by SUE FINEMAN
“Not yet, baby.”
“I don’t wanta stay in the room,” he whined. “I wanta go outside.”
“You stay right here and stay quiet. One more day. Give me one more day.” She’d tell Bo about Brady tonight at suppertime.
She pulled out another coloring book from her suitcase and tossed it on the bed. The batteries on the Game Boy someone gave him at the shelter in Tampa died on the bus yesterday. She couldn’t blame him for being bored. “I’ll buy new batteries for the Game Boy as soon as I get paid. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
After buying groceries this morning, she only had twenty-six dollars left, and she didn’t expect to get paid here until after the business opened. From the looks of the place, it wouldn’t open for a few weeks. Dishes, pots, pans, and such filled the cabinets in the kitchen. The bar looked to be in good shape, but the balcony over the dining room needed work, and the dining room lacked flooring and furniture. The porch on the front looked brand new, although the rails were only half painted.
Callie prayed Tommy Ray didn’t find her here. She couldn’t keep running forever. They needed to settle someplace so Brady could start school.
She’d always considered herself a strong person, but in the last few years, Tommy Ray had knocked it all out of her. He didn’t beat her much before Mama and Daddy died, but there’d been times since then when she wished she’d died right along with them. The only thing that kept her from shooting her husband was the thought of going to prison and leaving her little boy alone. And she would go to prison. No matter what kind of hell Tommy Ray had put her through, folks just didn’t go around killing a sheriff.
<>
After lunch, while Callie helped Greg paint the front porch rails, Bo lay down to rest. The pretty lady from Texas had earned her room and board today. Greg never worked on the renovations without his help, but he did today, with Callie. Bo’s heart wasn’t in it, but what else could he do with a bad arm? The Marines didn’t give him training in anything but combat. He could go back to college and finish his last year, but he didn’t know what to study. He didn’t have any idea what to do with his life. If he had a plan, he could tell Greg to find himself another partner. But he didn’t have a plan. What he had was a weak arm that hurt like hell and a whole lot of frustration.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Seconds later, he heard something and opened his eyes to see a little boy about six or seven years old going through his wallet. If the kid wanted something to steal, he’d come to the wrong place. There couldn’t be more than five dollars in there.
Without moving, Bo said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
The kid jumped, dropped the wallet on the floor, and ran from the room. Little feet thumped down the hall and a door slammed. The kid had to be Callie’s. Why in the hell hadn’t she told him she had a kid?
Bo stood and walked down the hall. Callie’s door was locked, so he pounded on it. “Open the door right now or I’ll go get your mother.”
A little boy with straight blond hair hanging in his face and big brown eyes opened the door and cowered behind it.
“What’s your name?”
“Brady.”
“How old are you?”
“Seven. I’m gonna be in the second grade.” The kid had Callie’s soft accent, but he didn’t look much like her.
Bo sat on the side of the bed. He should throw Callie and her kid out of here right now. What else had she been hiding? “Come over here where I can see you.”
The kid glanced at the door as if wondering if he could get through it before Bo caught him. “Are you gonna hit me?”
“I don’t hit kids unless they steal from me and don’t give it back.”
The little boy walked over, hung his head, and handed Bo a wadded up dollar bill.
Bo handed it back. “Go put the dollar back in my wallet and put it back on the dresser the way you found it.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy ran down the hall.
Bo walked back to his room, put on his shoes, jammed his wallet in his hip pocket, and stuffed the checkbook in his shirt pocket. Brady stood across the room, staring at him. If they wanted to eat tonight, someone had to go to the grocery store, and Callie was otherwise occupied.
He couldn’t leave the kid here unsupervised with all the tools lying around. “Brady, do you want to go shopping with me?”
“Yes, sir, if Mama says it’s all right.”
“Put your shoes on and go to the bathroom.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bo walked downstairs and out to the front porch. A smudge of green paint stained Callie’s cheek. She and Greg talked and laughed as they worked, but Bo didn’t feel much like laughing, not after finding her kid in the building. “I’m going shopping. Anything special you want?”
