LITMIR.BIZ

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heels of his palms and then grinning sleepily. “Melissa kissed you,” he said.

      Steven chuckled and rounded the truck, climbed behind the wheel.

      “She did,” Matt insisted, as they pulled away from the curb. “I saw Melissa kiss you.”

      “Okay,” Steven said, adjusting the mirrors. “She kissed me. It was no big deal, Tex. Just ‘good-night.’”

      “Melissa likes you.”

      “I like her, too.”

      “I bet she doesn’t go around kissing everybody she likes,” Matt went on.

      “Go back to sleep,” Steven responded, with a smile in his voice.

      Matt giggled. He was wide-awake—so much for his usual tendency to sleep through anything. “Are you going to ask Melissa out for a date?”

      Steven suppressed a broad grin. They were on the main street of Stone Creek now, headed in the direction of home.

      Such as home was.

      “You’re five,” he pointed out. “What would make you ask a question like that?”

      Matt gave a huge sigh. “I know what dating is,” he said, very patiently. “I watch TV. Guys on TV give lots of women roses and take them on dates, in limos. At the end of the season, the guy has to decide which one of them is a keeper and gets down on one knee and gives her a ring.”

      “And you watched all this stuff when?” Steven asked. In their household, television was strictly monitored, especially the “reality” kind.

      “Mrs. Hooper has this big set of DVDs. We watched all of them.”

      Mrs. Hooper had been Matt’s babysitter back in Denver. Steven had worked a lot of nights, tying up loose ends at his old law firm before making the move to Stone Creek.

      “You didn’t mention that at the time,” Steven said dryly. Once they were past the city limits, he shifted gears and sped up a little.

      “You never once asked me if Mrs. Hooper and I were watching smoochy dating shows on TV,” Matt informed him.

      “You’d make a great lawyer, you know that?”

      “I don’t want to be a lawyer,” Matt said. “I want to be a cowboy.” A pause. “I just need a horse, that’s all. You can’t be a cowboy without a horse. So, when are we going to build the new barn?”

      Steven laughed and shoved his left hand through his hair, keeping his right on the steering wheel. “When I’ve had a chance to get some estimates and hire a contractor,” he answered. “Until then, you’ll just have to be patient.”

      Another sigh.

      “What?” Steven asked.

      “I was just wondering something.”

      “And that would be—?”

      “Are you going to ask Melissa out on a date?”

      Now it was Steven who sighed. “Guess what?” he said. “That just happens to be none of your darned business, buddy.”

      “How am I ever supposed to get a mom if you won’t go out with women?”

      “I do go out with women, Matt.”

      “Okay,” Matt conceded. “You went out sometimes when we lived in Denver. But this is Stone Creek.”

      “And we haven’t even been here two full days,” Steven said reasonably. “Give me a chance, will you?”

      “So you’ll do it?”

      “So I’ll do what?”

      Matt sounded exasperated. “Ask. Melissa. Out. On. A. Date.”

      Steven laughed again, harder this time. They were bumping their way over a country road now. Their turn-off was just ahead and he switched on the signal, even though there was no one behind them. “Do you ever give up?”

      “No,” Matt replied, without hesitation. “Do you?”

      Steven sighed. “No,” he admitted.

      “Because a Creed never gives up, right?”

      Steven didn’t answer.

      “Right?” Matt persisted, through a yawn.

      “Okay,” Steven said. “Yes. That’s right.”

      “And you’re going to ask Melissa to go out with you, right?”

      Steven stopped the rig near the tour bus, shut off the engine and turned in his seat to look back at Matt. “If I say yes, will you shut up about it?” he asked, not unkindly.

      Inside the bus, Zeke began to bark.

      “Yes,” Matt said, and Steven thought his expression might have been a little smug, though that could have been a trick of the light.

      “Promise?”

      “Promise,” Matt confirmed. “But you have to promise, too.”

      Steven got out of the truck, went to open Matt’s door and began unhitching the kid from his safety gear. “All right, I promise. But if she says no, that’s it, understand?” He lifted Matt into his arms. “You don’t get to pester me about it until the crack of doom.”

      Matt squeezed his neck. “Melissa won’t say no, Dad,” he said. “She likes you, remember? She kissed you.”

      Steven sighed. It sure felt good to be called “Dad,” though.

      Reaching the bus, he opened the door and stepped aside just before Zeke shot out of the interior like a hairy bullet.

      “One other thing,” Steven said.

      Matt yawned again, watching fondly as Zeke ran in widening circles, barking his brains out. “What?” the boy asked, sounding only mildly interested.

      Steven set him down, and they both waited for the dog to do his thing.

      “When it comes to dating,” Steven said, “three’s a crowd, old buddy. You’ll have to stay home with a babysitter.”

      Zeke raised a hind leg and christened the left rear tire of Steven’s new truck.

      “Okay,” Matt agreed solemnly. “It’s a deal.”

      When the dog was finished, Steven reached to switch on a light. Then the three of them went into the flashy tour bus with a silhouette of Brad O’Ballivan’s head painted on the side.

      Within a few minutes, Matt was washed up and in his pajamas, his breath smelling of mint from a vigorous tooth-brushing session at the bathroom sink. Steven tucked the boy in and pretended not to notice when Zeke immediately jumped up onto the mattress and settled himself in for the night.

      Smiling slightly, Steven stepped out of Matt’s room, remembering his own childhood. In Boston, he wasn’t allowed to have a dog—his mother said the antique Persian rugs in Granddad’s house were far too valuable to put at risk and besides, animals were generally noisy—but on the ranch outside Lonesome Bend, the plank floors were hardwood, worn smooth by a century of use, and the rugs were all washable. Nobody seemed to mind the occasional mess and the near-constant clamor of kids and dogs banging in and out of the doors.

      There had been a succession of pets over the years; Brody and Conner each had their own mutt, and so did Steven. His had been a lop-eared Yellow Lab named Lucky, and when he arrived in the spring, right after school let out, that dog would be waiting at the ranch gate when they pulled in.

      The reunions were always joyous.

      The goodbyes, when the end of August came around, and it was time for Steven to return to Boston, were an ache he could still feel, even after all those years.

      Of course, Brody and Conner had looked out for Lucky

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