How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) (17 page)

He rubbed a hand across his forehead and then combed back his dark hair with his fingertips. “If you do, leave the keys under the floor mat in the backseat and lock it up.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Harper. And I’ll even be kind enough to give you a phone call if I make that decision,” she said.

“Don’t threaten me, woman,” he said gruffly.

Heart thumping, she stood up and pointed her finger up at his nose. “I don’t threaten. I deliver what I promise.”

She hated arguments. With her first boyfriends it usually meant breaking up. With Nicky it meant bruises. Her inner voice said to back down or she might be doing both with Mason, but she disagreed. They weren’t dating, so they couldn’t break up. And Mason didn’t slap women around.

Just when she was about to suggest they talk this thing through, he folded his arms over his chest and said, “Call me when you make up your mind.”

Evidently, he needed a hell of a lot more room to stew, so she let him have the last word and left by way of the landing instead of telling the girls good-bye.

Retail
therapy.

That’s what she needed. She jerked the suitcase out of the closet and fiddled with the secret compartment until it was open. She shoved two banded stacks of bills into her purse and then changed into a nicer shirt. She kicked off her sandals, donned socks, and shoved her feet into her boots. Now she was ready for a good therapy session, and Mason could bite her square on the ass if he didn’t like what she bought the girls.

She might even buy presents for the tomcat and the goats, but by damn, Mason wasn’t getting a damn thing. She checked the gas gauge in the truck before she put it in reverse. It read half a tankful, and she’d be bringing it home that much or more. No way was she going to be indebted to Mason for anything after the way he’d treated her. Hell’s bells, she was a certified nurse, and all the girls had was a simple sore throat.

Not a single store in Whitewright called out to her to park the truck and come inside to shop, so she caught the highway up to Sherman. When she saw the signs for Walmart, Ross, and Books-A-Million, she had no doubt that she was on the right track to have some serious fun.

Right behind Walmart was a long strip mall that had far more than she could cover in one afternoon and evening. She parked at the end and went into the bookstore first, browsed around for an hour, and left with two heavy bags. One had all kinds of new authors for the girls and the other was stuffed full of fat romance books for herself. One by Joanne Kennedy had a cowboy rolling up the sleeves of a white T-shirt on the front. Another by an author she hadn’t read, Julie Ann Walker, had reached out and insisted that it was coming home with her, and the dark-haired hunk on the front wore a white T-shirt too. Cowboys or bad boys, those T-shirts reminded her of Mason and the way the knit stretched over his muscles. Then she simply could not pass up the brand-spanking-new Sue Grafton novel.

She put the bags in the backseat of the truck and drove up to the next place that caught her eye. A children’s clothing store that netted her four bags of cute things for the girls, from Sunday dresses to cute little summer shorts and tops to match.

By then her stomach was growling, because she’d been too angry to eat, so she drove across the highway to a little catfish place. It was one of those fast-food places where you order at the counter from a menu stuck up above. She ordered the combo platter that had half catfish and half shrimp. What she didn’t eat, she’d take home to O’Malley for his snack. Poor old boy deserved something for getting his ear pierced.

When her folks passed away, when Nicky was abusive, when she lost a patient, it upset her so badly that she couldn’t swallow. But she had no trouble eating that day as she went over every nuance of the argument she’d had with Mason. She was right, and he was wrong, and she didn’t intend to back down, not even if he put on a snowy-white T-shirt, and his eyes went all dreamy and soft.

Her phone rang and there was Lily’s picture, smiling up from the swimming pool with her blond hair stringing down in her face. Gabby’s picture was one of her with Djali at the birthday party, her arms around his neck and the goat looking scared shitless.

“Hello,” she said.

“You will come back, won’t you?” Lily whispered.

“Why are you talking like that? Is your throat worse?” Annie Rose was already sliding out of the booth and on her way out the door. What if the sore throats had gone into strep before the antibiotics kicked in? What if she’d been wrong not to insist that Doc come on out to the ranch and check them out himself? What if they needed to be hospitalized?

“No, me and Gabby are okay. We miss you, and we have to whisper. Daddy is in the bathroom, and we don’t want him to hear us callin’ you.”

