Once a Father (5 page)

“I like that tune. It's been a while since I heard it.”

“Me, too.”

“Whatever's handy.”

“I know what you mean. And I'll get the next round.” She set the blue enamelware plate aside. “It's not about eating or sleeping here—I'd be fine here—it's about my mother. I really should…”
Tell the truth, Mary.
“I'd much rather be here. I'm such a selfish person. I came to be with her for…”
The partial truth and nothing but the-tip-of-the-iceberg truth.
“Well, for a little while. Ignore everything else and give her the kind of attention she never…”

She sighed and shook her head, exactly the way he had done a moment ago. He had his stuff, too. Stuff he clearly didn't want popping out all over the place, which said a lot about him. No doubt in her mind he'd been a good soldier, which was something she still aspired to be, all scrubbed and polished, crisply pressed and neatly buttoned up.

“But I can't stay there twenty-four seven,” she said. “I'll go crazy. I'll say things, and I'll…” She glanced toward the round pen. Their mustang stood quietly, his pale ears cocked in their direction as though their conversation mattered to him, too. Mary smiled.
“This is good. This will really be good. I'm excited about it, and I know she understands. I'll be able to stay out of his way if I'm involved in something else. Else
where
.”

“That's good, because I want to start our boy in his territory. No distractions except us. Between us, one or the other should be here.” She turned to him, and he nodded. “Twenty-four seven, just about.”

“That sounds like the makings of a schedule.”

“I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon.”

“I could be here early if I had a way to get here,” she said cheerfully. “I'm good with schedules.”

“That makes one of us.”

 

Logan didn't mind picking her up, but there seemed to be no shortage of vehicles at the Tutan place—a brand new shortbox pickup sitting in the driveway and an older three-quarter ton backed up to a side door down at the barn—and he wondered why she couldn't use one of them while she was home. He parked his pickup, knocked on the front door, and remembered the reason.

“I'm here for Mary,” Logan said through the screen in the top of the storm door.

“She's expecting you.” Tutan called his daughter's name as though he had her warming the far end of the bench, and then he stepped onto the porch, hand on the door handle, shoulder propping it open. He could easily suck back into his lair if Logan tried
anything funny, right? Like handing him a religious tract or a catalog for cleaning products. “That's the big line now, isn't it?” Tutan said with a smile. “
I'm here for you.
I hear they love that.” He did another one-eighty toward the deep shadows. “Mary! Your new boyfriend's here.”

“Her ride,” Logan amended, keeping a firm grip on his cool.

“She's busy upstairs with her mother, but if you want, you can wait in the kitchen. There's coffee. Hope you don't mind, but I've got work to do.”

“I'll wait out here.”

“Hell, no. That ice cream mess is still drawing flies out here.”

Logan stepped into the foyer, but that was as far as he was going. No parlor, thank you very much.

“Mary!” Tutan tucked his thumbs under his drooping paunch and into his belt. “She comes home and says
I'm here for you, Mother.
Next thing you know it's
Can I borrow the pickup?
And the answer is
Hell, no, you can't take the pickup.
Some things never change, and that conversation seems to be one of them.” Over the shoulder and into the pine panel-lined darkness. “Mary!”

Mary appeared with a loaded laundry basket, peered past her father and greeted Logan with a smile.

“Morning,” he said heartily, and she responded in kind.

“What's going on back there?” Tutan demanded. “Is she sick again?”

“She's cleaning again. I caught her taking curtains down in the bedrooms.”

Audrey emerged from the same darkness. “Nobody's been using the children's rooms much, and everything's just so dusty.”

“I'll be right with you,” Mary called out, and then lowered her voice. “I'll take this stuff down to the laundry room, and you can wash to your heart's content, Mother, but please wait for me to put the curtains back up.”

“You'll be back, then.”

“I'll be back.”

