“Guess what, Daddy?” Robby said when he and Amanda came in from the backyard. It was already five which meant Robby and Amanda’s two hours together had come to an end. “I read a whole line today without having to stop. I didn’t get messed up!”
Holt’s heart moved in his chest and he smiled at his son. “I’m proud of you, Robby. You’re working hard and it’s already paying off.”
Robby nodded. “Does that mean we can have pizza for dinner?”
Holt laughed. “I am dying for pizza, actually.” He turned to Amanda, once again hoping she’d say yes. “Join us? My treat.”
“I’m getting pepperoni and mushroom, my favorite,” Robby said. “What’s your favorite pizza, Amanda?”
“My favorite is just plain cheese, actually. Just the crust, sauce and mozzarella cheese. Perfection. And now I can’t stop thinking of having some pizza.”
“Yay, Amanda’s coming,” Robby shouted, clapping his hands.
He smiled and glanced at Amanda. He had to give her an out to show her he had heard her last night and would respect how she felt about the two of them spending non-necessary time together. “Robby, Amanda might already have dinner plans.”
She looked at him, then at Robby. “What? And miss pizza? No way. And besides, there’s a great place not too far from my apartment building, so I’d be passing it anyway.”
She’d definitely added that so he’d know this was strictly about convenience and a craving, but there was hope for a second chance here, he knew. And he was taking it.
Twenty minutes later they were inside Bronco Brick Oven Pizza, sitting at a round table and awaiting their orders. For the first time in a long time, Holt was sitting with his son and a woman inside a restaurant, and he liked it. Usually it was just him and Robby, all the time, everywhere they went. Yeah, his parents or brothers joined them sometimes, but there always seemed to be an absence. He knew that Robby wasn’t aware of it most of the time; he knew his son very well—and he could always tell when Robby was aware of it. He certainly wasn’t now. His adorable face was free of any kind of sadness. Robby had clearly had a good time with Amanda earlier, and was equally happy that she was with them now.
Just after the waiter set down their drinks, a cute kid about Robby’s age with red hair and freckles came up to their table. A woman who looked a lot like him and a little girl were behind him.
“Hi, Robby!” the boy said.
Robby grinned. “Hi, Liam. The pizza here is soooo good, right?”
“I had like a million slices,” Liam said with a big nod. “We just signed up for the fun run,” he added, pointing to a poster and sign-up sheet on the far wall. “I want to win this year. Last year I was one of the last kids.”
Holt smiled. “Well, it’s a fun run so it’s all about fun. Good for you for entering!” He smiled up at the mom, then turned to his son. “Robby, would you like to sign up?”
Robby nodded with a grin. “I love running and I’m good at it.”
“The fun run really is fun,” the woman said. “It’s a mother-son event that the pizzeria is sponsoring.”
Holt’s stomach twisted at the words mother-son. He watched Robby’s face fall as he stared down at his cup of soda.
“I can barely run half a mile,” the woman continued, oblivious, “but I actually pulled it off last year. And it was great to do something like that with my son. Are you a runner?” She directed the question to Amanda. “You and Robby should enter!”
“I’m kind of a couch potato,” Amanda said, glancing at Holt to interject—and fast.
“Well, think about it,” the woman said before he could say a word. “Nice seeing you,” she added before heading toward the door.
“I wish I could do the fun run but I can’t because my mom isn’t around,” Robby said, tears filling his eyes and streaking down his face.
Holt stood up and knelt beside Robby. “Hey, there,” he said, pulling his son into a hug. Robby cried harder, burying his face in Holt’s shirt.
Holt looked at Amanda, sure his own his expression mirrored the heartbreak on hers.
Suddenly, she pointed at herself and mouthed, I could run with him.
He was so moved he could barely process it. Holt pressed his hand to his chest and mouthed back thank you.
“You know, Robby,” Amanda said, “I might be a couch potato—meaning I’m usually on my couch instead of outside jogging—but I’d love to do the fun run with you. If you want.”
Robby’s face emerged and he wiped under his eyes. “But it’s a mom and son run.”
“I’ll bet if I read the rules on the poster,” Amanda said, “they’ll say that you can run the race with me. I’ll bet tutors are allowed.”
Robby brightened. “Really? Can we check?” He ran over to the poster on the opposite side of the pizzeria.
