The Cowboy's Sweetheart. Brenda Minton

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      “I think Ryder and Wyatt are able to take care of themselves.” After her mother climbed into the front seat beside Etta, Andie slid into the back and buckled her seat belt. Etta eased through the church parking lot.

      It hadn’t been such a bad first Sunday back in church. The members of Dawson Community Church were friends, neighbors and sometimes a distant relative. They all knew her. Most of them knew that she’d gone on strike from church when Ryder stopped going. Because they’d been best friends, and a girl had to do something when her best friend cried angry tears over what his father had done, and over a moment in church that changed their lives. A girl had to take a stand when her best friend threw rocks into the creek with a fury she couldn’t understand because life had never been that cruel to her.

      Her strike had been more imaginary than real. Most of the time Etta managed to drag her along. But Andie had let her feelings be known. At ten she’d been pretty outspoken.

      “How long have you known Ryder and Wyatt?” Caroline asked, and Andie wanted to tell her that she should know that. A mother should know the answer to that question.

      “Forever.” Andie leaned back in the seat and looked out the window, remembering being a kid in this very car, this very backseat. Her dad had driven and Etta had sat in the passenger side. The car had been new then. She’d been more innocent.

      She’d heard them whispering about what Ryder’s dad had done. She’d been too young to really get it. When she got home from church that day she’d run down the road and Ryder had met her in the field.

      “Forever?” Caroline asked, glancing back over her shoulder.

      “We’ve known each other since Ryder was five, and I was three. That’s when they moved to Dawson. I guess about the time you left.”

      Silence hung over the car, crackling with tension and recrimination. Okay, maybe she’d gone too far. Andie sighed. “I’m sorry.”

      Etta cleared her throat and turned the old radio on low. “We’ll stop by the Mad Cow and get takeout chicken. Knowing Ryder, he doesn’t have a thing in that house for Wyatt and the girls to eat.”

      “What happened to Wyatt’s wife?” Caroline asked.

      Stop asking questions. Andie closed her eyes and leaned back into the leather seat. She wouldn’t answer. She wouldn’t say something that would hurt. She was working on forgiving. God had to know that wasn’t easy. Shouldn’t God cut her a little slack?

      Etta answered Caroline’s question. “She committed suicide last year. Postpartum depression.”

      It still hurt. Andie hadn’t really known Wendy, but it hurt, because it was about Ryder, Wyatt and two little girls.

      “I’m so sorry.” Caroline glanced out the window. “It isn’t easy to deal with depression.”

      Clues to who her mother was. In a sense, Andie thought these might also be clues to who she was. She waited, wanting her mother to say more. She didn’t. Etta didn’t push. Instead she turned the Caddy into the parking lot of the Mad Cow. And Ryder was already there. He was getting out of his truck and a little girl with dark hair was clinging to his neck. He looked like a guy wearing new boots. Not too comfortable in the shoes he’d been forced to wear.

      He saw them and he stopped. Etta parked next to his truck.

      As they got out, Wyatt came around the side of the truck. The older of the two girls was in his arms. She didn’t smile the way the other child smiled.

      “We didn’t beat the church crowd.” Ryder tossed the observation to Wyatt but he smiled as he said it.

      “No, you didn’t, but you can eat lunch with us.” Etta slipped an arm around Wyatt, even as she addressed the response at Ryder. “And you’ll behave yourself, Ryder Johnson.”

      “I always do.” He winked at the little girl in his arms and she giggled. And she wasn’t even old enough to know what that wink could do to a girl, how it could make her feel like her toes were melting in her high heels.

      Andie wished she didn’t know what that wink could do to a girl. Or a woman. She didn’t want to care that he looked cuter than ever with a two-year-old in his arms. He looked like someone who should have kids.

      But he didn’t want kids. He had never wanted children of his own. He said the only thing his childhood had prepared him for was being single and no one to mess up but himself.

      “You look nice.” He stepped closer, switching his niece to the opposite arm as he leaned close to Andie. “You smell good, too.”

      Andie smiled, because every answer seemed wrong. Sarcasm, anger, the words “Is this the first time you’ve noticed how I look?” and so on.

      She didn’t feel like fighting with him. She felt like going home to a cup of ginger tea and a good romance novel. She felt like hitching the trailer back to her truck and hitting the road with Dusty, because she could always count on her horse and the next rodeo to cheer her up. She could head down to Texas.

      “You look a little pale.” Caroline stood next to her, another problem that Andie didn’t want to deal with. She felt like a tiny ant and people were shoveling stuff over the top of her, without caring that she was getting buried beneath it all.

      “I’m fine.”

      “You really don’t look so hot,” Ryder added.

      “You just said I look nice. Which is it, Ryder?”

      “Nice, in a pale, illusive, gonna-kick-somebody-to-the-curb sort of way.” He teased in the way that normally worked on her bad moods. Ryder knew how to drag her out of the pits.

      But not today.

      Today she wanted to be alone, to figure out the next phase of her life. And she didn’t want to think about how Ryder would have to be a part of that future.

      Or how he was going to feel about it.

      Chapter Three

      “Why aren’t you eating?” Ryder had tried to ignore Andie, the same way she’d obviously been ignoring him. She had talked to Wyatt, to the girls, even to her mother.

      She was ignoring him the same way she was ignoring the chicken-fried steak on her dinner plate. And her mother was right. She did look pale.

      “I’m eating.” She smiled and cut a bite of the gravy-covered steak. “See.”

      She ate the bite, swallowing in a way that looked painful.

      “Are you sick?”

      She looked up to the heavens and shook her head. “No, I’m not sick.”

      “You act sick.” He grinned a little, because he just knew he had to say what was on his mind. He couldn’t stop himself. “You look like something the cat yacked up.”

      His nieces laughed. Even Molly. At least they appreciated his humor. He sat back in his chair, his hands behind his head, smiling at Andie. Kat СКАЧАТЬ