The Renegade Cowboy Returns

“Maybe not,” Cat said doubtfully. “Maybe you should ask the Weirdos again if they want to go with us.”

Gage glanced at his daughter. “You wouldn’t mind?”

She shrugged. “We’ll look like a freak show, but no one knows me here, I guess. And the old lady was nice to bring me some birds. I really like them. Mom won’t let me have pets—she says they’re dirty. She’d flip out over birds, I bet.” Cat sounded cheered by that. “And that lady you stare at all the time—what’s her name?”

“Chelsea,” Gage said, “and I do not stare at her.”

“Yeah. You do. Kind of like my mom stares at Larry.” Cat shuddered. “Larry is such a loser. I don’t know why she stares at him. He looks like a frog.” She glanced at her father. “You don’t look like a frog.”

“Thanks.” Gage smiled. “You want to go inside and invite the ladies?”

“Do I have to?”

“Your idea.”

“Ugh.” Cat walked into the house to the kitchen, where she knew she’d at least find the old lady who loved pink clothes. “Hey, Dad’s taking me for ice cream. He said it would be nice if you and your daughter came along to keep us company. He says we don’t know what to say to each other, and that it’s pretty awkward.”

Moira glanced up from her cookbook and smiled at Cat. “What a bonny idea. As a matter of fact, I was thinking you and I should make a trip to the library one afternoon.”

“What for?” Cat asked suspiciously.

“As we were discussing Macbeth,” the old lady began, and Cat shut that down in a hurry.

“You were discussing Macbeth. I just didn’t want you giving me any fried newt eyes.”

Moira smiled and tied on her rain cap.

“What’s that for? It’s not raining.”

“You’re right. It’s not,” Moira said, tying the pink polka-dotted plastic securely on her head. “Could you be a love and run upstairs and get my daughter, please? Knock first, and only go in if she says you may. She might be writing.”

“Something awful, I’m sure,” Cat said, her tone depressed and certain that whatever Chelsea was writing, it had to be worse than a third-grader’s school paper. She banged on the door.

Chelsea opened it, smiling when she saw Cat. Cat sniffed to let her know she didn’t like her. “Dad says you and your mother have to come eat ice cream with us. He says he needs you because we don’t like each other very much. Your mom’s putting on her hair thing, and she looks kind of weird, but she’s going to take me to the library someday, so that’ll be a real drag.”

Chelsea nodded. “Ice cream sounds wonderful.”

Cat looked past Chelsea into her room. “You’re probably not a very good writer.”

“Um—”

“I bet nobody would ever buy your books.” Cat looked up at her. “Anyway, you should be a schoolteacher or something.”

“Why?” Chelsea asked, following her down the stairs.

“You look like one,” Cat said, making it sound as if it wasn’t good to look like a teacher.

“Thank you,” Chelsea said. “My mother was a schoolteacher. I always admired her.” A schoolteacher! No one probably ever told Tempest she looked like that.

Chelsea wondered if Gage thought she looked like a schoolteacher. She patted her hair, which had a tendency to get wild and unruly when she was writing, from constantly shoving a hand through her bangs when she was deep in thought.

“I’ll sit in front,” Cat said, “next to my father.”

“Perfect. This is a nice truck, Gage,” Chelsea said.

“I just bought it.” He turned to smile at her, and Chelsea noticed her stomach give a little flip. He had such nice white teeth in his big smile, and his dark eyes seemed so full of life that it was hard not to smile back.

She saw Cat glowering at her, and wiped the answering smile off her own face. “I saw you shooting, Cat. Was it fun?”

“No,” Cat said.

“Do you shoot, Chelsea?” Gage asked.

“Not unless I have to.”

“I do,” Moira said. “I can bag a quail at fifty paces.”

“She can,” Chelsea said. “Many a time we ate something Mum brought home.”

“Eye of newt,” Cat said.

“Maybe,” Chelsea said. “In my home, we ate what was on our plates, said thank-you, excused ourselves and cleared the table. No questions asked.”

Cat turned to look at Moira. “Are you going to make me do all that?”

Moira nodded. “Of course, lamb. Otherwise, I don’t cook.”

“Jeez,” Cat said. “This is worse than prison.”

“Cat,” Gage said, his tone warning.

Chelsea looked out the window, amazed by the lack of cars on the road into town. “Tempest is like an old postcard that never changed.”

“I like that,” Gage said. “I like that it seems preserved in time.”

“I do, too.” Chelsea jumped when Gage’s gaze caught her eyes in the mirror above the dash.

“It looks boring,” Cat said, her nose pressed to the window as she looked out at the farmland they passed. Cows and horses and an occasional llama dotted the dry landscape. “I’d be embarrassed for my friends to know I was stuck out in the middle of the desert. I’ll probably get stung by a scorpion.”

“That reminds me—by chance did your mom send you with a pair of boots?” Gage asked, glancing at her black-and-white-checked tennis shoes.

Cat shrugged. “I’ve never had boots. I don’t need any, because I’m not going to be an itin…itin—”

“Itinerant,” Gage supplied.

“Cowgirl,” she finished, convinced she had life all figured out.

Chelsea’s gaze once again caught Gage’s in the mirror. He appeared a little chagrined by his daughter’s attitude. Chelsea told herself that his and Cat’s problems had nothing to do with her. In fact, she should be at home writing, giving Bronwyn a chance to figure her way out of her mess.