The Cowboy's Lullaby

“From what I understand, that’s a suburb.”

Then, when Willoughby recited her number, he jotted it down, even though he had no intention of calling.

He was going to fly to California as soon as possible. Brianna lost her father last year and her mother today. She needed to be with family, with someone who loved her.

And that someone was her big brother, Jake.

Chloe Haskell hadn’t been to the park in nearly ten years and wished she’d come sooner.

There was something liberating about swinging back and forth like a child again, allowing the summer breeze to muss her hair. She supposed there were some who would criticize a grown woman for enjoying herself in a playground, but Chloe couldn’t care less. She was doing this for Brianna—and for the woman who should have been swinging beside the child instead.

“Let’s go all the way up to Heaven,” Brianna said.

If only they could.

Desiree had been a wonderful mother, a devoted friend.

Brianna must miss her terribly.

Chloe missed her, too. She and Desiree had been more like sisters than friends, even though they hadn’t seen each other as often as they should have.

In retrospect, Chloe wished that she had taken time for personal visits to Dallas, but in her defense, she’d been busy, first attending college, then opening her own business. So the two women had kept in contact via long phone calls and e-mails.

There wasn’t much they hadn’t discussed over the past six years. When Chloe had decided to lease the old five-and-dime store in downtown Bayside and put in a dance studio, she’d called Desiree for advice. And Desiree, who’d retired once she’d moved to Dallas, shared the joys of married life with the wonderful older man she adored.

Of course, she also confided in Chloe about the problems she’d faced as a stepmother to her husband’s son, a “kid” who vowed never to accept her.

When Desiree was blessed with a daughter and at last had the family she’d been waiting for, Chloe had been thrilled for her and sent gifts regularly—little dresses and outfits she’d picked up, books, a toy or two.

It was hard not to envy Desiree’s good fortune—until her luck took a nasty turn.

First her husband suffered a massive heart attack and died, then, a couple of months ago, she brought Brianna out to California for what Chloe and the child believed was a special visit, a vacation of sorts.

But the reunion had been bittersweet.

“I need to ask you a favor,” Desiree had told Chloe, as little Brianna played in the colorful indoor playground at Burger Bob’s.

“Anything.” Chloe withdrew the straw of her chocolate shake and licked a dollop from the end. “You know that.”

Desiree wrapped the remainder of her burger into the bright yellow paper it had come in and pushed it aside. “I need you to take care of Brianna for me.”

“Of course,” Chloe’d said. “I’d love to babysit.”

“I’m afraid it’s more permanent than that.”

A cold chill that had nothing to do with the shake crept over Chloe, and she’d sensed Desiree’s explanation before she could utter the words.

Desiree tore at the edge of her napkin, then peered at Chloe with glistening eyes. “My cancer came back.”

While Chloe was in high school, Desiree had been diagnosed with lung cancer. When she’d completed her medical treatment and was in remission, Chloe’s father, who’d been first her employer and later a business associate, had sent her on an all-expenses-paid cruise to Alaska, where she met Gerald Braddock.

“And it’s terminal,” Desiree’d added.

The reality and the implication of the diagnosis slammed into Chloe, releasing a torrent of shock and grief. “You need to get a second opinion.”

“I’ve seen three different doctors, hoping for another diagnosis and more options. But they all agree. There’s nothing that can be done.”

The silence threatened to draw them into an emotional whirlpool, and it was all Chloe could do to hang on and not let it carry her away. Not while Brianna played just a few feet away.

“It sucks,” Desiree had said. “It really does. I’ve waited for years to have a child, and now I’m going to leave her. And miss watching her grow up. But if there’s anyone in this world who will love and care for Brianna the way I would have done, it’s you.”

“I…” Chloe had been dumbstruck. Desiree was only thirty-four—ten years older than Chloe. “Of course I’ll take Brianna. I’ll love her like my own. But maybe there’s something that can be done, something experimental. A promising new treatment. Perhaps one of the doctors in San Diego—”

“I’m afraid there isn’t anything that can be done.”

And she’d been right. In less than four weeks, Desiree had died.

The memory of that day faded as little Brianna drew Chloe back to the present.

“Too bad we can’t go to Heaven,” Brianna said. “Mommy loves chocolate. And so does Daddy. We could take them some of the brownies we made.”

“From what I understand, they have all the dessert anyone could ever want in Heaven. But you’re right. We have too many to eat all by ourselves. Maybe we can share them with someone else.”

Under the circumstances, Brianna seemed to be taking her mother’s death fairly well. Of course, Desiree had been preparing her for the past month. And then the two of them had shared a tearful, final goodbye more than a week ago.

Sacrificing her last days must have been tough for Desiree. But she hadn’t wanted Brianna’s memories to be tainted by a hospital setting or seeing her mother connected to tubes and wires. So she left the girl with Chloe more than a week ago, then went home to die.

There was a child psychologist in Dallas whom Desiree had been taking Brianna to see, and Chloe had every intention of following through on those appointments. The little girl seemed to be doing okay, but Chloe didn’t want her have any problems down the road.

“Tell me again how you met my mommy,” Brianna said.

Chloe had known better than to be entirely truthful, especially with a child. So she stretched things a bit. Softened them.

“My father owned a…dance place,” Chloe said. “And your mommy came looking for a job. I was a little girl, like you, and I thought she was the most beautiful dancer I’d ever seen.”

Why tell the child that Chloe’s father owned a bar and strip club? Or that on the day Desiree had shown up, she’d been sporting a black eye, a swollen jaw and a split lip?

“And then,” Brianna said, adding to the story she’d already heard several times, “when your daddy needed someone to watch you, she was the bestest babysitter in the whole, wide world.”

“That she was.”

Chloe’s father, Ron Haskell, was a gambler at heart and had won a seedy bar and strip club in a poker game. During the early years, when Chloe hadn’t been much older than Brianna, she spent a lot of time at the club, where the cocktail waitresses and dancers used to look after her. Desiree, who loved children, gladly babysat whenever Ron asked her. Before long, she and Chloe had developed a strong, loving bond.

Desiree, who’d had a lousy childhood and absolutely no family support, had learned to rely on her available resources—her beauty, her body and an ability to read her customers and alter her dances to fulfill their fantasies. Too bad it took her ages to hone the same ability when it came to reading her lovers and realizing she was a loser magnet when it came to romance.

All Desiree had really wanted was love and a family, yet, that dream had remained out of reach for years. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t successful in other ways.

Ron wasn’t a businessman, yet Desiree was a natural. And soon, thanks to her advice and managerial skills, the club began to turn a decent profit.