Page 8 of The Cowboy's Secret Babies

Rosie felt perfectly justified in ignoring her mother’s name changes as it suited her.

But thinking about her mother was not a good way to cultivate the peace she wanted in her life, so Rosie took her bowl of stew and a generous hunk of the bread that Matilda had baked to go along with it out into the living room, where she picked up the current book she was reading and sank into it.

With a big, happy sigh.

Sometimes she thought that really, this was the happiest she’d ever been. In these quiet moments, she loved her boys so much that she sometimes thought it would make her explode. In times like this she could sit here, not worry about bills or the price of keeping two rowdy little boys in clothes, or what latest foolishness Charlotte was certainly getting herself into right now.

There was none of the stress of college classes or those aspirations that had gone up in smoke when she’d stared down at two lines on a pregnancy test in a humid Target bathroom in Austin.

On these cozy naptime afternoons, when the boys might sleep for a solid few hours, she could simply sink into a romance novel, fill her belly, and for a little while, believe that everything was perfect.

So naturally, Matilda came stamping inside then, throwing off her coat here, her scarf there, and the one glove she appeared to still have with her on the side tale. Yet the fact that she was still wearing her brightly colored, striped knit hat seemed to escape her notice.

“Guess who’s back in town,” Matilda said, in that tone everyone used when they hadnews. “And it’s not even a holiday.”

“Some colleges have early spring breaks,” Rosie said, without looking up from her book.

Because she’d already looked up and seen all of Matilda’s discarded items of outerwear and knew that in a moment she would be picking it all up.

Matilda threw herself down on the couch, looking as happily disheveled as always. They looked remarkably alike as sisters, though no one ever commented on that, because they presented themselves so differently.

My night and my day, Charlotte had used to say, usually while imbibing in whatever substance was making her giddy that season.

Matilda was five years older than Rosie and was seemingly the most like Charlotte. Always floating around, leaving a trail of dishevelment in her wake, so that everyone thought she was on another planet.

The real truth was, Charlotte was something of an airhead. Matilda was not. People often confused her for one, however, because her singular focus was on animals. More to the point, she’d never bothered to figure out how to act around people.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t. It was that she’d never understood why sheshould.

The best thing about Matilda, Rosie had always thought, was that folks around Cowboy Point were under the impression that she was a little bitspecial. A little bit otherworldly. They thought she didn’t know any better than to act the way she did, abruptly walking away from anyone who happened to be talking to her because she was bored, or because she thought she heard a kitten crying, and so on.What can you expect from Matilda, they would say as she drove off in her antique red truck and never seemed to suffer even a moment of social shame.

The truth was that Matilda was not neurospicy so much as she was stubborn as a mule, did exactly what she pleased at all times, and was completely immune to peer pressure or the faintest urge toward people pleasing. She just did it with an airy smile.

Rosie found it impossible not to admire her sister.

But she wasn’t her.

Rosie was the baby of the family. Jack was a whole ten years older than her. After their father had died, when Rosie was only slightly older than her boys were now, he had been more of a father figure to her than a brother. He still was.

Tellinghimthat she was coming home for the summer and staying there, and oh, by the way, he was going to be an uncle…

Jack hadn’t been angry with her. He’d beendisappointed.

The memory of that conversation still made her feel a little bit sweaty.

She and Matilda, on the other hand, had always been close. Rosie thought that was likely because Matilda had simply treated her like an animal in need of constant aid and attention. After all, Rosie had been nothing but a small and helpless mammal when Charlotte had brought her home. Matilda was not built to resist such creatures.

But where Matilda was perfectly happy to wander around in mismatching socks and random hand-me-downs from Jack, because she gave absolutely no thought whatsoever to her appearance, Rosie had gone in the other direction.

Before the boys, she’d been all about perfect makeup, no matter what. She’d gone to school down in Texas and had found her people there. Hair always donejust so. No such thing as casual, not really. She considered mascara and a little bit of eyeliner as necessary to waking up as brushing her teeth or putting on clothes.

Even now, on a day where she expected to see no one and do nothing, she dressed. Rosie didn’t do sweats. She liked clothes that fit her, and fit her well. She didn’t dobedraggled. Jack took after their darker haired father while she and Matilda had the same blonde hair they’d gotten directly from Charlotte.

Ripe strawberry blonde, Charlotte liked to call it, when it was really more golden. All Rosie knew was that Matilda always had hers in two wild braids, half of it falling out all the time. Charlotte had decided on white lady dreadlocks the last time she’d come by, in a cloud of patchouli. Rosie, obviously, preferred her hair swept back into a high ponytail that looked perky, was held in perfect place with the appropriate products, and would not have looked out of place in her sorority.

“Ryder Carey,” Matilda said. Seemingly out of nowhere, while Rosie had wandered off into a tangent in her head.

That name, of all names, slammed into Rosie like a bullet. But she didn’t react. Not outwardly. She’d taught herself better than that, these past few years.

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