Remember Me, Cowboy

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She gave him the oddest look. Then her face went superpale again. She put a hand to the wall, balancing herself.

He immediately sprang forward, placing his arm around her shoulders. “Maybe I should drive you to the clinic in Lewistown right now.”

“No. No. That isn’t necessary. I’ll just head upstairs and lie down.”

She didn’t say anything more about shooing him out the door Corb noticed. So he stayed right behind her as she climbed the stairs that led to Winnie’s apartment above the café. He could see right away that Laurel had been sleeping on the pullout couch in the sitting room. Sheets were folded on the chair beside the couch and a pillow with a white cover laid on top.

“I’ll make up the bed for you.”

Laurel didn’t turn down his offer, just collapsed into a second chair, looking pretty much like death warmed over. What was wrong with her?

Quickly he removed the top cushions, pulled out the bed, then put on the sheets.

“You make a cute housemaid,” Laurel commented.

She couldn’t be too sick if she was still making wisecracks.

“Yeah, but I don’t do windows.” He tossed the pillow on the bed, then pointed at her. “Lie down.”

Obediently as Cassidy’s old border collie, Laurel did as told, only pausing to kick off her sandals before sinking gratefully onto the bed.

“Good girl,” he said. “I’ll get you some water.”

“Woof, woof.”

He laughed, then gave her a quizzical look. Funny how she almost seemed to be able to read his mind at times. He went to the small galley kitchen and found a glass on the draining board which he filled with cold water from the tap.

“Anything else you want while I’m in here? Crackers or something?”

“Water is fine.”

He handed her the glass then watched as she took a careful sip. Even though she was sick and pale, she still looked pretty. The freckles dusting her slender nose was just about the cutest thing he’d ever seen. He had an odd sensation of déjà vu, then realized he’d probably admired her freckles when they were dancing. Holding her in his arms, standing a good six inches taller than her, he would have had a perfect view of them.

“Was it a slow dance?” he asked.

She didn’t meet his eyes. “Yes.”

“I thought so.”

Her lashes flew up as she looked at him. “You remember?”

“Just your freckles.” He had the strangest urge to lean over the bed and kiss them. Once the freckles had been taken care of, he’d move to those rose-petal lips of hers. Why was it redheads always had the most kissable mouths?

Not that he’d dated so many redheads in his life. In fact—Laurel was pretty much the first.

This woman. She had a pretty strong effect on him. He’d better get out of here before he said or did something really stupid.

“If you’re okay, I guess I’ll be going.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him.

“Don’t worry about locking up behind me. Coffee Creek is a safe sort of place.”

“Really?” Laurel said softly. “Could have fooled me.”

* * *

“I’M NOT GOING to be able to tell him, Winnie. I just can’t.”

Fifteen minutes after Corb left the apartment, when she was sure her stomach had settled enough that she wouldn’t be sick again, Laurel had called her friend.

For the past two months all her focus had been on helping Winnie.

But now she was the one who needed help.

And, as usual, Winnie didn’t let her down.

“Okay, let’s say you don’t tell him. What are your options?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“Well, how about this? Abortion.”

Laurel’s answer was instinctive. “No way.”

“Fine then. Option two—you have the baby and give it up for adoption.”

“No way.” That answer had come out of nowhere, too, and Laurel was surprised at how sure she felt about it. She had been adopted by her parents, and she’d always wondered about her biological mother and father. Why had they given her up? She’d sworn that she would never do the same thing, no matter how dire her circumstances.

Well, these circumstances were pretty dire, but at least she was twenty-six, not sixteen as her own birth mother had been.

“Well, then. That leaves only one alternative. You’re going to have a baby, Laurel. Just like me. We can be single mothers together. We’ll be like a same-sex couple except for the sex part.”

Reluctantly Laurel laughed. In some ways the picture Winnie was painting was almost appealing. But there was one big problem with it. “I’m not moving to Coffee Creek.”

“Oh, I know. I was just teasing. But isn’t it a good thing you got that job promotion? The extra money is bound to come in handy now.”

In theory, yes. But she’d already tested her employer’s patience with an extended leave of absence. What would her editor say when she told her she was going to have a baby?

“Oh, Lord, this is so complicated....”

“And you haven’t even factored Corb into the equation yet,” Winnie pointed out.

