The Cowboy's Unexpected Family

“I would think your worry plate is about full.” She put the aloe down on the counter. After a moment, as if waiting for her touch to wear off, he lifted it up, but then put it back down.

Wouldn’t it be something to have the right to pick up the aloe and spread it across his face? To have such casual care between them? She’d never had that. A.J. hadn’t been one for touching. He’d been a man who took care of himself.

“I’m going to make some tea—would you like some?” There was comfort in going to the stove and putting on the kettle. Familiar things. Familiar work. In a landscape that was growing increasingly unfamiliar.

He laughed low in his throat. “No, thank you.”

“You want a drink?”

“Of course I want a drink. I’m always going to want a drink.”

“But...don’t you feel better not drinking?”

He put his hands down, pressing the pad of his thumb against the hard, sharp point of the aloe plant.

Stop that, she wanted to say, you’ll hurt yourself.

She swallowed, wondering if she was overstepping her bounds. Hell, she knew she was overstepping her bounds, but who they were and what they were to each other was in flux. “What about that AA meeting down at the Presbyterian church?”

“I’m not going to an AA meeting.” That was the Walter she knew. Gruff and closed off.

“You should have someone to talk to.”

He looked at her for a long moment and she felt as if the barriers she’d put between herself and the world were melting. Barriers she’d put up years ago to keep people from looking too closely at her marriage. To keep people from looking too closely at her.

“You could talk to me,” she said.

“You know a lot about drinking?”

No, she thought, but I know a lot about lying. A lot about regret. A lot about wanting something more.

“I’m sorry.” He sighed, rubbing his hand over his face and then wincing. She smiled at him. He was a bear with a hurt face. “I’m not…I’m not one for talking.”

“Really?”

He flashed one of his rare smiles at her and it felt like finding twenty dollars on the sidewalk—unexpected and lucky.

“There’s a lot of shit I have to deal with, Sandra. For years I’ve pushed things away and ignored them and let them fester, and drinking made that easier. Made all the mistakes I made go away and now...sober, well, I suppose I need to deal with it.”

“Jack.” It wasn’t a question. The cool distance between him and his son was obvious to everyone at the ranch.

Walter nodded, his lips thin. “We’re better than we were, but...there’s still work to do.”

“There is always work to do. In every relationship.”

“Says the woman whose children adore her.”

She smiled at that. “They are good girls.”

“They are.”

His rusty praise warmed her and the moment unfolded around them, a flower in bloom. She looked up only to find his shrewd gaze waiting for her, full of hundreds of things he’d never said, but she knew anyway.

He desires me, she thought. Loves me.

Awareness crept in on cat’s paws, and it thrilled and worried her.

She wanted to touch him, and the way his eyes blazed with fear, like an animal being backed into a corner, he knew how she felt.

“What…what do you want from me?” he asked.

You, she thought. To feel something besides doubt again. To feel…wanted.

“When are you going home, Sandra?” he asked, and she jerked at the question as if poked by a knife. “Don’t look at me like that. You said you would leave when I was sober. I’m sober. You need to go on home.”

“You’re sober, but you’re not well, Walter.”

“A sunburn isn’t going to kill me.”

“Your ankle...”

“Better every day.”

He pushed himself away from the counter. He didn’t have his cane and he didn’t look like a man who needed it.

She felt suddenly bereft, not just because he was leaving, but because she was so alone. And had been for so, so long. She’d raised her girls to be independent, and they were, but where did that leave her? Where did she belong if she wasn’t needed anywhere?

“Where’s home?” she asked aloud. She hadn’t meant to, but now that she had she felt a certain righteousness in that question. “Where do I belong?”

When he looked at her she felt the way he loved her. The way he’d always loved her. Vicki had seen it; she’d seen it. Only A.J., blinded by his faith and self-loathing, had missed it.

A.J., her non-husband. The father of her children, the head of her family. But not her husband. Not really.

Alone, she thought, alone for so long.

She stepped around the counter and Walter took a deep breath. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice thick, and her body awoke to its power. Her power. She was still beautiful. And he was a man. More of a man every day.