The thought of being in the car with someone who had been sent to The Healing Ranch to be reformed made her somewhat uncomfortable. She would have no idea what to expect—or what could happen. What if, like Ryan, her would-be guide would use the opportunity to try to escape from Forever and the ranch?
“No need to take up anyone’s time,” she told Jackson. “I can get to the town on my own. But after we get all this paperwork squared away, I would like to see the bunkhouse, please.”
“So you can see for yourself that it’s not some primitive dungeon?” Jackson guessed, deliberately exaggerating what she probably assumed about the conditions in the bunkhouse.
Debi opened her mouth, then decided there was no point in trying to deny what he seemed to have already figured out. “Yes.”
Her admission surprised him a little. But it also pleased him. She was brave enough not to try to divert or dress up the truth.
“Sounds to me like Ryan has a good role model to look up to once we get him straightened out and back to tapping into his full potential,” Jackson observed.
“I don’t know about that,” she said as she continued filling in the forms. “If I’m such a good role model, why did he get to the point that I had to bring him somewhere like this or risk losing him altogether?”
Jackson had been doing this for a while now and it never ceased to amaze him how many different reasons there were for teens to act out. “It’s not always clear to us,” he told her. “Sometimes it takes a while to understand.”
“So,” Debi observed wryly, “you’re a philosopher as well as a cowboy.”
“A man wears a lot of hats in his lifetime,” was Jackson’s only reply.
Working as quickly as she was able, Debi filled out all the forms and signed her name on the bottom of the last one. After she was finished, she gathered all the pages together, placing them in a small, neat pile. She felt exhausted and was running pretty close to empty, but the espresso coffee she had saved for last on her trip here was giving her a final shot in the arm.
Pushing the pile of forms to one side, Debi took out her checkbook. Funds were growing dangerously low, thanks to John and the divorce he seemed to have processed at lightning speed. Bringing Ryan here was probably going to eat up every spare dime she had. That was one of the reasons she’d driven here instead of flying.
“I assume you prefer being paid up front.” Turning to the next blank check, Debi asked, “What should I make it out for?”
If the woman was taking a leave of absence to be near her brother while he was here and if she was looking for employment, that meant she was probably living close to hand to mouth.
Jackson placed his hand over her checkbook, stopping her from beginning to date the check. “Why don’t you hold off on that until he’s been here a week?”
“Why? Because you might decide he’s incorrigible and you’ll hand him back to me? Won’t you still want to get paid for ‘time served’ if that’s the case?”
“Actually, I was thinking about you,” Jackson said simply. “I figured that you might decide you’re not happy with the program we have here and want to take your brother home.”
She flushed, embarrassed for the conclusion she’d leaped to. Lately, she’d been too edgy, too quick to take offense where none was intended.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t used to be this way,” she apologized. “The last six months have taken a toll on...on all of us,” she said, changing direction at the last minute. She’d meant to say that the past six months had taken a toll on her, but that sounded terribly selfish and self-centered to her own ear—even though arguing with John over Ryan had completely worn her down to a nub.
“All?” Jackson questioned, his tone coaxing more information out of her.
Debi obliged without even realizing it at first. “On Ryan, and me—and John.” She saw the unspoken question in Jackson’s eyes. “John is my ex.”
“Oh.” The single word seemed to speak volumes—and yet, how could it? she thought. Maybe she was just getting punchy.
She avoided Jackson’s eyes and got back to her initial apology. “I apologize if I sound abrupt.”
“No apologies necessary,” Jackson told her, carelessly waving her words away like so much swirling dust. “I’ve heard and seen a lot worse than anything you might think you’re guilty of.”
Every time he dealt with the parents or guardians of one of the teens brought or sent to his ranch, it reminded him just what he had to have put his stepmother through. The woman had been nothing but fair and good to him when she didn’t have to be, taking him in after his father had taken off. Heaven knew his own father never felt anything for him, neither affection nor a sense of responsibility.
Yet somehow Sylvia had, and in return he had treated her shamefully, putting her through hell before he finally was forced to get his act together, which he did, thanks to Sam.
She was gone now, but remembering her made him more considerate of the people who brought their troubled teens to him to be, in effect, “fixed.”
“Okay, everything looks in order,” he told Ryan’s sister, glancing through the forms quickly. “Let me take you on that tour of the bunkhouse to set your mind at ease,” he offered.
“I’d like that,” she told him. She wanted to see the bunkhouse and felt that since he was the one in charge of the ranch and its program, he would be the best one to conduct the tour.
And if something turned out to be wrong in her eyes, he was the one to be held accountable.
Debi got up and immediately paled. She’d risen a little too quickly from her seat. As a result, she immediately felt a little light-headed and dizzy. Trying to anchor herself down, she swayed ever so slightly. Panicked, she made a grab for the first thing her hand came in contact with to steady herself.
It turned out to be the cowboy standing next to her.
Jackson seemed to react automatically. His free arm went around her, holding her in place. Thanks to capricious logistics, that place turned out to be against his chest.
