Romance: Cowboy Way of Love (2 page)

“
That’s you?” Peony asked.
Her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, but it came close. Hunter
couldn’t help but notice how she checked him out in that moment,
taking in his broad shoulders, the way his arms filled out his
shirt sleeves, and, for one breath taking moment, the way his jeans
fit. “Because meeting all my needs could be a pretty tall
order.”

“
I’ll do my best,” Hunter
said. “That’s what I do.”

“
That’s all anyone can
ask,” Peony said. Her gaze dropped, and Hunter wasn’t sure if he’d
said something wrong. Then she looked back up, with a brave, bold,
confident smile. “Why don’t you introduce me to Miss
LouLou?”

LouLou tended to be a
one-man horse; she got a little skittish when anyone but Hunter got
too close to her. But with Peony, she was different. Hunter was
pleased to see how she behaved like a perfect lady, using her lips
to delicately take a sugar cube from Peony’s flattened
palm.

“
So soft,” Peony breathed.
She turned toward Hunter. “Is it okay if I pet her? Like on her
face?”

Hunter laughed. “She loves
to be scratched between the ears,” he said, demonstrating the
affectionate gesture his mare craved. Peony mimicked his gesture,
and squealed in delight when LouLou lowered her head and came
closer to get more love.

“
She likes me!” Peony
said. She turned to Hunter, wide eyed. “That’s amazing!”

“
I told you she was a good
girl,” he said. “I was there when LouLou was born. It was just
after Christmas, and we had a hell of a time getting her Mama to
stay in the barn. She wanted to be out with all the other horses.
You’d see her hopping a fence this high,” he held out an arm at
shoulder height, “so she could get back with her
friends.”

“
She did that when she was
pregnant?” Peony asked.

“
Swollen out like this,”
Hunter said, bowing his arms out around his sides. “It didn’t stop
her a bit. She wasn’t going to let a little old thing like being
pregnant keep her from seeing her buddies.” He laughed. “You’d
think you had her safely squared away in the barn, and then you’d
be driving by the pasture, and there she was, out there having a
good time.”

Peony laughed. “Did she
have a hard time giving birth to Miss LouLou?”

Hunter shook his head. “I
shouldn’t tell you this. But no. She didn’t have any trouble at
all. She had her head in the feed bucket right up to her eyeballs
the whole time.” He laughed again. “By the time dinner was done,
there LouLou was.”

“
Well, you’ll have to get
me some of that feed when my time comes,” Peony said. She sighed.
“You know what? It feels so good just to talk about it with
somebody.”

“
A baby’s an awfully big
secret to keep to yourself,” Hunter said.

“
It’s not that I meant to
be all secretive with it, you know?” Peony turned away, so she was
talking more to LouLou than to Hunter. “I’d meant to tell Mama at
least, but then Petunia had her news, and this wedding, well.” She
shook her head. “It’s pretty much taken over all of our
lives.”

Hunter nodded. He’d spent
an amazing amount of time being fitted for tuxes; the first look
Petunia had chosen wound up not being good enough less than a month
before the wedding. “I hear you.”

“
And back home,
everybody’s into everybody’s business,” Peony continued. “If one
person finds out, the whole town’s going to know. And everything
gets back to Poppy. She can’t keep her mouth shut for love or
money.” She shook her head and looked down. “She even heard DeShawn
was going back to prison before I did. You’d better believe she was
blowing up my phone with that news. ‘That man of yours can’t stay
out of jail for twenty minutes, can he?’”

“
She didn’t know you were
pregnant,” Hunter said.

“
Hell, I didn’t even know
I was pregnant,” Peony said. “DeShawn and I. Well. We started
seeing each other when we were kids. But he’s dumb. He makes dumb
decisions. And I’m trying to make something of my life.” She looked
Hunter in the eyes. “When he came around this last time, I told him
it wasn’t going to work out between us. I mean, we said goodbye the
way we did. But when he left my place that night, we were done.
Still friends, but done.”

Hunter nodded.

“
Two days later, he’s
headed back to jail anyway.”

“
What did he do?” Hunter
asked.

