The Cowboy's Lesson in Love Read online

  Until she had a reason.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Miss Joan told her. “Just don’t let another ten years go by between visits.” She looked at the elementary school teacher knowingly. “I take it you didn’t drop by to see if my hair was still as red as you remember.” The laugh was dismissive. “Your cousin could have told you that.”

  Well, nothing had changed. The woman never did stand on polite ceremony or beat around the bush, Wynona thought. Taking a breath, she launched into the reason she had finally dropped by.

  “I came to ask you what you know about Clint Washburn,” she said honestly.

  “Runs a ranch with his brother that their father left them before he could drink it out from under them,” she said, reciting the information as if she was talking about the number of eggs that were still in her refrigerator after breakfast had finished being served. Her eyes looked into Wynona’s. “You want to know about the wife, don’t you?” Miss Joan said.

  There was no point in pretending the question surprised her. “Whatever you can tell me,” Wynona replied honestly.

  Miss Joan took a cup out from beneath the counter and placed it in front of Wynona. Reaching for the coffeepot, she poured the dark brew into the cup. Done, she placed a coffee creamer next to the cup, along with a couple of packets of sugar.

  “She ran off, leaving him to raise their son. Kid was little more than an infant at the time. Nine months, if I remember correctly.” She shook her head. “Never knew what Clint thought he saw in that woman.” She laughed shortly; there was no humor in it. “I guess the poor guy was just looking to have a family of his own.” She pressed her lips together, shaking her head again. “Couldn’t see past her face, otherwise he would have been able to see how empty she was.”

  “Empty?” Wynona repeated, trying to understand what Miss Joan was saying.

  “The woman had no character,” the older woman explained. “No values. Susan’s world revolved around just herself, nobody else. The girl thought she was too good to live here. She wanted something else out of life than just being a rancher’s wife. Or a mother,” Miss Joan added.

  Anger furrowed her brow and Wynona could see that it was directed toward Clint’s absent ex-wife.

  “Clint’s a smart man but he never saw it coming.” Very thin shoulders rose and fell helplessly. “Guess some people just don’t see what they don’t want to.”

  Wynona only had one more question to ask. “Does he know where she is?”

  “Nobody does.” Miss Joan’s voice all but shouted, “Good riddance.”

  “Last anyone heard,” she continued, “Susan was on her way out to California. I have no idea if she ever got there.” Miss Joan paused, a fisted hand on her hip as she looked at Wynona. “Why aren’t you asking him these questions?”

  “I’m just trying to satisfy my curiosity,” Wynona answered. “As for Clint, he already thinks that I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong when I managed to get him to come to Open School Night for Ryan’s sake.”

  Listening, Miss Joan nodded her head in approval. “Gotta say that’s pretty impressive, Wynona, getting Clint to do that. That man isn’t the kind to be browbeaten or give in if he doesn’t want to.” She paused, appearing to size Wynona up. Wynona did her best to meet the woman’s gaze head-on and not squirm. “Anything else you want to know?”

  “No, not right now,” Wynona told her. “But if I do,” she added with a smile, “I know who to come to.”

  Miss Joan accepted the response. “Okay, then. And next time,” she cautioned by way of a footnote, “don’t be such a stranger. I remember you when you couldn’t see over the counter.”

  That was the woman’s way of reminding her that they had history, Wynona thought. “I can see over it now,” Wynona replied cheerfully.

  “All the more reason to come by,” Miss Joan told her before she turned her attention to tend to another customer.

  Wynona opened her purse, about to leave money on the counter to pay for her half-finished coffee.

  As if sensing what she was doing, Miss Joan turned her head and gave her a sharp look over her shoulder.

  “Did I say anything about paying?” she asked the younger woman.

  “No, but—”

  “Then put that away,” the older woman ordered. With that, she went back to the other customer.

  It was nice to know that there were some things that just didn’t change, Wynona thought as she left the diner.

  Once outside the diner, she went to her car. Miss Joan hadn’t told her anything that she didn’t already know, thanks to Clint’s brother. What she had decided to ascertain was that there wasn’t anything else that had been omitted, like Clint trying to track his ex-wife down and bring her back.

  If he had made the attempt to do that, Wynona was certain that Miss Joan would have known. It never occurred to Wynona to question that belief.

  Or to question the information the woman gave her.

  The confirmation of the information just succeeded in making Wynona more determined than ever to make sure that Clint became the father that Ryan needed.

  What today also did was make her determined to make Clint come around and rejoin the land of the living. As far as she was concerned, Clint Washburn had been in solitary confinement much too long. Granted that his imprisonment had been of his own making, but that didn’t change the fact that he needed to wake up. Not just for his son’s sake, but for his own, as well.

  Wynona set her mouth, making a decision. Clint Washburn had just become her newest project.

  * * *

  Clint was not so withdrawn from the immediate world that he didn’t notice it. Notice that his son was becoming and acting more like a real boy with each day that passed. The evidence was blatant in everything he did.

