“Even then. I was terrified without him, but I still loved him. He was a weak man in that one way, but good in so many others.” She stared out the window and her gaze became unfocused. “He was generous, would give a person the last nickel in his pocket. Do you remember how he sent you to the store every night for a box of Cracker Jack popcorn? You used to love it.”
Amy’s throat hurt. “I remember. All the good stuff seemed to get lost after his death, though.”
Amy lowered her head away from the compassion on Mother’s face and the understanding in her eyes. She straightened an already perfectly aligned pile of paper.
“Why these questions about your father?”
Amy shrugged.
“Why tonight?” Mother persisted. “What happened?”
Amy huffed out a breath of air but said nothing.
“What does it have to do with the ranch?” Mother asked, her voice stronger than Amy had heard it in years. “Answer me.”
Amy had to tell someone, to share this astounding news. “It’s Hank. He’s been robbing the ranch blind to support a gambling habit.”
“I don’t believe that, dear. How do you know that’s what the money is being used for?”
“Trust me, Mother, it is. I’ve seen this before.” She waved her hand toward the bank statements. “Besides, he didn’t deny it.”
“I still don’t believe it.”
Amy gritted her teeth against Mother’s incessant Pollyanna routine. Poor Mother, who always believed that everything would work out while being incapable of doing anything to make sure that it did.
“How can you be so sure of him so soon?” Amy asked.
“I don’t really know. But I do know I don’t see him that way.”
“The pattern in the books is crystal clear,” Amy said, enunciating each word precisely. “He didn’t even try to hide it. Hank has been gambling his money away. I’ve even heard him betting with Willie.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to doubt the man. I like Hank. I trust him.”
“Mother,” Amy said dryly, “you’ve only known him for a couple of days.”
“I’m a much better judge of character than you give me credit for. One day you will learn there is no such thing as a perfect man,” she said without a trace of her usual querulousness. “You fall in love with a man because of his good qualities and you learn to tolerate the bad.”
Mother struggled to her feet. “Hank is not gambling his ranch away or jeopardizing his relationship with those children. There must be another explanation.”
“Why would you trust Hank more than you trust me?”
“It’s not you I don’t trust. It’s whatever you found in there.” She pointed to the stacks of paper on the desk.
“You’ve never really respected my work or my abilities, have you, Mother?”
Mother stepped around the desk and rested her hands on Amy’s shoulders. Why did that make her feel like crying?
“I don’t doubt that you do good work,” Mother said, staring into her eyes. “Something happened to you when your father died. You became driven and rigid.”
“I had to,” Amy said, her voice hitching. “Someone had to support us.”
“Yes, and you did it well. I will always be grateful for that, but those times are long gone, Amy. You shot to the top too fast. You have more than enough money. You no longer have to hedge your bets against poverty. You no longer have to be afraid to live. And to love.”
Oh, but I do. People die or leave. Everyone but you.
“Learn to relax and enjoy life,” Mother continued. “Learn to get close to people and stop being afraid of them.”
The cramp in Amy’s stomach told her the woman who knew her better than anyone else on earth had cut too close to the bone.
Mother walked to the door, then hesitated with her hand on the knob, peering at Amy over her shoulder. “Be careful when you accuse a man like Hank of something so serious. Good men are rare, sweetheart.”
Alone again Amy fell into her chair and rested her elbows on the desk. She forced herself to look at the facts, to try to sort through the murky field of doubt to find the truth. Outside the office she heard the sound of children playing and Hank’s laughter.
Straightening her back, she studied the numbers yet again. The facts won out. Numbers didn’t lie.
The guy was gambling. For sure. She’d given him the chance to tell her it was something else, but Hank had just stared at her and told her to fix it.
When she heard Hannah call that dinner was ready, she couldn’t bring herself to sit with all of those vaguely censorious faces. She knew she wouldn’t be able to eat a thing, anyway.
