Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride: Cowboy Comes Back / The Cowboy's Convenient Bride

“But I cooperated.”

“Jillian, I want to see my daughter for the summer, as per the agreement. I don’t want to have to get a lawyer.”

He couldn’t afford a lawyer, and unfortunately, due to his having to temporarily lower his child-support payments while he’d fought his way out of the financial bind his crooked ex-accountant had left him in, she knew that.

“Do what’s best for Maddie, Kade. I’ll give you a couple days to think about it and then we’ll talk again. Oh … you really don’t need to send the support checks this summer, if it’s a burden.”

“Are you trying to buy me off?”

“I’m trying to do what’s best for my daughter.”

“Our daughter.”

“Do you have a means of support?”

“I’m doing all right.” Kind of.

“Well, if you’re working, then who’ll take care of Maddie?”

“Damn it, Jill …”

She started walking. “I’ll call in a few days, Kade, and we can discuss this some more.”

She got into the car, where Mike was waiting behind the wheel and Maddie was arranging her nest of blankets and pillows in the backseat beside the twins, leaving Kade seething. He faked a smile and raised a hand to wave to Maddie as they drove away. Mike waved back, too. Jillian didn’t.

Okay, maybe he wouldn’t go to work until after Maddie left. That was the way things would probably pan out, anyway, since he’d checked with every place he’d sent an application to and there were no bites so far. But on the bright side, riding colts for Joe Barton would help immensely, plus it was something he could do while Maddie was there and he’d still have time left to work on the house. Besides that, Maddie would only be there for a matter of a few weeks, unless he got tough with Jillian. But what kind of father kept his daughter from going to horse camp? Even he wasn’t delusional enough to imagine that riding with Dad would be as much fun as spending three weeks with other girls and lots of horses. There’d probably be campfires and marshmallows and girl talk.

Was Maddie old enough for girl talk?

It kind of tore at him to think that even if she wasn’t now, she soon would be. Kids grew up fast—faster than he’d ever dreamed. So why had his childhood seemed to last forever?

Must have been the fear factor.

Kade stared at the evil house in which he’d planned to spend the day, then turned his back on it and walked to his truck. The house would keep. Right now he was going to attend to some other unfinished business. Libby might not want to hear what he had to say, but he needed to say it.

LIBBY HAD JUST finished filling her horses’ water troughs when she heard a vehicle pull into her yard. Buster and Jiggs, her Australian shepherds, shot around the side of the barn at the sound of tires on gravel.

Libby wiped her damp hands down the sides of her jeans and followed the dogs, hoping she was about to come face-to-face with a traveling salesman—anyone other than Kade.

No such luck. Kade was crouched next to his truck, petting her traitorous dogs, who were taking turns licking his face.

“To the porch,” Libby ordered. The Aussies slowly obeyed, slinking away from Kade and casting Libby dark canine glances as they headed for the house.

Kade stood up. A good ten feet separated them. It didn’t feel like enough space. “You fixed the place up nice,” he said.

And she had, pouring all the work into it that her parents never had, due to their addictions. The barn had a proper roof now, and the pastures were well fenced. Her small house wasn’t the greatest, but she’d planted flowers all around it and someday she’d redo the inside. Someday.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Libby shoved her hands into the back pockets of her worn jeans. One of her fingers poked out of a hole that had worn through because of her fencing pliers. “Why are you here?”

“There’re still some things I want to straighten out.”

Libby shook her head. “I believe that everything between us is as straight as it’s going to get.”

“I beg to differ.”

“Differ all you want. And while you’re differing, maybe you could get into your truck and drive away.”

He advanced a couple slow steps forward. Libby held her ground, which wasn’t easy since every nerve in her body seemed to be screaming at her to back up.

“You came to see me,” he said in a reasonable tone once he’d come to a halt.

She pulled her hands out of her pockets, crossed them over her chest. “I came to tell you that I didn’t want you stirring up gossip.”

“Bull. You’ve never been concerned about gossip in your life.”

He had her there.

“All right. I’ll admit it—I wanted to get the damned reunion over with, since we were bound to run into each other sometime. I didn’t want an audience when it happened. Okay? I didn’t come to make friends with you.”

“Libby, a lot of stuff has happened since—” He gestured with one hand, but Libby cut him off before he could start talking again.

“I don’t want to hear about it.” She kicked a pebble with her foot, watched it bounce a couple times and then looked up at him, determined to get things straight once and for all, if that was truly what he wanted. Then maybe he’d leave.

“Here’s the deal, Kade. I trusted you. You were my lover and I trusted you.” She stopped, surprised that the corners of her mouth had started to quiver. It only took a second to regain control, but Kade had noticed. “I never thought you’d let me down.”

“There were circumstances.”

“Circumstances?” She couldn’t believe the force of anger that surged through her. “Circumstances? What circumstances led you to screw another woman—and knock her up?”

“Stop.”

He meant it. His face had turned pale. Libby shoved both hands through her curls, tilting her chin and squeezing her eyes shut, trying to get a grip. He probably didn’t want to think of his daughter as the result of knocking someone up. Even if it was true.

She opened her eyes but didn’t look at him. Instead, she focused momentarily on the gravel at her feet.

“Kade, I can tell you right now we’re not going to talk this through. We’re not going to shake hands and let bygones be bygones. I can’t do it.” She finally met his gaze. “I don’t even want to try.”

And then she turned and headed for the house, reinforcing her words with action, hoping Kade had the good sense to get in that truck and drive away. If he didn’t, things might get ugly.

Fortunately Kade knew trouble when he saw it. She heard the truck door open and shut, then the engine chug to life.

Libby kept walking.

AS SOON AS HE got home, Kade backed up to his dad’s old stock trailer. A few minutes later the trailer was hitched and he was out in the pasture slipping a halter on his horse.

A couple of hours in the mountains and then he’d go to work on the house, when he wasn’t so frustrated and pissed off that he could barely see straight. He’d had it in his mind to do two things when he moved back to Otto—make peace with Libby, or at least attempt to make peace, and find Blue. Obviously he wouldn’t be making peace with Lib, but maybe he could find his old horse and see if he’d managed to do one thing in life that hadn’t later turned to crap.

Kade parked the trailer and unloaded his horse in almost the same spot where he and Libby had parked their “borrowed” horse trailer fourteen years ago. There was a very real possibility that something had happened to Blue since they’d released him, but Kade was hoping that wasn’t the case. He wanted to see the stud running free, with many red and blue roan foals at the sides of his mares.