Teaching the Cowboy (2 page)

Chapter Two

J
ohn hadn’t been that paralyzed at the sight of a woman since watching Halle Berry rise out of the ocean wearing an orange bikini with a knife sheathed at her hip. That had been two years ago. Took him that damn long to watch that movie and when it finally came on cable, he’d been falling asleep right up until that scene. He’d been up since four a.m., but that woke him up good. Matter of fact, it’d kept him up most of the night, pacing his bedroom. He’d finally managed to nod off at around two only for a woodpecker to start tap-tap-tapping away on an old tree stump situated near the back of the ranch house at five.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have access to women. He did. He could drive into Wheatland or Laramie or Cheyenne, where there were a few eligible singles, and try to pick up a warm body to sate himself with, but at thirty-eight he was too old for that prowling shit. He’d leave that to Landon and the rest of the young bucks who had much more energy and far more pieces of their hearts left to give away.

In his confined little corner of the world, John knew every single person by sight. There were maybe two women who might have been suitable replacements for his fickle ex-wife and that wasn’t saying much. Dawna Roe was thirty, flirty, and had an insatiable appetite for Lundstrom beef. While he was flattered that she ate so heartily whenever the Lundstroms and Ericksons got together for one of their big blow-out barbecues, she didn’t have anything else of worth to say unless it was about what was on her burger.

Merri Roe, actually Dawna’s sister, was thirty-two and a champion barrel racer. She knew horses and she tended to ride her men like they were horses, too. He liked it rough every now and then, but he hated feeling like he was just a means to an end. In fact, he’d all but given up on socializing in the past few years. Why bother? But then, as if his dreams had been transmitted straight to God’s to-do list, this fine little sable-colored slip of a woman got dropped right at the toes of his cowboy boots.

Halleluiah, the angels sang.

It had taken Liss’s and Peter’s embarrassing little outbursts to make him ignore the itch in his fingers to wrap his hands around the woman’s tiny little waist and pull her in close for a proper introduction.
Real
proper, regardless of the fact he’d signed a fifteen thousand-dollar check to get the woman out there. That made him her boss.

He’d deal with the kids later. At least Landon had had the good sense to rein Pete in or else that boy would have been running his mouth ’til Kingdom Come. He didn’t mean anything by it; it was just the way he was wired. Same as his daddy.

Before she’d died, John’s mother had warned him that Pete’s mouth would get them all in trouble some day. She’d laughed about it, though. John didn’t think it was funny. Impulse control? Pete had
none
. The doctors said he’d grow out of his ADHD some, but to John, it seemed like the medications somehow made it worse.

He stepped out of the shower and grabbed the towel draped over his sink. After wrapping the fluffy white terrycloth thing around his waist, he leaned against the counter of the double sink, the other side having been long abandoned. His thoughts flitted back to his ex-wife, Charlene, for a moment as he remembered how the countertop would always be cluttered with so many bottles and pots of perfumes and cosmetics. She always did herself up as if she had a photo shoot scheduled, when the truth was she wasn’t going much farther than town to pick up the kids from school. When she remembered, anyway. She was high maintenance for a ranch wife but didn’t start off that way. His money made her that way.

He held his razor’s plug in his hand while studying his appearance in the mirror and decided against shaving. Everyone else at the table would probably be straight from work with straw and manure still on their boots. He didn’t want to stand out too much, especially since he was acting out of character by going to dinner in the first place. He hated visiting the Ericksons. Becka cried too damn much, Ted was half-deaf and loud, and those kids…

He blew out a breath.

Maybe lumping Liss and Peter with them in this homeschooling scheme is a bad idea.

He dried his hair on a second towel, brushed his teeth, and dressed casually: his favorite jeans and one of his few shirts that wasn’t plaid, striped, or denim. It was supposed to be a church shirt. Had a little polo horse on it and everything. He used his teeth to break off the plastic tie holding on the price tag. Who was he kidding? He hadn’t been to church since Liss, now six, was a baby. He’d always planned to go, though, so that had to count for something.

