His Little Cowgirl

“I have thirty minutes before I need to leave for work.”

Cody took the bucket from her hand and started the job of dumping feed into the stalls. “You water, I’ll feed. And they told me you work three days a week at the Hash-It-Out.”

“Since Dad can’t work, we do what we can to make ends meet.” She didn’t tell him that the ends rarely met. “So, about you and this big apology.”

“Why can’t your dad work?”

“He has cancer.”

She couldn’t tell him that her dad had only months to live. Saying it made it too real. And she couldn’t make eye contact with Cody, not when she knew that his eyes would be soft with compassion.

“I’m sorry, Bailey.”

“We’re surviving.”

“It can’t be easy.”

Cody poured the last scoop of grain into the feed bucket of a horse she’d been working with for a few weeks.

“It isn’t easy.” She turned the water off and then finally looked at him. “But we’re doing our best.”

“Of course you are.” He sat down on an upturned bucket, absently rubbing his knee as he stared up at the wood plank ceiling overhead.

“Let’s talk about you, Cody. What happened?”

“Bailey, I’m an alcoholic. I started AA about seven months ago. I’ve been sober for six months.” He shrugged. “About five months ago I wrote out a list of people I had hurt, people that I needed to apologize to. You were at the top of the list.”

“I see. And how did this all start?”

“Apologizing, or realizing that I needed to grow up and make changes in my life?”

He smiled a crooked, one-sided smile that exposed a dimple in his left cheek. Bailey hadn’t forgotten that grin. She saw it every time Meg smiled at her. It reminded her of how it had felt to be special to someone like him. He had picked her wildflowers and taken her swimming in mountain lakes.

That moment in the sun had happened when her dad had been healthy and the farm had been prosperous. Their horses had been selling all across the country, and they’d had a good herd of Angus. Now she had five cows, two mares, no stallion and a few horses to train.

“What made you go to AA?”

“I turned thirty and realized I didn’t have a home and that I had a lot of blank spots in my memory. I was getting on bulls drunk.” He shrugged and half laughed. “I realized when I got trampled into the dirt back in Houston last winter.”

“I saw you on TV the night it happened.” She closed her eyes as the admission slipped out and then quickly covered her tracks. “I’ve always watched bull riding. Dad and I watch it together.”

“Gotcha.” He leaned back against the wall. “I guess one of the big reasons for changing was that I didn’t want to waste the rest of my life.”

“I’m glad you’re doing better.” It was all she could give him. She was glad he was sober and glad he was safe. “We’ll work something out so that you can get to know Meg.”

“Get to know her? Bailey, she’s my daughter and I want more than moments to ‘get to know her.’ I want to be a part of her life.”

“You can, when you’re in the area.”

“I made a decision last night.” He didn’t smile as he said the words. “I’m not leaving.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m staying in Gibson, Missouri.”

Bailey’s heart pounded hard and she shoved her trembling hands into the front pockets of her jeans. Dust danced on beams of sun that shot through the open doors of the barn, and country music filtered from the office. She had been here so many times and yet never like this, never as unsure as she was at that moment.

“What about the tour? You’re closer than ever to winning a world title.”

She knew what that meant to him. She knew how hard it was for bull riders to walk away from the pursuit of that title.

“Some things are more important. And if I choose to go back, bull riding will always be there.”

“You can’t stay here.”

“I’m going to park my RV under that big oak tree by your garage, and I am most certainly going to stay.”

“This is my home, my property, and I beg to differ.”

“And that’s my little girl you’ve got in that house, so I think you’ll get over it.”

Bailey sat down on the bucket he’d vacated, her legs weak and trembling. She looked up, making eye contact with a man she didn’t really know. He wasn’t the guy she’d met in Wyoming, the one who’d said he didn’t plan on ever having a family or being tied down to anyone. Back then she had thought finding the right woman to love would change him. Now she didn’t want him changed and living on her farm.

She had to get control. “Fine you can stay for a week, and then we’ll work something out.”

“I’m not leaving, not until I decide to go.”

“Cody, I don’t have time to argue with you.”

He shrugged, casually, but obviously determined. His mouth remained in a straight line, not smiling and not revealing that good-natured dimple.

“I’ve lost five years of my daughter’s life, Bailey. I’m not losing another day. Don’t take this personally, because I’m not trying to make it personal, but I’m not letting you call the shots. You’re not going to keep my daughter from me.”

Did it look that way to him? She hadn’t meant for that to happen. She had really thought he didn’t care, or wouldn’t care. He was in this life for a good time. Those had been his words the day he walked away from her.

People did change. He wasn’t the only one who needed to apologize.

“I’m sorry. I never meant to keep her from you.” She glanced down at her watch and groaned. “I have to go to work.”

“I’ll be here when you get home.”

Would he? She didn’t know how to deal with that thought. Of him in her life, and in her daughter’s life.

She had learned to rely on God and the knowledge that He would get her through whatever came her way. If she closed her eyes, she could think of a long list of whatevers. At the top of the list was losing her dad; then came being a single mom, and then the pile of bills that were growing as large as Mount Rushmore. God could get her through those things.

Now she had to worry about Cody and what his staying would mean. Would he try to gain custody of Meg, or visitation? Would he stay only long enough to prove that he had rights?

How would it feel if he walked away? She tried to tell herself that she wouldn’t be hurt. This time it would be different because now the person who would be hurt was Meg.