Cowboy Brigade

Lindsay dropped the pan she’d been scrubbing, soapsuds splashing over the sides of the sink. She ducked around Wade and reached for the dry towel hanging from the oven handle. “What do you want, Wade?”

“I came in here to help wash dishes.”

“I don’t need your help washing dishes.”

“Then let me dry.” He closed the distance between them, reaching out.

As if her body had its own ideas, she swayed toward his outstretched hand.

He snatched the towel from her fingers, twirled it and popped her hip.

“Ouch!”

“You know you hate doing dishes.” That sexy smile that had always made her toes curl, tipped his lips upward. Although the trim beard hid a lot of his face, it couldn’t hide the sparkle in his eyes.

Lindsay steeled herself from reacting to his charm. “Not as much as I hate someone helping me.”

He didn’t budge. “You used to love it when I helped in the kitchen.”

Lindsay grabbed a glass from the dish drainer and plunked it into a cabinet just to keep busy, to focus on something other than the man she’d hung all her dreams on only to be disappointed time and again. “We were kids.”

“Not so much.”

She spun toward him, her fists clenching to keep from touching him. “Okay, we were young and stupid.”

“We used to have a lot of fun.” He whipped the towel around her, caught the other end and yanked her against him. “Remember this move?”

Her breasts pressed into his chest, her heart slamming against her rib cage, threatening to beat right out of her chest. “No,” she said, her mouth inches from his. God, she could still feel the warmth of his lips on hers, kissing her as she lay naked in the starlight with him.

“Let me remind you.” He leaned closer, his mouth descending to hers.

A plate clattered in the dining room, the noise snapping Lindsay out of the stupor and back to sanity. She shoved Wade away. “If you want to help do the dishes, you do them. I have other work that can be done.”

She passed Gramps on her way out of the kitchen. She pointed a finger at him as she hurried away. “We need to talk after I get the girls down for the night. Don’t you go off to bed until we do.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Gramps replied. “What’s got your knickers in a twist, girl?”

Lindsay didn’t bother to answer. She needed someone to hug. Two someones who loved her unconditionally. She needed that hug now.

For the next hour, she coaxed the girls through their baths and into their pajamas. After they cleaned up their toys, all three of them settled in Lyric’s bed to read a story. It was Lyric’s night to choose. She chose Beauty and the Beast.

Almost too jittery to sit still, Lindsay forced calm into her voice. Before long she was immersed in the story, the girls leaning against her shoulders, eyes wide and wondering. Never mind they’d heard the same story at least fifty times before.

Lindsay loved her girls and would do anything to make them happy. Would it make them happy to know about their father?

WADE KNEW exactly what Lindsay had wanted to say to her grandfather and he got way ahead of her by reminiscing with the old guy as they shared the task of cleaning up the kitchen. Apparently Wade looked enough like his father that Henry Kemp automatically trusted him.

That worked in Wade’s favor, considering he was there to build trust and find evidence. He pushed aside the gnawing guilt at betraying the man who’d opened his home to him when his father had passed away.

Old Man Kemp had always been gruff, but he’d also been fair in his treatment of his employees. When it came to his granddaughter, he’d declared her hands off to the ranch hands. That included Wade.

They’d managed to keep their secret flirtation just that…a secret while Wade and Lindsay were in high school.

Deep down Wade always knew he was the hired help and Lindsay was in a different class altogether. That’s why he’d left to join the Army. He’d hoped to build a career for himself, prove he was worthy and then come back to ask her to marry him.

The idea had been a boy’s romantic dream. The reality had kicked him in the teeth.

As Henry stacked the last clean plate in the cupboard, he sighed. “I’m glad you’re here, Wade. The place hasn’t been the same since your father passed.”

“Nothing stays the same.” Wade dried his hands and laid the towel over the oven handle. “Sometimes things need to change in order to get better.”

“You got a point there.” Henry stretched and rolled his shoulders. “I ain’t gettin’ much younger, but I got plans to get this place going again. The Lockharts might have got the better of me once, but it won’t happen again.”

“How so?”

Henry shook his head. “I ain’t a tellin’. You’ll just have to wait and see, like the rest of them.” He strode toward the hallway. “Could you find my granddaughter and tell her I’m ready to go to bed. If she wants to talk, it better be soon.”

“Yes, sir.”

With the old man’s permission, Wade could walk through the house, searching for Lindsay. While he was at it, he’d look for anything that could be used as evidence that the old man was responsible for the most recent attack on Governor Lockhart.

Henry Kemp made no bones about his hatred for the Lockharts. He had the motivation to want to harm them. The question that tugged at Wade’s conscience was, did Henry have the killer instinct?

Henry headed for his office, while Wade walked toward the rear of the house, down the hallway he remembered that led to Lindsay’s bedroom. His groin tightened.

Back in high school, he’d sneaked into her room late one night when he’d been seventeen and she’d been sixteen. That was the night they’d both lost their virginity, the night he’d first declared his love to Lindsay Kemp.

Her bedroom door stood open, the lights off, the bed neatly made and empty. Although the room was empty, a soft voice carried through from somewhere inside.

Wade entered the room, the scent of Lindsay surrounding him, her presence filling the space. Everything about her room reminded him of Lindsay from the horse figurines she’d treasured as a child to the painting of a field of Texas bluebonnets that hung over her headboard.

Not much had changed in the room except the photographs of her daughters lining her dresser. He paused to stare at one picture of Lindsay and her twins, laughing in the sunlight, the love and joy reflected in their smiles made his chest ache.

Had he stayed in Freedom, would he have been a part of Lindsay’s life? He shook his head. Probably not. The hired help didn’t mix with the boss’s family. Not then and not now. Lindsay deserved better.

The voice continued on. Lindsay’s voice. He paused in front of what had once been Lindsay’s closet. It had been remodeled into a doorway into the room beside Lindsay’s.

A light shone down beside twin beds. Lindsay sat in the middle of one with a daughter nestled against either side.

Their dark hair spilled across the sheets, their faces soft and angelic, eyes closed.

Lindsay’s voice faded off as she smiled down at them. She laid the book on the nightstand and stroked their hair several times before she slipped out of the bed and reached down to move one of the girls.

Wade cleared his throat softly, announcing his presence.

Lindsay jumped, her eyes widening, then narrowing.

Wade crossed the threshold into the little girl’s room. “Let me.”