Rode Hard, Put Up Wet: Cowboy Romance (Rebels & Outlaws 2)

"I do it because you like it so much."

"I don't like it."

The smile on her face is lazy like afternoon sex. "Sure you don't. What did you want to talk about?"

Jim leans back against the bar. "He's figuring maybe you have some advice about the Pearson boy."

"Didn't they find his parents—"

"Sure they did," Chris finished the thought before she could say it. "Which is part of the problem."

"I don't know if I follow."

"I owe them, from before I started staying upstairs, so I figure, the least I can do is make sure the kid gets into good hands."

"The very least," Sarah responded. The look on her face is a surprising one, more negative than Chris had expected by a long way.

"What crawled up your ass?"

"You're just going to leave him, just like that?"

"Who said anything about that?"

The look on her face said that she still didn't like something about it.

"I don't know your story, Chris Broadmoor, but I know the look of a man who lost folks. Maybe twelve, thirteen you can act tough and let it go. Kid that age, he needs parents. Both of 'em."

Chris's shoulders rose up around his ears. "Yeah, I know."

"So don't try to pawn this kid off on somebody."

He looked down at the bar, took another drink of his water. She was right, he knew. As much as he wasn't the right person for the job, someone had to do it. And he had no right to walk away, right person or no.

Seventeen

Marie Bainbridge had nights, in school, when she'd had to stay up late under candlelight, reading. Nights where she'd spent her days working on sewing projects and found herself working with only an hour or so more to go.

That hour would turn into two hours, and two hours would turn into three, and finally when she went to bed, she would have a couple of short, fitful hours of sleep before the househ

old rose around her and insisted that no matter how much trouble she'd caused for herself, she couldn't just lay around through the whole morning.

Last night was the first time that she'd been unable to get a single wink of sleep, and it was dragging on her now. A pitcher of hot tea was cooling on the table.

She had the idea only a couple of days before, and it had taken all of this time for anything to come of it. Part of her thought that maybe it was unfair. Unfair to Chris, who even now sat on the roof of the schoolhouse, working on his repairs. Another day, perhaps two, he said. If they were lucky, that was. If they weren't lucky, it could be a week.

The bar was no place for children, though. So she sat in Owen's restaurant at a table with a half-dozen children circled around her, and she moved on. They were learning the letter 'M' today.

It was a good letter. Owen 'M,' for example. Mr. M, who owned the restaurant where they all sat. There was a great big 'M' on the sign outside to show them. 'M'arie, as well. There were a lot of good uses for the letter. The children paid rapt attention.

There were more uses for 'M' than names, of course. Lots of good words, as well. Magic, for one. Mail. Music. Manage was a bit too complex for some of the younger ones. Others came to mind and were immediately stifled before she could embarrass herself.

Marriage. Motherhood. Woman.

She could feel her mind slipping from the teaching. She let her eyes drift around the circle of pupils. Her eyes rested on one longer than the others. The other student who had gotten just as little sleep as she had. Jamie rubbed his eyes in exhaustion, but to his credit he tried his best to pay attention.

He looked better than she'd expected him to, now that he had other children around. Their energy was probably what was keeping him going. Having them around made it easier, she guessed, because unlike her, they weren't constantly worrying and fussing. They weren't there staring at him, like any second he was going to break out in tears and tell her all about how worried he was.

It wasn't that he wasn't upset, because he was. But he hid it. he wanted to hide it, whether Chris was there or not. The nightmares told her all that she needed to know about how he was feeling, but if he wanted to talk about it, he made a very impressive show of pretending not to.