A Weaver Vow

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  The balding principal looked surprised to find Erik there with Isabella, but he said nothing. He merely invited Isabella into his office.

  Erik knew he’d be seriously overstepping her comfort zone if he made a move to go with her into Joe’s office, so he just stretched his arm across the back of the seat she’d vacated and gave her an encouraging smile.

  Her black-brown gaze held his for a moment, then her lashes lowered and she hurried into the office.

  The door closed once again.

  Erik dropped the pretense of casualness and pushed to his feet, pacing in front of Viola’s desk. “Don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what earned Murph’s suspension, do you?”

  She gave him a pinch-lipped look. “No, I would not care to do any such thing. And you know, Reverend Stone and our church committee are still waiting for that stained-glass window you promised.”

  Erik gave her a look. He hadn’t yet contacted Jessica and he knew he needed to. It had been a month since Murph broke the window. “Viola, do you ever find anything in life to be happy about?”

  Her lips thinned. She turned to her old-fashioned electric typewriter and fed a sheet of paper into it, even though she had a state-of-the-art computer sitting right next to it. A moment later, she started clacking away, which was a sound that took him back to his childhood just as surely as those yellow chairs did.

  Viola Timms had never shown a sense of humor.

  The office area was too small to allow for any decent pacing. He could have gone into the hall, but he didn’t want Isabella to come out of Joe’s office and find him gone. So he went back to the chairs and sat down again.

  Before long, though, Joe’s door creaked open to reveal Murphy—looking sullen—closely followed by Isabella. She was still pale, but no worse than before going into Joe’s office. Erik stood and stayed right where he was, controlling the impulse to go over to meet her.

  “Thanks for coming in so quickly, Isabella,” Joe was saying. “I wish there was something else we could do, but in situations like this, my hands are tied. The school district’s rules are absolute.”

  Isabella nodded. “We understand.” Her gaze collided with Erik’s for a moment before it skittered away. She closed her hand over Murphy’s shoulder. “Don’t we, Murphy?”

  The boy hitched his shoulder. “I guess.”

  “There’s no guessing about it,” the principal said, though he didn’t sound particularly heated. “Bringing weapons to class is forbidden.”

  Murphy sighed noisily. “Wasn’t usin’ it as a weapon,” he muttered.

  “I know,” Joe said. “Mr. Rasmussen said as much when I spoke to him about it. And that’s why you’re only getting a three-day suspension. Otherwise it would be worse.” He was holding a manila envelope and he stuck out his free hand to shake Isabella’s hand. “We’ll be looking forward to having Murphy back with us on Tuesday.”

  She nodded, offered her thanks again, then hustled Murphy forward.

  “Murphy.” Viola held up the backpack that had been sitting behind her desk. “Don’t forget this.” She smiled thinly. “I’ve placed a sheet inside from Mr. Rasmussen with your assignments.”

  The boy automatically hefted one of the straps over his shoulder, but his expression was horrified. “I’ve still gotta do homework?”

  That thin smile grew even more chilly. “Unless you want failing grades, too.”

  “Thank you for retrieving the assignments, Mrs. Timms,” Joe cut in, giving her a censorious look.

  She sniffed and turned back to her typing.

  “Keep up on the homework now and you won’t have to do extra when you get back next week,” Joe told Murphy reasonably. “Then there’s less than two months of school before you’ll be on summer break.”

  Murphy made a face. “What about my knife?”

  Joe handed over the manila envelope to Isabella. “That is up to your guardian,” he said easily. “Just don’t bring it back to school.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  “Murphy,” Isabella chided tightly.

  He exhaled noisily. “I won’t bring it again,” he muttered.

  “Good man.” Joe clapped him on the shoulder, gave Erik a nod and headed back toward his office.

