“So, no wife either?”
“Nope. No wife either.” Clancy stood and poked at the fire. “Here’s the thing. Women like the idea of a cowboy. They want to catch ’em, kind of like a wild horse. Soon as they got ’em caught, they wanna tame ’em. Soon as they got ’em tamed, they don’t want ’em anymore, so they go off in search of another cowboy.”
Bill didn’t think his mama ever tamed his daddy, but he couldn’t say for sure. Clancy reminded him a lot of his father. They were close in age and had a similar build—tall, with broad shoulders that came from working a ranch every day.
Clancy got a lot of attention from the women who vacationed at the dude ranch. Even the married ones, especially when they heard he was single. They were fascinated by his bright blue eyes and wanted to run their hands through his ginger-colored hair. There were times Bill felt embarrassed for him, but it didn’t seem to bother Clancy.
“Anyway, I let ’em think they got me caught, and soon as I see any sign of them trying to tame me, I end it. We both stay happier that way.”
Clancy sat back down. “Gotta say, the one thing that bothers me about it all is that I don’t have any youngens.” He studied Bill. “I figure, since your pa passed away, you don’t have a daddy, either. We’re a pair, ain’t we?”
Bill nodded his head. The last few weeks at the ranch, Clancy had looked out for him. He gave him free rein, but never enough that he could get out of hand. Bill worked hard, like he promised to. At the end of a long day, he liked to go back to the house, where he had his own room. Some nights he fell asleep before he finished the letter he tried to write his mama every day. If he did, he’d finish it the next night. They didn’t go to the post office in town that often, but he mailed every one of them in a separate envelope.
Since Clancy was in charge of sending Bill’s pay to his mama, they’d get a money order at the bank in town for half of Bill’s earnings. The other half, he deposited in an account in Bill’s name. He would’ve sent it all, but Clancy told him that was the way his mama wanted it.
5
“Hey, Daddy.”
“Hey, sweetheart. I got your info.”
“Can you email it to me?”
“Of course. Now tell me what’s goin’ on.”
“Nothin’.”
“Try again, and tell me the truth this time.”
Her father always knew when Tristan was lying, not that she did it very often, and almost never to him. This wasn’t really a lie so much as her not knowing how to answer him. She really liked being around the Rice and Patterson families. They had so much fun. And there was no shortage of love either.
She’d grown up an only child, like her father was. She didn’t know much about her mama’s family. They weren’t spoken of often, even when she was still alive.
After her funeral, she never saw them again. It bothered her, but since she hadn’t known them before her mama passed away, it wasn’t as though she missed them. She missed her, though, every day. Still did. Every single day.
Tristan never felt a lack of love from her father or her grandfather. There were neighbor ladies who had been close to her mother and made sure she had someone to take her shopping for her prom dress and stuff like that. And there were always lots of friends. Her father knew everybody, and ev
erybody knew him. She was popular in school too, and had friends from rodeo. But they weren’t family. Not like the Rices and Pattersons.
“I just miss you,” she said finally.
“You can come home whenever you want to. We don’t have to finalize this deal in person. You can get on a plane tomorrow and be sittin’ at the dinner table with us by nightfall.”
“I know. It isn’t that bad. It isn’t bad at all really. It’s more that I wish you and Gramps were here too. They’re all so nice. I know you already know they are, but being here with them, it’s just…I can’t explain it.”
“Well if you figure it out, you know how to reach me. In the meantime, let’s talk a little business. That okay with you?”
“More than okay.” Talking business would be just the thing to get her out of her funk.
Grey loved going for rides in the truck. “Voom, voom,” he’d say, and off they’d go. Bullet had been worried that after being stuck in his buddy seat for hours on the drive from Oklahoma to Colorado, Grey would pitch a fit about getting back in it. But he didn’t.
“Let’s go to the Secret Stash,” Lyric suggested.
That was fine with him. He was already feeling as though he’d worn out his welcome staying in Ben and Liv’s house, and he’d only been there a day. He didn’t know how Lyric did it. She didn’t seem to have any trouble hanging out with them, eating their food, or staying in their house. Bullet felt as though he and Grey were an imposition. But then, Lyric didn’t work for them. He did.
“They don’t think of you that way.”
“How’d you know what I was thinkin’?”