Kayla's Cowboy. Callie Endicott
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itself, no matter how much she’d felt out of place.
“Where’s the bathroom?” DeeDee asked.
Elizabeth took her down the hall, then returned. “Kayla, dear, lie down on the couch and get some rest. DeeDee and I will put a meal together.”
“I should help or...” Kayla’s protest trailed. Now that she’d spoken to Alex, a different tension was asserting itself—the anticipation of facing the consequences of being in Schuyler again. All the same, she felt limp with exhaustion.
“Let it go for now,” urged her grandmother. “At least for today, someone has your back.”
Tears stung Kayla’s eyes again. Staying strong for her children was a necessary habit, particularly since the divorce, but she felt safe in her grandparents’ home and knew her son and daughter were just as safe. So she smiled wearily, kissed her grandmother on the cheek and sank onto the comfortable sofa. It wasn’t long before reality drifted away.
The clock was chiming two when she woke. Standing, she went down the bathroom and glanced into the mirror. Yikes, DeeDee would claim she looked worse than the cryptkeeper’s wife. Fetching her purse, she found a brush to tame her long auburn hair, though there wasn’t anything she could do about the circles under her blue eyes. She blinked. It had never occurred to her before, but she had her grandmother’s eyes. The resemblance pleased her.
Kayla washed her face and applied lip gloss, wishing makeup was her thing so she could use it to put on a brave face. Instead, she straightened and headed for the kitchen.
DeeDee looked up from her plate of spaghetti. “Hi, Mom. Grandma said to let you sleep. She told me you call them Grams and Granddad, but that we could say ‘Grandma’ and ‘Grandpa’ instead of saying ‘Great’ all the time.”
“Where is she?”
“Bringing in the wash or something.”
That was right. Elizabeth loved the smell of clothing hung out to dry in the fresh air.
Kayla served herself spaghetti and salad and began eating, the taste of her grandmother’s food carrying her into the past.
“I wanna go explore,” DeeDee said as she sucked a last strand of pasta into her mouth. “Can I walk downtown? Grandma says it’s only a couple of blocks.”
Kayla thought about it. She tried not to be overprotective. Fortunately her kids were growing up in better circumstances than she’d experienced during most of her own childhood, but there were still dangers, even in a town the size of Schuyler. Since the divorce, it had been even more of a challenge to find a workable balance. Nevertheless, DeeDee was very independent at almost ten, and would rebel if kept on too tight of a parental leash.
“Okay,” she told her daughter, “but you know the drill.”
DeeDee rolled her eyes. “I got my phone and I won’t let anyone close and will scream my head off if anyone tries to lay a finger on me.”
“And?” Kayla prompted.
“And I’ll be back in two hours and call in the middle to say I’m okay.”
“Then, have fun.”
“Grandma says there’s an ice cream parlor downtown called the Schuyler Soda Saloon.” DeeDee had a hopeful look in her eyes.
“You can get three dollars out of my purse to have a cone.”
“Thanks, Mom.” DeeDee dropped a kiss on her forehead and rushed away.
“It must be hard letting her out of your sight,” Elizabeth observed as she came through the screen door and put a basket of dry laundry on the chair next to Kayla.
Kayla picked up a towel and inhaled the scent of the warm Montana day. She glanced at her grandmother. “It’s never easy. I want to keep her safe at all costs, and then I try to let go, only to worry that I’m letting her have too much freedom.”
“I have a feeling you’re a pretty good mom.”
“Right. I have a fifteen-year-old son who ran away to Montana.”
“I know, but he let you know where he was going. Alex is a good kid. That can’t have changed because of one wild act.”
Wearily, Kayla ate her last bite of spaghetti and stood up. “I realize that. He’s never been rebellious. Art and history are his favorite subjects, and he’s strong enough not to be afraid of being labeled a geek. Not that he enjoys the teasing, but he shrugs it off.”
“Let’s get your luggage in from the car,” Elizabeth suggested after they’d cleaned the kitchen. “You’re staying for a while, aren’t you? Maybe a week or two?” she added hopefully.
“I suppose, if it won’t be inconvenient.”
“You could move in forever and we’d be thrilled.”
“That’s awfully nice of you.” Kayla had a life and a business in Seattle that she couldn’t abandon, but she could stay for a while and let her grandparents get acquainted with DeeDee and Alex. The milk had already been spilled, so there was nothing to do except mop it up. A wry smile crossed her lips. Funny how often her grandmother’s old sayings still cropped up in her mind.
“You’ll be in your mother’s old room. I’ve already got Alex in the guest room, but I thought DeeDee might enjoy the attic bedroom.”
When Kayla carried her suitcase into her mother’s childhood room, she saw nothing had changed there, either. Even the posters Mom had tacked up before she and Dad had run off to conquer the world still hung on the walls. Instead of conquering anything, her father had died in an industrial accident a year later, and Mom had started drinking to deal with her pain.
Was love really worth all the anguish? Kayla sometimes wondered about it. Teenagers could fall genuinely in love, the way her parents had, but her mother hadn’t been able to deal with losing that love. Kayla had believed she loved Jackson, but the feeling had vanished with his harsh rejection and the onset of morning sickness. As for her marriage...? She’d loved Curtis—or at least the man she’d thought he was—only to have him throw it all away.
A hint of melancholy went through Kayla as she unpacked the clothing she’d put together so hastily. She had built a good life, though it wasn’t what she’d imagined when she was little.
“You...um, haven’t asked about Jackson,” Elizabeth ventured as Kayla returned to the living room.
“To be honest, he’s low on my list of priorities,” she answered. Jackson was the past, and she’d learned to focus on the present. Unfortunately, she’d have to deal with him now. Coming back to Schuyler was going to present a stack of challenges. A number of people had seen Alex, and some of them must have recognized his likeness to Jackson McGregor. Word would probably get around. As a kid she might have done nothing and hoped for the best, but she couldn’t do that with two children to think about.
Kayla grinned wryly.
Being a mother changed everything.
Elizabeth patted her hand. “In that case, how about a chocolate soda at the Schuyler Soda Saloon?”
Nostalgia made Kayla smile. Between her grandfather’s passion for huge bowls of ice cream and her grandmother’s penchant for having it in soda, she’d been well supplied with treats while living in Schuyler.
“It sounds good,” she agreed, “but I want to stop at Granddad’s office and see Alex first.”
“Sure, honey. I figured that’s what you’d want.”
Walking toward town with her grandmother was another echo from the past.
“In a way, it doesn’t seem that long since we last did this,” Elizabeth said, clearly thinking the same thing. “In others, it seems a century. So...um, how is your mother?”
Kayla made