The Cowboy's Big Family Tree

by Meg Maxwell

  Logan hated Tuckerville. It reminded him of Bethany, since after the rodeo in nearby Stocktown they’d drive into Tuckerville and he’d take her out for a great steak dinner, then dancing, which he wasn’t great at, and then he’d upgrade his hotel for her and they’d spend hours in bed.

  She’d worked on him for two weeks, making him late for one rodeo because he’d been so consumed with lust. Okay, fine, he’d chalked that up to being a red-blooded male. But then she’d gone in for the kill and made him miss the championships in late July altogether and the potential of a huge purse. He knew he would have won that championship too.

  He’d forced her faux angelic face and long blond hair out of his mind. Logan had never thought himself as particularly trusting or cynical, but he had no idea he could misread someone’s intentions to the degree he’d misread The Liar.

  Stop thinking about it, he told himself. You’ve got bigger worries than a con-woman who tricked you.

  “I’ve never been here,” Clementine said as she shut the car door and looked around. “Nice place. Busy. Much busier than Blue Gulch.”

  “I prefer Blue Gulch,” he said. “Mile long main street, just the shops and businesses you need, neighbors who know everyone. I didn’t even realize what a small-town guy I was until I moved back to raise the twins.”

  “I feel the same,” Clementine said. “My sisters both left for big cities after high school but I never wanted to. I love Blue Gulch. It does have everything I need.”

  Another thing they had in common.

  Downtown Tuckerville was bustling as usual on a Saturday afternoon, people running errands, going shopping, sitting at the outdoor restaurants even though it was barely sixty degrees today. On the corner was the steak house Bethany loved. He scowled at it and began walking to get away from it.

  “I don’t even know where to start,” Logan said, stepping out of the way of a dogwalker with a big pack. “The obituary didn’t offer much information. Just where and when he was born, his parents’ names, the hospice where he died and the funeral home.”

  “Let’s go to the hospice,” Clementine said. “Maybe we can talk to his doctors and nurses.”

  “If they’ll tell us anything,” Logan said. He pulled up the obituary on his smartphone and noted the address. “We can walk. It’s just a few blocks that way.”

  As they neared the three-story brick building with its flower-lined walkway, Logan was very aware of Clementine beside him. She’d taken off her apron and changed from her T-shirt and jeans into an off-white fuzzy sweater and gray pants. As much as he wanted distance between them, she felt familiar and comfortable, a help as they walked up the path to the door of the hospice—and all this unknown territory.

  The receptionist had them wait for about five minutes, then a nurse’s aide came to see them in the empty waiting area. In her forties, with assessing brown eyes behind red-framed eyeglasses and short dark hair, she sat in the padded chair across from them. Her name tag read Jennifer Cotter.

  “You’re here about Clyde Parsons?” she asked.

  Logan nodded. “I’m...his biological son, Logan Grainger.”

  Talk about unnatural. Logan was pretty sure that was the strangest statement that had ever come out of his mouth.

  He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. He gestured to Clementine. “This is Clementine Hurley.” The two women smiled at each other, giving Logan a second to catch his breath. “I didn’t know until a few months ago that he was my biological father,” Logan added. “Did you know him well?”

  The aide looked at Logan for a long moment, and he wondered if she knew about him, how much Clyde had told her. “Well, I was assigned to Mr. Parsons but he was here for less than two weeks before he passed away. He knew he was very ill but waited until he couldn’t take care of himself or Phoebe before checking in here.”

  Logan glanced at Clementine, then back at the nurse. “Phoebe?” Logan pictured one of those little white fluffy dogs. Or maybe Phoebe was a cat.

  “His stepdaughter,” the aide said. “Ex-stepdaughter, I guess. Phoebe Pike. Phoebe came to see Clyde every day, even though her aunt thought it was morbid. That woman,” she added under breath.

  “Stepdaughter?” Logan repeated, glancing at Clementine again. “The obituary didn’t say anything about a stepdaughter.”

