He's Got His Daddy's Eyes Page 10

  Josh chuckled, a rich, deep sound of amusement. “The kids and I have a contract, Murphy. I give them riding lessons on Tornado, and they don’t ride Baby or the broodmares—and they don’t swear.”

  “What in tarnation does that have to do with a washer in a jar and shoveling horse dung?” Perplexed, Murphy looked from J.J.’s solemn face to Caitlin’s wide grin.

  “If we swear, we have to put a washer in the jar in the barn, and then Josh gets to take the washer out and make us shovel horse poop to get it back,” J.J. said seriously. “But you can’t shovel stuff with your leg in that thing, so Josh will probably make you do something worse.” Clearly concerned that Murphy was in big trouble, J.J.’s worried gaze went to Josh.

  Josh fought to keep a straight face. “Maybe we should let Murphy off the hook this time, J.J. He didn’t know the rules.”

  J.J. gave a judicious, relieved nod and turned back to Murphy. “It’s okay, Mister Murphy.” He leaned closer. “But don’t forget, ’cause Josh really will make you shovel out the horse stalls.”

  “Okay.” Murphy’s face was grave, but his black eyes danced with amusement when they met Josh’s. “And you don’t have to call me mister—just plain old Murphy will do. Speaking of shoveling out horse stalls, I’m reminded of the time I caught and broke wild mustangs. It was back in…”

  Josh smiled, listening as Murphy started to spin one of his many stories. Fascinated, J.J. climbed up to perch on the edge of Murphy’s bed and Caitlin settled on the arm of a nearby chair, both children finding seats without ever taking their eyes from Murphy.

  Down the hall, Patricia had fallen asleep, her eyelids drifting closed to hide the frustration in her eyes. Sarah glanced at her watch, frowned, then rose quietly from her seat beside her mother’s bed. More than a half hour had gone by, and J.J. and Caitlin hadn’t returned.

  She tiptoed across the room and stepped into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. A burst of muted laughter reached her and she recognized J.J.’s delighted chuckle.

  What in the world? She moved quickly down the hall and stopped abruptly at the second open door.

  Murphy Redman was propped up in the bed, one leg heavily casted and elevated with a pulley mechanism. Perched on the edge of his bed was J.J., while Caitlin sat on the arm of a nearby chair. Both children were listening with wide-eyed fascination, enthralled by Murphy’s animated storytelling.

  Across the room, half leaning, half sitting on the wide window ledge, was Josh. A lazy smile curved his lips as he watched Murphy wave his hands to underline his words.

  Sarah stepped quietly into the room. Josh’s gaze instantly flicked from Murphy toward the hall door and found her, his eyes widened in a brief, betraying movement and he stiffened before his expression went carefully blank.

  Murphy glanced at Josh; the tense set of his body and austere lines of his face were clear indicators that something was wrong. Frowning, Murphy followed Josh’s intent stare and discovered Sarah Drummond standing just inside the door.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt” Sarah managed to ignore Josh’s unwelcoming stare and walked toward the bed. “Are my children bothering you?”

  “Your children?” Murphy shifted his puzzled gaze from Sarah’s face to Caitlin and then to J.J. He glanced quickly from J.J.’s small face to Josh’s set expression. “These are your children?”

  “She’s my Mommy,” J.J. explained. “And she’s Caitlin’s aunt, but Caitlin’s staying with us now and I want to keep her ’cause I don’t have a sister and I need her to keep me company when we go back to Great Falls.”

  “I see,” Murphy said thoughtfully. Once again his gaze lingered on J.J.’s features before moving assessingly to Josh’s set face. He looked back at J.J. and smiled gently. “And what about your daddy? Did you leave him in Great Falls?”

  “Nope,” J.J. said with blithe unconcern. “We don’t have a daddy.”

  Sarah tensed at Murphy’s seemingly innocent question. She could feel Josh’s scorching stare across the width of the room that separated them and she winced at J.J.’s reply, chancing a quick glance at Josh. His whole body had tensed and his expression was grim, his mouth thinned into a straight line, the black line of his brows lowered over eyes bleak with silent accusation as they met hers.

  She looked back at J.J. and Murphy. The old horseman crooked one white eyebrow at her, his black eyes clearly inviting comment, but she refused to step near his conversational land mine.

