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Exasperated, Dana blew her bangs out of her eyes. “He doesn’t need crowds of people disturbing him. We’ll go over one of these days.”
“What’s he like?” Molly called out. “Francie says he lived in town when he was a kid. He doesn’t have relatives here, though. Why did he come back?”
Why, indeed. Maybe he was drifting, like he had in high school. Maybe he hadn’t been able to hold his last job and needed a cheap place to rent until that arm healed. “It’s his business, you guys. I hope you know better than to ask him anything personal.”
“But—”
“Okay, you win. We’ll take those boxes over and say hello.” The kids had inherited their father’s stubborn streak along with his strawberry-blond hair and freckles, and she knew there’d be no peace until they made it over to meet Zach and Katie. “But we have to get this load of hay in the barn.”
The bales hit the conveyor belt faster after that, until Dana and the kids were hot, sweaty, and covered with prickly hay chaff. Twenty minutes later, Alex heaved the last one onto the belt with a grunt. “Done. Let’s go.”
Molly, her grimy face streaked with rivulets of sweat, scampered down from the bales. “I’m ready!”
“Oh, no you’re not. Showers first, young lady, and you too, Alex. You don’t want to scare that little girl, do you?”
“Like a three-year-old kid would notice.”
“No arguments. Now scoot, Molly. Maybe you can beat your brother to the hot water.”
Dana peeled off her leather gloves and leaned against a support post, inhaling the sweet, comforting smell of new alfalfa, thankful for what was already in the barn.
Another two cuttings and they’d have enough for the next winter. If rain fell when they needed it, and the skies stayed clear when they didn’t. Last year had bordered on drought, and she’d had to buy an extra fifty round bales—money she hadn’t had to spare—to make it through spring.
She straightened and tucked her gloves into her back pocket, then started for the rickety wooden stairs leading down to the main floor of the barn.
Since Ken’s death, everything had been harder—the night calls and long hours at the clinic, the ranching, trying to raise the kids on her own. But despite her own mother’s doubts, she was doing okay. She hadn’t lost the ranch or her practice yet.
And no matter what Mom thought, she didn’t need marriage to a neighboring rancher or anyone else to survive.
* * * *
THE ELECTRICITY AND internet were both hooked up when Zach and Katie arrived, just as he’d hoped. The little blue house wasn’t fancy, but it was a good five miles from Fossil Hill and another half mile off the highway, down a curving lane and well out of sight.
Not that much traffic passed by on a road leading to nowhere—the next town was fifty-three miles to the east and boasted a population of eighty-six. Beyond that, there wasn’t a town of over a thousand people for another hundred miles.
He’d arranged the lease by phone after finding a local Realtor through an Internet business directory. The lease offered an additional bonus: a fifty-percent reduction of the rent for working on maintenance projects around the place.
Just as well. He’d brought his laptop and planned to spend a lot of his time researching case files from the past five years, looking for any clues related to El Cazador, but without something physical to do, he’d go stir-crazy in less than a day.
People took care of their own in these parts. The evidence stood before him: the four cakes on the kitchen counter and a refrigerator brimming with a collection of casseroles and salads. Eating at that ladies’ den of frippery had apparently set the informal news network afire, because an hour after he and Katie arrived at the house, pickup trucks and dusty Suburbans had started pulling in.
Which fulfilled his immediate goals of being known around town and having something edible to feed Katie. Fortunately, with her overtired whining in the background, none of the ladies had stayed long.
When yet another set of tires crunched along the lane, his first impulse was to stay inside and feign sleep. Dredging up another smile, he figured another round of introductory chitchat was almost more than he could handle. But at the sound of slamming doors and the eager voices of several kids, he knew he couldn’t ignore them.
“Hey, Katie, we have more company,” he said brightly, offering her a smile. “Want to come see?”
With her dolly clasped tightly against her chest, she braced herself in the corner of the faded green couch and jerked her head in a decisive no.
She’d needed a nap since lunch but had been too wound up to fall asleep. He’d walked with her, tried lying down with her, even took her for a long ride in the car, but she’d alternated between fitful crying and all-out wails for the past hour.
“Okay, honey. I’ll just be at the back door, okay?”
Her lower lip trembled. Fresh tears welled in her eyes. The slight nod of her head was a whole lot less decisive than the no had been.
Oh, sweetheart. This hasn’t been easy for you.
Without asking her a second time, he dropped a kiss on her cheek and lifted her up against his good shoulder, then started for the back door. She instantly wrapped her little arms around his neck.
