The Maverick's Return

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Oh yeah. I’m really beginning to find my way around town again.”

  Jamie thought he’d been patient long enough.

  “I’m holding a hammer, Danny,” he told him, grasping the tool harder, “and I know how to use it.”

  Danny gave him a look as he held up his hammer. “That makes two of us, brother,” he answered.

  “So she shut you out?” Jamie asked, assuming the only thing he could since Danny wasn’t saying that things had gone at least moderately well. “Hey, Danny, I’m sorry. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to—”

  “You want to work or you want to gossip?” Danny wanted to know.

  “What I want is to work and to have a conversation with my brother while I’m working,” Jamie answered.

  Danny sighed. He supposed he owed Jamie this much. “It’s going well enough. There, you satisfied?” he asked, looking at Jamie pointedly.

  Jamie was light years away from being satisfied. “What do you mean by ‘well enough’?”

  Danny sighed again. “You’re worse than Old Mrs. McKinley, you know that?” The woman their mother had known years ago had loved to gossip and to ferret out information about people. Some people had felt that it was her whole life.

  Jamie looked annoyed by the comparison. “You’re my brother. Forgive me for caring,” he retorted.

  Danny pressed his lips together, debating what to do. He knew he was being secretive about something that was most likely general public knowledge, at least to anyone who lived in town.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m afraid if I say anything at all about it, then it will no longer be the truth.”

  Jamie saw through the flimsy excuse. “You mean you’re afraid of jinxing it.”

  The game was up. Danny felt he might as well relent. “Something like that.”

  “Since when did you get so superstitious?” Jamie wanted to know.

  “I didn’t realize I was until just now,” Danny admitted. “And to answer your question, it’s been going well enough.” He paused, searching for something more to give Jamie. There really wasn’t anything. “Baby steps,” he finally told his brother. “The whole thing is progressing with baby steps.”

  Jamie nodded. “Sounds hopeful.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Danny allowed. He didn’t want to say anything more about it at the moment. To him, the whole thing was very fragile in nature and he didn’t want to count on it too much one way or another. “Now if you want to finish this gate before the triplets are ready to start high school, I suggest you talk less and work more.”

  Jamie laughed. Now that sounded like the old Danny. “Welcome back, brother.”

  Danny merely grunted as he hammered.

  * * *

  “Is that guy your old boyfriend?” Janie asked that evening as she was helping her mother clear the table after they’d had dinner.

  The question had come out of nowhere and caught Anne totally off guard. Gathering up the utensils from the table, she forced herself to make eye contact with her daughter.

  “Who are you talking about?” she asked, although she knew full well there could only be one person that Janie was referring to.

  Janie gave her an impatient look that preteen daughters had been giving their mothers since the very beginning of time.

  “That guy that came to see you last week before Dad came to pick me up.”

  Rather than give Janie an answer, she deflected with a question of her own. “Just what makes you ask something like that?”

  Janie pursed her lips together as if the answer was self-evident. “You had a funny look on your face when you were talking to him.”

  “I was just surprised to see him,” Anne said, thinking fast. “He hasn’t been in Rust Creek Falls for a long time.”

  “Then he wasn’t your old boyfriend?” Janie asked, clearly wanting an answer one way or another.

  Anne turned to load the dishwasher. She didn’t want to lie to her daughter, but she really didn’t want to get into this at the present time. “Why do you want to know?”

  Janie gave her an annoyed look. “Because I want you and Dad to get back together and you can’t do that if your old boyfriend is hanging around, getting you all dreamy-eyed and stuff,” she said in disgust.

  “Honey, your dad and I aren’t going to get back together,” Anne said, repeating what she’d already told her daughter more than once. “But we still both love you very much. As for Danny, I knew him a long time ago. Before I met your father,” she added. “Do you like him?”

  Janie shrugged. “He’s okay I guess. For an old guy.”

  Ouch, that stung, Anne thought. “He’s the same age as I am,” she pointed out to her daughter.

  “Yeah, but you’re old, too,” Janie said as she brought over the plates to the kitchen counter. “Not frumpy old,” she quickly corrected. “But old.”

  Anne smiled. She couldn’t ever remember being as young as Janie. Had she said things like this at the time? She certainly hoped not.

  Very tactfully, she told Janie, “Sometimes ‘old’ people like to see old friends.”

  “Dad’s old,” Janie pointed out, brightening. “You can see him.”

  “I do see him,” Anne replied. “When he comes by to pick you up and on the following day, when he drops you off.”

  Janie’s scowl deepened. “I mean more, Mom,” she stressed. “Like you used to see him. All the time.”

  Anne sighed. She knew this mode. Janie was just going to keep on harping on the subject until she either broke Anne down, or she lost her temper. Anne didn’t want to do either.

  She fell back on her old standby. “Have you finished your homework for tomorrow?”

  “Not yet, but—”

  “Then go finish it,” Anne told her, cutting through any more rhetoric.

