“I was not peevish and—”
“Yes, you were,” Libby interrupted, smiling. “It’s okay, Jules. I know you get stressed out about Calvin sometimes. I understand.”
Libby did understand, and the knowledge was so soothing to Julie that she finally began to relax.
“I was having fun!” Calvin declared, standing a few feet away now, and glaring up at Julie. “Until you came along, anyway!”
“Calvin Remington,” Julie said, “that’s quite enough. Get in the car.”
“Goodbye, Aunt Libby,” he said, with all due drama. “If I don’t see you again, because my mother is mad at you for letting me have fun, and she sends me away to military school, I’ll get in touch as soon as I’m eighteen!”
Julie held on to her stern face—Calvin’s behavior was not acceptable—but there was a giggle dancing inside her all the same. Just like the one she saw twinkling in her sister’s eyes.
Libby waggled her fingers at Julie. “See you tomorrow?” she asked.
“See you tomorrow,” Julie confirmed, with a sigh.
“IS THAT HIM?” Calvin whispered, a little over an hour later, when Julie led him into the Amble On Inn’s small café. Gordon rose from a table over by the jukebox as they entered, while the lovely blonde woman accompanying him remained seated. “Is that my dad?”
“Yes,” Julie said. After giving Calvin a lecture for acting like a brat at Libby and Tate’s house, she’d explained about their dinner plans. He’d been unusually quiet since then, hadn’t even protested when she’d made him shower and change clothes. “That’s him.”
It all seemed surreal.
How many times, over the short course of Calvin’s life, had she hoped Gordon would change his mind, take a real interest in their son, be a father to him?
An old saying came to mind: Be careful what you wish for….
Gordon had crossed the room, and now he stood facing them. His gaze connected briefly with Julie’s—he mouthed the word “thanks”—and then dropped to Calvin.
“Hey, buddy,” Gordon said, putting out a hand.
Calvin studied his father’s hand for a few moments, his expression solemn and wary, but finally, he reached out.
They shook hands. “Hey,” Calvin replied, looking the stranger up and down.
Julie gave his back a reassuring pat. Silent-speak for Everything’s going to be okay.
“Anybody hungry?” Gordon asked, gesturing toward the table, where the blonde waited, smiling nervously. She was dressed in a pale rose cotton skirt with a ruffled top to match, and her hair fell past her shoulders in a sumptuous tumble of spun gold. Her skin and teeth were perfect.
“We were supposed to have barbecue at Aunt Libby’s,” Calvin said gravely, though he allowed Gordon to steer him toward the blonde and the table.
The evening to come, Julie knew, would be pivotal, changing all their lives forever, even if it went well. If, on the other hand, things went badly…
Julie reined in her imagination.
“Hush, Calvin,” she said, looking around. The scarred café tables, the patched-vinyl chair seats and backs, the crisply pressed gingham curtains—all of it was familiar, and therefore comforting.
“I’m Dixie,” Gordon’s wife said, as he pulled back a chair for Julie.
“Julie,” she responded—warmly, she hoped—once she was seated. Calvin took the chair beside hers, and Gordon sat with his wife, the two of them beaming at Calvin, drinking him in with their eyes.
A sort of haze descended, at least for Julie. Later, she would remember that Gordon had been wearing a blue-and-white-striped shirt, and that Dixie had ordered a chef’s salad with Thousand Island dressing on the side, and that nothing of staggering importance had been said, but she would not be able to recall what she’d eaten, or what Calvin had, either.
After dessert—there had been dessert, because Calvin had a smudge of something chocolate on the clean shirt he’d put on after his bath, back at the ranch house—Dixie produced a digital camera from the depths of her enormous cloth handbag and took what seemed like dozens of pictures—Calvin by himself, Calvin posing with a crouching, grinning Gordon.
Telephone numbers were swapped, and Dixie promised to e-mail copies of the photographs as soon as she and Gordon got home.
Calvin, though polite, seemed detached, too.
