Kissed by a Cowboy Read online

  "You look like your mother."

  The softly-spoken statement did not gain Haley any points with Olivia, who watched her with slightly-narrowed eyes.

  And there was still no parental figure in sight. "Is your uncle...?"

  Olivia's expression changed to slightly-chagrined. "Um... I told Uncle Justin I was riding my bike."

  To town? Haley's suspicions rose. She knew Maddox's mother had passed and had heard Maddox had custody of the little girl. Maybe Justin was watching her this afternoon.

  "I really need to talk to a banker," Olivia said again, voice gone tiny. "It's important."

  No one had even come to the door to see what all the banging was about. If Haley had to guess, the bank tellers and manager might've already left by a back exit.

  "I don't think that's going to happen tonight. What about your uncle?"

  Olivia looked away. "He's...um...he's on his way."

  A likely story. "Can I give you a ride somewhere? Or walk with you...?"

  Olivia's face scrunched. "I'm not supposed to ride with people I don't know."

  Haley bit the inside of her lip, thinking. She couldn't just leave an eleven-year-old alone here, not knowing when one of Olivia's uncles might appear.

  "Hmm. Well, you might not know me, but you probably know my aunt. Matilda Patterson."

  The girl's face brightened. "Everyone knows Mrs. Matilda."

  It was so bittersweet. Not many knew about her aunt's illness, and Haley's voice was soft when she answered the girl. "I know Aunt Matilda would love to see you. We can call your uncle and make sure it's all right. He can pick you up there."

  The tip of Olivia's ears went pink. She turned her face to the ground.

  Haley hated to be the bad guy but, "He's probably worried sick. I assume he has a cell phone...?" She fished her phone out of her purse and waited for Olivia to give her the number.

  "Honey?"

  Finally, Olivia rattled off a number, but when a gruff male voice answered with a curt, "Yeah?" Haley's heart pounded in her throat and ears.

  The man on the line wasn't Justin.

  It was Maddox.

  "M-Maddox?" Oh, Haley hated the stutter that slipped into her voice.

  There was a pause. Then a gruff, "Who is this?"

  Looking up with an expression so like her mother's, Olivia's lower lip stuck out the slightest bit, her eyes pleading for Haley's understanding. Or help. How many times had Katie used that very look on Haley?

  And apparently, it still worked.

  Haley forced a polite, cheerful note into her voice, the same note she reserved for her coworkers back in Oklahoma City. "This is Haley Carston."

  She didn't exactly expect a warm welcome, maybe more of a what do you want, given how they'd left things, but he was completely silent. She could hear the rumble of an engine, muffled like he was in the cab of a truck. Maybe he really was on his way.

  "I'm in town for awhile, and I ran into your niece outside the Redbud Trails Bank. I wanted to see if she could come over to Aunt Matilda's with me until you or Justin can come pick her up."

  "She's in town? Alone?" he barked. And she recognized the worry beneath the gruffness.

  Olivia watched, clutching her hands together in front of her.

  "Mmhmm," Haley said, her tone unnaturally bright.

  He muttered under his breath. She thought it might've been something derogatory toward his brother, but she couldn't be sure.

  "Justin can't drive," he said. "And I'm on my way home, but I'm probably an hour out of town."

  "Well, Aunt Matilda and I would love to have Olivia over," Haley said.

  He hesitated. "Are you sure?"

  "Of course."

  "I'll be there as soon as I can."

  #

  Maddox Michaels stood on the porch of the little Patterson cottage and braced his hand on the doorframe, letting his head hang low.

  One of the large dining room windows was open a few inches, and he could hear Olivia chattering from somewhere in the house. Relief swamped him. She was okay.

  He was going to kill his brother. Justin was supposed to have been watching her.

  It was probably an act of mercy that Haley had found his niece. Maddox was working for a custom harvester, trading shifts with another guy who had a new baby at home. The crew would travel all summer, running combines and a grain cart. Dave needed the extra income but didn't want to miss time with his new baby, and with Justin incapacitated, Maddox needed to be home more, too. Right now, they were working in southern Oklahoma, but they would also travel up through Kansas and Colorado and who knew where else. Maddox didn't like the travel, but he needed the money, and splitting the time on the crew seemed to be working for both of them.

