Single Dad Cowboy

by Brenda Minton

  Somehow he ended up in the crowd of women, hopelessly getting his feet tangled up as he tried to keep up with the steps. He shifted right, then left, almost fell and got a little dizzy.

  His gaze landed on Harmony as she moved, favoring her left leg, her right hand holding Callie’s. The two turned in a circle together. Harmony’s dark blond hair was pulled back with a scarf, giving him a sweet view of her profile as she leaned to speak to Callie. He nearly tripped over the lady next to him. She elbowed him in the ribs and told him to keep his eyes on his big, awkward feet.

  He’d never been able to dance. He definitely couldn’t do an exercise class that required rhythm and coordination, especially wearing cowboy boots. It reminded him of the time some pretty blonde had talked him into trying to line dance. That hadn’t worked out too well, either.

  Somehow Harmony appeared in front of him. She looked back, her lips parting in a smile. Beyond that, he could see that she’d had enough.

  He took hold of her arm and she didn’t complain when he led her away. Instead she leaned into him, and he slipped an arm around her waist, holding her close. Callie skipped ahead of them.

  “You’ve got some moves, cowboy,” Harmony teased him, taking the glass of water one of the nurse’s aides was handing out to those who finished the exercise.

  “Yes, I do.”

  She chugged the water, then set the glass back on the tray. As she headed for the door she turned and waved at the group of women just ending their exercise session. Several of them called out to her and asked her to join them again sometime.

  “That was fun and now I’m exhausted.” She limped a little as they walked down the hall. Callie managed to get between them, holding each of their hands.

  “Should you...”

  She shot him a look that didn’t let him finish. “Do not ask me if I should be doing that. Please.”

  “Gotcha. Have you seen Doris?”

  “I have. She’s in physical therapy. I told her we’d catch up with her when she finished.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  She shrugged. “I had lunch with Doris.”

  He didn’t want to act surprised. Of course she was a good person. Of course she’d been raised to think about others. He’d known the Cross family for quite a few years and knew they were good, decent people. As kids he’d spent a lot of time with Harmony.

  He’d thought he knew her back then, that teenager with attitude and fire. This new version of her was different. And he liked her. A lot.

  He liked her as they sat with Doris, talking about her physical therapy regimen and how long she thought she’d be in the nursing home. He liked Harmony as they discussed Bill, and the possibility of taking a few meals over to him, making sure he ate.

  He liked her when they left the facility, walking into the brisk September day. She had Callie’s hand in hers, and Callie was telling her a story about Katrina. He kept a few paces behind, listening as the little girl talked about missing a mommy who had gone to heaven and wouldn’t come back.

  He’d always thought he could handle just about anything, but the pain of listening to Callie talking about missing her mommy, who had brushed her hair and read to her at night, that was a pain he’d never expected. He pulled his cowboy hat down low and blinked quick when Harmony flashed him a sad little smile. A lump filled his throat and he couldn’t say a thing because if he did, he’d probably start to cry.

  Harmony seemed to get it. She opened the door of his truck and pushed the seat forward so Callie could climb in. She said something soft and soothing to the child and promised she’d have dinner with them.

  She closed the door and turned to face him. Before he could react, she cupped his cheeks with her hands.

  “You are an amazing man. I just want to tell you that now, because I’m sure at some point today or this week you’ll do something to make me mad and I’ll forget. So right now, while I’m thinking it, I want you to know, you are my hero.”

  He managed to keep it together before he smiled. He hoped he looked confident, and not as torn apart as he felt on the inside. From the moment he’d stepped into Katrina’s life, he’d known he was doing the right thing. When he’d stood at the cemetery holding Callie and Cash, he’d known it was right. There were times though, in the dead of night, when he was alone, that he doubted. There were a lot of times when he thought there had to be someone better than him, a hardcore cowboy who loved the open road, to be a dad to Cash and Callie.

  “Thanks, Harmony.” He leaned and kissed her cheek. “I think you’re kind of awesome, too.”

  “I’m the awesome girl who spent the morning at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting. You’re right, I’m everyone’s hero.”

  He heard the pain in her voice. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m an addict, Dylan. I hope someday that I can say I’m clean and sober and I have no desire to take anything that would harm my body. But today...” She pulled a coin from her pocket. “Today I can say that I’m 150 days clean.”

  “I think that calls for a celebration. Burgers at my place. Give me an hour. I have to go get Cash from Heather’s.”

  “I’ll be there.” She started to step away but stopped. “Don’t let what I said go to your head. I’m sure you’ll do something to convince me I’m wrong.”

  He laughed and reached to open the door of his truck. “I can guarantee it.”

  As he drove away, he glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Callie watching from her seat. She wasn’t smiling. Her blue-gray eyes were serious and studying his face.

  “Callie, you okay?”

  She nodded.

  “You upset about something?”

  She shook her head. And then a big tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another.

  “Callie, kiddo, you have to talk to me.”

