A Cowboy in Shepherd's Crossing

by Ruth Logan Herne

  “Not as long as they stay downstairs.”

  They’d thrown him a lifeline. A lifeline he’d gladly take hold of. “I’d be grateful,” Jace told them. “Just until I can get things right at the house. And—” he turned toward Melonie and had to eat his words from that morning “—the advice you offered this morning?”

  “About your house?”

  The sudden addition of two toddlers negated his reluctance to change things up. “I’m ready to take it.”

  He went through the door and didn’t look back. The women would sort things out with Gilda, and they’d be more diplomatic than he could be right now.

  He crossed to the hay stacker, climbed in and turned it on. He spotted Wick and young Harve making bales in the far field. He aimed the stacker that way while his mind churned on what he’d just heard.

  He hated that it made sense. He hated that the two wonderful, faith-filled people he loved weren’t really his parents and had never trusted him enough to tell him. Why would they keep this a secret? It wasn’t like there was shame in adoption.

  He’d been hoping for local jobs to crop up again. He’d said that often enough, and here was a mammoth one being laid at his feet, a job that hinged on something he’d never much thought of until just now. The color of his skin and the accidents of birth.

  His grandmother hadn’t wanted him thirty years ago. She’d made sure he was tucked in with a lovely black family because it fit.

  And now it didn’t.

  His phone buzzed. He pulled it out. Glanced down. I scheduled a meeting with Gilda Hardaway for 3:00 p.m. tomorrow. Okay?

  It was from Melonie Fitzgerald, telling him what to do and how to do it. Could this possibly get any worse?

  He sighed, texted back Yes and shoved the phone away because he was pretty sure it could get worse.

  And there wasn’t a thing he could do about it.

  Chapter Three

  Two borrowed portable cribs.

  A mountain-sized stack of disposable diapers.

  Creams, lotions, shampoos and bottles. Lots of bottles. Two babies had just moved into the ranch house.

  Melonie Fitzgerald had never changed a diaper in her life. Nor had she cared to.

  By hour three she’d changed two under Corrie’s watchful eye. “Done.” She set the wriggling girl onto the floor and stood up to wash her hands.

  The baby burst into tears. Big, loud tears.

  Then the second one noted her sister’s agony and followed suit. The babies looked around the room at all the strange faces and kept right on crying.

  “Here, sweetie.” Lizzie picked up one. Corrie lifted the other. And still they cried.

  “Mel, Rosie brought bottles ready to warm. Can you do that for us?”

  “Sure.” She slipped into the kitchen, took out the bottles and stared at them. Then she picked up her smartphone and asked it how to warm a baby’s bottle while the twins howled in the front room.

  No answer and they had two screaming babies and a perfectly good microwave. She searched for directions.

  Oops. Microwave warming was not recommended...but desperate times called for desperate measures. She followed the non-recommended directions, made sure the formula wasn’t too hot, shook it and tested it again, then recapped the bottles.

  “Mel?” Lizzie’s voice sounded desperate.

  “Coming.” She brought the bottles into the great room and handed one to Lizzie and the other to Corrie, but Corrie surprised her. “You take charge of this one.”

  “Me?”

  Corrie nodded as she tucked the baby into Melonie’s arms. “I promised Zeke I’d take him to play with the puppies. We don’t want him to feel left out.”

  “Corrie, thank you.” Lizzie looked up from the straight-backed chair and Melonie was glad she didn’t look any more skilled than Melonie felt at that moment. “We’ll get the hang of this. Won’t we, Mel?”

  Don’t say what you’re thinking. Just smile and nod.

  She did and Lizzie grinned, because Lizzie always knew what Mel was thinking. She sat down primly and posed the nipple near the baby’s mouth.

  The baby... Ava, maybe? Or Annie? She wasn’t sure so she peeked at the baby’s arm.

  Ava. She knew because she’d surreptitiously put a tiny dot on her right forearm.

