Her hair was hanging loose in a mass of curls spiraling from a clip on top of her head and reaching the middle of her back. All the times in his youth he had wanted to bury his hands in that shiny, thick mane came back to him. He didn't feel much like smiling, but she looked so welcoming, he couldn't keep from it.
"I'll bet you thought I'd never get here with this." He tilted his chin toward the doghouse.
She laughed like she was in a good mood. "I'll admit, I did think that, but it isn't a big deal. It wasn't needed. Harry and Gwendolyn have been sleeping inside on the porch. That will probably last a while. There's coyotes all around here."
They stood there a silent minute, watching Ava organize the pups. "I've got a boy her age," John said, for no particular reason other than the fact that his mind was on Trey, with his huge green eyes, his slightly crooked front tooth and hair so blond it looked like he had none.
"You do? I didn't know that. I lost touch with a lot of the kids from school. I don't think I ever heard who you married."
"She wasn't from here. From Seattle."
Izzy cocked her head and both frowned and laughed at the same time. "Seattle? How'd a country boy like you get tangled up with someone from Seattle?"
The words came out with a hint of a twang, sounding more like Texas than Callister, and John chuckled in spite of his bad mood. "Tangled up's the right word for it. I met her in college down in Boise. I've got two boys. Ten and almost nine."
"They live with your ex?"
"Yep." John sighed. "In L.A." He felt his eyes burn again. Shit. What was wrong with him? He needed a change of subject fast, before he turned into a fool.
As if she had read his mind, Izzy rescued him. "So you liked working with my babies today?"
"I did."
She ducked her chin and traced something on the ground with the toe of her boot. "I hate selling them, but I have to. I have to get the money." She looked up at him, those doelike eyes surrounding him with warmth and well-being. "Have you eaten? I've got this sort of slumgullion I cooked up—"
"Slum-what?"
"Mama thinks her food is bad," Ava said, coming over and hanging on to a puppy that had almost doubled in size since John brought it. "I always like it a lot. Other people like it, too."
"I'm a menace in the kitchen," Izzy said with a bashful smile, "but you're welcome to eat with us."
John hesitated, trying to figure out how he had lucked into an invitation to supper tonight when she had practically shoved him out the door just a few nights earlier. He didn't know if he was even fit company for supper.
Still, he was hungry and he hadn't had home-cooked food since a month ago when Rooster and his wife had invited him to Sunday dinner. "Okay," he said finally. "That'd be real nice. If you've got enough, that is."
* * *
Isabelle entered the porch ahead of John, prattling on like a magpie to ease the tension she felt. "I usually wash up in the laundry sink, but since you're one of our rare guests, I'll show you to the bathroom," She led him through the kitchen, into the hallway. "We've got only the one. It needs remodeling, so try to ignore the chipped sink and the Stone Age plumbing."
She opened the door to the closet-sized bathroom, flattening her back against the jamb and gesturing him inside. He seemed so much bigger in the tight hallway than he had in the barn. He stood there holding his hat, his face only a couple of feet from hers and his emerald eyes focused on her mouth.
"No problem," he said. "It'll be just fine."
She caught herself looking into his eyes and saw a hunger that bordered on raw. She stumbled back. "Oh, let me put your hat in the living room." Before he could offer it, she lifted the gray felt hat from his hands.
As she carried it to the living room, she lectured herself about wanting things she didn't need. You're an idiot, Isabelle. He's just another horny guy.
Then, ignoring the lecture like a defiant teenager, she laid his hat on a lamp table beside the sofa and turned on the CD player, letting Norah Jones' seductive voice rise from the speakers and fill the old house's lower floor with mood music.
In the kitchen, supper waited in a large cast-iron skillet. She didn't try to cook dishes that required her to read a complicated recipe. Her culinary reach included what her cafe-cook mother had taught her hands-on—a fair job at breakfast, fried steak and fried potatoes and, when she felt brave, biscuits and cream gravy.
