Dreamspinner Press Year Six Greatest Hits

by JD Ruskin

  “You won’t be.” She sighed. “I promise. Believe me, both my brother and I need you as a buffer from our parents.”

  “Is that right?” I asked Cy as I tipped his chin up so I could see the cognac-colored eyes for myself.

  “Yes.” He sighed. “My father and I are different kind of men, and my mother worries about me incessantly.”

  I grinned at him. “So you get that from her, do you?”

  “What? I never worry about anything?”

  “You know you’ll turn to stone if you lie like that.”

  “What do I ever worry about?”

  I arched an eyebrow at him.

  “That doesn’t count. Anyone in their right mind would worry about you.”

  I chuckled, bent and kissed him, and then let him go, leaning back against the counter and smiling at Carolyn. “So, why doesn’t Micah talk?”

  She sucked in her breath. “A little over a year ago, he was at home with my mother-in-law because he didn’t want to go to Tristan’s soccer game with the rest of us, and she had a heart attack and died. It was fast. She had an acute pulmonary embolism, and she was gone in a matter of seconds. Micah called 911, and that was the last time he’s spoken.”

  Jesus. “He was with her alone until the ambulance came?” I asked her.

  “Yes.”

  “And how long was that?”

  “Not long, ten minutes maybe.”

  “That’s long for a little kid.”

  “Too long, apparently. He hasn’t uttered a word in almost a year.”

  “He laughs, though. I’ve heard him.”

  “Yes. He laughs and cries and sneezes and coughs and…. It’s not physical, it’s not medical… he simply won’t speak.”

  I nodded.

  “We’ve tried hypnosis, we’ve tried—I mean, my husband and me, before he bailed with the nanny—we tried everything.” Her eyes filled and her breath caught fast and I moved forward, around the island to where she was sitting, and grabbed her off her stool.

  I gently pressed her to my heart and patted her back with my other hand. “Any man that leaves his children is good for nothing, you hear me? A man can walk out on his wife, or his husband, and be forgiven, but a man who leaves his children ain’t one. I suspect he will come cryin’ back to you once he figures out that the nanny ain’t a woman but a girl instead. When he comes back, you got yourself a decision to make.”

  She clung tight, breathing me in. “God, Weber, I so get why Cy’s in—”

  “Lyn!” he barked at her.

  “Oh,” she whimpered, “I have not been held like this in forever.”

  I tilted her head up so she could see my face. “I am so sorry to hear that. Bein’ held is one of the best parts of havin’ a mate, ain’t it?”

  “It should be, yes.” She nodded, wiping at her eyes and stepping back away from me.

  “Okay,” I sighed, releasing her. “So now I understand. Micah didn’t save his grandmother, so he feels like he failed.”

  “Yes.” She was crying again. “That’s exactly what his therapist thinks.”

  “He feels he could have done somethin’.”

  She nodded.

  “Poor kid.” I exhaled before I turned away from her and yelled, “I’m coming back in there, and there better not be anybody in my bed!”

  The squeals of laughter were clear from the other room.

  “Jesus, Weber, they’re in love.”

  “He’s addictive,” Cy said under his breath, but I heard him.

  “I’m coming!” I yelled a second time.

  I left the kitchen, and when I got to the bedroom, even Tristan was under the covers, the bed moving so hard it looked like it was rolling under the comforter. I lay down, complained about how lumpy the bed was as the laughter got louder and louder. When I threw the comforter off and yelled ah-hah at them, they all screamed at once. Diving down in slow motion, I made sure to miss them completely. They all piled on top of me once I was sprawled out, and the bed was a disaster area after that. We only stopped horsing around when Cy called us all out for breakfast.

  LUCKILY FOR me Cyrus had washed, dried, and folded all my clothes before I woke up so I had something clean to wear. But that wasn’t enough, apparently, because he wanted me to agree to let him pick me up a few things.

  “Like?” I asked as I was watching him shove clothes into an overnight bag for the weekend.

