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“I’ll be back in a few.”
“I’ll be here.”
The dog that had been sleeping under a tree started barking as Rachel fixed the tea tray. She picked up the wooden tray and headed down the hallway to the front door. The door was open and a breeze lifted the curtains in the parlor. Voices carried on that breeze.
“So you think you’re going to learn to cook something more than canned spaghetti and hamburgers?” Etta laughed and said something else that Rachel didn’t hear.
She stopped at the screen door and looked out. Etta was standing on the sidewalk and Wyatt stood next to her. Etta’s skirt flapped in the breeze. Wyatt had taken off his hat and held it behind his back. They were both facing the opposite direction and didn’t see Rachel.
“It can’t be that hard to learn, Etta. I’ve got to show Violet that I’m capable.”
“Of course you’re capable.” Etta turned and waved when she saw Rachel. “There’s Rachel with my tea. Well, have a seat and while you have tea, I’ll look for a cookbook.”
“I appreciate it, Etta, but I don’t have time for tea. The girls are waiting in the truck. We’re going grocery shopping.”
Etta argued, of course she did. “Well, get the girls out.”
Wyatt laughed, white teeth flashing in a kind of hot smile. He shook his head. “I’m not getting them out of the truck. If I do, I’ll never round them up and get them back in the truck. I just thought rather than taking my chance with any old cookbook I found in the store, I’d see if you had one that spelled it all out.”
Etta held the rail and walked up the steps, Wyatt following. “I’ll see what I have. Something with casseroles would be best.”
“If I can throw the whole meal in one pan, I guess that would be the best thing.”
“You ought to know how to cook, Wyatt. It isn’t like you’re a kid.”
“I never thought much about it, Etta.” His neck turned a little red. “I guess I always thought…”
Etta’s eyes misted and she patted his arm. “I’ll be right back. I’ll pick you out a couple and you’ll be cooking us dinner in no time.”
After Etta walked away, Rachel didn’t know what to say. She hadn’t been at a loss for words in years. Probably about twenty-eight of them. Her mom liked to tell people that she was talking in complete sentences when she was two and that she’d been talking ever since.
But at that moment she was pretty near speechless and so was Wyatt Johnson.
“My mother-in-law is coming to visit.” He had placed the cowboy hat back on his head. He leaned against the rail of the porch, tall and confident. His boots were scuffed and his jeans were faded and worn in spots.
How many people would guess that the Johnson brothers had part ownership of a bank in Tulsa and subdivisions named after their family? She only knew those things because Andie, Wyatt’s sister-in-law and Etta’s granddaughter, had told her. Andie had married Ryder Johnson before Christmas and their twin babies were due in a month or so.
“I see.” She nearly offered to help, and then she didn’t. She’d already told him she’d clean or watch the girls. He’d rejected both offers.
“She’s worried that I’m not coping.” His smile lifted one corner of his mouth and he shrugged. “I guess it won’t hurt me or the girls to have a home-cooked meal once in a while.”
“I imagine it won’t.” Rachel poured her tea. “Do you want a cup?”
“No, thanks. I like my tea on ice and out of a glass that holds more than a swallow.”
She smiled and listened for Etta’s footsteps. Etta would give him a long lecture if she heard him demean her afternoon tea ritual.
It was a few minutes before Etta appeared, her arms holding more than a few cookbooks. “Here’s a few to get you started.”
“That’s a half dozen, Etta, not a few.”
“Well, you can find what you really like this way.”
He took the books from her arms. “Thanks, Etta. Rachel, see you at church.”
He nodded to each of them and walked down the steps.
The truck was pulling down the driveway when Etta laughed a little and whistled. “That’s tension you could cut with a knife.”
“What?” Rachel nearly poured Etta’s tea on the table.
“The two of you, circling like a couple of barn cats. I’m no expert, but I think it’s called chemistry.”
“I think it’s called, Wyatt knows that everyone, including his brother, is trying to push me off on him.”
“And would that be such a bad thing?” Etta sat down on the lavender wicker settee.
“I’m not sure, but I think he believes it probably would be.”
“What about you?”
Rachel sipped her tea and ignored the question. Etta smiled and her brows shot up, but Rachel didn’t bite. No way, no how was she chasing after Wyatt Johnson or any other man, for that matter. She’d done her chasing, she’d had her share of fix-ups, and she’d learned that it worked better to let things happen the way they were supposed to happen.
