Owen's Daughter by Jo-Ann Mapson Page A

duffel in the bed and start up the engine as if it were a race. If he had just stopped and told her what was going on, she might’ve felt different, understood, in a way.
    He didn’t even say good-bye.
     
    Still on horseback, she heard the whir of a truck on the highway, though she couldn’t tell how far away it was in the early morning darkness. The air was cold on her face, and her nose ached from breathing in the chilly air.
    Her father’s face was in shadow. Every once in a while the flare of highway lights caught on his belt buckle. He had attached a replacement tire for his truck to his horse’s saddle, along with a bedroll and God knew what else. It made him look homeless. It had been years since she’d heard one thing from him—and somehow tonight after midnight he shows up at Cottonwoods? “Daddy?” she asked. “How’d you know to pick me up?”
    “A phone call from your mother.”
    “Are you kidding me?”
    “No. She phoned to say you needed a ride back to Santa Fe.”
    Well, that was the last answer she expected, which made her all kinds of curious. Was Mama listening to her phone messages after all? “You and Mama, how long have you been speaking to each other?”
    “We’ve kept in touch occasionally. Yesterday was the first time we talked on the phone. So that makes it a total of one day.” He laughed.
    Lightning whinnied, sending thrills up Skye’s spine the likes of which she hadn’t felt in years. Being on a horse woke up muscles she forgot existed. Her riding posture kicked right in. She loosened her reins so that Lightning could make up his own mind about the bit. That had always been their unspoken agreement. She’d be light and kind; he’d give her a nice ride. Haul out the spurs or a riding crop, even if it was for show, and she’d find herself dumped on her butt without having ever felt him buck. “Lightning,” she whispered, and leaned forward to smooch him on the neck. He smelled exactly the same, a touch of vinegar to that sweet, dusky horse musk.
    Her dad had been quiet until she asked a question. What should she say next? Where the hell have you been? Everything’s forgiven and I love you? She felt her temper getting riled, and she shuddered under her hoodie sweatshirt, cold. Her goose bumps had goose bumps. “I have another question.”
    “Let her rip.”
    “What am I supposed to call you? Father? Dad? Sir? My hero? How about asshole who disappeared from my life? Bad Dad? What?” Her heart felt as if it might bust open with anger. “I never thought I’d see you again and now you’re here in the middle of the night, which casts a certain dreamlike quality on things.”
    “I can see how that would happen,” he said.
    She gathered her thoughts, trying to put them in a logical order, and boom! Her temper exploded. “Damn you, anyway! Now I have to readjust my feelings on everything. Feelings always get me into trouble. That’s what got me drinking and using in the first place. I’ve been sober nine months. If I slip because you showed up, well, I’m going to kick some ass your way.”
    He reached over and patted her hand where it rested on the pommel of an Australian stock saddle. Her father preferred them over western saddles and rarely rode any other kind. She wondered where her western saddle had gone to. “Just hearing you say that means you won’t.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Experience. You go right ahead—call me the Asshole if it’ll help you stay on track with your sobriety. Now that I’m here, right beside you, I ain’t going anywhere ever again except to the afterlife. Probably take me to the end of my days to make up for leaving you, but I’m by God going to. In no time at all you’ll be sick of me.”
    Skye stifled the sob that threatened to bust out of her chest. In group, back at Cottonwoods, the endless weeping of other drunks and addicts made her irate. Duncan always stopped group to allow the person crying time to get it all out, to