Tonight she had thrown together a concoction of ground beef, some onions, carrots and celery, added corn and pasta, then buried the whole mess under tomato sauce and Tex-Mex spices. Among the many lessons she had learned in Texas was that tomato sauce, chili powder and cayenne pepper could conceal a host of cooking catastrophes. She stirred the skillet meal, taste-tested and judged it passable.
While in Ontario, after buying a new washing machine and dryer, she had been unable to make contact with Paul's ex-wife, thus had some spare time. She had used it to shop for groceries. She felt guilty for not supporting Fielder's, sure that the Callister merchant could use every penny's worth of business he could get, but Fielder's produce left much to be desired. Unable to resist Albertson's, she had scoured the supermarket's produce department. Now she pulled out her purchases—fresh spinach, mushrooms, broccoli crowns, a cucumber and a tomato for a salad.
Her guest appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking better than a man had a right to at the end of a workday. His head almost touched the top of the doorframe. He had on a pale blue shirt with a Cinch logo below the pocket. There was just something delectable about a man in Wranglers and a Cinch shirt, especially a man with a body like John Bradshaw's.
The smell of soap and water carried across the room over the spicy food. No cologne or aftershave smelled better than a freshly washed man. She chastised herself for her wicked thoughts and reminded herself he was the age of her little brother.
"Can I help?" he asked, his baritone voice thrumming across the room, almost in tune with the soft bass vibrating from the CD player. He walked into the kitchen, boot heels thudding on the old linoleum-covered floor and stood by the counter, his hands resting on his hips.
She looked up at him, his size and nearness as overwhelming in the small kitchen as it had been in the bathroom doorway. Not only was he a good eight inches taller than she, he was wider. Feeling a breach of her defenses, she took a few seconds to find her tongue. "Uh, no. I think we've got everything under control."
"Good music. Who's singing?"
"Norah Jones. I, uh, usually listen to country, but sometimes I like something different."
He smiled. "I like it, too. It's... quiet."
She could tell having John eat with them thrilled Ava because the ten-year-old had already washed up without a prompt and set the table. "You can sit here, between Mama and me," she said and showed him a chair.
"Great." Another smile tipped the corners of his mouth and he crossed to the table. "Smells good."
Well, what else would he say?
"Do you want some tea?" Ava asked him.
"Uh, got any coffee?"
"Coffee. Oh." Isabelle dropped her paring knife into the salad bowl. "Of course. I didn't think—" She moved down the counter, dragged the Mr. Coffee to her and began to assemble it.
"In Texas, we always drunk tea for supper," Ava said.
"Don't bother with that coffee," he said. "I'll just have what Ava's drinking."
Of course coffee made more sense in the cooler weather of Callister, but iced tea was the most common drink in the South and it had become such a custom, she and Ava drank it without thinking. "But I can make—"
"Really, tea's just fine."
She stopped fiddling with the coffeemaker and returned to her salad making as Ava filled a tall glass with ice and tea.
Accompanied by the super salad and fresh garlic bread also bought in Boise, the dish she had prepared made a substantial meal. John ate two helpings and heaped so many compliments on her cooking, she felt awkward.
As she always
did at mealtime, Ava chattered all through supper about everything from dogs to horses to Nancy Drew. Isabelle doubted if John knew anything about Nancy Drew, but he carried on with Ava, asking her questions and causing her to talk that much more. Isabelle appreciated his easy communication with the daughter whose father had treated her as if she didn't exist.
After Ava emptied her plate, she headed for the back porch.
"She's a heck of a kid," John said. "Smart. Bet there's never a dull moment with her around."
"She keeps me on my toes. Half the time I feel like we're in reverse roles."
He reached for his iced tea glass and drained it.
"Are you sure you wouldn't like coffee? It would take me just a minute—"
"Tea's good. Coffee this close to bedtime would keep me awake anyway."
Needing to do something to keep from staring at his very attractive face, Isabelle stood and began to clear the table, "Were you close to your kids?"