“Chips,” said Greg. “Neen cut me off junk food.”
“Callie?”
“I made a grocery list. It’s on the kitchen counter beside the refrigerator.”
He found the list and called up the back stairs. “Come on, kid; let’s go.”
When Bo walked out the front door with Brady, all the color drained from Callie’s face. Bo stared her down. “He’s going to help me shop. Any objections?” As if she’d dare say anything about it after trying to hide the kid from him.
“No, sir, no objections. You be a good boy, Brady.”
The kid grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
Callie watched Bo drive away with her little boy strapped in the backseat. She didn’t know what happened, but something had or Bo wouldn’t know about Brady.
“Something wrong, Callie?” Greg asked.
“I didn’t tell Bo my son was here.”
Greg burst out laughing, but she didn’t see anything funny about it. If Bo threw them out, they could end up on the street.
The ornery look in Greg’s eyes betrayed his muscled, tough-guy body. She liked Greg, and she liked Bo even more, even if he was angry. He wouldn’t stay angry, would he?
She finished painting the rails from the inside. “Greg, I don’t know if I’ll have time to finish before I have to make Bo’s supper, but I’ll finish first thing in the morning.”
“I didn’t expect to get this much done today. What’s left to do?”
“Just the outside.”
“I’ll finish it, Callie. You’ve done more than your share today.”
Bo drove up with a load of groceries, and Brady jumped out of the backseat grinning broadly. “Mama, Bo bought me some candy and batteries for my Game Boy.”
Bo’s intense gaze bored into her. “You owe me an explanation.”
“Yes, sir, I do, but not right now.”
She glanced down at Brady, who gazed up at Bo with open admiration. Tommy Ray had never bought him anything. “No candy until after dinner, young man.”
Brady grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”
Bo wondered if he should tell her about the candy bar Brady ate at the grocery store. He’d sworn the kid to secrecy, but the way Brady chattered, he’d end up spilling it sooner or later. The kid said they ran away from Daddy, and in spite of him stealing from Bo’s wallet, he seemed like a good kid. A kid that didn’t belong in an adult establishment.
Callie handed Brady a bottle of fabric softener. “Take this upstairs to the laundry.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The minute Brady left the room, Callie started talking, the words tumbling out of her mouth so quickly they tripped over each other. “I know I should have told you about Brady, but I was afraid you wouldn’t let us both stay, and I don’t have enough money to get a room somewhere, and we don’t have a car to sleep in, and I don’t want my little boy sleeping on the street.”
Bo slammed a carton of orange juice on the counter. “Damn it, Callie.” If she’d come here alone and pulled something like this, she’d be out the door right now, but he couldn’t throw a hungry kid out on the street.
“I know you’re angry, Bo, but you don’t know how it
is.”
Greg said, “Go easy on her, Bo.”
Bo turned on his brother. “Mind your own damn business.”
Greg put his hand on Callie’s shoulder. “Callie, do you and Brady want to stay with me and Neen for a few days?”
“Thank you kindly, Greg, but I promised Bo I’d—”
“Take her. Take them both.” Bo walked away. Everyone had their hot buttons, and she’d found his. He hated it when people lied to him. The first surgeon promised a full recovery after his arm surgery, but he lied, and the second one wanted to cut his arm off. He’d gotten into this business deal with Greg with the understanding that they’d do it together, but Greg didn’t pull his weight, Neen was too preoccupied to be much help, and most of the work fell on Bo’s shoulders. He didn’t want to deal with someone else who’d manipulate him or lie to him. He had enough responsibility without taking on a woman and her kid running away from home.
Bo walked upstairs, stretched out in his recliner, and shoved his glasses on his nose. But the book didn’t hold his interest, and his stomach growled with hunger.
Brady stood in the doorway. “Mama says you’re a hero.”
“Did she send you up here?”
“No, sir. She’s cooking supper.”
