The Cowboy's Texas Twins

The lanky inspector from Scotland Yard suddenly bore a striking resemblance to a rugged cowboy, and none of his dialogue came out right. After typing and deleting half a dozen attempts at the same sentence, she relented. For the moment, perhaps her time would be better spent on story research than the actual writing. She opened the search engine, preparing to fact-check the form of poison her villain used. But her fingers didn’t cooperate any better than her characters had. Instead of typing arsenic trioxide, she inexplicably typed Grayson Cox.

I am going to do story research. Really. Just as soon as she finished skimming a few articles about a certain rodeo champ.

* * *

GRAYSON WIPED A damp hand across his already damp jeans, noting that there seemed to be more water on him than on either of the two boys in the tub. But, silver lining, Sam and Tyler were both clean; Grayson had helped them wash their hair without anyone yelping about shampoo in his eyes and everyone seemed recovered from the earlier incident at the grocery store. He still wasn’t sure how they’d gone so quickly from a simple “Boys, no running” to total meltdown.

Yet, without the resulting meltdown, Hadley never would have poked her head around the corner to help.

Despite past irritations with her and the graceless way he’d handled their conversation, he didn’t regret seeing her. For one thing, she was a lot of fun to look at, with her dark shining eyes and full lips. He recalled her suggestion that they meet for coffee sometime. If he was successful in finding a job, who knew how long he and the boys would be in Cupid’s Bow? It would be nice to have a friend. Then again, a curvy brunette friend who’d stared at him with alternating interest and disappointment might be a complication he didn’t have room for right now.

He turned his attention back to the twins, who were happily splashing around like a couple of river otters. “All right, you two, if we don’t get you out, you’ll wrinkle into prunes.” He held up a towel. “Who’s first?”

They’d progressed to the pajama stage—Grayson helped Tyler correct course before he inadvertently stuck his head through the sleeve a third time—when Vi rapped her knuckles against the partially open door.

“Need any help?” she asked.

“I think we’re good now.” Except for the state of her bathroom. “But if you want to read them their story, I can mop up—”

“You won’t be there for story?” Sam’s eyes grew huge.

Grayson rocked back on his heels, meeting the boy’s gaze. “I was just going to let Violet read tonight so I can clean up the mess we made.”

The boy thrust his bottom lip out. “You hafta stay with us! ’til we fall asleep.”

Tyler nodded solemnly.

Grayson ran a hand over his jaw. His guess was that if you let kids dictate your actions, you ended up with spoiled monsters. But the twins were coping with extenuating circumstances. He stood. “Tell you what, I’ll straighten up in here while you two take this stuff to the laundry room. Violet can show you where, if you forgot.” He balled up their dirty clothes and a towel from the floor. “I’ll meet you in your room in time for story, okay?”

This met with everyone’s approval, but even forty minutes later, as Sam yawned and his eyes fluttered closed, a note of apprehension lingered in his voice. “You’ll be here tomorrow?”

“Absolutely,” Grayson said. “I’ll be here every day.” The enormity of his responsibility hit him anew. He was looking at years, decades, of trying to figure out what was right for these kids.

“And Violet will be here, too? And Tiff and Buster and Shep?”

Buster lifted his head from where he was lying at the foot of the bed, thumping his tail in reassurance. The boys had befriended the dogs immediately.

He squeezed Sam close. “We’ll all be here, buddy.” Grayson did have one appointment tomorrow—for a job interview Vi had arranged—but he’d remind the boys about that in the morning. For now, he just wanted Sam to feel secure. He understood the question the boy was really asking: are we going to get left again by the people we love? I miss them, too, buddy.

Once Sam finally yielded to sleep and both boys were softly snoring, Grayson padded down the hallway to the kitchen. Where the cookie jar lived.

He drew up short at the sight of his aunt working at the kitchen table. Her laptop and a mug of tea sat in front of her. Client folders were scattered across the surface. Because she gave her office to me. “I’ve displaced you.”

She glanced up with an absent frown “What are you talking about?”

“The boys and I will find a house when I have the money for it,” he vowed. “We won’t inconvenience you forever.”

“I get to work in my jammies with a dog lying across my feet. My life couldn’t be any more convenient. Boys asleep?”

He nodded. “When I was trying to decide which of their belongings were critical to keep with us and which could be left in Oklahoma for now, I overlooked the importance of bedtime stories. I’ve read the same four books so often I’ve memorized them.”

“Take the boys to the library. All the bedtime stories you could want.” Her lips twitched in a small smile. “Just ask Hadley.”

He choked on a bite of cookie. “H-Hadley?” His mind got hung up on the brunette mentioned in the same sentence as bedtime, and the tips of his ears burned the way they had when Vi had caught him kissing Julia Yanic on the living room couch thirteen years ago.

“Yeah, you should ask Hadley for children’s book recommendations. She is the town librarian after all.”