  She chose to ignore Murphy’s question and J.J.’s cheerful response altogether.

  “Both J.J. and I would love to take Caitlin back to Great Falls with us.” She smiled at Caitlin. “But I’m not sure she wants to put up with my fashion advice and J.J.’s constant requests for stories.”

  “I love stories,” J.J. chimed in. “And when Caitlin reads to me, she makes frog ribbits and bear growls.”

  Caitlin’s face turned pink at the compliments and she shrugged with half-embarrassed pleasure. “Anybody can do that.”

  “Maybe,” Murphy commented. “But not everyone thinks to do it. Might be you’re a natural-born storyteller. Like me.”

  He winked at Caitlin and JJ., and they giggled.

  “Will you finish the story you were telling us before Aunt Sarah came in?” Caitlin asked, her whole body leaning eagerly forward.

  “Another time, perhaps,” Sarah interjected. “We have errands to run before we go home, and it’s getting late.”

  Despite protests by JJ. and Caitlin, Sarah smoothly bid them say goodbye and herded them toward the door.

  “It was nice to meet you all,” Murphy called after them. “You stop in again the next time you’re here to visit your grandma and I’ll finish the story.”

  “Okay.” JJ.’s downcast face brightened and he flashed the two men a grin over his shoulder.

  “Thank you. We will. It was nice to meet you, too, Murphy,” Caitlin called, her dragging steps quickening.

  “Goodbye, Murphy. Josh,” Sarah managed to say without flinching when she met Josh’s hard gaze. But she breathed a sigh of relief when they turned down the hall and she could no longer feel that piercing stare between her shoulder blades.

  Visiting Murphy became a thrice-weekly highlight for J.J. and Caitlin after they dutifully paid a visit to their grandmother. Although they didn’t see Josh again, as he rarely had time to visit until evening, they met Murphy’s friend Jennifer Hightower and her three-year-old son, Wayne. Jennifer was married to Josh’s brother, Lucas, and both she and Wayne clearly adored Murphy. The two little boys became fast friends, and Caitlin and Sarah were both warmly welcomed by Jennifer.

  Several days had gone by and Sarah saw Josh only at a distance. The children raced off to the barn each afternoon when she brought them home from Molly’s, and didn’t return until she rang the dinner bell. J.J. chattered nonstop about Josh, Zach and the horses. Caitlin was less talkative, but she’d lost the dark circles under her eyes and her skin glowed healthy and alive. A certain air of peace had replaced the turmoil in her eyes and the edge of aggressive defensiveness that was so much a part of her personality had gradually eased since her arrival in Montana.

  The children were clearly thriving; Sarah was not. She spent her days dealing with Patricia, who was slowly regaining her strength and growing more difficult and impatient. She was spending her nights tossing and turning, wrestling with whether or not to allow JJ. to have his blood tested. Her conscience told her she owed Josh that much, but she dreaded the possibility of a negative result. She could see only two alternatives: to allow the testing, or to tell Josh the entire truth. Neither was a good choice, but if Sarah told the truth, she feared that Josh would react as her mother had, and look at her with accusation and disgust. He also might demand testing and remove the decision from her control.

  She was cleaning house and no closer to a decision early one afternoon when Molly and Wes pulled up in front of her gate.

  “Hey, lady!” Wes swung his bulk out of the pickup.
“What are you doing working inside on a day like this?”

  Sarah took the hall throw rugs she’d been shaking out and tossed them over the porch railing, then walked to the top of the steps. “Isn’t it a beautiful day?” She shaded her eyes with one hand and laughed down at him as he held the gate open for Molly and winked at her before they started up the walk toward her. “The rain shower we had this morning settled the dust.”

  “Thank goodness,” Molly said with feeling. “But it’s still too hot. We haven’t had enough rain this month, and the wheat crop needs more than a little shower.”

  A shout of laughter drifted from the barn, and both Molly and Wes turned to investigate. J.J. was clearly visible sitting on the top rail of the corral, while inside, Caitlin rode in circles on a brown horse.

  “What’s going on?” Wes asked. “Are the kids having their riding lesson?”

  “Yes,” Sarah answered, watching J.J. throw back his head and laugh.

  “Those kids are sure crazy about horses. It’s hard to get them to talk about anything else,” Wes commented.

