The Cowboy Next Door. Brenda Minton

his arm.

      “Mom…”

      His mom hurried away, leaving him with the groceries and words of caution he had wanted to offer her. She must have known what he had to say. And she would have called him cynical and told him to give Lacey Gould and her sister a chance.

      

      Lacey woke up early the next morning to soft gray light through the open window and the song of a meadowlark greeting the day. She rolled over on the air mattress she’d slept on and listened to unfamiliar sounds that blended with the familiar.

      A rustle and then a soft cry. She sat up, brushing a hand through her hair and then rubbing sleep from her eyes. She waited a minute, blinking away the fuzzy feeling. The baby cried again.

      “Corry, wake up.” Lacey pushed herself up off the mattress and walked to the hide-a-bed. Corry’s face was covered with the blanket and she slept curled fetus-style on her side.

      “Come on, moving day.”

      Corry mumbled and pulled the pillow over her head.

      Lacey stepped away from the bed and reached into the bassinet for the pacifier to quiet the baby. Rachel’s eyes opened and she sucked hard on the binky. Lacey kissed the baby’s soft little cheek and smiled.

      “I’ll get your bottle.”

      And then she’d finish packing. She side-stepped boxes as she walked to the kitchen. Nearly everything was packed. It hadn’t taken long. Six years and she’d accumulated very little. She had books, a few pictures and some dust bunnies. She wouldn’t take those with her.

      Memories. She had plenty of memories. She’d found a picture of herself and Bailey at Bailey’s wedding, and a note from Bailey’s father’s funeral last year.

      She’d lived a real life in this apartment. In this apartment she had learned to pray. She had cooked dinner for friends. She had let go of love. She had learned to trust herself. Dating Lance had taught her lessons in trusting someone else. And when not to trust.

      The baby was crying for real. Lacey filled the bottle and set it in a cup to run hot water over it. The bed squeaked. She turned and Corry was sitting up, looking sleepy and younger than her twenty-two years.

      Life hadn’t really been fair. Lacey reminded herself that her sister deserved a chance. Corry deserved for someone to believe in her.

      Lacey remembered life in that bug-infested apartment that had been her last home in St. Louis. She closed her eyes and let the bad memories of her mother and nights cowering in a closet with Corry slide off, like they didn’t matter.

      She picked up the bottle and turned off the water. The dribble of formula she squeezed onto her wrist was warm. She took the bottle back to Corry and then lifted the baby out of the bassinet.

      “Can you feed her while I finish packing?” Lacey kissed her niece and then lowered her into Corry’s waiting arms.

      Corry stared down at the infant, and then back at Lacey. “You make it look so easy.”

      “It isn’t easy, Corry.”

      “I thought it would be. I thought I’d just feed her and she’d sleep, and stuff. I didn’t want to give her away to someone I didn’t know.”

      Lacey looked away from the baby and from more memories.

      “I need to pack.”

      “I’m sorry, Lacey.”

      “Don’t worry about it.” Lacey grabbed clothes out of her dresser. “I’m going to take a shower while you feed her. You need to make sure you’re up and around before Jay gets here.”

      When Lacey walked out of the bathroom, he was standing by the door, a cowboy in jeans, a T-shirt and a ball cap covering his dark hair. He nodded and moved away from the door. In the small confines of her apartment she realized how tall he was, towering over her, making her feel smaller than her five-feet-five height.

      “Oh, you’re earlier than I expected.”

      “I thought it would be best if we got most of it done before it gets hot.”

      “I don’t have a lot. It won’t take long.” She looked around and so did Jay. This was her life, all twenty-eight years packed into a studio apartment.

      “We should be able to get it all in the stock trailer and the back of my truck.”

      “Do you want a cup of coffee first? I still have a few things to pack.”

      “No coffee for me. I’ll start carrying boxes out.”

      Lacey pointed to the boxes that she’d packed the night before. And she let him go, because he was Jay Blackhorse and he wasn’t going to sit and have a cup of coffee with her. And she was okay with that.

      Her six-month relationship with Lance Carmichael had taught her a lot. He had taught her not to open her heart up, not to share. She would never forget that last night, their last date.

      I can’t handle this. It’s too much reality. His words echoed in her mind, taunting her, making a joke of her dreams.

      “Are there any breakables in the boxes?” Jay had crossed the room.

      Lacey turned from pouring herself a cup of coffee. He stood in front of the boxes, tall and suntanned, graceful for his size. He was all country, right down to the worn boots and cracked leather belt.

      He turned and she smiled, because he wore a tan-and-brown beaded necklace that didn’t fit what she knew about Jay Blackhorse. Not that she knew much. Or would ever know much.

      Funny, she wanted to know more. Maybe because he was city and country, Aeropostale and Wrangler. Maybe it was the wounded look in his eyes, brief flashes that she caught from time to time, before he shut it down and turned on that country-boy smile.

      “I’ve marked the ones that are fragile,” she answered, and then grabbed an empty box to pack the stuff in the kitchen that she hadn’t gotten to the night before.

      Jay picked up a box and walked out the front door, pushing it closed behind him. And Corry whistled. Lacey shot her sister a warning look and then turned to the cabinet of canned goods and boxes of cereal. She agreed with the whistle.

      Two hours later Lacey followed behind Jay’s truck and the stock trailer that contained her life. Corry had stayed behind. And that had been fine with Lacey. She didn’t need her sister underfoot, and the baby would be better in an empty apartment than out in the sun while they unloaded furniture and boxes.

      From visits with Jay’s mom, Lacey had seen the farmhouse where Jay’s grandparents had lived. But as she pulled up, it changed and it became her home. She swallowed a real lump in her throat as she parked next to the house and got out of her car.

      The lawn was a little overgrown and the flower gardens were out of control, but roses climbed the posts at the corner of the porch and wisteria wound around a trellis at one side of the covered porch.

      Her house.

      Jay got out of his truck and joined her. “It isn’t much.”

      “It’s a house,” she whispered, knowing he wouldn’t understand. She could look down the road and see the large brick house he’d grown up in. It had five bedrooms and the living room walls were covered with pictures of the children and the new grandchild that Wilma Blackhorse didn’t get to see enough of.

      “Yes, it’s a house.” He kind of shrugged. He didn’t get it.

      “I’ve never lived in a house.” She bit down on her bottom lip, because that was more than she’d wanted to share, more than she wanted him to know about her.

      “I see.” He looked down at her, his smile softer than before. “You grew up in St. Louis, right?”

      “Yes.”

      “I guess moving to Gibson was