Falling for the Cowboy Dad Read online

  “I’d like to have a waist, though,” her mother retorted. “And I’m determined to get one.”

  Grace knew better than to argue with her mom when she was on a mission, but Grace’s most treasured memories of her mother included her soft hugs, her delectable baking and the way her chunky jewelry used to clatter when Grace would fiddle with it as a little girl. And when Grace’s father looked at her mother from across the room, Grace had always seen that look of devotion that she longed for from a man of her own.

  It wasn’t about weight, because her mother had always been a beautiful woman who could light up a room with her smile and her laughter. She’d had a soft figure, an ample bosom, and she’d always taken pride in her appearance. Her parents’ marriage had been about two people who were so in love that they didn’t need anyone else.

  Grace went to a bottom cupboard and pulled out the bag of potatoes. “I’ll just peel a few,” she said with a grin. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  Connie looked down at the cauliflower mush in the bowl and smiled sheepishly. “I can have a cheat day, right?”

  Grace would not eat cauliflower mashed into fake potatoes. Life was too short for that kind of sadness on a plate. Her life in Denver had been about more than moving on after Billy moved in with Tracy; it was about building the life she wanted—asking for what she wanted.

  And tonight she wanted some comfort food and a cozy evening. It wasn’t too much to ask.

  * * *

  “IS MY PONYTAIL STRAIGHT?” Poppy asked as Billy pulled into a parking spot in front of the school the next morning. It had been a hurried morning. Poppy had refused to get out of bed, so getting her ready for school had been hectic. They hadn’t had anything pressing to do since he’d gotten custody of her, and this morning—his first day back on the job at Ross Ranch—was a taste of real-life parenting.

  Poppy didn’t want to eat, didn’t want her hair brushed, didn’t want to wear matching clothes from the small suitcase her mom had dropped off with her. He’d given up on the last one, and this morning she wore blue tights, a pink summer dress and a second-hand Christmas sweater on top of it all. She said Mommy had bought her the sweater, and it seemed unnecessarily cruel to deny her some connection to her mom. It only occurred to him now that she’d probably be expected to play outside, and he didn’t have snow pants for her.

  Billy looked over at her for a moment, considering his morning’s handiwork. He’d done his best.

  “It’s not perfectly straight,” he admitted. “But it’s not bad. You look good, kiddo.”

  With the rest of her ensemble, no one would be looking at her hair, anyway.

  “I don’t want to go to school,” Poppy said, her eyes welling with tears.

  “This is where you’ll learn the fun stuff,” he said. “A teacher can show you all sorts of things I can’t. Besides, I have to go to work while you’re at school. That’s the deal I made with Mr. Ross.”

  Billy had worked at the Ross ranch before he left for Denver with Tracy, and now that he was back, Mr. Ross had been happy to offer him another job. Billy had built a reputation for himself based on his hard work. Mr. Ross understood the complication of having a little girl to take care of, so he agreed to flex-time employment—Billy would put in as many hours as he could while his daughter was at school, and he’d be paid by the hour. It was a generous offer, and one Billy didn’t want to take advantage of.

  Poppy was silent, but a tear escaped and trickled down her cheek.

  “Did you know that I know Miss Beverly from a long time ago?” Billy asked. “She’s my friend. So she knows how to find me if you get too lonely.”

  The poor kid had dealt with so many changes lately, and he didn’t blame her for balking at this one.

  “Let’s go inside,” Billy said. “I won’t leave until you’re ready, okay?”

  “Okay,” Poppy consented, then looked him over. “Your hat is dirty.”

  Billy pulled his hat off his head and saw a few pieces of hay stuck to some stitching. He plucked them off and dropped his hat back onto his head.

  “We good?” he asked.

  “You’ll do,” Poppy replied, and Billy chuckled.

  “It’ll be okay,” he assured her. “You’ll see.”

  The hallways were buzzing with students, and Billy walked Poppy through the school, toward Grace’s classroom. Billy had gone to this school, and his memories were filled with frustration. Every year, the work got harder, and his reading remained a colossal struggle. Everyone else could read aloud and follow instructions, while he’d take half an hour to decipher two lines, and then forget what he’d managed to read. So he gave up and put his energy into coping—got other kids to help him do his work, groomed a cocky attitude, made nice with teaching assistants who helped him to keep up with the basics so that he could be pushed forward into the next grade.

  The school repeatedly told his mom that he struggled with reading, but no one quite picked up on the fact that he couldn’t read. He’d thought that was a victory. Now he wasn’t so sure. If they’d figured it out when he was young enough, maybe someone could have helped him. But at the age of thirty, how was he supposed to admit to that?

  Poppy’s classroom was at the far end of the school, next to the double doors, and as Billy and Poppy approached, he saw Grace helping a student hang up a backpack almost as big as the kid was.

  “Good morning,” Billy said, and Grace looked up. Her soft chocolate waves were gathered back in a loose ponytail, and the first thing he noticed was the pink in her cheeks and the shine of her lip gloss. Grace had definitely changed over the last few years—she’d never been the type to wear makeup before. And there was something different about her clothes, too, although he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. She wore a pair of fitted dress pants and a loose pink blouse, with a belt cinched at her waist. She didn’t look like she was hiding in her clothes anymore. She stood out.

