Lani nodded. “I understand.” She took a bite and chewed while she mulled over everything he’d told her. “So, you asked me not to say anything about this,” she went on after she swallowed. “Who all knows?”
“Very few people. None of the boys, for starters. My five older brothers are all married, and their wives know. We have a few close friends, and that’s about it. None of the ranch hands, even. If this gets out, we’d be made into sideshows. We’d be dragged into the media all the time. We have to concentrate on our work here—we don’t have time for all that nonsense.”
Lani nodded. “I did notice that there aren’t any other articles about you to be found. At least, not any with direct quotes or interviews or anything.”
“We have to be very discreet in everything we do. Our purpose is raising boys, not showing off and doing magic tricks and becoming famous for things that we just inherited. If we get distracted, the boys suffer, and that goes against the very moral fiber of the ranch.”
“I can see that.” Lani lifted another bite to her mouth, but a drop of sauce landed on her shirt. “Oh, no,” she said, grabbing a napkin and trying to dab it off. She was surprised, actually, that she hadn’t dropped the whole forkful—that was a lot more like what she usually did.
“I can’t even see it anymore,” Frank said, and she rolled her eyes at him.
“Then you’re blind. Well, I guess that’s the best I can do.” She set her napkin down and tried to focus on their conversation again. “With your gift of calming people down, you must be invaluable on the ranch.”
“It’s true that I have been able to help out in some sticky situations. Adam’s great at stuff like that too because he knows how the boys are feeling, and Gideon has a little bit of both gifts, so he’s a good guy to have around.”
Lani took another bite, finally noticing how good the food really was. She’d been too preoccupied to notice it much. “This is fantastic,” she said.
“Yeah, we were blessed when Claire showed up to apply for the cook’s job. Of course, Daniel was the most blessed out of all of us, finding his wife and all that romantic stuff.”
Lani smiled. “You mentioned that your dad has a gift. What is it?”
“He has precog. Basically, he gets glimpses of the future.”
“Wow. That’s amazing.” Lani leaned back and contemplated him. “You’re sending me calm right now, aren’t you? You don’t want me freaking out about all this stuff you’re telling me.”
He grinned a little sheepishly. “Um, yeah. Just a little.”
“Well, it is helping, but the thing is, I can tell that you’re being honest with me. I’m great at picking out the liars, and you’re not one of them. So while this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life, I’m okay with it.”
“You are?”
“I am. And I should probably have my head examined because of it.”
He grinned again. “Adam’s a psychiatrist. He can help you out with that.”
“Because his opinion wouldn’t be biased at all?”
“Not in the slightest.” Frank nodded down to her plate. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s great. My shirt likes it too.” She shook her head. “You’re just going to have to forgive me. I’m a klutz. The planter, my shirt—stuff like this is completely normal for me. But wait—you have a brother who senses danger. Why don’t we make him my tagalong? Then he could give me a heads-up about these things.”
Frank smiled. “He doesn’t do minor mishaps—just things that could be classified as actually dangerous.”
“I’m sure I was very dangerous to that planter.”
“Nope, sorry.”
She sighed. “Well, I supposed it’s for the best. I mean, I’d hate to lose you as the tagalong. You’re kind of fun to have around.”
“I am?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, now that I know you’re not all creepy weird.”
He held up a hand. “I don’t remember that we ruled that out entirely.”
She liked his sense of humor. In fact, she liked it probably more than she should. “True—we should probably examine it a little more. But not right now. I want to finish my lunch.”
He folded his arms on the table and watched as she kept eating. She glanced up. “What?”
“Nothing. Just waiting. I’m sort of a fast eater.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “I guess it’s because I have so much to do. It feels like I’m wasting time if I sit in any one spot for too long.”
“So, what are your duties around here on the ranch? Aside from the boys, I mean.”
“Well, they obviously take up the most important chunk of my time. I teach them how to mend fences and drive the tractor and bale hay—all that good stuff. Of course, my biggest job is keeping them calm, and that’s sometimes a full-time task, especially when they’re new here and they’re sorting through everything that’s happened to them. I don’t calm all their feelings because if I did that, they’d never process and they’d never heal, but I take the edge off when things are potentially dangerous to themselves or others.”
Lani nodded, more impressed by the minute. “So this is why you have the success rate you do—you can honestly tell what each boy needs and you make sure he gets it.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. At other facilities, they do their absolute best with educated guesses and their years of training, but we do have a leg up. We never use our gifts to pry into things that aren’t our business—we use them to home in on the needs of the boys and what will bless their lives the most.”
Lani leaned forward and rested her chin in her hand. “But how does that work? Adam’s an empath and your dad has precog. How are you not stumbling into things all the time?”
Frank downed the rest of his ice water before answering. “When a person wants to keep a secret, they build an emotional wall to protect it. When we come up against one of those walls, we back away until they’re ready to let us in. As far as my dad’s precog goes, it’s not a constant thing. He sees bits and pieces, sometimes unexpectedly, and usually about his family. He occasionally sees things about the boys, but for the most part, the powers that be leave it up to us brothers to sort it out.”