  “Underwear,” he teased me. “T-shirts, socks. You love to run. What are you planning to run in while you’re here? I didn’t find any basketball shorts or anything else. You don’t even have any shoes other than your boots, which have holes in them.”

  I squinted at him. “Maybe I should just stay here while you guys—”

  “No.” He shook his head. “There’s a mall on the way out of town. Just don’t give me your usual crap and simply agree to let me get you some staples, okay? Please.”

  I shrugged. “As long as I can pay you back.”

  “But if you pay me back, then we’re on your budget and not mine, and I hate that.”

  “This is your only option,” I said flatly. “Either I keep the receipt so I know what I owe you or we’re not goin’.”

  “Why? Why do only you get a say?”

  “Because I’m a goddamn grown-up, that’s why,” I snapped at him. “For crissakes, Cy, why are we even fightin’ about this?”

  “Stop,” he snarled back at me, whirling around to face me, fuming. “You always do this. You always turn it into a money thing, and it’s not. This has nothing to do with money and everything to do with your stupid fucking pride.”

  “You do not take care of me,” I told him, shaking my head. “I take care of me. Period.”

  “No, not period,” he almost yelled, which surprised me.

  He usually gave in, afraid I’d leave, and I played that card and threatened him to get him to back down. But this time was different because of his sister and because of the boys. He knew he had me, and my honor would never let me leave. I had given my word—unlike with Aidan or his brother in Alaska. Only Carolyn had pressed until she got it.

  “You’re not going anywhere, at least not for two weeks, so if I want you to have new jeans since yours all have holes in them, I’ll get them for you. Whatever I want, I’ll get, and you’ll just take it because you have to.”

  “I ain’t no doll for you to dress.”

  “Why do you always have to fight with me?” he roared, stalking from the room, sputtering with fury.

  I sat down hard on the end of the bed and waited.

  Minutes later he was back.

  I arched an eyebrow for him.

  “No one ever makes me as angry as you do.”

  “No one else even makes you angry at all, I reckon.” I grinned at him.

  He thought about it a minute, and the look I got, full of amazement, made me laugh.

  “Jesus, that’s true. You’re the only one who can get a rise out of me.”

  I couldn’t stifle the snickering. “Come here.”

  “Let me get you some things, all right? Not a lot, I won’t go nuts.”

  “Swear.”

  “I do.”

  I nodded and waved him over to me.

  He ran and leaped and I went down under a hundred and sixty-five pounds of very happy, carved, toned neurosurgeon.

  In the car, or Carolyn’s huge-ass boat of an SUV, I stretched out in the back as Cyrus rode shotgun next to his sister.

  Since Cy said my boots needed to be resoled—and he was right, they did—we dropped them off on the way, then drove to the mall with me in a pair of rubber galoshes that was all they had at the shoe repair place that we could buy for me to walk back out in. The first order of business was to get me some new footwear.

  The boots at the department stores would not make it a week on the range so I passed. But I got a pair of running shoes and a pair of heavy hiking boots because the leather was thick and the sole was sewn on and not glued, which made
it more durable. I had left my cowboy hat at Cy’s place, but my head was cold, and I felt naked without it. He got me a wool beanie.

  “This is gonna fix things?” I asked him as he wrapped a scarf around my neck and his sister helped me on with a peacoat.

  “Yes.” He beamed at me. “You look good. That coat is hot.”

  I glowered at him.

  “What? It is.”

  “It’s a coat,” I grumbled.

  “Can I get you dress shoes?”

  “No.”

  “Just a pair of black lace-ups to keep at my house?”

  “No.”

  “Please. You’ll need them.”

  “For what?”

  “I have a dinner to go to while you’re here.”

  “I’ll stay home.”

  His eyes softened.

  “I mean, I’ll stay at your house.”

  “You said ‘home’.”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “It was nice, how it sounded.”

  “Oh for crissakes, Cy, you know I would stick around if there was shit I could do in San Francisco, but there ain’t, and I won’t live on you and be a whore!”

