Falling for the Cowboy Dad
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Patricia Johns
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Chapter One
GRACE BEVERLY TACKED the last finger painting to the corkboard, then stepped down off the footstool. She smoothed her hands over her hips and surveyed her work. This classroom wasn’t hers—not officially. She was only covering for the full-time preschool teacher’s maternity leave, and she had a little over two weeks left here. But she’d gotten attached to this classroom with the sand table, the reading carpet in the middle, the puppet theater in the corner...and the twenty-three little live wires she was teaching every day.
Grace had grown up in Eagle’s Rest, Colorado, and she’d come back for this temporary job. Teaching positions were hard to come by lately, and she hoped some experience on her résumé would help with that. In three weeks, she’d be covering another maternity leave in Denver, and she’d applied for multiple full-time positions for September, but there would be hundreds of applicants. She needed a full-time teaching position if she was going to have any kind of financial stability, but her chances were slim. Fingers crossed.
Grace picked up an errant hand puppet and returned it to the proper box. Then she pulled her fingers through her long chestnut waves. By the end of a day with twenty-three preschoolers, her feet ached in her high heels, but her heart was full.
A tap on the door drew her attention, and she turned as the school principal came into the room. Mrs. Mackel was middle-aged and had a kind smile. The principal had a little blonde girl at her side—a wisp of a thing with big blue eyes and small hands clutched in front of her.
“Hello, Miss Beverly,” Mrs. Mackel said with a smile. “We have a new student starting tomorrow, and she and her dad wanted to say hello.”
“Hi there,” Grace said with a smile. “I’m Miss Beverly, and it looks like I’m the lucky teacher, doesn’t it?”
A small smile tickled the corners of the little girl’s mouth. But those round blue eyes remained solemn and cautious.
“What’s your name?” Grace asked softly.
There was silence from the child, but a deep voice behind the principal said, “Poppy Austin.”
Grace froze, her heart skipping a beat, then hammering to catch up. Her gaze whipped up as a familiar man stepped into the room. “Billy?”
“Hey.” He smiled, that same lopsided grin of his that had always made her melt. He was tall and lanky, with broad shoulders and dark brown eyes... He pulled his cowboy hat off, revealing close-cropped hair, and tucked the hat under one arm. “When they said Grace Beverly was teaching preschool, I couldn’t believe my luck.”
“Yes, well...” Grace looked toward the principal, who was watching them with a mildly curious expression. “Billy and I were friends,” she explained.
“Well, I’ll let you catch up, then,” Mrs. Mackel said with a nod. “Poppy here is starting in your class tomorrow, and she’s had a lot of change lately. So we’ll have to take that into account.” To Billy, she said, “But I think she’ll have a wonderful time in Miss Beverly’s room.” Then Mrs. Mackel bent down to Poppy’s level. “And you can come say hello to me any time you like.”
“Okay,” Poppy whispered.
Mrs. Mackel straightened herself and shook Billy’s hand. “Feel free to stop by if you have any more questions, Mr. Austin.”
Billy thanked her, and Mrs. Mackel left the classroom. Silence closed around them, and Grace regarded her old friend. It had only been three years since she’d seen him last, but he’d aged. There was a sprinkling of premature gray at his temples, and some lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
“What do you mean, we were friends,” Billy said. “You’re talking like that friendship is in the past.”
It was in the past, but maybe Billy was the last to figure that out. When Billy left town with Grace’s best friend, Tracy, three years ago, Grace had made the painful choice to cut contact with both of them. It wasn’t the easiest decision, but it was probably the healthiest. She’d been in love with Billy from afar for too long, and watching him build a life with the vivacious Tracy—that was too much. Grace doubted that either of them had noticed when she stopped talking to them.
“Sorry, I’m just surprised to see you,” Grace replied.
“So, you’re teaching here now?” Billy asked.
“I’m covering a maternity leave. The regular teacher will be back in two weeks,” Grace said. “Mrs. Mackel mentioned a lot of change for Poppy, so I’m afraid there will be a little more...” Grace looked down at the girl, who was looking around the classroom, her thoughts spinning to catch up. A daughter...? Where had she come from? “Billy, I had no idea—”
Billy cleared his throat and glanced down at Poppy. “Neither did I, but I think Poppy and I are going to be okay. Don’t you think, kiddo?”
The little girl looked up mutely at her father, and he shot her a reassuring grin.
Now was not the time to ask more questions, so Grace turned her attention to Poppy. “Would you like to see some of the fun things we have in our classroom? Come on. I’ll show you.” Grace held out a hand, and Poppy tentatively took it. “This is our sand table. It’s fun to play in, and when you feel anxious, you can use this rake to make nice lines. It feels good. Do you want to try?”
Poppy took the rake and made some slow strokes across the sand. “Will I learn things?”
