One Less Lonely Cowboy

“Hell, you don’t need me to tell you what to do, Jack. You know this operation as well as I do. I don’t worry about you standing around.”

“Get the hell going, then.”

Jack turned away smiling. Mike was big on meetings. The grass-fed cattle co-op he’d started kept him pretty busy these days, and keeping his mind busy was good for Mike’s health. That and staying off the bottle. Mike was still a step ahead of the devil in that regard. Jack would know if he wasn’t. He knew all the signs. To each his own struggle, Jack figured, but if Mike went down, Jack would know the reason why. And he would return Mike’s many favors, try to be his good neighbor. If it hadn’t been for Mike, Jack wouldn’t even know what that meant.

With his morning chores done, Jack had already put in what most people would call a day’s work, but he would have more work and another paycheck coming if he went over later and spent the afternoon at the Corey ranch. Corey was a friend of Mike’s. It was a neighborly friendship, but it was also a business association. Jack didn’t know much about either kind. He knew cousins and pals, and he’d walked away from some of each. Had to. It was the only way he could make any sense of who he really was or could become.

He remembered turning off the road the first time he’d followed the arrow on the sign. Lowdown, Montana. Population: 352, Give or Take a Few. He’d figured on taking a few. Up to that point, sobriety hadn’t been all it was cracked up to be. He’d been out of work for three months and sober the whole damn time. So he’d taken that good turn, then done another for a lonely old man, and he’d been rewarded with steady work, a secure place to park and a new kind of friend.

Jack upended the wheelbarrow at the edge of the compost pile and caught himself checking the approach as he reversed the wheel. He was looking for a little red Chevy.

Didn’t mean anything. People who lived out in the country always looked for cars. It was a rare enough sight. He could still hear his grandfather calling out Car comin’! from the yard. Footer, he would hollered if someone walked into sight, or two-footer if it was a couple, rider for a horseman. But the approach of a vehicle brought curious faces to windows and opened doors. Footers and riders didn’t take you anywhere. Drivers just might.

But Jack was looking for something more than just a car today. A pretty face, a soft voice, a sassy smile. Mike’s daughter was the complete package. Her interest in looking at horses made her even more interesting. They would have something to talk about besides the big city, which he knew nothing about. Anything else he could think of offhand was bound to destroy the zone defense he’d learned to play pretty well. Comfort zone.

But she had asked him to go riding. And horses always worked for Jack. He’d always been a good hand, even when everything else was slipping through his fingers. To hear Mike tell it, his daughter was a fair hand herself, not to mention a good student, good teacher, good cook, good mother, good looking—hell, you could zone out, tune back in and Mike would still be talking about Lily. But now that he’d met her, Jack wouldn’t be zoning out anymore.

She’d given him her name, caught his eye, and he’d been damn grateful for the shelter of his hat brim. Felt like he’d touched a live electrical wire. Crazy. First time he’d felt that kind of sensation minus a power source. Unless that’s what she was.

Damn, what was he? Sixteen?

Hula wheeled right along with him, sticking to his side through every move. That was a herding dog for you. The only true partner Jack had taken on since his divorce. She’d started out pretty useless—the runt of Mike’s Catahoula Leopard Dog’s last litter. Old Dancer had been devoted to Mike the same way Hula was to Jack. The two men had given her a proper burial under a big old gnarled cottonwood near the river. For Mike the dog had been irreplaceable. He’d gotten a nice chunk of change for the pick of the litter, then sold the rest except for little Hula. If Jack hadn’t known better, he would have accused Mike of saving her for him. The old man didn’t want to keep the pup for himself, but he couldn’t send her away, either.

Jack stored the wheelbarrow in the barn and surveyed the interior, alley to loft to rafters. The sun was leaking through the roof big-time. Nothing he could do about leaks of any kind without roofing. That metal sheeting was damn good stuff. Jack had built a simple pole barn on his own place years ago, back when he’d had his own place. He could do it again, better this time. Build it bigger and better in half the time, now that he knew what he was doing.

You know what your problem is, Jack? You’re not happy unless you ’re on the move. I don’t know where you want to be, but I know it isn’t here.

Even before they were married, Edie’s nickname for him had been Lonesome. She said he’d called her once and claimed he was “real lonesome.” He didn’t remember doing it, but since it sounded like beer talk, he took her word for it. They’d known each other since they were kids, and they weren’t much more than that when they’d gotten married. Edie had been ready for marriage; Jack was okay with it. They’d had two sweet years with lots of laughs, two salty years with plenty of tears, two sour years with silence, and in the middle of it all they’d had two babies. Now that they were friends again she was letting him see the kids.

