The Cowboy SEAL

“I get that, but they’re kids. They weren’t even born when your mom died, and they take it personally when their only uncle never even had the decency to send them a birthday card. They’re smart, Coop. Their little ears pick up more than I’d like, and as much as Peg loves you, she’s also that exasperated by your disappearing act.”

“I didn’t just—”

“Shh!” she admonished when he’d gotten too loud. “Do you want to wake J.J. and LeeAnn? Even worse—your dad?”

“Sorry,” he said in a softer tone. He sat hard on the sofa, cradling his forehead in his hands. “But you know damn well I didn’t just disappear. When you run down your mother with a truck, then your father tells you to, and I quote—Get the hell out of my house and don’t ever come back—it tends to linger on a man’s soul.” When he looked up, even by the light of the room’s only lamp, she could tell his eyes had welled. She hated to see him hurting, but she’d hurt, too. They all had. They all were, still. He didn’t own the rights to pain.

“Look...” With every part of her being, she wanted to go to him. Sit beside him and slip her arm around his shoulders, but she physically couldn’t. Her feet literally wouldn’t move. Outside, sleet pelted century-old windows. The weatherman out of Denver said they could have six inches of snow by morning. “I smoothed things over with the kids by giving them an abridged version of what happened with their grandmother. But for your own well-being, you have to once and for all get it through your thick head that the only one who blames you for the accident is your father—well, aside from yourself. Why did your mom even go out there? She knew better.”

A laugh as cold as the wind rattling the shutters escaped him. “Her dying words were that she’d run outside to give me a piece of her mind for drinking and staying out so late. She then told me if she’d had a lick of sense, she’d have gone to bed early in case she needed to bail me out of the county jail come morning.”

“There you go. So see? She admitted she was partially to blame. Do you honestly think that just because of your cantankerous father she’d have expected you to carry this ache inside you for all these—”

A crash of metal erupted from the back bedroom where Clint was supposed to be sleeping. Then came a gut-wrenching growl.

“What was that?” Cooper asked, already on his feet, heading in that direction.

Her stomach knotted. “I would imagine, that was your father....”

Chapter Four

“Go see him,” Millie said. “You can’t avoid Clint forever.”

Cooper knew she was right. Sooner or later he’d have to make peace with his father. Or at the very least, for Millie and her kids’ sake, forge some semblance of civility between them. But how did he start? It wasn’t as if the walls of grief standing between them could be broken with a mere apology.

Another growl rose above the stove’s crackling fire and wind rattling the shutters.

“Cooper...” His sister-in-law’s condemning stare made him feel all of twelve. He’d felt more comfortable staring down a shark. Her intense stare conveyed more than a day’s worth of words. It told him loud and clear that until he at least spoke with his father, she wouldn’t grant him a moment’s peace.

“Aw, hell...” He brushed past her, hating the cramped space forcing them together. His arm didn’t stop tingling from where they’d touched till he reached the end of the hall.

Cooper forced a deep breath then knocked on the closed door of his mom’s old sewing room—the only possible downstairs place where Millie and his sister could have stashed his ailing father.

Rather than wait for an answer, his pulse taking the cadence of a rapid-fire machine gun, Cooper thrust open the door. He’d literally dreaded this moment for the past twelve years. “You still got a problem with me, old man?”

Clint launched a new series of growls then pitiful, racking coughs.

“You’ve got to calm down,” Millie said, already tidying the mess her patient had made by toppling his rolling metal tray. “I meant to tell you earlier that Cooper had come for a visit, but it must’ve slipped my mind.”

The cantankerous old man thrashed as best he could then settled when Millie took a plastic water cup from the nightstand and held the straw to his dried and cracked lips.

Cooper had readied himself for a fight with the man he used to know. The barrel-chested, ham-fisted, mean-as-a-cornered-rattler father who’d sent him packing. What he faced was a pathetic shadow of Cooper’s memories. Make no mistake, judging by his scowl and dark glare, Clint still wasn’t a teddy bear. But he had lost a good fifty pounds, and his complexion was as pale as the threadbare sheets and quilts covering his bed.

Clint’s current condition left Cooper’s eyes stinging.

He’d steeled himself for battle with a lion, not a lamb.

