He's Got His Daddy's Eyes Read online

  He spun and stalked to his truck, yanking open the door.

  “Josh!”

  Murphy’s yell stopped him, and he looked back over the hood of the pickup. The older man’s face was worried. “What?” he asked impatiently.

  “Where are you going?”

  ’To work. There’s a line of fence down in the south pasture that needs new wire and posts.” Josh didn’t wait for a response. He slid into the truck and slammed the door. The engine growled obediently to life when he twisted the key, and he rammed the four-speed transmission into gear, gravel spitting from beneath the wheels as he left the yard.

  Josh sat on his front porch», the wooden chair tipped onto its back legs. His hair was still wet from the shower, his long, jeans-clad legs stretched out in front of him, bare feet crossed at the ankles and propped on the top railing.

  He’d shrugged into a shirt after his shower, but he hadn’t bothered buttoning it, and the blue cotton fell open across his chest. An open bottle of Jack Daniel’s sat on the washboard muscles of his midriff, his fingers curled around the neck.

  He lifted the bottle and drank, grimacing briefly at the sharp bite of the amber liquid against his tongue before it slid smoothly down his throat. The whiskey hit his empty stomach and spread heat, warming him from the inside out.

  He should eat something, he reflected morosely. He hadn’t eaten anything all day and his stomach felt as if it was touching his backbone. But he didn’t move. The only thing in the refrigerator was ham and eggs, and he didn’t feel like cooking.

  It was after ten o’clock. Behind him, the house was unlit and silent. Before him, the night was equally dark and equally quiet, except for the occasional chatter of quarreling raccoons in the grove of trees that partially blocked his view of the main house. He tilted the bottle again and stared unseeingly across the darkened land to the looming bulk of shadowy buttes.

  Unrelenting hard work and the stoic, enduring land had sustained him and kept him sane when Sarah had left him five long years before. The long days spent beneath the burning summer sun and the demanding cold of winter, alone with his anger and grief amid the silent sweep of prairie and the towering buttes, had slowly healed his soul and brought him a kind of peace. Instinctively, he’d turned to hard labor this morning and had sought solitude in the pasture farthest from the ranch buildings in an attempt to deal with her return.

  It hadn’t worked. Alone with his thoughts, memories blindsided him and the pain of loss returned, accompanied by searing anger.

  Five years ago he’d kissed her good-night at her door at midnight and she’d promised to meet him at Connie’s Cafe at nine the following evening. He’d drunk untold cups of coffee and waited till closing time, but she never appeared. Her mother had stubbornly refused to tell him where Sarah had gone.

  The pain of losing her had nearly cost him his sanity. It wasn’t until nearly a year later that he heard from Sarah, in a letter that was brief and carefully polite. She told him that she had gotten on with her life and hoped that he had, too; she wished him well. She didn’t tell him why she’d left, and to this day he didn’t know where she’d gone or why.

  I was over her, dammit. Why did she have to come back? The possibility that he hadn’t learned to live without her, that he’d learned only to endure the loneliness her absence caused, nibbled at the edges of his consciousness, but he shoved it away.

  Impatiently he surged to his feet, the chair falling back onto four legs with a thud.

  “Hightower,” he muttered aloud as he yanked open the screen door. “You’re a fool. She’s just another woman. Get over it.”

  With a decisive twist, he screwed the lid on the bottle and shoved it back in the cabinet where it belonged. He was damned if he was going to let Sarah Drummond drive him to drink.

  Besides, he reflected derisively as he walked down the hallway to his bedroom, alcohol isn’t working.

  Sarah braced herself each time she and J.J. came and went from the Rocking D, silently praying that Josh would stay on his side of the grove of trees that separated the two houses. For several days it appeared as though he was avoiding her as carefully as she was him. She was glad, because each time she’d seen him, her hard-earned ability to deny her feelings and distance herself from emotion was shaken anew. She didn’t need the distraction; she was having enough trouble dealing with her mother.

  Patricia Drummond was a difficult woman to deal with when she was well. She was even more impossible when she was ill. Frustrated with her inability to speak and move about with the same agility she’d known before the stroke, she took her bad temper out on Sarah and the nurses.

