Always a Hero

by Justine Davis

  “Miss Kai,” Max said with a fair approximation of Old World charm, “is a generous soul.”

  “She’s the best,” Jordy said, so fervently it made Kai smile.

  “Thank you, Jordy,” she said.

  “Gonna play in a band someday, like she did?” Max asked, with every evidence of genuine interest in this boy at least ten years younger than he. His two buddies treated the boy like most guys their age would, with annoyance bordering on anger, but a few weeks ago Max had changed, started being nice to Jordy, at least around her.

  But it seemed different to her today.

  I hear there are some guys who hang out here, guys I don’t want my son around….

  Wyatt Blake, that was the difference. He’d unsettled her, made her suspicious.

  Even as she thought it, watching the two males talk as if they were of an age, she knew that wasn’t quite true. Because it was odd that Max had started to show up mostly in the afternoons, around the time Jordy always came in. Odder still that someone Max’s age, unless he was a relative, would even pretend such an interest in a kid so much younger. And she’d thought that even before Jordy’s father had come barreling into her life.

  So why hadn’t she told him? Why hadn’t she aimed him at Max, let him be the one to ferret out the true reason behind this unexpected kindness by someone who was, from what she’d heard outside the store, generally surly and rude most of the rest of the time?

  Because Wyatt Blake aggravated you?

  Because he had aggravated her. He had provoked the temper she’d worked hard to quash. She’d worked hard at it because she hated being a cliché, a redhead with a hot temper. And she’d managed to put a respectably long fuse on it, and then hide the matches, after years of effort.

  She hadn’t counted on a guy who brought his own lighter.

  She yanked herself out of unwelcome thoughts.

  “Your old man still giving you a hard time?” Max was asking.

  Jordy shot her a quick, sideways glance. “It never stops. Ask Kai. He was in here hassling her last week.”

  Max looked at her, his pierced right brow lifting. She shrugged. “He was here. But I can’t blame him for wanting to know where his son spends a lot of time.”

  Jordy’s eyes widened, she supposed at the unexpected defense of the man he hated. “He was a jerk!”

  There was the tiniest hint of a hovering sense of betrayal in the words, so Kai grinned at the boy and said, “I believe I told him that. And worse.”

  In an instant Jordy’s mood shifted. “You did?” he asked, wide-eyed and with an awed tone.

  “I did. You can’t, but I can, because he can’t do anything to me,” she said.

  “Parents. Always trying to run your life,” Max put in.

  She focused on the older boy for a moment. “When you’re only thirteen, that’s the way it is,” she said, watching Max’s face for any sense of surprise at how young Jordy really was. There was no reaction, and she knew he’d already known. Which made his amiability toward the boy who was barely more than a child even more suspect.

  “I can’t wait until I’m eighteen,” Jordy said. “I’ll take off and never come back.”

  Kai thought about pointing out that some kids stayed and leeched off their parents into their twenties, but decided poking at Max wasn’t the best path right now. After all, she had nothing to indicate the guy was really a problem, nothing suspicious except the way he treated a much younger boy, and the ready cash with no visible source. His rather awkward but harmless flirting with her, and his kindness and interest in Jordy might be out of character, but hardly a crime.

  The money? Maybe he really had done favors for a friend.

  And maybe you’re the queen of gullibleville, she told herself drily.

  She remembered her thoughts later as, walking back from the grocery store to her apartment over the store, she saw Max and his two regular companions standing outside the local pizza place a block down off the main street, across from the bakery. Most of the local teenagers hung out at Dinozzo’s, and since Max and his friends didn’t seem to have progressed beyond that age, she supposed it was reasonable that they would, too.

  She glanced down the street again as she crossed at the corner. There was a row of outdoor tables with umbrellas, lit by lights on the outside of the building. They’d be put away for the winter soon, and the lights dimmed, but for now the area in front was lit like a stage. Just as she reached the opposite curb, she saw Dan, the least likeable of Max’s two regular companions, gesture to an older man around the corner of the building.

