Kayla's Cowboy

Morgan gave him an inscrutable look that didn’t admit or deny anything. “How old was Kayla when you knocked her up?”

Damn. Okay, he was an even bigger hypocrite than he liked to think about, but he was determined to keep his daughter from having to grow up too quickly.

“I don’t remember for sure,” Jackson replied. “And it’s none of your business, so don’t ask if you meet her, or Alex, either.”

“Am I going to meet him?” she said, angry defiance creeping back into her attitude.

“That’s partly up to Alex, but it’s fine with me and I don’t think his mother will object. Is that what you want?”

His daughter’s nose wrinkled, but he still couldn’t tell what she was thinking.

“I guess,” she said after a while.

“Is there anything you want to discuss?” he asked, wishing she’d give him a hint about her feelings. It would have been easier if he’d found out about Alex before she turned so ornery. Or perhaps when she was older and they’d figured things out.

Morgan hunched her shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“I mean...how do you feel about all of this?”

“What do I care if you have another kid? Maybe he won’t cause you as much trouble as me.”

Jackson leaned forward. “Morgan, we might be going through a rough patch, but it doesn’t—”

“Save it,” she interrupted and jumped to her feet. “I’m going for a ride.”

“Take the satellite phone,” he reminded her.

He counted to ten as Morgan disappeared, their faithful German shepherd at her heels. The discussion hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped, but slightly better than expected. His mom would say...

Ah, hell.

His parents also needed to be told about Alex, and it was news that should come from him. Jackson was reasonably certain they hadn’t heard yet or they’d have contacted him; nowadays his folks were pretty direct.

Suddenly he smiled with grim humor. His mother had not been thrilled when he and Marcy needed to get married so young, especially since going to college had seemed unrealistic with a family on the way. Still, when Morgan was born, Mom had loved her granddaughter wholeheartedly, saying a baby was always a blessing. And lately she’d begun complaining that her other grown children hadn’t settled down and given her more grandkids.

Punching his parents’ number on the phone, Jackson waited for an answer.

“Hi,” greeted Sarah McGregor’s voice.

“Hey, Mom, it’s Jackson. Do you remember the old saying, ‘be careful what you wish for’? Well, get Dad on the extension and grab a chair. I’ve got the perfect example.”

* * *

KAYLA LET HERSELF into the house and found her grandmother in the kitchen.

“Sorry for taking so long,” she apologized. “I stopped at Granddad’s office and we talked about the situation with Jackson and Alex.”

“It’s no trouble, dear,” Elizabeth said. “The kids are napping in the hammocks.”

“They’ll stay out there all day if we let them—I rousted them out of bed early for your terrific breakfast and they’re not morning people.”

“As I recall, neither were you.”

Kayla’s smile grew more strained. Her mother’s lifestyle had made sleep a challenge when she was growing up. It was ironic that with their more or less normal home and childhood, her kids hated going to bed. Of course, it was different when you wanted to stay up—Alex and DeeDee had never been forced to stay awake all night because of loud parties or feeling uncomfortable about who might be in the apartment.

Shaking the thought away, Kayla peeked into the pots on the stove. “It looks as if you’re making potato salad.”

“And fried chicken, yeast rolls and coleslaw. Also chocolate cake and sour cream lemon pie for dessert,” added Elizabeth. “Pete has been out of town for a few days, but he’s coming over tonight to see you and meet the kids. The weather is so pleasant, I thought it would be nice to have a picnic on the patio.”

Kayla had almost forgotten Uncle Peter. She’d only met her mother’s much younger brother a couple of times. He’d left for college shortly before Kayla’s stay in Schuyler.

“I should have asked before...how is Pete?” she asked.

“Doing well. He moved back last year to work in the practice and people are starting to, um, appreciate him as their lawyer.”

From the tone of her grandmother’s voice, Kayla suspected Schuyler was struggling to accept a young Garrison in place of the elder one, but “That’s nice” was her only comment. She didn’t have enough experience with small towns to know what was normal.

Elizabeth opened the refrigerator and studied the contents. “I had the grocer send over three chickens,” she said over her shoulder. “But maybe I should get another one.”

“Heavens, that’s more than enough. DeeDee doesn’t have a teenager’s voracious appetite yet, and while Alex may eat a little chicken, he’ll mostly fill up on the bread and salads.”