Annie Rose sat back down with a thud. “Why?”

“Because y’all were fighting.”

She could hear Gabby fighting with Lily. “Give me that phone. It’s my turn. Tell her that if she leaves, we’re going to be awful, and tell her that nannies can leave but mamas can’t…”

“I hear the water running, so Daddy is coming back. Just come home, Mama-Nanny,” Lily said.

Damn
men!
She fumed as she found a couple of plastic bowls for ice cream. She was still having an inner hissy fit when something colder than ice water flushed through her veins. She knew the feeling well. She’d lived with it for years, both while she was in a relationship with Nicky and then the two years she’d been on the run.

Fear!

That’s what Mason dealt with every time Lily or Gabby sneezed. Because Holly had died so young, he was terrified of losing one or both of his girls.

***

Mason was bored out of his mind, more miserable than he’d been in years and ready to climb the walls if he had to watch one more kid movie. Even Janie knocking on the open door to tell him that they were through cleaning and ready for payment was a good distraction.

“I’ll be right back,” he told the girls.

“Can you bring us some frozen pops? I want a red one and Gabby wants a yellow one,” Lily said.

“No, I don’t. I want purple. You don’t know what I want,” Gabby argued.

They were definitely getting tired of being cooped up and every bit as tired of movies as he was. He missed Annie Rose even more than the twins did. The whole house was empty without her, and every time he blinked he got another picture of her. There she was in the kitchen with the girls helping her cook. And there she was stretched out on one of the lounges by the pool. But the ones that stayed the longest was when she was curled up in his arms on the swing or when their lips met in a fiery kiss that rocked his world.

Janie poked her head out from the utility room where she’d been moping. “Had a little spat with the new nanny, did you? That’s a different twist. Usually it’s the twins who hate the nanny, but they really like this one. And she cooks like a dream. What’s the matter with you?”

Mason wrote a check from the big black business book and tore it out with a flourish. “I don’t have many rules, but when it comes to the girls being sick, I want to be told, and I want the doctor to come out here immediately.”

Janie put the check in her pocket. “Well, shit! Did you tell her that when you hired her?”

“Now I know where Lily gets her nasty mouth,” he said.

Janie leaned across the desk until she was looking right into his eyes. “I been cleanin’ this house since long before she was born, and you knew I cussed when you hired me to stay on after your mama moved out. Hell, boy, I helped raise
you
, so don’t be givin’ me no lip. And you’d better listen up. That woman loves those girls, so you’d best make things right with her.”

Mason managed a tight smile. “She is pretty amazing.”

“Amazing don’t even begin to cover it. I’d swear she was those girls’ real mama the way she is with them…”

Mason held up a hand. “Okay, I was a jackass. You don’t have to keep reminding me, but it worries me when they’re sick.”

“A sore throat is just a sore throat and Annie Rose had it all under control. I’ve sent my kids to school when they were worse off than those girls.”

Mason sighed. “I guess I owe her an apology.”

“Honey, you owe her more than that. I ain’t never seen no one control them girls like she does. Martha is in shock. And Lily said that Annie Rose is a nurse, to boot? Man, you ain’t never had it so good or shit in your nest so bad, either. We’re leavin’ now. We got another place to clean this afternoon. Tell the girls I hope they’re all better by next week.” Janie waved over her shoulder as she left.

Mason dragged his phone from his hip pocket and hit speed dial for Annie Rose. It rang five times before she picked up.

“Are they running fever? It’s time for their next dose of medicine. I forgot to tell you what time to give it and I was fixin’ to call you,” she said.

“I’m sorry, and I don’t want you to leave,” he said.

A long pregnant pause made him hold the phone out from his ear to see if it had gone dark.

“Well?” he said.

“Good, because I’m on my way back, and I’m too damned tired to pack or go anywhere tonight.”

“Then we’ll see you in time for supper?”

“Yes, and I’m bringing a bucket of chicken with me, so don’t let the girls eat until I get there,” she said.

“Are we good, then?” he asked.

“Not really, but we’ll talk about it later.”

