Читать книгу The Rancher's Surprise Son - Christine Wenger - Страница 10

Chapter Four

Cody took her hand and started down the path that led to the Duke Ranch and her cute little cottage. He must have seen the surprise on Laura’s face because he shrugged and said, “What? Do you think I’d let you walk home alone? This entire area is loaded with parolees.”

She chuckled. Cody never stayed mad for very long—at least when it concerned her.

“I wish you could come inside and see my home, mine and Johnny’s.”

“I’d love to, but I don’t dare.” He sighed. “I was kind of surprised that you weren’t staying in the ranch house.”

“Johnny and I need our space.”

“Good idea.”

“But we’re up there a lot,” Laura explained. “Johnny has a room there for naps and all. Besides, Clarissa and my parents are built-in babysitters when I need them.”

She could feel pain radiating from him like a living thing. It was the same pain she felt. They were both trapped in Duke Springs, at least for the next two years.

“J.W. will blackball you from working anywhere around here, even after you are done with parole, unless you sell the Double M to him.”

“That’s pretty much what I figured out, and that’s why, if we have any chance of happiness together, we’ll have to move far away from his tentacles. Maybe Washington State or Oregon. Montana. I was even thinking of Canada.”

“That’s really far. I don’t know.”

But she did know. No matter how much she loved Cody, she couldn’t take Johnny away from her family and friends.

“A picnic,” she blurted, stopping in her tracks.

“What?”

“Let’s take Johnny on a picnic.” It was time for something fun.

“How are we going to pull that off?”

“Easy. This Sunday is the annual church picnic, and I am going to present a check from the Duke Foundation to go toward a new roof and steeple. They are having an old-fashioned box-lunch auction. If you win the auction on my box lunch, you get to have lunch with me.”

He shook his head. “You and I having a picnic together? That’ll get back to your parents within seconds.”

“My parents will be at a horse auction in Gila Bend. Besides, the box lunch is supposed to be anonymous, but mine will have a red, white and blue ribbon on it. Bid on it, and keep bidding, no matter the cost. I know you haven’t gotten paid yet. I’ll give you the money.”

“I earned some money in prison. Making license plates doesn’t pay as well as it did before, but I have twenty-three whole bucks, so don’t worry about it.” He was joking, but it saddened Laura to think of him inside doing that instead of working with horses and being on the Double M.

He dropped her hand and stuffed his into the pocket of his jeans. “Laura, it’s not going to work.”

“Of course it will. If my parents find out, I’ll just explain that there was no way you knew that box was mine, and that I had to have lunch with you due to the rules of the auction.”

“Sweetheart, I can’t go to the picnic. I’ll get the big snub from the good folks of the church. I don’t think you’re ready for that, and I don’t want to subject Johnny to any talk about his mother being with a killer.”

Laura looked deep into Cody’s eyes. By the light of the full moon, she could see the pain in them. “I’ve thought about that, Cody. But these people are your friends. A lot of them stood by you in court.”

“A lot of them wanted my head on a platter,” he snapped.

She took his hand. “We’ll go off on our own to have lunch—me, you and Johnny. I don’t care about people talking about us, but if we’re far enough away from people when we have our picnic, Johnny won’t hear anything.”

“I don’t know, Laura.”

“Let’s try it, Cody. You have to go out in public sooner or later.”

“I was hoping that it’d be later, but okay.”

“See you Sunday, then?” she asked.

“Sunday.”

She leaned forward, resting her head on his chest. “Two days.” Stepping back, she ran her palms down his cheeks to see if he was real and to make sure that this wasn’t a dream. Taking his face in her hands, she pulled him toward her for a kiss—a long, sensuous kiss—full of longing, hope and a wish for a quick solution to all of their problems.

* * *

Finally, it was Sunday, the day of the church picnic. Cody did enough work at both ranches to merit a long soak in the creek.

So he sat in his favorite spot with his back against a rock letting the cool water rush around him, thinking.

It felt strange to just relax and have an unstructured day. He still hadn’t shaken off the institutional mentality of schedules and timetables, and caught himself checking for a clock on numerous occasions, thinking that it was time for his cell block to line up for lunch or shower time, or for an academic or training program.

He couldn’t wait to see Laura again and meet her son. He wondered if he could see Laura’s face in the little boy, or if he looked like the college guy. He wondered about Johnny’s personality and what the little boy liked to eat and watch on TV. He didn’t know what cartoons, which were a big favorite of the inmates, or shows were out these days. Instead of TV, Cody kept busy reading and doing work for his bachelor’s degree, which was how he got the nickname Professor.

His graduation at the prison was a small affair—about a dozen inmates and a handful of dignitaries from both the University of Arizona and the prison. Following that, there was a little reception in the prison library with punch and cake.

So now he had a bachelor’s degree in American history because animal husbandry wasn’t offered. Not that he’d be able to do much with an American history degree—no one would ever hire him to teach in their school—but he’d always loved history and because school passed the time.

He’d have to tell Laura someday. She’d like that he got a degree. J.W. wouldn’t give a damn—it wasn’t a degree in business or finance or ranch management. Cody decided to keep his mouth shut. J.W. took too much pleasure in employing ranch hands with degrees who couldn’t find jobs in their academic fields, and Cody didn’t want to give him any more reasons to be amused at his expense.

Cody pushed away all thoughts of J.W. He planned on having a great day at the church picnic.

He hauled himself out of the water, sloshed to the bank of the creek and wiped himself dry with his T-shirt. In the Arizona heat, his jeans would dry before he hiked back to the Double M.

He’d take a decent shower then. He couldn’t get enough of long, hot showers.

Draping his shirt around his neck, he slid into his cowboy boots and began walking. He could walk the way in his sleep, and so could Laura. He wondered why no one had discovered this part of the creek—although he doubted that J.W. and Penny would step a toe in it, since it was on Masters land. By the time it meandered to Duke property, it was nothing more than a muddy trickle.

The creek would come with the Double M, if his mother ever decided to give up the fight.

Although he’d like to think that it was his blood, sweat and tears that made the Double M what it was, his mother was the one who had kept it going for the three years that he was gone and just after his father died.