Luckiest Cowboy of All

Sometimes it's too late to do what you should've done years ago. Aunt Rosalie had said that so many times that it should have been in a book of famous quotes.

"I get the message loud and clear," Carlene whispered around a lump the size of an orange in her throat.

"You okay, Mama?" Her daughter, Tilly, ran from the porch out to the minivan. "Here, let me take that box. I can carry it inside."

Carlene shifted the box of stuffed toys into Tilly's hands and picked up a heavier one to carry inside the little two-bedroom frame house. With its peeling paint and hanging rain gutters, it looked like the last wilted rose of summer right now, but come spring she'd put a coat of fresh white paint on it, maybe plant some bright-colored flowers around the porch, and it would look better then.

As she headed from her bright red minivan to the porch, a bitter cold north wind whipped her long blond hair into her face, reminding her that spring was a long way off. Tilly opened the door for her and then closed it behind her.

"I made you a cup of tea."

"Thanks, baby girl." Carlene smiled. "Did you make one for yourself?"

"I made me some hot chocolate," Tilly said. "I liked our house in Florida better than this one."

"Why?" Carlene pulled a wooden rocking chair closer to the coffee table and picked up the mug of steaming chamomile tea. It was too hot to drink, but it warmed her hands. Tomorrow, when she and Tilly made a grocery store run to Amarillo, she'd have to remember to buy gloves for both of them.

"This place smells funny," Tilly said.

"We'll light some candles this afternoon and air it out on the first day we get some nice weather. When we're settled, we'll start giving it a face-lift. You'll be surprised what new paint and a little fixin' up will do."

"And we'll get rid of that dead Christmas tree." Tilly glanced at the brown pine tree in the corner. "That's disgusting."

Carlene's eyes went to the sad tree in the corner of the living room. Aunt Rosalie loved her live tree and always put it up the day after Thanksgiving, so by now it had been there almost six weeks. There was no telling how long it had been without water—no wonder it was brown and brittle.

"Of course," Carlene said. "If you want, you could start to unpack what's in your room and I'll get those last three boxes out of the van while my tea cools."

"Okay." Tilly carried her cup of hot chocolate to the bedroom.

With five moves in her eight years, Tilly was a pro at moving. Carlene had no doubt she was back there in her room organizing her stuffed animals and books everywhere there was a flat surface. But Tilly was in the third grade and it was time for them both to put down roots. So when Aunt Rosalie passed away and Carlene inherited the house and then immediately got a job offer to teach, she saw it as a sign that could not be ignored and came back to the town that she should never have left.

Carlene leaned her head back on the rocking chair. It had been ten years since she'd been in the house. In those days Aunt Rosalie bragged that she'd never met a speck of dust she couldn't conquer. There were now cobwebs in the corners and dust on everything. It would take days, possibly weeks, to get the house whipped into shape.

"That's tomorrow's work. Today's is getting Aunt Rosalie's stuff sorted through to make room for ours. Happy New Year to us." She raised her cup of tea and then set it on the table.

Carlene drew her jacket closer around her chest and headed back out for the rest of the boxes. "Thank you, Aunt Rosalie, for leaving me everything in your will. At least I have a place to live and don't have to pay rent."

As she stepped off the porch, she heard tires on the gravel road. Since this house was the only one on a short dead-end road, she was pretty sure the visitor would be pulling into her driveway any second. She tucked her hair behind her ears and shivered.

Shading her eyes against the bright winter sun, she watched a big black crew cab truck come to a stop right beside her minivan. Cowboy boots were the first thing that appeared when the door opened and then a very familiar figure followed.

Jace Dawson tipped back his hat and waved. In a few long strides he was close enough that she caught a whiff of Stetson aftershave—a scent that still created a stir in her hormones every time she smelled it.

Happy, Texas, had a population of less than seven hundred, so it was a given that she'd run into Jace someday, probably sooner rather than later, but the first day she was there, before she could even get unpacked, meant that the gossip vines had not died in the past decade.

"Carlene, I heard you were coming back to town. Here, let me help you get those into the house." He picked up all three of the remaining boxes and headed off toward the porch. "So you're going to be the new fifth-grade teacher, Mama tells me."

"That's right."

He filled out those Wranglers even better than he had in high school and had maybe even grown another inch or two.

"I'm real sorry about Miz Rosalie. She was a pillar in this town and the church. It's hard to believe that she's gone," he said.

"Thank you. It came as a shock to us too." She was amazed that her voice sounded normal, considering the way her pulse had shot up at the sight of him.

