Rodeo Baby

“Sure. They’re shapely.”

The thoughtful frown on Chelsea’s forehead intrigued him.

“There’s nothing wrong with a woman being shapely.”

She nodded, still thoughtful.

“I wasn’t kidding, Chelsea. You are perfect the way you are. Your mom stressed too much about being thin.”

“So, like, didn’t you like her that thin?”

“I wouldn’t have minded if she worried about it less. It was always on her mind. She ate like a bird.”

“Not really, Dad. Lots of birds eat half their body weight every day.”

He smiled slowly because Chelsea was smiling, too. When she was small, they seemed to have this ability to read each other’s minds and get each other’s jokes before they’d even been delivered. “Can you imagine your mom eating half her body weight?”

She laughed then sobered. “She used to binge and purge.”

Sam’s lips thinned. “Purge. You mean...”

Chelsea sighed. “Yeah. Didn’t you know? Mom used to get rid of her food after dinner all the time.”

He’d known, of course—she was painfully thin—but had hoped Chelsea had remained ignorant. It seemed she’d been aware all along.

Kids always did seem to know everything you tried to hide from them.

He wanted his daughter to have healthy behavior.

“Chelsea, promise me something?”

She made a noncommittal sound, which he took as permission to continue. “Never do that. Okay? Never. Enjoy your food and your life. Nothing is worth that kind of behavior. It didn’t buy your mother more love or more respect. Okay?”

“Yeah.” She stared at the fry in her hand. “Okay.”

“Eat up.” He picked up his burger.

On her way along to another customer, Violet slapped a bowl of ketchup onto their table.

What was her problem?

He was a paying customer like everyone else in the diner and deserved as much respect, but she’d taken an instant dislike to him.

Or maybe it was you trying to get her into trouble with her manager, Sam, who just happened to be her.

Starving, he bit into his burger and instantly sat up straight.

“This is good.” He wiped juice from his chin. “Excellent.”

“Yeah. It’s the best burger I’ve had since we left home.”

“No fooling.” It was the best he’d had in years.

“The fries are good, too,” Chelsea said.

He bit into one, twice fried so they were crispy. Vinegar and pepper sharpened the side dish of coleslaw.

Maybe eating here wouldn’t be so bad, after all, if the rest of the meals lived up to their corny names.

For the first time since leaving home, he felt in harmony with his daughter. He’d missed that amazing feeling.

A craving arose in him to relax with her and have fun like he used to do, to tease her and hug her and call her goofy pet names.

He didn’t want to be this uptight guy he’d become since Tiffany’s betrayal.

On impulse, he blurted, “Let’s share dessert?”

She brightened a little. “Okay.”

They argued for a good five minutes about what they would share.

“I’m too full to eat a whole dessert,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“So we have to come to an agreement. We do that by negotiation.”

“Dad, I hate when you teach me. Why can’t we just talk?”

“I thought we were just talking.”

“No, you’re lecturing and I’m—”

They were interrupted by Violet plopping a plate in the middle of the table with small portions of four desserts and two forks.

“Knock yourselves out,” she said. She slapped their bill onto the table and walked away. He checked the total. Too reasonable. She needed to raise the price points on her meals.

“She heard us arguing.” Chelsea stared at the plate before picking up a fork and tasting the cherry cheesecake. “Oh, that’s sooo good. She’s smart. She has good solutions to problems.”

“She does.” Sam had to agree. Why hadn’t he just asked her if she could sell them portions? So would she have a solution to his biggest problem?

He motioned her over.

She watched him with what could only be described as neutrality. Apparently, it was too much to expect friendliness.

“We’re going to be in the area for a while. Can you recommend a place to stay?”

“Hotel? Bed-and-breakfast? A rental room for a longer stay?”

“Dad needs a job.”

Sam choked on a bite of cheesecake and coughed. After a gulp of coffee, he glared at his daughter. No, no, no. This wasn’t what he’d wanted. He’d planned to glide in under the radar, to get the lay of the land and to see if he could get answers before having to commit to the last, desperate level of subterfuge.

But now it was out in the open. Damn.

