Kids on the Doorstep

by Kimberly Van Meter

  Alexis spun on her heel and ran from the room, her heart slamming against her chest like something out of a cartoon as she burst from the house and headed for the open field behind the house. She ran until her leg muscles burned and her lungs felt ready to cave in. It wasn’t until she’d collapsed in a heap on the cold ground that she realized it wasn’t the wind stinging her cheeks but her tears. Folding in on herself, she cried until she had nothing left and her heart hurt and her guts felt sick.

  She didn’t want to leave.

  RENEE STARED AT THE PAPERWORK that had come in the mail and tried to comprehend what she was reading. She looked up and thrust the paper in John’s hands. “Did you have something to do with this?” she demanded, although a part of her knew he didn’t but she needed someone to blame. He shook his head and for what it was worth, he seemed apologetic.

  “No, I didn’t but—”

  “But of course you agree because it was your original idea in the first place,” she said bitterly. “You win. Court ordered therapy for Alexis and myself to deal with—” she snatched the paper from John’s hands “—Alexis’s issues with her mother. It is my recommendation that the Dolling children remain in temporary custody of Gladys Stemming until the successful completion of six weeks of therapy. Further evaluation to follow.” She slapped the paper against her thigh. “Six weeks!”

  “First of all, calm down,” John instructed, but Renee wasn’t in the mood to listen to anyone, least of all him. “You’re making a mountain—”

  “Don’t say it,” Renee warned, her voice ending in an unattractive hiss. “Just don’t. This is my life they’re playing with. Not yours. No one is suggesting they root around in your head now are they?”

  “What are you so afraid of?”

  “Afraid?” she scoffed, yet her insides quivered. Everything! I’m afraid that they’ll find that Alexis is right. That I’m a terrible mother who doesn’t deserve three beautiful girls. She sniffed back a sudden wash of tears and swallowed the wail that was building on a wall of hysteria. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

  “Good. Then you have nothing to lose by complying with the court’s recommendation.” He crossed his arms over his powerful chest and for a heartbeat Renee wished she could just fold herself into that solid warmth but she was fairly spitting at him in her misplaced anger and she doubted he’d welcome the attempt. Which, she realized, was better for the both of them.

  “Glad to see you’ve come to your senses,” he said, though they both knew he was mocking her because she was being irrational.

  “Shut up,” she said.

  “Grow up.”

  Renee skewered him with a glower, which he matched. And then they both stalked from the room. In opposite directions.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  RENEE PERCHED GINGERLY on the edge of the soft sofa designed to make her feel comfortable and fought the very real urge to bolt. Everything about the room made her uneasy, from the bucolic Thomas Kinkade prints on the neutral, taupe colored walls to the annoyingly distracting gurgle of the large water fountain in the corner. It was like having Niagara Falls in the corner of the room. Renee had never understood someone’s desire to have fountains large enough to—

  “You don’t want to be here.”

  Renee cut her a short look. Brilliant observation, Doc. What tipped you off? Renee forced a short smile. “I’m fine. I just didn’t realize I should’ve brought a life vest,” she muttered.

  The doc gestured toward the fountain. “Does it bother you? I can turn it off. Most of my clients find it soothing.”

  “It’s loud.”

  The woman chuckled and clicked a remote control sitting on the delicate, antique table beside her. Silence filled the room. “Better?”

  Not really. Better would be listening to Bob Seger on the CD player as I blast out of this place. Renee shrugged. “Fine. Let’s get this party started.”

  The slender woman sitting across from her in a sumptuous leather chair that probably cost more than Renee’s entire wardrobe sighed softly as she shifted position and smiled warmly. “All right then. You’re here because the court believes you and your daughter could benefit from having someone to talk to.”

  Renee bit her tongue to refrain from saying something caustic and instead nodded her head.

