C.J. stilled. Damn. Marjorie Bates. The Children and Family Services worker on his case.
CHAPTER SEVEN
C.J. STARED at Liam and panicked. If Marjorie knew he was here for the next month, close to those big machines, hanging around while C.J. boiled huge pots of syrup, she’d flip.
Was there a law against having kids in the back room of a place like this?He didn’t want to take a chance on finding that out from Marjorie.
“Take Liam out into the backyard and stay there until I tell you to come in.”
Janey looked alarmed by C.J.’s tone. “What? Why?”
“Just do it,” he ordered, none too gently.
She did as she was told, but frowned before she left.
C.J. closed the back door then headed out front.
“Hey, Marjorie,” he said, trying to sound as casual as possible.
Short and wide, Marjorie reminded C.J. of Gramps’s John Deere tractor, strong and dependable, but plain.
Her perennial frown seemed deeper than usual. Bad news? She wasn’t unkind, but she took her responsibilities seriously.
“Where’s Liam?” she asked without preamble.
“What do you mean?” C.J. scooped salt-water taffy into a bag. He knew she liked it. He wasn’t above bribery.
“I went out to the ranch first. There was no one there.”
“Gramps must have taken him somewhere. If you’d given me notice, I could have arranged for Liam to be there.”
Marjorie set one hand on the candy display case. “I’ve received a complaint about you.”
C.J. stilled. “About what?”
“It doesn’t matter. I have to check them all out.”
“A complaint from whom?” He knew the belligerence in his voice wouldn’t earn him points with Marjorie, but who the hell had filed a complaint against him with Children and Family Services? And why? Even before he finished the thought, he knew. Vicki’s parents.
“It was the Fishers, wasn’t it?”
Marjorie nodded. “They’re worried about the company you’re keeping.” Damn. Janey? He wasn’t keeping company with her. He was only employing her.
“I’m not keeping company with anyone,” he said. “I don’t date.”
Marjorie didn’t respond to that. “They’re only trying to make sure their grandson is okay.”
C.J. doubted that. They were playing dirty. Probably someone in town had called them yesterday to tell them about Janey. Who had they grown that close to in town? Who was their spy? Why was this person spying, calling the Fishers in Billings? Stirring up trouble for him?
“You’re sure everything is okay with Liam?” Marjorie asked.
“Yes.” Damn. He shouldn’t have shouted. He moderated his tone. “He likes the ranch, he likes his grandfather. He likes visiting the store.”
Marjorie still looked troubled, but said, “I really do have a tight schedule today. I’d better go.”
She took the bag of candy he proffered and headed out of the shop.
C.J. sagged against the counter. His breath whooshed out of him. What the hell was going on? Who was talking to Vicki’s parents? Who did they know in town?
He stalked to the back door, but stopped when he saw Janey and Liam through the small window, in the yard with Bizzy, their heads together while Liam talked to her. Talked to her, said more in a few minutes than he’d said to C.J. in a year.
He had people spying on him to jeopardize his custody of Liam when C.J. loved the daylights out of his son, and his son would rather spend time with a stranger than with him.
His pulse quieted, but only after he hauled himself under control with a crazy effort. Why was life so hard and complicated? Why couldn’t a man have a simple, straightforward relationship with his own son?
Opening the door, he stepped out.
Just then, Liam squealed, “Peeeyouuuu, stinky,” and squeezed his little nostrils shut between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.
Whoo. BizzyBelle had farted—a real doozy. C.J. closed the door so the smell wouldn’t drift inside.
Janey waved her hands in front of her nose and dragged Liam to the far corner of the backyard. She laughed, a light airy sound so foreign to her clothing and ugly boots and piercings, and to her big tough attitude, that C.J. did a double take to make sure that beautiful sound was really coming from her.
C.J., arrested by the look on her face, watched for the pure pleasure of seeing Janey light up.
Could anything be less conducive to appreciating a woman than standing in a bubble of BizzyBelle’s gross methane gas? And yet, he couldn’t stop watching Janey. She sparkled.
Liam joined in with a tiny high-pitched giggle, the first time C.J. had heard his son so happy. Liam threw himself against Janey’s legs and her back hit the fence at the end of the yard.
As if the sappiest violins played their sympathetic strains through his head, C.J.’s sinuses tingled.
Someday Liam would laugh like that for him, without big stinky cow farts or a pretty woman making it happen. Just C.J. himself, a vow he intended to keep.
Liam lifted his arms for Janey to pick him up. She did and turned her face to the sun and closed her eyes.
Liam settled his head on her shoulder and tucked his thumb into his mouth. C.J. knew what that meant. Liam could be asleep in no time. He looked as though he was nearly there already.
Janey looked down at him and C.J. watched the oddest emotion cross her face, not anger nor resentment, but something achy like regret.
How old was her daughter when she died? Older than Liam, for sure.
That begged another question. Janey was barely into her twenties, so how young had she started having sex? How old was she when her daughter was born?
Was it one guy or had she been promiscuous? He had a right to be cautious around her and to curb his attraction.
He approached and said, “You had a little girl.”
Janey jumped. He’d startled her. She slammed the shutters on her feelings so fast he felt a cold breeze.
“Yes. Her name was Cheryl.”
“I heard she died. I’m real sorry about that.”
She touched Liam’s baby-fine hair, took a small tuft of it and rubbed it between her fingers. “Thanks.”
“How old was she?”
“Six.”
Man, life was harsh.
If Cheryl had been six, at her birth what had Janey been? Still a child?
“How old were you when you had Cheryl?”
Janey looked at C.J., defiance and attitude in her expression. “Not that it’s any business of yours, but I’d just turned fifteen.”
“Fifteen?” Cripes, she’d been screwing around when she was only fourteen? Maybe she was as wild as she looked. “How old was the baby’s father?”
She shrugged.
What the hell did that mean?
“Were you married to him?”
“No.”
A pulse beat in his neck. “Do you still see the father?”
She shook her head.
“Does he know about his daughter?”
Again, she shook her head, but her cheeks got red.
So, she’d kept her daughter a secret from the child’s father, just as Vicki had done to him. Rotten thing to do. He’d been thinking lately that maybe she was a better person than Vicki. So wrong. “Did he ever pay support?”
Again, she shook her head.
He took Liam from her, too roughly, but Liam didn’t stir. “I’m going to put him down for a nap.” As much as her decisions pissed him off, her situation wasn’t for him to judge. Her daughter was dead, so what did it matter? The thought turned down the volume on his anger.
“A nap?” she asked. “Does he have a cot here somewhere?”
“There’s a vacant apartment above the store, partially furnished.”
“An apartment?” Janey perked up.
“You interested?” As long as she wasn’t blatantly promiscuous—and come to think of it, he
’d heard no rumors indicating she was—while she lived there, it could work. The rent would certainly help.
“I might be.”
“C’mon. I’ll show it to you.”
Through a door from the candy-making room and up a flight of stairs, C.J. led her to the apartment.
He stepped inside and Janey followed through the sparsely decorated living room into the spacious bedroom at the far end of the apartment.
“Can you close the blinds?” he asked Janey.
She did while he set Liam on the bed and removed the child’s sneakers, each one so tiny he could hold it in the palm of his hand. He put them on the rag rug on the floor beside the bed.
Pulling back a faded well-worn quilt his grandmother had made years ago, he settled Liam in, covering him with the soft fabric.
When he removed his hand from the boy’s shoulder, Liam woke up, cranky, as he always did when his nap was interrupted. He looked around, wild-eyed, then saw Janey.
“I want you,” he said. He patted the bed beside him. “Here.”
Janey took off her big boots and climbed up onto the bed, lying on top of the quilt in the warm room. One short black sock had a hole in the toe.
Below shapely calves, her ankles were small, like her wrists.
Her hip curved up from the bed, inviting touch.
Liam curled onto his side toward Janey and dropped off to sleep again.
Her dark eyes watchful, Janey stared at C.J., wary and aware.
Why did women look their most feminine when lying down? Why did Janey have to look so womanly and motherly beside his son?
That sense of waiting flooded him again, but what did it have to do with Janey?
He stepped away from the bed and cleared his throat.
Janey blinked, slowly. She curled one arm on the pillow and rested her head on it. Something like a low-simmering…hope?…passed over her face. “This is a nice apartment,” she said. “Is it expensive?”
“No. I give a bit of a break if the renter works for me.”
He named a sum and she nodded. “I want it.”
“Okay. When do you want to move in?”
“I’ll get Hank to drive my stuff over. When can I get a key?”
“Today if you want. It’s for the front door of the shop.”
Liam snuffled and rolled over. Janey laid her hand on his back and he settled. C.J. backed out of the room. They looked too good together, his son and that girl, and he didn’t have a clue what to make of that.
C.J. forced himself to turn away from the bittersweet picture Liam and Janey made. He ran downstairs to the store.
A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER, Janey stepped out of Sweet Talk at lunchtime to go to the grocery store. For two days, she’d watched Liam eat his body weight in candy and very little else. She needed to do something about that, like pick up the healthiest stuff she thought she could persuade him to eat.
They had been two difficult days. First, because of Liam. He wouldn’t leave her alone, and she refused to hurt his feelings, so she let him touch her and hug her and cause her a world of discomfort, because he was adorable, but he wasn’t Cheryl.The days had been a challenge in another way, too. While learning candy-making, she’d had to spend too much time with C.J., even touching when he had to teach her to knead humbugs. For the first time with a man, she felt a push-pull that left her exhausted and confused. Her heart, and parts of her body, craved his nearness, but her nerves, her terror of men, her rational side all knew that she could not give in to those seductive touches. That nothing would ever, ever come of them.
As well, C.J. seemed to be short and angry with her for some reason that she couldn’t figure out.
When she’d called him on it, he’d just grunted and told her to get back to work.
Neanderthal.
A poster for tomorrow’s powwow in the window of the grocery store caught her attention. Everyone was talking about it. Hank and Amy and all of the kids were going. She couldn’t wait. It sounded so cool.
Mona ran across the street toward the store, her waitress’s apron flying in the breeze.
“You going tomorrow?” she asked Janey.
“Yeah, I’m excited about it.” She held the door open for Mona.
“Hey, thanks,” Mona said. “It’s always a really fun day.”
They stopped in the produce section. “The diner ran out of onions. Can you believe it?”
Mona picked up an enormous bag of onions. Janey selected overripe bananas from the discount shelf.
Since Mona stuck with her, Janey said, “I’ve never been in such a tiny grocery store.”
“Yeah? You’re from the city, right?”
Janey nodded.
“So,” Mona went on, “are you like Goth or punk or something?”
“No. I just like these clothes.”
“Hey.” The deep voice behind them startled them both. Janey turned around. A big man she didn’t recognize stood behind them.
Arms crossed over his broad chest, he glared at Janey. She glared right back. She had no idea who’d spit in his cereal this morning, but she wasn’t about to put up with any shit from him, whoever he was.
“Saw you looking at the poster for the powwow,” he said.
Janey nodded because he seemed to be talking to her, not Mona.
“Don’t come,” he ordered.
“Excuse me?” Janey said and pretended to shake wax out of her right ear. “It sounded like you said not to come.”
“That’s right. It’s on my land,” he said, pointing a finger her way. “You aren’t invited. Got it?”
“The sign says everyone is welcome.”
“Everyone but you.”
She felt Mona step forward. “Hey—”
Janey grabbed her arm. She didn’t need Mona fighting her battles. “Who do you think you are?”