“I know. He’s trying to be a vegetarian.”

“This month, at least,” Kayla said wryly. “Anyway, you mustn’t wear yourself out cooking for us.”

“A picnic is nothing. I made ten gallons of chili and all the corn bread for the church’s booth at the rodeo.”

Kayla grabbed a carrot stick from a plate on the table and crunched it down. “Okay, so what can I do to help?”

“You don’t need to—”

“Yes, I do,” Kayla interrupted firmly. “And I want the kids to do chores while they’re here. They need to learn self-discipline.” Her grandparents were terrific people, but they were too indulgent.

“I’m sure you’re right,” her grandmother agreed slowly, a flicker of melancholy in her eyes.

Abruptly Kayla wished she hadn’t said anything—Granddad had spoken of how they blamed themselves for how their daughter had lived her life. Maybe they had made mistakes, but people needed to take responsibility for their decisions...such as having sex at sixteen. Kayla didn’t blame anyone else for her teen pregnancy. She might not have been as experienced as Jackson, but she’d known there could be consequences.

An hour later she was peeling eggs for the potato salad when Granddad arrived with sandwiches and milk shakes from the Roundup Café.

“Lunch,” he called.

The kids appeared at the back door, blinking sleepily.

“Don’t worry, I got a grilled cheese for you,” Granddad said to Alex. “They don’t serve much vegetarian food in Schuyler, but the toasted cheese isn’t bad.”

Kayla restrained a smile while her son tried not to look envious as everyone else unwrapped their hamburgers. The Roundup Café made a mean burger, stacked high with juicy, fire-grilled patties, sliced onions, pickles, lettuce and tomatoes. If possible, they were even better than she remembered.

DeeDee smacked her lips when she was finished. “Yum. Too bad you’re a vegan, Alex.”

“Shows how much you know. I’m not a vegan. Vegans don’t eat cheese.” Alex popped a French fry into his mouth and chewed grumpily.

His sister shrugged. “Mom, can I go out and explore Schuyler some more?”

“Not yet,” Kayla said. “I’m going to talk with your brother right now, and after that we need to have another discussion.”

“Ah, Mom. Why can’t you talk to both of us together?”

“Shove it, squirt,” Alex warned, getting to his feet. “You don’t have to be in on everything.”

DeeDee stuck out her tongue.

“Careful,” Elizabeth warned. “A fly might land there.”

“Or it might get stuck that way,” Granddad added, “and you’ll have to go through life with your tongue hanging out like a sheepdog.”

“Oh, puleeze,” DeeDee groused.

Elizabeth’s eyes twinkled at her husband. “I’m afraid we’re behind the times, Hank. Our jokes are dated.”

“And proud of it.”

DeeDee giggled.

Even after such a short time with her grandparents, Kayla could see how comfortably the kids were settling in. It was something they’d never experienced, the sense of extended family. Curtis had been a foster child and Kayla’s mother was in and out of their lives—mostly out—depending upon her sobriety.

Back in Alex’s room he sat on the bed, while Kayla took the chair.

“I saw your birth father this morning,” she told him. “And I thought you might have some questions. I’ll tell you whatever I know.”

“No more secrets?”

“No more secrets,” she promised. “If I don’t have an answer for you, I’ll try to get one.”

“Okay. Last night you said it was complicated, you know, about why my birth dad never visited me in Seattle. Didn’t he know about me?”

Kayla swallowed. Depending on how she told her son, Alex might never want to meet Jackson. But as tempting as it was to keep him out of their lives, it wouldn’t be fair to her son.

“I told Jackson I was pregnant,” she explained carefully, “only he didn’t think it was possible because he’d used condoms. We were kids, and kids don’t always handle that sort of situation well. That’s one of the reasons I don’t want you to jump into an intimate relationship too young. Accidental pregnancy, STDs, they’re all out there, and protection isn’t a hundred percent, no matter what you use.”

“Jeez, Mom, you sound like a broken record.”

“I don’t care. I don’t regret having you, but that doesn’t mean I want you to become a father before you’re ready.”

Her son’s face scrunched up, reminding her of when he was small. He’d always been such a serious child, as if contemplating the weight of the world.

“Maybe this Jackson guy wasn’t ready to be a dad, either,” he said slowly. “And that’s why he didn’t believe it.”