  The baby grabbed hold of that bottle, yanked it into her mouth and proceeded to drink as if starvation was on the horizon. From the looks of the wee one’s chunky thighs, Melonie was pretty sure her desperation was vastly overdone.

  “Are they supposed to be this big?” she whispered to Lizzie. “They’re like monster-sized.”

  Lizzie burst out laughing. “I was thinking the same thing. But Rosie said they’re ten months old, so that’s almost a year. And Rosie has been taking wonderful care of them. And she said she’s happy to continue being their nanny while we all work.”

  Work.

  Melonie drew up a mental image of the picture Gilda Hardaway had flashed her way. The two-and-a-half-story home was a skeleton of its former self, but with help...

  “This is them?”

  Jace’s voice drew her gaze. He was framed in the screen door, looking every bit as good as he had that morning, which meant she needed to work harder to ignore it. He opened the door and walked in. Once inside, he glanced from one baby to the next and she wasn’t sure if he was going to run screaming or cry.

  He did neither.

  He set that big, black cowboy hat on a small table, crouched down in front of her and Baby Number One and smiled.

  Oh, that smile.

  Melonie’s heart did a skip-jump that would have done an Irish dancer proud. She quashed it instantly. She was here to do her part, whatever that might be, and then leave. Her dream wasn’t here in the craggy hills of western Idaho. It resided south, in the warm, rolling streets of Kentucky and Tennessee, where she yearned to show folks how to create a pocketbook-friendly version of Southern charm.

  He started to reach out for the baby, but then his phone rang. He glanced at the display and made a face. “Justine.” He turned to face Lizzie. “How do I explain all this to my kid sister?”

  “The same way it got explained to us,” she said softly. “But first.” She stood and crossed the room, then handed him the baby. “Let Justine go to voice mail for a few minutes. Meet your niece. This is Ava.”

  Melonie frowned. “That’s Annie. This is Ava.”

  Lizzie frowned, too. “No, I’m sure that—”

  Melonie shifted the sleeve of the baby’s right arm. The tiny black dot showed up.

  “You marked her?” Lizzie lifted both eyebrows in surprise.

  “Well, we had to do something,” said Mel. “Even Rosie said she had trouble telling them apart except when they’re sleeping. Annie brings her right hand up to her face. Ava brings up the left.”

  “Well, let’s try this again.” Lizzie handed the baby to Jace. “This is Annie. Annie, this is your Uncle Jace and he’s a really good guy.”

  Jace looked down.

  The baby looked up. She squirmed into a more upright position in his arms, then squinted at him. Her right hand reached up and touched his cheek and his face. And then she patted his face with that sweet baby hand and gurgled up at him.

  “She’s talking to you.” Lizzie grinned. “Look at that, Mel. She’s talking to Jace!”

  Annie looked around, then back at him. She frowned slightly, then touched his cheek again and laughed.

  “She likes you.”

  He met Melonie’s gaze across the room. “I think she finds me an interesting specimen at the moment. They’re pretty little things, aren’t they?”

  “Beautiful. And this one—” she eased up, out of the chair “—is sound asleep. Should we put her in bed? Hold her? What do we do next?”

  Rosie came up the
front steps just then, carrying two bags. “Don’t let her sleep now, or she’ll keep you up tonight. Except that once Ava’s asleep, she does not want to waken, so good luck with that.” She smiled as she said the words, then set down the bags. “What do we do if Valencia comes back? How do we handle this?” she asked. She faced Jace. “The women filled me in on your story. What if your half sister returns? Do we simply allow her to take these babies, knowing she abandoned them once? Should we call the authorities?” Concern deepened her voice. “I can’t understand such behavior because the preciousness of life is very important to me. But what do I do if Valencia comes to my door when I’m watching the girls?”

  Jace looked down at Annie. She dimpled up at him, then yawned.

  He shifted his attention to Mel and Ava. Then he sighed. “I don’t know. We’ll have to figure that out. I’m prone to putting things in the Good Lord’s hands, but we need to put their safety first. And that might cause a ruckus if she comes back. Rosie, I have no idea what to tell you.”

