So he’d done neither. Brilliant.
“What’s up, Gideon?” She tossed a large forkful of soiled straw into the wheelbarrow. She paused, leaned on the pitchfork, and swiped sweat off her face with the back of her hand. Since when had biceps on a woman been so sexy? He could still feel the grip of her hands on his shoulders, smell the warm, earthy scent of her wet skin, so close to his face.
“You get the pup home safe and sound last night?”
“Yeah.” She took a swig of water from the bottle on the straw bale beside her.
“And?”
She lifted another load of straw. “And what?”
“Was he glad to get them back? Why were they out?”
She shrugged, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t really know.”
“What do you mean?” He crossed his arms. “Jamie?”
She looked embarrassed. Was she hiding something?
That didn’t seem like her.
“I found the place, okay?” she snapped. “But nobody was home. There was a doggie door and the big one seemed at home, but the pup didn’t want to stay.”
“So?” He saw color rise in her cheeks. “Aw, James. He’s in your cabin right now, isn’t he?”
She propped the pitchfork against the wheelbarrow and faced him. “You should have seen the place, Gideon. You’d have done the same thing. Someone lives there, but it’s a sty. Worse. A hazard! Dirty dishes all over the place, broken glass on the floor. There was a water bowl, but it was bone dry. I couldn’t leave him there, could I?”
He crossed his arms. “That’s a lot to see from the window.”
She closed her mouth. Her jaw slid sideways. She turned back to her wheelbarrow.
“Jamie?” His heart sank. “James. You didn’t.”
“Do not call me that!” She tugged her sleeve down over the tattoo on her wrist, then glanced around and came closer, her voice low and urgent. “I had to, Gideon.”
Her hair was tucked behind the delicate shell of her ear. He could smell the light floral freshness of her shampoo, and it made him angry. She wasn’t as tough as she wanted people to think. “You just got off probation. What if someone saw?”
“Nobody saw. Besides, why do you care? It’s not your problem.”
He shook his head. “You’re going to earn yourself an ankle bracelet if you’re not careful.”
Or worse. Juvie was one thing; he couldn’t bear the thought of his sweet Jamie behind bars.
Not his, he reminded himself. Never his.
“I covered my tracks.” She gazed at him, those blue-grey eyes clear and steady. “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”
He looked away. This was the sort of thing that drove him crazy about her. She didn’t seem to understand how little it could take to make her life fall into pieces around her.
“I’m serious, Jamie. You have to take him back. He doesn’t belong to you.”
“I know. I will.” She shoved her hands in her pockets. “I’ll go after my rec class today.”
Jamie worked occasionally for the local parks and recreation board, teaching kids about tide pools and ocean safety.
“I’ll drive you,” he said. “That way you don’t have to worry about him jumping around in the car.”
And he’d be certain the pup got back to his rightful owner.
Jamie gave him a slow blink that told him clearly what she thought of the ruse. “A crate also works, Gideon. Anyway, I’m catching a ride in with Huck so I’ll have to do it after I get home. Don’t worry. I’ll do it.”
He didn’t reply.
“I will. And I don’t need your help.” A muscle in her jaw twitched. “Now, if you don’t mind, this shit won’t shovel itself.”
“Right.”
He strode around the corner too fast, head down, and nearly ran into Tyler.
“What the hell, man?” snapped the boy. “Watch where you’re going.” When he realized whom he was speaking to, Tyler’s face whitened. “Ah shit, sorry, man, I didn’t mean—”
“Stop.” He gestured to a partially dismantled stack of alfalfa hay that had been carefully piled against the north wall. “Who told you to move these bales?”
Gideon supervised Tyler’s duties in the stables and expected the boy to be preparing for the sunset trail ride. They had eight riders coming, and he liked to have the horses groomed and waiting in the front corral when they arrived.
Tyler flipped a shock of dirty blond hair off his sunburned forehead. “No one, but I heard something back there. Squeaking or something. Those bales are fuh-freaking heavy, man.”
