Cowboy Up

by Stacy Finz

  She was weeping, and the sound of her muffled cries made his chest hurt.

  He started to go inside her room to offer comfort, but something told him that wouldn’t go over well. It hadn’t gone beyond his notice that he scared Ellie. He was an absolute stranger to her and not exactly Mr. Rogers. He was gruff, a little impatient, and had no experience with little girls whatsoever. She’d bristled whenever he tried, albeit awkwardly, to be demonstrative.

  The fact was, he’d never been good at relationships, period, committing himself solely to his job.

  If you’d given me a tenth of the attention you give your cases, I might’ve stayed.

  Tamara, like the rest of his girlfriends, had walked out. No argument from him; he’d been a lousy boyfriend. But the stakes of being a parent were higher. Ellie needed someone dependable, someone who knew what the hell he was doing.

  He continued to listen through the door, his heart folding in half at her hushed cries. At the funeral she’d been stoic, singing hymns and reciting psalms by heart, her face downcast as the priest led the Mass. He’d reached out and touched her shoulder and she’d leaned into him. And then, just like that, she’d pulled away, and the moment was gone.

  He loitered in the hallway, waiting to see if she’d eventually fall asleep, feeling uneasy about leaving her alone. Yet he instinctively knew she wouldn’t welcome his succor. The sad part of it was, he didn’t know what to say or how to make things better—or at least not worse—anyway. He couldn’t bring back Marie, and Ellie wanted her mother.

  * * * *

  When Cash went to wake Ellie the next morning, he found her room barricaded. She’d dragged the nightstand against the door. He was able to push it open without any trouble. The piece of furniture only weighed fifty pounds or so, but if God forbid he’d had to get to her in a hurry…

  “Hey, Ellie, wake up.”

  She sat up and brushed the sleep from her eyes, trying to register where she was. Then withdrew the moment she took in the sparse bedroom.

  “Honey, you can’t do this.” Cash waved at the nightstand and her door. “If there’d been a fire or an earthquake I’d need to get in here as quickly as possible.”

  She pushed off the blanket and threw one leg over the bed. Cash noted she’d slept in her oversized sweater.

  “I hate it here.” She was back to being defiant, which Cash felt more equipped to handle. Just ask the Bureau; defiance was his middle name.

  “You’ve been here less than twenty-four hours,” he said. “Let’s have some breakfast and I’ll give you the tour. Maybe seeing it in daylight will change your mind.”

  “I doubt it.” She got up and searched for her suitcase for a robe. “And I’m not eating.”

  He clenched his jaw. Eventually, he’d have to put his foot down about the whole hunger strike thing. “Well, I’m having eggs and bacon. Feel free to join me or not join me, but be ready to go in forty minutes, okay?”

  Cash left the room, giving her privacy to dress. About fifteen minutes later, he heard the water in the bathroom running, then a shrill scream.

  Shit.

  “Ellie?” He rushed across the hall.

  “Don’t come in here.” Her voice was so filled with panic, he didn’t know whether to obey or bust the door down.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “There’s a giant spider in the tub.”

  His own panic subsided. A spider. The girl better get used to them, living on a ranch. “Honey, how can I kill the spider if I can’t come in?”

  Silence. Then, “I’ll be out in a second.”

  “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

  There was rustling and then she finally opened the door, cinching the belt of her robe. He inspected the tub, found the spider, and flushed it down the toilet.

  “Spider free,” he said and smiled.

  Her response was to shoo him out of the bathroom and slam the door in his face. A half hour later, she joined him in the kitchen, where he was frying bacon. When she didn’t think he was looking, she snatched a piece off the plate he’d set aside. When he thought she wasn’t looking, he scooted the plate closer to her. By the time the eggs were ready, a few more strips of bacon had disappeared. At least the hunger strike appeared to be over.

  “So this is what I’m thinking: How ’bout I introduce you to your cousins and they show you the horses?” Cash thought maybe if she was around kids her age, it might help smooth the transition. “You good with that?”

  She gave an evasive shrug.

