Once a Father

“You heard me. Do you want to lose the rest of your leases?” She tuned in to the sound of the visitor’s footsteps, but she held her father’s full attention with a cold glare.

“Looks like somebody spilled her milk.”

“It was going to be ice cream.” Mentally Mary switched the light off in one room and turned it on in another as Logan mounted the porch steps. “Mother, have you met Logan Wolf Track? Logan, Audrey, my mother. You know my father.” Logan glanced at her on the way to shaking her mother’s hand, and she reminded him, “You know who he is.” With her boots covered in what would have been strawberry ice cream, she didn’t feel like saying the name.

But Logan acknowledged him with a proffered hand. Then he turned to Mary. “Let’s go pick up our horse.” “Now?”

“You signed us up. Sally says it’s first come, first served. You wanna ride over there with me, or do you have other—”

“What horse?” her father demanded. “You’re not bringing any horses here.”

“I’m sorry, Logan. My father’s a little cranky. He just received some news that didn’t sit well with him. We weren’t going to bring our horse here, anyway.

Were we?”

“Nope.” Logan glanced at the mess and gave a perfunctory smile. “Wild horses are real sensitive.”

“You mean you’re really doing it?” Audrey rose from the glider. “You entered that contest? Are you a horse trainer, Mr. Wolf Track?”

“Among other things,” he said.

“Can you give me a minute to clean this up?” Mary moved to pick up the overturned stool, but Logan was closer, and he beat her to it. She got the bucket.

“You go on, Mary. I’ll just hose off the porch.”

Mary set the bucket on the stool and turned to give the stay signal. “You’re not hauling hose, Mother.”

But Logan was already halfway down the steps. He’d spotted the hose rack, and he was wasting no time. He unlooped the hose, reached over the railing, handed Mary the nozzle and waited for her signal to turn on the water. Her parents watched silently as though they were the visitors. Maybe she and Logan were already a team. Together they made short work of the porch mess.

“Come with us, Mother,” Mary offered after Logan turned off the water. She felt like a teenager about to head out on her first date. “We’re going to pick out our horse.”

“Oh, no.” Audrey glanced at Dan, who scowled back at her. She smiled. Actually smiled. “I have so much to do. I’m still going to make ice cream if anyone’s interested.”

“Damn right somebody’s interested,” Dan grumbled.

“We can do that when I come back. You don’t need to be cranking.” Mary danced down the porch steps and met Logan at the bottom. “Do you like homemade ice cream?”

“I didn’t know it came homemade.”

“Give me a ride round trip, and I’ll treat you to a taste of heaven.” He looked at her as though her head had just turned into a hot fudge sundae. “I’m not kidding,” she said. “You’ll never go back to the ordinary stuff in a box.”

“Haven’t even gotten much of that lately.” She choked back a laugh as he nodded toward his pickup. “Round trip it is.”

She was an interesting woman, all right. Becoming more interesting by the minute. Logan hadn’t been around too many women when he was in the army. Just his luck. He could’ve used a lot more training in that department right about that time in his life. He’d been a skilled hunter and a Golden Gloves champion boxer when he’d enlisted, but he hadn’t known jack about women. He’d learned the hard way by getting married and turning in his combat boots without giving either move much thought. He’d been that hungry, and Tonya had been that hot.

So here’s this woman offering him ice cream, and his face catches fire. Homemade, she says. What was that supposed to mean?

He was too old to play games. What was that old saying? Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice.

He had a history of taking a flirt too seriously.

He’d gone for the hose. He knew what he was doing. Tonya had been older and wiser—well, smarter—and she’d been there and gone before he’d known what hit him. A lot of water had flowed under his bridge since then, and he knew how to stay cool. Water was the remedy for hot blood. Sweat, tears, time and the river flowing.

And homemade ice cream was probably just something farmers whipped up when they didn’t want to spring for the real thing.

They’d reached the highway, and he was thinking about filling the deafening silence with some country music.

“He never changes.”

Her voice startled him. It sounded small—like her mother’s, but not worn down. Mary’s was more like humiliated. The kid whose father wouldn’t quit yelling at the ref. Logan had never actually had a conversation with the man, but Tutan was the kind who made sure everyone knew who he was and acted like they should care. He couldn’t get it through his head that non-Indian ranchers didn’t call the shots on Indian land. Not anymore. So he’d come before the Council and made a few demands, most recently for reinstatement of the leases he’d lost to the Double D Wild Horse Sanctuary. The Council had given him due consideration—time to tell his side.

He’d leased that land when nobody else wanted it.

Logan would give him that. He’d been there first. Logan had laughed out loud.

The Tribe owed him.

Logan had called the question and moved to reaffirm the decision to lease the area known as Coyote Hills to the Drexlers and to honor their nonprofit status with a special rate.

While the voice of a daughter embarrassed by her father’s behavior tore at Logan’s gut, he couldn’t judge another man on that score. He wasn’t in the habit of commenting on other people’s troubles, anyway, so he said nothing and hoped she’d drop the topic altogether. He was interested in her, not her family, even though they had little in common except a horse.

“I worry about my mother.”

Even worse. Worrisome mother trumped embarrassing father. And from the look of the three Tutans and the mess on their porch, Mary’s worries were well-founded. If it was any of Logan’s business, he’d be worried about Mrs. Tutan, too. Fortunately, his interest didn’t extend to Mary’s mother.

“He’s gonna kill her.”

Aw, jeez. “Let’s go back and get her.”

“She won’t leave him. I’ve tried to.” His foot on the brake changed her tune. “I don’t mean he’s going to kill her. I mean he’s going to be the death of her.” She met his glance with an apologetic smile. “I did say kill, didn’t I.”

“You did.”

“He doesn’t…no. Not literally.” She gave a humorless chuckle. “Not physically.”

He moved his foot to the accelerator.

“She says she just had a small heart attack,” Mary said. “What’s a small heart attack? She was only in the hospital for two days, but that doesn’t mean anything these days. Especially when her husband’s big concern is when are they gonna let her out? So that’s the only reason I came home. The main reason.”

Casting about for a cheerful observation, he smiled at the road ahead. “Now you have a project on the side.”

“Good way to keep busy while I’m here.” “Good way to show your father what you’re made of.”

“I know exactly what I’m made of, and that’s all that counts. I’ve learned that the hard way.”

“How many tours?”

“In the Middle East? Two.”