The Cowboy's Sweetheart by Brenda Minton

Author:Brenda Minton [Minton, Brenda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2010-05-11T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Sunday morning Ryder pulled his truck up the driveway of Etta’s house, fighting a serious case of nerves that matched any that he’d met up with on the back of a bull. He couldn’t imagine feeling worse on his wedding day, if he’d ever planned on getting married.

Going to church for the first time in over a dozen years was definitely up there on the list of things that were hard to do.

And that thought pulled his attention off the road and drew it to the glove compartment where he’d tossed the ring that Andie had rejected last week. Last week when he’d thought having a baby meant two people ought to do the right thing and get married. Obviously Andie was of a different mind. And that should have cut him loose, should have sent him back down the road and on his way to a team roping event in Dallas.

Instead he was as determined as ever to prove to Andie that he could be a dad, even if she didn’t think he could be a husband. A dad did the right thing, even went to church. He was pretty sure that’s what an upstanding dad did. No, he took that back. His own dad had gone to church.

He was going to do better than that.

As he parked, the front door opened. Etta stepped onto the porch, a vision in purple and yellow, a floppy straw hat on her head. She waved with a hand that sparkled with jewelry and went on with the green plastic watering pot, tipping it to water plants that turned her front porch into some kind of crazy jungle.

He was lucky if weeds grew in his flower gardens. At least weeds covered up the bare spaces and had blooms that added some color to the place.

He got out of his truck and walked across the lawn, the grass turning brown, but autumn mums bloomed in the flowerbeds. Etta set her watering can down and waited at the top of the steps. He clunked up the steps, his boots loud on the wood.

“What has you up here so bright and early on a Sunday morning?” Etta grabbed her watering can again and moved to a planter overflowing with purple blooms that he didn’t recognize.

“I guess I’m here to go to church.” He glanced off in the direction of the barn, trying to make sense of the crazy turn his life had taken. A calf was mooing and somewhere a dog barked. He wondered if the animals needed to be fed and how much damage Andie would do to him if he did those things for her.

Etta chuckled a little. “You’re going to church?”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me to do for the past eighteen years?”

“I guess I have. But why now?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Oh, I see.” She headed back into the house, carrying the green watering can. The open door let out the aroma of coffee and something baked with cinnamon.

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