The Cowboy (22 page)

“Mommy, you’re squishing me!”

“What are you doing up here in the loft? You know you’re not allowed up here!” Callie shouted. All her anger at Eli, who deserved to be punished, seemed to find its way into her condemnation of Hannah, who hadn’t done anything worse than climb a ladder out of curiosity. The little girl burst into tears.

“Oh, Hannah. Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.” She kissed away the tears on the cherubic face, brushed the straw out of her daughter’s fine, flyaway curls. “Mommy was just so worried. What were you doing up here?”

“I heard kitties, Mommy. I heard them crying for their mommy.” Hannah pointed toward the corner of the loft. “They’re starving, Mommy. We have to feed them.”

Trace walked toward where Hannah pointed, leaned over, and came up with a tiny calico kitten in each hand. “I guess this is what she heard.”

Hannah reached out for a kitten, and Trace crossed and laid one in her arms. “See, Mommy? They need me.”

At that moment, the orange-striped barn cat arrived and hurried to the straw nest where she’d left her kittens. After doing a quick survey, she crossed to where Trace stood and paced agitatedly before him.

“I think she wants her babies back, so she can feed them,” Trace said to Hannah. “If you give me that one, I’ll put them back.”

To Callie’s surprise, Hannah relinquished the kitten to Trace, and he gently placed both kittens back in the nest. As soon as he took a step back, the mother cat settled down and the kittens began to nurse.

“See? She just left them for a little while,” Callie said. “Now we need to leave her alone, so she can feed them,” Callie added, rubbing her nose against Hannah’s.

She looked up and met Trace’s gaze. “Thank you,” she said.

“You need some help around here, Callie. You shouldn’t be trying to do all this by yourself.”

“Everybody who lives here does his fair share, Trace,” she said.

He raised a brow. “Is that so? You look like you’ve been ridden hard and put away wet.”

Callie bristled at his description of her exhausted condition, even though it very likely fit. “I suppose you want me rested up so I can—” She cut herself off, realizing that she had Hannah in her arras, and that her daughter had a notorious tendency to parrot everything she heard.

“You shouldn’t be doing so much ranch work. Your kids need your attention,” he said through clenched teeth.

“They get plenty of my attention,” Callie retorted, heading for the ladder that led down from the loft.

Before she could start down the ladder with Hannah in her arms, Trace took the little girl from her and said, “She’s too heavy for you.”

Callie opened her mouth to protest, took one look at Trace’s lowered brows, and snapped it shut. She had to choose her arguments, and the truth was, it would have been awkward to descend the nearly vertical ladder holding Hannah. What she found most astonishing was the fact that Hannah seemed perfectly happy in Trace’s arms.

Callie pivoted and started down the ladder. She waited at the bottom, ready to take Hannah from Trace, but the little girl had her arms around Trace’s neck and her head nestled against his shoulder and actually seemed reluctant to let go.

“Hannah,” Callie said, tapping her daughter on the shoulder.

Hannah shook her head and snuggled her nose deeper against Trace’s neck.

Callie felt her throat thicken. “She misses Nolan,” she managed to say.

“Couldn’t Sam or your sister be watching her for you?”

“Bay left to go back to school this morning. Sam is …”
Always drunk lately
. “I like having her with me,” Callie said defiantly.

To her surprise, Trace didn’t seem anxious to be rid of the clinging child. “Where’s the stall door that needs fixing?” he asked.

“You don’t have to worry—”

He met her gaze with another look that shut her up.

“This way.” She headed toward the paddock that faced twenty wooden stalls in a row, each with its own door, most of which were open on top. She was embarrassed for Trace to see that the white paint was peeling and that more than one stall door hung crooked.

But the horses that hung their heads over the tops of the stall doors, ears cocked forward and nostrils flared to whinny a hello, were sleek and healthy. Callie caressed foreheads, noses, necks, and jowls as she passed by, greeting each horse by name.

“I can see Smart Little Doc is going to be a lot more pampered here than he would be at home,” Trace said.

Callie angled her head so she could meet Trace’s gaze. “Horses have feelings, too.”

“I wasn’t complaining, Callie.”