He padded down the hall in his socks, knocking on each kid’s bedroom door as he passed. “All right, we’re about to head out. Make sure your nails are clean and faces washed.”

The kids piled out of their rooms wearing the same clothes they’d been wearing since breakfast. Only Landon looked like he’d tried at all. He’d combed his hair back from his eyes with aid of some kind of product.

John groaned. “Would it kill ya to polish up even a little bit?” he asked as he spun on his sock heel and headed toward the back door where his boots were stowed.

“Why?” Pete asked predictably.
Why
seemed to be the only word the kid used between ages three and four. Hadn’t gotten much better at twelve. “It’s just the Ericksons and some lady and some guy. How’s that any different than any other dinner?”

John shoved his feet into his boots and took a bracing breath before turning around to eye the kids. “That lady’s going to be your teacher this year, Peter. Try to be nice. Don’t scare her off. Maybe she’ll straighten you out enough that you get through reading the back of a cereal box if you were so inclined.” He turned his scrutiny to Landon.

Landon put up his hands. “Hey, I play nice.”

“I know you do. I’m just telling you, you been thinking about college out east? She’s your prepaid source of information. You make sure you find out what tests you were supposed to have taken last year and didn’t.”

Landon blew out a breath, and John cringed. He couldn’t place the blame squarely on Landon’s shoulders. After all, wasn’t it John’s responsibility as a father to light that fire under his children? Landon had missed the S.A.T. and A.C.T. when they were offered in Laramie because ranch shit happened, and he hadn’t seemed so hot about taking them in the first place. From what few conversations they’d had about the subject, John discerned Landon was ambivalent about going to college at all. After nearly a year of arguing, John finally convinced him he was too smart not to go.

Landon would make a hell of a vet and the ranch needed modernizing. Maybe he could find out what Southeastern farmers were doing to sustain their lands during periods of heavy production and bring that information home. It was something that wore heavily on John upon realizing that Lundstrom Enterprises was now in possession of six thousand heads of cattle and God knew how many rodeo stallions. The five hundred thousand acres they were sitting on was certainly enough to bear them all, but his gut nagged him to diversify.

“You need to make sure you get those applications in on time, do you hear me?”

Landon gave him a long blink. “Dad. I’m a grown-up. Remember? I deflect lectures.”

John groaned. “Let’s go.” They were nearly out the door when John stopped and turned around once more. He looked down at Liss and then at Landon.

“Lan, you can birth a calf but you can’t figure out how to put a rubber band in your sister’s hair?”

Landon cocked one eyebrow up and scoffed. “Neither can you.”

“Damn it.”

Ronnie thought Phil looked a little overdressed for a simple ranch dinner, but she didn’t call him on it. He’d put on flat-front black slacks, a dark gray button-up shirt, and polished black brogues. His chin-length dark hair was slicked behind his ears, and he’d even plucked a few stray eyebrow hairs. Why had he even packed tweezers in the first place? He was flying home in the morning.

She looked down at her own attire. After showering, she’d changed into a little sleeveless knit shell and a pair of white linen shorts she suddenly felt very stupid for bringing to such a dusty environment. She took a long sip of the iced tea Becka had offered her and whistled long and low when she realized the savvy feminine head of household had spiked it with something at least eighty proof.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she muttered.

“Honey, you’re Baptist like me. We don’t do saints,” Phil said as he crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and leaned back against the cozy wingback chair he’d claimed in the formal library.

Library. The Ericksons had a goddamned library. There were a few good titles in there, but when Ronnie had picked up one large dusty volume to examine, she had a good laugh when she discovered the
row o’ smut
organized neatly behind the serious books. Oh, that Becka was full of surprises, but Ronnie figured she would be an odd duck just based on all the phone calls she’d received between her placement finalization and her trip. Becka had called, asking her questions about everything from her favorite color to what her bedtime was. They hadn’t even been long conversations. Two or three questions, and Becka would end the calls with “
Buh
-bye, now.”

Ronnie leaned forward, picked up Phil’s drink and took a sip before he could object. Plain tea.
Huh
.

