“Hey, squirt.”
“Hi,” she whispered. With hands that trembled just a little, she picked up Sigmund, the chubby calico cat she’d raised from a kitten, and plopped him in her lap.
“So I just got back from talking with Miz McKenzie.”
Lucy peered at him between the cat’s ears. She cleared her throat. “Um, what did she say?”
“I think you know exactly what she said, don’t you?”
She nodded, the big gray eyes she’d inherited from her mother wide with apprehension. As usual, he hoped to heaven that was the only thing Melanie had passed on to their daughter.
“You want to tell me what this is all about?”
She appeared to think it over, then shook her head swiftly. He bit his cheek to keep a rueful grin from creeping out at that particular piece of honesty. “Tough. Tell me anyway.”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Luce. What were you thinking, to sign me up for this Valentine’s carnival without at least talking to me first?”
“It was Dylan’s idea,” Lucy mumbled.
Big surprise there. Dylan Webster was a miniature version of her wacky mother. “Why?”
“She thought you’d be good at it, since you’re so important around here and can get people to do whatever you want. At least that’s what her mom says.”
He could picture Ellie Webster saying exactly that, with her pert little nose turned up in the air.
“And,” Lucy added, the tension easing from her shoulders a little as she stroked the purring cat, “we both thought it would be fun. You know, planning the carnival and stuff. You and me and Dylan and her mom, doing it all together. A bonding thing.”
A bonding thing? The last thing he needed to do was bond with Ellie Webster, under any circumstances.
“What do you know about bonding? Don’t tell me that’s something they teach you in school.”
Lucy shrugged. “Dylan says we’re in our formative preteen years and need positive parental influence now more than ever. She thought this would be a good opportunity for us to develop some leadership skills.”
Great. Now Ellie Webster’s kid had his daughter spouting psychobabble. He blew out a breath. “What about you?”
She blinked at him. “Me?”
“You’re pretty knowledgeable about Dylan’s views, but what about your own? Why did you go along with it?”
Lucy suddenly seemed extremely interested in a little spot on the cat’s fur. “I don’t know,” she mumbled.
“Come on. You can do better than that.”
She chewed her lip again, then looked at the cat. “We never do anything together.”
He rocked back on his heels, baffled by her. “What are you talking about? We do plenty of things together. Just last Saturday you spent the whole day with me in Idaho Falls.”
She rolled her eyes. “Shopping for a new truck. Big whoop. I thought it would be fun to do something completely different together. Something that doesn’t have to do with the ranch or with cattle or horses.” She paused, then added in a quiet voice, “Something just for me.”
Ah, more guilt. Just what he needed. The kid wasn’t even ten years old and she was already an expert at it. He sighed. Did females come out of the box with some built-in guilt mechanism they could turn off and on at will?
The hell of it was, she was absolutely right, and he knew it. He didn’t spend nearly enough time with her. He tried, he really did, but between the horses and the cattle, his time seemed to be in as short supply as sunshine in January.
His baby girl was growing up. He could see it every day. Used to be a day spent with him would be enough for her no matter what they did together. Even if it was only shopping for a new truck. Now she wanted more, and he wasn’t sure he knew how to provide it.
“Wouldn’t it have been easier to tell me all this before you signed me up? Then we could have at least talked it over without me getting such a shock like this.”
She fidgeted with Sigmund, who finally must have grown tired of being messed with. He let out an offended mewl of protest and rolled away from her, then leaped from the bed gracefully and stalked out the door.
Lucy watched until his tail disappeared down the end of the hall before she answered him in that same low, ashamed voice. “Dylan said you’d both say no if we asked. We thought it might be harder for you to back out if Ms. McKenzie thought you’d already agreed to it.”
“That wasn’t very fair, to me or to Dr. Webster, was it?” He tried to come up with an analogy that might make sense to her. “How would you like it if I signed you up to show one of the horses in the 4-H competition without talking to you first?”
She shuddered, as he knew she would. Her shyness made her uncomfortable being the center of attention, so she had always avoided the limelight, even when she was little. In that respect, Miz McKenzie was right—Dylan Webster had been good for her and had brought her out of her shell, at least a little.
“I wouldn’t like it at all.”
“And I don’t like what you did any better. I ought to just back out of this whole crazy thing right now.”
“Oh, Dad, you can’t!” she wailed. “You’ll ruin everything.”
He studied her distress for several seconds, then sighed. He loved his daughter fiercely. She was the biggest joy in his life, more important than a hundred ranches. If she felt like she came in second to the Diamond Harte, he obviously wasn’t trying hard enough.
Lucy finally broke the silence. “Are you really, really, really mad at me?” she asked in a small voice.
“Maybe just one really.” He gave her a lopsided smile. “But don’t worry. I’ll get you back. You’ll be sorry you ever heard of this carnival by the time I get through with you.”
Her eyes went wide again, this time with excitement. “Does that mean you’ll do it?”
“I guess. I think we’re both going to be sorry.”
But he couldn’t have too many regrets, at least not right now. Not when his daughter jumped from her bed with a squeal and threw her arms tightly around his waist.
“Oh, thank you, Daddy. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’re the best.”
For that moment, at least, he felt like it.
* * *
“No way is Matthew Harte going to go through with it. Mark my words, if you agree to do this, you’re going to be stuck planning the whole carnival by yourself.”
In the middle of sorting through the day’s allotment of depressing mail, Ellie grimaced at SueAnn Clayton, her assistant. She had really come to hate that phrase. Mark my words, you’re not cut out to be a large animal vet. Mark my words, you’re going to regret leaving California. Mark my words, you won’t last six months in Wyoming.
Just once, she wished everybody would keep their words—and unsolicited advice—to themselves.
In this case, though, she was very much afraid SueAnn was right. There was about as much likelihood of Matt Harte helping her plan the carnival as there was that he’d be the next one walking through the door with a couple of his prize cutting horses for her to treat.
She sighed and set the stack of bills on SueAnn’s desk. “If he chickens out, I’ll find somebody else