  She kept walking.

  Forget it, she told herself. Just get home. It’s late, you’re starved, and it’s affecting your imagination.

  She fired up her barbecue before she put the groceries away, then quickly fixed a salad and put the steak she’d bought on the grill out on her small back balcony, big enough only for the barbecue and a pub-style table with a couple of stools. She liked the high seating because it allowed her to look over the railing and across the small neighborhood that was dotted with so many trees it made for a pleasantly green landscape. In the distance were the mountains, and the vista gave her a feeling of space that was an antidote to the cramped balcony.

  Not that her apartment itself was cramped, it was as big as the store below, and two years ago she’d had it remodeled so that the walled off kitchen was now open to the main living area in a great room effect. And she liked it.

  “You’ll be bored to tears in that little town,” her mother had warned her.

  But for once, her mother had been wrong. She loved it, she loved living here, loved her store, all of it. And despite the confidence she’d expressed all along to her parents, no one had been more surprised than she was that Kai Reynolds was actually a small-town girl at heart.

  She decided to eat outside; it would soon be too chilly, and she’d miss the opportunity. For the first few bites she focused on how good the local beef was, and the tang of Mrs. Bain’s homemade salad dressing, well worth the regular trips to the weekend farmer’s market. She’d have to stock up for the winter soon, before the markets ended for the season. She didn’t go for any esoteric, organic reasons, but simply because she liked the feel of it, the way things used to be in a simpler time.

  A simpler time. A simpler place.

  She thought of what she’d seen by the pizza parlor, Max and his friends, which led her to Jordy. Could she really blame his father for bringing him here when she herself had come here seeking many of the same things? Could she blame him for making assumptions when in a great many stores like hers what he’d accused her of—the paraphernalia at least—was in fact true? Had she been so predisposed because of Jordy’s complaints that she hadn’t given the man a chance?

  She played the encounter back in her mind. No, he was pretty much a jerk from the beginning. But, she admitted, she’d made no effort to be conciliatory, either. She’d gone on offense from the moment he’d opened his mouth, reacting to his harsh tone more than what he’d said. And it had gone downhill from there.

  She was still pondering when she went to bed. Maybe she should have told him about Max. At least that Jordy was fascinated by the older boys, and the attention Max in particular paid him, enough that Kai was wary. Maybe she still should. After all, his father was only trying to keep the boy out of trouble.

  “Or maybe you should just stay butted out,” she muttered into the darkness.

  She was certainly no expert on raising kids, her only experience stemming from the kid side. But by his own admission, neither was Jordy’s father.

  I should call Mom, she thought again. Ask her how she liked getting parenting advice from strangers who weren’t even parents themselves. That ought to cure the urge.

  She rolled over and pounded her pillow into submission. When it didn’t seem to help, when sleep seemed no closer, she sighed aloud.

  Damn Wyatt Blake anyway. Wasn’t it enough that he soaked up all the air in the
room in person, did he have to invade her thoughts, too?

  Apparently so, she thought, humor sparking at last, since she’d been thinking about that rancorous encounter for nearly a week now.

  …only trying to keep the boy out of trouble.

  She lifted herself up on an elbow, remembering Jordy saying with all his thirteen-year-old determination, “He wants me to do sports or something, and I won’t. I don’t want to do anything he says.”

  An idea stirred. She lay there, considering, turning it over and around in her mind.

  It might work, she thought. It just might work.

  And if it didn’t, they’d be right where they were now, except Jordy’s father would likely be even angrier at her.

  But at least this time she would have done something to deserve it. Meddling, her mother would call it.

  But then, her mother had also said that sometimes meddling wasn’t all bad.

  Decided now, she put her head back down on the pillow. And sleep, as if it had been waiting for a decision, came quickly.

