The Cowboy Next Door & Jenna's Cowboy Hero. Brenda Minton

don’t seem restless.”

      “Really? And what makes you think you know anything about me?” He straightened, tall and all cowboy in new Wranglers and worn boots. His western shirt was from the mall, not the farm store.

      Contradictions. And she loved a mystery.

      “So, tell me.” She waited, holding the baby in the crook of her arm, but dropping the diaper bag.

      “I grew up on a farm in a small town, Lacey. I wanted to live in the city, to experience life in an apartment with close neighbors.”

      “And you loved it?” She smiled, because he couldn’t have.

      He grinned back at her. “I did, for a while. But then the new wore off and it was just noise, traffic and the smell of exhaust.”

      “So you came home because you got tired of city life?”

      “I came home.” And he didn’t finish, but she knew that he’d come home because of a broken heart. Sometimes she saw it in his eyes. Sometimes he looked like someone who had been broken, but was gluing the pieces back together.

      “Your parents are glad.”

      “I know they are.” He slipped the reins over the neck of the horse. “And Lacey, before you start thinking I’m one of those poor strays behind the diner, I’m not. Cindy didn’t break my heart.”

      He winked. For a moment she almost believed that his heart hadn’t been broken. For a fleeting second she wanted to hold him. To be held by a cowboy with strong arms and roots that went deep in a community.

      “I didn’t…” She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t need to know? Or she didn’t plan on trying to fix him?

      “You did. Your eyes get all weepy and you look like you’ve found someone who needs fixing. I don’t. I’m glad to be home.”

      He was standing close to her, and she hadn’t realized before that his presence would suck the air out of her space, not until that moment. Her lungs tightened inside her chest and she took a step back, kissing the baby’s head to distract her thoughts from the man, all cowboy, standing in front of her.

      He cocked his head to the side and his mouth opened, but then closed and he shook his head. “I need to find Cody.”

      “Of course.” She backed away. “I’ll meet up with you later.”

      And later she would have her thoughts back in control and she wouldn’t be thinking of him as the cowboy who picked up those silly dog figurines and put them back on the shelf while she swept up the pieces of what had been broken.

       Chapter Five

      Lacey hurried away, ignoring the desire to glance over her shoulder, to see if he was watching. He wouldn’t watch. He would get on his horse, shaking his head because she had climbed into his life that way.

      She had no business messing in his life; she was a dirty sock, mistakenly tossed in the basket with the clean socks. She couldn’t hide from reality.

      Jay was the round peg in the round hole. He fit. He was a part of Gibson and someday, he’d marry a girl from Gibson. And Lacey didn’t know why that suddenly bothered her, or why it bothered her that when he looked at her, it was with that look, the one that said she was the community stray, taken in and fed, given a safe place to stay.

      The way she fed stray cats behind the diner.

      “Hey, Lacey, up here.”

      She looked up, searching the crowd. When she saw Bailey, she waved. Bailey had a seat midway up the bleachers, with a clear view of the chutes. Lacey climbed the steps and squeezed past a couple of people to take a seat next to her friend.

      “I didn’t expect to see you here.” Bailey held her hands out and took the baby, her own belly growing rounder every day.

      “Long story.” Lacey searched the crowd of men behind the pens. She sought a tall cowboy wearing a white hat, his shirt plaid. She found him, standing next to the buckskin and talking to one of the other guys.

      “Make it a short story and fill me in.” Bailey leaned a shoulder against Lacey’s. “You okay?”

      “Hmmm?” Lacey nodded. She didn’t want to talk, not here, with hundreds of people surrounding them, eating popcorn or cotton candy and drinking soda from paper cups.

      “Are you okay?” Louder voice now, a little impatient.

      “I’m great.” Lacey leaned back on the bleacher seat. “My sister wrecked my house and she’s passed out in my bed. The cowboy that lives down the lane treats me like an interloper. I’m living in his grandparents’ house, and he doesn’t want me there.”

      “He brought you tonight.”

      “He did. I’m a charity case. He felt bad because Corry broke my dogs.”

      Bailey nodded. “He’s about to ride a bull. But since you’ve sworn off men, I guess that doesn’t matter to you?”

      “I have a reason for swearing off men. I’m never going to be the type of woman a man takes home to meet his family.”

      “Lance has problems, Lacey. That isn’t about you, it’s about him.”

      “It is about me. It takes a lot for anyone to understand where I’ve been and what I’ve done. I’m ashamed of the life I lived, so why should I expect a man to blindly accept my past?”

      “You’re forgetting what God has done in your life. You’re forgetting what He can still do. You’re not a finished product. None of us are. Our stories are still being written.”

      “No, I’m not forgetting.” Lacey looked away, because she couldn’t admit that sometimes she wondered how God could forgive. How could He take someone as dirty as she felt and turn them into someone people respected?

      She worked really hard trying to be that person that others respected.

      The bulls ran through the chutes. Lacey leaned back, watching as cowboy after cowboy got tossed. Each time one of them hit the dirt, she cringed. She didn’t really want to ride a bull.

      “Jay’s up.” Bailey pointed. Taller than the other bull riders, he stood on the outside of the chute. The bull moved in the chute, a truck-sized animal, pawing the ground.

      “I really don’t want to watch.”

      “It isn’t easy.” Bailey shifted Rachel, now sleeping, on her shoulder. “It doesn’t get easier. Every time I watch Cody ride, I pray, close my eyes, peek, pray some more.”

      “Yes, but you love Cody.”

      “True. The cowboy in question is just your neighbor.”

      “Exactly.” Lacey laughed and glanced at Bailey, willing to give her friend what she wanted to hear. “He’s cute, Bailey, I’m not denying that. But I’m not looking for cute.”

      “Of course not.”

      “I’m not looking—period.”

      “But it is okay to look.” Bailey smiled a happy smile and elbowed Lacey. “There he goes.”

      The gate opened and the bull spun out of the opening, coming up off the ground like a ballet dancer. Amazing that an animal so huge could move like that. The thud when the beast came down jarred the man on his back and Jay fell back, moving his free arm forward.

      The buzzer sounded and Jay jumped, landing clear of the animal, but hitting the ground hard. The bull didn’t want to let it go. The animal turned on Jay, charging the cowboy, who was slow getting up.

      A bullfighter jumped between the beast and the man, giving Jay just