Kayla's Cowboy

“I think we should change our order to takeout,” Elizabeth announced suddenly. She went to the old-fashioned marble counter and spoke to the cashier, returning a few minutes later with two large plastic cups.

Grateful, Kayla took hers and they headed for the door. They strolled around town, sipping their ice cream sodas and trying to catch up on the past sixteen years. Yet in the back of her mind, Kayla kept wondering if Jackson remembered his reaction when she’d told him she was pregnant...that he’d used condoms, so obviously the other boys were right about her sleep-around reputation.

Kayla straightened her back. Her son was safe and she’d already weathered some of the worst stuff life could throw at her. She would handle Jackson, one way or the other.

* * *

“I HATE YOU,” Morgan yelled, her blond hair bouncing. “Go ahead, hate me back.”

Jackson McGregor glared at his daughter, though he still chose his words carefully. Unfortunately, he’d had plenty of practice lately. “I don’t hate you,” he said. “But right now I’m struggling to like you as much as I usually do.”

“You think you’re so clever. Why can’t I go to the lake for the weekend?”

“At your age? A girl? With a bunch of the wildest kids in school, with no adults? Do you think I’ve lost my mind?”

Morgan stomped her foot. “If I was a guy you’d let me go, and that’s not fair. It’s a...a double standard. The other kids will think I’m a nun. Can’t you try to remember what it was like in high school?”

“I remember all too well, and I’ll be damned if I make it easy for you to repeat my mistakes.”

“Yeah, I know all about your mistakes.”

“Then, you should realize that I know what I’m talking about,” he told her.

“Yeah, you had fun, but you don’t want me to have any at all.”

Jackson counted to ten as his daughter disappeared around the corner of the barn. Morgan had always been strong willed, but lately she’d gone completely ornery and seemed determined to drive him crazy. It was a miracle if a day passed without a shouting match. As for being grounded, she did her best to make it appear as if she was disobeying him. Just that afternoon she’d hidden in the hayloft of one of the barns, letting him think she’d sneaked into town. He’d wasted hours looking for her. Lately he’d been in Schuyler far too often, tracking her down for one reason or another.

Just a few months ago she’d hacked her hair into a hideous spiky cut. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d begun adding a dramatic fluorescent streak down one side, using a selection of temporary dyes. Every morning it had been a different color. Though her hair had grown out, it put him on edge, wondering what she’d do next. Hell, much as he loved her, raising a boy might have been easier.

Jackson trotted up the patio steps and into the house, tempted to call his mother and ask for advice. But it wasn’t fair to load his problems onto her. His parents had raised their own family and two of his cousins, as well. They’d done their duty.

He glanced at Flora, the woman he’d hired to keep house. “Any pearls of wisdom to share?” he asked.

Flora shrugged. “Afraid not.” She was sitting at the kitchen table, snapping string beans. She worked hard and was a great cook but hadn’t connected with Morgan as much as he’d hoped. Not that it was a housekeeper’s job to provide motherly guidance.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you were spending the night in town.”

“My sister canceled on me. She got a hot date at the last minute.”

The brevity of the comment made him wonder if Stella was going out again with his great-uncle, who was definitely enjoying his retirement. The image of Stella Charlton on a hot date with Uncle Mitch was almost too much for Jackson’s stressed-out brain. Stella was a gum-snapping, determined strawberry blonde, whose ample curves were often poured into the kind of tight clothes normally seen on a twenty-year-old.

He drew a deep breath, trying to dispel the mental picture of Uncle Mitch and Stella together.

“Er...Morgan wants to go camping at Flathead Lake with friends from school, a totally teen party of girls and guys.”

“She should know better than to ask.”

Yeah, she should. But lately it seemed as if his daughter was determined to cross every line, test every boundary and break every rule she could find. And she was so blasted angry while she did it. Who’d have guessed that she used to be a sweet kid who loved to spend time with her daddy while he worked on the ranch?

Jackson rubbed the tense muscles on the back of his neck. What was he doing wrong? And now Morgan was throwing out comments about his teenage exploits...?

Hell. He’d tried to live down those years, but it was inevitable that she’d heard some of the stories. No doubt Morgan considered him a complete hypocrite and was angry that he was making her toe the line. But hypocrite or not, he didn’t intend to let his daughter head down the same road that he’d traveled. Not if he could prevent it.