“But if I don’t tell him...”

“If you’re keeping the baby, you have to tell him. Can you really imagine any other way?”

Laurel realized Winnie had just talked her around in one big circle. They were back where they’d started, with no other option in sight.

Feeling as if she’d been saddled with a thirty-pound weight, she sank back into the pillows that Corb had plumped up for her.

“You’re right. I have to tell him.”

* * *

THE FIRST TIME Corb had driven past the location of the accident had been the day Jackson chauffeured him home from the hospital. A plain white marker had already been placed in the spot where Brock had died.

This was to be expected. In Montana, sites of traffic fatalities were identified in this way to remind drivers to take caution when behind the wheel.

What wasn’t to be expected was the wreath of purple daisies that had been hung over the marker.

No one in the family had any idea who had put the flowers there.

Until now.

Corb pulled over to the side of the road, behind a familiar, rusted old truck. When he got out from the driver’s seat and crossed over to the other side of his Jeep, he saw Maddie Turner. His mother’s sister. The woman none of them were supposed to talk to.

His earliest recollection of the feud between the two sisters was when he was around six years old. His dad had been driving him home from his first day at school, and they’d stopped to get an ice cream from the freezer out front of the gas station.

A truck much like the one at the side of the road here, had been parked at the pumps. He remembered the woman looked old to him then, but he’d thought she had nice eyes.

For some reason, though, his father had ignored her.

This struck him as wrong. He was used to his dad smiling and chatting with all sorts of folk, whether he’d met them before, or not.

“Who was that lady, Dad?” he’d asked on the drive home, in between licks of his chocolate-covered ice cream.

“That woman is your mom’s sister. Her name is Maddie Turner.”

“Why— Then she’s my aunt, isn’t she, Dad?”

“Well, yes, but you shouldn’t think of her that way. Long ago she and your mom had a big disagreement. That woman hurt your mom pretty bad.”

His little-boy heart had been stricken by the very idea. “What did that lady do to her?”

“Your mom doesn’t like to talk about it, and neither should you. Corb, next time you run into her, in town, or wherever, you just quietly go about with your business. Got that?”

“Got it, Dad.”

Following family protocol, as established all those years ago, Corb supposed he ought to get back into his truck and drive away.

But screw family protocol. His dad had died a long time ago. Now Brock was dead, too. Why was this woman, who the family had disowned, setting out flowers for him?

Corb leaned against his truck to watch. The new wreath had been hung. Now Maddie Turner took the dead flowers and stuffed them into a black garbage bag. Then she started wading through the tall grass back toward her vehicle, without even glancing in his direction.

She was going to get into her truck and drive off without saying a word. And suddenly Corb knew he couldn’t let that happen.

“Why?” he asked.

She stopped and stood still for a few moments.

She was about the same height as his mother, but built much stockier, carrying at least twenty-five extra pounds. Her gray hair was cropped bluntly at her chin, and her features were thick, her skin heavily lined.

She had none of Olive’s delicate beauty.

Except for her eyes. Even at her age, which must be around sixty, he figured, they were large and a lovely shade of green.

“You are breaking the unwritten code, Corbett.”

He couldn’t say what shocked him more. Her speaking voice which was soft and refined. Or the fact that she not only knew who he was but used his full name, which almost no one but his mother ever did.

He decided to ignore the comment. “Why are you putting out flowers for Brock? Did you know him?”

“Just let it be, son.” She blinked and a single tear rolled down the side of her face. Then she tossed the garbage bag in the back of her truck before driving away.

Corb watched, puzzled. Technically, Brock had been Maddie Turner’s nephew. She had every reason to leave a tribute to him if she so desired.

But he couldn’t help wondering if there was more to this than just that simple explanation. If perhaps Brock had broken the unwritten rule, too.

* * *

CORB GOT BACK into his Jeep and followed Maddie Turner farther along Big Valley Road, up to the point where the road forked. When she headed right, toward Silver Creek Ranch, the place where she and his mother had been born and raised, he turned left. He’d never been to the Turner place. Once it had been on par with his father’s spread. But his mother had inherited a good chunk of the land with Grandpa Turner’s death, and so now Coffee Creek was the much bigger property. Still, Silver Creek had to be a big operation for a single woman to handle on her own.