Page 59 of Cowboy Needed

He smiled and jingled the keys in his pocket, encouraging his eldest to remember that it was more fun to be positive than to be in trouble.

Zane shrugged, the move absolute diffident teenager. “It’s okay. I’ve got some good friends now. And the school’s nice.”

Mom’s eyes widened as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and it was a total one-eighty from what Zane would’ve said even a couple of months ago.

“And I think maybe there’s a girl.”

“Dad!” Zane shook his head. “There’s maybe a girl, maybe.”

“Okay, so there’s maybe a girl. Maybe.”

“Yeah, I mean, it could be that we’re just friends.” Zane rolled his eyes. “Girls are so slow to act.”

“But the fact that you’re willing to wait for her to act tells me that you really like her,” Ichabod teased. “I’m proud of you, son.”

“Dad, don’t be gross. Can I have something to eat?”

“Sure, what do you want? There is going to be pre-Thanksgiving pizza tonight. Just don’t eat anything that’smeant for Thanksgiving, and you can have whatever you want.” He pondered it. “There’s chips and dip?”

“Perfect, I’ll take that.”

“Don’t make a mess,” he whispered.

Zane waggled his eyebrows and whispered back. “Promise.”

Mom blinked at him as soon as Zane left. “He seems happy.”

“I think he is. He has a group of like five or six kids that he’s friends with at school. There’s this girl. He seems like he’s willing to start over, and I couldn’t be happier.”

“That’s wonderful, honey. It really is.” Mom came to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I know it was tough the last little bit there in Denver.”

Ichabod breathed a sigh of relief, even if it was inaudible. It looked like they were willing to bury the hatchet now. That was fantastic.

“This is a good place to be. The girls love it, the guys love it, we’re all good here.”

She glanced at Ellis. “And you seem to love?—”

“Yeah, I’m very happy,” he admitted. Ellis did it for him.

“Well, then. That’s great.” Mom turned back and started chopping celery again. “Do you have chicken stock to put on this?”

“I bought extra.” He wasn’t going to go there. He wasn’t going to say that he’d already used a good portion of it to make his own stuffing. This was Thanksgiving, this was family, this was good feelings. Oooohm.

He was thankful that he had his mom and dad. He knew Ellis didn’t get along with his mom, and the kids didn’t have their other dad. So he was quite lucky.

“I was thinking about making some nachos or something to let everybody munch on. Does that sound good?”

He nodded to Ellis, smiled. “That sounds amazing. You know how I feel about nachos.”

Mom cleared her throat, just a bit. “Right. Do you mind doing some that are not so spicy for Dad? He has a thing with heartburn.”

“You got it. I’ll pull some queso out before I put the spicy stuff in. Chrissy can eat it with him.” Ellis winked.

Mom offered him a warm smile. “Perfect. Thank you.”

Allie nodded to Mom, “Yes, me too. Bell, I want to share with Pop-Pop too.”

“You got it, kiddo. I’ll do half and half.” Ellis moved around his mom like he was some sort of crazy ballroom dancer. It was great to watch because even if Mom wanted to get upset, she couldn’t.