The Cowboy Lawman Read Online Free PDF

was pulled back in a ponytail and Granny Myrna had even done a decent job with lip gloss and mascara.
    When they pulled into the church parking lot, Mia felt a sense of coming home mixed with a healthy dose of nerves. She looked up at the steeple and thought about all the angry words she’d screamed the night Butch died in her arms. She thought about bargains she’d made, bargains that God had ignored.
    “Time to go in.” Her grandmother pulled the keys out of the ignition. “All to Jesus, I surrender.”
    Mia gathered her purse and Bible. “Even anger?”
    “Even anger.”
    They walked up the steps of the church, her grandmother holding the rail. Mia slowed her steps, realizing with an ache that her granny didn’t move as quickly as she used to. In the spring she’d even had a few ministrokes.
    At the top of the steps stood Slade McKennon and his little boy, Caleb. She smiled at the five-year-old boy with the blond hair because it was easier to look at him than at his father. Caleb, Vicki’s baby.
    She remembered holding him at Vicki’s funeral, cuddling him close. When she looked up from Caleb to meet Slade’s gray eyes, she knew that he’d gone back in time, too. He managed a smile. Hers was slower to return.
    “Good to see you here.”
    “Thank you.” She looked past him into the church. “It’s good to be here.”
    Behind her, Granny Myrna prodded her forward. “Slade and Caleb are going to ring the bell. We need to find a seat.”
    Find a seat? Mia smiled at that. The Coopers sat on the second pew from the front. It wasn’t their pew. If visitors showed up, the Cooper clan moved. But most of the time, you’d find them there, sitting together. A few of the kids missed church from time to time. Heather went to church in Grove. She liked the anonymity of going to a big church. Blake Cooper, second to the oldest of the kids, sometimes had business that kept him out of town.
    Gage and Dylan traveled a lot, bull riding or providing livestock for rodeos and bull rides. Bryan, the youngest brother, was in South America on a mission trip.
    Mia called it his “guilt trip.” He had made a mistake, like so many other kids, and now he felt he had to pay for it.
    Caleb reached for her hand as she eased past father and son. “Do you know I’m in school now?”
    She smiled down at him. “I heard that. Do you like it?”
    Vicki had always wanted half a dozen kids. Caleb should have been one of many. Mia had always groaned at the idea of six kids. She’d grown up as a Cooper, surrounded by siblings.
    Caleb nodded. “We’re having a class party and the moms are bringing cupcakes.”
    “That’s going to be great.” Mia looked up from the little boy to his dad.
    “Let Mia go, Caleb. We’ll talk to her later.”
    Caleb released her hand. Mia knelt next to him and wrapped her left arm around him in a quick hug. “I think I know how to make cupcakes.”
    He smiled at that but Slade cleared his throat. “We’ve got it covered.”
    Mia got it. Slade didn’t want her that involved in his life. She stood and followed her grandmother down the aisle to the second pew from the front.
    * * *
    Slade watched Mia walk down the aisle toward the front of the church. He didn’t know why it hurt him so much to watch her with Caleb. He guessed because it had hurt five years ago when she sat behind him at Vicki’s funeral, holding their baby boy. But today was different. Today something else had happened when he saw her hug his son. This was a different kind of ache.
    It took him by surprise and he stood there for a full minute trying to make sense of it. A hand reached for his and pulled hard.
    He looked down at Caleb and smiled.
    “You going to hand me that rope?” Caleb stood steady in his new boots and his best shirt.
    “I sure am.” Slade unhooked the rope from the hook on the wall and handed it to his son. “Ring the bell, Caleb.”
    Caleb pulled hard, swinging a little on the rope and then pulled again. The