Nevada Cowboy Dad

Across the corral Rusty concentrated on swinging his rope overhead. He took his aim, made his throw and captured the first of two hefty remaining calves. Then he dragged the animal to the men waiting at the branding fire. He was bone weary from the full day’s work and the unsettling meeting with his former stepsister. It wasn’t every day a man had to sell off half his heritage. He grimaced.

When the men were finished, they released the calf, which lurched to its feet and trotted over to its bawling mother. The mama cow sniffed her calf, determined it was fine and wandered off, trailing the reassured young animal.

Still on horseback, Rusty caught sight of Lucy and signaled for one of the others to rope the last calf. He coiled his rope and guided his horse to where she stood holding Baby, on the other side of the rail fence.

Drawing rein before her, he leaned one forearm on the horn and the other atop that. Nudging back his hat with a thumb, he observed, “I see you’ve made Baby’s acquaintance.”

“I certainly have,” she acknowledged, a tart hint of warning in her voice.

She was so pretty, he admitted for the second time that day. Her jet hair blew attractively across her face and the skin of her cheeks and lips had pinkened in the crisp fall air. Another man, one who might be interested in pursuing a woman like Lucy, would definitely think her lips kissable. If she thought her oversized sweatshirt was hiding the thrust of her breasts, she was mistaken. And her slim thighs and hips were damn near hugged by her snug jeans.

Stiffly he straightened in the saddle. It was a good thing he wasn’t interested in her. He was her reluctant business partner, and she was someone who would find herself tossed off the Lazy S in twelve short months.

“She’s quite a little surprise,” Lucy went on. “I wonder how it is that you didn’t mention her before.” She waited, eyeing him steadily and not, he thought, with an approving expression.

He grinned, enjoying her discomfort. “Aw, you’ll get used to her. We’re all crazy about Baby around here.” He guessed he’d have to start some sort of adoption proceedings soon, make things legal.

As she juggled the squirming child with inept hands, Rusty’s grin widened. She’d been married, but obviously didn’t have any kids. Hadn’t she ever coped with a six-month old?

She glared at him over the top of the auburn head, her annoyance palpable in the air between them. “You might have told me.”

“Why?” He shrugged. “You were so anxious to buy into the place—Well, Baby comes along with it.” He leaned forward, saddle creaking, and murmured to the child in cutesy tones he hoped would irritate Lucy.

Hearing his familiar voice, Baby gurgled happily, and when Rusty’s sorrel gelding snuffled her head, she launched into a bout of giggles that ended in hiccups.

Lucy had her arms full, and by her awkwardness, Rusty’s original thought was confirmed: it was plain as the whiskers on his gelding’s nose that the woman had no experience at all with children.

Baby jounced happily, banging the top of her head against Lucy’s chin. Lucy freed a hand to rub her jaw, her scowl at Rusty intensifying.

He tried not to laugh. It served her right, forcing him to sell her half the Lazy S as she’d done. Too bad it wouldn’t do her much good. In twelve months’ time, he’d have the money—no question about it. And fetching as Lucy was, she would not be allowed to dissuade him.

Myriad fund-raising ideas filled his head; tonight he’d make calls and see if he could sell gypsum, a produce used for insulation, plaster and wallboard, from a pit on the farthest reaches of the property. His brothers had always resisted mining on the Lazy S, but Rusty knew they’d made poor decisions. He realized, grimly and with some pain, that he could no longer afford to stand on principles.

The baby jounced again and Lucy nearly dropped her. At last Rusty took pity. “Take Baby back to the house. Fritzy can handle her.”

Instantly he knew his phrasing had been poor. Over the baby’s head Lucy’s glare became a glower.

“I can handle her just fine,” she retorted, obviously stung.

Rusty nodded soothingly. He hadn’t meant to insult her. “Sure.”

Just then his gelding decided to blast a whinny to its companion in a far pasture. The shrill noise surprised Baby, who jumped, then screwed up her eyes and began to waiL In seconds her face turned shrimp-red, and tears streamed down her plump cheeks.

“Rusty, how could you?” Lucy accused him in shocked tones.

She hugged the infant to her protectively—as if he’d let out the damned whinny himself!

“I didn’t do anything,” he said.

“You could have stopped him. Didn’t you see he was going to do that?”

“Don’t know how,” he mumbled, at a loss. The child was crying in earnest now. “Sorry.”

“And what is Baby’s real name, anyway?” she asked above the wailing din.

He shrugged, suddenly feeling on the defensive. “We just call her Baby. I don’t know if there’s something formal on her birth certificate—or if she’s even got one.”

“She doesn’t have a proper name?” Lucy demanded, shaming him. “I can’t believe this.” Stroking the child’s head, Lucy rocked her back and forth. “Never mind. I’m going back to the house.” Turning tail, she sent him one last disapproving glance that managed to make him feel lower than a slimy night-crawler. He rubbed at the stubble on his cheeks, knowing she was right. Baby should have been given a real name long ago. He’d just always thought there was time. How had six months passed so quickly?

Lucy stalked away, her trim rear end twitching angrily in new blue jeans. Baby’s cries calmed.

