Unexpected Family

by Molly O'Keefe

  But the big city had been one big disappointment.

  “I suppose that’s true. But God…there’s nothing to do here.”

  Nothing except work. If she had any creative spark left at all, she’d be getting so much work done right now. But that was a moot point.

  “Are you angry about your car?” she asked.

  “No. I mean, a little. But it’s just a car. It’ll get fixed.” Reese shook his head, the sadness wafting off him smelled like smoke from a damp fire. “I wish I knew what to say to Jeremiah, but I came up here, took one look at what he was up against and started drinking. I don’t know how he does it.”

  She took the pass up over the mountains. Out the passenger window Stone Hollow glowed in the darkness, the lights in the kitchen casting a golden glow. “Me, neither,” she whispered.

  Whatever help Jeremiah needed he’d made it obvious he wasn’t going to take it from her.

  “I’m leaving,” Reese said. “My car’s fixed on Monday, and I’m gone. I never should have come.”

  “You’re a friend, Reese. I imagine Jeremiah needs friends.”

  “I don’t know how to help, Lucy. I don’t know how to be his friend like this. I’m for good times and drinking and picking up women. It sucks to feel like this.”

  She pulled to a stop at the front door, hoping that Jeremiah wouldn’t come out. Reese dug his wallet out of his back pocket. “A hundred bucks?”

  Gouging the cowboy didn’t seem quite so enticing after talking to him so she shook her head. “Don’t worry—”

  “Here.” He handed her a fresh hundred-dollar bill. Benjamin Franklin stared up at her as if he didn’t recognize her, which seemed about right. It had been a while since they’d seen each other. “I have to go pick up my car on Monday morning. Can I hire you to drive me? Jeremiah would do it, but he’s so damn busy.”

  “Ah, sure.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  Then he was gone, and she was a hundred dollars richer.

  This was ridiculous, she thought. A taxi? What nonsense.

  But that was a hundred dollars in her pocket. Honest to God, the only money she had right now. And not every ride would be a hundred bucks. But let’s say she charged twenty bucks.

  How much would she make in a Friday night?

  In a weekend?

  She couldn’t afford to be a snob about this. Couldn’t afford to put her nose in the air over the chance to actually earn money, to create a cushion for her next move. It would be irresponsible to reject this opportunity. On her cell phone she hit the most recent number that called her.

  “I’m in business,” she told Joey when he answered. “Twenty bucks flat fee.”

  “That’s steep for around here.”

  “Yeah, well.” She pinched her nose. “A girl’s got to make a living.”

  He said he’d be in touch and she hung up, tossing her cell phone onto the passenger seat.

  She unrolled her window, laughing, letting the breeze dry the tears she didn’t want to cry.

  CHAPTER SIX

  JEREMIAH HAD DEVELOPED a world-class sixth sense while sitting on top of hundreds of bulls determined to break his bones. In the circuit he’d been known not only for his courage, but also for his instinct. One rodeo writer said it was as if Jeremiah could read each bull’s mind. In more than a thousand interviews over the years, when asked what his secret was, he’d almost always given the same answer—“I go with what my gut tells me. And my gut is rarely wrong.”

  But his gut, faced with the closed front door of the Rocky M home, was silent. Totally silent.

  “Uncle J.?” Casey whispered up at him. “What are we doing here?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” he said truthfully. And Casey nodded as if he understood the implications of knocking on the Rocky M front door. Jeremiah could be making the biggest mistake in the world right now, all because his gut wouldn’t tell him what to do.

  “I’m hungry.”

  He stared down at Casey, who’d woken up this morning in bottomless-pit mode.

  “You just ate breakfast.” Sunday morning breakfast, too, with pancakes and eggs.

  Casey shrugged. “My stomach is still hungry.”

  The kid was probably about to grow another foot or something by tomorrow night. Growth spurts with three boys in the house were dangerous. Especially if you were a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

  Jeremiah scratched his head, just under the edge of his hat where the sweat collected and made him crazy. Maybe he should just bury this stupid idea. It would be easier to simply take Casey back home, make sure Ben and Aaron were cleaning up like they were supposed to, make sure Reese was packing and not drinking before his drive home tomorrow.

