All his life Grady had heard the expression “seeing red,” but until now he hadn’t realized that it could be true. But as the boys excitedly repeated what had happened in the rest room, repeated the names the sheriff had called Cody, Grady’s vision actually turned red. When he got his hands on that son of a bitch he was going to rip him to pieces, badge or no badge.
But first, there was Cody to see to.
Grady sat on the grass and pulled Cody down to his lap. It was a sign of how upset the boy was that he seemed to have forgotten he was too big to sit on a lap, especially in front of other people. But he not only sat there, he curled up against Grady’s chest as if he never wanted to leave.
I’ll kill him, Grady thought of the sheriff. I’ll flat-out kill him.
“How come he said those things, Dad?”
Grady forced himself to take a deep breath for calm, and looked down at the most important person in his life. “You know how some animals are nice and some are mean?”
“Like that old bull back in California that used to kick everybody?”
“Yeah, like that. Some people are like that, too. Most are real nice, but some, well, they’re not so nice. You just met one of the ones who’s not so nice.”
“But, Dad, he’s the sheriff. I thought sheriffs were good guys.”
“Well, they’re supposed to be. And I imagine Sheriff Martin is usually nice, too, but he doesn’t like me. Are you listening?” he asked when Cody started looking away.
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s me he doesn’t like, Cody, not you. He was just taking it out on you because you were handy and I wasn’t.”
“That’s not right.”
“No, son, it’s not right, and I’m real sorry he said those things to you. I guess he just figured if he could hurt your feelings, it was the same as hurting mine, and he was right about that.”
“What’s it mean, Dad?”
“What does what mean?”
“That word he called me. Bastard.”
Oh, God, what was he supposed to say? He looked up to suddenly see all three Wilder men standing around Belinda and watching him.
“Go on,” Jack said softly. “You’re doing fine, Lewis.”
Grady blew out a breath. How was he supposed to explain to Cody, while Jack, whose birth was also illegitimate, listened in?
“Well,” he said finally. “It’s got two meanings. The real meaning is someone who’s mom and dad never got married to each other.”
“You mean like you and my mother?”
“That’s right.”
“But you said that’s not so bad. How come he made it sound so bad?”
“I suspect it’s because he really meant the word not so much for you, but for me.”
Cody’s eyes widened. “Golly. You mean Grandad never married Grandma, either?”
“No, Grandad and Grandma were married. When the sheriff used that word, he was using the other meaning that has nothing to do with whether or not a man’s mom and dad were married.”
Interested now, with his color back to normal, Cody cocked his head. “What’s that?”
“Well, it means somebody you really hate, or you’re really mad at. But when it’s used like that, it’s a bad word, a very bad word. Nobody should call somebody that, not ever.”
“How come the sheriff doesn’t like you?”
The reasons were multitude, and most stemmed from Cody’s birth, but Grady wasn’t about to get into that. He still hadn’t found a way to explain to Cody the sheriff was the boy’s grandfather. After this incident, he was less eager than ever. There were other reasons, lesser reasons, that would make sense, though.
“Remember how Uncle David was, how he talked slow and didn’t always understand things?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, when we were kids, we lived here, right there at our ranch, and we went to school here in town, where you’ll go this fall.”
“So?”
“Not everybody understood Uncle David the way you and I do. Sometimes the kids at school would make fun of him and call him names.”
“Did they call him a bastard?”
“No, and you’re not to ever say that word again, you hear?”
“Golly, I was just askin’, Dad.” But there was a slight grin behind the protest that spoke of getting away with saying a bad word without worrying about getting called on it.
“Yeah, right.” Grady pinched the tip of Cody’s nose. “No, they called him a dummy.”
Cody’s eyes widened and lit with fire. “That’s mean! That’s not right. Uncle David wasn’t no dummy.”
“I know that, and you know that, but some of the other kids didn’t understand.”
“What’d you do?”
