“We have to talk to Sarah.” He winked. “You mind sitting in on that discussion? Because that way maybe she’ll take us more seriously.”
Cam tilted his head. “A united front, huh? I can see that. She’s going to have to take it seriously, or she could get really hurt, okay? Fire seems like a good guy to her, but he’s really not. He’s a working horse.”
Yeah, Mitch had been around the rodeo enough to know what that meant. And he had a friend who did cutting horses, too, back in the day. They’d moved on now, but that didn’t mean he still didn’t know from horses.
“I’ll make sure we figure out how to impress that on her.” He told Cam, “I don’t want to end up with her getting kicked or worse.”
“Good man. So whose birthday is next, man?” Cam was still kinda pumped about Rachel’s birthday. It had gone over well.
He’d been pretty damn excited himself. He’d gotten the bike, they’d had most of Cam’s family over, and she’d had a couple dozen presents to open.
It had been an amazing day.
“Sarah is next. She’s an October baby.”
“Oh, now. That’ll be a whole different ball of wax.”
“Right? She’s not going to be one for a lot of people coming over.”
How surreal was it that Cam had only been around such a short time, but they were planning another of his girls’ birthdays together?
And he liked it.
Cam chuckled. “Maybe we could take her and Teresa on a day trip.”
“That might be nice, actually. Like take her someplace and let her have an experience.” And he could mostly afford it now, thanks to Mark, and Cam liked to help with things like food and gas and shit.
He noticed Cam didn’t ask how he’d did it with the money stuff, and that was a salve to his pride.
“Cool. We could run to Sand Dunes, maybe. Or to Taos. It’s not that far, and it’s got some sweet little shops and all.”
“And some fun stuff to eat, a bunch of ghost tours, and she’s fascinated by the idea of the Taos Hum. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan.” He liked it. And by then he should be able to walk around and not collapse from the effort. He was getting better every day. That surgery had been the thing he needed, dammit.
“Oh man, the Hum! I bet she would love that! You think she would say she could hear it even if she couldn’t?”
He snorted. “She would just sit there and listen until she heard it. If she doesn’t hear it, one of us is going to stand behind her and hum a lot just so that she’ll not be disappointed.”
Cam started to laugh. “Now, I have to tell you, I can see that. We’d have to hire some old man to just kind of stay about six feet behind her going hmm-hmm-hmm.”
“Oh, hell no.” That was way too much work. “We’d just get us one of the recorder things and just play it behind her back the whole time.”
Cam’s eyes lit up. “You are one smart son of a bitch.”
“Dude, these kids are all three smarter than me. I have to stay on my toes.”
They started laughing together, and it felt so good to just be fucking happy.
Cam had brought happiness back to the house.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t reasonable.
But itwasamazing.
When they eased back down, they panted together. “Lori says she’ll bring the girls home after their meeting; are they excited?” Cam asked.
“Rebekka is, but she’s pretending not to be. Sarah is not, but she’s trying to pretend she is because she has a friend now, and her mom is a leader. Rachel’s just excited that there’s such athing as going to hang with other girls. She has no idea what it means. None.”
As far as Rachel was concerned, there was a uniform involved and badges. That was enough.