“Not really. I—”

“A job? As a ranch hand? Sure,” the owner responded almost gleefully. “That can be arranged. There’s always room for a hardworking cowboy on any ranch in the county. Especially for an experienced one, which you must be at your age.”

Your age? Why was everyone fixated on his age?

Chelsea laughed, enjoying this too much.

“You have your daughter with you,” Violet said, “so that will limit the living arrangements. You can’t stay in a bunkhouse. Let me see what I can do. I’ll make a few calls.”

“But—” She left before he could stop her.

“Thanks a lot.” He muttered, directing his displeasure toward Chelsea. “Now I can’t renege without looking foolish. You shouldn’t have mentioned I needed a job. That was supposed to be a last-ditch scenario. I mean really last-ditch. I’m not a cowboy.”

Chelsea sat back and crossed her arms. He hated her scowl. She used to be sunny and carefree. God, what had he and Tiffany done?

“You shouldn’t be dishonest, Dad. You shouldn’t be pretending to be someone you’re not.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Sure you do. Don’t you remember what you always used to tell me?”

He blinked. “I’ve told you a lot of things.”

“‘Your choices define who you are.’” She mimicked him perfectly at his pedantic worst.

He asked quietly, “Do you really dislike me so much?”

She didn’t meet his eyes. Folding and unfolding a corner of her place mat, she mumbled, “No. I don’t dislike you.”

He believed her. On the other hand, she made sense about the choices he was making here in this town. They weren’t his best. But what else could he do? Gramps needed help. The second Gramps had called last week with concerns about the fair, Sam had packed and left. His gramps meant more to him than...than air. More than his father did.

Violet Summer had better be on her game.

A voluptuous figure, violet eyes and thick midnight hair meant nothing. As much as he found the diner owner attractive, he would not be kind to his enemy. Guilty until proved innocent.

Gramps, the greatest guy in Sam’s life, deserved to be protected from a bunch of deceitful women.

Chapter Two

“He’s conniving and dishonest, Rachel. I’m sure of it,” Vy said into the phone in her office. “He’s the phoniest cowboy I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, come on, Vy,” her friend responded, “You can’t possibly know he’s not a real cowboy.”

“His boots and hat are spotless. There isn’t a speck of dirt or dust on them,” Vy said. When that didn’t get a response, she added the kicker, “He irons his jeans.”

“Oh,” Rachel breathed into the phone. “I see what you mean.” After a pause, she asked, “What do you want from me?”

“You know how you’ve been complaining about how expensive it’s been for Travis to start up his herd?”

Travis Read had moved into town five months ago and had fallen like a ton of bricks for Vy’s best friend, Rachel McGuire.

“Setting up the ranch has been a financial challenge,” Rachel said. “Especially with his sister no longer moving in and contributing to the mortgage.”

Newcomer Sammy Read had found a good match in local rancher Michael Moreno. Her kids needed a father and his children needed a mother. Win-win. Plus, they were super hot for each other.

“No doubt there’ll be a wedding soon?”

Rachel laughed. “Like yesterday, if they had their way. As soon as they can organize it.” Rachel paused, then said, “Travis has been great with money over the years, but...”

“Getting the ranch going is putting pressure on you?”

“Yeah,” Rachel admitted. “But it’s the right thing to do. I don’t want Travis to have to work for other ranchers for the rest of his life. He wants to be his own boss.”

Vy knew how good that felt.

“Plus, his land is beautiful. It would make an excellent ranch. Wouldn’t it be amazing for him to have a legacy to leave to both Tori and Beth and any children we might have together?”

“Yeah, it sure would.”

Was she doing the right thing in recommending that Travis take on this stranger? She thought so. She’d met evil in her past. She’d known bad men. Her intuition told her this guy wasn’t one of them. Besides, she liked his prickly porcupine of a daughter a lot. The girl reminded Vy of herself. On the other hand, there did seem to be something fishy going on with him. What? If it affected her town, Vy needed to know.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Travis and Rachel were smart people. They could keep an eye on this man.

“Sooo, you and Travis can make extra money by renting the fake cowboy and his daughter the rooms that Sammy and her two boys would have used. What do you think?” When Rachel hesitated, she rushed on, “And Travis would have a ranch hand.”

“Not much of one if he’s not a real cowboy.”

