“No, you have nothing to worry about there. We’re getting along just fine. She’s been a great help at the diner, and just this afternoon she wrangled an invitation to go horseback riding.” He winked at Olivia, who gestured wildly at the clock.
“Oh, good.” Kaitlyn’s conscience had been cleared, and she was moving on. “I knew she’d have a much better time with you.”
By this time Olivia was nearly frantic. It was 8:00. Chris took a deep breath. “Look, Kaitlyn. We have a lot to talk about. And believe me, we will have our conversation when the time’s right. But I’ll make a deal with you. You go ahead and call Olivia every day like you said you would, and I won’t even pick up. I’ll hand the phone to Olivia to answer, or if she’s not around, you can leave a message for her.”
“You mean if she refuses to talk to me, I can leave a message.” Kaitlyn was moving back into self-pity.
“Give her some time, Sis. She’s a good kid. She’ll come around.”
Chris heard a man’s voice mumble something and Kaitlyn say something incomprehensible, as if she had her hand over the speaker. When she came back she was eager to hang up. “Okay, then. Give her a hug from me. Love you.”
“Love you too. And take care.” But from the dead sound of his voice into the phone, he knew she had hung up.
“Your mom said to give you a hug.” Chris tossed his phone on the sofa next to him and smiled at Olivia.
She didn’t even seem to hear him. She was near tears. “We missed it. It’s past 8:00 and Miss Schooley, Sarah, tried to call and you were on the phone.”
Chris pulled her to him. “You need to calm down, Liverhead. If Sarah called while I was talking to your mom, she’ll call back. And listen to me.” He gently caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tipped her head so she was looking at him. “You need to talk to your mom next time she calls, hear me? She loves you and she misses you. Got that?”
Olivia’s eyes welled with tears and her lower lip jerked a few times, but when Chris tucked her under his arm, she didn’t resist—until the phone on the sofa vibrated. Then she turned into a windmill of arms and legs.
“That’s her.” Olivia grabbed up the phone and shoved it at Chris. “Answer it.”
He didn’t take it. “Go ahead. You’re the one she wants to talk to.”
He leaned back against the sofa and watched Olivia take the call. He knew next to nothing about kids, but the range of emotions she had run through in the last half hour or so couldn’t be good. Kids’ moods could turn on a dime, he knew that much, but these were more than just mood changes. She was going through some pretty serious stuff, and she was just seven. Right now he was all she had. And he didn’t have a clue.
Olivia was dancing on her toes as she shoved the phone back at him. “She wants to talk to you. She wants to go tomorrow after lunch. Tell her it’s okay. Tell her.”
He raised his eyebrows and mouthed the words Calm down as he took the phone.
“Hi. Sorry I’m a few minutes late with the call.” He hadn’t heard her voice on the phone before, and he liked the way it sounded. “I really wanted to call at 8:00 on the nose to prove something to Olivia, but I couldn’t get through.”
“Well, she was waiting for you.” Chris smiled into the phone. She got it. Not many people took the time to get Olivia.
“I gathered. So, tomorrow works? I could pick her up at the Dip ’n’ Dine around 1:00. I’ll have her back by dinner.”
“Sounds good.” He took a deep breath. Go for it, Reed. “Think you could stay for dinner? I know Olivia would love it if you would.”
He heard the hesitation on the line. “Um, we’ll both be pretty dirty. I think we’d probably better make it another time.”
“Ah, come on. You’re going to have to eat somewhere. I’ll throw something on the grill and we can eat on the deck.” Chris winced as he heard the wheedling in his voice. Not cool.
“Some other time.” The warm tone Chris had been basking in cooled perceptively. “I’ll pick her up around 1:00?”
“Sure. That would be fine.” Chris willed the nonchalance back into his voice before he punched End Call. He leaned back against the sofa and closed his eyes. Briefly, he wondered if women were any easier to deal with if you could take them one at a time.
When he opened his eyes, Olivia was standing there watching him, more frozen than still. He smiled to put her mind at ease. “Looks like you’re going horseback riding tomorrow. Bet you’ll have fun.”