“All sorts of things!” Grace said. “We’re learning our colors, and our animals—”
“Daddy said I can learn calculus,” she said softly.
“Your daddy is a funny guy.” Grace chuckled, but when she looked up, Billy hadn’t cracked a smile.
“That’s the thing...” Billy nodded toward the other side of the room. “Can we talk over there?”
Grace glanced between Billy and Poppy. Billy as a dad—it was hard to imagine. Besides, Billy had gotten together with Tracy three years ago, and this child would be at least four... Grace followed Billy to the other side of the room. “What’s going on, exactly?” she asked quietly.
“She’s...” Billy shrugged. “She’s smart.”
“They all are, Billy,” Grace replied with a small smile. “Way smarter than adults give them credit for.”
“No, I mean, like...crazy smart,” Billy said, locking her down with his dark gaze. “Here’s the thing. Her mother announced I had a daughter and dumped her on my doorstep on the same day. Carol-Ann and I only dated for a summer, five years ago—remember when I went to work that ranch in South Colorado? Anyway, I had no idea she’d gotten pregnant. She tracked me down in Denver, said she had this modeling gig she couldn’t pass up and told me it was my turn with Poppy. Carol-Ann is in Germany right now.”
“Modeling, apparently,” Grace said dryly.
“Apparently.”
They exchanged a look, and for a split second, it felt like the old days, when she and Billy were best friends and could finish each other’s sentences. Before he fell in love with Tracy. She tore her gaze away from him.
“Wow...” Grace cleared her throat. “So, where is Tracy, then?”
“Tracy left me when she found out about all of this,” Billy replied. “That’s why I’m back in Eagle’s Rest. I need help. I can’t raise a daughter alone, so I came home. And it turns out that Poppy is strangely brilliant. She’s only four, and she reads anything she can get her hands on. You know me—I never was the intellectual sort. I have no idea what else I can teach her, and I’ve only had her for two weeks! She’s desperate to learn and she misses her mom something fierce.” Billy heaved a sigh. “I was joking about the calculus, but she wasn’t. I don’t know what to say.”
“Tracy left you?” Grace’s emotions were still stuck on that part of his story. Her best friend had known about her feelings for Billy, but when Billy showed interest in Tracy, all bets were off. She’d sopped him up like gravy with a dinner roll, and the couple had moved to Denver. It all happened so fast, Grace’s head had spun.
“I’m not saying Tracy and I were on great terms before Carol-Ann showed up, and I guess it was the last straw. She said she hadn’t signed on to be a stepmom.” He shrugged weakly, and when he looked across the room toward his daughter, Grace saw the tenderness in his eyes. His chiseled features softened into a look of protective pride.
“You’re smitten,” Grace said.
“Yeah...” Billy smiled, then glanced back toward Grace. “I’m a dad. Can you believe that? It’s pretty huge.”
“It really is,” she agreed. “And she’s adorable.”
He nodded. “Honestly, I’m here to give Poppy a stable life. Social services is going to check in on me to make sure everything is running smoothly, and I guess they’ll be judging my parenting abilities, too.”
“You’ll be fine,” she said.
“I have no idea what I’m doing,” he retorted. “None. First of all, she’s a little girl! I hardly know how to deal with women, let alone the pint-size version. And she’s just so smart...”
“You’ll do what everyone else does,” she replied with a shrug. “You’ll figure it out.”
They exchanged another look, one that made Grace’s heart squeeze in her chest. He’d always been able to make her feel that way. There was something about those dark eyes, his playful smile, his cheeky banter... But no matter how he made her heart flutter, she’d just been “good old faithful Grace” to him. She’d been there for him through thick and thin, and he’d never once seen her as more than a friend. She’d never told him how she felt.
“I’m just really glad to see you, Gracie,” Billy said with a smile. “I missed you.”
It wasn’t fair, because when he said he missed her, he meant it in a casual sense. He missed having that loyal friend always ready to hang out with him, help him out when he was in a bind and watch movies with him on a weekend. He missed the friendship, but she missed something much deeper than a pal—she missed him, his heart. His way of seeing things, the way he’d lean close and nudge her with his elbow when he was making a joke...
She pulled her mind out of the past and forced a smile. “I’ve got two weeks here, and then I’m heading back to the city.”
It was a reminder for herself as much as for him, because she was going to keep him firmly at arm’s length. Billy Austin was her weakness, and she wasn’t willing to lose her heart to him all over again. She’s spent too many years in love with the man, only to watch him fall for the more beautiful, funnier, more spirited Tracy Ellison. Grace had learned a lot through that process—the most important lesson being that she was tired of being the best friend. She was tired of being seen as a buddy instead of as a woman. And she wasn’t going to apologize for her figure, her looks, her personality or anything else about her that shuffled her off to the friend zone over and over again with Billy Austin.