Hmm. What if he tried to make her wear those dresses he’d bought her? Would traditional feminine clothes encourage her to behave more appropriately? But dresses weren’t practical on a ranch, and Morgan would just accuse him once again of having double standards.

“I’ll be out for a while,” he said.

“Going to ride fences?” Flora guessed.

“Yeah.”

As a rule, Jackson rode fences whenever he needed to think or to regain his cool. And with Morgan constantly acting out, he’d spent a lot of time in the saddle checking fence lines.

The next few hours allowed him to relax and clear his mind, only to get uptight again when Morgan refused to come out of her room for dinner.

After eating alone, he went into the ranch office, built on the side of the house so it wouldn’t intrude on the backyard or pool area. Paperwork wasn’t his favorite activity, but he dived into his breeding records with grim determination, only to have the office phone ring soon after he started.

Jackson reached to pick it up, then saw the caller ID on the display... K. Anderson.

He dropped his hand back to the desk.

Seeing Kayla that afternoon had brought a rush of mixed feelings. Pleasure at first—once he’d been fascinated by the outsider who was so different from the other girls in Schuyler. But the memory of their last discussion in high school had intruded on the pleasure. No guy enjoyed being treated as a chump, and Kayla’s claim that he’d gotten her pregnant had been ridiculous; he’d used protection and half his classmates had boasted about sleeping with her.

After a minute Jackson dialed in and listened to Kayla’s voice mail message.

“Jackson, this is Kayla Anderson. It’s urgent we speak as soon as possible. I’m staying with my grandparents, but please call my cell phone.” She gave the number and got off quickly.

He sat back and frowned.

What could Kayla want? Surely not the same old thing. She couldn’t hope to raise the issue again after so long. Or maybe she could. What was it about women and the way they thought?

Twenty minutes later a knock on the door provided a welcome distraction. Jackson got up to answer and found his younger brother there. Behind Josh the July sun glowed low on the horizon. It was a time of day Jackson especially loved on the ranch, but lately he’d been too distracted by dealing with Morgan to appreciate it.

“Hey, Josh. You want a beer?” Jackson went to his small office refrigerator and extracted a couple of bottles.

“Thanks.” Josh popped the lid and settled onto a chair with a groan.

“Something wrong?”

“Same as always. I came up from Texas since Grandpa was making noises as if he was finally ready to give up the ranch. Then I get here and it’s business as usual, so I’m heading back in a couple of weeks. I’d leave earlier, but you know Mom. I thought she’d have kittens when I said I wasn’t staying.”

Jackson nodded sympathetically. The family plan had been for him to get Great-Uncle Mitch’s ranch, and Josh their maternal grandfather’s place. The second part of the plan kept getting delayed.

“Never mind,” Josh said. “I just need to unwind.”

“Yeah.” Jackson thought for a moment, then opened his mouth. “You want to know something weird?” he asked. “I saw Kayla Garrison in town today, except she’s Kayla Anderson now. Remember her?”

“Who could forget Kayla? I saw her, too, on my way to the post office. She’s even hotter than in high school. Say, are you still interested in her?”

Jackson almost let out an emphatic no before recalling that Josh didn’t know the history between him and his old girlfriend.

“Can’t say that I am,” he said slowly.

“Then, would it bother you if I asked her out? That is, if I run into her.”

Jackson gulped a mouthful of beer rather than reply too quickly. He didn’t know what kind of woman Kayla had become, any more than he knew what she wanted to talk about with him. She might have even called to apologize for claiming he’d gotten her pregnant—unlikely, but not impossible.

He finally shrugged. “It makes no difference to me. Just employ the usual caution when it comes to women.”

“Amen to that, brother.”

CHAPTER TWO

ALEX SQUIRMED AS he listened to the faint murmur of his mother and her grandparents talking downstairs after dinner.

The discussion he’d dreaded all day was coming. Okay, so he’d been dreading it since the moment he’d decided to ditch Dad and head for Montana.

He just hadn’t been able to stand the way Dad got so excited about spending time with Brant, his new stepson, but didn’t seem to notice when his other two kids were around. Dad used to claim he didn’t care about sports, but now he was doing all that outdoor stuff with Brant and wasn’t interested in the things he and Alex had once done together. And it sounded as though the two of them had really gotten buddy-buddy on that camping trip they’d taken right after school got out.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if Brant wasn’t such an obnoxious little creep.

