Seeing Julie, the tall, rangy man lodged the blade of his ax in the chopping block and started toward her.
Julie sized him up as he approached. He wore old jeans, beat-up work boots and a plaid flannel shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a faded T-shirt beneath. His reddish-brown hair was too long and thinning above his forehead, and the expression in his eyes was one of weary resignation.
“I’m Julie Remington,” Julie told him, after rolling down the car window. “Rachel is in my English class.”
Strivens nodded, keeping his distance. Behind him loomed the battered trailer. Smoke curled from a rusty stovepipe, gray against a darkening sky, and Julie thought she saw Rachel’s face appear briefly at one of the windows.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Remington?” he asked, shyly polite.
Julie felt her throat tighten. Money had certainly been in short supply while she was growing up, and the family home was nothing fancy, but she and her sisters had never done without anything they really needed.
“I was hoping we could talk about Rachel,” she said.
Strivens glanced back toward the trailer. The metal was rusting, and even curling away from the frame in places, and the chimney rose from the roof of a ramshackle add-on, more like a lean-to than a room. “I’d ask you in,” he told her, “but the kids are about to have their supper, and I don’t think the soup will stretch far enough to feed another person.”
Julie ached for Rachel, for her brothers, for all of them. “I’m in sort of a hurry anyway,” she said, and that was true. She still had to pick Calvin up at Libby and Tate’s place, and then there would be supper and his bath and a bedtime story. “Rachel tells me she’s taking on an after-school job.”
Strivens reddened a little, nodded once, abruptly. He’d been stooping to look in at Julie through the window, but now he took a couple of steps back and straightened. “I’m right sorry she has to do that,” he said, “but the fact is, we’re having a hard time making ends meet around here. The boys are always needing something, and there’s rent and food and all the rest.”
Julie’s heart sank. What had she expected—that Rachel’s father would say it was all a big misunderstanding and what had he been thinking, asking a mere child to help support the family?
“Rachel is a very special young woman, Mr. Strivens. She’s definitely college material. Her grades aren’t terrific, though, and she’s going to have even less time to study once she’s working.”
Pain flashed in his eyes, temper climbed, red, up his neck to pulse in the stubble covering his cheeks and chin. “You think I don’t know that, Miss Remington? You think I wouldn’t like for my daughter, for all three of my kids, to have a nice place to live and clothes that didn’t come from somebody’s ragbag and a chance to go on to college?”
“I didn’t mean—”
Strivens glanced toward the trailer again. Softened slightly. “I know,” he said, sounding so tired and sad that the backs of Julie’s eyes scalded. “I know your intentions are good. We’ve come on some hard times, my family and me, but we’re still—” he choked up, swallowed and went on “—we’re still a family. We’ll get by somehow, but only if we all do our part.”
Avoiding Strivens’s eyes, Julie opened the little memo book with its miniature pencil looped through the top and scrawled her cell and school numbers onto a page, then handed it out the window. “If there’s anything I can do to help,” she said, “please call me.”
Strivens took the piece of paper, stared down at it for a long moment, then turned away from Julie, shoving it into his coat pocket as he did so. Prying the ax out of the chopping block, he silently went back to work.
Half an hour later, when Julie pulled into one of the bays of the McKettricks’ multicar garage, it was already dark. The door had barely rolled down behind her before Calvin was scrambling out of his car seat to dash inside the house.
It would have been impossible not to note the contrasts between the mansion on the Silver Spur and the single-wide trailer where Rachel lived with her father and brothers.
Feeling twice her real age, Julie got out, reached into the backseat for her purse and the quilted tote bag she used as a briefcase. Harry, the beagle, could be heard barking a joyous welcome inside the house, and that made her smile.
The kitchen was warm and brightly lit, and fragrant with something savory Esperanza was making for supper.
Hungry and tired, Julie felt a rush of gratitude, smiling her thanks at the other woman as she stepped around Calvin and the dog to carry her things into the guest quarters in back.
After getting out of her skirt and sweater and putting on jeans and a long-sleeved royal-blue T-shirt, Julie washed her face and hands in the guest bath and returned to the kitchen to help Esperanza.
“How many places shall I set?” Julie asked, pausing in front of a set of glass-fronted cupboards. The number varied—sometimes, it was just Esperanza, Calvin and herself, but Tate and Libby and the twins often joined them for supper, even on weeknights, and it wasn’t uncommon for a couple of ranch hands to share in the meal as well.
Esperanza turned from the stove, where she was stirring red sauce in a giant copper skillet. “Four of us tonight,” she answered. “Garrett’s back, you know.”
Julie smiled. “Yes,” she said, knowing how Esperanza loved it when any of her “boys” were around to cook for, fuss over and generally spoil.
Calvin, meanwhile, continued to wrestle with Harry.
“Go wash up,” Julie told her son. “And don’t leave your coat and your backpack lying around, either.”
Calvin gave her a long-suffering look, sighed and got to his feet. He and Harry disappeared into the guest quarters.
Julie had just finished setting the table when she felt the prickle of a thrill at her nape and turned to see Garrett standing in the kitchen. He looked more like a cowboy than a politician, Julie thought, wearing jeans and old boots and a cotton shirt the color of his eyes.
Grinning, he rolled up his sleeves, revealing a pair of muscular forearms.
“Well,” he said, in that soft, slow drawl of his, “howdy all over again.”
Julie, oddly stricken, blinked. “Howdy,” she croaked, froglike.
Esperanza, about to set a platter of enchiladas on the table, chuckled.
“Where is el niño?” she asked, looking around for Calvin.
“I’ll get him,” Julie said, too quickly, dashing out of the room.
When she got back, Calvin in tow, Esperanza was at the table, in her usual place, while Garrett stood leaning against one of the counters, evidently waiting.
Only when Julie was seated, Calvin on the bench beside her, did Garrett pull back the chair at the head of the table and sit.
Everybody bowed their heads, and Esperanza offered thanks.
Calvin had probably been peeking at Garrett through his eyelashes throughout the brief prayer, though Julie could only speculate. Grace seemed particularly appropriate that night.
The Strivens family was having soup. And not enough of it, apparently.
“Aunt Libby had the news on when Audrey and Ava and I got home from school today,” Calvin told Garrett. “I saw you on TV!”
Garrett grinned at that, though Julie caught the briefest glimpse of weariness in his eyes. “All in a day’s work,” he replied easily.
Esperanza gave him a sympathetic glance.
“Tate