The Cowboy's Easter Family Wish Read online

Oh, Maddie. Jesse’s heart dropped to his feet as he lifted the dogs one by one and fed them with the bottles tucked into the cooler he’d brought. You have so much to give and you don’t even know it.

  Maybe he could show her that her dreams were achievable.

  Except you’re not getting involved, his brain reminded him.

  So he wouldn’t get involved, Jesse reasoned. He’d just use every opportunity he found to point out to Maddie that she already had the abilities she needed to reach for her dreams in spite of what her negative husband had drummed into her.

  While he was here he’d do what he could to help. But when Gran returned and was settled at home, Jesse would leave Tucson and Maddie and Noah. Maybe by then he’d have found the answer to his question—why had God let Scott die?

  * * *

  “You look comfy, but I think those puppies are wearing you out.” On Saturday evening Maddie studied Jesse, who sat flopped in a canvas chair beside a flickering campfire.

  “I can’t get used to the interrupted nights.” He stifled his yawn. “But the dogs are growing. It won’t last forever.”

  “I hope you last.” She glanced to the side, where Noah was exploring Jesse’s tent. “Thanks for putting off Noah until I could get here. I’m curious to see his reaction.”

  “Hard to tell, since he hasn’t yet come out of the tent.” For a moment Jesse wore a yearning look, as if he wanted to climb into that tent, crawl into his sleeping bag and dream. But then his blue eyes began to twinkle. He tossed his head back to shift his sandy hair out of his eyes. “You never said how your first cooking class went.”

  “I was afraid you’d ask.” Maddie stopped her groan midway and made a face instead. “Horrible.”

  “What did you make?” Jesse looked so confident and strong, as if he never doubted himself.

  “A boiled egg.” She felt like a wimp. An incompetent wimp.

  “How could a boiled egg...” She must have shown her distress because he stopped and shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “I dropped the first one on the floor.” Maddie felt her cheeks burn with shame. “The second one I dropped into the pan. The white bubbled all over, so I only had a little ball of yolk left to put on my toast.”

  “Oh, dear.” Jesse’s shoulders hunched as he gave a sort of strangled cough.

  “Stop laughing. It was awful.” Maddie confessed the rest of her disastrous evening at the cooking school and her shame as the other students tried to help her. “Nobody else was as incompetent as me. But I’m going to do better,” she said, thrusting up her chin.

  “Of course you will. Cooking’s just a matter of practice.” Jesse could barely contain his amusement when Noah stuck his head between the tent flaps to say he wanted boiled eggs for breakfast.

  “Not tomorrow, son. I need another lesson first.”

  “Prob’ly more than one.” Noah’s sigh said it all before he ducked back inside the tent. Jesse’s chuckle drew heads from several other campsites.

  “I’m laughing with you, not at you.” His words did little to make her feel better. “You’re a good sport, Maddie.”

  She gave him a dubious scowl.

  “You’re hungry. Let’s cook some hot dogs.” He called Noah to help him find sticks while Maddie unpacked the picnic basket he’d brought.

  “We’re ready,” he said, when they returned with three sticks. With painstaking care, he explained to Noah how he’d sharpen the end so they could press on the meat. “Then you hold it very carefully over the fire. Don’t let it get too near the flame or it will burn.”

  “Hey, maybe if we had hot dogs every night I wouldn’t need cooking lessons,” Maddie murmured. Noah looked ecstatic, but Jesse shook his head.

  “You’d get bored with them after a while. Then they wouldn’t be a treat anymore,” he warned.

  “I guess.” With that way of escape blocked, Maddie focused on a new kind of cooking. She followed Jesse’s instructions to the letter, but to her dismay lost the first two hot dogs to the fire. “I knew that would happen.” Chagrined, she was ready to toss her stick and eat the wiener cold, but Jesse wouldn’t let her.

  “Maddie, you’ve got to stop thinking so negatively.” He frowned at her. “Accidents happen to everybody.”

  “It didn’t happen to you.” She loved the calm, patient way he adjusted Noah’s grip so he wouldn’t suffer the same loss she had.