  When he came home from school, Ryan talked now. Talked about his day, about what had happened at school. He talked about the kids he interacted with in class. Nothing went unsaid.

  It slowly dawned on Clint that his son sounded as if he actually had friends, other children whom he talked to and seemed to be getting along with.

  Clint pretended it made no difference to him, but it did and eventually, he stopped pretending because the reality was he wasn’t fooling himself.

  He liked the fact that his once quiet, withdrawn son had friends.

  Having Ryan chattering to him, to Roy, to Jake and to Lucia a good deal of the time—while he did chores, while at the table and just about anytime in between—was a little more difficult for him to finally wrap his head around and get used to, but he was getting there. Faster than he’d thought.

  However, the part he found the hardest for him to get used to was when the boy talked about his teacher, the woman who had had such an effect on him and had, quite literally, changed the course of his life.

  “And she has a dog,” Ryan was saying this particular evening at the dinner table as he once again sang the praises of his teacher. He turned to look at his father. “Did you know she had a dog, Dad?”

  Suddenly realizing that his son was waiting for an answer, Clint said, “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, she does,” Ryan confided, launching into a further narrative. “It’s a girl dog. Her name is Belle. And she’s smart and pretty, like Miss Chee. Except she doesn’t have fur,” Ryan specified. “Miss Chee, not the dog,” Ryan said quickly in case his father wasn’t following him. “And she does tricks. Belle, not Miss Chee,” he felt duty bound to distinguish.

  “Did Miss Chee tell you the dog does tricks?” Roy asked, interjecting his two cents into the conversation.

  “No, I saw Belle doing tricks,” Ryan answered with excitement. “The whole class did. Miss Chee brought Belle to class today so we could all meet her.” And just like that, he rerouted his conversation. “Can we get a dog, Dad?” he asked, looking at his father with the same hop
eful eyes he’d turned on him when he’d asked his father to attend Open School Night.

  “We’ve got horses and cattle,” Clint said with a note of finality, as if that simple fact should be enough for his son.

  But it was obvious that Ryan definitely had other ideas.

  “And a dog could help us,” Ryan told him. “If we got a dog like the one Miss Chee has, he could help herd the cattle. Maybe even the horses, too,” the boy added.

  He never took his eyes away from his father’s face, as if confident that he could stare him down and make his father relent.

  Clint wanted to say no. He had neither the time nor the inclination to add a dog to his household.

  But the look on his son’s face made the word no just impossible to utter, no matter how much Clint wanted to.

  What the hell had that teacher done to him? Clint silently demanded. How had the woman managed to turn everything upside down and short-circuit his world in such a short space of time?

  He wasn’t himself.

  Clint frowned. He needed to have it out with Wynona Chee. Needed to tell her to stop putting ideas into his son’s head. She needed to stick to educating her students and not finding ways to try to rearrange their lives the way she was obviously attempting to do with Ryan’s.

  Without warning, Ryan’s high-pitched voice pierced through the thoughts that were building up in his head.

  “Could we have her out here for dinner again, Dad?” his son asked out of the blue, managing to completely surprise him.

  “Yeah, can we, Dad?” Roy asked, unable to hide his grin as he added his voice to his nephew’s.

  The rather knowing expression on Roy’s face got under his skin.

  In response, Clint gave his brother a look that silently ordered him to knock it off. But apparently, the message was not being received because Roy just went on grinning at him as he said, “I think it’s a good idea.”

  “You want to see the woman,” Clint snapped, “do it on your own time.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryan’s face fall. The boy looked crushed. This time, when his son asked, the enthusiasm had left his voice. Instead, it was replaced with a serious, somewhat sorrowful note.

  “Can’t we have her here so that all three of us can see her, Dad?” he asked, never taking his eyes off his father’s face.

  And then Lucia added her voice to the conversation. “I could make her stew,” the housekeeper volunteered. “She liked it the last time she was here.”

  “The only time she was here,” Clint reminded the woman.

  The words seemed to have no effect on his housekeeper. They certainly weren’t registering with her, he thought darkly.

  Neither were they registering with his brother or, more important, with his son. Clint felt like the ground under his feet was quickly turning into quicksand and despite all of his best efforts, he found himself sinking fast.

  “I’ll think about it, okay?” he finally said to his son, thinking that would be the end of it, at least for a while.

  “Okay.” Ryan paused for a moment, then in all innocence asked, “When will you be finished thinking about it so you can say yes?”

  Roy laughed, tickled at the boy’s response. “He’s got you there.”

  When had all this happened? Clint wondered. A few months ago if he said no to something, whether to his son, his brother or the other two people at the ranch, it remained no. There were no attempts to get him to change his mind or reconsider. Certainly no hope of getting him to actually say yes to something like having a woman sit down at their table who wasn’t Lucia.

  How had things changed so quickly?

  “Maybe she’s too busy to come to dinner,” Clint finally said to his son. “Remember, she’s got a lot of students.”

  Ryan had an answer for that, too. “She told the class she’d never be too busy for us.”