“No hurry,” Audrey said as Mary disappeared through another door. “I'm just glad you'll be here awhile longer.” She took two tentative steps toward Logan. “I think it's exciting, you two working as a team.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Logan quipped with a wink for the older woman. Her blue eyes brightened, and her powder-pale face colored up some. Logan wished he'd brought her something more. Something sweet that she didn't have to make herself. Awkward as hell, her husband standing there like he might pounce if Logan overstepped some invisible boundary.

“Mary says you wrote a horse training book,” Audrey said. “I'm trying to get her to write about training dogs. You should see what her dogs can—”

“I'll be back at noon,” Tutan told his wife. “I'll have some of that German potato salad you were talking about. And make some bratwurst with it.” He spared Mary some kind of a warning glance as she made another entrance. “If it's not too much for you to handle.”

“It's in the refrigerator. All she has to do is heat it up,” Mary said. “Remember what I said, Mother. If you need me, call Sally. She knows where to find me.”

Man, it was a relief to get out of that house.
Logan gunned his pickup engine and headed for the Tutan gate like a barn-sour horse. Mary was quiet, probably just as relieved as he was. He smiled to himself as he thought about the council meeting and his motion to lease land to the Drexlers instead of Dan Tutan.
Good move, Track Man.

She was staring out the window. He couldn't see much of her face, but he could feel her emptiness. “Thought you didn't know how to cook,” he said.

“I said I'm not much of a cook.” She turned to him, eyes hard, smile tight. “But I sure know how to take instruction.”

“Good. I'm looking for ways to improve on mine, so maybe you can give me some pointers. Ways people can understand as easily as horses.”

“My people?”

“Your people, my people,
most
people. Your mom's right—you've had some valuable experience. It's one
thing to be able to train animals, but teaching people to train animals—teaching people to do
anything
—hell, that takes some serious patience. And you're working with people who live in a whole different world.” He flashed an encouraging smile. “You've gotta be gifted.”

“The dogs are gifted. All I do is put their gifts to use.”

“I like that,” he enthused. “Can I use it?”

“Be my guest. But I want credit.” She was smiling now. “Better yet, cash.”

 

“No hands,” Logan admonished as Mary extended hers in some sort of a cautionary signal. He'd told her not to let the horse come off the fence. “Not yet. He doesn't trust hands. His kind doesn't have them.”

“You said to bring my skills to—”

“Not yet. Think about the dogs. How do they feel about your hands?”

“I teach them to respond to hand signals.”

“Down the road. We're starting off in the horse's world. No hands today.”

Logan took great pleasure in watching Mary become acquainted with the mustang. Most people wanted to rush the ground work.
How long before we get to ride him?
Both his boys had been impatient, but especially Trace, who'd found his niche bucking them out in the rodeo arena. Ethan had surprised him. For all his younger son's defiance, he'd
eventually taken Logan's way to heart. He'd seen first hand what the boy could do under some pretty humbling circumstances. He imagined introducing Mary to his boys, but in his mind's eye the boys were kids. Mary was…

Fearless.
The woman knew her way around animals. She didn't push, but neither did she back away. She had the mustang running circles around her, wearing himself down of his own accord, discovering that he was safe with her. He might even be able to trust her. She was the kind of person a team captain picked first. If she didn't know how to play, she'd soon learn and she'd be there come rain or shine. No-nonsense Mary. She wore a T-shirt and jeans, and her hair was clipped back in a cute ponytail. He wondered why she wasn't wearing a hat. She was a soldier, after all.

“You ready to take a break?”

Mary looked at him as though he were talking nonsense. He grinned because he knew just how she felt.
A break from what? Hanging out with a friend?
It was hardly a strain, and you hated to walk away when you could feel a connection in the making.

He waved a bottle of water, and her face brightened. “Oh, yeah.” She checked the horse's trough for water on her way to joining Logan. They sat in the grass a couple of feet from the pen and watched the mustang while they drank. Logan nodded when the horse took their cue. He moved to the trough and
had himself a good long drink. Good sign. When the time came, Logan would not want to give this guy up. But the project had a greater purpose.

