For Love and Family

by Victoria Pade

  “We’re on our way for an appointment with his doctor. Just a follow-up,” Hunter confirmed.

  “Will we see you at the PAN meeting tomorrow night?” Leslie asked.

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Good.” The older woman glanced at Johnny, who was tapping on the fish-tank glass. “Nice to see you again, Master Johnny.”

  “You, too,” the little boy answered perfunctorily, without taking his eyes off the fish.

  The adults said goodbye and then Hunter informed his son that they had to get going. The little boy reluctantly rejoined his father and Terese.

  “What’s PAN?” Terese asked as they continued on their way.

  “PAN stands for Parents Adoption Network. It’s an organization that’s part of the agency. I’ve belonged since I adopted Johnny.”

  “And the foundation?”

  “It’s connected with the hospital. Leslie Logan and her husband are major benefactors, not to mention that Leslie does a considerable amount of volunteer work. The foundation is an umbrella that encompasses a fertility treatment center, counseling for childless couples, support groups, financial support for orphanages around the world and, of course, the adoption agency.”

  “I see,” Terese said as they came to the door of the office they needed.

  But before they went in, Hunter’s focus switched to his son. “Remember,” he warned. “Lunch at Pokey’s Pizza is only if you behave in here.”

  “No shots, right?” Johnny said as if to make sure his father kept up his part of the deal, too.

  “I don’t think there will be any shots, no.”

  “Okay,” the little boy said. Then, in an aside to his father, he added, “And T’rese can’t see me in my underwear.”

  Terese fought a laugh but Hunter wasn’t as tactful. He didn’t bother to conceal his amusement. “Deal. I won’t let Terese see you in your underwear.”

  Then, to Terese as he opened the door, Hunter winked and said, “We wouldn’t want to ruin his suave, sophisticated image, after all.”

  Johnny’s doctor’s visit went well even though the little boy had to have blood drawn. He sat on his father’s lap, held the hand Terese offered him, and beyond wide eyes and a quivering lip, he bravely managed not to cry.

  For that he was rewarded not only with the promised trip to Pokey’s Pizza, but Hunter allowed him the entire afternoon there.

  Of course, after they’d eaten lunch and the three of them began playing the arcade games, she could tell Hunter was enjoying himself as much as his son was.

  She was interested to see the interaction of father and son at play, though. She’d seen it at work the day before—the way Hunter had been willing to spare the time to teach Johnny small tasks, Hunter’s patience when the child hadn’t done something exactly right, letting Johnny know that he trusted him enough to give him responsibilities of his own. Now she was curious to see how the two related to each other away from the ranch work.

  Hunter didn’t disappoint her. His parenting techniques when it came to recreation were every bit as good. He managed to stimulate just the right amount of competitive spirit in Johnny while maintaining all the fun—just enough to make Johnny want to try hard to give his father a good game when it came to tossing the basketball or the softball. There was no question that Hunter was holding back but he didn’t let it show to his son, and the result was that Johnny’s self-esteem grew right before her eyes when the little boy ended up winning.

  Terese played a few games with her nephew but she wasn’t good at them and actually preferred watching.

  Watching Johnny.

  Or at least she told herself that she preferred watching Johnny. In truth, she did a whole lot of watching Hunter, too. And she definitely preferred that to tossing rings over pegs or trying to hit monster heads that popped up through holes in a table.

  But then how could she not, when he had on a beige Western shirt that glided over the muscles of his honed upper body, and a pair of khaki-colored jeans slung low on his hips and cupping his derriere just enough to accentuate how terrific it was every time he leaned over?

  And no matter how often she told herself it was Hunter’s parenting skills she was admiring, deep down she knew those parenting skills—no matter how good they were—weren’t the only things she appreciated as the afternoon passed.

  It was nearly six by the time they returned to the ranch. Terese let Hunter and Johnny go into the house alone so she could have a few minutes in the cabin to freshen up before dinner.

  She’d worn jeans and a pale blue sweater set and she didn’t change clothes, but she did refresh her mascara and blush, and take her hair out of the rubber band that held it at her nape. Once she’d brushed it, she twisted it into a figure-eight knot at the back of her head.

  Then, judging herself unlikely to stop traffic but sufficiently presentable, she left the cabin, wondering at the fact that she’d just spent the entire day with her nephew and Hunter and still couldn’t wait to get back to them.

  But it wasn’t only Johnny and Hunter who were in the kitchen when she went in through the mudroom door. Willy and Carla were there, too.

  “Carla brought us a ham, cheese and potato casserole,” Hunter informed Terese when the greetings were finished. “I’m twisting their arms to make them stay and eat with us.”

  “Good,” Terese said, for the most part meaning it. She genuinely liked the ranchhand and his wife, it was just that there was also a tiny drop of disappointment that now she would have to share Johnny and Hunter. She knew that was uncalled for.

  The table was already set for three—Terese assumed Carla had done that, too—so Terese set two more places while Carla took the casserole from the oven. The other woman also took an already prepared salad out of the refrigerator, and everyone sat down to eat.