  If his intention was to play fair, then he knew he was losing, Clint thought. Moreover, he had the feeling that Ryan would only keep after him until he finally agreed to this fool notion.

  He was never going to have any peace until then.

  “I can ask her for you,” Ryan volunteered. “Tomorrow, before class, I can—”

  “If anyone is going to ask your Miss Chee to come to dinner, it’ll be me,” Clint said. He meant that to terminate the discussion.

  Instead, it elicited a wide smile and a happy squeal. “Thanks, Dad!” Ryan cried.

  Clint opened his mouth to protest that there was nothing to thank him for, but then he shut it again. He recalled something that Wynona had said to him. She’d said that Ryan saw him as his hero, or words to that effect. For now he decided to just bask in that light.

  Maybe tomorrow he’d think of a reason not to invite the teacher to his table.

  Chapter Twelve

  Clint gave in. This invitation to the teacher seemed to mean a great deal to Ryan. And even if the boy didn’t say anything, he knew that both his brother and the housekeeper would.

  It wasn’t a battle worth fighting.

  Clint made up his mind. If he was going to extend the invitation to the teacher to have dinner at his ranch, he was not about to do it by phone. Though in the long run it was easier that way, it was, in his estimation, the coward’s way out.

  And having Ryan invite his teacher the way the boy had eagerly volunteered to do somehow just didn’t seem right, either. It seemed to supersede his authority. So Clint went back to his initial conclusion on the matter. The invitation needed to come from him, verbally, on a face-to-face basis.

  Even so, Clint found himself coming up with spur-of-the-moment reasons not to go see her. But he could see his son becoming more antsy with each passing day. He knew it would only be a matter of time before the boy jumped the gun and did the asking himself, so finally, on Wednesday afternoon, Clint got behind the wheel of his truck and pointed the vehicle toward town.

  “Hey,” Roy called, coming up to the driver’s side. “If you’re going into town for something, I can go in your place.” Unlike him, his brother looked for any excuse to drive into Forever.

  “No,” Clint answered, setting his jaw hard, “you can’t.”

  And he drove away, terminating the discussion.

  He’d come close, Clint thought, to handing over what he viewed as his “task” to his brother.

  Even now, as he got closer to town, he couldn’t believe that he was actually willingly doing this.

  “It’s just a dinner for the boy’s sake,” he muttered to himself. “That’s all.”

  Under no circumstances could this be viewed as a date, he thought angrily. He’d sworn that he would never put himself into that sort of a situation again, a situation that allowed a woman the power to crush him into the ground the way Susan had ultimately wound up doing to him.

  Besides, Clint reminded himself, he and the teacher weren’t going to be alone at dinner. There was going to be a full house present. Ryan, Roy, his other ranch hand, Jake, and even Lucia would be there with them. Lucia might be making the dinner but he was going to insist that she sit down at the table with them. The more people there, the better.

  No one in their right mind could possibly think of this as a “date.”

  He realized he was grinding his teeth and consciously made an effort to stop.

  The refrain that this was not a date was still going through his head like a steady drumbeat when he pulled into Forever.

  There seemed to be more people in town than usual, especially on a weekday. He scanned the area. A lot more, he observed. Rather than giving the impression that they were all about personal errands, he saw people gathering together, conferring intensely.

  Something was up and Clint idly wondered what it was. Was there something he should be aware of? The sky looked too clear for there to be a storm coming.

&nb
sp; Then what?

  Reaching his destination, he parked his truck in front of the elementary school and got out. He stopped the first person who crossed his path, a man he vaguely recognized as being one of the people who worked in the general store.

  If it hadn’t been for the charged electricity in the air, Clint might have just ignored what was going on. But something seemed to be happening and he found he couldn’t turn his back on it.

  That had been Wynona’s work.

  The man he recognized from the general store had a bunch of flyers in his hands. Clint deliberately stopped him and asked, “What’s going on?”

  The man, Jason Rivers, looked at him as if he thought Clint had been living under a rock.

  “Haven’t you heard?” he asked with a look of disbelief on his craggy face. “Tyler Hale is missing.”

  The name meant nothing to Clint. But before he could ask Jason who Tyler was, the man pushed one of the flyers into his hands.

  “We’re putting together search parties to look for him.” Jason paused only long enough to tap the page before moving on. “He’s been gone since yesterday.”

  Clint scanned the page to fill in the rest of the information.

  The boy, who was the same age as his son, seemed to have disappeared on his way home from school. The photo and description nudged forward no memories for him as he committed the former to memory.

  Still holding the flyer in his hand, Clint walked into the school. He just wanted to get the invitation over with.

  When he found Wynona, she was just leaving her classroom. Moving quickly, he got in front of her. She didn’t look surprised to see him, which gave him pause until she said, “You’ve come to join the search.”

  The amount of relief and welcoming in her voice caught him totally off guard. For a second Clint didn’t know how to respond. Saying no seemed rather heartless under the circumstances, but just saying yes was nothing short of a lie and he didn’t believe in lying.