  “I want to go home with Harmony.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that. He kind of wished he hadn’t pushed it. Since he had to give her an answer, he promised they would see Harmony later, and agreed it would be nice if Harmony would brush Callie’s hair. The way her mommy used to do it.

  Chapter Seven

  After a dinner of burgers on the grill and fries, Dylan announced bedtime. Harmony watched the process from her chair in the tiny living room of Dylan’s old farmhouse. It was a comfortable house. Tiny but large enough for a man and two children. He’d explained that he picked this old house on Cooper land rather than moving in the main house because he’d wanted a place for the three of them to adjust to being a family.

  As Dylan rounded up pajamas, Cash climbed onto the sofa with a fuzzy blanket and a stuffed animal that had been dearly loved from the looks of it. The little boy didn’t seem to feel well. She moved from her chair to the sofa and pressed her wrist against Cash’s forehead. He looked up at her, big-eyed and sweet. His blond hair was growing out from the short buzz cut. His cheeks were pink.

  “You don’t feel good, do you, little man?” She leaned to kiss his cheek and then sat on the couch next to him.

  “He’s getting a tooth,” Callie said, now in a pink nightgown, as she climbed onto Harmony’s lap. She had a brush in one hand and a book about a princess in the other.

  “Do you think that’s it?” Harmony looked from Callie to Dylan, who had just walked back into the room with a pair of superhero pajamas for Cash.

  Callie nodded with the look of a kid who knew. “Grammy said so.”

  Harmony rubbed Cash’s back and he smiled up at her. His eyes were getting heavy and he pulled the stuffed animal closer to his cheek.

  “Will you brush my hair?” Callie whispered to Harmony.

  “Of course I will.” She was getting attached. To all three of them.

  “And then will you read to me?”

  Harmony looked ov
er Callie’s shoulder and peeked at the book. “I have an idea. While I brush your hair, you start telling me the story.”

  Across from them, Dylan settled in to the chair Harmony had abandoned. She didn’t look up, didn’t meet his gaze. If she looked at him, she was afraid she would lose control of emotions already stretched to the breaking point.

  She stroked the brush through Callie’s hair, and the little girl started telling the story of a princess who had a beautiful gown and loved that gown more than anything. Callie looked back at Harmony, causing the brush to tug a little in her hair.

  “Will you put it in a ponytail?” Callie asked.

  “Of course. Do you have something for me to hold it with?”

  Dylan unfolded long legs and stood. “I’ll get the ponytail holders.”

  Harmony smiled because it sounded funny coming from Dylan. Ponytail holders and a cowboy comfortable in his worn jeans and boots. He returned a minute later and handed her the holders with pink sparkly ribbons.

  “Pretty.” She slipped the holder around the ponytail. “I think you’re ready for bed, sweetie.”

  “Can you tuck me in?”

  Harmony nodded, and followed Callie to a bedroom with a pretty canopy bed and a crib against the opposite wall. Callie climbed into the bed, pulled the floral quilt to her chin and closed her eyes.

  “Pray,” the little girl whispered.

  So Harmony did. And the prayer took her back to her childhood and bedtime rituals with her mother. She needed to call her mom and thank her for those moments. Moments that had made her feel so safe. She couldn’t imagine missing them at four years of age. After praying, she kissed Callie’s cheek, straightened the blankets and slipped from the room.

  Dylan was standing at the front door looking out. He didn’t turn as she walked up behind him. She rested a hand on his arm.

  “You’re doing a good job.”

  He nodded but still didn’t turn to look at her. “They miss their mom.”

  “Of course they do, Dylan. There isn’t anything you can do to change that. But you’re the person they need in their lives. You love them. You keep them safe.”

  “Is it enough?” He pushed the door open and they walked out. The only seat on the front porch was a porch swing.

  They sat down together and somehow her hand ended up in his. She didn’t want for that moment to feel right. But it did. The porch swing creaked as Dylan pushed, putting it in motion

  “I’m the last person who can answer that question.” She wished she had an answer. “I had parents who loved me, cherished me, and look where I ended up.”

  They sat there in the darkening night with the sky a deep lavender deepening to midnight-blue, a red glow tinging the western skyline. Cicadas started their nightly chorus, and somewhere in the distance coyotes howled.

  “Pain pills, Harmony?” Dylan asked, not looking at her as he did.

  The question came out of the blue. She didn’t know what to say, not for a long minute. She was the last person who should have had an emptiness in her life. A void. His question seemed to parallel her own thoughts from moments earlier.

  “I never felt like enough, Dylan. I grew up as the odd person out in this family of spectacularly beautiful people with incredible talent. I wasn’t beautiful. I wasn’t talented.”

  She wasn’t their child.

  Dylan squeezed her hand and shook his head, “You are beautiful.”

  She smiled at that. “Lila is beautiful. I’m cute. I have this too-curly hair, and eyes that are too big.”

  “Girls are crazy hard on themselves.”

  “It really isn’t about looks. It’s about something missing inside.”

  “So you partied.”