What in the hell was she thinking? She could not give the girls everything she’d purchased. It would completely spoil their Saturday trip to The Pink Pistol. That day should be special and a hundred dollars should feel like a lot of money, not a ho-hum, piddling amount after what Annie Rose bought on Tuesday.

She stared at the bags covering her bed and groaned. She’d broken the first and foremost rule she’d made when she disappeared two years before. Never buy anything you don’t want to leave behind.

She’d also blown the hell out of rule number two: never have more things of importance than you can put in the ready-to-go suitcase.

“Mama-Nanny. Mama-Nanny!” Voices and footsteps said they were running across the foyer, through the dining room, and toward her quarters. She quickly grabbed the bags containing supper and hurried to the kitchen.

“I’m in here,” she called out.

“We’re hungry and we’re tired of our room and we want to go see our goats and get in the pool and is that chicken?” Lily stuck her nose in the air and sniffed.

“Yes, it is chicken, and no pool until after Saturday. You don’t want to get water in those ears and get a worse infection. Then you’d miss your trip to The Pink Pistol.”

That familiar little tingle up the back of her neck said that Mason was right behind the girls. Blue eyes met green ones in a long gaze that told her he’d had enough time to get over his snit. And be damned if he hadn’t showered and changed into faded jeans and a white T-shirt. One strand of dark hair hung down on his forehead, and she had to fight the urge to brush it back with her fingertips.

“Ask your dad about checking on the goats.” She turned away and busied herself pouring the chicken into a bowl. From the second bag she removed slaw, hot rolls, and potato salad. She took four glasses from the cabinet, filled them with ice and sweet tea, and lined them up.

“We aren’t going to take the food to the table?” Lily asked.

“It’s the bar or back to your room on a tray,” Annie Rose answered.

Lily hopped up on a bar stool. Gabby followed her lead and Mason moved from the doorway to the far end to take his seat.

“You didn’t answer me, Daddy. Can we go outside for a little bit to see the goats? They’ll forget all about us if we don’t go see them,” Gabby begged.

“We’ll see after you eat supper,” he answered. “Lily, it’s your turn to say grace.”

Annie Rose took her place on the bar stool beside Gabby. Mason on one end. Girls in the middle. Annie Rose on the other end. Was that the story of what their lives would always be? Girls between them, because in reality she was just the nanny?

Lily bowed her head and said in a loud voice, “Dear Lord, thank you for Mama-Nanny. Thank you for this food that she brought home for us, and thank you for bringing her back and not letting her run away. We love her, Lord, and we don’t want her to leave, so make her stay. And, Lord, please make Daddy let us go outside before we climb up the walls. Amen.”

“Amen,” Annie Rose whispered.

“Amen,” Mason said loudly.

“Pass the coleslaw,” Gabby said.

“You was gone a long, long time when all you bought was chicken. We thought you’d run away forever,” Lily said.

“Where did you go?” Gabby asked.

“I did some shopping. I have a little surprise for you for tonight at bedtime,” Annie Rose said.

“Really!” Gabby’s eyes lit up.

“Yes, really.” She laid the back of her hand on Gabby’s forehead. Cool as a cucumber. The girls would be wild again by morning, running and romping through the house like puppies let loose from a pen.

“Did you buy something for Daddy?” Lily asked.

“Of course. He’s eating it right now.” Annie Rose smiled sweetly.

“Well, thank you for bringing me something that I love,” Mason said.

She was determined not to look at him, but her eyes went to his mouth. Those lips had kissed her, had sent shivers down her backbone when he nuzzled the curve of her neck. It had teased and flirted with her. How could she stay mad at him?

“We’re sleeping in your room tonight,” Gabby said bluntly.

“Why?” Annie Rose asked.

“Because we are sick, and what if we die?” Lily said.

Annie Rose felt the solid wall of fear that shot up on Mason’s end of the bar. If the girls had any idea of how that word affected him, they’d never use it again.

“Anyone who can eat fried chicken and slaw like you two are not in any danger of dying,” Annie Rose said.

“Okay then, but we’d sure feel better if you slept in the little room across the landing from us,” Gabby said. “That way if we don’t feel good, you’d be right there. Or we could sleep together in my bed and you can have Lily’s room.”