  Another shriek of laughter reached them, and Molly started back toward the gate.

  “Come on, you two, I want to see what they’re doing.” She shoved open the gate and held it, waiting expectantly.

  “You have to go with us, Sarah,” Wes said as he ambled down the walkway toward his wife. “I’ve been wanting to see that boy of yours on a horse.”

  Sarah had planned to keep as much distance as possible between herself and Josh, but it wasn’t likely that he would press her for an answer about J.J. in front of Wes and Molly. She grabbed her sunglasses, left the porch and joined her aunt and uncle.

  “Relax in the saddle seat, but keep your back straight. Don’t slouch.” Josh stood just inside the corral, hands propped on his hips while he watched Caitlin canter Tornado in a circle.

  “Afternoon, Josh.” Wes leaned his forearms on a rail of the corral while Molly and Sarah elected to climb the rails and join J.J.

  Josh glanced behind him just in time to see Sarah swing her bare, tanned legs over the top rail of the corral and sit down beside J.J. The hot sun gleamed off her silver-blond hair, the dark lenses of sunglasses concealing her eyes. Molly Hildebrandt joined her, taking a seat on the far side of J.J.

  “Afternoon, Wes.” Josh left his post and strolled across the dusty corral.

  Wes nodded his head toward Caitlin. “The kids told us you were teaching them to ride. How are they doing?”

  “Not bad.” Josh leaned one shoulder against an upright post and glanced back at Caitlin. “To tell you the truth, I think she’s a natural. It’s a shame she lives in an apartment in the city and can’t have a horse of her own.”

  Wes glanced to his left where J.J. was chattering excitedly to his mother.

  “I think Sarah’s trying to change that,” he commented, his voice dropping to reach only Josh’s ears. “She wants to keep Caitlin here, and Molly and I agree with her. Living in Los Angeles with Margaret and her string of boyfriends is the last place that little girl should be.”

  Josh nodded noncommittally. A short few days before, he’d had no tolerance for Caitlin’s sometimes gutter language, zero patience with her belligerence, couldn’t stand the silver studs in her quadruple-pierced ears, and wasn’t sure he liked the fact that J.J. idolized her. More often than not, he’d thought she was an impossible brat. But working with her and watching her loving patience with J.J. had altered and softened his opinion. Besides, he strongly believed that no child deserved to be punched in the face by her mother’s current boyfriend, nor that any child should grow up with the lack of nurturing and supervision that Caitlin had clearly experienced.

  “I have to agree that no kid deserves a mother like Margaret,” he said reluctantly. “And I’ve got to admire Caitlin’s guts. I don’t know many adults who would hitchhike from California to Montana, let alone a twelveyear-old girl.”

  “Damn near gave me a heart attack when I heard she’d done that,” Wes said with feeling. “We’re lucky nothing bad happened to her.”

  “Sounds to me like the worst happened before she left home in L.A.,” Josh said dryly.

  “Josh!”

  Caitlin’s call drew Josh’s attention and he pushed away from the post. “Yeah?”

  “Can J.J. get up behind me so we can show Uncle Wes and Aunt Molly how we ride double?”

  “All right.” Josh turned just in time to catch J.J. as he jumped straight off the top rail and into his arms. Josh’s breath left his chest in an audible whoosh, and he staggered backward three steps before he regained his balance. “Hey, killer.” He shifted J.J. back and looked down at him. “Next time wait until I’m set.”

  Sarah gasped when J.J. plummeted headlong away from the railing. But Josh’s quick reflexes proved J.J.’s faith wasn’t misplaced; he wrapped his short legs as far as they would go around Josh’s lean waist and clutched fistfuls of Josh’s cotton shirt.

  The sunny smile J.J. gave Josh was returned, the stern lines of Josh’s face relaxing into a warm grin. The trust implicit in J.J.’s smile and the easy loving acceptance in Josh’s caught at Sarah’s heart; unaware she did so, she pressed her palm to the sharp ache just above her left breast.

  Molly glanced at her, saw the gesture and the anguish in Sarah’s expression, and looked back at Josh. But he and J.J. were walking away, crossing the corral to Tornado and Caitlin.