“
The man hadn’t driven a
car for what, five years?” Peony laughed. “So obviously, the right
thing for him to do is volunteer to be somebody’s getaway driver.
They knocked over a little bodega, he’s behind the wheel. What
could possibly go wrong with this plan?”

“
Umm,” Hunter said. “Did
he crash?”

Peony laughed. “It wasn’t
quite that bad, but no, he didn’t crash. They got him before he
even made it to the highway.” She shook her head. “He didn’t even
drive half a mile.”

“
Maybe he wanted to go
back to jail.”

“
That’s what everyone
said,” Peony agreed. “After a while, guys get to where they don’t
know how to live outside, on they own.” She shrugged, and Hunter
found himself staring at the way her shoulders knifed elegantly
upward through the air. “What I think is that he thought I’d have
all of his business handled for him. He wanted a place to stay, his
bills paid, the whole bit, while he got himself reacquainted with
the neighborhood.”

Hunter snorted. “It didn’t
take him long to get reacquainted even without you carrying
him.”

“
We are what we are,”
Peony said. “I think that’s what I’ve learned from this experience.
A player’s going to play. A good guy’s going to stand up when it’s
time to stand up. And there’s no amount of hoping that’s going to
change one into the other.”

“
Is everybody ready?”
Petunia shouted, from the end of the barn. “The photographer wants
us all down by the driveway to get the best light.”

“
We’re coming,” Hunter
called back. He turned to Peony. “Are you ready to saddle
up?”

“
Are you sure it’s going
to be all right?” she asked. Hunter could see that even though she
was trying to be brave, there was a little bit of fear in Peony’s
eyes.

“
I promise,” he said. “My
girl won’t let you down.” He helped Peony into the saddle, and
manfully resisted the urge to feel her legs while he adjusted her
stirrups. Then he swung up into Wally’s saddle, and rode up close
to Peony. “Do you want me to take the reins and lead her, or do you
want to ride for yourself?”

“
What do I need to do?”
she asked.

Hunter quickly
demonstrated with Wally’s reins. “Do this to turn right, and this
to turn left.” The big roan moved gracefully beneath him. “When you
want to stop, pull back, gently, and say, “Whoa, honey.” LouLou’s
ears pricked up at the sound, and they both laughed. “She knows
that means stop. And we won’t be going that far, or that
fast.”

“
I’ll give it a try then,”
Peony said. “If you’ll lead the way, we’ll follow.”

“
Your wish is my command,”
Hunter said with a smile.

While Peony’s first riding
lesson went smoothly, the photographer’s plans didn’t. Peony’s
sister Petunia had been on horseback enough to hold her own, but
Pansy and Primrose were clearly terrified. Poppy, on the other
hand, had been drinking all morning, and in her case, it was the
horse that was terrified. They’d put her on Snowball, a gentle
gelding who generally had a laid-back attitude, but by the time
Hunter and Peony arrived at the photoshoot, Snowball had his ears
back and his eyes were wide.

After a few quick casual
shots, the photographer tried to get everyone to line up for some
staged photos. Simply getting the horses into a line proved to be
too much for Poppy. She pulled back too hard on Snowball’s reins.
The mild mannered horse sat down on his haunches, dumping the big
woman on the ground.

There was a lot of
screaming. “That horse tried to kill me!” Poppy shrieked. “Did you
see him rearing up?”

Her boyfriend, a quiet man
who never seemed to have much to say but perpetually had the flask
at the ready for his sweetheart, pulled Poppy to her feet and
started to lead her away. “I told you this whole horse thing was a
bad idea,” he said. “Come on in the house and I’ll make sure you’re
not all bruised up.”

“
I better not be bruised
up,” Poppy announced to the world at large. “If there’s one mark on
me, I’m going to have that dangerous beast put down!”

“
Well, that went well,”
Petunia said, after Poppy and her partner were out of earshot.
Everybody laughed, except the photographer.

“
We’re going to have to
adjust some of what we had planned,” he said.

“
Adjusting is what we do
in this family,” Petunia replied. “We’ll do what we can, and what
we can’t, we can’t.”

