His Little Cowgirl. Brenda Minton

      “It’s too hot. The humidity would…” Her heart ached with a word that used to be so easy.

      “Don’t cry on me, pumpkin. And the humidity isn’t going to kill me.” He winked before he walked away.

      Bailey prayed again, the silent prayer that had become constant. Please God, don’t take my dad. She knew what the doctors said, and she knew with her own eyes that he was failing fast. She didn’t know what she’d do without him in her life.

      She drained her cup of coffee and walked out the back door. The RV in the drive was still dark and silent. The barn wasn’t. As she walked through the door, she heard music on the office radio and noises from the corral.

      Cody turned and smiled when she walked out the open double doors on the far side of the barn. Her favorite mare was standing next to him, and he was running his hand over the animal’s bulging side.

      That mare and the foal growing inside of her were the future hope of Bailey’s training and breeding program. If that little baby had half the class and durability of his daddy, the Rocking C would have a chance of surviving.

      “Any day now.” Cody spoke softly, either to her or to the mare. She and the mare both knew that it would be any day.

      “What are you doing here?”

      He glanced up, his hat shading his eyes. “I told you I’d be back. I’m in it for the long haul, Bailey.”

      “In what for the long haul?”

      He shot her a disgusted look and sighed. “I’m a father. I might be coming into this a little late, but I want to be a part of Meg’s life.”

      “So, you’ve gone from the guy who didn’t want to be tied down to the guy who is in fatherhood for the long haul?”

      “When confronted with his mistakes, a guy can make a lot of changes.” He slid his hand down the mare’s misty-gray neck, but his gaze connected with Bailey’s. “I’m alive, and God gave me a second chance. I don’t take that lightly.”

      “I see.” But she didn’t, not really.

      Bailey walked back into the barn, knowing he followed. When she turned, she noticed that he wasn’t following at a very fast pace. The limp and slightly stooped posture said a lot.

      “Take a fall last night?”

      He grinned and shrugged muscular shoulders. “Not so much of a fall as a brush-off. This is what one might call ‘cowboy, meet gate—gate, meet cowboy.’ The bull did the introductions.”

      “Anything broken?” Not that she cared.

      “Just bruised.”

      “Good, then you should be able to hitch that RV back to your truck and leave today.”

      “Actually, no, I can’t. Funny, I’ve never really had a reason to stick before, but I like Missouri and so this isn’t such a bad thing. And the folks at the Hash-It-Out Diner all think you’re real pretty and a good catch.”

      Bailey searched for something to throw at him, just about anything would work. She wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face. Especially when smug was accompanied by a wink and a dimpled smile.

      “Cody, I don’t need this. You don’t understand what it’s like here and how long it took me to rebuild my reputation after that summer in Wyoming.”

      He didn’t understand about going to church six months pregnant, knowing God forgave, but people weren’t as likely to let go of her mistake.

      “I didn’t tell them who I am, or that I’m Meg’s dad.” He turned on the water hose as he spoke. “I think most of them have gotten over it, Bailey. Except maybe Hazel. Hazel has a daughter in Springfield who is a schoolteacher and a real good girl.”

      Bailey groaned as she scooped out feed and emptied it into a bucket. Cody dragged the hose to the water trough just outside the back door. He left it and walked back inside.

      “Yes, Maria is a good girl. I’ll introduce the two of you.” She managed a smile.

      “Bailey, I was teasing.” Smelling like soap and coffee, he walked next to her. “This isn’t about us, or a relationship. This is about a child I didn’t know that I had. I’m not proposing marriage, and I’m not trying to move in. I want the chance to know my daughter.”

      Bailey glanced in his direction before walking off with the bucket of grain and the scoop. She remembered that he had shown up for a purpose other than his daughter.

      “Why did you come to apologize?”

      “It’s a long story.”

      “I have thirty minutes before I need to leave for work.”

      Cody took the bucket from her hand and started the job of dumping feed into the stalls. “You water, I’ll feed. And they told me you work three days a week at the Hash-It-Out.”

      “Since Dad can’t work, we do what we can to make ends meet.” She didn’t tell him that the ends rarely met. “So, about you and this big apology.”

      “Why can’t your dad work?”

      “He has cancer.”

      She couldn’t tell him that her dad had only months to live. Saying it made it too real. And she couldn’t make eye contact with Cody, not when she knew that his eyes would be soft with compassion.

      “I’m sorry, Bailey.”

      “We’re surviving.”

      “It can’t be easy.”

      Cody poured the last scoop of grain into the feed bucket of a horse she’d been working with for a few weeks.

      “It isn’t easy.” She turned the water off and then finally looked at him. “But we’re doing our best.”

      “Of course you are.” He sat down on an upturned bucket, absently rubbing his knee as he stared up at the wood plank ceiling overhead.

      “Let’s talk about you, Cody. What happened?”

      “Bailey, I’m an alcoholic. I started AA about seven months ago. I’ve been sober for six months.” He shrugged. “About five months ago I wrote out a list of people I had hurt, people that I needed to apologize to. You were at the top of the list.”

      “I see. And how did this all start?”

      “Apologizing, or realizing that I needed to grow up and make changes in my life?”

      He smiled a crooked, one-sided smile that exposed a dimple in his left cheek. Bailey hadn’t forgotten that grin. She saw it every time Meg smiled at her. It reminded her of how it had felt to be special to someone like him. He had picked her wildflowers and taken her swimming in mountain lakes.

      That moment in the sun had happened when her dad had been healthy and the farm had been prosperous. Their horses had been selling all across the country, and they’d had a good herd of Angus. Now she had five cows, two mares, no stallion and a few horses to train.

      “What made you go to AA?”

      “I turned thirty and realized I didn’t have a home and that I had a lot of blank spots in my memory. I was getting on bulls drunk.” He shrugged and half laughed. “I realized when I got trampled into the dirt back in Houston last winter.”

      “I saw you on TV the night it happened.” She closed her eyes as the admission slipped out and then quickly covered her tracks. “I’ve always watched bull riding. Dad and I watch it together.”

      “Gotcha.” He leaned back against the wall. “I guess one of the big reasons for changing was that I didn’t want to waste the rest of my life.”

      “I’m glad you’re doing better.” It was all she could give him. She was glad he was sober and glad