Loe raamatut: «The Cowboy's Texas Twins»

Chapter One

When Grayson Cox left town at eighteen, he’d sworn hell would freeze over before he ever moved back. Now, ten years later, his stomach clenched as the truck’s headlights hit the Welcome to Cupid’s Bow sign. Hope the Devil likes ice skating.

Grayson still couldn’t believe he was taking Aunt Vi up on her offer, but he had a damn good reason. His gaze darted to the rearview mirror, and he checked on the passengers behind him. Make that two good reasons. His godsons, twin five-year-olds, were asleep in their booster seats, each leaning toward the other, so close their blond heads were almost touching. The two and a half weeks since their parents’ funeral had been full of upheaval—tears, bad dreams, acting out; this rare moment of peace reminded Grayson of the morning they’d been christened, cherubic infants who hadn’t even cried when the priest poured the water.

Blaine had heckled him before the ceremony for getting the twins confused in their matching christening gowns. “What kind of loser can’t tell his own godsons apart?”

Grayson had responded with the same mock-derision. “What kind of loser picks a bull-riding rodeo bum as a godfather? Don’t you know any respectable people?”

At that, Blaine had squeezed his arm. “A few, but they ain’t family.”

Neither were Blaine and Grayson—not technically. But they’d been as close as brothers, and Grayson had doted on Miranda, his honorary sister-in-law.

I can’t believe they’re gone. He swallowed hard, fingers clenched around the steering wheel. Grayson was no stranger to tragedy—he’d been orphaned at fifteen—but even he had trouble processing a twist of fate this cruel. His own father wrapping a car around a tree in a drunken stupor had probably been inevitable. But Blaine and Miranda Stowe had been big-hearted, wonderful people enjoying their first romantic vacation since the boys were born when their charter plane crashed in Mexico. As a guardian, Grayson would never be able to fill their shoes, but he would try his hardest to do right by the twins.

Which meant finding a better place to live than the one-bedroom trailer he’d used as a home base between rodeo competitions and seasonal ranch jobs. He also needed to find a stable income—and someone to help watch the boys while he was earning said income. Aunt Vi to the rescue. Again.

As he crossed the cattle guard that was a holdover from years past, when his late grandfather kept a few cows on the small farm, déjà vu gripped him. He remembered pulling in to this same yard with Aunt Vi after his father’s funeral, her assurances that he’d get used to his new home. She was younger than I am now. There were only nine years between him and his mother’s younger sister. Violet Duncan must have been terrified at the prospect of taking in an angry teenager, but she’d never shown it. Until he’d met Blaine at a rodeo outside of Waco, Vi had been the only person in his life he’d ever been able to count on.

And how did I thank her?

He tamped down the rush of guilt. He had other things to worry about now besides not coming home for holidays or a truckload of teenage misdeeds he hoped she’d never learned about.

There was a carport to the side of the white one-story house, but the space next to Vi’s car was taken up by a large doghouse. So Grayson parked on the grass. He barely had the key out of the ignition before porch lights came on and the front door swung open. Violet hurried out of the house with a mismatched pack at her heels—three dogs of varying size and color. When he’d lived here, it had been cats—a calico named Xena and a deaf white cat named Baby Blue. Aunt Vi took in strays of all species. When she’d come to cheer him on at a rodeo championship a few years ago, she’d told him about a seventeen-year-old girl who’d stayed for a month while her parents screamed through the worst of their divorce.

Grayson couldn’t predict what the boys would think of Cupid’s Bow or the kindergarten class they’d be attending once he got them enrolled, but they were sure to love the big-hearted redhead who baked some of the best desserts in the state.

He swung open his truck door and hopped down to hug her. “Sorry it’s so late.” He’d decided that the drive would be easier after dinner, when the boys were likely to fall asleep instead of getting bored, fretting about the relocation or bickering with each other. “You didn’t have to wait up for us.”

“Pffft. I’m a night owl anyway. You know that.” She kept her voice low as she glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping twins in the cab.

He chuckled. “If the three barking dogs aren’t waking them up, I don’t think you have to whisper.”

