Читать книгу: «A Weaver Vow», страница 2

Chapter Two

“You let a set of pretty eyes and a smokin’ body get to you, didn’t you?” Erik’s cousin Casey gave him a knowing look before focusing on lining up his pool shot. With a smooth stroke, he broke the balls, sending them rolling across the felt, sinking two. Case straightened and walked around the table, studying his options. “Otherwise, you’d have hauled that kid straight over to Max.”

Max was their cousin Sarah’s husband. He was also the local sheriff. “I thought about it,” Erik admitted. He picked up the chalk from the side of the table.

It was a Friday night. He’d spent half the past week hauling Double-C cattle with his uncle Matthew. They were playing out at Erik’s place tonight because lately Case had taken some aversion to playing at their usual spot in town. Colbys offered up plenty of pool tables as well as a cold beer and a burger. But getting his cousin over there these days was like pulling teeth.

Instead, Casey willingly drove forty minutes outta town to come to Erik’s place.

Leaving that particular mystery alone for now, he thought about his encounter with the Lockhart woman and her kid the week before. “I didn’t even notice her eyes—” bull “—or anything else about her. It was remembering the times when I could have been hauled into the sheriff’s office for some stupid stunt.” He chalked his cue even though it didn’t look as if Case was going to stop clearing the table anytime soon. “Same as you.”

His cousin grinned slightly. “Yeah, but that was when Sawyer was sheriff. He’d have gone easy.”

Erik snorted. Sawyer was their uncle. A Clay through and through who put family above nearly everything. Except the law. “He’d have skinned us and hung us up to dry just to teach us a lesson.”

“Or handed us over to Squire.” Case was still grinning. “Let the old man teach us a lesson or two.”

Squire was their grandfather. And if his sons were a hard, demanding lot, they came by it honestly enough from him.

“Dad told me the other day he thinks Squire’s mellowing in his old age.”

At that, his cousin finally missed a shot. “Right,” he drawled. “And you didn’t notice the Lockhart lady’s pretty eyes.”

Erik ignored that and took over the table.

“So she’ll be bringing the kid out here tomorrow morning?”

“Yup.” He sank a ball and moved around to the end of the table, lining up his next shot.

“What’re you gonna have him do?”

“Shovel crap by hand for a few hours. Hell, I don’t know. Pick rocks outta that field I haven’t cleared yet.” He got pissed all over again just thinking about it and he blew the shot.

Case grinned. “Just hand your money over now,” he suggested as he took over the table again.

Erik grimaced and slapped a ten down on the side of the table. Then he returned his cue to the rack on the wall and went behind the wooden bar that Case, his father, Daniel, and Erik had built a few summers earlier. He grabbed a cold bottle from the refrigerator beneath the bar.

His cousin had the pool table cleared in seconds. “You want one?” Erik asked.

Case stuck the cue he’d been using in the rack. “I want a real beer. Not that prissy stuff you drink.”

Erik pulled out a longneck and slid it across the bar. “Don’t be sneering at my root beer,” he said mildly. They both knew that if he chose to, he could drink Casey under the table. “Ordered this up special on the internet from some place in Colorado.” He held up the dark brown bottle and smiled. “Home-brewed and smooth as cream. Lady who makes it is as old as Squire, or I think I’d be in love.”

His cousin rolled his eyes. He took the beer and they headed up the stairs, ending up in the kitchen, where Erik had a pot of chili on the stove. He wasn’t much of a cook, but a thirty-one-year-old man whose closest dining alternative was forty-minutes away tended to be able to scrounge a few things together. Between that and the frozen stuff his mother, aunts and cousins kept him supplied with, he managed well enough.

They filled their bowls and then went onto the porch that overlooked Erik’s land.

“You gonna tear that old barn down anytime soon?” Case asked after he’d shoveled in most of his chili.

They leaned back in the oversize chairs that Erik had bought from a woodcrafter in Gillette, their boot heels propped on the wood rail in front of them. “Sometime this summer, maybe.” The barn was the only structure still standing from when Erik had bought the property four years earlier.

He could have helped Matt run the Double-C. The Clay family ranch was the largest one in the state. But Erik had wanted something to call his own. “Gotten sort of used to looking at it.” That, or he was starting to get lazy. He always had plenty of other things around the ranch to keep him busy, anyway. Chores never stopped in his business. And now his heifers were starting to calve. Another month, and there’d be more calves to deal with. Plus, he wanted to get started on the addition to his house.

The work went on and on. But it was the life he’d chosen. And the life he loved.

Casey yawned and slouched down in the chair another few inches. “So what’re you gonna do about the window?”