  Chapter 6

  Saturday morning dawned clear and crisp. Good for a walk, Kai told herself. It would soon be time to break out her beloved shearling jacket and boots, and that made her smile. Maybe she’d learn to knit this winter, so she could make some of those cool beanies and watch caps she loved.

  So, she thought, I’m in such a good mood, what better to do than destroy it?

  She grabbed the DVD that was the pretext she’d come up with, and trotted downstairs. She pulled on the medium-weight jacket that hung by the back door, stuffed the DVD case in the pocket and stepped outside. She locked up behind her and started west. From Jordy she knew they were living in his grandparent’s old home at the far end of Madrona Street, and that they were both dead. That fact was meaningless to Jordy, since he’d never known his father, let alone his father’s parents.

  It was only about a half a mile, nice for a walk on a brisk fall day. She’d have time to get there and back, since she didn’t open the store until noon on Saturdays. And since it was in an area she hadn’t perused much, she was looking forward to it. The walk part, anyway.

  She hummed under her breath as she went, pleased that it didn’t bother her overmuch when she realized it was the last song Kit had written. She smiled and waved at people who went by if she knew them, leaving it at a smile if she didn’t. She did a lot of waving. She’d gone out of her way to meet as many people as she could when she’d come here, not just for business reasons. She’d had some idea in her head that the small town might close ranks against the outsider. But instead they’d welcomed her, been thrilled that their little town was going to have a music store, and she’d slid into a comfortable place here more quickly than she’d ever imagined possible.

  So, was she about to mess with that, too? Wyatt Blake was one of their own; after all, he’d grown up here. Would they suddenly decide she was an interloper if she started interfering in his life?

  She shook her head, nearly laughing out loud at herself. If that’s all it took, then her place here wasn’t as comfortable as she thought it was.

  She glanced at her watch, saw that it was after nine now. Her mom liked to sleep in on Sundays, and given the dynamo she was the rest of the week, no one was likely to argue with her. She pulled out her cell phone and made the call she’d been meaning to make for days now.

  Her mother never chided her for not calling often enough, which actually made her call more often than her busy life conveniently allowed. Her mother, Kai thought for at least the millionth time, was a very smart woman.

  After the usual catching up, and the pleasant news that her father was feeling so much better after knee surgery a few months ago that he’d gone fishing with some friends, Kai asked the question she’d been pondering.

  “Do you think someone who’s never had kids can ever have good ideas about raising them?”

  “Of course,” her mother said, “if they ever were one.”

  Kai laughed. “Did anybody who’d never had them ever tell you what you should do with me?”

  “I seem to recall your Uncle Brad having an opinion or two on the matter.”

  She laughed again at her mother’s dry tone; her Uncle Brad Reynolds, her father’s brother, made Wyatt Blake look like an overly lenient pushover.

  “I always had the feeling Uncle Brad thought kids shouldn’t just be seen and not heard, they shouldn’t be.”

  “He would be much more comfortable with them if they were born adults,” her mother agreed.

  “Thanks for keeping him at a distance for me.”

  “In my job description,” her mother said with a laugh. “Now, you want to tell me what brought this on?”

  “Just a kid who’s been hanging around the store. He’s having trouble with his dad.”

  “And you think dad’s the problem?”

  “I’ve met him,” Kai said. “Yeah, I think he’s the problem.”

  “Thinking of meddling?”

  “On my way to do it right now,” Kai admitted. “He’s a good kid. I’m worried about him.”

  “Then that’s your approach. No parent who really cares wouldn’t at least listen to someone who starts out saying they’re worried about their child.”

  “You haven’t met this one,” Kai said. “But I’ll give that a shot. Thanks, Mom.”

  She tucked the phone back into her pocket and made the turn onto Madrona Street. The road ended down where there were older houses, houses with large yards and classic, Craftsman-style architecture she admired. But Jordy hated the house, too, and talked about being at the end of the street like it was the end of the world.

  She found the house, two stories of perfect details, sitting back from the cul de sac on a large lot. So that was the huge lawn Jordy griped about having to mow, she thought. She could see his point, it was pretty big. But at least he’d get the winter off; hard to mow when it was raining nearly every day.

