Authors: Brenda Minton
“He's one step away from glue.” Doris shook her head and looked at the check again.
Harmony hugged the older woman. “He's a champion to me.”
For whatever reason, the rangy Appaloosa meant something to Harmony Cross, and Dylan didn't want to know why. He sure didn't want to see her as someone who cared about other people. That made her too big a complication. And with Callie and Cash heading for the truck with a kitten, he was pretty sure he had all the complications he could handle. What he needed was space to breathe, to figure out how to be a single dad.
“Do you have someone who can haul him for you?” Doris asked, and for whatever reason she glanced his way.
Harmony ignored him. “I'll find someone.”
“I need to hit the road. Doris, if you all need anything, you give me a call.”
“Thank you, Dylan. But I think you've probably got your hands full as it is. Bill and I are making it through this. We've made it through plenty in our lives.”
“I'm just down the road.” Dylan glanced over his shoulder to make sure the kids were back in the truck. “And thanks for the kitten.”
At that, Doris smiled. “Oh, Dylan, kids need animals. It keeps them smiling, and don't we all need to smile?”
“Yeah, I guess we do.” He really didn't like cats. But it was pointless to mention that.
Doris touched his arm. “I'm going on in to see about Bill. Will you help her find someone to haul that horse out of here? And if you want that round pen, take it.”
“Sure thing, Doris.”
Harmony stood at the corral trying to coax that skinny horse to her with a few blades of grass she'd plucked from the yard. The horse trotted to the far side of the round pen, wanting nothing to do with her or that fistful of grass. He waited until Doris entered the house, then he walked up to the round pen. It didn't make sense to have the horse in that pen. Bill had land. He had cattle. The whole situation smelled of grief and pain.
“I'll haul him over to your place.” The offer slipped out, because it was the right thing to do. Harmony turned, smiling as she brushed hair back from her face.
“I can find someone.”
Argumentative females. He sighed. “Harmony, I'll haul the horse.”
Harmony held her hand out and the horse brushed against her palm and then backed away. He didn't think the animal had been worked since Terry left for the military a couple of years ago.
“He's a lot of horse,” he cautioned. “He isn't even halter-broke.”
“I'm not worried about it.”
“I'd hate to see you mess around and get hurt.”
She shot him a look, and he realized she was holding on to the fence, holding herself up. Stubborn female. He didn't have time for stubborn.
“Why don't you get in your car and head back to your place? I'll get a trailer and bring him over to you this afternoon. You'll have to pen him up for a few days because in this condition he's likely to founder if he gets too much green grass.”
“I'll put him in the small corral by the barn. It has plenty of grass for now.” She smiled at him. Man, that smile, it was something else. It could knock a guy to his knees. “And I'll take that offer to haul him for me. If it isn't too much trouble. The kidsâ”
He cut her off. “How much did you pay for him?”
“That's a business deal, Mr. Cooper. I don't sign checks and tell.” She turned away from the horse and made slow, painful steps back to her car.
He opened the car door for her. “That was real nice of you.”
She slid into the seat and looked up at him. “Why not do something for someone if you have the chance? That's what you've been doing, isn't it?”
He rested his arm on the top of her Audi and looked in at her. He knew she was referring to Cash and Callie, Katrina's kids. “Yeah, I guess we're all grown-up now.”
“Right, of course we are.” She started her car and reached for the door, forcing him to back up. “I'll see you this afternoon.”
He watched as she closed the door, and took off down the drive. Bill Tanner was standing on his front porch. The old guy walked down the steps, a little bow-legged from years in the saddle. He'd been a saddle bronc rider back in the day, one of the best.
He'd taught Dylan a thing or two about the sport. Dylan and Terry had both ridden saddle bronc, before Terry had signed up for the army. Dylan glanced at the rangy horse and smiled, because Terry had bought the animal from a stock provider who had intended to use him in rodeos and then decided the horse didn't have enough buck.
But he still had plenty of buck, and if Harmony Cross gentled the animal down, she deserved a medal.
“Well, I guess Terry's horse is going to have a good home.” Bill walked up to the round pen. “I should have sold him a long time ago. I'm just a stubborn old man who doesn't like to deal with reality.”
“It isn't easy, this reality stuff,” Dylan admitted.
“Take the girl her check back.” Bill held out the check with the flowery signature and four digits.
“Nah, Bill, I think she'd be real upset if you sent that back. Keep it and take Doris to the beach.”
Bill grinned. Probably one of his first real smiles in a long time. “It don't seem right, to have this much money in my hand. But the beach would sure be nice.”