Standing in the office doorway, she watched the children, Willie and the two teenaged camp counselors file across the hallway to the dining room. Hank brought up the rear with Cheryl in his arms. Amy felt a tug of regret that she would bring this big man down. She had no choice. If Leila wanted to realize any profit from this place, Amy was going to have to help her sell it. Now. Before Hank bet the farm on some wager he couldn’t win.
“THE CAMPERS are coming home.” Amy sat on a wicker chair on the veranda on Friday afternoon with Cheryl on her lap. “Look.” She pointed to a dust cloud approaching from the direction of the Hungry Hollow.
The other young kids milled around the veranda, watching and waiting, too. The five horses neared the yard, escalating the excitement of the kids. An extraordinarily good-looking ranch hand led the group into the yard amid cheers from the children.
“You kids stay up here until those horses stop,” Hank said to the younger ones. “I don’t want anyone crying about trampled toes.”
“You teach these children well,” Amy said. They’d been living in an uneasy truce since yesterday, pretending that things were normal for the children’s sake.
Hank turned to look at her, his expression serious. “Yep. Last thing they need is an injury sustained on my ranch.”
Chatter and laughter filled the air and the campers looked dirty and tired, but happy.
“Hey, Davey,” Hank called to a boy who looked to be ten or eleven. “How was the trip?”
“Great! I herded cattle with Matt.” Amy recognized him as the boy she’d seen on the cowboy’s lap, with equal parts terror and thrill on his face. He ran over and threw himself against Hank. “And I slept in a tent on the ground.”
“On the ground?” Hank asked, grinning. “Wow.”
“Yeah, and I wasn’t scared when that animal came scratching around the tent.”
“Probably just a raccoon.”
“That’s what Matt said when I woke him up.”
Hank nudged Davey toward the screen door. “Go on in and get settled.”
“Hi, John,” Hank greeted another boy, who mumbled hello.
John, twelve years old or so, shuffled up the steps because the laces of his running shoes were undone. He walked with his legs spread and his hands in his pockets so his too-wide pants wouldn’t fall down. A gray hoodie covered his hair. He frowned at both Amy and Cheryl on his way past.
“We can’t help them all.” Hank sounded light, philosophical, but Amy read a deep concern on his face.
A couple of boys scooted by. Cheryl’s head swiveled between the kids running by and the activity in the yard.
One young girl, a nine-or ten-year-old, threw herself against Hank. “I had fun!”
“Did you, Melissa? Are you ready to bust some broncs at the rodeo with me?”
Melissa giggled, then approached Amy and Cheryl. Melissa held Cheryl’s cheeks in her grubby hands and rubbed noses with her.
After Melissa ran inside, Hank crouched on his heels in front of Amy and held a finger out to Cheryl, who curled her hand around it. Amy noticed that he was careful not to touch her. Amy wasn’t contagious, for heaven’s sake.
“Melissa was one of the saddest kids you ever saw when she first got here,” Hank said quietly. He spoke to Amy, but looked at Cheryl. He’d been like this since yesterda
y, subdued and unwilling to meet her eye.
“She really changed that much so quickly?” she asked.
“Yeah, I had her paired with Jenny, one of the ranch hands,” he said, his expression warm. “Jenny can draw any kid out of her shell and make her love horses and ranching.”
He rubbed the back of Cheryl’s hand with his thumb then stood to walk down the steps.
At the bottom of the lawn, the driveway still teemed with horses and ranch hands. Amy watched as Hank greeted Jenny with a brief pat on the shoulder that signified nothing more than affection. Then Amy chastised herself for imagining that it was any of her business. It really didn’t matter to her.
Hank, Willie, Jenny and the other ranch hands led the horses into the barn to unload and curry them after their ride.
Amy turned and went into the house with Cheryl on her arm. The kids had congregated in the living room and just before she entered the room, a child’s voice rose above the chatter. “I don’t like her. She was mad at Hank.”