Kayla blinked. “You could be right, but that’s water under the bridge.”

Alex stared at his shoes for a minute. “What’s he like?”

“If you mean what kind of man is he, I don’t know yet. But I can tell you some facts. He’s a rancher, which is what he wanted to be when he was in high school. His spread is called the Crazy Horse and he raises both cattle and horses. The McGregors go way back in this area. So does his mom’s family, the Nelsons. They were kind of rivals, I guess, until Parker and Sarah got married.”

“After I found out about the adoption I figured my birth dad would be an artist or something.”

Her son focused on his shoes again and Kayla’s heart ached for him. Montana was a world away from Seattle, and he was probably hoping his biological father would be more like him. “You should also know that Jackson was rather reckless as a teenager,” she said. “He was quite sexually active by the time he was seventeen.”

“Duh. I wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t.”

“Yes, but it turns out that one of Jackson’s other high school girlfriends also got pregnant. He has a daughter named Morgan about a month older than you.”

Alex stared. “Jeez, Mom! That’s messy.”

Kayla couldn’t help laughing at the apt description. “It is messy,” she agreed. “But we have to deal with it. The other girlfriend, Marcy, lived on the ranch next door to his parents’. They broke up and he went out with other girls, including me. Not long before your grandmother Carolyn and I left Schuyler, Jackson went back to Marcy and they got married right after graduation.”

“You mean his other girlfriend was already pregnant when he was dating you, and they got married when he found out?”

“I’m not sure why they decided to get married. I didn’t ask.”

“I bet they won’t like me suddenly showing up. I don’t think Dad’s new family likes having DeeDee and me around, either.”

Kayla learned forward, wishing she could protect her children from every hurt and disappointment. “If your dad’s new family doesn’t enjoy having you around, that’s their loss,” she said carefully. “As for Jackson’s family, I don’t know how they’ll react. He’s divorced now, but the rest of his relatives may want to meet you.”

Jumping up, Alex went to the window and gazed outside.

“How about it?” Kayla asked after a minute. “Do you want to meet your birth father?”

“I’ll think about it,” he muttered. “Not yet anyhow. I feel sort of...mixed-up.”

“Okay. I’ll let him know you aren’t ready. We’ll be in Montana for at least another week, so you have some time. If you can’t make up your mind before we leave, you can meet him later.”

“Thanks, Mom. Can you find out more stuff about him?”

“I’m planning to. Are you especially curious about anything in particular?”

Alex shrugged. “I dunno. Just stuff.”

Sighing, Kayla climbed to the attic bedroom and gave her daughter a version of the story suitable for a nine-year-old. However, it was apparent that DeeDee wasn’t shocked, and Kayla had a feeling they were overdue for a frank discussion about sex. Loneliness settled over her at the thought; it was one more thing she’d have to do alone because Curtis was a perpetual Peter Pan.

Kayla went downstairs and found her grandmother knitting on the living room couch. Elizabeth glanced at her sympathetically. “How did it go?”

Kayla groaned and dropped into a chair. “Alex isn’t ready to meet Jackson. He wants me to learn more about him, but when I asked what he’s curious about, he just said ‘stuff.’ ‘Stuff’ is a little vague.”

“He’s a teenager.”

“Too true.” Kayla yawned. “Do you have any sense of what kind of man Jackson grew up to be?”

“I don’t know much. He isn’t wild any longer. From what I’ve heard, he works hard and his ranch has a good reputation. The gossip at the beauty parlor is that he dates regularly but is resistant to getting married again, which seems to annoy several of our single women.”

Kayla didn’t know how accurate beauty-parlor gossip might be, but Jackson had already confirmed his aversion to marriage. What had he said... Too many sharks? Considering he’d been married to Marcy Lipton for eight years, she wasn’t surprised he was soured on women.

“It turns out that Morgan is only a month older than Alex,” she murmured.

Her grandmother had an apologetic glint in her eyes. “If we’d known Jackson was so good at getting girls into bed, we would have tried to stop you from seeing each other. At the very least we should have cautioned you about birth control.”

Kayla shook her head. “It wasn’t your place to step in. Jackson used condoms. I don’t why they failed, but I wasn’t ignorant. I was educated about the facts of life before Mom brought me here. She didn’t shelter me growing up.”

