The new lambs frolicked next to their mothers. Rachel leaned against the fence and watched, smiling a little. And smiling wasn’t the easiest thing to do, not after the previous evening’s conversation with her parents.
This was her place, Dawson, this house and the sheep she raised. Working for Etta, that was another place where she fit. Finally, at twenty-nine she fit.
That meant something because growing up she’d been the misfit, the overweight rebel always compared to her older sister. Cynthia had been the pretty one, the good one. Rob, her older brother, had been the studious one.
Rachel had set out to prove that she had a mind of her own.
“Thinking?” Her dad appeared at her side.
She glanced at him, wondering when he’d gotten those lines around his eyes and that gray in his hair. As a kid, she’d always imagined him young and capable. She’d never imagined her mother in bed for days, fighting a lupus flare-up that attacked her joints and caused fatigue that forced her to rest more often.
Parents weren’t supposed to age.
“Yes, thinking.”
“Rachel, if we get this church, you don’t have to go.”
She stepped back from the fence and turned to face him.
“If you go, I go.”
“I know that’s how you feel, but we also know how you feel about Dawson. In all of the years of moving, there’s never been a town that became your home the way this town has. We want you to be happy.”
“I’d be happy in Tulsa.”
“No, you won’t. But we will. We love the city and we need to live closer to the hospitals and doctors. We’re not getting any younger.”
She didn’t want to have this conversation. She turned back to the small field with her six ewes and the three babies that had been born so far this spring.
“You’re not old.”
Her dad laughed. “No, we’re not, but there are things we need to consider. Promise me you’ll pray about this. I don’t want you to make this decision based on what you think we need.”
“I’ll pray.” She sighed and rested her arms on the top of the gate. “When do they want you to take the church in Tulsa?”
“Six weeks. And remember, nothing is set in stone, not yet.”
“But that isn’t a lot of time for the church here to find a pastor.”
“It isn’t, but there are men here who should pray about stepping into the role. Sometimes God moves us so that others can move into the place where He wants them.”
“True.” She turned to face him. “But then I question why He brought us here just to move us.”
“To everything there is a season, a purpose. God doesn’t make mistakes, Rachel. If we’re here for a year, there’s a purpose in that year.”
“I know you’re right.” She stepped away from the gate. “I have to run into town to get grain. Do you want lunch from the Mad Cow?”
“No, we’re going to have sandwiches.” He kissed the top of her head the way he’d done when she was a kid. He hadn’t changed that much. He still wore dress slacks and a button-up shirt. He still parted his hair, though thinning, on the side.
He was still the person she turned to when she needed advice. And sometimes she recognized that her parents were a crutch. They were her safe place. This was easier than getting hurt again.
She drove the truck to town. Not that she couldn’t put feed in the back of her convertible, but she liked the old farm truck her dad had bought when they moved to Dawson. When she’d thought this would be the last move.
She’d been moving her entire life. From place to place, in and out of lives. She’d learned not to get too close. Either the friends would soon be gone, or they’d find out she was human, not at all the perfect preacher’s kid.
But she was no longer a kid. And this time she’d gotten attached.
She parked in front of the black-and-white painted building that was the Mad Cow Café. It was early for the lunch crowd. That meant time to sit and talk to Vera, the owner. Maybe they could have a cup of coffee together.
A truck pulled in next to hers. She glanced quick to the right and nearly groaned. Wyatt Johnson in his big truck. He saluted with two fingers to his brow and grinned. That cowboy had more charm than was good for him.
Or anyone else, for that matter.
She guessed it would be pretty obvious if she backed out of her parking space and went on down the road, so she opened the door and grabbed her purse. Wyatt met her at the front of the truck. The girls weren’t with him.
“How are you?” He pulled off the cowboy hat and ran a hand through hair that was a little too long. Dark and straight, it looked soft. She thought it probably was soft.
“I’m good. Where are the girls?”
“Andie and Ryder are home after a trip to the doctor in Tulsa. Andie is on the couch for the next month or so till the babies come, and she thought the girls could keep her entertained.”
“That’ll be good for all three of them.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“And your mother-in-law?” She walked next to him, his stride longer than her own.
“Interviewing housekeepers.”
“Oh.”
It shouldn’t hurt, that he was going to pick someone else. Of course she didn’t want a full-time job as anyone’s housekeeper. She didn’t even know that they’d be here for her to take such a job.
“It will make things easier,” he explained it in a way that made her wonder if he wanted to convince himself.
“Of course it would.”
“Do you have any suggestions?” He opened the door to the Mad Cow and she stepped in ahead of him, brushing past him, trying hard not to look at him, to look into those eyes of his, to not see the faded jeans, the scuffed boots or the buckle he’d won at Nationals back when he team roped. Before marriage, before horse training. He still roped in local events.
