Chapter Ten
“Don’t count on love from others.”
—Waylon Peterson, seven years old
As was typical of Rose, she hadn’t stopped moving since she’d climbed from her bed that morning. Waylon followed along behind her every few minutes, cleaning up whatever mess she’d left in her wake, while at the same time asking himself why he was letting it bother him so much. And it wasn’t Rose’s scattered toys that were the issue. It was the reason he was working so hard to pick up the toys.
“Is it time yet?” Rose asked while bouncing onto the scuffed toes of her pink cowboy boots.
Waylon checked the clock hanging over the recliner. “It’s almost time.”
“And then we’re going to go meet all the new people, right?”
Pleasure expanded inside Waylon. His daughter was a lot like him. She loved meeting new people, and she loved feeling like she belonged in the middle of them. “And then we’re going to go meet all the new people,” he reaffirmed.
He picked up a doll that hadn’t been on the living room floor only two minutes earlier, but before he could get it tucked away in Rose’s bedroom, the doorbell rang.
“It’s Grampa!” Rose shouted at the top of her lungs, and as had happened the previous weekend when Heather showed up, Rose was at the door, pulling it open before Waylon could remind her that he needed to be with her.
“Rosie,” Waylon’s dad said as soon as he laid eyes on his granddaughter.
Rose giggled with uninhibited glee. “It’s not Rosie, Grampa. It’s Rose!” She threw herself against his legs. “And I’ve missed you so, so much.”
Charlie Peterson scooped up his only grandchild. “I’ve missed you, too, sweet thing.”
Waylon watched with only a hint of bitterness as his dad hugged his daughter tight. His father loved Rose. That could never be disputed. Just as Rose was mad about her grandfather. The two of them hadn’t seen each other since before Waylon had been put in the hospital, and along with his guilt at losing temporary custody of his daughter, Waylon hated the span of time she’d had to go without seeing his dad.
They’d actually only seen each other in person a handful of times in Rose’s four years. A few instances when his dad had traveled either to Vegas or Texas to visit, and several others when Waylon and Rose had gone to him. But the two had talked via video phone since before Rose could speak. And in fact, his dad had been at the hospital the day Rose had come into the world.
Waylon knew that fact should matter even more than it did. His mother hadn’t been there, and Rose had been almost three months old before she’d made it out from Tennessee.
But childhood hurts were hard things to overcome.
“We’re going to meet all the new people today, Grampa. We’ll have lunch in town, and then dessert, then we get to walk around the whole town and make new friends.” Rose scurried out of her grandfather’s arms. “I’m going to make ten new friends. Are you ready to go? Daddy said we could go just as soon as you got here.”
Waylon reached for his daughter’s hand. “How about we show Grampa the new house first?”
Rose’s eyes lit up as she first looked up at Waylon and then to her grandfather. “Oh, yes,” she said, her tone indicative of royalty having entered the building. “I must show you my room. I helped paint it and set up my new bed and toys, and it’s”—she pressed both hands to her cheeks and sighed as if having never been happier—“the most gorgeous bedroom ever.”
Rose shot off toward her room before either Waylon or his father could reply, and Waylon looked over at his dad and held out his hand. “Good to see you again.”
“Good to be here.” He gripped Waylon’s hand, and as if they were suddenly back in the middle of his four-month stint of physical therapy, Waylon could think of little more than the fact that his father had been there when he’d first awoken at the hospital. And he’d stayed until he’d once again been able to live on his own.
He reached out and pulled the man in for a hug before talking himself out of it. And he ignored the heavy pounding of his heart. Without his dad, Waylon didn’t know how he would have made it through that period of his life, and he certainly didn’t think he’d be anywhere close to getting his daughter back.
“It really is good to see you,” Waylon repeated. He drew back and took in his father. The man was weathered from so many years of working outdoors, but at only fifty-one, he remained a good-looking man. “And I’ll go ahead and apologize now,” Waylon added. “Because the bedroom I have for you here is little more than a cracker box.”
“Any place with a pillow will do.”
Charlie Peterson was a lifelong cowboy who’d grown up on ranches himself. And granted, he’d probably slept in places far worse than the pint-sized third bedroom in the small cottage house. But that didn’t stop Waylon from once again wishing he had more to offer.
He took his dad through the single-story home, pointing out the upgrades and renovations planned for down the road, as well as what he’d already managed to accomplish in the last week and a half. Then the two of them spent several minutes in the “Palace of Miss Rose.” Finally, they made it to door number three.
