The Cowboy's Big Family Tree

by Meg Maxwell

  “Well, sometimes it’s about wouldn’t.”

  She walked over to him and put her hand on his arm. He stiffened. “Logan, what is this about?”

  He reached over to the counter to a few manila envelopes with a letter lying on top. He handed her the letter, which was from a Clyde T. Parsons in Tuckerville. “Read it,” he said.

  She gasped at the first sentence. Then about three more times. Oh, Logan, she thought. What a thing to find out at age twenty-eight—and when everyone involved was gone.

  “This is about wouldn’t,” he said. He opened a cabinet and pulled out two mugs, then filled them with coffee and got out the cream and sugar.

  She put the letter down on the counter and reached for her mug. “Not necessarily.”

  “Not necessarily?” he repeated, frowning. “He walked out on a pregnant woman. Walked out on his responsibilities to her and to me. Then he needs to die in peace so he flings a grenade at me as a parting gift? Wouldn’t, Clementine.”

  Her heart constricted. This was complicated and messy and was tearing him apart, rightfully so.

  She wrapped her hands around the steaming mug. “I’m just saying that there’s a fine line between can’t and won’t. Sometimes people can’t step up. They don’t have it in them.”

  “Bull. I stepped up. My brother and his wife died leaving two little boys confused about why their parents weren’t here anymore.”

  “You had it in you, Logan. You’re strong. You care. Some people just can’t handle things. So they walk away.”

  He shook his head. “You mean they won’t, so they walk away. Anyone can step up.”

  Clementine felt lead weights on her shoulders. “I don’t know.” She really didn’t. Her birth mother hadn’t been able to, even thought she’d claimed quite a few times over the years that she wanted to. Sometimes, to keep your heart intact, you had to believe what you needed to believe. Clementine needed to believe in couldn’t, not wouldn’t.

  Logan’s jaw was set hard. “So you condone what Parsons did.”

  “No. Of course not. I’m just saying he very likely didn’t have it in him to do anything else.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” He turned away and took a long drink of his coffee.

  She hadn’t meant to shut him down. Maybe she was supposed to listen more, talk less?

  If she didn’t believe in her heart that her birth mother was a couldn’t and not a wouldn’t, Clementine was sure her heart would break in a thousand pieces. Sometimes, when she thought about Lacey Woolen, it was the only thing that kept Clementine okay.

  “I can only talk about my particular situation and how I feel about it,” she said. “I completely understand how you feel, Logan. The parting gift, the walking away, the grenade, I get it. God, what a bombshell.”

  “Why didn’t my parents tell me?” he asked quietly. “How could they let me live a lie?”

  “Probably because deep down and no matter what, you were Haywood Grainger’s son, and that was no lie. It was their truth, Logan.”

  “But not the truth,” he said, shaking his head again.

  She wanted to go over and wrap her arms around him, but she didn’t dare. “It’s complicated.”

  He took another sip of his coffee. “Let’s change the subject. How’d the boys do tonight?”

  She smiled. “Great. They now can sing the first line of ‘Jingle Bells’ without a hitch. And that’s only after one night of rehearsal.”

  “Isn’t the first line just ‘Jingle Bells’ twice?”

  She laughed. “Yes. But they’re only three years old.”

  “They’ve missed you. I’m glad they can spend time with you.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “At least I know now why you fired me, why you pushed me away. You were all torn up.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry, Clementine. You deserved better than that.”

  So come over here. Kiss me again. Take me in your arms. Let me in now that I know. Maybe I can help.

  He did none of the above. “I don’t know who the hell I am,” he added grimly. Am I even Harry’s and Henry’s uncle if I’m not a Grainger?” He shook his head. “That’s dumb. Even if I’m just half, I’m still their uncle.”

  She put down her mug. “You are, no matter what.”

  “I hate this,” he said. “I hate it all.”

  She bit her lip and let out a breath. “Have you verified that this Clyde T. Parsons is telling the truth? Have you seen the photographs he mentions in the letter?”