His language had improved significantly in the months since he’d been plucked off the streets of Eugene, a wary-eyed, foul-mouthed package of elbows and knees, and given the choice of detention or ranch work. Olivia had seen past all that and welcomed him as the latest in her long line of foster kids. He’d added a good ten pounds to his lanky frame since his arrival, his appetite for Daphne’s cooking as insatiable as his need for structure and guidance.
“Mice.” Gideon entered Rosie’s stall, clipped a lead rope to her halter, and led her into the breezeway. She’d be one of the eight today. “Good girl, Rosie,” he murmured, patting her wide neck. The rich smell of horseflesh rose up, filling him with a sense of well-being and satisfaction. She nudged him in the shoulder, wanting a treat.
Not to be ignored, Nash nickered from his stall, tossing his dark head and scuffing a hoof against the concrete floor. Images of Jamie’s slender hips swaying in the saddle on Nash’s back leaped into his mind.
“Could be kittens.” Tyler cut his eyes toward the opening in the bales, his confidence returning now that he knew Gideon wasn’t angry. “Haylee said rats will go after a litter of kittens if they can.”
“We don’t have rats in this barn,” Gideon said.
“Haylee said all barns have rats.”
“Who are you supposed to listen to, Haylee or me?”
“Sir, yes, sir.” Tyler snapped his skinny body upright, clacked the heels of his boots together, and gave a borderline-obscene salute. “I’ve no opinion on rats, sir.”
Gideon looked upward, trying not to smile. A little attitude was vastly preferable to the flat-eyed mistrust that was all he’d shown them at first. Bruised in body and spirit, this kid, with his freckled nose and hazel eyes, triggered a sense of protectiveness in Gideon.
He tossed a curry comb to the kid. “Help me finish with the horses and we’ll look together.”
Tyler responded with relative ease to Gideon’s questions as they moved the horses two by two into the corral nearest the tack room. His online algebra teacher was a total dork. He’d rather do an extra night of pots and pans for Daphne than figure out x, and since he wasn’t going to college, who cared anyway?
“You never know,” Gideon said. “Keep your options open.”
The horses ready and waiting, they went back to the hay stack. He could hear faint sounds coming from the bales now too.
“It was louder before.” Tyler tugged another bale off the pile and tossed it to the side with a grunt.
Gideon stuck a hand between a couple of bales, feeling for warmth, hoping he wasn’t about to be clawed by an angry mama cat.
“Anything?” Tyler’s face was tight with a mixture of hope and dread.
“Not yet.”
So many things to grab the heartstrings, Gideon thought. Stray pups, endangered felines, damaged sons discarded by their fathers.
Not your son, he reminded himself.
A bright-eyed woman with choppy hair and the sweet smell of rainwater on her skin.
Not your woman.
“Anyway, who cares if I go to college?” Tyler asked, lifting another bale with Gideon. “I don’t even need to graduate stupid high school. It’s a hoop, especially this online crap. I’d rather learn to—”
“You’re going to graduate stupid high school,” Gideon said, slipping on a pair of leather gloves, “and you’re going to get that algebra credit. You’
ll give yourself the option of college, for one day when you’re something more than a boneheaded punk. And for the record, I did go to college.” He tossed another pair of gloves at the kid’s head. “In case mama’s in there and she’s not happy.”
Tyler caught them out of the air before they made contact. “You did? What are you doing here, then?”
“Good question. Be careful. We don’t want to crush them.”
“Hey, what’s happening?” Jamie rolled her empty wheelbarrow into the storage area and walked up next to Gideon, as if there were no new awkwardness between them. She half-squatted, her hands on her slender thighs, and peered into the opening. “What did you find? Kittens?”
“Or mice.” He tore his eyes away from the graceful line between waist, hip, and thigh, wishing he’d never seen her bare leg, all slick and shining, or her nipples puckered hard from the chill. Or heard that little sound in the back of her throat, the one that made him imagine her writhing beneath him.
