Cowgirl Up and Ride (Rough Riders #3)(118)

Yeah, I know we’re short-handed. So? The pump will keep another day. I’ll call you later.”


Ky finally stopped shuddering and peeked out from where he’d hidden his teary face in Cord’s neck. “Is she mad?”


“Nah. Disappointed, but not mad.”


Cord gazed down into Ky’s somber blue eyes. The kid looked so much like him it was like looking back in time.


“You mad at me now, Daddy?”


“For being a kid? Not on your life.” He kissed the top of his head. “But I will be ticked if you beat me at cards, boy.”


Ky giggled and wiggled to be let down.


Cord felt like one piece of his life clicked back in place. Oddly enough, he still felt like another piece was missing.


***


AJ’s cell phone rang at nine o’clock and she knew it was Cord before she saw the caller ID. “Hey. What’s up?”


“Ky’s in bed. And I haven’t seen you in over a week.”


No small talk. Not a surprise. “You wanted this ‘deal’ to end when your son returned.”


“I know.”


Silence.


“So? Why’d you call me?”


“To see if you’d come over.”


Why? Because you missed me? Or missed the sex?


Did it really matter? She was leaving in a couple of days. Hadn’t she wished for a chance to be with him again?


“AJ?”


“Yeah. Give me half an hour.”


A sense of displacement and sadness rolled over her as she looked at the empty walls. Nothing remained of the years the Foster family spent here besides memories and the boxes stacked in the kitchen. Where would Macie and Carter start making changes?


Plenty of repairs and updates dogged this old ranch house—repairs the Fosters hadn’t the skill or the money to implement. She doubted Macie would see the charm in leaky faucets, drafty windows, doors that stuck, a cellar with an uneven floor and an unreliable heating system.


Speaking of…she wiped her sweaty brow. Why was it so damn hot in here? She’d shut off the window air conditioner because it kept shorting out, and she’d closed the windows because of the bugs. But it shouldn’t feel like the damn furnace was running.


Stupid coal heater in the cellar was acting up again.


Nothing she could do about it now and it wouldn’t be her problem much longer anyway. Day after tomorrow the movers would load up everything and take it to the storage facility in Billings. Then she’d make a final walk through with the McKays and the banker and be on her way to Denver to finish school.


It was weird to think she wouldn’t see her mother until Christmas. Not as weird as imagining Christmas wouldn’t be here, at home, in this house, ever again.


Pull up your bootstraps, girl. Life goes on.


That it did. AJ had cried at Liza and Noah’s wedding ceremony as they’d begun their life together. As she’d cried for Dag West, his life cut short too soon. It’d served as a reminder that things could be much worse in her life than moving away from home and unrequited love.


She grabbed her purse and drove to Cord’s. He waited for her on the front porch swing. After a prolonged kiss, without saying a word, he took her hand, led her upstairs straight to his bedroom and locked the door. He stripped her bare. The need on his face ripped straight into her soul.