One Night Rodeo (Blacktop Cowboys 4)

Which made Kyle’s issues with Marshall so hard for Celia to understand. His mother loved him unconditionally. Wasn’t that enough?

Fighting melancholy, she dug through the box, finding the only Barbie doll she’d ever owned. Western Stampin’ Tara Lynn. Outfitted head to toe in sparkly western regalia, Tara Lynn had a horse named Misty. Her red cowgirl boots left a trail of broken hearts across a piece of paper. Celia smoothed the doll’s dark hair and reseated her red cowgirl hat. Funny that the doll reminded her of Tanna.

Celia rooted around and found girlhood trinkets that’d meant so much to her. Purple, red, blue, and white ribbons from 4-H competitions. Arrowheads and funky rocks she’d unearthed in the pasture. A corncob pipe she’d crafted. A book filled with wildflowers she’d pressed. A worn thimble that’d belonged to her great-grandmother. A jar of buttons and the button dog she’d made with her mother on a snowy afternoon.

It’d been years since she’d thought of that day. The two of them sipping hot Russian tea. The strong scent of her mother’s Aqua Net hair spray as she’d bent her head next to Celia’s, patiently demonstrating how to make a button dog.

At the very bottom of the box was her collection of My Little Ponies. She remembered her horror at seeing them strung up in a tree where she couldn’t reach, followed by anger because she knew exactly who’d done it.

Kyle.

Her eight-year-old self would be appalled that she’d married him.

In the second box were odds and ends. Fancy tablecloths and hand towels. A crocheted tissue box cover. Yards of lace and skeins of yarn. Her mother’s sewing box. More piles of fabric her brothers hadn’t thrown away. She closed the lid, just as unsure what to do with this stuff as they’d been years ago.

Celia knew the last box wouldn’t contain her parents’ things because they’d given everything away, just another sad memory she’d buried.

The door to their Mom and Dad’s bedroom had always been shut, the room off-limits to kids. It’d remained shut after they died.

One afternoon, a few months after their deaths, Abe stormed into that room. He’d ripped their clothes out of the closet and thrown them in the hallway. Then he’d dumped out the dresser drawers in the hallway too. He’d removed every item belonging to them and ordered Hank and Celia to bag it up.

She’d been resentful that she and Hank had to clean up the mess Abe had made. She’d stepped over the piles, intending to give Abe grief, but she found he was already grieving. Her invincible brother was on the floor in their parents’ closet, crying silently.

Abe had been so gruff and emotionless after they died. She’d thought he hadn’t cared, but that day was when she understood how much Abe did care. How hard it was for any of the Lawson siblings to show emotion unless it was anger.

How had she forgotten that?

She’d never said a word about what she’d seen. She’d just quietly and quickly bagged up the leftover physical reminders of her parents’ lives. When Abe had claimed that bedroom as his, she’d moved downstairs. Because she couldn’t look down that hallway and pretend her parents were away for a while. She finally understood they weren’t coming back.

She opened the last box. The wedding ring quilt from her parents’ bed. The fabric had been mended over the years, new patches sewn in where old sections had torn. This quilt had been passed through four generations of women in her family.

Now it was hers. Celia knew she should feel something like pride or thankfulness about this heritage, but all she could muster was sadness. The first three women who’d slept under the quilt with their husbands had been widowed at a young age. Her parents had died far too young. She didn’t want to put this quilt on their bed and doom their marriage from the start.

But that was kind of a moot point, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she doomed it by insisting that it end at the six-month mark? How did she even begin to bring it up with Kyle that she’d changed her mind so early on in their agreement?

She unfolded the quilt, spreading it on the guest bed. It fit this old-fashioned room. She closed the boxes and carried them to the basement. Out of sight, out of mind.

Kyle’s voice reached her in the basement. “Celia?”

“Hang on.” She bounded up the stairs and found him alone. “Where are my brothers?”

“Janie needed Abe to come home, so they said to tell you they’d be in touch.” He wandered to the guest bedroom. “What was in the boxes?”

“Kid stuff. Things of my mom’s.” She pointed to the bed.

“I remember that.” Kyle looked at her. “You sure you want it in here and not our room?”

“I like our bedding.” It’s not cursed.

He curled his hand around her neck and pulled her close. “You all right with everything that happened today?”

“I’m glad they came to us and apologized. I was beginning to wonder if they would.”

“Me too.”

“Did they say anything else to you?”

“Not really.”

She narrowed her eyes at him.

“I swear. We’re guys. They apologized. I accepted. End of story. But you…” His thumb stroked the pulse point on her throat. “Seem a little melancholy. Luckily, I’ve got the perfect cure for that.”

“Which is?”

Kyle brushed his mouth over hers. Once. Twice. Then his lips slid to her ear. “It has to do with you handling some hard…wood.”