  “Jesus,” Carolyn gasped.

  “Shit,” I muttered because I forgot she was there as well as where I was.

  “Letting me take care of you would not make you a whore,” Cy said tightly, his jaw clenched.

  “But if I can’t provide for myself, I can’t respect myself. And how can you respect me if I don’t? It won’t work, and you’d come to hate me.”

  He shook his head.

  “You would,” I assured him. “And I won’t take that chance.”

  “Why?”

  I leveled my gaze at him. “I just won’t.”

  He sighed heavily. “Well, I want you at that party with me, you stubborn piece of crap, so I’ll get the shoes, you wear them, and I’ll keep them. How’s that?”

  “So they’d be yours.”

  “Yes.”

  I smiled at him. “Agreed.”

  The muscles in his jaw flexed.

  “Let’s go already. The kids are restless.”

  “Fine,” he groused at me.

  In the car after lunch, on the road toward Half Moon Bay, Tristan was asking Cy about leprosy for some reason, Pip and his mother were playing I Spy, and I was watching Micah draw me in his sketch pad.

  “I like that rhinoceros,” I told him. “I’ve never ridden one of them before. Probably like bull riding, ya reckon?”

  Micah nodded.

  “Yeah.” I yawned, leaning closer to him.

  He reached up and, not turning from looking at his page, put his left hand around the side of my face and smoothed his fingers over my cheek. I let my head clunk gently against the top of his and heard him sigh before I closed my eyes. I had no idea how tired I really was.

  I felt a hand on my right knee, shaking gently, and when I opened my eyes, Cy was there, looking down at my face.

  “We here?” I asked, sitting up and stretching.

  “Yeah,” he said, sounding miserable.

  I caught hold of his arm and pulled him close, our faces just inches apart. “I don’t want us to fight no more. Let’s stop fussin’ at each other and kiss and make up.”

  His smile was sweet and sad and happy all at the same time. “I would love that.”

  I puckered up, and he started laughing. “So not hot.”

  “No?”

  He lost it, and I grabbed him and pulled him into my arms and kissed him until it wasn’t funny anymore. I made sure when he got out of the SUV he was uncomfortable and squirming and cursing my name and promising retribution.

  “Oh yeah?” I teased him.

  “Oh, cowboy, you’re going to be so sorry we’re not alone,” he threatened me, eyes still cloudy with passion, his lips swollen and dark and bruised. He looked like I’d mauled him.

  “Why’s that?” I asked, following him up the cobblestone path to the front door.

  He grunted. “Because you are so going to want my ass, and I’ll be damned if you’ll get it.”

  “Maybe it’s about time you had mine,” I said softly.

  He froze.

  I was proud of myself for not laughing, and when he turned to face me, mouth open, his eyes round in shock, I casually asked him what was wrong.

  “You?”

  “I?”

  “You.”

  “We’ve established this.” I grinned at him.

  “You—” His breath came out in a rush. “—said you’ve never trusted anyone else enough to top.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you’re saying what? You trust me enough?”

  “That’s what I’m sayin’. Yessir.”

  “Jesus, Weber,” he groaned, reaching for me, leaning hard, hands fisted on my chest, in the flannel shirt I was wearing under the new peacoat he had just bought me. “Don’t tease me.”

  “When have you ever known me to do such a thing?”

  “Never.” He closed his eyes, inhaling me.

  “So then?”

  “Oh, baby, please let me have you,” he moaned hoarsely as I kissed his forehead. “I’ll be so…. Weber, I’ll be your first.”

  “And only, I suspect,” I told him. “Trust doesn’t come easy to me.”

  He swallowed hard before he opened his eyes to look up into mine. “Do you have any idea how beautiful your eyes are?”

  “Faded blue, like jeans, my mama used to say. They ain’t nothin’, not like yours, not brown and gold all mixed up together. Yours are somethin’ to see.”

  He shook his head and then let his head fall forward against my chest.

  “So now—” I chuckled. “—who’s gonna be sorry that we’re not alone?”

