Ranch Manny - B.A. Tortuga Page 0,2

up. “We going back home now, Dad-O?”

She looked so pretty in her little pink coat. So much like her momma it hurt.

“I don’t know, baby girl. I’m still working that out.”

The diner would yield coffee, which, even if it was bad, would help. And his girl needed to eat. So he danced through the parking lot, singing with Susanna. “Let it go!”

The singing, as dumb as it was, helped his mood, quenched the urge to burst into exhausted tears, and when he walked into Jan’s Diner, he was grinning. Maybe he could figure this out without going up to Denver, where his folks were. They had just downsized to a one bedroom. They didn’t need him all up in their business.

The diner looked clean and smelled like fried things and eggs. That was always a good sign. A stand inside the door had a placard that read, Seat Yourself, so he took the booth at the end, away from all the older cowboys sitting at the counter.

“What do you think you might want, baby girl? Breakfast? Lunch?”

“Fluffy cakes.” She said it with a definitive nod. Breakfast it was. He grabbed the menu so he could see if they had kids’ menu or a short stack or something.

“Coffee, mister?” A solid-looking lady with steel-gray hair and twinkling blue eyes appeared, a coffeepot in hand.

“God, please. And an apple juice, please.”

“You got it. Water?”

“Please, thank you.” He smiled, tickled when she smiled back. Okay. Not everyone was an asshole, right? Right. He knew that, but his hands still shook from trying to hold his shit together. His baby girl didn’t need to see that.

Her curls were wild and untamed, and her smile was her mama’s, down to the core. God, she was beautiful.

“Dad-O? You cryin’ again.”

“Was I? Silly eyes, leaking.”

“Dust,” she said sagely. “Love you.”

“Oh, I love you too.” Wisdom ran deep in fixin’ to be four. The menu blurred, then cleared when he blinked a few times. “So, fluffy cakes for you, and maybe biscuits and gravy for Dad-O.”

“With steaks.” She loved to nibble his chicken fried steak, but he thought they might ought to conserve cash, because hello, car.

“Not today. Maybe bacons.”

“Ooh…bacons. Crunchy. Not soggy.”

“Fair enough.” That he could do, since it came with the meal. He had to admit, the prices here were way better than in Austin.

They were a little more than an hour outside the wonderful insanity of the city, and this felt like old-time Texas—a little slower, a little easier, a hell of a lot quieter.

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to smile when the waitress—he couldn’t call anyone in a polyester dress a server—brought the waters and Susannah’s juice.

“What’ll it be, folks?”

“Miss Susannah would like a pancake, please, and I’ll take biscuits and gravy with crisp bacon on the side.” A bag of money. A working car. And a job. I need a job.

“What kind of pancake did you want, honey? Plain?” the lady, whose name was Jan, if he went by what was embroidered on her dress, asked. “Or carrot cake or cinnamon sugar?”

“Dad-O?”

“Cinnamon sugar sounds good, doesn’t it?”

She nodded and offered Jan a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good deal.”

He bit his lip to stop from asking if they were hiring. There was a bulletin board on the wall a few feet away. Maybe he could find one of those cards for people who wanted…yard work or cleaning or something.

He could clean with Susannah with him. He’d give her his tablet, and she could sit for hours.

Trace grinned. He could also babysit kids, churn his own butter, grow his own food, and wash laundry by stomping it in the bathtub. His granny had been the Mother Earth News type, and he’d spent every summer with her. He could can himself some green beans.

Was there a job description for that?

Old farm wife, that evil voice in the back of his head muttered.

That made him chuckle. Lord, he was losing it.

“I like this song.” Susannah began to swing her feet and dance in her seat a little.

“Yeah? You like music, baby girl. I do too.” He couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but he could listen for hours.

“Yes!” She raised her hands over her head, swaying.

He laughed. If they were at home, he would swing her up and twirl.

But he wasn’t. He just wasn’t.

The door swung open with a bang, and a hot, solid babe in a Stetson and Wranglers—hello, cowboy butt—sauntered in. “Jan.”

“Brent. How goes it?”

“Fuck. Coffee.” That growl made him want