  With the principal gone, Murphy jerked his head toward Erik. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Erik gave me a ride over from Ruby’s,” Isabella said, nudging him toward the doorway. She gave Erik a quick look from beneath her lashes as she and the boy preceded him from the office. “He was there having lunch when the principal’s office called.” As they walked along the halls, one of the school bells rang. Doors flew open and elementary kids of every size and shape raced out into the halls, all heading in their direction.

  If Erik recalled correctly, their common goal would be the cafeteria for their lunch. He scooted Isabella to the other side of him where there was less chance of someone colliding with her.

  Murphy, obviously seeing the movement, gave them a sour look. “Lunch,” he muttered. “Right.”

  “Don’t even talk right now,” Isabella warned, “unless it’s to offer an explanation of what you were thinking bringing this to school.” She waved the manila envelope, then shoved it into the voluminous depths of her patchwork-colored purse.

  Murphy’s gaze followed the envelope. “Can I have it back?”

  “You weren’t supposed to have it at all,” she told him.

  Erik wanted to know what sort of knife it was and what the hell he was trying to accomplish by bringing it to school. But he held his tongue. Soon they reached one of the doorways that led them outside and to his truck.

  He opened the rear passenger door and waited until Murphy had climbed into the backseat, where he slumped down. He’d retrieved a ball cap from inside his backpack and it was pulled low over his eyes.

  Erik shut the door but stopped Isabella when she reached for the passenger door. “Just a second. You’re really going back to work?”

  She nodded. “I have to close up. Tabby leaves before I do. She’s taking some online college classes in the afternoons and evenings. And cleaning up out front isn’t one of Bubba’s responsibilities.”

  He wondered what she’d say if he told her Tabby and Bubba would do exactly what Erik requested, and decided it was better to let Isabella feel some measure of control in her own life rather than know that it was actually Erik and his brother who owned Ruby’s now. They had ever since his mother—who’d inherited it herself from her great-grandmother Ruby—passed it on to them years ago. “Why don’t I take him out to the ranch with me?” he suggested softly.

  She frowned up at him and pushed her hands into the pockets of her uniform. “This isn’t your problem.”

  He let the sting of that roll off. “I know it’s not, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help. And it’s not entirely unselfish. I’ve got some fence I need to replace. An extra hand will be useful.” He wasn’t exaggerating. Things were getting really busy again out at the ranch, what with calves starting to drop.

  She rubbed her nose. He could tell she was considering it. “Don’t you want to know why he had the knife?”

  “I heard Joe. He wasn’t using it as a weapon.” Erik was betting the kid wasn’t actually violent, any more than Erik had been when he’d been a kid. “So I’m guessing he was probably showing off with it.”

  “Yes,” she said on a sigh. “He says he just wanted to show it to Zach and Connor. It was Jimmy’s Buck knife. They evidently didn’t believe that Murphy had one. He took it from my jewelry box,” she admitted. “But I didn’t notice it was missing. I should have, but I didn’t.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for every little thing he does. He just chose to play show-and-tell at school with a banned item. Not the smartest thing he’s done, but probably not the worst.” He’d gotten his first knife when he’d been younger than Murph.

  “No. Definitely not the worst,” she agreed.

  “So let me drop you off at Ruby
’s since you insist on going back, and take him with me out to my place. I’ll make sure he gets his homework done, plus I’ll have some cheap labor. You can pick him up later when you’re done.”

  She gave him a close look. “You really want his help? This isn’t because you feel sorry for me or something?”

  He didn’t feel sorry for her. But he also knew she probably didn’t want to hear anything more about what he did feel. Not now anyway. And he did think that it would do Murphy good to be outside in the sun and not cooped up inside. He’d spent enough time with the kid to notice he was happier when he was outside and busy. In that regard, he and Erik were the same. “I can do the job on my own, but it goes easier with a few extra hands.” He shrugged. “And it’ll lop off more time from his window-sentence. Come and get him when you want. If you’ve got things you need to do after you get off from Ruby’s, have at it.” If he could finagle it, he’d get her to sit back and relax for an hour or two on his porch.

