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“Never mind. Bye, Scout. Have a great day at school.”
He turns and pins me with the most doleful, sad eyes I’ve ever seen. Heads of state would sacrifice national secrets for those eyes. “Callie, will you be here when I get home? Or at least…will I see you soon?”
I look at Luke, not wanting to say the wrong thing, but also wanting to see this kid again. He’s fun. And he’s the first person I’ve met in a while who seems to like me just the way I am.
Luke’s jaw clenches again, and I get ready for him to tell Scout all the reasons I’ll be long gone from here, never to be heard from again. I swear, if he could come up with another way to win his custody battle, he’d jump at it, and it seems like the only reason he hasn’t thought of an alternative is lack of time. He opens his mouth and closes it. Then he bites down on his lip and shakes his head.
“You’ll see her again. She’s my special friend, remember?”
Scout jumps up and down, and Luke shuttles him out the door, while I pick up my jaw from the floor.
CHAPTER 13
Luke
My day starts like a train wreck and graduates to a full-on shitstorm. “No, you can’t go against the doctor’s orders.” I glare at my phone, which has Ryan on the other end of the line, begging me to break him out of the hospital like he’s fleeing the law.
“I have a shit ton of work to do. If I’m not there, who’s gonna do it?” he asks.
“Me,” I grunt, even less happy about it than he is.
“Exactly. I don’t want to be responsible for your aneurysm. Besides, the food here sucks, and there isn’t a single hot nurse on either shift.”
“Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter.” I hold the reins of my horse in one hand and my cell in the other, something I’d fire anyone else for. Safety first. That’s the most important rule around here. Along with “do as I say, not as I do.”
It takes me longer to drive the cattle to the next pasture than it should. The horses are slow and the cattle slower. Ryan is so much better at this. But it also feels good to be out in the fresh air instead of holed up in my office running numbers and stressing that we won’t make the next quarter’s profit projection.
For the first time in my life, I have outside investors, which means I don’t have to come up with all the capital to expand my ranch on my own, but now I have to answer to people holding my purse strings. Another blessing and a curse.
When I’m not barking at Ryan to stay put in the hospital, I’m checking for texts from the preschool. I love Scout’s progressive school—the days of staring at cloud formations and learning through play—but it can be a little rigid when it comes to snacks and discipline. They once called because Scout “didn’t use his words” when a kid pushed him. He pushed him back. Same as I’d have done.
There are so many rules. No peanuts. No nuts of any kind, for that matter. Soybeans are fine, but only if they’re shelled. Cut-up hot dogs are a choking hazard, and so are grapes unless they’re sliced in half. Watermelon and string cheese seemed like a safe bet, but there are probably a hundred ways I haven’t thought of for Callie to bring the wrong snack and get into trouble.
But I don’t get a single text.
I’m almost disappointed. A part of me wants an excuse to take a break from my day and drive over to the preschool, where I’d expect to find Callie elbow-deep in a giant watermelon, making a mess in the preschool kitchen and earning me some extra cleanup duties when I come to pick up Scout. It’s strange how my mind keeps returning to the image of her sleeping on my couch and how much I didn’t mind the company this morning when I was making Scout breakfast.
I can’t get the image of her perky nose and dimpled cheeks out of my mind, so I shoot off a text.
Me:
Hey. Everything go okay with the snack delivery?
Staring at my phone, I second-guess the text. She’s doing me a favor and asking for nothing in return, and I seem like I don’t trust her. Then again, when it comes to my son’s well-being, I don’t trust most people.
Dots bounce on my phone, and a second later, Callie replies.
Callie:
What snack?
My heart starts pounding. Did she blow off the errand? I’m about to call the school when another text comes through.
Callie:
Kidding.
Callie:
