"You let Caleb add up your billable hours?" she demanded later that night, confronting Rance in the kitchen.
He shrugged easily. "My secretary checks his addition. He hasn't made a mistake yet. And you heard Mrs. Magruder. She said he was the best in the class when it came to adding fractions. She'd never known a child to pick it up so quickly." He grinned.
And Ellie, heaven help her, couldn't argue with him. She'd heard the very same words out of Mrs. Magruder's mouth at their parent-teacher conference just last week. She just hadn't realized how Caleb had been developing his competence, though!
She was still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that Rance had gone to the conferences.
"You're not their father," she'd told him when he'd announced his intention of coming along.
"Not yet," he'd agreed. "Not the twins', anyway." An arch of one dark brow reminded her of what he didn't have to tell her—that he was Josh's father.
She was still trying to get around to that.
He hadn't been pushing her. After their initial conversation, Rance hadn't said another word about when she was going to tell Josh who his father was. They both knew he didn't have to.
Ellie thought about it every waking moment.
At first she hesitated because Josh wasn't thrilled that Rance was there at all, and she thought that maybe if he spent a little more time in Rance's company, he would like him better and would be happier about the news.
But Josh did his best to avoid Rance—except when he could interrupt any one-on-one time that she and Rance might have together. Then he was right there, homing in.
Rance didn't say anything about Josh's surliness or about his interruptions. He kept his temper, even when it was clear that Josh was deliberately trying it. He did his best, Ellie had to admit. And his being there certainly made things easier on Josh chorewise.
But Josh was never glad that Rance was around. And instead of getting easier to broach the subject, the longer she put it off, the more difficult it got.
After her first chances had passed, the others that presented themselves didn't seem as good; or they didn't provide her with enough time to explain her reasoning. Ellie began to think that she would never have time enough or an opportunity good enough to explain her reasoning.
Nothing she was going to say would be anything Josh would want to hear.
His mother wouldn't answer a straight question anymore.
At least, not when the question was, "When's he leaving?"
Josh asked it. A lot.
The day after Carrie's birthday, when he got up and found Rance still there, he'd asked it very pointedly. His mother had said, "Oh, I don't know," in a kind of nervous, hurried way, and then she'd thrust his lunch sack at him and said, "Hurry. Grandma's waiting to take you to the bus. You're going to be late."
Rance had still been there when Josh came home. He was working with Ruckus in the corral. And Daniel, his arm still in the sling, hurried over to watch, taking Caleb with him. Josh had turned his back, walking into the house alone.
His mother had been sitting at the table writing out bills. And he'd asked her again, "When's he leaving?"
And she jumped when he came in, and looked at him as if it was a big surprise that he was standing in the kitchen just like he did every day at four o'clock in the afternoon. "Oh my," she said. "Time's just gotten away from me." And she leaped up and started fixing dinner.
It wasn't until later that he realized she hadn't answered his question.
He asked it again that night when she kissed him before he went to sleep. Then she waved her hands a little, like she didn't quite know what to do with them and she said, "He has a little time so he thought he'd stay and help out for a while."
It wasn't much of an answer. The real answer, Josh began to understand as the days went past and Rance's track stayed where it was, was that Rance wasn't going anywhere.
He dug in and settled down.
In the barn.
"Doesn't it seem funny to you that a guy like him would want to sleep in our barn?" he asked Caleb and Daniel one night after the lights were out and the three of them were still awake.
"Not really," Daniel said, just as Josh should have known he would. "We got a nice barn."
"His house has gotta be better," Josh argued.
"But it isn't near us," Daniel said logically.
It was that particular logic that Josh didn't much want to think about. It meant that Rance had his eye on their mom.
Josh kept his eyes on both of them. He didn't surprise them in any kisses anymore. He didn't even see them touch each other—except maybe by accident. And whenever that happened, he knew it was an accident, because his mom jumped back as if she'd had boiling water dumped on her.
