The Cowboy and the Kid

by Anne McAllister

  Contents:

  Prologue

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

  © 1997

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  One

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  Having a father was a big responsibility.

  Becky Jones knew that better than almost anyone. She'd been taking care of her own father by herself—except for now and then, when Grandma and Grandpa and her dad's best friend, Noah, lent a hand—since she was two months old, and she'd be eight in October. That was a long while.

  Taggart—that was his name—was a pretty low-maintenance dad most of the time. He was thirty-two years old and in good health except for the pins in his knee and the occasional twinge left over from his bull-riding days. He didn't yell a lot or smoke or spit or chew—which was better than most of the dads she knew. He took off his boots when he came in the house; he washed the dishes almost every night; he kept his room pretty neat and he let her make a mess in hers.

  Also, he'd been around since she was born, and that was a big plus as far as Becky was concerned.

  It was certainly more than her best friend, Susannah, could say. Susannah's dad, Noah, hadn't even known he had a daughter until almost two years ago!

  That seemed pretty careless to Becky, but she could hardly talk since her own mother didn't get any prizes in the responsibility department. She'd got fed up and left Becky and her dad more than seven years ago and had never come back.

  At least once he knew Susannah existed, Noah Tanner had stuck around. He was even married to Susannah's mother now. Susannah said he and Tess, her mom, were in love. Becky guessed they must be because they'd had another baby—a boy called Clay—right after Christmas last year and were going to have another baby this November! Pretty soon Susannah would have lots of brothers and sisters to share the responsibility with. With two parents, you'd probably need that.

  Becky, however, was on her own.

  Until two years ago that hadn't been a problem. Before she started going to school full-time, Becky had gone down the road with Taggart from rodeo to rodeo, and she'd done a pretty good job taking care of him and keeping him out of trouble. Other cowboys got drunk and chased girls and raised heck, but not her dad.

  "Taggart's getting pretty settled these days," her grandpa often said.

  And her grandma always nodded and ruffled Becky's hair. "And we know why, don't we?" she would say, smiling at her granddaughter. "Because of you. You take such good care of your dad."

  But she couldn't prevent the accident. She hadn't even been with him at the time.

  She'd started first grade that fall and had stayed with her grandparents while Taggart had gone down the road without her. Becky thought that was dumb. She'd always learned a lot going down the road. Hadn't she learned to read by sounding out the letters on road signs? Couldn't she follow a map almost as good as he could? But arguing was useless. Sometimes her dad was as stubborn as the bulls he rode. She'd had to go to school anyway, and he'd traveled with Noah all that fall.

  Noah hadn't been able to prevent the accident, either.

  It had happened in December almost two years ago, right after the National Finals Rodeo. Becky remembered how mad she'd been because she couldn't even go to that—she'd always gone to the finals with him!

  But he'd said, no, school was more important. Becky disagreed, and she'd intended to tell him in no uncertain terms—after she gave him a big hug.

  On the day he was due to arrive she'd bounced out of bed early, wondering if maybe he was already waiting downstairs to surprise her. It would be just like him to get here early. She knew he missed her as much as she missed him. Besides, he was bringing her a big gold buckle this time because he was the new champion bull rider of the world! Naturally he'd be in a hurry for her to see it.

  She'd rushed to pull on her jeans and shirt, buttoning it wrong and not even stopping to do it over, so eager was she to race down the stairs and leap into his arms.

  He wasn't there. Only Grandma and Grandpa were in the kitchen, standing real stiff as they looked at her. Then Grandpa had come over and put his hands on her shoulders.

  "There's been an accident, Beck," he told her in a low quiet voice, the one he used when he was gentling his horses. Becky thought he looked the way he had when the foal of his best mare, Cedar, died last spring. "A truck hit Noah's van in the snowstorm. Your dad's in the hospital in Laramie."

  "Hospital?" Becky knew all about hospitals. That was where they'd taken her great-grandma before she'd died. It was where old Mr. Ennis had gone, too, and she remembered them burying him last Fourth of July. It was also where her friend Tuck McCall's mother had been. She was dead now, too.

