McKettricks of Texas: Garrett. Linda Miller Lael

cotton skirt with a ruffled top to match, and her hair fell past her shoulders in a sumptuous tumble of spun gold. Her skin and teeth were perfect.

      “We were supposed to have barbecue at Aunt Libby’s,” Calvin said gravely, though he allowed Gordon to steer him toward the blonde and the table.

      The evening to come, Julie knew, would be pivotal, changing all their lives forever, even if it went well. If, on the other hand, things went badly …

      Julie reined in her imagination.

      “Hush, Calvin,” she said, looking around. The scarred café tables, the patched-vinyl chair seats and backs, the crisply pressed gingham curtains—all of it was familiar, and therefore comforting.

      “I’m Dixie,” Gordon’s wife said, as he pulled back a chair for Julie.

      “Julie,” she responded—warmly, she hoped—once she was seated. Calvin took the chair beside hers, and Gordon sat with his wife, the two of them beaming at Calvin, drinking him in with their eyes.

      A sort of haze descended, at least for Julie. Later, she would remember that Gordon had been wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt, and that Dixie had ordered a chef’s salad with Thousand Island dressing on the side, and that nothing of staggering importance had been said, but she would not be able to recall what she’d eaten, or what Calvin had, either.

      After dessert—there had been dessert, because Calvin had a smudge of something chocolate on the clean shirt he’d put on after his bath, back at the ranch house—Dixie produced a digital camera from the depths of her enormous cloth handbag and took what seemed like dozens of pictures—Calvin by himself, Calvin posing with a crouching, grinning Gordon.

      Telephone numbers were swapped, and Dixie promised to e-mail copies of the photographs as soon as she and Gordon got home.

      Calvin, though polite, seemed detached, too.

      After the goodbyes were said in the parking lot, and he was safely buckled into his car seat in the back of the Cadillac, Julie slipped behind the wheel and waited a beat before speaking.

      “So,” she said, as Dixie and Gordon went by in their big blue SUV, Gordon flashing the headlights to bright once, in cheery farewell. “That’s your dad. What do you think?”

      Calvin was quiet.

      “Calvin?” Julie finally prompted, adjusting the rearview mirror until her son’s face was visible.

      At some length, Calvin huffed out a sigh. “I thought it would be different, having a dad,” he said. “I thought he would be different.”

      “What do you mean?” Julie asked carefully, making no move to start up the car, though she had pressed the lock button as soon as she and Calvin were both inside.

      “I was hoping he’d turn out to be a cowboy,” Calvin admitted. “Like Tate and Garrett and Austin.”

      “Oh,” Julie said, at a loss.

      “But he’s a builder guy instead,” Calvin mused.

      “That’s good, isn’t it? Building things?”

      “I guess,” Calvin allowed, sounding way too world-weary for a five-year-old. “I bet he gets to wear a hard hat and a toolbelt and cool stuff like that, but I kind of liked it better when I could still wonder, you know?”

      She did know. Calvin’s IQ was off the charts. Young as he was, he’d probably constructed a pretty imaginative Fantasy Father in that busy little head of his. Now, he was going to have to get to know the real one, and he was bright enough to see the challenges ahead.

      “Yeah,” she said, very gently. She hadn’t hooked up her seat belt yet, and turned sideways so she could look back at Calvin instead of watching him in the rearview. “Is something else bothering you, big guy?”

      Calvin took a long time answering. “Do I have to visit my dad someplace far away, like Audrey and Ava visit their mom in New York sometimes?”

      Julie’s heart slipped a notch. “Not unless that’s what you want,” she said, when she’d injected a smile into her voice. “And you don’t have to decide for a long time.”

      “Good,” Calvin said, and the note of relief in his voice brought tears to Julie’s eyes—again.

      She turned once more, facing forward now, waited a few breaths, hooked on her seat belt and started the car.

      “I thought I wanted a dad,” Calvin confided, when they were on the main road and headed out of town. “Now, I’m not so sure. I think maybe having Tate and Garrett and Austin for uncles might be good enough.”

      Julie swallowed. “Well,” she said, with manufactured brightness, “like I said, you don’t have to decide right away.” The Welcome to Blue River sign fell behind them, and it seemed to her that the night was subtly darker, the stars a little closer to the earth.

      “How come you got so mad about me riding the horse?” Calvin asked, when they were well out of town, almost to the tilted mailbox marking the turnoff to Libby and Tate’s little house. “I wasn’t all by myself, you know. I wouldn’t have gotten hurt, because Garrett was right there, behind me.”