  But if he left now he’d be heading home for more of the same and the same just wasn’t working anymore.

  “You don’t have to do this alone,” Dr. Gilman had said. “It’s not a failure or betrayal to take help when it’s offered. Not always being the bad guy with Ben might give both of you a break.”

  Fine, he thought, and pounded on the door. If his gut was silent he’d go with Dr. Gilman’s.

  Sandra Alatore opened the door, wiping her hands on a cloth thrown over her shoulder.

  “Well, hello, Jeremiah,” she said, with her sweet accented voice. It could have been twenty years ago for all she’d changed.

  “Hi, Sandra, it’s good to see you again. This old ranch looks much better with you in it.”

  “Listen to you.” She laughed. “Still too charming for your own good. And who is this?”

  Casey leaned back against Jeremiah’s leg, suddenly shy. Jeremiah reached down to try and extract the kung fu grip the boy had on his jeans but Sandra leaned down and spoke right to him.

  “My name is Sandra,” she said.

  When was the last time I did that? he wondered. All he did was bark orders at the top of the boys’ heads.

  “I’m Casey. I’m five.”

  “Five years old?” Sandra shook her head. “That’s hard work, being five.”

  Casey nodded. “Especially at our house.”

  Sandra smiled, her black eyes twinkling up at Jeremiah.

  “Is Lucy here?” Jeremiah asked. “I need to talk to her.”

  “She’s in the backyard working on the garden. Come on in.”

  She stepped back and Jeremiah, with the Casey-size leg growth, followed her into the cool, dark house.

  “I’ve got some banana bread I just made,” she said, looking down at Casey. “I need someone to try it and make sure it’s all right. Think you could do that for me?”

  Casey glanced up at him, so hopeful that Jeremiah smiled, running his hand through the boy’s curls. “Go on, buddy, but mind your manners.”

  Sandra led him off with a wink and Jeremiah walked through the living room to the back patio. Looking out, he supposed the mess of weeds was the garden but he didn’t see any sign of Lucy.

  From the knot of vines in the corner of the plot, there was some movement and a flash of red. It took him a second to realize it was Lucy, on her hands and knees wearing camouflage pants, Doc Marten boots and a brown tank top. The flash of red was the edge of her underwear, revealed by the slipping waist of her pants.

  Lucy was gardening in a red thong.

  Immediately it was about thirty degrees hotter on the back deck. And it felt dirty and illicit to be staring at her underwear, especially when she didn’t know it, but he couldn’t look away. Just a few nights ago he’d touched her skin and it had been soft and warm, alluring. What an idiot he’d been to turn her away that night. A woman like Lucy Alatore didn’t give out second chances, she didn’t need to. And he’d blown it.

  Lucy was the hottest thing he’d seen in…hell, he didn’t know how long. Maybe forever. And he could have stood on that porch watching her, thinking dirty teenage thoughts, for days.

  “What are you looking at, son?”

  Jeremiah jumped and spun at the sound of the old man’s voice. Walter
, propped up on a crutch, his foot in a cast, stood behind him. His face very knowing, and very disapproving.

  “I’m, uh, just looking for Lucy.”

  Walter didn’t say anything but he threw out a father vibe like Jeremiah hadn’t experienced in twenty-plus years.

  “It’s good to see you, Walter. Sorry about your foot.”

  Walter didn’t dignify his deflection with a response. He hopped slightly sideways to fall into a cushioned deck chair.

  “That your boy in the kitchen?”

  “Not mine. My sister’s. Her youngest.”

  Walter, grizzened and craggy, just grunted. He lifted a shaking hand to wipe the sweat off his top lip, his forehead. The guy was always stoic—in every memory Jeremiah had of Walter, the man was expressionless. Not so now. Walter was clearly in pain.

  “Do you need some help?” Jeremiah asked, stepping toward Walter only to stop when the old man started to laugh, wheezy and pained.