  “But this is important, Mom,” Janie insisted, becoming irritated.

  Finished loading the dishwasher, Anne measured out the detergent, put it into the proper compartment and started the cycle.

  “So’s your homework,” she declared. “If you don’t do it, you’ll get left back and that’ll throw everything off. How will it look when you’re running for president and your opponent finds out you were left back in fifth grade?”

  Janie sighed dramatically. It was audible over the noise of the dishwasher. “I’m not going to run for president, Mom.”

  “You need to pass fifth grade no matter what you intend on doing in life,” she told her daughter matter-of-factly.

  “Okay, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” Janie declared, putting her hands over her ears to shut out any further pep talk from her mother. “I’ll do my homework so I don’t flunk out of fifth grade.”

  “That’s my girl,” Anne said with a smile. She went back to cleaning up the kitchen.

  “This isn’t over, you know,” Janie promised as she left the kitchen.

  Anne shut her eyes as she leaned her head against the wall, struggling very hard to collect herself.

  Yes, I know, she said silently.

  It wasn’t going to be over until she made a full confession—to both Janie and to Danny.

  Chapter Ten

  There was no word from Danny the next day. Annie tried to pretend that she didn’t care one way or another. That she was relieved not to have to deal with having Danny coming around. But the truth was that not hearing from him had her concerned and wondering if something had gone wrong.

  Again.

  Had he decided to go back to that dude ranch in Colorado, the one he said he worked on? Or had he decided, after seeing her twice, that he was making a huge mistake starting things up again? That he was actually opening up a can of worms that was best left unopened and buried somewhere back in the distant past?

  I
t was the not knowing that was putting her on edge, so much so that she found people were talking to her twice because she’d drifted off.

  It was happening, she realized. She was letting Danny get to her, just as she had let his disappearance get to her twelve years ago.

  C’mon, Anne, you’re better than this. You’re not a teenager anymore. You’re a grown woman and a mother with responsibilities. Your world isn’t supposed to revolve around whether or not Danny Stockton turns up on your doorstep.

  She forced herself to focus on her work and remained at the reception desk, working straight through her lunch break.

  But no matter what she told herself, all that day it felt like every fiber of her being kept waiting for Danny to turn up, first at the clinic and then later, at her home.

  He didn’t.

  By the middle of the second day, she’d almost convinced herself that Dan Stockton had gone from her life just as abruptly as he had turned up.

  Now she just had to make her peace with it. She told herself she could—but it was far from easy. So far that when Hank came by her house later that afternoon to pick Janie up for an overnight stay, he asked her, “Something wrong, Anne?”

  “Nothing more than usual,” she answered evasively. “They were shorthanded at the clinic today, and between the house calls the vets had to make to the different ranches and the pets people brought in themselves, things have been pretty hectic all week.”

  She noticed Hank peered closely at her face and figured she was in trouble. She’d never been one to maintain a poker face. “That the only thing bothering you?” he wanted to know.

  She tossed her head as she looked up, doing her best to bluff her way through this. “Why? What else would there be?”

  She could both feel and see Hank studying her. It was all she could do not to shift uncomfortably.

  “Maybe an old flame turning up without any warning,” he suggested.

  Rather than deny anything, she decided to brazen it out and hopefully make Hank back off. “That’s not really any of your concern, Hank.”

  But Hank obviously saw it another way. “Yes, it is. Daniel Stockton ran out on you when you needed him most,” he insisted angrily.

  “Stop!”

  She didn’t want Hank saying anything about Danny that Janie could accidentally overhear. She wasn’t ready to tell her daughter about the circumstances of her birth and she certainly didn’t want the girl to find out by hearing Hank talking about it.

  “That’s all in the past,” she informed him sternly. “And as far as I’m concerned, that’s exactly where it belongs.”

  But the expression on his face told her that Hank was far from convinced. “Are you sure, Anne?”

  She moved closer to him, but not out of any desire to rekindle something between them. There had never been anything between them except for respect and gratitude on her part. But she didn’t want what she was about to say to Hank to be overheard.

  “As far as Janie knows, you’re her father and she’s always going to think of you that way.” She lowered her voice even more as she added, “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  He looked relieved to hear her say that. “I love that little girl, Anne,” he told her, emotion brimming in his voice.

  “I know, Hank, and she loves you. That’s never going to change.”

  He looked over Anne’s shoulder as Janie came into the room, backpack in tow. His whole countenance changed, lightening up right before her.

  “Well, speak of the devil,” he declared in a louder, more jovial voice.

  “I’m not the devil, Dad,” Janie protested as she came over to join him.

  “Well, sometimes you act like a little devil,” Hank teased affectionately.

  They had a good relationship, Anne observed. She couldn’t remember Hank ever raising his voice or saying a cross word to Janie. She found herself almost wishing that Hank really was Janie’s father. Things would have been a lot simpler that way.

  “I’m all ready to go, Dad,” Janie announced, impatient to leave.

