The Parent Plan. Paula Riggs Detmer

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      Chapter Two

      Cassidy had started his day in a decent enough mood, mostly because the tattered feed-store calendar hanging inside the barn doors said it was the first day of spring and there was a hint of warmth in the morning air. The land was coming alive again.

      By the end of the day, his good mood had soured. Early spring thaws had left his beautiful ranch a sloppy, ugly mess, and everywhere he’d ridden, he’d seen wind-toppled scrub oaks torn from the ravaged earth as though by some angry hand. With a resignation born of ten winters in this part of the west, he calculated he had miles of fence to repair. Worse, the melting snow had turned the pretty little creek meandering across the north pasture into a frothing torrent of muddy water. At last count the Lazy S had lost six prime heifers to the flood, with the tally far from finished. And if the fat black clouds hugging the treetops let go, it was bound to be a rotten night to be on the road. But in a couple of hours that’s exactly where he and his ladies would be, heading for the fairgrounds on the far side of Grand Springs where tonight’s so-called celebration was being held.

      Much as he hated the thought of hauling out his party manners and shining the almost new boots that still pinched his toes, it suited his sense of irony that the party to celebrate the town’s recovery from the June blackout was occurring on a night when the weather was nearly as brutal.

      He’d been saddle sore and weary when he rode in from the pasture, a long list of urgent jobs for his men already taking shape in his head. As he hurried toward the house, he’d been desperate for a hot shower, a gallon of steaming coffee and, maybe, just maybe, a quick bout of loving from his wife. Tired as he’d been, he’d gotten hard at the thought. He and Karen hadn’t had sex for weeks, and he was about as frustrated as the wild stallion he’d glimpsed racing the wind on the horizon a few hours earlier.

      But, when he reached the house, he found Vicki in tears, Wanda June at her wit’s end and Karen running late—as usual. It had nearly torn him apart to see the disappointment in his little girl’s big brown eyes when she’d come racing out of her bedroom at the sound of the back door closing, only to find him standing. According to Wanda June, Vicki had been waiting for the better part of an hour for her mother to get home.

      It had taken him five harrowing minutes to narrow the problem to a hem that needed to be pinned up and sewed in place. Wanda June had offered to help, but Vicki had wanted her mom to do it. Like they’d planned, she kept telling him, her eyes flashing with impatience at his failure to understand.

      He’d wanted to smash a fist into the nearest wall. Instead, he swallowed the anger that flared inside him like a familiar stab of pain and offered himself as a substitute. Which was why he was presently standing like an awkward, barefoot idiot in his own dining room, one hand clamped on a patch of flimsy cotton skirt, the other awkwardly trying to retrieve yet another tiny dressmaker’s pin from the small plastic box on the table. He’d rather eat dust and wrestle fifty terrified calves on branding day than pin up a damned skirt hem.

      “Darn it, Vick, hold still.”

      Vicki stood ramrod stiff on the tabletop, her small pixie face screwed into a knot of worry. He winced as she let out yet another long-suffering sigh. “How much longer till you’re done, Daddy?”

      “Couple of minutes,” he mumbled, all thumbs and masculine frustration.

      “You keep saying that.”

      He drew СКАЧАТЬ