  And it looked good, she thought as she started up the gently winding walkway that was a nice counterpoint to the squares and rectangles of the house and driveway. She wondered if Jordy did that good a job by nature, or only because he knew his father would make him do it over again if it was too sloppy. She kind of leaned toward the latter, from what she’d seen and heard.

  She was at the porch, contemplating the cowardly act of just leaving the DVD and hoping Jordy’s father would get the hint, when the meaning of the rhythmic sounds she’d been hearing registered. Somebody was chopping wood.

  Surely not Jordy? He was too small to be using an ax, at least a full-size one, safely. She walked toward the noise, around the corner of the house. And stopped dead.

  In the shade of a huge tree next to the house, Wyatt Blake was doing the woodman routine. And doing it well, with the same grace and power she’d sensed in him the first moment she’d seen him.

  And he was doing it in jeans and a worn T-shirt despite the coolness of the morning. But she guessed nothing worked up a sweat like chopping wood.

  For a long moment she just stood there, watching the man work with a sort of fascination she didn’t understand. She was no expert on the procedure, but it certainly seemed he was; he had a smooth rhythm going that was seamless, even as it adapted to different sizes of the logs he was splitting into fireplace-size chunks.

  Okay, so she liked the way he moved. Liked the lean, rangy way he was built. She could appreciate that, right?

  She wondered anew if this was perhaps one of her less brilliant ideas, if she should have gone with the urge to leave the DVD and vanish.

  And then it was out of her hands; she hadn’t even noticed Jordy was there, dutifully if sullenly stacking the split lengths of wood his father was producing at a rather amazing rate. But the boy spotted her in the moment before she could turn coward and run.

  “Kai!”

  Delight spread across his face as he dropped the wood he held and trotted toward her, making it impossible for her to flee. The rhythmic sound
s of the striking ax stopped abruptly, then a louder strike sounded as Jordy’s father buried the head of the ax deeply into the tree stump he’d been using as a chopping block. For a moment she met his eyes, saw that cool assessment again, that expressionless mask.

  With an inward sigh, she steeled herself. She turned back to Jordy as the boy asked excitedly, “What are you doing here?”

  She saw, from the corner of her eye, Jordy’s father had left the chopping block and was walking toward them, and she had the feeling those were the words in his mind as well, although likely in a much less welcoming tone.

  She kept her focus on the boy. “I brought you something,” she said.

  Jordy’s eyes widened. “Me? You brought me something?”

  He sounded so astonished that her heart ached a little.

  “Yes, you.” She tugged the jewel case out of her jacket pocket. “Remember, we talked about that teaching DVD?”

  Jordy’s eyes lit up. “You found it?”

  “Yep.”

  His father was there now, just a yard or so away. But he didn’t speak at all, didn’t interrupt, so she kept her eyes on the boy.

  “Now, this is the only copy I have, and it’s out of production now, so you need to be careful with it. But the guy who did it is a great teacher, I think you’ll like him.”

  “And he’s really the guy who taught you to play?”

  “He’s the guy who took my playing from plinking around to actually sounding like something, yes.”

  “Cool!”

  Jordy’s enthusiasm was infectious, and she grinned at him. “Let’s see how you feel when your fingers start bleeding.”

  Jordy’s grin started strong, but faded. “But I’ll need to practice, won’t I?”

  “A lot.”

  He cast a sideways glance at his father, his expression going from delight to anger and dislike. “But I can’t.”

  Jordy didn’t say “He won’t let me,” but the inference was clear.

  “Why don’t you take that inside,” she told the boy. “Let me talk to your dad for a minute.”

  For an instant hope flared in those eyes so like yet unlike his father’s. Then it was gone, although he took the DVD and headed toward the house. Defeat screamed from him with every trudging step, and she couldn’t stop herself from turning back to the man standing there. He looked exasperated.