Read Online Her Secret Cowboy by Marin Thomas - Free Book Online Page A

Marsha’s and Pastor Bugler’s.
    Would he ever be able to banish the image of his birth father shutting the door in his face? It was mighty tempting to take the easy way out, but he’d already turned his back on Ryan once. He wouldn’t do it again. In the end, if his son wanted nothing to do with him—so be it.
    * * *
    “W HAT DO YOU think of your dad?” Marsha’s father asked Ryan Friday evening as they sat at the kitchen table studying a chessboard. Marsha eavesdropped from behind the laundry-room door.
    “He’s okay,” Ryan said.
    Her father ran with the lukewarm response. “Your mom said you helped him in the church earlier this week.”
    “He asked me to pull off this wire stuff in the walls.” A chair scraped against the tile floor, then the refrigerator door opened and she heard the pop of a soda-can tab.
    “How’d it go?” her father asked.
    “Not too good.”
    “What happened?”
    “I tried to tug the mesh free, but it was hard and he had to help me. I’m not good at construction stuff.”
    Almost a week had passed since Ryan had met Will and he’d yet to ask Marsha any questions about him.
    “I don’t care for physical labor,” her father said. “I’d rather save my energy for more important things.”
    If her father didn’t keep his opinions about Will to himself she’d have to intervene.
    “I’d rather read and study,” Ryan said.
    “You’re like your mother. She values a good education and look how smart she is.”
    “Mom said she doesn’t know if my dad went to college.”
    “I don’t believe he did.”
    “Do you think he knows how to play chess?” Ryan asked.
    “Probably not. But I’ll always be your chess partner.”
    Marsha’s eyes watered when she heard the hitch in her father’s voice. He knew there would come a day when he’d no longer play chess with Ryan—a day she didn’t want to think about.
    “Do you like my dad, Grandpa?” A heavy silence filled the kitchen, then Ryan said, “You don’t like him, do you?”
    “Can’t a man think about his next move?”
    Her father was stalling. C’mon, Dad, give Will a chance .
    “Check.”
    “Grandpa!”
    Her father cleared his throat. “Ryan, I’m not sure how to answer your question about your father, because I don’t really know him. His family didn’t attend my church.”
    “Oh.” More silence then Ryan said, “He wants me to help him and his nephews build a doghouse.”
    “When?”
    “Tomorrow. He said Mom could come, if she wanted to.”
    This was the first Marsha had heard of Will inviting them to the farm. Her son shared everything with her—the good and the bad. That he hadn’t mentioned building a doghouse suggested that he remained undecided about going.
    “Do you want to help your dad?”
    “Not really.” There was a pause, then she heard Ryan say, “But I wouldn’t mind seeing the dog. It’s a Lab named Bandit.”
    Her son loved dogs, but she’d never allowed him to have one because she hadn’t thought it fair to leave an animal home alone all day while she and Ryan were at school.
    “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to.” Her father pushed his chair away from the table. “I’d planned to drive into Yuma tomorrow. I can drop you off at the library if you want.”
    Her father was trying to persuade Ryan not to spend time with Will. Marsha understood and sympathized with his fear of losing his grandson to Will, but he should know that Ryan’s love for him was strong and true.
    She lifted the wash-machine lid and closed it loudly, then stepped into the kitchen. “How’s the game going?” she asked.
    Her father frowned.
    “Grandpa’s beating me as usual.”
    “Grandpa’s a tough opponent.”
    “Ryan said William asked—”
    “Dad, his name is Will, not William.” Everyone knew that the Cash brothers’ mother, Aimee, had printed her sons’ monikers on their birth certificates exactly the way their country-western namesakes spelled them, which proved a