  He explained about the call this afternoon, about the picture of Clyde Parsons being a dead ringer for him. He picked up one of the manila envelopes, reached in and pulled out a photograph of a man without looking at it, then handed it to her.

  She took the photograph and stared at it. Oh wow. Clyde Parsons looked very much like Logan Grainger. They had the same features—except Clyde’s eyes were hazel—the same hair, and there was something so similar in their expressions.

  Her heart went out to Logan. How hard this must be. So much to take in, so many questions, no answers.

  “Maybe Parsons has family,” she said softly.

  He shot a glance at her. “His family has nothing to do with me.”

  She wasn’t so sure she agreed, but now wasn’t the time to talk about that anyway. “I just mean that maybe you can find out who Clyde Parsons was, what he was like. You could do some poking around about him.”

  “Don’t I know everything by his actions? He walked out on his pregnant girlfriend. He let another man take responsibility.” He set his mug down hard in the sink. “You know what? I’m done talking about this. Done thinking about it. Haywood Grainger was my father—he raised me. That’s all I need to know.”

  Except the whole thing was tearing Logan apart. So it wasn’t all he needed to know. It was what he wanted to know, but for closure, for peace, he’d have to do more than ignore the truth.

  Clementine glanced at her watch. “Oh no, I’m late. My shift starts at six and you know how crazy busy Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen gets on a Friday night. “By the way, my sister Annabel told me that tomorrow’s special is Gram’s famed macaroni and cheese. Maybe you can bring the boys in for lunch. Oh and practice ‘Jingle Bells’ over breakfast.”

  He nodded. “Will do. And maybe we will come in for lunch tomorrow. I’d like to thank your grandmother for the po’boys. The twins love Hurley’s po’boys.”

  And hadn’t had them for the three months he’d been avoiding her, hung in the air between them.

  “Logan, if you need to talk about this, you can call me or come see me anytime. You know that, right?”

  “I’m done talking about it,” he said, his blue eyes stony. “But...thanks,” he added, his expression softening just a little.

  She headed toward the door, wishing she could stay, wishing she could rush over to him and hug him tight. It took everything in her to walk to the door and leave him alone with his thoughts.

  Chapter Three

  Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen was open from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. every day but Monday, and since Clementine was the head waitress, managed the waitstaff and helped in the kitchen between her shifts, she had little time to work on the Creole sauce she’d been trying to perfect for Hurley’s special Christmas dinner menu. Hurley’s wouldn’t be open for usual business on December 24. Every Christmas Eve, Gram created a free buffet for those who might be alone for the holiday or unable to afford dinner.

  Clementine loved her grandmother so much. The woman was always thinking about others, those who didn’t have much money or family. At holiday time especially, she wanted Hurley’s to be a place where people could come, alone or just hungry, and share in a special meal. Every year, Clementine invited her birth mother, who she knew lived al
one in a one-bedroom apartment above the library down Blue Gulch Street and kept very much to herself. Every year, Lacey Woolen was noncommittal. Twice she’d shown up. Once, she peeked her head in, then quickly left, clearly uncomfortable. The other time, three years ago, she’d gotten as far as sitting down at a table with others but hadn’t filled her plate and left after ten minutes.

  Now, in the big country kitchen, Clementine yawned as she added chopped onions and garlic to the big pot for her Creole sauce. She’d spent a fitful night thinking of everything Logan had told her about the letter he’d received, the contents of the PO box and everything they’d talked about, including her birth mother. She’d thought Logan was a wouldn’t all these heartbreaking months. But it turned out that he was a couldn’t. Right now, Logan was dealing with the reality of having an answer to a question that had been tormenting him for three months. A man other than his beloved dad was his biological father.

  Yes, right now, Logan was a couldn’t.

