Last Chance Cowboy Read online

  Gavin wished he weren’t so desperate. Normally, he proceeded far more cautiously.

  “You ready to park your trailer?” he asked during a break in the conversation.

  After a word of advice about Avaro’s tendency to nip, Sage followed Gavin.

  Outside the stables, she paused. “Which way?”

  “I’ll ride with you. It’ll be easier than trying to give you directions.”

  The inside of her truck was messy. Crayons, coloring books, dolls, a stuffed cat and a collection of tiny farm animals occupied the passenger seat. A notebook, travel log, empty paper cup, a CD case and a partially folded map filled the middle. Unidentifiable trash littered the floor.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Sage said, sweeping her daughter’s toys into the pile of her things. “Isa gets bored on road trips. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Not really.”

  Her apologetic smile fell.

  Ignoring the well-deserved stab of guilt, Gavin climbed into the passenger seat, his feet inadvertently kicking the trash. He’d already told Sage more about his family than he intended. Cassie was off-limits.

  “That way,” he said, and pointed, acutely aware of the tension his remark had created.

  Sage said nothing, leaving Gavin to stew silently. How could he explain to Sage, a virtual stranger, that he’d only seen his daughter a few times while she was growing up? That money for plane trips to Connecticut was hard to spare. In December, he and Cassie’s mother would revisit the full custody issue. If Cassie wasn’t happy, wasn’t adjusting to school, if her and Gavin’s relationship didn’t improve, she might be returning to Connecticut. Given the current state of his family’s finances, he had no idea when he’d be able to swing another visit.

  Not a day passed Gavin didn’t stare his many failures as a father square in the face and wish circumstances were different.

  Picking up the stuffed cat, he set it on top of the coloring book. “Cassie’s kind of a neat freak. Always has been.”

  His explanation appeared to appease Sage for her features softened. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”

  Except he did know. This six-month trial he had with Cassie had been an unexpected gift. The result of her mother’s recent remarriage and pregnancy. He hated that he hadn’t immediately formed a close bond with Cassie, one like Sage and her daughter obviously shared. And he worried constantly that he’d lose Cassie before he ever really had her.

  “Pull into the barn,” he told Sage. “That way, you can park in the shade.”

  “Wow. You really did have some cattle operation.” Her gaze roamed the interior of the large barn. “I’m impressed.”

  “Most of the equipment’s gone.” They’d sold it off piece by piece over the years.

  “Yeah, but it wouldn’t take much to start up again.” Sage rotated the crank on the hitch, lowering the trailer’s front end.

  Gavin went around to the rear of the trailer and placed the blocks of wood she’d given him behind the tires. “My plans are to turn it into a mare motel.”

  “Really?” He could see she’d deduced his plans for the wild mustang. “It would make a good one.”

  Gavin wondered if he should be less leery of Sage. She seemed genuinely nice and willing to make their agreement work.

  “What time tomorrow are we starting?” She shut and locked the trailer’s storage compartment.

  “We can’t head out until Saturday.”

  “Oh.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you. My day’s full.”

  “Okay.” Disappointment showed in her face.

  “I do have a free hour in the afternoon. Maybe you can come by. We’ll go over the maps and logs and decide on the best area to start looking.”

  “Sounds good. Any chance I can bring my daughter? She loves horses. I keep promising to buy her a pony of her own and teach her to ride one of these days but just haven’t had the time.”

  “We’ve got a dead broke horse we use for beginner students. She can ride him if she wants.” Gavin had no idea why he made the offer.

  “Thank you. That’s very nice of you.” Her smile returned, brighter than before.

  Maybe that was why.

  As they were climbing back into the truck, her cell phone rang. She lifted it out of the cup holder and, with only a cursory glance at the screen, answered.

  “Hi. I just finished parking my trailer.” A long pause followed during which she listened intently, her mouth pursed in concentration. “Yeah, hold on a second.” She dug through the pile in the middle of the seat, locating a notebook. “Go ahead.” She wrote something down that appeared to be directions, though Gavin couldn’t see clearly from where he sat in the passenger seat. “Great. Meet you in fifteen minutes.”

  Snapping the notebook closed, she started the truck. “I’m sorry to be so abrupt, but I have to leave.”

  “No problem. Three o’clock tomorrow okay? To meet here,” he added when she didn’t immediately respond.

  “Oh, yeah.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Three o’clock.”

  After she dropped Gavin off in front of the house, he stood for a moment watching her truck bump down the long sloping driveway leading to the main road.

  Apparently she knew someone in Mustang Village.

  He didn’t like that his curiosity was piqued. He liked the anticipation he felt at seeing her again tomorrow even less.

  SAGE REACHED THE BASE of the mountain and merged with the light traffic traveling east. A quarter mile up the road, she spotted a stone sign marking the main entrance to Mustang Village. Next to the sign stood a life-size and very realistic bronze statue of a rearing horse.

  Just inside the entrance was a modest shopping plaza with retail stores, a bank, fresh food market, urgent care center and two restaurants, one fast-food, one sit-down. Situated behind the shopping plaza was a commercial building with offices on the first floor and apartments on the second. Stretching beyond that were acres and acres of houses as far as she could see.