  Sarah knew from her consultation with the doctor that her mother’s irascibility came more from her fear that she wouldn’t recover than from actual pain. Still, sympathetic though Sarah was, Patricia’s constant attacks left her feeling battered and exhausted.

  On Saturday afternoon Patricia’s bridge group crowded her hospital room, so Sarah escaped early, leaving her mother to enjoy the ongoing flow of gossip. J.J. was delighted when she picked him up from Molly’s, and the moment they reached the Rocking D, he raced into the yard to play while Sarah found cold drinks.

  With a glass of iced tea in one hand and apple juice in the other, she walked to the edge of the porch and scanned the front yard. “J.J., where are you?”

  “I’m right here, Mommy.”

  His voice was accompanied by the creaky rasp of rope against wood and Sarah knew instantly where he was. The rope swing, tied to a sturdy limb on the big old box elder tree in the side yard, had made the same familiar sound when she was a child. Smiling fondly, she sat down on the wooden porch swing and watched J.J. as his legs pumped furiously to send the swing higher and higher toward the leafy umbrella above him.

  “Careful, honey,” she warned. “Don’t go too high.”

  “Oh, Mom.” The disgusted note in his voice told her in no uncertain terms what he thought of her warning. “I’m not a baby.”

  Sarah bit her tongue to keep from arguing with him. Being a single parent, she knew she tended to be overprotective, but sometimes J.J.’s need to assert his independence made her think he was hellbent on charging into danger.

  The sound of an engine drew her attention away from J.J. She knew it couldn’t be Josh; he’d been working with a horse in the corral connected to the barn when she and J.J. drove up, and he was still there. Try as she might, she couldn’t ignore him; in fact, she was so sensitized to his presence that if it weren’t physiologically impossible, she would swear that she had internal radar that went on alert anytime he was within a mile of her.

  The dark blue pickup that pulled to a stop at her front gate had a Lazy H logo emblazoned on the driver’s door. Sarah knew that the Lazy H ranch belonged to Josh and his brother, Lucas, but the young man driving the truck wasn’t the least bit familiar to her. Curious, she pushed up out of the swing and walked to the porch steps, waiting while the passenger jumped out.

  There was something vaguely familiar about the slight young girl who rounded the hood of the truck and unlatched the gate. She had a backpack slung over one shoulder. Faded, ripped-at-the-knee jeans covered her legs, and an oversize white T-shirt was tucked into her waistband. She wore scuffed, hightop tennis shoes on her small feet and a worn denim jacket was tied around her waist by its sleeves. Her hair was glossy black and hung nearly to her waist in a braid as thick as a man’s wrist. She couldn’t have been more than eleven or twelve years old, but her small ears were quadruple pierced and sported silver studs and small hoops. But what really shocked Sarah was the multicolored bruise that surrounded her right eye.

  “Hello,” Sarah called when the girl was halfway up the path to the house. “Can I help you?”

  The girl kept walking until she was only a few feet from the porch steps. She halted, stuck her hands into her back pockets and fixed Sarah with an intent stare. “I’m Caitlin Drummond,” she said bluntly. “Are you my aunt Sarah?”

 
; Sarah’s mouth dropped open in surprise, and for a moment she was incapable of speech. “If you’re Margaret’s little girl, then yes, I’m your aunt Sarah,” she finally managed to get out.

  “I’m nobody’s little girl,” Caitlin responded flatly, her voice devoid of inflection. “But Margaret is my mother.”

  Sarah was nonplussed. The thin young girl’s grass green eyes held far too much world-weary cynicism for her years. Fatigue had smudged dark circles under her eyes and her smooth, tanned skin was drawn taut over classic cheekbones. Sarah searched for other similarities between the young girl standing at the foot of the steps and her sister, Margaret.

  “You look like her,” Sarah said slowly. “Except for the hair and the eyes.’ Margaret was as fair as Sarah, and the sisters had both inherited their father’s blue eyes. But the shape of Caitlin’s face, the beautifully molded cheekbones and stubborn chin—those Margaret had passed on to her only child.

  Caitlin shrugged. “Yeah, that’s what she says.”

