his second retirement, he had come to Booth and settled down. The small Texas town reminded him a great deal of the sleepy little town in Montana where he’d grown up. But the winters up north were too harsh for him now, especially since, after twenty years in Southern California, he had grown accustomed to a warmer climate. Booth combined the weather of Southern California with the atmosphere of the Montana town that had once been his home. Settling here just seemed right to him.
His only concern had been leaving Lani behind, but he needn’t have worried. She followed soon afterward. She’d waited only long enough to see if he was happy in his newly adopted home. Once he said he was, she’d pulled up stakes and joined him.
“I’m working on it, Gunny. I’m working on it,” Lani answered as she walked into the small, welcoming kitchen.
Shrugging out of her sheepskin jacket, she dropped it on the back of one of the two chairs and smiled wearily at the squat bull of a man hovering over the twelve-quart stockpot.
Whatever he was stirring smelled like heaven, she thought. Whiffs of steam emerged, but her father didn’t seem to notice, or be bothered by the heat.
As she watched him, affection swelled in her heart. Gunny had single-handedly raised her after her mother had died. He liked to say that they had actually raised each other because, without her mom around, he’d had to grow up and become a full-time parent really fast. Lani loved him dearly.
When he had moved here, she hadn’t hesitated. Unable to imagine life without her father somewhere close by, she’d quit her job and followed him out. When she saw the position open for deputy sheriff, she’d jumped at the chance of doing something close to her own line of work.
“My money’s on you, kid,” Gunny said with conviction. “Dinner’s about ready, so don’t get comfortable. You’ve got work to do.”
Lani grinned and crossed to the kitchen cabinet over the counter next to the sink. That was where her father kept the dishes. He cooked; she set the table. It was a division of labor she could more than live with.
“Smells good,” she told him, pausing to take a deep whiff of the aroma coming from the stovetop.
She didn’t have to look to identify what was for dinner. Beef stew, made with lots of tiny potatoes, in addition to baby peas and petite carrots—just the way she liked it.
“Have I ever made anything that didn’t?” he asked, only half teasing. “Besides, nothing but the best for my girl.”
About to open the overhead cabinet to take down two plates, Lani abruptly stopped, and instead, crossed over to her father. Standing behind him, she wrapped her arms around his waist and, leaning her head against his broad back, gave him a fierce hug.
“Hey, what’s that all about?” Turning around carefully so that he faced her, and holding his large wooden spoon aloft, he returned the hug with his free arm.
“Just wanted to let you know that I realize how very lucky I am to have a father like you,” she murmured.
“Well, I can’t argue with perfect logic like that,” he acknowledged, then, gently moving her back so he could look at her face, Gunny became serious. “What happened?”
Lani took a deep breath before answering. As she talked, she stepped aside, allowing him to get on with what he’d been doing.
“The sheriff got a phone call today from some social worker out in New Mexico. His sister was in a bus accident.”
“She all right?” Gunny asked.
“No.” Lani shook her head. “She’s dead,” she told him grimly. “Piecing things together, I figured out that she grew up in Booth, and was coming back to live here with her daughter.” Opening the drawer where her dad kept the silverware, she stopped for a moment to say, “The sheriff didn’t even know his sister had a daughter.”
“Bad blood between them?” her father asked curiously.
“I don’t know,” Lani admitted. “There was some kind of misunderstanding, I think. Seems that his sister married someone just like the sheriff’s stepfather.”
Gunny thought for a moment and filled in the blanks. “Which put the sheriff’s nose out of joint?” It was more a question than a statement.
“I think it did more than that, but he won’t talk about it. The man won’t talk about anything,” she told her father, exasperated. “But I got the impression that life was hell for him when he was growing up under his stepfather’s roof.”
Now it all made sense. “Which is why you hugged me,” he stated.
“Kind of,” she admitted with a grin. Forks and knives in hand, she continued setting the table. “And also because I haven’t told you lately how grateful I am that you didn’t just ship me off somewhere when Mom died.”
“Can’t take too much credit for that.” Gunny smiled at his only offspring. “Nowhere to send you, really. Neither your mom nor I had any brothers or sisters. Her parents were both gone, and mine weren’t exactly the kind of people to leave in charge of a little girl.”
Lani knew that her grandparents on his side had both had more than their share of drinking issues, which made her marvel all the more about the kind of person their son had turned out to be. He’d been a little strict, but loving and oh so protective of her.
In the beginning, he had taken her with him whenever the Corps had moved him around the country. And when that became a problem, when it looked as if he was going to be stationed in a less than stable region of the world, he had resigned his commission. Just like that, he had opted to take the retirement he really wanted no part of, and had gone in search of a different career. Because of his background, and the degree he’d earned while in the marines, he’d become an engineer. For her.
Lani paused before taking out two tall glasses, and brushed her lips against the five o’clock shadow growing on his cheek. “Well, I appreciate the sacrifice.”
“Yeah,” he acknowledged with a dramatic sigh, “it’s been really hard putting up with a bratty kid all these years.”
She pretended to look at him sternly—as if she ever could. “I meant giving up your commission and entering the private sector.”
“Well, that didn’t turn out too bad,” he speculated. “Got to do my bit in defense of my country, just from another angle.” That was her father’s succinct summation of his years spent as an engineer in the aerospace-defense industry. “And now I get to be retired, cooking for you.”
“You’d cook whether I was here or not,” she pointed out.
“True, but it’s nice having a guinea pig,” he countered with a laugh. “Which reminds me. Come here, I need you to sample something.” Taking the wooden spoon in hand again, he dipped the tip of it into the pot he’d been stirring when she walked in, and held it out to her. “What do you think?” As she moved in to take a taste, he cautioned, “Careful, it’s hot.”
“Thanks for the warning,” she said drily. “I didn’t see the steam billowing out of the pot on the stove.”
He laughed, shaking his head as she sampled
