Page 12 of The Texas Cowboy's Rescue

“Mama! Mama... did you see? I’m learning. Mr. Deke is really fun. I wish we had diving lessons every day. Can we invite him and Ranger to come to dinner?” Kenzie was trying to get the towel around her daughter’s squirming body. The question made her hesitate for a moment. Deke had come up and was using his towel, and Kenzie was maintaining her rate of breathing and brain waves while she was caught between the two humans... her child with a harmless question yet loaded with complications... and a male who was radiating vibes that she didn’t need to deal with.

Then she made a big mistake. Her gaze went upward and found his waiting. For a moment, she couldn’t remember the issues... nor her own name. And the one thing that did register loud and clear in her brain?He knew.

Chapter Seven

“Thanks for thethought of a home-cooked meal, little missy.” Deke drew his gaze away from the clearly blushing cheeks of the woman poised with towel in hand and landed his attention on the child. “But Ranger and I have promised we’d meet up with my half brothers tonight. And you did a great job for our first lesson. You are a very good student.”

“Did you hear that, Mama?” The child was beaming.

“I did, indeed. Thank you for being that.” She began helping Brooke pack up her bag.

“Can you and Ranger come over on Sunday after swimming?” The child wasn’t going to let the matter rest. Kenzie was about to nip it in the bud, but Deke beat her to it.

“I think your mother has to issue such an invitation to her table. And you and she can discuss it at home. Ranger and I need to hit the road.” He picked up his bag and gave a nod in Kenzie’s direction. “See you at the office.” He gave a whistle and Ranger left the soft grassy spot he had found in the shade. The pair were soon on their way.

“Okay, so we might have not thought this through as much as we should have.” Deke often had conversations with Ranger. Maybe he understood, maybe not. But somehow answers seemed to come easier that way. “Talk about timing. A woman comes along with beauty and brains, and she is on my flight crew. That’s the biggest red flag and against the rules of the company.Mycompany. So that takes care of that. It’s a sign. Thanks for the talk. Your input was invaluable, as always.” Ranger simply yawned.

Deke took a quick shower, changed into jeans and a pullover shirt, slid on a pair of boots and he left Ranger with his food dish and orders to guard things. He was off in a flash to keep the dinner invitation.

“I hope you’re in the mood for barbeque ribs,” Laurel said with a smile as she opened the front door in answer to his knock. “Come on in. Beaudry takes over the pit duties and won’t let anyone near his ‘secret’ sauce recipe. And that’s fine by the rest of us.” She shared the rest of that as she led the way through the ranch house on the Hawkes’s land adjacent to the Aces High. They ended up in the large kitchen that took up the back portion of the first floor of the two-story structure. There was a faint smell of freshly painted wood as they had come through the long hallway, but aromatic food smells took over as they stepped into the kitchen that looked like it might be featured in the latest issues of some remodeling digest.

Sammi Jo was busy putting together a salad at the huge worktable in the center of the room. She gave him a welcoming smile. “We’re so glad you could join us this evening. I caught a glimpse of you from the office window when you arrived for the swimming lesson this afternoon over at our place. Hope you worked up an appetite.”

“I can guarantee you that I always have room for good barbeque,” Deke responded.

“And I bet you could do with a cold one too,” Laurel spoke up, handing over a bottle she pulled from one of the refrigerators in the space.

“I certainly could. Thanks.”

“We don’t stand on ceremony around here. You’re family, and you just make yourself at home. The men are out on the back porch and there’s a chair out there for you to kick back in too. And it is really great to see you and Brooke getting along so well. She’s a firecracker, that one.”

Deke took a swig of the cold brew and then nodded. “She is indeed that. Very smart little girl. It’s fun working with her.”

“You and our cousin, Kenzie, work together, correct? Or was that for just a little bit of time? When I heard all of that story, I was a little bit busy and groggy.” She laughed, as did the others in the room.

“Yes, you were a bit busy at the time giving birth to a perfect little nephew of mine,” Laurel responded.

“What I have retained from that evening was that things might have not gone so well if you hadn’t volunteered. I know,” she said, raising a palm in response to his upcoming downplay of the perilous situation of the flood that had stranded her as she went into labor and the part he played, “you made the decision when no one else could. And for that, there is a debt of gratitude I will always have for you. No matter my husband’s connection to you, I won’t forget, and I won’t mention it again since you aren’t comfortable with the hero designation. And we know you would like to escape us females and get to the back porch. Tell my husband that everything else is done, and when those prize-winning ribs are ready, so are we.”

“I will do that.” Deke smiled at the two women and took his leave through the back door. Just as described, the two men were seated in high-back cane rockers, cold beverages in hand, and the smell of beef ribs wafting across the patio and beyond as the sun was sinking in the western sky. The house sat on the crest of a hill and the view toward the west was unobstructed over miles upon miles of hills and plains, cut with arroyos and glints off stock ponds and meandering streams here and there. An ever-present cooling breeze ruffled the leaves overhead in tall pecan and oak trees. Somewhere in the distance, a horse whinnied and then, a few seconds later, an answer sounded. It was the golden hour of another perfect Texas evening.

“There he is. Take a seat. I see the ladies managed to get a cold brew in your hands.”

“Yes, Laurel did just that. And I have to say, this is an amazing spot for a house. Has this always been the Hawkes’s family home?”

Beaudry gave a brief snort and shake of his head. “It began as a lean-to in the late 1800s, with a clapboard four-stall barn and picket corral. Then a four-room cabin made it into the forties. The basic structure of this house came along about five years after Jax and I were born. That would be about two years before our shared mother left us. Over the years, we added a bit here and there, but nothing like it is now.”

Jaxson took over. “When Laurel and I married, I was living here. We debated building a new house on her Aces High land she inherited, close to her movie studios. But she wanted to take this homestead and do some work on it and make it into our home instead. It is a work in progress, but thenshemakes it a home and not just a house.”

“It feels like that,” Deke said. “She’s achieved her goal.”

“She’ll be happy to hear that. And you’re staying over at the old Murphy house, correct? That was home to a couple of our stock managers over the years. They retired and moved to better climates. But it’s a good structure. It’s close to that orchard, right? And the Santos land is close to that, as I recall.”

“That’s right,” Beaudry responded, having moved to check on the meat with a long fork and slathering some more sauce on the meat before closing the pit again. He reclaimed his seat. “Kenzie and Brooke have taken it on. Aunt Yvonne and her new husband have a place in Florida. It’s good the house is being used again. Those were some darn good peaches, as I seem to remember. Good ice cream makers... and hot cobblers.”

“I suppose that’s where Kenzie and her sister grew up?” Deke made conversation, but he couldn’t say he didn’t have a reason behind it. But no one else needed to be aware of that. He took another drink from the bottle.

Jax nodded. “We all went to school together... along with Matteo... who I believe you met over at Aces High the other evening. Matt and MaKenna, Kenzie’s sister, were expected to graduate and make a match of it. They were crazy for each other for years. But then she up and left town and no word since. Kenzie hears from her, I understand, but that’s that.”

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