“What’s she cooking?”
“Chicken pot pie. Mama makes it real good.”
Remembering Callie’s breakfast, Bo’s stomach rumbled again. He thought Callie and Brady would be packed up and gone by now, but she was downstairs cooking supper.
“What are you supposed to be doing?”
“Taking a bath.”
“Then go take a bath.”
“I don’t know how to fix that plug thing.”
With his luck, the kid would either run the bathtub over or drown, and it would end up being his fault. He walked down to Callie’s room with Brady, fixed the stopper, and started the tub running. Brady stripped off his shoes and socks and then his shirt. Bo stared at the stripes on the boy’s back. The lash marks were healed, but they must have been painful. What kind of monster would do this to a little kid?
“Brady, who hit you? Does your mother do that?”
“No, sir.”
“Your father?”
“Yes, sir. Daddy don’t much like kids, but Mama says we don’t never have to live with him again.”
Bo turned off the water. Callie had good reason to run away from a husband who beat her and Brady, but she could have told him about the kid. It was a lie of omission.
The wounds on the kid weren’t recent, and he didn’t want to stir up more trouble by reporting it now. At some point, he would. No man should get away with leaving scars like that on a little kid.
The boy pulled off his shorts and stepped into the tub. His behind looked worse than his back, and Bo regretted being so harsh with Callie. She was probably waiting to get to know him before she trusted him around her son. After seeing Brady’s backside, he could understand her being so protective.
He helped the kid wash and rinse his hair, and when Brady finished his bath and pulled on clean clothes, Bo took him down to his bathroom and ran the hair dryer. “You’re looking almost as shaggy as me. What do you say we go get haircuts tomorrow?”
“In a real barbershop? Daddy wouldn’t never give Mama money for the barbershop.”
Daddy didn’t give Mama money to run away, either, yet Callie had managed to do it. Bo hated people who hurt women and children. Those kids in Iraq didn’t do anything to deserve to lose their arms and legs, or their lives. They suffered because they’d dared to get close to American soldiers.
Some hero he was, coaxing innocent kids into danger.
<>
Callie and Brady didn’t go to Greg’s house that evening. Greg said to call if things got ugly, but she didn’t want to intrude on Greg and his wife, and she suspected Bo would change his mind after he pondered it awhile.
Bo didn’t say three words at dinner, but Brady chattered so much he scarcely ate anything. Brady didn’t dare talk to Tommy Ray. If he did, Tommy Ray hit him.
She tucked Brady in bed and read him a story. After he went to sleep, she walked down to Bo’s room. His door stood open, and a book rested in his hand. They didn’t have television sets in the building, at least none that she’d seen. They didn’t have one at the ranch house either, not since Tommy Ray put his foot through the screen when the Cowboys lost an important football game.
Tapping on Bo’s open door, she asked, “Is this a good time to talk?”
He motioned her in.
She sat on the end of his bed, facing him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Brady. I know you don’t want kids here when the business opens, and that’s okay. I’ll find us another place to stay by then.”
Leaning forward, she said, “Let me massage your arm.”
He held his arm out to her.
Her fingers worked as she talked, gently massaging.
“Why is your husband after you?”
“Because I left him. Tommy Ray told me once if I ever left him, he’d kill me and get custody of my son, but Brady isn’t his, and he can’t have my little boy.”
Bo stared at Callie’s face. She didn’t look like the kind of woman who fooled around. Or did she? Had Little Miss Sweet and Innocent been screwing the whole town?
“I was pregnant when we married. Tommy Ray made a deal with my daddy. He said he’d marry me and claim the baby as his own in exchange for the ranch. Mama was so ashamed, and Daddy... Without even telling me, Daddy signed my granddaddy’s ranch over to Tommy Ray.”
Callie finished her massage and sat back on the bed. “Mama and Daddy lived in a big trailer house on the ranch, and as long as they were alive, things were okay. Not great, but okay, you know? But then that tornado ripped across the ranch and took the trailer house and killed my parents.”
