Читать книгу Rodeo Baby - Mary Sullivan - Страница 11
ОглавлениеAt the seniors’ residence, Sam parked and they got out of the car.
Sam had come to Rodeo to check out this place along with the women.
Gramps had been admitted nine or so months ago, when much of Sam’s life had still been in a state of flux, with visits to the lawyer’s office almost a daily occurrence.
Sam had seen many horror stories about elder abuse on the news. He hadn’t known what to expect, but the two-story residence looked homey. Wide windows on the first floor looked out on golden fields and gray mountains in the distance.
“This doesn’t look so bad,” Sam said.
Sam corresponded with Gramps regularly, but hadn’t seen him in a couple of years thanks to his messy divorce. Whatever had been happening in his own life, he should have taken the time to come see his grandfather, to make sure everything was okay.
Considering that Gramps had visited every year since Sam was born, his canceled trips had been a real cause for concern.
Then again, he was pushing ninety.
At the reception desk, they got his room number. Sam found the pace of his steps quickening the farther down the hallway he strode and the closer he got to his grandfather.
As a child, Sam’s life with Mom and Dad had been formal and less than affectionate. But Gramps had been all about hugs, kisses and effusive expressions of love. Sweet balm to a lonely kid.
They rounded the corner into his room and Chelsea bounded over to the frail man in the wheelchair beside the window.
“Chelsea! Sam!” Gramps clung to his great-granddaughter with closed eyes. When he opened them, they were watery.
“You’ve grown.” His voice, anything but frail, jumped with love and his irreverent humor. “You’re a young woman. What’s all of this?”
He studied the black nail polish. He feathered a touch over the spider’s web of mascara obscuring her pretty blue eyes.
“Where did all of this come from? Where’s my little Chelsea?”
Chelsea shoved her hands behind her back. She shrugged, moody again.
Gramps touched her cheek and smiled. “You’re still my beautiful girl.”
He turned his gimlet gaze on Sam. “What’s with the hat and boots? You’ve never worn cowboy boots in your life.”
Sam surged forward to shake his hand. Still surprisingly strong, Gramps pulled him down for a hug. Sam hung on, love rushing through him like a clear mountain stream. His vision misted.
“It’s good to see you,” Sam said and then cleared his throat. When he straightened, he kept his grandfather’s hand clutched in his own.
This, this, was why he was here, to protect this dear old guy. Heaven help this town if they cheated his grandfather.
Gramps’s eyes were damp again, too. They’d struck up this magical bond through the annual visits Gramps had made to New York City.
When finally old enough to understand how much Gramps hated the city, Sam realized the sacrifice Gramps made in spending every Christmas with Sam instead of in his beloved town.
His love for his only grandchild was clear.
It served to cement Sam’s love for him all the more.
“We’re here incognito, Gramps,” Chelsea blurted. Sam wished she hadn’t. He’d planned to ease into the particular form of subterfuge he’d originally hoped he wouldn’t have to use.
Gramps came to attention. “You’re here to fix my problem?”
“Yes. I told you I was coming to help.”
“Yeah, but what’s this about being incognito?” Gramps frowned. “What does Chelsea mean?”
No help for it now. He might as well jump in.
“She’s right,” Sam admitted. “I’m not using Carmichael. We’re here as the Michaelses. We’re Sam and Chelsea Michaels.”
“Why?” Gramps sounded frail.
“To find out exactly what’s going on with the fair those women in town are putting on this summer.”
“I asked you to make sure they aren’t cheating me. I thought you would come here to confront them directly.”
“I decided this was better.”
“You want to be dishonest.”
“Not want. I need to be dishonest to catch these women in their dishonesty.”
“But I thought—why can’t you just be yourself?”
“That’s what I asked, too.”
“Chelsea, for once can you support your dad? I’m not the villain here. Gramps, you leased the land to them for only one dollar. Now you can’t remember how long the lease stands. You didn’t get a written contract out of them. I have nothing to read over, nothing to verify what the deal is. We know nothing about how the profits will be split. I find it shameful that these people only offered you a dollar.”
Sam scrubbed his hands over his face. “You asked me to find out if they’re ripping you off. This is how I’m doing it.”
He pointed to both Gramps and Chelsea. “Neither of you gets to decide how it should be done. I’m helping out in my own way. Period.”
“But—”
Ire roused, Sam asked, “Do you think if I asked if they were being honest with you that I’d get a straight response? Come on. That’s naive. I’ve worked in business for close to twenty years. I know how important it is to protect oneself with a written contract. How do you know this revival committee won’t rob you blind if I don’t come in under the radar to find out?”