  J.J. jumped off the still-moving swing and came racing across the lawn. He stopped several feet away from Caitlin and surveyed her with bright, fascinated eyes.

  “Who’re you?” he asked.

  “This is your cousin, Caitlin,” Sarah told him. “She’s come all the way from Los Angeles to visit—” Her words came to an abrupt halt “How did you get here, Caitlin? Your mother didn’t call and tell me that you were coming.”

  “She didn’t know,” Caitlin said. “I hitchhiked.”

  “You did what?” Sarah was aghast. “You’re kidding me, right?” She heard the click of the pickup door, the crunch of boots against gravel, and knew that the driver was opening the gate. But she didn’t glance up. All her attention was focused on her niece.

  “I caught rides with long-haul truckers as far as Wolf Point, then Trey picked me up and brought me here.”

  “Did you get that black eye in an accident? Or from a trucker?” Sarah couldn’t have been more angry if J.J. had been the one attacked. Every protective instinct she owned went on instant alert, and she could feel her cheeks heat. Her own brief but devastating experience with male violence had scarred her deeply; the possibility that Caitlin’s face had been marked by a fist rather than an unnamed accident touched off an anger within Sarah that bordered on rage.

  “Neither.” Caitlin’s green gaze turned wary, but she didn’t back away from Sarah. “I’m not going back to L.A.,” she said with force. “Not until Margaret gets a new boyfriend.”

  “Is that who hit you—the boyfriend?” Sarah asked swiftly, quick to pick up on the dislike in Caitlin’s voice.

  Caitlin refused to answer. She stood silently, staring stubbornly at Sarah.

  “She wouldn’t tell me, either.”

  Distracted by the male voice, Sarah’s gaze lifted from Caitlin’s closed face and for the first time she really looked at the driver of the pickup. Blond, blue-eyed and handsome, he was young, probably no more than twenty, and his tall, broad-shouldered frame gave promise of strength and power when he matured. Dressed in boots, jeans, a faded T-shirt and a straw cowboy hat, he stood a step behind Caitlin, backing her with silent support.

  ’I’m Trey Weber,” he volunteered. “I work for Lucas Hightower. I picked up Caitlin just this side of Wolf Point.”

  “Thank you, Trey, it was kind of you to bring her all the way to me.”

  “No problem, I was coming over to help Josh do some work on the barn, anyway.”

  “Oh. I see.” Sarah stiffened.

  “I’m sure you don’t remember me,” he said casually. “I only went to work for Lucas about four or five years ago. I think you left Butte Creek before I moved here.”

  “Yes, I must have,” Sarah replied. The young man was watching her closely, as if he were searching for a reaction, an expression—something. Sarah had no idea what he was looking for, only that his expectant, perceptive stare was disconcerting. “Well, Caitlin,” she said with purposeful cheerfulness, “I’m sure you must be hungry and tired. Why don’t we go inside and I’ll make us all some lunch.”

  “All right.” Caitlin took a step forward before halting and turning abruptly. “Thanks for the ride, Trey.”

  “Hey, no problem, kid.” Trey grinned, white teeth flashing in his tanned face. He reached out and gently tugged the loose end of her braid. “Just don’t go hitching any rides with strangers again, okay? Next time you might get some pervert instead of a nice guy like me.”

  Caitlin sniffed scornfully and pulled her braid forward over her shoulder and out of his hand. “Yeah, right.”

  He chuckled, a deep sound of amusement, and glanced at Sarah. “It was a pleasure meeting you, ma’am.”

  From the corral Josh had watched the interchange while grooming a young colt. He gave up all pretense of indifference, however, when Trey parked his truck outside the barn and climbed over the corral fence.

  “Who’s the girl?” he asked, his hands continuing the soothing, rhythmic movement of the brushes over the colt’s glossy hide.

  “Caitlin Drummond,” Trey answered. “I picked her up just north of Wolf Point. She hitchhiked all the way from L.A. Can you believe any twelveyear-old kid taking a chance like that? Pretty gutsy.”

  “Not to mention stupid,” Josh responded. “And dangerous.”

