Her Cowboy Soldier by Cindi Myers Page A

as he did for class, in a plain shirt and khaki trousers, but his mother had insisted he wear a suit and tie or she’d never be able to hold her head up in town again.
    “You couldn’t pay me enough to spend the night in a gym full of teenagers,” his dad said.
    “The prom isn’t at the gym. It’s in the ballroom, upstairs at the Opera House.” The Hartland Historical Society had restored the old Daniels Opera House five years previous, including redoing the upstairs ballroom, which hosted various community events.
    “I guess that’s better than having all those kids drive into the city for their party. Where did they have it when you were in school?”
    “The Bellflower Hotel.”
    Mitch shook his head. “I’d forgotten all about that place.”
    “It burned down the summer after my prom, so mine was the last class to celebrate there.” Josh had taken Sarah McKenzie as his date. She’d broken up with him a week later and had eventually married an accountant she met in college. They lived over in Durango, according to a letter that had gone out for their tenth high school reunion while Josh was over in Iraq.
    The men grew quiet again. Ben and Tomas moved away to smoke, leaving Josh and his dad alone, the silence stretching awkwardly between them. For all the angry words they’d exchanged over the years, simple conversation came harder, as if neither was quite sure what to make of the other.
    “So, you liking teaching?” his dad asked after a while.
    “Yeah, I like it. The kids are interesting. Good kids, most of them.”
    “I never figured you for a teacher. I always thought you wanted to be a rancher.”
    Josh told himself that wasn’t a note of accusation in his dad’s voice. “Most ranchers these days have day jobs, don’t they?” he said.
    Mitch nodded. “A lot of them. I’ve always managed without that, though your mom worked at the bank for a while.”
    Josh remembered those years, the house empty when he got off the school bus in the afternoons, his mom at the bank and his dad working on the ranch. He hadn’t minded having the house to himself for those few hours, hadn’t even minded starting dinner and doing the chores his mom assigned him. But his father had minded. Mitch’s pride had suffered from knowing his wife had to work to support the ranch. The day cattle prices rose enough to cover their debts without her salary, he’d ordered her to give up her job, and she’d done so, though Josh sometimes wondered if she missed that taste of independence.
    But she was the daughter of a rancher. She’d been raised to support the family business, and doing anything different may never have crossed her mind.
    “Shipping the calves is always easier than handling the steers.”
    The sudden shift of topic didn’t surprise Josh. His dad was always most comfortable talking about the ranch. About work. Mitch removed his hat and ran his thumb along the worn leather band. “That’s my least favorite job, shipping them, not to mention giving such a big cut to the feedlot.”
    “I’ve been reading about these new portable operations,” Josh said. “They bring everything right to the ranch in an eighteen-wheeler. The ranchers come together in a co-op and own the unit, so they cut out the middleman. They get a bigger cut of the profit and it’s less stressful on the cattle—more humane.”
    “Yeah, I’ve heard about those. But they sound way too expensive to me. And what do you do if the thing breaks down?” He replaced his hat on his head. “Time to get back to work.”
    Josh clenched his teeth, swallowing angry words. Did his dad dismiss all his ideas simply because they came from Josh? He pretended to want his son’s help with the ranch, but had never once implemented any idea Josh brought to the table, or even seriously considered them. Josh didn’t know why he bothered to keep trying.
    He swung up into the saddle, struggling to control the skittish horse. The rest break hadn’t done