The little urchins were not sleeping in her quarters. Her bed was covered with stuff they couldn’t see. She was not sleeping in Lily’s room, because there was no telling what they’d cooked up.

“Okay, okay! If it will make you feel better, I’ll sleep in the little room. Now finish your supper,” Annie Rose said.

“Or you won’t get to go see those rascal goats,” Mason told them.

“Djali probably thinks I ran away with Mama-Nanny. If goats ate chicken, I’d take him a piece,” Gabby said.

O’Malley let out a wailing meow as he wove his way around the bar-stool legs. Annie Rose pinched off a dime-sized chunk of chicken thigh and dropped it. The tomcat grabbed it midair, chomped a few times and swallowed, then put his front paws on her stool and begged for more.

“Djali is my goat. Jeb is Lily’s goat. I guess we can loan you O’Malley until you can get your own pet. Daddy, we should get Mama-Nanny a puppy,” Gabby said.

“Thank you for loaning me O’Malley. He is enough pet for me,” Annie Rose said quickly. Rule number three: never, ever bring home a stray. You’ll get attached to it, and when you run, you’ll have to leave it behind.

That reminded her of her last apartment. It had come furnished, so all she’d left behind was a few clothes in the closet, a couple of books in the living room, and some food in the pantry. It would take more to drive out there or to hire someone to clean out the apartment than losing the deposit would amount to.

But the wedding dress that she’d run away in was another story. The price tag that she’d carefully unpinned and left lying on the table in the conference room at the library had $1045.99 written on it. That could easily be a felony if she didn’t pay for the thing. Merciful heavens, she’d been so careful, and now she could have a price on her own head for stealing a wedding dress.

“Excuse me for a minute,” she said.

She hurried to her quarters, shut the door, and hunted up the name of the bridal shop that had loaned the dresses for the style show, hoping the whole time that they were still open.

“Betsy’s Bridal.” The voice said it was an older woman.

“Is this Betsy?”

“Yes, it is. You just caught me. I was on my way out the door.”

“This is… Rose. I was one of the models at the library show a couple of weeks ago. The one who disappeared.”

“Oh, my, are you all right? We were afraid you’d been kidnapped. The authorities are looking for you and your coworkers are very worried,” Betsy said.

“I’m fine. It’s a long story, but I had to run away from someone, and I messed up the dress. I’ll send a check or a money order tomorrow morning if you’ll figure the tax. The dress was $1045.99. I remember the price tag very well.”

“That’s very kind of you. Let me see. That would be…” Betsy rattled off a number.

“Thank you. Your check will be there in a couple of days.”

“Now take a minute and call the police in Odessa and your coworkers to put their minds at ease.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Annie Rose said.

The first phone call to the police station took a few minutes. They asked a dozen questions and were finally satisfied when she told them about Nicky Trahan. The one to the library took a little longer. They begged her to come back, offered to give her a raise, and said they’d hold the job until the middle of June.

She wrote the check for the dress before she ever left the room and signed her name to the bottom. That would be the first activity in the account in two years, so she took a minute to call the bank and tell them that she would be using the account more often.

When she finally got back to the kitchen, Mason had cleaned the counter, put away the leftovers, and done the dishes. A dish towel was thrown over Lily’s shoulder and Gabby was drying the last of the silverware.

Lily ran to her side and wrapped her arms around Annie Rose’s waist. “Thank God! We thought you crawled out the window and run away.”

“I knew you didn’t run off. I watched out the window. If you’d have run, I was going to chase you down,” Gabby said. “Daddy said we can go play with the goats soon as we help clean up. Will you go with us?”

“Of course, and both of you listen up to what I’m about to say. I’m not planning on leaving the ranch, but if I do, I won’t sneak out the window. It might make us sad, but I will tell you good-bye,” Annie Rose promised.

“I’m glad. Now let’s go see our goats. Daddy says we can play for thirty minutes and then we have to come back inside,” Lily said.

***

Mason dragged two lawn chairs across the backyard, through the gate, and to the edge of the goat pen. He placed them side by side and motioned for her to have a seat beside him. As she eased into a chair, she was still thinking of all the phone calls she’d made, the opportunity to go back to her librarian job, and making a mental note to put the check in the mail to Betsy’s Bridal shop the next day.

