by Vicki Tharp
“Speaking of the marriage. The timing—”
“There’s nothing wrong with the timing,” Levi insisted. He locked eyes with Olivia and said, “I love her. That’s what matters.”
Olivia swallowed. Hard. When he said it like that, with that intensity, with that sincerity, Betty would almost have to believe him. Olivia knew better, and still he’d almost convinced her.
“Lebi?” Clementine’s sleepy voice came from down the hall as she hugged the door jamb still dressed in the dirty clothes she’d worn to the barn that morning.
Levi jumped out of his seat, the chair legs making a barking sound against the wood floor. “Hey, Pix. Let’s get you changed, and you can come meet the nice lady who came to see you.”
Olivia knew that he’d had plans to have her bathed and dressed in her favorite pink dress by the time Ms. Higgins showed up, but it was a little too late for that now. Levi disappeared down the hall, and Olivia turned to Ms. Higgins and said, “He’s really good with her.”
“She calls her father by his first name?” The shock and horror had returned to the woman’s face. She’d probably get positively apoplectic if she ever found out Levi had, on occasion, allowed Clementine to have dessert before dinner.
“Clementine knew him as Levi first. She knows he’s her father. He didn’t want to force her to call him daddy before she was ready.”
“Dr. Spock says in his book on child-rearing, that—”
“Levi’s read the book. We both have.”
Ms. Higgins clucked and washed her disapproval down with a swallow of sweet tea. Hopefully, all that sugar would help make the woman less sour.
Levi returned with a sleepy Clementine in his arms as she clutched her doll. The doll’s one eye never got unstuck, so she had a permanent wink. Olivia thought it was cute. Levi thought it was creepy.
Levi had changed Clementine into the pink dress and wrangled her unruly hair into two lopsided pigtails, a smudge of dirt still on one of her cheeks.
“What I still don’t understand,” Ms. Higgins said, “is why the child’s mother never told you that you were her father.”
Levi turned Clementine in his lap, so she could play with her doll on the table. “I wish I knew. I would have stepped up. I did step up when I found out. I should get points for that at least.”
“Mr. Banks, this isn’t a game where the one with the most points gets the prize. Or in this case, your daughter.”
“I know that. Clearly.”
How Levi maintained his cool, Olivia didn’t know. As it was, her temper needle climbed into the red zone. This woman had come into their home with her preconceived ideas of what made good parents, and nothing the woman said gave Olivia any confidence that she saw a man who’d do everything in his power to keep his daughter in his life.
* * *
Clementine giggled as Levi bounced her on his knee, only he wasn’t doing it to keep his daughter entertained, he was doing it because he couldn’t catch a break with the evaluator and it was his only acceptable outlet for his nervousness and his spiking anger. He figured wrapping his hands around the woman’s scrawny neck wouldn’t win him any points.
Not that points mattered, according to Betty Higgins.
But Levi couldn’t see how they didn’t. With every question, with every disapproving turn of the evaluator’s lips, every suspicious raised brow was like another chalk mark in the never-give-this-man-custody column. It was like the last seconds of the final quarter, the bottom of the ninth with two outs and two strikes, the buzzer as the football spirals toward two defenders in the end zone of a double overtime game... And they were losing.
Losing to a man and a woman who’d driven their own daughter to drugs.
Five minutes into Ms. Higgins’ indulgent soliloquy of the Jordans’ virtues as the perfect guardians for Clementine, Olivia interrupted. “You do know that Mae’s wish—Clementine’s mother’s wish—was for her daughter to stay as far away from the Jordans as possible.”
“I don’t believe the wishes of a drug addict should hold merit. Especially where a young child’s welfare is concerned.”
Levi slammed his palm down on the table, his untouched glass of tea jumped, and the amber liquid spilled over the top. Clementine went quiet. Olivia reached under the table and squeezed his thigh. Ms. Higgins’ eyes rounded, and she glanced over her shoulder as if looking for her best route of escape.
But Levi had had enough.
“Who the hell do you think drove Mae to drugs?” Levi stood, placing Clementine on the ground so he could dispel a fraction of his pent-up rage by pacing instead of putting his fist through a wall.
“Mr. Banks, if you’ll sit down—”
But he couldn’t sit. He paced to the hall and back again. “Who do you think destroyed Mae’s self-confidence? Who do you think diminished her day in and day out until drugs were her only way to cope with the hurt and pain? I don’t know what the Jordans told you to make you swallow their heaping pile of bullshit, what kind of farce they put on, but I refuse to let them raise my kid, and to poison my kid into thinking she’s not good enough.”
“Bullshit. Bullshit,” Clementine sing-songed as she galloped one of her toy horses around her doll.
Ms. Higgins’ face blanched, but Levi wasn’t finished yet. He jabbed the table with his index finger for emphasis, ignoring the way Clementine had turned cuss words into a children’s ditty. “I want my daughter to know every day that she’s good enough. That she is everything. No one will love her the way we do.”
Ms. Higgins gaped. Levi thought he might have to toss the tea into her face to re-engage her brain, but figured he’d probably done enough damage for one night. He picked up Clementine and held a hand out to the door, inviting the evaluator to leave. “I think we’re done here.”
