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“I might ask you the same thing!” Bright blue eyes wide, she lifted her head from the scope to glare at him.
He suspected—whoever she was—she had no earthly clue how to use the .22 if she’d been employing the scope while he stood roughly eight feet away from her.
“I’m Calvin Ramsey,” he shouted louder than he would have liked, but he was exasperated, starving, unemployed and being held at gunpoint in his childhood home. “Where’s my mother?”
The dogs all barked in response, for all the good that did him.
“You’re the oldest son.” The woman seemed to have some sense of recognition then.
She tipped aside the stock,thank you, God.
“That’s me.” He began to lower his hands. “I’d like to put my hands down if you can maybe set the gun down?”
“Um.” She stared at the .22 as if surprised to see it in her hands. “Okay.” She bit her lip. “Hailey won’t appreciate hearing that I greeted you with a rifle. But I had no idea you might let yourself inside while I was sleeping.”
Reaching for the .22, he gently took it from her, all the while trying not to hear sexual innuendo in words where clearly she’d meant none. But the exasperation, starving, and unemployed bits all still conspired to make him surly and raw. He emptied the chamber of the rifle and pocketed the ammo for good measure before he rested it in a corner of the kitchen.
Without the gun in her hands, he had new appreciation for how hot she was—robe be damned. He was pretty sure she was naked under the yellow terry cloth splashed with purple flowers. Petite and curvy, her feminine body had pin-up appeal while her face was full of sharp angles. A narrow nose that pointed at the tip. Precise blades for cheekbones. Dark, perfectly straight eyebrows.
“My mistake,” he agreed with as much chivalrous good humor as he could manage at one in the morning. That said, he didn’t have a scrap left to continue making small talk. “Now, who are you and where’s my mom?”
She pursed her lips and cocked her head at him. Miffed. Instead of answering, she reached under the sink cabinet and retrieved a bag of dog treats. The restless canines lined up as if there was an award for best posture. She doled out the biscuits and tucked the bag away again.
“I’m Josie Vance, the caretaker,” she announced slowly, lowering herself into one of the wooden chairs around the kitchen table. She withdrew a cell phone from her pocket and placed it face down in front of her.
Her words sent a jolt of panic through him.
“Caretaker for who? Is Mom okay?” He’d disconnected his cell phone for the better part of the last two weeks to avoid dealing with the fallout from his career. It had never occurred to him something could happen to someone he cared about in that time.
He took a seat across from her while the dogs sprawled out underneath them.
“Hailey is in Ecuador, leading a church mission to build a school.” She sounded proud of this, her chin tipping up. “She hired me to take care of the house, dogs and bees. And the garden. And I’m sure she asked me to relay something to you, if I can just find her note.”
Relieved, he propped his elbows on the table, watching Josie flip over her cell phone to scroll through her messages.
“Ecuador?” He mulled that over, regretting that he didn’t know this about his mother.
He’d been too caught up in his own drama this spring, hiding out from the sports news, unwilling to hear how they’d painted him in the press. He’d done a damn good job of avoiding the world, too. But obviously he’d missed some big things.
“She doesn’t communicate often since she has to make a special trip into town for connectivity.” Josie Vance the caretaker spoke with the kind of clear articulation that he associated with a kindergarten teacher. A very hot kindergarten teacher. Her gaze returned to her device. “But she said if her oldest son stopped by, to tell you that…” She stopped scrolling to read aloud. “If you see Calvin, please mention he is welcome to stay with his ailing grandfather.”
Alarm surged along with a blast of anger. She couldn’t have told him that first? He swore. Twice.
“What’s wrong with Gramp?” His head throbbed. Not eating before he came home had been a mistake. He needed to power up his phone and find some food.
Josie arched one of those very straight eyebrows of hers. “According to him, everything. But he’s out of the hospital now and doing amazingly well for a man who was hit by a tour bus a month ago.”
“A tour bus?” He swore some more. Why the hell hadn’t his father informed him? “Like in a collision? What was he driving?”
Fear for his granddad squeezed his chest for a moment until he reminded himself that she said he was back home now. Recovering.
“It sounded like the bus grazed him while he was walking to a neighbor’s birthday party in downtown, I think. Most of the damage was done in his effort to move out of the way.”
Couldn’t one of his siblings have found a way to get that news to him?
Or his father, the only other person in Cal’s family currently living in town?
“You do bear Everett a strong resemblance,” she said cryptically before giving him the highlights of the accident and assuring him that his grandfather was already out walking daily. Then she passed him her phone. “Maybe you should read the local paper. I know there has been news coverage about the accident. You could get up to speed that way.”
