Cowgirl Come Home (28 page)

“Hello, Austen,” her mother said pleasantly. “So good to see you. Thanks again for your contribution to the library Readathon. We’re here to see Chloe.” She held up a Readathon book bag. “I’ve brought her some new books. Is she awake?”

He didn’t move. His broad shoulders and thick barrel chest blockaded the doorway as unwelcoming as a cement wall, until a small, freckled hand appeared on his sleeve.

“Of course, Louise. Please come in. Chloe will be overjoyed to see you. And, Bailey,” Sarah Zabrinski said, her tone marginally less enthusiastic.
Because of Chloe’s accident or our shared past?
“Chloe’s been talking about you non-stop.”

Austen turned and walked away without a word.

Bailey entered the foyer and looked around. The place looked about the same as she remembered. A big, rambling ranch-style with a cathedral ceiling and lots of windows.

“Mrs. Zabrinski, I’m so sorry Chloe was injured because of one of my old videos. I honestly didn’t even know it was on YouTube until my dad told me. His friend, Jack—you heard about Jack and Marla Sawyer?—”

Sarah nodded, her expression grim.

“Apparently, Jack uploaded a couple of videos, thinking he was doing a good thing. A way for my dad and me to…”

Heal? Bond? Reach back for something lost?
Bailey honestly didn’t know.

Sarah Zabrinski closed the door.

“Chloe absolved you of any blame, Bailey. Luckily, this has turned into a teaching moment her parents are taking very seriously.”

Louise nodded. “We saw them moving Skipper this morning.”

Sarah sighed. “Yes. And Chloe’s no longer a Junior Princess candidate.”

Bailey approved—even though she had no say in the matter.

“That’s all any parent can hope, isn’t it?” Mom asked. “That your child learns from his or her mistakes…because we all make them.”

The simple truth carried a weightier message given their history, but Sarah opted to keep things superficial. Maybe life for her had been difficult enough without revisiting old issues. “Indeed it is. Did I hear you say you have books? They will be most welcome because Paul took away her phone and iPad, too. Follow me.”

She turned and led the way down the long hallway to the right.

To Paul’s room?

Sure, enough. Paul and Bailey spent many an hour in this room—with the door open. Feet on the floor. House rules.

Still dark blue walls, but, now, classy, framed panorama shots of Montana vistas and wild flowers replaced the Santana, Backstreet Boys and Shania Twain posters. Paul’s twin bed had been switched out for a queen, the comforter a modern pattern with bold silver, red and navy stripes. Chloe looked small and utterly out of place in it.

“Bailey,” Chloe cried. “I told Uncle Austen you’d come. He said you were probably really, really mad at me for doing something so stupid.”

Bailey detested that word. Her dad’s favorite word when he was on a drunken rant. She carried the flowers to the bedside table and set them on a copy of Montana Rancher magazine. Hands on her hips, she leaned down and said, “I’m furious with you, actually.”

Chloe’s eyes went big. “You are?”

“I am. I nearly threw up when I heard you were hurt. And then somebody said you were trying to do one of my old stunts. I never would have forgiven myself if you’d been permanently injured, Chloe. My stomach is in knots just thinking about it.”

She sat on the bed and pulled the little girl into a hug. “Promise me you’ll never try anything like that again.”

“I promise,” Chloe said, her tone a squeaky peep.

“Good.” She pressed a kiss to the little girl’s head then sat back. “Do you know why I wasn’t hurt or killed doing that trick?”

“Why?”

“Because my horse, Charlie, took care of me. He never would have let anything bad happen to me…if he could prevent it.

“I dislocated my shoulder in college because Charlie had a sore ligament and I had to borrow another horse to finish my heat. Until that moment I hadn’t realized how truly special he was. How much he meant to me.” She could name a few other instances that she’d minimized someone’s importance to her, too.

“Are you saying Skipper isn’t the horse Charlie was?” Sarah asked.

