The Texas Rancher's Return. Allie Pleiter

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СКАЧАТЬ guilt-inducing pout that could turn Brooke’s gut to rock in seconds.

      She picked up her daughter’s backpack, waving goodbye to the after-school day-care worker, who offered a smile that was half sympathy, half judgment. “I hate being last, honey.” She forced enthusiasm into her voice. “But I have a great story why. Perfect taco-night conversation.”

      Friday night tacos had been a tradition since Audie was old enough to eat them, and it helped to put the stress of the working week to bed for both of them. While the rest of single parenting often eluded her, Friday Tacos for Two was one of the things Brooke felt she got right. Jim’s death two years ago had left them both reeling, and since the Friday Taco Trio that was his idea was no longer an option, Friday Tacos for Two had been one of a hundred reinventions life had forced on them.

      “I pick Edie’s,” Audie announced as she flipped the passenger seat forward and crawled into her booster in the car’s tiny backseat. Each Friday, Audie could choose which of the four local taco joints would serve their feast. Audie was never short of opinions on any subject, so Brooke liked to give her opportunities to choose whenever she could. Brooke scanned the shrinking space between Audie’s pigtails and the car roof—in another year, she’d need a new car. She needed a new lots of things, which made the well-paying job she’d only recently landed at DelTex such a relief.

      “Good choice.” Brooke nodded as she twisted the key in the ignition, noting the hesitant hiccup in the car’s ignition with a hint of concern.

      “So what made you late?”

      Brooke gave a silent prayer of thanks that Audie hadn’t added “this time.” She was late more often than she liked, but she had to hold her own with a lot of DelTex’s other staffers, who seemed to have no other commitments in life than Margarita Night at the local roadhouse.

      “Oh, this is a good one,” Brooke teased, catching Audie’s dark brown eyes in the rearview mirror as she pulled out onto the avenue. “But you’ll have to tell me about your day first before you get this story over tacos.”

      Audie shrugged—a gesture so much like her father that Brooke felt a familiar ache of grief rise and push under her ribs. “Nothin’ really happened. Melissa’s still mad at Luke. Oh, Maria and me got partnered for a science project.”

      A third-grade science project. Brooke had visions of shoe-box dioramas or poster boards. Given her marketing and presentation skills, Brooke thought this might be one parenting area she could ace. “What about?”

      “Native Texan animals.”

      “Any in particular?”

      “We can pick one we like. Of course Robbie and Jake chose longhorns, and Steve and Marcus chose bats. Maria and I were thinking about buffalos or armadillos.”

      Brooke raised an eyebrow. “No kidding! Then you’re really gonna want to hear my dinner story. You’ll be glad I was late by the time I’m done telling you what happened to me today.” Thanks, Lord. Brooke shot a sigh of gratitude heavenward as she pulled into Edie’s Taco Patio, glad to feel a genuine smile fill her face.

      “Why?”

      “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not getting it out of me before table grace, you sneaky little girl. Come on, let’s eat.”

      Audie scrambled out of the seat the moment the car was turned off, all traces of her former gloom gone, replaced by a wide, expectant grin Brooke felt down to her toes. “Did you squash an armadillo with your car? Is that why you’re late?”

      Brooke ignored the dig and mimed zipping her lip into silence as she pulled open the restaurant door. If she played her cards right, getting blocked by the giant mama bison wouldn’t end up being the disaster she’d beaten herself up for the entire drive to Audie’s day care.

      “Soooo?” Audie pleaded the minute they were seated with a pair of tacos each, her daughter’s eyes wide and brown as a cow’s—or was that a bison’s?

      “Grace first,” Brooke countered, gratified that most of the frantic sourness of her 5:55 pickup had evaporated. She bowed her head, but stole a look up for her favorite sight in all the world: Audie’s small pink hands folded in prayer, the full brown lashes of her closed eyes lush against rosy cheeks. Was there a sweeter sight this side of heaven? “Dear God, thank You for these tacos and our time together. Thank You for all You provide, and may we always be truly thankful.” She waited for Audie’s contribution to the prayer, for they each took part in table grace.

      “Thank You that Hammie’s okay and that Alex doesn’t hate Benjamin anymore. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

      “Something happened to Hammie?” Brooke inquired, wondering what had jeopardized the fate of the class hamster.

      Audie took a bite of taco. “Jenna dropped him,” she said with her mouth full, earning a you know better scowl from Brooke. “Story!” she pleaded after a dramatic display of swallowing, nearly bouncing in her seat with anticipation.

      “I met a real buffalo—a bison—today. Up close. Her name was Daisy, and she sniffed the hood of my car so close I bet she left nose prints.”

      “No kidding? A real live bison? Mrs. Cleydon told me that’s their real name, not buffalo.”

      “So you know that already. I didn’t—at least not before today.” Brooke pointed at Audie. “See, you’re already smarter than me on the subject.”

      “How big was she?”

      “Huge. She filled the whole road. Blocked it, even. I had to sit there until her owner came by and nudged her out of the way. That’s why I was late—last,” she corrected, trying to remember that she wasn’t technically late and fined unless she showed up after 6:00 p.m. “A mama bison. Well, soon to be—she’s going to have a calf soon.”

      “A baby bison?” Audie’s pigtails bobbed. “Are they cute?”

      Brooke thought of the massive head with the enormous brown eyes that stared her down on the road and tried to imagine it miniaturized into baby form. Impressive, maybe, but not cute. Then again, the man who’d ridden to her aid could be called both impressive and cute, if she were inclined to classify, but there were several dozen professional reasons not to pursue that avenue.

      “So when I can meet them?”

      “The ranchers?” Gunner Buckton didn’t look like the kind of man to take a shine to field trips.

      “No, silly, the mama bison. That’d make the best report ever—totally better than armadillos. Maria and I would get an A for sure. Please, Mom? Can I?”

      Suddenly, this didn’t seem like the academic ace in the hole anymore. For all her community-relations skills, Buckton didn’t seem likely to cooperate if she came to him with a request for an “up close and personal” with one of his herd. “I don’t know.”

      “I could interview the man who owns her. I could interview the mama bison. Get my picture with her. That’d be loads better than just looking stuff up on the internet. Maria would just die if we could add that to our report.”

      The eagerness in Audie’s eyes made Brooke want to cringe. “He’s just someone Mommy met on the road. I don’t think he’ll say yes.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