Maisey Yates - Cowboy Ever After

The Reverend Lloyd Atherton, like Martie, was a fixture in Parable. Long-winded though he was, everybody loved him.

Kendra made a donation, in lieu of a fee, listened to a brief and heartrending explanation of Daisy’s background—she’d literally been left on Martie’s doorstep in a cardboard box along with six of her brothers and sisters—and signed a simple document promising to return Daisy to Paws for Reflection if things didn’t work out.

“Is Daisy hungry?” Madison wanted to know. It was a subtle nudge. We’re in a hurry.

Martie smiled. “Puppies always seem to think they are, but Daisy had a bowl of kibble less than half an hour ago. She’ll be just fine until supper time.”

Madison nodded, apparently satisfied. She was staring raptly at the little dog, stroking its soft coat as she waited for the adoption to be finalized.

Soon enough, the details had been handled and Madison was in the back of the Volvo again, buckled into her booster seat, with Daisy sitting alertly beside her, panting in happy anticipation of whatever.

They made a quick stop at the big discount store out on the highway, leaving Daisy waiting patiently in the car with a window partly rolled down for air while they rushed inside to buy assorted gear—a collar and leash, a package of poop bags, a fleecy bed large enough for a golden retriever puppy to grow into, grooming supplies, a few toys and the brand of kibble Martie had recommended.

Daisy was thrilled at their return and when Kendra tossed the bed into the backseat, the animal frolicked back and forth across the expanse of it, unable to contain her delight, causing Madison to laugh in a way Kendra had never heard her laugh before—rambunctiously and without self-consciousness or restraint.

It was a beautiful thing to hear and Kendra was glad there were so many small tasks to be performed before she could put the car in motion, because her vision was a little blurred.

Back at the guesthouse, Kendra put away the dog’s belongings while Madison and Daisy ran frenetically around the backyard, both of them bursting with pent-up energy and pure celebration of each other.

“We need a poop bag, please,” Madison announced presently, appearing in the cottage doorway, a vision in her little blue Sunday-school dress.

Smiling, Kendra opened the pertinent package, followed Madison outside to the evidence and proceeded to demonstrate the proper collection and disposal of dog doo-doo.

Afterward, she insisted they both wash their hands at the bathroom sink.

Daisy looked on from the doorway, wagging her tail and looking pleased to be in the midst of so much interesting activity.

Lunch, long overdue by then, was next on the agenda. Madison and Kendra made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the impossibly small kitchen, and Kendra poured a glass of milk for both of them.

Daisy settled herself near Madison’s chair, ears perked forward, nose raised to sniff the air, probably hoping that manna, in the form of scraps of a PB and J, might fall from heaven.

Martie had been adamant on that point, though. No people food and very few treats. The treat a dog needed most, she’d said, was plenty of love and affection.

When the meal was over and the table had been cleared, Madison announced, yawning, that Daisy had had a big morning and therefore needed a nap.

Amused—Madison normally napped only under protest—Kendra suggested that they ought to change out of their church clothes first.

Madison put on pink cotton shorts and a blue short-sleeved shirt, and Kendra opted for jeans and a lightweight green pullover. When she came out of the bedroom, Madison and Daisy were already curled up together on the new fleece dog bed, and Kendra didn’t have the heart to raise an objection.

Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, she heard her grandmother say.

Shut up, Gramma, was her silent response.

“Sleep tight,” she said aloud, taking a book from the shelf and stepping outside, planning to sit in the shade of the maple trees and read for a while.

The scene was idyllic—bees buzzing, flowers nodding their many-colored heads in the light breeze, the big Montana sky sweeping blue and cloudless and eternal overhead.

Kendra relaxed as she read, and at some point, she must have dozed off, because she opened her eyes suddenly and found Hutch Carmody standing a few feet away, big as life.

She blinked a couple of times, but he didn’t disappear.

Not a dream, then. Crap.

“Sorry,” he said without a smidgeon of regret. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

Kendra straightened and glanced toward the open doorway of the cottage, looking for Madison. There was no sign of either the child or the dog, but Kendra went inside to check on them anyway. They were both sleeping, curled up together on Daisy’s cloud-soft bed.

Quietly, Kendra went back outside to face Hutch.

How could she not have heard him arrive? His truck was parked right there in the driveway, a stone’s throw from where she’d been sitting. At the very least, she should have heard the tires in the gravel or the closing of the driver’s door.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered, too rattled to be polite.

Hutch spread his hands wide, grinning. “I’m unarmed,” he said, sidestepping the question. He was, she recalled, a master at sidestepping any topic he didn’t want to discuss. “Don’t shoot.”

Kendra huffed out a sigh, picked up her book, which she’d dropped in the grass when she’d woken up to an eyeful of Hutch, and held it tightly against her side. “What. Are. You. Doing. Here?” she repeated.

He gestured for her to sit down, and since her knees were weak, she dropped back into her lawn chair. He drew another one up alongside hers and sat. They were both gazing straight ahead, like two strangers in the same row on an airplane, intent on the seat belt/oxygen mask lecture from an invisible flight attendant.

“Tell me about your little girl,” Hutch finally said.

“Why should I?” Kendra asked reasonably, proud of her calm tone.

“I guess because she could have been ours,” he replied.

For a moment, Kendra felt as if he’d elbowed her, hard, or even punched her in the stomach. Once the adrenaline rush subsided, though, she knew there was no point in withholding the information.

A person could practically throw a rock from one end of Parable to the other and juicy stories got around fast.

“You’ll hear about it soon enough,” she conceded, though ungraciously, keeping her voice down in case Madison woke up and somehow homed in on the conversation, “so I might as well tell you.”

Hutch gave a long-suffering sigh and she felt him looking in her direction now, though she was careful not to meet his gaze. “Might as well,” he agreed quietly.

“Not that it’s any of your business,” Kendra pointed out.

He simply waited.

Distractedly, Kendra wondered if the man thought she’d given birth to Madison herself and kept her existence hidden from everyone in Parable all this time.

“Madison is adopted,” she said. It was a simple statement, but it left her feeling as though she’d spilled her guts on some ludicrous tell-all TV show.

“Why do I think there’s more to the story?” Hutch asked after a pause. His very patience galled Kendra—what right did he have to be patient? This was a courtesy explanation—she didn’t owe it to him. She didn’t owe him anything except maybe a broken heart.

“Madison’s father was my ex-husband,” Kendra said. Suddenly, she wanted to cry and it had nothing to do with her previous hesitation to talk about something so bruising and private. Why couldn’t Madison have been born to her, as she should have been?