His Country Girl

“Mom.” Owen seemed scandalized, already anticipating that she wasn’t about to step foot outside the door. “You can’t stay. Tucker is going to tell me secrets.”

“Why can’t he tell them in front of me?” She flicked a lock of gold hair behind a slender shoulder. Chin up, she didn’t look a thing like the wallflower he remembered. She didn’t sound like one either. “I can keep a secret.”

“Sure, but what about the code?” Tucker let his eyes twinkle at her because he knew the effect it had on the ladies. There wasn’t a single time he didn’t get his way when he turned on the charm.

Not that he wanted to charm Sierra Baker. She was a divorced mom and that carried a whole lot of responsibility. Not that he didn’t respect her for it, but obligation like that made him leery. After watching all that his dad had gone through in life, he’d played it safe and avoided entanglements of any kind. Life was easier without them, but lately he wasn’t sure it was better.

“What code?” She squinted at him, and he would have given up half a year’s pay to know what was going on in that head of hers. He couldn’t begin to tell if his charm was working or—shockingly—backfiring.

“The cowboy code.” He winked and pulled up his best smile. He knew the effect his dimples had. Mostly from experience and the fact that he had inherited them from his dad. Half the unmarried ladies in White Horse County back home harbored secret crushes on his father. He sure hoped the dimples worked for him half as well. “Don’t you want me to share it with Owen?”

“Yeah, Mom? Don’t you want him to share?” Owen was no slouch. He caught on quick. “Please?”

“I know when I’m not wanted.” With a ghost of a smile, she rose from her chair and picked up her bag. Two knitting needles stuck out of the outside pocket. “I’ve got some phone calls to make. I won’t be long.”

“Take your time,” Tucker urged.

“Yeah, Mom. Take your time,” Owen parroted his hero. “We’re sharin’ secrets.”

“Secrets, huh?” All it took was one look into her son’s puppy dog eyes—the look he’d perfected when he’d wanted to try to charm her into having his way—and she melted like an ice cube in Phoenix. Impossible to say no to him. His eyes sparkled, and he looked better than he had in months. But what about the man standing in front of her, with his rugged good looks and come-what-may attitude?

“Can I trust you to stay with him until I get back?” She gave him her fiercest glare, the one Owen called her death-ray stare. She meant business. “That means you don’t leave his side for any reason unless you ask Lisa on the other side of the curtain to watch him. Got that?”

“Sure. I’ll stick to Owen like glue.”

It was that dazzling smile she didn’t trust and his too-good-to-believe looks. She was only going to the cafeteria, surely she could depend on him that much. Lisa, the mom of Taylor on the other side of the room, would keep an eye out. The nurses were right down the hall and it wasn’t as if he were a stranger. She’d grown up in the same small town, rode the same school bus and endured his jokes and class clown antics through her entire adolescence. One thing she knew about the Granger family, they were decent people and Tucker had never caused anyone harm.

“We’ll be like glue, Mom.” Owen clasped his hands together, his forehead furrowed as if he was trying to will her to keep on going toward the door.

“Like two peas in a pod,” Tucker assured her, his grin contagious.

The surgeon general ought to put a ban on that smile.

“Fine. You have thirty minutes.” She ignored Owen’s shout of joy and Tucker’s wink. When she circled around him, she felt a shiver tremble through her soul like a warm wind’s touch, something she’d never felt before.

Maybe she needed a soothing cup of coffee more than she thought. She set her chin, wrapped her hand around the strap of her bag and paused at the door. Longing filled her. She didn’t want to leave Owen. He might need her.

“What secret are you going to tell me first?” Her son clutched the stuffed animal in one hand and the horse in the other. “Is it about riding broncos?”

“Yes it is, little buddy.” Tucker, his back to her, seemed focused on the boy. He radiated a strength and kindness that she didn’t want to believe in, although clearly Owen did.

Owen. Her heart warmed and her soul filled. Her son was all that mattered. She forced her shoes to carry her across the threshold and down the hall, giving her little boy the time he deserved with his hero.

Chapter Two

“What do you mean the flight is delayed?” Sierra tucked her cell phone against her shoulder and accepted the cashier’s change. Then she remembered Tucker’s comment about the planes being grounded at the airport. The implications hadn’t registered at the time, but they did now. Her knees buckled and she slid into the nearest chair. The hospital dining room and its rows of empty tables echoed around her as she dropped her bag onto the floor. “No, it can’t be.”

