Three Kids And A Cowboy. Natalie Patrick
excuse me, I got to ketch little Katie.”
“B-but—” Miranda grasped air as she tried to keep Crispy in the handshake.
He slipped past her, only pausing in the doorway of the living room to say over his.shoulder, “Got someone from the dee-partment of social services coming ’round today. And it jest wouldn’t do for her to find one of the children runnin’ through the house all wild and nekkid, now would it?”
“I…suppose…not.” Miranda wound her arms over her churning stomach as she watched the old fellow lumber out of sight. Twisting around, she suddenly became aware of two blond heads close together, with two sets of big blue eyes focused on her.
“I don’t suppose either of you can tell me what’s going on here?” she asked, leaning against the banister.
The pair looked at one another, but said nothing.
“Can’t you at least tell me where the owners of this house are?”
The little boy narrowed his eyes and moved one step closer to her, puffing out his chest as he said firmly, “We’re not allowed to talk to strangers, and even if we did we can’t tell ’em important stuff like where the owner of the house is.”
“She’s not a stranger, Bubba.” The girl wadded Miranda’s robe into a ball and used it to nudge the boy out of the way as she moved to share the second stair with Miranda. “She’s the princess on the wall.”
Miranda had to smile at the idea that this girl thought her a princess. The child must have seen the photos of her in full beauty-queen regalia in her father’s den and drawn that conclusion. She smiled down at the innocent admiration and placed one hand under the girl’s pudgy chin. “I’m not really—”
“You’re pretty, just like in your pictures, Your Highness,” the girl whispered before Miranda could finish. “Everybody thinks so, especially Brodie, ‘cause he spends a lots of time looking at—”
“Brodie?” Miranda dropped her hand, a wave of apprehension rolled from her thudding heart to her weakened knees at the mention of the name. “Brodie Sykes? Why would Brodie Sykes be in this house, looking at my trophy wall?”
“’Cause he lives here, silly.” The girl giggled, hugging the bunched up robe tightly to her body.
The child’s happy laughter sounded tinny and distant to Miranda. Everything seemed to disappear in a dark swirl of incomprehension as she tried to sort out what the child had told her. “Brodie lives here? In this house? I…I don’t believe it”
“Well, you don’t have to believe it, lady,” the boy said, his chin set in confident defiance. “You can see it for yourself, on account of here he comes.”
Miranda scarcely had time to pivot on her heel before the door swept open to crash again against the coatrack.
“Brodie.” The name tingled on her lips, even as her body went numb.
He stepped up to fill the doorway with his broad shoulders and black hat. The bright sunlight behind him put his face in shadow, so that Miranda could not see what emotion showed in his eyes.
For a heartbeat, she wondered if he saw her standing there. Then the paper of the grocery sacks he carried crackled, like a jolt of tension suddenly filling the dry air around them. He had seen her.
She tried to swallow. Tried to blink. Tried to think of what to say after all this time. Her mind went blank, her ability to speak as shrouded as the figure looming in the doorway. It was Brodie’s move.
Randi. Brodie felt his lips move, heard the once affectionate nickname rip through his entire body, yet knew he hadn’t said a thing. He couldn’t say a thing. He just stood in the doorway, the Texas sun warming his back, the sight of his wife standing before him searing his soul. Still, he had to fight off the urge to shudder as if chilled to the core of his being.
Miranda had come home. To him? Could he hope for such a miracle? Could time have healed the wounds he’d inflicted on the woman he loved—the woman whose love he had so battered that she felt she had to run away from him, instead of trusting him enough to work it out?
If Brodie thought for one moment that Miranda had actually come home to him, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He’d have fallen down on his knees and beg her forgiveness. Then, after he thanked God, all the angels and whatever mode of transportation brought her back to him, he’d have stood, scooped her up in his arms, and headed for the nearest bedroom. There, they’d have made love until they could hardly breathe anymore, until they’d loved away all the cold lonely nights of this past year, until they both knew they could never sleep alone ever again.
If she had come home to him. But the look in Miranda’s eyes made it clear that she had come here thinking to find her parents, not her husband. After a year away, the first contact she wanted to make had been with her family—and that no longer included him.
That realization, wrenched loose the past year’s full measure of pain, anger and loneliness from the depths of his soul. It welled up in his chest, almost stifling him. He inhaled the hint of Miranda’s perfume that lingered in the still air, and with it the memory of her betrayal, which sliced through his body like bits of jagged glass.
How could he love someone so much he thought her leaving would near about kill him and yet, seeing her again, want nothing more than to push right past her as though she didn’t even exist for him anymore? By instinct, his hand went to his hat brim, tipping it downward, not in greeting, but to keep her from seeing the potent mix of love and heartache in his face.
If she did see his pain, she did not react. Instead, she just stood there, her face paled by the surprise of his entrance, her breathing shallow, her whole body tensed, as though she might bolt at the slightest provocation.
He narrowed his eyes and studied her for a moment. Though only a year had passed since he last laid eyes on her, he could see a definite change, but he was hardpressed to pinpoint it. She seemed softer somehow, more womanly, but with a confidence tested by fire.
Hellfire, he mused. That was certainly where he felt he’d spent most of this past year—in hell. And it had changed him, too. But would Miranda give him a chance to prove that? Would she even believe it? And why should he give a damn whether she believed it or not, after what she’d put him through…after what they’d put each other through?
A year ago, he’d run her off by proclaiming he couldn’t care for someone else’s children. Now Miranda had come back to find that his house was teeming with them. Brodie felt his lips tug into a sad smile. His gaze flicked over Bubba and Grace, whose faces were filled with excitement and wonder at the situation.
He didn’t know how the children would affect Miranda’s opinion of him, didn’t know if there was any chance that they could work things out or if they should try. He only knew that the first time he and Miranda spoke again, they did not need an audience.
Slowly, he slid the filled grocery sacks to the floor beside his feet. With his eyes always on the three people in front of him, he only heard the paper crunch as the sacks settled on the wooden floor. Too late, he realized he’d set one on the toe of his boot, and it toppled, spilling apples and sending several cans rolling across the entryway. Ignoring them, he stepped forward.
“Bubba, Grace, where’s Crispy?” he asked
“He’s chasing Katie,” Grace said matter-of-factly as she smoothed one small hand over the faded fabric lumped over her arm. “She got out of her bath and ran off when he accidentally got soap in her eyes.”
“Then maybe you two should help him get her and get her hair rinsed off.” Brodie was surprised at the even, natural tone of his voice, given the white-hot emotional brew roiling in his belly. Hoping he could maintain that facade of control, he raised his gaze from the two children to meet Miranda’s shock-filled eyes.
He swallowed hard and clamped his hands on his hips. The fabric of his freshly