  “Here you go, sport” Josh lifted J.J. onto the saddle behind Caitlin and waited until the boy clutched her around the waist in a hug that threatened to squeeze her in two. “Ease up a little, J.J. Let your cousin breathe. Good. Okay, Caitlin, he’s all yours.”

  She flashed him a look of appreciation mingled with pride and wary reserve before she lifted the reins and kneed Tornado into a slow walk.

  Josh knew exactly how she felt. The two of them had reached a truce of sorts; she was an apt, attentive pupil who clearly loved riding and took his instructions seriously. However, she was obviously still suspicious of his intentions toward Sarah, and he was just as suspicious of her newfound determination to stop swearing and of her obvious influence over J.J.

  He strolled back across the dusty corral to join Wes. The women clapped and cheered encouragingly as Caitlin guided Tornado around the perimeter of the corral in a sedate walk, J.J. crowing proudly from his seat behind her.

  The men discussed the weather and wheat prices for nearly fifteen minutes before Wes took off his Stetson and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  “Whew, it’s gettin’ too hot to stand in the sun.” He reached up and covered Molly’s bare knee with, one big hand. “What do you say we go up to the house, sit in the shade on the porch and have something cold to drink?”

  Molly fanned her flushed face with one hand and agreed. “Is that okay with you, Sarah?”

  “Absolutely,” Sarah said promptly. “I made a pitcher of iced tea this morning.”

  “Great!” Wes settled his Stetson back over his brow and clapped Josh on the shoulder. “Sounds good, doesn’t it, Josh?”

  Josh stiffened and glanced at Sarah; her eyes and her expression were hidden behind the protection of dark lenses, but her slim body was subtly more tense. “Anything cold sounds good, Wes, but I think I’ll pass. I’ll unsaddle Tornado and turn him out so the kids can go up to the house with you.” He caught up with Tornado, then reached up and swung J.J. down from behind the saddle before he took the reins from Caitlin. She grabbed the horn and stepped down as easily as if she’d been dismounting for years. Both children crawled between the bottom two corral rails and joined Sarah and Molly.

  “I’ll help,” Wes said promptly. “Molly, Josh and I will be up to the house shortly. Save me some ice!” he shouted after her in an afterthought when the two women and children were several yards away.

  “You better hurry,” his wife threatened with a laugh. “Tea with ice is sounding better and better by the minute.”

  “Ten minutes,” Wes called bef
ore he turned back to Josh. “Now, son, let’s get this horse put away.”

  Josh gave in. He’d known Wes Hildebrandt for more than thirty years and knew when the old rancher was immovable. This was clearly one of those times.

  It was closer to twenty minutes before the men joined the women on the porch.

  “I thought you said you’d be here in ten minutes?” Molly teased, greeting Wes with a tall glass of ice-cold tea.

  Wes paused to half drain the glass before answering. “Whew, that tastes good!” He took off his Stetson and dropped into a rocker, settling his hat on the bare porch boards beside his chair. “It must be ninety degrees out there.”

  Sarah rose and crossed the porch to read the numbers painted on the outdoor thermometer nailed up beside the window. “Not quite—but close, Uncle Wes. It’s eighty-eight.”

  “That’s in the shade, Sarah,” he corrected. “So it’s probably higher than ninety in that corral.” He waved his glass at J.J. and Caitlin, who were seated on two chairs pushed up to a small wicker patio table on his left “I hope you two appreciate the time Josh is taking to give you riding lessons. He could be inside with the air-conditioning turned on, you know.”

  J.J. giggled. “We don’t have air-conditionin’, Uncle Wes.”

  Ice tinkled against ice in the pitcher as Sarah poured another tall glass of tea and carried it to Josh. He’d taken a seat on the porch railing on the perimeter of the circle, his long legs stretched out in front of him, booted feet crossed at the ankles.

  “Thanks,” he said, still unable to read her expression behind her sunglasses.

  “You’re welcome,” she answered politely before returning to her chair at the table next to Wes’s rocker.

  “I wish we had a horse like Tornado, Mommy.” J.J. swung his legs energetically under the table, a fat ginger cookie clutched in one hand. “Or wild mustangs like Murphy used to catch and break.”

  “I wish we could catch wild horses.” Caitlin’s voice held wistful longing. “But there aren’t any left.”

  “Maybe not real ones,” Wes said, “but I’ve got the closest thing to wild horses as you’re likely to get.”