Overprotective Cowboy: A Mulbury Boys Novel (Hope Eternal Ranch Romance Book 2) Read online

  He could see the man that got out on the side closest to him, and he watched with a measure of shock and horror moving through him as Robert Knight took off his sunglasses and looked out at the ranch.

  The gurgling of the river couldn’t cover the sound of their voices, and Robert said, “I’ll meet you back at the shop,” as he rounded the front of the truck.

  The driver, who Ted still couldn’t see, asked, “Do you want me to see if I can find out where she is?”

  “No,” Robert said. “I’ll take care of it.” He got behind the wheel while the driver got in the blue truck. He drove it down the road in the direction it was pointed, but Robert turned the black truck around and went back the way he’d come.

  Ted pulled in a breath as he realized he’d stopped breathing. Do you want me to see if I can find out where she is?

  They were talking about Emma.

  And Robert had said, No, I’ll take care of it.

  Not I’ll take care of her.

  Maybe they weren’t talking about Emma.

  “They have to be,” Ted mused to himself, finally standing up straight and tall. “Come on,” he said to the dogs. “Let’s go.” He pulled his phone out as he strode back to the ATV. He needed to call Emma and warn her immediately.

  He had no service out here, and Ted cursed his bad luck as he swung his leg over the seat and waited for the pups to jump up and get settled. Then he took off for the homestead at a much faster clip than ever before.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Emma set her spoon down, her stomach beyond full. Fran was an excellent cook, and Emma had made her honey-wheat bread to go with the sweet corn chowder Missy’s second mom had made.

  “Thanks for always feeding me,” she said as Matt got up and moved into the kitchen. He had similar dark hair as Missy, where Fran was lighter. She had dirty blonde hair that she kept cut in a cute, stylish short style. Emma had never seen her without a large pair of earrings dangling from her lobes, and while she didn’t always wear makeup, she loved things that sparkled.

  “Anyway,” Fran said, smiling at Emma. “Missy was so excited when she learned you were coming again this weekend.”

  Emma liked having her schedule, and it was either come again or wait three weeks. Since Ginger had said she didn’t care, Emma had packed up her things and made the two-hour drive again.

  She’d relaxed her precautions a little bit by skipping the overnight stay in the bus station. She’d simply rented a car instead of bringing her own, and she’d only spent a half an hour driving around the city before coming to the suburbs.

  “Coffee, Em?” Matt asked, and she nodded.

  “Lots of cream, if you have it.” They would, Emma knew. Fran loved eating it on fruit and cereal, as Matt had told her several times.

  He brought over a sugar bowl and a pitcher of cream, meeting his wife’s eyes. Emma tensed, because she’d seen that look between them before. She waited until Matt went back into the kitchen to get down the mugs before she looked at Fran.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Missy, why don’t you go get your violin, so you can play your new song for your mom?” Fran smiled at the girl who sat at the table with them. She’d finished long ago, really only eating bread and a couple of bites of soup before she’d gotten out her latest coloring book. This one was all geometric shapes, and Emma had brought her a new package of metallic colored pencils. Missy had been anxious to try them, and no one cared if she colored while they finished dinner and chatted.

  “All right,” Missy said, still coloring with the bright blue pencil. “Look, Momma. It’s so shiny.”

  “It sure is,” Emma said, admiring it. “It’s like that blue ribbon your dad won at the fair last year.”

  Missy’s face lit up, and she got down to go show Matt the blue of the pencil. Emma felt sure her heart would beat right out of her chest while she waited for Missy and Matt to finish their talk. Missy put her book back on the table and headed down the hall to her bedroom.

  She met Fran’s eyes, and Matt seemed to know exactly when to come over. He sat beside Fran and took her hand in his. “I can’t say it,” Fran said, her voice choked.

  Emma looked between the two of them, her nerves firing like rifles.

  “We think it might be time for Missy to come live with you,” Matt said, looking only at Fran. He finally switched his gaze to Emma, whose breath had frozen in her lungs.