Nah, Alex decided. Finding out his dad had adopted him when he was little would have been rough no matter what, though Brant being an obnoxious creep hadn’t helped.

Worst of all, Alex realized he should have figured it out a long time ago. He and Dad weren’t at all alike. Maybe, deep down, he had known and hadn’t wanted to admit it.

His sister slid into the room. “I gotta say,” DeeDee said, “I never thought you’d have the gazoomba to run away from home.”

Alex pulled himself up and faced the squirt. Why did she have to make up such strange words? You’d never know she was practically a genius. Maybe. Personally, he thought she’d just fooled the teachers and school counselor.

“I didn’t run away from home,” he informed her haughtily. “Guys who run away from home don’t leave letters to tell their mothers what they’re doing. Besides, I also emailed Sandy about it.” Sandy had been his best friend for as long as he could remember.

“That’s a technicality. Boy, was Mom pissed.”

“You’re too young to talk like that. Besides, Mom doesn’t get pissed, or at least I don’t think so.”

“Shows how much you know. She was pissed at Dad, too, at first because he thought you’d gone off for the day without telling anyone and hadn’t done anything about it, and then because he didn’t call her right off.”

“So she wasn’t mad at me?”

“Of course she was. Mom gets mad when she’s scared.”

“Really?”

DeeDee snickered. “You can build a computer, but you’re too much of an idiot to figure Mom out.”

“I wasn’t too much of an idiot to get here on my own, was I?” he countered.

“Probably just dumb luck.”

There was a knock on the door and Alex called, “Come in.”

It was Mom, and he couldn’t tell if she was angry or not. “DeeDee,” she said, “please go watch the baseball game with your grandpa.”

His sister grinned. “I’d rather stay and watch Alex get shredded.”

“Out.”

“Jeez, I never get to have any fun.”

“DeeDee,” Mom warned.

“Okay, okay.” His sister winked at him as she slid through the door.

“Close it,” Mom ordered.

“But closing it means I’ll have to work even harder to hear what you’re saying.”

“I don’t think so, young lady.” It was Grandpa, who’d come down the hallway and put his arm around DeeDee’s shoulders. “We’re going down to the family room to see how the Cubs are doing.”

“Okay.” DeeDee stuck her head back into the room again. “By the way, Alex, I am glad you didn’t get splattered on the road or kidnapped and taken by pirates to Shanghai or something. Surprised, but glad.”

“Get out of here, squirt.”

DeeDee simply grinned, and Alex was almost sorry when she was gone since their mother’s attention would have been split between them.

“Okay, I’m really sorry,” he rushed to say. “I guess it was a stupid thing to do, but I—”

“You guess it was stupid?” Mom interrupted, sounding incredulous. “I thought we’d brought you up with more sense than to do something so dangerous.” Her face was so tired and pale that Alex felt awful.

“You did, but...uh, Dad spends all his time with Brant and doesn’t notice us anymore, even when we’re there.” He’d meant to ask her about Dad adopting him, but the words got stuck in his throat.

Her lips pressed together, then relaxed. “What was the real reason? You’ve seen your dad in other relationships, and how he gets...er...swept up in them.” It was true—his father was an ass a lot of the time. Even when he was just dating some woman with a kid, he did the daddy thing with them and seemed to forget him and DeeDee.

Alex stuck his chin up. “Isn’t that good enough?”

Mom sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed the back of her neck. “Nothing’s good enough to justify a fifteen-year-old running off on his own. And why Schuyler? You could have come home if it bothered you that much.”

She was always so logical, it was hard to argue with her.

“I didn’t run away. I just took a...an unauthorized vacation.”

“You’re fifteen. An unauthorized vacation for a fifteen-year-old is running away.”

“Grandpa says he’s always admired the logical way you argue,” he said, hoping to avoid more questions. “He says you’d make a Vulcan proud. Imagine an old guy like that knowing about Star Trek.”

“Don’t try to slide around this, Alex. You scared me half to death. I almost...” Her voice choked up and he could swear she was ready to cry.

