Chapter 12

Cheryl chose to get up when I did, saying that she didn't feel like staying in an empty bed. She was slowly acclimatizing. She wasn't in total zombie mode, but I wasn't sure that she understood when I told her that on Mondays before horse sales, Diego usually interrupted breakfast with questions, ideas, worries, and suggestions that had come to him over the weekend. She understood enough to show up in the kitchen a few minutes after me wearing considerably more than her necklace. However, the cut and fit of her crop-top blouse and denim mini-shorts managed to show much of what the necklace-only wardrobe showed. What wasn't openly displayed was obviously present inside the wrapping.

She snuggled beside me while I mixed the pancake batter. "I need my morning kiss." Her voice was so soft I barely heard it above the sizzling of the sausage and the whir of the exhaust fan.

I added another dash of milk. The batter was just barely too thick. "I gave it to you when you woke up."

The arched brown wings came together in a frown over barely open brown eyes. "I need one I can remember."

"Then shouldn't I wait about another hour?"

She blinked at me. Twice. In very slow motion. "Yeah. But how about one now to hold me until then?"

"Sure. One moment." The secret to good pancakes is the right consistency of batter poured at the exact moment the grill is at the right temperature. I poured, put down the batter, and wrapped her in my arms. "Sorry you had to wait. What if I kiss you twice to make up for it?"

After three seconds the information processed and she smiled. "What about three times?"

"Okay. I can't think of a better way to occupy the time while the pancakes cook than kissing you good morning."

She was waking up. That information processed in just two seconds. The rest of the face stayed sleepy, but the mouth managed an evil grin. "I can. But we'd have to get undressed, and Diego would interrupt anyway."

"Damn." Cheryl was looking at a bite of syrupy pancake impaled on the fork. We were near the end of breakfast and she was mostly awake, but now here eyes were half-closed in a frown.

"Okay, why?" I asked. I didn't see any syrup drip or any sausage pieces flying around.

She waved the bite toward me. "This syrup is going to waste. I can't share it with you this morning."

"Oh. Well, that's okay. I'll live."

"No, you don't understand. I like sharing it with you. It's more than just your sucking on my boob, Uncle Randy. Yeah, that feels great, but what feels even better is that it's something special that we're sharing together. Not because Mom doesn't know, but because it's us. It's just us."

I couldn't think of any words that expressed how that made me feel. I placed my fork on my plate. "Cheryl, that's the sweetest ... That's ... I just ... Well, thank you. I guess that ... Well, now that I think about it, it is something special, isn't it? I guess I was too concerned with being irked that you outsmarted me to notice that."

That brought out the smile. I think she was relieved that I hadn't made light of something that was important to her. "You'd have realized it soon enough."

Probably. But I wouldn't have been any happier about it.

She was obviously thinking about something while she slowly chewed the pancake. She didn't swallow until her eyes said she'd thought of something. She pushed back her chair, rose, and came around the table to stand by me. With a triumphant grin she tugged up the bottom of her short blouse, revealing that she wasn't wearing a bra. She daintily dipped a fingertip in the syrup on my plate and coated each nipple with a thin film of syrup.

She started to suck the remaining syrup off her finger, then suddenly shoved it in my face. "You do it," she said. I did, and she managed to keep that look off her face during the three seconds required. It showed up, though, when she withdrew her finger. "Beats sucking guys, doesn't it?"

"Does it ever! I'd rather suck your finger any time!"

She grinned. "Good. Now here's the rest of it."

Her breath caught as I cleaned the syrup from each shiny pink knob, and she whimpered slightly as I worked on the second one. I decided that any missed syrup would cause her blouse to stick uncomfortably to sensitive skin, so I cleaned each one a second time.

She stood there, head back, eyes almost closed, mouth ajar when I retreated. It seemed my arm around her waist was holding her up. Her head rolled forward and she focused dreamily on me. "I'm glad I thought of that."

I sighed. "Cheryl, I can't lie to you. I wish you hadn't, but I'm glad you did, too."

I withdrew my arm from around her waist. She didn't move. "Uncle Randy, can I tell you something? It may not come out right like I mean it, but, well, don't take it the wrong way. Okay? If it does, let me explain first. Okay?"

"Of course."

"I'm sorry we had to dress for breakfast because I really got comfortable with you being nude around the house. You really looked good like that. I don't mean that you don't look good now! I just mean that ... well, it was relaxed and comfortable and—I guess it's coming out wrong, huh?"

I put the arm back around her waist, not for support this time but for affection. Okay, I suppose that's a different kind of support. "I don't know if the words are saying it properly, but your eyes are loud and clear. You're saying that it's comfortable here and you're enjoying anything and everything that says this isn't home, where it's uncomfortable."

"Yeah, I guess. No. Well, yeah, that's part of it. But..."