Callie admitted to herself that she’d been expecting
criticism, so that’s what she’d heard. But she couldn’t stop herself from explaining, “The stalls could use a little paint, but the hay is changed daily and every horse gets bathed and groomed—”

“If I didn’t think Smart Little Doc was going to be taken care of properly, I wouldn’t be leaving him here,” Trace interrupted.

They passed an empty stall with a wheelbarrow out front, half-filled with manure and straw. Callie paused and looked into the stall, expecting to see Eli with a pitchfork in his hands, but found Henry working alone.

“Where’s Eli?” she asked, looking around for her son.

“He went to get a drink of water,” Henry said.

“How long ago was that?” Callie asked.

Henry shrugged and went back to his work.

Callie was afraid to look at Trace, afraid she would see disapproval in his eyes, or worse, pity. She prayed he wouldn’t say anything, because she couldn’t bear to hear him criticize Eli, even though she knew Eli deserved to be chastised.

“Where’s that stall door?” Trace asked.

Callie shot him a grateful look, then turned and hurried two stalls farther. “Here.”

Tools littered the ground around the stall, and Callie felt the need, again, to explain. “I’d already started on this once today, but I got called away.”

“You don’t have to explain to me that you’re pulled in a dozen directions at once. I can see that.” Trace set Hannah on her feet and bent to pick up a wrench.

Hannah bent to pick up a screwdriver. “I want to help.”

Callie started to pick her up, but Trace said, “She’s not in my way. Why don’t you go find your son?”

“Eli will be back soon,” Callie said, praying that her son would show up without having to be sought out. “I’d rather stay here and help you.”

“Suit yourself.”

T
race was aware of the knot in his stomach but wasn’t sure precisely what had put it there. He went to work tightening the bolts that held the stall door to the door frame, doing his best to ignore Callie, who made a point of holding the heavy stall door perpendicular to the ground while he worked.

“What can I do?” Hannah asked, peering up at him with serious, gray-green eyes.

“See if you can tighten those screws, Hannah,” Trace said, pointing to the lowest screws on the door. He made a space for Hannah between his widespread legs as the little girl squatted on her haunches trying to fit the screwdriver into a screw at the bottom of the stall door.

He saw the anxiety on Callie’s face and said, “She’ll be safe there. Don’t worry.”

Some of the worry left her face, but her overall look of exhaustion remained. Her golden hair was lank, as though it needed washing, and her blue eyes looked like cold water at the bottom of a deep well. He sought words to describe her and didn’t like the ones that came to mind. Haggard. Gaunt. Wasted.

He might have been too generous comparing Callie to a horse that had been ridden hard and put away wet. That horse at least had a chance of recuperating. Callie looked
more like a horse down with colic—that might or might not survive the night.

You’re not making her life any easier
.

Trace wished he’d never offered to loan Callie the tax money she needed. And it had been pure folly to put conditions on the loan, making Callie sell her services like some two-bit whore. Well, not a two-bit whore. He was paying a great deal more than two bits for her services.

Trace chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

There was no way he could explain, so he asked, “How much help do you have around here?”

“Henry does most of the heavy work, now that Daddy—” Her voice cracked.

When she didn’t speak again, he said, “Who else works for you besides Henry?”

“We have a few cowboys we call on when there’s extra work to be done.”

“So why didn’t you call one of them to do this?” Trace asked, as he finished tightening the bolts.

She stared at him, her lips pressed flat.

No money, he surmised. “Where’s Luke?” he asked, thinking her teenage brother ought to be some help.

“He spent the night with a friend.”

Trace frowned. “With all the work that needs to be done around here?”

“He’s entitled to some fun,” Callie said defensively. “He’s just a boy.”

“Seems to me you had plenty of responsibility growing up. Maybe too much.”

“My family needed me. I was happy to do my part.”

“Like I said. Ridden hard and—”

“There isn’t anybody else,” she said sharply. “Not right now. I’m doing the best I can, and if you—”

“Whoa, there, sweetheart.”

She glanced up sharply at his use of the endearment. “I’m not your sweetheart.”

