A Cowboy at Heart

by Roz Denny Fox

  “I don’t understand any of what you’re saying,” Miranda said. “But the gang and I can make do. Sleeping under a roof will be a bonus. But we’d sure like a hot meal. We last ate yesterday when some hikers gave us a leftover pack of hot dogs and a few buns.” Again she waved a hand toward the four hunkered some yards away.

  “Food? Damn! Wait—Mrs. Tucker mentioned meat in a freezer.”

  “That sounds encouraging. If there’s a microwave, we can thaw it out. So, if you don’t mind my asking, why are you conducting business out here in the wind and cold? Why aren’t you inside fixing supper for those poor kids?”

  “Well, I…” Linc stopped, panic swamping him. “For one, I can’t cook. I’ve lived and worked in the city all my life. I either order in or eat out.”

  Miranda waved the flyer in his face. “Did you think street kids don’t eat?”

  “For your information, I intended to hire a cook and a housekeeper before any kids showed up.” Linc glared. “Not that I owe you any explanation. And let me guess, your smart mouth has landed you in trouble before.”

  Miranda ground her teeth to keep from lashing back. Here she was again, responding like a twenty-six-year-old, instead of the way someone like Jenny would. “Sorry,” she mumbled, biting her lip.

  “Forget it.” Linc shook back a lock of dark hair and offered a tentative smile as he glanced at his watch. “Well, it’s too late to rectify the cook-housekeeper issue today. Whistle up your friends. For now, we’ll all have to make the best of a situation none of us invited.”

  The smile altered his stern features, and Miranda responded accordingly. “Hey, great! Jenny’s worn a hole in her shoe, and the guys stayed behind to try and fix it, in case we had more walking to do.”

  “Do any of you have injuries?”

  “No, we’re just tired. I’ll go fetch them. Then maybe Jenny and I can check what’s in your freezer. I’ll bet we can toss together a meal of some sort.”

  “Really?” Linc felt more grateful for that one simple statement than she could know. His life lately had been hectic. He’d been involved in selling his house and storing the furnishings, as well as studying ranching techniques. He probably should’ve asked John to make a cursory inventory of what was needed here. Under no circumstances, however, would it have occurred to him to take a crash course in cooking. “Damn John—and Gunderson,” he muttered, swinging his fierce gaze back to the three young children he had yet to deal with.

  “Don’t swear at them,” Miranda said testily, again forgetting herself. “Can’t you see they’re scared?” She didn’t care if this jerk took his anger out on her, as long as he left those poor kids alone.

  “I’m not swearing at them. My anger’s directed at the guy who got me into this mess, and at the Oasis rep who sold me a pig in a poke. What makes you even imagine I’d swear at children?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, probably the way you’re glowering.” Miranda stopped and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Excuse me. I’ll just go get my friends.” She hugged Scraps to her chest and sidled around Linc. Once past him, she broke into a run.

  Staring after the young woman, he noticed her shapely backside and quickly controlled a punch to his gut that he shouldn’t be feeling. He turned his attention to the problems on the porch.

  John Montoya thought he was crazy to leave his old job. But in the past few years, Linc found himself growing more short-tempered and less tolerant of people. No doubt the dog’s owner had glimpsed and had wrongly assumed he’d swear at little kids. Well, the red-haired boy wasn’t so little. He must be the one George Tucker had said was the biter.

  Linc approached the trio slowly. “Hi. My name is Lincoln Parker. Call me Linc.” He mustered a smile. “Sorry about the phone call and the time I spent talking to the lady with the dog,” he added for good measure, as he’d seen the kids’ interest in the dog. “Let’s go inside and you can give me your names. Hey, hey, relax. I don’t know when I’ll be able to reach your social worker—this…Mrs. Bishop.” Lincoln unfolded the paper and read the woman’s name. “What I’m saying—” he spoke through a thinning smile “—is that we may as well be on a first-name basis because it looks as if we’re stuck with each other for a while.”

  “Screw you,” sneered the boy. Linc stiffened when the kid barreled off the porch straight at him. He didn’t relish getting bitten; Tucker hadn’t warned about kicking, though. The little monster landed a bone-breaking blow to Linc’s left shin. “Damn, damn, damn!” He swore and hopped around holding his ankle as the kid disappeared in the thickening dusk.