  “I really hate you.”

  “I know it.”

  “Cyrus!”

  We both looked up toward the front door, and Carolyn was there waving us in.

  “Hurry up!” she yelled.

  He grabbed hold of my hand and led me toward the house. Inside, it was enormous, made to look like a giant hunting lodge, all river rock and logs, the only thing that didn’t make sense being the skylights.

  “Cyrus, honey?”

  There were a lot of people all converging at once, and I was jostled away from him, and since standing there waiting for everyone to finish and talk to me, even acknowledge me, left me waiting there like an idiot, I walked out through the open sliding glass doors onto the back deck. I saw the boys then, running around with two little girls and three German shepherds, two of the black and brown variety and one that was black.

  “Weber!” Pip screamed for me, leading the girls over.

  The dogs saw me then and all ran at the same time. I went to my knees to greet them, and the warning barking became the joyous kind with wagging tails, wet noses jabbed into my eyes, tongues on my face, and general happy whimpering and whining. Soggy tennis balls got dropped at my feet, and I worked the dogs hard at the same time I played tag with Pip and the girls. I kept an eye on Micah and Tristan as they climbed the big oak tree, and when I thought they were high enough, told them not to go up anymore.

  The girls were Vanessa and Victoria, and at five and seven they were already stunning. At sixteen and eighteen they would be breaking hearts. Raven black hair and huge pale-blue eyes, in contrast to the boys with their dark chestnut-brown hair and deep blue ones. They were all adorable, and the continuing sounds of laughter made me smile. I lost track of time and it was nice.

  “Hello.”

  I turned, and there was a man there a little taller than Cy’s six one but not as tall as my own six three. “Sir,” I greeted him, knowing of course who he was. There could be no mistake that this was the patriarch of the Benning clan. He was a bigger, more muscular version of the man I had never been able to get out of my head since the first day I had met him.

  He came forward, hand extended, smiling at me. “Owen Benning.”

  “Weber Yat
es,” I said, taking his hand and shaking it.

  “It’s awfully nice of you to be the only one out here watching my grandchildren.”

  I smiled at him as he released my hand, and Vanessa came up beside me and put her little one into mine.

  “Looks like you have a friend already.”

  Vanessa passed me a muddy, slobber covered tennis ball a second before one of the dogs came loping back. As I threw the ball hard, she squealed with delight.

  “And who did you come with, Weber?”

  I looked back at him. “With Cyrus and Carolyn, sir.”

  “How is she?”

  He meant his daughter, since her husband had just taken off on her and all. “I think she’s dealing with it for her boys,” I said as I watched seven-year-old Victoria grab one of the other dog’s ears and pull. “Sweetheart!”

  The little girl looked over at me.

  “Darlin’, don’t pull on his ears or put your face right up to his, all right?”

  “Yes, Weber!” she called back.

  “Excuse me, sir,” I said, still holding Vanessa’s hand as I crossed the yard to where her sister was.

  Reaching her, I knelt down on one knee so she and I were closer to the same height. “I’m not scoldin’ you, you understand.”

  She nodded. “No, I know. You just don’t want Rusty to bite me.”

  “That’s right.” I smiled at her as she studied my face.

  “Weber, Tristan said I can’t be a fireman. Is that true?”

  “No, of course that’s not true. You can be whatever you please.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “Weber,” Vanessa interrupted. “Will you tell grandpa to let me ride the horsey?”

  Since the man himself was suddenly right there I told her to ask for herself.

  She looked scared.

  He squinted down at her.

  “Grandpa.” She bit her bottom lip. “Can I ride the black and white horse?”

  “Well, I promised the boys that they could ride with me first.”

  “But there’s two horses. Can’t Weber ride one?”

  He looked at me. “Can you ride?”

  “Yessir. What’ve you got, appaloosas?”

  “Yes.” He smiled at me.

  “Well, if you don’t mind, I’d love to ride.”

  He nodded. “Let’s get all the kids rounded up.”