Texas Dad

J.J. smiled. “Please, girls, call me J.J. without the ‘Ms.’” She cast a glance at Mack and interrupted him in the act of checking her out from head to toe. She felt her cheeks grow hot. Her boots were fashionable, with high heels, but they were black leather and should wipe free of dust easily. “I can wait and photograph you with your cattle tomorrow. I brought sneakers and a sturdier pair of boots for navigating around cow patties,” she said, flashing him an exaggerated smile.

* * *

CAREFUL TO CONCEAL his real thoughts, Mack hoped his face didn’t show the admiration he felt for how fantastic she looked. So good, in fact, his heart skipped several beats. Jill had always had a knack for enhancing her natural beauty. Once, she’d been his life. His love. For a year or so she’d been a favorite around the ranch. His dad, Erma and Benny all loved her. Then, poof, she’d up and run off, leaving him to grieve the loss of his father and her at the same time. Standing near her now, watching how the sunlight made a halo around her honey-gold hair, it was easy to forget how cruelly she’d walked away from everything they’d pledged each other. His question remained—why? Again the answer punched him in his gut—to further her career. Hadn’t her mother admitted as much to him? Mack hated that even now her smile turned him inside out.

Zoey called for him to unlock the pickup. That brought Mack crashing back to the present. Stepping aside, he said curtly, “There’s something we need to get straight, Jill. Take your photos and ask me any questions you have. Don’t bother Erma if she comes home, and don’t involve Benny Lopez. And stay away from Zoey.”

Spinning on worn boot heels, Mack strode to his vehicle and jumped in. In his haste to leave the woman who shaded her stunning blue eyes as she watched his departure, Mack flooded the engine.

Zoey and Brandy had climbed into the backseat of the king cab but had yet to buckle in when Mack reversed sharply out of his parking space. His jerky move knocked the girls together.

“Slow down, Dad! You didn’t give us time to fasten our seat belts.”

“Sorry.” Mack braked and studied the girls in his rearview mirror. “I told Erma I’d collect you from the library and come straight back to the E.R. I certainly didn’t expect to be confronted by...” Cutting off his admission, he again took off too fast.

Brandy leaned forward. “So, Mr. B., you didn’t get around to telling us how you know J.J.”

“Yeah, Dad, it’s weird, but cool, too.”

“It’s a small world, girls. Jill, that is, Ms. Walker and I went to the same college a long time ago. Most kids who graduated from La Mesa High went to Lubbock. And Jill grew up in Lubbock.” He wouldn’t call their recent encounter cool. He’d call it a punch-to-the-gut shock.

“Oh,” Brandy murmured, sliding back in her seat. “My folks met in college, too, and fell in love. They lived in Utah.”

“Here’s the clinic.” Mack jockeyed his pickup into an open slot between two subcompacts. “I’ll go see what’s up with Erma. You two stay put. And don’t open the doors or you’ll set off the alarm.” Mack removed the keys, slid out and hit the automatic lock on his key chain. He hauled in a gulp of fresh air, glad to take a break from the kids’ interest in him and Jill. Of all the photographers in the world, it was more than weird, as Zoey had said, that Jilly was the one sent from New York to handle a stupid contest his daughter shouldn’t have entered in the first place.

As he stepped into the clinic, Mack curled a hand around the back of his neck to soothe the throbbing headache that had begun at the library. Stopping at the reception desk, he said, “I brought Erma Fairweather here. Is she ready?”

“Ms. Fairweather is still in X-ray. She should be finished shortly. We’ve been swamped today—we’re blaming last night’s full moon,” the woman said with a twinkle in her eyes. “E.R. visits double when the moon is full.”

“I’ve heard that about the full moon,” Mack said. “More cows drop calves then, too. I’ll be over there if you need me for anything,” he said, pointing to an empty chair by the window. “I left my daughter and her friend in my pickup, so I want to keep an eye on them.”

“Help yourself to coffee,” she said, stabbing a finger toward an alcove where Mack saw an industrial-size pot. Coffee sounded good. He went over and poured a cup. He’d always drunk his coffee black. Oddly, he remembered Jilly laced hers with so much sugar and cream it couldn’t even legitimately be called coffee. A stupid thing to dredge up. But he wondered if that habit of hers or other quirks he recalled had changed.

* * *

WAITING IN THE truck, the girls were quiet until Mack disappeared into the hospital. “I hope Erma’s all right,” Zoey said. “If her hip is broken, d’you think my dad will have to hire someone else?”

“Not Trudy Thorne.” Brandy grinned.

“Unless he’s desperate. Erma does all our cooking, and for Benny and the cowboys. She cleans everything. I don’t want to do my own laundry!”