  As Clementine stirred her sauce, she wondered if Lacey would ever swing from couldn’t to could and come to the Christmas buffet, if she’d finally give Clementine the one thing she wanted from Lacey: just the slightest, barest, most tenuous start of a relationship of some sort. They were two people with a fundamental connection, and since Clementine was a twenty-five-year-old adult, it seemed perfectly reasonable to Clementine that Lacey finally acknowledge that connection, open up in the slightest, share something about herself, anything, something. But she never had. It used to hurt Clementine terribly, in her bones. Now, it just drove her insane. Come on, already, lady.

  “Um, Clementine? You’re stirring your sauce kind of hard.”

  Clementine’s hand stilled on the wooden spoon and she glanced up. Dylan Patterson, the eighteen-year-old line cook, was smiling gently at her.

  “Don’t all the best cooks, you included, Dylan, say you should put your emotion into your cooking?” Clementine asked.

  “Not anxiety,” her sister Annabel whispered with compassion in her voice as she passed by Clementine en route to the walk-in refrigerator. “Instead, you’re supposed to tell your sister everything that’s bugging you,” she added with a commiserating smile.

  “Sisters,” Georgia said, nodding at Clementine from where she stood at the baking station. Even over the aroma of onions and peppers sautéing, Clementine could smell the first batch of biscuits baking. Georgia reached a floury hand to her belly. Her almost eight-months-pregnant belly. “That was some kick,” she said laughing.

  “I expect that little kicker to be one of my lead marchers in the holiday show in two years,” Clementine said, hoping to keep the subject off herself and her mad stirring.

  Georgia was due in late January. When Clementine thought her life was complicated she’d think back to what Georgia had gone through last spring and summer, first with an obsessed boyfriend who turned stalker then with a secret pregnancy—Detective Nick Slater’s child. A good man who was now her husband. Georgia and Nick were responsible for bringing Dylan, their young cook, into Hurley’s. Last summer they’d taken care of the then seventeen-year-old’s newborn son for a week since he was afraid social services would come take his baby away. Clementine tried to remember that opening up was key, that keeping your troubles to yourself would make for stomachaches and awful sauces. But she had finally opened up to her sisters about Logan last summer and though talking about it had helped, nothing made her heart feel better. And now, how could she talk about her and Logan’s conversation last night? That was his private business.

  “Mine too,” Annabel said, patting her own pregnant belly. Annabel was due in early March. The Hurleys were all beside themselves that another generation of Hurleys was on the way. “And Lucy is so excited to be in the show,” Annabel added, carrying a carton of eggs back to her station where she was working on one of the Saturday lunch specials, ham and cheese frittatas. Annabel’s stepdaughter, Lucy, was adorable and one of Clementine’s most energetic singers.

  Essie Hurley came into the kitchen and tied on her yellow apron. “Madelyn Parker just called. She’s wants to hold her book club luncheon here at 12 noon. Better get another two cartons of eggs out, Annabel.”

  Saturday lunch at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen was always busy. Clementine tasted her Creole sauce, declared it a B-and asked her Gram to try it.

  “Clementine, it’s delicious. Tiny bit more garlic next time, but absolutely great.”

  “Good to hear because my aunt is coming in for lunch today and she loves her spicy gumbo with Creole sauce,” Dylan said as he dredged steak in flour for his amazing chicken-fried steak.

  “So let’s get to work!” Essie said.

  With her sauce ready for the cooks, Clementine headed out into the dining room to check on the table settings and make sure the salt and pepper shakers and hot sauce jars were full. Despite working in this room since was a teenager, Clementine loved it. The wide-planked wood floors, the lemon yellow beadball walls with black-and-white photographs of Blue Gulch through the years and family photographs lining the doorway to the kitchen. The tables, some round, some square, were glass and each was decorated with an orange vase of wildflowers that Clementine picked every morning from the field beyond the backyard.

  Clementine felt eyes on her and glanced out the window toward Blue Gulch Street. Lacey Woolen, her birth mother, stood there, foam cup of coffee in her hand. She wore her usual long skirt and cowboy boots, her long, graying dark hair in a braid down one shoulder. Lacey looked away when Clementine waved.

