The Texas Rancher's Return. Allie Pleiter
of shoe-box dioramas or poster boards. Given her marketing and presentation skills, Brooke thought this might be one parenting area she could ace. “What about?”
“Native Texan animals.”
“Any in particular?”
“We can pick one we like. Of course Robbie and Jake chose longhorns, and Steve and Marcus chose bats. Maria and I were thinking about buffalos or armadillos.”
Brooke raised an eyebrow. “No kidding! Then you’re really gonna want to hear my dinner story. You’ll be glad I was late by the time I’m done telling you what happened to me today.” Thanks, Lord. Brooke shot a sigh of gratitude heavenward as she pulled into Edie’s Taco Patio, glad to feel a genuine smile fill her face.
“Why?”
“Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not getting it out of me before table grace, you sneaky little girl. Come on, let’s eat.”
Audie scrambled out of the seat the moment the car was turned off, all traces of her former gloom gone, replaced by a wide, expectant grin Brooke felt down to her toes. “Did you squash an armadillo with your car? Is that why you’re late?”
Brooke ignored the dig and mimed zipping her lip into silence as she pulled open the restaurant door. If she played her cards right, getting blocked by the giant mama bison wouldn’t end up being the disaster she’d beaten herself up for the entire drive to Audie’s day care.
“Soooo?” Audie pleaded the minute they were seated with a pair of tacos each, her daughter’s eyes wide and brown as a cow’s—or was that a bison’s?
“Grace first,” Brooke countered, gratified that most of the frantic sourness of her 5:55 pickup had evaporated. She bowed her head, but stole a look up for her favorite sight in all the world: Audie’s small pink hands folded in prayer, the full brown lashes of her closed eyes lush against rosy cheeks. Was there a sweeter sight this side of heaven? “Dear God, thank You for these tacos and our time together. Thank You for all You provide, and may we always be truly thankful.” She waited for Audie’s contribution to the prayer, for they each took part in table grace.
“Thank You that Hammie’s okay and that Alex doesn’t hate Benjamin anymore. In Jesus’s name, Amen.”
“Something happened to Hammie?” Brooke inquired, wondering what had jeopardized the fate of the class hamster.
Audie took a bite of taco. “Jenna dropped him,” she said with her mouth full, earning a you know better scowl from Brooke. “Story!” she pleaded after a dramatic display of swallowing, nearly bouncing in her seat with anticipation.
“I met a real buffalo—a bison—today. Up close. Her name was Daisy, and she sniffed the hood of my car so close I bet she left nose prints.”
“No kidding? A real live bison? Mrs. Cleydon told me that’s their real name, not buffalo.”
“So you know that already. I didn’t—at least not before today.” Brooke pointed at Audie. “See, you’re already smarter than me on the subject.”
“How big was she?”
“Huge. She filled the whole road. Blocked it, even. I had to sit there until her owner came by and nudged her out of the way. That’s why I was late—last,” she corrected, trying to remember that she wasn’t technically late and fined unless she showed up after 6:00 p.m. “A mama bison. Well, soon to be—she’s going to have a calf soon.”
“A baby bison?” Audie’s pigtails bobbed. “Are they cute?”
Brooke thought of the massive head with the enormous brown eyes that stared her down on the road and tried to imagine it miniaturized into baby form. Impressive, maybe, but not cute. Then again, the man who’d ridden to her aid could be called both impressive and cute, if she were inclined to classify, but there were several dozen professional reasons not to pursue that avenue.
“So when I can meet them?”
“The ranchers?” Gunner Buckton didn’t look like the kind of man to take a shine to field trips.
“No, silly, the mama bison. That’d make the best report ever—totally better than armadillos. Maria and I would get an A for sure. Please, Mom? Can I?”
Suddenly, this didn’t seem like the academic ace in the hole anymore. For all her community-relations skills, Buckton didn’t seem likely to cooperate if she came to him with a request for an “up close and personal” with one of his herd. “I don’t know.”
“I could interview the man who owns her. I could interview the mama bison. Get my picture with her. That’d be loads better than just looking stuff up on the internet. Maria would just die if we could add that to our report.”
The eagerness in Audie’s eyes made Brooke want to cringe. “He’s just someone Mommy met on the road. I don’t think he’ll say yes.”
“I thought you told me sometimes your job was to help people say yes to things.”
Brooke suddenly regretted her oversimplified explanation of corporate community relations. “That’s true, but maybe not in this case. The rancher and the company I work for are...well, we’re sort of in an argument.” She could think of no other way to explain real-estate conflicts to an eight-year-old bent on bison interaction. Still, the timing seemed too good to ignore. “Well,” she hedged, “we’d have to ask very nicely and be okay if he said no.”
Audie licked taco sauce off her thumb. “I could do that. I could tell him it’s for school and everything. Could we ask tomorrow? I’d give anything to tell Maria I met a bison for real when we get back on Monday.”
Even if he declined, Gunner Buckton at least didn’t seem like the kind of man to be mean to an eight-year-old asking to do a school report. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? “Okay, honey. But remember, he may say no.”
Audie rolled her eyes. “I get that, Mom. You said it already.”
“Tell you what—if he does, maybe I can look around online and find another bison rancher.” Were there many around? Cattle, yes, but bison? She’d better come up with some truly persuasive tactic when she made that call.
Audie smiled. “You’re the best, Mom.” She air-kissed Brooke in the way she’d seen two celebrities do on television the other night. Audie was growing up too fast. Still, the shift from “I hate it when you’re late” to “You’re the best” was a welcome change on a Friday night. Now all she needed was a small yes from one cooperative bison and her willing owner—that’s not too much to ask, is it, Lord?
* * *
Gunner was draining the last of his Saturday morning coffee when Gran swept into the kitchen with a peculiar expression on her face. She held her cane in one hand and the cordless phone in the other. “Gunner, you have a young lady asking for you on the phone.”
Gunner made a split-second mental survey of the young women likely to ring him up before 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday and came up empty. Oh, sure, back in the day the list might have been long, but he wasn’t that guy anymore. He certainly couldn’t think of any current females who would produce the amusement currently sparkling in Gran’s eyes. He wasn’t quite sure what was coming when he took the phone. “Buckton here.”
“Mr. Buckton?”
Gunner felt his eyes pop at the child’s voice. Granny stifled a giggle. When she’d said young lady, he sure wasn’t thinking this young. “Yes?”
The little voice grew serious. “My name is Audrey Calder, and my mom met you and Daisy on the road yesterday.”
So Brooke Calder was indeed a mom. This was getting more interesting by the minute. “I remember.”
“Well, it just so happens Maria and I want to do a report on bison for our native Texan animals project. Bison are much better than armadillos, don’t you think? I’m in the