Page 38 of Dusty Spur Ranch Cowboys

CHAPTER EIGHT

Red

The Buckhorn Diner smells like coffee, bacon grease, and choices people probably regret by morning, which is likely why Clint keeps insisting we meet here.

I slide into the booth across from him and feel one of the seat springs jab me somewhere near a vital organ. The place hasn’t updated its furniture since Reagan was in office, but Betty Lou would probably fight anybody who suggested replacing it.

Clint looks up from his coffee. “You look rough.”

I grab the menu even though I already know what I’m ordering. “You say that every time you see me.”

“That’s because every time I see you, you look rough.”

“Maybe your eyesight’s getting worse.”

He snorts into his coffee. “My eyesight’s good enough to know that shoulder’s bothering you again.”

The waitress appears with a fresh pot before I can come up with a better insult. Clint reaches for it.

Fatherhood hasn’t mellowed him out the way people claim it does. If anything, the man runs on less sleep than he did when we were riding the circuit, and compensates with enough caffeine to stop a horse’s heart.

“How’re Dakota and the kids?” I ask.

That gets the reaction I’d expected.

I’ve known Clint most of my life. I’ve seen him break horses, break noses, and once break a fence because he was too stubborn to use the gate ten feet away.

Mention Dakota and the kids, though, and he turns into a completely different man.

“Good,” he says, a grin spreading across his face. “Charlie got an award at school last week.”

I shake my head. “He’s really growing up, huh?”

“Tell me about it.” Clint laughs. “Olivia’s walking now.”

“That sounds like a problem.”

“It is a problem.”

“At least Charlie can outrun her.”

“For another year, maybe.”

The food arrives shortly after, and we settle into the kind of conversation that’s easy when you’ve known somebody forever. Clint fills me in on Dakota’s latest illustration project.

Charlie apparently convinced Sawyer to help him build a birdhouse that collapsed before they even got it into the yard. Olivia has discovered stairs and apparently treats them as a personal challenge.

The whole thing sounds exhausting.

Clint looks happier than I’ve seen him in years.

Outside the front windows, Main Street rolls along with its usual midday traffic, ranch trucks and tourists. A pair of teenagers lean against the feed store, trying so hard to look cool it borders on painful.

“Rodeo’s gonna be a circus next month,” Clint says. “Sammy’s already complaining about registrations.”

“Sammy starts complaining six weeks before every rodeo.”

“True.”