  Small talk occupied the meal. Terese learned that Carla frequently brought Hunter and Johnny dinner that she left for them when she picked up Willy after a day of work. And that Carla and Willy didn’t usually stay despite the fact that Johnny liked it when they did.

  Carla and Willy were also anxious to know what the doctor had said about Johnny and were relieved to hear that he was fine, that his blood count was good, and that, with the exception of being cautious, he could go on about his everyday business just the way he always had.

  With four people for cleanup after they’d all eaten, the kitchen was shipshape in no time and then Carla and Willy insisted—in the face of Johnny’s best efforts to get them to linger—that they had to go home.

  “He’s just trying to get out of taking a bath,” Hunter said as Johnny huffed off in a pout to engross himself in his toys in the living room and Hunter and Terese walked Carla and Willy to the front door.

  But rather than saying a simple good-night once they were there, Hunter turned to Terese and said, “After a day to think about it, is your offer still good to stay with Johnny if I go through with my trip to Europe?”

  He hadn’t mentioned a word about that all day and Terese certainly hadn’t expected him to bring it up now. But since he had and she hadn’t changed her mind, she didn’t hesitate to say, “Absolutely.”

  “Well,” Hunter said, “I talked it over with Carla and Willy before you came in tonight and they think I should go, too.”

  “You can’t not go,” Carla said emphatically. Then, to Terese, the other woman added, “He did this after Margee died, too. He was overly cautious and didn’t want to let Johnny out of his sight for fear something else bad would happen. But I told him that between the three of us we’ll watch Johnny like a hawk.”

  “We will,” Terese assured Hunter.

  “And even if something does come up,” Willy contributed, aiming his comment at Hunter, “you can get on a plane and be home in no time. But not to go at all? You have too much riding on this to just blow it off.”

  Hunter didn’t disagree with that. But he did look into the living room at his son for a moment before he finally seemed to ma
ke his decision.

  “I guess I am being a little paranoid,” he said.

  “Yes, you are,” Carla confirmed. “Now say you’ll go. You’ll probably worry yourself to death, but say you’ll go, anyway.”

  Hunter laughed at his friend’s bossiness. “Okay, okay. If Terese really will stay so she’s nearby if he needs blood, I’ll go.”

  “And everything will be fine. You’ll see,” Carla decreed.

  The matter seemed to be solved then, and, with that accomplished, the couple said good-night and left.

  There were things Terese wanted to say to Hunter once they were gone but before she had the chance, he began the tug-of-war with Johnny to get him to bed.

  It wasn’t until an hour later, after the efforts of both Terese and Hunter had the little boy down for the night and Terese was helping Hunter pick up Johnny’s toys in the living room that she finally found the opportunity.

  “You know,” she said then, “it’s perfectly normal to feel the way you do about Johnny right now. And the way you felt after your wife died. Some things are like emotional earthquakes. Remember when you said the other night that last week’s ordeal with Johnny shook you? That’s exactly what happens. The foundation of things feels shaky for a while, until you get used to whatever changes come out of those emotional earthquakes and things settle down again. Right now it’s as if you’re on edge, waiting for aftershocks.”

  “Is this the psychology professor talking?” he asked with a hint of amusement to his voice.

  Terese smiled at him from across the coffee table where they were putting puzzle pieces back in a box. “It is,” she confirmed.

  “Was it the psychology professor talking before, too, when you were tiptoeing around that stuff about adoptive parents being insecure if the birth family is in the picture?”

  “Then, too. But both things are true, you know.”

  “I’m sure they are,” he allowed. But he still didn’t seem to want to discuss either of them.

  In Terese’s experience that wasn’t an unusual response. When people found out what field her education and training were in, they either wanted a quick therapy session or they went to extremes to avoid it so she didn’t analyze them. Obviously Hunter was in the second category. But that was fine with her. The last thing she wanted to be was his therapist.

  Then Hunter veered even farther away from that by turning the conversation toward her job. “So you teach psychology, huh? How did that come about?”

  There was amusement in Terese’s tone this time. “I’ll bet you’re figuring there are years and years of psychoanalysis in my background that sucked me in.”

  “Is that the way it was?”

  “Nope,” she said, mimicking his periodic answer to things she asked him. “I just developed an interest in it when I took my first psychology class in my freshman year of college. Actually, I realized I had spent my life sort of standing on the sidelines, observing people and their behavior, thinking about what made them tick, and when I discovered a class that talked about that, I also discovered my niche.”

  They’d finished putting away Johnny’s puzzle and the rest of his toys, and Hunter sat on one end of the sofa, angled toward the center, his arm stretched across the top of the back cushion.

  There was no hint that he was ready for her to go out to the cabin tonight. In fact, something about his attitude seemed to say he expected her to sit, too. So that was what Terese did—sit on the couch but at the opposite end.

  It must have been what he’d had in mind because he merely went on with their conversation. “Don’t take this wrong, but I’m kind of surprised that you work at all.”

  She knew what he was thinking—that she was a trust-fund baby who didn’t need to earn a living. “I don’t do it for the money. I do it because I enjoy it.”

  “Does your sister work?”

