The Cowboy's Mail Order Bride (26 page)

She shook her head. “No, they’re at home whining for me.”

He smiled. “I believe it now, cousin. You just said they were at home. You didn’t say back there or on Lightning Ridge. You said at home. Now to the important part of today—are you cookin’ breakfast?”

“Hell, no!”

“Well, shit! I’m going to the bunkhouse then. They’re making sausage gravy and hot biscuits. Want to go with me?”

She shook her head. “Thank you, but no thanks.”

“Em, I’m really glad that you’ve come back for a few days.” He stood up and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Go on to town and do whatever you need to.”

One more shoulder squeeze and he disappeared out the back door, leaving his dirty coffee cup on the counter.

“Oh, yeah! Big brother who can’t even rinse out a coffee cup,” she said. “Gramps, why did you die and leave me in this mess?”

Her first stop was at the cemetery. The rectangular sign at the entrance said that the cemetery had been there since 1912, more than a hundred years before. She drove right to the family plot and got out of the truck.

The grave had sunk, but someone had brought in sand and a rake. The old flowers from the funeral had been removed and there was a really nice wreath on a tripod in front of the tombstone. The folks who’d put the stone up when Nana died had come back and put the dates on it, and the first sprigs of grass were spouting on the top of the grave.

“I guess big brothers are good for something.” She smiled.

She propped a hip on the edge of the tombstone and studied each grave. To the left of Gramps and Nana’s stone was one with his parents’ names and on the right was the one with Emily’s dad and mom. There was no more room in that area. If she came back to Happy, she and her family would be buried somewhere else in the cemetery.

“Is this my sign?” she asked.

And that’s when her phone rang.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hey, girl, where are you? I hear birds,” Stacy said. “Jeremiah wants to know how things are going and believe me, I do too.”

“I’m at the cemetery. Things are going just fine. I wonder why my great-grandparents only bought six lots.”

“Probably that’s all they could afford or thought they’d need at the time. Or maybe it was to tell you that when those folks were gone, it was time for a change.”

“I miss Greg,” Emily said.

“Well, halle-damn-lujah! I can’t wait to tell Jeremiah. He says that Greg went upstairs to write you a letter last night. A real, honest-to-God letter on paper and put into an envelope. I don’t have one of those from Jeremiah, so I’m jealous as hell. Oh, and Jeremiah laughed his ass off when Dotty told him about those old gals pretending to be Greg on a dating site. He made me hack into the sites and you should have heard him roar when he read what they’d written. It was like two worlds colliding and neither really knew the lingo of the other one.”

“Oh. My. God,” Emily said breathlessly.

“Don’t you dare tell them that I hacked into those sites.”

“Does Greg know?”

“He does now. Jeremiah told him and he understands that you saved his ass at that auction. That was the funniest sight I’ve seen in a long time. You and I are going to be good friends, girl. Got to go now. Talk to you later.”

Emily plopped down on her grandfather’s tombstone. “Gramps, it’s been a crazy world. I’ll tell you about the dating sites later, but right now I want to tell you about the letters. We’ve been writing real letters like you and Clarice wrote. And I’ve got the last one he wrote in my purse. I’ve already just about read all the words off it.”

She settled more comfortably on the tombstone and said, “I do miss Greg and it’s only been a little over twenty-four hours since I left. Gramps, I don’t want to disappoint you. I love Shine Canyon. I know that your folks worked so hard on the ranch and that Daddy did and you did. How can I walk away from my inheritance? But I can’t ask Greg to walk away from his, either. Tell me what to do, Gramps.”

“Mornin’, Miz Emily,” a voice said right behind her.

She jumped up so fast that she got a head rush and had to hang onto the tombstone for support. “Amos, you scared me.”

The old man’s mouth turned up in half a smile. “I heard you too. It’s okay, child. I talk to him too. We was friends from the time we was just kids, went to the service together, and wound up right here in Happy when we got home. His folks moved and I married a girl from here, but you know all that.”

Emily nodded. “I’m glad that you come to visit him and I’m real glad that you came around when he was sick.”

Amos shrugged. “He’d a done the same thing if the cancer had got hold of me. He’d tell you to follow your heart, Emily. Marvin loved that ranch, but he wouldn’t want it to hold you back if your heart is somewhere else. Now get on out of here and let me have a turn to visit with him.”

“Thanks, Amos.” She hugged him.

“You are very welcome. Taylor will do just fine with Shine Canyon. He kind of reminds me of your dad. If your momma had birthed a child before you he might’ve been just like Taylor.”