After the goodbyes were said in the parking lot, and he was safely buckled into his car seat in the back of the Cadillac, Julie slipped behind the wheel and waited a beat before speaking.
“So,” she said, as Dixie and Gordon went by in their big blue SUV, Gordon flashing the headlights to bright once, in cheery farewell. “That’s your dad. What do you think?”
Calvin was quiet.
“Calvin?” Julie finally prompted, adjusting the rearview mirror until her son’s face was visible.
At some length, Calvin huffed out a sigh. “I thought it would be different, having a dad,” he said. “I thought he would be different.”
“What do you mean?” Julie asked carefully, making no move to start up the car, though she had pressed the lock button as soon as she and Calvin were both inside.
“I was hoping he’d turn out to be a cowboy,” Calvin admitted. “Like Tate and Garrett and Austin.”
“Oh,” Julie said, at a loss.
“But he’s a builder guy instead,” Calvin mused.
“That’s good, isn’t it? Building things?”
“I guess,” Calvin allowed, sounding way too world-weary for a five-year-old. “I bet he gets to wear a hard hat and a toolbelt and cool stuff like that, but I kind of liked it better when I could still wonder, you know?”
She did know. Calvin’s IQ was off the charts. Young as he was, he’d probably constructed a pretty imaginative Fantasy Father in that busy little head of his. Now, he was going to have to get to know the real one, and he was bright enough to see the challenges ahead.
“Yeah,” she said, very gently. She hadn’t hooked up her seat belt yet, and turned sideways so she could look back at Calvin instead of watching him in the rearview. “Is something else bothering you, big guy?”
Calvin took a long time answering. “Do I have to visit my dad someplace far away, like Audrey and Ava visit their mom in New York sometimes?”
Julie’s heart slipped a notch. “Not unless that’s what you want,” she said, when she’d injected a smile into her voice. “And you don’t have to decide for a long time.”
“Good,” Calvin said, and the note of relief in his voice brought tears to Julie’s eyes—again.
She turned once more, facing forward now, waited a few breaths, hooked on her seat belt and started the car.
“I thought I wanted a dad,” Calvin confided, when they were on the main road and headed out of town. “Now, I’m not so sure. I think maybe having Tate and Garrett and Austin for uncles might be good enough.”
Julie swallowed. “Well,” she said, with manufactured brightness, “like I said, you don’t have to decide right away.” The Welcome to Blue River sign fell behind them, and it seemed to her that the night was subtly darker, the stars a little closer to the earth.
“How come you got so mad about me riding the horse?” Calvin asked, when they were well out of town, almost to the tilted mailbox marking the turnoff to Libby and Tate’s little house. “I wasn’t all by myself, you know. I wouldn’t have gotten hurt, because Garrett was right there, behind me.”
“Tell you what,” Julie offered, after taking another long breath. “I’ll say sorry for reacting without thinking first and getting all overprotective when I saw you on that horse, if you’ll say sorry for the rude tone.”
Calvin considered the deal.
“Okay,” he said, at long last.
“Okay,” Julie agreed.
By the time they arrived at the ranch house, Calvin was sound asleep.
He’d had a very big day for such a little guy.
Garrett happened to be in the garage when Julie pulled i
n. He was standing on the front bumper of an old red pickup truck, the hood raised, doing something to the works inside.
Seeing Julie, he gave a grin that stopped just short of his eyes, got down off the bumper with the same grace as he’d descended from the horse in Tate’s yard earlier, and reached for a rag to wipe his hands clean.
Julie looked him over, and didn’t see so much as a smidgeon of grease. When her gaze came back to his face, and she realized he’d been watching her scan him from head to foot, she blushed.
“Need some help?” he asked, when she opened the back door of the car, about to hoist Calvin out of his safety seat.
The child was nodding, half awake, half deeply asleep.
He was heavy, and Julie suddenly felt the weight of all the things she carried, visible and invisible, as she moved out of Garrett’s way. Allowed him to unbuckle Calvin and lift him into his arms.
Calvin yawned, laid his head on Garrett’s shoulder and went back to sleep.
