Rosalind Blackwell’s smile hitched a condescending inch, and she looked at her watch. “I have two more cases before eleven, and I’m quite pressed for time.”
Rafe narrowed his eyes at the woman. “So am I.” He glanced at Evan. “So’s he. So we’ll talk as soon as I’m finished here. All right?”
She cleared her throat and pushed her oversize glasses up the bridge of her nose with one finger. “Well... I suppose it could wait...for a few minutes.” She checked her watch again and picked up her brown attaché case on the way out the door. “I have another appointment at ten.”
The door eased closed behind her. Rafe turned to Evan and lifted his eyebrows in a conspiratorial smile.
“I don’t like her,” Evan said in a small voice.
“That makes two of us.” Rafè set his coat down on the chair near the bed.
“You a doctor? You’re not gonna gimme another shot, are you?” The kid folded his arms across his chest and puffed himself up.
“Do I look like a doctor to you?”
Evan’s eyes narrowed assessingly as he gave Rafe a once-over, landing finally on the heavy silver championship buckle at Rafe’s waist. “Well...” he observed thoughtfully, “the other doctors don’t have belt buckles like that.”
Rafe glanced down at the buckle and grinned. “No, I don’t guess they would at that.” He reached down and ran a thumb over the shiny metal. “Like it?”
Interest sparked in Evan’s eyes, but his tone was deliberately disenchanted. “That a cow?”
Rafe shook his head with a grin. “Ol’ Tornado here’d be mighty insulted to hear you call him that. He’s a bull, through and through. Mean as a cuss, and twice as ornery.”
“You know him?” Evan asked.
“Well, you might say we’re...uh, acquainted.”
The boy’s arms relaxed to his sides as fascination overcame aloofness. “You a cowboy, mister?”
“Shore am, partner,” he replied in his best cowboy drawl.
Evan’s mouth fell open in unabashed awe. “Awesome!”
Rafe relaxed a fraction. He hadn’t impressed anyone in a long time. Not since he left the rodeo far behind him.
“I met a cowboy once,” Evan said. “Cowboy Jake, at Buddy Felder’s birthday party. But his guns were fake and he tripped over the rope he tried to spin. Can you?”
Rafe grinned. “Trip over a rope?”
Evan giggled. “Naw. Make it spin.”
“In my sleep.”
“Really?”
“I prefer to do it awake though.”
“Will ya teach me sometime?”
Rafe hesitated. He wasn’t likely to be around the kid long enough to teach him anything, but he didn’t say that. “Maybe sometime. My name’s Rafe.” He held his hand out to the boy. Evan’s felt small and smooth and tentative against his palm.
“I’m Evan. I know karate,” he announced proudly, throwing his hands up in a karate stance.
Rafe’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Really?”
He dropped his hands. “Yeah, I’m only a red belt though. Jason and Daniel are almost green belts.”
“Friends of yours?”
Evan nodded slowly, staring at the blanket tangled around his legs. “Back home. But I had to say goodbye to ‘em on accounta we’re movin’.”
“Where to?”
“Sassinitti.”
A frown pulled at Rafe’s brow and he concentrated on the boy’s pouting lower lip. “Sassinitti?”
“Yeah. Mom says it’s on a big river in—” he frowned in concentration “—O...Ohio. She said we can go fishing sometime.”
A light went on. Cincinnati? Ohio? Why in the hell was she moving to Ohio?
“Me an’ Mom and Dad went ocean fishing once,” Evan went on. “Mom wouldn’t bait the hooks, so Daddy did. Only I could tell he didn’t like it much, either. But I caught a baby shark. It was so cool. But Mom said I had to throw it back.”
“Good idea.” Rafe’s gaze traveled over the boy’s small face. “Where’s, uh, where’s your dad now?”
Refusing to answer, Evan looked out the window.
Taking a new tack, he began, “You know, your mom said—”
Evan swiveled a look at him.
“My mom? You saw her?”
“Sure did.”
“Is—” Evan’s throat bobbled “—is she a angel?”