“I’ll see you out.” Olivia stood, and the look she gave Levi was a cross between what-the-hell-have-you-done and atta-boy.
Olivia waited on the porch until the car started and the sound of the engine and tires on the gravel died in the distance. He stood Clementine on the table noticed the smudge of dirt on his daughter’s cheek. Had that been there the whole time? He licked his thumb and went to clean it off, then stopped himself. His daughter didn’t have to look perfect. More importantly, she didn’t have to be perfect.
He set his daughter on the ground again, dirt smudge and all, as she ran to her toys. Behind him, he heard the screen door close. He was too afraid to turn around and look at Olivia.
She came up behind him, threading her arms around his chest and hugging him from behind. It was their first significant contact since their wedding night. He covered her hands with his and closed his eyes. Keeping his voice low so his daughter wouldn’t overhear, he said, “I really fucked it up, didn’t I?”
She pressed a kiss to the knot of muscles between his shoulder blades. “It could have been worse.”
“I don’t see how. What she saw was a short-tempered man who can’t keep from cussing in front of an impressionable kid.”
Olivia didn’t say anything.
To prove his point, he added, “Did you see the color drain from her face when I slapped the table? I’ve never seen snow that white before.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
He scoffed.
“Unless she was blind, she also saw a man devoted to his daughter, a man who changed his life to make his daughter’s better. That’s no small thing.”
“Maybe. But is it enough?” He turned in her arms, and she clasped her hands behind his waist.
“We’ll have to wait and see. Don’t forget, Ms. Higgins’ recommendation is only one of the criteria the judge will base his decision on. Your lawyer said that even if she recommends the Jordans get custody doesn’t mean the judge will grant it.”
“But Reynolds said it’s rare the judge goes against the evaluator’s recommendation.”
“Rare. Not non-existent. “
They spent the rest of the evening cooking dinner
after which the three of them made the cookies that they’d planned to make for Betty Higgins. They did their best to ignore the ax dangling over their heads by playing with Clementine, checking on the new-born calf, and tucking Clementine into bed an hour past her bedtime.
As Levi read her a short story, he couldn’t help but wonder if these sweet nights with his daughter were numbered.
Levi left Clementine’s door ajar, allowing some light from the hallway to spill in. He leaned against the wall outside her room and scrubbed his hands down his face, his stubble course beneath his fingers. Hell, he hadn’t even had a chance to shave. No matter. There wasn’t much he could have done to make his impression worse on the court evaluator. A little stubble was the least of his worries.
Olivia came out of the restroom and he caught her hand as she walked by. She stopped, and said, “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. At that moment, he was probably the farthest from being okay as he’d ever been in his life. Forget the broken hearts, the failed relationships, the career lows, the financial struggles, the bumps and bruises, and broken bones. None of that compared to that precise moment when he realized there was a good chance—no, scratch that—a great chance that Clementine could be taken away from him.
Whatever personal problems he and Olivia were having, he pushed those aside. Giving her hand a light tug, Olivia willingly stepped between his legs, and he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her in tight. His face went to the crook of her neck, as he breathed in her scent, that magical mix of wonder and woman that he couldn’t seem to get enough of.
He didn’t know how long they stood there taking and giving strength to each other. Long enough for their breathing to match, and their hearts to beat in time. Olivia leaned back a fraction and asked, “Nervous?”
“No.” He took a deep breath. “Scared shitless.”
Levi cupped her face, rubbing his thumb along the bottom edge of her lip. He ducked his head a fraction, waiting for her to back away or tell him to stop. When she did neither, he dipped his lips to hers, brushing, tasting, daring.
He mentally kicked himself for allowing the rift between them to continue for so long. And for what? Pride? Ego? He broke the kiss and waited for her eyes to open.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Kissing my wife.” His wife. He liked the way the word wife rolled off his tongue.
“Nuh uh,” she said, her voice teasing, but he couldn’t miss the undercurrent of seriousness in her tone. “You check out for two weeks, you don’t get to call me that.”
“I’ve caught feelings.” There. He said it. With the custody hearing looming, he had less tolerance for the gargantuan elephant sitting in the middle of the room. Might as well kick it in the ass and see what happened.
“I haven’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Olivia dropped her forehead to his chest, shaking her head before glancing back up at him, the exasperation stamped on her face. “You know, I was right all along. You are a cocky asshole.”
Levi grinned for the first time that day. Maybe for the first time that week. Something about that sass of hers really gassed up his engines. “Doesn’t make me wrong.”
* * *
It had been three weeks since the court ordered evaluation, but they’d had plenty of work to occupy their time.
Olivia looked down at the newborn calf she’d helped pull from her best breeding cow. This was the calf she’d been waiting for. The matchup between her best cow and one of the industry’s top bucking bulls.
Blood and amniotic fluid still covered the calf’s brindle coat. It wasn’t breathing. With a towel, Olivia quickly cleared the calf’s nose and mouth of fluid. The mother lay on her sternum, too exhausted to even turn her head and look at her calf, much less try to lick it clean.