The sight of this man carrying her son struck Julie in a tender place, and she wondered why that hadn’t happened when she’d seen Calvin and Gordon together earlier, at the restaurant.
Julie shut the car door and followed Garrett into the kitchen, across that wide space and into the hallway leading to the guest suite she and Calvin had been occupying since the exterminators had tented the cottage.
The apartment was comfortable, though small. It boasted two bedrooms, a full bath and a little sitting room with a working fireplace and large, soft armchairs upholstered in a floral pattern made chicly shabby by age.
Harry lay curled up on a rug in front of the cold hearth, and looked up with a big dog yawn as they entered.
“You’re quite a guard dog, Harry,” Julie told the animal wryly.
Garrett chuckled at that, paused to look back at her.
“To your right,” Julie said, in answer to the unspoken question.
He nodded, carried Calvin into the tiny bedroom.
Julie switched on the lamp on the pinewood dresser, rather than the overhead, and watched as Garrett put Calvin down carefully on the bed and stepped away, then out of the room.
Calvin stirred, blinking, his glasses askew.
Julie, now seated on the edge of his bed, set the specs aside and kissed the little boy’s forehead.
“Do I have to wash and brush my teeth?” he asked.
“Yes,” Julie told him. She got it then—Calvin had almost surely been pretending to be asleep all along, so Garrett would carry him. “And you have to put on your pajamas, too.”
“What about my prayers?” Calvin negotiated, as Julie shifted to tug off his little tennis shoes. “Do I have to say them?”
“That’s between you and God,” Julie replied.
She stood, went to the dresser, took a set of yellow cotton PJ’s from the top drawer, handed them to him.
Calvin was on his feet by then, resigned to washing up and brushing his teeth.
Julie waited, smiling to herself.
She heard the toilet flush, then water running in the sink.
When Calvin returned, Julie was sitting on the side of his bed and Harry was snugged in down by the footboard. Remarkably agile on his three legs, the dog had jumped up unassisted, just as he did every night.
Julie rose, and Calvin climbed into bed, staring soberly up at Julie while she tucked him in. She was oddly aware of Garrett nearby, either in the sitting room of the suite or beyond, in the big kitchen.
“I love you,” she said.
Calvin grinned. “I love you more,” he countered. It was a game they played, the two of them.
“I love you all the way to the moon and back,” Julie replied.
“I love you twice that much.”
“I love you ten times more,” Julie batted back.
“I love you all the numbers in the world,” Calvin finished triumphantly.
Julie laughed, accepting defeat gracefully. She could have thrown infinity at him, but he would merely have doubled it.
Her heart was full when she kissed Calvin once more, for good measure. She barely kept herself from hauling him into her arms and holding him tight, tight, tight.
Of course, that would have worried him.
“Can I ride on Dark Moon again tomorrow?” he asked, as she paused at the bedroom door to switch off the lamp. “If Tate is there, or Garrett?”
Julie debated silently for a few moments, then gave a suitably noncommittal answer. “Let me talk the idea over with your aunt Libby first,” she said. “Maybe it would be better if you rode one of the twins’ ponies instead of a big one. The ponies are more your size.”
Calvin’s smile, though tentative, was worth everything to Julie. “I wish I could have my own pony,” he said, in an awed whisper. “My very own pony, black and white. I’d name him something cool, like Old Paint.”
“Even if he wasn’t old?” Julie teased. She knew she shouldn’t have played along with the pony fantasy—not even for a few moments—since it wasn’t one she could fulfill, but she didn’t have the heart to throw cold water on the idea.
Calvin beamed. “He could be Young Paint, then, I guess,” he said. Without his glasses he looked even younger than he was, and more vulnerable, too.
Again, Julie wanted to gather her baby into her arms and clutch him close to her. Again, for the sake of Calvin’s dignity, she resisted the urge.
He yawned big and closed his eyes. Made a little crooning sound as he settled into his pillow, into his little-boy dreams.
Julie rose and went to the doorway, lingered on the threshold, listening as his breathing slowed and deepened.
He was asleep within moments.