Rusty watched, perplexed at his reaction. Only moments before he’d been laughing at Lucy, feeling satisfyingly superior, but in two minutes she’d managed to cut him down to size. How had that happened?

Lucy fought down disappointment when Rusty carried his dinner plate into his office and shut the door with hushed finality. He stayed closeted in there all evening.

Then Fritzy announced she never ate before her favorite talk-show came on television at eleven-thirty. Since the efficient housekeeper had already bottle-fed the baby at six, then put her to bed for the night, Lucy was left alone.

Melancholy settled over her. This scattering at suppertime was not how she’d envisioned her “family” meals. Delicious though it was, she picked at her chicken and glanced around the empty room. In seconds she made up her mind to change things—at least a little—on the Lazy S.

A masculine face came at her. Fury flushed his skin ruddy, his features stiffened in an aggressive mask of anger. The familiar face, twisted in rage, snarled and shouted, called her “Bitch.”

“No!” Lucy cried, cringing, “don’t say that. I’m sorry. Please—”

The man ignored her pleas. Actually, he seemed to relish them, and his taunts became even more insulting. “You’re stupid, you hear? You’d be nothing without me to straighten you out. Nothing! If people knew how incompetent you are at even the simplest tasks—why, they’d laugh.”

Shoulders slumping, she felt the black void of anguish and despair threaten to engulf her. “I’ll try harder next time,” she defended weakly, already knowing it would do no good at all. “I won’t burn your toast next time. I’ll stand right by the toaster and watch the bread every second. It won’t happen again.”

He sneered at her. “You can’t even do that right. You’re useless!”

“Please stop,” she heard herself whimper, the cry turning into a loud moan. “Please.”

“Lucy,” another voice called urgently. “Lucy, wake up.”

Abruptly she awoke to total disorientation. Inside her chest her heart pounded furiously. The oily dampness of nervous perspiration filmed her body so that her nightgown stuck to her skin. Her eyes flew wide and she bolted up, gasped in lungfuls of air. For interminable seconds she didn’t know where she was. The darkened room was alien, the bed different.

“Lucy,” the new voice said calmly, “you were having a nightmare. It’s okay. Wake up, now.” Strong arms embraced her. Strangely, they didn’t feel threatening. They were gentle, paternal. Tender.

The angry face faded. Slowly she recognized the voice. Rusty was sitting on the edge of her bed, stroking her back, patting her reassuringly. He was barechested, his warm pelt of dark hair soft against her cheek. Flannel pajama bottoms covered the rest of him. It was dark in the room.

Lucy stiffened. Rusty?

Coming fully awake, she glanced around. Neon digital numbers on the bedside clock read 12:03. Midnight. It always happened at midnight. For some reason that was the hour when Kenneth really got going. She shuddered.

“It’s all right,” Rusty crooned, beginning to rock her against his chest. His arms were welcoming, protective. She clutched his warm skin, taut with muscle. “The bogeyman’s gone.”

Bogeyman. A child’s name for a frightening nighttime specter. Only she was an adult, and her personal bogeyman had been so very real.

A pain that came from within clamped around her throat. She realized she was shaking, every part of her body trembling as if with a sick fever.

She wept then, tucked her face into the juncture of Rusty’s neck where his stubble gave way to the softer skin of his collarbone. Choking back sobs, she clung to the man who offered comfort. When would she ever get over it? she wondered in despair. When would the bogeyman ever really go away?

Chapter Three

“It was Kenneth,” Rusty said in a low voice. “Kenneth did this to you.”

Still upset, Lucy shook her head, her hair falling into her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about—”

“He hit you, didn’t he?” Rusty demanded. Though his voice was quiet, she could hear outrage rumbling beneath his words like insurrectionists about to revolt.

“He—he didn’t hit me. The things he said...they hurt worse than that.”

He tilted his head, confused. “Your husband said mean things to you? That gave you a bad dream?”

In an effort to stop crying, she drew ragged breaths. “I know it’s hard to understand. It’s hard to explain.” How she disliked sounding like a too-sensitive baby, spoiled and self-centered. She hadn’t spoken about it with anyone except the therapist, and that had been difficult enough. She wasn’t about to throw open the door to her soul’s deepest secret. Not to Rusty; he wouldn’t understand. No one would. No one could comprehend her reasons for staying with Kenneth during those bleak years of their marriage.

“Lucy—”

“Rusty, no, please. I...I can’t.” Moonlight, streaming in her window, carved shadows over the masculine lines of Rusty’s face. In the darkness his brown eyes appeared black, penetrating.

His shoulders were big, his chest full, his abdomen ribbed. No man had held her for so long. She hadn’t allowed it—or even wanted it—and certainly no half-dressed man. Lucy shut her eyes, overwhelmed.

With his big hands he stroked her arms from her shoulders to her wrists. As his palms glided over her skin, bared by her sleeveless gown, she could feel his work-hardened calluses, formed by honest labor. He was caressing her, she realized with a new shock. Rusty...caressing her?

He studied her, and she could almost feel him mentally probing for answers, answers she knew she couldn’t give, didn’t know if she had them to give. With her back to the window she hoped he couldn’t see her well.

