LITMIR.BIZ

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does it.”

      She seemed to remember where she should be targeting and adjusted her aim. The tiny crooked last finger she’d inherited from her daddy’s side of the family stuck out as if she were balancing a teacup. “Just gonna see if any of these fellas over here will do.”

      “First time I’ve ever been held at gunpoint to prove I’m a good kisser,” one of the cowboys joked.

      Heat blazed in Daisy’s cheeks as she dismissed him and her daughter’s demand, instantly moving on to the three men who had been hanging around High Plains on weekends the past month. She had heard they were helping out at the old Rafford place during branding season. The others were probably looking for work. Dressed in work shirts, bandannas, vests and chaps to cover their denims, they didn’t appear any different than most cowboys who rode the circuit of ranches come spring.

      Despite Ollie’s earlier comments about the more finely dressed man, most of the cowboys had shaved and cleaned up before riding into town. That showed respect, one of the requirements Daisy had added to her daughter’s list. She appreciated a respectful man of clean ways who traveled a good path. As she tried to do herself, though she failed at times.

      If she ever did choose to remarry, not that she thought she actually would, the man must honor all of God’s ways and love her and Ollie as his own. He must put no one else but God before them. She would offer her heart to no one less. She would give Ollie no less than the best of fathers this time. Until that ever came about, she intended to be and provide everything her daughter needed. No matter how hard the struggle.

      Daisy moved on to the cowboys’ faces and whether or not they could stare her straight in the eyes. Every one of them looked away before she finished, a couple of them edging their hats down low as if not wanting to be seen too closely. That made no points with her. Anyone she allowed to enter her and Ollie’s lives she needed to trust, and eyes spoke volumes about a person.

      The rest of the men’s features ranged from passably pleasing to make-you-look-twice, but she put little value in appearances these days. Each of them would be a suitable match to some woman in the world somewhere, just not her.

      Daisy supposed she should have never told Ollie that Knox had been the handsomest man in the county when she’d married him. Her daughter now believed having uncommon good looks was an important requirement for a would-be daddy. As Daisy had learned the hard way, a man needed something more than pleasant features to be a good husband or a father. He needed a heart filled with sincere love and kindness and a soul full of truth. She’d discovered too late that Knox had fallen short of that expectation and she hadn’t known how to help him improve.

      Ollie knew only that her father had the reputation of a hero. What purpose would it serve to let her or others believe any different of him? It would only hurt Ollie in the end. Daisy decided it was better to keep the sad truth hidden away in her own heart than to crush Ollie’s.

      Though she allowed Ollie to have her fun with the future-daddy list, Daisy doubted any man could ever really measure up and be able to heal the depth of that hurt in Knox and disappointment in herself. Instead, she set about proving to herself and every other member of the Trumbo clan in this community that she could make a decent living for her and Ollie and didn’t need anyone else to make them happy or earn their keep.

      “Let these men go, Olivia,” Daisy said quietly, her tone filled with the pain of memories. “We’ve delayed them long enough.”

      Ollie shrugged. “I wasn’t much stuck on none of ’em, either, Mama. Not a one knows a thing about threading your machine or making a shoe, so they won’t be no help with the biz’ness. They just shoo cows and keep ’em rounded up. How ’bout their eyes? Any of them got that special look you want?”

      The cowboy in front thumbed back his hat and winked at Daisy. He had one of the priorities Ollie had written on the list. Taller than Mama. A lot of men fell short of matching Daisy’s height. Six feet in widow-black daunted more men than it didn’t.

      “You got a real rooter-tooter on your hands there, Widow.” The winker’s grin broadened. “I might be willing to stick around to change your opinion.” His voice lowered into a husky tone that implied more than Daisy needed or wanted to know about the kind of man he was.

      The lady with the fan tapped Daisy with it and gave a low throaty laugh. “I wouldn’t turn that one down, ma’am. He looks like quite a charmer.”

      “Leave the dear widow to her business, Petula,” warned her brother, his gaze locking with his sister’s. “I’ve already told you, we won’t be here long enough to make any proper acquaintances.”

      Petula’s lower lip pouted. Daisy took note of the undercurrent of emotion layering his tone and his stoic expression. His features were similar to but more angular than his flirting sister’s. His eyes, though, were incomparable to any others she’d ever seen. The blue-violet of the lake water in her back pasture after a spring thaw, they were layered with fathoms so clear nothing could be hidden in their depths. The kind of eyes that one might trust, she wondered, unsettled that they had stirred such a curiosity within her.

      Daisy quickly pushed the question aside. He was someone just passing through. She’d had enough of trying to trust a man to settle down. To make herself important enough in his life he would prefer to stay.

      The expression that now thinned the stranger’s lips and chiseled his jaw held no softness, no gentleness, only command for his sister’s obedience. He didn’t appear a man to be taken lightly.

      “Proper wasn’t exactly on your sister’s mind, mister,” the winker dared.

      “What are you implying?” demanded Petula’s protector, his legs firmly planting themselves apart. Massive fists rose to defend his sister’s honor. “Ladies, please step out of the way.”

      His knuckles looked scarred and broken, certainly not the hands of a duded-up gentleman. This would not be his first fight or the first defense of Petula, Daisy noted.

       Time to get this under control.

      “Excuse them, sir,” she apologized for the cowboy’s rudeness, hoping to play peacemaker, “you’re new to these parts. Men around here love a good Saturday fight just so they can sit in church the next morning and have something to ask forgiveness for. Don’t you, fellows?”

      She hoped she could make the defender see reason and not let this escalate into a brawl. “They sometimes deliberately rile somebody just to get a rise out of them. It’s a source for bragging rights so they can confess the most amount of wrongdoing and need for redemption come Sunday. That lets them enjoy the women who want to sit beside them and tame the bad boys.” She shrugged. “Just a Texan’s way of courting, so to speak.”

      “Yeah, that’s what we’re doing—” Winker elbowed the cowhand next to him “—courting. What you gonna do about it, partner?”

      * * *

      Bass Parker didn’t want to fight and wasn’t sure if he could take them all on, but he’d go down trying if forced. Maybe the mouthy winker would be man enough to meet him one-on-one instead of making this a brawl.

      He appreciated the widow’s attempt to defuse the situation, but he wasn’t about to let the man’s coarse implications stand without letting him know of his disapproval.

      Defending Petula’s honor had become a habit Bass hoped wouldn’t follow them West, but it seemed to be a daily occurrence now. Long before their parents’ deaths, he made a vow he would look after his younger sister and see her raised right. But the more men Petula met, the more determined she was to flirt. The more situations and comments like this could not be left unchallenged.

      It might be a thrill to her to have men pursue her, but he feared Petula would take her need to experience what she thought was love one step too far someday and get into more trouble than the scandal she’d left behind or his defense of her could handle.

      Bass hoped to find them a place to call home where she

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