Elizabeth’s shoulders slumped. “I never knew what to do with her. She was always restless. We tried to find her and your father after they ran away, but it was as if they’d vanished from the face of the earth.”

“It is what it is,” Kayla said firmly. “And things might have been different if Dad hadn’t died. She can’t let go of his memory, which is probably why her other relationships haven’t worked. Anyway, don’t beat yourself up about it.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Okay. No more agonizing over past mistakes. We concentrate on being a family from now on.”

“That sounds good to me.” Kayla chuckled. “Alex calls the situation messy and he’s right, so we need each other to deal with it.”

* * *

JACKSON SADDLED HIS STALLION, his ranch foreman watching with raised eyebrows.

“Going to ride fences again?” Greg asked as Jackson checked the tools in Thunder’s saddlebag. The black-and-white Appaloosa sidestepped lightly, eager to get moving. “You’ve got ranch hands to take care of that.”

“Drop it. I’m not in the mood.”

“Whatever you say, boss.”

Jackson rode north, trying to let go of his tension. The way he saw it, time riding fence lines wasn’t wasted. Besides, he’d never enjoyed being indoors all the time, which was why giving up college hadn’t bothered him as much as it had bothered his parents. Since then he’d realized how much he had missed, but at least he’d supplemented his education with online and extension courses.

While he hadn’t told Morgan she was expected to attend college, he’d raised her with the assumption she would do so. Lately her grades had been poor enough that no decent school would take her, but she still had time to get her act together...if she tried. With the new bombshell in her life, it was hard to say what would happen.

It was ironic to learn he had a second child. Marcy had refused to consider having another. She’d been too busy reading fashion magazines and nagging him about wanting to move to the city.

Jackson reined in Thunder and gazed at the horizon, unable to imagine living anywhere else.

It was a beautiful time of year on the ranch. Everything was lush and green, the brilliant blue sky arching overhead, broken only by puffs of scattered white clouds. If he turned a certain direction, he didn’t even see fences, just miles of rolling grassland and trees, the way it must have looked when his ancestors had settled here.

Morgan loved the ranch, too, or at least she’d loved it when she was smaller. It was difficult to tell how she felt now. Who would have guessed that her mother, who’d grown up on the ranch adjacent to his parents’ spread, would hate Montana so much? Then, not long before Marcy had taken off for New York, he’d discovered she was sneaking around with other guys.

Thunder snorted, tossing his head, and Jackson realized his hands had gone tight on the reins.

“Sorry, boy.” He patted the stallion on the neck and urged him back into a walk.

In all honesty, he shouldn’t have let Marcy’s cheating bother him so much, but the one place they’d gotten along was in bed, so why had she gone looking for it somewhere else?

At least she hadn’t fought him for custody of Morgan, which meant his marriage had ended with more of a whimper, than a bang. Of course, by then he’d basically seen the worst Marcy could dish out. The cheating had been the final knife thrust to end a long, miserable period that had seemed more of a prison sentence than anything else.

“I can sure pick ’em, can’t I, Thunder?” he murmured, thinking about the woman he’d dated for a while after his divorce.

Patti had been a paralegal for his divorce attorney. Very sympathetic. Supportive. Nice. At least that was what he’d thought. It turned out she’d seen the documents on his net worth and had decided it was her chance to catch a rich husband. She lived in a nearby town and he’d surprised her one evening with a pizza...and caught her longtime boyfriend hopping out a side window.

Perhaps he ought to be grateful he’d learned his lesson about women. Since then he’d vowed to keep life uncomplicated, yet now he had a huge complication. And the complication wasn’t just Alex, it was also Kayla.

She’d claimed that she didn’t need any money, but whether or not that was true, what about a college fund? Or sharing parental responsibility? The fact that another man had adopted Alex didn’t mean a damn thing. The guy might be all right, but it was Kayla, not her ex-husband, who’d driven to Schuyler looking for her runaway son.

If their positions had been reversed, Jackson knew nothing could have kept him from searching for Alex, as well.

Jackson spotted a slack wire on a fence and reined in Thunder again. He swung down from the saddle and took out his tools, thinking about the frosty expression in his former girlfriend’s eyes. He was quite certain she’d prefer to keep him away from Alex, so to have a relationship with his son he’d have to figure out how to get along with Kayla.

