The Cowboy's Christmas Courtship. Brenda Minton

let him drop into his chair. Layla hurried to separate the two of them.

      “Gage, you should go.”

      Gage looked long at her brother and then at her. “Layla, you deserve more respect than that. More than either of us has shown you.”

      “He’s a kid. He’s made mistakes.”

      “He needs someone to yank a knot in his tail.”

      “It won’t be you. He’s my brother and we’re handling things.”

      “Of course you are.” He looked around and she knew that he was seeing the ramshackle house for what it was. The kitchen appliances were on their last legs. The floors were sagging in spots. Insulation was nonexistent. Wind blew in through the windows strong enough to move the curtains.

      “We are.” But she was barely holding it together at the moment. She knew how to be strong. But she didn’t know how to accept his sympathy.

      Gage leaned over Brandon again. “If I ever hear you talk to your sister like that again, you’ll answer to me.”

      “Whatever.” Her brother turned his head.

      Gage let out a long sigh and pushed his cup in front of Brandon. “I’ll take a rain check on the tea.”

      Layla nodded, too stunned to find the right words. She watched Gage shove his hat back on his head and walk slowly down the hall to the front door. A minute later his truck started, and she knew he was gone.

      The fight left her in one fell swoop. She sat down at the table and reached for the steaming cup of green tea. Brandon leaned forward and lost his lunch all over the kitchen floor.

      She was handling things.

      She was handling being a single parent to a rebellious teenager. She was handling the bills that had to be paid. And somehow she would handle Gage Cooper being back in town.

      Chapter Two

      Gage rolled up the drive to Cooper Creek. He breathed in and out slowly, trying to let go of the urge to go back and beat some sense into Brandon Silver. But that would put him smack-dab in the middle of Layla’s life, and that obviously wasn’t where he wanted to be. Layla was the kind of woman a man married. He made a habit of staying away from the marrying kind.

      He parked next to his brother Jackson’s truck and got out. For a minute he stood in the driveway looking up at the big old house where he’d grown up. In a week it would be hung with lights and trimmed with red bows. His mom sure loved Christmas. And she loved her family.

      He took off his hat and scratched his head. He didn’t know why that love had been feeling like a noose for the past year or so. Maybe because it had felt like he couldn’t meet any of the expectations placed on him. As he walked up the steps, the front door opened. His mom stood in the doorway, her smile huge. She wasn’t a big lady but sometimes she seemed like a giant. She had a way of being strong and in control, even with a bunch of men in the family towering over her.

      “It’s about time.” She smiled, and he smiled back.

      “I haven’t been gone that long.”

      “Since summer.” She grabbed him in a big hug. “I thought you’d be here an hour ago. I was starting to worry. I even called your cell phone.”

      “I left it in my truck.”

      “Weren’t you in your truck?” She pulled him inside. “Where were you?”

      “Helping Layla Silver put some cattle in.”

      His mom’s smile dissolved. “She’s had a rough time of it lately. Word around town is that Brandon has been pulling some capers.”

      Capers. That was his mom’s way of saying the kid was in deep trouble.

      “What kind of capers?”

      “Stealing, setting hay on fire and vandalizing. But he hasn’t been caught, so it’s all just hearsay.”

      “Well, right now he’s sitting in her kitchen drunk.”

      “I’ve heard that, too. And it’s a shame. His daddy was a horrible alcoholic before that accident. They say he was drunk that night.”

      “I know.” He didn’t need to hear the story again. He didn’t need to relive his own guilt again. “What’s for dinner?”

      Change of subject. His mom looked up at him, her smile fading into a frown. “I thought we were discussing Layla?”

      “I know what we were doing. Now we’re avoiding discussing Layla.”

      He’d like to avoid reliving his past and all of his mistakes in the first few hours of returning home. There wasn’t a thing he could do about what he’d done. He couldn’t do anything about the injustices in the world, when guys like him walked through life without a bump or bruise while the good guys took the hits.

      Good guys, like his brother Reese, blinded after an explosion in Afghanistan. Gage was not on good terms with God right now, and Reese was the big reason why.

      The last thing he wanted to think about was Layla, and how he’d become her friend because Cheryl Gayle wouldn’t talk to him. Finally, after a few short dates with Cheryl, he’d realized his mistake. She’d been pretty—and pretty close to annoying.

      And he’d missed Layla. He always thought she’d be married by now. If things had been different, she probably would have been.

      “Gage, I’m glad you’re home,” Angie Cooper said, reading the look on his face.

      “I’m glad I’m home, too.” He walked with her through the big living room. In a few days they’d put up a tree. Not a real one. They’d changed to fake trees the year his brother Travis met Elizabeth. Her allergies had almost done her in that first Christmas.

      Now the wagon ride they used to take to cut down a tree was just a wagon ride. They would all pile in the two wagons, take a ride through the field and then come home to hot cocoa and cookies. Family traditions. The Coopers did love them.

      He wasn’t crazy about them. He’d been living in Oklahoma City off and on. Had even spent some time down in Texas. Anything to avoid coming home.

      “It was good to have Dad out there for the last night of the finals.” It had been even better to wake up in the hospital and see his dad sitting next to the bed.

      “He was thrilled that he could be there. And so proud of you. But I would have liked for you to come home and have the surgery here instead of in Texas.” His mom touched his arm. “How is Dylan?”

      Dylan was a year older than Gage, and the two brothers had always been close. Dylan had been living in Texas for about a year, avoiding the family. Mainly because he had known they wouldn’t understand what he was doing. “Mom, he’ll be home as soon as he can.”

      “Why is he doing this?”

      “Because Casey is his friend, and she needs someone to help her while she goes through chemo. She doesn’t have family.”

      “I know but it’s a big responsibility for a young man.”

      “He’s twenty-eight, and you’ve taught us all to help those in need.”

      “It’s one lesson you’ve all learned.” She hooked her arm through his. “Jackson is here.”

      “Good. I meant to tell him about a few bulls that are going up for sale.”

      “You boys and those bucking bulls.” She shook her head. He didn’t mind that she didn’t get it. She got just about everything else that mattered. Before she walked away he hugged her again.

      “I’ve missed you.”

      She smiled at that, “I’ve missed you, too. Sometimes I don’t know if you