  Becky felt like the time Tuck had hit her in the stomach with his football. Only worse. A million, trillion times worse.

  Her father wasn't dead, they told her. He was in a coma. That was like sleeping, Grandma said. Only sometimes, Tuck told her later—which nobody else would—you didn't wake up.

  All the time her dad was in the coma, Becky had had that football feeling.

  "He'll be all right, you'll see," her grandma had told her over and over. But Becky had seen the fear in her grandmother's eyes and knew Grandma had the football feeling, too.

  The next afternoon they said he woke up. Becky wasn't sure she'd have believed it—even though her grandma was laughing and crying at the same time—except Grandma held the phone out so Becky could talk to him.

  "D-Daddy?"

  "Hey, Pard." He sounded awful, like he'd swallowed Grandpa's chew. But it was him; nobody else ever called her Pard.

  She breathed again. "Daddy." The football feeling was gone. She felt like she could fly.

  "Sorry I missed your program, Pard."

  As if she cared about a dumb old Christmas program. "When are you comin' home, Daddy? Soon?"

  "Soon."

  "For Christmas?"

  "You'd better believe it. They're not keepin' me one minute longer than they have to. You can come and get me, okay?"

  "'Kay." She gripped the receiver tightly, the way she would hang on to his neck if he were here. She listened to him breathing. It was the best sound she'd ever heard.

  "Love you, Pard," he said at last.

  "Love you, too."

  Her grandma took the phone back then. Becky ran out to the barn and climbed up on the top rail of Cedar's stall to press her face into the sorrel's mane. There, for the first time since she'd heard about the accident, Becky cried.

  Sometimes, if she thought about it now, she could get scared all over again. She knew it had scared her dad, too. Once he got better, Taggart said he wasn't ever leaving her again. He and Noah decided that going down the road was just too hard on family men. They were both world champions. They'd proved all they needed to prove.

  So they started a bull- and bronc-riding school. Grandpa had the stock, and Taggart and Noah had the know-how. Now, a year and a half later, it was up and running.

  Noah and Tess and Susannah had just finished building a house down the road. Becky and Taggart had lived with Grandma and Grandpa while he and Noah got things going. But three months ago, Grandpa and Grandma had decided to try "city life" and bought a house in Bozeman, leaving Becky and her father on their own.

  Most of the time they were fine, just the two of them.

  But sometimes, lately she wasn't sure.

  This past summer, for example, when they'd gone down to the rodeo in Cheyenne, and he'd been trying to win her a stuffed bear in the shooting gallery, he'd missed five times! Not because he wasn't a good shot. But because instead of looking at the target, he was busy watching some lady with tight jeans and long blond hair!

  Becky's company hadn'
t been enough the day they went over to the rodeo in Missoula, either. He spent so much time talking to that barrel racer from Oregon that he didn't realize how much soda pop and candy Becky had eaten. She'd been sick all night.

  She'd thought maybe he was just distracted when they were traveling. She knew her grandpa had an old saying, something about "keeping them down on the farm…" Becky assumed he meant the ranch, but lately even at the ranch things had been strange.

  Like tonight when they were having dinner at Susannah's. Becky and Susannah were playing chopsticks on the piano, and she turned around to see if her dad had noticed how good she was getting. But instead of watching her, he'd been watching Noah kiss Tess. He'd had a funny look on his face, too.

  "They're making up for lost time," Susannah explained. "Newlyweds do that." She'd giggled. Becky had, too. Taggart didn't even smile.

  Becky left Susannah playing the piano and slid off the bench to go to where he stood propped against the windowsill. She leaned back against his legs and felt his fingers settle on her shoulders and tighten until they almost hurt. She reached a hand back and touched his. His grip eased and his fingers covered hers. His thumb rubbed the back of her hand.

  Later that night when they were driving home, she had to ask him three times if she could drive the truck through the gate when he opened and closed it.

  "Huh?" he said at last. Then, "Sure, if you want to." But it seemed to Becky as if he'd barely heard. He didn't even tell her what a good job she did when he got back in the truck. He didn't seem to notice at all.