The light-headedness left as quickly as it had appeared.
The air in her lungs went along with it as it whooshed out the second she found herself all but flush against the cowboy’s chest and torso.
Their eyes met and held for an eternal second—and then Jackson loosened his hold on her as he asked, “Are you all right?”
Yes!
No!
I don’t know.
All three responses took a turn flashing through her brain as the rest of her tried to figure out just what had happened here.
Bit by bit, what transpired—and why—came back to her in tiny flashes. “Sorry, I got a little dizzy,” she apologized. Dropping her line of vision back to the floor, she murmured, “I think I got up too fast.” Looking at the arm she had grabbed, she realized that she must have dug her nails into his forearm. There were four deep crescents in his skin. “Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She didn’t need confirmation that she had done that. She knew.
“No harm done,” he told her good-naturedly. Jackson took a step back from her slowly, watching her for any signs that she was going to faint. “We can stay here a little longer if you like.”
“No, that’s all right. I’d like to see the bunkhouse before your...ranch hands come back to use it.”
The bunkhouse, for the most part, was used for sleeping and winding down in the evening after a particularly long, hard day filled with chores.
“The day’s still young,” he replied. “We have plenty of time.” As he spoke, he studied her more closely. She looked exhausted, as well as a little disconnected. “Did you drive here?” he asked.
She started to nod and discovered that made the world spin again, so she stopped immediately.
“Yes.”
“From Indianapolis?” He w
anted to make sure that he had her starting point down correctly.
“Yes.” Her eyebrows drew together in a quizzical expression. “Why?”
Jackson did a quick calculation. “That’s roughly fourteen to fifteen hundred miles away,” he estimated, impressing her. “How long did that take you?”
Debi had no idea why he was asking her this, but she saw no harm in answering. “A little more than twenty-four hours.”
The “why?” was silent, but implied.
That meant she had to have driven straight through to get here that fast. “You were the only one driving?” He didn’t expect her to say no—and she didn’t.
“Yes, I was the only driver.” If she didn’t get moving soon, she was going to stretch out on top of his desk, clutter and all, she thought, feeling drained beyond belief.
“Why didn’t you stop somewhere for a break—or to spend the night?” he asked.
“I like to drive—and besides, I wasn’t tired at the time,” she said, deciding not to tell him that she’d been wired for nearly half the trip, determined to get there before exhaustion caught up to her because she was afraid that Ryan would take off and disappear the second she stopped driving.
“When did you last eat?” he asked her, curious.
She’d found a tiny box of really old raisins at the back of her glove compartment. “Do raisins count?”
“Only if they’re embedded in an apple crisp pie.” His own main flaw, the way Jackson saw it, was his weakness for all things sweet or bad for him.
No wonder the woman looked like a wraith in the making. She hadn’t had any food in a day and probably didn’t eat all that well before that. Worry did that to a person, he thought, remembering his stepmother.
“Why don’t you come with me to the kitchen and we’ll see what I can rustle up?” he suggested.
After standing for a bit, she felt steadier and definitely ready to walk wherever he wanted her to go. “I thought ranchers were against rustling,” she said, tongue in cheek.
He pretended to take her seriously for a second. “Interesting. Hungry to the point of light-headedness and you still have a sense of humor. That bodes well as far as survival goes,” he commented. “Did Ryan go without eating, too?”
Ryan had always been her first priority, now more than ever. He had to be saved. “I packed a couple of sandwiches and some fruit for him and we went through a couple of drive-throughs. He didn’t want to eat.” Her brother referred to it as “that junk.” As for her, she’d had no appetite. “But he changed his mind when he got hungry.”
“Why sandwiches just for Ryan and not you?” Jackson asked, trying to glean as much information as he could about the family dynamics of this newest “ranch hand” he was acquiring.
“I didn’t have enough cold cuts available for any sandwiches for me. I just took it for granted that Ryan was going to need his strength when he got here. I could always eat later.”
“Lucky for you, this is your ‘later,’” Jackson told her. And then he asked, “How long have you been Ryan’s sole guardian?”
“Not sole,” she protested. “John and I were both his guardians.” At least, that was how she had tried to set things up.
It wasn’t hard for Jackson to read between the lines. “And how often did your ex participate in anything that had to do with Ryan?”
“Often,” Debi answered automatically as well as defensively. And then she flagged just a little when Jackson continued looking at her as if he was waiting her out. “Okay, not all that much...” Debi admitted reluctantly.
He had a better assessment of the situation. “How about not at all?”
Debi blew out a frustrated breath. “Do you do that a lot?” she asked. When he raised an eyebrow in response to her question, she went on to elaborate. “Just stare at people until you make them squirm mentally?”
The corners of his mouth curved just a hint at her observation. “I find it works pretty well on occasion, although,” he recalled, “it never really had an effect on Garrett.”
“By the way, you’re right,” Debi admitted out of the blue.