“Go. Have a good time.” Dylan adjusted his hat to block the sun. “She ain't gonna miss the money, Bill.”
“No, I reckon she won't. She was sure determined to get that animal. I guess she'll be good to him. I just didn't want to sell him and have someone put him back in the arena. Terry thought there was more to the horse than that. Something about his eyes.”
“Maybe she sees it, too.”
“Maybe.” Bill wore a baseball cap with a big fish emblem on the front. “Guess I'll go fishing.”
“Don't forget to do something with Doris.”
“She won't let me forget.” Bill started to go back inside but stopped, and looked from the truck to Dylan. “You'll get through this, Dylan.”
“Yeah, I guess I will.”
When he got in his truck, he looked at the two kids in the backseat. Cash was in his car seat. Callie was sitting in her big-kid booster seat. She reminded him often that she was four and Cash was just a baby.
She was holding tight to her kitten and the thing looked like it might be about ready to let loose with its claws.
“That kitten isn't happy, Callie.” He grabbed a jacket and handed it back to her. “Wrap him up before you get scratched.”
“He's happy,” she insisted as she wrapped the jacket around the hissing feline.
“Of course she is. You know I don't like cats, right?” He glanced in the rearview mirror as he pulled onto the road. And he also didn't like getting involved in Harmony Cross's life. He had enough on his plate.
“You'll like this one, Dylan,” Callie informed him with a big smile.
“What do you think, Cash? I need a guy on my side.”
Cash, not quite two, responded with one of his drooling, toothy grins and said, “Cat.”
“Yeah, cat.” Dylan shook his head and headed for town. One of these days he'd have to figure out how his ability to say
no
had gotten broken to the point of no repair.
If he'd figured it out sooner, he might not have offered to haul that horse for Harmony Cross.
The one thing, actually two, that he didn't regret were sitting in the backseat of his truck. Cash and Callie, the children of his late friend. She'd lost a battle with cancer, and he'd done the only thing he had known he could do for her. He'd agreed to raise her kids because there hadn't been anyone else.
One year ago he'd decided to help out a friend. Now he was a single dad.
Chapter Two
H
armony stood in the old barn that had been a part of the Cross Ranch for as long as she could remember. Her parents had bought the place twenty years ago, when her dad had first made a name for himself in Nashville. They'd wanted a place to go where life was still normal. Where the Cross kids could be kids and the family could do what other families did. Attending church on Sunday, rodeos and the local diner.
And because Harmony needed to find that part of herself that still believed in something, in who she was, or wanted to be, she had returned to Dawson and to the old farmhouse with all of its good memories.
She loved this place because it hadn't changed. No matter what else happened in life, this house remained the same. Her parents had updated it, but they'd kept it as original as possible. The barn was solid with red-painted wood siding, a hayloft, a few stalls and a chicken pen off the back. The chicken pen was empty, and there hadn't been animals in the barn for years. There were cows in the field only because the Coopers leased the land.
Even though the barn had stood empty, it still smelled of cedar, straw and farm animals. Today there would be a horse. She smiled as she opened one of the few stalls. It had a door that led to the corral and it was roomy.
She'd found one bale of straw, probably left over from the fall decorating her mother had done the previous year. She broke up the bale and scattered a few flakes in the stall for bedding.
After she'd left the Tanner's she'd stopped at the feed store in Dawson and ordered some grain and hay to be delivered. It was already stacked in the feed room. She was all set. But her heart was a little jittery as she thought about what she was taking on and why. She knew the dangers of getting involved with Dylan Cooper. Her heart couldn't handle his charm, and she knew he was best left alone. Her dad used to say the same thing about poisonous plants and poisonous snakes.
Leave well enough alone and you won't get hurt,
he'd warn.
In the peaceful country stillness she heard a trailer rattling up the driveway. She stepped out of the stall, closing the door behind her. When she walked out of the barn, Dylan nodded a greeting as he pulled past her.
He backed the trailer up to the gate of the corral. The horse stomped and whinnied his displeasure at being moved. Harmony stepped a little closer as the truck stopped moving. The horse pushed his nose out of an opening of the trailer and whinnied again.
“It's okay, boy, we'll get you fattened up and you'll be happy to be here.” She reached to pet his nose and he pulled back. She got it; look but don't touch.
“You think he's going to be all happy that you rescued him?” Dylan walked around the trailer and opened the gate. “Because all men fall at your feet, Harmony Cross?”
“Maybe I was wrong, maybe you haven't changed.”
He smiled a little and she saw the lurking sadness again.