He didn’t mind being alone, and he didn’t think of himself as the lonesome cowboy type. He’d always kept to himself on the inside even when he’d been a big party boy on the outside. It had seemed like a good combination—real manly—but it hadn’t made him a good husband. Maybe he wasn’t husband material. The party boy had become a sober man, but he’d lost most of what he’d had in the process, and he was keeping the rest to himself. Safer that way. For everybody.

Still, the sound of a car in desperate need of a tune-up had him turning toward the open barn door. Hula was standing at attention, ready to sound her warning if he would allow. Yeah, the car sounded as if it was still chewing on the bones of its last victim, but it carried a person of interest. The good kind. He stepped outside into the sunlight.

“Are we still on?” Lily asked as she strode purposefully in his direction, a flirty sparkle alight in her eyes.

She wore tall leather boots with chunky two-inch heels—the kind that couldn’t be easy to walk in but sure as hell looked good on a woman—and a tan wool coat that hit her about mid-thigh, showing off some of her black skirt. She smiled as she reached back and set her hair free. Her hand came away with a big brown clip, and her reddish-brown hair unfurled like a flag lifted on the crisp March breeze.

He couldn’t find the voice to ask On what?

“You were going to show me the horses, remember?”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll round up a couple of saddle horses while you …”

“Get changed.” She tucked the clip in her coat pocket. “As long as I was going to be at the school, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go looking the part. And guess what. They do need subs. It doesn’t pay very well, but it’s a start.” She glanced down at Hula. “Yours?”

“Yeah, she’s—”

“Is it okay to pet her?”

“Sure.”

“I always make sure.” She knew enough to let the dog sniff her hand first. Hula’s gyrating tail put Lily at the top of the smells-good chart. “What’s her name? She looks like a Catahoula. I had one once. Is she good with kids?” She bent her knees and started sinking toward eye-level with the dog, but she turned her ankle.

Hula jumped back, and Jack caught Lily before she toppled.

“Oops!” She looked up and surprised him with a quick laugh. “Nice save. Thanks.” He steadied her while she reset her feet, and then she made kissing noises at the dog, offering her hand again. Hula moved back in, and there was a whole lot of licking and giggling and scratching and petting.

Jack felt a little cheated.

“She’s not around kids that much, but she’s never offered them any trouble. She’s at her best with cattle. And me.” Lily stood up smiling, wiping the dog slobber off her chin with the back of her hand. “And now you.”

“Iris has always wanted a dog, but I wouldn’t have one in the city.” Hula whined for another pat on the head, and she got it. “Aw, you’re such a love.” Jack would have given the dog a warning, but he didn’t want to wipe away whatever points his gallant catch might have gained him. “What’s her name?” Lily asked again.

“Hula.” He shrugged diffidently. “My daughter named her.”

“Your daughter? How old is she?”

“She’s just about Iris’s age. Two kids,” he added. Hadn’t been asked, but he was unwilling to leave anyone out. “My boy is eleven.”

“You didn’t mention children last night.”

“Nobody asked.” Still hadn’t, but for some reason he felt like getting some facts out. “I’ve been married. I’m not now.”

“I never was. As I’m sure my father’s told you.” Her eyes challenged him for a denial, but then she let him off the hook with a quick shrug. “Which is probably why we kept the conversation to a minimum last night.”

“About a week ago Mike mentioned you might be moving back home, you and your daughter. Said you and her father weren’t together.” Now they were even. She knew as much as he did. “That’s about it.”

“I didn’t give him much notice. My father, not Iris’s. Her father and I were never together, really. I mean, we were, but …” She shook her head, made a funny little sound as though they were still talking about kids other than themselves. “Teenagers. What’re you gonna do, huh?”

“You tell me. Being one is a real rush. Watching your kid turn into one …”

“Scary.” She glanced past him toward the barn. “You sure you have time?”

“Oh, yeah. Long as we ride through the cows on our way to look at the horses.”

“I’ll go change. Just be a minute.”

“No rush.” They looked at each other and laughed. “You left all this behind, right? Ended up east of here, about … what? Six, seven hundred miles?”

“Something like that.”

“Time’s nothing here. But daylight?” He flashed her a wink and a smile. “Now that’s something you don’t wanna burn.”

When Lily stepped out the back door she found Jack half sitting on the hood of her car with the reins of two saddled sorrels in his gloved hands. She hesitated. Gloves. All she had were a pair of thin stretchy ones she kept in her coat pocket and her heavy-duty mittens. But he was already pushing away from her car, and she wasn’t sure how much time their ride would take. And she wanted to save plenty of daylight for Iris.

“Where’s Hula?”

“You need a chaperone?” He laughed. “Cows are edgy enough right now without having a dog around.”