gave up trying to survive and stay in school. He borrowed enough to buy an old pickup and made it back to Crossroads. Now Lillie was five and he was no closer to finishing the last semester. No closer to getting his life in order.
He stared at the ceiling as though it would give him an answer to the problems he faced, but no answer came.
He’d sworn off women for good. He’d probably never live down what he’d done with his stepmother even though his father was now married to wife number five. Folks in this town had long memories. So he got up every morning and did the jobs he hated because of Lillie.
He climbed off the couch again to check on her, something he did every night no matter how tired he was.
After pulling the cover over her shoulder, he went back to his bed.
That first year, he remembered, she’d cried for her mother. Charley made up his mind that she’d never cry for him because he planned to be near and no matter what mistakes in life she made, she’d never stop being his daughter.
In the stillness over the bar, Charley counted the jobs he had lined up for the next week. Day work on two ranches for one day each, hauling for the hardware store on Wednesday, stocking at the grocery any morning he could.
His ex-wife’s parents, Ted and Helen Lee, helped with Lillie when they could. They’d take her to kindergarten on the mornings he had to leave before dawn, and pick her up on the days he didn’t get off work early enough. But every night, Charley wanted to be the one to tuck her in.
Sharon’s folks were kind people. They hadn’t heard from her in over a year and that had been only a postcard saying she was moving to LA.
The old couple didn’t have much, but they were good to Lillie and him. Some days Charley thought the kid was their only sunshine.
He smiled as he drifted to sleep. He had a very special standing date come morning. Sundays he’d make pancakes with Lillie and then they’d saddle up her pony and his quarter horse and ride down into Ransom Canyon while the air was still cold and the day was newborn. They’d ride and talk and laugh. He’d tell her stories his grandfather told him about the early days when longhorn cattle and wild mustangs ran across the land.
When they stopped to rest, she’d beg him for more stories. Her favorite was all about the great buffalo herds and how, when they stampeded, they’d shake the ground.
She’d giggle when she put her hand on the earth and swear she could feel the herd headed toward them.
Charley would laugh with her and for a moment he’d feel rich.
Jubilee
February 22
DAWN WAS BARELY up over the Lone Heart Ranch when Jubilee Hamilton heard the first knock on the downstairs back door.
“Go away!” she yelled and pulled the covers over her head.
How inconsiderate, she thought, pressing her eyes closed as if she could force herself to go back to sleep. Didn’t anyone in this flat, worthless country understand that she was in the middle of a nervous breakdown and she didn’t want to be bothered?
“Open the door, lady!” A man, obviously standing just below her window, yelled.
“No,” she answered.
“All right. I’ll leave the groceries on the porch. They’ll be rotting by noon.”
“Groceries?” She sat up. “Food?” She’d left her parents’ house three days ago eating nothing but carrot sticks and protein bars before she finally stopped at the little town called Crossroads to buy food. The grouchy grocer had hurried her, saying it was almost closing time.
She’d been too exhausted to hurry or care what time it was. When she checked out, the grocer interrogated her until he found out she was Levy Hamilton’s great-granddaughter, then he rattled off directions he’d called “the short cut” to Levy’s place.
She ended up lost for a few hours on back roads with no signs or even mile markers. When she finally pulled onto the ranch, she discovered she’d also lost the groceries. The back of her car, where she thought she had put them, was empty.
That had been two, or maybe three days ago. Since then she’d been crying, talking to herself and wandering around a big old house packed with things no one would even bother to sell in a garage sale. She’d rationed M&M’S the first day. Eaten peaches from the only can on the shelf the second day, then decided to sleep until starvation took over.
Nightmares of her Christmas with her parents would wake her from time to time. Her mom dispensing advice endlessly. Her father comparing Jubilee to her perfect sister. And Destiny dropping in like the evil fairy to show off. As if rich husband and new car weren’t enough, she brought in adorable twins. Destiny always was an overachiever.
Days of hiding in the room where she grew up finally ended with her mother’s morning lecture coming with a list of jobs in the area. “You have to have a goal,” her mother had shouted. “It’s not normal not to have goals, Jub, and right now my goal in life is to make sure you get one.”
Jubilee could think of only one goal. Leave. Which she did. She packed her suitcase and drove away with her mother still lecturing from the front steps. She’d put off her trip to the Lone Heart Ranch long enough.
“What’s it going to be, lady?” The cowboy interrupted her unpleasant memories.
Jubilee’s left leg caught in the covers as she fell out of bed.
“You all right?” he shouted.
“I’m coming,” she yelled back as she rummaged through her one travel bag for anything clean enough to wear.
If she died, someone would have to wash clothes to bury her. She didn’t even have clean socks. Everything she owned, except a suitcase of dirty clothes, had been packed in a moving pod in November.
“Food,” she said again as she grabbed at something, anything, to wear, fearing the cowboy and the groceries might disappear. Real food. Green vegetables. Fruit. Sweets. She stumbled to the window as she tugged on clothes. “Where’d you find my groceries?”
“You left them in the basket at the store in Crossroads two and a half days ago.” The man bellowed, sounding angry. “They stored them in the cooler thinking you’d return. When you didn’t, the manager hired me to bring them out.”
She straightened, putting on an old army green raincoat as a robe and a worn pair of socks she’d found in one of Grandfather Levy’s drawers. One had a red band around the calf and the other had blue stripes, but who cared.
When she leaned out the window, all she saw was the top of a worn Stetson. “I forgot them? I just thought they evaporated while I was lost, or fell out when I hit the hundred bumps in the road. I didn’t come back for them because I don’t think I could remember how to get back to town. I drove hours before I stumbled on this place.”
The cowboy looked up and she swore he growled. “Could you tell me your life story later? I’d like to set these groceries down.”
He lowered his voice, but she heard him add, “Lady, you’re only twelve miles from town, not lost in the Amazon jungle.”
She moved down the stairs and slowly neared the door, picking up an old umbrella as she tiptoed. The raincoat didn’t reach her knees, but it would have to do.
He must have gotten tired of waiting because he yelled, “You are Jubilee Hamilton?”
She opened the door a few inches and stared at a handsome man dressed in boots, jeans, a worn shirt and a cowboy hat. “How do you know that?”
He smiled at her. “You left your credit card at the store, too.” He studied her a minute, then asked, “You