“You’re a Girl Scout, too, you know,” he pointed out.
Rached rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but she’s like a Junior. I’m just a Daisy. I’m not even a Brownie. You’re not doing anything, though, so I’m playing with you.”
“Oh, so I’m the luckiest!”
She blinked at him, immediately perking up. “You are! Because I’m playing with you.”
He nodded. “That’s right. I love to play, so come on, let’s go make a pie. We can make a crust. If you want, we can make two crusts. We could have Thanksgiving Day pie, and then we can have practice pie.”
She stared at him, her face all wreathed in smiles, “I love practice pie!”
He let his mouth drop open in fake amazement. “I do too!”
She hopped up and grabbed his hand. “Come on, Daddy. Can we wear aprons? Do we have chef hats?”
“I don’t think so, but we can wear our witch hats. Your sister still has a witch hat, and I have a witch hat somewhere. We can wear witches hats and we can be?—”
She shook her head, “No, Daddy. Witches are for Halloween. This is Thanksgiving.”
Fuck. “How about a bandana? When your momma used to cook, she would wear a bandana and put her hair back.”
He lived for that expression of pure wonder.
“Can I wear one of her bandanas?”
He chuckled. “Of course you can! I think I have a few. Let’s go look, and then we’ll go make pies.”
It was time to go dig in Allison’s chest and pull out one more thing.
One day when the girls were grown, the chest would be empty, but not yet. It still held a few secrets for them, and he would dole them out, bits at a time.
He was the Daddy, after all.
Chapter Sixteen
“Hey, Cam, man! Long time no see.”
Cam glanced up from checking all of Fire’s tack, smiling at his longtime buddy Hank. “Hey. Yeah, you weren’t in Amarillo, huh?”
“Nope. I was in California that weekend.” Hank clapped him on the back.
“No shit, how’d it go?” He nodded to Hank.
“Good, good. Surprised you weren’t out there. Amarillo is a hell of a harder row to hoe than California is.”
He waved one arm. “This is closer to home.”
One of Hank’s eyebrows winged up in alarm. “Everything okay with your folks?”
“Oh yeah, they’re fine. I just…uh…I’ve been staying close to home helping out a friend.”
It felt weird as all get-out to call Mitch a friend. Hell, he wasn’t sure they really were friends. They were friendly, sure, but what they had going on was way deeper than friendly. It was more like well…it was definitely bigger than buddies.
“Good for you. Sometimes it’s nice to be close to home. I mean, hell, we’re fixing to be home for the duration anyway. I’m guessing you’re doing the stock show circuit?”
He didn’t know. There was a hell of a lot happening between stock show season and now. Besides that, he didn’t know what he was going to do.
He assumed so, but the simple fact was…he wasn’t sure. Maybe the kids could come with him. Maybe they’d have things to do at the house. He didn’t have any idea, and that felt weird.
