Loved By Levi

Fifteen

Mylee

I glanced towards the horizon once again and buried the toe of my boot in the gravel of my dad's driveway. The way the dust stuck to the worn leather like a second skin was almost impressive.

These boots weren't the normal sparkly, hand-stitched ostrich-leather ones I wore around Camille. Actually, they were about forty-three times cooler than those stupid clodhoppers.

This was the pair my dad got gotten custom-made for me as a Christmas gift when I was a freshman in high school. Knowing my feet had to potential to grow, and that leather could always stretch, he'd had them done half a size too big. Now, they fit me like a glove. When I was a junior he'd sent them in to get re-soled, but all the hours I spent fixing fence and chasing calves with him in the summers had worn the angle of the heels back down to a soft curve.

Camille and the other girls on the rodeo team had forbidden me from wearing them in public, or even to practice since I had 'better' boots. After that, the trusty old buggers had lived in my car. The smoothly worn tops flopped over into a pile of their own dust, right next to a sweat-ringed ball cap that only came out when I went back home.

Lately, those visits had become fewer and further between. I wondered how dad was holding up by himself. God and everyone else knew he was more than capable of taking care of himself, but that didn't stop me from worrying. He had been nearing fifty when I was born, and the last twenty years hadn't done him any favors. Both of his shoulders needed surgery, as did his knees, but he was too damn stubborn to admit it. Even if he did admit it there was no way he'd let somebody else handle the ranch while he recovered. Instead he suffered in silence, only letting on that he was in pain when he had to lift something no healthy man could do alone. Yup, my dad was a tough old buzzard.

In a cloud of dust, he rolled up in the square body Ford that was even older than me. Steel fence posts clanked loudly in the bed as he hit the stretch of washboards that snaked their way up to the house. There was a gray felt short-brim cowboy hat tipped back on his head, as usual.

He jammed the pickup into park and hefted himself out with a typical lack of grace. I noted the ragged hem on his green flannel shirt, wondering if I should buy him a new one for his birthday in a few months. The patchy tuft of red hair near his forehead and the ring around the back stood out more than usual when it surrounded by sweat on his otherwise bald head. He'd obviously done more today than just check cows.

"Mylee Jo, it's about damn time you came home! Boy, we're getting calves up the wazoo, I can't believe you didn't come out sooner!" He wrapped me in a bear hug and I breathed in the scent of grass and cow shit. "You want a cup of coffee? I know I can't make those damn cappuccinos or whatever the hell your roommate drinks, but I'll put on a fresh pot just for you."

"Sure, that sounds great. Thanks, dad."

The kitchen smelled like fried ham and eggs, the same way it always did since he ate that every single morning. He dumped out the stale coffee from earlier and I took a seat at the table. Even though it'd been months since I had the time to go home, absolutely nothing had changed. There was still a decorative towel adorned with a chicken hanging on the oven door and a heavy-duty skillet sitting on the stove with the remains of breakfast stuck to the bottom. His favorite plastic travel mug still had the handle zip-tied on even though he could have bought a new one for less than the zip-ties. My crusty muck boots and faintly pink barn coat sat in the entryway of our old farm house, reminding visitors that Russ Brannan did indeed still have a daughter.

"Well, I met a guy."

"A guy? Oh, gawd, I thought I could keep them away forever with my ugly mug. 'Guess I'll just have to start coming around campus more often to scare them away." He winked over his shoulder and dumped another scoop of generic brand coffee grounds in the filter.

When I didn't reply he slowly dropped the lid on the coffee maker and turned around to face me.

"You forgot to turn it on," I pointed out, partly hoping to make him forget I'd ever said anything and partly buying myself some time. Dad had always been my confidant and best friend, but to this day I wasn't exactly sure how to bring up the subject of men with him. He'd handled it well enough when I got asked to high school dances, but that was back when boys weren't any sort of a priority for me. Levi, on the other hand, was a big deal.

After punching the button, he took a seat across from me and rested his forearms on the table's worn surface. This was the same table that had sat in our kitchen since long before I was born, but that was pretty obvious. Ugly green paint that had been used on some school project filled in the grooves where I'd spilled it. More than one spot had obviously been sanded over a little too much when he'd let my try to refinish it in junior high. It had seen more than twenty years of breakfasts, collected tears over ruined friendships, bad grades, and barrel disqualifications, and had heard too many warm conversations just like this to count. I loved this old table.

"How 'bout you tell me this boy's name?" My dad's low voice brought me back to earth. Soft brown eyes that mirrored my own were set deep in a map of wrinkles. I knew those eyes would remain the kindest thing about my father no matter what the years did to the rest of his face.

Overall, he was an intimidating man. He didn't talk a whole lot, and when he did his language was coarse. I'd obviously gained my average height from my mother, as dad stood damn close to six feet tall. He usually wore a cowboy hat pulled low over his face so it was hard to see the kindness in his eyes. Yup, my old man came off as a scary sucker, but I knew better.

"His name is Levi."

He nodded slowly and stroked his frizzy red beard. "And what does this Levi do for a living?"

I let out a long breath. This was the question I'd been afraid of. Dad knew better than anybody else what a chicken I could be. Even though he'd spent twenty years trying to cultivate at least some kind of courage in me, I knew I would always be a delicate little miracle to him. Yes, he'd pushed me to branch out and try new things growing up, but it had never been to a point where I could actually get hurt. Now, I found myself terrified of anything out of the norm.

Well, Miss Mylee, I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm not a Marine yet.

The words had been sloshing around in my brain for days now. It was pretty obvious to anybody who paid even the slightest bit of attention that all Levi wanted out of life was to become a US Marine, yet he'd gone and made a comment like that? I didn't know what to think.

"Well, he's in college right now." That was all I could get out. If my dad wanted to know the real reason I was sitting at his kitchen table talking awkwardly about boys, he'd have to pry it from me.

Again, he nodded, staring over my shoulder at the bubbling coffee maker. I could tell just from the look on his face that he knew I wasn't telling the whole truth but getting it out of me would be a relatively painful process for both of us. Finally, he stood up to grab a pair of chipped ceramic mugs from the cupboard. "I'm gonna take a guess and says he's not planning to be an accountant or anything easy like that."

I accepted the full mug he handed me. It was a tall one with a scratched-off logo on the side. "Nope, definitely not an accountant."

He nodded and plopped back down in his chair. "Baby, let me just say this. Sometimes the things and people that scare us the most are the ones that make us grow. Boy, your mama was one of the most outgoing people I've ever met, and that terrified me, but look where it got us. She stayed with my sorry ass up until the very end, and if you ask me, that's really somethin' special."