"But you're enjoying being treated like a responsible adult instead of Mandy and Marek's little brat?"

She sighed. "Yeah, I guess that's part of it, too. Even though I work harder here than I do at home with them."

I leaned forward enough to kiss the center of her chest. "There you do it because you're ordered to. Here you do it because you know it needs doing and you're treated like someone smart enough to realize it for herself and allowed to act responsibly once you're shown how to do it. You're becoming an adult. You deserve to be treated like one. Except that you still can't get a tattoo.""

"Well, yeah. I appreciate that, too, Mister Smart Ass."

"I know. I also happen to be Mister Cute Ass."

"Maybe. I haven't seen it since you got up this morning."

"That reminds me. There's something we need to discuss, Miss Responsible Person. Your mother said that I wasn't supposed to see you naked. Although she didn't say so, I think that she intends that you not see me naked, either, so there will be no more days like yesterday, with me running around in my birthday suit with all the naughty bits flapping in the breeze. I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, because those days are over. Done. Gone."

She blinked. Twice. I saw the four words gathering behind her eyes before her mouth opened and she said, "God, I love you."

Okay, so I was a hundred eighty degrees out on the third word. But if I'd been right, I'm sure that her word would have been the right translation anyhow. "I love you, too."

She leaned forward and kissed me. Really kissed me, with force and passion and feeling. Again her mouth opened slightly in invitation, but she waited for me to make that move. Somehow I resisted, knowing what would follow if I gave in. When she ended it, her face was a mix of disappointment that I hadn't accepted the invitation and delight that I'd not rejected the kiss.

She sighed and squeezed my neck with her forearms. "I'm going to miss the good old days."

"Me, too. I enjoyed seeing you naked. Before you had to start wearing clothes around me."

"Since I'm clothed, I suppose you won't mind if I leave my top like this for a while, until Diego gets here? It's cooler in the hot kitchen this way, you know."

I didn't answer that. Diego did by ringing the doorbell. I never knew how much a doorbell could cool down a hot kitchen. It also cooled down Cheryl, but not by much.

Cheryl blinked. Twice. "A what?"

Doc Branson lifted his left hand from the arm of the front porch swing and tapped his chest twice with the first two fingers. His right hand had slid around behind my niece and was attached to her upper right arm. "That's what I call chest cold in a horse. I don't think it's anything more serious than that."

I nodded in thought. "I'll tell Summers that, but I'll still give him the option of another horse anyway."

Doc sighed and gave me a piercing look. "I worry about you, boy! How do you expect to get anywhere in life if you don't lie, cheat, and take advantage of helpless victims?"

I pointed at Cheryl with my beer. "Her father's a lawyer. One like that in the family is enough, though sometimes she shows signs of willingness to follow him down that trail of depravity."

He pulled Cheryl against him in a firm hug. "This young, cute, sweet little old thang? Now, why would you say something insulting like that about her, varmint?"

"You'll find out when you get into an argument with her and temporarily start winning."

Doc laughed in dismissal and reached for his beer with his free hand. "She don't need to be a lawyer to win an argument with you, coyote breath. All that's needed is five working brain cells."

I tried not to sound too smug when I said, "Well, that would explain why you always lose to me." I needed to keep Cheryl around to distract Doc. Normally you could get him drunker than Ricky Unger on free beer night and he'd not leave me an opening as big as that one.

Before Doc could think of a comeback, his cell phone rang. The conversation was long from that end but only "Yeah," and "Uh huh," and "I'm over at Randy Long's. I'll be there in thirty," from this end. He tucked the phone inside his leather vest. "Judson's got a cow gone breech."

Cletus Judson was an aging small farmer who kept a couple of horses, some hogs, and normally two dozen head of cattle, though now he was down to half that. The past two years hadn't been kind to Cletus. While he could survive the loss of the calf, he couldn't afford to lose the cow, too.

Cheryl and I both rose with Doc. She gave him a puzzled look. "So, what do you do? About that, I mean."

Doc shrugged. "Normally you reach up inside her and turn the calf around." Cheryl's face said, "Eeew!" even if her mouth didn't. "Judson tried that, but it didn't work. The calf's wedged in there tighter than a starving tick on a hound dog. It ain't gonna be easy and may not be good at the end." He squeezed Cheryl, then downed the remaining third of his beer.

The Eeew! look went away. "So what will you do?"

Doc gave me a knowing look. "Pray for a miracle, I suppose."

Summers wasn't worried about the news. He was willing to wait until Wednesday to decide. I said that if he decided to take Lariat and the problem was something worse, I would replace the horse with another of his choice and would handle the transportation. He was happy, and then we discussed the photo shoot to take place on Thursday of next week. The main topic of his ideas wasn't present with me. She said she had business in the barn, grabbed an apple, and left while I was dialing Summers. He seemed exceptionally disappointed that he'd missed a chance to speak with "Little Missy." In fact he was more concerned about that than he was about the sick horse. I hung up and then called Diego to tell him about Summers' decision.

