Toughest Cowboy in Texas Read online

  Emma nodded. “And will you read me a story?”

  “That’s what good friends do, isn’t it?” Lila answered. “But I don’t have any books that I can read to you, so maybe you’d better bring your favorite one with you that day.”

  “‘I will bring ABC. C is for camel. C. C. C,’” Emma quoted.

  “Dr. Seuss?” Lila glanced over toward Kasey.

  “Her favorite, but…,” Kasey said.

  Lila stood back up. “I would love to read to the kids. Please pack a couple of books to bring along. Most any evening is good for me. Just give me a call.”

  “Thank you.” Kasey smiled.

  Lila shook hands with the preacher and was ten feet away from her truck when she realized that Brody was parked next to her. Standing there, with his arms crossed over his chest, wearing a white pearl-snap shirt and creased jeans, he flat out took her breath away. By the time she reached her truck, he’d dropped his arms to his side and opened her door.

  “You look very pretty tonight,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you sometime tomorrow at the café if I can sneak away for a few minutes or if I have to come into town to the feed store.”

  “For real or will you change your mind?”

  “Not this time, darlin’,” he said as he shut the door.

  Lila sat in the hot truck, sweat rolling down into her bra, heart pounding and her thoughts running around in circles for a long time before she finally switched on the air-conditioning. Being angry at him when he was hundreds of miles away and when he wasn’t standing so close that she could have touched him was a whole different ball game.

  Chapter Six

  Lila danced around the café with the broom to Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.” The singer asked for a big hell, yeah, from the redneck girls like her and the broom turned into a microphone. From then on, Lila lip-synced the rest of the song and then hit the replay button on her phone so she could get the message out there to the whole empty café.

  The beat was still pounding in her ears as she two-stepped the broom back to the kitchen, where she kept it in one hand and loaded a tray with ice cream toppings with the other. In a few minutes, Kasey and the kids were coming for an ice cream party and she’d looked forward to the evening all week.

  She carried the tray to the dining room and set it on a table that she’d covered with a red and white checkered cloth. She wanted it to be a real party for the kids and for Kasey.

  It had been a crazy week. On Monday, Brody had come into the café, had a glass of lemonade, and didn’t even get to drink it before he got a call from the ranch about fencing. On Wednesday he dropped by again but didn’t even get to sit down before Jace phoned saying that they needed six more rolls of barbed wire, so he turned around and left. On Thursday a florist brought a single red rose with a pretty white ribbon around it. The note said: Welcome home. Brody. Molly was fit to be tied when she put the rose in a pint jar.

  “I’m tellin’ you that you’re on the road to heartache,” Molly fussed.

  “All over a single rose?” Lila asked.

  “Just that much will bring Hope and Valerie out gunnin’ for you,” Molly had said.

  “I’m not a kid anymore. I’ll take them on,” she’d answered.

  He didn’t come around at all on Friday but Kasey had called that morning to see if she and the kids could come to the café for ice cream about six-thirty that evening. Lila had been so excited all day, just thinking about reading to the kids. She went back to the kitchen and placed five crystal boat dishes on a tray. The last time they’d been used was probably for her sixteenth birthday but they’d only needed two that night—one for her and one for her mother. She heard doors slamming and hurried back to the kitchen to bring out four flavors of ice cream. She hummed all the way back into the dining room.

  The door flew open and Emma’s short little legs were a blur as she ran across the floor to meet her, but Rustin stood back close to Brody’s side. Lila stopped so fast that the cartons of ice cream started to slide and it took some fancy footwork to keep them steady. Even blinking a dozen times didn’t magically turn Brody into Kasey.

  “Hey, Lila. Kasey got one of her migraines about thirty minutes ago.” He lowered his voice. “I can’t stand to see Emma disappointed. So I hope you don’t mind getting me instead?”

  For the first time in many years, Lila was totally speechless. He looked like he was afraid she was going to kick him out of the café. And she wanted to set the tray on the table, hug him, and assure him that it was fine.

