The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3

by Jeffrey, Anna

  How could Billy not be there with Izzy when she gave birth? For that matter, how could he walk off and leave her? As unhappy as he had been in his marriage to Julie, he wouldn't have abandoned her.

  Chapter 10

  Delayed by a county commissioners' meeting Tuesday morning, John didn't reach Izzy's until afternoon. As he came to a stop, he saw her working a palomino in the corral attached to the big barn. Ava watched, dressed in jeans and boots and perched on a top fence rail, and John wondered why she wasn't in school. He walked to the fence and rested his forearms on the rail beside her. "What's this?"

  "My friend Lindsay's grandpa's gelding," Ava said. "He can't ride him 'cause somebody made him mean. Mama's fixing him. She knows how to make him be nice."

  "And how does she do that?"

  "She talks to him and tells him she's the boss, but she still treats him nice. That way, when she shows him what to do, he wants to do it and make her happy. She's thinking about getting him some pets."

  "Pets?"

  "Pets will settle him down and make him feel loved."

  John stared at Ava a few seconds, amazed. He had heard unruly horses sometimes calmed when other animals were around as pals. He had never seen the phenomenon, so he had never concerned himself with it. Had Izzy taught her daughter this or had the brainy kid figured it out on her own?

  He turned his attention to Izzy, who was standing in the middle of the corral with a longe line hooked to the palomino's halter, moving him in a circle around the corral. She urged him from a walk to a lope and back again with a series of body and hand signals, as if she and the animal had an invisible connection.

  "Nice baby, good baby," he heard her softly saying. She dropped her hands and stepped back, letting the palomino take a breather. After a few seconds she walked toward him, holding out her hand, but the horse kept his distance.

  "Why aren't you in school today?" John asked her as he watched Izzy and the horse.

  "The teachers are having a big meeting and they don't want us kids around."

  "Do you know how to ride?"

  "In Texas I had a horse, but we didn't bring him."

  John thought about the two horses his parents had trained for his sons to ride.

  Izzy made some kissing noises and the palomino's ears pricked up. Then she had him moving again. They did several more turns around the pen before she let him stop. Without being led, he followed her to the fence. "Whose horse?" John asked her.

  "Jim Fielder's. Isn't he pretty?" She reached up to rub the blaze face, but the horse jerked his head back. Izzy's eyes filled with warmth and affection as she caught his halter. "This is Tarzan," she said in a tender voice. "He doesn't like me touching his face."

  "What's his problem?"

  "He's been abused."

  John looked at the scars on the horse's rump and withers, even on his face. The obvious evidence was bad enough, but no telling what kind of abuse wasn't manifested in visible scarring.

  "Because horses are so big," she said, "people who don't take the time to know them think controlling them calls for extreme measures. It's sad. No animal has been more abused and misused by man than horses. Yet they're more loyal than dogs."

  Mistreatment of any animal was alien to John's level of understanding. "Damn. I can't believe Jim would—"

  "It wasn't Jim who hurt him. Jim rescued him. Bought him at an auction. He's a six-year-old. He has a loving nature, but no one's ever taught him what to do. He's my first student in Callister." She unlatched the gate into the pasture where Trixie and Polly grazed. Tarzan watched her with a wary eye as she removed his halter and spoke to him softly. The golden horse shuddered all over and trotted toward the two mares.

  "He likes Polly and Trixie," Ava said. Then as if she were imparting the wisdom of the ages, she added, "It's because he likes having friends. They like him, too, 'cause horses are herd animals."

  "Is that right?" John said as she climbed down from the fence rail. "Speaking of animals, how're you and those pups getting along?"

  Ava cocked her head and looked thoughtful. "They're fun, but they aren't as smart as Jack."

  Isabelle huffed out a laugh. "There you have it. From the mouths of babes."

  The three of them walked into the barn. Isabelle removed her chinks and carried them to the tack room. "I'm going over to the house to finish supper. It's something Italian. You're welcome to stay." She hooked the chinks on a nail and looked down at Ava. "Ready?"

