The Maverick Returns

Continuing to waffle about whether he was ready to let Sully become his boss, Coop left the lay-by. He stopped in Carrizo Springs for fuel, and for a bite to eat at a barbecue restaurant whose good smell enticed him from the gas station. It was a homey place, where the older waitress was friendly. She quickly spotted Coop for a stranger in town.

In the course of serving up mouthwatering ribs, she wormed out of him that he was an out-of-work cowboy. The waitress—Janey, according to her uniform tag—refilled the cola Coop drained. “Kinda close to summer for spreads around here to be hiring,” she said. “But there’s a woman ranch owner near here who’s down on her luck. She has a young child. She could use a jack-of-all-trades.” Janey looked Coop over. “I guess you’ve got enough muscle, and calluses on your hands, to fit that bill. That is, if you don’t have monkey business on your mind.”

“Monkey business, how?” Coop asked, as if he didn’t know what she meant.

“She doesn’t put up with any hanky-panky.”

“Gotcha,” Coop responded, but he rolled his eyes as he bit into a fat, juicy rib. He polished off his meal, paid the check and left Janey a good tip. At his pickup, he decided there was still enough daylight to take a run past the no-hanky-panky widow’s ranch. Just for a look-see, he told himself.

Her ranch wasn’t large enough to have a name, but Janey had provided decent directions. Coop saw the house first. In the fading sunlight it looked more than weathered. The clapboard was in need of paint. The porch ran downhill. Coop guessed a section under one end had rotted out. The barn appeared to be in even worse condition if that was possible. Round water troughs, half-buried in the ground, lacked water. Thirsty cattle milled around.

Coop slammed on his brakes. Several head of cattle had strayed through a broken section of wire fencing. In the distance he saw a skinny woman—a blonde, he thought—who had a small child hanging on to her jacket, attempting to shoo the animals back into the now-open enclosure.

“Hold on,” Coop yelled after he set his brake and rolled down one window. “I’ll come give you a hand.”

The woman’s head jerked around in surprise, as if she hadn’t heard his engine and had no idea anyone was on the road.

Cooper swept up the straw cowboy hat he wore when working out in the sun, and leaped down from the cab. He began turning the closest cattle back into the would-be enclosure.

The two of them eventually made headway. She from one side of the road, he from the other. At last the final stubborn steer in the group of maybe two dozen crossed over the squashed wire. Facing the woman, who stood closer to him now, Coop dragged his shirtsleeve across his brow to blot sweat he’d worked up. When he opened his eyes and took in the slender woman who’d yanked off her hat to fan her face, shock traveled from his suddenly tight jaw straight to his toes.

Though a great deal thinner, and her sky-blue eyes far more lackluster than when he’d last seen her, the much-talked-about widow was none other than Cooper’s first love, Willow Courtland. Willow, who’d married his archenemy. Well, maybe calling Tate Walker his archenemy went a little far. But it had certainly been no secret around Hondo that Coop and Tate were bitter rivals. In school. In sports. And most assuredly for the affections of the woman staring at him now with total, abject shock on her face. Shock that mirrored the gut-twisting impact Cooper felt. Mouth dry, he couldn’t speak.

Chapter Two

Willow Walker tried to blink away her shock. Tried to blink away what surely had to be an illusion. Thoughts of Cooper Drummond had filled her head so often since he went off to rodeo, she’d undergone a flash of hope, soon coupled with disbelief, and yes— vulnerability. She didn’t want him to see her like this. Stringy hair. Grubby from chasing stupid steers. Down on her luck. Was she really close enough to reach out and touch the man she’d loved for more than half her life, the man she’d sent away and sworn to give up?

Neither of them spoke a word, adding to the surreal atmosphere. Willow couldn’t have made a comment now if her life depended on it. There was a lump the size of Texas stuck in her throat. Suddenly she felt a tug on her limp hand, and Willow glanced down, cupping a sweaty palm reassuringly around her daughter’s curly hair.

Tension continued to sing through the air as the cattle lowed and jostled one another for a spot circling the nearly empty, buried water barrel. Coop walked over to inspect it, and hung his hat on one of the surviving fence posts. Good sense screamed at him to hop back in his pickup and drive on down the road, code of the west be damned. He couldn’t help the anger bubbling up inside him. He had five years of needing to vent his spleen at Willow bottled up.