Yep, an older brother
, she thought as she made her way back to her car. She’d asked Gramps for help and he’d sent it. First in the form of a phone call from Stacy and then from an old friend, Amos. She knew what to do now, but it didn’t make it any easier.

She drove to Amarillo to the small law firm that her family had used her whole life. When she walked through the door, the secretary jumped up from behind the desk and hugged her tightly. “Ray is out to lunch with a client. Let’s go to Olive Garden and get some soup and salad.”

“I’d love to,” Emily said.

Edna worked in Amarillo, but she lived in Happy, went to the same church as the Coopers, and had at one time been interested in Emily’s dad. She drove across town to the Olive Garden and when they were seated she wasted no time in saying, “Okay, girl, what is going on? You’ve been gone a whole month. Did you go to Florida like Marvin told you to do?”

Emily shook her head and told Edna the whole story while they ate lunch. “And now I’m two ways about the ranch. I don’t want to let Gramps down but…”

Edna reached across the table and laid a hand on Emily’s arm. “Marvin would want you to be happy, and it sounds like fate has been workin’ overtime for more than fifty years, darlin’. A ranch is just dirt no matter where it is. If it isn’t home, then that’s all it’ll ever be. But a ranch shared with someone you love is a home. You’ve got a lifetime ahead of you. Does that cowboy love you?”

“He says he does.”

“Looks to me like all that’s left is the paperwork,” Edna said.

She checked the mailbox five times on Wednesday, but there was no letter from Greg. Stacy said that he’d written to her so where was it? Surely it wasn’t stuck in the bottom of a mailbag somewhere between Ravenna and Happy. That couldn’t happen twice in the same family, could it?

Until that letter arrived, she couldn’t make the final decision to sell Taylor the rest of Shine Canyon. On Thursday morning she was having a bowl of junk cereal for breakfast when someone knocked hard on the door. It startled her so bad that she dropped her spoon and it scooted halfway across the floor. She wrapped her grandfather’s plaid robe tightly around her body and opened the door.

“Mornin’, Miz Emily. Got a letter here that you have to sign for.” He held out a small pad with a pen attached with a cord. “Right there in the box, please.”

She scribbled her name and handed it back. He put a letter in her hands, and her heart skipped a full beat when she saw the return address. It was from Greg Adams in Ravenna, Texas.

“Thank you. I would have come into town to get it if you would’ve called me.”

“No trouble. I had a couple of deliveries to make out this way. Rumor has it that you aren’t stayin’ in Happy. That true?” he asked.

“Still thinkin’ about things.”

“Well, we’ll miss you if you go.”

“Thanks again,” she said. She should invite him in for coffee since he’d always spent a few minutes with Gramps when he brought the mail. On some days the mailman and Amos were the only people outside of Taylor and Emily that Marvin talked to.

“Got to go. Miz Blackstone has been callin’ every day about her package. It’s something that her grandson has sent and he’s over in France. She says that it’s one of those fancy French scarves and she wants to wear it to a weddin’ this weekend. You did hear that Gracie Caldwell is marrying Teddy Green, didn’t you?”

Emily shook her head. “Lot happens in a month, don’t it?”

“Yes, it does. Hope you enjoyed your trip to Florida though. Marvin told me he was sending you away for a month. I was surprised to see you home a few days early. Guess home always calls to the heart, don’t it?” He spun around and was halfway back to his mail truck before she could do anything but look at the letter.

“Yes, sir, it surely does,” she finally said as she shut the door. She sat down in Marvin’s recliner and held the letter in her hand for a full minute before she opened it and read:

My darling,

I’m abiding by what you asked even though not seeing you, not hearing your voice, not being able to kiss you are the hardest things I’ve ever endured…

She inhaled deeply. “Okay, Gramps, you’ve sent enough messages. The decision is made and home does call out to the heart, but it doesn’t make it easier to say good-bye to the past.”

***

Greg awoke on Thursday morning with Bocephus on the pillow next to him and Simba sharing his pillow. “Good mornin’, boys. The house sure seems empty without her, but I’m not giving up hope and neither should you.”

He crawled out of bed, threw open the curtains, and looked down at the backyard. The place where she parked her truck even looked lonely. He dressed in work jeans and tugged a thermal shirt down over his head before he checked the USPS tracking number that they’d given him at the post office.

“Hey, guys, the letter has arrived,” he yelled across the room at the cats that were chasing each other from one end of his bed to the other. “She’s got it in her hands right now. God, I miss her so much.”

When he reached the kitchen, he grabbed Dotty around the waist and danced across the floor with her. “The letter arrived,” he singsonged.

“Have you lost your mind, boy? What letter? The mailman hasn’t come yet,” Dotty said.

