What A Cowboy Wants. Lauri Robinson

finished last night.

      “I don’t know,” Jesse said, crossing the room to muss Hannah’s hair with one hand. “You’re a mite homelier than you were five years ago.”

      “Stop it,” Hannah squealed, ducking out of her brother’s way.

      Ester grinned, handing Jesse another plate to dry as he arrived back at the counter. The two children were always teasing each other, and they both looked enough like Brett that at times they took her breath away. Especially Jesse when he got the gleam in his eye like he had right now. “Leave your sister alone,” she said, halfheartedly.

      “Is he taking us home to Montana?” Hannah asked. “Did he tell you that when you saw him, Jess?”

      A dish slipped right out of Ester’s hand and clattered upon the floor.

      “I’m sorry, Ester—”

      “It wasn’t your fault, Jess,” she interrupted. “It was mine. I guess I have too much soap in the water.” She retrieved the plate. The heavy stoneware hadn’t broken, amazingly, although the thought of all three of them—Brett, Jesse and Hannah—leaving shattered something inside her.

      “Is he?” Hannah asked.

      “I suspect so,” Jesse answered.

      Ester squeezed her hands into fists beneath the soapy water. The fact the children seemed as besotted with Montana as Brett had always been made something ball in her stomach. From the day his family had moved to Cutter’s Corner he’d talked of returning to Montana. There’d been a time she’d thought of going with him, but—

      She stopped. The thought was too painful.

      Brett’s uncle had stayed in Montana, and when the man died, willing the place to Brett, he’d left. Packed up and rode off. Just like that.

      “I can’t wait to see it —” Hannah’s last word turned into a squeal. “He’s here! He’s here!”

      Ester would have dropped another plate if she’d been holding one. As it was, nothing was damaged when she spun around to fly out of the kitchen as fast as Hannah and Jesse were. She found an ounce of control and paused at the front door, holding the screen with a hand still covered in bubbles as Hannah leaped off the front porch into Brett’s open arms.

      “Hey you,” he said, planting a noisy kiss on Hannah’s cheek before he spun around with her in his arms. The girl’s legs flew through the air while she held on to his neck as he made a complete circle. Both of them were laughing up a storm.

      Swallowing a very selfish wish—that it was her in his arms instead of his sister—Ester stepped onto the porch to pick up the dish towel Jesse had dropped in his wake, and used it to wipe her hands.

      “Look at you. My baby sister is all but grown up,” Brett said, setting Hannah back on her feet.

      “Ester said you’d come,” Hannah said, “but when winter set in, I started getting worried.”

      Brett lifted his head and glanced toward the porch. Ester had to press her toes down to keep put. “I couldn’t leave the cows in the dead of winter,” he said, tugging Hannah to his side while still gazing toward the house—at her. “But I’m here now.”

      It was like pulling teeth, dragging her eyes off him, and then she saw Jesse step in for a hug from his brother. The three of them stood there, holding on to each other, and for the first time ever, Ester felt like an intruder in Brett’s life. That had her throat balling up and her cheeks quivering.

      She turned, opened the screen door and made her way back to the kitchen, where she finished the dishes in complete silence. They were grieving the loss of their parents. She understood that, but she wanted to be with them, sharing their pain. In her heart, the entire Richards family had been her family, too. All the years growing up with Brett as her beau had left that lasting mark on her.

      The widow who died less than a year after Brett had left appeared in Ester’s mind.

      You’d be a fool to go with him, Mrs. Wilson had told Ester all those years ago. That boy will get hisself killed out there. Just like my Lester did. Brought me out here as a bride when Cutter’s Corner was nothing but a wide spot in the road, and less than a year later, he died, not half a mile from our house, lost in a blizzard. That’s what’ll happen to you, too. You’ll be out there in Montana all by yourself. Having to take in sewing, like I did, just to eat.

      Ester pressed a hand to her forehead, willing the memory to fade. She couldn’t go with him. Not then, and not now.

      The kitchen was clean, the dishes were put away and the cup of tea she’d made herself had gone cold when she heard the screen door open and close. She remained seated at the table, watching the archway to see who had entered.

      Her heart thrashed about so much it was painful even before Brett rounded the corner and stopped to lean against the wall. His shoulders were broader beneath the tan shirt than they’d been five years ago, and his waist leaner where the gun belt hung low on the hips covered with brown pants.

      “We need to talk, Ester.”

      She gave a clipped nod. Anger had renewed itself—at how he’d left her so easily, how he held such little regard for his own life—but the desire he’d sparked inside her this afternoon with that one kiss was just as strong and had built into an all-compassing need that had her ready to burst like a canning jar boiled too long.

      “Jess tells me he graduates next week.”

      Brett had grown, or aged, in other ways, too, and the stern tone he used increased the resentment inside her. “Yes, he does,” she replied just as coldly.

      “We’ll wait until after that before heading home. Back to Montana. I’d be obliged if they could go on staying here. I could take another room at the hotel, but seeing this has been their home…” He paused, glanced around.