“I know. I know.” Gramps raised a placating hand. “It’s just—I’ve known most of ’em since they were in diapers. I thought I trusted them, but...” Gramps looked lost. “I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know what to do.”
He sounded so plaintive, so unlike the strong, vibrant man Sam had always known. Beside him, Chelsea made a small sound that might have been distress.
“You don’t have to do anything, Gramps,” Sam said. “That’s why I’m here.” He squeezed his grandfather’s shoulder. “So you don’t know exactly what I should look for?”
“No. All I have is a feeling.” Gramps turned from staring out the window to pin him with a glare. “You just got divorced. Is your ex bleeding you dry? Why are you helping me? Are you afraid of losing your inheritance?”
The change in tone and subject sent Sam reeling.
“No!” What had ever given Gramps the idea that Sam wanted him to die so he could have his money? Gramps had never spoken to him with this harsh a tone before. “How can you think that? I want you to live forever. This isn’t about me. It’s about protecting you.”
Gramps relaxed back into his chair, momentarily bewildered. That confusion worried Sam. Gramps had always been sharp.
He shared a worried frown with Chelsea.
Gramps puckered his forehead. “If it’s not about your inheritance, why are you so worried?”
“Because you are. You put your life into that place and only left when your body was no longer up to the work.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So, I know how much it meant to you. When you retired, I thought it would live on in everyone’s memories as your tradition carried down from your father.”
“Uh-huh. So?”
“So...these women are stealing your history and your legacy.”
“That’s what you’re worried about? I thought it was money.”
“Of course I’m worried about money. They’re giving you one dollar for use of the land with no contract for a percentage of the profits.”
When Gramps didn’t respond, Sam asked, “You are getting some of the profits, aren’t you?”
Gramps’s gaze slid away before admitting, “I don’t remember.”
Sam swore under his breath, worry burrowing into him. Gramps wasn’t the type to forget this kind of thing.
“I got an idea, though, about what’s going on.” Gramps smiled. “With you, I mean.”
“With me? How is any of this about me? There’s nothing going on with me.”
“Sure there is. You’re going on about history and legacy and tradition. None of that going to matter to me when I’m gone. You’re worried about heritage for your sake. Not mine.”
Stunned, Sam stared. “No... I...”
“It’s true. I remember how you used to listen to all my stories. Now that you’re finally here, because of this revival, you won’t be able to have any part of it like you’d thought you would some day.”
“But—” Hard to argue with the truth. Today, seeing the amusement park for the first time and Gramps’s house and Gramps, yeah, he did care about his heritage. “I care about them ripping you off, too.”
“The money. Yeah. But I don’t know if I’m being ripped off.”
“But you didn’t sign anything.”
“Nope. Not a single sheet of paper.”
“So even if you had negotiated for a share of the profits, you have no idea what you agreed to. So these women could make up any terms they want.”
Gramps’s brow furrowed. Then he perked up and a wide grin split his old face. “They won’t hurt me, Sam. Ever.”
Sam stopped pacing. Gramps’s behavior worried him. Confused at one moment and happy the next. Distrustful and then immediately certain the women meant him no harm. Sensing mental deterioration, Sam needed to talk to his grandfather’s doctor. How could Gramps forget the details about the deal he’d made with the women?
“I can’t believe that remark about the inheritance.”
A twinkle in Gramps’s eye mollified him. “After all you’ve been through lately, it’s a relief you’re still my great, honorable grandson.”
“What’s honorable about pretending to be someone he isn’t?” Chelsea asked.
“His heart’s in the right place,” Gramps replied. “That’s all I need to know.”
Time to move forward on everything. “Okay, let’s go over their names. We’ve already met one of them. The diner owner.”
“Violet Summer,” Gramps said.
“We stopped there for lunch. I can’t say she left a good impression. She’s opinionated and sarcastic.”
Chelsea giggled. “She didn’t like the way Dad flirted with her.” She did her impression of him complimenting Violet’s eyes.
Gramps barked out a laugh. “Nope. Vy wouldn’t like that. She doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”
“I’m not a fool.”
“No, you aren’t, Sam, but Vy doesn’t know you yet.”
Eager to move off the topic of the diner owner with curves in all the right places, Sam said, “Chelsea and I are going to be staying with another of the women. Rachel McGuire.”
“Yep, she lives now with her husband, Travis Read. What do you mean, you’ll be staying with them?”