“My letter. The one I wrote to her. It took me two days to get it just right and I sent it by registered mail and they gave me a tracking number and it got there this morning. I wasn’t takin’ chances on it getting lost like that one did from Marvin to you, Nana.” He stepped back and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“And what did you say in this letter?” Clarice asked.

Greg smiled. “Can I read that last letter that Marvin wrote to you?”

“Hell, no! That’s private,” Dotty answered for Clarice.

“Then y’all don’t get to read mine.”

***

Emily poured the rest of her cereal in the trash can, got dressed, and called Taylor.

“You cooking this morning?” he answered.

“No, but we could go to IHOP in Amarillo,” she said.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup, western omelet, and hot biscuits and gravy,” she said.

“I’ll pick you up in ten minutes,” he said.

Emily picked up the letter again and read it. When she got to the second paragraph, it took two hard swallows to get rid of the lump in her throat.

Bocephus and Simba have slept with me since you left. Poor little boys keep sneaking back into your room and meowing for you. I know exactly how they feel. I sat in your chair all evening that first night you were gone. Your perfume still lingered in the room. I’m glad I found the sticky notes before anyone else got up that morning. I touched each one and told myself that you would come back. I need you in my life, Emily Cooper.

“Hey, you ready? I’m starving,” Taylor yelled through the door.

She shoved the letter back into the envelope and dropped it in her purse.

“I’m ready,” she said.

She hopped into his truck and fastened her seat belt. “What kind of plans you got for today?”

He fired up the engine and headed toward town. “What a rancher does everyday. Work the land, the cattle, and hope that by fall there’s enough profit that I can do it again another year. What have you got in mind?”

“I thought maybe you might like to buy a ranch, or the last of what was left of a pretty big spread at one time.” She smiled.

“You sure? I thought once you slept on it and went to the cemetery you might still change your mind.”

“I’m more sure than I’ve ever been about anything in my life,” she said.

“How about you just lease it to me with intent to buy in one year? I don’t want you to get out there in that forsaken part of Texas and change your mind. We can close up the house and it will be waiting right here for you and I’ll take care of the land like it was my own until you come back.”

She shook her head. “No, Taylor. I want a clean break. If I change my mind, I’ll put my money into something else.”

Taylor laughed. “You’re in love for real, aren’t you? You went out there with intentions of staying one day and flat-out fell in love.”

“Yes, I did. I talked to Ray already and he has two sets of papers drawn up. You don’t have to pay for the whole thing if you don’t want to. You can pay me in installments like a banknote, only with no interest. It’s up to you.”

“You know it will become part of my ranch and my brand. It won’t be Shine Canyon anymore. Does that bother you?”

“It’s yours.”

Taylor stomped the brake and left a cloud of dust behind the truck. When they came to a stop in the middle of the dirt road, he turned toward her. “The ranch has been Shine Canyon since your great-grandparents bought it, Em. Don’t you have any feeling of family?”

She wiped a tear from her eyes. “My momma and my daddy and my grandfather are all gone. Gramps kind of saw something that made him send me away for a month and I want to think it was a vision of the way things should be, Taylor. It was Buffalo Draw when Gramps’s folks bought it from the previous owners. A name is just a name and a brand just a brand. Add it to your ranch like Gramps wanted you to do,” she said stoically and vowed that the tears were over and done with.

He took his foot off the brake and drove to the paved road that would take them into Amarillo. “I understand and I’m sorry I yelled at you. Will you promise to come home for the Fourth of July?”

“I promise, but only if I can bring Simba and Bocephus with me, and I won’t have my boys around cigarette smoke.”

“Then keep your scrawny, bony ass out there. You’re not bringing no damn cats in my house,” he teased.

She rested her hand on his shoulder. “We’re both getting a good deal. I know that you’ll love the land and I’m going home to a family who loves me.”

“You saying we don’t?” he said hoarsely.

“Hell, no! I’m just sayin’ that you don’t have to worry about me, Taylor. I will be loved. Hey, there is one jar of moonshine left. Let’s have a toast when we get home?”

Taylor smiled. “Sounds like just the right thing to do. And FYI, darlin’ cousin, my shirt pocket is empty. Melinda asked me how I’d feel about my daughters smoking and it set me to thinkin’. I put my first patch on this mornin’ and threw the rest of my pack out the truck window.”

“Bless Melinda’s heart.” Emily smiled brightly.

***

Greg kept time with his thumb on the steering wheel as he listened to the country music station on the radio.

“Emily will be home by Friday night. She paid a lot of money for a date with you,” Max said from the passenger’s seat.

