The Cowboy Next Door (The Cash Brothers) by Marin Thomas Page B

already slept with her.
    * * *
    “O UCH .” S HANNON WINCED when Dixie pulled too hard on her hair.
    Dixie smiled at Shannon in the mirror. “Bull riders aren’t supposed to whine.”
    Shannon sighed. “Thanks for helping me.”
    “You hate that, don’t you?”
    “Hate what?”
    “Needing help,” Dixie said.
    “I was raised to be independent. If I’d had a grandmother who cared about me the way yours cared about you, I might not be stubborn.”
    Dixie separated Shannon’s hair into three plaits and braided the ebony strands. “Do you know that my grandma wanted to adopt you?”
    “No way.”
    “Yes way. Grandma Ada would get so angry when you showed up at the farm with dirty hair and wax in your ears.”
    Shannon shuddered. “Remember the afternoon I got my period?”
    Both women laughed.
    “And your grandfather’s stunned face when we burst into the kitchen and blurted that I was dying of some terrible disease because I had blood in my underwear.”
    Dixie laughed so hard tears escaped her eyes. “Grandpa fled the house as if his overalls were on fire.”
    “Then your grandma came inside and took us both upstairs to the bathroom and explained how a woman’s body worked and how to use the supplies she’d been keeping on hand for you when your time came,” Shannon said.
    “Grandma Ada loved you as much as she loved me, Shannon.”
    “I kept the quilt she made for me.”
    “She’d be happy about that.” Dixie wrapped the end of the braid in an elastic band. “You know, every time we’ve talked about family it’s always been mine.”
    “Your family is more entertaining.”
    “I’m serious.” Dixie set the comb on the nightstand, then lifted Shannon’s broken leg onto the bed and arranged the pillows beneath it. “You never mention your mother.”
    “Why would I? She walked out on my dad when I was a toddler and I haven’t had any contact with her since.”
    “She’s never called you through the years?”
    “Never. I overheard Matt and Luke talking about her once and I asked why she never visited us.” Shannon swallowed hard. After all these years it remained difficult to accept that her mother wanted nothing to do with her or her brothers. “Matt said she’d married an older man who didn’t have kids and moved out of state with him.”
    “Where did she meet the guy?”
    “I don’t know and if my dad knows he’d never say.”
    “That’s rough. I’m sorry.”
    Shannon blew off the sympathy. “I’m not the only kid on the block who grew up with a parent who didn’t care about them. Your father didn’t want anything to do with you or Johnny.”
    “I might not have cared if our mother had paid more attention to us kids instead of spending her time searching for the perfect man.”
    It was common knowledge that Aimee Cash’s boys had all been fathered by different men—none of whom she’d married. Most folks claimed Aimee had died of a broken heart, but there had been rumors that she’d overdosed on antidepressant pills.
    “At least we had our grandparents. They loved us,” Dixie said.
    “Wouldn’t it be nice if every kid had a childhood where both parents loved them?” Shannon said. “Speaking of childhoods...any news on the baby front?”
    “Not yet, but the trying is fun.”
    After their laughter died down, Shannon struggled to find a way to bring up the subject of Johnny. The longer he avoided her, the more doubts trickled into her mind. Before she considered how it would sound, she blurted, “I heard Johnny and Charlene broke up.”
    If the change in subject startled Dixie, she didn’t show it. “Johnny said they’d been growing apart for a while.” She shook her head. “How does that happen to people? They stay together all those years and then call it quits without a backward glance.”
    “I don’t know.” Shannon had never been in a long-term relationship.
    “After all Gavin and I went through, if he left me, I’d never survive the