Page 38 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

Ryder didn’t know why, but suddenly, nostalgia didn’t make him feel restless.

He liked seeing the Copper Mine, where he’d spent more than a few misspent nights on his rare visits home, tucked back on the other side of the creek. The creek was frozen now, and if Ryder remembered it correctly, that added a whole other level to the typical foolishness that went on there. He’d slid down it a time or two himself, in a less-than-coherent state.

Then there was the general store itself, the supposedly purloined building that had been the source of strife between his family and the Lisles for ages. He could see lights on in the diner next to the store, where, rumor was, Tennessee Lisle served up a mean breakfast and a good lunch when he was in the mood. Not that Ryder would know, having historically never darked the door of a Lisle establishment unless forced to use the store in a snowstorm or some such event. If he looked up, he could see that ridiculous lighthouse up on the top of Lisle Hill.

Today it made him smile.

He ducked into the feed store, thinking that he could find something fun to give the boys to play with, and found himself abruptly face-to-face with a woman he had the immediate feeling that he ought to recognize. Though he didn’t.

“Ryder,” she said in an ingratiating tone.

She reached out and put her hand on his arm, which he found he didn’t like at all. He moved away, but kept a smile on his face, because there was no reason not to be polite in a small town. It always came back at you.

The woman searched his face, and then laughed. “It’s me. Gwen Sheen. You remember me. I wasthis closeto asking you to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance that year.”

Ryder did not remember Gwen. Not the way she meant. She had rounded eyes that protruded slightly, a lot of wavy brown hair, and was only because of the older woman back behind the counter that he realized that he certainly knew her mother. And that he recognized the name.

Of course, this being the tiny town that it was, recognizing a name and being on nodding acquaintance with the person’s mother meant that he knew everything there was to know about Gwen whether he remembered her or not. If she’d been anywhere near to asking him to anything, he’d never had a clue. Still, other details about her dropped into place anyway, like the words to a song he hadn’t sung in ages.

He knew that she was younger than him and Wilder and he had a strong feeling she was somewhere between Boone and Knox. She was Marla Sheen’s daughter, which meant that when good old Bear Sheen, the town drunk, drank too much to take himself indoors that one winter, Gwen had lost her father. He could tell from a glance that she’d never left Cowboy Point and had no intention to. That wasn’t a value judgment—it was more like a filing system. Things a person could know about another, just like that.

When she moved forward once again, and replaced her hand on his arm, he knew more.

“I just want to tell you that I’ve been thinking about you,” she said, lowering her voice. “Everyone feelsso badlyfor you, Ryder.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. He moved his arm again, and didn’t smile quite so much. “I sure appreciate that, Gwen. But I’m fine. More than fine, really. Thanks, though.”

“It’s okay,” she said, and did something with her face that made him think that if he had been even slightly smaller, she would have attempted to pat him on the head, or something equally inappropriate. “You don’t have to pretend. I’m an old friend. It’s justreally,reallyimpressive, andsohonorable that even though she trapped you, you’re making the best of it. Honestly, you’re an inspiration.”

“It was a pleasure to see you, Gwen,” Ryder lied.

He walked away from her, shaking his head, and decided the boys were fine without something from the feed store.

Later that evening, he and Rosie sat in the living room while Matilda wafted around the house, picking up and dropping the threads of the stories she was telling them the same way she did with the layers of her outdoor clothing.

She was banging around in the kitchen now, throwing together a late dinner for herself. Rosie had just recently stopped insisting that they needed to keep a stern distance between them, and was sitting next to him on the couch.

Not exactly cuddling, but touching.

These were the kind of baby steps he liked.

Matilda liked to watch anything featuring animals, so that was on the television while Rosie read her books. Every time he came over, she was into a new one. He didn’t think he’d ever met anyone in his life who read as fast or with as much delight as she did.

Earlier, after he’d gotten back to the ranch with Wilder, unloaded their supplies, and checked in on his father, he had gone back down to Rosie’s. She’d told him that the boys were going straight from nursery school to the library with her cousin Sara Jane, who was holding the monthly read-along for the little kids.

When he got to her house, she was just getting out of the shower, preparing to go and catch the end of story hour.

They’re with your cousin, he said.You can be a little late.

He’d picked her up, so hot and damp from the shower, and carried her into her bedroom. Then he’d spread her out on her queen-sized bed and followed her down onto the mattress.

After all the times in the truck, or quick and dirty moments in the bathroom with the lock thrown, it felt like an upgrade.

It was like paradise to have all of her like that. He exulted in it. It was possible he lost his mind a little, in the joy and endless magic that was Rosie.

You made me very late, she told him when she got out of the shower a second time, but she was smiling. And she’d run out the door, yelling over her shoulder that he should stay for dinner.

While she was gone, he’d changed the sheets and made her bed. Then he’d gone down to the living room, and picked up the paperback with the cracked spine lying there on the coffee table. He’d started reading the first chapter and it wasn’t until the boys came running in, shoutingDaddy,Daddy, because they’d seen his truck in the drive, that he realized that he was entirely content.

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