“There you go,” Millie soothed. “It’s medicine time, and I’ll bet you thought I forgot you.” After kissing the old man’s forehead, she fished three tablets from three different prescription bottles, patiently helping Clint one at a time down them all with more water. When he signaled that he had drunk his fill, she covered his lips with ointment. “Feel better?”

The old man had his dry-erase board slung around his neck. With his good hand he wrote O-U-T then underlined it twice before pointing in Cooper’s general direction.

Instantaneously, Cooper’s anger was replaced by profound sadness. And a jolt of something he never in a million years would’ve expected—a fierce longing to make things right with this man he’d once so deeply loved. His mind’s eye no longer replayed their last night together, but flashes of Clint patiently teaching him to change his truck’s oil or beaming with pride when Cooper won his first rodeo. Then came a myriad of shared holidays and ordinary Tuesday-night suppers and racing his brother, Jim, off the school bus, both of them running as fast as they could to find out what their father had been up to in the barn. His dad had taught Cooper how to shoot a rifle, smoke cigars and treat women. What Clint hadn’t done was prepare his son for how to let him go.

Which meant that in addition to saving this ragtag old ranch, Cooper now felt responsible for saving his dad.

He felt obligated to say as much, but instead, clung to the room’s shadows. Gratitude for Millie knotted his throat while she fussed with his father’s pillows and blankets. Cooper should’ve helped her. After all, the patient was his dad. But his boots felt nailed to the wood floor.

Millie asked, “What did you do with the remote to your TV?”

Cooper had only just noticed the ancient model set atop the dresser. The volume had been turned all the way down on The Weather Channel’s forecaster. Another pleasant memory accosted him when he thought back to the time he and Jim had helped Clint with their first satellite dish. Exciting didn’t begin to cover how awesome it’d been to have hundreds of channels—not that their mom ever let them and Peg watch as much TV as they’d have liked.

“What’re you smiling about?” Millie asked, on her knees, using a towel to sop water from his father’s spilled plastic pitcher.

Cooper knelt to help, taking the towel from her. “Remember when we got MTV?”

She sat back on her haunches and frowned. “How could I forget? That was around the same time you asked why my boobs were smaller than everyone else’s.”

Cooper winced. “Wasn’t it enough retribution for you that because of that comment, Mom made me scrub baseboards for a week?”

“No.”

By the time they finished cleaning, Clint had drifted off to sleep and softly snored.

“Looks like his meds finally kicked in.” Millie fished the TV remote from where it had fallen under the bed.

“Yeah...” Cooper stood there like a dope, holding the damp towel they’d used for the floor, watching Millie as she finished cleaning the last of his old man’s mess.

The past bore down on Cooper’s shoulders, making every inch of him ache—not just his body, but soul. He’d lost so much. His mom. Jim. And now, for all practical purposes, his dad.

That sting was back behind his eyes.

Cooper couldn’t remember the last time he’d broken down—maybe not since that long ago awful night. “I—I’ve gotta get out of here.”

Planning an escape to the barn, he pitched the towel on the kitchen table before making a beeline for the back door. But before he could get it open, Millie was there, wrapping her arms around him, holding strong through his emotional fall.

His tears were ugly and all-consuming, making his muscles seize. Though he had no right, Cooper clung to Millie, breathing her in. She smelled good and familiar. Of everything he’d left and tried so hard to forget, but clearly had not yet succeeded.

“I—I’m sorry,” he managed after finally getting ahold of himself. “Shit...” He released her to rake his fingers through his hair. “I’m not even sure what just happened.”

“Something that probably needed to happen back when your mom died? And again, for your brother?” She rubbed her hand along his upper arm. “Plus, it can’t have been easy—finding your dad in that condition.”

“Stop making excuses.” Not wanting her to see him, he turned to the wall, planting his palms flat against the cool plaster, then his forehead.

She stepped behind him. He knew, because he sensed her. Felt her heat. When she kneaded his shoulders, he closed his eyes and groaned. “Lord, that feels good.”

“I’m glad.”

“You should stop.”

“Why?” She worked her thumbs between his shoulder blades.

“Because I don’t deserve your comfort any more than you’ve deserved to be stuck here on your own with this mess.”