  “Well, first, I’d like to say I am not your enemy. I’m here to help. Your body language says you’re holding in a lot of anger. Let’s see if we can’t identify the source and help to dispel it so you don’t have to drag it around anymore.” The brunette doctor gestured, adding with another smile, “So settle in and get comfortable. You’re here for an hour. Might as well get the county’s money’s worth.”

  Renee sat back but the tension in her shoulders remained. The only kind of sharing she did was at her AA meetings and only because everyone there was going through the same issues. There was no judgment. Here—her gaze raked the professional woman seated across from her, watching from behind delicate yet devastatingly stylish designer rims—the doctor would certainly judge her once she heard the facts. And frankly, Renee wasn’t interested in listening to one more know-it-all tell her what a bad person she was. She already knew. “Listen, Dr….” she took a quick look at the nameplate on the desk to the right “…Phillips—”

  “Please call me Lauren,” she broke in with another soft, doe-eyed expression that immediately set Renee’s teeth on edge for its sweetness. The last thing Renee needed was to feel some kind of false security with this woman.

  “Dr. Phillips,” Renee repeated with a little frost just to get her point across. “Let’s cut the crap. As far as I’m concerned you are the enemy. Maybe that’s not fair but frankly, I don’t care. Because of some dingbat woman who clearly could not tell that my daughter was playing a manipulative little game to get her way, I’m another six weeks away from getting my kids and getting the hell out of this place. And by place I mean both your professionally decorated office and this stupid, little town where they make up the rules as they go along, and people pay for legal services with a barter system, and it snows like a mother, and you have to keep a fire going 24-7 if you don’t want to wake up with frostbite!”

  Dr. Phillips, smile fixed to her lips as if it came with her outfit, scribbled some notes, prompting Renee to ask, “What’d you just write?”

  The woman just chuckled and despite the soft nature of the sound, Renee got the distinct impression she’d just screwed herself again. When Dr. Phillips answered with a sigh, “I think we’re going to need more than six weeks,” Renee let loose with a juicy curse word that she rarely used but damn, it felt good to say it.

  “All right then. Let’s begin, shall we? Tell me about your childhood…”

  Oh, goody. A trip down memory lane. My favorite.

  Renee closed her eyes and wished the earth would swallow her whole.

  JOHN DIDN’T HIDE HIS OPINION of the man standing before him, but he did bite back the names he wanted to call him since he knew Taylor was watching the whole scene from the stables.

  “You’ve had her for nigh three weeks. What’s the holdup? Aren’t you supposed to be the best? That seems plenty time to break one stubborn horse.”

  John shifted his position just in time to avoid the disgusting splatter from Cutter Buford as he let loose a dirty stream of chewing tobacco juice.

  “I told you, that isn’t an ordinary horse. She’s high-spirited and smarter than you. You knew that when you bought her. I’m making progress but I can’t make any promises that she’s going to be the horse you want her to be just because you’re paying me to gentle her. The fact is, she might always be squirrely.” John refrained from adding that Cutter’s own mishandling of the horse had created a whole slew of new problems. Because of Cutter, Vixen didn’t trust or like anyone. He’d only just gotten to the point where she didn’t try and stomp him to death when he entered the arena with her.

  “Shit,” Cutter muttered, kicking at the hard, frozen dirt with the heel of
his expensive, shiny boots. John held back a snort. Cutter was the worst kind of owner. Plenty of money to waste but not a lick of sense in his fool head to go with it. Cutter—if that was even his name. Rumor had it his real name was Ralph—was new to the area but was trying to build a reputation as a horseman. He thought he knew horses. Sort of like the city boys who came to the country to buy a ranchette and considered themselves cowboys because they owned a spotted cattle dog, a horse and a few head of steer. You can buy a tractor but it don’t mean you know how to drive it just because you hold the keys in your hand.

  Cutter cleaned the wad from his cheek with the stub of his finger and flicked it to the ground. When he spoke again, there were black flecks stuck in the crevices of his teeth that made John want to puke. “I’ll give you two more weeks. Then, I’m taking my horse.”