  Until now.

  Coming face-to-face with Haley was the last thing he wanted to do when he was feeling exhausted and beat-down. How in the world had Olivia gotten to town?

  In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of the dusty pink bike leaning against the front of the truck parked beneath the carport, and the muscles in his neck and shoulders tightened. His hand slipped down the doorframe.

  No. Olivia wouldn't have ridden her bike into town alone. It was three and a quarter miles to the bank.

  Justin was a dead man.

  The door opened before he was ready, and he looked up. Slowly. His Stetson moved with his head, revealing her inch-by-inch.

  But it didn't soften the blow of seeing her.

  Her feet were bare beneath hip-hugging jeans, and she wore some kind of soft, flowy blouse. Her auburn hair was shorter, curling around her face.

  And her brown eyes were as soft as he remembered.

  She reached out and touched his forearm, and that's when he realized he'd leaned his palm against the doorbell. The buzzer had been sounding consistently. Annoyingly.

  "Sorry."

  "It's okay," she said. "Hi."

  "Hi."

  She was the same as she had been. That smile. Half shy and half knowing, and his gut twisted like he was nineteen again.

  "You look good," she said softly.

  He knew what he looked like. Older. Worry creases around his eyes. Covered in dust and wrinkled, like he'd slept in his truck. Which he had.

  "You too." It was such an inane comment, and good didn't even come close to describing her. He needed to get out of here before he made more of a fool of himself.

  "Can you send Olivia out? Is she okay?"

  Haley's expression softened. "She's amazing. She's helping me cook supper. C'mon in."

  He shouldn't. She must've seen his hesitation, because she paused on the threshold. "If you want to stay, Matilda and I would love to have you for supper. Either way, there's something I'd like to talk to you about."

  He nodded. He swung his tired body into motion and stepped inside. Ahead and off to the left was the quaint, antiquey living room.

  "Are you limping?" she asked.

  He took off his hat, ran a hand through his brown curls, damp from sweating beneath the hat brim. The A/C on his pickup wasn't the best, but there was no money to fix it right now.

  "Just tired. I've been out of town." His joints had gotten stiff sitting in his truck for hours. "I've picked up a job working with a harvest crew."

  "Oh. So you have to travel a lot?"

  "Yeah, a few days at a time. The farm's doing good though." If he could just keep ahead of his creditors. "Since Katie and my mom passed, it's just been me, Justin, and Olivia."

  He tapped his hat against his leg. Nervous. And rambling. But seeing her again, after all this time... all his feelings came rushing back, like they'd been jostled loose by the vibrations of the combine.

  He rubbed the back of his neck as he followed her through the dining room, where papers were strewn across the worn, wooden table. Past the dining room, he could see into a small kitchen.

  That last summer, after Haley's senior prom, he'd followed Katie and Haley around like a safety chasing a wide receiver. He'd
tried to be nonchalant about it, just show up wherever they were. He was pretty sure Katie had seen through him, but he didn't know if Haley had ever figured out how he felt about her.

  And then Katie's pregnancy changed everything. Derailed his plans.

  And heaped on another responsibility. Not that he regretted having charge of Olivia, but he'd only been twenty-one.

  And speaking of.

  "I should check on..." He nodded to the kitchen.

  He passed by Haley, getting a whiff of something flowery.

  Olivia caught sight of him and sent him a chagrined smile, not letting go of the spoon she held in one hand. "Hey, Uncle M."

  Her subdued greeting was not lost on him, nothing like the chattering he'd heard before, through the open window.

  She was safe. Thank God. He swallowed the emotion that tightened his throat. "You're in trouble, you know that?"

  "I'm sorry," Olivia whispered.

  "What exactly were you thinking?"

  "I needed to go to the bank."

