Читать книгу Lone Star Dad - Linda Goodnight - Страница 10
ОглавлениеQuinn didn’t expect to see the kid again, but even as he stoked the fireplace the next day and contemplated breakfast, he couldn’t help thinking about the surly boy with the soft blue eyes and his pretty, if hostile, mother.
He hadn’t slept much last night, more because of the incident and the unexpected meeting than the pain in his arm. He wasn’t complaining.
The boy, Derrick, who was probably eleven or twelve going on seventeen, had a chip on his shoulder as big as Alaska, and Quinn vaguely remembered Gena Satterfield from the old days. She’d been an underclassman, kind of nerdy, and hadn’t run in his circles. He remembered her sister better. A lot better. He’d made a point not to share that information with Gena.
But Gena wasn’t nerdy anymore. She had grown up to be quite the looker—pale skin, round cheeks, cute nose and wavy blond hair to her shoulders. He’d nearly swallowed his tongue when she’d come charging out the door in fuzzy slippers and a baggy University of Texas sweatshirt like some warrior woman to protect her offspring. It had been a long time since he’d had that kind of visceral response to a woman, especially an angry one.
He smiled a little, the curve of lips feeling unnatural. Mom said he didn’t smile enough anymore. Maybe so. He couldn’t think of much to smile about, but Gena Satterfield had both irritated and amused him.
She was a doctor or nurse or something medical. Unlike the rest of his family, he didn’t pay much attention to Gabriel’s Crossing society, but when she’d first moved back to Gabriel’s Crossing, the newspaper had carried an article about her, the former resident come back as a primary care practitioner. Nurse practitioner—that was it. He remembered now. She worked with Dr. Ramos.
What he hadn’t known was that she’d moved into the old Satterfield place. He didn’t notice much of anything anymore. But last night he’d noticed her.
He jabbed the poker at the recalcitrant embers, stirring to get a fire going. Recalcitrant, like the boy.
He’d put the fear in the kid during the ride home. Or he’d tried to. Derrick was a tough nut to crack, a city boy, who looked down his nose at small towns and country people. But he’d been fascinated by the gun. How he’d known about weaponry worried Quinn. City boys had no use for a hunting rifle, but Derrick had some basic knowledge. Enough to fire a lethal weapon. Not good. If the kid was going to handle a gun, he needed to learn to do it properly, to respect the seriousness and responsibility that came with the knowledge. Even then, accidents happened.
He rubbed at his arm, then tossed a log onto the embers and left the fireplace to do its thing while he rummaged up some breakfast.
Derrick Satterfield was not his problem. Not unless the surly kid stepped foot on his three hundred acres again.
When he reached inside the refrigerator, his hand trembled. He folded his fingers into his palms and tried to think of anything except the one thing that eased the gnawing in his gut and the hand shakes.
Maybe a run along the river. He grabbed the milk and poured a glass, then remembered the cat locked in his shed.
With a sigh, he poured a bowl of milk, warmed it in the nuker, donned his coat and hustled across the cedar-stabbed yard. As his arm had predicted, a very thin sheet of ice coated the world, glistening in the intense morning sun. Like back-lit crystals, the ice was beautiful, though damaging to the trees.
“Okay, lady, rise and shine. Today’s the day you hit the road. Drink your milk and g—” He stopped in the doorway. He should have expected this. “I told you no kittens.”
The tuxedo face glared up at him as her body heaved. Two damp babies, half-naked, lay on the towels. More, apparently, were to come.
He set the milk down on the floor. “Guess you’re not interested in this right now.”
A third kitten slipped onto the towels. The first two had begun to squirm and make small mewing noises, their eyes tight and faces squinched. The mother gave each a nudge and then went back to tending the newest in her brood.
“Cool. She’s having kittens.”
At the unexpected voice, Quinn startled and bumped his head on the low doorway as he backed out of the shed. As soon as he saw the speaker, he frowned his meanest scowl.
“What are you doing over here? I told you—”
“I don’t have to do what you say. Her, either.” Derrick shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of a blue unzipped parka. Beneath, he wore a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his forehead. He looked like an inner-city gangster, which was probably his intent.
“I could call the sheriff and have you charged with trespassing.”
The threat had no effect on the dark-haired boy. “I know who you are.”
Quinn tensed. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Some hotshot quarterback who got himself shot and ruined his chances at the NFL.”
The cold morning air chilled Quinn’s breath and set the pain into motion. He squeezed his upper arm. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Dude.” Derrick slouched his shoulders and gave off his best you’re-so-stupid attitude. “Don’t you know about the internet?”
“You looked me up?”
“So? I was bored.”
“You got a smart mouth, you know that?”
“I hate this place. She never should have brought me here.”
“Why did she?”
The kid went silent, his mouth broody.
Trouble. Derrick must have been in trouble. “Where did you live before?”
“Houston. It’s way better than this...” pale blue eyes gazed around at the vast woods and emptiness “...this squirrel-infested backwoods dump.”