Stop!
“Kittens.” Tyler gingerly lifted away another bale. He didn’t allow himself a smile, but there was an urgency to his movements that betrayed his excitement.
“Oh!” Jamie fell to her knees. There, in the corner nearest the outer wall of the barn, surrounded by grey fluff, was a litter of five kittens.
“Told you,” Tyler said. The street-hardened teen exhaled audibly and hunkered down on his knees beside her. He poked gently at one tiny creature, which opened its pale pink mouth in a silent cry. “They’re not moving much.”
“They’re cold. And weak.” Jamie looked up at Gideon with anguished eyes and beckoned for him to come closer. No grudge, no agenda, no hurt feelings. Just them, right here, right now. “I heard a scream late last night,” she said, “and when I came in this morning, there was a bunch of grey fur in front of the barn. I thought it was a rabbit, but it must have been the mama cat.”
Killed by a coyote, most likely.
Tyler’s movements slowed. He leaned away from the kittens, then straightened up, his face swept blank with indifference. “I should get back to work.”
Gideon knew that the boy’s own mother, who’d provided a marginal existence for herself and her son with a variety of illegal activities, had died when Tyler was nine and that the kid had bounced in and out of foster homes since then.
“Hang on.” He hesitated, then put a careful hand on Tyler’s shoulder. The boy didn’t shrink away, which was the equivalent, in a less guarded child, of a full-body hug. “Jamie?”
Her clear blue gaze met his, and understanding passed between them, just like it always had. From the beginning, they’d had a connection, started by a shared love of horses and the outdoors, and fostered by good-humored ribbing and her unyielding expectation of reciprocity. She’d wiggled her way under his cautious skin and gotten comfortable, and that was his fault.
If only he’d noticed earlier that she’d developed a crush on him, he could have nipped it in the bud, prevented all this miserable . . . awareness from starting.
“We can save them, but it’s going to take a lot of work.” Jamie reached for an old shirt that hung on a nail beside the stall and spread it open to form a sling. “Gideon, can you spare Tyler for a little while?”
He glanced at Tyler. The boy’s initial interest had been an encouraging sign of emotional development, but he was still so guarded, with a deep mistrust of what others thought best for him.
“Depends.” Gideon kept his face and voice stern. “I can’t let you help Jamie if it means your chores will suffer.”
“I can do both.” Tyler swallowed, a wary hope in his eyes. “You . . . you really think you can save them?”
“I’m sure as hell gonna try,” Jamie said. “Poor little dumplings.”
Still, Tyler hung back.
Gideon punched him lightly on the arm. “Go ahead, this is your win. Good job, kid.”
The boy reached into the nest and pulled out a mewling ginger-colored creature that curled into a comma in the palm of his hand. “Do you think Olivia will let us keep them? We could use more mousers in the barn, right Gideon?”
“That’s up to Olivia.”
“We’ll look after your family,” Jamie crooned, as if the ghost of the cat were hovering nearby. “Way to go, Tyler, for finding them. You’re a hero.”
Tyler flushed red beneath his freckles, and Gideon could have hugged her.
This was what he loved about her, what made her such a good friend: her heart. She always wanted to save everything and everyone and believed she could. And because she believed, she often made it so, refusing to consider that, sometimes, things could not be fixed.
But it was the curse of memory to dwell on possibility, to consider not only what was, and what wasn’t, but what might have been.
“Gideon?” Jamie touched his leg, sending a flash of heat into his groin. “You okay?”
“Fine.” He pulled away, took off his gloves, and slapped the dust off them against his leg. Some things were not meant to be. No point bemoaning the fact. “Tyler, make sure your chores don’t suffer. And start letting people know we have kittens to give away.”
He left the two of them and strode to his cabin, where he found, taped to the door, an envelope, postmarked Gold Beach, Oregon. Less than an hour away, and the whole reason he’d made his way here to Sanctuary Ranch in the first place.