  “I’ve done this before. Hundreds of times.” Jesse handed her a loaded stick and made himself another. “But imagine if I were to make a quilt. There’d be lots of mistakes and you wouldn’t think there was anything wrong with that because I’ve never made one before.”

  “Yes, but I can’t—”

  “Stop saying that. It’s not that you can’t cook,” Jesse continued. “It’s just that you’ve never learned. But you’re smart. You can learn. You just have to be more positive.”

  “I do?” She stared at him, intrigued by the reassurance in his words.

  “Of course. God doesn’t create failures, Maddie. He knew all about us before we were even born and He knows what we need to learn. He doesn’t call us dumb.” Jesse lifted his head from his perusal of the fire. A lock of sandy hair flopped over one eye, giving him a rakish look she liked. “One of God’s names is Jehovah Shammah, which means ‘the Lord is there.’ As in, ‘I’m here to help you. Try again.’”

  “I never thought of that.” Feeling self-conscious, Maddie thought the setting sun made the campsite seem more intimate. “I’ve always felt like I’ve failed God.”

  “We all fail him.” There was a smile in Jesse’s voice. “Fortunately, God gives do-overs.”

  “Yeah.”

  A lightness filled her heart until a quiet voice said, “Burning.”

  Maddie lifted her head to see Noah’s hot dog in flames. She couldn’t help laughing at her son’s offended look when the charred meat tumbled into the fire.

  “I’m sorry, honey, but you and I are fiascos at this camping thing.”

  “’Cause we need practice.” Noah shot her a wily grin. “Do-overs.”

  Surprised that he’d followed their conversation so closely, she glanced at Jesse, who, with eyes twinkling, handed her his own golden-roasted wiener in a thick fluffy bun.

  “Go for it,” he said. Then he rose to get Noah a replacement hot dog. He’d barely threaded that onto Noah’s stick when the puppies started crying.

  Knowing Jesse must be hungry after hours of labor at Emma’s shop, Maddie handed him the hot dog. “Eat it,” she insisted. “Then you can roast me another after I feed the puppies.”

  “That’s not exactly learning the camping skill I was trying to teach,” he chided, but when she wouldn’t take it back he bit into it gratefully.

  “I’ll learn it another time. I promise I will not give up on this. Anyway, I doubt Noah would let me.” She winked at him, ignoring the inner voice that chided her for such a brazen act, then began feeding a pup. It seemed only moments later that Noah reached out for the now satiated dog.

  “Our turn.” Jesse held out a steaming hot dog. “You eat. We’ll finish feeding these guys then we’ll make some s’mores.” He nodded at Noah, who’d sunk onto a nearby log and was cooing gently at the puppy he was feeding. “Looks like he’s become attached. You might have trouble giving them away.”

  “I hope not.” She blinked. “I certainly can’t keep nine puppies.”

  While Maddie savored the perfectly roasted hot dog, she studied Jesse and Noah. They teased each other about who was doing the best job feeding, and yet with every comment Jesse infused encouragement into his words. His calm certainty and compliments seemed to rejuvenate Noah, who didn’t hang his head or avoid looking at Jesse. In fact, he became more engaged, especially when Jesse set the last dog back in the box and announced it was s’mor
es time.

  She wanted to laugh as the two males soberly and with great ceremony arranged the supplies on the picnic table: graham wafers, huge fluffy marshmallows and four chocolate bars.

  “Four?” she asked in surprise.

  “I think we’ll be having seconds, Mom.” Noah gave her a bold grin. “Maybe thirds.” Then he frowned. “Okay?” His hesitation nearly broke her heart.

  “Okay with me,” she choked out. “As long as you don’t make yourself sick, and as long as you don’t do it every night.”

  Noah nodded happily then focused on Jesse who broke the bars into pieces before skewering a marshmallow on a stick.

  “So we make s’mores by roasting the marshmallow golden brown, which isn’t easy to do,” he warned. “Because they catch fire if you’re not careful.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Noah promised. “Then what?”