“Well, I did a bad thing. I picked fights with them. And the sheriff didn’t like anybody getting into fights, no matter the reason. For that matter, Grandad didn’t like it much, either.”
“But Grandad never called you that word, did he?”
“No, because Grandad knew I wasn’t just trying to be a troublemaker. But that’s what the sheriff thought I was, so that’s why he’s never liked me.”
Something new flitted across Cody’s face. “This guy was the sheriff when you were a kid?”
“That’s right. Sheriff Martin’s been the sheriff around here for a long time.”
“Golly. He sure must be old.”
Grady chuckled, relieved that the crisis seemed to be over. For Cody, at least. “Yeah, he’s been around a while, but that’s not something you should say. Some people are sensitive about their age. If you call them old, it could hurt their feelings or make them mad.”
“Okay. But do we really have to go home, Dad? We was havin’ fun.”
“Who said we had to go home?”
“That man, that sheriff. He said I should have my daddy take me home, ’cause we wasn’t wanted around here. That’s not true, is it?”
“No, son, it’s not true. Why, you’ve got three good friends right over there who don’t want you to go home. Isn’t that right, boys?” he asked the Wilder kids.
“Yeah, don’t go, Cody,” Jason said.
“Don’t take him home, Mr. Lewis,” Clay said. “Mom promised us ice cream if we didn’t get sick by this afternoon. It’s this afternoon, isn’t it?” He craned his neck to look up at Belinda.
She pursed her lips. “Trust you to remember every little word. Yes, it’s this afternoon.”
“And us didn’t get sick,” said Grant, the three-year-old.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “And a bargain’s a bargain, right, Dad?” He looked up at Ace.
“Yep,” Ace told his eldest. “And a woman’s only as good as her word, so pay up, Mom.”
“I want chocolate,” Grant claimed.
Grady eased Cody off his lap, and the boy ran eagerly to his friends.
“Where’s Aunt Rachel?” Jason wondered.
Grady had known she wasn’t around, but now he, too wondered. Especially when he saw the look on Belinda’s face.
“She, uh, had to go talk to someone,” Belinda said.
Grady rose slowly to his feet. “She didn’t.”
Belinda cast her gaze down at the boys, then nodded off toward the crowd in the park. “She did.”
Grady felt the skin across his shoulders tighten. “She went after Martin?”
“With blood in her eye.”
“Huh?” Jason asked. “What happened to her eye?”
“Nothing.” Belinda herded the boys in the opposite direction to the one in which she had indicated Rachel had gone. “Let’s go get that ice cream.”
Cody and the boys went with Belinda. Grady tried to get Ace and his brothers to go, too, but they were having none of it.
“Rachel’s our sister,” Ace said flatly.
“Yeah,” Trey said with relish. “And if she’s takin’ on the sheriff, I wanna watch.”
“Dammit, Trey, it’s not funny,” Ace said.
“The she
riff isn’t going to think so, that’s for sure.”
Chapter Eight
“Get outta my face, girl.”
Rachel glared up at Sheriff Gene Martin with every ounce of outrage in her soul. He’d kept disappearing on her in the crowd, and it had taken her several minutes to snare the jerk. “You’ll be begging me to do just that by the time I’m through with you. What the devil did you think you were doing, talking to that child that way?”
Martin snorted. “What child what way? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve been around kids, if you think for a minute those four boys didn’t come out of there repeating every word you said. Damn you, Sheriff. What you did was inexcusable.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“It may be none of hers, but it’s damn sure my business.”
The sheriff sneered as Grady stepped up beside Rachel.
Grady poked his finger against Martin’s chest. “If you ever go near that boy again, badge or no badge, I’m going to rip you to pieces. You got that, Sheriff?”
Martin’s cheeks flushed. His nostrils flared. “Are you threatening an officer of the law?”
“No. I’m making a promise to a low-life jerk who picks on little children because it makes him feel like a big man.”
The sheriff leaned into Grady. “Why, you little—”
“Afternoon, Sheriff Martin.” Ace stepped up beside Grady and folded his arms. “Any trouble here?”
