The Cowboy's Unexpected Family

The juice cups and coffee mugs shimmied and toppled. A glass plate broke on the floor.

“What the hell?” Reese yelled and sat up, knocking all the toys and pillows off.

Casey ran back around the corner and, seeing the mess and his brother’s furious expression, burst into tears.

“Now, look what you did!” Ben shouted. “You made Casey cry!”

“Oh my God, please stop yelling,” Reese muttered.

So, of course, that was the moment Jeremiah walked in.

Jeremiah had come to expect a certain amount of disaster when he walked back into the house from picking up Aaron every other Saturday morning. He wasn’t a father, but even he understood leaving a nine-year-old in charge of a five-year-old for an hour wasn’t the best idea. Or maybe it was okay for other kids…but for Ben, it was like an engraved invitation to trouble.

Not that the kid needed much of an invitation.

But he and a few of the other parents carpooled hockey practice, and he couldn’t take Ben and Casey because then there wasn’t enough room for everyone in the truck. And he couldn’t beg off because he’d done too much of that. Yeah, things were hard here, but it was time to handle it and stop taking every handout that came his way.

So every other week he walked in the front door wondering what it was going to be this time. Shaving the dog? Casey tied up in the closet? The kitchen the scene of a breakfast cereal massacre?

The last thing he expected was Lucy on her knees in front of Reese with Casey, holding every kitchen towel they owned, crying in the corner.

Ben, his arms over his chest glaring daggers at Jeremiah was, however, totally expected.

“What’s going on?” Jeremiah asked, throwing his keys on the ledge by the door.

Aaron bumped into him from behind with his hockey bag. “Take all of that stuff into the laundry room, Aaron,” Jeremiah said. “I’m tired of washing clothes that have been sitting in that bag all week. It’s gross.”

Aaron nodded and stepped toward the laundry room in the back, but stopped when he saw Lucy, looking just as gorgeous as she had last night even without the feathers and boots and moonlight.

“Hey.” Lucy lifted her hand in a little wave and pushed herself to her feet.

“Hey.” Aaron’s voice broke over the word and he got so red the tips of his ears about lit on fire. He vanished down the hall to the laundry room.

“I came by to do a car exchange, but Reese wasn’t up yet.”

The lump on the couch groaned and pulled his quilt up over his head.

“Still isn’t.” Jeremiah sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Casey, buddy, could you stop crying?”

Like a faucet was turned off the whimpering stopped.

“Are you mad?” Casey whispered.

“Of course not,” Lucy answered for him.

“Yes, he is,” Ben said, always ready for a fight, and Jeremiah sighed again, bone weary of these fights he never won no matter what he did.

“Come on, Casey and Ben,” Lucy said. “Let’s get this stuff cleaned up.”

“You don’t have to do that.” Jeremiah stepped forward to take one of the towels in Casey’s hand.

She smiled at him, sympathetic and perhaps a little pitying, which was exactly the opposite of the way he wanted her to look at him, so it pissed him off. He wanted her to look at him the way she had last night. He wanted that little bubble of time to be unbroken, unsullied by reality, so he could think about it alone in his cold bed.

And that she was here, in the unflinching light of day, robbed him of the fantasy under the moonlight.

“I’ll just take you home.” He was way gruffer than he’d intended, and he saw Casey look over at him, full of anxiety.

God, he just could not get this shit right.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucy said, picking up toys and stacking them on the coffee table.

“You don’t have to clean this up.” He stepped forward, taking the toys from her, trying to get her to stand. Trying, actually, to get her out of there, but she was stubbornly reluctant.

“It’s almost done, isn’t it Casey?” She winked at Casey, who’d thrown all the kitchen towels over the lake of water next to the couch. Great. Just great. Now, he’d have to dry all of them.

Casey beamed at her and it was the last damn straw.

“I said stop!”

Everyone halted and turned to stare at him. Casey’s lower lip started to tremble. The front door slammed shut and he figured that was Ben running out to the barn, which was what he did every time Jeremiah yelled.

“Okay.” Lucy stood and dropped the car keys on the coffee table. “Don’t worry about the ride. I’ll just call Mia and wait for her outside.” She gave Casey a big grin and the little boy stared after her with his broken heart in his eyes.