Standing stiffly, allowing his gaze to slide over her from head to toe, what slammed Cooper in the chest was seeing her so thin, with an ever-growing wariness in dull blue eyes that used to sparkle all the time.

Something else tugged at his conscience. The skittish child hiding behind Willow. Tate Walker’s kid. Coop’s stomach tumbled and spun. He found it harder to swallow. He gritted his teeth to hold on to the old memories that told how long he’d nursed a broken heart thanks to this woman. The longer he stood silently clenching and unclenching his hands, the more Coop realized that his feelings for Willow weren’t as dead as he’d like them to be. His earlier assessment of her home, her barn, her ranch and her appearance left him with a sharp concern for her well-being—a nagging worry about her immediate predicament. She was a widow.

Finding his voice, he said in a rush, “Look, I heard via the grapevine that you’re in a bind here and could use some help. I didn’t know it was you, Willow. But for old times’ sake, I can lend a hand for a few days.”

Choking on her embarrassment—because in the back of her mind Willow thought Coop had come in search of her—she managed to shake her head. The love she’d once had for Cooper Drummond fled, to be replaced by panic. He shouldn’t be here. She didn’t want him witnessing the depths to which she’d sunk. Scraping back her hair, she finally stammered, “I’m fine. I don’t know why anyone would say I need help. I’m fine. Fine,” she reiterated more loudly, but dropped her hand to hide its shaking. “What are you doing here, anyway, Cooper? Why aren’t you off at some rodeo?”

Her questions battered his unsteady senses. Willow was nowhere near as receptive to his offer as she ought to be, given the state of her ranch.

Avoiding eye contact with him, she scooped up her daughter and backed away.

The move gave Coop a clearer look at the child, age three or so, he’d guess. A small-boned, delicate, brown-haired girl with huge hazel eyes. In spite of her darker coloring, Cooper saw more of a young Willow in her daughter than he saw of his old nemesis, Tate Walker. But Tate was represented, too, in those hazel eyes.

Wilting under his scrutiny, Willow backed up farther.

Coop noticed right away how nervous she seemed, as if she was afraid of him. That made him reel. Surely Willow couldn’t think he’d ever hurt her or any kid! Or that he’d held a grudge because of the callous way she dumped him. Still, Coop had to glance off into the distance to relax the tension cramping his jaw.

Once he felt at ease, he returned to her questions. “Willow, I’ve got eyes. Even if I hadn’t heard at ranches along the route that you could use an all-around hand, this broken fence is plainly in need of muscle.” He managed a halfhearted smile and playfully flexed an arm. Pride kept him from admitting that he’d left the rodeo. After all, their whole blow-up had been centered around his need to prove he could win big riding broncs, and her displeasure with that. “I’m just passing through,” he said. “But I can spare some time to help you catch up on a few chores around this place.”

“Just passing through on your way to the next rodeo?” she retorted.

With his fingers curling into his thighs, Cooper debated continuing to withhold information about his personal life that was really none of her business.

But what the hell, he decided in the next breath. A lot of years had rolled by since their split. “I guess you could say I got smart. I sure got tired of being dumped on my butt. The rodeo’s out of my system. For the past six months or so, I’ve hired on to work at various ranches. Chasing strays. Branding. Helping with roundup.” He raised one shoulder negligently.

A small frown appeared on Willow’s face. “Pardon me for sounding nosy, but why are you signing on with various ranches? Why aren’t you home working at the Triple D?”

Shifting away from her cool eyes, which pinned him down and made him flush guiltily, Coop grabbed his hat and settled it firmly on his head. Jiggling the post to see how solid it was, he blew out a sigh. “You probably don’t know, since you moved away from Hondo, but Sullivan and I had a falling-out. You could call it a major disagreement. Many of them.”

“Hmm. I see. That explains why you got this far down south, I suppose. However, none of it changes the fact that I really can’t afford your services, Cooper.” Now Willow drew in a huge breath and let it out in a heavy sigh.

“How do you fill your water barrels?” he asked. “You’ve got a passel of thirsty cows.”