  “Missy’s asked if she can go live with you every day this week,” Fran asked. She brushed at her eyes, her smile quick to follow. “I’m fine. I’ll miss her, because I love her, but I know I’m not her mother.”

  Emma didn’t know what to say. She’d been blessed beyond measure to have these two in her life—and taking care of Missy for so long. “Yes, you are,” she finally said, her voice only half of what it normally was. “You’re her mother, Fran. And Matt, you’re her father.”

  “She wants to be with you.”

  “I live in a single bedroom on a ranch,” Emma said. Her mind went into overdrive, because she could get a place for her and her daughter. She could. She could work on payroll and send invoices from any computer with Internet access. She didn’t have to use the office at the ranch. She made enough at the ranch to pay for an apartment or a small house, and the whole world opened up, with so many new possibilities.

  “I don’t know,” she said, swallowing. “You guys went to Florida two weeks ago.” She ducked her head, all of her familiar protections flying back into place and slamming the doors that had just opened. “Robert isn’t gone completely. He’ll find out if I suddenly have a ten-year-old living with me.”

  “He’s not in Sweet Water Falls,” Matt said. “We had someone check.”

  “Robert is highly mobile,” Emma argued back, studying her fingernails. “And well-connected.” She couldn’t forget that. None of them could forget that.

  “I think you should think about it,” Fran said.

  Emma nodded, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about it.

  Missy returned, her violin already out of its case. Emma pasted a smile on her face and slipped into her pretending persona. “What song have you been working on?” she asked.

  “It’s called Govotte,” Missy said, adjusting the instrument under her chin. She took a breath and glanced at Fran, who nodded at her. Missy took another breath, her slight shoulders lifting up and falling back down. She put the bow on the strings, and they made a squeak. She swallowed and breathed again, and Emma wished she could take her nerves from her. At the same time, she found them utterly fantastic and endearing.

  She grinned at her daughter too, tears already gathering in her eyes. Missy moved the bow then, and the movement became sure and strong, and the instrument began to sing.

  Emma couldn’t believe her daughter could make such beautiful music, and she wondered how she’d ever keep Missy in violin lessons in Sweet Water Falls. Fran didn’t work outside the home, so she had time and energy to dedicate to Missy. The truth was, Emma wouldn’t be a good mother—certainly not as good as Fran—and her emotion rose and rose until it choked her.

  Missy finished the song, and Emma started clapping. She could play off her emotion as love for her daughter, which it was. But it was also very, very hard to accept that Missy was better off here with Fran and Matt than she would be with her own mother.

  “Wonderful,” she said, her voice high-pitched and thick. “Awesome, baby.” She reached for Missy, and the little girl handed her violin to her dad and came around to hug Emma. “I love you so much,” she whispered against her daughter’s ear. “So much.”

  “I love you too, Momma.”

  The moment stretched, and Emma wished she could bottle it up and hold it close to her heart for a good long while.

  “Missy,” Matt said, and the girl pulled away. She turned to look at him, and Emma wiped the tears from her eyes. “We mentioned that you wanted to go live with your mother.”

  Missy pulled in
a breath, and her eyes widened. She spun back to Emma, her hope strong and bright. It could’ve lit the whole night sky above Texas, and Emma hated disappointing her.

  “And?” Missy asked.

  “There’s a lot to work out,” Emma said. “But I’m going to start working on it.”

  Missy squealed, and Emma hugged her again. She couldn’t believe she’d just said that. But maybe…maybe there was a way she could have her daughter with her for the second part of her childhood. Perhaps Robert wasn’t as big of a threat as she’d originally thought. They’d had no problems up to this point.

  Her phone rang, and Emma pulled away from her daughter to see who it was. Ted’s name sat on the screen, and Emma’s heart bounced to the back of her throat.

  “Who’s Ted?” Missy asked, and Emma looked up into her daughter’s innocent eyes. She had absolutely no idea how to answer.

