by Lisa Jackson
“Let me see—” She bent over and eyed the injured foot. His shin guards had been stripped off but the swelling was visible through his sock. She clucked her tongue and when she tried to touch his leg, Josh sucked in a whistling, pained breath.
“Heck of a way to start the season,” the coach, a man by the name of Gary Miller, said.
“I can still play,” Josh protested.
“Only if the doctor says so.” Gary helped Josh to Luke’s truck. “I think he should have that ankle X-rayed.”
Katie nodded. “We will.”
“Where’s the car?” Josh asked as he slowly climbed into the bench seat of Luke’s truck.
“It’s a long story.”
“Don’t tell me. It broke down again.”
Katie’s head was beginning to throb. She didn’t want to think about what else might go wrong. First the convertible had broken down, then she’d heard the devastating news that Dave had died and now Josh was hobbling, his ankle twice its normal size. “Yep, the car conked out again.”
“I thought Uncle Jarrod was gonna fix it—Ooh!” Josh sucked in his breath as he shifted and tried to slide across the seat.
“He did. Sort of. Come on, let’s get you to a doctor.” She squeezed onto the seat with her son and slammed the pickup door shut.
“I’ll call you later and see how he is,” the coach said and reached through the open window to rumple Josh’s sweat-soaked hair. “It was a great practice until you and Tom got into it.”
Luke took his place behind the wheel. “Where to?”
“Cawthorne Acres, I suppose.” Katie was already thinking ahead. “My mom’s probably there and we can borrow her car.”
Luke twisted the key in the ignition. “That’s clear out of town.”
“I know, but—”
“Isn’t there an emergency-care place around here somewhere where we can get that ankle looked at?”
“About half a mile that way,” she said, pointing up the street. “But I hate to bother you—”
“No bother at all,” he insisted and rammed the truck into gear. There was no reason to argue with him, so Katie guided him to the small clinic and felt pretty useless as Luke carried Josh into the emergency area. She’d been here before, not long ago, when John Cawthorne had collapsed and her mother had been worried that he’d suffered a second heart attack. Fortunately his condition had been diagnosed as heat stroke and he’d survived.
Josh’s injury wasn’t life-threatening. The worst that would happen was that he’d be in a cast for a few weeks. Yet she hated the thought of him being in any kind of pain or laid up. Katie wiped her hands on the front of her shorts.
“Look, you can go now,” she said to Luke, once the paperwork was finished and a nurse had come with a wheelchair to whisk Josh to the X-ray lab. “I’ll call Bliss or Tiffany or Mom or someone to come get me.”
“No reason.”
“But it could be a while. He might have to see a specialist.”
Luke eyed her. “Why bother someone else,” he drawled, “when I’m here already?”
“You probably have better things to do.”
He lifted a shoulder as if his own life were of no concern. “If there was something pressing, I’d let you know.”
She was too worried to argue, and while Luke sat on one of the plastic couches and thumbed through a sports magazine that was several months old she fidgeted, paced, and tried not to worry. A jillion thoughts rattled through her head, most of them mixed up with Luke, Josh and Dave Sorenson. How could Dave have died and she not have heard about it? It was true that he and his folks had moved away over ten years before and they had little contact with anyone in Bittersweet, but they’d still owned the ranch next to Isaac Wells’s place. Usually, bad news had a way of filtering back to a small town. Katie’s heart ached and her head pounded with an overwhelming and desperate grief. What could she tell Josh?
For years she’d kept the name of her child’s father a secret. Only she and her mother knew the truth. Even her twin half-brothers, Nathan and Trevor, who had known Dave in high school, had been spared the bitter fact that one of their friends had done a love-’em-and-leave-’em number on their half-sister. Her hands felt suddenly clammy, her heart as cold as the bottom of the ocean.
“Josh is gonna be all right,” Luke said as she passed by him for the thirtieth time. He gestured toward her anxious pacing. “You know, if you’re not careful you’re gonna wear a patch right through the floor.”