  “Wolfie!” The girl not confined to the wheelchair cried out and stumbled on one of the wheelchair foot plates. She fell flat at Linc’s feet, sobbing too hard to get up right away and follow the boy.

  “Easy, easy.” Linc reached for her gingerly.

  “Wolfie is Hana’s brother,” said the round-eyed girl in the chair. “His real name’s Wolfgang, but he hates it, so everybody calls him Wolfie.”

  Bending, Linc gently lifted the hysterical child. He was amazed by how fragile her bones felt under his hands and was reminded of a frightened bird he’d rescued from a cat once when he couldn’t have been much older than Wolfie. “It’s okay,” he murmured softly. “You girls go in out of this wind. I’ll find your brother, I promise,” he told the child who shook violently and watched him in abject fear.

  Linc set her down and at once limped off. He could no longer see the boy, but he’d heard a door slam in the distance, in the direction of an outbuilding. Linc supposed he’d find Wolfgang in the bunkhouse. At least, he assumed the low structure was one of the two bunkhouses John said came with the ranch.

  Afraid the little hellion might have time to rig some kind of trap at the door, Linc stood well to one side of what appeared to be the only way in. Cautiously, he shoved the door open with a toe. The interior, dark as a cave, smelled of urine and decay. Wrinkling his nose, Linc called, “Wolfie, either turn on a light or come outside so we can talk.”

  The silence stretched, but Linc felt the boy’s presence.

  “God, this place stinks like a sewer. Please tell me this isn’t where you kids sleep.” He reached inside and felt the wall for a light switch. Finding one, he flipped it on. A single bulb in the center of the room sprang to life, barely illuminating the area directly beneath the fixture. Not so much as a glimmer reached into any of the room’s four corners, but the bulb gave off enough power for Linc to see two sets of bunk beds. A cracked mirror hung over a single dresser with a broken leg. The mirror reflected the filament inside the bare bulb. As his eyes adjusted, Linc made out the boy crouched against the wall between the two sets of beds.

  His heart lodged in his chest. “Look, son,” he said, attempting to calm his voice in spite of the fact that it remained rough with emotion. “I can only guess what you’ve put up with in the past. I promise you here and now, for however long you’re in my care, you won’t be hit—and your sleeping conditions will darned well improve.”

  Freckles stood out on the boy’s pale cheeks. Wide blue eyes under a shock of sandy red hair warily assessed the man who barred the room’s only door.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” Linc tried again to reassure the boy. “I only took over ownership of the ranch today. I can’t make instant changes. But I wouldn’t let a dog sleep in this rat hole. I hope the house is in better shape. If so, we’ll all bunk there tonight.” He shivered and stopped speaking to rub his arms. “What’s the heat in this building set at?”

  “Ain’t no heat,” the boy growled. “But even if I gotta take the girls and run away in the dark, ain’t none of us sleeping with you, creep. So get that in your head.”

  “God! That’s not what I meant by all of us sleeping in the house.” Shaken, Linc withdrew fractionally. “Did you see the older kids by the road? I simply meant it’s unacceptable to think anyone would have to sleep here with no heat. I trust the main house has a furnace. It’s probably big enough for everyone
to stake out a sleeping spot for one night. Tomorrow, we’ll clean this place and locate a hardware store where I can buy baseboard heaters. To say nothing of mattresses that don’t sag or smell.” Linc eyed the definite bow in the beds.

  “Why would you go to all that trouble before you get hold of Mrs. Jacobs?”

  “Who?” Linc’s ears perked up at a new name tossed in the mix.

  “Our social worker. I heard you talkin’ on the phone about her.”

  “Jacobs isn’t the name I was given. But I gather Mrs. Bishop is new at the agency. I have no idea when we’ll be able to connect. So while you’re in my care, I want you kids sleeping on clean sheets and mattresses.”

  “Hana wets. She don’t do it on purpose. The house mom said she wasn’t washin’ sheets for no brat big ’nuff to get up and go to the outhouse. I used to have a flashlight, but it broke. Hana’s scared to walk the trail by herself. I told her to wake me up, but she says I sleep too hard.”