  “Eve? Unless you count working at being Eve and keeping up with the latest fashions and hairstyles and makeup, no. But maybe if I looked the way she does instead of the way I do—”

  He cut her off before she could finish that. “That day at your house your sister made a not-too-nice comment about the way you look. You don’t buy into that, do you?”

  “Into the fact that I’m not as attractive as Eve? That I’m the lesser twin? It isn’t a matter of buying into it. It’s a fact of life.”

  His brow creased into a frown. “You look different than she does, but the ‘lesser-twin’? You have to be kidding.”

  He sounded as if he genuinely couldn’t fathom that.

  “Eve is beautiful,” she said.

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he countered. “Or maybe ‘beauty is only skin-deep’ would be a better platitude. Either way, I don’t see your sister as beautiful. But you…”

  He was studying her openly and it made Terese uncomfortable. Especially since she was sure he was going to find all kinds of flaws.

  But then he said, “You have beautiful hair and skin like fresh cream. Your eyes glisten like moonlight on a still lake. You remind me of a spring morning when everything is clear and bright and new….” He shook his head, still keeping his eyes on her. “I like the way you look. I like it a whole lot better than the way your sister looks.”

  There was something in his voice that made her believe this was actually how he felt, although it didn’t convince her that she was more attractive than her sister. She thought that Hunter’s opinions were just colored negatively by Eve’s actions and positively by her own. And yet, his opinion of her still made her happier than he would ever know.

  And more embarrassed. She could feel her cheeks heating, and she knew they had to be beet red.

  But if Hunter noticed, he didn’t comment on it. He just continued.

  “Plus, unless I’ve missed something, you have a whole lot more going for you than your sister in every other regard,” he said.

  “I’m just a teacher,” she demurred.

  “A college professor, which is the top-of-the-heap teacher.”

  Terese merely shrugged, unsure what to say to that.

  “So why did you decide to teach, anyway? Why not do therapy or counseling?”

  Terese had no idea when he’d gone from talking about her appearance to talking about her job but she was grateful for the change of topic nonetheless.

  “The academics just appealed to me,” she told him. “I teach and do research—”

  “What kind of research?”

  “I know when I say that, people picture test tubes. But a psychologist’s research is interviewing people. For instance, before I went on sabbatical I did follow-up research on teenagers who had been taking psychotropic drugs for ten years, beginning before the age of eight. That meant locating kids for the study and talking to them about where they are now, physically and mentally, and trying to determine whether being on medication has been beneficial enough to warrant the side effects. It’s that kind of research.”

  “And why are you on sabbatical now?”

  He sounded genuinely interested and his focus on her was still so intent that Terese didn’t think he was merely being polite.

  “I’m finishing my doctoral dissertation,” she said.

  Hunter’s eyebrows arched. “You’ll be Dr. Warwick?”

  “It’ll be a Ph.D., but yes, I’ll be Dr. Warwick. On the school roster and to my students at least, though I don’t think it will matter to anyone else.”

  “Dr. Warwick,” Hunter repeated. “And you think you’re the lesser twin? That’s a whole lot more than your sister can say. I know I’m impressed,” he said, but with a hint of teasing that made it clear he wasn’t intimidated by her accomplishments the way some men she’d encountered had been. She liked that.

  “What about you?” she asked then. “I know the ranch has been in your family for generations but how did you and Willy come to work it instead of you and that brother you mentioned before?”

  One of his eyebrows hiked toward his hairline and h
e pointed a long, thick index finger at her. “You were paying attention,” he said as if it flattered him that she’d been listening close enough to what he’d said to remember it.

  “I confess, I really was paying attention, yes. You said that Willy is closer to you than your brother—from which I took it that you have at least one brother.”

  Hunter didn’t comment on his familial relationships, though. It was the question about how he’d come to be a rancher that he addressed.

  “I started working alongside my father and grandfather like Johnny is now at about the same age. And I loved it just the way he does. Being outside in the fresh air, it was more like play than work. Then, as I got older I started to appreciate moving through my day at my own pace, not having a boss breathing down my neck. I didn’t mind getting my hands dirty or having to start before dawn or working weekends and holidays—you know, animals have to be fed, cows have to be milked no matter what. It all just fit,” he concluded.

  “So you found your niche at four years old and never wavered?” Terese said with some awe.

  “I wavered. Or maybe it was teenage rebellion. But yeah, there was a period when I tried out a different lifestyle and considered doing things other than ranching.”

  “For instance?” Terese said to urge him into details.

  “I went to college at the University of Colorado in Boulder. That’s hardly a rural setting. During those four years I worked to pay my tuition by being a night watchman in a big office building. All cooped up five nights a week from six in the evening until three in the morning.”

  “I’m guessing the ‘cooped-up’ part is what got to you?”

  “Mmm. It was good for studying, but I definitely got tired of being stuck inside. Only not before I thought about being a lawyer or a businessman.”

  Terese smiled at that. There he was, dressed in his jeans, Western shirt and cowboy boots, with muscles nudging the confines of his clothes and his rugged handsomeness kissed by the sun, looking every inch the cowboy, and she just couldn’t picture him as anything else. Certainly not as an attorney or an executive.