“Broken hips are serious, Zoey. If Erma can’t drive, you may have to come school shopping with me. Or I guess your dad can take you.”

“Oh, my gosh. My dad has no clue what girls wear.”

“Speaking of that...isn’t J.J. about the coolest lady you’ve ever seen? Well, except maybe for Lacy Doran. Lacy flies to Dallas for Neiman Marcus sales. I’d love to do that, but my folks say it’s stupid to spend money on planes to go clothes shopping. When I’m grown up I’m gonna be rich so I can buy all my clothes at Neiman.”

“Didn’t you love J.J.’s earrings, Brandy? She probably shops in fancy stores in New York.”

“She’s an old friend of your dad’s, Zoey. You should ask her to take you shopping before she leaves.”

“I don’t know if they’re friends.” Zoey worried her lip. “My dad didn’t sound friendly when he saw her sitting with us.”

“He acted weird. She kinda did, too. Like my mom and dad after they argue, before they make up.” Brandy nudged Zoey.

“I guess I didn’t notice ’cause he was mad at me, too. My dad finished college before I was born. That’s a long time to stay angry at somebody, Brandy.”

“Do you think the magazine sent someone who used to know your dad on purpose? You did ask them to send a possible mom.”

“Yeah...the reader who delivers his check and goes on a date with him, not the person who writes the article for the magazine.”

“I’m just saying, J.J. had cool jewelry, but no wedding ring,” Brandy pointed out.

Zoey’s mouth turned down. “Except J.J.’s only gonna be here a day or so.”

“But if Erma’s hip is broken, maybe J.J. would stay longer. J.J. said she likes Erma. Plus, she didn’t give us away to your dad.”

“Lucky for me.”

“Zoey!” Brandy shook her head. “Think, okay? Hang around her until she leaves, and ask her advice about taking pictures. Maybe she’ll take you to get your ears pierced. She wouldn’t have to stay long to do that.”

Zoey’s frown turned into a smile. “What would be perfect is if I could convince her to stay long enough for my dad to start liking her.”

“You mean, like...fall in love with her?”

Zoey nodded. “But how?”

“Well...I’ll do a Google search on love and see if any ideas come up.”

“Would you? My dad has our internet blocked. I can’t exactly tell him why I want to look up love.” She wrinkled her nose.

“I’ll call and tell you what I find out, okay?”

The girls high-fived and bumped elbows in their special signing-off code. Giggling, they changed the subject, talking instead about the party Brandy hoped her parents would let her have for her upcoming thirteenth birthday.

* * *

AS MACK STOOD by the window, he saw the girls chattering a mile a minute, and he was glad the Everses were such nice people. He counted himself lucky that Brandy and Zoey had gotten along like sisters from the day they met in third grade. Dan Evers sold tractors in town. His wife, Amanda, loved gardening. They’d moved to La Mesa and bought the old Thompson ranch so she could set up greenhouses. Several days a week she sold flowers and seasonal vegetables to local residents. Although Erma used to tend a large garden at Turkey Creek Ranch when Mack was a kid, she bought fresh produce from Amanda now. He knew she was slowing down.

He heard louder voices and turned in time to see a technician pushing Erma, in a wheelchair, into the waiting room. Mack tossed his empty coffee cup in a nearby wastebasket and rushed up to her. “How do you feel? What’s the verdict?”

A harried-looking doctor showed up before Erma could answer. He handed her a prescription. “The pills are for pain,” he said. Turning to Mack, he added, “She needs the pills for when the shot I administered wears off. I explained to Erma that her hip is badly swollen and bruised. I don’t see a fracture, but I’m sending the films to a radiologist in Lubbock. I should have an answer in two or three days. This is no simple injury, and there could be a chipped bone. Of necessity, due mostly to Erma’s age, I don’t want her bearing weight on that leg for four to six weeks. This is a loaner wheelchair. You’ll need to rent or purchase one and bring ours back as soon as possible.”

“Mackenzie, I am so sorry,” Erma said even as she adjusted a blue ice pack she held to her right hip and thigh. “I told Benny last week about that loose step. In my rush to gather eggs this morning, I plumb forgot about it and caught my heel. It was my own dumb fault.”

Mack patted her shoulder. Taking in everything the doctor and Erma said, he was trying to figure out how they’d care for Erma and handle her many chores while she was laid up. His phone rang as the doctor impressed on Erma the need not to skimp on the pain medicine. “Take two of these as soon as you get home, and two more before you go to bed. Then the same dose twice a day until we get answers from radiology.”

Excusing himself, Mack went into the entry to take the call. Benny’s booming voice caused him to hold the phone away from his ear.