Or not. But she had decided a long time ago that being alone was better than pushing her way into the life of the wrong person.
It had been two days since Rachel cleaned and his house still looked pretty decent. Wyatt stood in the kitchen with its dark cabinets, black granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. A chef’s kitchen for a guy who had to borrow cookbooks because he couldn’t make mac and cheese. That was pretty bad.
He hadn’t planned it, but Rachel was front and center in his mind again. She was a strange one. First glance and he would have thought she had all the confidence in the world. But the other day on Etta’s porch, there had been something soft and kind of lost in her expression, in those dark eyes of hers.
Not that it was any of his concern.
He dropped bread into the toaster and started the coffeemaker. Excited voices and little feet pattering overhead meant the girls were up. His day was about to start.
At least he’d had fifteen minutes to himself. That didn’t happen often these days. It hadn’t happened much in the last eighteen months. Since Wendy left him.
He stopped in front of the kitchen window and looked out. For a minute he closed his eyes and remembered that he used to pray. He used to believe that with Wendy he could build a life far from this ranch and the chaos of his childhood. He opened his eyes and shook his head. Prayer these days was abbreviated. It went something like: God, get me through another day.
That would have to do for now. It was all he had in him, other than anger and guilt.
Eighteen months of trying to figure out what he could have done differently. He was still trying to come to terms with the reality that he couldn’t have done anything more than he’d done. Wendy had made a choice.
The choice to leave him and their daughters. She wrote a note, opened a bottle of sleeping pills and she’d left them for good.
Eighteen months of wondering what he could have done to stop her from going away.
He breathed in deep and it didn’t hurt as much as yesterday, even less than a month ago. He was making it. He had to make it—for the girls. He had to smile and make each day better for them. And he calculated that he had about two minutes before they hit the kitchen, ready for breakfast. Two minutes to pull it together and make this day better.
On cue, they rushed in, still in their pajamas. Man, they made it easy to smile. He leaned to hug them and pulled them up to hold them both. He brushed his whiskered cheek against Kat and she giggled.
“What are we going to do today, girlies?”
“Get a pony!” Kat shouted and then she giggled some more.
“Nope, not a pony.” He kissed her cheek.
“Let Miss Rachel clean again.” Molly’s tone was serious but her smile was real, her eyes shining. She knew how to work him.
He sat both girls on the granite-topped island that sat in the center of the kitchen. “Miss Rachel? Why do you want her to clean?”
He liked the idea of a clean house, but he was determined to find a nice grandmotherly type. He wanted control top socks and cookies baking in the oven. It sounded a lot less complicated than Miss Rachel I’ve-Got-Secrets Waters.
Kat sighed, as if he couldn’t possibly be her dad or he would understand why they picked Rachel. She leaned close. “She hugs me.”
“She draws pictures and sings.” Molly crossed her arms and her little chin came up. “She has sheep.”
“I’m sure she does. But she’s really busy with church and helping Miss Etta.”
“She doesn’t mind cleaning.” Molly was growing up and her tone said that she had a handle on this situation.
“Look, girls, she just cleaned for us that one time. Uncle Ryder hired her.” He reached into the cabinet under the island and pulled out a cereal box. Add that to his list for the day. He needed to go to the store again. Even though he’d had a list, he’d forgotten a lot. “How about cereal?”
“And a pony?” Kat grinned and her eyes were huge.
A pony. Would it work to buy himself a break from this?
“Maybe a pony.” He was so weak. “But first we have to eat breakfast and then we need to go outside and feed the horses and cows we already have.”
He lifted them down from the counter and sat them each on a stool at the island.
“You girls are getting big.”
Molly. He shook his head because she wasn’t just big, she acted like an old soul, as if she’d had to learn too much too soon. And she had.
Most of it he doubted she remembered. If she did, the memories were vague. But she remembered being afraid. He knew she remembered that.
He took bowls out of the cabinet and set one in front of each girl and one for himself. He opened the cereal cabinet door again and looked at the half-dozen boxes. “Chocolate stuff, fruity stuff or kind-of-healthy stuff?”
The girls giggled a little.
“That does it, you get kind-of-healthy today. I think you’ve had way too much sugar because you’re both so sweet.” He grabbed the box and then reached for the girls and held them, kissing their cheeks. “Yep, sweet enough.”
