Rodeo Dad Read online

  “Benjamin,” Johnny began, knowing he needed to stop that particular dream from taking root in his son’s head. “You know that isn’t going to happen.”

  “I know.” Benjamin sighed heavily. He popped a chip into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “Did you live here when you were a boy?”

  “Yes, and my dad lived here when he was a boy,” Johnny explained.

  Benjamin looked at him curiously. “Where’s your dad now?”

  Johnny hesitated, as always a black void yawning inside him at thoughts of his father. “I don’t know. He left my mom and me when I was six ”

  Amazing that after all the years, Johnny could still remember so vividly sitting on this very porch, waiting for his father to return. He’d sat there from sunup to sundown for three days before his mother finally told him his dad was never coming home.

  “He left and never came back?”

  “Nope. He never came back.”

  Benjamin’s hand reached out and curled around Johnny’s. So small in comparison, yet containing a wealth of compassion. At that moment Johnny wished it were in his power to give his son the earth, moon and stars.

  Later that evening, when he took Benjamin home, he didn’t get out of the truck. Instead he watched as Marissa opened the door to welcome her son. “Want to come in?” she called from the porch.

  He shook his head, waved goodbye and drove off. After spending the entire day with Benjamin, he felt oddly vulnerable, too vulnerable to spend any time with Marissa.

  The next morning, Johnny stood on the porch, watching the sun rising over his land, remembering how difficult life had been for his mother. She worked the ranch day in and day out. Unable to afford the kind of help they needed, she worked herself to death trying to make the ranch profitable.

  When Johnny was a young teenager, he begged his mother to sell the ranch. He knew they could get a good price for the land, and she could live the rest of her life comfortably in a smaller house in town. She was appalled at the very suggestion.

  “This is all I have to give you, Johnny. The ranch is your legacy. Your grandpa gave it to your father, and one day it will be yours,” she’d said.

  And now it was his inheritance to pass on to Benjamin. But at the moment, in its current condition, it was an empty bequest. A ranch with no livestock, land with no crops.

  Initially, when Johnny had thought of coming back home to Mustang, it had been with the sole purpose of finding Sydney’s killer and clearing his name Now he had a dual challenge, to find a killer and create a dream ranch to pass on to his son.

  Over the next couple of days, Johnny kept busy, repairing and painting the old house, cleaning out the barn and mowing the areas of lawn and pasture that had grown into weeds. At night, he studied the files he’d found among his mother’s things, files that chronicled the murder of Sydney Emery and the ensuing investigation.

  He spoke to Benjamin on the phone every day after school, although he didn’t speak to Marissa. He consciously stayed away from her, needing to focus all his energies on work. He knew that when he was around Marissa, his mind tended to wander to other kinds of activities.

  But he also knew that he needed to give Marissa some space. He knew how difficult it was for her to have him suddenly back in her life, in her son’s life.

  By the weekend, Johnny had done as much as he could with the funds he had available. The house sported a new coat of paint, the surrounding lawn was neat, and he’d carted off dead tree limbs, broken machinery and other trash that had accumulated in his absence.

  His mother had left behind a small life insurance policy, but the amount wouldn’t accomplish what he needed.

  Johnny needed seed money, he needed capital to build his ranch. With this thought in mind, Saturday afternoon, he took off for a one o’clock appointment with Gary Feeney, the loan officer at the Mustang First National Bank.

  As he drove by Flowers By Marissa, a pang of unexpected pride filled him.

  She’d done it.

  Owning a flower shop had been Marissa’s dream when she’d been eighteen. On those nights they’d shared, she’d talked of her dream, imagining a chic little shop where everyone would order special arrangements for special occasions.

  She’d accomplished her dream, despite the burden of being a single parent. She’d gone after what she wanted and gotten it, while he was just starting to think about what he wanted.

  He parked in front of the bank and drew a deep breath. Johnny had never liked to ask anyone for anything, but he knew it took money to make money. He raked a hand through his hair, wondering if perhaps he should have gotten a haircut before meeting with Feeney.

