Page 54 of Nanny for the Cowboy

“Take the rest of the day off. The ground is still plenty muddy. We should let things dry.”

The need to respond is too strong to fight, even as I have no idea what I’m doing. “Worried about me slipping on my ass?”

“Something like that, Lucky.” Brooks nods, his voice soft. “Something like that.”

With that, Brooks turns on his heel and leaves through the kitchen door, going outside. I don’t know what he’s doing since he just said he wants things to dry.

Still, I have no other choice but to listen to him. It’s not like I’m the expert, so I go to my room, closing myself up inside as I think about New York…and Red Lodge.

TWENTY

Clover

The mood in the house is better that evening, Brooks suggests that we have a family game night—one of Darby’s favorite activities. We order pizza instead of cooking, and even though it takes forever to get to us all the way out on the ranch, it’s hot when it arrives, and Darby is thrilled.

“We’re not that far from town. It’s like a fifteen-minute drive.” Brooks is teasing me, and I roll my eyes at him. “How long does it take to get delivery in the city?”

“Hmm,” I mumble, my mouth full of pepperoni that I have to swallow down quickly, “it depends. Are you doing pizza? Cuz there’s a pizza joint every block or so downtown. Asian, Italian, sandwiches? That might be a little longer. But to be honest, I didn’t do it much. I usually ate at work.”

Brooks rolls his stare up as he throws his head back for an exaggerated nod. “Oh, that makes perfect sense.”

“Oh, get out of here.” I toss a wad of napkins at him, but they don’t go far.

Laughing, Brooks just chews on his pizza slice, and Darby comes back from getting himself a glass of orange soda—his request.

“Okay, what are we playing? You said board games, so anything in particular?”

Darby lights up as I ask, and he takes a seat at the dining room table where we’ve gathered to both eat and play.

“Yes. You probably don’t know it, though. It’s not like a normal whatever game.”

Brooks struggles not to laugh at his kid as I look between the two of them. With a shrug, I gesture for Darby to continue.

“Okay, so what is it?”

Looking at his dad for just a moment—his expression like some fiendish villain ready to twirl a mustache—Darby grins.

“Small World.”

All I can do is laugh. “Well, you’re right. I’ve never heard of it. So go on. Teach me.”

It takes a bit for me to figure out the rules, but eventually, I get the hang of it. Still, the game is a bit similar to Risk as we have to play a group or population who’s looking to keep or gain control of a region.

The creatures we play are all fantasy in nature, and the tiny little world they’re all fighting for is set up on a hexagonal grid. I choose the amazons, while Brooks plays as the humans—quite the boring choice according to his son—and Darby picks the orcs.

We have to use our troops to push the other players off the earth, and while that sounds simple enough, I’ve determined that it is, in fact, really damn hard.

Oh, and that I suck at this game.

There are power cards and apparently a reason to let a bit of your troops just die, and after three rounds, I haven’t managed to win one game.

“Alright, I think I prefer Monopoly. At least when I lose at that, I can blame some of it on the fact that the game is designed to be rough on players.”

Both the dudes in the room laugh, and I just glare at them. “Yeah, yeah, Laugh it up. I hate this game.”

Brooks finishes his giggle fit, and I narrow my eyes on him as he reaches across the table and pats my arm.

“You can’t be good at everything.”

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