"Been a long time," he said. "Where you been all these years?"

She opened the door for him and he set the boxes in the middle of the living room floor. "Here and there. Moved around a lot. California, then Georgia and Oklahoma, back to Florida and then here."

"You plannin' on livin' here? Mind if I sit down?"

"When did we get to be so formal? Of course you can sit." She kicked off her shoes, padded barefoot across the cold hardwood floor, and sat on the sofa with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around them.

Avoiding the sofa, Jace sat on a wooden rocking chair. He removed his black cowboy hat and laid it on the coffee table between him and Carlene, then raked his fingers through his dark brown hair. Carlene remembered that gesture well. Along with tapping his foot, it was what he did when he was nervous. She checked and sure enough, his cowboy boot was doing double time on the floor.

"So you went to college?" he asked. "Where?"

"California." She could hear Tilly humming in her room and hoped she stayed there until he was gone.

"And you're comin' from Florida, right?"

"That's right," she said. "Can I get you something to drink? I've got root beer and apple juice. Haven't been to the store."

"No, I'm good." His hand went toward his hair again. "I missed you when you left."

"We were just kids, right out of high school, Jace." She let her eyes drift from his chin upward, determined not to look at his eyes, but she failed.

His gray eyes locked with hers across the room and he took a deep breath. "You promised you'd stay in touch. We dated our whole senior year. What happened?"

"Life happened. Time and distance takes its toll."

Tilly had stopped humming and was talking to her stuffed toys, asking them if they liked the new house. Then her voice dropped to a whisper and Carlene couldn't hear her anymore.

"Come on, Carlene. Give me a little more than that. We were in love. You were going to text or call every night, and then you were gone and I never heard from you again," Jace said.

"Were we in love, Jace? Or were we just hormonal teenagers?"

"I thought we were in love," he said.

She shrugged. The lump in her throat kept her from answering.

"Okay, then." He inhaled and let it out slowly. "Look, I don't know how to tell you this…I'm real sorry to have to say it, but I bought this place from Rosalie last year. She was planning to move into a nursing home and said she needed the money." He removed his hat and laid it on the coffee table.

"No!" Carlene sank down onto the other end of the sofa and felt the color drain from her face. "She didn't…she wouldn't…she said…"

"I can bring the deed to show you. You goin' to be all right? I'm so sorry about this misunderstanding." His eyes were filled with true remorse.

"Sell it back to me." Carlene met his eyes across the short distance separating them. "I have enough savings for a down payment, and we can get a loan at the bank for the rest."

Jace inhaled deeply and let it out very slowly. "You can see for yourself, it's not real fit for livin'. Even so, I'd sell it to you and help remodel if I could, but it's all been deeded over to the rodeo association." Another deep breath. "Demolition is scheduled for February fifteenth. The contractors are starting the new buildings right after that."

"Dammit!" Carlene stretched her legs out, dropped her head into her hands, and covered her eyes. Surely this was a mistake. Aunt Rosalie would have told her if she'd sold the house. The lawyer who handled her affairs didn't say a word about it when he called to tell them that she'd passed away.

Jace had always had one of those faces that couldn't hide what he was thinking and it was plain that he was not lying to her. Still, surely to God if Aunt Rosalie had sold the property, she would have told Carlene. They talked every single Sunday evening from eight to eight-thirty and she always said that her greatest wish was to die in the same house where she'd been born. That her roots were in the place and it would make her life come full circle.

"The papers and the letter the lawyer sent are in that box. I'm going to dig them out right now. She must've gotten senile at ninety-five because she would've told me," Carlene whispered, still finding it hard to believe.

She left the sofa and ripped the tape from the top of the box marked IMPORTANT PAPERS. She pulled a big brown accordion file from the box and flipped through the tabs until she found the one she wanted. Removing a manila envelope from it, she shook out the letter from the lawyer saying that she'd inherited Rosalie's personal belongings and had even sent a key to the house so she could "get what she wanted out of it."

"I have the deed, the papers that the rodeo folks signed, and everything in a folder at home. I'll be glad to bring them over to you," Jace said.

"See, here's her handwritten will, dated two years ago, giving me everything that she owns." Carlene held it up.

"I bought the place a year ago," Jace said. "And I turned it over to the rodeo the next day with the understanding that we couldn't start to build until Rosalie had passed or she went to a nursing home."