“I’m not your sweetheart,” Hannah echoed.

Trace looked down at the tiny mite peering back up at him. He reached down, picked up Hannah, and settled her on his arm. “You’re cute enough to be a sweetheart,” he said, smiling at her.

Hannah smiled back.

Trace couldn’t believe how good that smile made him feel inside. He glanced at Callie and was surprised at the stricken look on her face. She was probably remembering her husband. He felt that knot in his stomach again, but he wasn’t going to set the little girl down. Callie would just have to deal with the situation.

He’d always liked kids. He was sorry he didn’t have a couple of his own. He realized the little girl was probably used to male attention, since she had her brother, a couple of uncles, and until recently, a grandfather to dote on her. But he was glad she wasn’t afraid of him, glad that she accepted his friendliness at face value.

Trace used his free hand to open and close the stall door. “That wasn’t much of an adjustment, but it seems to be working fine now. Shall we go get my horse?”

The three of them walked toward the corral, Hannah still in Trace’s arms.

“When is your mother due to come home from the hospital?” Trace asked.

“In a few days,” Callie said.

“Do you have someone coming in to take care of her?”

Callie shook her head.

Trace stopped in his tracks. “How are you planning—”

“Look,” she said, turning to face him, her hands on her hips. “That’s my business, and I can handle it. You don’t need to get involved.”

“I have my own reasons for wanting you rested, Callie. Or had you forgotten?” he said. “I’ll have someone—”

“You will do no such thing!” she interrupted. “You Blackthornes don’t own Three Oaks yet, and God willing, you never will! I can take care of my family without any help from you.”

He felt the little girl tense in his arms and draw back from him. “You’re frightening Hannah,” he said in a measured voice.

She reached for her daughter, and Trace let the little girl go, rather than risk upsetting her any further. But his arms felt bereft.

“You can leave now,” Callie said brusquely. “I’ll move your horse later.”

With the extra weight of the child in her arms, she was wavering on her feet. Trace was afraid she might literally fall down. When he took a step toward her, his arms outstretched to take the child, Callie stiffened, and the little girl looked at him with wide, terrified eyes.

The knot had moved from his stomach to his throat. He hadn’t understood, when he’d walked out of Callie’s dorm room in a huff eleven years ago, how much her family demanded of her—and just how much she was willing to give them. Everything. They wanted everything, and she was willing to give what they asked. He
didn’t understand that kind of selflessness. Or that kind of need.

Even now his father didn’t really
need
him. There were others who could carry the load if he wasn’t there to manage things. No one had ever needed him. He’d offered Callie the money to save her ranch; she’d never asked for it. He willed Callie to ask for his help now. He wanted to be allowed to help her. But she was shutting him out, as she’d shut him out eleven years ago.

“Look, Callie,” he began. “Why not let me hire a housekeeper to—”

“We Creeds can take care of ourselves,” she snapped, cutting him off.

“The hell you can!” he roared, finally losing patience with her.

Hannah burst into tears, and Callie simply turned and walked away from him.

“Hannah, sweetheart, I’m not mad at you,” Trace cooed to the child, as his long strides caught up with Callie. “But I’m furious with you,” he said under his breath to Callie. “Don’t walk away from me, Callie. We have to talk.”

“Trace, I don’t think—”

Callie was drawn up short as Eli stumbled to a stop before her.

“Mom,” he gasped. He bent over, trying to catch his breath. “Mom. Mom.”

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt, Eli? Where are you hurt?” Callie shoved Hannah into Trace’s arms and began running her hands over Eli, searching for an injury.

When the boy looked up at her, Trace saw tears streaking the powder of dust on his cheeks. His chin trembled,
and then he broke down completely. Trace could barely understand the wail of sound that erupted from Eli’s throat, but a chill went down his spine when he finally made out Eli’s tear-choked words.

“I think … Sam is … dead!”

C
ALLIE TOOK OFF AT A RUN FOR THE RANCH
house, with Eli hard on her heels. Trace tried to calm Hannah, who was wailing loudly, as he quickly followed after the other two. “It’s all right, Hannah. Everything’s going to be fine. Don’t cry, sweetheart.”