And Garrett was still in the sitting room.
“Got a minute?” he asked.
Julie longed for a bath, a soft nightgown and eight full hours of sleep, but nodded.
“Sit down,” Garrett said.
She took one of the shabby-chic chairs, and he took the other.
The chairs faced each other, and their knees, his and hers, almost touched.
“About today,” Garrett began.
Julie put up a hand. “I overreacted,” she said. “To the horse, I mean. I just—I don’t know—a lot of things happened earlier, and I guess I just panicked—”
Garrett grinned. “You’re the boy’s mother,” he added, when she fell silent. “If you don’t want him riding horseback, that’s certainly your prerogative.”
Julie nodded, then shook her head, then blushed. What was it about being in this man’s presence that made her feel so rattled and so confused, so off balance? No one else affected her that way—no one ever had. Not even Gordon, when they were together.
“Libby and Paige are always telling me I’m too protective of Calvin,” she said. “And they’re right. He has asthma, but it’s not as if he’s fragile or anything. I don’t want him to grow up frightened of all the things that scare me.”
“What scares you, Julie?” Garrett asked, resting one booted foot on the opposite knee and settling back in the big armchair. He was so wholly, uncompromisingly male, so at home in his own skin, that Julie began to feel warm again.
“The uncertainty, I guess,” she answered, after giving the question some thought. “What if he gets hurt? What if he gets sick? What if—?” Julie stopped herself, shook her head. “You see what I mean.”
Garrett nodded. “Libby looks out for Calvin when you’re not around,” he told her. “So does Tate.”
“I know,” she said.
Garrett leaned forward a little. Lamplight played in his longish dark blond hair. “Are you afraid of horses, Julie?”
She stiffened. “Afraid?”
“Afraid for yourself, I mean.”
She shook her head. “I used to ride a lot,” she said. “When I was younger.”
That wicked, McKettrick-patented grin flashed. “But now that you’re old and decrepit, you don’t?”
She laughed. “It’s been a while,” she admi
tted, sobering.
“There’s a bright moon out,” he said. “How about a ride?”
The prospect, out-of-the-blue, off-the-wall crazy as it was, had more appeal than Julie would have expected it to. “Calvin’s in bed,” she said. “I can’t just go off…”
“Esperanza’s still up,” Garrett said easily, when Julie ran out of steam in the middle of her sentence. “I heard her TV when we came in earlier. She could sit with Calvin for a while.”
Julie shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Garrett was already on his feet, headed for the door. He seemed to have no doubt at all that the family housekeeper would agree to serve as an impromptu babysitter.
In the doorway, he stopped and looked back at Julie. “You’ll want to switch that getup for jeans and a warm shirt, a jacket and boots,” he said.
“But I—”
But Garrett had already left the room.
Within twenty minutes, Esperanza had settled herself on the sitting room couch, knitting and smiling while she watched TV, the sound muted.
Julie was wearing jeans, boots, a thick shirt and a denim jacket.
How did this happen? she asked herself, as she followed Garrett across the kitchen, out the back door, across the broad, grassy yard toward the barn. How did I get here?
The moon and stars were so bright that night, she could have read by them. Small print, no less.
“Is this even safe?” she asked. “Going riding? What if the horses can’t see?”
Garrett glanced back at her. “Does everything you do have to be safe?” he countered.
“I’m the single mother of a very young child,” she retorted, mildly defensive. “So, yes, everything I do has to be safe. As safe as I can make it, anyway.”
“I’ll put you on the tamest horse we have,” Garrett replied, waiting until she caught up, fell into step next to him. “We’ll stay on soft ground—not that Ladybug would ever throw you—and it’s like daylight out here.”
Julie said nothing. She didn’t look at Garrett, didn’t want him to see in her face that for all her misgivings, she was excited by the adventure. Maybe even a little thrilled.
“Unless, of course,” Garrett went on, stepping in front of her just before they reached the entrance to the barn, blocking her way, causing her to look up at him in surprise, “it’s not the horse you’re afraid of.”
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