“How soon do you think you’ll need me?” I speed up and bounce onto the main road.
“Again, Daddy!” Junie giggles.”
“Wes is here helping me round them up now which will take a few hours. Around noon, maybe?”
My brother, Wes, is taking time away from our own cows and the avocado harvest to help Donna. He knows how to treat pink eye, but I can’t let him take that on when I don’t help much with ranch duties even though Junie and I live there, too.
I do some quick calculations. I’ve got a couple house calls scheduled already, and the Stevens property borders ours, so I won’t be close to the preschool when it’s pickup time. The cows have to be injected one by one, which will take hours.
“I’ll come out as soon as I can,” I tell Donna, even though I’m not sure about the logistics yet.
Wes won’t be able to help with Junie today, so I try Mom. Her pause after I ask if she can do pick up and keep an eye on Junie says everything I need to know. Dad needs her help with the harvest even more than I need her help with Junie.
Hayes would find a way to do it if he weren’t rodeoing, so Ben’s my last resort.
“I’ve got irrigation pipes that have to be repaired today, before the heat wave, or we could lose the south grove,” he says with undisguised relief. “Plus, you know I’m no good with her.”
I don’t argue with him there. Ben’s my brother, and I love him, but he’s got a one-track mind. And right now, his only focus is on growing the ranch big enough so that we don’t have to worry about any more threats from outsiders like the Burleigh Investment Group—aka BIG—trying to push us out of business again.
By the time I get to the diner, I’m no closer to a solution about what to do with Junie than I was fifteen minutes ago. I’m down to my last,lastresort: Aunt Flo.
She loves Junie as much as a sixty-year-old woman who’s never been married and doesn’t like kids possibly could. I’ve never asked her to help out with Junie for more than a few minutes, but today I think I have to. And I’m only slightly less worried she’ll say yes than I am that she’ll say no.
Flo will make Junie all the pancakes she wants, but her baby always has been, and always will be, Flamingo’s. She’s there every day from sunup to sundown. Asking her to watch Junie means asking her to keep her at the diner, and there’s a thousand ways that could go wrong. Every terrifying scenario—from Junie burning herself on the grill to her escaping when Flo’s got her back turned—runs circles in my head.
“Who’s ready for pancakes?” I ask, like I do every morning, while opening the back door prepared to unbuckle Junie from her car seat.
“Junebug is!” She yells and leaps into my arms. “I unbuckled all by self!”
I’ve been dreading this day. The car seat is the one place I’ve been able to keep Junie contained. Now that she’s figuredout how to escape, I give it another week, tops, before she’s teaching herself to drive.
“But that’s what Daddy likes to do.” I grab my Junie bag—that’s what she calls the backpack that doubles as my diaper bag—and carry it and her toward the diner.
“Me, too!” She wiggles out of my arms and dashes for the door.
“Junie! Wait!”
It’s too late. She squeezes past Barry on his way out and runs inside before I can stop her.
“You got your hands full there, Doc,” he says with a laugh.
“So I’ve been told. You’re out early today.”
He shakes his head. “These dang tourists show up first thing, wanting their bait and flies. Some guy came in yesterday and convinced me to teach him how to fly fish.”
“Yeah? How’d he do that?” I glance inside where Larry’s helping Junie into her seat. I’ve threatened more than once not to bring her back if she’s not on her best behavior. Maybe all my lectures have gotten through to her.
“Coupla hundred-dollar bills.” Barry grins.
“You didn’t tell him the fly fishing around here is crap?”
“He didn’t ask how the fishing was, only if I knew someone who could teach him how to do it.” With a laugh, Barry waves good-bye and ambles slowly down the block to Barry’s Bait and Tackle.
In the matter of seconds I’ve taken my eyes off Junie, she’s climbed out of her seat and is sitting on the counter not far from Frankie who, with one hand, is removing every coffee cup within my kid’s reach and with the other, wiping up a spill.
I sigh and walk inside, bells clattering over my head. Frankie, in blonde hair and glasses, shoots me a teasing grin, like she’s guessed what kind of morning I’ve had and what kind of day I’ve got ahead of me. I glance at Junie who’s shirt is upover her face, but she’s forgotten it buttons in the back and can’t pull it over her head. Her pants are soaking wet.
“Fwankie! I’m stuck!” she yells, and Frankie darts to her rescue.