Erik grimaced. “Haven’t decided.”

“Jessica’d make you another one.”

“She thought I was getting ready to propose,” Erik reminded. He still could hardly wrap his head around it. They hadn’t even been serious. At least, that was what he’d thought. “Last month, after the whole window incident, she told me to eat glass and die.” The window had been a heartfelt gift intended to pave the way for their future. She’d said a whole lot more when Erik had had to tell her how he felt—or didn’t feel—but what still made Erik feel bad were the tears in her eyes when she’d said it. He didn’t make a habit of hurting women like that, and he wished he could undo those few months of seeing her altogether. She hadn’t been a nutcase. She’d been a perfectly nice woman. But that hadn’t meant he’d been even remotely thinking marriage, now or way the hell off in the future.

And she’d flatly refused to take back the window. He hadn’t wanted it. So he’d contacted the church.

“Women think about marriage all the time, I hear.”

He blinked away the image of Isabella Lockhart that kept swimming into his head. He’d told Jess he wasn’t looking for a wife. He wasn’t all that interested in looking for a girlfriend, either.

And hookin’ up for a night or two with a woman raising an angry kid like that Murphy of hers just didn’t seem right. No matter how pretty she was.

He looked over when his cousin yawned again. “Keeping you up here?”

“Been up late all week working on a project.”

His cousin worked for Erik’s dad, Tristan, out at Cee-Vid. The company designed and manufactured computer games, and had made Erik’s dad a millionaire several times over. But Erik had grown up knowing the business was still a cover for what his dad really was. An intelligence expert. And even though Erik and Case never discussed it, he figured his cousin’s “projects” more likely involved Erik’s dad’s true calling than the computer games.

“Be glad Jessica lives over in Gillette,” Case had continued. “You won’t run into her unless you make the effort.” He pulled his boots off the rail and sat up. “Pretty as your face is, I’m headin’ home.”

“Wash that bowl,” Erik said. “I’m pretty but I’m not doing your dishes.”

Case grinned and headed inside the house. A few minutes later, Erik heard the slap of the kitchen screen door followed by the rumble of his cousin’s ancient pickup.

Erik waved as Case drove past, and then looked out over his land. The sun was still a big, burning ball of red hanging in the thin clouds on the horizon. Snow could easily fall this time of year, but the fields in front of him were starting to green, and his horses were grazing in the pasture. All in all, it should’ve been a completely pleasant evening.

If he hadn’t had to look forward to that hellion coming the next morning.

He hunched forward and thumped his boots down onto the wooden porch. Isabella would have to drive the kid out to his place. It wasn’t as if Weaver had any sort of bus service. He’d given her directions to the ranch that day at Ruby’s. Warned her that the road had a few rough patches along the way.

Personally, he liked the rough patches. They kept the occasional salesperson who thought they might head out his way from getting too enthusiastic about the trip. If someone drove out to the Rocking-C, it meant he really wanted to get there.

Isabella Lockhart, he knew, was from New York City. She hadn’t been a dancer—Lucy had told him that—but she’d been in charge of costumes, or some such, at the dance company where Lucy had been the star dancer. When he’d been over at Lucy and Beck’s place for supper a few weeks earlier, Lucy had been all excited about her friend moving to Weaver. Erik hadn’t given her chatter much mind, mostly because he’d been more interested in the blueprints that Beck had drawn up for him for the great room Erik was adding to his ranch house. Now that he’d encountered the newcomer, he wished he’d paid his cousin more attention.

Calling her about it wasn’t gonna happen, though. She might consider his curiosity more personal in nature than he intended. And after the mess with Jessica, he didn’t need anyone making more of a man’s simple curiosity than there was.

If Isabella really wanted to make things right, as she’d said, she’d have to make the trip, rough road or not.

He couldn’t help wondering if she’d have the fortitude to stick it out long enough to save her boy’s hide, or if she’d decide along the way that life back in New York was more preferable and hightail it right back out of town. She wouldn’t be the first person who did. Just because he’d never wanted anything else didn’t mean he failed to understand that life in Weaver wasn’t everyone’s cup of joe.

Still, aside from the boy, the next several months were looking a tad more interesting than they might otherwise have been.

If she stuck it out.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Murphy muttered, peering through the dusty windshield at the two-story house that finally appeared as they reached the top of a rise in the road.

Road was a generous term, considering it wasn’t much more than two tracks in the dirt with a shorn strip of wild grass growing down the middle.

Her would-be stepson continued complaining. “This is crazy out here, Iz. Like The Hills Have Eyes or something.”