“He might be. Someday. If Chloe loves him and works with him and the two of them build an unbreakable bond.”

Chloe’s eye brightened. “If we do all that, will you teach me some tricks?”

“She might not be here, honey,” Sarah said. “Once her dad is better, Bailey will be going back to California. Right, Bailey?”

Bailey hated that rumor. She had a hunch who started it.

She turned and looked Paul’s mother in the eyes. “Actually, I’ve decided to stay in Marietta. Sage Carrigan told me the best way to establish a place in the market is through branding. My brand is Western Bling Montana-style, born and raised in Marietta.”

Bailey couldn’t read Sarah’s expression. Not that it mattered whether Paul’s mother believed her or not. Bailey had made up her mind to stay and that wasn’t going to change—whether Paul hated her or not.

*

“I love your
daughter.”

OC gripped the handles of his walker a little tighter—glad for the support. His prosthetic felt like a dead weight keeping him rooted to the floor of Building-A, but Paul Zabrinski’s forceful pronouncement nearly made him take a step back.

At least if we’re going to have this out, I’m facing the man eye-to-eye, not sitting in a stinking wheelchair.

“You have a lousy way of showing it.”

Louise and Bailey were due back any minute from visiting Chloe Zabrinski and here stood the little girl’s father proclaiming his so-called
love
for OC’s daughter. The old OC would have grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and marched the damn fool outside to have a go at it.

He looked down at the boot filled with its fake foot sticking out of his pant leg and almost laughed. His marching days were as long gone as his fighting days.

And the funny part was…he didn’t care all that much.
Wouldn’t Jack get a charge out of that?
He relaxed his grip on his walker.

“I know. But in my defense, I’m a dad. I reacted like a dad. I remember another dad reacting poorly when his daughter was in trouble and looking at something that might have changed—possibly ruined—her life.”

OC hauled in a deep breath—
God, I miss cigarettes
—and let it out. “I blamed you back then. You blamed Bailey this time. Where does that leave us?”

“Both wrong. Bailey and I loved each other. We still do, although I may have made it impossible for her admit that. Which is why I need your help.”

He took a step closer, his thigh bumping the table. One of the wire
trees
OC made to display jewelry wobbled back and forth but stayed upright. “And your blessing.”

OC cleared the lump in his throat. “You’re gonna ask her to marry you?”

“Tonight.”

OC shook his head and let out a low whistle. “Don’t you know anything about women, boy? It’s going to take her months to forgive you. Years, mebbe.”

Paul planted his hands on the table. “I know Bailey. She has the biggest heart of any person I’ve ever met. It’s full of forgiveness. She forgave
you
, didn’t she?”

The man had a point. Even at his worst, his daughter would pick his stinking, puke-covered body off the floor of the bar and take him home.

“She came home when you needed her even though her health wasn’t a hundred percent. And back when she was…”

Even after all these years, he can’t say the word.
I really underestimated the man.

“She picked you over me that time, OC, but this time you’re going to make sure she picks me.”

OC’s respect for Paul Zabrinski shot up into the rarified stratosphere reserved for a very few. And every point the man made rang true. If Bailey somehow managed to love the worst father in the world, she’d figure out a way to forgive Paul.

“What’s our plan?”

Six hours later, OC’s wheelchair rolled to a stop a foot from his daughter’s booth. He’d exchanged his walker for the wheelchair at Paul’s suggestion. A prop.

The big exhibit hall was nearly empty. Several shops had closed up early, he noticed. From the talk he’d heard this morning, most of the vendors were happy with the two-week length of the fair but all were exhausted—both physically and inventory-wise.

Louise stepped from behind his chair to walk to the rear table where Bailey was sitting, feet elevated on a tower of empty plastic bins.

What a trooper she is.
For two weeks straight, she’d been unstoppable whether she was selling jewelry, schmoozing with the public, encouraging her staff or staying up late back at the Fish and Game making more jewelry. He’d never been more proud. And he planned to tell her that on their walk to the Midway.