  “To hell with it,” he muttered. Short hair or shaggy. it wouldn’t matter when it came to a loan.

  He walked into the hushed, cool interior of the bank and instantly felt the stares of half a dozen people. He’d almost gotten accustomed to it, but not quite. In the past week of being home, he knew he’d been the latest subject of speculation and gossip.

  Approaching the woman at the teller window, he was grateful he didn’t recognize her. “Hi. May I help you?” Her friendly, almost flirtatious smile indicated she had no idea who he was or the crime he’d been convicted of.

  “I have a one o’clock appointment with Gary Feeney,” he explained.

  “If you’ll wait just a moment, I’ll see if Mr. Feeney is ready for you.” She disappeared from the counter and returned moments later, the smile and the flirting twinkle in her eyes now absent. Apparently in the moments she’d been gone, somebody had filled her in on his sins of the past. Anonymity lasted only so long in a town the size of Mustang.

  “Mr. Feeney is waiting.” She pointed to a doorway nearby. “If you go through that door, Mr. Feeney’s office is the second on the right.”

  “Thank you.” Johnny left the counter and walked toward the doorway, his back tingling with the strength of the stares that followed him.

  Feeney’s office door was closed. Johnny knocked on the hard wood, the sound echoing in the long hall.

  “Come in,” Gary Feeney’s voice drifted through the door to Johnny.

  Johnny opened the door and walked into a small, windowless office Gary sat behind a large, walnut desk. Johnny approached, a hand held out in greeting.

  “Have a seat, Johnny,” Gary said, ignoring the outstretched hand.

  Johnny sat in one of the two chairs facing the desk, a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. It didn’t bode well that the short, balding man hadn’t shaken his hand.

  “What can I do for you today?” Gary focused back on the paperwork laid out in front of him, as if Johnny didn’t warrant his full attention.

  Anger was bubbling over in Johnny, but he swallowed it, not wanting to ruin his chances of obtaining a loan because he couldn’t control his emotions from breaking loose. “Generally when one comes to talk to a loan officer, it’s because he is seeking a loan.”

  “Generally when a man comes to see me concerning a loan, he either has a job or something substantial to offer as collateral,” Gary replied, still not bothering to look up.

  “I have collateral. I have my land.”

  Johnny’s comment now garnered Gary’s full attention. He laughed, a low, unpleasant sound. “Everyone knows the Crockett land isn’t worth anything. Hell, your old man deeded it to your mama because he knew it was worthless.”

  “That’s not true,” Johnny returned, still feeling anger swelling in his chest. “The land is as good as any in the state of Montana.” He leaned forward, needing to connect with this man who held the key to his future...his son’s future. “I can turn that land into a prosperous ranch, all I need is a chance and a little capital.”

  “We don’t give chances or loans to murderers.” The words were said slowly, distinctively, as if Gary thought perhaps Johnny suffered some sort of brain damage.

  The words sliced through Johnny, leaving an open, gaping wound that momentarily left him speechless. Gary’s negat
ive attitude wasn’t about how good or poor the Crockett land was, it was about the Emerys, and the power they wielded in Mustang.

  Johnny stood, knowing his business here was finished. “Say hello to the Emerys for me,” he said as he started toward the door.

  Gary smiled. “I will. Rachel, Brad and Gillian are three of our most valued customers here at Mustang First National Bank.”

  Johnny held the vision of Gary’s self-satisfied smirk inside as he stormed out of the bank. On the sidewalk, he paused, trying to think past the anger, past the emptiness of failure.

  He had a feeling there was little point in trying to establish accounts at the feed store or any of the other businesses in town.

  The Emerys would be “valued customers” every place in Mustang, and Johnny had a feeling no proprietor would be willing to buck the Emerys to aid him in any way.

  So he was finished before he got started, beaten before any fight had begun. He’d grown up with nothing, and it looked as if he’d die with nothing.