“You’re too young for R-rated movies. Especially horror stories like that one.”

Murphy sat back in his seat and gave her a superior look. “I watched ’em all the time when Dad took me to the firehouse.”

And had nightmares because of it, she thought but kept it to herself. “You heard Lucy as well as I did when we saw her yesterday. Mr. Clay’s place is a working cattle ranch. You’ll be outside, in the fresh air, exactly where you like to be.”

“Yeah. Hanging with my friends, not with Bessie the cow.” He made a face. “I hate it here.”

“And I hated seeing you sitting in that jail cell after you broke half the third-floor windows of Mr. Goldstein’s brownstone back home.” She shot him a look, only to quickly turn her attention back out the windshield when the steering wheel nearly jerked out of her hands. “We’re here only as long as the court allows it, Murph. Don’t forget that.”

“What’s the difference between one foster home and another?” His shrug was uncaring, but Isabella heard the pain beneath his bravado.

At least, she hoped she heard it. It was the only way she could look past her own sorrow, knowing he didn’t care that he was with her or not.

In the eight months since he’d been provisionally placed under her guardianship, she still wasn’t entirely certain what was going on inside his head. While his father had been alive, Murphy had at least tolerated her. Since then, he seemed to enjoy taking every opportunity to prove otherwise.

“There’s a lot of difference,” she said now, deciding not to get into the distinction between being his guardian and being a foster parent. “Believe me. I know from personal experience what it feels like not having a place to belong. I saw the size of that stained-glass window, Murph. You’re lucky he’s giving you a chance to work it off.” She had done some research online at the library and had a hefty suspicion that they were getting off incredibly lightly.

Evidently losing interest, Murphy looked out the passengerside window and remained silent.

The entire car shuddered as she continued coaxing it along the ridiculous excuse for a road. Neither she nor Jimmy had owned vehicles in the city. She’d bought the four-door sedan from a dealer down in Cheyenne when they’d arrived in Wyoming.

Isabella had been thankful that the car had been a thousand dollars less than she’d budgeted. Which meant she’d been able to apply that toward the restitution the court had ordered for the vandalized brownstone. She’d still be making payments for some time, but it had felt good to send off that chunk.

With no small amount of relief, she felt the road beneath the tires smooth out as they drew closer to the house. It was white clapboard with dark green shutters at the windows and had a wide covered deck sticking out on one side. Not overly large, but with the ridiculously blue sky behind it, peppered with fat white clouds, it looked perfectly charming.

Somehow, it seemed to suit a man who’d cover his filthy jeans with a paper napkin while he ate pie in a café.

She followed the gravel-covered road around the side of the house. There was no obvious place to park, so she just stopped near the house. She turned off the car but left the keys hanging in the ignition. There wasn’t any danger of being jacked out here in this place. “Come on,” she prompted Murphy as she got out.

He swore under his breath, but shoved open the door and climbed out, too.

She looked at him over the roof of the car. “Remember what we talked about?”

He made a face. “Be polite. Follow instructions. Don’t cause trouble.”

She’d also told him not to curse. But she wasn’t going to nitpick. “Right.” She closed her door, and the sound seemed to get swallowed up in the quiet, open countryside.

“So where is he?” Murphy asked. Their shoes crunched on the gravel as they walked toward the house.

“Here.” As if by magic, Erik Clay appeared. He was wearing a white T-shirt that seemed stretched to its limits over his broad shoulders and another pair of jeans that were just as mud-caked at the bottoms as the ones he’d been wearing the week before. He was also wearing a cowboy hat and leather gloves that only made the tanned wrists above them look even more masculine. “Wondered if you were gonna make it or not.”

She didn’t want him blaming Murphy for their lateness. “My fault. I didn’t think it would take me quite this long to drive out here.” She tried to aim her eyes somewhere other than at that impressive chest, but looking at his face was no less disturbing. And for some reason, those wrists above his gloves were…erotic. She finally settled for looking back the way she’d come. “When you said the road was a little rough, I had no idea.” She turned toward him. “Next time I’ll plan better.”

His teeth flashed briefly. “Now that you’re here, I’ll show you around.”

The desire to stay and have a tour was sudden and strong. So much so that it was unwelcome. “I can’t. I have to get back to Weaver for a class.”

He thumbed his hat back a few inches. “What’re you studying?”

“Teaching,” she corrected. “Lucy’s put me on the schedule for several classes at her dance studio.”

“Is that right… .” He didn’t seem to care when Murphy wandered away from them toward the wooden rails of the deck. “I didn’t think you were a dancer like Lucy.”