  “Then we put the melted marshmallow on a cracker that has a piece of chocolate on it. We put another cracker on top and wait till the chocolate melts. And then we eat it. Watch,” he invited, and demonstrated, patiently answering Noah’s repeated question of—

  “Is it ready yet?”

  Finally, it was. Jesse put the treat together, then held it out to Noah. Surprisingly, the boy shook his head.

  “You made it so you should eat it.” Noah’s dark eyes widened as Jesse took a bite, chewed thoroughly, then scooped the melting chocolate from the corner of his mouth with his tongue. “I wanna make my own. But I like triangles better than squares.”

  “We can make the cracker into a triangle but it’ll be pretty small for these big marshmallows. Want to try?” Jesse experimented and ended up with a tiny morsel that made Maddie laugh. When she and Noah both lost their marshmallows to the fire he shrugged. “It happens. Try again.”

  They did try. Noah caught on right away and was soon savoring his treat, edges reshaped into a triangle. But Maddie’s next two marshmallows turned to charred cinders and fell into the coals before she finally toasted one golden brown.

  “Now that’s edible.” Jesse applauded.

  The sickly sweet, sticky dessert wasn’t her favorite, but she enjoyed every morsel because Jesse was there, making this a special occasion for Noah.

  “One more?” Noah pleaded when Jesse began putting the s’more supplies away.

  “Maddie?” Jesse waited for her nod of approval. “Go ahead, son. You have just enough time,” he told Noah.

  “Huh?” Noah thrust the marshmallow on the stick.

  “After we have s’mores I usually have a sing-along around the campfire.” Jesse studied the boy’s blank look. “You don’t know what a sing-along is?”

  “Singing?” He shrugged in disinterest then moved to toast his marshmallow. He was savoring his final s’more when Jesse lifted a guitar from his truck.

  Noah froze. Maddie watched his eyes stretch wide.

  “You play guitar? Cool,” he breathed.

  “You like guitars?” Jesse strummed a few chords. “They’re easy to learn to play.” He demonstrated with the first line of a popular church chorus. “See? It’s not hard. Want to try?”

  Maddie held her breath. She’d never seen Noah so captivated. He wore a rapt look as Jesse told him to sit on the bench of the picnic table, placed the guitar in his lap and set his hands on the instrument. Noah was eight, and in all those years she’d never noticed his interest in a guitar or anything musical. How had Jesse known how to reach him?

  Though she fought to keep her face impassive, her heart thudded with joy as Jesse showed Noah how to play his first chord. A sandy-colored head huddled next to a dark brown one as Noah listened to Jesse’s instructions and then, encouraged by the former youth minister, strummed a few tentative strokes across the strings. He beamed with delight at the sound.

  “I played something!” His eyes glowed with pleasure.

  “Of course you did.” Jesse ruffled his hair. “You’re a smart kid.”

  Before long Noah was playing a simple song and humming along. Curious about his reaction, Maddie finally asked, “Do you like the guitar?”

  “Yes.” Noah paused, and his face tightened. After several moments’ thought he frowned then held out the guitar to Jesse. “Playing this is wrong. It’s against the rules.”

  “It is?” Jesse carefully stored the guitar in the truck and returned. “God gave us music. How could it be wrong?”

  Maddie wanted to hear the answer to that. Maybe it would shed light on what had troubled Noah since his father’s death.

  “It was such a lovely song,” she said softly. “Why do you think it’s wrong?”

  “’Cause.” All joy in the wonderful evening drained from his face, leaving his eyes dark and empty. “Dad said music should worship God in hymns. That wasn’t a hymn.” His voice dropped, anger threading through his words. “Those songs you’re always singing are against the rules, too. Dad told you that.”

  As if she’d been singing something awful. Maddie’s cheeks burned at the rebuke.

  “You never obeyed Dad’s rules. That’s why he died.” Noah dropped his head, shutting out everything, including Jesse’s gentle explanation that there were many ways to worship God.

  Maddie could see there was no use trying to reason with him. Noah had locked himself into his private world where rules controlled him and where no one else could enter.