A few weeks ago she had watched from the bleachers. She had watched him smile and avoid the women who tried to get his attention. Those women rode horses and they understood his world.
She was still breaking in boots she’d bought when they moved to Dawson. And now she’d have to put them back in the closet like most forgotten dreams. She’d pack them up with childhood books, love letters she’d never sent and pictures of ranch houses she’d dreamed of owning.
Wyatt was a cowboy. He was the real deal. He even held the door open and pulled out a chair for her when Vera pointed them to a table in the corner.
And he did it because it was what men in Dawson did. It was the way they lived. Her heart ached clean through and she told herself it wasn’t about him, it was about leaving.
“You know, I’m not used to seeing you without a smile on your face.” He drew her back with that comment and she managed a smile. “Oh, that’s not better.”
She laughed. “Sorry, just a lot on my mind. What about Ernestine Douglas?”
“What? Ernestine’s smile?”
She laughed at the pretend shock on his face. “As a housekeeper.”
“I hadn’t thought about her. Yeah, I might give her a call.”
“She’d be great with the girls. Her kids are grown and gone.”
Vera approached, dark hair shot through with silver, knotted at the back of her head and covered with a net. She wiped wet hands on her apron and pulled an order pad out of the pocket.
“What can I get you kids today?”
Wyatt laughed, “Vera, I wish I was still a kid. If I was twenty again I’d ride a few bulls and then take Rachel off to Tulsa for a wild night.”
Vera tsk’d. “Wyatt Johnson, you’re talking about our preacher’s daughter. She teaches Sunday school and watches over your babies in the nursery.”
“Yeah, but in this dream, we’re still young and crazy. Remember?” Wyatt winked at Rachel and picked up the menu. “What’s special today?”
Vera pointed at the white board on the wall near the register. “My special cashewed chicken, and the pile of nothing you’re trying to feed us.”
“Vera, Vera, I guess you won’t give a guy a break.”
“Not a chance.”
He laughed and ordered the cashewed chicken. Rachel ordered a salad. But she wanted that cashewed chicken. She had always wanted what she shouldn’t have, the things that weren’t good for her. Fried chicken, chocolate and the cowboy sitting across from her. The last was new on the list of things she shouldn’t want and couldn’t have.
* * *
Wyatt watched Rachel pick at the salad she’d ordered. Lettuce with chopped-up turkey and ham and barely a dab of dressing. He felt kind of guilty digging into the plate of fried chicken chunks over rice that covered his plate, the special gravy oozed over the side and dripped onto the table. Cashews and chopped green onions topped it off.
The way he looked at it, skinny women ought to eat something fried every now and then. He grabbed the saucer from under her coffee cup and scraped some of his chicken onto it.
“What are you doing?” She put her fork down and wiped her mouth.
“Feeding you. If you haven’t got the sense to eat some of Vera’s cashewed chicken, I’m going to help you out.”
“But I don’t want it.”
“Oh, yes, you do.” He grinned, hoping she’d smile and look a little less cornered. Man, what was it about this woman? She didn’t eat. She had a butterfly tattoo. She had secrets.
He had two little girls who needed him to stay focused.
He reached for his iced tea and the band on his left hand glinted, a reminder. And guilt. Because he still wore a ring that symbolized forever with a woman who was gone.
But her memory wasn’t.
He sighed and Rachel lowered her fork. Her eyes were dark, soulful. She didn’t smile but her eyes changed, softened. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. So, are you going to try the cashewed chicken?”
Rachel picked up her fork and took a bite. Her eyes closed and she nodded.
“It’s as good as people say.” Her eyes opened and she flashed him a smile. “And you Johnson boys are as wicked as they say.”
“We’re not really wicked.” He wanted to hug her tight because she was dragging him past a hard place in his life and she didn’t even know it. “We’re just on the edge a lot of the time.”
“Temptation.”
“Reformed.”
The door opened. The lunch crowd was piling in. While they’d been talking the parking lot had filled up with farm trucks, a tractor or two and a few cars. He knew about everyone in Dawson and he figured Rachel did as well.
“We’re about to get caught.”
Rachel shrugged, “Yeah, that’s life in Dawson. I love it here.”
She sounded as if that meant something.
“You know, if you need to talk, I know how to keep a secret.”
Her smile was sweet. She wasn’t a girl from Dawson, but she fit this place, this world. From her T-shirt to her jeans, she was fitting in. But maybe that’s what she did. The life of a preacher’s kid wasn’t easy. They moved a lot, changed towns, changed schools and changed friends.
Maybe she knew how to become the person each town or church expected her to be? Did that mean she wasn’t who he thought she was? That left him kind of unsettled.