Sam explained about getting a job on the new ranch.
“A job?” Gramps picked up a cup from a small table and took a sip from a straw. “Doing what?”
“He’s going to be a cowboy, Gramps.” When had she become such a tattletale?
Orange juice sprayed from Gramps’s mouth and down the front of his shirt. Sam expected embarrassment or at the very least dismay, but Gramps laughed hard.
Chelsea giggled with him.
Sam blotted OJ from Gramps’s shirt.
When he finally stopped laughing, Gramps gasped. “What do you know about being a cowboy?”
Sam stiffened. “Enough to get by.” Not really, but he wouldn’t admit it. His pride was taking a beating in this town.
“There is no getting by in ranching. It’s hard work. You either know what you’re doing or you don’t. Where’d you learn about it? On your computer?”
Because that is exactly what he’d done, Sam didn’t respond.
“Dear Lord, I’m right, aren’t I? You looked at some pictures on the line—”
“Online, Gramps,” Chelsea said and Sam wanted to object. Don’t encourage him.
“And maybe read, what, a couple of books or magazines? Now you think you know how it’s done?”
Still, Sam didn’t respond. He wasn’t as naive as they thought. He knew he’d be faking a lot, but he was doing the best he could with the little he had.
“My God, don’t do this.” Gramps slammed his juice cup onto the table. “It shows disrespect for real cowboys. They aren’t some cliché you see in old movies. They’re real hard workers. I admire those men and women. They are as tough as they come but can be real gentle when they need to be.”
“What do you mean, Gramps?” Sam’s daughter, who didn’t care about anything Sam said these days, hung on her great-grandfather’s every word.
“They love their animals, but will put one down in the blink of an eye if it’s in pain. Tough people.”
“Put one down?” Chelsea squeaked.
“Yep, sweetheart. If they have to.”
“Even their own, like, horses?”
“Or dogs. Knew a kid, only thirteen, out plowing in the field. Ran over his dog. No one else was home. Dog was mangled, suffering something fierce, dying. That boy ran to the house and loaded a rifle. When he got back to his dog, he shot him. Put him out of his misery.”
Chelsea covered her mouth with her black-nailed hands. “He killed his own dog? Gramps, that’s awful.”
“Yeah, but it was the right thing to do. Showed compassion. Said it was the toughest thing he’d ever done in his life. ’Course, his life isn’t over yet. Who knows what else he’ll be called on to do before his life is over.”
Chelsea stared at Sam, the look in her eye clearly saying, “Could you do that?”
Chelsea and Gramps didn’t get that he could be as tough as he needed to be to protect his family.
Sam knew how hard the job would be, but he also knew he was strong. Maybe not in the same way but durable enough in spirit. He’d be damned before he let anyone in this town get the better of his grandfather.
“You think you can take on that kind of job?” Gramps watched him.
“I will do the job to the best of my abilities. I’m a hard worker, I don’t mind putting in long hours and I’m more capable than you think.”
Gramps’s expression softened. “Your parents were quick to share your accomplishments. They were always proud. I know how smart you are and all the things you’ve done, but this is another barrel of horseshoes altogether.”
Sam needed to steer away from this argument.
“Who are the other women? I forget their names.” He didn’t really. Sam had a mind like a steel trap, but he hoped Gramps might have some new information to help Sam get the job done.
“Nadine Campbell, Honey Armstrong and Max Porter. Oh, and a new one. Samantha Read.”
“Any relation to the guy, Travis, who we’re heading off to meet?”
“His sister,” Gramps responded. “New to town like him.”
“If these women are so keen to do something for this town, why don’t they create something of their own instead of taking over your fair and rodeo?”
“Because the fair is there and already set up. The rides, the concession stands, the fairgrounds, the barns and stables. All they have to do is renovate and update.” His grandfather stared out of the window again. “I never wanted it to lie fallow all of those years. It’s special, Sam.”
Before Sam could say anything, his grandfather glanced from his grandchild to his great-grandchild. “Go see the fairgrounds. It’s your heritage. Take Chelsea. It’s her heritage, too.”
“We did, Gramps,” Chelsea said. “I love it.”
“You saw it?”
“On the way over here.”
A slow smile spread on Gramps’s face. “You love it?”
“Yeah. It’s magical.”
“It sure is,” Gramps agreed.
The two of them talked like children, Gramps taking a childlike delight in Chelsea’s enthusiasm. While pleased to see him happy, Sam had to remember to bring it up with Gramps’s doctor. Was it regression?