Ignoring his teasing, she reached for the truck door. “I’ll get the little guy on this side, if you want to go around to the other.”

“I can carry both of them.” Honestly, he’d lifted saddles that were heavier than the twins put together.

She balled her fists on her hips. “I’m not even forty, Gray. Hardly frail.”

“No, ma’am. I just meant, they’re so scrawny.” Some of that was inherited body type—Blaine was tough but wiry, Miranda was slim—but Grayson worried. “I think Sam’s losing weight. I can barely get him to eat.”

The light spilling from the truck was enough for him to see the sympathy in Vi’s expression. “Just give him time. And maybe some of my peach cream-cheese pie. It was your favorite, remember?”

“I remember.” In the months before his father’s fatal car accident, Violet had frequently dropped by the house with baked goods. As an adolescent with a bottomless appetite, Grayson had thought she was just being nice. Looking back, he suspected the visits were her way of checking up on him—and on Bryant Cox’s drinking.

In a way, Grayson’s father had abandoned him just as his mother had years earlier. Except, Rachel Cox had left in one fell swoop, disappearing entirely from Grayson’s life and never looking back. Bryant had deserted him drop by drop, glass by glass. Lord, let me do better by these boys than my parents did by me.

Luckily, it wasn’t a very high bar to clear.

Once the twins were unbuckled, he and Vi each took one, falling in step as they approached the house.

“The four of us should go to the grocery store tomorrow afternoon,” she proposed. “Let the boys show us their favorite foods, and I can plan some cooking projects. Kids are more likely to eat something they feel invested in.”

“Sounds good.” Even better, it sounded simple. The last few weeks had been so overwhelming. Deciding which belongings to bring with the boys and which to leave in storage. Gathering all the records needed to transfer them to Cupid’s Bow Elementary. Creating a to-do list of new parenting tasks. He needed to memorize their allergies, find a pediatrician, consider whether they would benefit from grief therapy. In comparison, picking up dinner ingredients at the supermarket was so easy, he felt light-headed with relief.

Vi had left the front door standing open when she came out to greet him. The smallest of her canine pack dashed past Grayson on the porch stairs, nearly tripping him. As he steadied himself, Vi made an apologetic noise behind him.

“Sorry, should have warned you. I give the dogs treats when we’re all in for the night, and Shep gets a little greedy for hers.”

“No harm done. I’ve got to start doing better about watching where I walk anyway. I stepped barefoot on one of the boys’ Legos last week and thought I was going to cry. Those suckers hurt.”

Inside the house, she told him, “I’m putting the boys in your old room and you can sleep on the twin bed in my office. Is that okay for tonight? We can figure out different arrangements if—”

“Vi, you’re doing us the favor,” he reminded her. “You could put me in the doghouse and I wouldn’t complain.” Considering a few of the cheaper motels during his early days on the rodeo circuit, the doghouse would not be the worst accommodations he’d ever experienced.

The bed in Grayson’s former room was a queen-size, with plenty of space for two little boys to share it without bumping into each other or accidentally pushing each other off the mattress. But the second Sam and Tyler were tucked under the sheets, they rolled toward each other, as if seeking comfort.

Gray reached for the lamp on the nightstand. “I’ll get some night-lights, but can we leave this on for now? Tyler’s a tough little dude during the day, but he hates the dark. The last thing I’d want is for him to wake up scared in an unfamiliar place.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “Maybe I should have timed the drive differently, so that we arrived during the day and they’d have a few hours to acclimate.”

“Don’t second-guess yourself. If they’d spent the afternoon in the new place, they might have been too anxious or excited to fall asleep. You’ll be right next door if they need you tonight. In the meantime, they look like they’re getting much-needed rest. What about you? When was the last time you got eight hours?”

His laugh was hollow. Over the past decade, he’d trained himself to sleep anywhere, from noisy hotels with thin walls to the ground on occasional cattle drives. But the last decent night’s sleep he’d had was before the phone call about Blaine and Miranda.

“I keep a bottle of emergency whiskey over the fridge,” she said. “Think a slug of that would help you sleep?”

