days later, Flint walked into the tack room to get out some saddles for the younger boys’ evening riding lesson. His two-year-old black Lab, Cowboy, trotted along beside him.
Only, the saddles weren’t there.
He looked around, wondering if one of the riding instructors had moved them, and then walked out into the main barn. Five minutes of searching didn’t turn them up.
That left one likely culprit. “Logan!”
Since Mrs. Toler had definitively quit, he’d had Logan around the barn after school, which had meant some extra trouble and mischief. But last night, Flint had called around, and the result was a friend for Logan to play with today. A friend from school, not the ranch.
Flint liked the kids here at the ranch, knew that most were decent boys who’d gotten in trouble due to home problems that weren’t their fault. But he didn’t want them to be Logan’s only friends. Martin Delgado was the son of a local doctor and, according to Logan, the smartest boy in the class.
What he should have asked Logan, Flint realized now, was how often the boy got in trouble.
Logan’s blond head peeked in the barn door and was immediately joined by a dark one. Both faces looked guilty.
Flint restrained a smile. “Did you take the saddles that were in the tack room?” They were heavy for Logan to carry alone, but with his friend’s help they could definitely be moved.
“We didn’t touch them.” Logan came farther in, relief on his face, and Martin followed.
At which point he saw why they’d been looking so guilty. Somehow they’d gotten into the paint he’d been using to touch up some fencing. They each had a white stripe down the backs of their shirts.
After he’d gotten an explanation—“we were playing skunk!”—and had taken the paint away from them, he set them to sweeping the barn floor under Cowboy’s watchful eye while he took one last look around for the saddles. He didn’t find them, and a couple of phone calls ascertained that no one else from the ranch had taken them anywhere. No adults, anyway.
Which meant this might very well be part of the recent small acts of sabotage that had been plaguing the region.
He was just punching in a text to his friend Heath Grayson, a Texas Ranger who was spending his spare time investigating the sabotage problem, when a familiar pickup approached. Heath Grayson himself got out.
“Just the man I want to see.” Flint pocketed his phone with the text message unsent.
Heath walked around the truck and toward Flint, holding up a cooler. The small bag on top of it produced a home-baked smell that made Flint’s stomach rumble. “Josie heard Mrs. Toler quit,” Heath explained, “so she sent over some of her famous mac and cheese for your dinner. Couple of giant chocolate chips cookies, too.”
At that, Logan came running out of the barn, followed by Martin. “Cookies! Can I have mine now, Dad?”
Flint thought. It was four thirty, and he had another hour or more of work to do around here before he could take Logan home and start dinner. Or rather, heat up dinner, thanks to Josie and Heath’s generosity. It was a long time for a hungry little boy to wait. “Sure. Say thank you to Mr. Grayson first.”
“Thanks!” Logan said, his eyes widening as he took the big cookie Heath held out to him.
“That’s big! Can I have some of it?” Martin asked.
“No way!” Logan turned away from the other boy.
“Logan.” Flint squatted down in front of his son, who was holding his cookie to his chest like the other boy might grab it.
Which, judging from Martin’s angry stance, might well happen.
“We share what we have,” he told Logan. “That’s what it means to be a friend.”
Logan’s expression was defiant, and worry pushed at the edges of Flint’s mind. How did you make sure a kid grew up right? He knew how to get Logan to do his chores and follow behavior rules, but what about the softer side, things like being generous and helping others?
Things that mattered most of all?
Something one of Logan’s Sunday school teachers had put into the church newsletter came to him. Values are caught, not taught.
He turned to Logan’s friend, inhaled the chocolate chip aroma regretfully, and held out the cookie bag. “Here, Martin. You can have my cookie.”
“Thanks, Mr. Rawlings!” Martin pulled the cookie out of the bag and took a big bite.
Heath was laughing. “You scored, Martin. That’s Mr. Rawlings’s favorite kind of cookie.”
Logan looked briefly ashamed, then his face lit up with a new idea. “Let’s climb up in the hayloft and eat them.”
“Cool!”
They turned, and then Logan stopped and looked over his shoulder. “Is that okay, Dad?”
“Sure, if you take it slow up the ladder.” Flint was glad to see Logan had asked permission.
“Can I go first?” Martin asked.
Logan opened his mouth, then shut it again, a struggle apparent on his face. He looked up at Flint.
Flint just waited.
“Yeah,” Logan said finally. “You can go first.”
Flint gave Logan a nod and a smile, and Logan’s face lit up again.
As the two boys ran toward the barn, Cowboy racing in circles around them, Heath chuckled. “I’m taking notes.” He’d just gotten engaged to Josie Markham, who’d been widowed right after discovering she was pregnant. Flint was pretty sure the wedding would happen sooner rather than later, because Heath wanted to help parent Josie’s baby from day one.
“Notes might help, but nothing’s going to prepare you for fatherhood. How’s Josie doing?”
“Okay, except she wants to keep working as hard as ever, and at almost seven months pregnant, she can’t do it all.”
“Thank her for me.” Flint gestured toward the cooler. “Logan’ll be glad to have something that’s not out of a box. And for that matter, so will I.”
Heath chuckled. “I’d rather have an MRE than your cooking.”
MREs. Meals Ready to Eat. The acronym, and the thought of military rations, brought back a wave of wartime memories for Flint, and a glance at Heath’s face showed the same had happened to him.
They’d been through a lot together.
The awareness was there, but neither of them wanted to bring it up. Some memories were best left sleeping. “How’s your grandpa?” Flint asked to change the subject. “Still planning a visit?”
Flint had helped track Edmund Grayson down last month. When old Cyrus Culpepper