  “I’m sorry, but I think we’d better go home,” she said to Jesse, and began packing up the picnic basket. “Thank you for a lovely evening. It was very kind of you to share your campsite with us.”

  She felt like crying as she urged Noah into the car. Tonight had been so wonderful, fun and carefree, almost like being a real family. Her heart ached for her son’s pain and her own miserable past. Why couldn’t they finally be free of Liam’s rules?

  “Thank you for coming.” Jesse smiled, his demeanor absent of any chastisement or anger about their hurried exit. He bent his head to peer into the car at Noah in the backseat. “I’m glad you learned how to play a few notes,” he said very quietly. “Playing my guitar is often the way I worship God when I can’t think of the right words. Playing and singing something other than hymns isn’t wrong. After all, King David made up his own songs. When he was a boy he played a lyre, which has strings kind of like a guitar. In the Bible it says he made up songs to sing to King Saul when he was upset.”

  “Really?” Noah’s head lifted and his wide eyes fixed on Jesse’s face.

  Maddie felt her hurt and anger melt at the transformation she saw. Trust this wonderful man to know exactly how to reach her isolated son.

  “When it comes to God, it all has to do with your heart. That’s what He looks at.” Jesse tilted toward her and said in a voice too low for Noah to hear, “Don’t look so worried, Maddie. Questions are a natural part of a kid’s life. He’s just trying to sort out the truth. You’ve done a good job with him. He’ll figure it out.”

  Her heart burst into its own song of thanks for this wonderful man who’d come into their lives and changed both of them, helping them slowly break free of their darkened past. She should have climbed in her car and driven away. She should have said thank-you and let it go.

  Maddie did neither. Instead she tilted forward on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss against Jesse’s cheek. When she pulled back his blue eyes were wide with surprise.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “For what?”

  “For being such a good friend to us.” Then she did get in her car, and quickly drove away before she did or said something she would regret.

  But all the way home she couldn’t quite suppress the song her heart sang, a thank-you song to God, for Jesse Parker.

  Chapter Seven

  “No, Gran. Maddie didn’t say a thing about that, but I’ll check it out for you.
”

  On Monday afternoon Jesse pocketed his phone with a frown as he waited for Tanner’s signal to lead the horses into the ring where Noah’s class waited. He’d already noted Maddie among the group of interested parents watching their kids from the sidelines. He’d tied his three horses to the rails, purposely spacing them so, hopefully, he’d end up next to her.

  Gran was worried about issues at Quilt Essentials but at the moment Maddie seemed focused on Noah.

  “Hi, Jesse.” The welcome in her voice and that smile of hers made his stomach clench. Funny the effect she always had on him. “You look as weary as Tanner has since their new baby arrived.”

  “Nah. He looks worse.” Jesse chuckled when she rolled her eyes. “It was nice of him to let me bring the puppies to Wranglers so I can maintain the feedings.” He paused when Lefty pointed Noah toward a horse named Amos, which he guessed Tanner had chosen especially because it was so gentle. Thing was, Amos was not one of the horses Jesse was in charge of. “Your son looks terrified.”

  “He is. He can’t seem to get comfortable around animals. Except the puppies, and that’s only because you helped him.” She bit her lip. “His teacher and I had to do some sweet-talking to get him to come here. She said several of the other children are also hesitant to take part.”

  “Today will help ease their fears. Excuse me.” At Tanner’s signal, Jesse nodded and stepped away to begin working with the kids and horses he’d been assigned.

  His three students were knowledgeable about horses and required little guidance. But through the next few minutes he kept watch over Noah, and when it became clear that the wrangler helping him wasn’t making progress and that Maddie was getting more worried by the moment, Jesse had a quick word with Tanner. A few minutes later he changed places with Noah’s wrangler, who gave him a smile of relief.

  “Two of the three are petrified,” he muttered before walking away.

  “What’s wrong, Noah?” Jesse asked after fruitless attempts to get the boy to relax. A sideways glance showed Maddie’s smile was returning. She had that much confidence in him?