  “You’ll like Travis and Grady,” he said and casually put a dish of scrambled eggs and buttered toast in front of her. She toyed with the food with her fork, but he noticed she took a few bites. The kid was probably starving.

  “You sleep okay?” He knew she hadn’t, but at least it was a conversation starter.

  She shrugged again. “How long do I have to stay here?”

  Forever, kid.

  She was stuck with him, but maybe not with Dry Creek Ranch. If he could persuade Jace and Sawyer to sell, they’d move somewhere where Cash could get a job. First, he had to figure out what his new career should be. He was a lawyer, though he’d never practiced a day in his life. But having a JD behind his name had helped him get hired at the Bureau.

  “What do you say we take one day at a time?”

  She didn’t particularly like that answer but quietly nodded.

  “When I was your age you couldn’t get me to leave the ranch. My parents—your grandparents—had to force me into the car. Did you have a place like that in Boston?”

  “No.”

  He had hoped she’d talk about the stable where she rode. That at least was common ground. “I think you’ll like the barn with the horses. Have you ever ridden Western?”

  “Only English,” she said.

  “It’s not so very different.” Cash used to have a girlfriend who rode hunters and jumpers. The tack, the clothes, the competitions had all seemed slightly prissy to him. He preferred jeans and a Stetson and the wide-open range. Not a lot of that in Boston, he presumed. “We’ll clean up here and head over to the big ranch house where Jace and his boys live.”

  He did the dishes while she played with her phone. Cash wasn’t so keen on giving kids that age expensive toys like smartphones, but Marie had been a single mom and a cop with unpredictable hours. A phone had probably been the best way to keep tabs on Ellie.

  “You want to change before we take off?” She still wore the sweater, and the temperature was likely to hit ninety before noon.

  “I’m good.”

  Hopefully, she had a T-shirt underneath, but Cash steered clear of pushing the issue. “Then let’s roll.”

  She grudgingly followed him out to his SUV and, like for the ride from the airport, got in the back seat.

  “Ellie, you know you can sit up front, right? You might be able to see more that way.”

  She switched seats with her head bent low. He waited for her to buckle in and took the fire trail that looped around the ranch. The road circled the outer perimeter of the property and only offered a periphery view. But at least the drive would give her a glimpse into the vastness and beauty of the ranch. Rolling hills of pastureland, dotted with oaks and pines and ponds.

  “That’s Dry Creek to the left. You probably heard the water from your bedroom last night.”

  She glanced out the window, doing her best to look bored, and didn’t say anything. Undeterred, he continued to call out points of interest. “That spot of the creek right there is where I learned to swim. …See that barn? That’s where your cousin Jace and I found a musket ball left over from the Gold Rush. …Sawyer and I built a fort in those trees when we were the same age as you. …Over there is the chicken coop…that’s where the eggs we ate this morning came from.”

  For Christ’s sake, he sounded l
ike a tour guide on steroids. Stop trying so hard and let the poor girl take Dry Creek Ranch in for herself. For the rest of the drive he shut up and thought she might’ve nodded off to sleep.

  When they pulled up to the ranch house she stirred and pressed her face against the window as two of Jace’s dogs ran around Cash’s SUV in circles, barking. They jumped up on the door and she jerked back.

  “They won’t hurt you,” he said, but she refused to budge from the truck.

  Jace came out of the house and called the mutts away, then opened the passenger door and shook Ellie’s hand in that low-key, warm way he had of putting people at ease. “Welcome to Dry Creek Ranch. Come inside; the boys can’t wait to meet you.”

  Cash got out first, scratched one of the dogs that had come around to his side on the head, and helped Ellie out of the SUV. Grady opened the front door a crack and stuck one eye through. Cash winked at him.

  “Can I come out, Dad?”

  “Yep, but give Ellie room to breathe.”

  Grady burst through the door like a four-foot-two whirlwind. The eight-year-old was a handful but cute as hell.

  He ran up to Ellie and wrapped her in a hug. “You want to meet my Uncle Sawyer? He lives down the hill.” For some unfathomable reason, kids—and adults, for that matter—loved Sawyer.

