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“What are you up to today?” He pulled off leather gloves and shoved them in the back pocket of his jeans.
She didn’t have an answer. The girls were holding her hands and she was staring into the dark eyes of a man who had been hurt to the deepest level. And survived. Those eyes were staring her down, waiting for an answer.
She was on his territory. She’d never felt it more than at that moment, that territorial edge of his. He protected the ones he loved.
“I saw the girls and I realized you might not know about our church picnic Wednesday evening. Instead of our normal service, we’re roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.”
It wasn’t a lie, she had forgotten to remind him. He seemed to need reminding from time to time. He had a degree in ministry and yet church seemed to be something he forced himself to do. She got that. She had done her share of avoiding church, too.
He’d actually been in youth ministry until eighteen months ago.
“Sounds like fun.” He glanced at his watch.
“I should go. Listen, if you need anything, any more help around here…”
“Right, I’ll let you know.”
She should have known better than to think he’d want to talk. A momentary glitch in her good sense had made her believe that he might want a friend. But then, he probably had friends. He’d grown up here.
“See you two Wednesday.” Time to walk away.
Kat grabbed her hand. “Come and see my frog.”
“Kat, you don’t have a frog.” Wyatt reached for her but Kat pulled Rachel the other direction and two-year-olds were pretty strong when they had their mind set on something.
“I have a frog.” She didn’t let go and Rachel didn’t have the heart to tell her no. She went willingly in the direction of an old log.
“Is that where your frog lives?”
“There are millions of frogs.” Kat dropped to her knees and pushed the chunk of wood. Sure enough, little frogs hopped out. Actually, they were baby toads. She didn’t correct the toddler.
“Wow, Kat, there are a bunch of them.” Rachel kneeled next to the child. “Do you have names for them?”
Kat nodded. “But I don’t ’member.”
“I think they’re beautiful. I bet they like living under this log.”
Kat nodded, her eyes were big and curls hung in her eyes. Rachel pushed the hair back from the child’s face and Kat smiled. A shadow loomed over them. Kat glanced up and Rachel turned to look up at Wyatt. He was smiling down at his daughter. The smile didn’t include Rachel.
He had a toe-curling smile, though, and she wanted her toes to curl. Which was really just plain wrong.
“Kat, we have to go, honey.” He got hold of Molly’s hand. “I have to finish feeding and you two need to be getting ready to jump in the truck.”
“We’re getting a pony.” Kat patted Rachel’s cheek with a dirty hand that had just released a toad back to its home under the log.
“Are you?” She looked up and Wyatt shook his head.
“We’re picking up a bull.”
“I see.” Rachel stood and dusted off her jeans. “I could stay here with them, Wyatt.”
She had offered the other day and he’d said no, so why in the world was she offering again? Oh, right, because she loved, loved, loved rejection. And to make it better, she loved that look on his face when his eyes narrowed and he looked at her as if she had really fallen off the proverbial turnip truck.
He took in a breath and she wondered why it was so hard for him to leave them. “No, they can go with me.”
“But we could stay, and Miss Rachel could help us draw pictures.” Molly bit down on rosy lips and big tears welled up in her eyes. “I always get carsick.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“That’s a thought.” Wyatt picked up his little girl. “Molly, you’re going with me.”
She nodded and rested her head on his shoulder.
“I’ll see you later.” Rachel brushed a hand down Molly’s little back.
Yes, driving up here had been the wrong thing to do. She leaned to kiss Kat’s cheek and then she walked away. She had a life. She had things to do today. She definitely didn’t need to get tied up in the heartache that was Wyatt Johnson’s life.
She made it to her car without looking back.
Wyatt put Molly down and he held tight to Kat’s hand because he had a feeling that if he let go, she was going to run after Rachel. Molly was looking up at him, as if she was wondering why in the world he wasn’t the one running after her new favorite person.
He needed this as much has he needed to hit his thumb with a hammer. If God would give him a break, he’d get the hammer and hit his thumb twice.
He wasn’t going to run after a woman, not one who made more trouble in his life. And that’s what she was doing. She was causing him a lot of trouble. She was upsetting the organized chaos of his life with her sunny personality and cute little songs.
She was getting in her car and Kat was next to him, begging him to stop her. He stared at the preacher’s daughter in jean shorts and a T-shirt. Not for himself, for Kat. Man, he didn’t need this. He let go of his daughter’s hand and went after Rachel. Yelling when she started her car. Waving for her to stop when she put it in reverse.
The radio was blasting from the convertible. She loved music. He shook his head because today she was listening to Taylor Swift and a song about teen romance gone wrong. He really didn’t need this.
She had stopped and she turned the radio down and waited for him to get to her. This was proof that he’d do anything for his girls. He’d even put up with Miss Merry Sunshine for a couple of hours if it made Molly and Kat smile.
When he reached the car she turned and lifted her sunglasses, pushing them on top of her head. He realized that her eyes were darker than he’d thought, and bigger. They were soft and asked questions.
“The girls really want you to go with us. I thought it might help. They’ll be bored if this takes too long.”
She just stared at him.
“I’ll pay you,” he offered with a shrug that he hoped was casual and not as pathetic as he imagined.
She laughed and the sound went through him. “Pay me?”
“For watching them.”
She was going to make him beg. He shoved his hat down a little tighter on his head and then loosened it.
“You don’t have to pay me. It would be kind of fun to see that bull. Is it one they’ll use for bull riding?”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Fun. Where should I park?”
He pointed to the carport near the barn. “That’ll keep it a little cooler. I have to finish feeding and the girls have to get dressed.”
“Can I help?”
Hadn’t she helped enough?
“No, I can do it.” He walked away because it was a lot easier than staying there to answer more of her questions. He knew it probably seemed rude, but she didn’t have a clue.