  “I found a way to make myself spectacular. I was insecure, alone too much of the time, and I found what I thought was a life that made me happy. I got attention for being a little bit wild.” She allowed the memories to draw her into the past. “But that night, when Amy...”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, fighting the tears. It wasn’t part of their deal, crying on his shoulder. And he wasn’t nearly as sorry as Harmony was. Since the accident she had often thought that she would never forgive herself. She was working on that.

  “She was driving because I couldn’t. I killed my best friend.”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Really? Tell that to her mother. Tell that to her little brother or her fiancé. Tell that to my heart.”

  “You didn’t kill your best friend. A drunk driver killed her.”

  She nodded but didn’t mean it. “I’m trying to believe that. I tell myself that I didn’t do this really horrible thing. But then I remember and...” She shook her head. “Remembering is hard.”

  “I can’t imagine.”

  “Yes, you can. You remember what it was like to lose Katrina and to look at those two little people who were suddenly depending on you to keep them safe. The difference between us is that you’re doing something amazing and beautiful, and you’re handling it.”

  “Not always with the grace you think.” He smiled as he said it.

  “But you’re not hiding in a dark room popping pills to numb the pain.”

  “Is that what you did?”

  “I started taking the pills for physical pain. As time went on, I started taking them to keep from dealing with the heartache, and to numb my guilt.”

  “No one realized?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think they wanted to believe I was okay. But I wasn’t. When I ran out of prescriptions, I had friends who knew how to get what I wanted. It happens so easily. It starts legally and then it traps you.”

  “You’re going to survive this.”

  “Of course I am. And so are you. We’ll get through it together.” And then she would leave. She would go back to Nashville stronger and able to take the next step.

  But nowhere in the steps to recovery did she have a plan that included Dylan Cooper. She didn’t have a plan to let anyone take up that much space in her heart, not when she might fail them or hurt them.

  She didn’t want to let him down.

  “I should go,” she said. The swing was still moving, just slightly, and a breeze had come up. “I want to get home before it rains.”

  Dylan stopped the swing.

  She escaped to the edge of the porch and looked back at him. Sitting in that swing with one arm across the top of the wood frame and a smile on his face, he looked like someone easy to love, easy to get attached to. He was handsome in a lean, cowboy way with that bright smile and honest, honey-brown eyes.

  “Are you running, Harmony?” He stood, and the swing rocked with the motion.

  “Maybe, but if I am, it’s for the best.”

  * * *

  Dylan didn’t agree. But he should. She was making perfect sense. She should leave now, before he pulled her into his arms, chasing the restlessness from her eyes and the hurt from her heart. She wasn’t a child who needed to be comforted after a bad dream, or because she missed the mother she would never see again.

  She was a grown woman.

  As she stepped down from the porch, she stared up at him, her hair blowing around her face and her eyes a wild, dark blue in the dusky night. Her lips were kissable.

  “I should walk you to your car.” He walked to the edge of the porch.

  “I don’t think a coyote or a bear will get me in the fifty steps it takes to get to my car, Dylan.”

  “No, probably not. But you never know.” He grinned down at her as he took the steps and stopped at her side. “Need an arm?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Sorry, I just thought maybe...” What had he thought? “You’ve had a long day.”

  “
It has been a long day, but I’m getting stronger. I think all of the walking has helped. At home, my family was afraid to let me walk to the kitchen for a glass of tea. They were afraid to let me go to town alone.”

  “They wanted to help.”

  “I know.” She stopped at her car. “But this helps. The fresh air. Having space. Sometimes a person needs space to come to terms with life.”

  She made eye contact with him, sending a clear message that he couldn’t fail to get. She still needed space. Message received.

  “I need to get inside.” He opened the car door for her and she slid behind the wheel. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Of course.”

  Was that disappointment in her eyes? Or was he feeling disappointed, and it was wishful thinking on his part? It had been a good day, sharing it with her, not feeling pressured or any of the other things that had gone hand in hand with women since he’d come home.

  “Call if you need anything.”

  She looked up at him with a soft smile. “And you call me if you need anything.”

  “I will.” He winked and closed the door.

  He walked back to the house and she headed down the drive. From his porch he watched her drive all the way home. He saw her headlights flash on the house, heard her car door and watched as lights came on inside. When he stepped through the door, Cash sat up, wiping pudgy hands across his face. And then the little guy leaned over and emptied the contents of his stomach all over the braided rug Heather had bought at some designer store.

  “I didn’t like that rug anyway.” Dylan laughed and picked up the little boy.

  Cash leaned into his shoulder, brushing his face against Dylan’s shirt. “Daddy.”

  Dylan froze, wrapping his mind around that one word. He needed time to process a word that fit a little better than new boots. But not much. He cleared his throat and blinked back the sting behind his eyes that meant grown men do cry. “Let’s see if we can get you cleaned up and find you some clean clothes.”

  It was going to be a long, long night. And the word daddy kept spinning through his mind, forcing him to think about this new life of his.