“It might even be cancelled.” Jeri Lynn Bolton was a sensible woman, the wife of a working rancher and mother of six kids. Sierra’s family hadn’t had a lot of resources when she was growing up, and they didn’t have a lot now. It was hard to hear her mom over the background noise in the airport. Jeri Lynn’s voice saddened. “Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone. Your dad and I talked about me driving, but with the road conditions and a blizzard in the mountains I’m not sure what kind of time I could make.”

“No. I absolutely don’t want you driving on dangerous roads.” That made no sense at all. Her hand shook, and she set down her coffee on the table so it wouldn’t spill. She had to stay calm. Focus on the problem. See there was only one solution, whether she liked it or not. “You’ll fly in when you can. And if you can’t, then you stay where you are. I’ve got everything covered here.”

“I’m sure you do, dear, but you can’t go through this alone.”

“I’m perfectly fine.” That was a lie, but she prayed the good Lord would forgive her. She worried her mom would get in the car and come anyway. “I have everything I need here. Owen has great doctors and the nurses are wonderful. We’ll be fine.”

“You can’t wait through the surgery by yourself. I won’t have it.” Mom was upset. Worrying over her grandson’s surgery was enough.

“Don’t you worry about me, too.” Sierra set her chin, firmed her voice and prayed her own fears did not show through. She needed her mother, she really did, but she was strong enough to get through this on her own. “Besides, I haven’t heard from Ricky’s folks. The Bakers may have already landed and be settling into their hotel room right now.”

“You’re just saying that to calm me down.” A hint of relief. “I really want to be there with you, baby.”

“I know.” She bit her lip before she said anything that would reveal how much she’d been counting on her mom’s support.

“It’s killing your dad that he can’t come.”

“Someone has to stay and take care of the animals.” Her family grew mostly wheat but they had the usual collection of farm animals, which could not be left to fend for themselves. “You are not to drive under any circumstances. Do you understand me?”

“How did I raise such a bossy daughter?”

“I can’t imagine.” Sierra treasured the gentle trill of her mother’s laughter.

“Say, did Tucker make it in? Owen will be so disappointed if he has to cancel.”

“They are together right now. The two of them kicked me out of the room. I’m a girl and therefore not privy to their conversation.” She managed to keep her hand steady enough to take a sip of the hot, sweet coffee.

“How cute. Owen must be on cloud nine.”

“Pretty much.” She took another sip, but it didn’t steady her or calm the nerves rocking around in her stomach.

“Tucker comes from a fine family.” It was hard to miss that lilt of meaning in her mother’s voice. Jeri Lynn was an optimist. “Honest, hardworking folk. And he’s single.”

“He’s perpetually single.” Tucker Granger married? She couldn’t picture it. That was where the similarity between him and Ricky ended. Marriage had suited Ricky just fine, as he liked being waited on and tended to, until the going had gotten rough. She couldn’t picture Tucker settling down long enough to put a wedding ring on a woman’s finger. “His life is wandering from rodeo to rodeo. You’ll have to find someone a little more stable to marry me off to.”

“Then I’ll keep trying.” Beneath her mother’s breezy quip vibrated the worry for Owen she was fighting to hide.

Sierra knew just what that was like. She’d been battling to do the same for the last six months, as Owen’s health problems had gone from moderate to serious. “You’ll have to try pretty hard,” she quipped back. “It takes a great man to be better than no man at all.”

“I don’t know who quoted that saying to you, but it’s wrong. Your father isn’t a great man, but he’s better than nothing.” She burst into giggles, maybe from stress rather than her gentle joke.

Sierra giggled, too. The tension was definitely getting to her. “Dad is a good man.”

“I know. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.” Recovering, Jeri Lynn gave a sigh, as if she were prepared to compose herself. “Bad news. They’ve cancelled the flight. Unless the Bakers made it in, you’re on your own, baby.”

“I’m not alone, Mom. I can feel your love from here.”

“That’s right, and I’ll keep it coming.”

Silence fell, and Sierra knew what her mom was too choked up to speak. They were never alone, not really. She had never relied more on her faith than during the last few months, especially today. Tomorrow, her faith would be all she had to see her through the surgery to save her son’s life.