Every once in a while Josh got his hopes up. The first time he came home from school and Rance's truck wasn't there, he started grinning. He even let out a little whoop. His relief lasted until Caleb asked their mom where Rance was.
"He had a court case today," she said. "He'll be back tonight."
He was.
Several other times the truck was gone, too. And sometimes it wasn't back by the time the boys went to bed. But it was always there in the morning.
Rance always came back.
The weird thing was, though, that sometimes Josh thought his mother wasn't any happier about Rance being there than he was. She was edgy. Distracted. Usually she knew exactly what he was thinking before he even thought it. Now she didn't even seem to hear what he was saying when he talked to her out loud.
That was Rance's fault, too. It had to be.
"Why don't you tell him to go away?" Josh asked finally one afternoon when he came home from school and found his mother in the living room, staring at a picture of his dad and him on his dad's horse, Bunker.
At the sound of his voice, she jerked around and shouted, "Stop sneaking up on me like that!"
Josh stared at her in shock. And then she pressed her hands against her cheeks and took a couple of shuddery breaths.
"I'm sorry," she said. "Oh, Josh. I didn't mean to yell at you. You just … startled me. I was … thinking about something." She crossed the room and put her arms around him, and he didn't pull away. He let her hug him. He even gave her a hug back.
"About Dad?" he said. It was only halfway a question.
"About Dad," she agreed. "And … and other things."
"Rance." That wasn't a question at all.
"He's a good man, Josh."
Josh gritted his teeth and shrugged out of her arms. He hunched his shoulders and turned away from her.
"He is," she said with a little more insistence.
"Didn't say he wasn't," Josh replied gruffly, refusing to look at her. "But he isn't Dad."
"Of course not. But—"
He whirled around to face her. "I don't want him tryin' to be Dad!"
"No, of course not." And then she ran a hand through her hair and said quietly, "Josh, no one can ever replace your father."
It should have reassured him. It didn't.
Maybe because the more time went on and the longer he was there, the more Rance did dadlike things. He spent time with Daniel and Ruckus, helping Daniel get over his wariness with the horse and teaching Ruckus good manners. It was the sort of thing Dad would have done. If it had been Dad doing it Josh would have hung around, watching and learning. He never bothered when Rance did it.
There were things about horse training Josh wanted to know, but he didn't ask. He would never ask Rance.
He didn't accept Rance's offer of his laptop computer for typing his social studies report, either. "Your handwriting is as bad as mine," Rance told him with a smile.
Josh didn't want anything of his to be like Rance's—not even his bad handwriting. "I can't type," Josh said flatly.
"But thank you, anyway," his mother said for him, giving him a pointed and expectant look.
Josh scowled. But when her foot started tapping, he shrugged. "Th
anks." He didn't look at Rance when he spoke. And he said it soft enough that maybe Rance didn't even hear him.
He probably wouldn't care, anyway. He didn't need Josh when he had Daniel and Caleb and Carrie eating out of the palm of his hand.
Caleb didn't say no to the use of the laptop. In fact he spent most evenings fooling with the stupid thing. "Wanta see what I can do?" he asked Josh all the time.
Josh said, "No."
"He's got a couple of pretty cool games on it."
"I said no!" Josh stomped up the stairs.
Behind him he heard Carrie say, "Josh is sure crabby anymore, isn't he?"
Josh wouldn't be, he wanted to yell, if Rance would go away and leave them alone.
"How come you don't like him?" Daniel asked that night after the lights were out. It was a typical Daniel question. Daniel always wanted everybody to like everybody else.
"Never said I didn't like him." Josh folded his arms under his head and stared at the ceiling in the dark.
Daniel granted his disbelief. "Like you had to."
"Maybe he's scared to admit it," Caleb said.
Josh bristled. "I'm not scared. I don't like him," he said, goaded.
"Why?"
"'Cause he's hornin' in. He wants Mom. He thinks he can just take over an' be our dad."
