glanced at her. He grimaced, retraced his steps, tossed his hat onto the sofa and sat down beside her. “Yeah.”
“That rooster again, huh?” she teased.
His dark eyes widened. “How did you guess?”
She tried to suppress laughter and lost. “Your father came in here bent over double, laughing his head off. He said half the cowboys were ready to load rifles and go rooster-hunting about the time you drove off. He wondered if we might need to find legal representation for you...?”
“I didn’t shoot her,” he said. He shrugged his powerful shoulders and let out a long sigh, his hands dangling between his splayed legs as he stared at the carpet. “But I said some really terrible things to her.”
Shelby put down the European fashion magazine she’d been reading. In her younger days, she had been a world-class model before she married King Brannt. “Want to talk about it, Matt?” she asked gently.
“Cort,” he corrected with a grin.
She sighed. “Cort. Listen, your dad and I were calling you Matt until you were teenager, so it’s hard...”
“Yes, well, you were calling Morie ‘Dana,’ too, weren’t you?”
Shelby laughed. “It was an inside-joke. I’ll tell it to you one day.” She smiled. “Come on. Talk to me.”
His mother could always take the weight off his shoulders. He’d never been able to speak so comfortably about personal things to his father, although he loved the older man dearly. He and his mother were on the same wavelength. She could almost read his mind.
“I was pretty mad,” he confessed. “And she was cracking jokes about that stupid rooster. Then she made a crack about Odalie and I just, well, I just lost it.”
Odalie, she knew, was a sore spot with her son. “I’m sorry about the way things worked out, Cort,” she said gently. “But there’s always hope. Never lose sight of that.”
“I sent her roses. Serenaded her. Called her just to talk. Listened to her problems.” He looked up. “None of that mattered. That Italian voice trainer gave her an invitation and she got on the next plane to Rome.”
“She wants to sing. You know that. You’ve always known it. Her mother has the voice of an angel, too.”
“Yes, but Heather never wanted fame. She wanted Cole Everett,” he pointed out with a faint smile.
“That was one hard case of a man,” Shelby pointed out. “Like your father.” She shook her head. “We had a very, very rocky road to the altar. And so did Heather and Cole.”
She continued pensively. “You and Odalie’s brother, John Everett, were good friends for a while. What happened there?”
“His sister happened,” Cort replied. “She got tired of having me at their place all the time playing video games with John and was very vocal about it, so he stopped inviting me over. I invited him here, but he got into rodeo and then I never saw him much. We’re still friends, in spite of everything.”
“He’s a good fellow.”
“Yeah.”
Shelby got up, ruffled his hair and grinned. “You’re a good fellow, too.”
He laughed softly. “Thanks.”
“Try not to dwell so much on things,” she advised. “Sit back and just let life happen for a while. You’re so intense, Cort. Like your dad,” she said affectionately, her dark eyes soft on his face. “One day Odalie may discover that you’re the sun in her sky and come home. But you have to let her try her wings. She’s traveled, but only with her parents. This is her first real taste of freedom. Let her enjoy it.”
“Even if she messes up her life with that Italian guy?”
“Even then. It’s her life,” she reminded him gently. “You don’t like people telling you what to do, even if it’s for your own good, right?”
He glowered at her. “If you’re going to mention that time you told me not to climb up the barn roof and I didn’t listen...”
“Your first broken arm,” she recalled, and pursed her lips. “And I didn’t even say I told you so,” she reminded him.
“No. You didn’t.” He stared at his linked fingers. “Maddie Lane sets me off. But I should never have said she was ugly and no man would want her.”
“You said that?” she exclaimed, wincing. “Cort...!”
“I know.” He sighed. “Not my finest moment. She’s not a bad person. It’s just she gets these goofy notions about animals. That rooster is going to hurt somebody bad one day, maybe put an eye out, and she thinks it’s funny.”
“She doesn’t realize he’s dangerous,” she replied.
“She doesn’t want to realize it. She’s in over her head with these expansion projects. Cage-free eggs. She hasn’t got the capital to go into that sort of operation, and she’s probably already breaking half a dozen laws by selling them to restaurants.”
“She’s hurting for money,” Shelby reminded somberly. “Most ranchers are, even us. The drought is killing us. But Maddie only has a few head of cattle and she can’t buy feed for them if her corn crop dies. She’ll have to sell at a loss. Her breeding program is already losing money.” She shook her head. “Her father was a fine rancher. He taught your father things about breeding bulls. But Maddie just doesn’t have the experience. She jumped in at the deep end when her father died, but it was by necessity, not choice. I’m sure she’d much rather be drawing pictures than trying to produce calves.”
“Drawing.” He said it with contempt.
She stared at him. “Cort, haven’t you ever noticed that?” She indicated a beautiful rendering in pastels of a fairy in a patch of daisies in an exquisite frame on the wall.
He glanced at it. “Not bad. Didn’t you get that at an art show last year?”
“I got it from Maddie last year. She drew it.”
He frowned. He actually got up and went to look at the piece. “She drew that?” he asked.
“Yes. She was selling two pastel drawings at the art show. This was one of them. She sculpts, too—beautiful little fairies—but she doesn’t like to show those to people. I told her she should draw professionally, perhaps in graphic design or even illustration. She laughed. She doesn’t think she’s good enough.” She sighed. “Maddie is insecure. She has one of the poorest self-images of anyone I know.”
Cort knew that. His lips made a thin line. He felt even worse after what he’d said to her. “I should probably call and apologize,” he murmured.
“That’s not a bad idea, son,” she agreed.
“And then I should drive over there, hide in the grass and shoot that damned red-feathered son of a...!”
“Cort!”
He
