Friday night lights had a different meaning in Dawson, Oklahoma, than it did in Texas. Friday nights in Dawson meant the local rodeo at the community arena. Trucks and trailers were scattered in the field that served as a parking lot and cars parked in the small lot that used to be gravel, but the rain had washed it out last fall and so now it was dirt, grass and some gravel.
Wyatt’s truck and trailer were parked near the pens where livestock were ready for action. There were a half-dozen bulls, a small pen of steers and a few rangy horses. Someone had dropped off a few sheep for the kids’ mutton bustin’ event.
The youth group from Community Church was busy cooking hamburgers on a grill as a fundraiser for their trip to Mexico. Pastor Waters had asked him to think about going as a counselor. He wasn’t ready for that but he’d agreed to pray.
Maybe soon, though.
He watched the crowds file in, taking seats on the old wooden bleachers. His girls were with Violet. She should be there by now. She’d stayed at home to make more calls to prospective housekeepers. He had thought about stopping her. He had managed just fine all this time, so why did he need someone now?
He wasn’t sure he liked the idea of a stranger in his home, taking care of his kids, cooking their meals. The one thing about Violet, she was determined. She’d informed him she had one woman that seemed to be perfect for the job. Great.
“Hey, are you competing tonight?” Ryder walked through the pen of steers, his jeans tucked into boots that were already caked with mud.
The rain they’d had that morning had cooled the air and left the arena pretty soupy. It had also brought a lot of rocks to the surface inside the arena.
“I’m going to rope with Clint Cameron. How’s Andie?”
Ryder shuddered. “Not a good patient. You know she doesn’t like to sit still. But she’ll do it for the girls. Etta is with her tonight.”
Twins. Wyatt shook his head and laughed a little. In less than a month his brother was going to be daddy to not one, but two babies. It had taken Andie and those babies to settle Ryder.
“She’ll survive it. I’m not sure about you.” Wyatt slapped his brother on the back. “You getting on a bull tonight?”
“Andie said if I get on a bull and break my leg, she’ll break my neck. Think she means it?”
“Yeah, she probably does.”
He glanced toward the bleachers again, looking for his girls. He spotted Violet, but not the girls. He scanned the area around her and didn’t see Molly or Kat. Ryder was still talking, but Wyatt held up a hand to stop him.
“I have to go find the girls.”
“Aren’t they with Violet?”
“They were supposed to be.” Wyatt stepped around his brother. “I’ll be back.”
“Do you want me to help you look?”
“No, I’ve got it. You stay here in case they show up over here. Maybe they gave her the slip.”
He walked on the outside of the arena, ignoring a few people who called out to him and sidestepping puddles left behind by the downpour.
A child yelled. He glanced toward the refreshment stand and his heart hammered hard. Molly and Kat, each holding a corn dog. And Rachel Waters standing next to them. He stopped and then moved quick to get out of the way of a few riders about to enter the arena for the opening ceremony.
The horses moved past him and he had to search again for Rachel and the girls. They were standing a short distance away. Molly laughed and Rachel wiped her cheek. Kat was shoving fries in her mouth. Ketchup had dripped down the front of her plaid shirt and her jeans had dirt on the knees. Her pink boots were almost brown from dirt and mud. His little girl.
Rachel looked up and her smile froze when she saw him. He headed in their direction with anger and some other emotion having a doggone war inside him. Why were his girls with Rachel, not Violet?
Man, seeing her with his girls, seeing them smile like that. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure he was angry, just confused.
“You have my girls.” He spoke as softly as he could, not raising his voice, but it wasn’t like he was happy.
“I do.” Rachel touched each of their heads. She wasn’t eating a corn dog. “I pulled in right after they did. When we got inside the gate, the girls asked Violet for something to eat. I was heading this way, so I told her I’d get them something. Is that okay?”
“Of course it is.” He said the words like it was easy and didn’t matter.
Rachel remained a few feet away, shifting back and forth on city-girl boots, her jeans a little too long. Her T-shirt said something about joy. A few curls sprang rebelliously from the clip that held her hair in a ponytail.
“I’ll take them back to Violet.”
“Let them finish eating and I’ll take them back with me. They want to see the calves and the sheep.”
“Okay.” She bent and dropped a kiss on the top of Molly’s head and then she hugged Kat. “I’ll see you later.”
“Why don’t you come with us? I’ll show you the horse I traded for this morning.” He didn’t know if she cared about a horse. But he did know that he wanted to keep his daughters smiling.
And the smile he got in return, her smile, kind of shattered his world a little. It also made him regret not thinking this through more carefully.
The girls finished their corn dogs and tossed the sticks in the trash. Rachel wiped their hands with a napkin and then their mouths. Wyatt stood back, like a bystander, observing. She made it all look so easy.