Daniel pushed himself up. "He thinks that?"
"Really?" Caleb breathed, sitting up, too.
"Yeah." Josh's jaw tightened.
There was silence from below.
Then he heard one of them take a breath and let it out, like a long sigh. And finally "Well," Daniel said, settling back down again. "That'd be pretty cool."
"Yeah," Caleb agreed. "Cool."
Josh wanted to break their heads.
He supposed he couldn't blame them. They had been barely six when Dad died. They didn't remember very much about what it was like to have a real father, so they were just willing to settle for what they could get. Carrie, of course, had been much too young. She could be forgiven.
It was only Josh who remembered—who looked at his dad's picture on the tall oak chest of drawers every night before he went to sleep, who still talked to him even though the answers were getting harder to hear.
It was Josh who wouldn't let himself forget.
It was like a storm on the horizon. You could see it coming from a long way off. There was always plenty of warning. But sometimes, even knowing it was going to happen, you couldn't get out of the way.
It was like that between Josh and Rance.
Ellie supposed telling Josh that Rance was his father might have defused things. On the other hand, every time she thought about doing it, it seemed more likely to just create a tornado where none had existed moments before.
So she didn't.
But she didn't know how much longer they could go on this way, either. Rance wouldn't hold his peace forever. He'd given her days—weeks, in fact—three!—and she hadn't been able to speak the truth.
But she hadn't been able to tell Josh what he wanted to hear, either. He'd wanted her to say that Rance was leaving. She couldn't do it. Rance would leave when he felt like it. Or maybe never. It was beginning to look that way.
Josh wanted her to tell him that Rance didn't matter to her. She couldn't do that, either. Because she couldn't lie.
But every day now it felt like she was living a lie.
"Rance knows, doesn't he?" Sandra had asked her the day after Rance came back.
And Ellie had had to admit that he did. "But Josh doesn't. I don't know what I'm going to do about Josh."
"That's a tough one," Sandra said. She gave Ellie's shoulder a gentle squeeze in commiseration.
She had no idea how tough, Ellie thought.
End of the semester parent-teacher conferences almost did the job for her. Rance came along. Josh thought she ought to tell him to stay home. But she could not.
"He doesn't have any right to be there," Josh railed. "He's not my dad!"
Everything in her wanted to shout once and for all, Yes, he is! But how could she do it then, when Caleb and Daniel were out in the track already waiting with Rance and unless they got moving they were going to be late.
Ellie gave Josh's shoulder a squeeze. "Don't be like that," she pleaded. What else could she say?
She could almost see the anger roiling in him after that.
It didn't help that Caleb and Daniel's teacher had only the most glowing things to say about both boys. From Caleb's uncanny ability with fractions to Daniel's wonderful report on seals, she waxed poetic on the talents of the O'Connor twins.
And after the conference she looked at Rance, then at Ellie, and took Ellie's hand in hers to pat it. "I'm so glad things are working out for you."
Josh's teacher was much less happy on all fronts. "He doesn't seem interested," she told Ellie. "He stares out the window. He doodles on his papers. He doesn't get his work done. He didn't even turn in his major social studies paper."
Ellie listened politely. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Rance sitting up straighter, listening, too, his eyes not on the teacher but on Josh. Josh seemed to slide lower in his chair.
"Perhaps it's just a bad patch," his teacher said at the end of the conference. "Sometimes these things happen. And then, quick as that, things turn around again. I know it was hard for Josh after his father's death, but for most of this year, he did really well." She gave Josh a hopeful smile which he didn't return. "Perhaps," she said to Ellie and to Rance, "he just needs a little vacation and he'll come back in the fall all ready to go. In the meantime, you can give him a little extra encouragement at home."
As they were leaving, Rance muttered something about the kind of encouragement he thought Josh needed. Ellie shot him a hard look. Josh just stared straight ahead. He didn't say a word.
