Читать книгу Her Texas Rodeo Cowboy - Trish Milburn - Страница 11

Chapter Four

Sloane sure didn’t feel thorny as Jason held her in his arms. In fact, while he could tell she was fit and strong, there was still a feminine softness to her, a sweet scent despite the fact that she’d been out in the sun and around the barn and horses. Unfortunately, he was only able to enjoy the feel and smell of her for a few moments before she pulled away and stepped free of his touch.

Probably for the best.

A quick glance at her face didn’t show embarrassment or even anger. Rather, she acted as if they’d done nothing more than say a passing hello to each other.

“Thanks for taking care of the snake,” she said without making eye contact, reminding him of what he’d been about to do.

Jason turned and headed toward the rear exit of the barn.

“Jason.”

He stopped and glanced back at her.

“Just, uh... Thanks again.”

She didn’t elaborate, and he got the impression that maybe it might be difficult for her to even do so. Thinking he wouldn’t mind holding her any time she needed it, he gave her a quick nod and headed out in search of the rattlesnake. He was usually a live-and-let-live kind of guy, but the thought of that snake striking one of the kids... Well, it wasn’t going to happen if he could help it.

It took him a bit to find the rattler, but only a moment to dispatch him to the reptilian afterlife. He headed back to the barn, leaving the carcass for the buzzards.

When he reached the barn, Sloane was gone. That didn’t surprise him. Though he hadn’t known her long, he was still pretty certain she wasn’t one to show weakness very often. She probably saw accepting a hug from him as a character flaw. As he replaced the hoe where he’d found it, he wondered what made her so independent. While her sister seemed every bit as able to handle herself, there was an extra wall around Sloane.

As he exited the barn, he eyed his truck and considered leaving. Chances were if he took Mrs. Hartley up on her offer of dinner, things would just be awkward with Sloane after the impromptu hug in the barn. But he hadn’t been able to help himself. He’d understood why she’d been upset. Having one of her campers injured or bitten by a poisonous snake would have been really bad for a number of reasons, including the fact that it might have spelled the end for her camps. And it didn’t take Einstein to figure out they meant a lot to her. Why, he didn’t know, but the why didn’t really matter. It was a good thing she was doing, and he hoped she would be able to continue doing it.

The sound of horses approaching drew his attention to the right. Sloane’s dad and brothers rode into view and headed toward the barn. The oldest, Neil, saw him first, then scanned the rest of the area. As he came close, Neil’s gaze fixed on Jason.

“The kids are gone already?”

“No, they’re in the house. Your mom distracted them with a promise of more brownies.”

“Distracted them from what?” Ben, the second brother asked, a note of what could be interpreted as accusation in his voice.

Jason didn’t take offense. After all, he was plenty protective of Shannon, even if she was a couple years older than him. He gestured with his thumb back over his shoulder toward the paddock.

“Had a rattler make a visit, scared the horse we were using with the kids. But everyone is fine and the snake is no longer a problem.”

The looks of concern on their faces eased.

“Diane tells me you’re staying for dinner,” Mr. Hartley said.

Mrs. Hartley must have called or texted her husband.

“She did invite me, sir. Thinking maybe I ought to head out though.”

“Oh, no. If you don’t stay now, she’ll think one of us ran you off and we’ll never hear the end of it.” A spark of humor lit the man’s eyes as he took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Jason glanced at the other Hartley men and sensed not exactly an acceptance but an easing of potential hostility.

Ben shrugged. “He’s not wrong. Plus, Mom is a great cook.”

“I could tell that already.”

“That was nothing.” Adam laughed a little as he gave what seemed like a meaningful look to his brothers. “She really goes all out when she’s trying to impress company.”

“She doesn’t have to go to the trouble. My meals usually come from a drive-through window.”

“Don’t let her hear you say that,” Mr. Hartley said. “She’ll want to adopt you like she did this bunch.”

The slight nod toward his sons explained the obvious difference in heritage between Sloane and Angel. So all the Hartley siblings were adopted? Of course, it didn’t matter if they weren’t blood-related. Adopted siblings teased each other the same way he and Shannon did, the way Caleb and Lily were already doing even at their young age.

“Well, my mom might have something to say about that,” Jason said. “She’s kind of partial to me.”