But nothing was simple, not even the way she twisted his emotions. She had somehow hijacked his life and he didn’t think she even knew it.
“Let’s go.” She smiled at him, her hands holding tight to Kat and Molly.
* * *
The girls led Rachel as they followed Wyatt back to pens on the north side of the arena. Cattle mooed low and a few sheep bleated their dislike of the muddy pens. A horse whinnied and someone laughed loud. Rachel followed that sound to the source.
The source happened to be tall and wiry with sandy brown hair that curled just a little and a big smile that flashed in a suntanned face. Black framed glasses somehow made his angular features look studious.
He was one of the Cooper brothers, she couldn’t remember which. It surprised her to see him at a local event. He was a bullfighter for the professional bull riding events across the country. Tall and wiry, he made his living jumping in front of bulls and taking the shots to keep the bull riders safe.
She knew a daredevil when she saw one. And a flirt.
He lived up to his reputation, jumping one of the fences to land in front of her. Wyatt turned, his smile dissolving when the unknown Cooper took off his hat and bowed in front of her.
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” His accent was a little heavy. Andie had told her that she thought he used his Russian heritage to woo the ladies and that his accent hadn’t been as heavy a few years back.
She smiled because he was cute and she wasn’t interested.
Wyatt appeared at her side. She shivered a little because he didn’t appear to be in a great mood. Nor did he appear to be too patient.
“See you later, Travis.” He nodded curtly.
The younger man laughed and mumbled something about striking out before he climbed back over the fence to finish saddling his horse.
“He’s always up to something.” Wyatt led them through a crowd of men and then to his truck and trailer. A pretty chestnut, deep red with white socks, was tied to the back of his trailer.
“He’s beautiful.” Rachel ran a hand down the horse’s sleek neck.
“I thought so. I bought him at the auction the other night. People are dumping horses like crazy.”
“I heard that they’re being abandoned on government land.”
Wyatt nodded. “This guy belonged to some folks over by Grove. They had to sell all of their livestock.”
“I had planned on getting a horse.” She stroked the fine boned face of the gelding. His ears pricked forward and he moved to push his head against her arm.
“Planned. You still could. If you decide to get one, I can take you to the auction and we can find you a good deal.”
“Thanks, but...” She sighed and focused on the horse, much easier than looking at the cowboy leaning against the horse’s saddle where he’d placed his two little girls. His arm was around Molly’s back, holding her in place.
“But?”
“But I think right now isn’t the right time for me to buy a horse.” She smiled and pretended it didn’t hurt. “I should go. Do you want me to take the girls back to Violet?”
“First name basis with my mother-in-law?”
“She took me to lunch today.” She admitted with a fading sense of ease.
“That’s great. Well, I do love to know that my life is being arranged for me.” He lifted the girls down and then he put them in the back of his truck. “Stay there and don’t get down. There are too many hooves back here and not enough people paying attention.”
When he headed her way, Rachel shivered a little. She’d seen that stormy look on his face before. His dark eyes pinned her to the spot where she stood. He untied his horse, still staring at her.
“Rachel, I take care of my girls. I might not be the best cook in the world and maybe my house gets messy, but I haven’t let them down. I hope you know that.”
“Of course I do.” She wanted to touch his arm, to let him know that she wasn’t the enemy. She kept her hands to herself. “Violet knows you’re a good dad. She’s only trying to help. Maybe it’s misguided, but...”
“I get that.” He led the horse away from her. “I have to get in the arena to ride pickup. Can you take the girls back to Violet?”
“I can. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
He tipped his hat and rode off, the horse splattering mud as his big hooves bit into the ground. She stood there for a minute and then she turned to the girls. They were sitting on the tailgate of the truck, waiting. They knew better than to get down. She smiled at them and the two smiled back. They looked sweet in their plaid shirts, jeans and little boots.
Violet must have dressed them. She smiled and reached for their hands. “Let’s head back to Grandma and watch the rodeo.”
Rachel led the girls back through the crowd of cowboys. A few were zipping up their Kevlar vests in preparation for the bull rides. Bulls moved through the pens and a couple of the big animals were being run into chutes.
Adam MacKenzie stood next to Jason Bradshaw. They were watching one of the bulls, a big gray animal that snorted and when he shook his head, he sent a spray of slime flying through the air.
Kat giggled and wiped her cheek.
“Hey, girls.” Jason lifted his hand and Molly high-fived him. “You having fun with Miss Rachel?”
Kat nodded big and smiled. “She could live with us.”
Heat crawled up Rachel’s cheeks. Jason and Adam laughed but they were definitely curious, she could see it in widened eyes and raised brows.
“Wyatt is thinking about hiring a housekeeper,” she explained. “I’m not applying for the job.”