“I used to fill this one with a hose, but it split in a few spots, and most of the water leaks out between here and the well house. There’s a pond on the property. I try to drive the cattle there twice a day. The silly things prefer to bolt through the fence to get to the stream across the road and down the hill. I’m lucky it’s not a well-traveled highway.”

“Maybe I can repair the hose temporarily with duct tape. I have a roll in my pickup. Unless you have couplings in the barn, the type to splice a hose.”

She shook her head. “Don’t trouble yourself. I tried duct tape, but the hose split in other spots. The sun will set soon, Coop. I’m not sure where you’re heading next, but there are a number of fair-size cattle spreads up around Crystal City. You might find work that pays decent wages.”

“Let’s not discuss money. I can afford to donate a few days to an old friend.”

Rallying momentarily, Willow grimaced and said, “Careful who you’re calling old, Cooper Drummond. I’m a whole year younger than you, remember?” She expected him to laugh, but he studied her acutely and remained sober.

“I must look a sight,” she mumbled, pausing to bury her blushing face in her silent daughter’s shoulder. “I… It’s getting late. I’ve been outside working all day.”

“You look tired,” Coop said diplomatically, really thinking she seemed tense and frazzled.

Willow flung out a hand. “Obviously you heard about Tate’s death on your travels. This ranch isn’t big by any stretch of the imagination. But I can’t seem to keep up with everything that needs doing. Six months ago I decided to sell and listed with a Realtor in town. There’s only been one lookie-loo and no takers. I haven’t actually done a detailed count of my herd, but I believe I own about two hundred Angus steers. If I can figure out how to get them to market, that’ll cut my workload a lot.”

Coop surveyed the milling cattle. “You need to fatten them up if you hope to make any money off them at summer market. It’s time to start adding corn to the grass they’re still finding to graze on.” He purposely didn’t remark on her husband’s death. Still, Willow’s eyes seemed a bit vague to Cooper.

Bending, he reset a couple of metal posts the steers had pushed down. He jammed the tips into the soil with nothing more than brute force, then manhandled the wire fencing back on to hooks that lined the posts. Breathing hard, he said, “That’ll only hold until the next adventurous cow bumps against it.” He waved toward his color-coordinated truck and trailer. “I’m hauling two of my cutting horses. Why don’t I saddle and bridle one, and drive these escape artists over to your pond? After that I can figure out what else is a priority around here.”

She was quiet for so long, Coop spun back around to see Willow frown before she jerked her chin a couple of times in a reluctant nod.

“The pond’s about a quarter of a mile straight back and up over a hill behind the barn,” she said warily, as if she distrusted his real reason for making the offer.

Baffled by her hesitation, Coop eventually realized he could probably blame Tate’s dislike of him for her wariness. After all, Tate had five years to fill her head with lies about him. Cooper felt a stab of sadness for what might have been. A stab of sadness for what he’d let go. He fought against a deeper ache, because while everyone up in the valley knew there never was any love lost between him and Tate, they all knew how both of them had fallen head over heels for Willow Courtland. She had no reason to ever doubt the trueness of a heart Coop always wore on his sleeve. But she’d unwittingly played into his and Tate’s battle from junior high until after they’d gone to college at Texas A&M.

Instead of saying anything more, Coop backed his surefooted quarter horse Legend out of the trailer, then retrieved the sorrel he called Rusty. He led Rusty to a shade tree surrounded by patchy grass and looped his lead rope over a branch. About to comment on how cool it was beneath the old oak, Coop was surprised to discover that Willow had left and returned to the house. The screen door still quivered behind her.

He shook his head to clear it of memories reaching back to college days, when he and Willow had first made love, and then forward to the time he assumed he’d won the rivalry with Tate. It still galled him to think how easily Tate had stepped into his place when he’d taken off to rodeo. Tate had lost no time filling the void of Coop’s absence, and as a result, Tate had walked away with the top prize. She was the woman Cooper had fully expected to spend his life with—the woman he’d expected to have his children.

That kind of reminiscing held only negative implications and no positives. Jaw locked, he tossed a well-worn saddle on Legend, slid on a bridle and climbed aboard the horse. Coop swept off his hat and with a satisfying cowboy yell of “Hiya hi hi!” he sent Willow’s renegade steers trotting off in the direction of the pond.

