by Leslie North
"And I would have said that was a bad idea!" Lacey shot back, doing her best to lower her voice and failing.
Trevor took a step forward and reached out to take her by the arms, looking into her face with an intensity that made her shudder. Part of her wanted to wrench free of his grip, but another part of her felt electrified. She hadn't expected the contact.
She’d expected her body's response to it even less.
“What is this about, Lacey? It can’t be all about Jade. Something else is going on. You want to tell me what it is?”
"I...I wasn't going to say anything," Lacey whispered, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. My would-be contractor for the B&B, he was supposed to be remodeling the place I bought, but I’m afraid he has decided to run off with all my money, instead.” She swallowed hard. “I don't know what I'm going to do."
“Shoot, Lacey—” Trevor began, his brow furrowing in concern.
When she saw that, she pulled away, wrapped her arms around herself, and hugged herself tightly. “Don’t, okay? Please don’t feel sorry for me. I wasn’t looking for sympathy. I don’t even know what made me tell you to begin with.”
“Okay, look,” he said, his tone changing abruptly to all business. “I’ve got a proposition for you.” It was jarring how quickly he could switch off his concern.
“I don’t see how that’s going to help anything,” she said angrily.
He held up his hands. "Well, it might, Lacey, so hear me out. You stay here, on the ranch. Help me sort things out with Jade over the summer, and I'll make sure you have enough money to take care of your hospitality operation, and more. What do you say?"
Lacey stared at him in disbelief. She wanted to say no, to tell him that she needed to get away from the McCall place and start her own life as quickly as humanly possible. The idea of tucking her tail between her legs, skulking off to Florida, and showing up at her mother’s door without having figured out how to fix things, though—she wanted that even less than she wanted to stick around the ranch.
She looked down at his extended hand, hesitated for only a moment more, and took it. “Fine, I’ll stay. For the summer, Trevor, and that’s it.”
6
“So, what’s the story, boss? You want me to come down there or not? I can get things settled enough to last a day or two and be there by tomorrow if need be,” Frank said, his voice muffled by the construction noise coming through on his end.
“I appreciate the offer, Hoss, but I need you overseeing things in Helena. If I don’t have you there, I won’t be able to get a freaking thing done here, and I’ve got a lot on my plate right now.”
“You sure, boss?” Frank asked, and Trevor could clearly make out the concern in his voice. It sounded like his foreman wanted to ask him if he was doing okay, but the typical restraint between men who were work buddies and nothing more stopped the conversation. It had been three weeks since Jade showed up on his doorstep and changed everything in his life, but it appeared that some things never changed.
Trevor was glad for that. He wasn't in the mood to go baring his soul to anyone. His mood was more in line with some dinner and maybe a beer or three. “I’m sure, man. I need you there. There, and nowhere else, if you can swing it.”
“I’ll do my best, boss,” Frank laughed. “My wife might have something to say about that, but I’ll do what I can. You just let me know if you need anything. Gonna be a heck of a year, ain’t it?”
“You can say that again,” Trevor said with a grimace, ending the call.
As soon as Frank was off the line, Trevor cranked the pitiful heater as high as it would go, which in a truck as old as his wasn’t all that high, but every little bit helped. The way he’d been burning the candle at both ends lately, he was bone-tired, the kind of tired that made him wonder if driving was a wise choice, let alone operating heavy machinery. Not that giving either one of those things up was an option. He’d dug himself into a hole he wasn’t going to get out of anytime soon.
"Home, sweet home," he muttered as he eased his truck in beside Lacey's Jeep. He got out of the vehicle slowly, his knees cracking and popping as they took his weight. He wasn't even thirty yet, but he might as well be a hundred. The way he was feeling now, he could already tell that when he flopped down onto his couch, he was going to have trouble getting back up again.
"Honey, I'm home!" he called out, throwing the door open with a bang. Though he was listening for any sign of laughter from somebody, he stepped into silence. No big surprise there. If Lacey had a sense of humor, she was a pro at hiding it. He was grateful to have her here, no mistaking that, but sometimes, her seriousness unnerved him. And as worn thin as he was these days, he didn't have any nerves to spare.
“Seriously, where is everyone?” he tried again, louder, cracking his knuckles and trying not to get pissed less than five minutes after he’d made it through the front door.
“In the kitchen, Trevor!” Lacey called, clanking pots and pans as if to punctuate the point. “Jade is playing in her room.”
"Thank God for that," Trevor muttered as he pushed open the kitchen door to find Lacey surrounded by an entire army of cooking gadgets. That was one thing he had to give her. Her cooking was so much better than Mrs. Beyers’ that the two of them didn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath. She wasn't overly happy to be here, and they both knew it, but he was grateful for her food all the same.
“Trevor, you shouldn’t say that kind of thing,” Lacey chastised, glancing over her shoulder to shoot him a reproachful look. “Little pitchers have big ears, you know.”
“Big ears, huh? She’d have to be around sometime when I was home for that to be a problem,” Trevor grumbled. He slid past Lacey to the fridge, grabbed himself a beer, thought about it for a minute, and grabbed a second one for good measure. When he eased himself onto one of the bar stools lining the kitchen island, he grunted with relief.