  “Thank you for bringing them and of course it’s all right. I couldn’t disappoint that precious child either.” Her voice finally came out hollow and slightly breathless. “Emma says her favorite is strawberry. What’s yours, Rustin?”

  “Chocolate.” He crawled up in a chair, pulled a napkin free of the dispenser, and tucked it into the neck of his T-shirt. “We already had our baths and Mama said not to get all messy.”

  Rustin’s dark hair still had a few droplets of water hanging on it. Emma’s braids were damp and Silas’s blond curls kinked all over his head. She could never deny the kids, or herself either for that matter, the party—even if Brody was there.

  “I bet Silas likes chocolate with whipped cream on top, right?” Lila reached for the baby and he didn’t even hesitate before holding out his little arms.

  “He loves anything chocolate.” Brody’s arm brushed across hers in the transfer. The tension, sparks, and heat were so steamy that it was a pure miracle the ice cream didn’t melt.

  “I’ll get a booster for Emma and a high chair for Silas,” Brody said.

  “Bananas!” Emma peered over the top of the table.

  “Whipped cream and cherries. Yummy.” Rustin rubbed his tummy. “This is the bestest party ever.”

  Emma poked a finger in his shoulder. “Lila is my friend, not yours.”

  “I’ll be everyone’s friend.” Lila settled Silas into the high chair that Brody brought from the far end of the café.

  “Everyone’s? Does that include the ones that are too old for free ice cream?” Brody set the booster in a chair and then helped Emma into it.

  “Depends on lots of things,” she answered.

  “I don’t need a booster anymore,” Rustin said. “I’m a big kid and someday I’m going to stink just like Uncle Brody.”

  Lila locked eyes with Brody. The toughest cowboy in the whole state of Texas was blushing.

  “Sometimes Uncle Brody stinks,” Emma whispered, and her little nose twitched. “You don’t stink. You smell good, like Mama’s perfume when she’s gettin’ all pretty. Uncle Brody took a bath, so he don’t stink no more, either.”

  “Man, she talks plain,” Lila said.

  “Since the day she said her first word. She has to keep pace with Rustin.” Brody chuckled. “But she’s right. You do smell really good. And this cowboy refuses to let us feed him anymore.” He pulled a bib from his hip pocket and fastened it around the baby’s neck. “Can I help with anything, Miss Lila?”

  “I’ll scoop and you can put on the toppings,” she answered. “Let’s start with Silas.”

  The baby pointed to the container of chocolate as soon as she opened it.

  “He’s gotten real definite in what he likes and doesn’t. Anything that has orange flavor isn’t his thing,” Brody said.

  “Must run in the family.” She dipped out a big round scoop of ice cream and put it in one of the fancy dishes.

  Their eyes met over the table.

  “I still don’t,” he whispered. “Surprised that you remembered that detail.”

  “Like I told you.” She tapped her forehead with a forefinger. “I remember everything.”

  “Banana?” she asked.

  The baby nodded several times.

  “Whipped cream?”

  He shook his head.

  “Guess he really does know what he likes.”

  “Uncle Brody don’t l
ike whipped cream neither and he don’t eat the white stuff on chocolate pie,” Rustin said. “Mama says that Silas is just like him but I don’t think he’ll stink as bad as I will when I’m a cowboy. I get to haul hay when I’m ten and I’d like a banana and whipped cream and two cherries on top and some of that chocolate syrup.”

  “And I just want plain old strawberry. And a banana to eat all by itself,” Emma said. “These dishes sure are fancy.”

  “My mama used them for special times.” Lila filled the dishes and slid them across the table for Brody to do the rest.

  “So tonight is special?” Brody asked.

  “Anytime I can spend an hour with three kids falls into that category. What can I get for you?” she asked.

  “I thought free ice cream was only for kids under twelve,” he drawled.

  “Rules change when the place is officially closed.” If someone had told her a month ago that she’d be spending a Friday evening with Brody and three kids in her café, she’d have thought they were certifiably insane.