  “Murphy sees his counselor on Wednesday evenings and I have yoga classes at Lucy’s studio.” She looked at her watch.

  He easily revised his plans to suit her schedule. “Why don’t I drop him off at his appointment, then you can do your yoga thing and pick him up when you’re done? It’ll give him even more time to work on his schoolwork, and it’ll save you having to drive out to the ranch at all.” He vowed then and there to do something about getting the road graded to make it an easier trip for her when she did make it.

  A line had formed between her eyebrows. “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

  He spread his hands. “If you want to take advantage of me, I’m your man.”

  Her frown disappeared. She flushed. “Very funny.”

  He grinned. “Can’t blame a guy for being a guy.” He glanced through the window at Murphy. The kid was watching them closely.

  He had no illusions about Murphy. Even though the barbecue and baseball game out at the Double-C had gone over well, Erik still knew that the boy considered him, at worst, the enemy, and at best, the competition.

  “What about the rest of his suspension?” Murphy wouldn’t be in school for the rest of the week, or on Monday. “Have you thought yet about what you’ll do with him beyond this afternoon?”

  “I think I’ll have to take off work.” She lifted her shoulders. “I don’t see any way around it. Having him hang out at Ruby’s while I close up for a few hours is one thing. But all day?” She shook her head. “He’ll be climbing the walls and who could blame him? But leaving him home alone is not an option.”

  He didn’t ask her if she’d thought about what she’d do with the boy once the school year was finished and there would be every day to consider and not just a three-day suspension. Maybe she had a plan. Or maybe she was just afraid that by then the caseworker and courts would have ended her guardianship altogether.

  “I can take him out to the ranch again on Friday and Monday,” he offered, “but tomorrow I’ve got some business in Gillette.” He had a load of supplies to pick up and would be gone most of the day. Since he was going, he might as well bite the bullet and fit in a visit to Jessica’s studio along the way. If she refused to deal with him, he’d hunt up another glass artist to replace the stained-glass window and that would be that.

  “I don’t expect you to take him at all,” Isabella reminded him. “This is my responsibility.”

  “Sounding a little like a broken record there, Izzy.”

  She gave him a stern look. “Nobody calls me Izzy.”

  He smiled and decided then and there that the nickname suited her far more than just Iz, which was what most of the folks seemed to call her. “Let’s just get today taken care of,” he suggested, “and we’ll work on what to do tomorrow along the way.”

  “One step at a time.”

  “Exactly. So...how about it?”

  She sighed deeply. “I’m never going to be able to repay you for everything you’re doing for us.”

  “Did I ask for repayment for anything other than that window?”

  “You’re a nice guy, Erik Clay,” she finally said. “Why aren’t you settled down with a half-dozen kids of your own to keep you busy?”

  “Never met anyone I was interested in settling down with,” he said easily. Until he’d met her. But he wasn’t fool enough to admit that out loud.

  If he did, she’d probably snatch up Murph and head right back to the skyscrapers of New York.

  “Well, that’s something I can understand.” She put her hand on the truck door handle. “Until I met Jimmy I felt exactly the same way.” Then she pulled open the door. “Murphy, you’re going to go out to the ranch with Erik and work there with him this afternoon,” she announced.

  Then she climbed in and shut the door before Erik had a chance to.

  Jimmy. Always Jimmy.

  Erik pushed down a sigh, reminded himself that he was supposed to be a patient man and rounded the truck to get in and drive her back to the diner.

  * * *

  Without Murphy waiting impatiently for Isabella to finish closing up after the last customer left, she was able to finish her tasks in record time. It was still the middle of the afternoon when she sat down at the dining-room table to review, yet again, the never-ending pile of bills. The busier she kept, the easier it was to keep her growing number of unwanted thoughts at bay.

  Erik.

  Murphy’s mother.

  The impending visit from their caseworker.

  She’d organized and reorganized the bills so often she had them all memorized. And she finally pushed them all away. She couldn’t pay a dime on any of them until payday, and that wasn’t until Friday.