  “I need a goddamned drink,” Walter said, and then shook his head. “Go talk to Lucy or leave. But quit staring at her like she’s cheap.”

  Heat crawled over Jeremiah’s chest. It had been a long time since someone had talked to him that way and it didn’t sit well; of course, it had also been a long time since he deserved to be talked to that way.

  He tugged his hat down over his eyes and walked down the back steps to the garden. The steps squeaked and by the time he got to the bottom she was standing, that red thong hidden.

  “Jeremiah,” she said, her voice covered in ice. He wanted to tell her she had about a thousand smudges of dirt on her face and something green sticking out of her ponytail, all of which really ruined the imperial princess act. But since he was here to grovel, he figured that might not be the best way to start things. She tossed a handful of weeds toward the piles she had formed at the edges of the garden. He saw a lot of young vegetables in those piles and wondered if she just wasn’t sure what a weed was or if she had an issue with carrots.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I…” He rubbed his hand over his mouth and down his neck, wishing this wasn’t so hard. Wishing it didn’t feel like he was betraying his sister and Larry by bringing in outsiders to help. He wished it didn’t feel like admitting to failure by…well, admitting to failure. “I’d like to take you up on your offer. If it still stands.”

  She hitched her loose pants up higher on her hips. “Which offer?”

  That kiss was suddenly between them, as vivid as the dirt on her face, and he wondered if maybe that wasn’t another complication. It was one thing trying to get help for Ben but he wanted to sleep with that help. And maybe that was too many blurred lines.

  “The Ben offer?” she asked, using her wrist to push some hair off her face.

  He nodded and forced himself to say the words he came here to say. “I need help. And if you are still offering, I…I would appreciate it.”

  “I don’t know, Jeremiah. You were an ass to me.”

  Leave it to Lucy to be so blunt. For a moment he was floored by it. But he decided to meet her bluntness with his own. Honesty, Dr. Gilman had said, was always the right decision. “I know, and I’m sorry. I truly am. I’ve just been doing this by myself for so long… . I’m no good at admitting I’m wrong and I just took it out on you. I am sorry. My mom raised me better than that.”

  She cocked her head at him as if he were something in the distance she couldn’t quite see, or make sense of. And then, suddenly, she smiled. “That was hard for you, wasn’t it?”

  He blew out a breath, laughing slightly. “You have no idea.”

  “Why’d you change your mind?”

  He stared off at the blue horizon. If he couldn’t get Ben in to see Dr. Gilman, he needed to find another way to get some help and here she was.

  “When Annie first died, people always asked me what they could do to help. And I had no idea how to answer. No idea. Either I didn’t believe they were sincere, or I saw strings attached to every casserole women brought over, or I didn’t…want anyone to see what a mess I was making of everything. I just told everyone I could handle it. I…pushed a lot of good people away. And then people stopped asking. Now, it has come to my attention that if someone offers to help, I should take it. And you’re the only one who has offered to help in a long time. Apparently,” he said, trying to make a joke, but it was so damn sad it came out like a lame calf, “I need a few more friends in my life.”

  He was utterly vulnerable. Utterly naked.

  Help me, he thought. I don’t know what else to do.

  For a moment it seemed like she was going to say no and the defeat, something he was so unused to before taking on his sister’s life, was crushing.

  But then she smiled—saucy and real. The confident Lucy returned and, with her, his balance in the world.

  “So? What do you propose? About Ben.”

  Relief made him a little giddy and he laughed. “Honestly, I have no idea.”

  “He’s really got you in a knot.”

  “He’s so angry, Lucy. You saw him, he’s nine years old and he drove a sports car into a house! He could have killed himself. And I feel like every time I open my mouth I make things worse.”

  “He says you hate him.”

  It felt like his bones were breaking under the load on his back and he slumped.

  “Come on, Jeremiah,” she whispered. Her hand curled around his arm, squeezing for comfort, and he wanted—so bad—to pull her into his arms. To find even more comfort. To find a second of peace.