“I need to go. I don’t want to leave the girls too long. They...” He stood up and dropped a few bills on the table for their lunch and Vera’s tip. “The girls worry if I’m gone too long.”
Rachel stood up. “Wyatt, if you need anything, I’m here.”
Man, he could think of a list of things he needed. He needed to keep his life together. He took a step back. He really wasn’t ready for this.
The Johnson brothers weren’t the only temptation in town.
Trouble was looking him in the eyes and it was about time he made the great escape. He and Ryder had done a lot of that in their younger days. They had experience. They knew how to race through a hay field to escape an angry dad. They knew how to escape the county deputy on a dirt road. Not exactly life lessons he was proud of.
He touched the brim of his hat. “Thanks for recommending someone. I’ll call Mrs. Douglas.”
“Right, that’s a good idea.”
“Or you could take the job? The girls would love that.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, of course.”
He bumped into a chair as he backed away from her and a few of the guys called out names and other things he didn’t really want to deal with.
The only good idea right now was to escape Rachel Waters, maybe spend some time at Ryder’s knocking the tar out of the punching bag still hanging in the old hay barn. Their dad had put that thing up years ago. He had taught them one decent lesson in life, other than how to make money. He’d taught them the art of boxing.
And right now felt like a pretty good time to go take a few swings at an inanimate object.
There were a list of reasons why. Wendy’s memory, tugging him back in time and pushing him to think about how he’d let her down. His girls hurting and needing their mom. Rachel Waters with brown eyes and a butterfly tattoo, offering to be there for him but rejecting a job offer to take care of his girls.
Thoughts of Rachel felt a lot like cheating.
* * *
Thirty minutes after he left the Mad Cow he was in the barn behind Ryder’s house. He had spent fifteen minutes in that hot, dusty barn slamming his fists into the frayed and faded bag that hung from the rafters.
“Trying to hurt someone?”
Wyatt punched the bag and then grabbed it to keep it from swinging back at him. He turned, swiping his arm across his brow. Boxing in boots and jeans, not the most effective form in the world.
Ryder stood in the doorway, sunlight behind him. They’d taken a few swings at each other over the years. The last time had been about something crazy, a woman that Ryder had hurt. It shouldn’t have mattered to Wyatt—he hadn’t known her. But Ryder had left a trail of broken hearts in his reckless wake.
They hadn’t talked for over a year after that fight.
“No, just exercising.” Wyatt stepped away from the punching bag.
Ryder grinned and shook his head. “Right, and that’s why you were in town having lunch with Rachel Waters.”
“That’s why I don’t like this town.” Wyatt walked past Ryder, into the warm sunlight. At least there was a breeze. He didn’t put his hat back on but stood there for a minute, cooling down.
“Yeah, people talk. Most of the time they’re talking about me. Or at least they used to. Kind of nice to have you being the target of the gossip.”
Wyatt walked on, toward his truck. “How’s Andie?”
“Itching to get out of bed. The church brought a truckload of frozen meals for us and a few of the ladies cleaned the house. Rachel came over yesterday and brought a pie.”
“Of course she did.”
“Want a glass of tea or a bottle of water?” Ryder had stopped and that forced Wyatt to stop and turn around.
“Nope, I need to get home to the girls. Violet is trying to find a housekeeper-slash-nanny for us. I’m leaving it up to her, but I want to keep an eye on things.”
“Wyatt, I know you’re still angry or hurt. I know this messed you up, but it’s time...”
Wyatt took a step in Ryder’s direction. “Don’t tell me when it’s time, little brother. You think because you’re married and finally getting it together, you have it all figured out. You don’t have a clue how I feel.”
Man, he didn’t even know how he felt. So being angry with Ryder, wanting to shove him into the dirt, probably wasn’t the right reaction. He sighed and took a step back, tipping his hat to shade his face.
“I’m sorry, Ryder. But let me figure this out, if you don’t mind.”
“Got it. But I wanted you to know,” Ryder looked down and turned a little red. “We’re praying for you.”
That was a change for his brother. Ryder was now the one with the stronger faith. That was another thing Wyatt was working on getting back. He’d walked away from the ministry and spent a long year blaming God. He’d spent the last six months working through that and trying to find peace.
“Ryder, I appreciate that.”
Ryder grinned. “Yeah, do you appreciate how hard it was to say?”
They both laughed.
“Yeah, cowboys from Dawson don’t have a lot of Dr. Phil moments.”
“Ain’t that just about the truth?” Ryder slapped him on the back. “See you later. If I don’t get in there, she’ll be climbing the curtains.”
Wyatt watched his brother walk away and then he headed for his truck. He sat behind the wheel for a minute, letting things settle inside him and watching as Rachel Waters jogged down the driveway and away from his house.
Now what in the world was that all about?