Again, Holt was so touched by what she’d said that he couldn’t find his voice. As she stood to follow Robby, he reached for her hand to stall her. “You’re the absolute best, Amanda Jenkins.”
She smiled, holding his gaze for a heartbeat, then glanced at where Robby was standing. “It would be my pleasure. Really.”
This was about more than wanting experience at motherhood. This, right now, was about how she felt about Robby, one particular seven-year-old who happened to be his beloved child. She cared about Robby very much. Did she know how much that meant to him?
Robby was waving her over. As Holt and Amanda headed to the poster, he sent up a silent prayer that the rules didn’t actually say mothers and sons only. That would be nuts, right? Not every child had a mother. “Can you help me read the rules, Amanda?”
Holt smiled to himself at that.
Amanda scanned the fine print, which was minimal. “Hmm, this event is open to boys ages five to eleven and an adult female relative, caregiver, teacher, or family friend.” She turned to Robby. “That’s me. Family friend. So let’s do this!”
“Yay!” Robby said, jumping and clapping.
The people at the table closest smiled in that “he’s kind of loud” way. Holt ignored them but ushered Robby and Amanda back to their seats just as their pizzas were served.
“I can’t believe I get to do the fun run!” Robby said, picking up his slice of pizza.
Amanda lifted her plain slice too. “Hope you don’t mind that I’m not very fast.”
“I’m really glad because I’m not fast either,” Robby said, giggling.
From tears to giggles just like that.
For the third or fourth time since Amanda Jenkins came back into his life, Holt felt his heart move inside his chest.
Holt had just left Robby’s room after reading him a story and telling him a story—about the tortoise and the hare, which he loved—when the knocking on the front door began. He glanced at his phone for the time. Past nine.
That was weird. Since arriving in town a year ago, Holt had kept to himself, well, except for the dating he’d done when he’d first moved here, trying to find his Ms. Right and a mother for Robby and failing miserably on both counts. He hadn’t made friends off the ranch; he simply had no time between work and raising his son. His brothers were his social life. And none of them would be banging on the door this late, knowing it was past Robby’s bedtime.
Maybe it was Amanda. Maybe she’d changed her mind about doing the race with Robby. About their entire arrangement. Holt sure hoped that wasn’t the case.
But no way would Amanda be knocking on the door right now. She wouldn’t risk waking up Robby either; she would have texted to say she was outside.
Holt glanced out the window on the second-floor landing. A silver Range Rover was idling in the drive. Did he know anyone who drove a Range Rover? He didn’t think so.
Bentley had come bounding out of Robby’s room and stood at the top of the stairs, waiting for him. Luckily, the dog didn’t bark and wake up Robby, who’d finally gotten to sleep after being so excited about participating in the fun run with Amanda. They headed down, Holt wondering who was on the other side of the front door.
With Bentley at his side, Holt opened the door to find a total stranger with a spitting mad expression. Whoa, dude. The man was in his late forties, maybe early fifties, with a receding hairline and a bit of a paunch. He wore expensive leather shoes—not the work boots or cowboy boots you saw on a cattle ranch.
“You Holt Dalton?” the man asked, anger radiating out of his narrowed blue eyes.
“I am,” he said. Once upon a time, Holt would have deflected, given his troublemaking days. Now, he had nothing to hide. “What’s this about?”
“I went to the main house and spoke to the owner of the ranch. A Neal Dalton. He said to talk to you.”
Huh? His dad had told this man to come talk to Holt? “About?” he asked, wondering what the hell was going on. He stepped out onto the porch, letting Bentley out too, and keeping the front door just slightly ajar.
“One of your cowboys, ranch hands, whatever the hell they’re called, is corrupting my daughter,” the man said. “She’s only eighteen and a college freshman. I want you to call him off.”
Holt gaped at the man. “Call him off? What’s the issue, exactly?”
“The issue is that he’s a troublemaker who is not going to mess up my daughter’s life. I want you to put an end to their relationship.”
So this man had gone to the main house, spit out this request, and Holt’s dad had sent the guy here? Why?
Because Holt had once been that cowboy? And Amanda had been that corruptible daughter who had to be protected from the likes of him at all costs? He’d never met Amanda’s dad, but if the man had known about Holt’s past he probably would have tried to talk her away from him too.
“Who’s the hand?” Holt asked.