  The house was too silent without Murphy around. And she couldn’t help but worry that it could well be silent like that permanently if Murphy was taken away from her.

  She cooked some pasta but eating held no appeal and she ended up refrigerating all the leftovers. She still had a few hours before class, so she dragged the old-fashioned reel lawn mower out of the garage and ran it over the grass. The thing was ancient, but the blades were sharp, and it didn’t take long before the grass was short and tidy once again.

  She put the mower away and went back inside to find her cell phone ringing. She quickly snatched it out of her purse, all her nerves ratcheting right back up. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Isabella.”

  “Tabby.” She sat down on one of the dining-room chairs and pressed a calming hand to her racing heart.

  Not Erik at all.

  She’d already arranged with Tabby to take off work the following day. She’d told Isabella that she’d prevail upon one of the women who occasionally worked there to fill in. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Tabby assured quickly. “I was just over at my folks’ place. The B was there after they left Ruby’s.”

  The bride and her ever-changing wedding gown, Isabella thought. “Did your mother tell her to take a flying leap?”

  Tabby chuckled. “Oh, I’m sure she wanted to if not for her being old friends with the B’s grandmother, who also happens to be married to the mayor. Anyway, I was mentioning to Mom about you being a seamstress and designing the costumes for your old dance company, and she wanted me to see if you’re interested in helping her. Either with the design or just doing piecework. Whatever you’re willing to do. She thinks that if she has some help on it, maybe the gown’ll actually be done on time.”

  Isabella’s fancy sewing machines and the supplies she hadn’t been able to bear parting with were still in boxes stored inside the hall closet. She hadn’t sewn so much as a stitch since she’d left the dance company, and the idea of getting her fingers back into fabrics and trim was nearly irresistible. She’d never done an actual wedding gown, but she’d certainly designed enough dance costumes. “I’d be glad to help your mom.”

  “She’ll pay you, of course,” Tabby said.

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “Please.” Tabby’s voice
turned dry. “Believe me. The B will have to pay for the pleasure out of her own pocket. That was part of the rather heated discussions they all had in my mother’s living room this afternoon.”

  Isabella could easily imagine. “In that case,” she said, “does your mom want me to call her or what?”

  “Yeah. As soon as you can. I know she’s anxious to get started.” Tabby reeled off a phone number and Isabella scratched it down on the back of her phone bill.

  “I’ll call her right now,” Isabella said. “Thanks, Tabby.”

  “No. Thank you.” They ended the call and Isabella dialed the number she’d written down.

  Thirty minutes later, she’d followed the directions that Jolie Taggart had given her to her home on the outskirts of town and was studying the sketches spread across the woman’s charmingly rustic dining-room table.

  The older woman was shaking her head, her hands propped on her hips. “Ordinarily, I like this sort of work,” she admitted. “But Bethany has been a challenge. These are all the designs that actually made it beyond a sketch. I have bodices, half-finished skirts and fabrics that she’s selected coming out my ears, only to have her turn around and decide she doesn’t want any of them after all. Now she says she can’t live unless she has one dress that combines elements from each one—‘a perfect symphony of spring.’” Jolie rolled her eyes. “Her words. Yet as you can plainly see, the styles are entirely different.”

  That was an understatement. From heavily elegant to a veritable brothel of shimmering fluff, the gowns were wildly different.

  “I’m at my wit’s end,” Jolie admitted. “She wants to come back on Saturday afternoon to approve the final design and I’m completely out of ideas. I can put it all together exactly as she’s described and she’ll look like a clown. But it would be nice if I could manage the task without it coming to that.”

  “She doesn’t deserve the effort,” Jolie’s husband, Drew, said as he passed through the room, a coffee mug in hand. He was a tall, dark-haired man with smile lines creasing his face.

  It wasn’t Jolie’s husband who had Isabella’s mouth going dry, though. It was the sight of the two men with him—Erik and his father, Tristan.