To Sam, he said, “I never agreed with your father’s decision not to bring you home to visit.”
Sam didn’t like criticism of his parents, even if their values didn’t always jibe with his own.
“Don’t grimace, Sam. This should have been as much your home as New York was. It’s your heritage. And now you can finally get to know the place and the people.”
“Why didn’t Dad ever come home? He would never tell me when I asked.”
“A woman,” Gramps barked. “Why else? He was young and foolish and heartbroken. Silly pup.”
“Who? Did the woman stay in town?”
“She married someone else. She’s still here.”
“Dad did all right with Mom. They seemed to be happy.” His mom had died five years ago.
Gramps motioned for Sam to come around to the back of his chair. “Push me out to the sunroom. Faces east. Too hot in the morning. Have to wait until afternoon. It’ll be cool enough now.”
Sam wheeled him down the hallway, with Chelsea walking alongside holding Gramps’s hand. “Which way?”
“Right at the far end.” He took a big plaid hankie out of his pocket and blew his nose. “Pretending to be a cowboy might be your first failure, Sam.”
No, not his first. Not even close.
What of his marriage? What of his wife leaving in the most dishonest way possible? What of not protecting himself from his father-in-law?
What of not being able to protect his child from the fallout?
He glanced at Chelsea. What of his failure to bridge the gap that separated them?
Sam positioned Gramps beside a window that looked out onto a golden field with low purple-gray hills in the distance.
“Can you visit while you’re staying in Rodeo or will that blow your cover?”
Blow his cover? “Gramps, this isn’t a spy movie. But, yeah, we’ll visit a lot. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.” Or maybe they would. Were cowboys still expected to break in Mustangs? He didn’t have a clue. He’d have to look it up online. Why? No way could he fake that.
Could he fake any of it?
In the solarium, another resident, a tiny woman with an eye for Gramps and a tiny shih tzu in her lap caught Chelsea’s attention, and she went and played with the dog and talked to the woman.
Yet again, she had more smiles for everyone else than she did for him. A split second of despair rattled him. How did he bridge the gap?
“She sure likes animals, doesn’t she?” Gramps asked.
“She’s never met an animal she didn’t like.”
“How long you planning to stay?”
“I have a month to determine the intentions of these women.”
“How come you can take so much time off work? I know you’re the owner of the company, but shouldn’t you be there to oversee things?”
For a few tense moments, Sam worried in silence. He’d already explained all of this on the phone to Gramps before he came. “I no longer own the company. Tiffany got it as part of the divorce settlement. She bought me out. To be accurate, her father bought me out. Since he’d bankrolled the company for Tiff and me at the start and owned a controlling share, it was easy for him to pull the rug out from under me.”
The betrayal had come on so many levels. “Those two. That snake.” Aching with all he had to say, he nonetheless held back with Chelsea nearby. After all, Tiffany’s father was her grandfather.
Sam leaned against the wall. “I’m free for the next month.” He knew he sounded bitter. Divorce and losing his livelihood, even if he had come out ahead with millions in the bank, had never been part of his life’s plan. He told his grandfather about the new venture starting in a month.
“You sound excited.”
“I am, Gramps. I don’t like to be idle.” In fact, without the formation of the new firm, Sam didn’t know what he would do with his life. He’d never, not once, felt so rudderless.
Even these months off since the company had been given over to Tiffany had been hell.
He felt better when he had purpose and activity driving his days. As well, there were those thoughts ringing through him, every day, about success and revenge.
Oh, yeah, he’d like to show Tiffany and her father how successful he could be without them. And he would. Be successful, that was.
He had a talent for business. Not so with this cowboy stuff. What had he been thinking?
“Always felt the same way myself,” Gramps said. “Didn’t want to be idle for a single second of the day.” They visited for an hour while Sam itched to get to the ranch, to find out how hard his job was going to be and whether he was truly up to the task.
On the way out, he stopped at the nurse’s desk and asked about Gramps’s doctor. He wouldn’t be in until Monday. Sam would have to wait for answers.
As soon as they left the building, Chelsea voiced what she’d obviously been thinking inside.
“Dad, I’m worried.”
“About Gramps? Me, too. He’s not himself.”
They got into the SUV and drove away.
“Dad...”
Sam glanced away from the road for a second. Chelsea chewed on her bottom lip.
“What is it, possum? Something worrying you? Spit it out.”
“You’ve been strange lately. Is it because of the divorce?”
“Strange how?”