He smiled, but it seemed guarded somehow and she wondered about him. From the minute he’d blown into town he’d been a mystery, a man without a past—a tall, lanky Texan with a sexy drawl and, seemingly, no ties. She’d fantasized that he’d held some deep, dark secret that she, as the local reporter with her ear to the ground, would uncover. Instead, he’d dropped a bomb that threw her life into unexpected and unwanted turmoil.
Luke studied her over the top of his magazine. “Can I get you something? A cup of coffee?”
“The last thing I need is caffeine.”
“Decaf, then.”
“Or maybe a tranquillizer.” She knew she was overreacting, but she was a jumble of nerves today.
His grin widened a bit and the crow’s feet around his eyes deepened. “This is probably the place to get one.”
“I was kidding.”
“I know.” He slapped his magazine closed. “I think we should call a tow company for your car.”
“Oh . . . good idea, but I need to be here.”
“As soon as Josh is released.” He snapped his magazine open again and turned his attention back to the article he’d been perusing. Katie sat down, but couldn’t endure the inactivity. Seconds later she was pacing again, her brain pounding with the problem of how she was going to tell Josh that his father was dead. She wanted to ask Luke what had happened to Dave, but thought she had better wait until they were alone, and she felt more in control.
Within twenty minutes Josh was wheeled back into the room. He was wearing a brace on his leg and a woman doctor with short brown hair, wide eyes and round glasses approached. “Are you Josh’s mom?”
“Yes. Katie. Katie Kinkaid.”
“Dr. Thatcher.” The doctor extended her hand and shook Katie’s. “I think Josh here is going to live a while longer,” she teased; “Nothing appears to be broken, but I’m going to send his X rays to a specialist for a second opinion, just in case. What I see is a pretty severe sprain. He’ll need to lie down and elevate his foot for a couple of days. The ankle should be iced, to begin with. I’ve prescribed some mild painkillers that he can take for the first forty-eight hours or so and I’d like to see him use crutches until the swelling goes down.”
Katie listened and nodded but wondered how in the world she was going to keep an active ten-year-old off his feet. Short of strapping him to the bed, she didn’t have many options.
With Luke’s help, Josh hobbled to the truck and they drove straight to the pharmacy where they picked up Josh’s prescription and rented crutches five minutes before the place closed for the night.
By the time they pulled into the driveway of her little bungalow, night had fallen and the streetlights gave off an eerie blue glow. Crickets chirped softly and from a house down the street music wafted—some piece of jazz that seemed to float on the breeze. Blue, lying on the back stoop, growled his disapproval of the newcomer as Katie unlocked the door and Luke helped Josh up the steps.
“Hush!” Katie said sharply and the old dog gave off one last indignant snarl. “Don’t mind him, he’s getting old and grouchy,” she said, but fondly patted Blue’s head. She snapped on the porch light and the aging dog tagged after them as they entered the kitchen.
Once Josh was in his room and lying on his bed, Katie propped his leg on pillows, then rinsed a washcloth with water in the bathroom. “I guess you’ll have to use this to clean up,” she said as she handed him the wet cloth and eyed his cramped room. “You know, Josh, if you agree to keep up wi
th your homework and don’t abuse the privilege, I’ll bring in the little TV set that’s in the kitchen.”
“Really?”
“Mm-hmm. But homework comes first. School’s just started, so we don’t want to get behind.”
“‘We’ won’t,” he promised with a grin.
“I can take care of that.” Luke went back to the kitchen and returned to Josh’s room with the thirteen-inch TV. Balancing the TV on the top of an already crowded bookcase, he adjusted the rabbit ears and found a baseball game in progress.
“Awesome.”
Luke tossed Josh the remote control.
“Now, you promise to do everything the doctor says and keep up with your schoolwork?”
“Course.” Josh nodded vigorously. For the first time since they’d picked him up, Josh smiled as he leaned back on his twin bed and immediately clicked the remote control to a different channel and one of his favorite sitcoms.
Blue, eyeing Luke suspiciously, slunk into the room and after circling a couple of times settled on the rug beside Josh’s bed. Resting his graying muzzle on his paws, he glared up at Luke as if he were the devil incarnate.