“The powers that be?” Lani smiled.
“I don’t know what else to call it. We don’t know where these gifts came from or how it’s determined who gets what—just that there’s some kind of amazing force at work.”
They were both finished eating, so they stood up, and Frank called out his thanks to Claire. Lani thanked her as well, and they left the bunkhouse to continue their walk. “The boys will be home any minute,” Frank said. “This is a good chance for you to meet them. Why don’t you come over to the cabin I share with my brother Gideon and you can meet the six boys we’re currently working with?”
As they strolled, Frank told Lani each of the boys’ names. She wasn’t taking notes, but she knew she’d remember them—her equilibrium might be off, but her memory was fantastic. They reached the cabin just as the school bus deposited the boys, thirty of them, who ran off in all directions and looked like ants in a hill, but then she realized they were just heading off to their separate cabins. Six boys trotted toward them, one hanging back a little, and one taking the lead. That one spoke to Frank in a worried tone of voice. “Something’s up with Nick.”
“Thanks, Jose,” Frank said, clapping the boy on the shoulder as he passed. Then he turned his attention to the boy who was dragging behind. Lani could tell from several paces away that this boy was deeply troubled—his heart was heavy, and it ached. Frank pulled out his phone, hit a few buttons, and then slid it back in his pocket.
“Hey, Nick,” he said when the boy drew near, and Lani felt a trickle of calm leave Frank and cascade over the boy. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it was easier to identify, and definitely cool.
“Don’t wanna talk about it,” Nick mumbled, pushing past and going into the
house, where Frank knew Gideon was waiting with an afternoon snack. Frank stood there with his lips pursed.
“I’d love to keep chatting with you, Lani, but I need to give Nick some attention,” Frank said. “Can I meet up with you again later?”
“Of course,” she replied. She was disappointed—she wanted to see everything and hear everything, and hanging out with a hot cowboy was a bonus—but she’d suspected he’d need to turn his attention to the boys now that they were home. “Where will I find Tiffani?”
“She’ll be over at the office.” Frank pointed out the way, then paused and rested his hand on Lani’s shoulder. “I’ll see you later.”
“Okay.” She wished she had some kind of charming, flirtatious answer, but that was about as good as it got. He was working some other kind of magic on her now, and it had nothing to do with his gift—instead, it had everything to do with him being a very good-looking man.
Chapter Five
Frank walked straight back to the kitchen. Gideon was there with a variety of snacks and five of the boys were helping themselves, but Nick wasn’t in the room.
“He said he wasn’t hungry and he was going to his room,” Gideon explained with a shrug.
Frank hesitated for a moment. They tried to keep the boys from brooding off by themselves as much as possible, but at the same time, a certain amount of privacy was needed so they could sort through their feelings. Adam would be there in a minute and he’d leave that decision up to him, but in the meantime, he sent more calm toward the boy, treading very lightly so he wouldn’t upset whatever was going on.
When Adam got there, he paused in the hallway, then placed his hand on the wall and met Frank’s eyes with his. “It’s time,” he said softly.
“You think he’s going to open up?”
Adam nodded. “Listen—I’m going to have Mom come over and just be on hand. Can you get the boys out of here? What were their chores for today?”
“Weeding the north flowerbeds.”
Adam nodded. “If you could get them going on that, I’d appreciate it.”
“You bet.” Frank turned and headed into the kitchen, where he put on an excited face. “Hey, guys! Bring your snacks and let’s eat them while we walk. Those weeds aren’t getting any younger!”
Tyler looked down at what he was wearing. “These are my school clothes,” he said. “Shouldn’t we change first?”
“Nope! Not today!”
“I think he’s trying to get rid of us,” Michael said in a mock whisper.
“Pretty much! Now let’s go,” Frank replied.
As the boys filed past, Jose paused again. “Is Nick okay?” he asked in a low voice.
“He will be,” Frank promised him. If Adam and Lillian couldn’t help the boy through this, no one could. He turned and infused the boy’s room with calm, using more than he ever had before. Then, knowing he’d really done all he could, he followed the group outside. He hated weeding, but it needed to be done.
***
The town of Bagley wasn’t terribly large, but it had all the things a person would most need for their survival, including a drive-through coffee shop. After talking with Tiffani for a few minutes, Lani excused herself to check into her hotel. She’d be back the next day and she promised to eat dinner with the family the next night as well—a huge Friday night barbecue. Who could pass up a barbecue?
Lani dragged her luggage into her room and then plopped on the bed. It was a standard hotel room—nothing unique about it, but it was clean and decorated in pleasant shades of blue and gray, and the mattress was soft enough without being too soft and there were lots of pillows. She rested for a few minutes, then pulled out her laptop.
Where are you? was the subject line of her most recent email. It was from her editor.
