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He sighed and shook his head. First he checked his email because a certain bull he’d been after for a year had been put up for sale and he’d made an offer. Still nothing on that front.
So where did he begin searching for Jade Baker’s story? And her mother’s? Death records, obituaries and telephone directories. Every search came up empty. He had another connection, a friend who had gone into law enforcement. He typed a short email asking for information on runaways—one specific runaway, actually.
He sat back, trying to think of other avenues for finding Gloria Baker. But it wasn’t her name he typed in the search engine of the internet. He found himself doing a search for Madeline Patton.
She’d been in the area for a year. She’d moved to a town where she didn’t have family. She’d bought a house connected to his land. The house had once belonged to his great-grandparents. It had been their original homestead, before oil and ranching paid off for the Coopers.
His grandmother had taken a liking to Madeline and sold that little house and two acres to the schoolteacher for almost nothing. Maybe his grandmother knew more about her than the rest of them.
Or maybe he was the only Cooper left out of the loop when it came to Madeline. That kind of bugged him.
His search of Madeline Patton turned up article after article, all from Montana newspapers. He leaned back in his chair and his finger hovered above the mouse. Her story, if she had one, should be private. But the brief sentence under the heading wouldn’t let him back away. He clicked the link and started reading.
For a long time he sat there. He read newspaper articles about a child named Madeline Patton. He searched for more articles. As he read he went from pain to rage. He had never wanted to hurt someone as badly as he did at that moment, thinking about that little girl.
Man, it made him want to drive to the school and hug her tight. It made him want to keep her safe. No one should ever be used the way Madeline had been used. Exploited. Hurt.
He closed down his computer because he knew these were her stories, her secrets. She had a right to her privacy. She didn’t trust him. She definitely wouldn’t trust him with these secrets.
He stood, easing through the motion and then holding on to the desk as he took a deep breath. Jade remained curled in a ball on his sofa, sound asleep. He leaned over her, shaking her shoulders lightly. Eyes opened with a flutter and she pulled back.
“I have to get some work done in the barn. Are you going to be okay here by yourself?” He figured being by herself might be something she was used to. Just guessing.
“Yeah, I’m still tired.”
“Sleep on. If you get hungry there’s lunch meat in the fridge and a container of chili my mom brought over yesterday.”
“Thanks.” Her eyes closed.
Jackson slipped on his boots and pulled on a jacket. When he stepped outside he took a deep breath of cold, December air. It felt good to get out of the house. He never would have made it in the nine-to-five corporate world. Walls were not his cup of tea. He liked open spaces, horses in the field and bulls moving around their pens.
Blake, his older and less charming brother, could have the corporate gig. If someone had to count the money, it might as well be Blake.
Jackson whistled for the dog. He came running from the field, brown splotches on his back where he’d been rolling in the grass. When the dog got close enough, Jackson groaned.
“Bud, you stink. Get out of here.”
Bud wagged his tail as if being stinky sounded like a compliment.
He shrugged down into his jacket and trudged down the driveway toward the barn. Horses whinnied and trotted along the fence line. Cattle started moving from across the field.
He flipped on lights in the barn and a few whinnies greeted him. He stopped in front of the stall of the little mare he’d bought last week. She stuck her velvety black nose over the door of the stall and he rubbed her face. She’d make some pretty foals. Her daddy had sired quite a few champion cutting horses. Her brother was a champion barrel horse. If people were concerned about pedigrees, hers topped the charts.
A minute later he walked on down the aisle to the feed room. As he unhooked the door he heard a truck easing down the driveway, the diesel engine humming, tires crunching on gravel. He stepped back to the center of the aisle and shook his head. Travis, late as usual.
As much as he loved his kid brother, Jackson missed Reese. They were closer in age and understood each other a little better. But Reese was deployed to Afghanistan and wouldn’t be home for a year.
It was going to be a long year. He’d be doing a lot of praying during that time. He and God would be on pretty good terms by the time Reese came home.
Travis whistled a country song as he walked through the wide doors of the stable. He was tall and lanky, his light brown hair curled like it hadn’t seen a brush in days. Nothing slowed Travis down. And nothing ever seemed to get him down.
“I didn’t expect to see you up and around today.” Travis pulled on leather work gloves.
“Is that why you waited until noon to feed?” Jackson blew out a breath, letting go of his irritation.