"Um, I thought I was. I was just starting to teach Trey to rope when... well, when everything blew up." He looked out the bay window into the dark night. "He was coming along good, too."
Uh-oh. Pain and disappointment blared like a trumpet in his tone. She remembered what Paul had told her a few days back about John's wife's infidelity. Most people might not want to discuss their former spouses cheating on them, so Isabelle looked for a less intrusive tack. "Your oldest is named Trey?"
"John the third, actually, but we call him Trey. I'm a junior. They call my dad Tom, but his first name's John. We're all three named John Thomas." He ended the explanation with a little laugh.
"Oh," Isabelle said. "I never knew that about your family."
John stood and picked up his dishes. "Trey's the athletic one. Cody's more a thinker."
Isabelle smiled. "Like Ava."
She carried the stack of dishes to the sink, squeezed in some dish soap and turned on the hot water, sending up a cloud of steam and lemony fragrance. She missed having a dishwasher, but only God knew when she would feel comfortable spending the money to buy one. The new washer and dryer had wiped out her budget for appliances. "Nearly nine and ten? Boy, that's close together."
"Yeah, well, we didn't plan it that way.... Sometimes you just—" He stopped speaking and shook his head.
She threw a quick glance at him and saw a touch of bitterness in the way his mouth twisted.
"They're fourteen months apart," he said. "That second go-around, Julie was ready to cut me."
Isabelle hesitated until what he said sank in. Remembering the old saying about little pitchers having big ears, she glanced toward the porch, to be sure Ava wasn't on her way back to the kitchen. "Oh, I know all about those accidents. I remember how stunned I was when I got pregnant. We had no time and no room for a baby. We weren't even married, but that's another story."
His head jerked toward her. "Yeah?"
"Sometimes everything goes haywire, you know?" She quickly rambled on, not wanting to admit aloud, especially to someone she scarcely knew, that not only had Billy not cared enough to marry her, but wedlock had been low on her own list of priorities. "You down too many beers one night or forget to swallow the pill or stop off at the drugstore and next thing you know, boom. You've stepped in it."
John didn't crack a smile at her attempt at levity. He came to the sink carrying his dishes. "That how you got Ava?"
Surprised at a question so personal, she tittered like a nervous ninny. "More or less. I was on the pill, but I'd been taking antibiotics for a sinus infection. I didn't know antibiotics could make birth control pills ineffective." The expression on his face didn't change as he stood there with his dishes, so she added, "Don't misunderstand me. I'm not complaining. Ava's made my life so much better. I can't imagine what it would be like without her."
"I'm not bitching either. At least not about Trey and Cody."
She didn't hear a sigh, but she detected one in the ever-so-slight slump of his wide shoulders. She took the dishes from his hands and dunked them into the soapy water. "So you've got kids you didn't plan for. Don't beat yourself up over it. I'll bet that's how half the kids born come into the world. It isn't like with horses, where you map things out. But just because you weren't expecting them doesn't mean you think any less of them."
John unbuttoned and rolled back his cuffs, exposing muscular forearms dusted with brown hair and for some reason, she thought of his chest and his belly and—"Look, you don't have to help me."
He didn't answer, just picked up a dish towel, the size of his hands dwarfing it, and reached for a rinsed plate. With long, agile fingers, he began to dry. She glued her eyes to the dishes lest he look into her face and somehow see her heart racing.
"You're right," he said. "My boys are great. Even though I didn't plan for them, I've never been sorry."
He was near enough for her to see the late-day stubble on his jaw, the thick brown brows. "When you got married, you must've had some idea about kids. You, for sure, knew what caused them. What did you plan for?"
"What I planned was becoming a world champion calf roper. But what I became was a father. Then I got married. Everything pretty much went downhill from there. Julie... well, I'll just say there were people she liked better than she liked me." John reached for another plate, dried it and carefully stacked it on top of the one he had just finished. "How about you and Billy? What did you plan for?"