“Oh, then that makes perfect sense.” Jason was married to Etta’s granddaughter, Alyson. Ryder’s wife Andie was Alyson’s twin.
Rachel smiled at Jason and kept walking, a little girl on each side of her.
A person didn’t have to go far in Dawson to find people who were somehow related. Andie had told her it made dating in Dawson a real challenge. The reason Andie had explained that to her was because she wanted Rachel to know that she shouldn’t have a difficult time finding someone to date in Dawson. At least she wasn’t anyone’s cousin.
At the time it had been funny. Now, not so much. If the church in Tulsa called, she would be gone by the end of June. Once again she had been smart not to get too attached.
Of course, she was just lying to herself. The two little girls holding her hands as they headed for the bleachers happened to be proof that she had gotten attached. The fast beating of her heart when she turned to watch Wyatt rope a bull that refused to leave the arena could probably be called serious evidence.
When they reached Violet, she smiled at the girls and patted the bench next to her. “Come on, girls, time to sit and watch.”
A rider was already flying out of the gate on the back of a big white bull. The ride didn’t last three seconds. The bull twisted in a funny arc, jumped and spun back in the other direction. Rachel held her breath as the rider flew through the air and landed hard on his back.
“Who was that?” Rachel leaned to ask Jenna who sat on the bench in front of her.
“I think it was one of the Coopers. I can’t keep them all straight.”
It must have been because Travis Cooper hopped in front of the bull, distracting it while Jackson ran through the gate to the fallen rider. Rachel bit her lip hard and watched, waiting for the rider to move, waiting as the medics hurried into the arena.
A leg moved, then an arm. The cowboy sat up. Rachel released her breath. The crowd erupted in applause. The cowboy lifted his hat as he stood, but then he went limp and his brothers lifted him and carried him from the arena.
“I have a love–hate relationship with this sport,” Jenna MacKenzie said. She looked back and shook her head as she made the quiet comment. “I know why they do it. And then I wonder why they do it.”
Rachel’s gaze traveled to the back of the arena, to the rider holding his horse back from the fray, waiting for the next rider out of the chute. His rope was coiled, ready in case of emergency. He was all cowboy in a white hat, his button-up shirt a deep blue. She remembered the silver cross dangling from a chain around his neck.
If she didn’t care, it wouldn’t hurt to leave.
But she did care. Kat cuddled close, leaning and then curling on the bench to rest her head on Rachel’s lap. Violet handed her a blanket. Kat carried that blanket everywhere, even to the nursery on Sunday.
Rachel dropped it over the little girl who dozed, thumb in her mouth. Molly was still bright-eyed, watching another bull being loaded into the chute. A rider on the catwalk prepared to settle himself on the animal’s back.
But it all lost importance because Kat was curled next to her asleep. Rachel stroked the child’s hair and Kat cuddled closer. By the time saddle broncs were run into the chutes for that event, Kat had climbed into her arms.
Nothing had ever felt as sweet, or hurt so much. It reminded her of waking up with the tail end of a wonderful dream still fresh on her mind and realizing it had just been a dream.
The cowboy who owned that dream was on his horse, taking the part of pickup man for the saddle bronc event. He glanced up at them, nodding and touching the brim of his hat. Molly waved big. He waved back, grinning. Oh, that grin. In his dark tanned face it flashed white and crinkled at the corners of his eyes. She didn’t have to see the details because it had been imprinted in her mind.
His gaze settled on Rachel and Kat. She smiled and nodded. But then his attention returned to the task at hand.
Tension knotted in Rachel’s lower back. Maybe due to the child in her arms, having to sit so straight, or the stress of watching men take risks on wild animals. Or maybe because Wyatt Johnson unraveled her a little, making her feel undone and kind of crazy.
She tried to remember the last time a man had made her feel that way. It had to have been when she was fourteen and Andy Banks was the star football player who lived next door. He had been nice when they walked to school together. But one day she’d heard him in the hall talking about her weight and how he thought she had a crush on him. It had turned into a big joke for him, something to laugh about behind her back.
It no longer hurt, but it was something she still remembered. That kind of pain left a scar.
It made it hard to believe in a smile.
But that girl was long gone. That girl had learned to eat healthy and exercise. After losing fifty pounds she’d seen Andy again and he hadn’t recognized her. He’d actually smiled and flirted.
Rachel pushed back against those old feelings because she was the person God had created her to be. Fat or skinny, she was His. She knew who she was, and where she was going. She wasn’t the person those kids had teased or the girl who had rebelled trying to find herself.
Instead she was the person who had taken control of her life. She had started believing in herself, who she knew she was and stopped believing the lies that were whispered behind her back.
Jenna reached back and touched her hand. “Wyatt’s sweet.”
