Free Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch by Victoria Pade Page A

vestige of light before it gave over to the first stars and a nearly full moon, Cal let out a sigh of satisfaction and popped a grape into his mouth.
    â€œWhy didn’t your life have continuity?” she asked to start conversation up again, referring to what he’d said earlier.
    He shrugged a single broad shoulder, angled her way and sat up Indian fashion to face her. “My daddy couldn’t grow roots no matter how hard he tried,” he said simply before sampling some of the cheese slices on the dish.
    â€œWhat did he do for a living?”
    â€œYou name it, he did it. Trained horses, black-smithed, rodeoed, was a ranch hand, crop picker, crop duster, barn raiser, and a plain, all-round cowboy. Just never in one place for too long.”
    â€œHow come?”
    â€œHe said he had a restless spirit. Myself, I think it was a way to try outrunnin’ responsibilities, but what do I know?”
    â€œDid he outrun his responsibilities?”
    â€œNot for the most part. No way he could draggin’ seven kids along with him.”
    â€œSeven kids? You have six brothers and sisters?”
    â€œFive brothers and one sister.”
    â€œWow. I thought four kids was a big family.”
    â€œYours?”
    â€œMmm. There’s me, Emily, Bree and our brother, Lucas.”
    â€œParents still livin’?”
    â€œSouth of Denver. They got tired of small-town life. My dad is semiretired, doing some consulting work there and they travel a lot. What about your folks?”
    â€œMy mother died givin’ birth to baby number seven—Kate. My dad passed on about three years ago—he was kicked in the head by a mule.”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    â€œMe, too. He was a good ol’ boy, that’s for sure. Wanderin’ ways and all.”
    â€œSo you didn’t have a home base growing up?”
    â€œNo home base. No home. We lived in an old silver-bullet Airstream trailer we pulled behind the truck. Except when a job came with livin’ quarters or on rare occasions when we’d stay in a motel or a huntin’ camp or something like that. And we did a lot of campin’ out.”
    â€œDid you go to school?”
    â€œSure. More of ’em than I could count. Most years we didn’t finish in the same one we’d started in. One year we changed schools five different times.”
    â€œThat must have been awful.”
    He grinned at her. “Don’t go feelin’ sorry for me, Abby Abby Stanton. I’m not complainin’, just answerin’ your questions. With seven kids there was always a bunch of us in a particular school for company. And there wasn’t a time when any one of us went without someone to play with or hang out with. Plus we did a lot of readin’—the old man was big on books. We did just fine. Every single one of us even went to college.”
    â€œAnd sunsets and sunrises give you a sense of continuity.”
    â€œNo matter where we were, it was the same sun comin’ up and goin’ down. I liked the thought of that. It helped make it so it didn’t matter that sometimes I wasn’t sure where we were.”
    â€œDidn’t you get tired of traveling?”
    â€œNot till just lately.”
    â€œSo you even lived that kind of life after you were on your own?”
    â€œYep. We all have, actually, shootin’ off in every direction you can think of.”
    â€œAnd what have you done for a living?”
    â€œA lot of what my daddy did—cowboyin’ in one form or another wherever the wind blew me.”
    â€œUntil now.”
    â€œUntil now.”
    â€œWhat made you decide to change?”
    â€œOh, I was gettin’ weary of it, thinkin’ more and more about settlin’ down. Then a year or so ago my sister and brothers and I were all in the same place, catchin’ up with each other. There happened to be a big lottery I’d heard about at the time—called the