Another voice, a boy’s sounding older than the first one, answered, “She better not treat him bad when I’m here. I’ll punch her in the nose.”
As she stood on the threshold, the kids looked at her sideways. Some of them scowled.
More enemies. It was too much. She was not a bad person. She wasn’t.
One by one, they left the living room to play in the recreation room, as if Amy had cooties. When Cheryl left her to join them, Amy felt abandoned.
By the time she heard the boots of the ranch hands clomping across the porch and into the house, she was curled in an armchair alone in the room, a pariah.
A motley crew passed on their way to the dining room—cowhands dressed in hopelessly rumpled jeans and plaid or denim shirts. Not a single ironed item among the lot, but at least they were clean, having obviously taken the time to wash and change in the bunkhouse.
One of them, the impossibly good-looking cowboy she’d met on the drive home from the Hungry Hollow, stopped short to stare at her. Jenny, talking to someone behind her, bumped into his sturdy body and bounced back. He didn’t budge.
A drop of water from his hair dripped onto his high cheekbone and ran past the hollow of a dimple beside his full lips to fall from his square jaw. He was one gorgeous man and he knew it.
He stepped into the room, his huge belt buckle with its bucking bronco shining in the lamplight. He grinned when he saw that she’d noticed it.
There was a lot of vanity in this guy, but his pure male appreciation warmed her when she needed it most.
“C’mon, Matt.” Jenny stood in the doorway, scowling at Amy. Jenny probably had a crush on this guy. Too bad. Amy’s pride was in sore need of bolstering right now.
“Matt, dinner’s waiting,” Jenny said with a rough edge of impatience and something that sounded like desperation.
Matt’s eyes never left Amy’s face. “Sure,” he said. “Be there in a minute.”
“Don’t wait forever or you’ll starve, Long.”
Matt crouched on his heels in front of Amy, stretching a tanned, long-fingered hand toward her.
“Hi. Remember me? Matt Long.” He grasped her hand with a firm grip and shook it.
“I’m Amy.”
“I remember. You’ve got the prettiest voice. You must sing like an angel.”
Amy smiled. God, that was corny.
He still held her hand. Amy let him.
Someone nearby cleared his throat.
“Sorry, just gonna tape Jeopardy! for Gladys.” Amy realized that Hank had arrived and she hadn’t even noticed.
She sensed him walking to the rec room, and tried to pull her hand out of Matt’s grasp.
Suddenly she didn’t want Hank to think she was the kind of woman who fell for a man like Matt. She usually wasn’t.
A minute later, she felt Hank’s return. “You both might want to come and eat before it gets cold.” A hint of something—sadness?—rang in his voice.
Matt’s intent gaze never left Amy’s face. “Be there in a minute, Hank.”
Amy tugged on her hand and Matt let it go this time. She realized he’d been staking his claim in front of Hank and that angered her. Enough that she turned down Matt’s offer to escort her to the table.
“I’ll see you after dinner then.” Matt stood and left the room with a megawatt smile.
Amy sat back in her chair. She hadn’t been hit with such a wave of lust since the first time she’d seen Tony standing in the Blues Haven doorway looking like a Greek idol—tall, handsome and supremely confident—who knocked her off her aching, overworked waitressing feet.
Tony. The name had a sobering effect. The reality of her situation struck her full force. She was in no shape to start a flirtation, but she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to—to feel beautiful, to feel those first excited impulses of a new infatuation and to know her own power with the opposite sex.
She wasn’t interested in another Tony, though—vain, conceited and too shallow to stand by a woman when she needed him most.
She spent the rest of the night in her attic room avoiding everyone, particularly Matt and her own confused feelings for Hank. It was the coward’s way out and she didn’t care.
HANK SAT BESIDE GLADYS on the sofa. Alex Trebek read another clue from the board and Gladys answered correctly before any of the contestants rang their buzzers.
Hank drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa.