They went out for ice cream after the conferences. Josh stood with his back to them, licking his ice cream cone and staring out the window. Caleb and Daniel chattered eagerly, telling Rance about their plans for summer. They had great ideas for a tree house. The one Spike had built for them had fallen into some disrepair. Caleb and Daniel wanted to fix it up, and they wanted Rance to help them.
"Yeah, sure. I'd like that," Rance said.
Ellie saw Josh go absolutely rigid. He almost seemed to shake right where he stood. Oh, Josh. Don't.
She knew what he was thinking. She knew the tree house, just the way it was, was the way he wanted it to be forever. Spike had built it—and because Spike had built it, in Josh's opinion, it should never be changed.
Before he could speak, though, she jumped in, asking about an upcoming rodeo, determined to change the subject and forestall the explosion.
It worked. Then.
It didn't work the following weekend. Daniel and Caleb had been invited to a Saturday-night, end-of-the-school-year sleepover at a friend's house in town. Josh's friend, Matt, wanted him to go with their family on a weekend camping trip. Without even asking Ellie, Josh said no.
"But I thought you loved camping," Ellie said, surprised when she found out from Matt's mother that Josh had declined.
Josh shrugged. "Sometimes."
Ellie looked at him, trying to figure him out. She'd hoped that summer vacation would make him happier, but it didn't seem to. She knew what would make him happier—Rance leaving. But that didn't seem to be happening, either.
"Josh can come with us," Sandra said. She'd invited Carrie to her house for dinner and to spend the night. "We can rent a movie, make popcorn. Have a party. What do you say?"
Josh just shook his head. "No." Then he saw Ellie looking at him, tapping her foot. "Thanks, anyway," he added.
Ellie thought she heard Rance gritting his teeth, but she couldn't be sure.
The kid was a jerk.
A stubborn, obnoxious little jerk.
Josh had been, in Trey's words, "cruisin' for a bruisin'" ever since Rance had come back to the ranch.
At first Rance had been inclined to cut him a
little slack. The boy obviously resented him stepping in and doing the things Spike had done. Clearly Spike had been a good father, and the kid didn't want just any old jerk taking his place. Rance could appreciate that—to a point.
They'd gone way past that point now.
If Ellie had told him the truth right off, he would be over it by this time, Rance assured himself. But when he stopped judging long enough to look at things from Ellie's point of view, he could see that telling Josh while he hated Rance's guts wouldn't be an easy task.
He tried to make it easier for her. He tried to make Josh like him. He didn't even have to try with the other three kids. They thought he was the best thing since Santa Claus. Josh still hated his guts. He could see it in the way the kid looked at him whenever he came into a room. And he knew the boy was going out of his way to make sure that he and Ellie were never alone.
"I'm worried about Josh," Ellie had told him a couple of weeks ago. "He keeps waking up and coming downstairs in the middle of the night."
"Coming downstairs?" Rance had frowned. "Why?"
"Well, to the bathroom, I guess. But twice I woke up and found him standing in the doorway of my room."
Rance's teeth came together with a snap. "Checking to see if I'm in your bed."
Ellie's face flamed. "He wouldn't—! We wouldn't!"
"I damn well would," Rance said. "And you know it. I want to marry you, Ellie. I want to be in your bed."
But she had shaken her head and turned away. But he didn't think it was because she didn't want it, too.
It was because of Josh.
That was why he wasn't going camping with Matt's family this weekend. Rance was sure of it. If all the kids were gone, there would be no one to keep Rance out of Ellie's bed. Josh wouldn't be having any of that.
He didn't want to be anywhere Rance was—that was intuitively obvious—but he wouldn't let them out of his sight just the same. There was no way he was going to let them have a chance to do what he was sure they would be doing if he left them alone.
"Well, then," Ellie said after the most tension-fraught dinner Rance could ever remember sitting through, "isn't this nice, just the three of us?" She had a brittle smile on her face as she turned to Josh. "What would you like to do?"
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