  Ava looked up at John and pushed her glasses up on her nose. "You'd better stay. We have pudding. I made it."

  "Gosh," John said, winking at Izzy, "I can't turn down a dessert like that."

  "It'll be good, I guarantee," Izzy said with a laugh. "This kid's got cooking in her genes."

  Ava laughed, too. Something about hearing them laugh made John happy. Izzy held out her hand to the kid.

  "I can't stay and visit right now," Ava said, taking her mother's hand. "I have to read the recipe for Mama."

  As he watched the two of them walk toward the house, the ten-year-old a smaller version of her mother, he puzzled over the girl's remark.

  He rode Trixie, Polly and Dancer all three, until they and he all had worked up a sweat. Dark had descended by the time he made it to the house.

  Stepping into the porch, he met Ava feeding and watering the pups. He squatted and helped her with the food while she walked with mincing steps carrying water dishes from the mudroom.

  "You still sleeping out here on the porch?" he asked her.

  She set down a water bowl and gave him a frown. "No. Mama made me stop. She says they have to learn to sleep by themselves. I worry about them, but—" Her shoulders lifted with a great sigh.

  "They'll be all right," he said and patted her shoulder.

  He smelled garlic and onions and the tang of cooking tomatoes. He set his hat on the clothes dryer and hung his jacket on a horseshoe hook on the wall, just like he lived here. When he walked into the kitchen, he heard Willie Nelson crooning one his favorites from the living room, "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys."

  Isabelle looked up from buttering bread slices and smiled when he walked in. An emotion John hadn't felt in years coursed through him and he recognized it as contentment. He hadn't known it many times in his adult life. His imagination took hold of him and would have carried him into dangerous territory if he hadn't reined it in.

  "Ava's got the table all set," Isabelle said and slid the bread slices into the oven. "No promises how this tastes. I've never made it before, so you're a guinea pig."

  "That's just fine," he told her. "I'm sure I've been subjected to worse."

  The "something Italian" turned out to be spaghetti with homemade meat sauce.

  "Mama sliced up everything," Ava said, "because I'm only ten years old and I'm too young to slice. But I stirred."

  "I could tell," John said, shoveling in bites of spaghetti that tasted as good as any he had ever eaten. "The minute I tasted it, I knew Ava Rondeau had a hand in it."

  "My grandmother was a cook," Ava said. "I never saw her, but I'm trying to be like her."

  John put down his fork and looked at her, touched by the fact that the kid had never known her grandmother. Or any grandparents, no doubt. How could she, living two thousand miles away since her birth? His parents, and Julie's too, showered enough affection and attention for a dozen people onto his two sons and he almost felt guilty that Ava had none. "You're doing a good job, kiddo."

  "She lived in this town. Did you know her?"

  John glanced at Izzy, whose eyes were glued to her spaghetti. "I sure did," John lied. "She and my mom were the best of friends."

  "Eat your supper, Ava," Izzy said, "before it gets cold."

  John returned to his meal, stuffing himself with spaghetti, salad and garlic bread. He forced himself to swallow a serving of Ava's pudding, all the while preoccupied with how good a parent Izzy was and what a good kid she was raising, all alone, with no help from anybody
.

  While the meal had been good, the company was better. Even the old house with its antiquated kitchen and creaking floors cloaked John with satisfaction and he regretted he would be leaving it. To show his gratitude for being rescued from another dismal evening in front of the TV, he volunteered to help with the dishes, then brought in some extra log rounds for the fireplace.

  While at the fireplace, he asked about some of the trophies on the mantel and Isabelle explained their origins and showed him some trophy belt buckles with embedded gemstones—emeralds and rubies and one with diamonds—that she kept in a locked cabinet. He had seen similar, but not often. So much money filtered through the cutting horse world and surrounded cutting-horse competitions, a buckle of mere sterling silver wasn't enough.