Vy wanted to see the ersatz cowboy brought down.

Unreasonable, Vy. What’s your problem? He’s done nothing to you, so why the big push to destroy a man you don’t even know?

Bits and pieces of memories, of another time and place threatened to intrude, and she turned them aside with a firm resolve.

Nope. She wouldn’t be going down that road.

Suffice it to say, she disliked liars.

“Do you think we can trust him in our home?” Rachel asked. A reasonable question.

“Yes. I’m certain he isn’t dangerous or I wouldn’t have called. Besides, he has his daughter with him. She’s either a teenager already or a tween and has some attitude, but don’t we all?”

“You do,” Rachel retorted and Vy laughed.

“True.”

“Why are you so upset about this man?” Rachel asked.

Vy didn’t want to look too closely at that. She brazened it out. “Anger is my natural response to any kind of charade or dishonesty. I dislike fraud with a passion.”

“I know,” Rachel said quietly, “but you’ve never shared why.”

Vy sidestepped the deeper issue. “I just don’t trust any man who comes to my town with an agenda. If this guy doesn’t have a scheme up his sleeve, I’ll eat every one of the six coconut-cream pies I made first thing this morning.”

She wanted to see him brought down. No! Not true. She wanted to bring him down personally.

Too strong a response, Vy. Cool it.

“Tell you what, Vy.” Rachel interrupted her thoughts. “We’ll give the guy a trial run, but only if you bring out one of those pies this afternoon.”

“Deal.”

* * *

SAM SAVORED THE last bite of an exquisite pineapple upside-­down cake.

“This is incredible,” he said, sighing.

“I know, right?”

“I could eat here every day.” He put down his fork and rubbed his stomach. “Take that last bite of chocolate layer cake.”

“Are you sure, Dad?”

He smiled. “Honey, don’t you know I’d give you my last dollar if it would make you happy?”

For a change, a genuine smile lit Chelsea’s face and, while it might be tiny, it reminded him of her smiles of old. And, God, he loved it.

He smiled in return and watched her enjoy the cake.

“Everything’s taken care of.”

Sam started. The waitress-cum-manager-cum-owner had appeared beside the table without making a sound. He didn’t like surprises.

“What do you mean?” he asked, but he knew, and all the good feelings at the table evaporated.

“I called a friend. Her husband’s ranch is brand-new. He hasn’t hired any hands yet and they could sure use some rent on a couple of spare rooms in the house.”

She slapped a paper with directions on it onto the table and picked up the cash he’d left for their meal.

Sam was trapped.

He’d left New York too quickly and without enough preparation. He hated this feeling.

But how could he leave without solving Gramps’s dilemma first?

He needed to blend in. He’d done research online. Successful no matter what he took on, he could do this.

But damn, he didn’t know a thing about working on a ranch. He’d be as naive as Chelsea if he thought he could be any good as a cowboy after one night of research. This had been a crazy idea from the start.

Sam opened his mouth to object, to halt this mad process before it went too far, but Violet raised her hand.

“No need to thank me. It’s what people around here do. Help each other out.” An odd smile hovered at the edges of her full red lips, as though she were having a laugh at his expense, reminding him of his daughter’s smiles these days. “Travis is a newcomer himself, so he’ll make you feel welcome. His wife, Rachel, will take good care of Chelsea while you’re working. Or will she be enrolling in the local school?”

“Not yet,” Sam replied, not expanding on the subject. No need to air dirty laundry here.

Sam wondered why Chelsea didn’t object to having a babysitter, this woman Rachel, before realizing his child enjoyed his discomfort. She knew he was trapped.

Gramps. Think of Gramps. This is all for him.

“Sure,” he said weakly. “Sounds good.”

“By the way, in case you didn’t realize, I’m Violet Summer.”

He figured as much, and Rachel’s last name must be McGuire, one of the women Gramps had told him about. Before his time in this town ended, he’d meet all six of the women resurrecting the fair and possibly ripping off his grandfather.

“I’m Sam—” He’d almost said Carmichael. He’d been christened Carson Samuel Carmichael like his father and grandfather, but his mother had always called him Sam to distinguish him from his father. That part was easy, but changing Carmichael to Michaels had nearly caught him up. “I’m Sam Michaels. This is my daughter, Chelsea.”

