Her Single Dad Hero. Arlene James

Donovan. Her dad rarely locked the house, but her years in Dallas simply wouldn’t allow her to walk away from an unlocked house. Dean’s slight smile told her that he found the precaution unnecessary, but she would never forgive herself if she returned to find her dad’s TVs and computer missing, not to mention her own electronic devices.

      Of course, the horses and cattle could be taken by anyone bold enough to pull a trailer onto the place, though Wes had installed some motion detection devices at vulnerable spots along the fence line. He had an alarm panel set up in the office, and occasionally a coyote or bobcat set off one of the motion detectors. He’d warned her not to get upset if the alarm woke her, just to check the security screen, and if she saw nothing suspicious take a look at the recording in the morning. Rex, who was apparently some sort of expert on such things, had set up the recording component and arranged for cloud storage, but that security arrangement did not include the house, which seemed shortsighted to Ann.

      She followed the Pryors to Dean’s somewhat battered, white, double-cab, dually pickup truck. At least she supposed it was white under that thick layer of orange-red grime.

      As if reading her thoughts, Dean said, “Hope you don’t mind if we wash the truck before we head home.” He opened the front passenger door with one hand and the backseat door with the other.

      “We had to unload ever’thing so we could,” Donovan informed her as he scrambled up into his car seat. “Gotta get out all the tools and stuff afore you can wash it.”

      Dean chuckled as he buckled Donovan into his seat. “Quite a job, isn’t it, bud?” He glanced at Ann, who had yet to slip into her seat. “Donovan earned some extra money to buy school gear by helping me unload the truck bed this morning.”

      “I’m gonna get some cool stuff!” the boy exclaimed excitedly.

      Ann smiled and stepped up into the surprisingly comfortable bucket seat. She was buckled before Dean slid in behind the steering wheel.

      “War Bonnet Diner okay for lunch?”

      “Is there any place else?”

      “Not if you’re hungry.”

      “I’m starved!” Donovan declared from his car seat in back.

      “That makes two of us,” Dean said, glancing into the rearview mirror as he pushed his sunglasses into place on his nose.

      For a starving man, he didn’t seem in much of a hurry. He drove in a leisurely fashion that had Ann setting her back teeth. In Dallas, where everyone was in a hurry all the time, he’d have been run off the road. The trip into War Bonnet covered fewer than six miles, but it seemed to take forever. They pulled into town, stopped at the blinking red light just past the Feed and Grain on the edge of town, far longer than required to determine that no other vehicle could possibly impede their pathway, and rolled on.

      Dean waved as they passed the gas station then tooted his horn at a madly grinning middle-aged woman in the grocery store parking lot.

      “My aunt Deana,” he explained.

      Every other driver they passed waved or called out a greeting. War Bonnet boasted only a single city block of business buildings, including the town hall, bank, post office, a junk shop that billed itself as a collectibles store, a pair of empty spaces and the café. The school and athletic fields lay on the southwest side of town, beyond the four or five blocks of houses that comprised the remainder of War Bonnet, along with the small church on the southeast side. Her family had attended that church for most of her life, but her parents had switched to Countryside Church after she’d left home.

      With tornadoes an ever-present danger in Oklahoma, the joke around War Bonnet was that a good-size dust devil could wipe it off the map. The little whirlwinds routinely whipped up red clouds of dust that danced down the streets, lashed the blooms off flowers, spattered windows with grit and stung eyes. One had even disconnected the electricity to the tornado siren near the school. After that the cable had been buried.

      Dean found a parking space in front of one of the empty storefronts, and they walked up the sidewalk to the little café, which bustled with activity. The undisputed social center of the community, the café featured a long counter with eight stools, two booths in front of the plate-glass window and five tables, for a total capacity of thirty-six diners. Donovan begged to sit at the counter, but there were only two stools open, so Dean steered him toward a table in the back corner near a jukebox that hadn’t worked in over a decade.

      After escorting the boy to the bathroom to wash his hands, Dean ordered a hamburger and onion rings. Donovan asked for fish sticks and fries. Ann decided to try the fruit plate and chef’s salad. It was better than she’d expected, but Dean’s thick, fragrant hamburger made her mouth water. She’d forgotten how good a simple hamburger could smell. When Donovan offered to trade her fries for grapes, she gave him the grapes and declined the fries then accepted onion rings from Dean.

      The moment she bit into the crisp ring, memories swept over her, fun times spent in this place with school friends and family. After she’d gotten her driver’s license, she and her friends had hit this place after school, loading up on milk shakes, fries and onion rings before heading off to whatever commitments claimed them. She’d found such freedom in that. No more school buses to catch, no adults around to police their behavior—not that they’d misbehaved really. None of her group had drunk alcohol, used drugs or even dated much. They’d been too busy with school, sports, church, chores and getting their livestock ready for the county fair. True, they’d teased and gossiped and gotten loud, even broken out with the occasional short-lived food fight, but essentially they’d been harmless.

      “Ann Billings,” said a female voice, jolting her out of her reverie. Opening her eyes, Ann stared at the small, rounded, older woman. Something about her seemed familiar, but the short, curly, iron-gray hair and thick, owlish glasses brought no one to mind. Then the woman cupped her hands together and clucked her tongue, saying, “First your brother, now you. Will all the prodigals return to Straight Arrow Ranch?”

      “Mrs. Lightner!”

      The old dear smiled and held out her arms as Ann rose to her feet and bent forward for her hug. When she straightened again, she said to Dean and Donovan, “Mrs. Lightner was my Sunday School and piano teacher.”

      “Dean, Donovan,” greeted the older woman, nodding at each. “I’m surprised to see you all together.”