  He shook his head, didn't even know what to say. What she'd done was dangerous. Then he got a whiff and a glimpse of the pan she was tending. "What is that?"

  She said something he didn't understand, her voice still soft and subdued.

  "What?" he asked warily.

  "Duck," answered Haley. "It's French."

  He wasn't sure what to think about that, and it must've shown in his face, because Olivia giggled hesitantly.

  "Uncle M is more of a steak and potatoes kind of guy," his niece offered.

  He shrugged. It was true.

  "Well, maybe it's a good thing you and I met," Haley told Olivia. "We can both appreciate the finer culinary arts."

  He watched Olivia repeatedly scoop up the sauce in the pan and drizzle it over the duck. He'd never seen her do anything like that before. "Where did you learn to do that?"

  "Food Network," Olivia said at the same time that Haley said, "Cooking classes."

  The girls shared a smile, and the sight of it was like getting socked in the solar plexus. How long had it been since Olivia had smiled at him like that? How had his niece formed a connection with Haley in just an hour? Was it the cooking together? Or was it because they were both female?

  He didn't know, and he wasn't sure he wanted to find out. "We've gotta head home, kid."

  Olivia and Haley shared a glance, and he braced himself for the upcoming battle.

  But it wasn't Olivia who begged him to stay.

  "I know you've got places to be," Haley said. "But I want to talk to you for a minute."

  #

  This was a little surreal.

  Haley couldn't believe that Maddox was really here. The first man who'd kissed her.

  The man she'd dreamed would fall in love with her and want to marry her. At least she'd dreamed it until Katie's death had changed everything.

  He followed her back into the dining room. She stepped on one side of the table and turned to see he'd paused on the opposite side. He faced her like she was the opposing team. His broad shoulders—football shoulders—filled out the plain blue t-shirt, and his hair clung to his head after being under his cowboy hat all day.

  But it was the shadows in his coffee-colored eyes that had her breath catching in her chest. This wasn't the confident all of life ahead of him Maddox that she remembered so vividly from that summer.

  "Where's Matilda?" he asked with a glance toward the living room.

  Tears rose in the back of her throat, but she coughed them away. "Napping," she said.

  His eyes questioned her, and she shook her head. "She's been diagnosed with...cancer." The word was a knife in her throat. "The doctors say..." She took a breath. And still couldn't say it. "So I'm here."

  She'd tried to keep the tears back, but the diagnosis and her aunt's impending decline were too close. She wrapped her arms around her waist and squeezed her eyes tightly closed.

  Aunt Matilda's diagnosis had given Haley focus. Her aunt had been there when Haley had moved to Redbud Trails during senior year. She'd offered her niece a home when Haley's footloose father had been ready to move on. They'd talked on the phone every week since Haley had gone off to college. And she'd offered Haley emotional support when Haley's serious boyfriend Paul had broken things off.

  Until now, the breakup and the distance in her relationship with her father had been the biggest problems in Haley's life. But they were minor compared to what Matilda was facing now. Haley was done wallowing in self-pity. When she got back to her life in Oklahoma City, she was moving on.

  She held her breath until the impulse to cry passed.

  "I'm real sorry to hear that," he said, and his voice was a little gruff. "Your aunt's a classy lady."

  She half-laughed, half-hiccuped. "Yes, she is. Anyway"—she waved off the grief—"that's not what I want to talk to you about. Have you seen this?" She tapped the three-ring binder that Livy had been carrying in her backpack.

  He came closer, caddy-corner to her at the edge of the table, and looked down at the computer-printed pages. He flipped one, then another, reading over the information slowly.

  "What is this?" he asked.

  "It's a business plan. It's Livy's."

  He looked up sharply. Haley flushed a little, but wouldn't take the nickname back. Katie's daughter had wanted to be called Livy after they'd bonded over their love of cooking.

  He looked toward the kitchen, where they could hear Livy humming a little tune.

  "For what?" he asked, still looking toward his niece.

  "Ice cream."

  "She makes a lot of ice cream at home, different flavors, but... She wants to start a business?"