  “Hey, buddy, what did I tell you about giving Ellie some space?” Jace grabbed Grady’s arm and tugged him away while Ellie stood ramrod straight with a dazed look in her eyes.

  Travis came out and leaned against the porch railing. Jace’s thirteen-year-old was more reserved than his younger brother. The kid reminded Cash of himself at that age. A little too serious. Since the boys’ mama left, Travis had taken on the role of caretaker, and his shoulders practically sagged with the weight of it.

  “Ellie, this is Travis.” Cash waved the boy over. “I was hoping you guys would show her the horses later.”

  Travis nodded and stuck out his hand to Ellie, which made Cash smile. The boy was on his way to being a fine man. Ellie gave him a limp shake, then quickly hid her hands underneath the sleeves of that damned sweater.

  “You eat breakfast yet, Ellie?” Jace put his arm around her shoulder and walked her inside the house. His cousin was a natural with kids, but then again, he’d had thirteen years of experience.

  The place was its usual chaotic mess. A collection of boots, cowboy hats, and various clothing items filled the foyer. In the great room, the boys’ video games were scattered across the coffee table, and the sofa pillows had somehow landed on the floor.

  Jace led Ellie to the kitchen, where a pile of dishes sat in the farm sink and remnants of the morning’s meal still lay on the counter. Yet even with the clutter, no place had ever been more majestic to Cash, or felt more like a home than the ranch house. It was a cowboy’s castle, down to the rawhide furniture and the massive deer antler chandeliers.

  The kitchen alone was twice the size of Cash’s cabin. He could still remember his late grandmother cooking over the big six-burner stove and making homemade pizzas in the stone fireplace. At Christmastime, they’d sit in the massive front room, opening presents all morning long. Cash used to lay on the floor and stare up at the soaring, open-beam ceilings, wondering how his great-grandfather had gotten the heavy wooden trusses so high.

  His great-great-grandfather began building the log house in the late 1800s, when he settled in Mill County to run cattle. Since then, his grandparents had added on and updated the ranch house to reflect the times.

  Same with the cattle ranch.

  When Grandpa Dalton had taken the reins, he turned it into one of the most prosperous spreads in the region. But a decade ago, when California experienced historic droughts, he was forced to cull the herd and was never able to recover from the financial loss. Jace had been supporting the place the best he could.

  “What’ll you have?” Jace asked Ellie as he pulled out a few boxes of the boys’ cereal from the pantry. Sugary shit that made Cash wince. “Or should I make my famous pancakes?”

  Ellie appeared to shrink further into her oversized sweater. Cash didn’t know if she was shy or on a mission to reject anything that had to do with him.

  “We had bacon and eggs,” he said, and turned to Ellie. “But I can vouch for Jace’s pancakes. You want a stack?” It wouldn’t kill her to eat a little more. She looked as if she could blow away in a soft breeze.

  Ellie shook her head. Cash pulled out two stools from the center island and motioned for her to sit and took the one next to her.

  “Where’s Sawyer?” he asked Jace. When Sawyer wasn’t on assignment he’d sleep till noon.

  “On his way over.”

  “He caught a fish in the creek yesterday. It was this big.” Grady spread his arms two-feet wide.

  “You eat it?” Cash grinned, because he knew the boys didn’t like fish. To prove it, Grady made gagging noises.

  “You missed out on some fine fish tacos,” Jace said to Cash and winked at Ellie.

  “We had the regular kind.” Grady elbowed his way up to the breakfast bar. “Do you like tacos, Ellie?”

  She shrugged, and Cash felt more of that gnawing regret. He didn’t even know what foods his daughter liked to eat, the kind of books she enjoyed reading, her favorite color. Nothing. A week before she died, Marie had at least gotten him Ellie’s medical records. By all accounts, his daughter was healthy.