* * *

WILLOW STOOD BY the living-room window, careful to stay in the shadows where Coop couldn’t possibly see her, and admired the efficiency with which he rounded up and drove the cattle out of her front yard. She should’ve kept the horse that Tate’s dad had given him when they moved to this ranch. But in the year since Tate’s death, she’d had to let go of several items and animals, whose sale became necessary for their daily survival. Her daughter, Lillybelle, needed expensive care that wasn’t readily available here.

Would it be so horrible if she accepted Cooper’s offer to help out with some of the harder chores around the ranch? So what if he learned how big a mess Tate had left her in? Darn, but she tried so hard to keep up, to hold her head high, and not let on how dire her straits were. It shocked her when Cooper said folks had gossiped about her. She couldn’t tell if he already knew Tate had died when she brought it up. Of course, the part-timers she’d hired probably had talked about her after they left. She’d backed a few of them off with an old unloaded shotgun, which she hated, although it served its purpose—deterring amorous cowboys on the prowl. Heaven only knew what hairy stories they told about her around the campfire. Some of the cowboys hadn’t wanted to take no for an answer.

And therein lay the problem with letting Cooper Drummond stay a few days. The concern might not come from him—he’d always been a gentleman. It would more likely come from her, and the risk that she’d reveal how often he’d wormed his way into her thoughts over the years. Perhaps because of that, Willow had mistakenly assumed he’d come to find her. But why would he?

If she did let him handle a few chores, the same rules that she set for all her hired help would have to apply to him, as well. No fraternization with the lady of the ranch. Zero. Nada. Zippo. Even as she voiced the words aloud, her heart gave a little jolt, and she tried to ward off memories of how comforted she’d always felt in Coop’s strong arms. As a boy who grew up tossing around hay bales and wrestling down steers for branding, he’d always had muscles. But now that he was a man, Willow could only imagine how years of keeping thousand-pound-plus bucking horses in check had honed Coop’s upper body.

Shuddering, she thrust aside that particular image.

She led Lily to the kitchen table, and boosted her up on a wooden box tied to a chair. Willow retrieved a box of graham crackers, relishing the flash of delight in her child’s eyes. She was less happy to see that the box was almost empty. So were her other cupboards, and her bank balance was severely strained. If Coop decided to stick around, he’d need to be fed. Working men, as she knew from having fed a few ranch hands of late, expected hearty meals. She scrimped, but she couldn’t cut back when it came to feeding her daughter or the workers. She’d come to resent the way Tate had spent so much money on booze, gambling and women in town. He’d stopped working on the ranch, and as a result, he’d gone to flab. She’d have left if he hadn’t sworn he’d have Lily taken away from her. That had scared her into staying.

Coop’s arrival brought to the fore so many regrets that Willow had repeatedly told herself should remain buried with Tate. As her mother had pointed out, she’d made the choice to marry him. Made her bed, so to speak, and now needed to tough it out. Lie in it and cry in it, alone all her livelong nights.

* * *

OUT ON THE RANGE, Coop rode along the flimsy fence and noted several spots in need of reinforcement. There were two fields that should be ripe with summer hay, but which had been trampled by a herd that was probably too big for the acres Willow had.

Climbing off Legend, he inspected some winter grass chewed down to the roots. It was a field where summer rye should have been reseeded. Straightening, Coop squinted into the sun as he let a handful of soil filter through his fingers and watched it blow off in the wind. He tried to gauge if Willow had the resources to save her herd long enough to fatten them up and truck them to the nearest stockyard. Maybe yes. Maybe no.

All the ranchers he’d visited in the south of Texas had complained about the extended drought. Perhaps Willow figured it was a waste money to replant fields that might not produce. Except she had the pond. Near as Coop could tell, it was partially fed by the stream she’d mentioned, but there also had to be underground artesian springs for the pond to be so full of sweet water—a lifeline for the cattle she did have.

The whole place seemed awfully run-down considering that Tate had only died a year ago. On the other hand, who was he to judge? Coop chided himself. He had let Sully struggle alone to keep the Triple D afloat. Willow was alone too—and she had a child.

If coming here and stumbling upon her again did nothing else, it made Coop realize that when he finished helping Willow, it was time he go home. How far in the future that would be depended on how much assistance Willow was willing to let him provide.