It was a painful lesson, but a necessary one. Grace was a different woman now, and if Billy thought they could just pick up where they’d left off, he’d better think again.
“DADDY, COME SEE!” Poppy called from the sand table.
Daddy. It still felt weird to be called that, but Billy liked it more than he ever imagined he would. He was this little girl’s dad—the muscle-bound bodyguard who stood between her and an unfair world.
Billy glanced over at Grace. It was really good to see her again. With that glossy brown hair tumbling around her shoulders, her sparkling blue eyes and a soft, round figure that made him think things he really shouldn’t associate with his oldest buddy.
Had she changed somehow since he’d seen her last? He didn’t remember her being quite so...womanly. They’d been friends through elementary school and junior high. After he dropped out of high school, they’d reconnected when Grace was working at the cheap restaurant where he went for dinner after his ranch chores. They’d liked the same movies and she had a quick wit when it came to tearing apart the ones they didn’t like. She’d also enjoyed horseback riding, and he used to take her out on the ranch where he worked on his days off. She was easy to talk to, and she’d had good advice when it came to his girlfriend problems.
After he and Tracy moved to Denver, he’d somehow lost touch with Grace. He’d tried calling a couple of times, but he’d gotten nothing back. And if he could read better, he would have tried to reach out online, but he struggled with reading, and he pretended he was just old-fashioned to hide that fact. It would have been nice to get some of her advice when things were falling apart with Tracy. Whatever—they’d drifted apart. But he’d missed Grace more than he should have, and more than Tracy liked.
“Daddy!” Poppy’s tone got more reproachful. She was already used to making him jump.
Billy crossed the room to his daughter’s side and looked down at the lines she was raking in the sand.
“Very pretty,” he said.
“Read it!” she said excitedly.
His heart stuttered, and he forced another smile. Easy enough for Poppy to say, but he couldn’t make out any letters in her raking, and even if he could... “Um...why don’t you read it to me?”
“It says Hi Dad. See? And that there says unicorn. And that there says pancake.”
“Yeah, yeah, there it is.” He glanced over at Grace, and she was looking down into the sand, not at him, thankfully. Her eyebrows climbed, and her gaze flickered toward Billy.
“Very nice, Poppy,” Grace said, but there was surprise in her voice. It looked like Poppy had done something right.
“I would have written a whole letter, but there’s no space,” Poppy said.
“Here.” Grace grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil. “Do you want to try on this?”
“Okay...” Poppy settled down at a table. She’d written him a few stories over the last few days—but whether she could actually spell and all that, he had no idea. For as long as Billy could remember, whenever he looked at a page of writing, the letters just jumbled together without meaning. They got mixed up between the page and his head. There’d been a good reason he’d dropped out of school in the tenth grade—he couldn’t fake it any longer.
“So, how much can she do, exactly?” Grace asked.
“I’m not sure,” Billy said with a faint shrug. “I don’t even know where to start. I was hoping you’d have an idea.”
“Does she just have an interest in certain words, and you’ve shown her how to spell them, or is this something more? Do you read to her?”
“No, I don’t read to her a lot,” he confessed. Not at all, more truthfully.
“Is she reading on her own?”
“She reads anything she can get her hands on, from the microwave instruction manual to the cereal boxes.”
“Well, there are several tests I can give to find out her reading levels. What’s she like with numbers and math?”
“She corrected the cashier at the grocery store the other day,” he said.
“And she’s four, you say?”
“Four,” he confirmed.
“Wow.” She shook her head. “That’s something. You’re going to have your hands full, Billy. The smarter they are, the more demanding they are. They don’t know how to satisfy their own intellectual curiosity yet, and they wait for adults to provide it.”
“Great.” Billy scraped a hand through his hair. That was going to be a problem, because he wasn’t going to be much use to the kid, unless he could show her how to fix an engine or ride a horse. He’d tried reading her a book the other day, just making up the story as he went along. He thought he was telling a pretty good one, but Poppy got furious with him for “messing up all the words.” She wanted accuracy, and he couldn’t give that.
“Daddy, how you spell extra special beautiful?” Poppy asked from her seat at the little table.
“Just do your best,” Grace said. “Let’s see if you can get close on your own, okay? I don’t mind if you spell stuff wrong. It’s the trying that counts.”
That was a good answer—he’d have to remember that one. So far, Poppy didn’t know how limited his own education had been, and he wanted to keep it that way. No man wanted to give up hero status in his own child’s eyes.
“Sorry,” Grace said with a bashful look. “I’m curious to see what she can do when you don’t help her. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” he said. The truth was, he’d hidden his reading problem from Grace, too, and he wasn’t in any rush to fess up.
“Does she get this from your side of the family?” Grace asked with an impish smile.
Billy barked out a laugh. “Now you’re just being mean. And unless Carol-Ann was hiding some genius, I have no idea where that little brain cropped up.”
