Cowboy Ever After: Big Sky Mountain

Outside Hutch sprinted over to the Volvo to fetch Madison’s car seat from the back, and within a few moments he was installing the gear inside his extended cab truck. His hands moved with a deftness Kendra well remembered as he hoisted Madison into the seat—he, the bachelor rancher and local heartthrob, might have performed the task a million times before.

Madison loved being fussed over by a daddy type—what little girl didn’t?—and if she’d been wearing a dress instead of those little jeans and a T-shirt, she probably would have stood right there in the hospital parking lot and twirled her skirt.

A softness settled over Kendra’s heart as she looked on, but it was soon replaced by a flicker of dread. She could certainly prevent herself from falling in love with Hutch Carmody, but could she prevent Madison from buying into the illusion?

Hutch, despite his wild ways, was decent through and through. He genuinely liked people, particularly children, and he talked to them with a rare, enfolding ease that naturally made them feel special, even entirely unique.

It wasn’t a deception, Kendra concluded sadly, not really. The problem was that, to Hutch, every child was special and every woman. Every dog and horse, too.

She tried to shake off these thoughts as she climbed into the front passenger seat, once Madison was settled, and buckled herself in for the short ride home.

If she didn’t allow herself to care too much for this man, she reasoned fitfully, as Hutch took the wheel and started the truck’s engine, maybe Madison wouldn’t care too much for him, either.

CHAPTER SIX (#u01e1452d-cfc2-529f-9208-b15cd31f0d4c)

MADISON, AFTER GREETING a wildly joyful Daisy the moment they entered the new house, where there were still boxes all around, accumulated over several days of moving, took Hutch by one hand and practically dragged him from one room to another, showing the place off. Of course the dog followed them, occasionally putting in her two-bits with a happy little bark.

Kendra, emotionally winded from a long and eventful day, remained in the kitchen doing busywork, washing her hands at the sink, debating whether or not she ought to brew some coffee. The stuff could keep her up half the night, but as she remembered only too well, Hutch could drink the strongest java at midnight and still enjoy the sleep of the innocent and the just.

Talk about ironic.

Still Hutch had brought her and Madison safely home from the hospital visit to see the newest member of the Barlow clan—she was going to be Trace’s godmother and the honor humbled her—and she owed the man the courtesy of a cup of coffee if he wanted one.

He’d pretty well gone to the wall that day, Hutch had, and he’d been a big part of some very memorable experiences for both her and Madison. At his suggestion, she’d left the keys to her Volvo at the hospital reception desk, and a couple of his ranch hands were already en route from Whisper Creek to pick up the vehicle and bring it to her.

Yes, the least she could do was offer the man coffee.

She didn’t dare think about the most she could have done.

In the distance she heard Madison’s ringing laugh, the dog’s excitement at having the family intact and a visitor thrown in as a bonus, and Hutch’s now-and-again comment, all along the lines of, “Well, isn’t that something.”

By the time the three wayfarers got back to the kitchen, Kendra had brewed a coffee for Hutch and an herbal tea for herself, using the one-cup wonder machine brought over from the big house. The device looked massive in this much smaller room, and way too fancy, but it served its purpose and for now that was enough.

“This is quite a change from the mansion,” Hutch observed quietly as Madison hurried for the back door, calling over one shoulder that Daisy needed to go outside, and quick!

Kendra merely smiled and held out the cup of black coffee.

“Don’t mind if I do,” Hutch said, taking the mug. It looked fragile as a china teacup in his strong rancher’s hands. “Thanks.”

She inclined her head toward the table and he drew back a chair, but waited until she sat down with her tea before he took a seat himself.

His manners were yet another of Hutch’s contradictions: he would leave a woman practically at the altar, wearing her heirloom wedding dress, break her heart right there in the presence of all her friends and family, but he opened doors for anyone of the female persuasion, whatever her age, and his male elders, too.

Through the open screen door, with its creaky hinges, Madison could be heard encouraging Daisy to hurry up and be a good girl so they could go back inside and be with the cowboy man.

Hutch grinned across the expanse of the tabletop and Kendra grinned back.

“This has been quite a day,” she said, wondering if Hutch had the same odd mixture of feelings as she had where Slade and Joslyn’s new baby was concerned. He was clearly happy for the Barlows, but she knew he wanted kids, too—it had been a favorite topic between them, back in the day, how many children they’d have, the ideal ratio of boys to girls, and even what their names would be.