“Had a cow down and had to pull a calf. I knew everyone here had plenty of hay until I could get here. And I also know you well enough to know you can’t stand staying down.”
“Yeah, I feel better.”
“Good, but let’s not go crazy, right?” Crazy, as in give himself a chance to heal.
“Right.” Jackson scooped grain into a bucket and headed for the first stall. They were only five horses in the stable; the rest were in the pasture. There were two stallions, a gelding he was training for a guy in Oklahoma City, a mare that had been brought over for an introduction to his stallion, Dandy, and the little black mare.
“You left your front door open.” Travis stopped to pet the black mare. “You really think this mare is going to throw some nice foals? She’s small.”
“She’s fast.”
He didn’t remember leaving the door open and wondered if Jade had woken up. Fortunately Travis let it go. He grabbed a bale of hay and tossed it in a wheelbarrow without asking more questions. He pushed the wheelbarrow down the aisle, whistling again, and Jackson knew he wasn’t getting off the hook that easily. Travis didn’t let go of anything. But for now he seemed to be content with a nonanswer. He shoved two flakes of hay into the feeders on the stalls. When he got to the stallion, Dandy, he pulled off three flakes.
“Don’t overfeed him.” Jackson warned.
Travis grinned. “He’s a big guy doing a lot of work. He requires extra fuel.”
“Not every feeding.”
“I’m not five.” Travis pushed the wheelbarrow back to the hay stacked in the open area between stalls. He piled on two bales for the horses outside.
“I know you’re not.” But it was hard to turn off “big brother” mode. He’d been getting Travis out of scrapes for over twenty years.
“The charity bull ride for Samaritan House is next week. Do you think you’ll be able to go?” Travis was a bull fighter, the guy responsible for distracting bulls as the bull rider made a clean getaway. Or distracting bulls when the getaway wasn’t clean. Sometimes the bull fighter took a direct hit to keep the rider safe. That made him a hero. Travis had taken more than his share of hits.
Jackson slapped his little brother on the back. “I’m going to take a rain check.”
Travis grinned. “Really? What’s going on with you?”
The Russian accent was still noticeable, even after all his years in America, and being raised as a Cooper.
“Nothing, just not sure if I’ll be able to make it. If you need me, though…”
“No, we should be fine.”
They walked outside. The sun was bright and the sky a clear blue, not a cloud in sight. It hadn’t warmed up much and didn’t seem to be heading in that direction.
The corral held a few of their best bulls. Jackson walked up to the metal pipe enclosure and raised a foot to rest it on the lowest pipe of the six-foot-tall pen. He hadn’t ridden bulls professionally for several years. He trained them, sometimes hauled them and then sold them. The Cooper bull breeding program was his baby. Gage, the brother between Reese and Travis, was the bull rider these days.
Raising bucking bulls had become a big business, bigger than they’d ever thought it would be.
Travis pointed to a rangy, Holstein mix bull. “Bottle Rocket is scheduled for the championship round in Oklahoma City?”
“He is.” Not one of them had guessed that little bull calf they had bottle-fed would be a champion bucking bull. But there he was, pawing at the ground and looking for all the world like a top athlete and not the sickly calf they’d saved six years earlier.
A car rumbled up the drive. Jackson didn’t turn as quickly as he would have a week ago. Travis beat him to the punch. And that meant a lot of explaining for Jackson to do.
“Isn’t that Madeline Patton?” Travis crossed his arms over one of the poles of the fence but turned to watch as Madeline got out of the car and then the front door of the house opened.
What in the world was she doing here so early?
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Jackson turned his back to the woman and kid heading their way. He needed to think fast and distract Travis.
But of course this would be the day that Travis was focused and sharp. He pulled dark-framed glasses out of his pocket and shoved them onto his handsome face. Somehow Travis always looked studious in those glasses. And serious.
Jackson kept his own attention focused on Bottle Rocket.
“So, Madeline Patton and a kid that looks like you. Something you want to tell me?” Travis stared straight ahead, his voice low.
Jackson wanted to clobber his younger brother. Travis was like the farm dog that kept chewing up shoes, but you kept it anyway. He didn’t mean to cause trouble, he just naturally found it.
“No, I don’t really have much to tell you.”
“Well, there are rumors spreading through town about a kid that looks like you showing up at the Mad Cow asking for directions to Jackson Cooper’s house.”