A huff blurted out. Billy couldn't stick to a plan of any kind for more than thirty minutes. "Well, Billy didn't intend to be a father, that's for sure. He didn't even want to be a husband. He hated the whole time I was pregnant. He was at a horse show in Wyoming when I delivered." She laughed, as she always did when she thought about going to the hospital alone and giving birth among total strangers. "Not that I needed him. What could he do except get in the way?" She handed him a rinsed bowl. "I thought in time Ava would grow on him. I mean, how can you not love a little baby? But—"
She stopped herself. Lord, a conversation about her life with Billy could have her wailing all night. "If I had it all to do over, I'd recognize him as a poor choice for a father."
"He doesn't stay in touch with Ava?"
"Heavens, no." Isabelle felt too humiliated to tell him that Ava's father hadn't even helped choose her name.
"Does it bother her, not seeing her dad?"
John's interest seemed intense, so she couched her answer with care. "I don't think so. Even when we lived together, he didn't give her the time of day. Except for how his leaving uprooted our lives, I think she didn't care much." She handed him another rinsed bowl and went back to her dishwater.
Playful barks came from the porch and they both looked in that direction. "I'm glad everything's working out with the dogs. I worried about it. At the time I brought them out here, I didn't think about how pushy it was."
"They make Ava happy. And right now I'm looking for anything that makes her happy."
"Why? Is she a problem?" He started on the silverware.
"Gosh, no. At least not a problem child. She's wonderful. But her life has been turned upside down. She was born in Weatherford. She's never known anywhere else. Add that to the fact that Billy and I weren't model parents to begin with. She's spent so much time with babysitters instead of me. It feels like she doesn't—I'm just trying to make up for all the time I devoted horses that I should have spent with my daughter."
What was she doing? She had no intention of discussing with anybody in Callister her shortcomings as a parent or her unusual relationship with her daughter's father.
"When I first saw her, I wondered if she was Billy's daughter. I couldn't tell by looking. I don't see much of Bledsoes in her. She looks like you."
Isabelle felt her cheeks warm up, the compliment making her self-conscious. "Poor kid."
John's brow creased into a frown. "Why would you say that? You're a pretty woman, Izzy—Isabelle."
"Uh-huh, I call all these freckles beauty marks. And this wild hair? Every day I debate i
f I should cut it off even with my ears. You'd think I would have at least inherited Pa's orderly black hair, like Paul did."
"Don't put yourself down like that. I guess you never knew, but when we were in high school, you were all I thought about. But you turned around and went the other direction every time we ran into each other." His voice turned soft and she sensed his eyes on her. "I had, uh"—he made a low chuckle—"well, I'll put it this way—I dreamed about you damn near every night."
She looked up at him, knowing what he had almost said and feeling both flattered and fearful of what she saw in his earnest expression. "We were kids, John. We were different people."
"Amen to that." He folded the towel into a crooked but neat square and smoothed it out on the counter. His hand came to rest on her shoulder. He lifted a russet ringlet and rubbed the strands between his thumb and finger. "I always wanted to touch your hair," he said. "Don't cut it."
A dozen emotions passed through his expressive eyes. She dropped her gaze to his mouth and his slightly parted lips. She could feel his breath, smell the faint hint of the spices they had eaten. A frisson shot through her. She looked away quickly and cleared her throat, thankful to have her hands immersed in dishwater because she could feel they were trembling.
She didn't reply to his remarks, concentrating instead on washing the last dish. Anything she said could open a conversation for which she wasn't ready. She couldn't guess his thoughts, but hers were all over the place—ranging from wondering about the meaning of his touching her and his comment on why his wife left him to where he lived and, God forgive her, how he would look without his clothes.
"I think it's time for me to hit the road," he said, telling her with his eyes he knew as well as she that something had passed between them, something they might renounce with words but could never erase.
A slutty side of her nudged her to say, Stay, but the reformed parent dried her hands, went to the living room and returned with his hat. She walked behind him toward the mudroom where he had left his jacket. "Thanks for being good to my babies."
The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 Page 9