“Her mom... Carol-Ann never mentioned it when she dropped her off?” Grace pressed.
“Nope. I have to say, I had more immediate questions than how well she read.”
He could still remember that last goodbye between mother and daughter. Seeing the shock and heartbreak in his daughter’s big blue eyes had shredded his heart, and he didn’t even know Poppy yet. Carol-Ann had promised that she’d be back, but Billy had seen the lie in Carol-Ann’s eyes. Was she telling the truth about Germany, or was she just walking away from her responsibilities?
Billy had been raised by an uninterested mother, so maybe he and Poppy had a few things in common. But he was determined he’d be the parent Poppy could count on for the rest of her life. No more betrayals. No more people she loved walking out on her. Billy was the end of the line here—and he’d be the superhero she needed to feel safe, whatever the cost.
“I’m done!” Poppy hopped up from her seat and brought the page over to Billy. He looked over it, pausing for the amount of time it seemed to take other people read a page of print, then passed it to Grace.
She took it from his hands, her soft fingers brushing his.
“This is very sweet,” Grace said, then nudged Billy’s arm. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” he said with a curt nod. “Sure is.”
He wished he could take it home and spend some time poring over it. Sometimes he could sort out the short words. Poppy had filled the page with her diagonally slanted lines of printing, and he wished he knew what she’d so lovingly put onto that page.
“Do you mind if I hold on to this?” Grace asked. “I’d like to show Mrs. Mackel.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said, pulling his eyes off the page, trying to push away that welling sense of disappointment. This was a good thing—Grace would show the principal, and the school would know just how smart his little girl was. Then they could give her that much-needed challenge that he didn’t know how to provide.
“Thank you.” Grace shook her head and shot him a grin. “She sure loves you, doesn’t she?”
What had Poppy written?
“I hope so,” he said uncertainly.
“Well, I think we can see how much she does,” Grace said, tapping the paper on her hand. “Poppy, this is really well done. I think you’re going to have a lot of fun in our classroom. Are you looking forward to meeting the other kids?”
Poppy squirmed, glanced around the room and then cast Billy an anxious frown. “I want to stay with Daddy...”
Billy squatted down next to her and looked into those worried little eyes. She’d had her mom walk out on her recently. And then she’d watched a big fight between Billy and Tracy, and Tracy had packed her bags... It was no wonder she was anxious. Let alone the fact he was virtually a stranger.
“You’re worried I’ll leave and not come back,” he said frankly.
Poppy froze, eyed him for a moment, then nodded slowly.
“Thing is, Poppy,” he said quietly. “I’m your daddy. I didn’t know about you before this, but now that I do, you don’t have to worry about me taking off. I’m here to stay. I’ll always pick you up after school, and I’ll make you your supper, and I’ll tuck you into bed, and I’ll probably always read the stories wrong, too. You can count on all of that.”
“You mess up the words,” Poppy whispered.
Billy chuckled and gathered her into his arms. She was as light and ferocious as a cat, and she inspired a protective surge inside him every time he looked at her. She was his.
“Do I?” he joked. “Well, I think my way is better.”
“It’s not,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Still—I’m the one guy you can trust to never tell you a lie, okay? And I’ll always pick you up after school. That’s a promise.”
Poppy was silent for a moment, and Billy stood up, lifting her with him. She was holding on to his shirt in one little fist. Neither of them wanted to let go of the other. He caught a mist of emotion in Grace’s eyes as she watched them.
Grace...beautiful and smart, and always several levels above the likes of him. He’d known that from the start. Her dad was a doctor; her mom was an accountant. She’d been raised to expect the best out of life, and Billy had known from the start that he was a far cry from what Grace deserved. Hell, Poppy deserved more than he could offer, too, but that was life. Sometimes you got the short end of the stick. Right now, his deepest wish was to maintain whatever respect Grace still had for him, and hopefully both Grace and Poppy could stay in the dark about his limitations.
“We should probably head out,” Billy said. “I think Poppy and I could use an ice cream.”
Poppy’s eyes lit up. This kid was easily bought, and that was a good thing. He needed every brownie point he could get.
“Thank you for coming by,” Grace said, and her gaze caught his for a moment.
“Grace...” He paused in the doorway. “It’s really good to see you again.”
It was more than “good”; it was a strange relief, like coming home in a whole new way. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d missed her over the last few years. She’d been an anchor in his life when he’d needed it most, and it looked like he was going to need her again. She cleared her throat and dropped her gaze, breaking the moment between them.
Maybe she hadn’t missed him...
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Poppy,” Grace said.
Billy dropped his cowboy hat back on his head, and he headed out into those familiar old Eagle’s Rest Elementary School hallways. Hopefully this school would do better by his daughter than it ever did by him.