  The only other clues he’d gotten about Ellie’s childhood had come from Linda and packing up Marie’s condo. Judging by the photo galleries on the wall and Ellie’s closet, Marie had doted on their daughter. There were pictures of her everywhere. Ellie as a toddler, Ellie at various holiday and birthday celebrations, Ellie on her first day of middle school, Ellie on a horse. The pictures were his sole glimpse into those milestones.

  Between the photo albums, her clothes, and electronics, it had taken two solid days to box everything. Sorting through it, Cash hadn’t found any evidence of a male figure in Ellie’s life. According to Marie, she’d raised their daughter completely on her own. Cash hadn’t felt right about pressing her on what, if anything, she’d told Ellie about him, not when she was in hospice care, dying of cancer.

  “Why don’t you guys show Ellie the horses?” Jace told Travis and Grady.

  Travis pushed off the wall of the breakfast nook. “Come on, Ellie, let’s go to the barn.”

  Ellie surprised Cash by following Travis without any resistance. He wouldn’t go as far as to say she was enthusiastic about it, but maybe the boys could coax her out of her shell.

  Jace waited for the kids to leave and said, “Looks like you could use a drink.”

  Cash let out an audible sigh. “She hates the cabin and wants to go home.”

  “It’s a lot, Cash. Give her time.”

  “I know, but I had hoped we’d have a little more of a rapport. In the five days we’ve been together, she’s barely talked, has refused to eat, and treats me like she’s afraid I’m going to kill her in her sleep. Last night she shoved the nightstand against the door.”

  Jace burst out laughing, then held up a hand. “I know, not funny. But you are kind of scary.” He leaned across the breakfast bar, glanced Cash over, and sniffed. “At least you shaved and showered. Kids are tougher than you think; she’ll come around. How was the funeral?”

  “You know the drill. Bagpipes, honor guard, lots of cops, lots of eulogies.”

  “And Ellie?”

  “She held up, poor kid. Marie’s partner and his family sat in the front row with us. Ellie seemed pretty tight with them, as well as Marie’s best friend, Linda.”

  “It’s good she had that support,” Jace said, hesitated for a beat, then asked, “How come you think Marie never told you about Ellie?”

  It was a hell of a good question. “I don’t know. Maybe she wanted Ellie all to herself.”

  Cash ha
d given it a lot of thought over the last two weeks and wondered if Marie had singled him out that night simply because she was looking for a sperm donor. All those years she could’ve gotten child support but never sought him out, not even to tell him she was pregnant.

  They’d met at a law-enforcement conference in New Orleans, had gotten drunk at one of the bars in the French Quarter, and had wound up in bed together. That was the sum total of their relationship. The next day, they went their separate ways and never spoke again. It wasn’t until Marie was on her deathbed that she’d contacted him about Ellie.

  Since then, he’d gone back and forth between anger and, though it was shameful to admit, relief. When Marie got pregnant he was two years into his FBI career, had solved his first big case, and was enjoying a meteoric rise in the Bureau. Having a child would have thrown a monkey wrench into everything he’d worked for. Perhaps Marie knew that and was trying to do him a favor by not getting him involved.

  “Other than she was a cop and lived in Boston, I knew nothing about her,” Cash said. “So I couldn’t begin to tell you what her reasons were.”

  “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but it was pretty fucked up, if you ask me. Tell me again why it is that she didn’t see fit to tell you about Ellie all this time but entrusted her care to you now? How’d she know you weren’t a psycho? Weren’t there other family members?”

  Cash flicked a cereal crumb across the counter at his cousin. “Hey, brain dead, I was a respected FBI agent for more than a decade. As for family: Her father died ten years ago, her mother is in a nursing home, and she and her brother don’t speak. I’m it as far as relatives go.” Still, there were friends like Linda who wanted Ellie. But Marie had said she ascribed to the old proverb, blood is thicker than water, which didn’t make sense to Cash because she hadn’t given a rat’s ass about his familial status until she was dying.

  “Hey, where is everyone?” Sawyer bellowed.

  “We’re in the kitchen,” Jace called.

  Sawyer joined them at the center island, sank into the stool Ellie had vacated, and took in the mess left over from breakfast. “Got anything to eat?”