She turned up the envelope and shook it but nothing else fell out. She opened it wide and for the first time saw another little folded piece of paper at the bottom. Another fierce shake didn't bring it out, so she ripped the side away and carefully removed the letter. With dread in her heart, she read it out loud:

"Well, now what?" She laid the letter aside and threw her hands up in defeat.

"Now, you can live here until the wreckers come if you want. There's not much rental property in town that's fit for you to live in but there are a couple of places for sale if you're plannin' to stay."

"I'd thought this would be my last move," she said. "I'm ready to put down roots and I always liked this small town."

"We'll find you a place, I promise." He reached out as if to touch her but dropped his hand in his lap. "You've got my word on it. I should be going unless you've got more boxes to carry in."

"No, that's all of them. My house and land are going to be part of the rodeo grounds. I can't wrap my mind around that." She had decided to move to Happy so that Tilly could grow up in Aunt Rosalie's house.

"Upside is that it gets real noisy around this area when there's a rodeo or bull riding going on," he said.

"You still ride?"

"Sometimes. Bulls. But saddle broncs are my specialty. I never was any good at bareback broncs," he answered.

"Dammit, Jace."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Hey, I remember that look in those pretty brown eyes and you're mad as a wet hen after a wild Texas tornado," he said. "Spit it out."

"I'm mad about this house," she said through clenched teeth. It wasn't a lie. She was furious that she couldn't even buy it back from Jace. Understanding the whys and wherefores didn't make it a bit easier to accept. "I thought the place was mine. I was already figuring out ways to remodel it."

"Honey, it'd take more than paint and new curtains to make this place livable. The plumbing and wiring would all have to be replaced and the worst thing is that the foundation is termite infested and barely hanging on by the rusted nails. If it don't fall down around your ears in six weeks, you'll be lucky."

She got up and stomped around the boxes, out into the kitchen and back to the living room to the window, where she stared out at the two vehicles sitting side by side. "There's no way you can ask the rodeo people to sell it back to me?"

"Sorry." He shook his head as he stood. "I should be going now, Carlene. But like I said, it's no problem for you to stay here until the day before the wreckin' crew arrives. And if I can help you move or help find a place or anything, call me."

"Thank you," she said.

His heart was still as big and kind as it had been in high school. He'd been witty and charming as a friend and had been an amazing boyfriend. Once they'd discovered sex together, they could barely keep their hands to themselves. But it had been that sweetness about his heart that had drawn her to him from the beginning and made her long for him years afterward.

She turned around and stepped on a few bits of dead needles from the dried up Christmas tree in the corner. "Ouch!"

"Let me help you." He knelt beside her and gently removed the dried debris from her foot.

His touch sent delicious shivers all the way to her scalp, just like it had when they'd dated in high school. If he reached up and traced her jawline with his forefinger like he did in those days, she'd be ready to drag him off to the hayloft.

"There now." He rose to his feet. "Want me to help you get rid of this thing? I can haul it out of here as it stands."

"No thanks. I'll want to keep several of her ornaments, so I'll take care of it later."

He headed for the door and stopped in the middle of the floor. "Mama says you still go by Varner. You ever get married?"

She shook her head. "You?"

"I'm still holding on as the most eligible bachelor in the panhandle."

"With that much power, surely you could sweet-talk the rodeo folks into selling me this house," she said.

"Can't do it, Carlene," he said.

"Hey, look what I found." Tilly burst into the living room, but stopped short at the sight of Jace. "Who are you?"

Her hair was all tucked up under a stocking cap with the Florida Gators logo on the front, and big green sunglasses covered half her face.

"I'm Jace Dawson. And you are?" He stuck out his hand.

She shook his hand. "I'm Tilly Rose Varner. Look what else I found." She turned around to face Carlene and held out an official stuffed alligator from the Florida football team. "I haven't seen him in a whole year. I guess Aunt Bee packed him for me."

"She probably found him under your bed," Carlene said. "Surely you aren't finished unpacking all those boxes."

"Nope, but I'm hungry. I'm going to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. You want one?" She laid the stuffed animal on the sofa and started toward the kitchen.

"Your little sister or niece?" Jace asked Carlene.

"No, I'm her daughter," Tilly giggled as she whipped off the stocking hat and a cascade of curly red hair fell to her shoulders.

An icy chill chased up Jace's backbone. "How old are you, Tilly Rose Varner?"

"I'll be nine on February twenty-fourth." She removed the oversized sunglasses and looked up at him with gray eyes sprinkled with gold flecks. Eyes that were exactly like his.

Suddenly, there was not a single doubt in his mind that Jace Dawson was staring at his daughter.