“Sally has the right idea,” he said. “Persuade the two-leggeds to save some room for the four-leggeds by making more of them
useful
.”

“Us or them?” Mary rolled the plastic bottle back and forth across her brow. “Who's making who useful?”

“Whom,”
he teased as he took off his straw hat and put it on her head. “Better watch your language around me, Sergeant.”

“Whom, then. I have absolutely no illusion about who's making
whom
useful in the case of my job. My nose is worthless. My bark is way worse than my bite. Being in charge is highly overrated.”

He laughed. “You won't have to worry about that for a while. You're not wearing any stripes.”

“How many did you have?” He questioned her with a look. “When you got out, how many stripes?”

“I left their uniform on the table, collected my honorable discharge along with my pay and moved on.”

“Were you married then?”

He took a long pull from the water bottle. “Technically, but not for long, as it turned out. She'd already gotten a head start with the movin' on part.”

“And left you with her children?”

“You know, you've got a pretty nose. But you're
right—it's not your best feature.” He lifted the brim of his hat to her hairline and smiled. “That would be your eyes. They're like glass. Feel like I'm peekin' in your windows.” He gave her earlobe a playful tug. “But you've gotta use these if you want this thing to work.”

“What thing?”

“This thing we've started.” He nodded toward the mustang, who was sniffing the grass in the center of the pen. “Nose, eyes, ears, hands—bring all that into that pen right there, that circle. And your gut.”

“My gut,” she echoed dubiously.

“Right here.” He moved his hand from her ear to her abdomen—skipping over the interesting parts in between—and pressed lightly. “You know what I'm talking about from your dogs. But in your relationship with a horse, this is even more important. Almost as important as it is with a man.”

She looked surprised, but she didn't flinch. His gaze held hers. Or maybe it was the other way around. It didn't matter. The message was unmistakable. Neither of them had been looking for it, but here it was. Inescapable mouth-to-mouth magnetism. They had two free arms between them. His slid around her back, hers around his neck. He started slowly—a tentative taste, a tender tease, delicious anticipation.

He bumped into his hat, nudged it back and touched his forehead to hers. “I have to go.”

“Of course you do.” She swept his hat off her head and put it on his.

“Committee meeting,” he explained. “I won't be gone long. Will you be okay here for a while?”

“Should I do more ground work?”

“All you need to do is be there with him. Pay attention. I want to know what you learn from him. I'll be back in a couple of hours, and I'll bring supper. Meanwhile…” He put his hat back on her and tapped the crown for emphasis. “Wear this.”

 

She had no idea how much time had passed when the peace was shattered by the noise of an approaching vehicle. A little irritating at first, but the sight of Hank Night Horse giving Sally a hand in getting down from his lofty pickup cab made Mary smile. They made an even prettier sight swishing through the buffalo grass arm in arm and peering over the fence. Love was in the air.

Mary met them at the fence. “I think we're becoming friends, too.”

“I knew you would.” Sally glanced pointedly at Logan's hat. “Looks good on you.”

“I mean the horse and I.” Mary turned to admire the mustang, who stood calmly at the far side of the pen. “My assignment was to pay attention the whole afternoon, but he's way ahead of me. His attention is far more focused than mine.” She turned back to the visitors. “Did my mother call you?”

“No, but your friend did. Said you were out here alone.”

“He had to go to a meeting.” And he was thinking about her, which was nice. But the blue pickup barreling toward them wasn't his. “Who's this?”

“Annie. We're lending you some wheels.”

“Oh, no, that's not—”

“It is. I don't know how long Logan intends to stay out here—nobody seems to know exactly how he does what he does…” Sally looked up at Hank. “Do they?”

“Don't look at me. Just because we're all related doesn't mean we all know each other.”