Quinn arched an eyebrow, shooting back as much venom as Derrick had aimed at him. “Afraid of the woods? Scared of the dark? Nervous when a coyote howls?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
No, he was terrified. Of life, of the new, unfamiliar environment, of looking soft. So many fears swam around in the kid’s head it was a wonder his ears didn’t flood. Quinn suffered an unwanted twinge of compassion. “We’re all scared of something.”
Derrick huddled deeper inside his hoodie. His ears and nose were red, his breath gray.
“Does she know you’re over here?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you should go home. Get off my land and quit giving her such a hard time.”
From inside the shed came a chorus of plaintive mews. Derrick straightened, his attention riveted on the dim interior. “She had another one.”
“You like cats?”
“Not much.”
“Me, either.”
“Look at ’em.” Derrick leaned inside. “They’re so little.”
Quinn sighed. “Yeah.”
“It’s cold out here.”
He wasn’t asking the kid inside. No way. He didn’t want people here. No one. Certainly not seventy-five pounds of trouble. “Get in the truck. I’ll drive you home.”
“Nah. I can walk. Nothing else to do out here.” But he made no motion to leave. With his eyes still on the kittens, he kicked his toe against the side of the shed. Ice chipped off. “Were you as good as they say you were?”
Quinn snorted and avoided the kid’s probing gaze. “Too long ago to remember.”
“A guy doesn’t forget stuff like that.”
He was right about that. Some things hurt forever. “Doesn’t matter now. I got work to do. Go home.”
Quinn spun away from the shed, the cats, the kid and the memories and stomped back to the house, ice cracking underfoot. His boots sounded like thunder on the hollow porch.
To his relief, Derrick didn’t follow. He didn’t even turn around. Instead he stepped inside the shed and shut the door.
Quinn blew out a hard sigh. The kid needed to learn two things: obedience and respect.
He went inside the house, warm now that the logs had caught and burned brightly, and tried to remember where he’d put his phone. After a five-minute search, he found it, battery dead, under a stack of blueprints. Most of the time, he left it turned off. Service was spotty anyway. If he wanted to speak to someone, he’d call them—a rare event.
The practice drove his family crazy.
He plugged in the charger and called Information for Gena Satterfield’s number and wasn’t surprised to discover she had a landline. Cell phones worked when they wanted to and in her profession, effective communication was probably requisite.
He punched in the number, and when she answered in her smooth-as-silk, professional voice, he ignored the quiver in his belly to say, “Derrick’s at my house again. Come get him before I call the sheriff.”
* * *
Gena fumed all the way down the twisty, bumpy trail that passed for sections of road between her house and the old hunting cabin on the river. She couldn’t decide who irritated her most, Derrick or Quinn.
Derrick had been curled up under his covers when she’d looked in earlier. At least, she’d thought he had been. She’d let him sleep late this Sunday morning, not in the mood to fight with him about going to church. She didn’t like to miss services but she had paperwork and dictation to catch up on anyway. The Lord knew and understood her schedule. She couldn’t always attend services, but she never forgot her faith.
At the corner, she slowed the red SUV and tried to remember exactly how to access the cabin. She hadn’t been there since the last time she and Renae had spent the summer with Nana and Papa. She and her sister had been into photography that summer. Somewhere she still had the pictures they’d taken, including shots of the abandoned hunter’s cabin. She couldn’t imagine anyone living in the ramshackle structure, but Quinn came from a construction family. He could fix whatever was broken.
This morning was a photographer’s dream, and a desire to revisit the old hobby curled upward in her thoughts. Though the roads were mostly clear and the puddles of ice easily cracked beneath her wheels, the grass and trees sparkled in the sun like diamonds. By midmorning, the beauty would be melted away.
She drove toward the river, invisible from here because of the thick trees, and spotted chimney smoke. In minutes, she funneled through a tunnel of trees that parted like the Red Sea in front of the cabin. The house didn’t look much better than it had when she was a teenager.
She slammed out of the now-dirty red Xterra and, careful on the ice-encrusted grass, made her way to Quinn’s door. He opened it before she could pound her fist on the wall in frustration.
Her breath caught. He looked tired or maybe ill, his hazel-green eyes circled with fatigue and his mouth pinched with lines of something that to her expert observation appeared to be pain. But he still took a woman’s breath. A foolish woman.
“Are you all right?” Her profession kicked in even when she didn’t want it to.
He blinked, clearly surprised at the question. “Why?”
This wasn’t her business. “Never mind. Where’s Derrick?”
Quinn motioned toward a small unpainted building to the left of the house.
“You locked him in a shed?” she asked, horrified.
Quinn snorted. His eyes, so tired before, lit with wry amusement. “I didn’t think of that or I would have. Maybe you should try it.”
He was joking. He had to be. “What’s he doing out there?”
“Go see for yourself.” He slammed the door in her face.
Gena stared at the peeling front door. The friendly, smiling young Quinn who could charm the spots off a leopard was now a snarly, moody recluse.