Still, it wouldn’t hurt to call the Garrison household and make sure she hadn’t made a beeline for Seattle. For that matter, he had only Kayla’s word that she’d told Alex the identity of his birth father. If there was one thing he’d learned from Marcy and Patti, it was how many ways a woman could shade the truth.

CHAPTER FOUR

SOONER OR LATER Alex figured his mom would tell her grandparents to stop spoiling him and DeeDee. They kept doing all sorts of nice things. Like today. The Garrisons had cable, but they didn’t get the Mariners games, so Grandma had called the cable company and ordered a sports package.

That was okay. Alex didn’t mind being spoiled.

Now he and DeeDee were watching the Mariners in the family room. His mother had gone for a drive with Grandpa and his great-grandmother was in the kitchen. She was such a terrific cook it made him wonder if he wanted to stay a vegetarian, even the kind of vegetarian who sometimes cheated with chicken or fish. He missed hamburgers and pepperoni pizza awful bad.

“I like it here,” DeeDee said, lounging back on the cushions with the bowl of popcorn Grandma had made for them.

“Me, too, but just for a visit.” Baseball on TV was okay, but it wasn’t the same as going to Safeco Field. Besides, Sandy was in Seattle. Not that he was worried Mom would move them to Schuyler. She could only leave her business for a while, and he knew how much she cared about her work. He sure didn’t want to leave Seattle for good.

Another inning passed and the Mariners weren’t doing much better than in the first three. Then they pulled off two singles, a double and a home run in the sixth.

“I knew that pitcher was losing his arm,” DeeDee said smugly as the opposing team’s starting pitcher left the mound. “Hit the road, Jack,” she called at the TV screen.

“Mariner batting didn’t hurt,” Alex countered, getting up during the break. “I’m gonna make more popcorn.”

In the kitchen he popped a batch and stood at the window for a few minutes, munching from the bowl. Montana backyards sure were different from anywhere in Seattle.

The phone rang. It had been ringing a lot because Grandma and Grandpa’s friends kept calling to ask about him and DeeDee. Alex yawned, not much interested until his ears caught, “Hello, Jackson.” He crept to the connecting door between the kitchen and Grandma’s sewing room. It wasn’t nice to listen in, but he wanted to hear what she was saying to his birth father.

The half of the conversation he could hear, broken by silences, was weird.

“No...Kayla is still here...Well, of course she’s told him.” There was a longer silence. “I’m not interested in what’s fair to you, Jackson. It wasn’t fair to take a sixteen-year-old girl out for a date and return her home pregnant, even if Kayla says she takes responsibility, as well. You were older and I expected better.”

Wow. Alex was proud of his grandmother. She was plenty tough when she needed to be.

“You’ll just have to be patient,” Grandma said after another minute. “I can’t promise, but where do you want to meet?”

Alex heard a car door slam in the driveway and hurried back to the hot-air popper. He was dumping another batch of kernels into it when his great-grandfather walked through the back door.

“Great idea,” Grandpa said. “Make some for me.”

“Uh, sure.”

“That’s a very serious expression you’re wearing, young man. Is something on your mind?”

Alex made a face. He wasn’t good at playing it cool. “Yeah, maybe...I don’t know.”

Grandpa grinned. “That kind of answer would drive a courtroom judge crazy.”

Alex started the popper. It was noisy and he was glad to have an excuse not to say anything. He didn’t know what to think. Mom had said it was his choice to see Jackson, so why was the guy calling the house?

After giving Grandpa a bowl of popcorn and topping off his own, Alex went back to the family room. DeeDee was on the floor next to the bookshelf, studying the contents.

She rolled over and grinned at him. “Guess what I found?”

“Not interested.”

“Bet you will be—it’s the yearbook from when Mom was in high school here.”

It was a pain to admit, but DeeDee was right. Grabbing the book she was waving in the air, he sat on the couch and thumbed through the pages.

He stopped at the junior class photos and looked at the picture of his mother. She didn’t look that different from now. In the senior class section he rolled the pages until he came to Jackson McGregor.

DeeDee must have guessed whose picture he was staring at. “What does your birth dad look like?”

“Kind of like me.”

“Nah,” she denied. “Can’t be two faces that ugly in the world.”