  “Well, to be honest, Mr. Grainger, Clyde wrote out that obituary himself, said it was just as he wanted it. I asked him if he wanted to include Phoebe’s name, but he said he didn’t feel right about including one child and excluding another.”

  Logan was that other child, he figured.

  “And since Phoebe wasn’t a relation,” the aide continued, “since she’s his ex-wife’s daughter, it didn’t seem strange not to mention her by name or association, even though Clyde had been caring for her on his own for almost two years.”

  What the heck? An ex-stepdaughter? Two years? Where was the wife?

  “How old is Phoebe?” Clementine asked.

  “Nine, I think.” The aide lowered her voice and leaned in. “Apparently a couple of years ago Clyde’s wife left him to be a showgirl in Vegas, then got some quickie divorce and remarried and moved across the country. She just left the girl with Clyde. When he knew his time was coming, he found an aunt of Phoebe’s about a half hour away who said she’d take Phoebe in if she couldn’t track down the mother. The aunt had no luck with that, so Phoebe went to live with her.”

  Logan glanced at Clementine. The look in her eyes was a combination of concern, sadness and worry.

  “That poor girl,” Clementine said, shaking her head. “She must have been so confused about her place in this world.”

  The aide glanced at Clementine with commiseration. “Confused is right. And grief-stricken. Apparently, she and Mr. Parsons were close. That girl came to see him every day. Apparently more than once she took the bus on her own since her aunt wouldn’t drive her more than twice a week.”

  “Were you and Clyde close?” Clementine asked. “You seem to know so much about him and Phoebe.”

  Logan wasn’t so sure he liked where Clementine was going with this. He was pretty sure she was heading for a question about what Clyde was like, what kind of man he was, if the aide liked him, or if he was a rotten bastard. Dying or not. He shifted his seat again, uncomfortable as hell, not sure he wanted to know any of this.

  Yeah, they were here for information. But there was such a thing as too much information. Which he felt he already had. Parsons had been raising his ex-wife’s nine-year-old stepdaughter? What? And the child of a woman who’d skipped out of him? Double what?

  “We weren’t close,” the aide said. “Toward the very end, some patients do like to get some things off their chests. In his very final days, Mr. Parsons started talking about his life some. The girl’s situation, how he picked a wife like himself who couldn’t commit to anything. He did mention he had a son he never met. In fact, he asked me to mail a letter to you the day before he passed. He knew his time was coming. I sure was glad for him that he got it done beforehand.”

  Logan nodded. Part of him did want Clementine to ask what Parsons had been like. Nice guy? Ornery grump? Of course, he could just ask that question himself. But he couldn’t bring himself to do so.

  “How would you describe Mr. Parsons?” Clementine asked, practically on cue.

  He glanced at her, again surprised by how she seemed able to know what he was thinking, that he’d gone from not wanting her to go there to the opposite.

  “As I mentioned, I didn’t know him well,” the aide said. “He was easy to work with, treated me respectfully and kindly. He wasn’t all that talkative, though he did talk a lot to the girl when she visited. I’d come in his room to check on him and they’d be talking away, the girl’s chair pulled up along his bed. I got the feeling he was comforting her.”
<
br />   So not an obvious class A jerk. Or a grumpy coot. From what the aide said, Clyde Turnbull Parsons sounded like a decent person. Which was impossible. Decent people didn’t walk out on their pregnant girlfriend without a backward glance. They just didn’t.

  Clementine was looking at him and she shifted in her chair, crossing her legs. She seemed to notice he was...uncomfortable. “So his stepdaughter—Phoebe—she’s living with her aunt?” Clementine asked, and he was glad for the change in focus.

  “Actually, I heard through the grapevine that that situation didn’t work out too well,” the woman said.

  Clementine sat up straight. “Didn’t work out too well? What do you mean?”

  The aide leaned close again and lowered her voice. “Well, like I said, Mr. Parsons had arranged for the mother’s sister to take Phoebe in, but there was some friction between her and the girl.”