  He looked at her with those unfathomable eyes. For a brief moment, an awareness swelled between them. A memory, a connection. Then he blinked, and it dissolved, leaving nothing in its place.

  Haley shook away a tic of sadness. "She was trying to get to the bank to ask for a loan. She made up this business plan—it's actually very detailed. I'm surprised at how much work she's put into it. It's impressive for someone her age."

  He furrowed his brow. "Shouldn't she want to be a cheerleader or play basketball? You know, do normal kid things?"

  Haley winced but tried to cover it with a smile. "She is a normal little girl," she said softly, glancing over her shoulder to make sure Livy wasn't listening. How many times in her own childhood had Haley wanted to fit in with the other kids? And she hardly ever had.

  "Some kids want those things," Haley said. "I think some kids know what they want to do with their lives. What did you want to do when you were Livy's age?"

  "Play football." By the clenched jaw, she figured he regretted that statement. "I just don't get why she wants to make ice cream. There's already a chain in town."

  "Not just ice cream. Gourmet ice cream."

  He shook his head. "I don't get it."

  "It's a different market than fast food," she explained gently.

  He exhaled a long, slow sigh, shifting his feet. "How much?"

  "Fifteen hundred dollars."

  He ran his fingers through his hair. "You've got to be—"

  "She's got a restaurant willing to sell her a used blast freezer at a great deal."

  "A what?"

  "It's a commercial-grade ice-cream maker."

  He shook his head, looking down at the papers in the binder.

  "I know it's a lot of money." Haley tapped the folder. "She's done some research. She's got great ideas, I think we could work up a marketing plan—"

  "Thanks for encouraging her, but I can't afford something like this." He sounded sincere in his thanks, but also discouraged. He ran one hand against the back of his neck, fluffing the bottom of his slightly-too-long brown curls.

  "I'd like to do more than encourage her."

  He narrowed his eyes. "You want to give my niece fifteen hundred dollars?" he asked slowly. "Why?"

  She shrugged. "I'm here for"—she drew a breath—"the summer, probabl
y. I'd kind of like to go into business with her. Be her partner."

  "Why?" he repeated.

  For Katie, she wanted to say. And for him. For the dreams that had been lost to Katie's pregnancy and untimely death.

  But mostly for Livy. When they'd been talking this afternoon, Haley had seen a glimpse of herself in the younger girl—a little girl hungry for love, for someone to believe in her.

  "What if she fails? What if you lose all that money?"

  "It's just money."

  He looked at her like she'd said something crazy.

  "Anyway, that's my problem, mine and Livy's."

  He was softening. She could see it in the minute drop of his shoulders.

  "Whatever happens, it'll be a learning experience for her," she offered.

  "Teach her that life's hard," he muttered, looking back down at the table again.

  "What if she doesn't fail?"

  When he looked up at her, she saw the truth in his gaze. This wasn't the same confident football star she'd known before. Maybe he didn't believe in his own dreams, anymore.

  But Livy deserved her chance.

  He glanced toward the kitchen again. From where she stood, Haley couldn't see Livy, but knew the girl could probably hear them. He seemed to have the same thought, because he lowered his voice. "If we do this, I'm not letting you take on the whole expense."

  Her heart thumped loudly as she heard what he didn't say. "If...?"

  He smiled. A sad little half-smile. More a turning up of one side of his mouth. "I shouldn't. This is crazy."

  Maybe it was a little crazy. It felt more like one of Katie's old schemes than something the responsible, college-educated Haley would do.

  But being here for her aunt, coming back to the place where Katie's life had ended too suddenly—both were reminders that sometimes, life didn't give you second chances.

  Livy deserved to chase her dreams. Life was too short to waste it.

  And Haley was determined Katie's daughter would have the chance. Even if it meant bumping into this handsome cowboy a few more times.

  Chapter Two

  A week later, Maddox still couldn't quite believe he'd agreed to Haley's wild scheme. Or that Haley had agreed to give his niece that kind of money.