A grin split her face and she tore off to her room to begin some preparation he could only guess at. Chris shook his head and reached for his computer again. If he couldn’t figure everybody out at once, he was going to have to prioritize. Olivia, whether he had asked for it or not, was priority number one. She was seven, after all, and deserved to be number one in someone’s life. Kaitlyn came in at number two. She and her problems, and her crises, and all her drama pretty much sucked up what was left of him. That didn’t leave a whole lot of bandwidth to spend on Sarah. But if he was honest with himself, that seemed to be the way Sarah wanted it anyway.
Sarah glanced at the time as she stopped her car in front of the Dip ’n’ Dine. One o’clock on the nose. She looked up to see Olivia leaving her lookout spot at the window and heading for the door. For maybe the hundredth time since yesterday, she asked herself what in the world she had gotten herself into.
“I’m ready. Let’s go.” Olivia was at the car door yanking at the handle before Sarah was completely out of the car.
“Hang on. We have to tell your uncle that we’re leaving.” She watched as Olivia deflated a bit. “Come on. We can’t just take off without saying good-bye. It wouldn’t be polite.” She held her hand out for Olivia and walked with her back into the diner. Truth be told, Sarah would have been as happy as Olivia to have her just hop in the car and take off. She didn’t need more complications in her life right now, and with Chris Reed, things just got more and more complicated.
Chris, however, was all business, confusing her even more. He barely stopped on his way from table to kitchen to say good-bye and wish them a good time. Sarah had steeled herself for another offer of dinner when they returned and had what she hoped was a pleasant but firm and final refusal ready. But no such invitation was forthcoming. In fact, to watch Chris now, one would think inviting her to dinner had never occurred to him. He just asked what time she thought they’d be back, told Olivia to mind Sarah, waved, and disappeared into the kitchen.
With Chris back in the kitchen and Olivia already heading out the front door, Sarah really had nothing to do but follow her out. The people in Sarah’s life tended to be pretty much the same from one time she saw them to the next, but she had yet to figure out the Reeds. They seemed pretty moody, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. By the time she buckled herself into the front seat, she had decided she didn’t have to do anything but take the next couple weeks as they came. Pretty soon Olivia would be back home in Scottsdale and school in Last Chance would be starting. Everybody would be busy living their own lives. Meanwhile, because she liked Olivia in spite of her mercurial ways, she’d just have to figure out a way to spend time with the niece while avoiding the uncle. She drove out onto the highway and glanced into the rearview mirror. Olivia seemed to be doing an amazing amount of bouncing around for someone with a seat belt on.
“Want to pull that belt a little tighter? We want you safe.” Sarah heard the commotion in the backseat calm a little. What in the world was she doing back there, anyway? “Have you been around horses much, Olivia?”
“I’ve been on pony rides at the fair, but I don’t think it’s the same.”
“No, it’s not the same.” Sarah tried to ignore the slow, rhythmic kick on the back of her seat. “Let me tell you a little bit about horses. A lot of loud noise and fast movement around their feet can make them really nervous, and we don’t want that. So I’m going to need you to stay right by me, keep your voice down, and do everything I say, o
kay?”
Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror again and saw Olivia’s solemn nod. She caught Olivia’s eyes and smiled. “Great. I can tell you’re going to be a good horsewoman.”
True to her word, Olivia stuck to Sarah’s side and spoke barely above a whisper as they got out of the car and approached the corral. A dappled gray horse raised her head and whickered before slowly ambling over to the fence and lowering her head over the top rail for attention.
“This is Belle.” Sarah scratched Belle’s ear. “In a minute we’ll go get her tack, but first I want you to meet her.” She reached into her bag and took out a small apple. “Here. Hold this on your hand, fingers flat out, and she’ll take it. She loves apples.”
Even children who had grown up around horses could be uneasy the first time one ate out of their hand, and Sarah held Olivia’s wrist to steady it. But Olivia didn’t flinch. When Belle lipped the apple off her hand and crunched it between her teeth, Olivia smiled. “That tickled.”