“This mess you refer to happens to be your father. The man who taught me to cook a mean elk steak and nursed me through losing my husband.” She stopped giving Cooper pleasure to instead urge him around. Her pained expression, the unshed tears shining in her eyes, made the whiskey lingering in his gut catch fire.

He winced from the sudden pang.

Something in her expression darkened to the point he hardly recognized her. She took a step back and crossed her arms. “Mess, huh? You honestly think of your own dad having had a stroke so callously?”

“Come on, Mill, it was just an expression. I didn’t—”

“Hush.” For what felt like eternity, she stood hugging herself, lips pressed tight, eyes luminous from tears threatening to spill. “For a second I actually felt sorry for you.” She laughed before conking her forehead with her palm. “But now I realize who I’m dealing with—the guy your brother called Cold Coop, aka The Human Iceberg. Jim hated you for leaving like you did, but I always made excuses. I told him you were hurting. When our daughter was born, and you couldn’t be bothered to meet her, I told him you were an integral part of our country’s security, and that I was sure you’d come just as soon as you got leave. When our son was born, and you still didn’t show...” She shook her head and chuckled. “Despite the fact that Peg had told you our happy news on the phone, I assured Jim you must not have received the official birth announcement, otherwise nothing could’ve kept you away. When Jim died, and you still didn’t come home, well, that I chalked up to you being wrapped up in your own grief. But how could you bear knowing all of us were here falling apart? How could you just carry on as if your brother and niece and nephew and father didn’t even matter?”

By this time, Cooper had fully regained his emotions, while Millie seemed to be teetering on the edge. She didn’t bother hiding her tears, and as usual, according to her capsulated version of the past decade and then some, he didn’t bother to care. He sure didn’t extend one iota of effort to provide her the comfort she obviously not only needed, but also deserved.

The woman was a saint, but after his meltdown, he felt empty inside. Like a shell. And so he just stood there. Stoic and still as if she’d been a drill sergeant giving him hell for not shining his shoes.

“What’s wrong with you?” she shrieked. “You’re like a machine—only instead of working, someone flipped your off switch. Peg needed you! I needed you, but you weren’t there!” When she stepped deep into his personal space, pummeling his chest, he stood there and took it. He deserved the worst she could dish out and then some.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. And he was. But what did she want him to do? Sure, he’d help with his dad and the ranch, but he had no means with which to magically repair their mutually broken past. “Really sorry.”

“S-sorry?” She laughed through her tears then raised her hand to slap him, only he caught her wrist and pulled her close, instinct screaming at him to hold on to her and never let go. This woman was a lifeline to all he’d once held dear. Every bad thing she’d said about him had been true. He was the worst of the worst. Lower than pond scum. For the past twelve years, she’d carried his world, and he’d callously, cruelly let her.

That stopped now.

He had to get a grip. But to do that, he’d need her help.

“I hate you,” she said into his chest while keeping such a tight grip on his T-shirt that it pulled against his back.

“I know...” I hate me. He kissed the crown of her head. “I’m sorry. So crazy, freakin’ sorry. But I’m back, and everything’s going to be okay. I promise.” With every breath of my being, I promise, Millie.

“I want to believe you.” She sagged against him until he held the bulk of her weight just to keep her from crumpling to the floor. “But...”

She didn’t have to finish her sentence for him to know what she’d been about to say. That of course she wanted to believe him, but when it came to his family, he’d dropped the proverbial ball so many times, it’d shattered.

Chapter Five

“Mom? Are you alive?”

Millie cautiously opened her tear-swollen eyes to find her son standing at the head of her bed. Though J.J.’s expression read concerned, his red snowsuit and Power Ranger hat and gloves read Snow Day.

“Cool! Since you are alive, can I go build a fort?”

She groaned. “Honey, what time is it? And did you do your chores?” On weekends and any other time they didn’t have school, the kids were in charge of egg collecting and cleaning the litter box—not that they often saw the orange tabby named Cheetah, who mostly preferred hiding behind the dining room’s half-dead ficus.

“Me and LeeAnn tried doing chores, but Uncle Coop already did ’em.”

She sat up in the bed. “Even the cat box?”

“Well...” J.J. dropped his gaze in the telltale sign of a fib. “Since he made breakfast for me and Lee and Grandpa, I bet he did that and checked on the chickens, too.”

