Page 45 of Cowboy Needed

“I’ll deal with Ricky, son. No worries at all.”

“Okay. You know I trust you.”

His dad chuckled. “Thank God for that.”

They chatted for a few more minutes about cattle and kids and Rio and Mavis and his dad’s old wiener dog, Lolo, before he had to hang up to go get his shit done.

“Love you, Dad.”

“Love you too, son. You stay the course.”

“I will.”

They hung up, and he climbed out of the truck, texting Ichabod.

He picked up his order and got back on the road before hitting dial on Ichabod. He felt like he could talk about it now that he’d spoken to Dad.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Ichabod sounded so worried about him. It was sweet.

“Oh, Rick caught me in town so I told him I would have a beer with him. You know, to tell him I wasn’t interested in helping him.”

“Oh, babe, are you okay?”

“Yeah, he sure pissed me off, but I am. I called my dad.”

“Ah. And what did he say.”

“Not to let Rick screw up anything good I found.” And Ichabod and those kids were good. So he wasn’t going to screw it up.

“Smart man.”

“Mmm. What kind of hamburgers? Fast foodie or a bit better?”

“How about Zane’s?”

“Sounds good.” All the kids loved the fact that the burger place here shared a name with their oldest brother. He could call it in and pick it up in Snowmass on the way. Zane’s was a little more upscale than the ski area burger place, but they had some damn fine food, no matter the name. “Some poppers for us to share too?”

Ichabod moaned. “Oh my God, yes.”

“Don’t be making sex sounds now,” he teased. “I’ve got a lot of errands to run, and I gotta pick up your eldest.”

“Speaking of Zane. Did you happen to see who he was meeting? Is it that same little girl as before?”

“The one that’s got half of her head dyed white and the other half dyed black? Yeah, she was there. There was also a couple of boys and one little quiet-looking girl. They didn’t seem like they were going to get in any trouble though.” He imagine they would try, but Zane was on a relatively tight leash.

And to be fair to the kid, he was trying to work the whole driving thing, so he was on his best behavior.

“Well, cool. I mean, I’m pretty happy with the friends he’s made here. If this girl sticks around, though, I need to meet her.”

“Yep. Because that could be an ally.”

“She could. So the grocery store?”

“Uh-huh. Oh, and the dry cleaners for my shirts. And then food. Anything else?”