Page 29
“You’re definitely gonna make it to five.”
When we pull up to my ranch, there’s a blue Beetle in the circular driveway in front of the house. The big elm out in front blocks part of my view, so I don’t realize that Callie is sitting on my porch steps until Scout and I are out of the truck and halfway up the walk. It gives me no time to explain anything else about Callie.
He tucks his hand into mine and skips along next to me while a pit forms in my stomach, and I quickly rehearse what to tell him about why this woman he’s never met is standing in front of our house. I need to calm down.
“Hi!” Callie stands up when we get closer, and Scout’s grip tightens around my hand. Good boy, I silently tell him. He should be wary of someone with a big welcoming smile and wavy blond hair that harnesses every ray from the sun. It’s not lost on me that she looks like the grown-up version of Scout’s crush.
“Hey,” I grunt, holding my hand up in more of a stop sign gesture than a wave. She doesn’t move, and neither does Scout.
“Hi,” he says, waving his other hand and taking off his hat. His light brown hair goes every which way, and his large eyes peer at Callie like she’s either the most frightening or fascinating thing to turn up on our porch in a long time. I suppose she is. “Who are you?”
“Buddy, that’s not polite.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m Callie.” She comes down the steps and offers Scout a fist bump, which he returns with gusto. “I’m a friend of your dad’s and—”
“Are you his business associate?” Scout asks, lisping a couple of the s’s. The title sounds so official, and so patently false, that I immediately feel terrible about lying to my son. There has to be something more natural I can say.
“I’m his special friend,” she says. “Do you have special friends at school, kids who like the same kinds of things you do, kids who are fun to play with?”
Scout nods fervently. “Dirk and me like Lincoln Logs and Lola builds bridges.” Still, his grip on my hand is fierce, and he’s rooted in place.
Callie crouches down in front of Scout so she’s face-to-face with him. I watch Scout’s reaction to her, ready to intervene if he seems uncomfortable in Callie’s presence, but right now he’s watching her, eyes wide, in wary anticipation of what she’ll do or say next.
“That sounds amazing. What kind of bridges? Like with Lego or with pieces of wood? I’m not a bad builder, but I like to use mud to hold everything together.”
Scout gives her a tentative partial grin. “Mostly from wood and sand buckets, but I want to try it with mud.”
I roll my eyes. Of course he does. Leave it to Callie to get my kid excited about making a mess in under a minute. I can picture her whirling through the yard with a watering can, making mudpies, getting Scout dirty from head to toe, and sailing off in her little car to complicate the next person’s life. Then I’ll be the bad guy who has to convince him to take a bath.
But I grudgingly have to hand it to her. In one sentence, she managed to improve on all the explanations I’d concocted for why she’s here. Scout isn’t asking, seeming satisfied enough to have a partner in muddy crimes.
The whole thing makes me uneasy, and I feel a wave of nausea threaten the protein bar I powered down on the drive to the preschool. I know I should do better than prepackaged crap, but with all I have on my plate, at least I know some food chemist has measured out some protein and carbs that will keep me from collapsing if it’s all I manage to eat in a day.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I stare at the screen, willing the letters to rearrange themselves into something other than the one disaster I don’t want to deal with today. “Jesus,” I mutter. Callie stops her talking with Scout and points at me. I’d be impressed that he’s obeying her, except that I’m still beside myself over the message.
“What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, rereading the message once more to see if I have the details right. “My foreman got kicked in the chest by one of my horses. He’s in the hospital.” I say the words quietly, hoping to keep Scout from picking up on the specifics. He adores Ryan, and he’s likely to burst into tears if he hears he got hurt.
Callie’s eyes go wide. “Oh no.”
“Oh, yes. I’m not getting a lot of details, and he knows better than to be in a horse’s blind spot, so I don’t know what happened.”
“What happened, Daddy?” Scout asks, worry creasing his small brow. I do everything in my power to keep my son from looking that way.
“Nothing you need to worry about, pal. Just adult ranch stuff.”
“It’s always ranch stuff. Boring,” he says, blowing a raspberry and going over to inspect Callie’s blue car.
“Do you need to go?” Callie asks, putting a hand on my arm. I flinch when I feel the warmth of her fingers through the fabric of my shirt. I’m too worried about Ryan to allow myself to like the way it feels. I pull away.
“I ought to see him in the hospital.” I look at Scout, not wanting to subject him to hours of sitting in a hospital waiting room. More than that, finding out that something happened to Ryan will make him worry about me every time I go out with the horses, and I can’t have him thinking that way.
“I can babysit,” Callie offers. At least she has the sense to say it quietly enough for Scout not to hear, but it doesn’t matter. The idea is a non-starter. There’s no way in hell I’d leave my son with a woman I barely know, especially one who I’m not sure has boundaries, or even common sense.
“No fucking way,” I counter, just as quietly.
“Daddy! Swear jar,” Scout says, trotting over and making me realize he probably heard Callie’s offer as well.