“Well, fine.”
She straightened her shoulders and started across the leaf-covered patch of yard. It was better this way. The less she saw of Quinn, the safer her secret. She refused to let him upset her. She wasn’t the shy, aching teenager anymore who thought he’d hung the moon.
The cabin door opened behind her. Gena heard footsteps. She tensed and glanced over one shoulder. Quinn was coming her way, shrugging into a coat.
“I’ll get him and go,” she said. “No need to come out.”
Quinn kept right on walking. Sun shot gold through his hair and haloed his head, though he’d never been choir boy material. An amicable guy, but hardly perfect. Except in the looks department. He was still broad shouldered and built like an inverted wedge, a man women noticed. Time might have changed his personality but not his good looks and charisma.
Gena jerked her attention away. No matter how pretty he was, pretty is as pretty does.
She grabbed the wobbly shed handle and yanked, relieved when it didn’t fall off in her hand. Derrick was so grounded.
“Derrick, get in the...” At the sight before her, the words died in her throat unspoken. Her cranky, surly nephew who didn’t seem to care about anything at all these days sat cross-legged on the bare floor while a mother cat licked milk from his fingertips. Nestled around the black-and-white cat was a wad of brand-new baby kittens.
Derrick raised a rapt face. “She had babies. I watched.”
Gena went to her haunches. “How many?”
“Four. She’s really tired now.” He sounded vulnerable and sweet like the loving little boy he’d once been.
“I expect so.” She stroked a finger across the mother cat’s head. The animal seemed friendly. The big surprise to her was that Quinn Buchanon would own a cat. An attack-trained Rottweiler, yes. But a cat?
She looked up at the bewildering man standing inside the door. Had she misjudged him?
He was watching her. Not Derrick or the cats but her. For ten seconds their eyes held. Gena suffered a dozen conflicting emotions—completely unwanted attraction and a desire to know the man behind the haggard face and bent, scarred arm. Remembrance of who he’d once been, of what he’d done. Fear that he would learn the truth and hurt Derrick more. The last thought tugged her focus back to the boy.
“We should go. I have work to catch up on and you have homework for tomorrow.”
The sweet expression disappeared so fast she thought she’d imagined it. “I hate school.”
Big news. He said those same words every day. “Derrick...”
Quinn squatted beside her; the scent of wood smoke and cold air circled around him. To Derrick he said, his voice almost gentle, “Don’t worry about the kittens. They’ll be okay.”
Derrick’s pale eyes flashed to Quinn. He tried to appear nonchalant but Gena saw what she’d missed, what Quinn had seen. The boy had always had a soft spot for animals, but she’d thought it had disappeared along with the rest of his sweet nature.
“The mother knows what to do,” she said. “She’ll care for them.”
“But they can’t see. Their eyes are glued shut. What if they get too far away from her?”
“She’ll bring them back.” To prove the point, Quinn reached into the box and gently lifted a tiny kitten by the scruff, moving it slightly away from the mama. It mewed. Instantly, the mother cat rose to bring the kitten back with the others and gave it a rough-tongued lick for good measure.
“Oh.” Derrick swiped a sleeve over his nose and sniffed. “Dumb cats.”
Gena felt a smile coming on. Without intending to, she glanced at Quinn and saw his eyes spark, too.
Suddenly afraid, she scrambled to her feet. “Let’s go. We promised Mr. Buchanon to stay away from here.”
“You promised. I didn’t.”
The mulish attitude was back.
“You don’t get a say in this, kid. I’m the boss around here.” Quinn’s voice was casual but made of steel as he rose to his full and impressive height. What was he? Like six-five or something?
“But if you behave yourself, you can come back another time to see the kittens. And I won’t call the sheriff.”
Derrick’s shoulders relaxed the slightest bit. “Yeah?”
“No!” Gena shoved the shed door open, pulse thrumming. The bare wood slammed against the wall, ripping the gray morning.
Derrick was giving her heart trouble. At this rate, she’d be in cardiac arrest before her next birthday. “You can’t come here again. I’ve already told you that, but if you don’t argue, I’ll ground you from the computer for only two days.”
“That’s stupid,” he groused, but exited the well house and stomped across the frozen ground toward the SUV.
Gena sighed, aware that she’d won one battle but lost another. Derrick seemed to slip further away all the time. No matter what she did, he resented it.
Quinn came up beside her. She didn’t look at him, didn’t trust herself to look into his weary face and feel things that weren’t allowed. He was the enemy of all she held dear, and she’d do well to remember it.
“Has he always been this belligerent?”
“No.” Gena stared at the frozen ground, saw the gleam of ice that would soon melt away. If only problems would do the same. “He used to be the sweetest boy, the happy, cuddly kid who adored me.”
Back when she hadn’t been the boss. Back when Renae— She shut the door on the useless thought. She’d chosen this life for Renae’s sake, and she refused to regret the decision.
Without another word or glance, she strode to the SUV and drove away. Derrick simply could not come back to this place. Ever.
