“I can and I’m doing it.” Creed Hawke did his best to remain calm although his daughter liked to push the limits of his patience far too many times.
“It’s my phone! Not yours. You can’t take it!”
“Really? Does that mean you’ll be taking over the payment?”
Her face turned red and she fisted her hands at her sides. “I’m going to go live with Mom,” she threatened.
If he had a dime for every time he heard this threat he’d be a rich man. He knew, and so did she, that going to live with her mom wasn’t an option. Melody left Cooper’s Hawk when Livvy was two and had only come to visit a few times since. As far as Creed knew, his ex was living in New York, or Hollywood or Chicago, following her dreams that didn’t include being weighed down by a family.
When she’d first told him that she was leaving, he’d been hurt, not for himself but for Livvy. She was young, still needed her mom, but even more so now as a teen, as changes were taking place in her body that he couldn’t possibly understand. For that reason alone he’d been a little more understanding, forgiving, until she started acting like she was an adult in a kid’s body. He’d been warned by other parents that the day would come when teen-hood struck like a ferocious demon being uncaged.
“You’ll have plenty of time to think about your future because you’re grounded. No TV, no phone, and no friends for two weeks.”
“You can’t take my friends from me.” She’d lost some of the anger in her tone as her punishment started to become real.
“Would you like for two weeks to turn into a month?” Creed narrowed his gaze on her, feeling his patience slip some. He was doing his best—had always done what he thought was best, but even parents were human and had limits. “You should have thought twice before you snuck out of the house.”
“You don’t understand. You never understand.” She stomped her foot.
“What’s there to understand? You didn’t have permission to leave the house. You know the rules when I’m at work. Your grandmother was worried sick.”
“When are you not at work?” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave him the stubborn Hawke expression.
He took a deep breath and let it escape through his teeth. He couldn’t argue because no doubt, he worked more than he should. “It doesn’t change the fact that you disobeyed the rules. You made your choice.”
“I hate you!” She stamped her foot and puffed out her bottom lip like she would do when she was a toddler.
“Join the club.” Although her words struck him straight in the center of his chest, he remained relaxed and didn’t allow her to ruffle his feathers. These days it felt like she was doing everything and anything to push his buttons. He understood it couldn’t be easy for a teenager to not have her mom around. Hell, things weren’t any easier on him. Creed had thought he was doing a pretty good job at parenting until she turned thirteen and things spun upside down. “Then you won’t mind if you go upstairs and spend some time in your bedroom.”
“Fine!” She turned on her heels and stomped up the stairs. He could hear her feet pounding the hardwood floor and then the slamming of the door.
“Holy Sheets. What’s all the racket?”
Creed greeted his ma with a weak smile. “The same routine, Ma.”
“You know she’s right.”
“That I don’t have the right to take her phone?” He strolled into the kitchen, grabbed a water bottle from the refrigerator and downed half of it in one gulp.
“No, you have the right to discipline her. I was referring to you working all the time.” Abby folded her arms over her chest and looked at him above her square glasses, the way she did when he was in trouble as a child. “Have you even calculated how many hours you’ve worked this week alone?”
“Bills don’t pay themselves and this farm, Sage Ranch and Cooper’s Hawke Landing won’t run themselves.” He whipped off his Stetson and dropped it onto the counter.
“Yeah, and your daughter won’t raise herself either.”
Leave it to his ma to rip off the bandage. “At least she has you here with her.” Although he appreciated everything she did for him and Livvy, sometimes he wished he could ignore her logical thinking.
“But she wants her father more.” Abby sidestepped him, opened the refrigerator and took out a carton of eggs and package of bacon.
“Have you listened to her lately? I think I’m the last person she wants to be around.” He finished his water and smashed the bottle, dropping it into the trashcan on his way to sit down at the small round table. Damn, he was tired. After saving the man off Trip Ease, he then was called out to search for a missing teenager who was separated from her group of friends. The SAR team spent all night searching until finally a call came in that she’d wandered back into her campsite completely unaware that she’d been the target of a missing person’s search. The eighteen-year-old had huddled up in a cave to get stoned and fell asleep for the night.
“Those are just words. I always said we should spend more time watching actions instead of listening to words. You hungry?”
“Yeah, I could eat.” He swiped his hand down his whiskered jaw. He needed a good scrub, a shave, and a couple days of sleep. Two of those he could manage but sleep wasn’t in his near future because he had to stop over at Sage Ranch sometime that morning.
“Did she tell you where she snuck out to last night?” Abby broke an eggshell and dropped the