“Oh, I think we've both changed.” He swung the back of the trailer open. “And I'm sorry for baiting you that way. Old habits and all.”
“You're right. Maybe we should call a truce?”
A truce? They'd had an adversarial relationship for years. He'd once loosened the cinch on her saddle just to watch it slide as she tried to get on her horse. She'd put mud in his boots. All in good fun. But it had gone a long way in cementing their relationship.
A truce would mean, what? Being friends? The idea felt a little bit dangerous.
The horse wasn't coming out of the trailer. Dylan backed up and whistled. The poor animal stood his ground, trembling. Harmony stepped a little closer and spoke softly. The horse listened, his ears twitching and his head moving just the slightest bit to look at her.
“I'm not sure exactly why we need a truce,” Dylan said as he stepped up into the trailer and reached for the gelding's tail. “Come on, Beau, head on out of there.”
“His name is Beau?”
Dylan nodded, stepping back and pulling a little on the scraggly black tail. The gelding backed out of the trailer, his hooves clanking on the floor. When he hit firm ground he turned and trotted across the corral. He might have kept going but he noticed the green grass and immediately lowered his head and started to graze. He would pull at a mouthful of grass, and then look around at his new surroundings, ears twitching.
“He'll settle in.” Dylan closed the back of the trailer and then the gate. “You understand you can't ride him.”
“You understand that I'm very aware of what I can and can't do.”
“Is that your idea of a truce?” He shook his head and exhaled loudly with obvious impatience. “I don't mean to tell you what you physically can and can't do. I'm telling you, that horse can't be ridden.”
“Why?”
“Why are you so defensive?” he countered.
She watched the horse for a minute. From inside the truck she heard the lilting voice of the little girl, her Texas accent a welcome distraction.
“Well?” He pushed for an answer.
“Because I'm here to get away from people who feel I need to be told at every turn what I can and can't do. Since I got home from the Tanners', I've had three phone calls. One from your mother, one from my mother and one from my older brother. I've been warned three times that I have to be careful with the horse.”
“So what you're saying is, you've had all of the advice you can handle for a lifetime?” He smiled. “I guess we have more in common than you'd like to admit.”
She didn't want common ground. “So, about this horse...”
“He was a saddle bronc horse that Terry bought from a stock contractor. Terry had ideas that this horse was special.”
They both looked at the dark horse with the white splotch on his rump and little to recommend him other than a pretty-shaped head and nice eyes, even if they were a little wild at the moment.
“Well, whatever the reason he bought Beau, I'm glad he did. Beau might not be all that special, but I think we need each other.”
“It happens that way sometimes.” He glanced at his watch and then there was a cry from his truck. “I have to go.”
“What are their names?” She should have let him leave but she followed him to the truck. There was something about his situation that gave them a bond.
“Callie, she's four. Cash is almost two.” He looked in the window at the two kids in the backseat.
Harmony stepped close to his side to get a better view. Cash smiled past the thumb in his mouth. Callie gave her a seriously angry look. The little girl still held that kitten from Bill and Doris Tanner's. Both kids watched them with big blue eyes. They were sweet, perfectly sweet.
And he was raising them. Alone.
“I'm sure your family is a lot of help.” She meant it as a good thing. He gave her a serious look.
“I don't know, do you consider your family trying to help a good thing?”
She shrugged and her attention refocused on the two kids in the back of his truck. “It can be. And sometimes it's overwhelming.”
“Yeah, exactly. I know they mean well, but sometimes a person needs to be able to breathe and think about their next step.”
Maybe they had more in common than she'd realized. “That's why I came to Dawson,” she admitted, “but it seems I can't escape, because even here there's a steady stream of people knocking on my door.”
Not that she didn't appreciate the offers. She really did.
Dylan reached for the door of his truck but paused, his hand dropping to his side. He smiled and she didn't know what to think. His smile worried her. And it shifted her off balance. All at the same time.
She needed all the balance she could get these days.
“We could throw them off our scent, you know.”
“What does that mean?” She really shouldn't have asked. She knew Dylan. As a kid she'd gotten in trouble more than once because she'd gone along with his crazy schemes.
“We could team up. If they think we're in each other's lives, helping each other out, they might back off.”
It took her a minute to really get the meaning of his plan, then she shook her head. “You must really think I'm desperate if you think I'm going to pretend we're in a relationship.”
“I don't think you're desperate, Princess.” He used the old nickname and winked. “I just think that you'd like a little peace and quiet to get your life together. Like me. I've been taking care of Cash and Callie by myself for a year, but now that I'm back in town, people think I don't know one end of a diaper from the other.”