“You’re not gonna talk about this with me, are you? Well, what happened to him, anyway? How did he die?” Before she could reply, his grip on her arms tightened, his voice roughened. “I wouldn’t blame you if you had something to do with it.”

Lucy gasped. “My God, no. It was his heart. He...he had a congenital defect. Both his brother and father did, too.”

Rusty shrugged, brutally uncaring. “At least the creep left you well-off.”

She bowed her head. “I guess I should thank you for coming in. Did...did I make a noise?”

“If you call an agonizing moan that could wake the next ranch ten miles over a ‘noise,’ then, yeah, you did.”

“I apologize for waking you. I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t you?” He grimaced at his own sarcasm. “You didn’t mean to have a horrible nightmare and wake up sweating, shaking and sobbing? I’d have never guessed.”

She could think of nothing to say.

He stood, and she wondered if it was only in her imagination that he did so reluctantly. “I’ll go now. You’ll be all right.”

She nodded.

“But we’re not finished with this. I won’t push now, but soon...” He left the rest unsaid, stared at her meaningfully, strode out the door and shut it with a quiet click.

Hugging herself, Lucy felt an errant thought begin to bloom, unfurling like the petals of a flower. While she found Rusty gruff and uncompromising, he had rushed to her when she’d cried out, when she’d needed him.

Rusty had come to comfort her.

As if the night before had never happened, as if Lucy had never cried out in fear and Rusty had never consoled her with his voice and his touch, the next morning he barely spared her a glance when he entered the kitchen.

After pouring himself a mug of steaming coffee, he downed it in four gulps and turned to leave. Ribbons of sunlight fought with morning gloom to lance through the nook’s high windows and fall on Rusty’s hair. Streaks of russet Lucy hadn’t seen before appeared in the thick waves.

At the stove Fritzy mixed thick batter.

“Good morning,” Lucy said, trying to catch his eye. Before her sat orange juice and toasted waffles sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Grunting something unintelligible, he collected his hat from a wall hook.

“Um, what are you going to do today?”

“Work.” He moved toward the door.

She wished she knew how to stop him. “Well, what should I do?”

His boots making staccato thuds on the hardwood floor, he was already out of the kitchen when his voice came back over his shoulder. “Whatever you want.”

Lucy blinked, gazing sightlessly at the waffles. Well, what did she expect? The fact that he had come to her last night obviously meant little. Just as he would unemotionally soothe a frightened horse until it was composed, he’d soothed her until she was calm—all part of his duties.

“Another waffle, Lucy?” Fritzy asked.

“Thank you, Fritzy, but no. I’m really full.” She didn’t think she could get another bite past her suddenly constricted throat.

With Fritzy washing the breakfast dishes, Lucy agreed to carry the baby outside for air, “Just for a few minutes,” Lucy clarified sternly. “Then you’ll take the baby.”

“Oh, of course, dear,” Fritzy assured her, tightening her apron.

So, the blanket-wrapped child in her arms. Lucy stepped into the morning’s crisp sunshine and glanced at the overgrown lawn. If Fritzy wouldn’t allow her to help inside the house, she would begin outside.

A profound need to sculpt a place for herself, to be a valuable entity on the ranch burned inside her; she would do all in her power to make her dream come true.

Lucy wanted to be needed. She wanted to have a place where others counted on her. She wanted family... even if that family was comprised of only Fritzy, Baby...and Rusty.

Badly in need of a good mowing, the lawn would be a fine place to start making herself useful. With the men so busy branding, she guessed no one had time for this chore. Rusty’s truck was gone, but down at the corrals she could see ropes whirling and the wispy trail of the branding fire. Faint bawling came to her over the breeze.

Fallen leaves made a colorful but messy canopy over the overgrown grass, and those would have to be raked first. Placing the child on the quilt safely out of harm’s way, she spied a dented aluminum gardening shed shoved against the house’s side wall and hunted through for tools. Sunlight warmed her back and sparkled on the last drops of dewy grass. Lucy hummed a country time.

Hands on hips, she surveyed the tools she’d brought out—cotton canvas gloves, a rake and two plastic trash barrels. The mower she left in the shed for now. Good. As a young girl she’d performed yard work for spending money; she could do this. And she’d do it well. A person had to start somewhere, and although starting had never been her problem, this time she’d complete the job.

She’d make herself indispensable here. Essential. An intrinsic cog in the Lazy S wheel. Hope filling her heart, she bent to collect the rake, when from the corner of her eye, she noticed the baby about to thrust something into her mouth.

Somehow she’d wriggled to the edge of the quilt and tugged out a tuft of grass. Lucy flew to her, put a halt to the grass lunch and lifted the child into her arms.

“Silly girl,” Lucy scolded gently, cradling her, “grass is for cows, not humans. Now, you just lie quietly while I rake, all right?”

Settling the little imp down again on her stomach, she began to turn when the baby giggled, pulled her knees to her chest, and gave a rocking sort of scoot forward. Her face mashed into the blanketed ground but she only pushed herself up, grinning. Again, she pulled her knees under, swayed back and forth, and gave another hopping scoot.

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