That lasted until a fluffy black-and-white dog trotted into the area, followed by an eccentrically dressed little girl. “Hey, Nathan! Me and Dreamer wanted to come see you guys! I’m glad you came to our farm again!”
“CeeCee!” Arms out, Nathan raced down the row. “My dad came, and our friends came, too, and some other friends were going to come but they got sniffles, so they couldn’t, and we’re gonna make applesauce with Grandma and I love your dog so much because he’s the best dog ever, right?”
Nathan wasn’t the only one enamored with the shaggy dog. Jonah looked surprised and a little discomfited to see the big dog.
Not Jeremy.
His eyes went wide, and the moment Nathan dashed for the dog, so did he. “That’s a big dog.” He moved close, but not too close, and he looked back at Christa. “He might be a really big dog, maybe bigger than Mr. Finn’s dog. Only that one was just a black dog. This dog is black and white all over. Can I pet him?”
Mr. Finn’s dog. A clue to where the boys had been living? Definitely something to run by Tug later because nothing had been uncovered so far.
A tall square-shouldered man followed CeeCee at an easy pace. He caught Christa’s eye and nodded assurance. “Yup. Go ahead.” She set her basket down and moved toward the dog.
“I don’t have experience with dogs. That probably sounds funny to you guys.” She reached out to touch Dreamer’s fluffy fur and the dog panted happily. “He’s so soft.”
“That’s because he had a much-needed bath yesterday after a near go-round with a skunk. He missed a direct attack, but it seemed prudent to bathe him. Just to be sure. I’m Jax McClaren.” He extended a hand. “Nice to have you here.”
“Christa Alero.” She shook his hand and smiled. “I’m the new third-grade teacher at Golden Grove Elementary. I’ve taught kids about dog safety, but you didn’t generally see dogs like this where I was raised. And the dogs you did see were best avoided. I’ve kind of shied away from dogs ever since.”
“We tend to like country dogs here,” said Tug. He’d brought his hand down to pet the big dog and set it right next to hers when she stroked the dog’s smooth fur again. It was a working man’s hand, strong and broad without a hint of polish, a hand that rescued little boys from danger and dealt with the seamier side of life, all in a day’s work. “Dreamer’s a great name. That you, CeeCee?”
The girl nodded happily. “I always wanted a dog named Dreamer, and I told Mr. Jax and I told Mom and I told Grandpa, but we couldn’t get him for a long time. And then we all got married and Dreamer came to the wedding. And he was mostly good.”
Jax winced slightly. “I did have to replace two pew bows for the florist, but he did okay for a young dog.”
“Well, I think he’s so beautiful.” Nathan was rubbing the dog’s head and the dog was loving the attention.
“Nathan, do you want to come help my dad and me get more apples? We have to take them to my mom at the other barn.”
“I can help?” His eyes shot to Tug’s instantly. “Can I, Dad? I love being a farmer!”
A hint of sorrow darkened Tug’s expression, but he nodded. “Of course. He won’t be in the way, Jax?”
“No more than the kid and dog already tagging along.” Jax winked at CeeCee and she laughed. “The more the merrier.”
CeeCee caught Nathan’s hand and they dashed toward the new barn. Dreamer raced alongside them, an image Christa would never forget. Kids. A dog. A full, ripening orchard. A barn.
How she wished her mother had lived long enough to enjoy this side of American life. The pastoral grace of country living. And yet Margaretta Alero made her choices purposely, to give her unborn daughter the best opportunities she could. Her sacrifice came with blessings, and Christa would never forget that.
“Where did you grow up, Christa?” Tug asked the question easily, but she didn’t miss the hinted curiosity.
A part of her wanted to skirt the truth because the truth would put him closer to her history, but when she looked into his eyes, she couldn’t do it. “Central California. Sinclair,” she added. “My mother came here from Guatemala when she was pregnant with me. And she brought her baby sister along. She was going to raise us with all the opportunities that America offers, but my aunt had a mind of her own.”
His jaw firmed. “Temptation surrounds kids these days. We face that even here in our small town. We have some isolated troubles here and there...”
Vangie and Jeremy had gone back to picking apples, and when Vangie found an especially big one, the surprise on Jeremy’s face made her smile. But Christa didn’t want to get into discussions about gangs and violence and such. That hit too close to home.
But that didn’t stop Tug from continuing. “And that’s been one of my jobs on the gang task force, to break things up before they take too strong a hold.”
Like a light-bulb moment, his job in the school system suddenly took on a different note. “So they didn’t put you on school duty just because of Vangie?” She kept her voice soft so the kids wouldn’t overhear.
He rubbed a hand down his neck and sent her a rueful look. “As cute as she is, the county doesn’t pay me to be a personal bodyguard to my own kids. Saving the boys gave the sheriff the perfect cover story to tuck me where I was needed without making it look obvious. Our proficiency rates in the middle school have dropped for two years in a row. We know that there’s gang activity in the middle school and my job is to figure it out and come up with a solution.”
“A one-man band?” That sounded pretty impossible.
“No. But one man to assess from within.”