  “Hi!” she said, rising to her feet. “Poppy, I have a hook all set up for you with your name. This is where you’ll hang your backpack and your coat and your snow pants—”

  “We, uh, don’t have those yet,” Billy said. “I’ll pick some up tonight.”

  “I do have an extra pair she can borrow,” Grace said. “She’ll need them for recess. We have a special nature walk today, too, so...”

  “Thanks.” He nodded quickly. “And I’ll make sure she has her own for tomorrow.”

  Billy already felt like he was falling behind as a dad. The other little girls were wearing matching outfits in pink and purple. He looked down at Poppy with her red-and-green sweater, the pink dress poking out the bottom, and he felt a wash of regret. He should have fought harder when she was getting dressed this morning. The kids were going to be cruel.

  “You dressed yourself!” Grace said, looking down at Poppy with a big smile. “Didn’t you?”

  “Yep,” Poppy said quietly.

  “You look wonderful. I can always tell a kid who likes to choose her own clothes. That’s great!”

  Billy looked at Grace uncertainly. Was it great?

  “I should have put up a bigger fight about that,” he murmured, and Grace shook her head.

  “They’re four. The others won’t notice. And when I see a kid who insists on choosing her own clothes, I know that she’s got a strong spirit. That’s a good thing, Billy.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Relax. It’ll be fine.” Grace put her hands on her hips and regarded him for a moment. “Are you going to stay for a few minutes, or leave now?”

  Billy looked down at Poppy and saw she was glancing nervously at the other kids. “You ready for me to go to work, Poppy?” he asked quietly.

  “Nope,” she said with a shake of her head. “I don’t know these people.”

  Grace smiled. “Your dad can stay for a little bit until you feel better, Poppy
. Let’s go inside and I’ll introduce you to the other kids. Okay?”

  Grace was different now, he realized. Maybe it was that she was the sun and the moon to a roomful of four-year-olds, but it leant her a certain air of confidence that she hadn’t had in years past. He hadn’t expected her to be any different from the pal he remembered when he heard that Grace Beverly was teaching this class, but his memories of her weren’t like this. Grace had blossomed.

  As she started the day with her students, Billy found one adult-size chair next to a window and took a seat. Grace walked Poppy around the room, introducing her to the students individually and keeping her hand in the little girl’s the entire time. Poppy looked up at Grace with a flicker of a smile and big, adoring eyes. It looked to Billy like Grace was winning Poppy over.

  “Good morning, friends,” Grace said. “We have a new friend joining us today. Her name is Poppy, and I already like her! Don’t you? Now, let’s all come to the story carpet, and we’ll get ready for the daily announcements and the pledge of allegiance.”

  The kids spun in their places, dug toes into the carpet and a couple sat down during the pledge of allegiance. Grace went around, gently tugging them back to their feet and putting small hands over their chests. As she helped the children into the proper, respectful position, she was saying the words aloud with the principal over the loudspeaker.

  “...and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible...”

  Along the wall under the window, where Billy sat, there were letters of the alphabet on separate laminated sheets. Q. R. S. T. Large letters, separated by inches of wall, made the letters distinct and different in his mind. They didn’t jumble up like they did on a page, and Billy eyed them for a moment, mildly intrigued by his ability to differentiate them.

  He understood the basic concept of letters, sounds and the combination turning into words. He looked around at the kids as Grace sat down in front of a large picture graph with different weather symbols on it.

  “This morning is sunny,” Grace was saying. “Who can find the picture that tells us that it’s sunny?”

  Most of these children wouldn’t even know their alphabets yet, but they would be introduced to the basics this year. An idea was forming itself in his mind. He wasn’t sure if he was crazy to even be considering this, but maybe he could start over.

  Billy had given up on school and put his energy into avoiding the embarrassment. But maybe as his daughter learned, he could catch up on a few basics he’d missed, too. Maybe, just maybe, he could learn to read.

  Billy pulled off his hat and looked down at it for a moment, trying to hide any expression that might be betraying his thoughts right now. He hadn’t changed in his desire to hide his illiteracy, but if he could really buckle down and learn how to read at long last...

  It could change everything! He could apply for higher positions at the ranch. He’d figured he’d never be anything more than regular labor, but if he could read, he might be able to work his way up to ranch manager eventually. A whole new world would open up to him, a world of instructions, information and upward mobility.

  And at the end of a long day, he could sit down with Poppy and he could read her a book. Instead of pretending that he was teasing her, making up stories that only frustrated her because she wanted him to read the book properly, he could do just that—read his little girl a story.

  Billy’s heart hammered in his chest, and he realized that he’d zoned out there for a minute, because the kids were moving off to different corners of the room now, and Grace was coming toward him. Billy stood up, scanned the room and found Poppy at the puppet theater with another little girl, hand in hand.

  “You could probably leave now,” Grace said quietly. “Poppy has a friend. She’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah, of course.” He cleared his throat, feeling a little embarrassed not to have been the one to come to that conclusion first. “Sorry, I’ll get out of your hair.”