Was she telling the truth, or did she make it up as she went along?
“Anyway, when he got the first property tax bill after Mama and Daddy died, Tommy Ray threw a fit. Daddy hadn’t paid the property taxes in a while, and the bill was for more than Tommy Ray made that year.”
“So he felt cheated?”
“Well, yes, I ‘spose he did, but so did I.”
Bo had fallen for Callie’s gentleness and soft voice, for her cooking, for her face and body and those incredible eyes. She’d told him he wouldn’t be sorry he took her in, but the woman was trouble.
If that wasn’t an understatement.
Chapter Three
At the barbershop the next morning, Bo gave a brief thought to how Callie might want Brady’s hair cut and then dismissed it. At this point, he didn’t care what she wanted, and the kid wanted it short. Big chunks of blond hair fell to the floor. Brady’s shaggy dog appearance disappeared and his brown eyes grew bigger.
The boy glanced in the mirror and grinned, showing the hole from a missing tooth. Cute kid and well behaved for a kid that age, but Bo didn’t want him at the business. He didn’t have time to worry about the kid falling off the balcony rail, getting into the paint, or playing with the power drill.
On the way back from the barbershop, Bo took Brady to his mother’s house. Mom had been taking in troubled kids for as long as Bo could remember, and he knew she’d take good care of Brady. Bo wrote the phone number of The Brothel on Mom’s kitchen notepad and handed the page to the kid. “If you need to talk with your mother, call her at this number. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Mom put her hands on Brady’s shoulders. “He’ll be fine with me and Katie.”
Bo drove home and found Callie upstairs scrubbing his bathroom. He’d chewed her out and given her the cold shoulder, and now she was on her knees, scrubbing his bathtub. “Callie, you don’t have to do that.”
“I didn’t get finished in here yesterday. Where’s Brady?”
“He’s with my mother and Katie. Mom takes in kids all the time, but Katie is the only one she has right now. She’s twelve, and Mom has custody.”
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“Doesn’t she have parents?”
“No father, and her mother died of a drug overdose two months ago. Uh... Callie? About Brady’s haircut.” Better prepare her.
She looked up. “What about it?”
“He looks cute, but his hair is a lot shorter.”
“I don’t care how short it is as long as he’s happy.” She rinsed the tub and stood. “I wanted to take him to the barber shop for a decent haircut before he started school, but Tommy Ray wouldn’t let me. I bought his clothes out of the grocery money. I used Mama’s old sewing machine to mend my clothes, but little boys grow and wear things out.”
Greg finally showed up after ten that morning. They needed to finish painting the balcony before the dining room carpet went in tomorrow morning. The dining room furniture should come next week. Things were coming together, but there were a lot of things yet to do, like put a new coat of blacktop on the parking lot, get some plants in around the porch, work up a menu, order food, hire a bartender. The list, two pages long and growing, concerned him. Could they finish it all in time?
The unrelenting summer sun beat through the skylights over the balcony. Callie didn’t complain, but Greg did. “Damn, it’s hot up here.”
Greg obviously didn’t want to be here, but neither did Bo, and he’d worked his butt off on the renovations. “If you’d start work early in the morning, you’d have it done before it got this hot.”
“Smartass,” Greg muttered.
Bo finished installing hooks in the ceiling for the hanging plants while Greg painted the walls and Callie painted the doorframe. Greg finished painting the wall and moved the ladder out of the way, and Callie got down on her hands and knees to paint the baseboard.
Greg stared out the front window. “Who in the hell is that in the red pickup?”
Callie glanced over and gasped. “Oh, dear God.”
Bo twisted around to look. “What’s wrong?”
“That’s my husband. Don’t tell him I’m here. Please don’t tell him.” Callie pushed herself to her feet while Greg galloped down the front stairs to intercept Callie’s husband.
“Callie, go pack while I call Neen.” Good thing he’d left the kid at Mom’s. No way in hell would he let that man touch the kid again. Brady had enough scars.