Daddy By Decision

“Now why don’t I believe you?” Her arm resting on the dog, she turned to him and lifted her eyebrow, her mockery obvious.

“How perceptive of you.” Deliberately he repeated her earlier gibe and watched her quite remarkable blue eyes darken behind her glasses. “I’d almost think we’d met before—for you to have such insight into my character, Miz McDonald. Or was it only a lucky guess?” He wondered if she’d let him have the last word. He somehow didn’t think she would.

“Down, Loofah,” the woman said and ground the ignition key, restarting the engine before tilting her chin up at him. “Look, cowboy, you tried out your pickup routine, and it didn’t work. You were bored, at loose ends, and I wasn’t interested. Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay? Call it a day.”

Pebbles and dust spurted out from under the tires as she backed out. The monster dog watched him from the rear window, tongue hanging out as if maybe after all she’d like Buck to be dinner.

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Buck found himself contemplating the van’s taillights. But this time, he had an answer.

She knew him. Her slightly acid responses hadn’t been those of a stranger. And he knew her. But she wasn’t a Miz, Ms. or Mrs. McDonald. Some other name. It would come to him sooner or later. Dust blew into his face as he stared into the empty distance.

He understood the sizzle crackling between them. He understood sex. He liked the way her pupils dilated when she looked at him. He liked the way her smooth skin shone pink with discomfort. He liked the faint scent of flowers that rose from her skin, her hair.

The sense that there was something more than a sexual pull between them disturbed him. He liked sex a whole, heaping bunch. It was simple, uncomplicated. What he felt toward the woman with the bedroom voice and cautious eyes wasn’t simple at all.

Scratching the still-itching mosquito bite on his neck, he thought about the peculiar swirl of emotions the woman created in him. He’d never exerted this kind of energy in pursuit of a woman, and he wasn’t comfortable with the sense that he was sailing over the edge into unknown seas, that she had some power over him.

But he trusted his instincts and his instincts told him that she had her own reasons for pretending not to remember him. He couldn’t help wondering what they were. Rocking slowly back and forth on his worn-down boot heels, he stayed there until the van was nothing more than a dark speck on the red horizon.

Dust swirling and blowing around him, foretelling the coming storm, he walked around the hospital and the physical rehabilitation center for veterans. He didn’t want to go back inside the hospital. Out here in the wind and dust, the air was rich with the smells of ozone and earth, with sweat and flowers. Inside the automatic doors were filtered air and the smells of disinfectant and tragedy.

Bea refused to leave. “I’ve slept beside Hoyt every night for almost forty years. We’ve never been separated. I don’t intend to start now. I don’t want y’all fussing me about it, hear?”

They heard. And they quit pestering her to go back to the ranch and rest. “You know how Mama is,” Buck said to his brothers. “Don’t push. She’ll only dig in her heels harder.” Like the woman in the Palmetto Mart, he thought, surprised. “I’ll be here. Let’s back off, all right?”

There was a curious peacefulness during the quiet night hours with the pinging bells and shushing sounds of doors opening and closing. Bea dozed beside him, her head falling to his shoulder and then snapping up as anxiety slapped her awake. Buck brought her soup and tea. Later, the tea and soup gone cold, he disposed of the paper cups.

During the night, while he sat in the pulled-up chair close to Hoyt’s bed, Buck felt his stepfather’s gnarled hand pull against his own.

“That you, son?” Hoyt’s words were slurred and hard to hear, his effort at speech palpable.

“Yeah, Daddy, I’m here.” Keeping in the shadows at the head of the bed, Buck stayed out of sight, only his touch linking him to this man he loved as much as he loved anyone in the world. He would be whoever Hoyt needed him to be, Hank or T.J. He could give Hoyt that comfort. “I won’t leave,” Buck said, his throat closing as he swallowed.

“Bea?” The rough hand rubbed against Buck’s.

“Mama’s here, too. All of us.”

There was a long pause. Green spikes marched in regular waves across the heart monitor.

“Buck?”

“Yeah, Daddy?” Buck leaned forward. Even without seeing him, Hoyt knew who he was, knew he wasn’t T.J. or Hank.

