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The Cowboy Next Door
Brenda Minton
Never again would he be burned by a city girl!No matter how sweet and loveable they seem, Lacey Gould and her niece won't win over Jay Blackhorse. Still, they clearly need his help. Lacey needs a place to stay…he has a house to rent. She's clueless about caring for the infant her sister abandoned. Jay has a talent for stopping the baby's tears.But when a dark secret from Lacey's past blows into town, will Jay's help be enough? And who will help Jay when he realizes he's falling for the city girl next door?
“You’ve never held a baby?”
“Never.” Jay’s heart did a funny dance as he held the baby in his arms. He couldn’t stop looking at Lacey. And she had the nerve to laugh at him.
“Sit down before you drop her. You look a little pale,” Lacey said.
Jay sat, still clutching the tiny little girl in his arms. He smiled down at her, and she smiled back, her tiny nose scrunching up.
“Now aren’t you something else.” He spoke softly and the baby smiled again. “You’re a little charmer. I think I’ll buy you a pony.”
“She wants a bay,” Lacey said, still smiling. “Ready to go?”
He handed the baby over, still unsure with her in his arms. As he looked at Lacey, she was one more thing that he was suddenly unsure about.
Jay held the front door and let Lacey walk out first because he was afraid to walk next to her, afraid of what it might feel like to be close to her with a baby in her arms and a smile on her face.
BRENDA MINTON
started creating stories to entertain herself during hour-long rides on the school bus. In high school she wrote romance novels to entertain her friends. The dream grew and so did her aspirations to become an author. She started with notebooks, handwritten manuscripts and characters that refused to go away until their stories were told. Eventually she put away the pen and paper and got down to business with the computer. The journey took a few years, with some encouragement and rejection along the way—as well as a lot of stubbornness on her part. In 2006, her dream to write for Steeple Hill Love Inspired came true.
Brenda lives in the rural Ozarks with her husband, three kids and an abundance of cats and dogs. She enjoys a chaotic life that she wouldn’t trade for anything—except, on occasion, a beach house in Texas. You can stop by and visit at her Web site, www.brendaminton.net.
The Cowboy Next Door
Brenda Minton
Truly my soul silently waits for God;
From Him comes my salvation.
—Psalms 62:1
This book is dedicated to my mom,
Rosetta (Kasiah) Cousins. (May 1937–November
1980). She taught me to dream and she encouraged
me to use my imagination. She put up with baby
birds and mice in the house, numerous wild kittens,
possums, ponies, goats and puppies. And to my
dad, Don Cousins, who is still excited by every
accomplishment. You taught me the value of hard
work, even when I didn’t appreciate it. I love you.
And to the memory of Patsy Grayson,
encourager, friend, blessing.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
“Lacey, when are you going to go out with me?” Bobby Fynn hollered from across the dining room of the Hash-It-Out Diner.
“Maybe next week,” Lacey called back as she refilled an empty coffee cup, smiling at her customer, an older woman with curly black hair and a sweet smile.
“Come on, Lacey, you can’t keep turning me down.”
Lacey smiled and shook her head, because Bobby wasn’t serious, and she wasn’t interested.
“Ignore him,” Marci, the hostess, whispered as Lacey walked past.
Lacey shot her friend a smile. “He doesn’t bother me. I’ll be back in a minute. I need to get a pitcher of water.”
She hurried to the waitress station, set the glass coffeepot on the warming tray, and grabbed the pitcher of ice water. The cowbell over the door clanged, announcing the arrival of another customer. She hustled around the corner, pretending her feet weren’t blistered and her back wasn’t aching from the double shifts she’d worked for the last week.
If it wasn’t for the perfect piece of land she wanted to buy…
Two strong hands grabbed her arms, stopping her mid-stride and preventing a near collision. The pitcher of ice water she’d carried out of the waitress station sloshed, soaking her shirt. She looked up, muttering about clumsiness and met the dark gaze of Officer Jay Blackhorse.
Gorgeous, he was definitely gorgeous. Tall with black hair and brown eyes. All cowboy. All rugged and sure of himself. But not her type. He’d been back in Gibson, Missouri, for a month now, and she already had him figured out. He was too serious, not the kind of customer who chatted with a waitress, and she was fine with the knowledge that they weren’t going to be best friends.
Several men called out, offering him a chair at their table, as Lacey moved out of his grasp. Not only was he the law, his family also raised cattle and horses. He hadn’t lived in Gibson for the last seven or eight years, but he still fit in on so many levels that Lacey didn’t know how he could do it all.
She was still trying to find something other than round holes for her square-peg self.
She was the girl from St. Louis who had showed up six years ago with a broken-down car, one hundred dollars and the dream of finding a new life.
Jay waved at the men who called out to him, but he didn’t take them up on their offers to sit. Instead, he took hold of Lacey’s arm and moved her toward the door.