  “You mean…this bunkhouse has no bathroom, either?”

  The boy’s stringy red hair slapped his ears as he shook his head.

  “Where do you kids shower? Or bathe?” Linc amended his statement when the word shower drew a blank look from the boy.

  “Fridays, Lydia used to toss me and Hana in the creek with a bar of soap. Before she took over from Judy Rankin, we got to wash in a dishpan Miz Judy set on the back porch. After the Tuckers came, they only let Cassie use the pan. On account of her not being able to get in the water ’cause of her twisted hip.”

  A rough expulsion of breath left Lincoln’s lungs. “The news gets worse by the second. I can’t listen to any more. Except… Wolfie, how often did Mrs. Jacobs come to inspect the place? What agency worker would approve of kids living in such squalor?”

  “She ain’t never come that I know. Not since she brung me and Hana here to live. Cassie and some others were already here. One house mister griped to Oasis, and somebody came at night and took the other kids away. That was before Rob Rankin. He said Oasis put them in another group home.” Climbing to his feet, the boy hiked a thin shoulder. “They coulda kilt ’em. That’s what Hana thinks.”

  “I doubt that.” Although… Linc swept the room with a scowl. “How any adult could visit this mess and close his or her eyes to conditions here is beyond me. Look, I’m sure you have few reasons to trust anyone, but I wish you’d give me a chance. At least come back to the house and let your sister see that you haven’t run off without her. She was crying her eyes out when I left to find you.”

  “Hana bawls a lot, but she’s only four. Don’t hold it against her, okay?”

  “No, I wouldn’t hold crying against a child. How old are you, Wolfie?”

  “Ten. I had my birthday last month. Lydia Tucker said I was just lying so she’d bake a cake. She never did, so Hana and Cassie think I’m still nine.”

  Linc couldn’t even bring himself to comment on the Tuckers’ callous treatment of the children they were supposed to care for. He met the guarded eyes of the shivering boy. “Will you walk with me to the house?”

  “O…kay,” Wolfie agreed, a catch in his voice. “But if anybody lays a hand on me or Hana, they’ll wish they hadn’t. I have sharp teeth and I can bite hard.”

  “So George Tucker told me.” Linc waited to smile until he turned his back on the ten-year-old. “Biting’s not the way men solve things, Wolfie. Not even if they’re bad things. So before you go biting any of the folks up at the house, I’d like you to promise you’ll talk to me first. Trust me to handle the problem. Will you do that?”

  “I ain’t makin’ no promises till I see.”

  “I guess that’s fair enough. I’ve never met the older kids. But I suspect life’s been no picnic for them, either. I’ll start by giving them my house rules.”

  “Rules?”

  “Dos and don’ts. They’re pretty simple.”

  “Oh.” The boy tucked his chin against his thin chest and tried to match Linc’s longer stride while leaving plenty of space between them.

  Entering the ranch house provided instant respite from the stinging wind. The room was well lit and warm. The little dog dashed up, barking its head off. But otherwise, if Linc expected to walk into a beehive of activity, he was doomed to disappointment. Each teen appeared to have staked out his or her wedge of real estate. The three boys sat on the floor, propped against their possessions, which included backpacks and guitar cases. Randi and the other girl sat on a raised hearth in front of an empty fireplace. Hana and Cassie did their best to melt into a dark corner as far away as possible from the teens. To the last kid, all tensed visibly when Linc walked in with Wolfie.

  Linc homed in on Randi. “Was Mrs. Tucker wrong about there being meat in the freezer?”

  “I, uh, we didn’t check. Eric said we shouldn’t rummage in the kitchen without you. That way you can’t claim something ought to be there that isn’t.” At Linc’s vacant expression, she added a qualifier. “You know, in case you try to tell the cops we stole from you.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Lincoln loosely bracketed his hips with his hands. He studied the room’s occupants. One older boy wore a long, ratty velvet coat over holey jeans. The baggy pants of the other two dragged on the ground. One wore leather wrist bands. All had numerous earrings in both ears, and the girl with the lighter brown hair— Jenny—had her lip, eyebrow and, Lord knew what else, pierced. Distrustful expressions, identical to Wolfie’s, were mirrored five times over.

