Angel Smits - Seeking Shelter

“Yeah.”

That wasn’t much help. Maybe distraction would loosen her up. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Nope.”

Amy sighed again, put her cleaning supplies away and wiped her hands. “What’s up?”

Katie swung her legs and looked down at the scarred surface of the old counter. Her tennis shoes resembled a pendulum swinging back and forth.

She’d chosen to wear her favorite pink jeans and a shirt they’d bought on their last trip into Phoenix. Her blond hair hung in two not-so-neat ponytails that just hit her tiny shoulders.

“Mama?”

“Yeah?”

“How come I don’t have a daddy?”

Amy’s stomach dropped and she swallowed hard. Here we go again. She did not want to get into this conversation, not now, not ever.

Ever since the mother of one of Katie’s schoolmates had gotten remarried, Katie had been obsessed with her own lack of a father. Every time Amy thought they’d moved past it, something brought it back.

She walked around the counter and sat on the matching bar stool beside Katie. She’d have pulled her into her lap and never let her go, but Katie had resisted “being treated like a baby” for some months now.

Katie wasn’t ready to hear the truth—of the man Amy had thought she’d loved, who’d forced himself on her and left her shattered and pregnant. Now he was nothing more than a sperm donor and a piddly monthly check.

“What brought that up?” Amy stared down at her little girl. Katie’s beginnings had been...difficult. Remembering those days always proved painful.

Matt had been so much stronger, and the body that had violated hers had been conditioned by hours of football practice and steroids. She’d never had a chance. Or a choice.

She’d thought about an abortion, but couldn’t do it. When she’d realized she was pregnant, she’d confronted him. What a mistake. He’d laughed and written her a check.

“Thanks for the good time, babe,” he’d said as he tossed it at her and walked away.

She’d decided then—at all of eighteen—that her revenge would be to keep the child. One day he’d change his mind and she’d deny him any connection.

She hadn’t planned on falling so completely and wonderfully in love with the baby. Her baby. But she had, and now Amy had to find a way of giving Katie answers.

“Honey, we’ve talked about this.”

“I know, Mama, but my new teacher had us draw pictures of our family today. I didn’t have a daddy to draw.”

Amy knew she wasn’t the only single parent in the community. “What about Emily?” She mentioned the name of another girl in the class whose mother was single.

Katie frowned. “She drew her dad in Chicago with the new lady. Even Rachel Bishop drew her daddy up on a cloud in heaven.” Katie pouted. “I don’t have anybody to draw. Just a big old empty spot.”

Amy’s heart hurt for her daughter. “Sweetie, we’re all different. It’s a good thing.” She shuddered. If this was so important now, what were Katie’s teen years going to be like? Amy bit back the groan.

“No, it’s not. I don’t want to be different.” If Katie had been standing, she’d have most likely stamped her foot.

“I’m sorry, Katie. I can’t change it. It’s the way things are.” Amy reached over and stroked one of her daughter’s silky ponytails. She silently debated if she should talk to the teacher. What should she say?

Katie didn’t seem satisfied with the answer, which Amy knew really wasn’t one, but she didn’t say anything more, either.

“How about a cookie?” She didn’t normally let Katie have sweets so close to supper, but figured if there was ever a time for sugar therapy, now was it.

“Okay. Long as it’s not one of those homemade ones.” Katie pointed at the glass display on the counter and wrinkled her nose. Butcher sat up eagerly, though.

“Butch likes these.” Amy grinned at Katie. “Don’t you want to share with him?”

“Nope.”

Katie smiled back and Amy felt her heart catch. If only all of life’s problems could be fixed with a simple cookie. She pulled one of the store-bought cookies Katie preferred out of the jar on the back counter.

Halfway through her snack, Katie called to her again. “Mama?”

“Yes?”

“I have a question.”

“I have an answer.” Amy repeated one of her mom’s old quips.

“Mama...” This time Katie drew out the word with a long-suffering sigh and Amy laughed. “I’m serious.”

“Okay.”

“Since I don’t have a daddy now, is it okay if we start looking for one?”

Amy froze and stared at her. “What?” She hadn’t really heard that, had she?

“Can I—we—look for a dad?”

“That’s what I thought you said.” Amy glanced away, staring out the window at the little town they called home. On a good day, Rattlesnake Bend boasted four hundred residents, including the surrounding ranches. If half were male, that’d be a stretch. Single and under the age of fifty? The numbers dwindled even further.

The tension in Amy’s stomach eased. “It’s not like getting a puppy, you know, but, uh, sure, honey.” She reluctantly agreed, as much to appease her daughter as to get out of this conversation.

What was with the world all of a sudden? First Hank pushing her to sell the ranch, now Katie back to wanting a dad.

What was wrong with the way things were? Amy looked around at the store, at her daughter munching away on her cookie. She’d managed to support them for the past two years with this store. They weren’t rich, but they made it.

No, she wasn’t ready for any changes. Things were going to stay just the way they were.

* * *

JACE HAD JUST PASSED the highway sign that told him Rattlesnake Bend was another twenty miles when the bike’s engine started to miss.

Damn. He should have taken the time for the tune-up. After driving to Pennsylvania when Linc had been trapped last spring, then back to Los Angeles, he’d known the bike needed some TLC. But there hadn’t been time. Or motivation.

Mac’s dying had been damned inconvenient.

The bike missed again, and he cringed. He hated driving the twenty miles, pushing the bike into probable damage, but stopping out here in the middle of nowhere wasn’t an option.

By the time he’d forced the bike to the city limits, he was worried about the engine. It finally gave up, sputtering and falling silent, a pathetic state for the Harley beast Jace loved. He’d have to push the big bike the last couple of blocks to the old-fashioned gas station up ahead.

As he walked, Jace looked up and down the street. Rattlesnake Bend, Arizona, boasted a population of 423 if the city limit sign was to be believed. The bullet holes in the sign and a few scattered cars parked at uneven angles to the curb crowned this as Podunk, America. The Café sign said simply what it was. It probably didn’t even have a full name.

Jace had seen town squares like this back in the Midwest with one major difference. Those communities had actual parks in the center of the square. Here, the desert provided only hard-baked dirt for a couple scraggly pines and an old, dead cottonwood that looked more like the local hanging tree than actual landscaping.

The town was quiet as it baked in the sun. Lord, it was hot, despite it being midwinter. How did people live here in the summer?

Sweat poured down his face as he finally stopped by the pumps. Gas wouldn’t help, but he wasn’t pushing any farther. The desert sucked.

A man about his age came out the front door. Jace glanced up and smiled. The good-ole-boy look was still in style. Grimy ball cap, bill forward, not sideways. T-shirt beneath an unbuttoned denim shirt with one of those ovals on his left side that labeled him as Rick.