  “Sometimes this is harder on the parents than the kids,” Grace said, putting a hand on his arm. In that moment, she was the old Grace again—the confiding pal who always saw the best in him.

  “I’ll be back at three,” he said with a small smile.

  Poppy didn’t even look up as Billy made his way out of the room, and he glanced back to see Grace turning toward her class, her figure outlined in the doorway. The same old Grace in so many ways, and yet she wasn’t. Then the door shut with a decisive click, and he heard Grace’s voice filtering out to him in the hallways.

  “Michael P., let’s keep our hands to ourselves, please!”

  Maybe Billy was crazy to think he could learn how to read, because that classroom door had just closed on his opportunity. Who was he fooling? He wasn’t a kid anymore, and he’d had his chance. Now it was Poppy’s turn to learn “all the fun stuff,” as he’d put it.

  Still, he couldn’t quite stamp out that little spark of hope. And he glanced over his shoulder as his cowboy boots echoed down the hallway.

  Maybe.

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS BILLY FINISHED up his work in the barn that afternoon, he glanced at his watch. It would be time to pick up Poppy from school pretty soon, and he’d been looking forward to it all day. He’d felt strange, disconcerted walking away from Poppy—like he was messing up in some fundamental way that he didn’t even know about. But that seemed to be his general feeling these days. He’d never been “good enough”—not for school, not for Grace. And now, not even to be a dad to a kid like Poppy.

  What did he know about raising a little girl, especially one this smart? What did he know about parenting, period? He’d been raised by a chronically overworked mother who was more interested in finding a new man than she was in raising her son, and he’d ended up raising himself. Not terribly well, either. Frankly he was as surprised as anyone else that he was a functional adult. If he’d ended up with a boy to raise, he might have had a better idea of how to do it based on his own pitfalls, but a little girl? That was a whole other world!

  One of the other ranch hands had suggested that he ask his mom about raising a girl, and Billy had laughed out loud at that one. His mom had barely managed to raise him. She wasn’t one to give advice about what kids needed. She’d been of the opinion that what didn’t kill a kid could be considered a success. And maybe he had picked up a lot of life lessons along the way, but he’d missed out on some important fundamentals, too.

  Billy hung his shovel on the wall just as his cell phone rang from inside his shirt pocket. He pulled it out and looked at the number before picking up the call. It was Mr. Ross.

  “You’ve got a visitor,” Mr. Ross said, then lowered his voice. “A woman from social services. She’s here at the house, if you want to come on up.”

  He didn’t have much choice, so Billy hopped into his truck and rumbled on up the gravel road. His stomach felt like it was in a vice as he drove along, wondering what to expect. He’d spent a good many years avoiding raising the suspicions of social services when he was a kid. His mom had warned him repeatedly that they’d take him away if he wasn’t careful, so facing them now just felt ominous.

  The main house was a two-story affair with a porch out front and a rustic fence running around the yard. Billy parked in the gravel patch just behind the house, trying to tamp down the uneasy feelings. Apparently social services had been involved with Carol-Ann in the past, so when she passed Poppy over to him, they were coming as part of the package. It only confirmed in his mind that Poppy was better off with him, as limited as his prospects were.

  He turned off the engine and hopped out of the truck. Best to get this out of the way. His boots crunched over the snow as he headed to the back door.

  “Here he is now,” Mr. Ross said, pushing open the screen. “How ya doing, Billy?”

  “Real good, sir.”

  He and his boss exchanged
a look that didn’t match their cheery banter, and as he passed into the house, Mr. Ross slapped him in the shoulder.

  “One of the best workers I’ve got,” the older man said. It sounded slightly over-the-top, but Billy could appreciate the intent, at least.

  The social worker was a middle-aged woman with a close-cropped hairstyle and a pair of prominent, artsy glasses. She smiled cordially and put out a hand.

  “Mr. Austin, I presume?” she said.

  “That’s me,” Billy said, pulling off his gloves and shaking her hand. “What can I do for you?”

  “My name is Isabel Burns with Colorado Child Welfare, and we’re just following up with you about Poppy,” she said.

  “Okay...” He eyed her for a moment, waiting for the blow to land.

  “And I wanted to see if you need any support,” she concluded.

  “Like...what kind of support?” he asked. “I’ve got a job, and I can provide for my daughter, if that’s the worry. I’m going to buy some snow pants for her this afternoon. I don’t know what the school told you—”

  “No, no, this has nothing to do with the school,” she replied. “But I’m glad to hear she’s enrolled. She’s—” Isabel looked down at her computer tablet “—four years old. Am I right?”

  “Yeah, four,” he confirmed. “So, what do you need from me?”

  “I’m here to see if I can be of any assistance to you,” Isabel replied. “Do you have any other children?”

  “No, Poppy is my only child,” he replied. His child, and he didn’t like people butting in, even when he felt ridiculously overwhelmed.

  “So, she’s in preschool, then?” Isabel asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. Her first day is today.”

  “Wonderful. I have some information about community resources we have available for young families.” She pulled a stack of brochures out of her bag. “Take a look through when you have some time. When was her last visit to the dentist?”