She didn’t know that he was rebuilding his family and that it took every bit of energy he had. Everything he had went to his girls, into making them smile and making their lives stable.
As he walked into the barn he glanced back. She leaned to talk to Kat. Curls fell forward, framing her face, but a hand came up to push her hair back. She smiled and leaned to kiss his daughter on the cheek. And then the three of them, Rachel, Kat and Molly, headed into the house.
He walked into the shadowy interior of the barn and flipped on a light. He breathed in the familiar scents. Cows, horses, hay and leather. He could deal with this. He couldn’t deal with Mary Poppins.
Chapter Three
If it hadn’t been for Kat and Molly she wouldn’t have climbed into this truck and taken a ride with Wyatt. But the girls, with their sweet smiles and tight hugs, they were what mattered. Little girls should never hurt. They shouldn’t hide their pain in cheesecake or think their self-worth depended on the brand and size of their jeans.
Oh, wait, that had been her, her childhood, her pain.
“You aren’t carsick, are you?” Wyatt’s voice was soft, a little teasing. Yummier than cheesecake. And she hadn’t had cheesecake in forever.
She glanced his way and smiled. “I don’t get carsick.”
“Good to know. The girls do. Not on roads like this, fortunately.”
“We keep a trash can back here.” Molly informed her with the voice of young authority. Rachel heard the tap, tap of a tiny foot on plastic.
She looked over her shoulder at the two little girls on the bench seat behind her. Kat’s eyes were a little droopy and she nodded, her head sagging and then bouncing up. Molly looked as if she had a lot more to say but she was holding back.
Poor baby girls. Wyatt loved them, but there was an empty space in their lives that a mom should have filled. And they wouldn’t even have memories of her as they grew older. They would have pictures and stories their dad told.
If he told stories. She chanced a quick glance in his direction and thought he probably didn’t tell stories about the wife he’d lost. He probably had a boat load of memories he wished he could lose.
“Here we are.” He flipped on the turn signal and smiled at her as he pulled into a gated driveway. “Can you pull through and I’ll open the gate?”
“I can open the gate.” She reached for the door handle and opened it, ignoring his protests. It was a lot easier to be outside away from him. A soft breeze blew in warm spring air and she could hear cattle at a nearby dairy farm.
She loved Oklahoma. Growing up she’d lived just about everywhere, but mostly in bigger towns and cities. She’d never felt like she belonged. Maybe because she had always been the pastor’s kid, poor in wealthy subdivisions, trying to fit in. Or maybe because deep down she’d always wanted to be a country girl.
She had wanted to jump out of trucks and open gates. She had studied about sheep, wool and gardening. Pitiful as it sounded, she’d watched so many episodes of The Waltons, she could quote lines. She couldn’t think about it now without smiling.
The truck eased through the gate and stopped. She pushed the gate closed and latched the chain. When she climbed back into the truck, Wyatt wasn’t smiling.
“I said I’d get it.” He shifted into gear and the truck eased forward again.
“I don’t mind.”
“No, you don’t.”
Oh, no, he hadn’t! She shot him a look. “I’m not five. I don’t mind opening gates. I really don’t have to mind you.”
His brows went up. He reached for the hat he’d set on the seat next to him and pushed it back on his head. The chicken wasn’t going to comment. She glanced back at the girls and smiled. Kat was sleeping. Molly stared out the window, her eyelids drooping.
Wyatt parked next to the barn, still silent. But when she glanced his way, she saw the smile. It barely lifted the corners of his mouth, but it was there.
“This shouldn’t take long.” He opened his door and paused. “I think you and the girls can get out and look around.”
“Thanks, we’ll do that. If you think I can handle it. After all, I’m five.”
“You’re not five. You’re just…” He shook his head and got out of the truck. He didn’t say anything else. He opened the back door of the truck and motioned for the girls to get out. He set each of them on the ground and then glanced back in at her. “Getting out?”
“Yeah, I’m getting out.”
She’d been crazy to stop at his house. She was still trying to figure it out. He smiled at something Kat said. Oh, that’s right, now she remembered. It was that smile. She wanted him to smile like that at her.
“Wyatt, good to see you.”
She turned to face the man who’d spoken. He stood outside the barn and everything about him said “rancher.” From his dusty boots to his threadbare jeans, he was a cowboy. His skin was worn and suntanned, making deeper lines around his mouth and crinkles at his eyes. His hair was sun-streaked brown. He winked at her.
“Jackson, I’m surprised to see you here. I thought your brother was meeting me.” Wyatt stepped toward the other man, hand extended.
“Yeah, he’s at the bank. You know, he’s Mr. Work-aholic.”
“Got it. So what are you doing these days?”
“Oh, trying to stay away from trouble. But most of the time, trouble just seems to find me.” He smiled at Rachel. “Hi there, Trouble.”
Heat climbed her cheeks.
“Jackson Cooper, meet Rachel Waters. Her father is the pastor of the Dawson Community Church.”
If Wyatt had used that introduction to put the other man in his place, Jackson Cooper didn’t look at all embarrassed. “If our pastor’s daughter looked like you, I might just get right with God.”
Wyatt wasn’t smiling. “Okay, let’s look at the bull.”
“You gonna ride him?” Jackson laughed.
“I doubt it.”
“Chicken?” Jackson Cooper obviously didn’t know about backing down. She thought it might be a family trait; not backing down. She had heard about the Coopers. There were about a dozen of them: biological and adopted.
“Nope, just smarter than I used to be. I haven’t been on a bull in a half-dozen years and I don’t plan on starting again.”
“There’s a lot more money in it these days,” Jackson continued, his smile still in place.
“Plenty of money in raising them, too.” Wyatt turned to his daughters. “You girls stay with Rachel and I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