Isabella waved her hands ruefully. “Believe me. I’m not.” Until an injury sidelined her career, Lucy had been one of the top ballerinas at the Northeast Ballet Theater. “I was the wardrobe supervisor at NEBT. But I’ve had enough training to teach some little girls a few basics.” She also would be teaching the big girls a few things throughout the week, but didn’t think tall-tanned-and-macho would be interested in hearing about yoga.

“So that’s the reason for the getup?”

She thought she’d given up blushing when she was about fifteen. But when his violet gaze seemed to travel down her body, that was exactly what she found herself doing. “Um, yeah.” She didn’t ordinarily go around wearing formfitting jazz pants and stretchy camis that clung like a second skin. She wished she’d zipped up the sweatshirt. Doing so now would seem obvious, though. “Tap shoes are in the car.”

“Tap?”

She nodded. One of her foster moms had been avidly into the activity. Isabelle had been happy enough to go along, because it meant she didn’t have to stay back at home with the other six foster kids living there. When she’d been granted her emancipation a few years later and could afford it, she’d taken more classes. “So—” she gestured toward Murphy “—it is okay if I leave him here with you like this?”

Erik smiled a little. “Didn’t figure I’d be treated to your company all the while, appealing as it might be.”

She was definitely blushing now. She brushed her palms down her thighs. The diamond engagement ring on her ring finger winked in the sunlight. She tried to remember what Jimmy’s wrists had looked like, and failed. “What time should I pick him up?”

“What time are you done at Lucy’s place?”

“I’m only on for two hours.” So far. If Lucy’s business kept growing, she could end up with more classes. Which meant a little more money and a little less debt.

“Come on back anytime after that.” His tone was easy. “If we’re not finished, you can sit on the porch and relax a bit.”

There were several rustic chairs scattered along the wide deck. Some had yellow-and-green cushions. Some didn’t. Overall, the whole effect was entirely inviting.

Another unwelcome thought. Just as it was unwelcome recognizing that his deep, calm voice had a way of easing the knots between her shoulders.

“You’re being very nice.” Lucy had said he was nice. A very decent, perfectly nice man. And Murphy would be as safe as houses with him. “I’ve really got to go now, though, or I’m going to be late to my class. Murphy?” She raised her voice, looking toward him. “Don’t forget what we talked about.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He twisted his heel into the gravel.

Hiding a sigh, she gave Erik an apologetic smile. “Thank you again for giving us this opportunity.”

“Not us.” He nodded his head sideways toward Murphy. “Him. He’s the one who did it, not you.”

“Yes, well, he is my responsibility. And I do thank you.” She started edging backward toward her car. “I’ll see you soon, Murphy.”

Aware of Erik’s gaze on her, she hurried to her car. When she started the engine and turned around to drive back the way she’d come, she could see in her rearview mirror that Erik and Murphy had not budged.

“Please let this go well,” she whispered. Neither she nor Murphy could afford otherwise, whether her stubborn young ward realized it or not.

Once the faded red car was out of sight, Erik looked over at Murphy. Wearing an oversize black hoodie and blue jeans with a hole in the knee, he was still leaning against the porch, digging his shoe into the dirt. “All right,” Erik said. “Your mom brought you—”

“She’s not my mom.” Murphy kicked the gravel, scattering the small pebbles. “She never married my d—She’s just my guardian.”

Erik decided he really should have listened more closely to Lucy’s chatter. Or caved to his curiosity and called her at least once over the past week to pump her for more info, regardless of the consequences. “So where’re your parents?”

“My dad’s dead.”

Erik stifled an oath. “Sorry. I didn’t know.” He studied the kid for a moment, wondering about his mother. “How long ago?”

“Nine months.” The kid lifted a shoulder that looked skinny even beneath the hoodie. “It’s no big deal, dude. Am I gonna shovel cow crap or what?”

Erik figured it had to be a very big deal. Both his parents were still alive and he was glad of it, though he could do with a little less of his mother’s unsubtle comments that she’d like grandchildren before she was too old to enjoy them. A crock, since he considered his mom to be pretty darn young, having passed fifty only a few years back.

He abruptly changed his mind about mucking out the horse stalls and pointed instead at the old barn. “You’re gonna help me tear that old thing down.”

“Then can I have my bat back?”

“Nope.” He started toward his new barn. “Come on.”

“Where?” Murphy’s voice was rife with suspicion.

Erik’s stride didn’t slow. “To get some tools other than your baseball bat.”

After a moment, he heard the shuffle of footsteps following behind him.

At least it was something.

