Coulda Been a Cowboy. Brenda Novak

      BY THE TIME Tyson reached the trailer park, Braden had cried himself to sleep. The silence was absolute bliss, but he knew better than to turn around. He wasn’t about to fall for the temporary nap trick. Anyway, the peace didn’t last long. Tyson could hear shouting the second he opened his car door.

      At first he thought it was coming from the trailer next to Dakota’s. The light was on there, too. But he soon realized the neighbors were only awake because of the ruckus. He could see an old couple peeking through their blinds, trying to get a look at what was going on next door.

      He was wondering himself. He couldn’t imagine the father Dakota had mentioned as having “health issues” using the kind of foul language that rang so clearly on the cool night air.

      “Make him stop,” the old lady called out when she spotted Tyson. “Or I’m calling the cops.”

      Tyson closed the door of his car before the noise could wake Braden. “What’s going on?”

      “They’re at it again,” the woman answered.

      “At what again?”

      “Fighting! Can’t you hear?” the man said. “He gets drunk and goes after her every now and then, more often lately than before.”

      “I swear, he’s gonna kill her one of these days,” the woman fretted.

      Alcoholism was Dakota’s father’s “health issue”? Tyson nearly groaned aloud. What was he doing here? He was standing at the back of a neglected trailer park in the middle of the night in a town of about 1500 people, which he’d never visited before. And he had a baby with him. His baby.

      God, how life could unravel. Maybe his grandfather had been right. Maybe he should’ve stayed in Montana where he belonged.

      “Give me the keys!” a male voice roared. “Or so help me, Dakota—”

      “Stop it! Dad, listen.” She attempted to lower her voice, but Tyson could still hear her. “You’re going to wake the neighbors. Then they’ll call the police. Again. Do you want to spend the night in jail? You have to calm down—”

      “Don’t you tell me what to do!”

      A scream and a thud reverberated through the air. Then a crash.

      “What the hell?” Tyson sprinted for the door and, after flinging it open, found Dakota trying to keep a table between her and her attacker. A vase lay broken on the floor. Several strands of her long black hair clung to her T-shirt, as if her father had gotten hold of a handful and yanked it out. But it was the blood trickling from her mouth that enraged Tyson. Who was this old man to think he could get away with beating up his daughter?

      “Sit down!” Tyson shouted.

      The man who turned to face him had a yellow cast to his skin and a bulldog’s sagging jowls. He also had a mean glint in his eye, and he wasn’t pleased to see he had a visitor.

      “Who the hell are you? Get out of my house!” He tried to raise the cane he’d been brandishing at Dakota, but Tyson wrested it from his grip. Mr. Brown wasn’t all that mobile. His feet were so swollen he could hardly walk. Had Dakota been out where she could run, she would’ve had no problem getting away.

      Tossing the cane out of reach, Tyson grabbed the older man by the shirtfront, dodged a clumsy blow and shoved him onto the couch. “I said sit down.”

      “Stop! You’ll hurt him!” Dakota cried, but Tyson was more concerned with what her father was saying.

      “You little prick, I don’t even know you! Who do you think you are?”

      “I’m your worst nightmare if you don’t stay put and shut up,” Tyson said. And then, just when Dakota’s father looked as if he’d get up and try to take another swing, he blinked and his rage evaporated.

      “Hey, you’re…Tyson Garnier? The Tyson Garnier? What the hell are you doing in my trailer?” he asked, and laughed as though he hadn’t been trying to kill his daughter thirty seconds earlier. “Imagine that,” he said, sounding awestruck. “Tyson Garnier, right here in my living room.”

      Tyson’s anger didn’t dissipate quite so quickly. “My foot’s gonna be halfway up your ass if you ever touch her again,” he growled.

      Mr. Brown seemed befuddled. Then the confusion cleared. “Dakota? Oh, I don’t mean her no harm. She’s my girl. We have a blow-up every now and then. It’s tough having her tell me what to do. But she knows I wouldn’t really hurt her.”

      Dakota avoided Tyson’s gaze. Her father had already hurt her. Tyson could see that her lip was swelling, and she had a scratch on her neck.

      “Have a seat.” Mr. Brown waved magnanimously to an old vinyl recliner. “Dakota, can you get Tyson a beer?”

      Dakota stared at her father. “He doesn’t want a beer, Daddy.”

      “What else we got?”

      “Nothing. I’m going outside to have a little talk with him.”

      She stepped out, leaving Tyson standing in the middle of the cramped room, adrenaline still rushing through his blood. He wanted to do something more than he’d done—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place to teach Mr. Brown a lesson. And Dakota’s father was obviously a sick man.

      Giving him a final glare, Tyson followed Dakota outside and waited through the apology she delivered to the neighbors.

      “We’re tired of this, Dakota. You need to do something about him,” the old man said before he and his wife eventually turned off the lights and went back to bed.

      Tyson expected Dakota to ask what he was doing at her house in the middle of the night. He was even prepared for her to be angry. He’d seen that sort of thing on TV, where an abused wife didn’t appreciate outside interference. But Dakota didn’t bring up what had just happened.

      “Where’s Braden?” she asked.

      “In the car.”

      “How is he?”

      Tyson drew a deep breath. “He’s having a hard night.” They both were. But after what she’d been through, he didn’t feel that he could complain.

      “That’s why you came?”

      “I tried to call. You didn’t tell me your phone was disconnected.”

      A pained expression claimed her face. “It wasn’t when I left for the cabin this afternoon.”

      “Maybe I dialed wrong,” he said, reluctant to pile more stress on her.

      “No. I noticed it myself just before I went to bed. But…I’ll catch up.”

      He handed her the five hundred dollars he’d withdrawn at Finley’s Market. Because the ATM would only allow him to get three hundred dollars in one day, he’d had to take it from two different accounts, but he had several. “This might help.”

      She said nothing as she slipped the money into her pocket.

      “Any chance you’d consider coming back to the cabin with me?” He scratched his neck. “I’m…not very good with babies.” After what he’d witnessed, he couldn’t leave her behind. But he thought it better to appeal to her sympathy than challenge her pride.

      A police siren sounded in the distance. Dakota tilted her head in such a way that he knew she was listening. Then she pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids. “I don’t know what to do.”

      “I’ll pay extra.”

      She touched her lip self-consciously. “And if they see this, they might charge him with assault.”

      He reached over and plucked the loose hairs off her shirt, being careful