Wrangling The Rich Rancher

She needed to be flogged, tortured for her idiotic behavior. What part of professionalism had escaped her? She’d been acting up since the moment she’d met him, being so coy and cute, pushing her attraction to him in directions it wasn’t supposed to go.

When they arrived at the bakery, he parked directly in front of the small, pastel-colored building. The town itself was quaint, with its Main Street simplicity and homespun vibe.

“Maybe I should order a tart,” she said.

“Those fruit-filled things?”

“Yes, but that was a joke.” She pointed to herself. “A tart, get it?”

He didn’t laugh. “Don’t call yourself names, Libby. I’m just as responsible as you are. We’re just lucky that we stopped when we did.”

“It wasn’t luck. It was restraint.”

“You know what I mean.”

She most certainly did. She’d never kissed anyone that ferociously before, not even Becker.

They got out of the truck, and she glanced at the bakery window. A big, frothy, three-tiered wedding cake was showcased. The bride and groom on top looked a bit like her and Matt. It was their coloring, the bride being blonde and the groom having black hair. She doubted that Matt noticed the cake, let alone the topper. He headed straight for the front door.

“Let’s go get those cookies,” he said.

She nodded, and they went inside. A middle-aged woman in blue jeans and a crisp white apron greeted them. She smiled and acknowledged Matt by name. The bakery lady knew him? This piqued Libby’s curiosity.

But soon she discovered that he’d gone to high school with the woman’s son. In a town this size, Libby shouldn’t have been surprised. Most of the locals probably knew each other. It did make her wonder about Matt’s experiences in high school and if he was as much a loner then as he seemed to be now.

He chose the cookies randomly, four dozen of them, in every shape, size and color they had.

“What are we supposed to do with all of those?” Libby asked as they left the bakery and set out on foot, heading for the little coffee joint across the street.

“You can take them back to your cabin later.”

“Chance would love them if he were here.”

He stopped midstride. “Chance?”

“Chance Mitchell Penn. My son.” She watched the troubled emotion that crossed Matt’s face. She hadn’t meant to blurt out Chance’s name, but at least she’d gone ahead and said it.

“You named him after Kirby’s song?”

“Initially, it was Becker’s idea. But I thought it was a brilliant choice.” She was going to stand by her child’s name, no matter how uncomfortable it made Matt. “If we had a girl, we were going to call her Lilly Fay, after the saloon girl in the song. The one Chance Mitchell loves and leaves.”

“I don’t like any of Kirby’s songs, least of all that one. It came out when...”

“When what?” she asked. They stood on the sidewalk, with Matt clutching the pink bakery box.

“When I fell off the roof of our house and broke my arm. It was just after my ninth birthday, and I was pretending to be Chance Mitchell. I was crawling around up there with a toy gun, a six-shooter, strapped to my hip. I was hiding from the law.”

Libby reached up and skimmed his jaw. She knew she shouldn’t be touching him, but she wanted to comfort him somehow. “You must have liked the song then, or else why would you be pretending to be Chance?”

He took a step back, forcing her to lower her hand. “Sure. I liked his music when I was a kid. But it started to grate on me later.”

She tried to draw more of the story out of him. “Did they put your broken arm in a cast?”

He nodded. “Kirby never saw it, though. He was on his Outlaw at Large tour, promoting the Chance Mitchell album, and my arm healed before he stopped back to see us.”

“I’m sorry he didn’t make more time for you then.”

“I don’t care anymore.”

That was a lie, she thought. He cared far too much. “Kirby told me that he was impressed with your junior rodeo accomplishments. That you were just a little tyke, riding and roping like the devil was inside you.”

“What does he know about it? He never attended any of my events. All he saw were the videos Mom showed him.”

“He remembers those videos. He thinks about them when he’s feeling guilty and blue. He wrote a song about you, too, but he hasn’t recorded it yet.”

“Holy crap.” Matt tightened his grip on the box. “That’s all I need, to be immortalized in one of his frigging songs.”

“He’s not going to record it until the two of you become father and son.”

“Then he’s never going to put it out there.” Matt approached the crosswalk and stepped off the curb.

She followed him. “The song is called ‘The Boy I Left Behind.’ He played it for me. It’s beautiful, raw and touching.”

“That’s a low blow.”

“What is? Me telling you how good it is?”

“No. Him playing it for you. He’s using you, Libby. He’s pushing you around like a pawn.”

“He’s sharing his life with me. That’s my role in all of this, to document his life, to write about his feelings.” After they made it to the other side of the street, she said, “I know you don’t believe that he ever loved you, but in his own tortured way, he did. You were the part of himself that he couldn’t control. He promised his wife that he would never father a child from any of his affairs, and then you came along. The baby that wasn’t supposed to exist. His secret. A sweet little boy who needed more than his daddy knew how to give.”

“I’m well aware of what he promised his wife. It’s the reason I had to stay in the shadows, the excuse that was drilled into my head. My famous father had another family, and it would hurt them if they knew about me. But his wife found out and divorced him, anyway.”

“She’s over it now. She and Kirby are friends again. I haven’t met her yet, but I’ll be interviewing her for the book.” Her name was Melinda, and she was a former fashion model who used her celebrity to create a cosmetics and skin care line. Her face, her brand, were featured in TV infomercials. “She agrees with Kirby that everything should be out in the open now.”

“Of course she does. He always gets women to forgive him. And can we please talk about something else? I’m sick of my dad.”

“Okay. We’ll work on other topics.” She sent him her best smile, even if he was still scowling, much too fiercely, at her.

* * *

Matt and Libby sat outside at a café table. He drank his coffee black. She put sugar and an artificial sweetener in hers, along with cream and milk. He’d never seen anyone mix so much stuff together in one cup.

She opened the cookies. “Look how cute they are.” She lifted a smiley face from the bunch. “This one looks like me.”

He took it from her and held it upside down. “And now it looks like me.”

Her eyes twinkled. “At least you have a sense of humor about that disposition of yours.” She removed a flower-shaped cookie from the box and nibbled on it, leaving the happy face for him.