He sensed her shrugging beside him. “I don’t know. More hard. Tougher. You were an easygoing guy and so much fun. I loved that about you. But now you don’t seem to like people anymore. You don’t trust anyone.”
“Yeah. True. That’s because of the divorce.” Sam hesitated to criticize Tiffany to her daughter. “I’m not comfortable talking to you about your mother behind her back, but her...”
“Her affair, Dad. I know what she did. She shouldn’t have slept with that guy.”
Sam hated that Chelsea knew about that kind of thing. “Her betrayal was profound,” he admitted. “It’s going to take a long time for me to trust like I used to.”
The farther they drove away from Gramps and the closer they got to the ranch, the more Chelsea slumped in her seat. She crossed her arms and settled into the sulk she’d been in for the drive out.
Gone were the smiles for Gramps and the old woman with her cute dog.
“I don’t want to stay with people we don’t know. I wish Gramps wasn’t in an old-folks’ home so we could stay with him.”
“You and me both, Chelsea.” He thought of the two-story house that sat on Gramps’s land. Tonight, they could have been sleeping in the very house his dad had grown up in if the townsfolk hadn’t talked Gramps out of his land.
* * *
ONCE THE LUNCH crowd finally left and she knew she had a couple of hours before launching dinner service, Violet packaged up a container of rice pudding for her friend Rachel and Rachel’s daughter, Tori. They both loved it. She added a jar of parsnip soup for Travis.
At the last minute, she remembered the coconut-cream pie Rachel had bargained for.
Why was the new man in town pretending to be a cowboy? Did he think people in Rodeo were so stupid they wouldn’t notice? Who was he? Why was he here?
Since he’d left her diner, questions hadn’t stopped swirling through Vy’s brain.
Rodeo had taken her in with open arms fourteen years ago as a grieving sixteen-year-old and she’d spent her years here giving back ever since.
This close to resurrecting the fair and rodeo that would bring much-needed tourism dollars to the town, they couldn’t take a chance on anything going wrong.
What could that project possibly have to do with the new stranger in town, Vy?
She had no idea.
She phoned Rachel. “Is he there yet?”
“Not yet, Vy.”
“Why not, I wonder? Why didn’t he go straight to the ranch? If he isn’t there, where is he?”
“Why are you so worried about him?”
Vy bit her bottom lip. “Maybe I’m seeing shadows where there aren’t any, but what if he tries to screw up the fair and rodeo somehow?”
“Vy, that’s a huge leap. Why would this guy have anything to do with our fair?”
“He has money. I’m sure of it. Maybe he wants to steal our ideas and put on his own show.”
“That’s crazy talk. You’re overreacting. What’s gotten into you? You usually have more common sense than this.”
“I just... God, Rachel, I don’t know.” She sighed, battered by intuition not based in fact and clueless about her worry. She tried to shrug it off. Strangers came through all the time, for Pete’s sake. “I’m coming over for a visit, anyway. I’ve got food.”
Rachel laughed. “Yum. Good. I’m exhausted. Beth was up nursing every two hours last night. Must be a growth spurt.”
“Plenty of tasty calories on the way to replace what that little cutie is using up.”
Vy loaded the food into her car and drove out of town.
She slowed down when she realized the SUV she followed on the small rural highway possibly belonged to the stranger. Okay, so she hadn’t been above watching him leave the diner to check out his vehicle. Good thing. She didn’t want to walk in at the same time.
She pulled onto the shoulder to sit and allow Sam and his daughter to get inside the house.
Travis Read had bought the Victorian on the two-lane highway when he’d moved to town back in October or November.
In the past, he’d been determined to remain single and not be tied down. But he’d quickly fallen for Rodeo’s own effervescent, lovely Rachel—even though she’d already had a three-year-old and had been more than seven months pregnant with her second.
In the end, he’d taken on a ready-made family, a house and a new ranch.
Vy glanced across the road toward the ratty trailer from which he’d rescued Rachel. Dark and lonesome against the cloudy sky, it stood like a festering wound.
Trailers left Vy feeling antsy and slightly nauseated. She hated them. Hated what they represented to her.
Despite her envy, she was damned glad Rachel and her children had a real home now.
Vy didn’t need a husband and children. Men were a complication she avoided outside the odd booty call with one of the town’s more reliable, discreet single guys.
What else could she possibly need from a man?
She loved her independence. Enough said.
* * *
SAM STEPPED OUT of the car in front of the big old Victorian and wondered why the owner of the diner ever thought to call this a ranch.