A weary sort of sorrow overtook Kendra, just for that moment, and nearly brought tears to her eyes.

She shook it off. No sense getting all moody and nostalgic.

“That it has,” Hutch agreed in his own good time, which was the way he did everything. The habit could be exasperating, Kendra reflected, except in bed.

Whoa, she thought. Don’t go down that road.

A warm flush pulsed in her cheeks, though, and he noticed, of course. He always noticed what she’d rather have hidden, and overlooked things that should have caught his attention.

She looked away for a moment, recovering from the sexual flashback.

Madison and the dog came back inside, which helped Kendra calm down, and Madison sort of hovered around Hutch like a moth around a lightbulb.

Kendra finally sent Madison into the living room to watch the cartoon channel for the allowed half-hour before bath and bed, not because she wanted to get rid of her, but because the child’s obvious adoration for Hutch was so unnerving.

Only cartoons could have distracted Madison from this admittedly fascinating man and even then she was reluctant to leave the room.

As soon as they were alone, Kendra opened her mouth and stuck her foot in it. “Don’t let her get too attached to you, Hutch,” she heard herself almost plead, in a sort of fractured whisper. “Madison’s already lost so much.”

Hutch looked stunned; he even paled a little, under his year-round tan, but in a nanosecond, he’d gone from stunned to quietly furious.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” he demanded, and though he kept his voice low, it rumbled like thunder gathering beyond the nearby hills.

Kendra let out a long breath, closed her eyes briefly, and rubbed her temples with the fingertips of both hands. “I wasn’t saying—”

He leaned slightly forward in his chair, his bluish-green eyes fierce on her face. “What were you saying, then?” he pressed. She knew that look—he wasn’t going to let this one go, would sit there all night if he had to, until he got an answer he could accept as the unvarnished truth.

“Madison is only four years old,” she said weakly. Carefully. “She doesn’t understand that your charm, like sunshine and rain, pretty much falls on everybody.” She tried for more clarity and spoke with more strength now. “I don’t want her getting too fond of you, Hutch. You’re so nice to her and she might read things into that that aren’t there.”

Hutch shoved a hand through his hair in a gesture of pure annoyance. His jawline went a bloodless white, he was clenching his back molars together so tightly. “You think I play games with people—with kids?” he finally asked, as though the concept had come out of left field and mowed him down. “You think I get some kind of kick out of making them believe I care so I can kick their feelings around later, just for the fun of it?”

Kendra hiked up her chin and met his gaze straight on. “Maybe not with children,” she allowed evenly, “but do you ‘play games’ with women? That’s a definite yes, Hutch. And I’m sure Brylee Parrish isn’t the only person who’d be willing to back me up on the theory.”

“You believe all that—” he paused, looked back over one shoulder, probably to make sure Madison hadn’t wandered back into earshot and, seeing that she hadn’t, finished with “—crap on the internet?”

Kendra’s chuckle was light, but edged with a degree of bitterness that surprised even her. “Pictures don’t lie,” she said. “Besides, this goes back a lot further than your infamy on the web. Maybe you’ve forgotten that one of those broken hearts was mine?”

He looked as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “And maybe you’ve forgotten that we had something good going for us before you decided to kick off the traces and become Lady Chamberlain.”

“It wasn’t like that at all!” Kendra whispered.

“Go ahead and rewrite history to suit yourself,” Hutch rasped, pushing back his chair and standing up, his half-finished coffee forgotten. He made the move so quietly that his chair didn’t so much as scrape the floor, but rage was hardwired into every lean, powerful line of him. He set his hands on his hips and looked down at her for a long moment, then added, “The fact is, sweetheart, you walked out on me.”

A knock sounded at the screen door just then, and a man’s face appeared on the other side of the mesh. “Brought the car,” he said, jangling the keys.

Hutch crossed the room, yanked the screen door open, and stormed right past the guy without even glancing at him.

The ranch hand looked at him curiously and extended the Volvo keys to Kendra, who had followed Hutch as far as the threshold, even though she had no intention of pursuing him. All the things she wanted to say to Hutch—okay, scream at him—were lodged painfully in the back of her throat, where she’d barely managed to stop them.