He shook his head and shoved his phone into his pocket. “Better head out.”
“Your father?” India asked. “Everything all right?” There was concern in her green-blue eyes.
“He’s fine. Just being pigheaded is all.” He stood. “It was real nice to meet you, Cal.”
Cal frowned at him. “It was?”
Brody nodded. “It was.”
Cal leaned forward. “Aren’t you and Mom supposed to be enemies? You’re a Wallace and she’s a Boone. Everyone in Fort Kyle knows the Wallaces and Boones don’t like each other.”
Brody looked at India. “Is that so?” He’d grown up in the shadow of the feud between India’s father and his own. It was nonsense, really. His uncle had lost his part of the Wallace ranch to Woodrow Boone in a heated poker game. Woodrow won, he had the deed to prove it, but his father had been crying foul ever since. A few public yelling matches, several fistfights and their never-ending smear campaign against one another had turned a fair, if ridiculous, game of poker into a legendary feud.
India rolled her eyes. “Stop, Brody.”
How he loved hearing his name from her lips. “Your papa and my daddy might not get along. But I’ll tell you a secret.” He leaned forward, whispering loudly. “Your mom is one of my favorite people. I never cared much what her last name was.” He paused, glancing at Sara. “But if you’re worried about it, Cal, we can keep this quiet.”
Sara nodded. “I won’t tell a soul.”
Cal nodded, smiling. “Probably best. Papa gets loud when he gets upset. And he gets upset a lot.” Brody exchanged a grin with India. Cal continued. “’Sides, you’re nice. Mom needs nice friends.” He patted his mother’s hand.
Brody glanced at India again, struck by that distant look in her eyes. She was still smiling, but it was taking effort. He just didn’t know why. “I can do that,” he said. “Always liked being Goldilocks’s best friend.” He touched his hat. “I’ll be seeing you around. Bet my girls would love to hear all about the dinosaurs, Cal.”
“I don’t care much for mermaids,” Cal said, looking doubtful.
Brody chuckled. “That’s okay. Me neither.”
“It was so good to see you,” India said. “Really.”
He smiled. “Maybe we’ll run into each other again? Say, Tuesday. The Soda Shop still have a chicken fried steak dinner special on Tuesday, Sara?”
“We sure do,” Sara agreed.
“I might just be here around, say, six o’clock on Tuesday, having one. If you two decide you’re hungry about that time.” He winked at Cal.
Cal smiled. And so did India.
He walked out of the Soda Shop before he did something stupid. Like hug her again. Or ask her to go on a date with him. Or sit there and stare at her...
He was knocked back a few feet, a solid blow to the shoulder catching him by surprise.
“Watch where the hell you’re going—” Woodrow Boone broke off, his eyes narrowing.
“My apologies, Mr. Boone.” Brody touched his hat. “Didn’t see you there.”
The man gave him a slow toe-to-head inspection. “Didn’t see me? How’s that?” He frowned. “Something wrong with your eyes, boy?”
Brody bit back a grin. “No, sir.”
Woodrow Boone grunted and pushed past him into the Soda Shop.
“You have a good day,” Brody called out, not bothering to wait for a response from his father’s self-proclaimed enemy.
Brody climbed into his bright red truck, threw it into Reverse and headed down Fort Kyle’s main drive from town. Miles of dirt roads, cattle guards, cacti and tumbleweeds led him home to Wallace ranch. By the time he’d reached the main house, he’d pushed all thoughts of Woodrow Boone aside. Taking care of his family came first, even if Brody’s father was determined to challenge him.
“You realize there haven’t been fireworks in two years, Brody?” asked Miss Francis, Fort Kyle’s busybody with a heart of gold who had the scoop on everyone. “And we’re not a stop on the West Texas Rodeo circuit. And the bike race we started a couple years back, to help the fort—it’s all but disappeared.”
There was no denying this was a sad development. Fort Kyle received only so much money from the state, a fact he knew from serving on the fort’s nonprofit board. And losing the rodeo? Rodeo brought in dollars, heads in beds and outside marketing—all good things for a small town off the beaten path. But what the hell was he supposed to do about it? Of all the things to fall on his plate since returning home, Miss Francis had been chosen by some “concerned townsfolk” to convince him he was the town’s best option for the upcoming mayoral election.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t interested, he was. But taking on a task that big would conflict with his current family responsibilities—and there were lots of those. He needed to remember that. He glanced up from where he squatted at his daughter’s side, tucking Amberleigh’s arm back into her sundress. Amberleigh wasn’t fond of clothes. Or shoes. A fact that kept him and his mother trailing after his little girl.
“We’ve lost the Monarch Festival. Mayor Draper seems to think it’s silly.” The older woman’s sales pitch was interrupted by sweet Marilyn, offering a mud pie with a smile. “Oh, thank you, Marilyn.” Miss Francis, a grandmother many times over, took the small plastic plate covered in mud.
Marilyn’s grin grew. She was pleased as punch—and covered with mud. “Welcome.”
He could imagine his girls chasing after the clouds of monarchs that visited Fort Kyle on their migratory path. The town had always turned their arrival into something special, closing up shops and keeping as many cars off the road as possible to prevent damage to the hundreds of thousands of monarchs. The festival and cattle drive—the short trek from Alpine to Fort Kyle—rounded things out. “How did we lose a festival?” He ran a hand over his face. “Don’t eat the mud, Suellen, sweetie.”
“’Kay, Daddy.” Disappointment lined Suellen’s face. But she put her plastic spoon full of mud and dirt back onto her plate.
“Bet Nana has some cookies,” he offered, reaching for his coffee cup on the porch step. He took a sip, swallowing the now-cold liquid. Cold coffee was the norm. So were piles of laundry, playing pretend and braiding hair. He was an only child, and his mother was just as clueless about little-girl hairstyles as he was. Since tangles were the enemy, learning to braid had been an essential life skill.
How was he supposed to take care of his daughters, his parents, the ranch and Fort Kyle?
Amberleigh was going in circles, trying to pull her arm from her sundress. Lollipop, the white puffball of a dog his wife had given the girls last Christmas, spun along with Amberleigh.
“What’s
