Free Belonging to Bandera by Tina Leonard

Lovingly, the two of them had made the bed, with Nanette dancing around excitedly. Mason had painted the walls of Nanette’s room a soft shell-pink, and he’d laid on the bed pretty unicorn pillows he’d ordered from a catalog.
    Mimi’s eyes had teared up as the three of them ate dinner that night. And she’d come to a realization: itwas time to be that very different mother she wanted so much to be. A good mother. A loving mother.
    A mother who cared enough to be strong for her daughter.
    She sat down on her daughter’s bed, gently touching her child’s face. Why had she never been able to tell Mason how she felt about him? Because they were more comfortable being best friends rather than dealing with what she really felt for him.
    But avoiding her feelings was what had gotten her to this moment, she knew. She had never wanted to lose Mason—what she had of him—and so she’d hidden her true emotions. “When your grandfather got so sick and nearly died,” she whispered to her daughter, “I married a man Dad liked and trusted so he could see me happy. I desperately wanted to give him a grandchild.” Gently, she touched the blond strands of hair that curled around her daughter’s ear. “I wouldn’t change a thing I did. And maybe that’s wrong. But you,” she said softly, “you are the angel my heart dreamed of. And you’re his angel, too. Mason loves you so much.”
    Tears stung her eyes, tears of regret and false hope. When she’d married Brian and ran away from her broken heart, a heart that loved but was not loved in return, she’d only hoped to make her father happy.
    Life had a way of making the repercussions of some decisions linger a long time.
    Now her father was almost fully recovered from a liver ailment he had not been expected to survive. The doctors said that her loving care had probably turned the tide during the nearly three and a half years it had attacked him. He would never be the strong, tough-as-bricks sheriff he’d been, but neither was he an invalid at death’s door. Now that they’d moved to town, and Mimi had run for sheriff herself, he had a ton of visitors coming in, mostly older gentlemen wanting a game of checkers or a bit of gossip or a chat about the old days. An occasional widow came by, too, bearing sweets she’d baked for him.
    Her dad loved being the center of attention. Before his illness, he’d always been too busy with the ranch and his job to enjoy life.
    Nanette murmured in her sleep, a contented snuffle as she changed her breathing pattern. Mason liked to hold her and read her to sleep. A lot of Winnie-the-Pooh, which Nanette insisted on, and then Mason would read some outdated classical Greek philosopher or even a Bible story. It depended upon his mood. By then, Nanette had had her Winnie, and she was in Mason’s arms, and she didn’t care what Euclidian, Pythagorean, or biblical construct Uncle Mason was trying to introduce her to.
    She did like the stories of the angels, though. The philosophers and mathematicians she ignored.
    It had been a glimpse into Mason’s life that Mimicould only marvel at. Maverick Jefferson had done an amazing job of educating his children. The Jeffersons had attended public school with her, but it had mainly been a social exercise for them. It was Maverick who’d shaped those boys intellectually.
    She could understand Mason’s desire to find out what had happened to their father. She put her finger in Nanette’s hand, and her daughter tightened her fist around it. Nanette would someday want to know about her father.
    This had become very clear to Mimi one day in the bakery. Several little girls had come after church to get cookies and doughnuts, all with their fathers in tow. Nanette had stood on uncertain feet, her smile wide as she watched the families enter, a crumbling cookie in her hand as everybody walked in and made much of her.
    One day, she would ask about her father. Would he attend church with her? Would he go to