“What made you think of that?”

“I’m psychic. I can read your mind. Every song reminds you of Emily, doesn’t it?”

“Guess it does. I love her, Max. I told her and she left without telling me good-bye. I was so angry and upset that morning, but then I read her letter and saw all those sticky notes and I understood that she had to go back before she could go forward.”

“What if she asks you to leave Lightning Ridge and move to her ranch? Her roots are there even more than yours are here. She was born right there and raised on that ranch. She’s never lived in another house, Greg. Your roots aren’t nearly as deep as hers,” Max said.

“It’s going to work out between us. I know it is. This is her home now. I just feel it in my heart and soul, Max.”

“I hope so, son. I really, really hope so,” Max said.

***

The papers were signed and now the hard part was before her. With a critical eye she walked through the house. Everything held a memory. How could she leave anything behind? Taylor had said that she could store what she didn’t take in one of the barns, but she’d decided on a clean break. She had twenty-four hours to decide what was the most important. But first she had to make one more trip.

She pulled on a jacket and headed toward the barn. She sat down beside the wooden cross with Bill’s name on it. “I’m so sorry, old boy, that I wasn’t here for you. If you hadn’t gone on to be with Gramps, I’d have taken you with me. You’d like Coolie, but he wouldn’t like you because you’d put him in second place. There won’t ever be a number one dog like you, just like there won’t ever be another Gramps.”

Taylor sat down beside her. “I’ll take care of his grave. I promise he won’t ever be forgotten. And Em, I promise to take care of the family plot at the cemetery, too. I’ve been taking care of other members of the family for the past few years, so it won’t be any trouble to keep two looking good. And I promise there will always be flowers on Uncle Marvin’s grave at the cemetery.”

She brushed tears from her cheeks. “And you’ll call me every now and then to let me know what’s going on out here.”

“I thought you wanted a clean break,” he said.

“That don’t mean I don’t want to hear.”

He squeezed her hand. “Of course I’ll call. And you’ll let me know how things go with the four-eyed cowboy.”

She jerked her hand free and slapped him hard on the arm. “Don’t you call him that. I think he’s sexy with those glasses.”

Taylor grabbed his arm. “You’ve broken it and now you have to stay and work for me until it’s healed.”

“Stop your whining. You aren’t hurt and I wouldn’t work for you one day.”

“Afraid I’ll make you muck out horse stalls. Speaking of which, are you taking Dream Boy or are you going to sell him to me?”

“You might have bought the ranch, but my horse and the trailer that he rides in belong to me,” she answered.

“He only takes up half of that trailer. Why don’t you use the rest, as well as the back of your truck, to get all your junk out of my house?” Taylor’s grin said that he was teasing.

“Sounds like a good idea to me. Go bring it and a couple of good strong men that don’t have broken arms to the house and we’ll get started.”

***

She turned back the covers in her dad’s bed that night. She still hated good-byes, so after she and Taylor had a toast with the moonshine, she’d told him that the next morning she would load Dream Boy and drive away without any hugs, kisses, or even waves. He’d kissed her on the forehead and told her to call if she got into trouble and to remember that she always had a home, a job, or a place if she wanted to come back to Happy.

The minute her head hit the pillow that night panic set in.

What in the hell had she done? This was her home. It was where her momma brought her home from the hospital. She’d kissed her first boyfriend out behind the barn after the sale the fall that she was thirteen. Gramps had drawn his last breath in the room across the hall from where she was curled up on the bed where her daddy spent his last night on earth.

She jumped out of bed and started pacing on the cold floor. She pulled the curtains back and there was a big moon hanging in the sky. Was Greg looking at the same moon?

The clock made a ticking noise as it clicked off the night. Twelve thirty. An eternity later it was twelve thirty-one. Time had sped by so fast when she and Greg were in the attic room wrapped up in that old quilt together; how could the same time be so slow that night?

She flipped on the light and pulled the letter from her purse.

She touched the letter as she read it until she got to the final paragraph, when she whispered the words aloud:

If you feel the same way about me, then meet me at the front porch swing on Friday at three o’clock. I’ll be the one on my knees with a ring in my hand. I love you, Emily Cooper, and I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to show you just how much. It wasn’t in the cards for Nana to be a mail-order bride, but I’m asking you to be mine.

She folded the letter, kissed it, and put it back in her purse. She flipped out the light and the darkness erased every single doubt in her mind. In her dreams she had gray hair and a cane. Greg’s glasses were thicker, but he was still her handsome cowboy. And they held hands on the front porch of Lightning Ridge as they watched children playing with a litter of yellow and gray kittens in the yard.