  An inner voice railed against the hopelessness that tried so desperately to crush him in its grip. If it were just himself he had to worry about, it would be easy to give up, roll over and play dead. But it wasn’t just his future at risk...it was Benjamin’s as well.

  Johnny climbed into his truck and leaned his head against the backrest. He didn’t want to go home, but he didn’t have any other place to go. There was no place in Mustang he would be welcomed.

  It wasn’t until he was headed back to his ranch that he remembered there was at least one place in town where he could go and nobody would give him a second glance.

  The Roundup invited the kind of anonymity Johnny hadn’t enjoyed since coming back to Mustang. The bar, housed in a flat wooden building with a neon cowboy flashing from the roof, was just as Johnny remembered it.

  Although he’d been too young before prison to spend any time in the dive, he, along with his peers, had known the Roundup was a place where the men on the fringes of society relaxed. Just as a temple beckoned the God-fearing, the Roundup encouraged the heathens.

  Despite the early hour, there were several trucks parked in the gravel lot. Johnny parked his own truck and got out. The anger, coupled with the despair that had stirred in him earlier, still beat inside his stomach as he walked into the dim, smoky confines of the bar.

  He sat at a table by himself, one where he could sit with his back against the wall and see everyone who came in. In the past ten years, he didn’t know what might have changed. For all he knew the Emerys might own the place now and some hulking, bruising bouncer would attempt to eject him.

  Instead of a bouncer, an attractive blond waitress approached his table. “What can I get for you, cowboy?” she asked.

  “A bottle of beer, it doesn’t matter what kind.”

  She nodded and drifted away. A beer and a plan, that’s what he needed. The waitress returned with an ice-cold, inviting bottle of beer, and Johnny took a long, deep draw. Leaning back in the chair, he relaxed and mused over the morning’s events.

  Intellectually, he couldn’t blame the Emerys for hating him, for trying to make his life as difficult as possible. They truly believed he’d killed Sydney.

  Emotionally, their hatred of him, their desire to see him destroyed was difficult to take. He’d never really gotten an opportunity to grieve for Sydney, who had been a beautiful, troubled young woman. Johnny had loved Sydney like a sister. The horror of finding his best friend’s body still haunted his nights.

  But his grief for her had gotten all tangled up with his arrest and the death of his personal freedom. Her loss had become his as well, and it was difficult to separate the two in his mind.

  He took another drink of beer, overwhelmed by the fact that he had no idea where to begin to find out the truth about who killed Sydney. He’d read and reread the newspaper articles and reports his mother had saved, but they contained nothing that pointed a finger to anyone but him.

  Even if he never discovered Sydney’s murderer, he had to figure out some way to get some money for the ranch. It was impossible for him to build anything for Benjy without some funds.

  “Refill?” The waitress appeared, breaking into Johnny’s thoughts.

  “No, thanks. But maybe you can give me some information. You know anyone who’s looking for help on any of the ranches in the area?”

  She shrugged her slender shoulders. “I wouldn’t have a clue. But you might ask Cameron.” She pointed to a man sitting at the bar. “He might know somebody.”

  “Thanks.” Johnny finished his beer before he approached Cameron. “Excuse me, I was wondering if I might talk to you,” Johnny said to the dark-haired, somber-looking man.

  The man’s gaze darted to the stool next to him, inviting Johnny to sit. “Okay.”

  Johnny slid onto the empty stool and held out his hand. “I’m Johnny Crockett.” He waited for his hand to be avoided, for an expression of revulsion to twist the man’s features.

  “Cameron Gallagher,” the man replied, shaking Johnny’s hand with a firm grip.

  “Can I buy you another drink?” Johnny gestured to the nearly empty glass in front of Cameron.

  “No, thanks.” Cameron offered Johnny a friendly smile. “You see, my wife is at home preparing for a surprise party she’s throwing me for my birthday. I told her I had a couple errands to run so she’d have some time alone to get things ready. I don’t think she’d appreciate me returning home three sheets to the wind.”