Lacey looked at him again, this time with more sympathy in her face. “Long day, huh?”
"Nothing I can't handle," he answered gruffly. She raised an eyebrow, and he sighed, taking a long swig of beer to stall for time.
"You could tell me, you know," Lacey said tentatively. She hugged her arms around her middle, something he'd noticed she did when she was uncomfortable.
He couldn't have said precisely why, but seeing that irritated him, and he started drumming the fingers of his free hand on the island's concrete top. “What do you want me to tell you, Lacey? That I’m tired? Damn straight, I am. It’s a lot, that’s all. My parents didn’t keep up with things on the ranch as well as they maybe should have, and I’ve got my own business back in Helena to think about. Add on to that, your bed and breakfast thing—”
“You didn’t have to take that on,” she interrupted, her cheeks flushing, her posture defensive. “That wasn’t my suggestion, it was yours.”
"I know that, and it's fine," he countered, holding up a hand to stop her from getting worked up. "I'm just saying, it's a lot. You throw the Jade situation into the mix, and there's not enough time in the day. Do you get me? Not enough time for all this."
“Is…” she started, her blush deepening as she spoke. “Trevor, does this have to do with how things have been going with Jade? I’m not trying to be nosy, but I’ve been noticing.”
“You’ve been noticing, huh?” He laughed without a trace of humor.
“Yes, actually, I have. It seems like the two of you might be having a little trouble bonding. I know she hasn’t necessarily been the easiest.”
“The easiest?” he scoffed. “What are you talking about, Lacey? She’s sullen.”
“She’s been through a lot!” Lacey exclaimed indignantly, her hands dropping to her hips, her discomfort momentarily forgotten. “How do you think you would feel if your parents had just dropped you off on somebody’s doorstep and walked away?”
Trevor's jaw clenched, and he gripped the neck of his beer bottle so tightly he thought it might break. That one hit a litt
le too close to home, although Lacey had no way of knowing it. She was circling around the reason for his leaving the ranch, to begin with, and that was something he was in no way prepared to deal with.
He almost felt sorry for her. The question was meant to be theoretical, designed to appeal to his empathetic side. Instead, it made him surer than ever that he was not equipped to deal with his current situation.
“I hear what you’re saying, Lacey—but you can’t tell me you don’t see it. That kid wants nothing to do with me. She’s hardly willing to be in the same room as I am, for Pete’s sake.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Lacey said, although he could see on her face that she knew precisely what he was talking about.
“Doesn’t really matter how you put it, though, does it? Doesn’t change a darn thing.”
"Maybe she's picking up on something," she prodded. She was still using that gentle, almost timid voice, but he heard something like steel underneath. It wasn't what he had come to expect from her, and he might have enjoyed it under different circumstances. As it was, he didn't have the time or patience for her psychoanalysis right now.
“Look, Lacey,” he exploded, not quite yelling but headed in that direction if he wasn’t careful. “I’m just not cut out for this, okay?”
“What does that mean?” she pressed. “Not cut out for what?”
"For the whole legal guardian thing. I don't know why I ever thought I could take it on to begin with. Is there anything about me that strikes you as paternal?" he asked, getting to his feet and pacing back and forth while she watched him, her hands still on her hips. He could see by the expression on her face that she was utterly unimpressed, but he couldn't stop. These were the thoughts that had been crowding his head for the past few weeks. He hadn't intended to unleash them, but now that he'd started, he felt powerless to stop himself.
“Trevor, be careful. Little people—”
"Have big ears," he finished, rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I know. Believe me; I wouldn't worry about it. That kid always makes sure to stay as far away from me as she can get. Because I'm not cut out for this. I'm not a guardian. Lacey. You want God's honest truth? I just want this whole mess to be finished. Her, the ranch, all of it. I want it to be over and done so I can go back to Helena and get back to my life."
For a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, there was only silence. His voice had steadily risen as he spoke, and now the kitchen had that weird, hollow sound that comes in the quiet following a burst of noise. His head throbbed, and his heart pounded in his ears, a feeling he thought resembled a heart attack, or something like that. Lacey was still standing in front of him, but he hardly dared to look at her. He was afraid of what he would see on her face.
From somewhere just outside the kitchen door, a crash sounded, followed by little slipper-clad feet slapping on the wood floor as they ran away from the kitchen.
Lacey's hand flew up to her mouth, her eyes growing wide with understanding. For Trevor, though, it took a minute. One blissful minute before he realized his mistake. Then the significance of the noise hit him, and he felt like the worst kind of man in the world.
“Aw, hell,” he said, his hands dropping to his sides and his shoulders slumping. “I didn’t realize. How was I supposed to know she was standing right out there? I didn’t see hide nor hair of her when I came in.”
“That’s the thing about kids, Trevor,” Lacey said angrily. “Just because you don’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t around. And, just in case you were curious, that was about the last thing on the planet that little girl needed. She’s already been abandoned by her mother. Now she’s hearing that you’re going to run off and leave her, too. Not good.”