“Lacey, I need to talk to you outside.”
“Sure.” Of course, not a problem.
She set the pitcher of ice water on a table and followed him to the door, trying hard not to remember her other life, the life that had included more than one trip in the back of a police car.
It would have been a waste of breath to tell Jay she wasn’t that person any more. He didn’t know her.
He didn’t know what it had been like to grow up in her home, with a family that had fallen apart before she could walk. Jay had a mom who baked cookies and played the piano at church. Lacey’s mom had brought home boyfriends for herself and her daughters.
Instead of protesting, Lacey shot Jay a disgusted look—as if it didn’t matter—and exited the diner at his side. When they were both outside, she turned on him, pushing down her pain and reaching for the old Lacey, the one who knew how to handle these situations.
“What’s this all about, Blackhorse? Is it ‘humiliate the waitress day’ and someone nominated me to get the prize?”
He shook his head and pointed to his car. “Sorry, Lacey, but I didn’t know what else to do with her.”
“Her?”
The back door of the patrol car opened.
Lacey watched the young woman step out with a tiny baby in her arms and a so what look on her face. Jay’s strong hand gripped Lacey’s arm, holding her tight as she drew in a deep breath and tried to focus. She pulled her arm free because she wasn’t about to fall.
Or fall apart.
Even at twenty-two Corry still looked drugged-out, antsy and on the verge of running. Her dark eyes were still narrowed in anger—as if the world had done her wrong. The thrust of her chin told everyone she would do what she wanted, no matter whom it hurt.
Jay stood next to Lacey, his voice low. “She said she hitched a ride to Gibson and that she’s your sister.”
Lacey wanted to say that it wasn’t true and that she didn’t have a sister. She wanted to deny she knew the young woman with the dirty black hair and a baby in her arms.
The baby cried and Lacey made eye contact with Corry.
“She’s my sister,” Lacey said, avoiding Jay’s gaze.
“Thanks for claiming me.” Corry smacked her gum, the baby held loosely against her shoulder, little arms flailing. The loose strap of Corry’s tank top slid down her shoulder, and her shorts were frayed.
Lacey sighed.
“I don’t have to leave her here.” Jay pulled sunglasses from his pocket and slid them on, covering melted-chocolate eyes. The uniform changed him from the cowboy that sat with the guys during lunch to someone in authority.
Lacey nodded because he did have to leave Corry. What else could he do? What was Lacey going to do? Deny her sister? The Samaritan had cared for the man on the side of the road, a man he didn’t know. And Lacey knew Corry.
“She can stay. I’m off duty in thirty minutes.”
“Do you have to make it sound like the worst thing in the world?” Corry handed Lacey the baby and turned to pick up the backpack that Jay had pulled from the trunk of his car.
Lacey looked at the infant. The baby, Corry’s baby, was dressed in pink and without a single hair on her head. She was beautiful.
“Her name’s Rachel.” Corry tossed the information like it didn’t matter. “I heard that in a Bible story at the mission we’ve been living in. We couldn’t stay there, though. We need a real home.”
A real home? The one-room apartment that Lacey rented from the owners of the Hash-It-Out was hardly a home fit for three.
She inhaled a deep breath of air that smelled like the grill inside the diner, and the lunch special of fried chicken. Corry and a baby. Family meant something. Lacey had learned that in Gibson, not in the home she grew up in. Now was the time to put it into practice. She could tell her sister to leave, or she could be the person who gave Corry a chance.
Like the people of Gibson had done for her.
But what if Corry ruined everything? Lacey tucked that fear away, all the while ignoring the imposing Officer Blackhorse in his blue-and-gray uniform, gun hanging at his side.
“You know, you two could help me,” Corry tossed over her shoulder as she dug around in the back seat of the patrol car. “I haven’t eaten since this morning. And then I get here and you aren’t even glad to see me.”
Continuous jabber. Lacey tuned it out, nodding in what she hoped were the appropriate places. She held Corry’s baby close and took the car seat that Jay had pulled out of his car. His gaze caught and held hers for a moment, and his lips turned in a hesitant smile that shifted the smooth planes of his face. Jay with his perfect life and his perfect family.
She didn’t want to think about what he thought when he looked at her and her sister.
“Need anything?” Jay took a step back, but he didn’t turn away.
She shrugged off the old feelings of inadequacy and turned to face her sister. Corry shifted from foot to foot, hugging herself tight with arms that were too thin and scarred from track marks—evidence of her drug use.
“Lacey?” Jay hadn’t moved away and she didn’t know what to say.
Lacey Gould’s dark, lined eyes were luminous with unshed tears. Jay hadn’t expected that reaction from the waitress who always had a comeback. He held a grudging admiration for her because she never slowed down.
