A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) (23 page)

Maybe Ruth would know where Eden had gone. Georgia found Sol’s mama gathering sheets off the clothesline in the
backyard. Ruth had seen Eden ride out with her younger children a couple of hours
before, but she hadn’t asked where they were off to. Georgia was disappointed
not to see her daughter, but if they were on horses, they were somewhere on the
ranch, so she wasn’t worried. She helped Ruth with the rest of the sheets,
sniffing the sunshiny, air-dried scent. They went into the house, swinging the
laundry basket between them. The second they were past the mud room, the smell
of hot raspberries assailed Georgia.

“I pulled a cobbler out of the oven
before I went out,” Ruth said. “It should be cool enough to eat. Sit down and
have a piece.”

No one in her right mind turned down Ruth’s
baking.

“A scoop of ice cream?” Ruth asked as she
put two plates of cobbler on the table.

“Yes, please.” Georgia practically
drooled, anticipating the contrast of hot and cold, sweet and tart on her
tongue.

When the ice cream topped both helpings,
Ruth sat down. They took their first bites nearly in unison. Georgia closed her eyes and moaned as the flavors burst in her mouth.
So good.

“You know,” Ruth said between bites, “we
never had a chance for any mother-daughter talks when you were married to Sol.”

“No, we never did.”

Ruth sighed as she forked up another
bite. “I wish we had. I always thought . . .”

“You thought we’d have more time.”

Ruth smiled and nodded. “You were outta
here like a scalded cat. I never did know why. It probably ain’t nothin’ but
misplaced guilt on my part to think it woulda made a difference if we’d talked
more, but I can’t help but feel it.”

When she was eighteen, Georgia had secretly been glad not to have to get to know Ruth better. Not because she didn’t like
her mother-in-law. On the contrary. But Sol thought highly of his mother, and Georgia had feared Ruth would decide her new daughter-in-law didn’t measure up. Leaving Sol
had in some ways been a relief because it had taken the pressure off. She’d
been sure Ruth’s disillusionment was a done deal. She’d been wrong about that.
Ruth had always made her feel welcome.

“You have nothing to feel guilty for,” Georgia said. “Sol and I . . . We were too young to know what we were doing.
It didn’t help that we were mismatched from the start.” Another exquisite bite.
Her ex-mother-in-law could reduce angels to tears with her desserts.

“I don’t think you were a mismatch. I
think y’all hit a rough patch you didn’t know how to handle.”

Maybe, Georgia thought, but it didn’t
really matter anymore, did it? She probably would regret asking, but curiosity
got the best of her. “What would you have said?”

Ruth laid her fork on the edge of her
plate. “Well, I’d’ve said how happy we were to have you as part of the family.”
Her smile said how sad she was that Georgia hadn’t stayed around to become part
of the family. “And I’d’ve told you how delighted I was that you could lighten
my boy up. He’s always been a bit overserious, bein’ the oldest and all. It’s
our fault, of course, but you made him forget to be so intent all the time. He
just shone like the sun every time he looked at you.”

Georgia
felt herself blush. Ruth wasn’t one for embellishing the truth, so if she said
Sol shone, then he’d shone. These days, he was more likely to glower. “Why do
you think you’re responsible for Sol being so serious?”

“You know his daddy was off rodeoing a
lot when Sol was little?”

Georgia
nodded, her mouth once again full of vanilla ice cream and raspberries.

“Sol being the oldest, he tried real hard
to be the man of the house.”

Back in that brief time when they’d been
married, Georgia and Ruth had sat down with the photo album that had pictures
of Sol and the other McKnight children. Sol had been a gangly child with
freckles and Dumbo ears. His second-grade class picture had been Georgia’s favorite. He’d had a wide grin and two missing front teeth. Sol had turned a
satisfying shade of bright red when she’d teased him about it.

She had no problem, though, imagining
that little boy trying to fill his daddy’s shoes. He still tried to look out
for everyone. She’d bet his siblings appreciated his efforts no more then than
they did now.

“How long did Jebediah rodeo?”

“Sol was ten when his daddy came home to
stay.”

As much time as bull riders spent on the
road, it was a wonder they’d managed to have children at regular intervals
during those years.

“How did you deal with Jebediah riding
bulls? I mean . . . It’s a dangerous sport. Didn’t you ever
worry that he might come home . . . crippled?” Or worse.

“You can’t help but worry. But he loved
doin’ it, and riding them bulls was part of who he was. When he started getting
hurt more often, that’s when I put my foot down. We had six little ones at home
by then, and I’d had enough of being both mama and daddy to ‘em. He was getting
a little long in the tooth to be riding bulls anyway.”