At that moment, a van rolled up the driveway. As the driver parked next to Jason’s truck, the front door of the house opened and out came Sloane with the kids. The van must be their ride back to their homes. He wondered what they were going back to. He knew Daron’s situation but not those of the others. He glanced at sweet little Phoebe, Alice, all the other kids. Especially Brent, who even at this distance he could tell was already withdrawing again. Jason suddenly wanted to shield the kids from whatever hardships waited for them. He’d been lucky growing up, but he knew plenty of guys on the circuit who hadn’t been. He’d seen the results, too. The drinking, the divorces, the broken families.

Sure, there were also plenty of people who grew up in hard situations who overcame it and made something good of their lives. He just hoped these kids followed that path.

Phoebe broke away from the group, holding her little bouquet of flowers in a jar of water. When she got close, he saw how shiny her eyes were, filled with unshed tears.

“I wanted to say goodbye,” she said, looking up at him.

Jason sank to one knee. “I’m glad I got to meet you.”

Phoebe wrapped her arms around him, splashing a little water on his shirt. But he didn’t care about that. She could pour the whole jar down his back.

“I don’t want to leave,” she said, sniffling a little.

He wanted to reassure her, to tell her everything would be okay. But how could he do that when he didn’t even know what she was going back to?

“Hey, you became a cowgirl this weekend. Cowgirls are strong and can do whatever they set their minds to.” When she stepped back, he pointed toward Sloane and Angel. “You can grow up to be like them. Or maybe a barrel racer.”

“Then I could see you at rodeos.”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her he’d be long retired before she was old enough to compete. “Maybe.”

Something made him hesitate while he was escorting her back to where the rest of the kids stood talking to Sloane, Angel, Julia and the van driver, a middle-aged woman he’d guess was some sort of caseworker. On impulse, he reached up and brought the leather thong necklace he wore over his head.

“You see this?” he said, indicating the little carved wooden horseshoe hanging from the leather. “It’s for good luck. I want you to have it.”

Her eyes widened as he put the necklace over her head. She lifted the little horseshoe to look at it. “Thank you.” And then she kissed him on the cheek and his heart melted.

“You’re welcome.” A glance at Sloane told him that it was time for Phoebe to go. He stood and offered her his hand. She put her much-smaller one in his and walked beside him back toward the others.

After saying several goodbyes to the kids, he noticed Brent hanging back and not speaking or making eye contact. It gave Jason a bad feeling in his stomach, a knot of concern wrapped in a layer of nausea.

“You okay, little man?” he asked Brent.

All the boy did was shrug. Jason experienced the strong urge to pick up the boy and keep him. Not only was that thought shocking but also totally unfeasible. Instead, he lowered himself to Brent’s level so he could make eye contact.

“You really impressed me this weekend. Remember all you learned here. I know you’re going to grow up and do great things. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different, okay?”

It was a weak one, but Brent did manage a nod. He looked toward the van then back at Jason. “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”

Jason felt as if he’d been sucker punched in the heart. How did Sloane go through this over and over?

“Never say never. Life has a funny way about it.” He wished he could tell the boy something more hopeful, more definite, but he wasn’t willing to outright lie to him.

As the kids climbed into the van and Angel helped the driver get everyone buckled in, Sloane came to stand next to him.

“This is the worst part of what you do, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I can’t fix everything though. I had to come to grips with the fact that I can only do this small part, give them some good memories.”

He got the impression she wasn’t as okay with not being able to do more as she claimed.

Part of him didn’t want to know, but a stronger part made him ask, “Phoebe and Brent, what are their stories?”

Next to him, Sloane sighed. “Both in foster care. Phoebe’s parents died in a car crash when she was two, and there weren’t any members of her family willing to take her. Brent...” Sloane paused, and Jason would swear he could hear the lump in her throat. “His mother was a drug addict. She overdosed and died in their house when he was four. By the time the police found him, he’d been in the house with his mom for three days.”

Jason cursed. The boy’s words about never seeing Jason again took on a new, horrible significance. No wonder the kid was quiet and withdrawn. How much did he remember about what he’d gone through? Did it haunt him?

“How do you do this, sending them back?”