Levi grabbed handfuls of clean straw and stood over the calf, rubbing it down and trying to stimulate it to breathe. “Come on, little one. You can do it.”
While Levi worked on the calf, Olivia clipped and cut the umbilical cord, then helped the exhausted cow deliver the afterbirth.
“How is it doing?” Olivia asked.
As if in answer, the calf coughed, and coughed again, then took one shuddering breath, and then another. Levi dropped to his knees, turning the calf over and stimulating the calf from the other side. “Coming around.”
From her spot behind the cow, Olivia crawled over, checking the calf’s gums. As it took a few deep breaths, the blue-tinged mucous membranes lost that dusty hue and turned pink. Olivia sighed and sat down in the shavings, her back to the stall wall. “What is it? Boy or a girl?”
Levi lifted a rear leg and grinned. “Looks like No Bull has a possible future contender for rodeo’s next top bucking bull.”
“Holy cow,” Olivia said, not oblivious to the pun. “Jettison did it. He finally sired a son.”
“Not bad for an old bull who’s mostly shooting blanks now.”
“No kidding. I think Jett’s breeding days are over, but hopefully, we can get a few more years out of him on the circuit.”
“For an old bull, he’s still one of the best. I can count on one hand the number of bull riders who made it to the buzzer.”
“Having Silas Foss and Tobias Navarro off the circuit has certainly helped Jett’s ranking. Those two were part of a select few to have ever figured him out.”
“And if this bull is anything like his sire, it will keep No Bull’s reputation at the top of the roughstock industry.”
Olivia rubbed the stray hair off her cheek with her shoulder, probably the only area on her that was clean. “I sure as hell hope so. This ranch could really use the break.”
“Ollie, Lebi.” Clementine skipped into the barn, skidding to a stop at the open stall door. “Oh, a widdle baby. I wanna see.”
Joe caught Clementine’s hand before she could run into the stall. “Hold up, Clem. You can’t run in there. The momma won’t like that.”
“But Lebi—”
“Listen to your grampy, Pix.”
“Awh.” Clementine plopped on her butt and crossed her arms over her little chest, her bottom lip sticking out.
Levi had to fight back his grin. He stood and washed his hands in the bucket of warm water in the corner of the stall.
Joe said, “There’s a phone call for you, Levi. It’s Byron Reynolds.”
The levity dropped from Levi’s face, the tension immediately returning. It seemed like every time a little joy came into their lives, they got another reminder that this cozy little family dynamic they’d settled into these last three weeks was essentially nothing more than a mirage.
Levi swallowed hard, then cleared his throat. “What did he want?”
“Didn’t think it was my place to ask.”
Levi reached down, tucked Clementine against his hip, and pressed a kiss to her temple. Olivia almost offered to keep Clementine while he talked on the phone, but it looked like he needed his daughter close for the time being. He walked away without another word, his big shoulders slumped under the heavy weight bearing down on him. It wasn’t just the world sitting on his shoulders, it was his whole universe.
“You two doing okay?” Gramps asked.
“Sure.” Olivia moved the calf closer to its momma’s head so the cow could finish the cleaning job Levi had started. Then she went to the bucket and washed up.
“Look at me, baby girl.” Gramps leaned a shoulder against the stall, the compassion in the soft lines and wrinkles on his face threatened to bring tears to her eyes.
She blinked them back. A fat lot of good tears ever did. “Dammit.”
Her grandfather’s voice dropped. “Come here.”
Olivia stepped over and he held her against his chest, oblivious to the muck on her clothes. “This is what I was afraid of. You’re gonna get yourself hurt.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Her voice came out muffled against his chest. “The only thing that matters right now i
s making sure Clementine stays where she belongs.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
Olivia pulled back.
“You matter as much is that little girl does.” Then he sighed, and added, “Sometimes your heart is too big for its own good.”
The tears came, and she swiped them away one by one. “Don’t worry. This will be over soon enough. Levi will get custody, they’ll go back to the circuit, and our lives will get back to normal.”
Her grandfather rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Is that really what you want?”
She laughed, but it came out sounding wet and congested. Those damn tears. “Doesn’t matter what I want. He can’t stay here.”
“Come again? I thought this was working out well. We needed the extra hand, and he’s doing a fantastic job. He’s hard-working, responsible, and more importantly, I think he has real feelings for you. But maybe that’s the sentimental old man in me. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Olivia rubbed her eyes, then watched as the calf tried to stand on shaky legs. The cow heaved herself to her feet with a grunt, and Olivia closed the stall door. She couldn’t look her grandfather in the eye when she said, “So he says.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“He’s only here because he has to be. He works hard because that’s the kind of man he is. But his heart isn’t in it. It’s out there, on the road, on the back of his horse, chasing the next rodeo, and the next one after that. As much as I would like him to stay, I can’t ask that of him.”
“Why the hell not? Seems to me he’s asked a lot from you.”
“That’s different.” She reopened the stall and removed the water bucket before it got knocked over.
Her grandfather didn’t say anything until she turned and looked at him. His bushy, gray-peppered brows were raised in that way that demanded a satisfactory answer. She’d always caved to that brow while growing up. It didn’t matter that she was an adult now, it still held power over her.