“Well, you’re her friend now.” Sarah gave Belle’s cheek another pat and led the way to the barn. The tack room was large and immaculately kept. Billy, the ranch’s longtime foreman, ran a tight ship. Olivia was immediately captivated by the long, glassed-in trophy case along one wall.
“Wow. There must be a hundred ribbons and stuff. What are they for?”
Sarah stopped and looked. Truthfully, she gave them no more thought when she came in the barn than she gave any piece of equipment she wasn’t actually looking for at the time. But Olivia was right. There were a lot of ribbons.
“Well, these are ribbons we’ve brought home from shows over the years. We don’t show a lot anymore, but my granddad really loved his quarter horses.”
“Did Belle win any of these?”
“You know, I’ve never thought about that. If she did, it was a long time ago.” Sarah picked up the lead rope she had come for. “Let’s go ask her.”
Olivia rolled her eyes as she fell in beside her. “Horses can’t talk.”
The shadows were stretching across the yard when Sarah finally was able to tuck Olivia into the backseat again and head down the dirt road to the highway. After an afternoon of walking and trotting around the ring with Sarah watching and calling instruction from the ground, Belle had been brushed and groomed to within an inch of her life and turned back into the corral to munch on the scoop of oats Olivia had put in her feedbox.
“I like Belle.” The voice from the backseat was almost dreamy. “I think she wants me to come back and take care of her some more.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.” Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled. Neither the sullen, way-too-old-for-her-years little girl she met yesterday nor the overly excited, almost out of control child Olivia had become at the mention of horses was evident. All Sarah saw was a very tired, and very dirty, seven-year-old leaning back against the seat and gazing out her side window.
“So when can I come? Tomorrow? Belle will be looking for me.”
“Not tomorrow, but maybe we can make it up here another time before you go back home. School’s going to be starting soon, you know, and we’re both going to be really busy.”
“I hate school.” The voice from the backseat was matter-of-fact.
“How can you hate school?” Sarah’s voice took on the cheerful, authoritative tone she had used in her term of practice teaching. “There’s so much to do and to learn.”
“Because the kids are mean and the teacher’s mean and everybody always gets me in trouble.”
“Wow, it does sound like first grade was rough.” Sarah felt a flash of indignation at that first grade teacher, whoever she was. Any class could have a child like Olivia, one who needed extra time and understanding to thrive, and if the teacher was caring and conscientious, as Sarah fully intended to be, that child would not leave first grade hating school.
“I hated it. And sometimes my mom made me go anyway, even when I had a real bad stomachache. So, when can I come back and ride Belle?”
“We’ll see.”
Olivia, either satisfied with the answer or too tired to push the issue, didn’t respond, and Sarah let the conversation fade to silence. The comment about Olivia’s mom sometimes making her go to school anyway disturbed her. How much school had Olivia missed? The “missing school, falling behind, hating school, missing school” cycle could destroy a student’s academic prospects like nothing else. And for Olivia, it was starting in first grade.
Sarah sighed as she reached the Dip ’n’ Dine and turned into the parking lot. From what she had gathered, Chris seemed to be one of the few people in the little girl’s life who was really concerned about her. There might not be a lot he could do from Last Chance when Olivia was in Arizona, but Sarah guessed it would be more than anyone at home did.
The diner was nearly empty when Olivia led the way inside. Juanita was talking to the last customers as she wrote up their ticket, and Chris was sitting at a booth in the back with Rita. Everyone looked up and smiled.
“Well, if it’s not Annie Oakley.” Juanita slapped her ticket book shut and headed behind the counter. “How would you like a glass of lemonade? You look like you’re spitting dust.”
Olivia just shrugged, and Juanita’s mouth began to get that pinched look. Sarah nudged Olivia and muttered, “Yes, please, Miss Juanita.”
Olivia looked at the floor and then out the window. “Yes . . . please.” Sarah nudged her again. “Miss Juanita.”