  She wanted to march out there and shout, What? What, what, what? Why do you come here practically every day to stare at me through the window, something you’ve been doing since I was eight years old? Why not say something? Why not come in and ask me to take a walk with you? Have lunch. Dinner. Anything. Something. Lacey Woolen was so frustrating that Clementine wanted to scream.

  “Maybe she’ll come to Christmas dinner this year,” Essie said from behind Clementine, her warm hands on Clementine’s shoulders.

  Clementine sighed. “I’ve given up on having expectations.”

  Her gram patted her shoulders and headed back into the kitchen.

  Problem was, Clementine hadn’t given up. She still had expectations. Hopes. She watched as Lacey turned to walk away, glancing at Clementine. They held each other’s gazes for just a moment before Lacey continued walking.

  The next time someone asked Clementine what she wanted for Christmas, she was going to say: the ability to read minds. Oh and not care so much what was on those minds.

  * * *

  At just after noon, Logan stood in the barn, tilting his head at the horses’ Christmas tree. A laugh bubbled up inside him, but he squelched it back. He was surprised the tree, laden with every possible piece of tinsel and ornament, was still standing and hadn’t toppled over from the weight.

  “We’re done!” Harry said, bits of tinsel in his blond hair. “Will the horses like it?”

  Logan nodded and knelt down between the boys who stood admiring their tree. “I think they’ll love it. In fact, why don’t we lead Winnie out and see what she thinks.” Winnie was a pony, a gift from West Montgomery, Clementine’s brother-in-law and a fellow rancher. West had given Logan the pony last spring after his brother’s and Mandy’s funeral, and the twins adored the sweet speckled little horse meant to comfort them.

  Logan opened Winnie’s stall, the boys excited at his side.

  “Come on, Winnie. Look at your tree!” Harry said.

  Logan led the brown-and-white pony out of the stall and stopped a few feet from the tree. He smiled at the homemade star both boys had worked on together. The glitter on the coffee table was proof of their handiwork.

  “What if she eats it?” Henry asked, looking up at Logan. “What if she thinks the red stuff is apples?”

  There was so much red tinsel wra
pped around the small tree that it was entirely possible Winnie would mistake the tree for a giant apple and take a bite. But she didn’t. She stood there looking at.

  “She likes it,” Harry said. “I can tell.”

  “Me too,” Henry agreed.

  God, he loved these boys. Harry wore his Batman cape, and Henry had some kind of big spy goggles atop his head. Logan knelt back down and hugged them both against them, keeping a hand on Winnie’s lead. They’d changed his life and kept him busier on all fronts than he’d ever been in his life, but he loved them like crazy and was grateful that they had each other. The twins might be only three, but they’d taught him about a thing or two about holding on and staying the course in the face of grief and fear. He’d needed to be strong for them instead of falling apart at the losses in his life, the changes. Because of them, he’d stayed grounded.

  He’d better start dealing with this thing about Parsons or it would eat him up inside. He had no room in his life for that. He had to be here and present for his nephews, especially now at Christmastime. At Thanksgiving dinner last week, just the three of them this year, they’d gone around the table saying what they were grateful for, and Harry had said he was grateful for his uncle Logan and the ponies, and Henry had said “me too.” Logan had had to squeeze his eyes shut at the tears that had pricked.

  “And I’m grateful for you wonderful boys, my Harry and my Henry,” Logan had said.

  “And for Crazy Joe?” Harry had asked, swiping a bite of turkey in gravy.

  “And for Crazy Joe,” Logan had said, glancing out the window and able to just make out Crazy Joe, an old rodeo bull, grazing in the far pasture.

  He’d thought about that fifteen second conversation for days. Him. The twins. The ponies. Crazy Joe. It was so easy to be grateful for what was good and special in your life, what mattered most to you. He had to remember that, hold on to it. Three-year-olds magically kept his head level. He needed to keep that Thanksgiving conversation looping around his mind to stay with the here and now and stop letting this damned thing with Parsons take over his life and thoughts. He was the same person he was three months and a day ago.