Travis let out a sigh and shook his head. He stepped back from the fence and turned to face the woman and teenager heading their way.
“People in this town gossip more than they pray.” Jackson walked away from his younger brother.
“Shoot, Jackson, what do you think a prayer chain is?”
Jackson didn’t wait for Travis, but Travis caught up with him anyway, “Travis, I’d hope that a prayer chain is for prayer.”
“Is she yours?”
Jackson glanced at Travis. “What do you think?”
“What are you going to do about it?”
Jackson shrugged. At this point he didn’t have a clue. But it would help if he could find her mother. Since he’d discovered there wasn’t a death certificate for Gloria Baker, he assumed she was still alive.
Chapter Four
Madeline didn’t quite know what to say, not with Travis staring from Jackson to Jade and then to her. She wanted to lift her hands and back away. She wanted to explain to them all that this family drama didn’t belong to her. But the girl standing next to her, what happened to her if Madeline took the quickest exit from the situation?
Common sense told her that someone else would step in. If she left, Jackson would have to turn to his family for help. She looked up, caught him watching her, probably wondering the same thing she’d caught herself wondering. Why in the world was she here? He grinned and winked.
Someday she’d regret this moment, the moment she decided not to walk away. But the past had to be conquered. She couldn’t spend her life running from the fear. Standing there looking at Jackson Cooper, all of that fear, rational and irrational, rushed in, pummeling her heart.
She took a deep breath and Jade reached for her hand, holding her in that spot.
“Travis, maybe it’s time for you to go.” Jackson slapped his little brother on the back. “And if you can, keep your mouth shut.”
Travis tipped his hat. “Will do, brother. If I can.”
“Try. Real hard.”
Travis laughed as he walked away. Madeline watched him go and then she couldn’t ignore Jackson any longer. He stood in front of her, an imposing six feet of strength, muscle and charm.
She watched Jade’s retreating back as she followed the dog into the stable. Madeline fought back the urge to run, because running was easy. Something had clicked in Sunday services a few weeks ago, about facing life with God’s strength, not our own. If she couldn’t be strong on her own, she could be strong, more than a conqueror, with God.
“Jackson, I know this isn’t easy. I think the sooner you tell your family the better.”
“I’m going to do that. It isn’t as if I’m a kid who’s afraid to go home and tell his dad he messed up. I’ve messed up plenty in my life, Madeline. I know exactly who and what I am.”
That’s good, because she didn’t know him or what exactly he was. He could be charming and funny. He helped a woman pick up her spilled canned goods. He always showed up first when a neighbor needed help. The tornado last spring had been an example of that. He’d worked tirelessly on homes that were damaged. He’d hauled food and water to people trying to rebuild their lives.
She’d admired that about him. Admired him from a distance, of course. Distance kept a person safe.
“You’re a good person, Jackson.” The words slipped out, honest but ugh, so embarrassing once they were said. She looked away, seeking Jade, making sure the girl hadn’t decided to climb on a bull or a wild horse.
Jackson stared at her for a long minute and then he smiled.
“Madeline, I think that’s about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“I doubt that. But honestly, about Jade…”
He glanced at his watch. “What are you doing here so early?”
“We got out at noon today. I forgot to tell you that earlier.”
“Right, a holiday?”
“For the kids. A planning day for teachers.” She started toward the barn, drawn by the whinny of a horse and laughter. Jackson walked next to her. She glanced up at him. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t find any information on her mother’s death. And I emailed a friend in law enforcement. She hasn’t been reported missing.”
Madeline stopped walking. “So where do you think her mother is?”
He didn’t have a clue. “Maybe she’s the one that’s missing? I might have to drive to Enid. I’m going to keep searching because I’m starting to think she’s not actually from Enid.”
“You think?”
“What, you came to that conclusion first?”
She smiled because the look on his face said he clearly didn’t think she could think of it first. “The thought had crossed my mind. I think there’s far more to her story than she’s telling.”
“The guy is always the last to know.” He motioned her inside the stable ahead of him.
Madeline loved barns of all kinds, but this one took the cake. Shadowy and smelling of hay and horses, it stretched from stalls to a wide aisle that led into the arena. Country music played softly and Jade stood in front of a stall petting a pretty black mare.
The girl smiled at Jackson, hazel eyes glittery and full of light. “She’s a beautiful horse.”