He stood stock-still, the letters making up the return address blurring in front of him.
It was time to quit wishing for things to be different, time to face what was.
Time to deal with what he’d been waiting for, anticipating, with both excitement and dread, words that might finally allow him to undo years of mistakes.
A letter from his past.
A letter about his son.
Chapter Six
Take care around water today. The ocean can be a
sneaky bitch.
—Jamie’s horoscope
Jamie tiptoed over the black, mussel-encrusted coastline south of Sunset Bay, waiting for the salt air to refresh her energy. She enjoyed her teaching stints for the park board, but the relentless interruptions of helicopter parents left her jittery and craving solitude. She had about fifteen minutes before Huck came to pick her up. That should be enough.
Today’s group of parents had been particularly challenging, continually comparing notes about their amazing offspring, as if raising children were a competitive event, and the endeavor only worthwhile if it produced prodigies.
Alyssum wrote her first libretto at age four. Oh, but five-year-old Danyel—spelled with a y, just to be different—was already getting paid to test video games.
Jamie didn’t care if little Juniper had learned to tie her shoelaces in utero or if the siblings her mother was currently cooking under that massive tent-like garment would come out with doctoral theses in their slimy hands. The hour on the beach with her was about jellyfish and barnacles and crabs.
No wonder people said Oregon was weird. They bred them that way.
She waved to a group cavorting on the sand while their parents gathered beach toys and jackets. They just wanted to wear sea stars on their heads and taste bull kelp.
She couldn’t wait to get back to Chaos, to smell his sweet puppy breath and feel his soft fur against her cheek. And then there were the kittens. She sighed with anticipation.
She could have watched Gideon lift those heavy alfalfa bales for hours. Seeing those big hands cradling a tiny, squirming kitten had melted her heart. And the way he talked to Tyler showed that he cared for the boy. She wondered if he wanted to have kids one day. He’d make a hell of a dad.
Why was she even thinking about that?
She turned her gaze to the incoming tide that isolated the rocks from the headlands and the sandy shores where the kids now chased the water, running back screaming with delight as the mighty Pacific Ocean snatched and clawed at their feet.
Jamie waved again and climbed higher onto a rocky outcrop, where the vi
ew was breathtaking. She lifted her head to the wind, pulling the sharp salt air deep into her lungs.
Did she want kids? Maybe. She’d never expected to have a home or a job, and she’d gotten those things. She’d certainly never expected to enjoy teaching the little ones, or leading trail rides for teens, for that matter. She wanted to train dogs, but until Haylee gave the okay, there were plenty of rewarding tasks to keep her busy. She’d be fine.
She’d listen to Gideon’s nagging and bring the puppy back to his rightful home, too. She’d probably built the mess up in her mind to be much worse than it actually was.
A shriek of laughter caught her attention, and she jerked her head up, looking to where the families were playing. The adults, their educational duties to their offspring fulfilled for the moment, looked more relaxed now, shaking out handmade blankets they’d bought from vendors in town for outrageous prices, wealthy enough that they didn’t worry about sand and debris. They were beach blankets, after all.
Jamie exhaled, relief giving way to annoyance. Gideon hadn’t seen the place. Maybe Chaos shouldn’t be there, at all. Maybe it was irresponsible to return him. Cruel, even.
She shuddered. Maybe she should keep him a bit longer, gather some more intel before she decided.
She ought to tell Haylee, in that case. Haylee would understand. Plus, if she saw how well the pup was doing with her, maybe she’d consider letting Jamie take on a training project.
She walked out farther, stepping carefully on the rough surface, using one hand to balance herself. Water sparkled in the dips and crevices like diamonds against black velvet. The beauty soothed her. The calls of gulls wheeling overhead and the rich, ripe smell of life and death always made her feel better.
She lifted her arms and tipped her head back, drawing breath deep into her lungs, imagining it flowing throughout her body, filling that soft, empty place in her heart that, despite all she had, still yearned for more.
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