He dropped his gaze to Jonah. “I’m glad you’re here. For the town. For them. I know this was unexpected. Yet you still accepted the challenge.”
“Were there other options?” Brows raised, she intimated there weren’t.
“There are always options. Which makes it nice when someone says yes so quickly.”
“I’ve seen a lot of broken families over the years.” Her life had been surrounded by single moms and absentee dads. Grandparents raising grandkids, trying to do their best. “If I can give these boys the life they deserve, that’s a blessing. But I am constantly amazed at the amount of things I don’t know about raising children.” She lightened the conversation by pointing at Jonah. The little guy’s face was a mess of apple juice and good old country soil. “Like remembering to bring wipes for sticky faces and hands that are now coated with dirt.”
“The sticking factor of dirt to apple juice has science-lesson potential.” He laughed at the little boy, then motioned toward the barn. “I’m sure they’ve got paper towels or something in the barn.”
She might not have thought of wipes, but she’d brought tissues. “Hold that thought.” She crossed through a creek bank that was both narrow and thick with growth, dampened the tissues with creek water and came back.
“Nature comes through. And creative parenting.”
Approval laced his tone, and when she tucked the used tissues into a side pocket of her small bag, she met his gaze.
He smiled.
She smiled back.
And then his eyes softened, as if he liked gazing at her. Being with her. And she was pretty sure her expression said the same thing, as if that look meant more than a simple connection because for the life of her she couldn’t drag her eyes from his. Worse...she didn’t want to.
She did it anyway, because she had to. “Did we decide on just one basket of these Galas?” She shifted her attention to the trees deliberately.
She didn’t glance over to see his reaction. It didn’t matter. If he cared, she couldn’t pursue it. If he didn’t, she didn’t need the ego bust. She palmed the fruit carefully and picked perfect lunch-box-sized rose-toned apples.
“Let’s do two. They’re good keepers.”
He rejoined the kids and went back to pi
cking apples as if they hadn’t just shared a moment. Maybe they hadn’t. Perhaps the attraction was all on her side. Whether it was or wasn’t, it couldn’t go anywhere, so that made it a nonissue, except when she was near him. Spoke to him. Laughed with him...
Then it became an issue, after all.
They finished picking a few minutes later. Vangie ducked through the trees. “Dad said I should help you carry these because it might be tricky with Jonah.”
“Your dad is right.” She took Jonah’s hand in hers and hoisted one basket of apples while Vangie carried the other one. “That’s not too heavy for you?”
Vangie brushed her question off in a move just like her father’s, willing to go the distance. “No way. It feels good to be picking apples again. We used to do this when me and Nathan were little.”
“Nathan and I,” called out Tug from his row, parallel to theirs.
“Grandpa owned the orchard right next door to this one, but then he wanted to retire and he sold it to Mr. McClaren’s family. I was little, so I probably wasn’t a lot of help.”
The sound of a snort-laugh came through from Tug’s side of the fruit-laden trees.
“But I tried to help,” Vangie went on, “because Grandpa was busy all the time.”
“Apple season is three months of nonstop work,” Tug added as they met at the gravel drive separating the orchard from the barn. “And normal work the other nine months of the year.”
“You can say that again,” noted Jax as he drew close again. He and the kids had finished loading bins of apples onto the bed of his white pickup truck. “September and October run us ragged around here between school field trips, apple tours and apple picking, but we wouldn’t have it any other way. Our family’s major fruit enterprise is very commercial. Keeping O’Laughlin Farms hands-on gives us a way to keep kids connected with nature.”
“And when my baby sister gets born, she can help us,” CeeCee exclaimed. Then she shared an adorable concern that had Christa fighting back a laugh. “Only she might be a brother, but I told God I wanted a sister because I never had one before.”
“You’ve never had a brother, either.” Jax aimed a quizzical look down.
“But Dreamer is a boy, and he’s like a brother, so we really need a girl in the family,” CeeCee explained. It was clear that her explanation made perfect sense to her.
“My mom said I wanted a sister, but I got a brother.” Vangie set her basket down and poked Nathan. “I got used to him. After a while.”
Nathan made a face, then pointed to the little boys. “Now we’ve got little buddies that are living at Grandma’s house, so it’s like we’ve got a lot of kids.”
“’Cept I’m big. He’s little.” Jeremy folded his arms in a stance much like Tug’s and braced his legs. “I’m this many.” He held up four fingers. “But almost this many.” He switched his hand to show five full fingers.
“Have you got a birthday coming up?” asked Jax, and Jeremy nodded.
“I think I do because there were always red apples on my birthday.”
Christa exchanged a questioning look with Tug. The boys’ records indicated Jeremy turned four in August and Jonah would be three in February. It seemed odd for Jeremy to be confused about a birthday, but he was young. Maybe that was normal, but there weren’t any red apples around the Pacific Northwest in early August. Not in abundance, anyway.
“CeeCee wants to know if Nathan can stay awhile longer. And you know we can always use an extra set of hands this time of year.”
Tug slipped Jax the money for the fruit they’d picked and nodded. “He’ll love it. He loves working with the apples. He makes sure to remind me of that on a regular basis.”