The man seemed to relax, as if he thought he was finally getting somewhere, that Holt would take care of it. Holt had no clue what he’d do. But he wanted to know who he was dealing with. Dalton’s Grange employed a slew of cowboys, some part-time, particularly in the spring and summer.
“His name’s Brody Colter. He’s a real punk.”
Brody. Holt knew who he was. It had been Holt who Neal had sent to bail the guy out of jail about three months ago. Brody had been charged with assault in a bar fight but the charges had been dropped. Holt didn’t know the ranch hand well, but according to Neal, Brody was one of their best cowboys—never late, good at his job, respectful of others. He’d been working at the ranch part-time during high school and since he’d graduated in June had gone full-time. Getting into a bar brawl and ending up in jail—no one to bail him out but his boss—didn’t fit with Holt’s image of Brody Colter at all.
“In what way?” Holt asked.
“First of all, he’s been in trouble with the law. Second, he practically lives at Wild Wesley’s, that dive bar out in Bronco Valley, and I’ve heard stories about that place. And third, my daughter just graduated from high school two months ago. She’s headed to college at the end of the month. Suddenly, she’s saying she thinks she met the love of her life and that maybe she could take a year off. That punk is not the love of her life, and she’s not losing her scholarship to Wyoming Western College. Over my dead body!”
“Mr...” Holt prompted.
“Thompson. Edward Thompson. I’m the senior VP of new development for Thompson Paper—a business that’s been in my family and Bronco Heights for almost a hundred years. My daughter’s name is Piper. Short for Pauline. Do I have your word you’ll take care of this problem?”
“Mr. Thompson, you said your daughter is eighteen. So is Brody. I’m not sure how anyone can prevent them from dating.”
Thompson crossed his arms over his chest. “Apparently Brody likes this job. Threaten him with it. Tell him he either stops seeing Piper or he’s fired. If the job means that much to him, he’ll move on to another pretty girl—this time from Bronco Valley.”
This time from Bronco Valley. Until they’d moved to Bronco Heights from Whitehorn, the Daltons had always been from the wrong side of town. So Holt knew exactly what the man meant, and he didn’t like it. Or Edward Thompson. What a pompous—
“I said what I came to say,” Thompson huffed. “I’m a big donator to the ranchers’ association, and I think the powers that be over there would want to keep me in their good graces.”
Now he was threatening Holt and Dalton’s Grange? Thompson wouldn’t make a donation unless Holt intervened, and if Holt didn’t, the loss of big bucks to the association would be the Daltons’ fault?
I don’t think so, buster.
The man was down the porch steps before Holt could respond and that was probably for the best. He got in his silver Range Rover and drove off.
Holt sat down on the porch swing, shaking his head. “Believe that guy, Bentley?”
The dog rested his chin on Holt’s knee, and he rubbed the sweet pooch’s furry head.
Brody didn’t live on Dalton’s Grange. There were two bunkhouses a mile out back on the property that some full-time hands shared, but Holt recalled that Brody had his own tiny apartment, an efficiency, right above Wild Wesley’s. Man, that had to be loud all night long, particularly Thursday to Saturday nights. He knew this detail about where Brody lived because he’d dropped the guy off there after bailing him out of jail, and Holt had said, “You just got busted for getting into a fight here, now you’re going back for more? I don’t like wasting my money, Brody.”
And Brody had again insisted he didn’t start the fight nor had he wanted to participate in it, then explained he lived above Wild Wesley’s, thanked Holt again for bailing him out, then had gone in a narrow door wedged between the bar and a dark alleyway.
He’d talk to Brody tomorrow morning. Holt had no idea what he’d say yet. Maybe just relay the exchange between himself and Edward Thompson.
He pulled out his phone and called his dad. Neal Dalton answered on the third ring, his trademark.
“Thanks for the warning about the hothead, Dad.” Seriously. Neal Dalton couldn’t have given him a heads-up that some loose cannon was on his way?
“I’m sure you handled it fine, Holt.”
“How, exactly, am I supposed to handle it? Brody’s eighteen and so is Thompson’s daughter. Oh and by the way—if I don’t break up the relationship, he threatened to pull his big donation to the ranchers’ association and make sure the powers that be know it’s our fault.”
“Classic,” Neal said with almost respect in his voice. Whose side was his dad on?
“I’ll talk to Brody in the morning when he turns up. Though I don’t know why you sent Thompson to me when he was already at your house and you could have dealt with him.”
