The Renegade Cowboy Returns. Tina Leonard

looked at her. “You like your mother?”

      “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

      “I don’t know.” The teen shrugged, watching Chelsea warily as she sat down on one of the twin beds. “You’re not supposed to like your mother.”

      Chelsea smiled. “I love my mother. She’s my best friend.”

      “Wow,” Cat said, “you’re a bigger loser than I thought.”

      Chelsea smiled again. “I’m going back downstairs. If you’re hungry, join us. I need to get my mother settled in.”

      “I don’t want to join you,” Cat said, following her down the stairs. “I’m only coming because my dad says I have to.”

      “That’s fine,” Chelsea said. She was pleased to see Gage and her mother seated in the front room, chatting comfortably. He seemed genuinely interested in her, and Chelsea told herself that anyone wearing that much hot pink had to make people smile. “Mum, can I get you some tea?”

      “You can, daughter.” Mrs. Myers excused herself and followed Chelsea into the kitchen. “Quite the fun situation you’ve got going here.”

      “I suppose so. It’s really just going to be me and you, though. There’s a lovely creek, and the town is so pretty—”

      “I think you’re going to have your hands full.” Moira took the teacup Chelsea handed her, drinking appreciatively. “Ah, no one knows how to make a proper tea except you, daughter.”

      “You taught me everything I know, Mum.”

      Cat came into the kitchen, obviously hungry but not wanting to seem as if she was. She glanced at Mrs. Myers’s cup. “If that doesn’t have eye of newt in it, could I have some?”

      Chelsea laughed. “You never know around here, Cat. You’ll have to go on faith.”

      Cat took the cup she handed her, slurping it down quickly.

      “Oh, she’s hungry,” Moira said. “Chelsea, where are your manners, love? Bring out the frog-toes cookies and give some to Cat.”

      “Gross!” the girl exclaimed.

      Chelsea shook her head. “Mum,” she gently remonstrated, handing Cat a plate with three cookies on it. “There’s more, but you don’t want to ruin—”

      “My mom said this was going to be a backwater and that I’d probably have to eat some gross stuff, but I’m not eating frog toes,” Cat said. “And you can’t make me.”

      “These are homemade chocolate chip cookies, and you don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to.” Chelsea smiled at her.

      “You’re both weird,” Cat said, snatching the plate. “Why’d you say there were frog toes in the cookies?” she asked Moira.

      “You mentioned eye of newt,” Moira said, her tone pleasant. “Which of course brings to mind Shakespeare’s Macbeth. You know it, I’m sure. ‘Eye of newt, and toe of frog, wool of bat, and tongue of dog…’”

      “My mom is not going to be happy that I’m living with a bunch of weirdos,” Cat said, taking out a tongue piercing and laying it on the side of the china plate. “Mmm, these are pretty good.” She seemed pleased by the cookies, eagerly polishing them off.

      Gage hadn’t come into the kitchen. Chelsea figured he’d probably run for the hills, or maybe to the library for a How To Be a Father on the Fly parenting book. “Will you take this plate to your dad, Cat?”

      Cat looked at her. “I don’t—”

      “Sure, and that’s a good girl, now,” Moira said. “What a lovely lass you are, Cat.”

      Cat took the plate and left the kitchen, looking bemused, if not surprised, at the praise.

      “Now I see how you got me through my difficult teen years,” Chelsea said. “Have I ever apologized for being a handful?”

      “Chelsea, love,” Moira said, sipping her tea, “if anything, you’ve always been an angel. I owe you apologies for saddling you to a life that wasn’t like the other girls’. You could have done a lot more, if you hadn’t had me—”

      “Mum!” Chelsea exclaimed. “Don’t say it!”

      “Oh, well. It doesn’t matter anyway, does it?” Moira asked, taking a bite of a cookie. “I rather thought the eye of newt question was clever from the lass, didn’t you? She’s older than her years.”

      Chelsea shook her head. “I don’t know what to think. I guess we’ll see what happens.” She thought about Gage, wondering about last night. After their visit to Tempest’s house, he’d brought her home and said good-night—and promptly bunked on the sofa.

      It had rained all night, a vicious storm that cut the power—and Chelsea hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d huddled in her bed, staring out at the rain washing the windows in sheets, wondering why she was thinking about Gage when she should have been thinking about her plot.

      “He’s a handsome man, Chelsea. D’ya fancy him?”

      “No.” She shook her head. “Mum, we’re from opposite ends of the earth, trust me.”

      “Ah, well. So it goes.” Moira grinned. “Fiona said she was pretty certain the two of you might take a shine to each other. I guess she’d be wrong this time, eh?”

      “Definitely,” Chelsea said. “Don’t let the Callahan myth blind you to the fact that Gage isn’t the kind of man I need in my life.”

      “What do you need? Do you know?”

      Chelsea thought about Gage walking her through an old, falling-down house, making sure she didn’t step on firecrackers and dead mice. She thought about him shooting a snake that wanted to take a swim with her. “I need someone boring,” she said. “I want stable and boring.”

      Moira laughed. “Then that handsome rascal wouldn’t be the man for you.”

      “That’s right,” Chelsea said. “When I meet stable and boring, I’ll know.”

      * * *

      JUST GAZING AT HIS DAUGHTER gave Gage a little bit of the willies. What had Leslie been thinking, letting Cat look like this? Do this to herself?

      Chelsea and her mother hadn’t seemed too disturbed by Cat’s appearance. Maybe it was a girl thing. He was definitely out of his league with girl things, so he let his worry over this girl—his daughter—and her wild appearance go for the moment.

      He didn’t know what to say to her. What had come so easily for Chelsea and Moira didn’t come easily for him. The two of them sat on the front porch swing, miserably not speaking.

      “Guess you were surprised about me,” Cat said.

      Gage nodded. “It’s a good surprise, though.”

      Cat shook her head. “No, it’s not. Mom says you’re just an itin…itin—”

      “Itinerant,” Gage supplied, thinking that sounded like something Leslie would say.

      “Itinerant cowboy,” Cat said with a nod, “and that you’ve never had two nickels to rub together because you can’t keep a job. She said when you were together, you made mashed potatoes with water in them instead of milk because you were so poor.”

      He scratched the back of his neck, thinking that Leslie hadn’t managed to spare him. But maybe he didn’t deserve any sparing. “That’s all true, pretty much, though I do have two nickels.”

      Cat didn’t seem impressed. “How long am I staying here?”

      He shrugged. “I guess until school starts. You like your school, right?”

      “I don’t