  What had it been like when all this was once an endless rolling valley at the base of a scenic mountain range? She could almost envision it in her mind’s eye.

  Gavin’s family had probably made a killing when they sold the land, but Sage wasn’t sure she could have traded glorious and primitive desert for a sea of commercial and residential development.

  A second sign directed her to the visitors’ center. She turned into the parking lot, shut off the ignition and, as instructed, waited for her cousin’s husband.

  As the minutes dragged by, Sage’s nervousness increased. She tried distracting herself by observing life at midafternoon in Mustang Village.

  It was, she had to agree, a unique and almost genius blending of country life and town life. Cars drove by at a very safe fifteen miles per hour while an empty school bus returned from delivering children home. Exercise enthusiasts walked or jogged or biked along the sidewalks, and people on horseback rode the designated bridle paths networking the community. As the warning signs posted everywhere stated, horses had the right of way in Mustang Village.

  Finally, just when Sage was ready to get out of her truck and start pacing, her cousin’s husband arrived, his SUV slipping into the space beside hers.

  She greeted him with a relieved hug. He’d been at work when she stopped by their house earlier to drop off Isa, so she’d yet to see him.

  “Thank you, Roberto,” she told him when they broke apart. “You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”

  “Happy to help, primita.”

  Calling her “little cousin” always made Sage smile. At five-eight, he was no more than an inch taller than her. When she wore boots, like today, they stood nose to nose.

  Not so with Gavin Powell. Even in boots, she’d had to tilt her head back in order to meet those vivid blue eyes of his.

  Why had she thought of him all of a sudden?

  “We’d better get a move on,” Roberto said. “Before he figures out you
’re in the area and takes off.”

  “You have the paperwork?” she asked, hopping in the passenger side of his SUV.

  “Right here.” Roberto tapped the front of his suit jacket.

  He’d used his firm’s resources to locate Sage’s ex—again. This time, she assured herself, would be different. Dan wouldn’t be able to disappear before they had a chance to personally serve him with the child support demand papers.

  She marveled at his ability to jump from place to place, always one step ahead of her. As a horse trainer, a good one, he easily found work all over the Southwest. He was also often paid in cash or by personal check, which had made garnishing his wages nearly impossible.

  To her knowledge, this was the first time he’d returned to Arizona in two years.

  “He sure picked a nice spot,” she observed, taking in the attractive houses with their tidy front yards, each landscaped with natural desert fauna to conserve water. The homes sat on three-quarter acre lots, with small corrals and shaded pens visible in the spacious backyards.

  “Very nice,” Roberto concurred. “And Mustang Village is teeming with horse people, a lot of them with surplus money and a burning desire for their kids to have the best-trained horses. Dan’s probably doing pretty well for himself.”

  “He always has.” That was something Sage didn’t understand. Her ex could afford the child support. He just refused to pay it.

  Another thing Sage didn’t understand was his disinterest in seeing Isa. How could a father who’d been devoted to his daughter for the first two years of her life not want to see her? Spend time with her? Be a vital part of her growing up?

  “We’re here,” Roberto said, and maneuvered the SUV into the driveway of a large Santa Fe–style house.

  “Do you think he’s home?” Sage asked, her worry spiking at the noticeable absence of a vehicle in the driveway.

  Roberto grinned confidently. “Only one way to find out.”

  At Dan’s front door, Roberto rung the bell.

  Sage read the hand-painted stone plaque hanging beside the door.

  The Rivera Family.

  His last name, penned with large, bold strokes, reminded her that she and Dan had never married. She’d wanted to, had brought up the subject frequently during their three years together, but Dan had always manufactured some excuse.

  Roberto rang the doorbell again. Sage rubbed her sweaty palms on the front of her jeans.

  The Rivera Family.

  Suddenly it struck her. Family! As in wife and children.

  Before her thought had a chance to fully develop, the door swung open, and Dan appeared in the frame, his expectant expression dissolving into a frown the instant he spotted her.

  “What do you want, Sage?”

  “To make sure you receive a copy of this.” Roberto attempted to hand Dan the child support demand letter. “Since you haven’t responded to the nine previous ones mailed to you.”

  He drew back, refusing to accept the papers. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Ms. Navarre’s attorney.”

  “Get off my property.”

  “You owe my client four years of back child support. You can’t get out of it just because—”

  “Dan, who is it?” A young, strikingly beautiful and very pregnant woman appeared behind Dan, a toddler boy balanced on her hip.

  “It’s okay, Maria,” he said crossly. “I have this handled.”

  She backed away, a mixture of confusion and concern on her face, then disappeared into the house’s dim interior.

  The sudden realization that Dan had committed to another woman when he’d refused to commit to her stung bitterly. It shouldn’t, Sage told herself. She was over him. Past that. Moved on. And yet, her heart broke like a dam, releasing fresh pain.

  Just then, Dan’s cell phone rang. Angling his body away from them, he answered it, speaking in clipped, short sentences. “Hello. Yeah. Not today. Look, Gavin, I’m busy right now. Call you later.”