Crud. If he’d felt rotten before, now he was neck deep in pond scum. But it was mostly her fault, because she hadn’t told him the truth.

She straightened. “Alex, I want to know right now. Why did you run away?”

“I... Okay. That is, I thought...”

Now he wasn’t completely sure why he’d done it. He’d just been so angry the way Dad acted around Brant and how they’d kept the adoption a secret. Heck, he knew they’d gotten married three years after he was born, but that wasn’t unusual. Half his friends could tell the same story.

“I wanted to get back at Dad somehow, and you, too, I guess,” he blurted out.

“Why me?”

“Because you never told me that Dad isn’t my real father,” he said in a rush.

His mom’s face turned pale. “That was wrong,” she admitted slowly. “Your father wanted it that way, so I agreed. Later I knew it was a mistake, but Dad still thought it was best to wait. And it doesn’t change anything to say he isn’t your birth dad. He’s your real father. Adopting you was his idea. He really wanted to do it.”

She stopped talking and waited, but Alex didn’t know what to say.

“How did you find out?” she finally asked.

“From Brant. Dad told him when they went on that stupid ‘bonding’ camping trip.”

“Bonding?” Mom’s mouth tightened.

“That’s what Dad called it when he said I couldn’t go. I guess he was trying to be buddy-buddy with the obnoxious little creep. Brant couldn’t wait to spill everything.”

“Oh. Well, now that you know, you must have some questions.”

Mostly Alex had thought about how to run away without getting killed. Face it, he was a wimp. When he’d run away, he’d gone to his great-grandparents’ house; how lame could you get?

“Do you want to know anything about your biological father?” his mom prompted. “You have to hear about him now anyway. He lives in Schuyler.”

“Here?” Alex gulped.

“Yes, and since there’s a strong resemblance, folks in town may have already realized you’re his son.”

Alex nervously rubbed his nose. People had looked at him funny and said he seemed familiar, but he’d thought it was because of his great-grandparents.

“Uh, what’s my birth dad like?”

His mother shook her head. “It’s hard to say. I briefly ran into him today, but that’s the first time I’ve seen Jackson since before you were born. I’ll talk with him as soon as possible, and should know more after that. In the meantime, I also need to explain everything to your sister.”

“DeeDee doesn’t have to know,” Alex protested.

“She does unless we leave Montana immediately, which isn’t going to happen. And it might even follow us back to Seattle. This is like breaking an egg—we can’t put the pieces back together again in the same way. So start thinking about whether you want to meet your birth father. I’ve left a message at his house so we can get together and talk. I can try to arrange for you to meet him, but to some extent, the timing is up to you.”

That made him feel a little better.

Mom stood up. “I’m going to see DeeDee right now. I don’t want her to hear what’s happening from anyone else.”

“Uh, okay,” Alex said reluctantly, then realized there was something he wanted to ask. “Wait. Why didn’t my birth dad ever come to see me?”

His mother looked uncomfortable. “It’s complicated. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

Alex settled back on the bed, convinced she wasn’t telling him everything.

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING, Kayla turned in at the road with the Crazy Horse Ranch sign arching over it. She’d been tempted to come over the evening before, but dealing with Jackson when she was so tired hadn’t seemed wise. Instead, she’d called a second time, leaving another message on voice mail when no one had picked up.

Maybe Jackson would be more reasonable than the last time they’d really spoken. After all, there was a vast difference between a grown man and a boy confronted with his girlfriend’s unwanted pregnancy. On the other hand, Jackson hadn’t returned either of her calls, despite her saying it was urgent, so maybe he was as pigheaded as ever.

Rather than wait, she’d decided to drive out to the ranch before someone mentioned Alex’s resemblance to Jackson or his family. She didn’t care if it embarrassed Jackson, but it would be rotten for his daughter to learn something of that sort from anyone but her father. And the McGregors had been nice people. They hadn’t approved of her, but that didn’t mean she wanted them to be blindsided by gossip.

Parking in front of the house, Kayla climbed from the car and straightened her shoulders. The two-story structure was surprising—too new and modern to fit the open, rolling land. But the two vehicles parked to one side—a huge black SUV and a pickup truck—fit with every stereotype she’d ever had of Montana ranchers.

The doorbell seemed loud and tension crawled up her spine as light footsteps approached...definitely not those of a man of Jackson’s size.

