Cowboy Defender. Carla Cassidy

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       Chapter 2

      Miranda woke up on Saturday morning feeling a little bit guilty about the way she had acted the night before. There was no question that she’d been rude to Clay and that wasn’t really who she was.

      However, there was something about Clay Madison that set her on edge. Maybe it was because she was far too aware of him whenever they were in the same space.

      Okay, she could admit that she’d always been secretly physically attracted to him. But she also believed he was a fairly vacuous man, sliding through his life and women on his good looks and easy charm.

      Besides, she wasn’t interested in having a man in her life. Being married to Hank had soured her on the whole notion. She had given up her dignity and self-respect in staying with Hank as long as she had. Now she just wanted to be the best teacher she could be and raise her children to be happy, healthy and good people. She didn’t need a man to accomplish those goals.

      At ten o’clock the kids were in the living room with their overnight bags packed. “Do you both have your toothbrushes?” she asked.

      They replied that they did. “And clean socks and underwear,” Henry added and then giggled. “I knew that was going to be the next question ’cause you always ask the same thing before we leave on Saturday mornings.”

      “And then you tell us that you love us and we should be good for Dad and Ms. Lori,” Jenny said.

      “Great, then I don’t have to say any of that same old stuff today,” Miranda replied with a laugh.

      A knock sounded at the door. Miranda answered to see her ex-husband, the boy she had fallen in love with when she’d been sixteen years old and had fallen out of love with after years of an unhappy marriage.

      “Hey, Miranda,” he said with the crooked smile that had once made her heart beat faster and now only made her sad. His eyes were bleary and red-rimmed, but at least there was no smell of alcohol on him.

      “Good morning, Hank,” she replied. She opened the screen door but didn’t invite him inside. Beyond him she saw Lori in the driver’s seat of Hank’s king cab pickup and waved to her.

      By that time the kids were at the door. A flurry of kisses were given and then Miranda watched as they all got into the truck and Lori pulled away.

      Miranda closed the door and headed for the kitchen. On most Saturdays when the kids were with Hank and Lori, Miranda cleaned the house and then graded papers. Before she could get started on anything, the phone rang.

      “Hi, Mom,” she said when she answered.

      “Hello, my lovely daughter,” her mother replied.

      Miranda smiled. She could imagine her mother sitting in her favorite blue-flowered chair, her silver hair perfectly coiffed and impeccable makeup highlighting her high cheekbones and bright blue eyes.

      No one ever saw Katherine Albright when she wasn’t completely pulled together. It had been that way when Miranda was growing up and even while her mother had been taking care of Miranda’s father, who had been sick with prostate cancer for months. He had finally succumbed to the disease and was now buried in the Bitterroot Cemetery. As far as Miranda was concerned, her mother was the strongest women she’d ever known.

      “I heard a little rumor this morning when I was getting my nails done,” Katherine said.

      Miranda groaned inwardly. “And what rumor is that?” she asked, even though she knew. God bless Bitterroot, Oklahoma, and its healthy gossip mill.

      “I heard that you and the children had cupcakes and ice cream with that handsome cowboy Clay Madison.”

      “The rumor is true, but it was just a chance meeting. It didn’t mean anything and it was certainly no big deal,” Miranda replied.

      “Well, that’s too bad. You could do a lot worse than Clay. Not only is he easy on the eyes, but from what I hear he’s a hard worker. Besides, he’s just so darned nice whenever I run into him in town.”

      Good Lord, the man had apparently charmed her own mother as well as most of the other females in town. “Actually, Henry asked him to help him get better at baseball and Clay agreed to help out.”

      “If Hank were any kind of a father at all he’d be the one teaching that poor little boy how to play ball,” Katherine replied and then went into a ten-minute diatribe against the man who had once been her son-in-law.

      She harangued him for cheating on Miranda, for not being a good provider for his family and for not being a real and present father in his children’s lives. She then went on to talk about Hank’s drinking problem.

      “Are you finished?” Miranda asked dryly when her mother finally stopped to take a breath.

      “For now,” Katherine said with a small laugh. “I just don’t understand why a man with so much potential would waste his life.”

      “The good news is he isn’t wasting any more of mine,” Miranda replied.

      “Thank goodness, and now to the real reason I called...are you planning on taking the children to the spring fling celebration this weekend?”

      “I might take them for a little while on Friday evening.” Miranda had put away a bit of fun money for the night where there would be people with booths and tents selling their wares, but more importantly for the kids, there would be carnival rides. “Why? Would you like to come with us? You know we’d love that.”

      “Actually, I’m going to help out at Halena and Mary’s tent. You know they always get a lot of traffic, and Halena asked me to work with them and help them out.”

      “Are you sure you’re up to it?” Miranda asked. Katherine suffered from rheumatoid arthritis that often flared up and severely limited her mobility. There were days she was in so much pain she was unable to get out of bed.

      “You can’t stop living because of a little СКАЧАТЬ