Page 63 of Lost and Lassoed

That rancher, in his black cowboy hat, atop his black horse,was an image my dad said he’d never forget—especially as a city boy from Seattle.

My dad was a drummer for nearly twenty years. He started doing gigs with his first band when he was seventeen. They hit it semi-big and were able to open on a large North American tour, but they broke up before my dad turned twenty-two.

There were more bands, more tours, and more opportunities for bad decisions—at least that’s what my dad said. He didn’t shy away from the rock star lifestyle, and he didn’t shy away from telling me about it, because my dad has been clean since the day my mom showed up with me in her arms.

I don’t know much about her—just that her name was Evelyn Jones, her name is on my birth certificate, and she was one of the girls who followed the band around. My dad didn’t know her very well either (sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I guess), but he noticed when she disappeared from the tour.

Nearly a year later, she turned up at a show in Chicago with me. She told my dad that she was too young to have a kid—that she didn’t want me, and he needed to take me or she’d drop me off at the fire station.

According to Hank, who loves a good exaggeration, he saw my blue eyes—blue eyes that looked just like his—and said yes on the spot.

Once I was in his arms, he asked my mom what my name was. She told him I didn’t have one. He said that was the only time in his life he’d felt truly heartbroken.

He named me after a jazz singer that he loved and left the tour the next day. He stayed in Chicago with me for a few days—enough time to get his knuckle tattoos that I was so fond of. There’s an old photo from that day that I love: my dadgetting his hands zapped as one of the other tattoo artists—big, brawny, inked all over his face—holds me.

He eventually decided that he wanted to raise me in a small town, and he remembered the town he’d passed through a few years earlier. I remember asking him why when I was a kid. He said, “It just seemed like the best place for us to start our life.”

So he came back to Meadowlark, this time with his three-month-old daughter in tow. He asked around about the rancher, and of course everyone knew he was talking about Amos Ryder and Rebel Blue Ranch. My dad drove to Rebel Blue that day and asked for a job.

Truly, I don’t know why Amos gave him one, but I have a good guess. Stella had passed away a few months earlier, and Amos had three kids and a ranch to take care of on his own. I think when he saw my dad, he saw someone else who was doing it alone, and one thing about Amos is that he can’t resist a stray—horse, cat, dog, human, it doesn’t matter. He always has enough room to take them in.

Neither of us ever saw or heard from my mom again. Hank said he wrote to her once—told her where we were, and that if she ever decided she wanted to be part of my life, she was welcome to join us—but she never replied. I wondered about her sometimes—especially when I was a teenager. But I didn’t miss her, and I didn’t have any desire to find her because I never felt that anything was missing from my life.

I wasn’t mad that she didn’t want me, because she gave me to someone who loved me more than anyone else in the world and showed me that every single day—plus she gave me my copper hair. And I was grateful that she had semi-decent tastein men, because my dad was the best man I’d ever known. Because of him, my life was full. He was the only parent I needed—as long as we had each other, we were okay.

I blew out another shaky breath and looked down at my dad’s left hand. My vision got blurry when I read the tattoo on his knuckles,Theo, and when I thought about the other side that saidDora, I blinked the tears back.

Don’t cry, Teddy.

The hand I was holding squeezed mine, and my eyes shot up to my dad’s face. His eyes were still closed, but his lip twitched.

“Dad?” I said softly.

“Teddy Bear,” he said. His voice was barely audible—reedy and thin—but his blue eyes blinked open, and relief flooded through me, though not quite enough of it to drown out the guilt. Not yet.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“Surviving,” he said.

“Scale of one to ten?”

“Three,” he said, and my heart swelled. I knew he was lying, but if he felt good enough to lie, that was good enough for me.

“Good,” I responded. “Because, Hank Andersen, if you die on me, I will fucking kill you.” A wheeze came out of my dad. I think it was a laugh. He slipped his hand out of mine and lifted his arm.

I stood and crawled onto the hospital bed with him—careful of all the tubes—and curled into his side. His tattooed left hand rubbed my shoulder. “The devil will have to drag me kicking and screaming, Theodora,” he whispered, and I let myself relax into him.

No matter how old I got, I would never be too old for this.

After a few minutes, my dad went back to sleep. His breathing got slow and even. I stayed awake.

I watched his chest rise and fall, and I listened to his heartbeat—the kick drum that I couldn’t live without.

Chapter 28

Gus

When my dad and I returned with coffee, I peeked inside Hank’s hospital room. Teddy was lying beside him on the hospital bed. I couldn’t tell whether she was asleep, but I didn’t want to wake her if she was.

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