She’d posted the ranch for sale. She probably didn’t want to sink too much money into a ranch she didn’t intend to hang on to. Even a small investment would increase her chances for attracting a buyer, but it’d been patently obvious that money was an issue with her. Unless her problem was with hiring him. Coop had to accept that Willow may not have harbored the same warm feelings he’d recently rediscovered. Feelings that, for him, had lain dormant. They’d had some good times back in the old days, he thought. Well, not that old, as Willow had pointed out. So, her humorous side wasn’t totally gone.

* * *

WILLOW NEEDED TO clean Lilybelle after the graham crackers ended up all over her face and shirt. “Come on, girly. Shower time for us.”

She took a few extra minutes to wash and blow-dry her own hair, all the while insisting she wasn’t trying to improve her looks for Cooper.

“Don’t we look pretty,” she exclaimed, holding her daughter up to the dresser mirror as she brushed out the girl’s nut-brown curls, loving the way they fell in perfect ringlets around her pixie face. Willow’s own hair was straight as a stick and was so unremarkable she usually pulled it back in a ponytail.

As Lilybelle watched without expression, Willow blew raspberries against her three-year-old’s neck, hoping for a spontaneous giggle or any sort of reaction. All the girl did was push her mother’s face away. She grabbed the tattered plush rabbit she’d had since infancy and ran from the room. Willow heard the screen door slam. Would she ever break through Lily’s barriers?

Willow shut her eyes for a moment, then dragged both her hands down her cheeks. They never used to look this sunken. Foregoing lipstick or blush which she hadn’t used in so long she’d forgotten where she’d stashed the containers, Willow gave another twist to the rubber band holding her ponytail. Beauty products wouldn’t help her run the ranch, so why bother? Exiting the room, she tracked after her daughter, although Willow knew exactly where she’d find her. On the porch, in her favorite corner.

She had no more than stepped out the door herself, still barefoot, when she saw Cooper trotting his big gelding right up to the steps. He vaulted out of the saddle and landed mere inches away from her. Flushing, Willow leaped backward and bumped into the wall.

“Sorry,” Coop said, sounding breathless. “I got so caught up in surveying your land, I was afraid it’d be dark before I had a chance to try and repair the hose and fill the water tanks—wow, you smell good,” he said. “Like sugar cookies.”

“Vanilla,” she corrected, sidling farther away. “It’s my shampoo.”

Coop wrinkled his nose. “I don’t blame you for shying away from me. I’ve been out in the sun for hours. I should have stopped for a dip in your pond.”

“You probably still can. It stays light longer now that summer’s here. What’s the verdict on other projects after the hose?” she asked.

“I don’t have to tell you the whole place is in poor shape.” Removing his hat, Coop raked a hand through his sweat-damp hair, standing the almost-black locks on end. “A good, all-around cowhand could improve this place immensely, you want someone who can paint, do fence repair, fatten cattle and maybe break the wild colt I spotted in your high pasture—which by the way needs new seed in the worst way. It’d take about three to four weeks, but it’s all stuff that’ll attract prospective buyers much faster.”

“Three to four weeks?” Willow gasped and clutched a hand to her throat. “Out of the question. I simply can’t afford that. I need to sell fast, though. Or failing that, get the steers to market. I’m tempted to do that and let the ranch go back to the bank.”

“Then what will you do, Willow? Go live with your mom? I know your dad passed away the year I left town. I was scheduled for a rodeo at the time,” he mumbled, adding belated condolences.

“At least Dad’s no longer suffering. And, no, I can’t move in with Mom. She’s remarried. To a man she met through friends. They live in East Texas, in the Piney Woods. Working two jobs for as long as she did, while taking care of Dad, she deserves to kick back and be happy without me underfoot.”

“Seems to me that you did more caregiving than she did. But, hey, this ranch won’t be half the work once it’s spruced up. If you don’t have anyplace to go…” He tugged an ear, letting his sentence trail.

“I’d have to raise something to make the ranch pay, Cooper,” she said. “But I can’t. I don’t have money for seed. And the bottom line is I need a job that’ll allow me to spend more time with Lilybelle. We need to move to a city with access to services for special-needs children,” she said, her eyes straying to the child rocking herself where she crouched in one corner of the porch.