“So you asked him to quit?”

“Asked him?” Ruth laughed. “Oh my, no.
Asking that man to give up bull riding wasn’t going get me anything but hoarse
from talkin’. I told him it was us or the rodeo.”

A small gasp escaped Georgia. Sol’s parents had always seemed so much on the same wavelength. If she’d ever thought about
it, which she hadn’t, she’d have assumed that they’d come to the decision
together that it was time for him to quit. “And he gave it up? Just like that?”

“Pretty much. Once he understood I meant
business.”

“How long did that take?”

“A couple a weeks. What really did it was
when he come home and realized I’d brought on another hired man to do the work
he shoulda been doing.”

Georgia
couldn’t help laughing. Ruth had always been a force to be reckoned with.

“He tried firing the man, but I told him
I’d just find somebody else. I told him he could finish out the season if he
wanted, but that was it. He went back out for two more weeks then came home to
stay. I reckon he thought about it the whole time.”

“Did he—?” Georgia’s palms were suddenly
sweaty. She swallowed. “Did he resent you for making him quit?”

“Honey, the angel Gabriel couldn’t make
that man do nothing he don’t want to do. But no, he understood why I done it,
and he ain’t sorry neither. He ain’t never thanked me, but I see the way he
looks at those old cowboys who are all stove up from their injuries. He’s got
enough of his own creaks and such, and I know he’s glad it ain’t worse. We both
are.”

Their whole conversation was a revelation
to Georgia. It seemed Sol had walked in his daddy’s footsteps in everything but
the kind of woman he’d chosen to marry. The difference . . . The
difference between herself and Ruth, Georgia realized, was that Ruth had spent
those early years of her marriage waiting for her husband to come home; Georgia
would have waited for Sol to never come home again. It was a fine point, maybe,
but a telling one. Why had she seen it so differently? If she’d hung on to her
marriage instead of bolting, what would her life be like today?

She started to tell herself it didn’t
matter. What was done was done, but if she was really going to change the
pattern her family had taught her, shouldn’t she examine her past choices, too?
Not only the decision to marry Sol, but the decision to leave him as well.

Wasn’t that the only way she’d be sure
not to make the same mistake again?

“So it’s back to real life for you,”
Terry said from the passenger seat as they headed for the southbound freeway
that would take Sol home and Terry to his next rodeo. The check for first place
resided in Terry’s wallet.

“Yeah.” Sol checked his mirrors as he
changed lanes, so he could catch the upcoming freeway entrance. “I got my fix
of riding for a while. Ain’t no point in risking another injury. I’m too far
out of the money to catch up.”

“You sure you don’t mind driving the
first leg?” Terry slouched down in the seat, getting comfortable for the trip. “It’s
going to get boring when I conk out five miles down the road.”

“Nah. Better you conk out over there than
over here. Besides, I do my best thinking driving at night.”

“Cool.” Terry sank deeper into the seat,
his hat cocked down to shade his eyes from the streetlights. Silence settled.
Sol merged onto the freeway. He thought Terry might already be asleep until,
from under his hat, Terry said, “Man, I miss traveling with you.”

Sol smiled to himself. “I know. We’ve had
some good times. But I gotta get back. For once, Eden’s waiting at home.”

“Georgia’s never going to let her ride,
the way she always hated rodeo.”

“She didn’t always,” Sol said.

“She’s been that way as long as I’ve
known her.” Terry’s voice was the only indication he was awake.

“Yeah, but we were already divorced then.
Back when we were first married, she liked it okay. It was later when she
started worrying about how Eden would see it.”

Terry snorted. “Eden wasn’t even two when
I met Georgia. Eden’s a cool kid ‘n all, but she ain’t no prodigy. She wasn’t
thinking that deep about anything.”

Sol laughed but then the idea settled in
and his mirth died. Was he remembering it wrong? Georgia had ranted some about
the rodeo when they first split up, but back then, she was mad about everything
he did. At least, that was how it seemed to him.

He’d never been able to make sense of why
she’d left him. Partly because she’d had so many reasons, and every last one
had sounded like an excuse.

A glance at Terry showed his chest rising
and falling in a regular pattern. The mile markers swept by, illuminated for
brief seconds in the truck’s headlights, as Sol got lost in his thoughts.

Was Terry right about his sense of humor?
Did it really go MIA when Georgia was around?

If it was, she was smart not to come back
to him. He couldn’t blame her for not wanting to live with a grouch. Trying to
remember the last time they’d really laughed together, he came up blank. She
was always on guard around him because he was usually trying to manipulate her.
God, when had their relationship gotten so fucked up?