  He slowly released a pent-up breath. “It’s safe to say the ranch doesn’t meet any of our expectations. I counted on having time to spruce it up and lay in supplies. And you thought you’d walk into an operating shelter.” Linc’s gaze shifted to Wolfie, his sister, and Cassie in her pint-sized wheelchair. “On top of that, I never planned on hosting…small children. But they’re here and will be until I reach the new director of Social Services.”

  “None of us formed any preconceived notions,” Miranda muttered. “Why don’t we start over? Introduce ourselves, and then food can be our next priority.”

  “Right.” Linc rubbed the back of his neck, beginning to feel overwhelmed by everything facing him. It embarrassed him that the girl, Randi, was the first to voice a mature approach. He was, after all, the adult in charge. Although it struck him that, as John Montoya had said, he’d jumped into this venture without a shred of actual experience.

  “I’m Lincoln Parker,” he said. “Linc, if you like. Until a few weeks ago I lived and worked in Hollywood. My aim in starting this retreat is to provide a safe, substance-free home for up to a dozen teens who’ve lived hand-to-mouth on city streets.”

  “Parker?” Jenny gasped. “You’re not Felicity’s brother, are you? I mean, you couldn’t be that Lincoln Parker.” She shot Eric a funny look and they both uttered uneasy choking sounds.

  “As a matter of fact, I am that Parker.” Linc’s eyes clouded. He was getting a bad feeling about these kids again. “No. It’s too unbelievable to think you’d be… Not even the cops were able to find the kids who dumped my sister at an inner-city L.A. emergency room and then ran off.”

  “We didn’t dump her,” Jenny sputtered. “Two cops at the ER told us to get lost.”

  Eric scrambled to his feet. “Yeah, I went back the next day and nobody would tell me a thing. We heard later she’d OD’d. Felicity was our friend, you know.”

  “I spent weeks combing backstreets, asking information of anyone who might have seen where you were.”

  “Gosh, didn’t Felicity ever talk about us? When you were out of town, she let us crash at your place,” Jenny said edgily, beginning to chew her nails, which was something Miranda noticed the girl did in tense situations.

  “You brought drugs into my home?”

  “No!” Jenny seemed horrified.

  “Don’t lie. I have an autopsy report that shows alcohol, marijuana and embalming fluid in my sister’s blood, for God’s sake. Oh, what’s the use of talking to you? The police were adam
ant that even if I found you, you wouldn’t rat out a dealer.” Linc’s dark eyes glittered as his anger centered on Jenny. “I won’t tolerate drugs here. Maybe you’d better move on.” His voice shook with anger.

  Eric stepped protectively in front of Jenny. “You’ve got no right to yell at us, man. Me and Jenny tried to help Felicity.”

  Jenny’s white face bobbed out in the open as she grabbed Eric’s arm. “It was wet, Eric. That’s what made Felicity act so crazy.”

  Linc’s scowl returned to the girl. “What are you yammering about? The night you took Felicity to emergency, the city hadn’t seen rain in months.”

  “Not rain, stupid,” Eric spat. “Wet’s a street name for weed—marijuana—laced with PCP, soaked in embalming fluid and dried. Felicity knew—we all know that’s evil shi—er, stuff,” he finished lamely, watering down his language when Miranda jabbed him in the ribs and rolled her eyes at the children still huddled in a corner. Wanting to defuse the situation, she hauled Jenny toward the kitchen.

  “Today has turned out to be a shocker for everyone, Mr. Parker,” she said. “My dad used to say trouble’s better met and dealt with on a full stomach. Why don’t Jenny and I see what we can find to make for supper? Y’all can talk afterward.”

  Linc leveled a frown at the girl with the too-dark hair, pale skin and smoke-gray eyes. “If you have a dad worthy of quoting, why are you hanging out with this riffraff?”

  Miranda’s chin shot up. “My dad died. And we’re not riffraff. If that’s your attitude, and if you want kids with pedigrees, why advertise this place as a haven for homeless teens?”

  Her barb struck Linc in an unprotected spot and triggered a load of guilt. Why had Felicity, who had access to a nice home and best of everything money could buy, chosen friends among druggies and derelicts? He obviously wouldn’t find out by attacking the very kids he hoped one day to wrest answers from.