His dad’s bedroom had a fresh coat of paint, this one more neutral—a pale brown rather than Rose’s pink—but even with the new twin bed and mattress set, the freshly painted four-drawer chest, and the antique lamp and side table Waylon had picked up at a yard sale the day before, it remained a poor excuse for a room.
“It looks terrific,” his dad announced, and remorse for last week’s pettiness punched Waylon in the gut. The man was trying. They both were.
And really, the remaining hard feelings were mostly a long-held grudge, anyway. Waylon had been seven when his dad walked away. Seven when he’d learned it was possible for a parent not to love you as much as you loved them.
He should have gotten over that by now.
An hour later, as Waylon and his dad followed up their meal with coffee at an outdoor table in the middle of town, Rose was already up to seven new friends. Most were adult women who’d fallen for his daughter the second she’d flashed them her dimples, but there were a couple of kids in the mix as well. Rose had never been what anyone would call a wallflower, and her gregariousness was shining now more than ever. She currently rattled nonstop to a dark-haired girl who was not much older than Rose herself, while the girl’s mother stood at the girl’s side, smiling politely.
Waylon had never met either mother or daughter, and had been grateful to see the wedding ring circling the woman’s finger. Several females who’d stopped by earlier, some of whom he’d had dinner with at The Buffalo in prior weeks, had seemed more interested in the fact that he had a child than in the child herself.
“I have a new room,” Rose informed the little girl. “And it has bunked beds, so Daddy says I get to have sleepovers.” Rose grinned at the other girl, who’d shared that her name was Izzy. “Do you want to come for a sleepover tonight?”
“I . . .” Izzy’s mother jerked her gaze from child to child at the out-of-the-blue request from a virtual stranger, and Waylon immediately reached out a hand to slow his daughter’s enthusiasm.
“Not this weekend,” he told Rose gently. “Grampa just got into town. We’re spending time with him this weekend.”
The space between Rose’s eyebrows puckered. “But I thought he was going to live with us.”
“That’s correct. He is going to live with us.” Waylon looked over the girls’ heads to Izzy’s mother, offering an apologetic smile at the awkward moment. “But you haven’t seen him in a long time.”
And I have to take you back to the Jameses’ tomorrow night.
Waylon didn’t voice his last thought, not anxious to share that Rose’s grandparents had custody instead of him, but he could see his daughter’s remaining uncertainty about why her new friend couldn’t come over.
Before he could form a new argument, Izzy’s mother squatted beside the girls. “Your dad is right. You entertain your grandfather this weekend”—the woman pointed across the road to a small park—“but if your dad doesn’t mind, I’d be glad to take you and Izzy to play on the swing sets for a while.” She looked at Waylon. “You’d be able to see her from here, and I promise to keep an eye on her.”
Waylon glanced in the direction the woman pointed. Rose had seen the park when they’d first arrived, and he’d already promised to take her over.
“Can I, Daddy? Please. I promise to listen to Ms. . . .” She paused and looked up at the other woman. “What’s your name?”
“Mrs. Davies,” the woman said. She reached across the table and shook Waylon’s hand before doing the same with his dad. “My first name is Maggie. I’m one of the first-grade teachers here in the county, and my husband is head of the city council.”
“Nice to meet you, Maggie. And yes”—he turned to Rose—“you can go play with Izzy. Grampa and I will be over after we finish our coffee.”
“Yippee!” Rose and Izzy both shouted, and they headed off with Izzy’s mother, but instead of resuming the conversation with his dad, Waylon watched as the older version of himself sat up a little straighter.
Waylon turned, hoping to see what had caught his dad’s attention, and found himself eye to eye with Heather. His first thought was that he’d asked her out the day before. And she’d said no.
And that had bothered him far more than he liked.
Then he realized that Heather wasn’t who his dad was looking at. It was the woman standing at her side. And if Waylon was reading Blu Johnson’s return look correctly, she may just be as intrigued by his dad as Charlie was of her.
Waylon turned back to the table. “Dad—”
But his dad was up and out of his seat, one hand outstretched.
“Charlie Peterson,” he announced as Blu came forward and slipped her fingers into his.
Heather glanced quickly at Waylon, surprise in her eyes.
“Blu Johnson.” Blu kept her hand in Charlie’s for a beat too long. “And you must be Waylon’s dad.”