  "Are you missing Julie?" she asked him finally when he was tucking her into bed. Her mother, she meant. She never called her Mommy because no one else ever had.

  He blinked, then frowned. "Missing Julie? Of course not. What the heck brought that on?"

  Becky gave a tiny shrug and scrunched back into the pillow. "Dunno. I just … wondered."

  He looked at her narrowly. Then he shrugged, too. "Don't be stupid." Then he ruffled her hair and dropped a kiss on her lips. "'Night, Pard."

  Becky's arms came up and locked around his neck, tugging him down for another, harder kiss. "'Night," she said fiercely.

  When he left, he winked at her, and she smiled, thinking she was imagining things and that everything was going to be all right.

  But when she woke up a few hours later, she could hear the television on. Unless he was watching cartoons with her or videos of bull rides, Taggart almost never watched TV. Curious, Becky crept downstairs.

  He was watching a movie. Not even a car-chase movie, which, as far as she knew, was the only kind he ever watched. On the screen she saw a man and a woman talking, arguing. Talking some more. And then, when the music got really soppy and the lady sniffled and wiped her eyes, they started smiling at each other. And then they were touching. And kissing. A whole lot of kissing.

  Taggart flicked the remote. Becky figured he'd shut it off. She was wrong. He played it back and watched it again. And again.

  For a long time, even after he shut it off, he didn't move. He just sat there, his hands in his lap, while Becky crouched on the steps, watching. At last, he got up—real slow, like when all his muscles hurt from bull-riding—and walked to the window. He stood with his hands tucked into his pockets staring out into the darkness.

  Finally he turned, and Becky got a glimpse of his face for the first time. He looked like Tuck had hit him in the stomach with his football. Hard.

  * * *

  "What you need is a mother," Susannah said.

  It was two mornings later, and they were walking up the road toward the gate where the school bus stopped. It was the first day of school, and, as a treat, Taggart had allowed her to spend the night with Susannah so they could walk to the bus together.

  He seemed to remember that having a friend on the first day always helped, even if you'd been going to the same school your whole life. He was good about things like that, so Becky wanted things to be good for him, too.

  But a mother? Becky looked at Susannah. "What for?"

  "You know what for." Susannah gave her an impatient look and tossed her long dark hair. Susannah was a year older and she knew a lot. She rolled her eyes significantly.

  "Oh," Becky said. "That."

  Actually, she didn't know a lot about that. Not when it had to do with men and women, anyway.

  She knew about bulls and cows. She'd seen artificial inseminations. It seemed like a good idea to her—less messy. She didn't know how her dad felt about it. She didn't think it was something she ought to ask.

  "I'm not sure I want a mother."

  "What's wrong with a mother?" Susannah sounded offended.

  "I don't know. I haven't ever had one, have I? Well, not for long, anyway." Becky shifted her backpack from one shoulder to the other and scuffed the toes of her cowboy boots in the dirt.

  "I guess not," Susannah said, contemplating Becky's mother's desertion. Then she said, "But you know mine. You like her, don't you?"

  Becky nodded. Sometimes she envied Susannah her mother. It had been different when her grandmother was still around the house. But now that Grandma was in Bozeman, no one ever baked cookies or canned tomatoes or bought new barrettes for her hair.

  Tess did all those things. She was also good with Band-Aids when you skinned your knee. Taggart believed in toughing it out—they didn't have a Band-Aid in their house. He wasn't much good at barrettes, either, though he could braid well enough.

  It came from making bull ropes, he'd told her. Becky doubted if mothers learned to braid that way, but she didn't suppose it really mattered. And he did try.

  "Well, then," Susannah went on, "you'll just have to get yours back."

  Becky looked up, startled. "Get Julie back?"

  "If that's her name. I got my dad, didn't I?"

  "It's not the same. I mean, he didn't even know about you, so you can't blame him for not being there. But Julie knew … about me, I mean—" she said this last bit with difficulty, because it always made her feel funny somewhere in the middle of her stomach "—and she left, anyway."