  “Here.” She dropped his arm and crouched to grab two bottles of water—one half-empty—and a bowl of strawberries she must’ve just picked. She led him over to a small hill, where the land sloped down to a gully that in early spring was a stream. Now it was full of columbine and Indian paintbrush.

  Collapsing onto the ground with a sigh, she stretched out her legs and popped a strawberry in her mouth.

  “Ugh.” She pulled a face he’d seen on Casey’s mug a thousand times. The boys called it the “yuck face.”

  “These aren’t ripe yet.” She set aside the bowl and cracked open the half-empty bottle of water. She was as beautiful to him right now as she’d been that night in the moonlight with the clingy clothes and the sexy boots. He realized she was blinking up at him, her dark eyes missing nothing.

  “My offer to help was about Ben,” she said. “Not about you. Or that kiss. If I help Ben there’s no more kissing.”

  It was for the best, he knew that. Would have said it himself if he thought she wouldn’t take it the wrong way. But still, he was torn right down the middle by her sound reasoning and perception.

  Because he really, really wanted to kiss her again.

  “I think that’s…that’s a good idea.” It would be easier if he could just turn off his body. Blind himself to her appeal, but he couldn’t. So, it was just going to have to be something he ignored. Which was sort of like ignoring a pink elephant in a tutu.

  “I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” she muttered, but then clapped her hands together, brushing off dirt as if everything was all decided. “What if Ben were to come here two days a week after school? I could keep him busy in the garden here and replanting the roses that he destroyed over at the little house.”

  “Gardening? The kid crashes a sports car and his punishment is gardening?”

  “If it makes you feel better I won’t give him any food or water while he’s here.”

  “That does make me feel better. If you could put together some kind of ball and chain…?”

  “Better yet, I’ll make Walter watch him.”

  “Now that would be suitable punishment.”

  They grinned at each other, the sizzle and pop of their attraction undiminished despite having agreed to ignore it. In fact, it was probably worse. Forbidden fruit and all that.

  “I think if I tell Mia and Jack, they’d have some stuff for him, too. We can keep him busy.”

  “I can mak
e arrangements to have the bus drop him off here on Thursday and Friday. I’ll pick him up after Aaron’s hockey practice around five. Does that work?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “But…when are you heading back to Los Angeles?”

  She tucked her long caramel-colored legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them, as if she were a turtle heading back into her shell for safety.

  “Mom wants to stick around until Jack hires a caregiver for Walter.”

  “But don’t you have some kind of jewelry empire to run?”

  He had made it a joke, but she didn’t laugh. Instead, she groaned low in her throat and put her head down on her knees, a little ball of Lucy Alatore. He clenched his teeth against the strong desire to touch her back, to run his hands along the curl of her spine. Memorize the press of her bones against her skin.

  “I blew it, Jeremiah. I totally blew it,” she said into her knees.

  “Blew what?”

  “My business.”

  “The jewelry?”

  “Yes, all of it. I…” She pulled up her head and stared out at the flowers that filled the gully and every instinct screamed at him to run. Absolutely clamored that he get the hell out of there because she was about to confide in him and he had enough, more than enough, to deal with. He shifted away as if to stand but she opened her mouth and he forcibly relaxed back into the ground. An unwilling listener. Prisoner to the moment.

  “I had this huge order for those stupid horseshoe necklaces. An order so big I thought…I thought I had made it. I thought I’d struck gold. So I charged the store my regular wholesale price but when it became obvious that my little three-person studio couldn’t produce all the pieces, I subcontracted out the work, but I couldn’t raise the price that I charged the boutique and I’d never factored in the cost of having someone else make my jewelry for me. Suddenly, instead of making money on every piece, I was losing money. It was costing me everything to fill the order, so I had to back out of the contract. And now I’m waiting to hear from the accountant how much of a fee I owe.”

  “But don’t you have other orders?”

  “None big enough. And most of them, when they found out I’d started manufacturing pieces instead of making them by hand, started to lose interest.”