“You be good,” Katie warned the old dog and he managed one thump of his tail. She turned her attention back to Josh. “Now, kid, is there anything else you need? How about something to eat?”
Josh’s dark eyes sparkled. Already he was getting used to being waited on. “Pizza?”
“Tomorrow, maybe. If we get the car back.”
“Papa Luigi’s delivers.”
“As I said, tomorrow.” She winked at her son. “Right now, I think I’d better scrounge something up from the refrigerator.”
He pulled a long face, which she ignored. “How about you?” she asked Luke. “I’m going to whip up some sandwiches if you’re interested.”
“You don’t have to—”
“Of course I don’t. But I do feel like I owe you.” He hesitated, then lifted a shoulder as they stepped into the hallway where the door to Katie’s room was half open, almost inviting. Inside, a Tiffany lamp burned at a low wattage, reflecting on the windows and spreading a warm pool of light over the lacy duvet and the pink and rose-colored pillows that were piled loosely against the headboard of her bed. The decor was outrageously feminine, with antiques, scatter rugs and frills. Oddly, she was embarrassed that he was looking into her private sanctuary where she worked on her columns, worried over Josh, and dreamed about her career; a room where no man had ever dared sleep. She felt her heart pound a little and when Luke’s eyes found hers again, she realized she was blushing.
“So, how about ham or turkey on white bread?” she asked blithely, as if men looked into her bedroom every day of the week.
“Sounds great.”
“Good.” She walked briskly away from her room and, once she and Luke were in the kitchen, she let out her breath again. Why seeing him so close to her most private spot in the world disquieted her, she didn’t know; didn’t want to know. But there was no doubt about it—this easygoing Texan put her on edge.
He looked awkward and big and out of place in her kitchen. “I’ll make the ice bag the doctor ordered,” he offered, as if he, too, needed something to do. “Just point me in the right direction.”
“Good idea.” She handed him the tools he needed, then spread mayonnaise on slices of white bread. He found ice in the freezer, cracked the cubes from a tray and smashed them into smaller chunks with the small hammer she’d dug out for him. Once the ice was crushed, he rustled up a couple of plastic bags, put one inside the other and brushed the ice shavings inside.
“You’ve done this before,” she observed, slapping ham, turkey, lettuce and tomatoes on the bread.
“Too many times to count.”
“Do you have kids?” she asked automatically and he hesitated long enough to catch her attention. She’d never thought of him as being married or having children, but then she didn’t know much about him. Not much at all.
“Nope. No kids of my own. But I’ve spent enough time with teenagers to get in this kind of practice. I’ve worked on crews with kids where we bucked hay, strung fence, roped calves—the whole nine yards. Someone was always getting kicked, or falling off a rig, or being bucked from a horse or whatever.” He glanced up at her and she felt her breath stop at the intensity in his eyes. So blue. So deep. So ... observant. She felt compelled to look away to break the silly notion that there was some kind of intimacy in his gaze. What was it about him that made her nervous? She was used to men and boys, had grown up with three brothers, yet this man, this stranger, had a way of making her uncomfortable. She pretended interest in slicing the sandwiches into halves. “So you’ve done a lot of ranching.”
“Yep.”
“In Texas?”
“All over. Wyoming and Montana for a spell, but mainly Texas.”
“And that’s where you met Ralph Sorenson?”
He nodded and his eyes fixed on her with laser-sharp acuity. “Years ago.” He handed her the bag of ice, and though there were dozens of questions she wanted to ask him about Ralph and Dave and his life, she carried the ice pack, along with a platter of sandwiches, down to Josh’s room.
She couldn’t help wondering what Luke thought of her and her cramped little home. Filled to the gills with memorabilia from her youth, antiques, and enough books to make her own library, her house had a tight, packed-in feel that bordered on cramped but felt right to her. A string of Christmas lights was forever burning over an old desk she’d shoved into a corner of the living room and her walls were covered with pictures and doodads she’d collected over the years.