  At ten o'clock, not wanting to wear out his welcome, he said he had to go, but he offered to take the dogs out before leaving. Isabelle put on her puffy coat and walked with him while Harry and Gwendolyn relieved themselves. Under an overcast sky, the night was black and cold, but Callister Mountain's snowcap stood out as if substituting for the absentee moon. A few snowflakes floated down.

  "How're you gonna train horses in this climate?" John asked her. "At the very least, you need a covered pen."

  "What I need is a covered arena and some heat. I was gone from here for so long, I sort of forgot about the weather. I don't know yet how I'm going to work it out."

  The lack of conviction in her tone told John she was floundering and he wondered if she might appreciate someone to lean on. He wanted to be that someone, but he didn't know what to say. Who was he to be offering advice when his own life had been one misstep after another? They walked along in silence. Finally, all he could think to do was loop his arm around her shoulder. The encouraging statement that came out was a lame "It'll be okay."

  They returned the dogs to the house and John said good night, but he departed with a hunger far removed from the prandial kind. It only grew worse when he reached his gloomy duplex apartment. He couldn't keep from thinking how cool it would be to go to sleep with Izzy at night and wake up with her in the morning.

  * * *

  The next morning, for the entire time it took for Isabelle to French-braid Ava's hair, her daughter talked about John, and continued to talk through breakfast. Isabelle had mixed emotions about Ava becoming attached to John or any man passing through their lives, but she withheld her concerns. For now.

  For now, she had a busy day ahead. She had shopping to do in town and a few errands. As soon as Ava boarded the school bus, she put the puppies on leashes and walked them around the pasture, then dressed in clean clothes and drove to town.

  She had spent little time in town since returning, so today she moved slower and looked closer as memories of the sidewalks and stores crept back. The town looked much as she remembered it from childhood, except for the Forest Service offices. They had expanded considerably and the buildings, painted a crisp sage green, now filled two full blocks of the main street.

  She lingered an hour in the drugstore, which was housed in the same old brick building where it had always been, midblock on the main street. Only the pharmacist had changed in all the years since she had last been in the store. She moved from there to the town's only dress shop. She strolled through and had a conversation with the owner, who remembered her as a little girl.

  Callister had one beauty salon and the two hairdressers who owned it had occasionally wrestled her mop of hair when she was a child. That is, when the money could be found in the Rondeau household to pay for the service. She stopped in and said hello. One of the women was now crippled by arthritis. The other had become a widow. They talked about her mother and how they missed seeing her in the cafe and Isabelle felt herself pulling away from the conversation.

  The visit to town reminded her she had been gone for almost a generation, yet she felt comfortable, as if she had never left. One of the good things about coming home.

  The salon's wall clock told her it was after two p.m.. Ava would be home by four, so she cut her visit short and hurried to her pickup in the grocery store's parking lot.

  When she opened the Sierra's driver's side door, there on the seat, in a glass vase, stood a small bouquet and a clovelike fragrance filled the pickup cab. She blinked and for the briefest of seconds wondered if it had been left in the wrong vehicle. A tiny square envelope was tucked beneath the vase. She pulled out the envelope and read the scrawled note inside.

  Thanks for supper last night. Thanks for rescuing me.

  John T. Bradshaw.

  Feeling her face flush, she looked around to see who might be watching, then scooted the vase over and climbed into the cab. She sped out of town and didn't slow down until she reached the county road leading to her house. Only then did she stop on the shoulder and reread the note.

  Rescuing him? Last night's supper had apparently meant more to him than it had to her—or had it? She had been in this strange uplifted mood all day. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been wasting valuable time in town.

  She fondled the dozen flowers. Carnations, perhaps. She had some knowledge of houseplants, but scarcely knew one flower from another. Interspersed among the lacy red blossoms were tiny white things she suspected might be baby's breath. The greenery was fern leaves—she did know that much—and the red flowers looked pretty against them.

