“Not taking off my damned hat,” he muttered grimly. Talking to himself in the middle of the sidewalk wasn’t the brightest idea, but he wasn’t feeling particularly bright. He was feeling more like putting his fist through the wall. Everything in him told him to turn around and climb back into his truck, to get back to the ranch where things made sense and his presence was actually useful.
“Stop it,” he growled to himself, arming the sweat off his brow and starting up the courthouse steps. It was for his son he was making this trip. For Andy, six years old and only starting to feel back to himself this week.
Ian liked living in Canyon, Texas, most all of the time. It was a small place, only 16,000 people give or take. The kind of town where people could still leave their doors unlocked and kids rode bikes down back roads without parents worrying about them being snatched up. It was his town, the place he’d lived his whole life. He liked most everything about it but the doctors and the hellhole that passed for a hospital. Those doctors hadn’t done a thing while his wife wasted away with the cancer that came on fast as lightning and ate her up from the inside out. He wouldn’t have taken Andy at all if he’d thought he could help it, only the kid had been in so much pain; his hands clapped over his ears and his head rocking back and forth. The doctors performed surgery, putting tubes in his ears, and Ian had spent the last three weeks of Andy’s recovery white knuckling it, ready to knock out the first doctor who even looked at him the wrong way. He had been too busy worrying himself to keep track of what he needed to be doing, and he had messed up. That was why he was here; to right a wrong. For Andy.
“Hey there, Grant,” Bobby, the courthouse’s one security guard greeted in his slow drawl.
“Bobby,” Ian answered, tipping his hat in salutation. The two men stood there sizing each other up for a minute, Bobby eyeing Ian’s hat and Ian waiting to tell him he wasn’t going to take it off. Bobby must have sensed his fighting mood, because after a second, he shook his head and waved him on through. Ian sauntered down one corridor and up another until he reached the door with “Mayor Clark” embossed across it in gilded gold letters. Ian clenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and rapped his knuckles on the door twice, hard and fast.
“Enter.” Clark’s voice sounded unforgivably pompous. Ian remembered being a kid when Mayor Clark and his daddy had been friends. Back then, his face had always been red with too much beer, and people called him Bubba instead of Mayor.
“Howdy, Mayor,” he said, letting himself in the office and shutting the door behind him. Mayor Clark sat behind an enormous mahogany desk, his ample sides spilling over the arms of his desk chair. His face was still red, specifically his nose, and Ian guessed the man had moved from his beer habit to hard liquor a while back. When he looked up, though, he looked genuinely pleased to see Ian, and Ian guessed that was a good thing. He was here to ask the big man a favor, after all. He hated asking for favors, but he was going to do it, by God.
“Ian Grant!” Mayor Clark exclaimed, moving as if to get up but only making it half-way before giving up and extending his hand for a shake, “As I live and breathe. Didn’t expect to see you here today, son. How the hell are ya?”
“I’m good, Mayor. Happy you had the time,” Ian answered, shaking Clark’s hand before settling uneasily onto one of the guest chairs. Clark rolled his eyes and made a waving off gesture.
“No need for all of that, Ian. I’ve known you since you were still in diapers. Just call me Bubba. That’ll do me just fine.”
“Don’t think I can do that, Mayor, especially when I’m here to ask for a favor.”
“Are you now?” Mayor Clark asked, leaning back in his chair and causing the thing to groan loudly in protest. “Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
“It’s about my boy,” Ian went on, “it’s about Andy.”
“Anything I can do, it’s done. I have to tell you, I’ve been meaning to drop in on you two, see how you’re faring with everything so different, and then with Andy being in the hospital. I’m ashamed of myself for letting things go this long,” he said, shaking his head. Whether it was genuine or not, he certainly did look sorry.
“Don’t trouble yourself. I’m just here to ask you if there’s any way you can help get Andy into the Strawberry Fest. I know the deadlines passed and I’m sick about not registering him. Only with the hospital stay these last three weeks, it plain slipped my mind. The thing is, I told him while he was in there that once he was healed, he’d get to be a part of the Strawberry Fest. I guess you could say it was a bribe and now I can’t make good.”
“Say no more. I’ve got the schedule right here, and I happen to know for a fact that there’s one slot open. It’s in—” He broke off, rummaging through his mounds of crap until he landed on the paper he was looking for. He squinted, scanned down the length of it, then nodded his approval.
“Did you find something?” Ian asked. Mayor Clark waited for a beat more, then looked up and grinned.
“I sure did. One slot left in the cooking area. Think your