  “Friction?” Clementine asked. “I guess they both had to get used to the new situation.”

  “Well, I heard through the grapevine that the aunt decided it wasn’t working out,” the aide said. “Phoebe’s in a group foster home in Tuckerville now, the Tuckerville Children’s Home, I think it’s called. Or something like that.”

  Logan glanced at Clementine; she was shaking her head slightly, confusion in her expression.

  “She’s in a group foster home?” Clementine repeated. “After all she’d been through?”

  The woman nodded. “The poor girl got dealt a hard hand.” She glanced at her watch. “I’d better get back to work. I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Grainger.”

  Logan’s chest felt tight and he nodded. “Thanks for the information.”

  They both watched the aide walk back down the hall. Logan’s head was about to explode.

  “Maybe we could go check on Phoebe,” Clementine said. “Make sure she’s all right.”

  Logan stared at her. No. There would be no checking on Phoebe. He’d come to Tuckerville. He’d gotten his information. He knew more than he had a couple of hours ago and wouldn’t mind some time to let it all sit. “She’s of no relation to me. She’s not even a blood relation of Parsons.”

  Clementine stood up. “All I know is that my heart is breaking at the thought of a nine-year-old being tossed around like that. She lost her stepfather, the only person who was willing to care for her despite being an ex-stepfather. Her mother walked out on her and is nowhere to be found. Her aunt didn’t want her, apparently. And Logan, it’s coming on Christmas.”

  “I understand all that, Clementine. But the girl is no concern of mine. Or yours.”

  But even as the words came out of his mouth, he pictured a grieving, confused, disillusioned girl sitting in an unfamiliar house, wondering what had happened to her life.

  Logan knew what that was like.

  “If we could just make sure she’s all right,” Clementine said, biting her lip. “Logan, I can’t leave Tuckerville without knowing.”

  He let out a deep breath and stared down at the floor for a moment. “And what if she’s not? Then what? She’s not my family, Clementine.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and walked over to the window, staring out. “I just want to check on her.”

  He closed his eyes for a second, then surprised himself by walking up behind her and taking her hand. She turned around and looked up at him. “We’ll just make sure she’s all right, then we’ll leave. A short visit.”

  Her shoulders slumped with relief as her entire face brightened.

  He didn’t like how he’d made her happier, but he was glad for it anyway.

  * * *

  The Tuckerville Children’s Home was located in a nice enough ranch-style house with a big backyard. A woman and three kids, two boys around five and a girl of maybe thirteen, sat on the porch, making origami snowflakes.

  Clementine had volunteered at many group foster homes over the past several years, everything from helping the house mother with chores to leading a cooking class or trip to the library to listening to the kids’ secrets and hopes and dreams and trying to have a soothing or uplifting response. She glanced up at the well-kept house, noted how the foster mother smiled at the boy as she helped him cut his snowflake, how one of the girls giggled in delight when she opened her origami. There was happiness here and Clementine breathed a sigh of relief.

  Logan seemed frozen beside her, but then he cleared his throat and approached the porch. “Hello. I have a connection to Clyde Parsons, who was caring for Phoebe Pike before he passed away three months ago. My friend Clementine and I thought we’d see how she’s doing.”

  The woman gave a slight shake of her head and came down the steps. “That girl is impossible,” she whispered, glancing back at the kids on the porch as if to make sure they weren’t listening. “Wants nothing to do with anyone or anything. I’ve washed my hands. I’ve already told the caseworker it would be in her best interest to be moved. When she does bother to talk to the other kids, she upsets them with her negative attitude and stories. I can’t have that.”

  Shunted again, Clementine thought. She knew what that was like. She glanced at Logan, his expression unreadable.

  “Phoebe, you have company,” the woman called toward the house.

  “Not interested,” a girl’s voice called back.

  But a face came to a window on the second floor. A cute girl wearing a backward baseball cap. Straight sandy-brown hair fell to her shoulders.