Normal moments, the kind a dad should share with his daughters. Eighteen long months of going through the motions, but they were all coming back to life. They were building something new here, in this house. They would have good memories. He hadn’t expected to have something good for his family here, in Dawson. His own dad hadn’t provided that for him and Ryder.
But he wasn’t his dad. He guessed he learned something from his dad’s mistakes. Like how to be faithful. And how to be there.
His phone rang and he answered it as he poured cereal into three bowls. Two partially filled and his to the top. He talked as he poured milk and dug in a drawer for spoons. When he hung up both girls were looking at him.
“I have to go pick up something for Uncle Ryder.” He ate his cereal standing across the counter from the girls.
“A pony?” Kat giggled as she spooned cereal into her mouth. Milk dribbled down her chin and her brown eyes twinkled.
“No, a bull.”
“We can go?” Molly didn’t touch her cereal and he knew, man, he knew how scared she was. He was just starting to get over it, he hadn’t been a two-year-old kid alone with a mommy who wouldn’t wake up.
That kind of fear and pain changed a person. Molly was watching him, waiting for him to be the grown-up, the one who smiled and showed her that it was okay to be happy.
“Of course you can go.” He took a bite of cereal and she followed his example. She even smiled. He let out a sigh that she didn’t hear.
Fifteen minutes later he walked out the back door with them on his heels. Today they’d slipped back into the old pattern of leaving dishes on the counter and dirty clothes on the floor in the bedroom. He didn’t have time to worry about it right now. He’d barely had time to pull on his boots and find his hat.
Horses saw him and whinnied. The six mares in the field closest to the house headed toward their feed trough. He whistled and in the other field about a dozen horses lifted their heads and headed toward the barn, ready for grain.
A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that Kat and Molly were close behind him. They weren’t right on his heels now, but they were following, grabbing up dandelions and chasing after the dog.
He turned away from the girls and headed for the fence. He watched for a chestnut mare. She walked a short distance behind the others. Her limp was slight today. She’d gotten tangled in old barbed wire out in the field. Sometimes a good rain washed up a lot of junk from the past.
This mare had stepped into that junk one day last week after a gully washer of a rain. He’d found her with gashes in her fetlock and blood still oozing from the wound. She headed for the fence and him, the extra attention over the last week had turned her into a pet.
A car driving down the road honked. He turned to wave. The red convertible slowed and pulled into his drive. The girls hurried to his side, jabbering about Rachel’s car. He had worked hard at building a safe life for his girls.
What was it about Rachel that shook it all up? He glanced down at his girls and they didn’t look too scared.
He tossed the thought aside. Rachel was about the safest person in the world. She was a Sunday school teacher and the preacher’s daughter.
So what part of her life had been crazy enough for butterfly tattoos?
Rachel had meant to drive on past the Johnson ranch, but the girls waving dandelions had done it for her. She had seen them from a distance, first noticing the horses running for the fence and then spotting Wyatt and his girls. She had slowed to watch and then she’d turned.
As she pulled up to the barn she told herself this was about the craziest thing she’d done since… She had to think about it and one thing came to mind. The tattoo.
She’d thought about having it removed, but she kept it to remind herself to make decisions based on the future and not the moment. So what in the world was she doing here, at Wyatt Johnson’s? He probably wanted her around as much as she wanted to be there.
This was definitely a spontaneous decision and not one that was planned out. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The girls dropped the dandelions and raced across the lawn, the dog at their heels. As she pushed her door open, Molly and Kat were there, little faces scrubbed clean and smiles bright. No matter what, he’d done a great job with the girls, even if he did seem to be color-blind. That had to be the reason the girls never seemed to have an outfit that matched.
This time they were in their pajamas.
“What are you girls up to?”
“We’re going with Daddy.” Molly held tight to her hand.
Wyatt had disappeared. Into the barn, she decided. She could hear him talking and heard a door shut with a thud. He walked back out, his hat pulled down to block the sun from his face. He had a bag of grain tossed over his shoulder, his biceps bulging.
She let the girls tug her hands to follow him. He stopped at a gate and unlatched it with his free hand. Cattle were at a trough, waiting. From outside the fence she watched him yank the string on the top of the bag and pour it down the length of the trough. He walked back with the empty bag. After closing the gate he tossed the bag into a nearby barrel.
And then he was staring at her. The hat shaded his face, but it definitely didn’t hide the questions in his dark eyes. And she didn’t have answers. What could she tell him, that her car suddenly had a mind of its own? But she’d have to think of something because the girls were pulling her in his direction.