Rachel looked up to find not only Ace, but Jack and Trey as well, aligned with Grady. Her heart swelled with pride, with gratitude.
“I can’t believe this,” Martin blustered. “After the way this little sneak backstabbed your sister by running around with my LaVerne, you’d side with him?”
Grady motioned the Wilders back. “Whatever I did or didn’t do to Rachel is between the two of us and nobody else. The same goes for me and La-Verne. That’s your grandson you hurt today, Martin. Your own flesh and blood. Your daughter’s flesh and blood. You might want to think about what you’re cheating yourself out of by your attitude.”
“And if that doesn’t make you stop and think,” Rachel said, not for a minute willing to take a back seat when the incident had occurred while Cody was in her care, “you might want to know that I’m the type of person who likes to write letters. Like, say, to the governor. Or the state attorney general. Letters about a county sheriff who likes to abuse little boys in the men’s room.”
Martin’s face turned as red as a ripe tomato. “Why, you make it sound like—like—”
Rachel grinned slowly. “Yeah, I know. And not one word of it a lie. Try running for reelection with that hanging over your head. For that matter, try finishing out your current term.”
“You’ll pay for this.” Martin glared at her, his cheeks vibrating with fury. “All of you.” He turned and stomped off, knocking over a small table of soft drinks at the booth behind him in his haste.
Trey clapped Grady on the back. “Grady, my man, I think you’ve got yourself a serious enemy there.”
Grady looked at Trey, then at Jack and Ace and Rachel. “So do you, since you seemed to think I couldn’t handle the situation and decided to butt in. Not that I don’t appreciate it,” he told them, “but I don’t see any sense in getting someone with that much authority mad at you when it’s not your fight.”
“My sons were there when he opened his big mouth,” Ace said harshly. “I don’t stand for anybody talking like that around my boys, and Cody’s their friend. I don’t stand for their friends being called ugly names, either. You got a problem with that, Lewis?”
Grady ran his tongue along his teeth and appreciated the fact that they were still there. Any minute he expected Ace to knock them loose. “Nope. Guess not.”
As a group they turned and searched the crowd for Belinda and the boys, spotting them at the ice-cream booth twenty yards away.
“Come on.” Trey nudged Grady and took Rachel by the arm. “Let’s make Belinda buy.”
Grady spent the next half hour making sure Cody was really all right. He had a bad moment once when he looked up and saw a uniform, but it was a county deputy rather than the sheriff.
Rachel called the man over and introduced him as Undersheriff Dane Powell. When Rachel made a point of introducing him to Cody, he realized what she was doing, and he wanted to kiss her right then and there. She was making sure that Cody wasn’t left with the impression that all men wearing a uniform—particularly that uniform—were bad men. Powell was great with Cody, squatting down and spending several minutes talking easily with him and the Wilder kids.
Then, before Grady realized it, it was time to meet Joe at the horse trailer and loosen up the horses for their shot at the prize for team-roping.
Damn. He’d forgotten there would be events for little kids. Damn.
“What’s wrong?” Joe asked.
“Look at that. They’ve got a calf pull for the kids. I should have got Cody in that.”
“Yeah, and they’ll have a stick-horse race, a greased-piglet chase, and a rooster grab.”
“Damn. Maybe it’s not too late. Maybe I can still get him in.”
“Looks to me you’re worrying for nothing. Look out yonder.” Joe used his chin to point to the arena.
It was a good thing that Gray Ghost was a patient horse, because it was another forty-five minutes before Grady made it back to finish saddling her. That was how long he spent watching Cody and a couple of dozen other kids under the age of ten run up and down the length of the arena in one event after another, laughing, shrieking, falling down only to get up and laugh and run again.
Five minutes into the first event—the calf pull, where a dozen calves, each with a prize ribbon tied onto its tail, tried to keep out of the reach of the screaming, laughing children who would try to grab a ribbon—someone nudged his elbow where he stood at the arena fence.