Charlie laughed heartily, because there was absolutely no denying the family resemblance. Then he pulled up another chair so the two women could join them and motioned for the server to bring additional coffees. Blu made herself at home, talking as she settled in, explaining who she was and that she owned an all-girls foster home, but Heather hung back. Her gaze traveled to his father for an extended moment before swinging back to Waylon’s.
“Where’s Rose?” she finally spoke as she lowered into the faded, green plastic chair.
“Who is Rose?” Blu echoed. She wore an expression that was a mixture of politeness, general interest, and genuine intrigue.
“She’s my daughter.” Waylon watched as the older woman’s face registered shock.
A hand went to her chest. “I didn’t realize . . .”
She trailed off as she turned to Heather.
“I met her last weekend,” Heather shared without making direct eye contact, and though Waylon knew she had to be thinking about just how she’d met his daughter, he was impressed to see no hint of pink touching her cheeks.
“She’s with me only on weekends for now.” Waylon pulled Blu’s attention back from Heather. He also used the moment to point out his daughter and her new friend on the other side of the street. “But I’m hopeful that’ll soon change.”
Blu glanced at Heather again, as if Heather held answers Waylon hadn’t been willing to share, but instead of continuing down the path of his single parenthood, Heather adeptly turned the subject to his dad. The four of them talked for several minutes, his dad relaying stories about his years working as both a ranch hand and a ranch manager, even bringing the focus around to the spread where Waylon had spent the first seven years of his life. Rose’s great-grandparents’ ranch.
“Waylon was born on that piece of land,” Waylon’s dad proclaimed. He braced his elbows on the table and leaned in as if telling a secret. “We didn’t even make it out of the drive before his head appeared. When my boy decides he’s ready to do something, there ain’t nothing standing in his way.”
“Is that right?”
Waylon thought of his and Heather’s first conversation, when he’d told her that when he set his mind to something, he tended to get it.
She shifted her gaze to his, as if thinking the same thing.
Blu and his father talked for several more minutes, about nothing in particular, but then Blu braced her own elbows on the table and leaned in, same as his dad. “So how long are you in town for, Mr. Peterson?”
Waylon choked on his coffee at the sound of the not-so-subtle flirting, and tried his best not to compare how Blu had just called his father Mr. Peterson in the same way that Heather called him that. He looked at Heather to see if she’d picked up on what was going on right beside them, and found her eyes now on Blu. And tiny wrinkles creasing her forehead.
Yep. She’d picked up on it.
“Call me Charlie,” his dad replied, his voice lowering an octave, and Waylon watched in horror as Blu tried it out.
“Charlie.” She said the word softly. As if seeing how it felt on her tongue. “Are you here just for the weekend, Charlie?”
Waylon kicked Heather under the table with the toe of his boot, and as his dad explained that he was there for “a good long time,” Waylon nodded toward the ice cream stand over by the park.
“Dessert?” His voice was tight with hurry.
“I don’t—”
She’d been about to comment on the fact that she didn’t need the extra calories, he had no doubt, but when Blu giggled at whatever his father said next, Heather’s chair was shoved back even faster than his own. He refrained from taking her hand as they hurried across the street, but he did make certain to remain close. It had been barely twenty-four hours since he’d last talked to her, and whether they were just friends or not, it felt as if it had been a month.
He glanced back as they stepped onto the sidewalk, and saw that the other two hadn’t even realized they were now alone. Or maybe they’d yet to figure out they hadn’t been alone in the first place.
When Heather’s gaze followed his, he said, “We seem to have a thing for sharing ice cream whenever two people are . . . you know.”
Her gaze shot back to his. “Is that what—”
She fired another look at the table they’d vacated.
“But Aunt Blu doesn’t do that,” she murmured. She continued to watch. “In the sixteen years I’ve known her, I’ve never once seen Blu’s head turn for another person.”
Waylon had heard the same about the woman. Before tragedy struck, Blu Johnson had once had her own family. A husband, three daughters. All taken out together in a single car accident. A few years later, she’d opened her door to girls who had no home, and from what he understood, Blu’s commitment since then had been only to her girls.
Not that she was making a new commitment now, Waylon mused.
He looked back across the road. But her head certainly had been turned.
Whatever was happening over there, though, it was none of Waylon’s business. He knew that. But absurdly, the notion of his dad coming to town and suddenly being more interested in Blu than, say . . . in him . . . lodged a knot in his throat.
He and Heather turned to the ice cream window as one, both in their own thoughts and both silently agreeing to ignore whatever it was going on behind them, and Waylon noted that she didn’t even protest when he ordered two waffle cones, each with two scoops.