  “I need to take this,” she said instead, standing and looking at Fran. She swiped on the call before it could go to voicemail, and she said, “Hey, Ted,” as she walked out of the kitchen.

  “Emma, praise the Lord,” he said. He sounded breathless and on the verge of panic.

  Emma’s nerves immediately started a low wail in the bottom of her stomach. “What’s wrong?”

  “I just saw Robert Knight,” he said.

  Emma stopped walking, her brain misfiring in such a way that all she could do was breathe for a moment. Walking was out of the question. “What?” The word came out as little more than air. Ted couldn’t leave the ranch. “He’s on the ranch?”

  “He was on the northeast service road with that guy in the blue truck. Well, his truck was black, but he dropped that other guy off. William.”

  He wasn’t making any sense. Emma couldn’t keep track of so many names and colors right now. “Did you talk to him?”

  “No,” Ted said. “I just overheard him say he’d meet William back at the shop, and William asked if he should figure out where ‘she’ is. Robert said he’d take care of it.”

  Emma felt like she’d swallowed liquid nitrogen. If she moved at all, she’d crack and break. “Am I the ‘she’?”

  “I think so, sweetheart,” Ted said. An engine roared on his end of the line, and then it went silent. “I just got back to the ranch. I had no service out there.”

  “Momma?”

  Emma spun around, her heartbeat tripling. Had Ted heard that? She accepted Missy into a hug while Ted said, “Anyway, I thought you should know. And listen, I know I said you didn’t have to tell me anything, but Em, I really want to know. I can help you.”

  “I know,” Emma said. She looked down at her daughter. Felt the tight grip of her arms around her middle, and she just didn’t know how to say it.

  “I’m worried,” Ted said. “And I usually don’t worry unless there’s a good reason. He…I didn’t like seeing him. I got an eerie feeling.”

  Emma couldn’t get her voice to work. Several long seconds passed while she tried. Finally, Ted sighed, a sound heavy with frustration. “Okay, well, I guess that’s it if you’re not going to say anything.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You tell me where you are,” he said. “And who you’re with. Right now, Emma. Where are you? Who are you with?”

  She looked down at her daughter again, and Missy looked up at her with such an open expression of love. If she had any hope of taking her daughter home with her—ever—she’d have to tell people about her.

  But this felt like she was doing everything out of order. “I need an hour,” she said to Ted.

  “Sure,” he said, his tone filled with acid now. “You take what you need, Em. I’ll be here, because I literally can’t leave.”

  She pressed her eyes closed, the tears in them stinging and burning. She’d heard what he really meant. If he could leave, he would. He’d leave her, because she was so frustrating to him. He’d walk away from their relationship, because she couldn’t confide in him.

  “Good-bye, Emma,” he said, and while his voice wasn’t unkind, she flinched when the call disconnected.

  Please don’t let that be our final good-bye, she thought as she lowered her hand holding her phone.

  Her mind seemed to be running in two tracks. One moved slow enough for her to understand what she needed to do next. The other raced right up against the rails. She ignored that part for now and crouched down in front of her daughter.

  “Missy,” she said. “It’s time for you to know who your father is and why I’ve had you living here with Fran and Matt and not me.”

  The little girl said nothing, and Emma knew she was the one who needed to talk. In every instance, she was the one who needed to find the courage to open her mouth and talk. To Missy. To Ginger. To Robert.

  And especially to Ted, at least if she wanted to keep him in her life.

  It had only been a few weeks since he’d come into her life, but so much had changed in such a short time.

  “Okay, Momma,” Missy said, drawing in a long breath. “I’m ready.” She’d asked innocent questions about her father in the past, and Emma had been able to put her off, because she was a child. She’d been asking a lot more questions about where Emma lived and why Missy couldn’t be there with her in the past couple of years, and Emma knew she’d started to grow her “big kid” eyes.

  She was almost finished with fifth grade now, and she could handle this.

  “Let’s go sit in the swing on the back porch,” she said. “And I’ll tell you everything.”