“Move over.” It was Rachel, with her face behind a camera. “We need pictures.”
“Was this your idea, letting Cody take part with your nephews?”
“Nope, it was theirs. We figured it would take his mind off what happened earlier.”
“Thanks, Rach.”
She smiled at him. “You’re welcome. He seems fine, by the way.”
“Yeah. Good.” He reached for his wallet. “There had to be entry fees. Plus all that food and ice cream you’ve been treating him to. What do I owe you?”
She narrowed her eyes and shot him a glare. “Don’t insult me, Lewis. Besides, you’re going to need your money. I heard them planning a sleepover at your house for the near future.”
She snapped three pictures before the people in the front row of the stands behind them complained they were blocking the view.
“Come on.” Rachel grabbed Grady’s hand and started up the steps of the old wooden bleachers. “We’ve got great seats. I can use the zoom.”
Grady had a dizzying sense of falling down a tunnel and coming out as a teenager. How many times had he and Rachel run up and down these steps over the years to find his family or hers, or climb all the way to the top to sit together, just the two of them? Too many times to count.
Her entire family was there now. Ace stood in the aisle with a video camera aimed at the action in the arena. Below the camera, his grin was wide.
All four of the boys managed to snag a ribbon from the tail of a calf. None of them won the stick-horse race—three girls beat them. A kid from town finally caught the greased pig, thank goodness. Grady didn’t know what they’d have done with a pig if Cody had caught it. And one of Louise’s grandsons caught the rooster.
Through it all Grady forgot that he was surrounded by Wilders, most of whom probably still had it in for him. He was too busy laughing, and so were they, to worry about anything else at the moment. They laughed so hard, all of them, they had tears streaming down their faces, Grady included.
“Oh, God.” Jack used the palm
s of his hands to wipe the tears from his face. “Ace, I hope you got that. That’s blackmail material for sure.”
But Ace couldn’t answer. He and Belinda were hanging on to each other and still laughing too hard to speak.
“Let’s get outta here,” Trey said, nudging Jack. “We’ve got horses to see to. I’m not letting Lewis here collect the prize money for team-roping ’cause you were laughing too hard to get the job done.”
“Me?” Jack protested. “You weren’t laughing your fool head off at all. And Lewis and Helms aren’t taking that prize, we are. See you later, Grady. We’ll be the ones with the fastest time.”
“In your dreams, Wilder,” Grady called as Jack and Trey started down the bleachers.
“See?” Rachel said. “I told you you didn’t have anything to worry about where my brothers were concerned.”
Grady shrugged. Maybe he’d been worried for nothing, but he still couldn’t see the Wilders letting him off the hook for what they all thought he’d done to Rachel in the past.
“Thanks, by the way,” he told her, “for having Cody down there with the others.”
“Ha. We couldn’t have kept him away, not when Jason decided they were all going to enter.”
“Well, thanks anyway. I forgot they were having kid events, or I’d have been here to see that he entered.”
“Dad! Dad!” four young voices called as the boys clamored up the bleachers. Three were addressing Ace. But Cody saw Grady and ran straight for him, grinning like a loon. “I won a ribbon! Did you see? Did you, huh?”
“I saw, I saw.” Grady scooped the boy up and gave him a bear hug, then put him down quickly so as not to embarrass him. He was, after all, five years old, no longer a baby, according to him. “I’m just glad you didn’t get your hands on that greased pig.”
“Aw, heck, Dad, I wanted that pig.”
“Yeah,” Clay hollered. “We wanted that pig. Can we have a pig, Dad?” he asked Ace.
“Sure,” Ace told him. “Think of all that free bacon we’d have.” “Aw, Dad.”
Grady and Joe won the team-roping. They beat the next best time—Trey and Jack’s—by four-tenths of a second. Rachel had a bad moment when she spotted Grady getting ready to swing up into the saddle shortly before the event.
The Price of Honor Page 13