Cheryl returned carrying something and took it to the lab. She joined me as I removed my feet from my desk and hung up the phone. "Jake said to remind you that it's time," she said as I scribbled down a couple of reminders on a note pad.

I glanced at the clock. "Time" was fifteen minutes ago. Jake, however, had had a taste of how Summers stuck to you like a burr and refused to be dislodged. And it wasn't like he didn't have anything else to do in the barns while he was waiting for me.

"Will you need me?"

"I think Jake and I can manage. Why? You planning to go riding or photographing or both?"

She shook her head. "I have work to do. Can I use your camera tool kit?"

"You planning to do surgery on the Hasselblad to fix something you broke that I don't know about yet?"

She blinked. Twice. "No, Mister Uncute Smart Ass. I need some small tools."

I resisted making a comment about getting herself some middle school boyfriends instead of high schoolers, but I think I put holes in my tongue while biting it. "Go ahead. Thanks for asking, but you're my assistant now and you can use them whenever you want, as long as you don't use those tiny screwdrivers to pry open doors or those small pliers to tighten engine bolts."

I saw the first blink and hastily added, "And speaking of being my assistant, the photo shoot at the Summer Dude Ranch is next Thursday. We may need to print some more model release forms, though Keith didn't mention any models except you. I don't know if your biggest fan is Keith Summers or Doc Branson."

Her left hand rose, palm up, and all but her index fingers curled. The tip of the extended finger caught me under my chin and pushed up, so that I was staring directly into her eyes. I don't know where Grandma got that from, but she passed it to Mom, who passed it to both daughters. Obviously Mandy had also passed it along, too. Maybe it's in that DNA that only females pass along because Junior, Tom, Jack, and I didn't get the trait.

"Yes?" I said.

Her voice was soft and dangerous. "My biggest fan better be Randy Long."

"I meant your biggest fan after me."

She smiled and removed her finger from under my chin. It moved to the bottom edge of her crop-top and helped its co-workers lift. Two pink delights appeared, looking as pert and frisky as they had been at the breakfast table. "I think you might have missed some syrup. It feel like I'm sticking to the cloth. Would you please help me?"

I told myself I shouldn't. I really shouldn't.

I told myself to shut up. After all, she had said "please." A gentleman doesn't refuse a polite request for help from a lady.

I thought I'd find Cheryl in the studio when I returned to the house. Instead, she was in the kitchen. The dining room table had been set with the good china and silverware. She heard me enter and met me in front of the stairs.

"Before I go clean up," I said, "I want to apologize for being late for cooking dinner. From the settings, it looks like you are expecting something more than mac and cheese."

Cheryl wrinkled her nose. "When you wash that horseshit off, you'll be able to smell dinner cooking. But you're right. We don't use the good stuff for mac and cheese. That would be uncouth, disgusting, presumptuous, and ostentatious. We use it for chili mac."

She pinched her nose, leaned forward, and puckered. As I bent to kiss her, she said through her pucker, "Don't touch me except with your lips."

The suicidal part of me started to mention how much she sounded like Mandy then. The part that loves chili mac put a paralysis hold on my vocal cords.

It wasn't chili mac. It was Caesar salad followed by roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, steamed mixed vegetables, and fresh-baked frozen rolls and then apple pie a la mode for dessert. My lovely niece had been very busy in my absence. She also had a pre-dinner toast. "To Doc Branson. May he have saved the calf and its mother."

I don't know. Maybe it was the sound of her voice, maybe it was worry for Cletus, but I got so choked up I was barely able to respond. She must have noticed because she didn't say anything else for a couple of minutes.

We were in the middle of the salad when I remembered the conversation that Diego and I had had with Bob Wagner, the stables supervisor. "Bob and Diego and I think we can move Buena Vista and Cheryl's Blaze to Stable One on Friday. Bob has been waiting to do some work on it after Summers takes the horses on Wednesday, so we won't move them before that job is finished."

Cheryl froze. After several seconds she looked at me with large eyes. "Give up her place in the barn?" she asked with a small quiver in her voice.

I smiled gently. "Try thinking of the barn as the maternity ward. Blaze is finally going home from the hospital."

"I guess."

"They'll go into number six together for now. That's Buena Vista's home. When Blaze is older, she'll get her own stall, number seven. Think of that as getting her own room, next to her mother's but her own personal space."

"Yeah. I guess that does make sense."

"We need the maternity ward anyway. Did you hear what Doc said about Cordillera? Could be as early as next week for her. You'll have another little one to fuss over."