“Max Golden. A good friend of Reverend Wright.”
Janey recognized his name. He was one of the rich ranchers, had a snotty daughter named Marnie who’d visited the Sheltering Arms once and hadn’t given Janey the time of day.
He pointed at her. “He’s worried about his son.”
Janey put her hands on her hips and leaned forward. No way would she let this a-hole know how much he was hurting her. “Has the Reverend been talking behind my back?” she asked, standing on her toes to get into his face.
“Just to his friends. He’s concerned. His son means a lot to him. He doesn’t want you messing him up.”
“I’m not,” she said, spreading her hands. “I’m just working at the store. What’s wrong with you people?”
“Nothing. We’re protecting our own.”
“What’d I ever do to you?” She’d done nothing, nothing, to C.J. or the Rev or Max Golden.
“You got my friend real worried. I take care of my friends.”
Mona stepped forward. “Max, sometimes you can be a real douche bag.”
Janey liked Mona more and more by the minute.
Max ignored Mona and leaned close to Janey. He’d used too much aftershave. She barely restrained herself from stepping away from him. She didn’t back away from idiots.
“Don’t. Come.” With that, Max turned and left the store.
“Hey,” Mona said, taking her arm. “Don’t let him get you down. There are lots of good people in this town.”
Janey nodded. “Thanks for sticking up for me.”
“Anytime.” Mona grinned. “Gotta go.”
She hurried to the cash register.
Janey shook her head. “Just forget about him.”
She bypassed both the cereal and the rice aisles. She and Cheryl had lived on enormous bags of oatmeal and rice, one of the cheapest things she could buy and still hope to put a little meat on Cheryl’s bones. If she never saw another bag of either, it would still be too soon.
Picking up a big block of cheese that was marked down because it was near the due date, she checked it out. No mold. Looked fine. She grabbed a huge box of cheap saltine
s along with a big jar of peanut butter and one of raspberry jam, the cheapest on the shelf, along with a loaf of whole-wheat bread. A round loaf of bread studded with seeds and nuts and cranberries tempted her, but it cost too much. Someday, when she felt secure in her job, she’d try something like that, toasted, with expensive jam that had maybe pears or apricots in it.
At the smallest deli she’d ever seen, she splurged on a small plastic container packed with sliced strawberries, blueberries, small melon chunks and pineapple. Liam would like it. She grabbed a plastic spoon.
After paying, she left the store and returned to Sweet Talk.
Liam still sat where C.J. had left him in the corner of the store, picking candy dots from paper.
Janey took them from him. When he protested, Janey pulled the fruit salad out of the bag and walked to the small cast-iron table in the front window. Intrigued, Liam followed her. When Janey reached into the bag to unpack it, he pushed her hand away and shoved his head into the bag to see what else she’d bought. God, he was cute. The tiniest blush of a smile played around the corners of her mouth.
He pulled out the cheese and said, “Want some.”
“Okay. Just a minute.” Janey walked to the back, to the one shelf on the far wall that C.J. charitably called a kitchen. She got out a pot and poured in some of the milk that she’d bought.
C.J. stood at the back of the room filling orders for a number of long-distance clients. He barely registered her presence.
“I’m making hot chocolate for Liam,” she said.
“Great. Put some on for us, too.”
Janey did that and returned to the front with a small cup for Liam. She opened the fruit salad and gave Liam a spoon. He picked up one single blueberry and put it into his mouth.
Janey sat across from him on the second chair and laid out the rest of the food.
Liam got up to return to his candy and Janey picked him up and put him back at the table.
“Sit. You need healthy food.”
He let out a wail. C.J. came running.
“What’s going on? What are you doing to Liam?”
C.J. COULDN’T HELP but stare at Janey. She sat on one of the chairs in the front window with sun shining on her hair, turning it into a glossy blue-black river running down her back.
A Cowboy's Plan Page 8