Sheri WhiteFeather - Coming Home to a Cowboy

“What type of stuff did you choose?” Cody asked.

“Tanner had a truck-and-trailer toy set that he favored, but he wasn’t willing to part with it. Instead, he contributed one of the little plastic horses that came with it. He tossed in a tiny snap-on saddle, too. I put in a drawing of a palomino I’d done. It was the horse our mom was leasing for us to ride, and its name was Brandy. I signed and dated the picture to make it official. I also put in one of my report cards to provide more information about who I was. I grabbed one of Tanner’s report cards, too, to identify him.”

Cody opened the top of his time capsule and peered inside. Then he glanced up and asked, “Where’d you bury it after you were done filling it?”

“We went to the rental stables where Brandy was being boarded. It was within walking distance from our house. We brought a backpack filled with gardening tools and then found a spot where no one was around and buried it.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

“It probably got destroyed by groundwater. But it was a great memory, and I thought you might enjoy doing something like that, too, except with a time capsule that will last. This one won’t get corroded. It’s a professional model.”

“I totally want to do it.” Cody was bouncing on his heels. “Do you want to do it with me? We could both put stuff in here. It’s plenty big enough.”

“Sure,” Kade told him. “I’d love to participate. I already bought you a preservation kit to go with it. That’s still out in my truck. It comes with packets and pouches and envelopes so you can separate items. There’s a fade-proof pencil for labeling everything, too.”

Cody looked at Bridget. “How about you, Mom? Will you do it with us? It could be like a family project.”

A family project. To her, that was far more complicated than it sounded, making her and Kade seem like a couple. But she couldn’t refuse, not with the anticipation and excitement in her son’s eyes.

“Of course I will,” she said. “It’ll be fun. I’d have to think about what to put in it, though.”

Kade sought her gaze, and she felt a wave of attraction, which was particularly unwelcome because she was sitting on Cody’s bed. But at least it wasn’t her bed. She didn’t want Kade anywhere near her bedroom.

“I’m going to make a comic book to put in it,” Cody said. “A brand-new one. And it’s going to be about a mom, a dad and a kid who put stuff in a time capsule, like we’re going to do. But instead of historians finding it, I’m going to make it so aliens dig it up centuries later.”

“That sounds like a great comic,” Kade said.

Cody went silent, as if he was plotting the rest of the story. A few quick-thinking beats later, he said, “The aliens are here on earth because their planet was seized by intergalactic rebels. But what the aliens don’t know at first is that the mom and dad and kid are actually superheroes who are still alive, and they’re going to help the aliens save their planet.”

Kade replied, “That’s a perfect representation of your work, especially to go into a time capsule. I can’t imagine anything better.”

“I know, right? I’m going to start on it tonight.”

Bridget hated to be the bearer of bad news, but she said, “Cody, don’t you have homework to do tonight?”

“Yeah, but that can wait. This new comic book is way more important.”

She blew out her breath. “I’m sorry, sport, but homework comes first.”

“But this is a big occasion for me. Meeting my dad and preparing for our time capsule. We still have to decide where to bury to it.”

Kade interjected, “Your mom’s right about your homework. That should come first. We still have time to figure out the rest of it.”

“How much time?” Cody asked. “How long are you going to be in town?”

“I don’t know.” Kade repeated what he’d told Bridget earlier. “I was just going to play it by ear.” He then added, “Maybe it’s something we can decide together.”

Cody jumped right on it. “I get out of school in two weeks, so you should stay longer than that. Otherwise we’ll hardly see each other.”

“How much longer do you think I should stay?”

Cody went full bore. “How about if you hang out for the whole summer? Then we could do lots of stuff together.”

The entire summer? Bridget wasn’t prepared for that. She glanced at Kade, hoping he wasn’t available.

Thankfully, he wasn’t. He said, “I’ve already got plans to go to California in mid-July, so how about if I stay here until then? Of course, if I’m going to be around for that long, then I’ll need to find another place to stay. Maybe I’ll look into renting a fishing cabin or hunting lodge or something. I don’t want to live out of a motel.”

Cody took what he could get, and Bridget breathed a sigh of relief. Of course, it was still a long time for Kade to be around, but not as bad as the entire summer.

Cody asked her, “If I do my homework first, can I work on the comic afterward? ’Cause I’m going to need to get it done if Dad is only going to be here till July.”

“That’s fine,” she told him, letting him enjoy the moment.

While she sat quietly on the sidelines, father and son continued to talk about the time capsule. They also ate the snack, both of them going after the cookies before getting to the apples and cheese.

Finally, the visit ended, with Kade saying that he needed to go back to the motel and get settled in. He hugged Cody goodbye, and the transfixed ten-year-old smiled up at him.

Cody asked Bridget if Kade could come back for dinner tomorrow, and she agreed that he could. He accepted the invitation and thanked her. Before she could save her sanity and stop him from embracing her the way he’d done when he’d first arrived, he reached out and wrapped her in the dizzying warmth of his arms all over again.

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