It Takes a Cowboy

“The outback,” Scott replied with a grin.

She frowned. “Where?”

“Out back of nowhere.” He opened his door and hopped lightly out of the plane, leaving Blair staring after him in confusion. While Scott unlocked the padlock of the hangar, Blair and Jeffrey climbed out of the plane, Blair a bit stiffly. Scott disappeared into the building and reappeared moments later driving a sturdy-looking Jeep. He parked nearby, jumped out and, with Jeffrey’s help, began to transfer their belongings from the plane to the Jeep. Blair wondered again where he was taking them, but she was afraid to ask, considering the last answer he’d given her.

When the Jeep was loaded, Scott asked Blair and Jeffrey to help him push the plane into the hangar. He blocked the wheels, closed the doors and secured the massive padlock again. Then he turned to them, rubbing his hands and looking satisfied. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?” Blair asked, following him to the Jeep.

“Farther out back,” he quipped, opening the passenger door for her. “You sure ask a lot of questions, Counselor.”

“I like to know what’s going on,” she answered a bit primly, watching Jeffrey scramble into the back seat.

Scott held out a hand to assist her into the high vehicle. “Don’t you like to be surprised? Just go with the flow?”

“Not particularly,” she admitted. “I’m a planner. A list maker.”

He chuckled. “Not this weekend, you’re not.”

He closed her door and loped around the front of the vehicle to his own seat behind the wheel. “Everybody buckle up,” he said, starting the engine. “The ride gets bumpy.”

Where was he taking them? Blair was beginning to wonder again what on earth had gotten into her at that bachelor auction.

* * *

“THIS IS IT? This is where we’re staying for the weekend?” Blair stared in disbelief at the cabin tucked into the side of a wooded mountain. They’d spent forty-five minutes negotiating heart-stoppingly steep and winding roads to get here. The cabin hardly looked big enough for one person, much less three. And where were the other cabins? The lodge? The restaurant?

“This is it. What do you think, Jeff?” Scott asked casually.

Apparently deciding he’d been much too agreeable so far that day, Jeffrey scowled. “Looks like a dump to me.”

That was unfair, Blair thought immediately. The cabin was small, but tidy and obviously in good repair. “It is not a dump,” she said firmly. “It’s a nice little cabin.”

Jeffrey shrugged.

Apparently unperturbed by the boy’s mood change, Scott opened the back of the Jeep. “Let’s get our stuff inside and unpack so we can start having fun.”

Blair was afraid to ask what Scott’s idea of fun might be.

To her relief, the cabin was larger than it had appeared from the outside. They entered a good-size main room. Blair noted immediately that, despite the rustic appearance of the place, the furnishings were of good quality, heavy wood with a hand-rubbed finish, the couch sporting duck-print tapestry cushions. Hunting prints hung on the wood-paneled walls. A rock fireplace dominated one wall, and another was made up of bookcases, crowded with paperback and hardcover novels. A spiral staircase in one corner led to a loft, which obviously served as a sleeping area, and two closed doors probably indicated more bedrooms downstairs. An eat-in kitchen opened off the back of the main room. The cabin was isolated but certainly beat sleeping on the ground, she decided.

“Hardly a dump,” she murmured to her nephew, who only shrugged in response.

“Anybody hungry?” Scott asked, carrying the last load in from the Jeep. “Why don’t we stash our stuff and then have lunch? Jeff, your bedroom is the far door there. It’s just big enough to turn around in, but it’s got a bed. I’ll take the other small bedroom. Blair, the sleeping loft is yours.”

She suspected he was giving her his usual room. “I don’t mind taking one of the small rooms.”

He shook his head. “These two share a bath. The loft has its own bathroom. It will be more comfortable for you, I think. Jeff, help your aunt carry her things up while I stash some of this other stuff.”

Jeffrey had already settled onto the couch. “She can carry her own stuff. It’s not that heavy.”