Juanita beamed. “Well then, I’d be real happy to get you one.” She turned to the soda machine, and Sarah bent down to whisper in Olivia’s ear.
“See? That didn’t hurt at all, did it? And be sure to say thank you.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “Who’s Annie Oakley, anyway?”
Juanita returned with two tall glasses of lemonade. “I brought you a glass too, Sarah. Something tells me you could use a little cooling down yourself.” She raised her eyebrows and slid a knowing glance Sarah’s way.
“Thanks, Juanita.” Sarah smiled as if she had no idea what Juanita could be referring to. “We had a good time today, didn’t we, Olivia?”
Olivia, who had muttered the barest of thanks when Juanita put the lemonade in front of her on the counter, didn’t answer or even look up from her glass. After a moment Juanita sighed, shook her head, shot another meaningful look toward Sarah, and returned to the kitchen.
If Olivia noticed the exchange, she gave no sign, and Sarah felt another pang for the angry little fighter on the stool next to her. What must it be like to be seven and feel like it was you against the world? Loud, hollow slurps indicating Olivia had reached the bottom of her glass interrupted Sarah’s musing, and she automatically opened her mouth to give Olivia another manners check. She gave the little girl’s shoulders a quick squeeze instead. Olivia had said please, thank you, and even Miss Juanita. Maybe that was enough for one day.
12
Chris found it hard to keep his mind on Rita and her clipboard when Sarah and Olivia came in. What he really wanted to do was get up, cross the room, and sit down and join them for a lemonade, but after calling a brief “howdy” to the riders when they came in, Rita had returned to her plans. Chris sighed and tried to focus. It wasn’t that the barbecue Rita was detailing wasn’t important. It was, in fact, probably the most significant event in the life of the Dip ’n’ Dine since he had arrived in Last Chance. But they had been at this for more than an hour now, with Rita doing most of the talking, and he was pretty sure they had already covered everything on Rita’s list at least twice.
“This is the one thing I’m not sure about.” Rita leaned back and tapped her clipboard with her pencil. “Your music. I really think your best bet is going to be country. It’s what folks around here listen to mostly, and we have some local bands we could get. No reason to send all the way to Albuquerque for jazz when we’ve got country right here.”
Chris shot another quick glance at the counter and gave up trying to end his meeting with
Rita. Sarah was getting ready to leave. He lifted his hand in a wave, called “Thanks,” and smiled at her “Don’t mention it” before returning his attention to the matters at hand.
“I think you’ll like the band I’m thinking about. They used to play in a restaurant I worked in, and they’re good. I’ve got a CD at home I’ll bring you, and if you like them as much as I think you will, I’ll give Tom a call. I’ll bet we could get them down here for a weekend.”
“I don’t know.” Rita clearly was not convinced. “I had sort of thought we’d advertise it as ‘A Foot-Stompin’ Time at the Dip ’n’ Dine.’ It sort of rhymes, don’t you think? I’m not sure foot-stompin’ works with jazz.”
“Nope, not much foot-stompin’ when these guys play. But what about this?” Chris paused for effect. “Hot Chile and Cool Jazz.”
He could almost hear the wheels turning in Rita’s head as her pencil stopped in midtap and she looked up at him. “You know, I like that. ‘Hot Chile and Cool Jazz.’” She said the words like she tasted them. “Of course, we’d have to advertise it just right, but you can leave that to me. You get me that CD, and we might just have ourselves an event.”
Rita tucked her pencil back behind her ear where she kept it for easy access and picked up her clipboard. Her meetings could seem interminable, but her comings and goings were always efficient. “Now, I’ve got places to go and things to do. I’ll swing by for the CD in the morning.”
She was out the door by the time Chris got out of their booth. She must have seen someone she needed to talk to down the street, because she waved her arm over her head and took off at a brisk pace.
Chris watched her go. If he had only thought to suggest his theme a few minutes earlier, maybe he could have joined Sarah for that lemonade after all. He walked over to the counter where Olivia was drawing on a place mat what was doubtlessly meant to be a horse.
“How’d it go?”
One More Last Chance Page 10