“No choice. All I can do is give them a break from their lives.”

He shifted his gaze from the van to Sloane. “You do more than that. You show them that a different life is possible.”

Sloane looked shocked at his words. He was equally surprised she hadn’t come to that conclusion herself.

“You’re pretty damn amazing, Sloane Hartley.”

* * *

JASON’S COMPLIMENT STUNNED Sloane so much that she found herself at a loss for how to respond. “Um...nothing really amazing about trying to help out where I can.”

“I disagree. The world is full of people who don’t care enough to do something like this.”

Part of her knew he was right, but she’d also crossed paths with plenty of people who were giving, too. She didn’t have to look any further than her adoptive parents.

Thankfully, the van making its departure drew Jason’s attention away. The combination of his words of praise and the way he’d been looking at her, as if she was some sort of saint, made her uncomfortable.

The kids had their faces pressed up against the windows, waving at them. Sloane made herself smile and wave back, maintaining the positivity for them right up to the last moment they could see her. Jason was right about one thing. It was damned hard to send the kids back after getting to know them, especially if she thought about what many of them would face when they returned home.

Best not to dwell on it, however. It wouldn’t make any difference in their lives and only serve to invite depression into her own. She’d been down that road and she never wanted to travel it again.

“Well, where you headed next?” she asked.

“According to your mom, dinner with your family.”

Of course her mom had invited him to dinner. That didn’t mean he had to accept.

“Don’t feel obligated. She’s always inviting people to dinner. She has this compulsive need to feed people.”

“I thought about leaving, but I was informed by your dad and brothers that if I bailed they would never hear the end of it.”

Inside her head, she growled. If everyone in her family was joining forces to set her up, she was going to have a sudden need to be elsewhere. She glanced toward the house and took a calming breath. The best way to handle the situation was probably to act as if she didn’t care. Maybe she could even convince herself of that.

“Well, you’re in for a treat. My mom is the best cook in Texas.”

“Lucky me.”

She didn’t look at Jason as she turned to go inside, unwilling to seek out the answer to whether his response was about more than his taste buds’ good fortune. As he followed her across the threshold of the front door, she headed for the kitchen, leaving Jason to navigate his own way through the sea of Hartleys.

Her mom looked up at her entry. “Where’s Jason?”

Sloane pretended she didn’t notice the unspoken question about whether Jason had already left. Instead, she made a vague gesture over her shoulder. “In the living room.”

Normally, she’d have some faith in the male members of her family to run off any potential suitors. But from what Jason had said, it sounded as if they were on board with her mom’s matchmaking efforts. And there was no mistaking that her inviting Jason to dinner was exactly that.

“Oh, good. He’s such a nice guy, so good with the kids.”

Play it cool. “Yeah, this was a good group. Easy to interact with them.” All of which was true, but she hoped it also made the point that Jason wasn’t anything special.

Except what if he was? She’d been envious of how easily he’d fit in with the kids, how quickly they’d come to adore him. She told herself that was a good thing, that the point was for the kids to have a good time. So what if she was the one who’d started the camps? The person who did most of the legwork? That she’d dreamed of making the camps a reality for years before she’d been able to launch them and still had hopes of expanding and helping even more kids?

She roped her runaway thoughts, remembering that she needed to be realistic. Someday she’d reach her lofty goals, but it was necessarily going to be a slow build because of the time, manpower and, most of all, money available. She wasn’t the most patient of people, so it was hard to think about how long it was going to take her to reach her goals. But she had to be thankful she was able to do anything at this point, especially with the financial hits the ranch had taken in the past year. She already struggled with the guilt of being a drain on the collective resources when her siblings were working on ways to bring in more streams of revenue.

“You okay?” her mom asked, making Sloane realize she’d gotten lost in her tangle of thoughts.

“Yeah, just thinking about ways to improve the camps.”

“Maybe convince Jason to help out with each of them. The kids seemed to love him.”

Sloane engaged her best pivot by saying, “I saw an article about an elephant sanctuary that sells paintings done by the elephants. It’s not so much that it’s good art but rather a way people can connect and get something unique while supporting a good cause. Maybe we could sell hoof paintings by the cows and horses, have them step in paint and then walk over the paper.”

“That might work.”