He needed to change it, but he didn’t
know how.

Or maybe he did.

Peacemaker was one of his mama’s many
roles in the family, but with so many kids, she was also a big believer in
getting them to work out their own differences. If she’d said it once, she’d
said it a hundred times: you couldn’t change anyone else. The only person you
could change was yourself, and sometimes that was enough to get the other
person to change, too.

What if he changed the way he dealt with Georgia? Could he do that? He wasn’t sure. She had a way of pushing his buttons, like
whenever he had to watch some asshole court her. Guys like Tommy got to weasel
their way into her affections with flowers and candy and, for all he knew,
jewelry. They were the ones who took her to dinners and movies and fun places
like carnivals. Why did they get to court her while he was always the
spoilsport trying to stop them?

The question was rhetorical, meant to
highlight the unfairness of it all, but then he stopped and asked himself
again. Why
did
they get to court her? Why couldn’t
he
be the one
showing her a good time?

He rolled the question around in his head
but couldn’t find any good reason why not. Stars and bars, what a brilliant
idea. He grinned to himself. The only reason he could figure that it had never
occurred to him before was that he’d been too busy figuring out ways to keep
other men away from her. Back in school, she’d been impressed enough with him
that he’d managed that easily. Whenever he’d seen someone flirting with her, he’d
used herd-cutting techniques to get her attention back on him. He could do it
again. And by God, he’d show her the best time she’d ever had with her clothes
on.

And maybe with them off, too.

###

Terry dropped Sol off at his trailer in
the early-morning hours. He stayed long enough for a quick breakfast before
driving out. Sol was only a little jealous of Terry answering the call of the
next rodeo, but it was okay. As soon as Sol caught a few hours of shut-eye, he
had a woman to woo.

When he woke, he drove to his folks’ to
let them know he was home and to find out the current state of affairs with Eden. And if he happened to ask about Georgia, well, as Eden’s mother, she was part of Eden’s state of affairs.

He found his mama in her garden, picking
another round of ripe tomatoes, and got the good news that she’d promise Georgia all she wanted from her bumper crop. Georgia would be there after lunch to get
them. When he asked about Eden, his mama smiled and gave him his second piece
of good news: Georgia was letting Eden ride in the rodeo. If anyone but his
mama had told him, Sol would have called him a liar. A trip to the paddock
where he found Eden and Daisy working their horses with an almost feverish
enthusiasm convinced him.

“Why didn’t you call and tell me?” he
asked Eden.

“Because you’d already said I could,” Eden said as though it was silly to even question her daddy’s word.

Her faith in him made him feel like a
fraud—a lucky fraud but still a fraud. Georgia’s change of heart hadn’t had
anything to do with him.

The proof that she’d had one, however,
was there in the smile that threatened to split his daughter’s face in half
every time she looked at him. Finally, he pried himself away. Georgia would be there before he knew it, and he still had preparations to make.

###

It was a gorgeous day, hot, but with a
light breeze, when Georgia pulled into the McKnights’ ranch yard. She’d fed her
mama and Grams lunch before she’d departed and had left a stew in the Crock-Pot,
a supper even they should be able to handle without mishap, so she had no set
time she needed to be home. She could hang out with Eden. Or if her daughter
was glued to the back of her horse, she could visit with Ruth or maybe even
stop by and see Maddie. Just being out on her own made all her options sound
fun. Instead, Sol cornered her before she could decide what would give her the
most bang for her buck.

“When’s the last time you were on a
horse?” Sol asked.

“It’s been a while.”

“I gotta ride the fence before we move
the herd out to the pasture Daddy bought. Ride along with me.” He smiled
enticingly at her as if he were offering her a treat.

“Well, I was going to see Eden.” Georgia tried to ease away. Had he been home long enough to find out that she was
letting Eden ride? Or was he trying to finagle some time to convince her to see
it his way?

“Eden’s off with the young ‘uns. Come on.
Ride with me.”

Did she really want to ride fence on what
felt like her first day off in weeks? “Why?”

“‘Coz you can’t remember the last time
you were on a horse. And because we need to talk.”

Apparently, men weren’t the only ones who
tensed up at those words. But at least he didn’t seem angry, so she decided to
take a chance and followed him into the barn.

The horse barn was nowhere near as big as
the McKnights’ main barn. Ten stalls, two of them filled with overflow from the
small tack room on the left of the door. Since it was summer, most of the
stalls were unoccupied.