He stopped just short of the kitchen’s threshold to turn around and look at her. The woman had lost him. Right about what? “About Garrett?” he asked.
“No,” she shook her head. “About my ex. I made a lot of excuses for him in my head, including that he didn’t say anything because he felt he didn’t have the right to butt in between Ryan and me. But the truth of it was, he resented the fact that Ryan was living with us and that we—meaning me—were responsible for him financially, emotionally and, well, basically in every way.”
Jackson took it all in. “And Ryan picked up on John’s resentment.” It wasn’t a question. He knew how these teens acted and reacted because they were him fifteen years ago.
“I tried my best to shield him, to tell him that John cared, but had a hard time showing it—after all, men are like that,” she told Jackson with an air of firm conviction.
“In general, yes,” Jackson allowed. “But it’s not a hard and fast rule around here. And there are a lot of ways for someone to demonstrate that they care without being blatant about it.”
“Maybe,” she agreed, only half-ready to concede that there might be some truth in what he was saying. “But John didn’t.” She was about to say something about the ultimatum her ex had given her, then decided that it was far too personal to share with a person she hardly knew. And besides, even though it was to be shared as a secret, secrets had a way of leaking out when you least expected them to. And she didn’t want any of what she had just said to accidentally get back to Ryan. He needed to be protected and sheltered from hurtful things like that. If Jackson knew, he just might let it slip to her brother without even thinking. And that would be terrible.
“Sit.” Jackson gestured in the general direction of the long, rectangular table where they took all their meals. There were ten chairs in all. Four on either side of the sturdy, scarred wooden table and one placed at either end. She guessed that the two end chairs were for Jackson and his brother and the others were intended for the teens they had staying on the ranch.
Eight. That many? She thought that Ryan might get lost in the shuffle.
“I’m taking you away from your work,” Debi protested even as she complied with his invitation.
“It’s all part of a whole,” Jackson assured her in an easy tone. “We’ve got some hash browns and bacon left over from breakfast. I can make you some fresh eggs to go with that,” he offered.
She really didn’t want to cause any trouble—or work. She went for the leftovers—with one exception. “Bacon and hash browns will be fine. And a cup of coffee—if you have creamer.”
Jackson acquiesced easily. “Garrett likes his coffee diluted so you’re in luck. We have creamer.”
Moving like a skilled short-order cook, Jackson put together a plate of food and had the coffee ready for her in a matter of a few minutes.
“Looks good,” she commented. And then a thought hit her. “Won’t your cook mind that you’re giving away the food?”
“I’m the one who pays for the food, and besides, we don’t have a cook,” Jackson told Ryan’s sister, sliding into the chair directly opposite hers rather than taking a seat at the head of the table. “We all take turns making meals.”
“The boys, too?” she asked incredulously.
He saw no reason for her to look that surprised. After all, there were male chefs, damn good ones from what he’d heard. Not that anyone here was in danger of reaching that lofty level. Still, they hadn’t poisoned anyone, either, so that was pretty good.
“Absolutely. It’s all part of learning how to take care of themselves.”
She was still exhausted, still wired, but nonetheless, she felt a peacefulness tiptoeing forward. Jackson Whi
te Eagle sounded like a down-to-earth person. More importantly, he struck her as someone who could handle Ryan.
For the first time since she’d set the wheels in motion, Debi felt confident that she’d made the right choice coming here—no matter what the financial cost would ultimately wind up being for her.
Chapter Five
“That was very good.”
Pushing her empty plate off to one side of the table, Debi set down her coffee mug after finishing off her second serving of coffee. She’d been prepared to be polite about Jackson’s cooking efforts. What she hadn’t been prepared for was that his efforts would actually turn out a meal that wasn’t just passable, but really good.
Jackson’s broad shoulders rose and fell in a quick, dismissive shrug.
“You were hungry,” he pointed out modestly. “Most likely anything outside of three-day-old dirt would have tasted good to you.”
Debi made a face at the thought of consuming something like that.
“I know it’s not considered polite to contradict my host in his own home, but I wasn’t too hungry to tell the difference between good and oh-my-God-what-have-I-just-eaten?” Debi assured him with enthusiasm. The more she thought about it, the more genuinely surprised she was by how good the man’s cooking actually was. “Where did you learn how to cook like that? From your mother?” she guessed.
Your mother.
Jackson thought of the woman who’d never had time for him. The woman who had walked out on him and never once, in all these years, tried to get back in contact with him or reconnect in any way.
He shook his head and instead said, “Necessity really is the mother of invention.”
Her dealings with Ryan and his recent penchant for secrecy and lies had taught her rather quickly to learn to read between the lines.
“Does that mean you were on your own a lot?” Debi asked.
Jackson knew, because of the nature of the ranch he ran, that he should be used to fielding questions. All sorts of questions. But the side of him that was left to deal with those questions was at war with the private side of him, the side that didn’t want people knowing the details of his life—any of the details—because hearing them might just make them feel sorry for him.
The Cowboy and the Lady Page 5