  “Double dip of vanilla with caramel topping and a layer of nuts over that,” he said. “Next to pumpkin pie, this is my favorite dessert.”

  She dug down deep into the container and heaped each scoop.

  “What are you having?” he asked as he poured caramel on the top of his ice cream.

  “One of each,” she answered as she fixed her sundae. “With whipped cream and nuts and a cherry for each flavor.”

  Rustin grabbed his forehead. “Too much. Too cold.”

  Lila felt the same way. Too much Brody but not too cold. Much too hot. She rushed over to the counter and filled a pitcher with tap water, and took it back to the table with a stack of unbreakable glasses.

  Filling a glass half full, she handed it to the child. “Drink this and it will get better real quick.”

  He tipped it up and swallowed several times before he set it down. “That’s magic water.” He grinned.

  “I want magic,” Emma declared.

  “She can’t let Rustin get a step ahead of her,” Brody said in a low voice.

  His whisper was every bit as sexy as his deep Texas drawl. If a doctor could invent a pill to take care of that crazy infatuation called first love, he could sell it for a fortune and retire with enough money to buy a remote island.

  Lila poured water into a glass and gave it to Emma. Brody reached into the diaper bag and brought out a sippy cup and handed it to her. She was careful not to touch his fingertips but that didn’t keep the electricity between them from sparking. When was that doctor going to get busy and create those pills?

  Brody kicked back in a booth where he could see Lila reading the second book to the kids. She was even more adorable sitting on the floor covered in kids than she’d been with that dollop of chocolate stuck to her lip a few minutes before. He’d wanted to lick it away with a kiss but—there always seemed to be a lot of buts in his roller coaster of relationships with Lila.

  Rustin sat on one side, and Emma and Silas had both managed to crawl into her lap. Were all the men in the states where she’d lived total idiots?

  His phone vibrated in his back pocket. His sister’s picture appeared on the screen and he hit the button to answer. “We’re on the second story, so we’ll be home soon. Are you feeling better?”

  “Are the kids behaving? Better yet, are you?” Kasey asked.

  “We’re all having a great time. They’ll be full of sugar and want to tell you about it as soon as we get home,” he said.

  “Good. I’m going to lie right here on the sofa until you get here.”

  “Need anything?”

  “Not a thing,” Kasey said. “Tell Lila thank you.”

  He stole long glances at Lila. Those could be their three kids in her lap if he’d done the right thing that last night like he should have.

  Silas crawled out of Lila’s lap and toddled over to where Brody was sitting and raised his arms. Brody got out of the booth and took the little guy into his arms. Someday he was going to have a house full of kids just like these three. Kids who would snuggle down into his chest like this and a wife who was willing to sit on the floor and read to them like Lila did.

  “I think it’s getting close to bedtime for this little guy. We should be going. Rustin and Emma?”

  “Thank you.” Rustin threw his arms around Lila’s neck. “I like it that you can be my friend too. When I’m a big cowboy, I’m going to dance with you.”

  “I’m going to remind you of that when you’re a big cowboy.” Lila grinned.

  Brody was jealous of his nephew for putting that twinkle in her eyes. Granny Hope said that you can’t fool kids or dogs. But Brody Dawson was living proof that idiot cowboys were a different matter.

  Emma yawned. “Me and you can paint fingernails and chase butterflies.”

  “I’d like that.” Lila hugged her. “Maybe next time your mama will feel better and can come with y’all.”

  Emma laid her head on Lila’s shoulder. “You will sit by me at the rodeo.”

  “We’ve taken enough of Miss Lila’s time, kids.” Brody offered his free hand to help Lila get to her feet.

  To his surprise, she didn’t shake her head but put her hand in his. “Thank you for bringing them. It’s been a lovely evening.”

  Rustin craned his neck back to look up at her. “It’s not a rodeo. It’s a bull riding and Uncle Brody and Uncle Jace are going to ride in it. I’m goin’ to win the sheep ridin’.”

  “I bet you will,” Lila said. “Do you have sheep out on Hope Springs?”