Paul’s plan required OC to persuade Bailey to take a few carnival rides together. A father-daughter thing.

“Stretch the truth. Tell her you regret never doing this kind of thing when you were drinking. Call it your last chance bucket list or something,” Paul had suggested.

Not far from the truth, either.
Since Jack’s death, OC had been thinking a lot about all the shoulda, woulda and couldas in his life.

But seeing the look of exhaustion on his daughter’s face made him wish he could call Paul to postpone. Unfortunately, tonight was the last night of the carnival. The carnies would be on the move tomorrow and Paul was adamant. “It has to be the Ferris wheel tonight, OC. You owe us this.”

“Let’s go, Queen Bee.”

Bailey’s head shot up. “Where?”

He held up the fistful of ride tickets Paul had given him. “Last night for fun.”

Bailey looked at her mother as though he’d spoken in tongues and she needed an interpreter.

“Let me close up, honey. Your dad is antsy. He insists this might be his last fair, and he wants you to go on some rides with him.”

“His last? Why?” Bailey looked at him. “Now what, Dad? You’ve just learned you have a rare kind of cancer and only have a few weeks to live?”

Had he ever appreciated her snappy temper? Doubtful. “No. I’m healthy as a three-legged horse. But after what happened to Jack, I’m not taking anything for granted.”

Her expression remained skeptical, so he added, “And I feel guilty. I never took you on rides when you were a little girl. It’s not too late to make amends, is it?”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “I appreciate that, Dad, but I’m wiped out. Could we do it next year?”

He put on his best sad face. “I don’t know. Can we? A lot can happen in a year.”

She closed her eyes a moment, before reaching deep inside for the energy to give him what he wanted.

She righted her shoulders. “Okay. Let me wrap my ankle and get my boot on.”

“Is your foot bothering you more than usual?” Louise asked, handing Bailey the flesh-tone elastic bandage.

“No. It’s fine.”

Even from a distance, OC could tell her ankle looked puffy and red.

Louise’s expression came through crystal clear. “See? She’s just like you. Always hiding her pain.”

This afternoon, Louise had watched him like one of those hover-mothers she’d told him about who never let their children out of their sight. With good cause. She knew from experience that big emotional decisions triggered—or, at least, provided a convenient excuse—to over-indulge. And once he started down liquor’s path, OC was powerless to make a detour.

She was smart to worry. Ever since Paul left here, the siren’s call of drink had hummed through OC’s mind like an old, familiar melody. But whenever his fingers itched to pick up a bottle, he’d picture the look on Bailey’s face when she learned Chloe Zabrinski had fallen off her horse trying to replicate one of Bailey’s tricks.

Guilt.
Taking responsibility for something that wasn’t her fault.

He’d seen that look before. When she drove him home from the bar on the nights he was blind drunk. When she stepped between him and Luly to keep their argument from getting out of hand. His girl blamed herself for a thousand things beyond her control—her father’s alcoholism, her husband’s actions, her mother’s choices—and she’d learned that behavior from one person—him.

From talking with strangers on the online support group Bailey suggested he join, OC saw how he’d let guilt, anger and pain feed his self-destructive tendencies. For some reason, he’d blamed himself for his mother’s suicide and his father’s temper. He’d had the bad luck to grow up without any real love in his life and he hadn’t trusted his wife and daughter to love him unconditionally.

“Just a ride or two,” Louise said. “He’s been as hepped up as a kid all today. But none of the dangerous ones, OC. The Merry-Go-Round…and maybe the Ferris wheel.”

Bailey pulled on a cowgirl hat adorned with sparkly rhinestones and peacock feathers. “Okay, Dad. Why not? I survived my first fair in fifteen years. That’s got to be cause for celebration, right?”

Then she did something surprising. She reached out and took his hand.

Lucky for Paul, OC thought, Bailey never gives up on someone she loves.
Just like her mother.