  Johnny smiled, a tinge of envy winging through him as he saw the warmth that lit Cameron’s eyes at the mention of his wife. “Happy birthday,” he offered.

  “Thanks. So, what can I do for you?”

  “The waitress mentioned you might know someone who might be looking for some part-time help.” It was the most difficult thing Johnny had ever asked. Men who owned their own ranches didn’t work for others.

  Cameron eyed him for a long moment. It was an intense, searching gaze, and Johnny met it unflinchingly. “I could use a pair of extra hands on my place a couple days a week.”

  “I’m a hard worker,” Johnny replied.

  Cameron nodded, a frown wrinkling across his brow. “Johnny Crockett...why is that name familiar?”

  Resignation speared through Johnny, the sharp sword of opportunity found, then lost. “I recently got out of prison,” Johnny said flatly.

  Cameron waved his hand dismissively. “I knew that... this is something else.” He snapped his fingers. “You used to be quite a bull rider, right?”

  Relief soared through Johnny. He nodded.

  “Yeah, a couple of my ranch hands were talking about the upcoming rodeo, and one of them was wondering if you would enter the bull-riding contest.”

  “Upcoming rodeo?”

  Cameron nodded. “Mustang County Rodeo will take place here in town in two weeks. I hear there’s going to be a pretty decent purse for the bull-riding event. In the meantime, if you’re serious about looking for work, be at my place next Monday morning at six.”

  For the first time all day, hope rose up inside Johnny. Finally, a chance, a real chance.

  “Thanks,” he exclaimed as he stood. “I appreciate the opportunity. I’ll see you first thing Monday morning.”

  Johnny left the Roundup, his heart pounding with the promise of the future. Emerys be damned. He’d build something for Benjamin despite them.

  It wasn’t until he was halfway back to town that he realized he had impulsively headed for the flower shop.

  Funny, that instead of going back to his ranch, he couldn’t wait to share his plan for success with Marissa. He decided not to analyze the impulse and instead just followed it.

  Chapter 5

  “I’m back for the next load,” David Graham said as he flew into the flower shop.

  “Terrific, I’ve got five more arrangements ready for delivery,” Marissa exclaimed.

  The Saturday before Mother’s Day was one of the biggest days of the year for Marissa
. Usually she handled all the deliveries from the flower shop herself, but twice a year, on Valentine’s Day and this day, Marissa hired David to help her out.

  When she finished loading the teenager’s van with the arrangements to be delivered, she checked her watch. Almost three and she was already exhausted. Two more hours and she’d close up the store, change her clothes . and get over to the school where the end-of-the-year school program began at six.

  She sank down on a chair, enjoying the momentary peace and quiet of the store with no customers. The morning had been a deluge of people in and out, ordering last-minute flowers and plants for their mothers.

  Marissa remembered a Mother’s Day ten years ago when she’d sat in a field and watched while Johnny gathered wildflowers for his mother.

  She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, remembering the warmth of the sun on her face on that day, the sweet scent of the flowers that had surrounded her. After Johnny had picked enough of the flowers for a large bouquet, he and Marissa had made love in the cool, lush grass beneath a shady tall tree.

  Oh, how she’d loved him. He was unlike anyone she’d ever known. It didn’t matter to her that he had nothing tangible...he had dreams and ambition, and she’d wanted to be there to share his life with him.

  Suddenly the jangle of the bell above the door sounded, and she looked up, wondering if her thoughts had somehow managed to conjure him up.

  Johnny walked through the door with the confident stride and the jaunty smile she remembered from years ago.

  “You look like the cat who swallowed the canary,” she said, trying to ignore the quickening of her pulse at the sight of him. Surely her response was due to the bittersweet memories she’d just been indulging.

  “Ha, more like the canary who got bit by the cat.” Johnny swept his dark hat from his head. “I had an appointment earlier with Gary Feeney at the bank. I was hoping to get a loan.” He leaned a hip against the counter, handsome as sin and with a new light of assurance shining from his eyes.