What? Oh . . . She pulled out her phone. The volume had somehow gotten turned down after she sent him that text. He’d replied twelve times asking if she was all right and if he needed to send someone out there. Sheepish, she turned up the volume, then let him know that everything was all right and that she was just being melodramatic. Then she began cleaning out her other emails, including a BOGO ad from her favorite online clothes store. She tucked that away in her “important” folder.
A few seconds later, her phone chimed again. Glad to know you’re not dead.
She smiled. She was pretty glad of it too.
After making sure she hadn’t received any extremely important emails that day, she changed her shirt so she wouldn’t be running around with a sauce spot on her front the rest of the day, and then she decided to do a little extra digging about the ranch and the McClains. Her brain was still reeling from everything she’d learned that day already. How was such a thing possible? Where had these gifts come from? What did the people in the community think about the McClains? She’d start there—she wanted to pick up a few snacks for the mini fridge she’d found under the TV, and doing a little exploring sounded like a lot of fun.
She put on some walking shoes and left the hotel, taking just her shoulder bag. The library was about half a block down the street, and that was always a great place to start. Libraries in small towns often had books published by local authors about the history of the place.
“You’re looking for information about the McClain ranch, you say?” the librarian asked, looking at Lani over the tops of her glasses. She was such a stereotypical librarian—hair in a bun, white blouse, gray pencil skirt, thick lenses—that Lani had a hard time believing she was real. She led the way over to the shelf that housed the local collection, and Lani grinned. Yep, that was something she could always count on. She thanked the woman and set to perusing.
There wasn’t anything specifically about the ranch, but she did find it mentioned in several volumes that detailed the history of the area. She didn’t learn anything that she hadn’t already pulled from online, but she did see some pictures of the McClain family from generations past. Hmm. The men of the fifties were just as good-looking as the men from the eighties and so on. Those looks ran in the family—and so did the eyes, apparently.
She used the library’s copier to run off her own set of those same pictures. She wanted to ask Frank about those relatives and get a little personal back story to the ranch. As she paid the librarian for her copies, she said, “Is there anyone around here, like a neighborhood historian or something, who can share oral histories about your town?”
The woman pursed her lips. “Your best bet would be Grandpa Haney. He can usually be found sitting on the front porch of the general store down the road.”
The front porch of a general store? Lani smiled again. This town was so perfect, she wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that she was in a Truman Show sort of situation. These people had to be actors, hired to fill in the classic small-town character roles. Her mind was changed when she was nearly run over by a sports car while crossing the street. Okay, there were inconsiderate drivers everywhere, even in idyllic little towns.
She found Grandpa Haney easily enough, and he informed her that for the price of a cold lemonade, he’d tell her all the stories he knew. That seemed like an excellent bargain. She went inside, bought two lemonades, and sat down next to him, ready to hear it all.
He was a storyteller, that was for sure. After listening to him talk about this and that for a few minutes, she managed to steer the topic around to the McClains. He let out a low whistle.
“I tell you what, that family is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. First off, you’ve never met kinder, more Christian people. They’ll go out of their way to help you no matter what you need. Polite, every one of them. Never heard ’em cuss or seen ’em get thrown out of the saloon or anything. But things are a little different with them.”
“What do you mean?” Lani asked, curious to hear what the locals thought of this unusual family. How were they perceived by those they lived near, but who didn’t know their story?
“Well, things just happen when they’re around. O
ver to the warehouse store, a big shelf got a little wobbly and came crashing down to the floor. One of them brothers, I think it was Caleb, pushed Marcy Jones out of the way three seconds before she would have been crushed. It was like he knew or something. And that Adam—sometimes it’s like he’s reading my mind. Stuff like that’s for the television, though. Not for real life. Sure we’re just imagining things, but I’m not the only one who’s noticed strange occurrences. People accuse me of hitting the hard stuff, but no—just lemonade.”
“What about Frank McClain?” Lani asked. “Any stories about him?”
“Well now, he can make any baby stop crying. We’ll be in church and some little tot will start to kick up a fuss—and let me tell you, I know how they feel because some of those long sermons about make me want to cry too. Anyway, he’ll reach out and give that baby a finger to grasp or some other such thing, and that child will calm right down. Never seen anything like it.”
“Some people just have a knack with children,” Lani said, hoping she sounded casual. Truth was, her heart had melted with that little story. She’d always wanted to have a family, and knowing that Frank liked children so much . . . Wait. Just wait. Why was she even thinking along those lines? She and Frank weren’t going to have children together! It was just goofy to think that way. She’d be going back to Houston, and that would be the end of it.
She thanked Grandpa again and wandered around town just a bit more, collecting stories. Everyone she spoke with had nothing but the best things to say about the McClains—they were hard-working, they were good people, they went out of their way to help others—and they all said there was something just little bit weird about them. But they all hastened to add that it was weird in the best sense of the word.
Frank (Seven Sons Book 6) Page 4