“I’ve got a dozen women signed up for a second yoga class.” Lucy Ventura sat on the edge of the desk in her small office, jiggling the baby she held against her shoulder.

Isabella swiped her neck with her hand towel. Tap dancing—even with six-year-olds—was a lot of work. “I can hardly believe a couple dozen women exist in Weaver who want to take yoga.” She’d been happy to think they had enough for one class. Two would be amazing.

Lucy grinned. “You’d be surprised, Iz.” A small burp filled the office. “Genteel as always, my daughter.” She turned the infant around until she was sitting on her lap, facing Isabella. Where Lucy was fair, her daughter, Sunny, was dark. A mop of dark brown hair was tied at the top of her little round head with a bright red bow, and her dark brown eyes fairly snapped with cheer.

Until Jimmy, Isabella had never aspired to motherhood. Not with the childhood she’d had. Then he’d swept her off her feet, and her orderly life had flown right out the window. She couldn’t help wondering what might have happened if he’d lived. What their baby—if he’d ever changed his mind about not having any—might have looked like.

An image of Murphy swam into her head. He looked like his father.

Would Erik Clay’s children have his violet eyes?

She banished the errant thought and draped the towel around her neck before giving Sunny her finger. The baby latched on and yanked it around. “She’s so beautiful, Luce. I can’t believe how life has changed for us.”

Lucy smiled gently. “Weaver’s a good place to heal, Iz.”

“I hope so,” she murmured. Sunny’s skin was as soft as down. “Murphy has a lot to heal from. He adored Jimmy.”

“I was talking about you, too.”

Isabella lifted her shoulder. “I’m a big girl. I’ll survive, as usual.”

“Surviving isn’t necessarily the same as living,” Lucy countered. She’d dropped by the studio only to see how Isabella’s classes had gone and was dressed in a pretty sundress that Isabella herself had made for her a few years ago as a gift. “I learned that when I met Beck.”

“He seems like a good guy.”

“Oh, he’s good all right.” Lucy’s eyes suddenly danced. “Anyway, what did you think about the Rocking-C? Erik’s place,” she prompted when Isabella gave her a blank look.

“I didn’t see much of it. The road out there is terrible.” She didn’t want to think about him. “I just hope this whole deal works out between him and Murphy.”

“If Erik has any say in it, it will,” Lucy assured. “I told you. He’s one of the good ones.”

The baby had lost interest in Isabella’s finger and she moved to peer through the window that overlooked the dance studio. The room wasn’t large but it was perfectly outfitted, which was typical for Lucy. “I don’t want Murphy to forget that his father was one of the good ones, too.” Her thumb nudged the engagement ring Jimmy had given her around and around her finger.

“You miss him.”

Isabella sighed. “Sometimes it feels like I haven’t had a whole lot of time to miss him.” She exhaled again. “I loved him, but there are times I want to scream over his lack of planning.” Only the fact that she and Lucy had been friends for more than a decade allowed her to admit it. “The standard life-insurance policy the department offered? Only once he was gone did I discover that he’d never updated the beneficiary from Murphy’s mother.” Even though, when he’d realized just how serious his situation was, he’d told her he had. If there was anything left after the medical bills, he’d believed she would need it to care for Murphy.

Lucy was wincing. “Maybe he didn’t have time,” she suggested tactfully. “Considering how fast everything happened. Does anyone even know where she is?”

Isabella shook her head. “Not since she finished serving her prison sentence. Jimmy had no idea where Kim went after that. Seems horrible to think of one’s life in terms of money, but it would have gone a long way toward the medical bills.”

“Not to mention paying restitution for Murphy’s stunt.”

Isabella didn’t deny it. She might not have been named on the life insurance, but she was in charge of settling what was left of Jimmy’s estate. She’d sold off nearly everything, except their clothes and a few other personal possessions, to take care of the debts he’d left. “He always figured he’d die in the line of duty. Not—” Her throat tightened. She shook her head. A firefighter, Jimmy had been largerthan-life. But dealing with the minutiae of real life had not been his forte. Even in the short time they’d had together, she’d realized that. And she hadn’t cared because she was good with real life. She’d had to be since she’d been orphaned as a baby. And she’d loved him.

When the staph infection had hit after a seemingly simple scrape he’d gotten during a fundraiser for a homeless shelter, there had been nothing any of them could do. Despite Jimmy’s excellent health, every treatment the doctors had tried had failed. In a matter of weeks he’d been gone; the only thing he’d left behind was his trust in her that she’d take care of everything. Most importantly, his son.

“Well,” Lucy said after a moment, “you give Weaver a chance to work its magic. On both you and Murphy.”