  As she walked with her daughter through the kitchen, she tried to put on a brave face for Fran and Matt. Ted’s words from a while ago rang in her ears.

  Everything comes out when it’s the right time.

  Everything comes out in the end.

  All she could do now was pray that it was the right time, and that her daughter would understand why Emma had done what she’d done.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ted sat on the front steps of the Annex, watching the gravel lot in front of the homestead. Paula lay at his feet, while Randy, Simon, and Ryan had taken up spots at the bottom of the steps. The sky looked like an old bruise, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Emma should’ve been back by now.

  What he had to judge that by, he didn’t know. Last week, she’d returned to the ranch while it was still light. Tonight, he hadn’t seen her car or heard from her—and he’d called twice.

  He would not allow himself to call again. He’d told her about Robert and William. He’d told Ginger too. And Nate. They’d counseled him to just wait and see what Emma would say when she got back.

  He was starting to think she wasn’t coming back. She could literally be anywhere, and his foot started to bounce again. He hated this gnawing, anxious feeling in his chest, the way his stomach felt too heavy one moment and then like it had lost gravity the next.

  The sun went completely down, and darkness draped over everything. Emma still hadn’t come back.

  The front door opened behind him, and Nate said, “Teddy, you’ve got to come in.”

  “I can’t,” he said.

  Nate sighed as he sat on the hard cement with Ted. “This is so uncomfortable.” He nudged Paula, who just lifted her head and glared at Nate.

  Yes, it was, but Ted couldn’t force himself to get up. Nate let the silence go on and on between them, and finally Ted said, “I started to fall for her.”

  “I know.”

  “I feel like an idiot.”

  “I know.”

  “She’s never going to tell me anything.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  Ted looked toward the faint yellow lights leaking out from between the slats in the blinds at the West Wing. “What if she doesn’t come back?”

  “Ginger says she will. She says she’s been this late before.” Nate sat with him a while longer, and then he went in with the words, “Ten more minutes, Teddy. Then I’m dragging you back inside. You can’t do this to yourself.”

  Ted
nodded, and as soon as Nate closed the door, sealing Ted outside in the blackness alone, he set a timer for nine minutes. He wasn’t going to make his best friend come drag him inside. He wasn’t pathetic.

  He just wanted to see Emma and make sure she was okay. Yes, he wanted to question her again. Maybe in person, he could get his earnest and genuine feelings across. Couldn’t she tell he just wanted to help her?

  Why wouldn’t she let him help her?

  Nine minutes later, his alarm buzzed, and Ted stood up. His backside and legs pricked with pins and needles, and he almost went down again. He steadied himself and whispered, “Please bring her home safely, Lord,” and went inside.

  He slept fitfully, his window open so he could hear the noise if anyone should pull onto the gravel or close a car door. When he woke in the morning, he felt like he’d never truly settled to sleep, and he’d lost count of how many times he’d sat up to peer through the blinds when he’d thought he’d heard something.

  He couldn’t stop himself from looking through the blinds first thing, but he didn’t see Emma’s car parked in the driveway.

  She really hadn’t come back to the ranch.

  Surly and with his mind swollen with worry, he dressed and got to work, skipping breakfast completely. He was on cleaning stalls that morning, and he moved Raindrop and Lucky Penny to the pasture. With several more horses out of their stalls and his four canine friends close by, Ted put on his gloves and picked up the shovel.

  He could work, work, work to distract himself. He wished he had a pair of earbuds so he could play really loud music and drown out his thoughts. As it was, all he had to entertain him while he scooped sawdust and straw was his own circular thoughts about Emma.

  He finished the stalls in record time and went to feed her babies. “Do you know where she is?” he asked Second Best. He could relate to the colt’s name, because Ted felt about two inches tall and invisible. He knew Emma had seen him when he’d come to the ranch, but it didn’t matter. She was so far into her own narrative that she couldn’t see the possibility of telling him the truth. Doing so would unravel so many of her other carefully crafted lies until her entire existence would collapse.