Scott crossed his arms over his chest, dipped his chin and looked at the boy from beneath lowered brows. “I’m sure she’s quite capable of carrying her own things, but the polite thing to do is to help her.” His lazy drawl made him sound like an old-time movie cowboy, Blair couldn’t help thinking, even as she bit her lip to keep from interfering before Jeffrey broke into one of his rare, but formidable, tantrums.

Jeffrey glared at Scott with the defiant scowl Blair had come to know all too well. “I don’t want to. I’m hungry. I want to eat.”

Scott’s voice was still very mild when he replied, “We’ll eat when the bags are stowed away. You take this one upstairs,” he said, nudging an overnight case with his boot.

“What if I say no?” Jeffrey challenged.

Scott’s smile was quick and easy. “Then you don’t eat. Around here, everyone pulls his weight. Unless you’re afraid this bag is too heavy for you to handle? I guess you can take her pillow up, if that’s the case. It only weighs a few ounces.”

The boy’s scowl deepened. “I can carry the bag. I just don’t want to.”

“I don’t know.” Scott nudged it again. “It is kind of heavy. And you’re sort of scrawny. Blair, why don’t you hand Jeff the pillow and you carry this bag while I bring the heavier suitcase up?”

The boy let out a gusty sigh, snatched the bag in question and hauled it toward the staircase, his head high, his back straight. If he had any trouble carrying the moderately heavy bag up the stairs, his young male pride didn’t allow it to show.

Scott sent Blair a grin. “Did I mention I’ve done some calf wrangling?”

“Well, this little calf is probably the most stubborn one you’ve ever taken on,” she warned dryly. She noted that Scott didn’t look particularly concerned.

She waited until her nephew had stomped back down the narrow staircase before she carried her own bag up. She was immediately charmed by the loft bedroom. The big iron bed was covered with a hand-pieced quilt in a colorful lone star design; it reminded her of the beautiful log-cabin quilt she’d tried to win at the bachelor auction. Someone else had won that one, and she’d ended up here.

Shaking her head at life’s oddities, she continued her inspection of the room. The mirrored dresser was obviously an antique, as were the nightstand and small stained-glass lamp it held. A little round window cut into the back wall gave a breathtaking view of the mountainside. A skylight in the roof above the bed showed blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds; at night, she would be able to see the stars.

“Scott, this is lovely,” she said, turning to him as he set her suitcase at the foot of the bed. “Is this your cabin or are you renting it for the weekend?”

“It’s mine. Sometimes I need a place to rest and recharge. This is it.”

“It’s wonderful. Are you sure you want to give this room up to sleep downstairs?”

“Don’t mind a bit,” he assured her. “Being downstairs with Jeff will give me a chance to get to know him better. He seems like a good kid beneath the bravado.”

Blair bit her lip. She wanted so badly to believe there was a good kid beneath her nephew’s troubled behavior. She had tried so hard to get through to him, to make up for the neglect he’d received during his first nine and a half years of life. She refused to believe it was too late to reach him.

Remembering the excitement on Jeffrey’s face during the plane ride, she hoped again that Scott would be the one to help him. She was encouraged by the way Scott had bested the boy in their brief battle of wills without setting off a tantrum. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “Jeffrey can be...difficult.”

“He’s dealing with the champ when it comes to that,” Scott answered with another of his quick smiles. “I want to talk to you about him after lunch. I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

She nodded, aware that Scott couldn’t help her if he didn’t know what he was dealing with.

He turned to look around the bedroom again. “I think you’ll be comfortable here. The bed,” he added, his eyes meeting hers as he patted the quilt with one hand, “sleeps great. I’ve spent many cozy nights in it.”

She swallowed, knowing it was inevitable that she would think of him when she crawled beneath the covers tonight. Had that been his intention? She couldn’t help wondering how many women had shared those cozy nights with him.

“We’d better get back to Jeffrey,” she said, reminding him—and maybe herself—that there would be no shenanigans this weekend.

She thought she heard Scott chuckle as she turned to hurry down the stairs. He seemed to find it amusing when he flustered her. Unless she wanted to spend the weekend being laughed at by him, she was going to have to start doing a better job of hiding her reactions to him.