Cowgirl, Say Yes. Brenda Mott

people to me. And if you won’t let her stay here, then I want her to go live with Tess.” Her lip trembled, but she bit it, fighting for control. She’d always been a tough little cuss, which broke his heart all the more.

      “Honey, it’s not that I don’t want Amber to live here. I was only trying to help you see the smart thing in selling her so you can have a new horse. I can’t afford the purchase price of one right now, with my leather business just taking off.” A good 4-H horse could run into the thousands, and Wade’s new business selling tack and leather belts was not yet well established. “You understand, don’t you?”

      She frowned at him. “I understand that part of it, but I still don’t want to sell her.”

      “Okay,” he said, holding up one hand in surrender. “You don’t have to. Nobody’s trying to force you to sell your horse. I just thought it might be a good idea, that’s all….” He let the words trail away. Had he given Macy the impression he was trying to force her to sell her mare? If so, he hadn’t meant to. He simply didn’t understand her way of thinking, any more than he understood Tess’s.

      A horse sanctuary, for God’s sake. Who would ever dream up such a crazy thing? Horses weren’t pets the way dogs were. He could see the sense in an animal shelter, but a horse sanctuary? He’d grown up on a working cattle ranch of over six thousand acres, and all the cowboys on the place, including his own father looked at the horses they rode as working animals…part of the operation, just like the tractors that furrowed the hay fields and the pickup trucks that delivered the bales. When horses broke down, it was time to get rid of them and replace them with something newer, something better.

      But his daughter, it seemed, had different ideas, in spite of being raised on a working ranch herself. He blamed people like Tess for that, even Bailey Murdock. Oh, sure, he liked Trent and Bailey both, but they weren’t native to the area. Trent came from California, where things were viewed differently, and Bailey was from the city—Denver. Not that he had anything against folks from California—or from the city, either, for that matter.

      It was just…well…take Trent’s fancy horse. Arabians. For the life of him, Wade couldn’t figure why anyone would pay thousands of dollars for a hot-headed horse that wasn’t good for much, as far as he could see, except prancing around, looking pretty.

      And Bailey had gotten Macy all fired up about pets and saving stray animals.

      More than ever, Wade wished Deidra were still alive. Trying to fill the role of father and mother wasn’t easy. Sometimes he made the wrong choices. Apparently this was one of them.

      Pulling his thoughts back to the immediate situation, Wade wrapped his arm around Macy’s shoulders and drew her into a hug. “You can stop crying,” he said. “Amber can stay.”

      “She can?” Her blue eyes wide with hope, Macy looked up at him, wrenching his heart.

      “Yeah, she can. But that means no new horse until we get some more money somehow.”

      “I don’t care.” A smile lit her face. “As long as we don’t have to send Amber to the sale barn.”

      “Fine. Now, finish your chores, then do your homework.” He picked up the milk glass and cookie plate that sat empty in front of Macy. “I’ll get your dishes this time.” He gave her a wink.

      Macy slid her chair back, stood and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I love you, Daddy.” Then she raced out the door.

      “I love you, too, baby.” Wade spoke softly, the words echoing in the empty kitchen.

      He moved to the sink, rinsed the dishes and stuffed them into the already overcrowded dishwasher. Absentmindedly, he added detergent and flipped the switch. The machine whirred to a start, quickly filling the kitchen with the scent of hot water and lemon.

      Wade opened the fridge and took out a package of hamburger, ground from their own beef on the Circle D. How on earth was he supposed to make ends meet with what the ranch was bringing in? Yet if he sold the cows and got out, they’d no longer have the luxury of eating as many steaks a week as they wanted. He’d seen the price of beef in town, and it angered him beyond words that the rancher and the farmer weren’t the ones making money off the meat and produce sold in the supermarket. The middleman was, and without the homegrown beef to supplement their food supply, they’d be hard-pressed to eat well.

      Wade shaped the burger into patties while his mind raced.

      Still, his leather business was gradually picking up, and he did have the new Web site nearly up and running. Cowboy Up could turn out to be a bigger hit than he’d imagined. There was a lot to be said for the World Wide Web, and working in the house rather than out in the barn or elsewhere on the ranch would give him a lot more time to spend with Jason and Macy.

      Yet he still couldn’t decide whether to sell the cattle. Maybe he’d just sell part of the herd. Maybe Tess Vega could start up a cow sanctuary, he thought dryly.

      The screen door banged open, then shut, interrupting his thoughts as Jason flew into the kitchen like a tornado on the heels of a hurricane. “Hey, Dad! When’s supper? I’m starvin’.” Lanky for his age, Jason was always hungry, and seemed to outgrow his jeans as fast as Wade could buy them. The boy moved to the sink to wash his sun-browned hands using the dishwashing soap, then hastily wiped them on a paper towel.

      “Son, don’t waste the paper towels like that.” Wade tossed him the dish towel and Jason gave his hands another swipe. “Dinner will be ready shortly. Why don’t you help me out…peel a few potatoes.”

      “All right.” Jason moved to the potato bin, his light-brown hair peeking out from beneath his ball cap.

      “Take your hat off.”

      Whistling, Jason flipped it at the rack by the back door, missed and scooped it up, then aimed once more. This time the John Deere cap found its mark. Jason grinned at him, then pointed. “What’s that on your head, Dad?”

      “What?” Wade reached up to touch his head, and his hand bumped against the brim of his worn, gray Resistol. It was such a part of him he hadn’t even realized he still had it on. He laughed, then hung it on the peg next to Jason’s cap. “Silly of me, huh?”

      “Hey, Dad,” Jason said, sitting at the table and running the peeler over a large russet potato. “Did you know that Tess from the feed store moved into Trent Murdock’s place?”

      “I heard,” Wade said dryly. “Your sister was up there this afternoon.”

      “Wondered where she’d gone off to,” Jason said. “She was supposed to help me with the bucket calves.” Every spring they ended up with a few calves that needed supplemental feeding for one reason or another. A bucket with rubber nipples attached inside served as a surrogate mother.

      “I know. I lined her out.” Wade grinned and Jason grinned back. They both realized his idea of firm discipline was little more than a lecture. Most often, he found reasoning with his kids worked just fine, but today there’d been no reasoning with Macy.

      His thoughts turned again to Tess. He’d seen her on numerous occasions at the feed store, but he’d never really noticed until today that she was a good-looking woman. At least, she could be, if she’d learn how to wear something other than bib overalls, and if she’d take her flame-red hair out of those silly braids.

      Braids like a kid. Hell, she wasn’t much more than a kid. Probably about twenty-four, he thought. Or maybe twenty-five. He wasn’t sure. These days anyone under thirty seemed young to him.

      At thirty-three, Wade already felt every one of his years in the aches in his joints and muscles when he lay in bed at night after a hard day putting up fence or pulling calves during calving season or whatever else was required to keep the Circle D running. His days of affording hired help were long past, and trying to keep things up with only Macy and Jason to pitch in had been hell lately.

      Deidra had been his right arm as well as his best friend.