  “Do you think she’ll come back, Rosie?” Melonie asked. The thought of someone abandoning this sleeping baby gutted her, because parents weren’t supposed to abandon their children. Ever.

  Uncertainty clouded Rosie’s eyes. “I do not know. She is not a maternal person, and yet I feel she loves these babies. In her own way.”

  “Maybe loves them enough to give them up.” Mel kept her voice soft as Ava squirmed in her arms.

  Jace turned her way. “Giving up children shows them love?” Disbelief marked his voice and his expression. “I don’t buy that. Caring for kids. Feeding them, clothing them, teaching them. That’s what love’s all about. Anyone can toss something away. It takes a real parent to go the distance.”

  He knew nothing, Melonie decided. Because she’d been on the other side of that equation and he was wrong. So wrong.

  She stood and handed Ava to Rosie. “I’ve got to get my stuff settled in the stable.”

  She walked out, refusing to go toe-to-toe with him. The only reason she held back was because he’d been handed a rough reality a few hours before.

  By Jace’s definition, her father had gone the distance.

  Wrong.

  He’d provided funds to raise her and her two sisters, he’d paid Corrie to mother them and he’d encouraged them to make the grade in good schools. The recent corporate bankruptcy had left her and Lizzie jobless at a time when print media was shrinking. Her father’s personal finances had left her and Charlotte with massive college loans to repay. Jobless with massive debt wasn’t how she’d expected to face the year, but her late uncle’s legacy would help.

  As she crossed the sunlit lawn dividing the two arms of the horse stables, she was glad she’d kept silent inside. If tomorrow’s meeting went all right, she’d be working with Jace daily. She’d avoid arguments if she could, but she knew one thing for certain: it took a whole lot more than providing food and shelter to be a parent.

  * * *

  No way was he going to take on Gilda Hardaway’s job, Jace decided as he steered his truck toward the Payette forest the next afternoon.

  He couldn’t bring himself to use the term grandmother. She’d gotten the title by circumstance only. It might be a biological truth, but it meant nothing to him. And saving her broken-down house meant even less. He was sticking with his plan, one hundred percent. Sell the house. Move to Sun Valley. Take the girls along with him. End of story.

  “How’d your night go?” Melonie had been busying herself doing something in her electronic notebook. She looked up as they made a turn. “With the twins?”

  “All right.”

  She whistled softly. “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Well. They’re babies. And I know nothing about babies, so let’s say it went all right, considering the circumstances.”

  The twins hadn’t loved their new sleeping arrangements. They’d let that be known in full voice several times during the night. Corrie had jumped in to help him, which was a good thing because Jace would have crashed and burned by hour four. This way they both got some sleep. Just not much. The twins woke up babbling and smiling as if they’d gotten a full night’s slumber. But then, they got to take naps. Naps didn’t happen for grown-ups.

  “Were you guys able to get the hay all in?”

  “Harve Junior and Wick stayed out late to beat the rain. It’s done.”

  The rain had held off until just after midnight, but it was coming down now. Not a massive storm. A steady gray drizzle, the kind of rain that benefited crops but thwarted farmers needing to access fields.

  But the hay was safe. The girls were with Rosie and Corrie. Now, if he could get through this afternoon’s interview...

  “And you spoke with your sister?”

  Justine. He’d told her as gently as he could, but when she burst into tears, he half wanted to cry with her. He didn’t, because big brothers hang strong. Always. “She was shocked. Understandably.”

  “I expect she was. Whoa.” Melonie stretched up in her seat as they took the weed-edged asphalt drive leading up to Hardaway Ranch. Tucked behind trees leading to the national forest, he’d never had a clear look at this house. He’d heard of it, of course. Small towns loved to talk about their eccentrics, and Gilda fit the bill.

  But as they emerged from the final curve and the once-grandiose home rose up before them, he took a deep breath.