“What?”
His eyes filled, and his lower lip quivered. “They wouldn’t let me in her room. So I thought...they wouldn’t tell me she went to heaven, like my dad.”
Rafe’s gut tightened. So the kid’s father was gone. A twinge of jealousy and sadness for Carly shimmied through him. He sat down on the bed, but didn’t touch the boy for fear of making him bolt. “No, Evan. She’s very much alive. In fact, I just saw her. She’s okay. She’s just banged herself up a little in the accident. She asked about you. She wants to see you very much.”
“You know my mom?”
Rafe nodded. “We’re...old friends. I thought maybe you and I could sneak in together. Pay her a surprise visit. Whattaya think?”
His eyes widened. “Swear? Double-Dutch-cross-your-heart?”
“Absolutely,” he replied solemnly, drawing an X across his chest.
“I wanna go now.” Evan leaped out of bed and headed for the door.
“Whoa, whoa,” Rafe called, stopping him halfway across the room. “First, you get your britches on. You can’t go see your mom bare-bottom-naked, now can ya?”
Considering that, Evan pulled the split back of the too-large hospital gown together. “Oh, yeah...”
“Yeah.” Rafe ruffled his hair. “Need any help?”
Looking slightly offended, Evan, already heading to the closet for his pants, replied, “I’m too old for that stuff!”
“Oh. Well, in that case, I’ll wait outside for you and have my talk with Gunga Din.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. I’ll see you outside when you’re ready.”
Scribbling in a small red notebook full of notes, Rosalind Blackwell waited stiffly at the nurses’ station, just outside Evan’s room. Rafe didn’t waste time with preliminaries. He got straight to the point.
“The boy’s staying with me.”
Blackwell glanced up. “I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple, Mr. Kellard.”
“Sure it is. The boy needs someone to watch out for him until Carly’s on her feet. That’s what I came to do.”
“I appreciate that, but there are procedures we must adhere to.”
“Fine. So tell me where to sign.”
The woman sighed heavily. “You must know we have only the boy’s best interests at heart...”
“Naturally.”
“...and, since you’re not a relative, we require the mother’s permission.”
“You’ll get it.”
The woman’s smile flattened her face. “It’s my understanding that you’re not even a particularly close family friend. In fact, you’ve never met Evan until today. Is that true?”
“So? What difference does that make?”
“In cases such as these, where there is no close relative, it’s customary that the child be placed in institutional care until a proper replacement can be found.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened. “And I’m not proper.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
Blackwell smiled. “You’re not married, are you, Mr. Kellard?”
“No.”
She scratched that little fact down in her book.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I have to ask myself,” Miss Blackwell replied, “why a single man like yourself would want to take on the enormous responsibility of a young child like Evan, when you have no real ties to Ms. Jamison or her son.”
A muscle jumped in Rafe’s cheek. When he spoke, it was with barely leashed anger. “Patience has always been my strong suit, Miss Blackwell. Right now, that patience is running mighty thin. The fact is,
my relationship to Ms. Jamison and her son are none of your damn business, nor are my reasons for being here.
“And as far as the boy’s concerned, Carly woke up a little while ago. You can ask her yourself if she wants me to take care of Evan, or if she wants him consigned to one of your...institutions. Personally, I’ve seen ’em all firsthand, and I wouldn’t wish it on any child, stranger or kin. And you can write that down in your little red book and—”
Evan burst through his door, nearly colliding with Rafe. His shirt was buttoned wrong and tucked half in and half out of his small jeans. But he was decent. “Can we go see my mom now? I’m all ready.”
Rafe shook off his anger and ruffled Evan’s sleep-tousled hair. “You bet, pard.” He glanced at Miss Blackwell, who looked as if she’d sucked on something sour. “Miss Blackwell and I were just finished, weren’t we?”
She snapped her book shut and forced a smile. “I...uh... Yes, we were. Goodbye, Evan.”
