One Less Lonely Cowboy

“I wish he did.” Mike glanced at the weathered red barn, where the cowboy and his filly had taken refuge. The dog was gone, too. “Jack’s a day worker, and he’s in high demand. I can’t afford him full-time.”

“What’s a day worker?” Iris wanted to know.

“Cowboy for hire. Jack’s a top hand. I let him keep his horses here, and like I said, he takes care of the heavy stuff. That’s where he lives.” Mike pointed to a long white gooseneck trailer, hooked up to a red dually pickup that was parked upwind of the barn.

“Isn’t that for horses?”

“Part of it is.” Mike folded his arms across his narrow chest. “He’s a gypsy, Jack is. That’s his wagon.”

Iris smiled, casting a wistful glance toward the open barn door. “So that’s what Gypsies look like.”

“Jack’s part Chippewa, Cree, something like that. Métis, he calls himself. Mixed-blood. Gotta admit, I never paid much attention to the different tribes around here until Jack came along.”

“I had Native American friends in Minnesota,” Iris said. “That’s not the same as Gypsy.”

“All I know for sure is Jack McKenzie is one hell of a cowboy. Without him, I don’t know … I’d’a been in deep trouble this winter.”

“Is he married or anything?” Iris persisted.

“He ain’t married. Don’t know about anything. He’s got a couple kids up around Wolf Point. Goes up there to visit pretty regular.” Mike’s eyes narrowed in amusement. “You writin’ a book or somethin’?”

“He’s a hottie.” Iris gave her grandfather her recently perfected bug eyes. “Duh.”

“That’s it, Iris. No duh,” Lily said.

“Sorry, Grandpa.” Iris hung her head. Like the blush that followed, the hangdog posture was rare. “It just means, like, obviously,” she explained quietly.

“Hottie, huh?” Mike chuckled. “Like I said, it’s gonna take some getting used to, havin’ girls around.”

Mike helped them carry luggage and a few boxes through the kitchen, down the hall and into the bedrooms. Lily said more was being shipped—she hadn’t been able to fit everything in the car—but what she didn’t say was that she’d sold everything she could. She wasn’t looking forward to the day when the boxes arrived and Iris started missing things. Among other things, her bike had been sold, and all but three of her stuffed animals had gone to the Salvation Army.

Iris had left the apartment each time Lily asked for help sorting their stuff out. She’d been warned. If you leave it to me, you might be sorry later. Lily had been grateful for Iris’s silence on the matter, but she knew her daughter’s denial had been considerably deeper than her own. Sooner or later there would be tears.

It felt strange to haul her suitcase full of women’s clothes to their temporary quarters in the bedroom she’d painted pink and green when she was a teenager. Stranger still, the room hadn’t changed. Her father hadn’t been kidding about that. As much as he’d hated her music, he hadn’t taken her posters down. The Dave Matthews Band, Hootie and the Blowfish, beautiful Gloria Estefan, whose dress was the same shade of pink she’d chosen for her walls. The quilt her grandmother had made—the one she regretted not taking with her—the Breyer horses, the ruffled café curtains, everything looked the same as the day she’d hauled her pregnant self out to Molly’s pickup.

“Wow, Mom, this was you?”

Lily turned to find her daughter standing next to the chest of drawers and holding a silver picture frame. There were more frames on top of the chest. They hadn’t been there before, so she had to step up and take a look. With a nod she acknowledged her high school portrait, even though it was hard for her to recognize the carefree smile on the girl in the picture. Not the way she remembered the time the picture was taken. What had she been doing that day to put that look in her eyes?

“Wow. You were hot.”

Lily laughed. “Duh.”

“Nope. No duh.” Iris set the picture back on the bureau and picked up another one. Lily standing beside Juniper. “Whose horse is this?”

“Mine. Well …” Could she really say that? She’d left the horse, along with everything else in the room. “She was mine then.”

“Beautiful.” Iris set the picture back in its place and turned her attention to the rest of the array. “It’s almost worth it, coming here, just to see what you looked like when you were young.”

“When I was young?” Aloud Lily chuckled, but in her mind she puzzled over the mere fact that the pictures were on display, neatly framed.