  John nodded, but he wanted to stick his foot so far up Cutter’s ass he could see the tops of his well-worn boots tickling the man’s tonsils so he didn’t trust opening his mouth. Thankfully, Cutter didn’t seem to notice or care that John was a man of little words. He was already returning to his monster diesel truck, pausing only a minute to curse at the splash of mud dirtying the shiny chrome on the wheel well. John smirked. That ain’t no working truck. Just as Cutter wasn’t no horseman.

  He felt a small hand curl into his own. He looked down and saw Taylor watching Cutter leave with the same look of contempt on her young face as he felt in his heart and it warmed him to the bone in spite of the cold. “I don’t like him,” she stated firmly.

  “Me neither.”

  “Why can’t we just keep Vixen?”

  John glanced down at Taylor and his heart contracted at the simple question. Funny, it’s about the same as he was starting to feel about the girls. Why couldn’t he just keep them? All of them? A voice whispered, knowing he was thinking about Renee. He was attracted to her, that was for certain. Each night he went to bed with an ache in his groin and his mind full of things that shouldn’t be there but the woman was enough to age him prematurely. Stubborn, mean-tempered, beautiful and dangerous. Hell…Vixen and Renee…sounded about the same right about now. And, yeah, he wanted to keep them both.

  Too bad, neither belonged to him.

  RENEE RETURNED FROM HER therapy session and from running errands to find the girls and Gladys gone. She wandered the house and still finding no one, she reluctantly sought out John to learn where the girls were. She found him brushing down that monster horse of his, talking low and soft as he did the job.

  He was a handsome man, she’d give him that. Usually, cowboy types didn’t do much for her, even though John said he wasn’t one. To her untrained eye he looked the part, especially when he was handling that horse with such loving care. His hands, large and callused, made slow and easy progress down the horse’s flank. She imagined when he put his mind to something he didn’t rest until he did it well. Her imagination obligingly provided a scenario of his hands touching her in such a reverent manner and the tension from the day lessened, though she would’ve thought being in such close proximity would’ve been less than soothing. But even as she watched him, a part of her began to fill with languid warmth as tendrils of longing curled around her senses and tightened uncomfortably. Of all the men in the world…why him?

  He finished and with a final pat on the horse’s neck, he exited the roomy stall and startled at seeing her standing in the doorway. “How long you been there?”

  “Not long,” she lied. “Where is everyone?”

  “Gladys took the girls over to her place for a spell after school. Said she needed to make sure her plants weren’t all dead. They’ll be back before supper.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Alone in the house. Ridiculous temptation started to jabber indecent suggestions in her head that frankly, made her wonder if she were suddenly channeling a nymphomaniac.

  “How’d your first therapy session go?” he asked, effectively dousing the fire licking her insides as easily as a bucket of water killed a campfire. Noting her sudden scowl, he chuckled. “That good, huh? Why am I not surprised?”

  A grudging smile found its way to her lips in spite of her decision to return to the house and she said, “Her name’s Lauren Phillips. Know her?”

  “Nope. Contrary to what you may think, I don’t know everyone in Emmett’s Mill.”

  “Just the important people. Like the sheriff. And the judge. And nearly everyone else I’ve come into contact with since landing in this place.”

  “True enough. So, what did you think of her?”

  “I think she’s an impeccable dresser with questionable interior design tastes,” Renee quipped.

  “I mean what did you think of her as a therapist?” John asked with only a hint of exasperation. “Do you think you’ll feel comfortable talking with her?”

  Renee leveled her gaze at him. “I don’t think I’d be comfortable talking with anyone about my past. She could be Mother Teresa and I’d still want to run for the hills. Scratch that. I’m already in the hills. Stuck in the hills is more like it, actually,” she muttered darkly.

  “You don’t like it here, do you?”

  “What’s not to like?” she shot back sarcastically. When he didn’t retort, she softened only a little, saying with a shrug, “Well, it’s not my first choice. I prefer places with a little less—” small-town prejudice, nosy neighbors “—snow.”