Unexpectedly Evan slipped his small hand into Rafe’s and pressed his body against him. A surge of protectiveness as foreign as the feeling of a child’s hand in his welled in Rafe. It felt good and flat-out terrifying in the same moment. “Let’s go,” he said.
“Mr Kettard—?” Blackwell called before he’d gone two steps. He looked back at her. “Tell Ms. Jamison that I’ll be speaking with her shortly,” she added, tucking her little book under her arm.
“I’ll be sure to do that, Miss Blackwell. I surely will.”
Carly woke with the distinct feeling that she was being watched over like an incubating egg. She felt, in fact, overly warm, and insulated by the cottony feeling between her ears. Slowly she realized that the headache that had pounded there earlier had lessened.
Opening her eyes, she felt her heart give a little leap at the two very familiar shapes that came into focus at the foot of her bed: Evan, and behind him, Rafe. Like two versions of the same picture, one dark and one light, the pair of them grinned at her as she struggled to regain control of her thudding pulse.
“Mommy!” Evan wriggled across the bed, careful of her leg, and hugged her with all the tenderness he could manage.
“Hi, sweetie,” she said weakly, inhaling the wonderful scent of him. “Let me look at you. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, ’cept this cut here,” he said, pointing to the Band-Aid on his forehead, “and this one here,” he said, holding up an all-but-invisible scratch on his little finger.
“You look...perfect to me,” she answered, her voice thick with emotion.
Evan smiled tremulously, then blurted out, “I was really scared and I thought you were an angel and they put me in a room and wouldn’t let me see you last night and I promised I wouldn’t cry and I didn’t...much. Aren’t you proud of me?”
“Sure am, big guy,” she said, pressing her lips to his cheek and hugging him as tightly as her sore wrist would allow. She looked up at Rafe. “I see you two have met.”
“Yeah, and Rafe told me you were okay, and then we got done with Gunga Din, and then Nurse Rebecca—” he pointed to the amused nurse adjusting the curtains on the other side of the room “—she said she wouldn’t tell if I came in here.” He grinned conspiratorially up at Rafe, who winked back.
“Gunga Din?” Carly repeated, with a questioning look at Rafe.
He grinned and gave a little shrug. “You had to be there.”
That smile. It reached all the way to her toes. Why had she thought after all these years she was really over it? “What else have I been missing while I was in La-La Land?” she asked.
Evan sat up and looked at her seriously. “Rafe’s gonna take care of me until you get all better. He said he might even take me to his ranch. He’s got horses an’ cows an’ everything!”
Carly felt the blood drain from her face as she looked at Rafe. “What?”
“Hey, partner,” Rafe said, lifting Evan up off the bed. “Why don’t you and Nurse Rebecca go find something to eat while I talk to your ma? You must be hungry by now.”
“Awww...but—”
“Go on, now. We won’t be long.” He pulled ten dollars out of his pocket and handed it to Evan. “Maybe you two can find me some coffee down there.”
The nurse nodded understandingly and ushered Evan out of the room after one last hug for Carly. When he was gone, Carly turned to Rafe.
For the first time she noticed the dark smudges bruising the skin below his eyes. He looked as tired as she felt, yet tension arched like an electric current in the silence that stretched between them. Finally, they both spoke at once.
“Rafe, I—”
“Carly—”
He bent his head and said, “Go on.”
“Listen,” she said, edging up onto her elbows, “I really appreciate everything you’ve done...coming here like this, but—”
“Just so there’s no mistake, I didn’t do it for you,” he said bluntly. “I did it for Evan.”
His words were like a slap, and she tried to keep the disappointment out of her expression, but wasn’t sure she succeeded. “You still haven’t said why.”
He hesitated a moment. “Because they told me they were going to have to let social services take care of Evan, since they didn’t know who else to contact.” He looked up at her, his jaw tight.
She didn’t have to ask any more. She knew that Rafe had gone though hell as a boy, being shuffled from one foster family to the next after the death of his father. The idea that Evan could have fallen into a crack in the same system that had tossed Rafe’s childhood around was too scary to contemplate. All she could seem to think of to say was “Thank you.”
