Linda Miller - McKettricks of Texas - Garrett

Garrett took off his hat again, held it in one hand as he crouched next to Calvin. “A cowboy always speaks respectfully to a lady,” he told the boy, “especially when that lady is his mama.”

Calvin’s lower lip jutted out. “She’s just mad because I got on a horse without permission,” he said. He turned to Julie again, his round little face and baby-blue eyes full of rebellion. “Aunt Libby said I could ride with Garrett! And she’s the boss of me when you’re not here!”

Inwardly, Julie sighed. Outwardly, she kept her cool.

“We can talk about this in the car, Calvin,” she said evenly. “Get your backpack, please. Right now.”

Furious, Calvin pounded off toward the house to retrieve his belongings.

Garrett rose back to his full height. For a moment, it seemed he was about to say something, but in the end he just turned, stuck a foot in the stirrup and mounted again. He rode up alongside Tate, and one of the twins—Audrey, Julie thought—leaped from her dad’s horse to her uncle’s, whooping like a Comanche on the warpath.

Garrett and Tate turned their horses and rode down the gently sloping creek-bank to let the animals drink.

Which meant Julie and Libby were alone for the moment, with Calvin still inside the house.

“If you didn’t want Calvin to ride,” Libby said mildly, “you should have told me.”

Julie realized she’d been holding her last breath and let it out in a whoosh. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just—startled.”

Libby raised one eyebrow, watching Julie closely. “Startled?”

Julie bit her lower lip. “Gordon is in town,” she said, very quietly, watching as Calvin stormed out of the house again, his backpack bump-dragging behind him. “Calvin and I are having dinner with him and the wife.”

“Tonight?” Libby asked.

Julie nodded brusquely. “Yes. How do I prepare Calvin for this? What do I say, Libby? ‘After five years, your father has finally decided he wants to meet you’?”

Libby put an arm around her, gave her a squeeze. “So that’s why you were so peevish and unreasonable.”

“I was not peevish and—”

“Yes, you were,” Libby interrupted, smiling. “It’s okay, Jules. I know you get stressed out about Calvin sometimes. I understand.”

Libby did understand, and the knowledge was so soothing to Julie that she finally began to relax.

“I was having fun!” Calvin declared, standing a few feet away now, and glaring up at Julie. “Until you came along, anyway!”

“Calvin Remington,” Julie said, “that’s quite enough. Get in the car.”

“Goodbye, Aunt Libby,” he said, with all due drama. “If I don’t see you again, because my mother is mad at you for letting me have fun , and she sends me away to military school , I’ll get in touch as soon as I’m eighteen!”

Julie held on to her stern face—Calvin’s behavior was not acceptable—but there was a giggle dancing inside her all the same. Just like the one she saw twinkling in her sister’s eyes.

Libby waggled her fingers at Julie. “See you tomorrow?” she asked.

“See you tomorrow,” Julie confirmed, with a sigh.

“IS THAT HIM?” Calvin whispered, a little over an hour later, when Julie led him into the Amble On Inn’s small café. Gordon rose from a table over by the jukebox as they entered, while the lovely blonde woman accompanying him remained seated. “Is that my dad?”

“Yes,” Julie said. After giving Calvin a lecture for acting like a brat at Libby and Tate’s house, she’d explained about their dinner plans. He’d been unusually quiet since then, hadn’t even protested when she’d made him shower and change clothes. “That’s him.”

It all seemed surreal.

How many times, over the short course of Calvin’s life, had she hoped Gordon would change his mind, take a real interest in their son, be a father to him?

An old saying came to mind: Be careful what you wish for… .

Gordon had crossed the room, and now he stood facing them. His gaze connected briefly with Julie’s—he mouthed the word “thanks”—and then dropped to Calvin.

“Hey, buddy,” Gordon said, putting out a hand.

Calvin studied his father’s hand for a few moments, his expression solemn and wary, but finally, he reached out.

They shook hands. “Hey,” Calvin replied, looking the stranger up and down.

Julie gave his back a reassuring pat. Silent-speak for Everything’s going to be okay .

“Anybody hungry?” Gordon asked, gesturing toward the table, where the blonde waited, smiling nervously. She was dressed in a pale rose cotton skirt with a ruffled top to match, and her hair fell past her shoulders in a sumptuous tumble of spun gold. Her skin and teeth were perfect.

“We were supposed to have barbecue at Aunt Libby’s,” Calvin said gravely, though he allowed Gordon to steer him toward the blonde and the table.

The evening to come, Julie knew, would be pivotal, changing all their lives forever, even if it went well. If, on the other hand, things went badly …

Julie reined in her imagination.

“Hush, Calvin,” she said, looking around. The scarred café tables, the patched-vinyl chair seats and backs, the crisply pressed gingham curtains—all of it was familiar, and therefore comforting.

“I’m Dixie,” Gordon’s wife said, as he pulled back a chair for Julie.

“Julie,” she responded—warmly, she hoped—once she was seated. Calvin took the chair beside hers, and Gordon sat with his wife, the two of them beaming at Calvin, drinking him in with their eyes.

A sort of haze descended, at least for Julie. Later, she would remember that Gordon had been wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt, and that Dixie had ordered a chef’s salad with Thousand Island dressing on the side, and that nothing of staggering importance had been said, but she would not be able to recall what she’d eaten, or what Calvin had, either.

After dessert—there had been dessert, because Calvin had a smudge of something chocolate on the clean shirt he’d put on after his bath, back at the ranch house—Dixie produced a digital camera from the depths of her enormous cloth handbag and took what seemed like dozens of pictures—Calvin by himself, Calvin posing with a crouching, grinning Gordon.

Telephone numbers were swapped, and Dixie promised to e-mail copies of the photographs as soon as she and Gordon got home.

Calvin, though polite, seemed detached, too.

After the goodbyes were said in the parking lot, and he was safely buckled into his car seat in the back of the Cadillac, Julie slipped behind the wheel and waited a beat before speaking.

“So,” she said, as Dixie and Gordon went by in their big blue SUV, Gordon flashing the headlights to bright once, in cheery farewell. “That’s your dad. What do you think?”

Calvin was quiet.

“Calvin?” Julie finally prompted, adjusting the rearview mirror until her son’s face was visible.

At some length, Calvin huffed out a sigh. “I thought it would be different, having a dad,” he said. “I thought he would be different.”

“What do you mean?” Julie asked carefully, making no move to start up the car, though she had pressed the lock button as soon as she and Calvin were both inside.

“I was hoping he’d turn out to be a cowboy,” Calvin admitted. “Like Tate and Garrett and Austin.”

“Oh,” Julie said, at a loss.

“But he’s a builder guy instead,” Calvin mused.

“That’s good, isn’t it? Building things?”

“I guess,” Calvin allowed, sounding way too world-weary for a five-year-old. “I bet he gets to wear a hard hat and a toolbelt and cool stuff like that, but I kind of liked it better when I could still wonder, you know?”