Callie's Cowboy by Karen Leabo Read Free Book Online Page A

Callie.”
    â€œCal? Dem soxis poody.”
    â€œWhat?”
    Millicent laughed. “She’s saying your stockings are pretty.” She indicated Callie’s lace-textured hose.
    â€œOh. Uh, thank you. Your, uh, barrette is pretty too.” Callie touched it lightly, pondering the purple cartoon character. “Is that a … a hippopotamus?”
    Deana looked horrified. “Iss Barney!”
    Millicent laughed again. “Get with it, Callie.”
    â€œOops. Oh, yes, now I see. Of course it’s Barney. Guess I need new glasses.”
    Sam returned, carrying two cardboard cartons of eggs.
    Millicent laid a couple of bills and some change on the table and took the eggs. “Thanks.”
    â€œSure you won’t stay for dinner?”
    â€œCan’t. Nancy would have a fit if she missed her viola class. But it’s nice of you to ask. Another time, maybe. Oh, we had a little accident.” She handed Sam a diaper bag.
    â€œNo problem,” Sam said easily. “We have lots of little accidents, don’t we, Deana? But we’re working on it.”
    â€œMy Lily is still in diapers, so don’t feel too badly.”
    â€œI won’t.” He smiled warmly at her. “Thanks, Millicent.”
    â€œNo problem. See ya, Callie. Bye, Deana.”
    â€œBye bye!” Deana waved her chubby hand at Millicent as the latter disappeared.
    â€œPotty training, huh?” Callie said, feeling really ignorant.
    â€œYup. Speaking of the P-word,” Sam said, “Deana, do you need to use the bathroom?”
    â€œMmm, don’t know,” she said cheerfully.
    â€œOkay, well, maybe we better give it a try. Excuse us, Callie.”
    â€œYeah, ’scoose us.” Deana giggled, touching Callie’s heart with her ingenuousness, before leaving the room with her father.
    â€œI don’t hafta go, Daddy,” Deana said.
    â€œWell, that’s okay if you don’t, but just sit there for a couple of minutes to be sure, okay?”
    â€œMmm, okay.”
    And give Daddy a few minutes of peace away from Callie Calloway, he added silently. Damn, he’d forgotten what that girl—woman, he should say—could do to him. He considered himself a controlled man, one who didn’t easily give in to emotion. He had accepted his wife’s desertion with his usual stoicism, having realized early in the marriage that it wasn’t going to work. Debra’s unexpected pregnancy had kept things together for a while, but even Deana couldn’t preserve her parents’ marriage indefinitely, not when there was no love left between them—if there had ever been any to begin with.
    Even his father’s suicide Sam had taken with outward pragmatism, if not inner acceptance. He and Johnny Sanger hadn’t exactly seen eye to eye on much of anything, but Sam had respected his old man for sticking with the farm against the worst odds, and for his continued loyalty to Beverly. His abrupt departure from this world had hurt, no doubt about it, and Samwould have to deal with the pain eventually, but he hadn’t lost control.
    Now, along comes his childhood sweetheart, a slip of a girl with whom he’d shared an on-again, off-again, essentially immature relationship, one who had practically stomped on his heart with her refusal to marry him, and he was as stoic as Silly Putty, as controlled as a stampeding herd of cattle.
    He never should have looked into those earnest brown eyes, much less have touched her. One glance, one almost caress, and he’d been thrown back eight years. He’d thought his adolescent adoration of Callie had long since been dealt with and buried. But it appeared he was wrong.
    â€œDone, Daddy,” Deana said proudly.
    â€œWell, I’ll be darned,” Sam said. “I knew you could do it! See, this toilet-training stuff is a breeze, isn’t it?”
    â€œBweeze,” Deana experimented. She liked the