“Crazy goats. If someone had held me down and stuck needles in my ears, I’d be damned if I ran up to that human being and treated them like a friend.” Mason chuckled.

The sound of his laughter and the girls playing with the goats was music in her ears. “You going to sit in this chair or did you drag it out here so I could prop my aching feet in it?”

“Prop away. I’ve spent the day sitting in a rocking chair and I’ll gladly stand a while. We need to talk,” he answered.

She stuck her boots in the extra chair and sucked in a lungful of air. “I’ll go first. To begin with, first and foremost, I am their nanny. I will take care of those girls as if they were my own. I’m a nurse and I know medicine. I deserve some trust if I’m going to take care of them.”

“You are right,” Mason said. “I overreacted.”

“And now about us. We need to go a hell of a lot slower until we get to know each other better,” she said.

Rule
number
four: Don’t trust anyone. And if you do, then you really need to give it lots and lots of time. No rushing. No moving in together. No engagement ring.

“Daddy, can we show our goats at the stock show next year? We’re both in 4-H already and I bet Djali could win the champion trophy,” Gabby yelled from the hay bale in the middle of the pen.

“No, he would not. He’d be reserve champion and Jeb would be the champion,” Lily protested.

“Just because you got the champion trophy for your steer don’t mean you would for your stupid old goat,” Gabby argued.

Gabby and Lily suddenly put their heads together and whispered for a long time.

“You are right about all of that, Annie Rose. I worry too much. I wonder what they’re cooking up now?” Mason nodded toward them.

Annie Rose waved at them. “You can bet it’s something that involves us, because they keep looking this way.”

The girls did a fancy handshake and then ran from the far side of the pen to where Annie Rose and Mason were watching.

“Looks like they’ve got their plans made,” he said. “We’ll talk more after they go to sleep tonight.”

“We’ve decided that we are ready to get a shower and play a game. Y’all want Scrabble or Monopoly?” Lily asked.

“Why do we get to choose?” Mason asked.

“Because Mama-Nanny came back home and because we get a prize at bedtime and because we’ve got four people to play and four is better than three and besides you always win when we play and…” Gabby stopped for a breath.

Lily threw up both hands in exasperation. “And because we are
trying
to be nice.”

“Annie Rose can choose,” Mason said.

“Scrabble,” she said quickly. Monopoly was as boring as watching grass grow, and if the girls argued over whose goat would win at the stock show, then they’d be rascals over who bought Park Place. Lord, help the whole ranch if one of them put a hotel on it and wound up winning the game.

“I got to warn you, I won the spelling bee last year,” Gabby said seriously. “You sure you don’t want to go with Monopoly?”

“I’ll take my chances,” Annie Rose said.

“We’re going to get our showers, and Daddy can set up the game in the kitchen. That way we can have chocolate cake if we get hungry while we’re playing. Does one of us need to stay with you two to keep you from fightin’?” Lily asked.

“I think we’ve got it settled,” Mason said.

Lily shook her finger at Annie Rose and narrowed her eyes at Mason. “If you get into it again, we’re going to make you stay in the same room until you are nice to each other.”

“Bet I can beat you to the house,” Gabby said.

“I can run faster than you.” Lily was gone in a flash. “Whoever gets to the bathroom first gets first shower.”

Gabby was right behind her. “You cheated. You didn’t count.”

Mason laid a hand on Annie Rose’s shoulder. “The joys of parenting.”

“Think they’d really put us in the same room if we had an argument?”

“It’s what I do with them, and they hate it, so yes, ma’am, they probably would try to be that bossy.” He laughed.

“Kind of hard to stay mad when there’s two imps running around on the ranch, isn’t it?”

“You got that right. Ornery kids, tomcat, and goats. Never a dull moment around here.”

A warm glow started in the pit of her heart and radiated out to her fingertips. So this was the way normal adults settled arguments. They didn’t run away, at least not forever, and they didn’t use fists or belts.

A wide smile spread across his face. “You are blushing, Annie Rose. I like that you can do that. Not many women do anymore.”