  “Did you just get a horror-film vibe?” Melonie whispered. “Because I sure did.”

  He couldn’t fault her comment because the large, moldy two-and-a-half-story structure would have done Stephen King proud. Surrounded by a yard in desperate need of a brush hog, the place sat like a haunted house on a hill, shrouded by three decades of shrub and tree growth. It was an absolute mess from top to bottom. So bad that he was almost tempted to take the job for the challenge it offered, but not stupid enough to do it. “Here we are.” He pulled up to vine-choked steps and stopped the truck. He studied the building, then Melonie. “We don’t have to get out. We can head right back to the road and go home.”

  Genuine surprise made her look quizzical. “Not go in? Are you crazy? I just had to turn down a cable TV contract to come here, and that was tough. That makes this an amazing opportunity. I absolutely cannot wait to get inside. Come on.” She opened her door. “Let’s go.”

  She wanted the job.

  The anticipation in her voice was reflected in her eyes as she climbed out of the truck. That meant he had to climb out of the truck, too.

  He did. Then he studied the house, the choked yard and the sprawling acres beyond it.

  Somewhere within him he could almost imagine the beauty it had been thirty years ago. Before he was born, he realized.

  He fought a sigh. He was all for getting back into the truck when Gilda’s voice called down to them. “I’m here. And I’m waiting. And there’s a few things folks my age don’t do well. Waiting’s one of them. Come on, come on, I’m not getting any younger.”

  The old saying drew his attention. It struck a nerve or a memory or something... He kept quiet and followed Melonie up the stairs.

  * * *

  Full sensory overload.

  Melonie cloaked her excitement as she walked into the big house. She paused inside the door to take in the ruination of what should have been a gracious old home. The classic, wide farmhouse stood as a shell of its former self. Moldings had been damaged by water leaks. Some were rotted straight through. Others had simply disintegrated. Plaster showed water damage in multiple rooms on the first floor, which meant the second floor wasn’t going to be too pretty because that water came from somewhere. The thought of reclaiming this wreck of a home and showing off her talents was a power boost for Melonie. Getting this job would keep her in Idaho, as required, but she’d be working away from the smell of the horses. Sheep she could deal with. She had no violent history with sheep.<
br />
  Horses were another story altogether.

  “You’re quiet. Both of you.” Gilda pressed her lips into a thin line. “I don’t like it when folks get quiet because that usually means they’re scared to say what they think.”

  Melonie had been jotting a note in her tablet. She raised her eyes without raising her head. “This doesn’t scare me, Gilda.”

  The old woman looked skeptical.

  Melonie jotted something else before she continued. “It invigorates me. It’s rare that a designer gets the chance to walk in and lay out a fresh canvas.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Jace shifted his attention to her, too. She’d seen his initial reaction as he walked into the house. Horror...and interest. And something else. Regret, maybe. As if the decay made him sad.

  She stopped making notes and faced them. “It means I’m mentally planning massive demolition and starting new. I think the bones of the house are great.”

  “Bones?”

  “The structure,” she explained. “The water leaks have done significant damage. The first order of business will be new roofs. Once that’s done we can begin the demo inside. No sense starting anything until we’ve got a solid roof in place.”

  Jace stayed quiet. He’d brought a few simple tools with him. He poked walls for plaster rot and found plenty. The ceilings on the first floor were ruined, except in the front parlor. He noted that into his phone, then laser-measured the house dimensions. As they moved from room to room, the magnitude of what the elderly woman was asking became obvious.

  “Mrs. Hardaway.” He slipped his phone into the leather pouch on his belt and rubbed a hand to his neck. “I’m going to be honest with you.”

  “I am not paying for opinions,” she told him in a craggy voice. She’d been following them with a bright pink cane. She tapped that cane sharply against the water-stained floor.

  “I beg to differ.” He kept his tone even. “That’s exactly what you asked, and I’m telling you that the cost of refurbishing this place is astronomical. Perhaps—”