  Phoebe glanced at Clementine with a bored expression, then at Logan. Suddenly the girl’s eyes opened wide and her mouth dropped open. She rushed away from the window.

  In a whirl, the girl was downstairs, racing over to them. She wore a Texas Rangers T-shirt, jeans and red sneakers with rainbow laces. “Logan Grainger? It’s you, isn’t it? Logan Grainger. I don’t believe it.”

  “You know me?” Logan asked and Clementine wondered if Parsons told the girl he had a son he’d never met.

  Phoebe’s big hazel eyes widened. “Do I know you?” She laughed. “You’re a three-time bull riding champion. I can’t believe you’re standing right in front of me. My... Clyde, my stepfather, he’s gone now, but he took me to all your events. I guess you were his favorite too. He kept a scrapbook of all your events and championships. I have it now.”

  Clementine looked at Logan. The man looked absolutely gobsmacked, as though he had too much information clunked on his head at once.

  “So what are you doing here?” Phoebe asked. “Did I win the contest?”

  Logan glanced at Clementine with the same question in his eyes that she had swirling in her head. What contest?

  “Lunch with your favorite bull rider, right?” Phoebe asked. “Clyde helped me enter months ago, but then he died and if I won, I was gone by then, living with my aunt. But that didn’t work out, so now I’m here.”

  Logan seemed to let it all sink in for a moment. “You know what?” he said. “You did win the contest. Lunch with Logan Grainger. If it’s all right with you, ma’am,” he said to the house mother. “I can see a restaurant on the corner where we can take her for lunch, if you’d be comfortable with that.”

  The woman looked confused for a second, as if trying to put together what Logan had said about having a “connection to Clyde Parsons” and now Phoebe winning a contest. Hopefully she wouldn’t ask questions in front of the girl. “Sorry,” she said. “You could be the governor and I couldn’t allow it. You can order in lunch here, if you’d like, and have it in the backyard. Of course I’ll be keeping an eye.”

  “That would be fine,” Logan said.

  “What’s your favorite food?” Clementine asked Phoebe.

  “Anything barbecue and Mexican,” Phoebe said. “I love spicy chicken tacos.”

  “There’s a Mexican place two blocks up,” the woman said. “And they’re fast.”<
br />
  Within a half hour, Logan and Clementine were back with a big bag of takeout that they set on the picnic table in the large backyard. Two spicy chicken tacos for Phoebe with a side of beans and rice, a black bean quesadilla for Clementine and a loaded beef burrito for Logan. He’d been quiet while they’d gone for the food and Clementine hadn’t filled the silence with comments or questions. She could tell he needed to just let thing be, not get overwhelmed by her thoughts on top of his own.

  Clementine dipped a tortilla chip into the delicious container of salsa. “So you went to a lot of Logan’s rodeo events?” Clementine asked.

  “Lots of ’em,” Phoebe said. “The last time was right after they were calling you the Handcuff Cowboy. That was a long time ago, though. Clyde said he heard you had some family business and quit the rodeo.”

  Logan’s set down his burrito and uncapped his soda, but didn’t say anything.

  “The Handcuff Cowboy?” Clementine asked, looking between Logan and Phoebe.

  Logan sipped his drink and clearly wasn’t going to answer the questioning look in her eyes. He had a change the subject—now look in his own eyes.

  “I think because he had the bull all locked up,” Phoebe said. “Something like that.”

  Clementine stole another glance at Logan. He picked up his burrito and took a big bite. Can’t answer a question with a full mouth, that was for sure.

  “So Clyde was your stepfather?” Logan finally asked.

  She nodded. “Clyde and my mom were married less than a year. My mom left and said she’d send for me when she was settled in Las Vegas. She wanted to be a showgirl. I’m not sure if she made it or not. She called every couple of weeks, but always said it wasn’t the right time for me to come live with her. She knew Clyde was a great stepdad, so she wasn’t too worried about me.”