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around town.”

He had to start thinking of himself as Sam Michaels or he’d never pull this off.

Chelsea shot him a look of censure at his name change but he ignored her.

Sam picked up his hat on the way out of the diner, stepping onto Rodeo’s Main Street and standing a minute to look around town. Might as well know what he was getting into.

So this was his father’s hometown, the one Dad had left at nineteen when he’d headed east to attend college. He’d made, and married into, a lot of money in New York City. Carson II had never returned to Rodeo, which meant that Sam himself had never been here, either.

Sam craned his neck to take it all in, curious about his dad’s town. Dad had never talked much about Rodeo, but Gramps sure had.

Rodeo, Montana. Gramps’s favorite spot on earth.

He’d described everything to the avid little listener Sam had been as a boy. Two stoplights on Main Street and one small shop after another with names like Jorgenson’s Hardware and Hiram’s Pharmacy and Nelly’s Dos ’n’ Don’ts.

Angled parking ran all along a wide street filled with plenty of pickup trucks heavy with rust, dust and dirt.

He drank in every detail, his avidity surprising him with its intensity. He hadn’t realized until arriving how much he’d wanted to see Gramps’s town.

Why hadn’t Dad ever talked about Rodeo? It didn’t look so bad. Just the opposite in fact, charming but real, unpretentious and normal compared to Manhattan, where people seemed compelled to jump on every trend.

In this town, every man, woman and child wore well-used denim. Sam detected not a single pair of designer jeans.

Thank God the jeans he’d bought before they left home were plain and would fit in. He’d gone to a work-wear clothing store to find denim without embroidered pockets or slashed knees or distress wash thighs or fake-faded creases or any of the other fads going around.

Certain he fit in, he adjusted his cowboy hat. Here, almost everyone wore a cowboy hat.

Sam soaked it all up like the proverbial sponge. Gramps hadn’t lied about his good-looking, if rustic, town.

And Sam was immediately smitten.

“What are you doing, Dad?”

“Savoring the heritage I’ve never checked out until now.”

“Why didn’t you ever check it out?”

“School and then work and then getting married and then having you. You know...” He shrugged. “Life.”

“Let’s go to the car,” Chelsea demanded. Back to doom, gloom and ’tude, as Violet had called it, all traces of the friendly girl who’d laughed with the waitress dissipated on the cool air.

Sam grimaced. When he’d married Tiffany, he’d believed in “for better or for worse.” Apparently, she hadn’t.

He’d loved her. Not so much since her betrayal, though.

He felt the same way about children. You loved them. You did not give up on them. Purely and simply, they deserved to be loved through thick and thin, without question. He just wished right now that it were easier, especially when he had so much on his mind.

“Let’s go visit Gramps,” he said.

Chelsea ran to their vehicle. “Come on, Dad. Don’t be so slow.”

Ah, enthusiasm. She did love her grandfather. Until recently, he’d come to Manhattan for Christmas every year, but now lived in a retirement home.

“We should have come here sooner to visit Gramps.”

Yep. Love for her grandfather for sure.

Correction, his grandfather, but they’d dispensed with the great part of great-grandfather when Chelsea was little and it had proved too much of a mouthful for her. To Chelsea, he was just Gramps, exactly as he was for Sam.

An old cowboy nodded to him and Sam smiled and nodded back. Friendly people.

They drove toward the next small town, where a seniors’ residence that served the entire county housed Sam’s nearest and dearest. They passed spectacular scenery on the way.

Chelsea shouted, “Dad, look!”

Sam glanced to his right. In the field a pair of young lambs ran up one side of a small hillock and down the other, kicking up their heels at the top.

“Frisky,” he commented.

“So cute.” In her voice, he heard longing and wonder, refreshing to hear after her recent negativity. His daughter loved animals.

“Remember when you saw all of those baby lambs at that petting zoo and we couldn’t drag you away for an hour? You were only six years old and fascinated.”

Good memories.

She smiled. “That was awesome. You convinced them to let me sit on some hay and hold one for, like, an hour.”

