Lizbeth hesitated, still thinking resentfully about the Lone Spur’s owner tagging along. She’d bet dimes to doughnuts that he planned to hang over her shoulder.
“I promise there’ll be no bats or snakes or skunks, Mrs. Robbins,” Gil said in a calm voice. “And the river at that point is only knee-deep.” He looked up at the lowriding sun. “We’ll have frost on the pumpkins before long. You might want to take a suit and dip your own toes.”
“I’m going up there to do a job,” she said stiffly. “When I’m on company time, shoeing horses is all I do.”
Gil backed off, touched the brim of his hat and nodded curtly. What had he been thinking to suggest she join them? He certainly didn’t want to give her the impression that he mixed business and pleasure. Or that he was in the habit of letting women intrude on his outings with his sons. Once, he had included a woman. His wife. Too late he’d learned that she wasn’t interested in spending any time alone with her husband and sons. “You two go on ahead.” He stepped off the porch and didn’t look back.
Liz saw by the way the light went out of Melody’s eyes that she was disappointed. However, the arrangement suited Liz. The less time she spent around any of the Spencers, the better. “We don’t need company to have fun, Mel. Take a book and a doll like you always do. I’ll fix a lunch for us to eat down by the river.”
“But I want to swim and catch crawdads with the twins.” Melody’s eyes brimmed with new tears. “I didn’t mean to make Mr. Spencer mad.”
“Sweetheart!” Liz hurried down the steps and clutched her daughter’s knee. “It wasn’t you. What I said more than likely reminded Mr. Spencer that he’s the boss, and I’m just a hired hand.”
“So?” Melody continued to look stricken.
“Well, ah…honey. I don’t know how to explain social hierarchy to you. When you grow up, you’ll understand.”
“If it means you and me always got to be alone, I don’t wanna understand. The other day at school we hadda learn how to spell ‘family.’ My teacher showed pictures of moms, dads and kids. Gretchen Bodine don’t got a mom or dad. She’s got two grandmas, two grandpas, three brothers and a sister. That’s a family, too, Miss Woodson said. And…and I want one!”
“Melody Robbins. We’re a family, you and I. And we have Hoot, don’t we? He already sent you a postcard. Honey, I thought you understood why I can’t give you brothers and sisters—because your daddy’s in heaven.” Liz tried a new tack. “You finally got a kitten. And we’ve got our own house. That’s a start, Mel.”
“But I’m gonna be a pumpkin in the Halloween play,” the girl blurted. “Families get to come. Not kittens. Not Hoot. He’s gonna be at the rodeo in Kilgore.”
“I’m afraid you lost me somewhere, honey. How did we get from crawdad hunting with the Spencer twins to your Halloween play?”
“Rusty and Dusty don’t got no mom, and I don’t got no dad. We could be a family. The boys liked your cooking. And their dad loved your cookies.”
“Oh, no!” Liz gasped. She hadn’t had an inkling that such an idea lurked in her daughter’s head. “Melody, baby, you can’t just pick up stray people like you do stray kittens and make them part of your family.”
“Why not?” A tear caught in thick lashes, then trickled down a round cheek.
“Well, because…because…” Liz puffed out her lungs and expelled the drawn breath on a sigh. “Because you just can’t. And whatever you do, promise me you’ll never bring up this subject with Mr. Spencer or his sons.”
“But how will they think of it on their own? Boys only ever think about horses and food and stuff like that.”
“Never, Melody. Is that understood?” Liz pursed her lips.
“All right. But gee whiz.”
“Never!”
“O…kay. But will you make enough sandwiches for them? On your homemade bread? And take the rest of the cupcakes. Please, Mom.”
“Melody Lorraine. I can see the wheels turning. You will not lure the Spencers with food. Where on earth are you getting this nonsense? Certainly not from me.”
“Am I in trouble?” The child sniffled. “You only call me Melody Lorraine when you’re really, really mad.”
Liz threw up her hands. “No, I’m not mad at you. I just want to make sure you know I’m dead serious about this, Mel.”
“All right. But jeez!” With that, she slid off her pony and plunked down on the porch steps to wait, chin in hands.
Thinking it best to let matters drop, Liz went inside and slapped together some sandwiches. She made enough for five people, but she used store-bought bread. The cupcakes needed to be eaten, so she did put them in, as well as a big package of trail mix. If she had her way, she’d feed the Spencers sour green apples. Or maybe not. She liked to cook, and the boys had certainly scarfed down supper last night. Liz didn’t know whether the twins lacked a mother through divorce or through death. Either way, it wasn’t their fault. How could she begrudge lonely children a simple meal? She knew all too well what loneliness was like.
She secured the house, then put the picnic basket and a jug of cold water in the cab of the pickup. Although she gave Melody a head start, she still had to drive slowly. The pony had short legs. That was probably why the Spencers caught up with them well before they reached the river. Markedly subdued, the boys both muttered apologies of sorts.
Dusty and Rusty rode a matched set of well-gaited buckskin geldings. They were small, but not as small as Melody’s Welsh pony. Gil Spencer rode a powerful bay gelding, instead of his injured mare.
The three children met and galloped off in the lead. Gil tipped his hat to Liz and cantered past without saying a word, even though she had her pickup window rolled down. She was so busy admiring the way he sat a horse that she almost broke an axle driving across a rocky arroyo. Darn, but she was a sucker for the way a man—a good rider like Gil Spencer—looked on his horse. He had an easy fluid grace that Liz considered the trademark of a real cowboy. The gelding recognized his mastery, too. He responded to the slightest touch of his rider’s heel or knee.
The boys, now, were learning, and they were perpetual motion in their saddles. She could see daylight between rump and saddle. Liz grinned to herself. Melody was the more polished rider by far. She could handle a bigger horse. Deserved one.
The salary that went with this job was more than adequate to provide for their needs, and maybe there’d be enough left over each month to start saving for a couple of really nice horses.
Speaking of horses, off to her left, ankle-deep in grass, stood thirty or so buckskins, the sleek well-proportioned animals that put Spencer’s name in the horse breeders’ registry. Liz slowed her pickup to a crawl. The land they’d just gone through was barren and dry. These grassy knolls, outlined in a patchwork of fences, had obviously been seeded and irrigated. She’d guess it hadn’t been an easy matter to pump water uphill from the river she could see winding through the stand of cottonwoods far below.
Gil noticed that she’d slowed almost to a stop. Turning, he galloped back. “Is everything okay? You crack the oil pan when you bottomed out back there?”
Just as Liz thought—nothing got by Gil Spencer. For that reason she didn’t make excuses, only laughed. “For a few seconds I wondered that myself. But my pickup’s running fine. I’m just admiring the scenery. Your irrigation setup took some ingenious engineering.”
Gil thumbed back his hat, rested his forearm on the saddle horn and surveyed the pasture all around him. “I’m afraid I see five years of backbreaking work—not to mention buckets of money that both my dad and Ginger accused me of pouring down the