Page 2 of Mistletoe Cowboy

“I’m Parker. Who are you?”

“I’m Teddie. Teddie Blake. My mom lives over that way. We moved here about four months ago.” She made a face. “I don’t know anybody. It’s a new school and I don’t get along well with most people.”

“Me, neither,” he confessed.

Her eyes lit up. “Really?”

He chuckled. “Really. It’s not so bad, the town of Benton. I’ve lived here for a while. You’ll love it, once you get used to it. The palomino’s yours?” he added, nodding toward where the horse had run.

“Yes. He was a rescue. We live on a small ranch. It was my grandmother’s. She left it to my dad when she died. That was six months ago, just before he . . .” She made a face. “Mom’s a teacher. She just started at Benton Elementary School. I’m in fifth grade there. The ranch has a barn and a fenced lot, and they were going to kill him. The palomino. He hurt his owner real bad. The vet was out at our place to doctor Mom’s horse and he told us. I begged Mom to let me have him. He won’t like it,” she added with a sour face.

“He?”

“Mom’s would-be boyfriend from back East,” she said miserably. “He works for a law firm in Washington, D.C. He wears suits and goes to the gym and hates meat.”

“Oh.” He didn’t say anything more.

She glanced at his stony face and didn’t see any reaction at all. He’d long since learned to hide his feelings.

“Anyway, he says he’s going to come out and visit next month. Unless maybe he gets lost in a blizzard or captured by Martians or something.”

He chuckled. “Don’t sound so hopeful. He might be nice.”

“He’s nice when Mom’s around,” she muttered.

His face hardened. “Is he, now?”

She saw the expression. He wasn’t hiding it. “Oh, no, he doesn’t . . . well, he’s just mean, that’s all. He doesn’t like me. He says it’s a shame that Mom has me, because he doesn’t want to raise someone else’s child.”

“Are your parents divorced?”

She shook her head. “My daddy’s dead. He was in the army. A bomb exploded overseas and he was killed. He was a doctor,” she added, fighting tears.

“How long ago?” he asked, and his voice softened.

“Six months. It’s why Mom wanted to move here, to get away from the memories. My grandmother left us the ranch. She was from here. That lawyer helped Mom get Daddy’s affairs straight and he’s really sweet on her. I don’t think she likes him that much. He wanted to take her out and she wouldn’t go. He’s just per . . . per . . .”

“Persistent?”

She nodded. “That.”

“Well, we all have our problems,” he returned.

There was a sound of hoofbeats. They turned and there was the palomino, galloping back toward them.

“Wait here a sec. Don’t go toward him,” he added. “It’s a him?”

“It’s a him.”

“Be right back.”

He went to the stable and got a sack of oats. The palomino was standing in the road, and the girl, Teddie, was right where he’d left her. Good girl, he thought, she wasn’t headstrong and she could follow orders.

“Look here, old fellow,” Parker said, standing beside the dirt road. He rattled the feed bag.

The palomino shook his head, raised his ears, and hesitated. But after a minute, he trotted right to Parker.

“Pretty old creature,” Parker said gently. He didn’t look the horse in the eyes, which might have seemed threatening to the animal. He held a hand, very slowly, to the horse’s nostrils. The horse sniffed and moved closer, rubbing his head against Parker’s. “Have some oats.”