The Cowboy Way: A Creed in Stone Creek / Part Time Cowboy

“What do I get if you lose?” Tom wanted to know.

Melissa thought quickly. “I’ll buy you dinner.”

“As long as you’re not cooking,” Tom specified, looking and sounding dead serious.

This was a bet Melissa wanted to lose. “I’ll recruit Ashley,” she said. “She can do those specially marinated spare ribs you like so much.”

“Deal,” Tom said, without cracking a smile. Even as a little kid, he’d been a sucker for a bet.

“Wait just a second,” Melissa said. “What if I win? What happens then?”

“I’ll take over as chairman of the Parade Committee,” Tom told her, after some thought.

“Deal,” Melissa agreed, putting out her free hand.

They shook on it, then Tom turned and stalked back to the gate, through it and down the sidewalk to his car. “Just remember one thing!” he called back to her.

“What?” Melissa retorted, about to turn around and open her front door.

“Two can play this game,” Tom said.

Then he got into the cruiser, slammed his door and ground the engine to life with a twist of the key in the ignition, leaving Melissa to wonder what the hell he’d meant by that.

He made the siren give one eloquent moan as he drove on past her house and vanished around the corner.

“Damn,” Melissa said, as the answer dawned on her.

Now she’d gone and done it.

Tom would lie awake nights until he came up with a dare for her. And it would be a doozy, knowing him.

But she didn’t dwell on the problem too long, because she had things to do. Like go over to Ashley’s, thereby braving the wild bunch, who might well be swinging from the chandeliers in their birthday suits, to steal a main course and a dessert from one of the freezers.

* * *

“NEXT TIME,” STEVEN told the rearview reflection of a chagrined Matt, as they drove out of town, “it would be a really good idea to talk it over with me before you go inviting people to our place for supper.”

Matt was no pouter, but his lower lip poked out a-ways, and he was blinking real fast, both of which were signs that he might cry.

It killed Steven when he cried.

“I was just trying to be a good neighbor,” Matt explained, sounding as wounded as he looked. “Anyhow, I like Ms. O’Ballivan, don’t you?”

“Yes,” he said, tightening his fingers on the steering wheel, then relaxing them again. “I understand that your intentions were good,” he went on quietly. “But sometimes, if that person happens to have other plans, or some other reason why they need to say no, it puts them on the spot. There’s no graceful way for them to turn you down.”

Matt listened in silence, sniffling a couple of times.

“Do you know what I’m saying, here?” Steven asked, keeping his voice gentle.

Matt nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I get it. I’m gifted, remember?”

Steven laughed. “There’s no forgetting that,” he said.

“Are you mad at me?”

An ache went through Steven, like a sharp pole jabbed down through the top of his heart to lodge at the bottom. “No,” he said. “If I straighten you out about something, it doesn’t mean I’m angry. It just means I want you to think things through a little better the next time.”

Matt let out a long sigh, back there in the peanut gallery, one of his arms wrapped around Zeke, who was panting and, incredibly, managing to keep his canine head from blocking the rearview mirror.

“It’s kind of weird, calling you Steven,” Matt said, after a long time. He was looking out the window by then, but even with just a glance at the boy’s reflection to go on, Steven could see the tension he was trying to hide.

“Who says so?” Steven asked carefully. Conversations like this one always made his stomach clench.

“I do,” Matt told him. His voice was small.

The turn onto their road was just ahead; Steven flipped the signal lever and slowed to make a dusty left. “What would you like to call me?” he asked.

“Dad,” Matt said simply.

Steven’s eyes scalded, and his vision blurred.

“But that doesn’t seem right, because I used to have another dad,” Matt went on. “Do you think it would hurt my first daddy’s feelings if I went around calling somebody else ‘Dad’?”

“I think your dad would want you to be happy,” Steven said. It was almost a croak, that statement, but, fortunately, Matt didn’t seem to notice. They’d reached the top of the driveway, so Steven pulled up beside the old two-tone truck and shifted out of gear. Shut the motor off. And just sat there, not knowing what to say. Or do.

“If he was Daddy,” Matt reasoned, “then I guess it would be all right if you were Dad.”

Steven’s throat constricted. He literally couldn’t speak just then, so he shoved open the truck door and got out. Stood staring off toward the foothills and the mountains beyond for a few moments, until he’d recovered some measure of control.

When he turned around again, both Matt and Zeke had their faces pressed to the window, gumming it up big-time with their breaths.

He laughed and carefully opened the door, so Zeke wouldn’t plunge right over Matt and his safety seat and take a header onto the ground.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Steven said.

“So I can call you Dad?” Matt asked.

“Yeah,” Steven replied, ducking his head slightly while he undid the snaps and buckles. “You can call me Dad.”

“That’s good,” Matt said. A pause. “Dad?” He said the word softly, like he was trying it on for size.

“What?” Steven ground out, hoisting the little boy to the ground, and then the dog.

“How come your eyes are all red?”

Steven sniffled, ran a forearm across his face. “I guess it’s the dust,” he said. He pretended to assess the sky, sprawling blue from horizon to horizon. “A good rain would help.”

* * *