Three Kids And A Cowboy

“Who’s Katie?” Miranda murmured to no one.

“I’ve got her by a wingbone,” a rusty-throated older man hollered.

A wingbone? Maybe she should ask, “What’s Katie?” The image of her parents wrestling an angel popped into her mind. Miranda moved toward the foot of the steps, her head tilted upward. “Mom? Daddy? What’s going on up there?”

“Yeeeoooww!” The older man let out a long howl that drowned out her question even in her own ears. “That little bas—er, darlin’, bit me.”

Obviously, Katie was no angel. Miranda blinked. She pressed her hand to her chest and edged warily onto the first step. She drew a deep breath to call out again, but the sound of bare feet slapping on the floor upstairs, followed by a commotion of voices, cut her off.

“She’s headed for the bedroom!” a child cried out.

“Get her, get her!” another child screeched.

“Grab aholt and hang on,” the older man said encouragingly. “Jest stay clear of them chompers of her’n.”

What had happened here in her absence? Miranda batted her eyes, trying to comprehend what she was hearing. Had her parents started a day-care center, or could they be looking after neighbors’ children?

She hadn’t spoken to her folks in almost three months. She hadn’t dared, because she’d known they would either try to talk her out of her plan or let Brodie in on it. The last thing she wanted was a set of disapproving parents and a forewarned husband lying in wait for her when she rolled into town.

Not that this hubbub was much better. She gripped the smooth, polished wood of the oak banister, deciding the best thing to do was to go upstairs’and see for herself what was going on. Her foot had barely touched the second step when the frantic cries started again over her head.

“She’s too slippery to hold on to, Mr. Crispy,” a child complained at top volume.

Mr. Crispy? Miranda cocked her head. That sounded more like a fried-chicken franchise than someone who belonged in her parents’ home.

“She’s getting away,” the child said again. “Look out, she’s heading for—”

The stairs. Miranda raised her gaze in time to see a chubby cherub—a chubby naked cherub—with a frothy halo of white bubbles encircling wet blond hair flying straight at her. The child’s feet hardly seemed to skim the steps as she streaked down the stairs and away from the two children and one old man running after her.

For an instant, Miranda considered nabbing the fleeing child, but in the flurry of confusion, she couldn’t act fast enough. The little girl whisked past in a blur of arms, legs and suds, leaving a soapy imprint on Miranda’s jeans as she did.

The old man came pounding down the stairs with his knobby knees and elbows poking out at odd angles from his thin body. He pointed to the quivering plops of bubbles that left a trail into the formal living room to the right of the stairway. “She went that-a-way.”

The two children, a young boy and an even younger girl, both dressed in what in Texas would be called their “Sunday best,” stomped down the stairs behind the man. The girl clutched a faded red robe that Miranda recognized as her own, left in her bedroom closet years ago. None of them seemed aware of her presence on the stairs until they were almost on top of her.

Miranda held up one hand, keeping her voice steady as she tried to get the situation under control. “Excuse me, but who are you, and what are you doing in my parents’ house?”

“Whoa!” the old man bellowed, practically in her face. He stopped short one step up from her.

When the two children stumbled into the man’s bony back, Miranda grimaced, but she held on to her composure. “Just what is going on here?”

“It’s her.” A blush of pure awe colored the words whispered by the young girl, who was peering up at her from behind one of the old man’s legs.

“Her who?” the boy asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, and his tortoise-shell glasses bobbled as he crinkled his nose at her.

The old man reared back his head and clamped his hands on his hips. “Well, tuck a feather in my shirt and call me tickled, it is her.”

“Her who?” the boy demanded again. Then, suddenly, his blue eyes seemed to grow huge behind the brown circular frames. “Oh, m’gosh,” he murmured. “It’s the lady whose picture is on the wall in the den.”

“Howdy-do, Miz Sykes,” the man said in a soft voice.

Miranda pursed her lips and cocked her head. How did this odd fellow know her name? Had they met before?

“Who are you?” she asked again. “And what are you doing in my parents’ home?”

“Whur’s my manners?” He let out a quiet clucking laugh. “My name is Curtis Holloman, ma’am, but just every-danged-body calls me Crispy.”

The man dipped his head, his hand raising automatically to his head, as though to tip a hat that wasn’t there.

Miranda noticed something else that wasn’t there—two of the man’s fingers. She made a quick study of him, from his thin gray hair to his bowed legs, and felt certain that if she had ever met this man before, she would not have forgotten it.

She nodded stiffly and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr.—”

“Call me Crispy, ma’am.” He pressed a hand to his chest.

Miranda realized he probably did that because there were people who felt uncomfortable about shaking hands with him. Sighing, she wished she could smack some sense into whoever had made him feel he had to shelter them from his injury. She thrust her own hand out. “Nice to meet you, Crispy.”

He glanced down at her hand, then into her eyes, and then he seized her hand with outright enthusiasm. “Pleasure to meet you, too, Miz Sykes. Been mighty curious to make your acquaintance, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Curious. Now there was a word for the moment. Miranda returned the hearty shake Crispy gave and held his hand a bit longer as she asked, “I don’t mind your saying so if you don’t mind explaining why you’re in my parents’ house and what—”

“Sorry, ma’am, but I make it a strict personal policy not to mix into other folks’s bidness. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got to ketch little Katie.”

“B-but—” Miranda grasped air as she tried to keep Crispy in the handshake.

He slipped past her, only pausing in the doorway of the living room to say over his.shoulder, “Got someone from the dee-partment of social services coming ’round today. And it jest wouldn’t do for her to find one of the children runnin’ through the house all wild and nekkid, now would it?”

“I…suppose…not.” Miranda wound her arms over her churning stomach as she watched the old fellow lumber out of sight. Twisting around, she suddenly became aware of two blond heads close together, with two sets of big blue eyes focused on her.

“I don’t suppose either of you can tell me what’s going on here?” she asked, leaning against the banister.

The pair looked at one another, but said nothing.

“Can’t you at least tell me where the owners of this house are?”

The little boy narrowed his eyes and moved one step closer to her, puffing out his chest as he said firmly, “We’re not allowed to talk to strangers, and even if we did we can’t tell ’em important stuff like where the owner of the house is.”

“She’s not a stranger, Bubba.” The girl wadded Miranda’s robe into a ball and used it to nudge the boy out of the way as she moved to share the second stair with Miranda. “She’s the princess on the wall.”

Miranda had to smile at the idea that this girl thought her a princess. The child must have seen the photos of her in full beauty-queen regalia in her father’s den and drawn that conclusion. She smiled down at the innocent admiration and placed one hand under the girl’s pudgy chin. “I’m not really—”

“You’re pretty, just like in your pictures, Your Highness,” the girl whispered before Miranda could finish. “Everybody thinks so, especially Brodie, ‘cause he spends a lots of time looking at—”

“Brodie?” Miranda dropped her hand, a wave of apprehension rolled from her thudding heart to her weakened knees at the mention of the name. “Brodie Sykes? Why would Brodie Sykes be in this house, looking at my trophy wall?”

“’Cause he lives here, silly.” The girl giggled, hugging the bunched up robe tightly to her body.

The child’s happy laughter sounded tinny and distant to Miranda. Everything seemed to disappear in a dark swirl of incomprehension as she tried to sort out what the child had told her. “Brodie lives here? In this house? I…I don’t believe it”