Cowgirl, Say Yes. Brenda Mott

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ screen door banged open, then shut, interrupting his thoughts as Jason flew into the kitchen like a tornado on the heels of a hurricane. “Hey, Dad! When’s supper? I’m starvin’.” Lanky for his age, Jason was always hungry, and seemed to outgrow his jeans as fast as Wade could buy them. The boy moved to the sink to wash his sun-browned hands using the dishwashing soap, then hastily wiped them on a paper towel.

      “Son, don’t waste the paper towels like that.” Wade tossed him the dish towel and Jason gave his hands another swipe. “Dinner will be ready shortly. Why don’t you help me out…peel a few potatoes.”

      “All right.” Jason moved to the potato bin, his light-brown hair peeking out from beneath his ball cap.

      “Take your hat off.”

      Whistling, Jason flipped it at the rack by the back door, missed and scooped it up, then aimed once more. This time the John Deere cap found its mark. Jason grinned at him, then pointed. “What’s that on your head, Dad?”

      “What?” Wade reached up to touch his head, and his hand bumped against the brim of his worn, gray Resistol. It was such a part of him he hadn’t even realized he still had it on. He laughed, then hung it on the peg next to Jason’s cap. “Silly of me, huh?”

      “Hey, Dad,” Jason said, sitting at the table and running the peeler over a large russet potato. “Did you know that Tess from the feed store moved into Trent Murdock’s place?”

      “I heard,” Wade said dryly. “Your sister was up there this afternoon.”

      “Wondered where she’d gone off to,” Jason said. “She was supposed to help me with the bucket calves.” Every spring they ended up with a few calves that needed supplemental feeding for one reason or another. A bucket with rubber nipples attached inside served as a surrogate mother.

      “I know. I lined her out.” Wade grinned and Jason grinned back. They both realized his idea of firm discipline was little more than a lecture. Most often, he found reasoning with his kids worked just fine, but today there’d been no reasoning with Macy.

      His thoughts turned again to Tess. He’d seen her on numerous occasions at the feed store, but he’d never really noticed until today that she was a good-looking woman. At least, she could be, if she’d learn how to wear something other than bib overalls, and if she’d take her flame-red hair out of those silly braids.

      Braids like a kid. Hell, she wasn’t much more than a kid. Probably about twenty-four, he thought. Or maybe twenty-five. He wasn’t sure. These days anyone under thirty seemed young to him.

      At thirty-three, Wade already felt every one of his years in the aches in his joints and muscles when he lay in bed at night after a hard day putting up fence or pulling calves during calving season or whatever else was required to keep the Circle D running. His days of affording hired help were long past, and trying to keep things up with only Macy and Jason to pitch in had been hell lately.

      Deidra had been his right arm as well as his best friend. A strong, hard worker and practical to the bone. Nothing like Tess, with her batty ideas about rescuing old horses.

      Horse sanctuary.

      “Dad?” Jason waved a hand in front of his face.

      Wade blinked. “What?”

      “Did Tess work her charms on you, too?” Jason teased.

      “Hardly.” Then he frowned. “What do you mean ‘too’?”

      “Nothing.” Jason chuckled. “She’s hot, ain’t she?”

      Wade knuckled his son’s hair. “You’re not supposed to be noticing things like that yet.”

      “Dad! I’m almost thirteen.” He said it as though the age equaled manhood.

      Wade grinned. “Yeah, I guess you are. And I guess she is. Hot, that is,” he added. “But she’s sure irritating.”

      “Yep.” Jason nodded as though he held the wisdom of the world in his mind. “Women usually are.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      TESS SHUT the refrigerator door a little too hard, and the magnetic calendar that didn’t seem to stick right anymore slid off and plopped on the floor. She picked it up and noticed her upcoming birthday marked with pink Hi-Liter—Macy’s doing. Six more days and she’d turn twenty-seven. Twenty-seven and still married to her job.

      She shrugged off the thought. Only her run-in with Wade was making her think that way. Any other time, she knew she was better off sharing her home with no one but her animals. Heck, she had all the kids she needed in her 4-H group. And Lord knows she’d had enough of being a family caregiver to last a lifetime. Not that she would ever begrudge the time she’d devoted to her mother. Instead, she treasured it.

      Raelene Vega had developed familial Alzheimer’s disease—FAD, a rare form of Alzheimer’s—at the age of forty-one. As the years passed, she’d required Tess’s ever-increasing care. It wasn’t her fault, no more than Tess’s dad and two older brothers were to blame for being men—which translated to helpless half the time.

      Tess had been the primary caregiver, maker of meals and soother of colds, flu and broken hearts since the age of sixteen. Her father had insisted that Raelene, the woman he’d thought would be his life’s partner, stay at home for as long as possible. With the progress of time came progress of the disease. Tess had quickly grown to hate FAD. Not for what it put her through, but for what her mother suffered.

      Once a vibrant, intelligent woman who took pride in the three kids she’d chosen to adopt, she’d taught them how to ride a horse, how to build a barn and what to do when a member of the opposite sex called for the first time on the phone. But in the grip of Alzheimer’s, Rae’s mind had quickly deteriorated. Her condition had worsened to the point that although Lloyd Vega and all three of his children visited Rae regularly at the County Care Facility, she rarely knew who they were anymore.

      Tess tried not to think about that part.

      And she tried not to be selfish and thank God that, even though she felt like Rae’s flesh and blood, she wasn’t. Tess’s birth mother had abandoned her and her brothers when they were small, fading from their lives without so much as a second thought. Raelene had married Lloyd a short time later, and adopted Tess and the boys. FAD ran in generations, and if Tess, Zach and Seth had been Rae’s biological children, they would have had a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting the disease.

      Angry at herself not for the first time for letting such a thought come to mind, Tess slapped the calendar back up on the fridge, opened the door and peered inside. An assortment of fresh vegetables and cheese greeted her, and her stomach growled. She’d given up meat ten years ago, when her love for animals dictated she do the right thing. Reaching into the fridge, she chose a cluster of fresh broccoli and a chunk of Monterey Jack, both of which would go nicely with the ziti she’d purchased yesterday. She’d also treat herself to a good, ice-cold beer. Tess rarely drank the stuff, but the day she’d had today warranted one.

      First there’d been the call she’d gotten at work…a summons to a boarding stable located ten miles from town. The caller had been a concerned neighbor, and the tale she’d told had been familiar. One that never failed to twist Tess’s stomach into a knot. An abandoned horse, neglected because the owner no longer cared and СКАЧАТЬ