  Alarm shot through Sage, leaving her unsteady.

  Was that Gavin Powell calling Dan?

  She took a deep breath, only vaguely aware of Roberto whispering to her that they weren’t leaving until they’d served Dan with the papers.

  Slowly, rationality returned. Gavin had no idea Dan was Isa’s father. He owned the local riding stables, and Dan was a horse trainer. It stood to reason they knew each other and possibly had dealings together. Clients in common.

  Dan disconnected and, pocketing his cell phone, turned back around. “As I was saying—”

  “As I was saying…” Roberto tried again to give Dan the papers.

  He swatted them away. “You’re not getting anything from me without proof.”

  “Proof of what, Dan?” Sage demanded, her voice shaking from residual shock and rising anger.

  “Paternity. How do I even know Isa’s mine?”

  Sage reeled as if physically struck. “Of course she’s yours,” she sputtered.

  “I’m not so sure. You were still seeing that old boyfriend of yours.”

  “We worked together. That’s all.”

  “Yeah? Well, get the kid tested. Then we’ll talk.” With that, Dan slammed the door in Sage’s and Roberto’s faces.

  Chapter Three

  Gavin opened his front door to a miniature version of Sage, complete with boots, jeans and a floppy cowboy hat.

  “Hi. I’m Isa.” She displayed a huge smile, not the least bit embarrassed by her two missing front teeth.

  “I’m Gavin. Come on in.” He stepped aside, and she jumped over the threshold into the living room, landing with both feet planted firmly on a colorful braided area rug.

  “Do you have a last name?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Of course.” She giggled. “What’s yours?”

  “Powell. Why?”

  “My mom says I have to call adults by their last name.” She assessed him with dark brown eyes in much the same manner her mother had yesterday. “Thank you for having me here today, Mr. Powell.”

  Her speech sounded rehearsed, probably Sage’s doing, but Gage was impressed nonetheless.

  He’d once visited Cassie when she was about this age. He and Isa had already exchanged more words in two minutes than he and Cassie had during their first hour together.

  In all fairness to his daughter, she hadn’t been meeting an acquaintance of her mother. The man standing before her was her father, a stranger she didn’t remember from his last visit three years earlier.

  The horse figurine he’d brought as a gift hadn’t broken the ice. How was he to know she liked Barbie dolls and dressing up? Their trip to the park had been strained, as were the next three days. How hard it must have been for Cassie to be thrust into the care of a man she barely knew and told, “This is your father.”

  Love wasn’t something that could be manufactured on the spot just because of a biological connection.

  The worst moment of that trip was when they were saying goodbye. To his astonishment, Cassie hugged him fiercely and, in a teary voice, asked him not to go. The only genuine moment they’d shared and it had to be when he was getting into the rental car and heading to the airport.

  His answer, he couldn’t remember it now, had just made her cry.

  His next visit three years later was even more strained. And this last time, when he’d picked her up at the airport for her first-ever trip to Arizona, she’d been sullen rather than shy. Nothing much had changed in the four months since.

  He must, he told himself, be patient with her. Their dysfunctionality hadn’t happened overnight. It wouldn’t be resolved quickly, either.

  “Where’s your mom?” he asked Isa.

  “Right here.” Sage rushed through the still-open door, pocketing her cell phone and looking completely frazzled. Her high, elegant cheekbones were flushed a vivid crimson, and several tendrils of hair hung haphazardly around her face as if pulled loose by anxious fingers. “I told you to wait for me, mija.�
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  “Yes, but—” Isa’s eyes widened with delight. “You have a puppy!” She dropped to her knees and opened her arms.

  Cassie’s puppy went right to her, drawn like iron particles to a magnet, his entire hind end shaking along with his tail. She gathered him into her lap, giggling as he covered her chin with kisses.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Blue.”

  “But he’s brown and black.”

  “His eyes are blue.”

  Isa peered into the puppy’s face, earning herself more kisses.

  “Sorry we’re late.” Sage shut the door behind her. “I got tied up.”

  “It happens.” Normally, Gavin was intolerant of tardiness. He blamed running a business with strict schedules. But something had obviously thrown Sage for a loop.

  She nodded and, pushing one of the flyaway tendrils from her face, offered a pale shadow of the smile that had come so easily and naturally yesterday.

  “You okay?” Gavin asked.

  “Yeah. Just having a killer day.”

  He thought she looked more distraught and upset than overwhelmed. “Can I get you and Isa something? A soda or ice water?”

  “Water would be great.” She sighed as if she’d been waiting all day for just such an offer.

  At that moment, Cassie poked her head into the living room. “Have you seen Blue?”

  “In here. Cassie, you remember Ms. Navarre. And this is her daughter, Isa.”

  He’d told Cassie the reason for Sage’s visit during dinner last evening and about their plans to capture the mustang. While she’d tried to act as disinterested as she did about everything that concerned him or the ranch—with the sole exception of riding and Blue—he noticed how intently she’d listened to both him and the questions Ethan posed.

  Unfortunately, she was still smarting from him asking her to leave him and Sage alone the previous day, and, as a result, talking to him only when necessary.