  “Yeah, you got that right.” Trey took a brush from a box of grooming supplies leaning against the bottom corral pole and moved to the far side of the colt“I hitched a few rides when I was younger, but never across that many miles.’ Silence reigned for a few moments. “She’s got a black eye that looks like it’s a few days old. She wouldn’t tell her aunt who gave it to her.”

  Josh got a sharp, sick feeling in his stomach. “One of her rides beat her up?”

  “She told her aunt they didn’t Caitlin wouldn’t admit it, but I suspect it was her mother’s boyfriend in L.A. who popped her.”

  “Margaret Drummond never did have any sense,” Josh growled in disgust “It doesn’t surprise me that she’s seeing some guy who would hit a kid.”

  “You know her?” Trey asked with curiosity.

  “Yeah, she was a year behind me in school.”

  “No kiddin’? Did you ever date her?”

  “No.” I dated her little sister.

  Again silence stretched, both men occupied with their own thoughts.

  “They both have sad eyes,” Trey said finally, almost to himself.

  “Who does?” Josh asked, bending to slide the brush down the colt’s foreleg.

  “Caitlin and her aunt Sarah.”

  Josh jerked upright and stared across the colt’s glossy back at Trey.

  “Well, they do,” Trey said when Josh continued to glare at him. “Caitlin’s got that ’I’ve seen it all and the world stinks’ look in her eyes and a chip a yard wide on her shoulders. Her aunt’s got the same look, only without the attitude.”

  “Hmmph,” Josh grunted, irritated. “Since when did you become a psychiatrist? Or maybe you’re psychic? You don’t even know them.”

  Trey shrugged. “I recognize the look. I’ve been there, remember? I used to see it in my mirror every morning when I was a kid.”

  Josh had a sudden, swift memory of the first time he’d met Trey, a too-thin fifteen-year-old with a lifetime of neglect behind him. The five years between then and now had made immense changes in Trey, but apparently it hadn’t been long enough for him to forget what his life had been like.

  “You may be right about the girl. Having Margaret for a mother can’t be any fun. But Sarah had a father who doted on her and gave her everything his money could buy when she was growing up. Whatever you saw in her eyes, it wasn’t put there by a world that kicked her in the teeth.” Josh gave the colt’s sleek back one last stroke of the brush and stepped back, tossing the brushes into the box behind him. He untied the colt and caught the lead just below the halter’s chin strap. “As soon as I put Golden Boy back in his stall, we can get started on the roof.”

&nb
sp; Sarah glanced out her kitchen window just as the two men and the horse disappeared into the barn. Distracted by the gleam of hot sun in Josh’s coal black hair and the slow, unconscious swagger in his walk, she stared out the window long after the corral was empty.

  Behind her, J.J. chattered nonstop as he quizzed Caitlin about her trip and Los Angeles.

  “Do you live at Disneyland?” he asked.

  “No. Nobody lives at Disneyland,” she answered. Tap water ran over her soapy hands and she bent to scrub her face in the kitchen sink.

  “Uh-huh!” J.J. objected. Perched on his knees on a chair at the kitchen table, he propped his elbows on the table. “Mickey Mouse and Pluto live there.”

  Caitlin dried her face with a towel and gave him a longsuffering glance. “I meant real people. Real people don’t live at Disneyland.”

  “Oh.” He contemplated her shiny face for a moment. “You wanna see my swing?”

  “Not until after lunch, J.J.,” Sarah interrupted, dragging her thoughts away from Josh. “Then if Caitlin isn’t too tired, you can show her the swing. She’s been traveling for a long time and she might not feel like playing this afternoon.”

  “I don’t mind,” Caitlin told her quickly. “I’m good with little kids. I baby-sit all the time for the neighbors at home. I’ll help you take care of J.J. while I’m here.”

  “All right,” Sarah said calmly. Caitlin was clearly letting her know that she wouldn’t be a liability.

  Hours later, when both J.J. and Caitlin were tucked into beds upstairs, Sarah acknowledged that Caitlin was, indeed, good with kids. J.J. had followed her around chattering nonstop, obviously fascinated by the twelveyear-old’s vast store of tough, worldly wisdom. For her part, Caitlin was amazingly patient with J.J.