  As she read the note again, she felt a grin crawl across her face. In her whole life no one had ever given her a bouquet of flowers. She debated what to do. The proper thing would be to call John and thank him, but did she want to call the sheriff's office, where twenty people might hear the conversation?

  Was a phone call even necessary? All she had done was invite him to eat. She hadn't expected a gift of any kind in return. She dithered a few more minutes, then decided to let a thank-you wait until he came out to her house tomorrow to ride the horses.

  At home, she placed the bouquet on an antique table in the living room where she could see it every time she passed the doorway. She floated around the house for the rest of the day, doing laundry, helping Ava clean her room, giddy when she thought about the gift. Did all women feel like this when they received flowers from a man?

  Don't be silly, she warned herself. He was only saying thank you. Remember, he's a cowboy, which means he's had dozens of women. She hadn't heard about them up to now because she had never gotten on board the gossip train.

  * * *

  He arrived Thursday morning just as she was leaving to take Ava down to catch the school bus, but she waited while he and her daughter had a conversation about school. Feeling panicky and not knowing why, Isabelle stayed out of the way and didn't mention the flowers, hoping to express her thanks in a private moment when she wouldn't be so nervous.

  The school bus came late, so by the time she returned, he was already riding Trixie. She busied herself with chores in the house, practicing her thank-you speech and willing herself not to look outside to see what he was doing.

  They had agreed he would ride each horse for forty-five minutes or so and he usually rode Dancer last, so after three hours had passed, she let herself look out. Sure enough, he was in the corral attached to the small barn, loosening the cinch on Dancer's saddle. She walked over.

  "I found the flowers," she said. "Thanks. They're real pretty." She felt clumsy and stupid at using such an old cliché.

  He smiled and said she was welcome.

  "It wasn't necessary. I mean, I didn't go out of my way or anything."

  "I know. Just letting you know I appreciated you feeding me. Seems like it's hard to find a flock of friends to talk to or spend time with around here. The sheriff can't just go out and have a beer."

  She stuffed her hands into her jeans back pockets and looked at the ground. What else could be said about the flowers?

  He dragged the saddle off Dancer's back. She helped by taking off the blanket, then the headstall, and together they walked across the driveway to the tack room in the big barn. The mor
ning's panic attack came back and she could feel her pulse swishing in her ears. "How'd it go today?"

  "Okay. The blue devil's in a mood. We had a bit of a rodeo at first, but he settled down."

  She nodded, tongue-tied, and tried to claw words from the air. Her heart pounded as if she had been the one riding Dancer.

  Inside the tack room, he lifted the saddle onto its sawhorse. She watched as he unbuckled his chinks, her gaze settling on the buckle that fit just below the waistband of his jeans. She looked away quickly before he could catch her staring at his fly. The tack room almost seemed too small for the two of them and the electricity humming in the air around them. After he hung the chaps on their nail, he gave her a grin. "I'm thirsty."

  He had put a cup in the tack room so he could have a drink of water from the stand faucet just outside the barn door. He picked up the cup, walked outside to the standpipe, rinsed out the cup, then filled it. He tipped it up and drank the whole thing without stopping. She couldn't keep from staring at the muscles working in his throat. When he finished, he wiped his mouth on his flannel shirtsleeve and gave her another big grin. "Good water. I do love well water."

  Well, what could she say about that? Who didn't? Tongue-tied again. "If you aren't in a hurry, I could send some home with you. I think I've got an empty jug over at the house."

  "Cool," he said.

  They walked to the house and she found a plastic milk jug in the mudroom, washed it out in the laundry sink and filled it from the faucet. When she handed it to him, he took it with a big smile. "My morning coffee's gonna taste a whole lot better."

  She followed him outside toward his truck. "What's going on in your office today?" she asked him, mostly to make conversation and she hated losing his company.

  "Don't know yet. Haven't talked to Rooster today."

  "Ah," she said and nodded.

  He opened the driver's side door, set the jug of water inside, then turned back to her. "When are you planning on bringing in those calves?"