“Uh-huh...” She grabbed her robe from the foot of the bed, then slipped her feet out from under the covers and into house shoes. The home had been built in 1905, meaning the woodstove and a few space heaters were all they had for heat. On many mornings, she’d woken to air cold enough to see her breath. Thankfully, this wasn’t one. “Come on,” she said to her son after switching off the valiantly humming space heater then shrugging into her robe and cinching the belt. “Let’s see what’s going on.”

“Okay—” J.J. took her hand “—but we’d have more fun if we just went outside and built a fort.”

“Why’s that?” she asked with trepidation. To say the previous night had been rocky would be the understatement of the century. She and Cooper’s uncomfortable scene had ended with her dashing upstairs and slamming her door. Not only had she been saddened and infuriated by her brother-in-law, but the fact that she’d then sought comfort from him as well had all been too much to bear. For the first time in recent memory, she’d cried herself to sleep. But she didn’t have time for such folly. She had Clint and her children to care for—not to mention this godforsaken ranch. Most winter mornings, she woke wishing herself a million miles away. Then came spring, and along with the first daffodils, up rose her indefatigable hope.

“Well—” on the way down the stairs, J.J. wiped his runny nose on his coat sleeve “—Lee’s having a fight with Uncle Cooper, and Grandpa’s been making a lot of scary noises.”

Swell...

From the base of the stairs, raised voices could clearly be heard.

“Grandpa doesn’t like you! Leave him alone!”

“Doesn’t matter if he likes me or not. He just needs to quit being a stubborn old mule and eat.”

Never had Millie more understood the meaning of being careful what she wished for. She’d long believed Cooper’s return would be the answer to her every prayer, but apparently, she couldn’t have been more wrong.

She hastened her pace only to find herself in the middle of even more chaos than the night before.

Cooper sat calmly on the edge of his father’s bed, doing an admirable job of trying to feed him what she guessed from the beige splatters dotting his quilts, the floor and walls was oatmeal. With each new spoonful, he used his good arm to swat at his son.

“Gwet aut!” Clint hollered.

Initially, the shock of his volume took Millie aback, but then the significance of what’d just happened sank in. “Clint, you spoke!” She approached the bed and gestured for Cooper to hand her the oatmeal bowl. “That was awesome. Your speech therapist will be thrilled.”

“I’m happy for you, Grandpa!” J.J. hugged Clint’s clean arm.

“See, Dad?” Cooper took a damp dishrag from the rolling tray table and wiped cereal clumps from his father’s red flannel pajama top. “No matter how much you hate me being here, I’m technically good for you.”

“Arggghh!”

“What?” Cooper prompted his father. “I didn’t quite catch that. Mind repeating?”

“Mom, make him stop,” LeeAnn begged from the foot of the bed.

“Aigh ate uuu!”

“Mom, please...”

“What’s that, old man?” Cooper taunted. “You hate me? Good, because right about now, I’m not exactly feeling warm and fuzzy toward you.” He tapped his temple. “Even after all this time, though I can rationalize in my head that what happened to Mom was an accident, in here—” he patted his chest “—the way you treated me—the way you made your pal, the sheriff, keep me from attending my own mother’s funeral? What the hell? Who does that? The whole thing still keeps me up at night.”

“Stop!” LeeAnn cried to Cooper. “I don’t blame Grandpa for hating you! You’re the devil!”

“Lee!” Millie set the bowl on the nightstand in favor of going to her daughter. “Honey, please take J.J. outside to gather the eggs and make sure the heat lamp’s still on.”

“But, Mom, I—”

“Lee, just go.” Millie hated being short with the girl, but felt at least temporarily removing her kids from this toxic environment was best for all involved. Deep down, as tough as this father-son duel was to witness, she suspected it was doing them both good.

“Fine.” LeeAnn held out her hand to her brother. “Come on, brat.”

“You’re a brat!”

“Both of you, knock it off!” Millie snapped. What a difference a day made. She’d grown accustomed to constant worry, but this added a whole new dimension to family fun.

When the kids were outside, Millie drew Cooper into the hall, shutting Clint’s door behind her. “Look, I think I get what you’ve been trying to do with your dad—the whole tough-love routine—but maybe adding stress to an already difficult situation isn’t the best course.”

