily peeked out into the landing. “Mama-Nanny, did you forget our ice cream?”

“No, darlin’, I’m on my way to the kitchen right now.” She spun around and left Mason on the landing, stewing in his own juices.

She set the bowls on a tray and took an extra two minutes to pull a pot roast from the oven, a salad from the fridge, and uncover a pan of yeast rolls.

“You ladies feel free to take a few minutes to eat. There’s plenty cooked and Mason will never eat all of it. Dessert is the cake. Y’all know where the plates are. I’m going back up to the girls before the ice cream melts,” she said.

“Get on out of here,” Janie said. “I’ve seen those two kids when they’re upset. It ain’t a pretty sight. We’ll enjoy a nice quiet meal right here in the kitchen.”

“Dinner looks wonderful,” Martha said.

Mason barely even shrugged when she passed him in the foyer. Fear plus pride made for strange bedfellows, but her mama always said that when a man was in a snit to give him some room. Crowding him would make everything worse.

Well, Mason damn-his-soul Harper could sure have all the room he wanted.

***

“They’re arguing,” Lily reported back to Gabby.

“Is he going to call Doc?” Gabby whispered.

“He’s pretty mad. So is Mama-Nanny. It’s not fair. I know he likes her. He’s mad because she didn’t call Doc, but shit, Gabby, she’s a real nurse,” Lily said.

“What are we going to do?” Gabby asked.

“We’re going to fix it. Tonight when it’s time to go to sleep, I’m going to cry and say that I’m sicker…”

Gabby slapped her sister on the shoulder. “If you say that, they’ll call Doc. What are we going to do? Daddy can fire a nanny but not a mama and I love her.”

“We’re going to get them back together, like on
The Parent
Trap
. Don’t you argue with me when I say that I want Mama-Nanny to sleep in our baby room across the hall,” Lily said.

Gabby’s eyes twinkled as she threw a hand over her forehead. “But we can’t be too sick or Daddy will call Doc and he’ll give us a shot.”

Lily shivered. “Okay then. We won’t be sicker. I’ll have a nightmare when we first go to bed. You don’t get shots for bad dreams and I’ll scream and throw a fit and you’ll have to wake me up. Then I’ll cry and say that Mama-Nanny has to sleep across the hall or else Daddy has to sleep on the floor beside my bed.”

“That’s better,” Gabby said. “We can always lock them in their rooms if they don’t be nice to each other.”

“We might have to,” Lily said seriously.

***

Annie Rose was happy to see them dig right into the ice cream. “So another movie?” she asked.

“The old
Parent
Trap
,” Lily said.

“But you just watched the new version and it’s about the same,” Annie Rose said.

“I know, but we like to watch them back-to-back to see if we spot anything different. And I like the twins’ accent in that one. Lily and me are thinkin’ about learnin’ to do that, aren’t we, love?” Gabby said in a fake British accent.

Annie Rose found the version with Brian Keith and Maureen O’Hara and slipped it into the DVD player. “While you watch it, I’ll slip over into Lily’s room and read. If you need me, holler.”

She nodded at the argument the hero and heroine were having in her brand-new romance book on page ten. It appeared that men were the same whether they were real or characters, and she could relate to the attraction plus the anger that the heroine experienced. It was damn frustrating to want a man to touch you so bad that your skin ached from yearning and then be so mad at him that you didn’t want him to even look at you.

She had turned the page to find out how the lady in the book handled the roller coaster of emotions when she heard Mason in the next room, teasing the girls. “Hey, I see you ladies ate all your ice cream. So I don’t reckon you are too sick. You want to come outside and help me haul hay this afternoon?”

“Dadddeee!” Lily groaned.

“I do, but only if Mama-Nanny can help us too,” Gabby said quickly.

“I’m joking.” Mason’s voice sounded edgy. “Where is Annie Rose?”

“In my room, reading her book while we watch the movie. She can hear us if we need her,” Gabby answered.

Mason went through the connecting bathroom and cleared his throat to get her attention. The words were swimming on the pages, but she’d be damned if she forgave him.

“Annie Rose?” he said finally.

She answered without raising her gaze to meet his. “Yes?”

“I’m staying with them this afternoon. I’ve already called Skip, and he’ll take care of things. I don’t leave them when they’re sick.”

Annie Rose snapped her book shut with a pop. “Good. I’ll call it my day off then. Can I borrow a vehicle to drive into town?”

He worked a set of keys up from his pocket and tossed them on the bed. “Take my truck. Just be sure that you bring it home by dark.”

His handsome face was still etched with worry and the little lines around his eyes had deepened in the last hour. She’d like to fix everything for him, but there wasn’t a damn thing in her virtual toolbox that would take care of jackassitis.

“What if I want to leave it at the bus station in Sherman?” she asked.