“SO WHAT ABOUT this one?” Jack lifted another ten-foot stud off the pile, sighted along its edge, then passed it to Skyler.
“Um…” The boy propped one end on the ground and squinted down its length exactly as Jack had demonstrated. “It’s got a hook at that end?”
“Yup. You’ve got a good eye.”
“Yeah, right, all four of ’em,” Sky muttered under his breath.
“It’s not how far you see, I always figured, but what you see along the way,” Jack observed, keeping the sermon casual.
So the kid’s glasses bothered him; Jack wasn’t surprised. At Sky’s age, boys were jostling for their place in the pecking order. Any sign of weakness could be brutally exploited. “So we’ll cut that one for cripple studs.” He set the crooked stud aside. “While I do that, choose me another ten. And they’ve gotta be perfect. We’ll be using ’em to frame windows and doors.”
The boy stood frozen, panic written plain on his face.
But how else would a kid learn to make his own decisions if you didn’t entrust him with real ones? Jack busied himself setting the proper measurement on his radial arm saw, so that he could cut the dozens of shorter studs he’d need to support the windowsills. When he looked again, Sky had chosen two studs and was scowling anxiously down the length of a third.
He discarded it as Jack called, “Where’s Kat?”
“She saw a hawk.” Sky nodded over the ridge, then stooped for another two-by-six.
That was his Kat. Jack grinned. Thanks to his teaching, she was as handy with tools as a ten-year-old could be, but her attention span for mechanical phenomena was about as long as she was tall. On the other hand, anything that grew or flew or crawled held her like a magnet. Might make a biologist or a botanist someday, but she won’t be an engineer or a physicist, Jack suspected. Which was fine by him. He positioned the stud on the table, switched on the saw, and pulled the whirling blade toward him. The saw’s hum turned to a wood-chewing snarl, then back to a contented purr as the board parted. Sawdust rose and the aroma of resin sweetened the air.
By the time he’d cut all the cripples and double-checked Sky’s choices—every one of them satisfactory—Kat had returned.
She scrambled up onto the foundation floor and found her discarded hammer. “Dad, where could I get a net? A big net.”
He positioned his first nail for the next stud in the frame before he paused to consider. “For?” Last year she’d been into bug collecting; he’d hoped they were done with dried beetles.
“To trap a hawk—a falcon. I wanna train him to ride on my shoulder.”
He managed to keep a solemn face. “That would be something.” My daughter the falconer. He could picture Abby’s smile when he told her. “Maybe the army-navy store in Durango?”
“Yeah, mosquito netting!” Sky chimed in.
They passed the next hour as they framed the wall tossing off ideas and designs for a falcon trap. Bait would be road-killed jackrabbits, of course, since Kat couldn’t imagine using a live bunny. Jack didn’t spoil her fantasy by asking what she planned to feed her hawk on days when the bunnies dodged the cars; he trusted the birds to stay out of her net. Meantime, it made a pleasant daydream.
With the trap design finalized, next came the matter of perches, cages and falcon attire. Jack had an old pair of leather gloves, one of which Kat could adapt as a hood for the raptor, though he specified that she catch her bird before she sacrificed his glove. He cut another batch of cripples, the saw drowning out all conversation—and when he looked again, only Sky remained, still hammering away. Good kid, he silently congratulated Abby. A man who could stick to his purpose would go far.
He stopped to inspect the window studs that Sky had positioned and nailed. “Very good.” The kid placed his fastenings precisely as instructed and he could hammer a nail without bending it. “Ready to try a full-length stud?”
Sky glowed with pleasure and Jack had to smile. He was a tryer, all right. Leaving him to the more challenging task, he strolled to the cooler in the Jeep for a couple of sodas, then returned to inspect the results. Sky stood, nervously clutching his hammer. “That’ll do,” Jack assured him. “Want a job?”
“Do you mean it?”
He’d meant it only as a compliment, but Jack cocked his head at the boy’s tone. “Short of cash?”
Sky had his mother’s clear, give-away complexion and now it reddened. “Yeah. I’ve gotta pay for my glasses.” He touched the tape that joined the two broken halves across his battered nose.