Rachel nodded but she didn’t know what to say, not when her own thoughts were still in a chaotic jumble and his mother-in-law had just left for a few minutes to stretch her legs.
“Yes, he really loves his girls.”
Jenna laughed a little, “Okay, sure, that’s what I meant.”
Rachel knew what Jenna meant but she didn’t comment. Instead she watched Wyatt ready his horse to run it up alongside the saddle bronc as the cowboy on the bucking animal made a leap and landed on the back of the pretty chestnut gelding Wyatt had bought at the auction. The cowboy immediately slid to the ground and headed back to the gate as the judge called out his score.
She was way too old for crushes. When Violet returned, Rachel made up an excuse why she had to leave. It wasn’t really an excuse. She had a lot to do tomorrow and she didn’t want to get to bed too late.
She kissed the girls goodbye and eased down the bleachers to the ground. Wyatt turned, nodding when he saw her on the grassy area next to the arena. She smiled back, trying to pretend the moment meant nothing to her.
* * *
The choir had taken their seats when Wyatt walked through the back doors of the church Sunday and found a seat near the front of the sanctuary. He’d taken the girls from the preschool Sunday school class to the preschool nursery. No Rachel in nursery this morning. His gaze scanned the front of the church, remembering she was in the choir.
She had taken her seat on the left side of the stage with the other altos. Her choir robe was red and white. She stood as the song leader hurried onto the stage. Her hands were already clapping the beat of a fast-paced song. As he stood there like an idiot, her gaze shifted. She smiled big and waved a little.
He hadn’t felt so completely tongue-tied since seventh grade and Cora Mason, a ninth grader, had thought he was pretty cute. She had teased him for a couple of weeks and then informed him that he was too young. He wasn’t twelve anymore.
And the preacher’s daughter wasn’t too old for him or a flirt. She laughed and sang a song about joy. He had to refocus, from Rachel to the music. The music invaded his spirit, pushing the darkness from the corners of his soul.
It was easy to find faith here. This church, Pastor Waters, it all worked together to make a difference in a heart that had been ready to turn itself off to anything other than anger and bitterness. There were moments when he started to feel alive again, as if he could turn it all around. He had been thinking about the teens in this church, not having a youth leader. Everyone scrambled to find activities that kept them out of trouble and gave them options on weekends when there wasn’t much to do in Dawson other than get in trouble.
As the choir switched to a more worshipful song, Wyatt closed his eyes. He sang along, listening for one voice. But another spoke to his heart, this one said to trust.
When he opened his eyes the choir was walking off the stage. Rachel hurried out the side door. He smiled because he knew that she would be going back to the nursery. No one could ever accuse of her of sitting by, waiting for someone else to do the work.
Her mother, often fighting sickness, sat behind the piano. She had days when she couldn’t make it to church, but when she did make it, she played the piano and taught a Sunday school class.
People made choices every day, how to deal with pain, what to do with anger. He remembered back to being a kid in church and the anger over his dad’s affairs. He had been angry when the affairs were made public, but he hadn’t blamed God. He’d blamed the person responsible, his father. Ryder had blamed God.
Eighteen months ago, Wyatt had been the one blaming God.
He leaned back in the pew and listened to the sermon. It took concentration to hear the words, but as he listened something in that sermon sounded like goodbye. It had to be his imagination. By the time the sermon ended, he was sure of it. It was just a sermon about moving on in life, making choices, following God. That wasn’t a goodbye.
The congregation wasn’t in a hurry to leave, but Wyatt had two girls waiting to be picked up from the nursery. He shook a few hands and moved past a crowd that seemed like it might pull him into a long conversation. When he reached the back door, Pastor Waters stopped him.
“No church tonight, Wyatt, but I wanted to talk to you if you have time.”
“This evening?”
“If that’s okay.”
Wyatt glanced at his watch. Violet had stayed home to fix a roast and he had a horse that needed one more day under the saddle before his owner picked him up.
“Seven o’clock okay?”
Pastor Waters nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll meet you here.”
“Good. I’d better get my kids.”
Wyatt hurried down the hall to the nursery. He peeked in and his girls were the last to be picked up. Rachel leaned to tie Molly’s shoes. Wyatt waited, not saying anything. He watched as she made the loop and then hugged his little girl. Kat turned and saw him.
“Daddy!”
“Hey, kiddo.” He leaned over the half door and picked her up. Little arms wrapped tight around his neck. “Did you have fun?”
Kat nodded, “We made Nose Ark.”
“Noah’s ark! Cool beans!”
“And there were lions and they roared,” Kat continued. “And fish.”
“Fish on the ark?”
Kat nodded, pretty serious about the whole thing. “And Rachel said we could fish.”
He glanced over his daughter’s head and made eye contact with Rachel. She bit down on her bottom lip and shrugged a little. Nice way to look innocent.