The Lawman

by Vicki Lewis Thompson

  He returned with her food and beer and sat quietly on Kyle’s other side while she talked with Ry and Freddy. Then she coaxed Kyle into singing along when Davis launched into “Drifting Along with the Tumbling Tumbleweeds.” And with her every smile, her every gesture, the ache in Joe’s heart grew. He couldn’t figure out what in the hell was wrong with him. Indigestion, most likely.

  Eventually, Freddy glanced at her watch and handed her plate to Ry. “Your turn to do the dishes, darling. Kyle and I are due over at the corral for our shift.” She motioned to Kyle. “Let’s go, buckaroo.”

  Joe gazed after them. “That kid is having a ball.”

  Ry nodded. “I’ll bet after tonight he’s not going to want to go back with your friend Pope.”

  “He’s most definitely not my friend.”

  Leigh set her plate on the ground. “Is he within his rights to drag Kyle back to New York?”

  “He might be if he can prove negligence.” Joe finished the last of his beer and crushed the can in his fist. “The thing that worries me is that he’d like to adopt Kyle and get me out of the picture completely. Somebody who knows the law as well as he does can be dangerous.”

  Ry clapped a hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. We can handle him.” His eyes gleamed with anticipation. “And after that remark he made about going into town for a `decent meal,’ I’d take pleasure in fixing his little red wagon.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Three of us,” Leigh said. When Joe looked at her in surprise, she winked at him. “Ain’t it great to have friends, cowboy?”

  “Yes, it is,” he said, amazed at how much he meant it.

  “Daddy!” Kyle called, running from the corral so fast he nearly tripped. “Daddy, it’s time!”

  Leigh jumped up, her face luminous, and walked quickly toward the corral. Everyone else around the circle deposited plates, cups and beer cans on the ground and followed her. When she started through the gate, she glanced at Kyle hopping along right beside her. Crouching, she took him by the shoulders and looked into his eyes.

  Joe couldn’t hear what she said, but Kyle nodded and climbed the fence to his perch on the top rail. Joe found a spot next to him and looked into the corral. “All ready for this, buddy?” he asked, putting an arm around Kyle’s waist.

  Kyle nodded, his face tight with excitement. “I can’t be down there right now, because it’s very tricky, but I get to name the baby when it’s born.”

  “Hey, that’s great.” Joe gave him a hug. Then he stared in fascination at what was taking place in the corral. The Appaloosa remained standing while two forelegs and a head encased in what looked like blue plastic poked out. Joe concluded that horses and humans had a slightly different way of giving birth. As the birth progressed, Leigh stationed herself at Penny Lover’s head and talked gently to her, while Freddy monitored the foal’s progress.

  “Leigh knows what that horse is thinking,” Kyle said in a low voice.

  Next to Kyle, Duane chuckled. “She’s thinkin’ she’d like to get this business over with.”

  As if to demonstrate the fact, Penny Lover dropped to her knees, and with a grunt rolled to her side.

  Kyle gripped Joe’s hand and spoke in an urgent whisper. “Here it comes. See, Daddy? Look, there it is!”

  Sure enough, as Penny Lover heaved and snorted, the foal emerged, the placenta shimmering in the floodlight illuminating the corral. A muted cheer went up from the group leaning on the fence.

  Freddy cleared the mucus from the foal’s nose and peered at the foal’s underbelly. Then she turned to Leigh with a triumphant smile. “It’s a filly. A fine little filly. Let’s stand back and let Penny Lover clean her baby.”

  Leigh leaned down and hugged Penny Lover around the neck before rising and backing away from mare and foal. Her shoulders quivered and she wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

  She’s crying, Joe thought, just like I did. A lump formed in his throat, and he would have given anything to hold Leigh at that moment.

  “I knew I should have ordered cigars,” Ry mumbled, and his voice sounded suspiciously husky.

  Penny Lover whinnied and turned to her baby. With great swipes of her tongue she cleaned the foal, and as the damp coat became more and more visible, Leigh reached out and gripped Freddy’s arm. The little filly’s rump was spotted with white, just like her mother’s, just as Leigh had hoped, Joe remembered.

  As a breathless audience watched, the mare stood and nudged her baby. The filly put her two impossibly long legs in front of her, lunged forward and toppled over. The group let out a collective sigh. She tried again, this time getting her hind legs under her for an instant before tumbling to the dirt again.

  “She’ll make it this time,” Kyle announced.

  And she did.

  There was much chuckling and backslapping among the hands as the filly staggered toward her mother and began to nurse. Freddy and Leigh hugged and turned back toward the fence where Kyle, Joe and Ry waited.

  “Well, Kyle?” Leigh asked, lifting her tear-stained face toward him. “What’s her name?”

  Kyle didn’t hesitate. “Spilled Milk!”

  Leigh nodded with satisfaction. “Perfect. Good thing she had the Appaloosa markings, though.”

  “I knew she would,” Kyle said.

  Leigh stuck her hands in her back pockets and gazed at him. “Learning how to read minds, buckaroo?”

  Kyle grinned at her. “Could be.”

  11

  LEIGH AND FREDDY needed to stay at the corrals with Penny Lover a while longer, but Joe could tell from Kyle’s wide yawns that he was ready for bed. Kyle was finally persuaded to leave with Joe and Ry after Leigh promised him he could spend the next morning with Penny Lover and Spilled Milk.

  Joe and Kyle rode with Ry in the van back up to the ranch house. Kyle kept drifting to sleep in the back seat, but then he’d rouse himself to talk about the birth of the foal one more time.

  As Ry pulled into the parking area, Kyle suddenly jerked fully awake. “Oh, no! He was supposed to take me back tomorrow.”

  Joe knew exactly who Kyle meant. “Do you want to stay?” he asked quietly.

  “Of course I do! Leigh told me I could go see Penny Lover and Spilled Milk. I like being a cowboy. I want to stay here with you, Dad. I have to stay. I just have to.” Kyle sounded ready to cry.

  “Then you will,” Joe said, glancing over at Ry. Ry nodded.

  Kyle swallowed noisily, as if fighting the tears. “But he said—”

  “Never mind what he said.” Joe turned in his seat to look at Kyle. “I’ll find out where he’s staying and call him. You won’t have to go back.”

  Kyle sighed. “Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.”

  “So are you, son.”

  Kyle’s responding smile lit up the night.

  Later, while Kyle got ready for bed, Joe picked up the bedside phone and put in a call to the golf resort where Pope was staying. Pope sounded wary when Joe identified himself.

  “I’m afraid you made the trip for nothing,” Joe said. “Kyle wants to stay a few more days.”

  “That’s unfortunate, because I’m taking him back tomorrow.”

  Joe longed to issue his own ultimatum, but he remembered Leigh’s approach and decided to adopt it. “He learned quite a bit watching the foal being born tonight. Leigh, our head wrangler, has promised him he’ll be able to spend a lot of time with the mare and filly. It’s like a minicourse in biology.”

  Pope seemed to be mulling that over. “Darlene wants him home. She’s really worried about him.”

  Kyle was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, but Joe lowered his voice, to be on the safe side. “Look, Pope, the kid’s never even had a dog, and he was allowed to name this filly. You should have seen his face. It’s as close to having his own animal as he may ever get. Don’t take this away from him. He’s safe. You have my word on that.”

  “Let me talk to Darlene and get back to you.”
<
br />   “Okay.” Joe hung up the phone and prayed for patience.

  “What did he say?” Kyle asked, coming into the room dressed in his Star Trek pajamas, a ring of toothpaste around his mouth.

  “He’s checking with your mother.”

  Kyle nodded. “He always does that.”

  “Really?”

  “He’s always asking her, `Should I wear this tie or that tie? Should I take them to lunch at this place or that place?’ Stuff like that.”

  Joe worked up his courage to ask a question he’d never dared voice before. “What do you think of him?”

  “Of Em?” Kyle shrugged. “He’s okay, I guess, but he’d never make it on the Enterprise.”

  Joe bit back a smile. “Why not? He’s smart.”

  “In some things, but when stuff goes wrong, like the time one of the apartments in our building had a fire, he gets all goofy and runs around in circles, screaming. Mom has to take over.”

  “Good thing somebody does.” Joe never thought he’d be grateful for Darlene’s bossy attitude, but at least she could handle a crisis. He was also beginning to suspect the real culprit behind the move to legally adopt Kyle. All along he’d thought it was Pope’s idea.

  The bedside phone rang and he picked it up. “Gilardini.”

  “Do you always have to answer the phone as if you were on a police radio?” Darlene asked.

  “Hello, Darlene, nice to hear from you.” Joe couldn’t keep the sarcasm from his voice. Theirs had not been an easy divorce.

  “I’m tempted to come out there myself and make sure Kyle’s all right.”

  Joe squeezed his eyes shut and prayed.

  “But as long as Emerson’s there, and I’m in the middle of a project at work, I’ll let him handle it.”

  Joe let out his breath. “Kyle’s fine, Darlene. We got off to a rough start, but he won’t be in any more dangerous situations. He wants to stay and get to know this little filly. It’s a great opportunity.”

  “Let me speak to him.”

  Joe handed the phone to Kyle. The conversation was mostly on Darlene’s side, and Joe suspected she was giving him a list of things to be afraid of. Joe looked away and gained control of his anger so that he wouldn’t display it to Kyle.

  “I miss you, too,” Kyle said at last. “Want to speak to Dad again?” He paused. “Okay, ‘bye,” he said and replaced the receiver in the cradle. “I can stay.” He didn’t sound too jubilant about it.

  “And?”

  “And Em’s staying, too. He’s still going to be at that resort, but he’ll be driving out every day to keep an eye on me.” Kyle glanced at his father. “And you.”

  Joe groaned.

  “Mom said he was an equestrian in college, so he’s supposed to teach me the correct way to ride.”

  Joe gazed at Kyle and digested the news. “An equestrian?”

  “You know, somebody who rides—”

  “I know what the word means.” A small smile crept over his lips. “And I hope he announces it just that way to the folks down at the corrals tomorrow morning.”

  * * *

  DUANE FINALLY CONVINCED Freddy and Leigh that Penny Lover could handle her baby without people hovering around the corral all night.

  “I’m so glad we decided to breed her, even if the stud money was hard to justify when we were struggling last year,” Leigh said to Freddy as they pulled up in front of the ranch house.

  “Me, too.” Freddy shut off the engine and sat gazing at the house, its windows spilling light onto the porch. “That little filly seems like a sign that everything is going to work out. Joe’s going to find out who’s sabotaging the ranch and he’s also going to agree we shouldn’t sell it to developers.”

  “I want to believe that, too. But I should warn you, he has his emotions locked in a vault. He’s not the sort to be swayed by sentimentality about the old homestead.”

  Freddy looked at her. “But he has emotions, I assume?”

  Leigh thought of the restrained power of his kisses. “Yes.”

  “If anybody can dig them out, you can, baby sister.”

  “I’m almost afraid to try. The result could be something like the flash flood after the dam was dynamited. People could be swept away.”

  Freddy contemplated her for a long moment. “But isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for? A great passion destined by the stars?”

  Leigh swallowed. “Theoretically. In practice, it’s scary as hell.”

  “All these years you’ve been telling me you couldn’t get serious about this one or that one because he wasn’t the explosive lover who could fulfill your destiny. Are you saying that Joe could be that lover, and you’re backing away?”

  “You don’t understand.” Leigh’s voice dropped to a whisper. “He has the power to break me.”

  Freddy reached over and squeezed her knee. “The best ones all do, sweetie. Take my word, they’re worth the risk. And speaking of that, I’m going inside and commune with that special guy of mine.”

  Leigh opened her door. “Remember how Dad used to drive out to the homestead every time a foal was born and take a bottle of champagne?”

  “I do.” Freddy climbed down and started toward the house.

  Leigh fell into step beside her. “I bought some champagne last week. I’m going out there and thank Clara and Thaddeus for the gift of Spilled Milk.”