“I—I didn’t mean it,” he stammered, totally out of his depth and floundering miserably. “I mean, the stress is real, but I would never abandon her. Jeez, Lacey, I would hope you’d think better of me than that.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” Lacey countered. “It matters what Jade thinks, and she’s only a little kid.”
“Can you help me?” he asked, genuinely humbled by her words, something of a rare occurrence for him. “Please, Lacey, I’m drowning here.”
“I’m doing the best I can, Trevor, but things aren’t exactly going well for me, either,” she answered, her face reddening as her gaze dropped to the floor.
“What do you mean? I thought that’s what I was taking care of by doing the work on the bed and breakfast.”
He saw her swallow hard. “You are, and I really appreciate it, but the bank has started calling me pretty regularly. They are threatening to foreclose on the note if I don’t get the B&B’s progress back on track.”
“I didn’t know anything about a loan,” Trevor said, his face darkening. Of all the things that his father had taught him, the one thing he could agree with was that getting into bed with the bank was to be avoided at all costs. The stress he saw now on Lacey’s face was an excellent indicator of why.
“Well, there is one,” she said, a hint of defensiveness in her voice. “I took out a construction loan using the timetable the contractor gave me. The bank doles out the funding based on the predetermined schedule. If the work doesn’t stay on schedule, they’ll close out the note.”
“Why am I just now hearing this?” Trevor demanded angrily.
"Because I didn't think you needed to know. It's not like your name is on the loan. I didn't want to stress you out any more than you already were."
"Well, you did a bang-up job," Trevor growled in response. Deep down, he knew he wasn't being fair. She hadn't been out to get him, and it wasn't her fault that her contractor had bailed. It wasn't even her fault that he was working on the B&B in the contractor's place. The fact of the matter was, though, that between the two of them, it was a struggle to get it all done.
"I'm sorry, Trevor," she said after a long pause and a deep breath. "I want to be able to help you with Jade. She's a sweet little girl, and she deserves all the good she can get after what she's been through. But I also have to make sure that the bed and breakfast doesn't fold before I even get it open. It's everything to me. I've poured all the money I have into it."
They stood looking at one another, both at a momentary loss.
This was the problem with having people in his life. When he was on his own, Trevor had only had his own stuff to worry about. Now he sort of had an entire little family to deal with, one he hadn't signed up for. He might be good at fixing things, but he didn't know how to fix a family. He'd chosen to run away from his own instead of working to fix it.
At the same time, Trevor liked to think of himself as a problem solver by nature. He clenched his jaw, willing himself to pull back from the dilemma slightly, to find a way to see it more clearly. There had to be a way to work this out so that everyone would be all right, if not exactly happy. After a moment of troubleshooting it in his head, he landed on something he thought just might do the trick.
“Okay, I think I’ve got a plan, although I don’t know if any of us will enjoy it much.”
"Gee, what a wonderful endorsement," Lacey said, adding a nervous laugh.
"I know, right? But hear me out,” he went on, raising his hands to stop her from saying more. “I could use some extra help at the bed and breakfast. I think that's pretty darn clear to the both of us. You need the work to happen faster, and it seems I need to make a better effort with Jade."
“Correct,” Lacey said, frowning at him. “We’ve already covered all this.”
"So then, why don't the three of us work on it together? I can do the heavy lifting, and you and Jade can take care of smaller things. Maybe get a jump on some of the decorating. I don't know,” he floundered and started again, “I know it's not the way a little girl wants to spend her time, but—"
"I think it's perfect," Lacey interrupted excitedly. He was surprised by the abrupt change in her voice, and when he looked at her, he was even more surprised by the big grin spreading across her
face. That smile made her beautiful.
“You do?” he asked, shaken by her sudden transformation and by the fact that she’d actually agreed with the idea.
“I do,” she agreed. “Given our current predicament, I can’t think of anything better.”
7
"Whoa, there, little lady. Where do you think you're going with that thing?" Trevor asked tersely. A moment later, though, his serious face dissolved into a toothy grin. Seconds after that, he was laughing, and Lacey was giggling right along with him.
Jade didn't crack a smile. She simply stood there looking at the adults, a small frown on her face, fingers tightening on the hammer in her hand. "I'm watching out for stuff," she said indignantly. As she spoke, she started swinging the hammer back and forth, directly contradicting her claim that she was being safe, and glared from Lacey to Trevor, her frown deepening.
It was all Lacey could do not to break into a fresh fit of laughter. She bit the inside of her cheek, willing herself to straighten her facial expression, a trick she'd taught herself when she was little to keep from getting into trouble with her mother. It did the job as well now as it had then. By the time Jade turned her serious little face back in Lacey's direction, Lacey was as straight-faced as she was going to get.
“What’s so funny?” Jade demanded, the line between her brows deepening.
She was a serious child, sometimes painfully so. She had been with Trevor and Lacey for almost a month now, and although Lacey had hoped to see the little girl lighten up some, it hadn’t happened. It was sort of heartbreaking to see a four-year-old girl act so much like an adult. Lacey had a strong suspicion that there hadn't really been another option, from what little she knew about Jade's mother, Penny. Any mother who would leave her daughter on a porch and drive away probably wasn't winning a responsibility award anytime soon.