Jack nodded. “And then there’s always the bus.” Consequences, as his dad would have said. Let’s see what you’re made of, kid.
“The bus?”
“It’s going to cost over a thousand dollars to have it repaired. You were sitting at the wheel. I expect you released the emergency brake?” That had been Whitey’s guess.
“I, uh…I might of…” Sky studied the plywood at his feet. “But it was an accident.”
“Which somebody’s got to pay for,” Jack noted, voice utterly neutral. No excuses, kid. Are you a buck-stopper? Or do you duck and run?
“Oh…” Sky’s shoulders sagged under the concept. “Yeah. I s’pose…” He gulped, then met Jack’s eyes squarely. “You’d…you’d really hire me?”
“Five bucks an hour, every weekend while you’re here.” He was worth that much, and even if he hadn’t been, responsibility was always worth subsidizing.
The idea was starting to take root. A timid smile came and went. “Do you pay Kat?”
“Nope. This’ll be her home when we’re done, so Kat works for free.” Before they’d turned eighteen, Jack and his brother had helped their contractor father build three family houses, a more useful education than either had acquired at school. Nice to be able to pass the skill on. “So what do you say, Sky? Deal?” Jack held out his hand.
“I’M SO SORRY I didn’t nab him,” Michelle apologized after Abby had returned from inspecting the garbage cans that stood behind the kitchen at Michelle’s Place. “But my waiter called in sick this morning. I was cooking and serving brunch for six tables when I looked out the window and saw him—at least, saw his hind end sticking out of a can. At the rate he seemed to be chowing down, I assumed he’d stay put till I had a moment.” The tall, attractive blonde had set two mugs of coffee on a table in Abby’s absence, plus a plate with thin golden cookies. “Sit down and let’s figure this out. He’s bound to come back. Four-legged or two, I never met a guy who didn’t like a free meal.”
“You didn’t see which way he went?” Abby asked, trying to hide her disappointment. So close.
“Afraid not. I had fourteen eggs sunny-side up on the grill and by the time I’d plated them…” Michelle brushed a honey-colored wisp of hair off her brow and shrugged.
“And you’re not even sure he was all white?”
“No-o. But by the size of that tail, he was a bruiser. And he’s definitely a new boy in town. I have a dainty gray that stops by for the spoiled milk every evening, and a marmalade tom with shredded ears and an attitude, but nobody with a white rear end.”
Abby heaved a sigh. “Then it was probably DC.” She managed a smile. “Only sighting we’ve had so far, so I can’t tell you how grateful I am. It’s just…”
“That you need him back,” Michelle agreed. “I hear he’s your son’s?”
“The first pet Sky’s ever owned. He’s very attached to him.”
“Then we’ll just have to find him.” Michelle lifted the plate and waggled it in front of her. “Now fortify yourself with some serious sugar and let’s think. Is there any particular time of day he eats?”
A few minutes of munching and strategizing suggested that Abby or Sky should stake out the restaurant garbage cans at dusk and dawn, when DC was usually most active. Michelle and her staff would keep an eye out as best they could in the hours between. “And if all else fails, we’ll borrow Doc Kerner’s Havahart trap in a day or two,” Michelle said, “and set it out by
the cans. We’ll find the beast. Hey, excuse me a minute.”
She took coffee to two grizzled old cowhands who had settled across the room, then stood, laughing at the yarn one of the men was spinning for her at wistful length.
Abby took another delectable bite of cookie and glanced around the room. The space was simple, sunny, assured as its proprietor. Subtly sophisticated. All choices had been made by someone with a sense of style, from the extra-heavy stainless flatware and the simple honey-colored ceramics, to the blue-checked cloth napkins on the rugged old tables of mellow pine. The walls were rough plaster, glazed and ragged in two tones of cream and ochre, then hung with a wonderful display of photographs—blowups of cowboys in action. The flower boxes outside the windows blazed with red geraniums. This place might once have been a small-town café, but clearly it had evolved; the aura was more French bistro than fern bar, but it was Bistro West.
“Kaley tells me you’re living next door to Jack Kelton,” ventured Michelle as she swooped back into her seat.