To her it was home and, if she moved to Tiffany’s house, she’d take every bit of her life—the mementos from her past—with her.
She didn’t know but guessed that Luke Gates lived a more austere existence. She imagined he’d be as content to sleep under the stars with a buffalo robe for warmth and a saddle for a pillow as he would in a feather-soft bed with eider-down pillows and thick blankets.
Josh had inherited his mother’s need for keepsakes. Posters covered the walls of his room, and model planes hung from the ceiling. His desk was littered with baseball cards, trophies, books and CDs and his floor space was crowded with toys he’d just about outgrown. “You okay?” she asked, seeing that her son was channel surfing, flipping from a docudrama about the police to the baseball game.
“Fine, Mom. Don’t worry.”
“I’m your mother. It’s my job.”
“Oh, right.” Josh rolled his eyes.
While Blue lifted his head in the hopes of snatching a dropped morsel, Katie handed Josh the plate. “Better than Papa Luigi’s,” she said. “You’ve got my personal guarantee.”
“Sure.”
“Ask anyone in town.” She tucked the ice bag around his ankle.
He sucked in his breath and stiffened, tipping his plate and nearly losing a sandwich to the floor and the ever-watchful Blue. “Jeez, Mom, that’s cold.”
“It’s supposed to be.”
“I know, but, Mom, it’s freezing cold.”
“That’s the general idea,” she deadpanned. “It’s ice.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You have to. Wait a second.” She went to the linen closet in the hall, found a thin washcloth, then wedged it between the bag and Josh’s bare ankle. “Better?”
“Lots.” He nodded, bit into his sandwich and turned his attention to the little black-and-white TV where a batter was sizing up the next pitch.
“Good.” She patted him on the head and resisted the urge to overmother him and kiss his cheek.
By the time she’d returned to the kitchen Luke had settled himself into one of the chairs that surrounded the small table she’d bought at a garage sale three years earlier. His long, jeans-clad legs stretched out at an angle to the middle of the kitchen floor and he was sliding his finger down the open Yellow Pages of the phone book. “Tow company,” he said to the question she hadn’t yet
voiced.
“Oh, right. Good idea.” She hated to think of her disabled car and the hassle of getting it fixed. She couldn’t imagine being without wheels for even a few days and shuddered to think that it might stretch into weeks if the mechanics couldn’t find the problem or get the part. On top of the inconvenience, there was the money to consider—extra money she didn’t have right now. Again she thought of Tiffany’s offer and she realized it was just a matter of convincing Josh. But whether he liked it or not, they would have to move; it only made sense. She set a platter of sandwiches on the table and then poured Josh a glass of milk. Holding the glass in one hand, she paused to pick up a scrap of turkey left on the cutting board, then headed back to Josh’s room.
By the time she’d handed Josh his milk, thrown Blue the morsel and returned to the kitchen, Luke was on the phone and instructing the towing company as to the location of her car. “We’ll be there in forty-five minutes,” he promised and hung up. “All set,” he said, winking at her.
Stupidly, her heart turned over.
“All-Star Towing to the rescue,” he elaborated.
“Great. Thanks.” She scrounged in a drawer and found a couple of napkins that hadn’t been used for her Independence Day picnic. Emblazoned with red and blue stars, they gave a festive, if slightly out-of-date, splash of color. “I, uh, appreciate all you’ve done for me.”
“All in a day’s work.”
“Only if you’re into the Good Samaritan business.” He smiled and she felt herself blushing for God only knew what reason. Motioning to the stack of sandwiches on the platter, she added, “Please . . . help yourself. We believe in self-service in this house.”
“Good.”
“Is there anything else you’d like—something to drink? I’ve got juice, milk and water. Or coffee.”
“Decaf?” he asked, lifting a blond eyebrow. “Isn’t that what you said you needed earlier?”
“Yeah, yeah, but I lied.” She measured grounds into a basket, then poured water into the back of the coffee maker. With a flick of a switch, the coffee was perking. “I think I need to be turbocharged right now.”
“Aren’t you always?”