  “No, but Uncle Brody and Uncle Jace made me a ridin’ thing that they pull the ropes and it tries to buck me off. I’ll be ready,” Rustin answered.

  Brody threw the diaper bag over his shoulder and headed for the door. “Well, we have to get out of here or your mama will send all the hired hands out to look for us.”

  “So you’re ridin’? When?” Lila asked.

  “Tomorrow night but it’s not a big thing. Just a bunch of us local guys havin’ some fun and the admission fees all go to a family between here and Tulia who lost their home in a fire last week.”

  “And you clearly don’t want me sittin’ with Emma,” she said.

  “I don’t care where you sit,” he said. “If you do want to go, it’s five dollars at the gate and there will be a few vendors selling stuff.”

  Lila took a step forward into his space. “Still don’t want to be seen in public with me, do you?”

  “I won’t even be in the stands. I’ll either be riding or helping out with the chutes,” he argued. “And I’d say that the rose I sent would let everyone know that I didn’t care what they thought.”

  “Thank you for the rose, but, Brody, this isn’t my home. I’m just passing through for a few weeks to help my mama sell this place.” She caught his gaze and refused to blink.

  “You’re very welcome, and…”

  “No ifs, ands, or buts. That’s the way it is,” she said.

  “I see. Well, thanks for having us.” His tone turned cold.

  Emma tugged the leg of Brody’s jeans. “Are you fighting with my friend?”

  “No, darlin’.” Lila stooped down to her level. “We are havin’ a big-people discussion, not a fight. You enjoy the rodeo and maybe in a couple of years you’ll be in the mutton ride.”

  Emma puffed out her chest. “I will ride a bull.”

  “And I bet you’ll be really good at it, Emma.” Lila stood up. “Y’all sleep tight and have sweet dreams.”

  “Thanks for the ice cream.” Brody hurried the kids out to the van and got them situated.

  “I love Lila,” Emma said.

  “Me too. I’m goin’ to dance with her,” Rustin said. “You won’t care, will you, Uncle Brody?”

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “Because Uncle Jace says you got to ask a cowboy for his okay before you dance with his woman,” Rustin answered.

  Brody looked back over the seat. “What makes
you think that she’s my woman?”

  “If she ain’t, then what’s wrong with you?” Rustin threw up his hands in exasperation. “We love her and Mama says she’s a good person.”

  “You’re five years old, boy, not fifteen,” Brody chuckled.

  Rustin crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, do I have to ask if I can dance with her or not?”

  “When you get to be a big cowboy, we’ll talk about it then,” Brody told him.

  “Shhh, Silas is sleepin’.” Emma shushed them.

  He was about to start the engine when he heard a tap on the window. Turning, he saw that Lila was standing there in the shadows, looking like an angel. He hit the button to roll down the window.

  “I wanted to thank you for that beautiful rose. I didn’t thank you properly. I would have called but I don’t have your number,” she said.

  “Are red roses still your favorite?” He removed an ink pen from the visor and reached for her hand.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, she stuck it out and he wrote his number down on her palm. “Call me anytime, night or day.”

  “Yes, red roses are my favorite. Probably always will be. Well, I’d better get back inside. I enjoyed the kids this evening. Thanks for bringing them.” She turned around and went back to the café.

  “I’ll buy her roses,” Rustin said.

  “Me too,” Emma said. “I’ll buy more than you will.”

  “Will not!”

  “Will too.”

  “That’s enough or you’ll both wake Silas.” He started the engine and Vince Gill’s voice came on the radio singing “Feels Like Love.” Brody could relate to every single word, especially when the lyrics said that it felt like love wanted a second chance.

  Kasey met them at the door when they got home. Her eyes were still bleary and her face said that the pain wasn’t completely gone but she had a smile on her face. “Did y’all have a good time?”

  “Lila is goin’ to be my girlfriend when I grow up,” Rustin said.

  “She’s my friend and you can’t have her,” Emma declared.

  “And you?” Kasey asked, glancing at her brother.