Kaley? Oh, yes—Whitey’s boss, the one with twins. “That’s right.”
“Gotta be exciting. Or at least scenic,” Michelle teased gently.
“You mean—”
“Who else but Harrison Ford’s younger, sexier brother? Don’t tell me you don’t think he’s gorgeous.”
“I guess so,” Abby admitted. “But I’m recently divorced, so I’m not in the market. Not even window-shopping.”
“But surely that’s the beauty of the situation? Because neither is Jack. A divorced divorce lawyer? We call him the King of Can’t Commit.”
“That bad?” Abby said mildly.
“A girlfriend down in Durango tells me he’s dated every available woman in the city. But let one of ’em try to stake a claim and he’s gone yesterday—just watch that bachelor bolt.”
Refusing to commit was the flip side to Jack’s flirtatiousness, Abby supposed. How else to explain why such a good-looking guy could have stayed unmarried for the past ten years? Anyway, Jack Kelton’s marital status had nothing to do with her. So why this twinge of…melancholy?
“You’ve never dated him yourself?” she asked. Maybe the blonde was subtly staking a claim of her own. Hoping to discourage the competition.
But Michelle’s grin was wide and unabashed. “Sure, we dated once or twice when he first came to town, and I’m here to attest that he kisses like a girls’ boarding school dream. But we didn’t click. I’ve got no patience for that type. I worked as chef on a charter boat in the Med for several years. And once you’ve lost your heart to a professional yacht skipper or three…”
If there was the tiniest trace of bitterness in the woman’s voice, it was aimed backward in time, not at her present listener. “You haven’t seen love-’em-and-leave-’em in action till you’ve met the over-the-blue-horizon boys. They think serious is a navigable star, not a stage in a relationship.”
Gradually, Michelle’s gray eyes returned to the present. “On the other hand…if you’re in the mood to play, Jack’s perfect.”
“I’m not in the mood.” And even if she had been, she wasn’t a “player” when it came to love. “Besides which, I’m just passing through. As soon as Whitey fixes my bus…”
“Sure. In the meantime, Abby, while I’ve got you here, I need an opinion. And as you’re an artist—”
“I’m not. Not really.” Till she sold her work, she was merely a wannabe.
“Could’ve fooled me. I’m planning to frame your lost cat poster, once it’s done its job.” Michelle nodded at the portrait of DC pinned up behind her cash register. “But really, tell me. What do you think of these cookies?”
“Seriously dangerous,” Abby reported truthfully.
“Yeah, but aren’t they sort of…plain?”
“Elegantly understated.”
“In other words, blah. I’m thinking of starting a bakery on the side, and all my customers keep whining for these cookies. But I can’t help feeling they need…something.”
“Make ’em taste any better and they’ll be reclassified as a controlled substance, available only with a prescription.”
Michelle shook her head. “Steak without sizzle. They need sizzle.”
“Sprinkles?”
The blonde made a face.
“But maybe that’s it,” Abby said slowly. “If they couldn’t taste better, maybe what they lack is a visual punch?”
“Such as?”
“Let me think about it.” Ideas began their seductive dance at the back of her brain. Some sort of surface pattern, or cut them in a fancy shape, or possibly… Abby looked up at the photos on the walls—and smiled.
“ABBY?” Kat stood at the back door, hands cupped to the screen as she peered through it. “I’ve come to fix supper.”
“Oh…” Abby put down her pencil as Kat bounced into the room. “Is it that time already? Where’re the guys?”
“Dad dropped me off and went back to finish up. Sky’s helping him. What’re you drawing?”
“Ideas for stencils. I’m going to paint the kitchen, then I’ll stencil a pattern around the top of the walls for decoration.”
On her way back from Michelle’s Place, Abby had stopped in to visit Maudie Harris. Somehow she’d persuaded her elderly landlady that her cottage needed extensive refurbishing, which it certainly did. And that if Abby could barter a repainted kitchen for a second week’s worth of rent, Maudie would be thrilled with the results.