Hunter saw Seth admiring
his wife to be in this moment, and smiled. The fact his little
brother could appreciate Petunia’s take-charge attitude was a good
sign of happy years to come, he was sure of it. Over the course of
the next hour, the remaining members of the wedding party lined up
in different poses while the photographer snapped pictures. During
this time, Peony was growing more and more comfortable on
LouLou.

“
That’s a wrap,
everybody,” Petunia announced, when the photographer was finally
satisfied. “I think we’re going to take a pass on the trail ride
thing.” She cast a concerned glance at her mother, who was sitting
in the shade. “Mama’s getting tired.”

“
Oh,” Peony said. “That’s
too bad.”

Hunter cast her a
surprised glance.

She smiled and shrugged.
“What? LouLou’s a sweetheart. I wouldn’t mind going for a little
ride.” LouLou shifted her feet beneath her and Peony’s smile
faltered for a minute. “As long as it’s not too rough of a ride,
that is.”

Hunter smiled. “There’s no
law that says we need everyone else with us to go for a ride.” He
chuckled. “I do live here, after all. I know all the prettiest
spots.”

“
Show me,” Peony replied.
“I want to see your home.”

They ambled away from the
photoshoot, Wally carefully plodding his way up toward one of
Hunter’s favorite trails.

“
Hey,” Seth called out to
them. “Where are you going?”

“
We promised this little
lady a trail ride,” Hunter replied. “I’m not about to let her
down.”

A strange look crossed
Seth’s face, and then he smiled. “Have a good time, bro.” His smile
deepened. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Then his expression
grew more serious. “And make sure y’all are back in time for the
rehearsal dinner!”

“
All of those cows are
yours?” Peony asked. The trail they’d taken brought them up on a
ridge that looked over the Shipman ranch; over a thousand head of
cattle were grazing the lower pastures.

“
Most of them,” Hunter
said. “Some of them belong to the bank, but that’s how ranching
goes. It takes three cows to make any money. One to pay the bills,
one to pay the interest on the bills, and one to put some cash in
your wallet.”

“
Do you like doing it?”
Peony asked. “Being a rancher?”

“
I couldn’t imagine doing
anything else,” he said. “This is what I’ve done all my life. My
brothers? They’re not ranchers. Seth loves the computers, and I
don’t know what Jerry would do if he couldn’t teach school. And of
course Mark being a preacher… when you’re called like that, what
else can you do?”

Peony took a deep breath.
“Hunter. Look at the family you come from. Everybody’s
accomplished. Petunia tells me all the time what a genius Seth
is…”

“
Petunia,” Hunter gently
interrupted, “is a woman in love.”

“
Be nice!” Peony scolded,
brushing her fingertips against Hunter’s bicep. He smiled at the
contact, and nudged Wally close enough that his leg brushed up
against hers. “My point is, my family’s not like that. Petunia’s
worked hard, and she’s doing all right. But as for me, and Pansy
and Primrose? We’re still figuring life out. We’re not at that
level.”

Hunter snorted.
“Appearances are deceiving, especially where my family is
concerned. Jerry’s a teacher now, but my parents spent a lot of
sleepless nights wondering if he’d even finish school. Mark was a
lunatic until he found Jesus.”

“
What about Seth?” Peony
asked.

“
He’s probably the best of
the bunch. I think that comes with being the youngest. He saw us
making all the mistakes, so he didn’t have to.”

Peony let out a sigh. “I’m
glad to hear it. Petunia’s head over heels for him, you
know.”

Hunter smiled. “I’m pretty
sure the feeling is mutual.”

“
So what about you, then?”
Peony demanded.

“
What do you mean, what
about me?” Hunter said. He playfully looked off into the distance.
“I was a perfect angel. Scout’s honor.”

“
Oh, please.” Peony said.
“I’ve seen the way you look at me. You’re no angel.”

Hunter blushed. “Girl,
that body of yours?” He pointed up toward the sky. “I guarantee
there are angels up there right now hanging halfway out of heaven,
just to check you out.”