All along the highway, he’d passed low-slung ranch houses better suited to the prairie. But he could probably take the house and plunk it down into an old Boston neighborhood. He fully expected to find a parlor inside outfitted with velvet sofas and crocheted doilies.
After knocking on the oak door, he waited, his stomach dancing with nerves. How did he possibly think he could handle this?
He could handle it. Look how well he’d done with the Harper acquisition. He’d made millions on that. Or how he’d managed to fight off the hostile takeover by Steig Industries.
He could do just about anything. As long as they didn’t have him shoveling manure, he should be fine.
Well, duh. Of course, cowboys shovel manure. Chelsea’s imagined sarcasm sounded in his head.
She sat in the car, elbow deep in a self-indulgent pout.
The door opened before Sam raised his hand to knock again.
A tall, fair-haired man stood in the dim hallway, denim shirt and pants outlining a work-hardened body. A chiseled jaw and enough fine lines at the corners of his blue eyes to add character prevented a slide into movie-star territory.
“I’m Travis Read.” He stuck out his hand. “You must be Sam. Rachel told me you were coming. Expected you sooner.”
“I drove around a bit. I’ve never been in Montana before. It’s beautiful.” Not a complete lie. He and Chelsea had seen a bit of the country on their way to the nursing home and here.
“Come on in.” Travis peered beyond Sam and asked, “Is that your daughter in the car? Doesn’t she want to come inside?”
“She’s...she’s not completely happy we’re here.” He left it at that.
A tiny girl, only three or so, popped up beside Travis. “You gots a little girl? I go get her.”
“She’s not little,” Sam began, but the girl shot off the veranda and tried to open the car door.
Sam reached her and opened the passenger door. Maybe this cute child would succeed where Sam hadn’t. Her dimples could charm even a hardened criminal.
“Hi,” she said to Chelsea, leaning into the car. “My name’s Victoria. Mommy calls me Tori. What’s your name?” Without waiting for a reply, she forged on. “I gots pink cowboy boots. Look! Do you gots cowboy boots? Why don’t you come out? We can play.”
Chelsea glanced at Sam helplessly and he understood why. As much as Chelsea adored animals, she loved children even more. Hard to hold on to a good pout when a charming little girl asked you to come out to play.
He waited with a smile on his lips. Any second now, Chelsea had to give in to the girl’s charm.
“Is your seat belt stuck?” Tori asked. “You can’t get it off? I hep you!”
Tori climbed up onto Chelsea to reach the seat belt connection. Chelsea said, “Oof,” and laughed.
“It’s okay, Tori, I can do it. I’ll get out now.”
Tori climbed back out with Chelsea’s supporting hand on her back so she wouldn’t fall. Chelsea unsnapped her seat belt and left the car.
Tori grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the house.
“Does anyone ever say no to that child?” Sam asked.
Travis grinned. “No one I’ve met yet.”
Sam followed him, Chelsea and Tori into the house.
He’d been wrong about the interior. Completely. No sedate, old-fashioned Victorian, sage-green living room walls contrasted the solid oak floor and the dark wood trim nicely. A huge fireplace dominated one side of the room.
On the walls, several large landscapes startled with their colors and subject matter, at once roughhewn and refined, powerful and elegant. Painted by the same hand as the ones in the diner?
Travis caught him studying them. “Local artist. Zachary Brandt.”
“Local scenery?”
Travis nodded.
“Beautiful.”
“Sit, please. I’ll get Rachel. Let’s get to know each other before you start work.”
Work. Sam swallowed. What exactly would it entail here?
Rachel, an attractive woman with a warm smile and a baby in her arms, joined them, and after introductions and glasses of fresh lemonade were produced, they all sat.
Sam struggled with how to break the ice, but Tori took care of that. She lounged against Travis’s leg with her little feet crossed at the ankle and rested one elbow on Travis’s knee and her chin on her hand.
She directed all of her attention toward Chelsea.
“You gots nail polish. You like black. I like your hair. Is it soft?”
Chelsea nodded.
“Can I feel it?”
Chelsea nodded again.
Tori approached and touched it. “Oh, it’s so soft. Pretty.”
Now she leaned on Chelsea’s knee.
“Travis is gonna buy me a pony. Do you gots a pony?”
Chelsea nodded.
Tori’s eyes widened. “Mommy! Travis! Chels gots a pony!”
Sam smiled at the girl’s attempt to pronounce his daughter’s name.
Tori leaned close to Chelsea. “What’s his name?”