More to the point, Abby had promised that other potential tenants would be charmed. Maudie had confessed that she’d been losing rentals these past few years. Bands of college kids on ski vacation didn’t mind the dreary decor, but they tended to party hard and beat up the place, which then meant the cottage didn’t appeal to the fussier, higher-paying end of the market.
“I like that one.” Kat touched a design of a stylized horse and cowboy chasing a cow. A whirling lariat provided the looping connection between the repeats of one rider and the next.
“How about this one?” Abby turned the page to three leaping prong-horned antelopes, like the herds she’d seen driving up from Durango.
“Oh, yeah!” Kat traced the pattern with a fingertip. “Could you show me how to do this? I saw a hawk flying today…”
“Absolutely. Or a hawk design might be simple enough to do as a potato print.” It would be a pleasure to show her how. Sky was wonderfully sensitive for a boy, but he wasn’t especially artistic; often Abby wished she had someone to share her joy in the visual world. She stood and closed her sketchbook. “But now let’s get your leftover lasagna in the oven.”
It crossed her mind to suggest that the two families eat as one tonight. She’d love to hear how their day had gone, and she had the best scoop of all—DC’s sighting. But after Michelle’s comments…the King of Can’t Commit? No matter how innocent her motives, no matter how lonely she was, she really shouldn’t give in to the temptation to socialize.
Because somehow she was vulnerable to Jack’s flirtations, however lightly he meant them.
All the more reason to ration their time together.
BUT HER RESOLUTION hadn’t taken Jack’s appetite into account.
“He ate all that?” Abby frowned at the pan of lasagna, which contained a woeful three-by-five-inch serving. “That was supposed to last you guys two nights, kiddo.” At least, such a pan made two meals for her and Sky.
“He said it tasted so good.” Kat was both proud and dismayed.
“Well…” So much for avoidance. It was too late in the day to cook something new. “Sky and I didn’t finish half our pan last night, so we could combine what we’ve got, then maybe add some garlic bread. And we could boost the salad with chick peas.” She’d promised to teach Kat how to cook, after all, and the highest kitchen skill was how to improvise in a crisis. Abby switched into high gear. “Okay, Kat, oven at three-fifty and in this goes—covered. Then peel me, say, eight big cloves of garlic. I’ll go get our pan.”
; So much for good intentions; tonight the Lakes and the Keltons were dining en famille.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ONCE KAT HAD BEEN GIVEN her tasks of setting the table and augmenting the salad, Abby told her she’d be back in twenty minutes, that she had a short errand to run. Borrowing Jack’s Subaru, she raced down to Michelle’s Place to scout the parking lot and the fenced-in area behind the kitchen, but to no avail. Perhaps DC had come earlier to dine?
Or maybe he’s moved on, she worried, driving back to the house. Maybe he was just passing through on his way to New Jersey.
Or maybe the white rear end that Michelle had seen in her garbage can was connected to a piebald cat or a long-tailed skunk.
Or maybe we’ll find him later. Soon. Still, Abby was reconsidering her impulse to spill the joyful news. What if she raised Skyler’s hopes, then couldn’t deliver? She should know; sometimes hope hurt more than accepting the blow.
Her somber mood lasted only as far as Jack’s kitchen door.
“Praise the Lord, reinforcements at last!” With a grin, he caught her arm to pull her into noise and warmth and the mouthwatering aroma of baking lasagna. “I’ve been holding off the barbarians—but only just.”
“Let’s eat!” cried Kat, pulling out a chair.
THE MEAL WAS AS LIVELY as the previous one they’d shared. Kelton’s construction crew was triumphant; they’d built, then raised, the first wall of the house. Skyler’s face glowed as he explained in detail how they’d lifted the heavy frame with the help of jacks plus a gin stick and a contraption called a come-along. Kat chimed in with a description of the wonderful views one could now see, peering through the framed spaces that would someday hold windows overlooking the town.
“And Mr. Kelton even let me change a window when I figured out there’d be a better view if we moved it all the way over to one corner,” Sky confided.
“It was a great idea,” Jack affirmed, sipping his wine. “Now you can sit in the breakfast nook on the east side of the house and see a good chunk of the sunset.”
Kelton's Rules (Harlequin Super Romance) Page 12