“Don’t let Bea wear herself out, hear? You know how she gets.” Hoyt’s words echoed his earlier ones.

“I know how Mama gets.” Buck smiled in spite of the lump in his throat. “I’ll watch out for her. We’ll take care of her.”

“Shoot, son, sounds like y’all got me with one foot in the grave already.” Hoyt’s breath rattled as his chest rose laboriously up and down. “Don’t go picking out my tombstone just yet.” Slow, spaced out, the words fell into the quiet, the man’s spirit rising above the limitations of body and tubes. “I ain’t ready to call it a day, you know. I got things to do. Grandkids I ain’t seen yet.”

Tightening his hold around his daddy’s large hand, Buck said, “Reckon that means you want us to cancel the flowers, huh?”

The rasping cough was Hoyt’s version of a chuckle. “Hell, yeah. No sense in wasting all that money. I got a few miles left. Ain’t time to count me out, son.”

“I won’t.”

Hoyt’s eyes closed. “Good.”

“They were awful nice flowers, Daddy.”

“Hope to Billy hell they were.” An almost-smile twitched the corners of Hoyt’s mouth. “Y’all better show this old coot proper respect.” He grunted and then was silent, his chest moving slowly, slowly, rising and falling to the regular rhythm of his sleep.

Holding Hoyt’s hand between both of his, Buck stroked the rough, weathered skin as he whispered, “Hang in there, Daddy.” Carefully he squeezed his father’s hand. “I love you,” he whispered, his throat raspy with unshed tears.

For the rest of the night as Bea and Buck alternated visits, Hoyt drifted back and forth between consciousness and wherever he’d been. Like wings beating lightly against his face, Buck felt hope settle softly in him, easing the dreadful weight of fear. What would be, would be. They would handle it Together.

In the twilight between sleeping and waking, Buck saw a tiny red race car barreling past him over and over again while two women—one with sleek blond hair, the other with wildly tumbling curls—strolled toward him and continued past, their mocking laughs blending into one as they left him behind, alone.

And when night sounds changed to morning bustle, he sat up with a start, everything coming together in his brain with an almost audible click.

He knew damned good and well who she was.

And he was going to find her, one way or the other.

Oh, yes, he remembered Jessica Bell.

Chapter Three (#ulink_35fe3288-8ac0-5151-8fb5-8ecc51beb121)

“I dub thee Sir Mommy.” The metal toy sword tapped Jessie’s left shoulder, then her right.

Her son’s excited eyes met hers as she opened them blearily. “I’m a knight of the realm, am I, love bug?”

“Yep.” He stood up, wrapping the rag-tattered afghan around him. A plastic, economy-size peanut butter bucket wobbled on his head. The strap under his chin kept it from falling off. “Me and Skeezes is kings.” He pointed. The dog’s shaggy eyebrows supported a paper plate cut into points. Red and blue and black scribbles decorated the plate. Sparkles drifted onto the floor, onto Skeezix’s coat.

Jessie yawned. “Nice hat. Skeezix, you’re the next GQ cover.”

“Skeezes is wearing the crown.” Gopher frowned. “See?” He lifted the unevenly cut cardboard. “Rubies and jewels. Oxen—” he frowned again “—and turkey-something.”

“Onyx and turquoise?”

Releasing his chubby grip on Skeezix’s crown, Gopher nodded, sparkles floated and Skeezix sneezed.

“How silly of me. I should have known. You’re a warrior king?” She tapped the top of the bucket. Snagging the strap under his chin, she tugged him toward her. “Well, this knight of the realm expects a big old smackeroo kiss from the warrior king, so pucker up, warrior king.”

Gopher’s soft lips puckered up, and he planted a warm, wet, sweet kiss on Jessie’s mouth. The bucket smacked her in the forehead, Skeezix planted his version of a smackeroo, and the doorbell rang.

Collapsing on top of her, giggling and woofing, child and dog wrestled her off the sofa. “Wow. Now that’s what I call a kiss, sugar. Haul Skeezix off me, will you?” Jessie fumbled for her glasses that had twisted off and lay buried somewhere under dog and child and cushions. “Hey, guys, anybody see my glasses?”

The doorbell rang again, two short, commanding peals.