Becka appeared in the doorway just as Ronnie set the glass back on the table. “Okay, you two. Showtime. Everyone’s here. I even put nametags on all the kids.” She giggled.

“I appreciate it,” Ronnie said, really referring more to her whiskey-spiked iced tea than Becka’s organizational skills. She stood and yanked Phil up by the arm.

He grunted.

“I’ve gotten really good at learning names fast, though. Remember, I’ve spent the last four years teaching high school history. I had three classes last year and each had more than thirty students.”

“Still, six must seem like a big step-down.”

“Not at all. It’s a different kind of challenge.”

“Oh, dear, I hope so. I worry you’ll get bored and leave us. Lord knows I can’t…” Becka let her words trail off and spun on her heel. They walked toward the scent of brisket and yeast rolls. “I love having a reason to cook something out of the ordinary,” she said. “These kids eat the same thing every week and there’s only so much monotony a woman can take.” Becka turned around and put her hands on her hips and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You know, I made something called a pizza casserole a couple of weeks ago and those little ingrates wouldn’t touch it?”

“Why not?” Phil asked.

“Who the heck knows? Red sauce? Foreign seasonings? Who can tell with those kids? Ted isn’t much better, to tell you the truth. Meat and potatoes, that guy. He wouldn’t know pizzazz if it bit him in the butt.”

Phil tried to stifle a chuckle, but not hard enough.

Ronnie gave him the stink-eye.

He smoothed his expression to a blank before asking, “How’s tonight’s dinner different?”

“Oh, the brisket’s the same as always, but I put mushrooms in the pilaf and almonds in the green beans.” She smiled wide.

Ronnie and Phil shared a glance. They started walking again.

“Can’t wait to dig in,” Phil said. “We’ve had nothing but fast food since Saturday. Our guts could do with something that hasn’t been covered in a paper wrapper.”

“Oh, then you’ll love dessert. I made pies. Colorado apples. It was another dry year, but I got some good ones.”

Ronnie and Phil trailed Becka into the dining room where the long table was already jam-packed.

“All the ranch hands and staff eat in the common house, so just family here. Ronnie, you can eat out there if you don’t want to cook some nights. There’ll always be enough.”

“And we’ll do our part to keep her fed, too.” John Lundstrom stood from his place at the side of the table, wedged between his son at one arm and a pudgy preteen boy wearing a nametag that read
Taylor
. He nudged his son. “Hey, Lan, why don’t you sit next to Liss?”

“Why?” his son asked.

“You can help her cut up her brisket.”

“I can do it myself,” Liss said, hiding her knife beneath her napkin.

“Okay, baby, you sure can.” Mr. Lundstrom gave his son another nudge.

His son blew a raspberry and abandoned his chair for the far end of the table.

“Won’t you sit, Miss Silver?” Mr. Lundstrom said, indicating the newly vacated seat.

Ronnie turned to Phil, as was her custom, and looked at his face for a summary of the situation.

His raised eyebrow told her nothing she didn’t already know.

“Phil, why don’t you sit over here by me?” Becka hovered near the end of the table and pulled a sheet of foil off the top of the brisket. “You can tell me all about Raleigh. I’ve never been farther east than Chicago. I’m intrigued by you beach-dwellers.”

He shrugged and capitulated, taking the chair immediately to Becka’s left and accepting the platter of sliced meat going around.

Mr. Lundstrom cleared his throat. When Ronnie looked at him once more, he bobbed his head toward the chair.

“Oh.” She started around the table. Her earlier nervousness returned. She wasn’t a stranger to dining next to handsome men. She’d done a lot of that back in her beauty queen days. Lots of banquets and charity suppers. Rubbing elbows with athletes and politicians was par for the course. None of them had been as intrinsically interesting as John Lundstrom, though. She couldn’t put a finger on why she thought that, however. Maybe it was the fact he did real, hard work for a living like her daddy did. Or maybe it was the way he made her cheeks burn with just a squeeze of her hand and good eye contact. No come-on lines. No smarmy leers. He
saw
her. Maybe saw right through her.