Sol grabbed two bridles and turned toward
the paddock behind the barn when they heard a noise from a corner stall.

Sol cocked his head then walked softly
toward the sound. She trailed behind him. He stopped and shook his head.

Georgia
wrinkled her nose at the sour smell that hit her as she peered over his
shoulder. Aaron, Sol’s fourteen-year-old brother, squatted in the stall,
looking about as green as a frog. He peered up at Sol with miserable eyes for a
second before his arm shot out to grab a sideboard. He teetered on the balls of
his feet as his neck elongated and vomit spewed from his mouth.

The straw held evidence that this wasn’t
the first of the upchucking.

Sol pushed his cowboy hat back on his
head and muttered something that sounded like “frog feathers” as he handed Georgia the halters. He stepped into the stall and hunkered down beside his brother,
careful to avoid the mess around him. He rubbed Aaron’s back. “Daddy catch you
in his chew?”

Aaron gave a jerky nod then spewed again.
Sol jumped up and back. When Aaron appeared to be done for the moment, Sol
gingerly picked his way back in.

He rubbed his brother’s back again. “I
hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but you’re gonna live, little brother. I
know you’d rather curl up ‘n die, but you ain’t gonna.”

“Thanks—” Aaron swallowed hard. “—A lot.”

Sol chuckled. “You can clean up the stall
tomorrow. Your stomach won’t handle it today.”

Aaron nodded, his misery plain in every
line of his body.

Sol gave his brother’s back one last rub
then stood and led Georgia out to the paddock.

“Chewing tobacco did that to him?” she
asked.

“Yup.”

“I knew it was nasty stuff, but . . .”
She shuddered. A lot of cowboys chewed. How their women tolerated it was beyond
Georgia’s comprehension.

“Yeah, Daddy has to hide it, so Mama don’t
throw it out.”

“I don’t blame her.”

Sol’s eyes gleamed. “What? You don’t
think it’s sexy?” He pushed his tongue against his lower lip so it bulged as if
he had a chaw there. “Come gimme a kith, thugar.”

Georgia
wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

Sol laughed.

“I’m glad you never picked up that habit.”

“You can thank Mama for that.”

Georgia
raised her eyebrows.

“You think that”—he gestured toward the
barn—”is because he was dippin’ into Daddy’s chew?” He shook his head. “Uh-uh.
That’s ‘coz he got
caught
dipping into Daddy’s chew.”

“This sounds like the voice of
experience.”

Sol chuckled. “I musta been ten or so
when Zach and me found Daddy’s stash.”

They walked across the paddock toward a
buckskin gelding and a bay mare.

“Ten sounds like it was a big year for
you.”

Sol shot her a puzzled look.

“Swearing then chewing tobacco.”

Sol grinned. “Yeah, it was an eventful
year. Not much fun, though. Mama caught us with our lips full of snuff. When
Daddy got home, he had a fresh can of Copenhagen. He set us down and kept feedin’
it to us until our cheeks bulged like chipmunks getting ready for a tough
winter. I ain’t never been so da—dang sick in my life. Thought I was gonna puke
myself inside out. And every time I’d think I was done, Zach’d upchuck. You
know how that is. I got to the point where death woulda been a blessing.”

“So you never touched it again.”

“Nope. None of us’ll ever chew. Mama made
sure the cure took.”

“I’d have never kissed you if you chewed.”

“Guess that makes it her fault we got
married. Hmm. Guess maybe she’s responsible for Eden being born, too.”

“I guess I’ll have to forgive her, then.”

Sol raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, Sol. Something good came out of our
marriage.”

“Hmm. Never thought I’d hear you say
that.”

“It wasn’t all bad.”

“I know it wasn’t. I just didn’t know you
knew it.”

“I’d be a pretty poor mother if I
regretted Eden, wouldn’t I?”

“So you’re not sorry? About us?”

“I’m sorry about a lot of things, Sol,
but no, I could never be sorry about anything that gave me Eden.”

“That’s it? That’s all you got?” He
smiled as though he were teasing, but there was something in his voice that
hinted at hurt feelings. “The only good thing about us together is Eden?”

“Well, maybe not the only thing,” Georgia said with a smile.

He lifted his eyebrows inquiringly. If this
were anyone but Sol, she’d have said he was emotionally needy.

“The sex wasn’t half bad,” she said.

His smile was more relaxed now. “Wow. I’m
all aflutter with your praise.”

“I wouldn’t want your head to swell so
much, your hat wouldn’t fit anymore.”

Sol grabbed his hat by the brim and flung
it, Frisbee-like, across the paddock. “Need a new one anyway.”