  “You like to live where it’s hot all the time?”

  “Remember? I came from Arizona. That should answer your question.”

  “Originally?” he asked, curiosity lighting his eyes in an inviting manner that she tried to ignore.

  “Uh, why do you want to know?”

  He shrugged. “No reason.”

  She supposed there was no harm in sharing that bit of information. “Yeah. Born and raised near Tucson.”

  “So you do like it hot.”

  She laughed. “I guess so.”

  “Well, if you stick around you’ll see it can get pretty hot around here, too, come summer. And it’s a dry heat, like your Arizona.” He winked at her and she startled at the playful gesture. John wasn’t the type to wink. But, as her smile grew, she realized she kind of liked the lighter side of John Murphy. Made her wonder just how many facets this man hid behind that tough exterior.

  Also made her wonder if she had the guts to find out.

  His cell phone rang at his hip and he answered it on the first ring. Listening for a moment, he pulled the phone away from his ear to ask, “You mind if Gladys and the girls go for ice cream?”

  Renee shivered. “It’s not quite cold enough already for them?” He shrugged as if he didn’t know if that was a rhetorical question and she sighed before answering. “I guess that’s fine. So much for dinner if they’re eating ice cream so late in the day.”

  John returned to the phone. “That’s fine just be careful out there, once the sun goes down the roads are going to slick up. A storm’s coming.” A moment later he disconnected and returned the phone to his hip.

  Renee’s ears pricked up as she glanced fearfully at the sky. “What kind of storm? A big one?”

  “Sounds like a pretty good one. But don’t worry, they’ll be back before it starts.”

  Renee hated the idea of waiting out another storm all alone in that little cottage while everyone else was warm and snuggled together in the main house. “I wish Gladys would’ve told me she was in the mood for ice cream. I could’ve just picked up a quart of something while I was in town,” she said, worried about Gladys and the girls on the road when the weather was about to get ugly. “I mean, honestly, for an older woman, she’s not very bright. What if she gets into an accident with the girls?”

  John chuckled and she jerked around to stare frostily at him. “You find this funny?”

  “A little. Everything will be fine. You get yourself worked up about the oddest things.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m glad to hear you find me
amusing.”

  The smile left his lips but an intensity returned to his eyes that immediately set her previous fire to smoldering again. She inhaled sharply, mildly alarmed at how quickly he could kindle desire with only a look her way.

  “We should get back to the house,” she said, licking her lips unintentionally yet her toes curled inside her boots as his gaze tracked the movement of her tongue. Blatant hunger shone in his eyes and caused her lungs to constrict in the most annoyingly female way that was at once delicious and telling. She wanted him, too.

  He slowly stalked toward her and she backed away until her backside met the smooth wood of the stable wall and she could go no farther. “Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, trying for calm when in fact she felt ready to jump out of her skin.

  John leaned in, one hand bracing himself near her left ear and he shocked her by taking a deep whiff near the soft, exposed skin of her neck. “You smell good,” he said softly, his breath tickling her ear. “You know that?”

  “Thanks,” she whispered, unable to say much more without betraying the tremble in her voice. “You smell like horses,” she managed to add, eliciting a low, throaty chuckle on his part. What she didn’t say was that she didn’t mind.

  She risked a smile and looked into his eyes. Such soulful, deep and arresting eyes, she noted as she allowed her gaze to travel the lines of his face. “Why didn’t some woman snatch you up a long time ago?” she wondered, realizing a half second too late she’d said it out loud.

  “Never found the right one,” John answered without hesitation. “I guess you could say I’m particular.”

  She uttered a short, soft laugh. “Then what are you doing here pressed up against me?”

  “The one thing I swore I wouldn’t do,” he answered with a faint grimace but before she could react he took her mouth with his own, the offended retort dying on her tongue as she was suddenly busy with other things.