Page 42 of Brett and Rowdy
“I was a teenager, kiddo. I contemplated mayhem. In the end, though, I just bided my time.” And then he’d gone home where he belonged.
Of course, riding the rodeo maybe hadn’t been his smartest move, but hindsight was better than no sight. Or something silly like that.
She chuckled. “I bet you did. You can have a temper, Daddy, but you always get right in the head pretty quick.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He didn’t mind that one bit.
“It is. You don’t have Momma’s temper. She gets mad and she just stays that way.”
“Yeah, and I wonder whose temper you’ve got…” His girl could be a firecracker if some idiot shoved her over the edge.
Maddie whapped him on the shoulder, good and hard. “Hey! You know me, Daddy. I am absolutely even-keeled, the most gentle young lady you’ve ever seen in your whole life.”
He didn’t point out that he hadn’t seen her that way in fifteen years. “You know, God will strike you down for lying, child.”
He loved his little girl beyond all reason. However, gentle was a term that absolutely, one hundred percent, did not apply to his little girl.
“Yeah, well, what you gonna do?” She snuggled into his side. “I can’t believe my room is packed, that I finally get to come home next week.”
“Tell me about it.” He’d been waiting on this for most of his life. It broke his heart for Ash, because that woman was going to miss Madison like crazy, but he was excited. “Your pappy can’t wait to have you all to himself.”
“I think Kody will argue with that. He’s been calling every day, asking if I’m ready.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Pappy’s going to keep you pretty damn busy.”
“Good.” She sounded so damn satisfied. “I swear, I’m going to work so hard and help make the ranch even better. I want to make you proud, Daddy.”
Proud? He couldn’t breathe with it sometimes, how honored he was to be her father. “Oh, baby. Every day. Every single day.”
She hugged him tight, and then they just sat together for a minute, Barney snoring softly. He thought maybe Maddie had dozed off, but then she spoke again, “I still think it’d be kind of neat, you know, at some point to go and see all my people, all my friends when they’re adults.”
He had to fight the urge to snort. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, child, but guess what? You’re an adult.”
“God, when you say that out loud, it makes no sense. I don’t know. I sure don’t feel like an adult. I mean, did you, Daddy?”
He didn’t pretend not to know what she was asking about. “No, I don’t think so. I have felt like an adult a couple of times, I think, through my life, but for the most part, I’m just a fuckup, baby.”
“No, you’re my daddy.”
He nodded and found the Dr Pepper he was drinking, unscrewing the top. “Yes, well, unfortunately that does not stop me from screwing stuff up. Still, I don’t think any of us thinks that we’re grown-ups. I don’t think a single one of us has got this down. I think we all just toodle along and pray for the best, and when we get it, we feel like we’re adults, and when we don’t, we feel like we’re awful. And you know, that’s that.”
“Well, that’s kind of sad. I mean, you’re old, Dad. You mean to tell me you don’t know things?”
Mouthy girl. “Sure, I do. I know all sorts of things. But the simple fact is that I don’t know everything.”
“Well, who does?”
“Your pappy. Your pappy knows everything, and I tell you what, his daddy? My grandpa? There was nothing that man didn’t know. It was amazing. He could sing birds down out of the trees.” He had to smile, because he could imagine his own abuelito, the man’s smile just like his daddy’s.
“Oh, that’s kind of cool.”
“Yeah, he knew how to farm. He knew how to raise cattle. He had sheep.” He leaned back, warming to his story. “I can remember when I was little. We’d go over to the ranch where he was, because, you know, at that point, he lived in the big ranch house and we lived a few acres away.”
“In the baby house!”
He nodded. “Your pappy built it for us—him and me and granny.” He closed his eyes, winging a prayer up to her, just because. “He would go and he had these churro sheep like we have at the ranch now, and he’d shear them. And then myabuewould take that wool, and she would wash it and work with it and make yarn. Then, even neater, she wove amazing blankets.”
She bounced next to him. “Like the one that’s hanging up in the main room over the fireplace? The one with the birds?”