  Susannah kicked a rock. "She was a jerk."

  Becky thought so, too, but she felt obligated to say what her father had always told her. "She just couldn't handle things. Daddy says she didn't know what she was getting into marrying him. The rodeos and the ranch and all. She was from New York City."

  "That's no excuse."

  "No." Becky agreed with that. "Well, you can see why I don't want her—if I've got to find a mother, I mean." She kicked the rock Susannah had kicked. They followed it up the road, taking turns.

  "Then we'll find you another one."

  "I'm not having Kitzy Miller!" Kitzy Miller worked in the Minimart. She chewed gum a pack at a time, had zits but called them freckles, and practically drooled on Taggart's boots whenever they stopped to buy gas or milk or bread.

  There was no doubt in Becky's mind that Kitzy Miller had her eye on Taggart—and no way on earth was she going to have Kitzy for a mother!

  "Definitely not Kitzy Miller," Susannah agreed fervently.

  "Then who?"

  They looked at each other hopefully, but neither could come up with another name. There were not a lot of unattached women in Elmer, Montana.

  Becky kicked the rock. "Miss Setsma's nice."

  "Miss Setsma's old as your grandma!" Susannah said about their piano teacher. She gave the rock an extra-hard kick. "What about Brenna Jamison? She's young—and she's pretty."

  Brenna lived up the valley on the biggest ranch around—when she was home, which wasn't often. Mostly she was somewhere else doing art. She was a very famous painter, and she only came home when her daddy, old Otis Jamison, required what Taggart called a command performance. There seem to be very many of them.

  "I don't think so," Becky said. "I mean, she's nice … but I don't think she wants to stay around here."

  They'd reached the gate where the bus stopped, and they slid between the posts without undoing the wire t
hat held it fast. The bus was just coming over the rise.

  "Tuck might know somebody," Susannah suggested.

  "I know everybody Tuck knows," Becky said glumly. Tuck had been her best friend before Susannah came. Now he was nine and couldn't always be bothered with her. "There's no one."

  "Then we'll pray."

  Becky's eyes widened. "Pray?"

  "Why not?" Susannah said as the bus stopped and they climbed on. "It worked for me."

  Probably because Susannah was a lot better person than she was, Becky thought, slumping in her seat. The bus started up again and Becky stared out the window as it rumbled its way toward town. Susannah probably never climbed trees her daddy told her not to, and she always studied her spelling words, and it was even possible that she ate all her carrots. Becky hated carrots.

  Would a mother make her eat carrots?

  Maybe she could pray for one who would not. That might be worth a shot. As the bus trundled on, she screwed her eyes up tight and sent a prayer winging heavenward. The bus wound up the hill and down, then up another and down. It stopped. Becky kept praying, unsure how long she was supposed to keep it up. The bus began its journey once more.

  "You got a pain or somethin'?"

  Becky's eyes popped open. A red-haired, freckle-faced boy was standing in the aisle, staring at her. "Oh, hi, Tuck. I'm prayin'."

  He looked dubious. "You? For what?"

  Becky hesitated, unsure if she was supposed to tell or not. Was it like a wish that didn't come true unless you kept it a secret? She turned to ask Susannah, but she was leaning over the seat in front, talking to that snotty Lizbeth Caldwell. Becky certainly wasn't going to betray her ignorance in front of Lizbeth!

  "I'll tell you later," she promised, partly for fear of jinxing a prayer she had no very great hopes for anyway, and partly because she knew Tuck would think she was out of her mind if she told him.

  "A stepmother? You're prayin' for a stepmother?" he'd say. "Like Cinderella's?"

  No way. She didn't want that! She wasn't sure what she wanted—besides no carrots. She tried to think about it. It would have to be someone who'd appeal to her dad, she guessed. Someone pretty who looked good in jeans would be a start. But then, she'd also have to be fun to have around. And she'd have to know about barrettes and Band-Aids, and it would be good if she could bake cookies and didn't care if kids got dirty sometimes or fell out of trees they weren't supposed to climb in the first place. They needed someone who'd love her and Taggart both.