“I don’t touch alcohol.”

“Understandable. Hot tea, then? I’m going to have some lemon balm. Valerian is relaxing, too.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Thanks, but I’m not really a hot-tea kind of guy. All I need is a glass of water and...maybe a cookie?”

“I baked a fresh batch of oatmeal cranberry last night.”

They made their way to the kitchen, where the smallest dog—a mixed breed with the coloring of an Australian shepherd but the implausibly short legs of a dachshund or corgi—was impatiently turning circles by the counter, whimpering for her nightly treat.

“That’s Shep,” Vi said. “The one-eyed beauty behind you is Tiff and the golden doodle who grew a lot bigger than his former owner’s expectations is Buster.”

“You and your strays.” Thank God she was so willing to open her doors to anything that needed refuge. I hope the boys like animals. “You must have the biggest heart in Texas.”

She looked away, her expression troubled. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve had my share of selfish moments, made my share of mistakes. In fact...”

He reached for the Holstein-patterned cookie jar, so delighted to be back in this kitchen that it took him a moment to realize she trailed off. He might hate the surrounding town—the place where everyone knew his mom hadn’t wanted him, where classmates bullied him until his freshman growth spurt, where his dad’s drinking was public knowledge—but all of that mattered a little less at Violet’s kitchen table. “You were saying?” he asked as he pulled out three cookies.

“Never mind. You’ve already had a long day. Plenty of time for us to talk later.” She stuck her head in the pantry and emerged with a box of tea bags. “It’s so weird. Sometimes when I look in your direction, I still expect to see a dark-haired kid with two front teeth missing, not a six-foot cowboy.”

“Whereas you never age,” he said fondly. “If hot tea is your secret, maybe I should rethink turning it down.”

“Pffft. The laugh lines are increasing, the red in the hair is fading and working at home has destroyed any sense of fashion I may have once possessed.” She held her arms wide, showing off the ancient University of Texas shirt she wore with purple plaid pajama shorts.

“You’re gorgeous. You look like that actress...” He snapped his fingers. “Jessica Chastain.”

“Uh-huh. Spoken like a guy sucking up to get baked goods.”

Grinning, he bit a cookie in half. “Mmm. It’s been too long since I had these.”

“Maybe you should have visited more.”

Shame flooded him. He’d sent her tickets to watch him in the rodeo and had even convinced her to spend a sandy Christmas at a beach resort with him, but he knew his unwillingness to come to Cupid’s Bow had stung her. She’d deserved better. At eighteen, he’d been so hell-bent on leaving that he’d gone the day after his last high-school exam, depriving her of even watching him walk across the stage a week later to get his diploma. “Vi, I—”

“Don’t worry about it. I was teasing, and I shouldn’t have. You have a lot on your plate right now and don’t need me guilt-tripping you. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry. You must feel taken for granted, with me staying away until I needed a huge favor.”

“The favor was my idea,” she reminded him. “And I’m happy to help. That’s what families do.”

Theoretically. His mother had apparently missed that memo. At least I have an aunt who loves me. Blaine, who’d grown up in the foster-care system, had been less lucky.

“I am beyond grateful. And I promise, I won’t take advantage of the situation, leaving all the parenting to you. These boys are my responsibility. I won’t be a slacker guardian, but day cares are expensive, and it could be up to a month before the life-insurance money comes.” More than a babysitter, though, what he really needed was a second opinion. Last summer, Blaine had accepted a promotion that moved his family to Oklahoma so it had been nearly a year since the boys had seen Grayson. He must seem like a stranger to them, and he had no idea what he was doing.

Self-doubt scraped him raw. “Every decision I make feels like a trap. Honest to God, Vi, I’ve had broken ribs that hurt less than the worry I’ll somehow make this worse for them.”

“I felt the same way. I think everyone questions their ability to raise kids—biological parents, adoptive parents, experienced parents who already know the ropes. But you can do this. Imagine it like bronc riding. It won’t be easy, but you hold on and hope for the best.”

And pray you survive.