“What are your habits now?” she asked. “Besides the baking.”
“I sit in the hot tub every night.” He grinned over to her, feeling some of his earlier happiness seep back into him. “I work out every day. I try to cook at least one of my meals so I’m not eating out all the time.”
“And you really don’t have a job?” Lark asked.
“Not right now,” Cash said coolly. “I try to go over my plans for the cutting horse operation by watching a few things online. I go help Bryce, because he’s housing my horse. Well, both of them, actually.”
“You own two horses?”
He grinned over to her. “Every cowboy owns at least one.” His phone buzzed, and while he didn’t have the notifications on, he knew it would be Daddy.
“Let’s go,” he said. “I’m sure that’s my father.”
Dread settled in his stomach as Cash got out of the truck yet again, and this time he collected a much larger container of doughnuts while Lark rounded the hood of the truck to meet him. Cash didn’t knock at the front door. He simply opened it, tamping his boots as a skiff of snow covered his father’s sidewalk.
“It’s me,” he called, and while the house had been silent, pure chaos started with those two words.
“Cash is here! Cash is here!” one of the girls called.
Grace came tearing down the hallway that led from the big family room and kitchen area at the back of the house.
“Grace! I was going to show him first,” Celeste said, hot on her heels.
“Cash, Cash, Cash, Cash, Cash,” Tyrone sang, and he ran toward them, too. “Look, I skip,” he said, and he started skipping toward Cash.
Cash quickly passed the doughnuts to Lark and dropped to his knees, opening up his arms to receive all three kids. “Hey, you guys.”
They barreled into him, Grace and Celeste still squabbling and Tyrone trying to yell over them all. Cash laughed and hugged them, and then opened his arms as the youngest of his family finally arrived.
“How are you, Harmony?” he asked, and he swept a kiss across the little girl’s face. She’d turned one in September, and she babbled something he had no way of understanding.
“You kids,” Daddy said from down the hall. “Let him come in all the way, at least.”
Cash had no idea what Grace and Celeste were fighting about. They walked away, chattering to themselves, and Cash picked up Harmony, got to his feet, and then swung Tyrone into his arms too.
“You guys are my favorites,” he whispered, and he looked over to Lark. Her expression was unreadable, and he honestly thought he probably hadn’t prepared her properly for this. In all honesty, he kind of wanted to throw her into the lion’s den, because he wasn’t sure one could be properly prepared to meet his father.
As he walked down the hall toward his daddy, he realized he’d never brought a woman home before, and he honestly wasn’t sure he was doing so now either. He and Lark were so new, having just barely defined their relationship a couple ofhours ago, and really only because he said he wanted to be her boyfriend. She had never actually said he could be.
“Hey, Daddy,” he said, and he sat Tyrone down and hugged his daddy with one arm.
“I’ll take her,” Lark said, and she took Harmony from him.
“Daddy, this is Lark McClellan,” he said. “She’s home for the Thanksgiving holiday. She’s Jet and Wade’s little sister.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Daddy said. “We know you guys have had a busy day, so we don’t want to keep you too long.”
“Plus, the girls have to get to bed.” Faith joined them, her smile the sunshiney part of his parents’ relationship.
“This is my step-mom, Faith,” Cash said, and he moved over to give her a hug.
“I’ve got four quarts of that hamburger stew for you,” she said. “Right there next to the stove.”
Cash glanced over and saw the jars standing there. “That’s too much, Momma.”
“Well, there’s four of you there, aren’t there?” she said. “It’s two meals each.” And she spoke like it wouldn’t be nearly enough.
He didn’t argue with her, and instead took the container of doughnuts from Lark and moved over to the fifteen-foot island in his father’s house. “I managed to save you guys some of each kind,” he said.