The door opened, revealing a woman with iron-gray hair and a stiff expression. Probably a housekeeper. Grams had mentioned that Jackson was divorced from Marcy Lipton.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to speak with Jackson McGregor,” Kayla said.

The woman assessed her up and down. “Name?” If she was the housekeeper, she hadn’t been chosen for her personality.

“Kayla Anderson.”

“I’ll let him know you’re here.”

The door swung partly shut, but from the little Kayla could see of the house’s interior, it was more of what she’d expect to see on a ranch—big comfortable leather furniture and a pair of women’s riding boots near the fireplace. A lady friend’s boots, or did they belong to Jackson’s daughter? Impatiently she pushed the thought away.

Heavier footsteps sounded, then the door opened again and Jackson’s tall, powerful frame filled the space.

“Hello, Kayla. What do you want?” His expression was less friendly than it had been the day before.

“I have something to discuss with you.”

“We have nothing to talk about, last night or today.”

She pressed her lips together, a remnant of her old anger at him surfacing, but she pushed it away. They weren’t kids any longer; it was the present that mattered.

“You’re wrong. Is your daughter here?”

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “She’s in her bedroom.”

“Then, we should speak someplace more private. How about Riverside Park at ten?” she asked.

Kayla still hoped to protect the youngster from accidental discoveries...such as the way Alex had learned that Curtis had adopted him. How could her ex-husband have been so careless? He’d told his new stepson about the adoption. Had he expected Brant would keep it to himself?

Of all the rotten things that could have happened, Alex learning the truth from his stepbrother was one of the lousiest. Kayla had met Brant a few times and her son was right, the kid was obnoxious.

Jackson’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re so sure we have something to discuss, why didn’t you let me know you were coming to Schuyler? I don’t appreciate being ambushed.”

She kept her temper with an effort. Honestly, did he think the entire world revolved around him? His old-fashioned attitudes hadn’t bothered her in high school, but they didn’t go down well now.

“Forty-eight hours ago I didn’t know I was coming to Montana, and this isn’t something that can wait. Now, do you really want to have this discussion within earshot of your daughter?” she asked in a voice that wasn’t quite a whisper.

Jackson’s eyes darkened. “Fine. Ten at the county park. I’ll see you there.”

“Make sure of it,” she said calmly. “I’m not going away just because you don’t want to deal with this.”

Head held high, Kayla walked to her car, climbed in and drove away, only relaxing her posture after the house was out of sight.

Fifteen minutes later she parked in the lot near the group picnic site, a sense of unreality coming over her. How could she be back in Schuyler? Two days ago she’d spent the afternoon with her manager debating whether to hire a new insurance billing specialist. To unwind, she’d stopped at a friend’s house to visit, only to have Melinda talk about fixing Kayla up with her recently divorced brother. Kayla had paid less attention to her friend’s matchmaking than usual; she’d been missing the kids and thinking about their pleas to go camping at Yellowstone that summer.

Then her cell phone had rung. It had been Curtis, telling her that he hadn’t seen Alex that day, but he was sure everything was fine.

“It’s after 7:00 p.m.,” she’d screamed, panic overwhelming her. “You don’t know where he’s been since he went to bed last night?”

“We just... I mean, Brant and I left early to go kayaking. We invited Alex to go with us, but he wanted to sleep in. I’m sure it’s just normal teenage independence, going off and doing his own thing. About time, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you,” she’d snapped. “Where was DeeDee all day?”

“At a friend’s place.”

Bitterly, Kayla had wanted to point out that the kids were there to have time with their father, not to spend the day alone or with their friends. But she had stayed silent, her first priority being Alex. She’d rushed home. Frantically searching his room for a clue, she had finally spotted a note peeking out from under his computer keyboard, possibly in hopes it wouldn’t be found for a while.

Her son’s claim he’d gone to Montana had seemed so incredible that she’d wasted precious time contacting his best friend to confirm it. Sandy had reluctantly admitted to getting an email from Alex, explaining he was on his way to Schuyler, but that his phone was nearly dead, so he’d be out of contact until he could recharge it. After calling police stations, sheriff’s offices and hospitals from Seattle to Schuyler, Kayla had collected a sleepy DeeDee from Curtis’s house and headed for Montana herself.