Chapter 2
Megan had agreedto the rodeo. She regretted it as she pulled her Subaru sedan off the two-lane farm road and onto a rutted two-track driveway. At least she thought it was supposed to be adriveway.
She felt like a pushover, because she'd given in after the 15,237th time Julianne hadasked.
And partly because Brady hadn'tasked.
He didn't ask for things, because he didn't trust her. At least, that's what she'd guessed over the last nine months since she'd been awarded custody of her nephew andniece.
She's not ourmom.
Brady's quick temper at the gas station had made her want to curl up in a ball and weep all over again. For what he'd lost. What they'd all lost when her sister and brother-in-law had been in a fatal car accident. Emma and Riley weregone.
One phone call had changed Megan's life, and the kids' lives,too.
Months had passed, and they were still walking on eggshells around each other. Trying to figure out how to do lifenow.
Thus, therodeo.
It couldn't be dangerous towatchthe rodeo,right?
"This is so exciting," Julianne squealed from the backseat of Megan's sedan. At eight, everything wasexciting.
As the car bumped and tilted over the rough off-road terrain, Megan could only pray she wasn't doing irreparable damage to the car. She squinted against the setting sun, trying to find a place to park. She was surrounded by trucks. Finally, she pulled off the rutted lane and parked between two huge farm trucks in the tall fieldgrass.
Hot, humid Texas air and the smell of animal feces hit her as she stepped out of the sedan. The summer grass crunched beneath hersneakers.
Julianne and Brady jumped from the backseat.
"Guys," she warned before they could runoff.
They both froze, their energy instantly diminishing. Brady wouldn't look ather.
"What are the rules?" sheasked.
"Don't go off by ourselves," Juliannechirped.
"And?"
"Don't eat junk food...?" the girl askedtentatively.
Brady stared off in the distance, chin set at a mulishangle.
She addressed him. "Is there anything you want toadd?"
He shot her a glare. "Don't run around. Don't talk to anyone. Don't have anyfun."
Well, that was a bit of anexaggeration.
"You know why we have the rules," she reminded them both. "It's not about keeping you from havingfun."
"It's aboutprotecting us." His mocking emphasis on the last words didn't go unnoticed, but she let itgo.
She followed as they navigated through the sea of trucks and trailers toward a metal-fenced arena, where red dust rose above everythingelse.
Things had been going well—as well as could be expected, under the circumstances—until the last few weeks. Brady wanted to argue over everything. Felt her rules were tooconfining.
She didn't know what to do. She knew Emma hadn't let the kids run wild. She was maybe a smidge more strict than Emma had been, but she was still learning her way here too. She'd been working her way through med school when her friends had been having babies. People with kids Julianne and Brady's age had gone through the baby stages, the terrible twos, the beginning of the elementaryyears.