  Hank took her backpack from her and pretended that he found it extremely heavy. Suppressing a grunt, he said, “I can see that.”

  “Be good and listen to your dad,” Anne instructed her daughter.

  Janie rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom.” Turning to Hank, she confided, “She thinks I’m a baby.”

  “You’ll always be my baby,” Anne interjected, deliberately giving the girl a big hug.

  Janie groaned and squirmed, acting as if she was being subjected to corporal punishment. The second Anne released her, Janie deliberately moved out of her mother’s reach.

  Pretending not to notice and giving no indication that it hurt, Anne walked Hank and her daughter to the door.

  “Have fun, you two,” she told them.

  “Oh, we will,” Hank promised, saying the words more to Janie than to her. “Tell your mother goodbye,” he told the girl.

  “Bye,” Janie said without bothering to look back in her mother’s direction. She was too eager to begin whatever adventure her father had planned for them.

  As was her habit, Anne watched them go. Watched how her daughter skipped beside Hank, the picture of uncomplicated happiness—and the total antithesis of the way she usually behaved when it was just the two of them, without Hank.

  Janie’s change in behavior had been recent, no more than about three, four months old. It was around that time that Janie had gotten it into her head to play Cupid and bring Hank and her together. Anne had explained to her daughter a number of times, in as many ways as she could think of, that sometimes parents just couldn’t stay together and that it was far better for all parties involved if parents weren’t forced to live together. But that never seemed to stick in Janie’s mind for more than a few minutes at a time. It certainly wasn’t anything that Janie took to heart.

  Anne saw Hank say something to Janie as she got into his car and the child laughed in response.

  Anne sighed as she closed the door. She wished that Janie could be that happy around her.

  It hadn’t always been like this, she recalled. When it had been the three of them together, Janie had always turned to her first. But ever since the divorce, Hank had slowly become her daughter’s go-to person.

  Anne frowned. She supposed she was being a little jealous of Hank. That was something she was going to have to work on. It wasn’t right to feel like that about someone who was so good to—

  Her thought pulled up short when she heard the doorbell.

  Anne laughed softly to herself. Janie had probably remembered she hadn’t packed one of her video games.

  Opening the door, she asked, “Forget something?”

  “Yeah. My manners.”

  It wasn’t her daughter but Danny standing on her doorstep, just as he had the first time he’d turned up in Rust Creek Falls several days ago.

  Damn, was her heart ever going to stop leaping up this way at the very sight of him? Anne wondered, annoyed with herself.

  Forcing a smile to her lips, she said, “I hear there’s a current shortage of that.” Then she stepped back from the doorway to let him come in.

  Dan crossed the threshold, but went no further into the room. He looked just a touch apprehensive. “Am I interrupting anything?” he asked hesitantly.

  “Only my solitude,” she answered truthfully. “Janie just left for a sleepover at Hank’s and I was about to go over some bills I’ve been letting pile up.”

  “So in other words, no?” he asked, an engaging smile on his lips. He looked very happy with her answer.

  Anne inclined her head. “In other words, no,” she repeated. “Would you like to come in?” she asked, assuming that was why he was here.

  “Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to co
me out,” he told her.

  She suddenly realized that the carefree girl who would take off at a moment’s notice at the slightest suggestion from Danny was gone. Instead, she heard herself asking, “Come out where?”

  “I was going to ask if you and Janie would like to go horseback riding with me, but since you just said that she’s not here, I’m asking if you’d like to go for a ride with me.”

  “Now?” she asked, looking outside over his shoulder. “Isn’t it going to be dark soon?”

  “I was thinking of going out for only a short ride,” he explained. “But if you’d rather not, we can do it some other time.”

  Temptation won after what turned out to be an extremely short internal debate.

  “Sure, why not?” Anne agreed. “As long as it’s a short ride,” she qualified. “Give me a minute.”

  Getting her jacket and keys, Anne stepped out onto her porch and looked around. She didn’t see what she was looking for.

  “Where are you keeping the horses?” she asked in amusement, fully expecting him to tell her that he’d only been teasing her.

  Instead, Danny said, “C’mon and I’ll take you to them.”

  Her curiosity definitely aroused, Anne climbed into his Jeep.

  Dan drove only a short distance until he arrived at a stable located not that far out of town. Anne hadn’t even known of its existence.

  The scope of her world had shrunk a great deal since she’d come back to Rust Creek Falls after college, she thought.

  “I thought you might like to go for a horseback ride,” Dan told her, “just like we used to when we were young.”

  There were five stalls inside the stable. Three were empty. The other two had horses that were already saddled. She thought that was rather unusual, but made no comment about it.

  “Which one’s mine?” Anne asked. She was instinctively drawn to the smaller mount.

  Dan nodded toward the horse that was closer to her. “The mare.”

  It was a Palomino and she thought the horse was absolutely gorgeous. But something wasn’t right. “There are only two saddled horses,” she noted, turning to face Dan. “I thought you said that you were inviting Janie, too.”