he had tons of work ahead of him before he could sell. As Marvin the Realtor had pointed out when Kade had first contacted him, ramshackle houses, sagging fences and weedy pastures were not all that easy to market. Marvin might be new in the real-estate business, but he recognized the obvious.
Kade stepped into the kitchen. Number one, the fridge, which he’d avoided for the first few days while he’d concentrated on the other rooms. One look inside and he resigned himself to buying a new one. Not only was the appliance more than twenty years old, it was filled with an assortment of overgrown and dried-up … stuff that definitely qualified as biohazards. He shut the door, considered duct-taping it shut so that whatever was inside wouldn’t come creeping out during the night, and made arrangements over the phone for a new one.
By the time he was done, his gut was at boot level, but Marvin had also said that showing a house without decent appliances was not a smart idea. Trouble was, right now he didn’t have a lot of money. And what he did have was dwindling fast.
Zero had promised to call if he heard of any work, when Kade had finally gotten hold of him the night before, but there was nothing at the moment. It was kind of the way Kade’s luck had been running for the past five or six years, so he shouldn’t have been surprised.
Cleaning went better while he was focused on his lack of finances. The memories didn’t bite at him every time he opened a door or found something that reminded him of his teen years. He still hadn’t ventured into his dad’s room, but he’d pretty well gutted the living room and kitchen. He had his dad’s stock trailer loaded with stuff that he would take to the dump or to Goodwill. He didn’t want any reminders. He just hoped the tires on the trailer held out, because he didn’t want to replace them.
Kade finally left the house, exhausted, at six o’clock for his dump run. But he waited until eight to call his daughter, as per his ex-wife Jillian’s instructions—after Maddie’s birthday party, before bedtime.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said when she came on the phone, and as usual Kade felt a pull deep in his chest at the sound of her voice. “Let me tell you everything that’s been happening….”
Kade smiled and settled back in the lawn chair next to his horse trailer, propping his feet on the fender. “Shoot, kid.”
Maddie prattled on for at least five minutes, ending with, “And then Mike took us to the game, and after that, pizza.”
“Sounds excellent.”
“It was the best birthday ever,” Maddie concluded. “I wish you could have been here,” she added, but it sounded like a polite afterthought.
“Me, too.” Jillian and Mike had been married for two years. They had year-old twins Maddie adored, and they were raising Maddie in a much more stable home than the one he’d provided, being on the road with the rodeo for a good part of the year.
Which was the problem. Jillian was overcompensating for that earlier unpredictability by insisting that every aspect of Maddie’s life had to be stable. Therefore, she didn’t want Maddie visiting Kade for the two months he was supposed to have her during the summer. It hadn’t been such a problem when they’d all lived in Boise, but once Jillian and Mike had moved to Elko a year ago, it had become an issue.
“It’ll upset her routine. She has softball and dance….” Jillian hadn’t come out and said it, but Kade knew she wished he would disappear so that Maddie would have only one father—Mike.
“I’m going to horse camp this summer,” Maddie announced. “It’s my big present from Mike and Mom. Camp lasts for almost a whole month! Three and a half weeks!”
Kade felt his jaw tighten. “What month is that?”
“July.”
Which would make her two-month summer visit with him difficult, if not impossible. He wondered when Jillian had planned to break the news to him. And why it was all right for Maddie to be at a camp with strangers for three and a half weeks, but not with her own father.
“It’s in Boise,” Maddie continued, “so Grandma will be close in case I get homesick. And Shandy may be able to go, too!”
“Sounds cool.” Kade had tried to sound sincere.
“I really like the necklace you sent me.” Maddie happily jumped topics.
“Do you?”
“Yeah. Mom says I have to save it for good.”
“I want you to wear it, Maddie.” He tried not to contradict Jillian, figuring it was important that his daughter not sense hostility between the two of them, but this was getting ridiculous. Oh, yes. He and Jillian would be talking soon. “That’s why I bought it.”
“Okay. I’ll ask Mom if I can have it back. She’s keeping it safe for me.”
Kade decided to change the subject before he exploded. “I’m getting another horse.”
“Really? I hated it when you sold Blaze….”
Kade and Maddie talked about horses for several minutes more, the one love they shared that Jillian didn’t butt into, and then he heard Jillian announce it was bedtime.
“You better go, kiddo.”
“Yeah. Thanks for calling, Dad. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
The line clicked dead before he could say goodbye. Kade hung up feeling depressed. His daughter was growing up fast. So fast he was afraid that before he got his act together she’d be gone. And if Jillian had her way he’d never really get to be part of her life, just the bearer of gifts on her birthday and at Christmas. That wasn’t the role he wanted—or deserved.
The only times he hadn’t been part of Maddie’s life were when he’d been on the road rodeoing and making a living, and during the dark months after Jillian had left him, when he’d started drinking too much and messing up his life. Other than that, he’d been there, trying his best to do things right, to be a decent dad.
Hell, he was a decent dad—stellar by comparison to his own father. He walked over to the door of the trailer and stared out across the field at Libby’s place. He’d given up a lot to be a dad, but it was a sacrifice he’d had to make. He’d screwed up and he’d had to do the right thing.
His only regret was Libby.
CHAPTER TWO
THE MORE TIME KADE spent trying to fix the house, the more things he found wrong with it. Cracked moldings, saggy hinges, leaky plumbing, holes in the walls. Problems he needed to remedy if he wanted to hook a buyer for the property. He was on his second trip to the hardware store that day, trying to find a coupling for repairing the bathroom sink and knowing full well he’d probably discover some other part he needed, just as soon as he got home. Plumbing was like that.
“I heard you were back.” Startled, Kade looked up to see Jason Ross standing a few feet away, next to some big rolls of copper tubing. From his dark expression, it was clear Jason wasn’t there to welcome Kade.
“Hey, Jason. How are you?” Once upon a time they’d been friends, had ridden rodeo together in high school, but Jason didn’t appear to be all that friendly now. His lean
