Free The Traveling Kind by Janet Dailey

and ears open.” His sideways glance held humor “ And —as long as you’re not ashamed to admit that you’re ignorant about something;”
    Yet it seemed to her that he was letting all his knowledge and abilities go to waste. She didn’t understand why he had remained a drifter, never using his intelligence to make something better out of his life.
    “Haven’t you ever wanted to be something else than what you are?” she frowned. She face his profile, her cheek resting on the back of the seat.
    “Something other than a cowboy?” He named his profession, then silently shook his head. “Granted the hours are long. Sometimes it seems that you get up so early in the morning that you’re eating breakfast in the middle of the night. And the work is hard, sometimes dirty and smelly. The pay is cheap. A guy could earn a lot more working in a factory in the city. But it’s a proud way to live.”
    There was an underlying emphasis on the last sentence, a sense of deep satisfaction and— pride. Charley was moved by the force of his abiding love for his profession and was sorry she had implied it wasn’t a worthy one.
    “Was you father a cowboy, too?” Giving way to her curiosity, she unconsciously began to delve into his background.
    “I really don’t know.” He spared her a glance, his expression vaguely thoughtful as he met her confused and questioning look after such a strange answer. He smiled absently and let his attention return to the highway. “I was abandoned as a child when I was somewhere around two years old. I don’t remember anything about my natural parents. There weren’t any papers left with me. I have no idea when or where I was born or what my real name is.”
    “I see,” Charley murmured as a picture began to form in her mind. “This was in Colorado?” She remembered he had told her that was where he had been raised.
    “Yes.” The rain had become spotty and Shad switched off the windshield wipers.
    “Didn’t they try to find your parents?” It seemed incomprehensible to her that someone could abandon their child. She wondered what kind of people could do that, and guessed the same thought had probably occurred to Shad. Such an experience had to leave a scar.
    “They tried,” he said with an expressive shrug, a certain impassivity about his features. “A service-station owner found me sleeping in one of the rest rooms when he opened up for business one morning. There wasn’t any clue to go on. The station had been closed so no one saw who left me. There was always the chance my parents would come back to claim me so I wasn’t considered adoptable. I was shuffled from one foster home to another.”
    “So you never really knew what it was like to have a family,” Charley realized. Traveling, always moving on, had been a part of his lifestyle from a very early age. There hadn’t been a stable home in his life.
    “Not in the beginning,” he admitted, and sent her a smiling look that held no self-pity. “None of my foster parents ever mistreated me. They were all good to me but I was still an outsider. It wasn’t until I was older that I discovered most children had parents and a family. When I found out differently, I was realistic enough not to cry about something I couldn’t change. In some ways I was lucky because I was exposed to a variety of environments and lifestyles, learned a lot about people, and life in general.”
    “But it had to have an effect on you,” Charley insisted.
    “I learned to be self-reliant and independent. “I struck out on my own when I was seventeen,” he explained. “I got a job herding sheep up in the high country of Colorado with a Basque shepherd as my partner. From there I went to work for a quarter-horse breeder, cleaning stables. Cattle were a sideline with him. That’s where I started riding fence and working branding crews. I .moved south after that—Arizona, New Mexico, Texas. I’ve seen a lot of country.” His gaze made a sweep