“I have to admit I wouldn't think you knew that.”
He laughed easily, something that she envied. “I'm a Cooper, Harmony. I have eleven siblings. Our home has been the stopping point for more foster children than I can count and I have tons of nieces and nephews. Of course I can change a diaper. My mom never believed in separate duties for the males and females in our family. She's an equal-opportunity chore giver.”
There was a lot to admire about Angie Cooper, a lady who could command a family as large as hers with love and grace. Harmony's own mother was just as loving, but a family of three children had seemed tiny compared to the Coopers.
“So?” Dylan nudged her arm.
“No. There is no way I'm going to âteam up' with you.” There was no way she could handle Dylan in her life. Her heart couldn't handle it if she let him down. Or those two children. She'd hurt too many people already. The other reason would make more sense to him. “Dylan, I'm working hard to be a recovering addict. And one of the goals for myself is no lying.”
“I'm not asking you to lie. I'm offering an exchange of services. I'll be here to help you out when you need me. And you help me out from time to time. Everyone is satisfied. And I'll no longer be pegged as the bachelor in town most in need of a wife.”
“I think the answer is still no.”
He sniffed his shirt. “But why? I don't smell bad.”
“You're nothing but trouble, Dylan Cooper.”
“I promise, no one is going to ground us.” He reached for the truck door again. “Think about it. We don't have to lie. We just have to team up. We've already called a truce, right? So if we help each other out, that's a handy excuse when someone calls to check on us. You can say Dylan has it covered. I can say you're helping with the kids.”
“And I'm still saying no. I'm here if you need me, but needing space is about needing space.”
He climbed up inside the beat-up old truck cab and started the engine. “I'll see you around then, Princess.”
She stepped back and watched him drive off. No, she wouldn't see him around. She was going to hibernate here on the ranch and give herself time to find her life again. She wasn't in Dawson to get involved in the lives of the people she'd once known. The last thing she needed in her current condition was a distraction.
Dylan Cooper, with his hazel eyes and bad-boy smile was just that, a distraction. His dark, curly hair was a distraction. His swagger, all cowboy with faded jeans, also a distraction.
She walked back to the corral, proud of the way she'd made it through the day. Each day got easier. She used the cane less. She cried less. More and more she believed she might survive. Today she'd managed to smile more. She'd even laughed.
Because of Dylan and those two children. She could admit he'd brought a lightness she hadn't felt in a long time. Because Dylan didn't allow her to be a victim.
In the first few months after the accident, she'd wanted to die. She'd wanted to give up. She'd found ways to numb herself to the physical pain, and to the emotional pain that often hurt worse.
Her best friend had been driving the night of the car accident because Harmony hadn't been sober enough to get behind the wheel. She stood at the corral watching the horse graze on what grass there was in the small enclosure. It wasn't enough to hurt him. She'd have the vet come out tomorrow to check him and make sure he didn't need more than grass and grain.
Beau turned to look at her, his ears twitching as he sniffed the air. She whistled softly and he took a few steps in her direction but the grass distracted him again.
It didn't take long for her back and legs to give out. Harmony limped back into the barn and sat down on an upturned bucket. She leaned her head against the wall and waited for the pain to subside, at least enough to make it to the house. Her mind filled with thoughts of Amy. She kept her eyes open, because if she closed them she would see the flash of lights as a truck ran a stop sign. She would hear the crash of metal and see her friend, lifeless in the driver's seat.
In the silence her heart moved toward God, praying for peace and strength to get through.
When she finally walked out of the barn, the sun was a hazy fixture hanging in the western sky. As she crossed the lawn toward the house, she heard a child laughing and realized it came from the little house just across the field from her place. The house sat on Cooper land. And even from a distance she could see Dylan Cooper in the front yard.
She watched them, smiling when Dylan lifted Callie to his shoulders. She could hear the faint laughter, carried on the breeze. A truck pulled up her drive and stopped. She smiled at Wyatt Johnson, pastor of Dawson Community Church, and his wife, Rachel. It was their second visit this week. She knew she had her dad to thank for that. Since getting to town she'd also had visits from various members of the Cooper family.
“Hi, Wyatt, Rachel,” she greeted them as they got out of their truck.
“We were on our way home from town and thought we'd stop by and see if you need anything.” Wyatt's gaze fixed on the corral and his eyes narrowed. “Is that the horse from over at Bill Tanner's? Terry's horse?”
“It is.” She looked back at the horse that hadn't stopped grazing since they unloaded him.