six-year-old Marissa Patterson asked her father Kolby as they rode together aboard his dapple-grey stallion Thor. “Why do I need a girlfriend?” Kolby asked, keeping his eyes on the track. He’d taken his daughter on a scenic tour of the ranch, through her mother’s favorite patch of land where the wildflowers on the Patterson Cattle Ranch grew. His deceased wife Meredith used to like the Texas bluebonnet which grew during the mild winter months. Then in the spring the seedlings turned into tall plumes of blue flowers which gave off a sweet scent. “Because all of your friends have girlfriends or wives,” Marissa answered. “Aren’t you lonely?” Was he? “No, because I have you,” Kolby said, leading Thor back toward the ranch house. “That’s not the same thing and you know it,” Marissa said, hugging him tightly around the waist. For a six-year-old his daughter was very perceptive. “To tell you the truth I still miss your mother, darling.” Meredith and her parents died in a car accident two years ago.