Sam squeezed her hand. “It was only fifteen minutes, but you were small and that was a long time for you. I think I took twenty photographs. You were so cute.”

“It was the best, but it’s even better to see them out frolicking in their natural habitat, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.” He slowed down. “Do you want to watch for a while?”

“Can we?” She sounded so hopeful he couldn’t disappoint her.

He sat on the shoulder for fifteen minutes listening to Chelsea laugh, the sound a sweet balm for his ravaged psyche. For the past year and a half, he’d missed his ex-wife’s presence in his life, but even more, he’d missed his daughter’s laughter. He wanted to make her happy again.

“I guess we should go,” he said reluctantly.

Sounding contented, she said, “Yeah. I want to see Gramps.”

A couple of miles later, Sam pulled onto the shoulder of the small highway with a squeal of brakes and spraying gravel.

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Look.”

He pointed across the road.

“What’s that?” Chelsea asked.

“That, my dear child, is your heritage.”

“That’s Gramps’s amusement park?”

He heard the doubt in her voice. It echoed in his chest.

Gramps might have raved about his fairgrounds during his visits, but it looked bad. Most of the rides were rusty. A few were in the process of being updated and fixed. One was being dismantled by a couple of old men with a pair of tractors.

Far off to the right and back from the road a fair distance was Gramps’s house but Gramps was no longer there.

Sam had never seen the house but he recognized it from his grandfather’s descriptions and old photographs. Some of those had been black-and-white, shot in the days when the fairgrounds were brand-new more than a century ago, and built by Gramps’s father.

A tidal wave of emotion swept through him, longing, need and anger culminating in one word: mine.

He owned a beautiful apartment in the city overlooking Central Park and a huge home in upstate New York. So why should a plain two-story brick home with tilting front steps affect him so? With its modest proportions, two windows on the first floor and three above, the ordinary house didn’t compare well to the showstopper he owned with ten spacious bedrooms. This one had, what? Three? Four, maybe?

Yet he wanted it.

That house, these fairgrounds, leased now to a bunch of locals intent on making a profit from his grandfather’s belongings, were out of Sam’s reach.

An old saying or song lyric, Sam couldn’t remember which, thrummed through him. You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Wasn’t that the truth?

Throughout the busy years, thoughts of Rodeo had been stored in a far corner of his mind, taken out only at Christmas when Gramps came to visit. In all of those years, he had thought the town, and the fairgrounds, would be here waiting for him.

Then his life had changed. Drastically.

Last year, it had taken a crazy turn. Now he was about to start a new business in New York.

Success is the best revenge.

The idea consumed him. Even so, a part of him yearned for the house, toward knowing and understanding his rural heritage.

But, for the short time he would be here, he wouldn’t be able to get to know it.

At least for the next year, those women had control of Sam’s heritage. Worse, Gramps couldn’t remember how long he’d agreed to make the lease. What if it was two, three, five years before Sam got it back?

“Dad, isn’t it beautiful?” Chelsea’s voice whispered out on a breathy sigh. “It’s awesome.”

The fairgrounds? Maybe after a massive amount of work. But now? Awesome? No.

She pointed to something and his eyes adjusted focus from the distant house to the foreground, to a ride right in front of him—a carousel that had been rejuvenated with colorful paint.

Chelsea was right. Awesome was a good word for it, all fresh and spit shined. Did the machine work? Were the women planning to give rides on it?

If so, it looked like Chelsea might be first in line.

Hope and potential all rolled into one, it stood in the weak March sunlight proudly declaring “If I can be saved, so can the rest of this old place.”

A powerful sentiment.

“It’s got really weird animals,” Chelsea said, but he detected no disdain.

“You’re right. Is that a bull?”

“Yeah, and a couple of sheep.”

“Bighorn sheep, I’m pretty sure.”

“There’s a bison! And a cow.” She giggled, the sound sweet on the cool breeze. “What are those?”

“An elk and two white-tailed deer.”

“Their saddles are so beautiful. So ornate. I want to ride all of them.” She peered up at him. “Will we still be here when the fair is on?”

Apparently, they planned to launch in August and it was only March. Sam’s next business venture started in one month. He had only thirty days to get this problem sorted out so he could hightail it home.