  “Great idea. I’d join you, but now that I’m expecting, champagne’s off limits. And—”

  “You need to be with Ry,” Leigh finished. “That’s okay. I have some thinking to do, anyway.” She followed Freddy through the front door and nearly collided with Joe.

  “I thought I saw you two drive up,” he said. “Listen, I wanted to thank you for...well, everything. Kyle will remember watching that foal being born for the rest of his life. And getting to name her, too.... It was the best thing you could have done for him.”

  Freddy’s glance flicked between them. “Where is the little buckaroo?”

  “Sound asleep, with a big smile on his face.”

  Freddy nodded. “That’s nice. Leigh was headed out to the old homestead to drink a bottle of champagne in celebration,” she added casually.

  “I see. Well, I wouldn’t want to hold you up. I just wanted to thank you for giving Kyle such a great experience.”

  Freddy shot a look at her sister. “Yes, well, we took a big risk breeding Penny Lover, but the reward was certainly worth it, wasn’t it, Leigh?”

  Leigh wasn’t sure if Freddy had forced the issue, or if the evening was unfolding in an inevitable pattern. Whatever the explanation, this was a crossroads she would have reached sooner or later, with or without Freddy’s intervention. Perhaps it was appropriate she face this challenge after receiving the gift of Penny Lover’s foal. The universe didn’t reward cowards.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked up at Joe. “Would you like to drive out to the homestead with me and share the champagne?”

  Momentary surprise was soon replaced by a soft glow of awareness in his gray eyes. “Yes.”

  “I’ll go get the champagne from the kitchen, then.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said as Freddy and Leigh walked away.

  Freddy waited until they were through the swinging kitchen door before she let out a muffled whoop of triumph.

  “It’s all your fault,” Leigh said. “If this turns out to be a rotten idea, I’m going to haunt you to the end of your days, Frederica Singleton McGuinnes.”

  “Where’s your ability to see into the future? You should be able to tell how things will turn out.”

  “The only way I can do that is when my mind is completely relaxed. When I’m around that man, my mind is anything but relaxed.”

  Freddy grinned. “I’ve been waiting for this day for years. Now go get the champagne and wait right here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  Leigh retrieved her bottle from the walk-in food locker and plucked two champagne flutes from a shelf. As she turned from the g
lassware cupboard, Freddy reappeared from the hallway that led to the private wing of the house.

  “Tuck these in your pocket.” She thrust several small cellophane packages at Leigh.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Take them! A man on a vacation with his son should not be expected to carry birth control around with him.”

  “Freddy, we probably won’t even—”

  “Then you can bring them back, can’t you? Here.” Freddy shoved them into Leigh’s pocket.

  “What if he finds them? How will I explain the fact that I’m running around with condoms, as if I expected something to happen?”

  Freddy smiled. “If he finds them, it will be because something is about to happen. Now, go.”

  So that was how Leigh happened to be driving out to the old homestead site with a bottle of champagne, two crystal flutes and a pocketful of condoms. Next to her loomed a man who seemed to take up more space than she remembered. He held the flutes in one big hand, the champagne bottle in the other. Every time she reached for the floor shift on the old truck, her hand came dangerously close to his knee. When the truck bounced over a rut, his arm brushed hers. The truck cab filled with the masculine, spicy scent of him, and her heart wouldn’t behave.

  Compared with Joe, the men she’d dated seemed immature and boring. His profession might have closed off his more tender emotions, but it had also surrounded him with an irresistible cloak of valor. He was a modern-day knight in armor, a protector of those smaller and weaker than himself. His presence made her nervous, yet expectant.

  “My father started this custom,” she said as the headlights picked out the rutted road in front of them. “He called it `A Toast to the Ghosts.’ Every time a foal was born, he drove out here with a bottle of champagne. My mother was sure he would run himself into a tree on the way back, but he never did.”

  “Did he drink the champagne sitting on the concrete floor?”

  “No, he sat in the back of the truck. That way, he didn’t have to worry about snakes while he was celebrating.”

  “Sounds like an interesting man.”

  “He was a Singleton,” Leigh said. “They’ve been known for doing things their way.”