Always Dakota - Debbie Macomber [9]
The meeting adjourned at twelve-thirty for the luncheon to welcome Reverend Larry Dawson.
Respectfully submitted,
Hassie Knight
“Bob! Bob!”
Merrily’s cry jolted Buffalo Bob Carr out of a deep sleep. Hearing the panic in his wife’s voice, he instantly threw aside the covers and bolted out of bed. She called him a second time but Bob was already staggering toward Axel’s bedroom. The toddler had been fussy all night and they’d taken turns comforting him. Bob felt sure the two-year-old was coming down with another ear infection. Each bout seemed to be worse than the one before.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
Merrily sat on the edge of the bed with Axel in her arms. “Look. He’s got a rash or something. What is it?”
Bob rubbed his eyes, then stared at the child in the dim light. Axel gazed up at him, his brown eyes filled with fear. Merrily was gazing at him, too, her face anxious.
Bob let out a short, abrupt laugh. “That, my dear wife, is chicken pox. Axel has chicken pox.”
Merrily framed the boy’s face between her hands and studied him intently. “Where did he get them?”
Bob shrugged. “Who knows? It’s contagious. Every kid gets chicken pox at some time or other.”
“But he’s miserable!”
Bob didn’t know much about childhood diseases, but he knew chicken pox was a common enough ailment. “I’ll go and see Hassie in the morning. I’m sure there’s something she can suggest.”
“Daddy, Daddy.” Axel stretched his arms toward Bob.
“I’ll stay with him,” Bob volunteered, knowing Merrily had been up most of the night.
“Thanks,” she whispered, and kissed Axel’s head before she handed him to Bob.
With regret Bob watched her return to their bedroom, wishing he could join her. Instead, he slipped beneath the covers in the narrow single bed and cradled Axel against his chest. The boy rested his head there and whimpered softly. “Hurt, Daddy, hurt.”
Bob pressed his hand against Axel’s forehead and noted that he didn’t have a fever. Merrily had probably already given him Tylenol. “Try to sleep,” Bob urged.
Axel nodded. “Sing the song about nannytucket.”
Grinning, he shook his head. Merrily didn’t approve of his singing off-color ditties to the boy. Especially the one that started “There once was a man from Nantucket.”
Instead he hummed a nursery rhyme the two had learned from a Barney video. Six months ago, if anyone had told him he’d willingly sit with a two-year-old to watch a purple dinosaur, Bob would have called that person a bold-faced liar.
Trusting and small, Axel nestled in his muscular arms. In the faint light, Bob ran his hand over the youngster’s head, still humming softly. He loved the boy as dearly and completely as if they shared the same blood. However, his feelings for Axel hadn’t started out that way.
Nearly four years ago Bob had been riding through Buffalo Valley on his Harley when he met Dave Ertz. Dave owned the bar and grill, which was also the town’s only hotel. He’d been trying to sell it, but when no buyers materialized, Dave—an inventive sort—had thrown a poker game with a thousand-dollar entry fee. The winner got the entire business, lock, stock and barrel. Bob won with three of a kind, hence the bar’s new name.
Bob had been a loner and a drifter all his adult life. Because he rode a Hog, most people assumed he was part of the biker crowd. Bob enjoyed the reputation—he dressed the part, talked the talk—but he’d never been a gang member or participated in gang activities.
He’d been in business a few months, struggling to make ends meet the same way Dave had, when Merrily appeared. He’d recognized immediately that they were two of a kind. Now, with Axel, they were three of a kind. He grinned—three