Once a Father Read Online Free Page B

your health. Getting you back to a hundred and ten percent.”
    â€œExcept my hearing.” Audrey’s eyes brightened with a slow smile. “I like to keep that turned down to about fifty. Every other word is plenty.” She nodded toward the refrigerator. “I’ve already mashed up the strawberries. They’re in the—”
    â€œBlue Tupperware box.” Mary laughed. She was glad Mother’s kitchen hadn’t changed.
    â€œThe salt is on the front porch, and I have ice in the chest freezer.” Audrey folded strawberries into the rich, custardy mixture. “Remember how we used to go out on the porch on summer evenings, and you and the Drexler girls would take turns cranking until yousaid your arm was going to fall off?” She raised her brow. “You could call them. Tell them we’re making ice cream. I’ll bet they’d come right over.”
    â€œIt’s just us, Mother. I’ll hold the canister, and you pour.”
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    The porch glider squeaked, the ice rattled between the walls of the turquoise bucket and the silver canister, and two meadowlarks called to each other somewhere in the grass. Summer music, Mary told herself as she turned the crank that spun the canister. What had once been a chore now felt like a warm-up for a welcome workout. She’d gone for a run early that morning, but she missed the gym. She wasn’t going to give up exercising no matter what. Her face was no prize, but she had a damn good body, and that wasn’t going away.
    She switched arms. The more resistance, the better the results.
    â€œWhat the hell is goin’ on?”
    Stop the music. Here comes Damn Tootin’. He was waving a piece of paper in one hand, an envelope in the other.
    â€œI just got a notice from the Bureau of Land Management, says I can’t run cattle in the hills west of Coyote Creek. Says they’re designating that area for wildlife. Designating for waste is what that means.”
    Mary flexed her fingers and stepped back fromthe ice cream freezer, which she’d set on a stool. “It’s so isolated, Father. Why can’t you just let it go?”
    â€œYou give ’em an inch, they take a mile. Once they start telling you how to run your business they don’t stop.”
    The glider started squeaking again, albeit tentatively. Audrey’s gaze had drifted to the cottonwoods and the Russian olives that formed the windbreak on the north side of the yard. Mary could have followed her mother’s lead.
    But she didn’t.
    â€œWho’s they? ”
    â€œPeople who don’t know what it takes to make a living off this land. They should just stay out of it. Take their damn programs and their so-called endangered …” He slapped the envelope against the letter. “There’s horses all over this country. Endangered my—” face red, jaw set, he swung his leg up, set the sole of his boot against the edge of the stool and gave a raging shove “—ass!”
    Everything flew across the porch—stool, bucket, ice, salt water, canister, pink and white slush.
    Mary gaped in horror. “You broke it. Grandma’s ice cream—”
    â€œIt’s not broken,” Audrey said, seemingly unruffled. Mary questioned her mother’s cool with a look. “I can fix it,” Audrey assured her, just as she had the time her father had backed over her tricycle with his little Ford tractor. “Don’t worry. I can make more.”
    â€œWho the hell is this now?” Dan scowled up the mile-long dirt road that connected the ranch gate with the gravel driveway. A blue pickup pulling a two-horse trailer rumbled in their direction. Three pairs of eyes watched until the vehicle was parked and the driver emerged.
    Mary felt a funny little flutter in her chest.
    â€œIt’s that damn Indian off the Tribal Council. He’s the one got them to take my lease land for those