He couldn’t stand the tension any longer.
He paused the tape.
Gladys turned to him with a frown that matched the one he’d seen on her daughter’s face so many times.
“I need to ask you something,” he said.
Gladys nodded.
“Um…I don’t know for sure how to say it,” he temporized. Great word.
“Hank,” Gladys said quietly, “just ask.”
“Why would Amy think I was a gambler?”
“She said it had something to do with a pattern she saw in your bank statements.” She pulled the collar of her robe up around her neck.
“You cold?” Hank asked.
“A little.”
Hank pulled an afghan from the armchair and draped it around her shoulders.
“Thanks,” she said. “Don’t ask me exactly what it was that Amy found. I’m sure you understand those things a lot better than I do.”
Don’t count on it.
“But I’m not a gambler,” he said.
“I know that, Hank,” Gladys answered.
“You do?” he asked. Jeez, why would Gladys trust him while her daughter wouldn’t?
“You aren’t the kind of man to gamble.”
Hank stretched his arm along the back of the sofa. “How do you know?”
“I married one.” She patted his leg. “I know that you aren’t.”
Hank smiled. The woman’s faith in him felt good. So…Amy’s father had been a gambler.
That didn’t tell him what Amy had found that led her to believe that Hank was a gambler. What kind of mistake was he making with the finances that would lead to that assumption? If he told her he wasn’t a gambler, would she then turn around and figure out the truth on her own?
Could he find out from her without revealing his real problem?
He was going to have to try. He couldn’t stand having Amy look at him with disappointment for one more day.
“Excuse me, Gladys,” he said, “there’s something I have to do.”
He restarted Jeopardy!, then headed upstairs to Amy’s bedroom.
CHAPTER EIGHT
STANDING ON THE LANDING in front of Amy’s door, Hank wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs, then he knocked on the door.
He heard rustling inside, then the door opened and there she stood tying the sash of a silky, flowery robe.
Don’t tie it up. Take it off.
Whoa. Where had that thought come from?
Her hair was mussed and about as sexy as anything he’d ever seen. She tucked a strand behind he
r ear.
“I’ll do that.” Cripes, he’d said it out loud.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
The urge to touch her nearly overwhelmed him. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Did I wake you?” he whispered, even though there was no way he could possibly wake any of the kids on the second floor.
She shook her head.
“I need to ask you something.” He cracked the knuckles of his right hand. Damn, he was nervous. “How come you thought I was a gambler?”
Her lips thinned. “Are you telling me that you aren’t?”
“I’m not.”
She looked confused, as if not sure what to believe.
“What did you see in those bank statements that made you think I was?”
“Large sums of money withdrawn from your account weekly, with no record of where it was going.”
“You thought I was a gambler because I take money out all the time?” Was that all? He laughed.
She frowned. “There’s no record of where the money is going.”
“Come here,” he said and grabbed her hand. It felt small and cool in his as he led her down the stairs and into his bedroom.
Pulling open the drawer of his bedside table, he yanked out stacks of bill payment receipts—for utilities, phone, cable—and threw them onto the bed.
“That’s what I take the money out for.”
Amy rifled through them. “These are all stamped Paid.”
“That’s right. I pay them in person.”
She stared at him, a hint of color in her one cheek. Embarrassment at having misjudged him, maybe?
“I’ve been searching for these all over that hellhole you call a desk,” she said.
Hank swallowed. Nope, not embarrassment. Anger.
“Hank, these are the kinds of things I need to know if I’m going to figure out how things work on this ranch.”
Hank shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. Sheepishly. Really good word for how he was feeling.
Amy frowned at the stacks on the bed. “This doesn’t account for all of it.”
“C’mon,” he said and took her to the first floor.
Just inside the living room, he pulled open the drawer of a black credenza. Stacks and stacks of twenties sat inside, held neatly in piles with elastic bands.
No Ordinary Cowboy Page 9