“Okay, young-ger. How old were you here?” Iris pointed to a picture of Lily wearing a dress. A rare image for those days.

“About fifteen.”

“I hope I look this good when I’m …” Iris rested her hand on top of a small album. Lily recognized the flowered cover. “Are there any of my father?”

“I don’t know what’s still here, sweetie.” She knew she’d bought that album herself, but she couldn’t remember what she’d put in it.

Iris tapped her fingers on the cover. “You’re gonna let me find out for myself?”

“It’s your room. I didn’t take much with me when I moved out, so it’ll be fun to see what you dig up.”

Fun? Maybe that was pushing it. But oddly enough, the word wasn’t hard to say. It could be fun. The girl in the pictures looked surprisingly happy.

Iris turned to one of two sets of wall shelves her father had put up—grudgingly, as Lily remembered—for her books and other treasures. He’d complained about putting holes in the wall. “What’s all this about?” Iris asked.

“I was in 4-H. State fair competitions, mostly. Different kinds of …” Iris picked up a small silver horse. A big blue ribbon was looped around the base. “That’s for Western Pleasure.”

“‘Grand champion,’” Iris read aloud from the ribbon. She examined more ribbons, all dusty, mostly faded, but the recognition stamped in gold still shown. “First place. Second place. First place.” Grinning broadly, she looked up at her mother. “You got first place in rabbits?”

Lily couldn’t help smiling. “I raised rabbits one summer. Hoppsie and Poppsie.”

“For pets?”

“Well, that’s just it. There’s an auction at the end of the show, and you never know what the buyer will do with your prize animal. Maybe use it for breeding. Maybe for eating.”

“Really?” No more grin.

No “duh.”

“I raised a shoat the next year. You know, a little pig. Grew to be a big pig.” There was probably a picture around somewhere. Lily had half a mind to go looking for it. That was the half that made her smile. “Made a good profit on that guy.”

“What was his name?”

“I learned my lesson about naming 4-H projects. I called him Pig. Grandpa called him Bacon. Said that was a 4-H project he could really sink his teeth into. Threatened to bid on him.”

“Did he?”

“I didn’t stay around for the auction that year. I learned lots of good lessons in 4-H.” She was still smiling as she watched Iris reach for a black case on one of the other shelves. “That’s my clarinet. I was in band. When we get you enrolled in school, you can—”

Iris opened the case and lifted the instrument from its blue nest. “I’m not gonna join any Lowdown school band, Mom.”

“You’ll be going to Hilo Consolidated. Two districts merged—High Water and Lowdown. Let me see that.” Lily welcomed the familiar weight of the instrument. “You’ll be a Hilo Hawk. You soar high up.” She put the mouthpiece to her lips and actually got the thing to tweedle. “You dive low down.” Yes, she remembered how to sound a low note. The sound made her laugh. “It’s poetry in motion.”

“You never told me you could play the clarinet.”

“It’s not my best talent. I’m more of a …” Lily put the instrument back in the case. She was feeling a little cocky now. “Your mama’s not a playuh.”

“Then why do I have to be?”

“You don’t.” Lily sat down on the single bed. “If I could’ve kept one piece of furniture, it would have been the piano. You’re getting to be so good.” With a forefinger she traced a rose on the coverlet. “We used to have one here, but I’m sure your grandfather got rid of it. He’s not a music lover.”

“Why haven’t I seen any pictures of you as a kid until now, Mom?” Iris had taken one of the yearbooks down from the bookshelf. “I was starting to think there aren’t any. Like maybe cell phones didn’t have cameras back in your day.”

“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t have a cell phone until, I don’t know, after you were born.”

“But you did have cameras, right?”

“Your grandfather wasn’t much of a photographer.”

“Well, somebody took pictures of you, and you didn’t even take any of them with you when you left home.” Iris scanned the room. “And here they are, like some kind of ode to Lily Reardon.”

“An ode is a—”

“Poem, I know. And this all seems very poetic—your father keeping this room the way you left it. Are you surprised?”

Lily shook her head and shrugged, one gesture cancelling the other out. Surprised? Maybe a little. Did it mean anything? “I guess he had no use for the room. No need to clear it out.”

