The Cowboy's Wife For One Night

“Don’t, Lucy, don’t do that. I just…I want to try.”

“I don’t believe you,” Lucy said. “And neither does she.”

“How am I supposed to convince her if you won’t let me talk to her?”

Lucy sighed. “I see your problem,” she said.

“Great, then can I talk to her?”

“No,” she said, the meanest guard dog to ever wear Betty Boop pajamas. “Go to bed and get over it.”

She slammed the door in his face.

He was exhausted, frustrated and getting desperate. She didn’t want him back here, she wasn’t giving him the chance to fight and he was leaving in a few days to go back to the university. His instinct told him to come back, to keep up the fight, but he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever win it.

She’d hardened her heart and maybe he needed to respect that. Let them both move on.

The very thought made him sick.

Luckily, there was plenty of work to keep him busy and the first of the cattle had been moved up to the north pasture, which just left the moms and babies.

He saddled Blue and led the horse out of the barn. He whistled for the dogs, but Daisy and Bear were not to be seen.

“Come on, don’t tell me Lucy’s got them, too,” he muttered, rounding the corner to the front of the barn only to find his father sitting in the old chair, the one Mia had fallen asleep in weeks ago. The dogs sat at his feet, their mottled muzzles on his knees.

“You done spoiling the dogs?” Jack asked. “I got work to do.”

“It can keep.” Walter stood, a tall man coming all the way to his full height. There was no cane today. He didn’t shake. He didn’t tremble. Jack stepped closer and took a whiff of his dad’s breath. No booze.

“What’s going on?” Jack asked.

Walter licked his lips, a small show of doubt that somehow made Jack nervous. “I want to be a part of your life,” Walter said.

“Excuse me?”

“I want…I want to be a part of your life. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes and maybe I can never be your father again. I understand that, but I want…I need to know where you are and what you’re doing.” Walter didn’t look at him, kept his eyes on the dogs, his hands stroking their soft ears.

“I’m trying to herd some cows up to the high pasture,” Jack said, deliberately obtuse. This conversation was…unnecessary. Unwanted.

And then he remembered Mia’s words, about how he needed to come to grips with his past and his parents in order to have real relationships. Maybe she was right.

She’d been right about so much.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll call you more often.”

“You’re not staying.”

“She’s kicking me off the ranch, Dad.”

“I want to visit you.”

Jack nearly staggered backward.

“I’m not kidding, I want to see where you live.”

“Dad, what in the world is bringing this on?”

“I’m fighting for one damn thing I want, Jack.” His father turned burning eyes on him that scorched through Jack’s skin, finding dark places, hidden places, that hadn’t seen light or heat in twenty years. It hurt, and every instinct in him cried out to leave. To find some safety, a rooftop far away. But he gritted his teeth and stuck it out, facing it down. “One thing. I haven’t fought for anything my whole life. I let Victoria bully you. I let her run me away from my own son. I let her drive away the only people in this house who made it a home.”

Walter’s eyes were damp, his face was red, emotion rolled off him in waves. More emotion than Jack had ever seen Walter express.

“Calm down, Dad,” he breathed, reaching for Walter, who only shook him off.

“You could learn a lesson from me,” Walter said. “You’ll die alone, Jack. All alone, if you don’t fight for what you want.”

“What does this have to do with me?” he asked.

“We’re not that different, you and me. The way you treat Mia, have treated her for years—it’s the same way I treated you. I ignored you and left you alone, because it hurt to be with you. It hurt to count all the years I let go to waste between us, so I just stayed away. Kept my head down and pretended that I wasn’t in pain.”

Pretended I wasn’t in pain.

Jack could have said those words; they could have been ripped from his own life. He reeled slightly, trying to make sense of the fact that his father had just bashed him upside the head with the truth.

“We need to fight,” Walter said. “If we want a chance to make things right. And that’s what I’m doing. Right now. If you were a smart man, which lord knows you are, you’d do the same. Before it’s too late.”

Too late, Jack thought, feeling a sudden call to arms. Because failing to fight, or even giving up, leaving when she wanted him to leave and never coming back, only ensured he’d end up like his father.