“Then he’s come to the right place.” Jax motioned to CeeCee and Nathan. “Okay, you two, go hop into the cab of the truck. Dreamer likes to ride in the back.”
“Okay!” CeeCee and Nathan piled into the front of the pickup and their peals of laughter rang out through the open windows.
Jax had taken his baseball cap off to swipe his brow from the growing warmth of the day. He settled it back on his head and fist-bumped Tug. “Glad you came by today. CeeCee loves having Nathan around.” Still smiling, he turned toward Christa. “And nice to meet you, ma’am. Your little boys are mighty cute.”
She was about to thank him for the kind words, when Jeremy cut in.
“We’re not hers.” He’d recrossed his arms. He didn’t loosen them, and he didn’t take his eyes off Jax. And then he uttered words that broke her heart. “We’re not anybody’s.” He turned and didn’t simply walk back toward Tug’s SUV. He trudged, chin down, the weight of the world firmly on the back of his shoulders.
Christa didn’t hesitate.
She intercepted him, squatted down and pulled the reluctant boy into a big firm hug. “You are mine. Absolutely mine. We’ll get all the legal stuff taken care of and that might take a little time, but make no mistake about it.” She leaned back and locked eyes with him. “You are my little boys now and I will love you every single day and every single night and twice on Tuesdays because everybody should get extra love on Tuesday. Don’t you think?” She posed the question as if it was of great importance and Jeremy didn’t disagree.
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Exactly. And your auntie Christa will be on hand with whatever you need. We’re family, chico. Familia.”
His expression changed. It went softer. “My mom called me chico sometimes.”
“Because it means little boy in Spanish. Español,” she explained to him.
“Do you know Spanish?”
“Si, hablo Español y Inglés. Tu mamá me habló en español cuando era muy pequeña. Like you,” she added in English. “When I was little, your mother used to teach me things. She lived with me and my mother.”
“Where is your mother?”
Jeremy’s question expected an answer, which meant her moment of truth had come. “She went to Heaven a few years ago. I still miss her. A lot.”
He stared up at her. Maybe it was her admission about her mother, or maybe it was simply mutual understanding, but he offered a grave nod. “Like me.”
“Just like you.”
He sighed.
Part of becoming a teacher meant studying the developmental stages of childhood. She’d aced those courses, but seeing this child’s reaction to loss and grief was more effective than months of classroom theory.
He was a real child with heartfelt sorrow, and as she glimpsed the long road before them, for a moment she felt overwhelmed. She remembered the cross. How her Savior had been so cruelly treated, then forced to drag a cross through the streets. If the sweet Lord could take all that on for her, she could surely do her best for two sweet innocents, bereaved through no fault of their own.
She picked him up. It wasn’t easy because he was a sturdy boy, but she scooped him up and held him like you would a younger child. “I love you, little man. And I’m so glad I was right here when you needed me.”
He hugged her back this time.
Not for long, and he said nothing, but the hug was a beginning. She was about to ask him if he was ready to go home, but then stopped herself.
He didn’t have a home. Neither did she. And that was something she needed to rectify soon, she realized, because if nothing else, a child should always have a place to call home.
And for two homeless waifs, that reality was probably more important than ever.
Chapter Ten
Converse’s supporters were spreading innuendo about Tug, the wannabe gang members in the junior high were more firmly entrenched than Tug had originally believed, and Christa was searching for a new place to live with the boys. With her first-year teacher’s salary, there weren’t a whole lot of places available. Not in the countryside, at least. There were some spots in and around Quincy, but she wanted to stay i
n the Golden Grove area.
He wanted that, too.
Maybe that was the biggest surprise of all.
When a possible and fairly obvious solution popped into his head, he made a few phone calls and stopped into her classroom once classes were over the following Friday. She was bent over a notebook, so he tapped softly on the door. She looked up. Saw it was him. And then smiled.
He did, too. Instantly.
It seemed like he couldn’t stop smiling when she was around. He knew what he’d promised himself after Hadley died. He’d forged ahead, feeling like he’d made a complete mess of things because he should have tried harder. But as he smiled at Christa, another thought came to him.
If he truly believed that the Lord numbered the days of His people, was he second-guessing God’s directives by not forgiving himself?
He’d gone through three years of not looking left or right, and not caring to, either. Now he did. He walked into the classroom, pulled up a plastic chair, turned it backward and took a seat. “I think I have a solution for your real-estate problem, if you don’t mind crazy busy weekends for the next few weeks or waiting a few weeks to move into an affordable and nice three-bedroom house near here.”
“There is no such thing as affordable and three bedrooms near here. Or even two bedrooms,” she scolded him. “I’ve looked, and the gal from the real-estate office has looked, too. Anything I can afford is either in a sorry state or in troubled areas.” He read her expression, a look that said she never wanted to live in a troubled area again. “If I was five years further into my career, it would be different. A higher income opens a lot of doors. And if I’d stayed in Seattle, I’d be making considerably more money, but I don’t want to live in the city, anyway. Although if I have to, I can make it work. I can make anything work.”
“What if I said that my offer is move-in ready right now?”
She frowned. “Don’t toy with me, Tug Moyer. Does this place really exist?”
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