“Because I figured you could talk him down, use your own experience but with hindsight, you know? I don’t always have the answers even if I think I know everything.”
Maybe his dad was coming around some. There didn’t even seem to be a back-handed compliment in that. And good thing because Holt hated clapping back at his dad, hating being at odds with the man. Getting along meant the world to his mother, and Holt knew it.
“I’ll see what I can do, Dad.”
Which would clearly not include trying to explain to Edward Thompson that Holt couldn’t stop his daughter from dating who she wanted. He’d tried that, and it was beside the point for Thompson. The point was separating the couple. Keeping Piper Thompson “uncorrupted.” Making sure she left for college in three weeks, the Bronco Valley “punk” history.
Well, he couldn’t blame his dad for thinking Holt knew something about that very topic.
“Kiss Robby good-night for me,” his dad said and hung up.
Holt shook his head. His father made him want to throw something. He walked down the porch steps into the front yard and threw a stick as hard as he could. Bentley went flying after it, returning it and dropping it at his feet.
“Good dog,” Holt said, giving Bentley’s side a pat. Yup, that was what happened when you tried to avoid something, throw it away. It came right back, demanding to be dealt with.
Like Amanda maybe. She’d come back into his life for a reason. Now. Just when he was ready for her. That had to mean something.
He went back to the porch swing, Bentley trailing after him. Thompson had gotten under his skin and Holt knew why. Because in a parallel universe, the man could have easily been Amanda’s father, furious about Holt and Amanda, and deep down Holt still felt like that twenty-two-year-old guy.
He’d changed his ways because of Robby, and seven years later, he led the most law-abiding, kid-focused life possible. His world was work and Robby and his family whereas ten years ago, before Amanda and in the few years after, his life had been about chasing a good time, pretty women and cold beer. His group of friends at the time were just like him. One had ended up in prison for a string of burglaries. Another had joined the army and had probably been straightened out. And another had tried to turn his life around when his older brother died of a drug overdose and had had to leave Whitehorn because no one would let him change, be a new person.
Sometimes Holt thought his dad didn’t accept that he’d changed. Neal Dalton acted like Holt could revert at any time.
I coulda sworn you married that hard-edged gal because you knocked her up, his father had said at his and Sally Anne’s wedding. But she says she’s not expecting.
I married her because I love her, Holt had said.
He had loved Sally Anne. Yeah, she was rough around the edges—just like he was. They came from the same place, so to speak. They spoke the same language, understood each other. But Sally Anne had been even wilder than Holt, and she lived for attention.
What killed Holt now, and during the past four years since he’d been raising his son on his own, was that Holt’s choices had put Robby in this position. To have a mother who’d walked out on him. To need his reading tutor to stand in at a mother-son fun run. To wonder why he wasn’t special enough for his own mother to want to be in his life. Sometimes Holt thought about what his dad had said at the wedding and regretted not knowing better, not making sure that a woman who’d said she wasn’t maternal, wasn’t cut out for motherhood didn’t get pregnant by accident. They’d been young and in love and tipsy most of the time—and careless.
Anyway, if Holt hadn’t married Sally Anne, Robby wouldn’t exist. And Holt wouldn’t trade his life with his son for anything.
He got up and headed back inside with Bentley, giving Oliver his dinner reserve, which had the cat rushing over, then he shut the lights on the first floor. He, Bentley and Oliver went upstairs, Bentley going back into Robby’s room and Oliver following Holt into his own bedroom. Usually the cat stuck with Bentley, but Holt was glad for the company tonight.
He sat down on the edge of his bed and opened the bottom drawer of his end table as Oliver jumped up on his bed and scratched at a spot and then curled up. Under a bunch of old keepsakes was one of the most precious of all: a photo of him and Amanda from ten years ago. They were sitting on the dock of the lake at Camp KidPower, Amanda’s back against his chest, her legs straight out in front of him, his arms wrapped around her. They were both beaming. And so damned young.
He wondered what the story was with Brody and Piper, if they were in love like he and Amanda had been. Maybe Brody already planned to walk away from Piper, to let her head off to school and start her new life, which had no place for him. Or maybe the two had other ideas. In any case, they were adults, new ones but legally able to make their own decisions whether Thompson approved or not.
Holt would talk to Brody in the morning but he had to wonder: how could he advise Brody to walk away from Piper for her own good when doing exactly that with Amanda was the biggest mistake Holt had ever made?