But you didn’t frame the pictures, Lily. Who do you suppose did?

“You sure you don’t want to keep your room?” Iris asked. “I can use the guest room.”

“You just want the double bed.” Lily smiled affectionately. “And it’s the spare room. For spare people.”

“Who would be guests. Seems like he’d let Jack use the extra room.”

Lily shrugged. “Jack isn’t a guest. He’s an employee, and he has his own place.”

“Yeah, but it’s a horse trailer.”

“Which is clearly what works for him.”

Iris spread her arms dramatically. “Omigod, he is such a hottie.”

“Iris!” Good Lord, where has my child gone?

“Just sayin’. It doesn’t hurt to look, does it?”

“It’s just that your last hottie was a baby-faced singer with a moppet haircut.”

“He spikes his hair now.”

“Cowboys don’t spike their hair.”

“I’m not looking at hair anymore. I’ve moved on. Speaking of which …” Iris glanced toward the open door. “Hey, Grandpa, is it okay if I change the posters?”

“That’s up to you and your mom.” Mike braced his forearm against the door frame. “We’ve got some supper out here, girls. Care to join us?”

“Dad, you don’t have to—”

“Mostly cold cuts and leftovers,” he said.

“Us, Mom,” Iris whispered to her mother, flashing a smile. “He said us. There’s a guest.”

“Just Jack and me. Room for two more.” He dropped his arm to his side. He looked uneasy, as though he were the visitor. “I cleared off the dining room table and set four places.”

“I’m totally famished,” Iris said, all breathless teenager.

“Famished,” Lily echoed quietly, slipping her daughter a skeptical glance.

Iris answered her mother with a perfunctory smile. “Totally.”

The table wasn’t quite clear, but it was long enough to accommodate stacks of magazines and paperwork at the far end and still give them plenty of room to eat. Lily recognized the red vinyl place mats with the bandanna pattern, and the plates with the apples on them hadn’t changed, either. She doubted he put them out every day. The little table in the kitchen was only big enough for two, but that was the one she and her father had always used after her mother left. That and the plastic plates and whatever utensils happened to be in the drainer.

“Cold drinks in the fridge. Everything else is …” Mike gestured toward the kitchen. “Pop and iced tea. Pretty much all we carry this time of day. But I can make coffee.”

“So can I, Dad. Iced tea sounds good.”

“Jack’s getting cleaned up.” He waved his hand toward the table. “Have a seat and dig in.”

“Oh, no, we’ll wait for Jack,” Iris said, even as she followed the first half of the invitation.

Lily offered her daughter a smile, props for minding her manners. Her father had always been a stickler for good manners.

Tense silence took over, disrupted only by the sounds of Mike drinking. Water. He gulped it down—always had—three thunderous gulps, just so you knew he was there at the head of the table. Lily adjusted the position of the fork her dad had placed beside her plate as she glanced furtively across at Iris, who was fooling with something beneath the edge of the table. No toys at the table. Who would say it first?

The sound of booted footsteps brought three heads up in unison.

Jack stopped short of the table, swept off his cowboy hat and bowed his head. And yes, he was a hottie. Black hair—watered down a bit, if Lily wasn’t mistaken—square chin, full lips, broad shoulders, working man’s hands gripping the brim of what some women might say was the best kind of hat a man could wear.

Mike laughed. “Hell, man, take a seat.”

Jack glanced over at Lily. Hard to tell, but she was pretty sure he was blushing. Iris had been so right. The man was easy on the eyes.

And the innocent look in his eyes right now was utterly charming. “Thought I was interrupting a prayer or something.”

“More like you answered it,” Mike said. “Nobody wants to start without you.”

“I thought you said cowboys didn’t spike their hair, Mom.” Iris, Iris, Iris. She slipped her phone—what else could it be?—into the pocket of her jeans. “What do you use? Gel or spray?”

“Water. It’s called hat hair, and I was trying to …” Jack raked his hand through his thick wet hair. He glanced at Lily and smiled. “Should I go out and come in again?”

“Oh, no,” she said. “We’re glad you’re here.”

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