He exhaled sharply. “Is there someone to contact, Carly? Evan said his father was dead.”
Panic fingered coldly up her neck. Deliberately she searched the morning light spilling through the distant window, so that she wouldn’t have to look Rafe in the eye. “Tom died two years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” Rafe said at last. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She shook her head. “Rafe, I—”
“Look,” he said, interrupting her. “Isn’t there someone? A friend?”
Carly pressed two fingers against her temple. “There’s my friend Chandra, but she’s in Europe for the next two months, doing makeup on a film shoot. And—” She frowned, searching for the name that momentarily escaped her. “Oh—Jane, Aunt Katherine’s friend. But she just moved into a retirement home near Laguna Niguel.”
“There’s no one else?”
Until Tom’s estate was settled, she reflected grimly, her time had been spent in a headlong, often lonely rush toward sheer survival. Her hours with the P.D.’s office had been long and exhausting, leaving her with precious little time for anyone but her son. She’d never regretted that. It was what she’d had to do. Yet it was exactly why she’d left L.A. behind her. There had to be more to life, for both of them.
“There’s just Evan and me,” she said at last. “The dynamic duo.”
The half smile that lifted the corner of his mouth sent warmth skittering unbidden down her spine. “Batman and Robin? Pancho and Cisco...?”
She smiled back. “Something like that. Actually, I’m sort of...at loose ends homewise. We, Evan and I, were on our way to—”
“Cincinnati.”
“How did you know?”
“Evan told me. Do you have a place there?”
A frown pulled delicately at her brow as she looked up at him. “I—well, I’ve made arrangements with a Realtor to rent a condo there.”
“Furnished?”
“No, my things are on a truck somewhere between L.A. and there. Why?”
“Have you given any thought to how you’re going to get there? Your car is totaled.”
A sound of disbelief issued from deep in her throat.
“Not,” he added, looking pointedly at her dangling leg, “that you could drive it, anyway, with plaster wrapped around your lovely leg.”
Color leaped into her cheeks. Her headach
e was back in spades. “I guess we’ll fly, then.”
“And once you get there, then what? You’ve got a burn ankle and wrist, not to mention a knock on the head that would have given a bighorn sheep a headache.”
That earned him a groan. “Don’t remind me.”
“How will you settle in?” he demanded. “Unpack? Get to the grocery store?”
“I don’t know! I suppose I’ll have to hire someone. I have a job waiting for me. I—Oh...damn.” Staring at the blank pale green ceiling, she refused to let Rafe see the tears that gathered behind her eyes. “I’ve really made a mess of things again, haven’t I?”
Again? Rafe doubted the ever-efficient Cara Lynn Jamison had ever screwed up her well-ordered plan for her life. Certainly not when she left him behind and made a life for herself in the big city. From the looks of her, she’d done well, and a damn sight better than she ever would have with him. Still, his heart twisted as he watched her struggle not to cry.
Brushing at her eyes with the back of her fist, she winced at the pain in her hand, then stared at it as if it were a dog who’d just bitten her. The tears came then, unchecked down her cheeks. “Damn! And I—I suppose that’s broken, too!”
Resisting the urge to reach out and touch her again, Rafe shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and said, “Just sprained.”
Her laugh came without a trace of humor. “I guess I should be grateful for small favors.”
“Carly—”
“Look...” she said, her small gesture begging for quiet, “could you just... I really don’t want to talk right now, okay? I need some time alone to...sort through it all.”
“That’s not going to change things, and you know it.”
“No?” she asked, more sharply than she’d intended. “Well, maybe not, but I don’t have a better idea right now. Do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said, rolling the tension from one shoulder. “You’re comin’ home with me.”
“What?” She nearly choked. “You...you can’t be serious.”
“I’m fresh out of jokes, after a night like the last one.” With the same catlike grace she remembered, he prowled to the window to stare out of it. “It’s the only solution, and you know it.”
To Love A Cowboy Page 3