“I wasn’t trying to do anything. I heard him banging around in there, and since you were still sleeping and your friend Lynette called and said because her car won’t start, she won’t be able to make it today, I figured I’d give you a hand. Turns out the old bastard didn’t want breakfast, but to give me a hard time.”

“Cooper... You belittling him makes me uncomfortable.”

“Sorry.” Outside, the wind howled. In the cramped hall, he paced, his expression every bit as tormented as the storm. “At the moment, his very existence isn’t doing much for me.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, I don’t, but honestly?” His pinched expression broke her heart. No—what really broke her heart was the way so much time had passed, yet everything between father and son had not only stayed the same, but maybe even grown worse. “I’ve been here just shy of twenty-four hours and feel like I’m going batshit crazy. I know my dad’s going through a rough patch, but we’re all in this together now.”

She winced at his language, though mirrored the sentiment.

“If you don’t mind taking over in there—” he gestured toward his dad’s room “—I need to check the cattle.”

Though he was yet again retreating, Millie knew that this time it was only temporary and for a noble cause. Their prized herd did need to be checked, and the fact that she wouldn’t be the one making the long ride out to the south pasture in these treacherous conditions made her heart swell with gratitude.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His gaze met hers and locked.

His intensity startled her to the point that she had to look away. Her pulse raced, and she wasn’t sure what to do with her hands, so she fussed with her robe’s belt, feeling all of thirteen upon realizing that Cooper was still the most handsome cowboy in town. Don’t get her wrong—she’d loved her husband with every ounce of her being, but Jim had been a kind soul. Cooper? Well, even back in high school his downright sinful sooty-lashed stare had made rodeo queens swoon and female teachers forgive missing homework.

From the kitchen came the sound of the back door crashing open. “Mom!” LeeAnn hollered. “Come quick!”

Covering her suddenly flushed face with her hands, Millie found herself actually welcoming whatever emergency her daughter had brought inside. At least it would distract her from Cooper’s mossy-green gaze.

The rooster’s crow coming from the kitchen was her first clue that she should abandon all hope of finding peace that morning.

“Mom, the heat lamp’s not on and the chickens were shivering. We’re bringing them inside.”

Millie pressed her lips tight while J.J. set his favorite golden wyandotte on the kitchen floor. She fussed a bit, fluffing her feathers and preening, then made a beeline for the cat food.

Cooper cut her off at the pass to set the food bowl on the counter. “Mill, before we get the house full of feathers and chicken shit, do you have a spare bulb for the lamp in case it’s an easy fix?”

J.J. gaped. “Uncle Cooper, you’re not allowed to say that word.”

“Sorry.” He had the good grace to actually redden.

“Apology accepted.” Millie was embarrassed to admit she didn’t have spare anything. The bulbs had been on her shopping list for ages, but with barely enough money to pay for food, let alone heat, what was the point of even having a list? “And no, I don’t have an extra.”

“Okay...” He covered his face with his hands, then sighed. “J.J., how about you help your mom build some kind of pen, and I’ll help your sister bring the chickens inside—”

LeeAnn shuffled through the back door, carrying a hen under each arm. “It’s freezing out there, and a branch knocked a hole in the roof.”

Millie groaned, looking heavenward to ask, “Really? Our plates aren’t already full enough?”

“Relax.” Behind her, Cooper lightly rubbed her shoulders. “We’ll keep the chickens inside until the storm passes, then, after our next supply run, I’ll rig a lamp for them in one of the empty horse stalls in the barn. Hopefully, the coop shouldn’t take but a day or two to fix.”

“Sure. Thanks.” She didn’t want to find comfort in his take-charge demeanor and especially not from his touch, but how could she not when it felt as if she’d been running uphill ever since Clint’s stroke? To now have a man around to do the stereotypically manly chores made her feel as if her uphill charge had, at least for the time being, transitioned to a stroll through a nice, flat meadow. Call her old-fashioned, but when it came to gender roles, she missed doing mostly so-called woman’s work. “J.J., hon, do me a favor and run out to get some firewood. Pretend it’s giant Lincoln Logs and build a little fence.”