Oh. Right. Hadn’t she mentioned something about story hour at the library? “Weird. Not the part about her being a librarian. She always loved books.” He had a sudden stray memory of her carrying around a large book of wonders of the world in middle school, asking him if he wanted to know how many kilometers long the Great Wall of China was. “But I can’t believe she’s stuck in Cupid’s Bow.”

Violet sighed. “I realize your childhood wasn’t idyllic, but some of us like it here.”

Some people, maybe, but not his mother. Her own son hadn’t been enough to hold Rachel Cox here. “I didn’t mean to sound so derisive. I just thought Hadley was going out of state for college, headed for bigger things.”

Vi’s brow furrowed. “I don’t remember all the details, but there was something about her getting hurt and losing her softball scholarship to college.”

“Damn,” he said softly. “Does life work out for anyone?”

“Plenty of people. I can’t complain.”

Couldn’t she? She’d spent her twenties raising him and now here she was in her late thirties taking on his problems again.

She scowled, her tone firm. “Quit being so negative. Is that how you want the boys to view life? Hopeless?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good. Then start looking for the hope around you. And if you don’t see any, do the world—and yourself—a favor. Create some.”

Chapter Four (#u2a98dda7-a0e5-5734-bf2f-44144424c0c3)

Grayson kept half his attention on the twins playing air hockey at the child-sized table behind him, and the other half on the apologetic blonde behind the front desk. He knew it had been a long shot to ask if they were hiring here. The community center was staffed largely by volunteers and high-school seniors, who coached little kids’ basketball. But he’d decided that since he was dropping off Vi anyway, it couldn’t hurt to ask.

“We’re just not hiring right now for any of our full-time positions,” the blonde said. “If there’s a specific area of expertise you think the community will find useful, you can sign up to teach one of our six-week classes. We’ve done whittling, self-defense, introduction to Spanish... Otherwise, all I can do is take your name and number and let you know if anything opens up.” She passed him a clipboard and a pen. “Oh, and if you could list two local references, that would be useful.”

He grimaced, having gotten a similar request at his interview this morning. The construction foreman said he typically preferred three references; he was willing to bend that rule as a favor to Vi. He might also be swayed by Grayson’s roofing experience after high school and willingness to do manual labor in the Texas heat. But if the construction job didn’t work out, Grayson would need local references for his next interview. It suddenly struck him how many times he’d written Blaine Stowe’s name on forms; his best friend and honorary big brother had been everything from a character reference to an emergency contact.

After filling out his contact info, Grayson thanked the woman for her time and handed back the board. Then he collected the boys and they departed. The plan was to run to the nearby library while Violet had her meeting.

“We’ll check out some books and then, if there’s enough time before Vi’s ready to go, you two can play more air hockey. Or we can walk through the rest of the center and see what other activities they have,” he said as he started the truck. “And just wait until summer comes! Cupid’s Bow has a really huge pool. You’ll love it.” He’d promised Vi, for the boys’ sake, that he’d focus on the positive.

His aunt was certainly an inspiration for positive thinking—and for positive action. Her meeting today was with Mayor Johnston and a few other citizens to discuss starting a peer mentorship program where, instead of turning to adults, teens having a difficult time could help each other.

This morning, as they’d cleaned up the breakfast dishes, Violet had said she believed teenagers were more likely to be honest about their problems with kids their own age. Plus, she believed that some teens branded as troublemakers would be motivated to turn themselves around when given responsibility as a peer counselor. That part of the conversation had him choking on his own guilt. Should he confess to his aunt the teenage crimes he’d gotten away with or leave the past alone? She’d worked so hard to shape him into a good person. It would devastate her to learn what a mess he’d been. At the time, he’d convinced himself he was in the right. His rebellions had felt like justice.

After Grayson’s mom left, his father had blamed the town, saying Rachel had hated it here, that Cupid’s Bow hadn’t been good enough for her. Looking back, Grayson could see through his father’s excuses, his inability to accept that perhaps he’d failed somewhere as a husband. But as a child, Grayson had bought in to his dad’s finger-pointing. At least when he listened to his father’s bitter diatribes, Bryant was paying attention to him. So Grayson had been a rapt audience as his dad ranted about everything from the town ruining his marriage to the former business partners who’d screwed him over.

By the time of his father’s crash, Grayson harbored a simmering resentment toward most of the people around him, made worse by the pitying gossip about the “orphaned Cox boy.” He’d sought anonymous revenge in stereotypical misdemeanors, from graffiti and shoplifting to stealing a high-school mascot. He’d smashed the mailbox of the loan officer who’d rejected his dad’s application, a financial setback that resulted in the eventual loss of the store where Bryant met Grayson’s mom. Grayson had reasoned that if his dad still had the store, he wouldn’t have doubled down on his drinking. If Bryant Cox got that loan, he would have still been alive.

That’s not how alcoholism works. Grayson knew that now. But, as a grief-stricken high-school freshman, he’d followed his dad’s example—making excuses, lashing out, blaming others. As amazing as Violet had been, no one person could single-handedly undo the emotional damage that came from years of secondhand rage. Only with time, perspective and friends like Blaine had Grayson regained his balance.