Cowboy Defender. Carla Cassidy

ask the same thing before we leave on Saturday mornings.”

      “And then you tell us that you love us and we should be good for Dad and Ms. Lori,” Jenny said.

      “Great, then I don’t have to say any of that same old stuff today,” Miranda replied with a laugh.

      A knock sounded at the door. Miranda answered to see her ex-husband, the boy she had fallen in love with when she’d been sixteen years old and had fallen out of love with after years of an unhappy marriage.

      “Hey, Miranda,” he said with the crooked smile that had once made her heart beat faster and now only made her sad. His eyes were bleary and red-rimmed, but at least there was no smell of alcohol on him.

      “Good morning, Hank,” she replied. She opened the screen door but didn’t invite him inside. Beyond him she saw Lori in the driver’s seat of Hank’s king cab pickup and waved to her.

      By that time the kids were at the door. A flurry of kisses were given and then Miranda watched as they all got into the truck and Lori pulled away.

      Miranda closed the door and headed for the kitchen. On most Saturdays when the kids were with Hank and Lori, Miranda cleaned the house and then graded papers. Before she could get started on anything, the phone rang.

      “Hi, Mom,” she said when she answered.

      “Hello, my lovely daughter,” her mother replied.

      Miranda smiled. She could imagine her mother sitting in her favorite blue-flowered chair, her silver hair perfectly coiffed and impeccable makeup highlighting her high cheekbones and bright blue eyes.

      No one ever saw Katherine Albright when she wasn’t completely pulled together. It had been that way when Miranda was growing up and even while her mother had been taking care of Miranda’s father, who had been sick with prostate cancer for months. He had finally succumbed to the disease and was now buried in the Bitterroot Cemetery. As far as Miranda was concerned, her mother was the strongest women she’d ever known.

      “I heard a little rumor this morning when I was getting my nails done,” Katherine said.

      Miranda groaned inwardly. “And what rumor is that?” she asked, even though she knew. God bless Bitterroot, Oklahoma, and its healthy gossip mill.

      “I heard that you and the children had cupcakes and ice cream with that handsome cowboy Clay Madison.”

      “The rumor is true, but it was just a chance meeting. It didn’t mean anything and it was certainly no big deal,” Miranda replied.

      “Well, that’s too bad. You could do a lot worse than Clay. Not only is he easy on the eyes, but from what I hear he’s a hard worker. Besides, he’s just so darned nice whenever I run into him in town.”

      Good Lord, the man had apparently charmed her own mother as well as most of the other females in town. “Actually, Henry asked him to help him get better at baseball and Clay agreed to help out.”

      “If Hank were any kind of a father at all he’d be the one teaching that poor little boy how to play ball,” Katherine replied and then went into a ten-minute diatribe against the man who had once been her son-in-law.

      She harangued him for cheating on Miranda, for not being a good provider for his family and for not being a real and present father in his children’s lives. She then went on to talk about Hank’s drinking problem.

      “Are you finished?” Miranda asked dryly when her mother finally stopped to take a breath.

      “For now,” Katherine said with a small laugh. “I just don’t understand why a man with so much potential would waste his life.”

      “The good news is he isn’t wasting any more of mine,” Miranda replied.

      “Thank goodness, and now to the real reason I called...are you planning on taking the children to the spring fling celebration this weekend?”

      “I might take them for a little while on Friday evening.” Miranda had put away a bit of fun money for the night where there would be people with booths and tents selling their wares, but more importantly for the kids, there would be carnival rides. “Why? Would you like to come with us? You know we’d love that.”

      “Actually, I’m going to help out at Halena and Mary’s tent. You know they always get a lot of traffic, and Halena asked me to work with them and help them out.”

      “Are you sure you’re up to it?” Miranda asked. Katherine suffered from rheumatoid arthritis that often flared up and severely limited her mobility. There were days she was in so much pain she was unable to get out of bed.

      “You can’t stop living because of a little pain,” Katherine replied. “I’ll be at their tent.”

      “Then we’ll stop by to say hi to you,” Miranda replied. Halena Redwing and her granddaughter, Mary Nakni, always had beautiful paintings done by Mary as well as Choctaw-related items for sale. Halena was one of the town’s more colorful characters and it was always fun to see what she was up to.

      “You know I always love to show off my grandbabies,” Katherine replied.

      “And you know how much they love you,” Miranda replied.

      The two women visited for the next fifteen minutes or so and then hung up. Her mother always made light of the chronic pain that she suffered, but Miranda worried about her. Katherine had tried several medications to help her, but they had all made her violently ill, so the only thing she took now was an occasional pain pill to get her through the particularly bad days.

      The rest of the day passed uneventfully. Miranda cleaned and worked on the pile of laundry that seemed never-ending with two active kids, and then all too quickly it was bedtime.

      Sunday mornings she always went to church and hated the fact that her children weren’t there with her. Lori had told her she was trying to get Hank to take them all to church on Sunday mornings, but so far it hadn’t happened.

      It was six o’clock that evening when Hank and the kids appeared back on her doorstep. As Henry and Jenny ran into the house, Miranda stepped out onto the porch with Hank.

      “I hope they were good for you and Lori,” she said.

      “They’re always good for us, but what’s this I hear about Clay Madison coming over here to teach my boy baseball?”

      “Henry asked him and he agreed. As I recall, Henry has asked you to help him several times and you always tell him you don’t know anything about baseball.”

      Hank had the grace to look a bit sheepish. “Still, I’m not sure I want that particular cowboy hanging around here. You’d better watch out for him, Miranda. He’s been known to turn a woman’s head. From what I hear he’s a love ’em and leave ’em kind of guy.”

      “Trust me, my head isn’t in any danger of turning in any man’s direction,” she replied firmly. The last thing she wanted was to give her heart away to another man who might or might not take good care of it. She was just not willing to play the odds, especially with a man who had a reputation like Clay Madison’s.

      Hank pulled out his wallet and opened it. “The kids told me you bought them some new summer clothes.” He handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “I know it isn’t much, but this will help a little. You know as soon as I get some full-time work I’ll make things easier on you.”

      “I know, Hank.” If good intentions were cash, then Hank would be a wealthy man, but she’d stopped expecting much of anything from him. Still, the twenty dollars would help toward the carnival-ride expenses. “I’m planning on taking the kids to the carnival on Friday night.”

      “That’s good. They’ll have a great time,” he replied. “They were both already talking about what rides they wanted to ride and all the carnival junk food they wanted to eat.”

      “They can ride whatever they want, but limits will be